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on that composite so the composite score for the test basically Reading Writing listening and speaking um they graduate out of e they're no longer considered El they're like former El students the state has also set and it's very individualized by student benchmarks of growth for students and ultimately a student from that first year that they're identified are given roughly five years there was an added year during the pandemic but that's going away um to become proficient and while you might say well we're a high school district we only have them for four years so how does that even factor in it's from when that student is identified so even if that student is identified in fourth grade if that student is still El for us it factors into our rating okay and then the upper right that's science where it's purple sorry Don um that's purple and then the climate survey which I don't know why the percentages aren't there I think ultimately they will over to see right now yeah I'll show you in just a sec on the um on next screen I'm sorry so what does it mean 2.16 of so we got 2.16% out of 5% okay same way on graduate this is South High yeah yes the designations are per school districts do not get a designation so it's not like we have a District 99 designation and you only going to see the the um graphic by school so for graduation rate for example it's 50% of our rating South High had 40 4.71% I'm sorry yes we only got 3.62% out of 10% that's an area that we are definitely focused on andh meaning you want a higher number M we want to get to 10% right we want a higher number because you don't want that's not how that's not the percentage of students that areon chronic absent indicator yeah that's how many points we earned out of the possible points yeah and what's really nice is there's reports where we can actually drill down and as Hank said we can hover over now this is not live so I just gave you one example but you can hover over so in this example I'm hovering over the ELA proficiency that blue box on the left um and it shows you what the indicator score is what the weighted score is so 7.5 and what we obviously got the full 7.5 on all three of the testing indicators if you hover over you'll see the the percentage that we received was full percents um the one area to for graduation rate is something I'm going to talk about later so I'll Circle back to that and the overall score of 84.0 n meaning we're in the 84th percentile of schools in in Illinois we received 84% % out of 100 so we're 80 we received 84.9 points out of and it's technically the top 10% that's exemplary which would be you would consider over 90 but I'll show you in just a minute where that cut off occurred and I believe that is due to like um ties you know where schools receive the same scores okay so let's go to North real quick and then I'll take you to that okay so this is the same idea this is obviously North High School so where South had 8406 I think it was um North received 87.2 eight so about three points more you can see one area where they were received higher points to be for example in graduation rate a little bit and then a little bit in chronic absenteeism and then the same idea I decided in this one just to show you a different hovering over to go with science and science isn't identified as you can see it doesn't say science but that's what that purple is a little box in the corner yeah the little right above climate survey and I I'm hopeful in time that will end up all filled in like next year with the report card but this is a huge uh step towards making it really easy to understand yeah I think it's a great great step forward so one of the one of the things I want to highlight when we sent out and are you going to get there as to where we got our all of our points am I stepping on your toes where we got all of our points go ahead talk over can you go back oh yes I just think it's important for the board to see that in this scoring that in all of the areas of standardized assessments so English math science both schools receive 100% of their points right graduation rate Gan will go into nearly all of our points um there's a couple of areas where we can make up some ground and climate survey is any easy low hanging fruit to to hit this year um but then there's some now it starts to get tougher like Ela proficiency where as G will talk later on this school year like you're talking five six seven years of work to move a student to meet that that proficiency level chronic absenteeism where we're ranked based on whether or not kids come to school and parents send their kids to school is not an area where we have a lot of control over what that is and obviously changes in society have impacted those numbers as well um ninth grade on track we'll talk a little bit about and that has been a major Focus for us for the last couple of years so uh this a real nice graphic to help you see where it is we can make up points and try to move at the same time every school in the state is doing the same thing right where is the area where we can realistically make up some points now it's Eugene sorry so the question was one of the questions was how where does that exemplary come in and the commendable and so I included this this is for South High School um where you can see the schools that were an exemplary received 91.2 for or greater um and you can see where South was so definitely close and um and you can see as I talked about earlier like the targeted schools of and comprehensive schools where on the opposite end the um the dividing line Falls and then the same idea so is that the number of schools in each I think it's percent percent okay yeah the percentage of schools so in other words and since I have North up I'll just use North as an example for us to fall in the exemplary we would have had to have 91 .24 or greater and we had North example 8728 I like this graphic for a variety of different reasons because it actually shows us where we landed the house is nice because it gives you a quick visual you can hover over it and see it this is nice because it shows you where you actually landed which we haven't had the opportunity to view it this way and the public hasn't had the opportunity to view it in a way that's quick to look at now um the the schools that were exemplary do we have any in DuPage County we do so we weren't and would you say 91.2 4 is about like some years is it ever higher than that or every year is going to be different because they're going to rank them in where they all again it's not a tment it's not like if we know if we got because next year that number might be 90.9 or you know it's a moving moving whatever 10% a comparison right yeah so oh do you have a question we don't know what it's going to be no all we can do is work go ahead well we do know that to be exemplary you have to have a graduation rate of 67% and you have have to fall within that 10% but it's a comparison to all the other schools so in that sense we don't the cut off might not always be at 91 next year that cut off could be at 955 yeah right right or it could next year be at 85 like you just you don't know you what they weigh the rules change from year to year as well okay yes so examp when I mentioned Fine Arts remember I mentioned Fine Arts as being something that's on the report card but doesn't impact us and I believe it's 2425 it will factor in so things will change a little bit because that will factor in and for Fine Arts they look at two things they look at enrollment and and they look at teachers who are qualified to teach the area in which they're teaching which all of our teachers are but they give you a couple of years so they introduce a new metric and but they give you some time to and we've yes and we've known about Fine Arts for all of these have been in years so it's not like year to year you're surprised no no not at all we'll know what they're going to measure correct next year we know that now no so we can work on it right okay but we can't say like we need to get our score above 90 and then we'll be exemplary right we just have to get it as high as we can get it and then hope we're within the top 10% of schools well and all depends on your your class too CL I mean every class and every group of students is different so it's it's it's a variable that sometimes we don't have the control over and we're going to talk about chronic absenteeism obviously in December which I mentioned already but to also consider that when we're talking about and that's if we go back to the graphic right that's a huge area for us um of improvement that also I just want to point this out because this always becomes something that people are surprised by it includes excused absences so a chronically absent student is a student who's missed 10% or more of the school year excused or unexcused so yeah days add up to to full days yes right so if you it's a partial day yes okay and we have that's interesting we have made some adjustments over the years we just made an adjustment or we're in the process I should say of of making an adjustment we just met a couple weeks ago to review the way in which we um calculate ATT tenance because now we can go down uh two decimal points and so we changed some things to impact it that way um that change may have a it should have a slightly positive but but the larger is we have students missing school and then theigh weigh the number of students it's a it's a percent so mean yeah one of the areas where I do think it does it is starting to impact Us in terms of some of these scores like with the El progress to proficiency um we have had an influx of eel students um we in the almost two decades I've been in this District we we are this year and and we started to see it last year too uh but we had a huge in influx of el students and I think that does impact us not just with ratings I'm not talking about that but with programming and with serving students needs is they're coming in with a variety of different needs it's not just a language barrier in many cases it's because we have good programs and people move into our district for those good programs so um that's not always a minus but um the state does hold that kind of against us so do Serv and so our overall index score for South 84 4.09 North 87.2 how does that compare with the prior year we we did not have this visual to compare yeah we didn't have the information on and we didn't have the schoolhouse and we didn't have and I know I'm sorry I'm clicking back but I'm trying to show we didn't have this either yeah so on this chart it seems to me like 23% of school districts or maybe slightly more than 23% of school districts in Illinois are doing better than South High on those metrics on those metrics yeah does that include Community Unit School Districts Elementary School Districts High School Districts but these would be high schools yes it's not distri it's schools it's schools so it's high school this is high schools this is only high schools these are high schools yes but it doesn't matter if it's a high school district or a unit district okay to make sure that we've answered your question about 700 I'd have to I'd have to check on that now so if if we're meeting our e if we're meeting our Ela and math proficiencies and we're basically maxed out on graduation then what I'm hearing is other districts are doing better in absenteeism than we are yes many districts are because that's where we're missing most or they don't have El students or they don't have elel students or they had a higher participation rate in their climate survey yeah we did not get the other the other wing of the school analysis you add up those percentages is about 83% so the science and then the climate survey science is 7.5 right get to the so I give you an exact climate is it's got be 10 oh I hang on do you want North or you on South I just hover over so we can see so on oh I know but I thought you want an exact percentage so for so it's 5% okay climate survey north um we 6.67% is the weight 88 so 88 plus what I'm sorry the science five five and then six 6.67 is climate Sur yeah it adds up to 100% even though I know it doesn't visually have everything on it I think it I think it will it's something the state's working on um um so I think ultimately it will um but they released it with it this way and the climate survey is the five essential survey five essential and its completion by students and by staff and the interesting thing about that is that it's basically when they look at the percent that we have that completed both students and staff they then compare it to the state average and so it's a comparison unlike Brad rate for example or some of the other areas it's compared to the average of the state which is interesting because it's one of the only factors where it's compared to that versus you know do we have pretty good participation we could improve our participation absolutely um so members of the public public who look at this and they look at North and or south and at North there you know I would extrapolate that roughly 17 or 18% of high schools in Illinois are performing better than North on these metrics on these metrics um if I if I extrapolate that from this report card um is that a fair way to assess our high school in in other words um should we be focused on these results and instituting policy changes just inflate our report card scores because we believe that this report card is a fair assessment of our school district so the school report card is built around uh a research study called redefining ready which looked at research-based methodology that indicated postsecondary Student Success so the short answer is these are variables that research is shown can generally make a difference in students After High School students that do well on these tests that show up at school that graduate that are involved those are all things that that indicate so it's yes and um I don't believe that these are all the metrics that indicate if a school is meeting the needs of their students you know I I would take the breath of our curricular offerings in District 99 up against anybody in the country we could maybe move up some of these numbers if we took some of the resources that we have for all of the course offerings we have for students reduced course offerings and then focused more on something else we could do that but I don't think that that's the experience that people look for in this community right so at the same time are these good indicators things that we should work at and try to improve within our course of business absolutely but is it like drop everything and just focus on these I I don't think that that would be the right approach that's in the district that's that's what I'm trying to get at with that question I mean from my perspective when I think of North and South High and their reputation Statewide uh and even in DuPage County and the Chicagoland area I would wouldn't I wouldn't classify either school as as having that large of a gap of number of high schools in Illinois performing better than our high schools um so clearly something going on in this report card that is pushing us below what I think our actual performance Lev is or or what we think our school is is not necessarily what it is and so that's that's the Crux of the question how important is this and what should we be doing to address this and I I think I think I I hear what you're saying that there are other metrics that we shouldn't just take this and try and pour every ounce of energy we have to improve this because we'll be overlooking other things well and there's some things here that just don't make sense like chronic absenteeism doesn't make any sense it's whether or not kids come to school for or Miss 17 days of school a year for any reason whatsoever during this time the state has added five mental health days it's added a variety of different ways in which students can be excused from school that hasn't changed in the factors we've gone through a pandemic the expectations about being at school have changed drastically um a much fairer look at this would be for students that are chronically absent have we intervened and worked to respond respond and provide them resources and have tried to make them successful at school like that is things that are under our control um now the reason that this is here is it used to be a very strong predictor of student failure to be chronically absent but we're meeting our graduation rates correct and actually if you look at our grade distribution for that it's it's pretty equal to the entire student body it's for us being chronically absent isn't necessarily A predictor of student failure it is a indicator though that our teachers have to work harder when a kid isn't there in class and our teachers are doing that and in theory if they didn't have to do that they'd have other time to serve student needs in a different way so it definitely helps the whole organization if kids come to school right but it isn't for us the same predictor of failure as it is for others right so um there's some factors in here that like make sense at The Meta level but maybe don't make sense for District 99 you know El path to proficiency the more El students you have the harder it's going to be to hit that number that number so it isn't like are you responding appropriately are you offering appropriate uh educational supports are you doing what you can to it's one test on one day and it's a test that students like it means nothing to them right so uh schools that have very small numbers of Vel students it's going to be a lot easier for them to get those points right and a school that's more diverse like north and south are always going to be different in that than a school that has almost no elel students right um so there's some factors in here yeah we we should look at them and we should work at them but that isn't all that we should do it doesn't tell the whole story and then these factors are going to change like Fine Arts college career Readiness 5% and then chronic ABM goes down to five okay what goes down five chronic absenteeism goes to 5% Fine Arts goes to 5% so we're likely to see our percentage probably accelerate just on that alone potentially but you don't know how it compares to all the other schools right but this mean if we're just looking at what's going to improve next year that in and of itself should be an improvement yes Fine Arts won't go into play for a couple years couple years okay but this this district has had for a very long time A Fine Arts graduation requirement has well supported the Arts and the Fine Arts so we're very well poised yes to get a you know a good amount of points in that fine arts area right um but I don't know how that compares to the other 800 schools in the state right I think one point which you mentioned which we need to address or highlight for a second is the fantastic job that our teachers are doing at both North and South because with a chronic absenteeism rate this high at both schools for our graduation rates to still remain as high as they are that means those teachers as you said Hank are going above and beyond to make sure that those students stay on track so once again we we have awesome teachers and they need to be commended because the graduation rates would not be this high if it wasn't for the dedication of our teachers and staff speaking of graduation rates Gina okay one more question oh yeah so back to the scor card so obviously like these numbers why people decide on moving to a new community they look at things like this are there other impacts that we should be like does this translate into State funding or like does any like what else does the score actually the only way this would translate in any type of support or funding would be if we were on the very lowest group okay and then there is some funding some support that goes into place but commendable there's there's no funding for that more about reputation and comparison to and when I talk about the reputation of our school districts in the community I mean the last 5 to 10 years has been a population boom to Downers growth of area in in in particular and in large part because of the quality of our schools so that's where I think I'm seeing a disconnect between what the the you know Community perceives our district versus how we're being scored upon in the report C I don't know the top where what would be a score that you feel would be I don't know I just I I I I don't I don't see I mean we're in the top but you know 20 15 to 20% bias I just don't see us as seeing you know 20% of high schools being better than Downers Grove South and on these metrics yes well you know if they if they have no El population and they're getting 100% of those points that's a you know you're immediately getting a a big chunk of a fivepoint Advantage you know when a Community member looks at this they don't say with the caveat these metrics that is one of the challenges of all of these metrics is that understand people want to just look at a number and think that they know that that means something but it's the importance is what's underneath here and what we're actually doing to serve our student body and as I said there's a lot of great things that happen in this District you saw them tonight that doesn't show up on our school report card right so part of our reputation is really trunker treat in our kids in the community and sharing it's the whole picture if people are just going to this little graphic and making an assumption about what district 99 is they're missing a whole chunk of the story and unfortunately we we don't get the opportunity to reflect all of that in here this is one set of measures no they're important and they're things that we work on positive yeah I don't mean to undermine that the positivity I'm just yeah saying there may be somewhat of a disconnect there I think I do what is saying I mean looking at this and how they're going is our story is told if somebody go look on and find a rep right corre so we don't feel because we our story isn't here you know for the most part we don't feel like it's a proper representation of all the great things that we represent well you you look at your student body that um you know are graduating you know they're getting into colleges that they were wanting to get into they're going into into trades that they want to they're going to tcd to get um more knowledge and and to help them in their their lives to begin with OR to to practice something to see if they really like it before they spend the money to be an architect or to be a uh whatever and so those are the Su success stories that really make our district what it is is to see each one of our students getting where they want to be I mean you know so that you can't put a number on you can't exactly you know you can't you know you can't say hey 95% of our students go on to do uh what they want to do and be successful at it you know that that number can't be associated with any of these numbers and and that's really our story to tell you know is so both things are true right we need to yes take these numbers seriously and work to close gaps where we can in here and also recognize like year-over-year growth with different groups of student bodies is going to be a challenge to do right that doesn't mean we don't take it on it doesn't mean we do the don't do the work we do all of those things but at the same time there's more to our story than what this uh uh this graphic or these measures will tell and it's our job to tell that story as well right and and you know there needs to be kind of a I guess maybe a a paragraph that can go with it that explains you know where our students I also think people that are choosing this community aren't just going to this visualization and saying do I move to Downers gr but but if I if I'm I'm living in the city of Chicago and I've got a two-year-old and a four-year-old and I'm looking at Lions Township hensdale Central York and Downers Grove I'm that that probably happens pretty routinely um they're going to look at the report card score and you know if if down if the Downers Grove schools are significantly lower than those other comparable schools that could be a perception issue and that's where I'm like well should we pour resources in to try and inflate this because of that problem or is that just is that just a superficial issue we'll come to you over the next couple of week couple of months with those areas and we'll talkis helps so that like everyone I mean you it's sort of like the SAT argument everyone at least has every school has it and is measured by those you know whether they're you know whether they shift or fluctuate or whatever and I don't I hopefully most people look at you know that's one thing they look one thing they look at our Runners too our Runners you have a story you can put behind it you got an essay you got grades you have your if you were athletic or or or in the band or in Qui so you still get to put a story behind that when you position yourself to that University I think the point we're making here this doesn't position us if I'm moving from California and I know nothing of any of these areas and I have this in front of me CU I don't know down is Roo from ERS and if we all are on part for cost of of living you know houses does right they're going to you know because they don't have anything else to compare it to in sat you have that but you have your whole story behind you to support who you are so there are other parts of the report card as well that we're not looking at right today today well we're not right there's information for example on um current technical education for example you can look at how many students take a CT concentrator which is like a path in a CT of CTE courses um you can look at um post high school placement how many students have gone into like remedial course like there's a lot of information in the report card it's not just this but this is the most visible this is to to the person that's doing but I mean in in terms of telling a story right there are other aspects of the report card that that are there to look at and each year they add a little bit it feels like they add a little bit more some were there last year but there's some additional but it is choices and it is where we spend our time and where we work I think there are some areas here like climate survey like uh I don't know how much room we can make in chronic absenteeism but getting it on people's Radars that that is impacting these scores that those scores people do look at when they value our community you know does that make a difference when the kid asks their parents if they can stay home that day I don't know um I mean I think there's also national news about these things I mean I just read an article recently on the uptick in working from home which my company is dialing back on going back into the office so that's contributing so hopefully people are to the point about looking at the data they're also following Trends and seeing this is not just a well we've been talking about chronic uh absenteeism for years years it's just far worse now than it yes yeah but I mean it it's not something that we haven't been trying to accomplish so it's it's very difficult to change maybe some of our parents um are facing the same employers can't get employees to come the office yeah yeah I mean you know it's it's it's not an easy task changing um the norm so um but it helps frame the challenge it does but it's not a new problem sorry for hijacking your presentation sorry sorry so want to talk a little bit tonight about graduation rates um 50% of that designation as you may recall about half of that Schoolhouse right was for graduation rate the state looks at three graduation rates they look at a four-year a fiveyear and a sixy year this is obviously the fouryear um so we have the five years which we always look at five years of data and then I put on The Five-Year average so for last year's graduating class um definitely we were down a little bit one of the things the state has also done and we've talked about this over the years especially in terms of students who are special education students IEP students who go to transition right and how we can't graduate them until even though they've met the requirements right until they leave transition whether that's 22 or whether they for whatever reason leave earlier whatever the case may be so and some of those students will never be captured because now they've added another year of transition year and there's not a seven there's not a year seven for graduation so some of our students will never graduate in these numbers because they are participating in our programming all the way through to age 22 which is another decision that the state made just like adding five mental health days but they didn't come back and then adjust the metrics to reflect those changes one of the things the state did do was say that 93% would get you 100% of the points 100 points towards it so they have made some modifications to the way they calculate it um I will say that graduation rate is 50% of our rating and 60% of that is based on the fouryear so I focus more on the fouryear just because that's the majority of of it um another 30% is for the fiveyear and then 10% for the sixth year so the weight that they're giving to those three years is different with the majority going on to the fourth year and this is District data so um while it does factor into our designation that's only a designation for the schools not for the district so our four-year rate in 2023 was about 1% lower um and fairly close to our average our fiveyear rate um was 94.3 so it was an increase but it only factored in for 30% but still that's good we saw an increase right can you explain what the 5year graduation rate actually measures so it's the students who the the students that are left from that four year and then those students that graduate from that group so the bulk of our t99 kids are staying with us they're staying with us for multiple years so they're not going to be cap slide I want to walk through this just so everybody not going to be captured in this year's graduation rate it's it's the future so Le let's say the the graduating in in 23 they're going to stay with us for 3 years so they're going to go into 24 25 and 26 so these are students though that may be worse to graduate in 20 yes or 21 that are going into this number got it so the five years next year's five years will be if we take that 93.2 that difference of 6.8% is how much of that 6.8% will be in next year just of that group grad graduates the next year right so and then the next year is of that group that doesn't graduate what percentage of that group the next year grad graduates but you'll see with transition Center yeah it's very small numbers and one student starts to make a giant difference right and some of our students won't graduate until year seven which isn't factored into our graduation rates at all do some of the students drop out we do because you know they they've they've been in our program for one or two years in the transition Center they're still El eligible for two more years but they're working in they decide you know I can I can do this on my own some of graduate but some will just disappear and then we don't get to graduate them and that counts against us and that count count against us so so it's important that we kind of keep track of those try I know I know I'm just saying so we want five year and six year average to be high we want them all to be okay four is the that Core group right that graduates five is the group that didn't graduate in the four you want them all to graduate you know ideally you'd have 100% in year four right um but then if not 100% in year four then 100% in year five right so that's kind of how you want it to work but to get 100% of the points for the school they only have to have 93 which is why when I showed the house at least for North High School it had 100% they got 100% of points so that's where it also gets confusing right because I'm showing you rates are under 100% right also remember our largest group of transition students is at South High our largest group of el students which is another group that sometimes has more things to work through so that they can graduate is also at South High So when you say like why is sou why is North getting all 50 points and South isn't it's not necessarily just students dropping out it's the population of students we serving itself is different sorry did I steal your thunder okay we talked a little bit about fifths it talks about six year so upcoming topics I said we're breaking this into three um will be nth grade on track we'll look at that next time um we'll look at some sat comparisons we had done that uh the previous years you may recall um in terms of some of the area high school districts and then in December at the meeting if I remember correctly not the workshop but at the meeting we will be talking about chronic absenteeism and what the schools are currently working on in terms of absenteeism in general has the increase in chronic absenteeism correlated to uh an increase or or a decrease in graduation rate in a comparable fashion like has has the increased chronic absm impacted is there approximate cause between the two No in fact we have students who fall into the chronically absent rate who are doing very well in school not all not all students of course but we have I'd say the correlation noticing it tapering off a little bit or starting to go Trend in the other direction little bit little bit but like 2023 was worse than 2022 so so are we going back to what we were before that's where we're right working through it the correlation is definitely switched because of all the online resources supports all of those things that we have in place all we said the work that our teachers are doing it it used to be a predictor if you were chronically absent you were going to be failing it's the other way around now if you're failing courses you're likely also chronically absent right so the determination is flipped all right any other questions thank you all right um more to come in the coming coming weeks and months thank you Gina thank you thank you you for your short presentation hurt made it longer that's the joke that's the joke everyone gets the joke hey uh it's it's some of the most important work we do is when Gina's up here talking curriculum instruction teaching learning that's the core of our business and that's a shame that we don't have people listening you're in favor of those like graphic like the schoolhouse and because that's going to be an easy way for people to understand the I don't agree with all of necessarily how the metrics are determined and how they're calculated obviously there's minutia inside of that detail that we can argue about whether it's appropriate or not but for what it is the better you can make it clear for people to understand I think that that's an improvement yeah now I hope that people get interested in then that next step of what makes up that stuff underneath that rather than just jumping to conclusions off of what a number on a on a screen means so all right School maintenance Grant um we've been bringing this the last several years do you want to just provide a quick overview jury sure this is a matching Grant from the state and the state before we can apply for this Grant application the state does require School boards to approve basically the matching portion which is $50,000 we're going to use it towards probably HVAC some kind of right that we'll be doing next summer um the deadline is in December and then we should hear sometime in January and be ready to bid out the projects in so remember we spend um somewhere around you know 750,000 to a million dollars a year in capital Improvement so we will be spending at least $50,000 think this is then in at least 50,000 of that from the state yeah if the board approves it tonight yes any other questions no no all right uh ISB resolutions K is your resolutions chair has everybody had a chance to look at the resolutions just glanced um none of these I've talked with Hank about this obviously not being here last year or Chris was here last year none of these resolu Solutions uh have a strong impact on us uh so I would recommend that we go with what the state wants to do what our larger body wants to do and I would not have any objections but that's open to any comments from anybody you know Chris did this for the years when it was some rather interesting ones up on there uh these are definitely different than the ones that Chris saw in the past these are a little more nobody's carrying guns yeah yeah those ones are not there very he debate at the conference last year yeah yeah so that's K definitely got the win on this one first cooler heads prevailed yeah all right so again unless anybody tells you something different got it okay yeah all right uh our action item um can I get a motion for the Board of Education to approve submission of a Grant application for a fiscal year 2024 School maintenance project Grant so moved seconds Terry p hi sh hi Jenny hagr hi Caston hi Ken Dawson hia hi hi motion carries item seven no visitors okay thank you sir and then item eight um I'll need a motion for the Board of Education to go into close session for a the appointment employment compensation discipline performance or dismissal of specific employees specific individuals who serve as independent contractors in a park recreational or educational setting or specific volunteers of the district or legal counsel for the district including hearing testimony on a complaint lodged against an employee a specific individual who serves as an independent contractor in a park recreational or educational setting or a volunteer of the district or against legal counsel for the district to determine its validity B Collective negotiating matters between the district and its employees or their representatives or deliberations concerning salary schedules for one or more classes of employees so moved second IW hi hi Fuller hi Jenny hag hi car cast hi I motion carries we'll be going into Clos session for those members of the public who are uh viewing this online uh the board will not be taking any action other than to adjourn after coming out of closed session thank thank you should have come

also rebroadcast on DCTV channel 18 um and of course you can find us on uh uh Darth High YouTube yeah YouTube Wow TV media anyway um we begin each meeting where we allot uh up to 10 minutes for uh public comment on any item that is on the evening's agenda so if anyone wants to come speak to anything on the agenda please feel free to stand up to the podium and just state your name good y hi this really comes from my daughter and son but he has too much homework tonight and she's feeling a little shy but she is very concerned about styrofoam tra oh I'm sorry thank you I'm Megan pogash do you want to say your name this is Juniper pogash and she goes to Dello and she's in fifth grade and she's been very concerned since at least second grade since the pandemic started at the end of first grade she's very concerned about the styrofoam trays right what did you used to have um I used to have the the hard reusable plastic ones they they were plastic and that's not really good but at least they weren't single use so that's way better than having styrofoam ones because what happens to those um when they break down it um all the chemicals from it goes into the air and affects our atmosphere and stuff and yeah our beautiful pristine Waters land and were you concerned about anything anything else plastic bags plastic packaging yeah thank you thank thank Youk thank you so much for coming and sharing your thoughts it was very brave of you way to go so do we hear back in some fashion or so public comment we don't usually respond back but I I want to thank you for your advocacy because we we are moving in that direction I think post pandemic you know things during the pandemic things have changed if you don't um so we're going to get back to that we've we we've had um some confirmation with that in the upcoming you know budgeting cycle so thank you for bringing it to our attention and we want to thank Juniper for coming up to the microphone so brave good job thank you thank you thank you thank you you'll let us know if agenda or something so typically during public comment we listen and then possibly at a later meeting uh we can take it up thank you thank you thank you anyone else great thank you very much um I'm G to ask the committee before we do the approval of minutes or should we do that for okay we'll do the approval of minutes we have regular session and executive session minutes for October 16th um they were in our packet um so we'll have to do them separately so I'll entertain a motion for the regular session minutes for the October 16th meeting so move second any all in favor I I will abstain thank you one exension um and now for the executive session minutes from that same evening of October so move Madam chair with the stipulation that they be held until the matter for which they were intended is completed second any discussion all in favor I I'll abstain one exstension thank you and our student rep is our student rep is busy getting ready for another performance um the band will be traveling again on Wednesday so I'm sure she's busy getting ready for that because they're leaving on Wednesday so exting and just got back Saturday night so they're on a whirlwind Tour Sunday morning great so what I am going to ask is that we shift the agenda a little bit we have um guests from uh gr and New Bedford voke school committee here we have um superintendent Mike Watson we have school committee represent atives from Dartmouth Dr Cindy Marland and Michael Shay um here so if it's okay with the committee i' like to move them up to so that we free up the rest of their evening um and I just want to preface it with a lot of times we will asked questions of you know to check in on greater New Bedford voke and uh Dr Marlon had reached out on behalf of the school committee a couple months ago um asking um if there were a was a time that they could come speak to us and she was asking um if we what we would want them to kind of present to us and so uh Kate uh graciously put it out to all of us and I and I questions I guess were forwarded to you and so um so are we going invite yes please Mr Watson did you want to come up or the three of you come up to the microphone I know you had given us a packet and had shared some great information with us and I want to say Mr Watson graciously hosted me at sire vot just a couple of weeks ago and I am incredibly impressed with the work that's happening here and uh saw so many things that were just uh so they were so impressive and I know that many of our Dartmouth students are benefiting from participating in those opportunities so thank you thank you Dr so I I know the committee probably wants to speak with our Dartmouth Representatives I'm kind of here just to help fill in and answer any questions we did want to provide you with a packet of information uh regarding Capital infrastructure projects I know what the committee's had concerns over the greater new Beford VTech school committee minute so we have made some adjustments to that we included our September minutes uh in your packet uh would have included October but they'll be voted on next week for us so I didn't want to do that ahead of where our committee was uh we also included some uh admissions data which as Dr Maguire mentioned when I hosted her a few weeks ago which is part of a regional effort with all the the new superintendents in our region uh we're sharing that information both both in totality for our 9th grade class but also individualized for each of our sending districts I wanted to include that uh in the packet for you as well and then I think one of the most important things that we can do is to Showcase some of the work that our kids are doing uh in our construction trades on behalf of member community so I wanted to share some of the projects uh that we've done just in the community of Dartmouth uh in in the last 5 to 10 years some more recent than others but just to make sure the committee was well briefed on that as well thank you again why don't I start again Mike Shay first of all I want to congratulate you know uh the committee here the superintendent and Community itself for as a former parent flag layer down or whatever you call that person uh I did that for my grand my daughter was in the color guard so I I that's a secret not many people knew I did but but congratulations outstanding as always um as as Mike stated we did pass out early because we wanted to talk about Capital infrastructure um I think as I don't know if I want to go over something that you've read if you have questions on it however you want to you know me us to present it I know Cindy's going to talk about the projects very shortly about what we're doing in doou to help out our community um but but I do want to express the concern that you know in the past it maybe hasn't been a working Rel ship but I think C and I are very very interested in making sure that we are you know working with this board because you have your the students up until you know 8th grade and some of them go to us in ninth grade and we just want to make sure that you know we're listening to you and we're also trying to react and we're two different school systems but I I think it's um it's about the kids and and I think you know as long as we keep that open and there's no egos here or there there's no we're not trying to do anything special but there's a problem we'll try to address it and I think the the minutes that I know John and I have talked a few times and you guys were correct in the sense of what we were not doing and we had some major you know plans you you prioritize things as you approach this year and of course some major building issues not issues but you know improvements were going on and so it took us a little longer to get to where we want but I I think the September minutes explains a lot more the October ones uh coming out next week so again we'll keep you informed but I think that's hopefully settled and and to the satisfaction of not just you but to more members out there who are looking at our minutes um I do talk about the capital instructure Mike Watson superintendent Watson has done a great job in The Vocational School using a team uh approach everybody's at the table that needs to be at the table you know in the past sometimes only certain people would represent an area um superintendent Watson has made it very interest that you know you got to have to technicians there you got to have the facility director there you have to have you know teachers represented um so it's been a great year working this past year in the sense of trying to move forward and like anything else I mean that building open opened in 1977 so it seems like a new school but it's it's tired at place places and I we had used the S2 and S3 grants this year that superintendent want decid not to put it towards any employment people because once the grant runs out then you have you own them and so we put it most of it if not 90% of it into a one-hot deal now let's put it into the air ducts that let me get the right air quality uh of the school which some of those ducks have are old uh we put into the construction of a new Health Center which we were out growing fast and with everything going on with the during the pandemic like that we just we were using the hallway we using like probably everybody else was you know you just so we had that money available and and we we're using it towards that time we also had a skills Capital grant that helped us with our conary Arts learning space and purchasing new equipment at that area as a HVAC area so uh I think it's a smart move of what how might handle it in a sense of you know as put into the building put into the one shot deal and now the grant ends but the project will be done so um I can answer some Cindy can answer come back to you um and I know she's not talk about the project shortly but again Mike deals with every day um he is keeps us informed very well matter of fact he showed us about six months ago A Five-Year Plan of of what is going to be needed over this time and so they're already working on where that money is coming from where they're going so uh to let the people in dmouth know that doou students that are attending there they are attending a safe school they're sending uh I hopefully as Hightech as we can I just read in a paper that diamond is building a brand new school for 300 million well we're going to keep our school going a lot less and uh and the other advantage that I think people don't realize is that we have people in our building that are in the trade so the project goes forward a lot of the stuff that we hire our students during Summertime with our instructors and so a lot of the welding po a lot of carpentry Plumbing is huge you know they can do all that and the students are getting their hours and everything towards you know their license so it's a very positive situation but again um a couple Pages there any questions from me right now would you like to hear Cindy first on the projects and then come at at us personally let Dr milin speak and then we pop everything that's just me sounds good so as you know service is one of my favorite things and um I'm very proud that uh greater New Bedford voke is out there in our community they're doing many projects but I really want to focus on what they're doing just in Dartmouth um really enhancing the lives of people from all different walks ages um it's quite impressive one of the uh projects that they've been working on is District 3 um owns a building within uh Hicksville area and it's uh a place where they keep equipment it's a place that is maintained but was getting a little bit tired so the students have been there and they've been working on the outside of the building um overseen by their teacher and an assistant teacher so um it's very impressive you can drive by and you can see it's it's right from the uh right from the road the other project that has been going on for a long time but got mixed up with um pandemic was the Lloyd Center and the Lloyd Center um they actually constructed a whole building right Mike yeah yeah the Welcome Center and all of it it was built to be sustainable um as you know it's quite close to the water so the the kids were working on that for a very long time but that's been completed at this point um the last piece is the Council on Aging or what we used to know is the Council on Aging has be been renamed as the Maria Connor Center for active living I don't know if people realize it but there's only one building that voltech has not built and that's the main building um in that facility there's a lot of different buildings smaller buildings little garages the the bullet Center um and most recently it was the garages to house some of the equipment and some of the the Vans because on the weekends unfortunately um some of those vans had been uh vandalized so um it's a place to keep all those kind of things safe um so I'm I'm very very proud you know as you know I'm really a comprehensive person comprehensive education person but I just have been very very impressed what with what voke has been doing and continues to do and in all of our communities not just Dartmouth thank you thank you turn it over to our my colleagues sure you want me so I'll just say you know I appreciate I think you know seeing the minutes um they are much better than they used to be we can actually uh tell what's uh going on in your meeting so I appreciate that um and I also appreciate the admissions data um from my read of it it looks like you have accepted more students with I PS more lowincome students and your student body has become more diverse it seems to me that's probably the result of the lottery and I think that's a positive outcome um I think it's a good compromise that there's you know some seats that are reward for hard work but that um I know you all offer a quality education and that it's it's accessible to to any student who wants to pursue a trade um so I appreciate that data and I appreciate the work you've done to revamp your admissions process just quickly on that because when I get the chance in every form I want to make sure that I'm transparent with folks we did make a significant shift collapsing criteria so that for example there's no difference between a 75 and a 95 for students grades um I as I I said I think this data points to some positive changes but it's incomplete there are still 300 kids on the waiting list that we do not know today what those kids student demographic profiles look like I've been assured by the department we will get that information in December which makes sense after you folks submit your Sims data and our sending districts they'll cross reference it with the weight lless data we've turned over to them um and then they'll be able to compile some of this information so while this is encouraging today I've told our team as well as the districts and superintendents that I've been with it it looks good but there's a key piece of information that's missing what do the 300 students uh who did not get in under either the the condensed criteria or the lottery actually look like so we see that data it'll give us another piece the committee's already approved the exact same policy for next year so it'll give us two years of a complete picture of that stuff and I think we'll be in a better position to discuss whether for further reforms are necessary thank you thank you thank you madam chair uh thank you for being here Mike Mike Dr Marin uh a couple of things I'll I'll agree because I have also uh chirped on the minutes and I appreciate them I really do uh Mr Shay and I have had numerous conversations on this type of deal I also and also though it's not here I also want to compliment you the sound is a lot better in in listening to the meetings and everything else you can hear everyone and I appreciate that it wasn't you know I mean as I get older it's a lot tougher to stand next to the you know have the volume way up next to the next to the television and that U maybe we'll have to turn on close captioning for you yeah probably yeah I think I'm going to have to do that you know I'll have to but the problem is I'll have to figure out how to use that on the television so that could be a a different story uh I'm one of the ones that asked about the you know the capital infrastructure what had been done and everything else and I was I was greatly I was impressed to see this and and what has happened you know and how you have funded it that was my main concern because I knew that there were some projects going what's next on the agenda if I may and I'm blindsiding you and I apologize you're not blindsiding me I appreciate I appreciate the question so yes as Mr Shay pointed out um the philosophy around the grants was primarily onetime money for onetime expenses we did create a few few positions uh family engagement we have an additional School adjustment counselor um we initially funded our Dei director through the Esser applications those funds have since been moved over to the general operating budget based upon retirements in the last two years and positions that we've backfilled it was a very small number so it was manageable to do uh primarily what's been accomplished is about half of the HVAC systems which some of which were nearly original to the school have been replaced um what we're looking to do this summer is the collision shop will be renovated through a private Grant um the plumbing house has been rebuilt uh we're continuing to look at skills Capital grants for programs that the department deems eligible uh that obviously one of our big areas is in legal and protective services it's not a big uh High need in the department of Ed standpoint but it is one of our top programs that kids select they're currently operating out of a few academic classrooms uh which is not ideal but our focus is to try to improve all 27 learning environments in our CTE programs to create modern modern uh state-of-the-art uh learning spaces for those programs we've made some internal moves where we can uh but as Mr Shay pointed out and I've also spoken about in these forums I I'm keenly aware of the building conditions in our sending communities um and so we're doing everything that we can to keep this building as viable and strong as it can through the use of of Grant activities um and these skills capital in these Federal relief dollar so that was the primary focus for us to E mark those funds in this direction okay and you know just a I'll put my band hat on for a second your uh Collision Department did a great job with our van when the our box truck when the the tree fell on it type of couple of years ago you know and that so but you know thank you for doing that and I know a lot of other projects that have been done in the area so you know thank you for that and thank you for this information much appreciated no questions but thank you very much great information yeah I want to thank you Mr Watson and Mr Shay Dr Marlin and it's certainly appreciative I appreciate I think the committee does as well uh coming out here having these conversations um you know being open and transparent I think is uh key to uh building up trust again or I don't want to say rebuilding it but improving the trust in uh relationship between uh the town of Dartmouth dmouth public schools and gr bord voke because those are our students I'm thrilled to see um you know some of these projects the health center just uh briefly is that for your for your nurses where or is that an actual shop okay that is for the nursing staff uh we now have four full-time nurses which brings us into compliance with a lot of the dph guidelines around one 550 or so students uh what's really cool about the health center is it's it's it's hopefully we don't need another pandemic ready room but there's isolation spaces there are lifts for students with disabilities uh exam rooms uh we even added a um a lactation space for some of our nursing moms Andor students uh oftentimes that's overlooked in public schools and so I I took the time to make sure Dr McGuire saw that when she was there I know our staff members appreciate that and I think it's just a step uh in the direction of getting that that area of the school set for the next 40 or 50 years and so uh we're really proud of that that investment that space and using the ESS dollars no I I think the the Esser monies were put to good use and you know I think it'll benefit uh your send the sending districts uh for sure um one last thing I'll just complement um the school in general uh with uh the projects that you've done in Dartmouth this is phenomenal work and I know there's always been cooperation um and sending our sending your students uh over to Dartmouth and for Haven and new Beford as well um but but it's certainly a it's a asset uh to the community so thank all thank you all three of you appreciate your time thank you yeah I really don't have much to add that my colleagues haven't already stated but I really appreciate you bringing this to us and really focus using in on the projects that um the students are able to uh do within our own Community as well as your other sending communities um it it's um yeah I mean they've all sort of spoke to some things that were important to me um and and the how the lottery impacted the uh um student enrollment and that sort of thing so thank you for putting this together and informing us on the great work that you're doing and um and you know here's two you know a stronger partners ship as we you know it's all about the kids as you said as you began with Mr Shay so um thank you so much very welcome and as always if you're interested in touring the school just reach out and we're happy to make sure someone can take you around to show you all of the parts of things that we're offering students awesome thank you very much than you great night thank you have a good evening that was great um Dr saber Maguire I turn it over to you I think we have um a consent agenda we do we have um Dartmouth um is the the Unified sports fundraising I know that this was in your packet um this is something again that I'm learning quite a bit about as uh I'm going through my first year here as superintendent in Dartmouth and again I use the word impressed a lot because I mean it's the perfect word to use here I'm so impressed with the commitment of your faculty in providing our uh students who are our special needs students and our general education students with opportunities to come together um in a way that I think benefits the entire School community and Beyond and so the Dartmouth Middle School is participating in the Unified sports program as you know that's in conjunction with the Special Olympics and they're they're looking to uh raise money uh there are qu quite a few opportunities that they're investing themselves in in addition to grant money that they receive from speci Special Olympics and so they're they're uh they're looking to establish a halfday cafe uh with local restaurants as a matter of fact I think I just heard Mr Nunes talk about what a positive experience that was for him this evening where he had uh gone to the Texas Roadhouse and that was a fundraiser for the the the high school the different classes I've been holding one one a week type of deal and tonight was the freshman class and our grandson's a freshman so we went to support them so and so that seems to be something that's benefiting the entire School Community uh it seems like every night there's a restaurant hosting some sort of fundraising opportunity for the schools and for the children of Dartmouth so obviously they're really wonderful Partners to the Dartmouth community and so they're asking that you um approve their their uh fundraising plans here it looks like they have future expect expenses around busing uniforms stiens and equipment and and they're adding the bot which is a sport that I don't know a lot about but I'm looking forward to learning about great thank you um motion to approve second a motion a second Dr Jenkins so I think this is great and I have no objections but as with in future this is all new just I would ask that they would just provide us with the actuals right and start to I know this is a new year so we don't know how much these things are but and I won't be here um when they come back to ask for more but um just as a general practice um to include an accounting of of what they've raised and how they spent it would be great I think so you made that point at one of our prior meetings and I know that um yeah and I know this is all new so they don't have any of that yet so this is totally fine but Mr Rossy is aw in in all seriousness you know especially you know the restaurants you know I mean as a as I say if I don't have to shop cook or clean perfect would love to seriously support yes the the students in in and go to a restaurant and have dinner there and support them I am all in support of that as well Mr NS thank you great so we have a we have a motion we have a second we any more discussion ready to vote all in favor hi any abstentions no passes unanimously that's great um I'll also Turn to You Dr Saba Maguire for um your superintendent update well I'm going to start with Mr Mr Kylie is going to do an update on Old business with long-term capital Improvement planning that's okay so um but I I think it offers us a wonderful segue I think that that's my fault Mr zal because last meeting we moved the superintendent report up you're generous yes um so but what a great segue for us to have listened to and heard about some of of the wonderful facilities that our students who are attending um Socia roke have are afforded that opportunity and that is the conversation that we're having part of the conversation that we're having here this evening I mean what a great segue I think we just heard diamonds building a $300 million facility um you know we heard about Dei positions family engagement positions we heard about modern state-of-the-art facilities for certainly our Dart some of our Dartmouth students are benefiting from that but that provides us I think a wonderful segue into talking about what's an important issue here in Dartmouth and that is long-term planning for our schools and so Mr Kylie has a presentation uh that he's going to go over with you and I think from if you remember we at the last meeting we presented option a now we have a few more to present to you and I'm looking forward to sharing this with you thank you Dr sa Maguire so right that we we began this conversation and it was really just um really the first time that we had talked about um long-term facilities planning since 2017 so um at a school committee level so it was an important step to begin the discussion and like to continue that tonight um to refresh everyone in terms of where we've been with this um really sort of modern era long-term capital planning here has been uh be sort of began in 2016 when the msba visited all of our buildings and um took a look at uh all the schools they kind of ignored the high school because it was fairly new at the time um but they focused on the rest of the building so what they determined at that time was that um the middle school was in the worst condition rated the worst of our schools uh it was in the bottom 16% of schools Statewide rated at that time kind of so you can you can rationalize that they also had some things in their rating system that I wasn't in as much agreement about um they rated Potter and Dello schools differently um and they're virtually the same school they were built at the same time by the same designer and contractor um they've been maintained almost exactly the same um so it was kind of interesting that they that they rated them a little differently but um so that may have been just different folks looking at them and and evaluating them but but um but uh you know I I think at that time um it sort of began the process that we knew we needed to move forward and we and we sought money from the town for um for a facilities master plan which we got and The smma Architects worked with us in 2017 to develop that plan there there's some good parts of that plan I I think um their focus which was kind of low hanging fruit to be honest was we should close the kushman school and I agree that that is the most logical beginning to um and goal for any long-term capital Improvement plan it's not it just doesn't make sense it's not efficient um to operate a such a small school um that is not uh in a separate part of the community that would be hard to reach right next to another school really doesn't make sense to operate aund you know now 101 year old building in that fashion so I certainly agree with that in terms of smma um what they did recommend at that time as well was to work on elementary schools so that you could close the kushman school um it's certainly an option so we're going to talk about that in a minute um we've had two recent subcommittee meetings um in which we talked about um basically we began by talking about our position the likelihood that the msba might want to be involved with a project here in Dartmouth um the town's possible you know ability to be able to to operate um in a in a long-term fashion and think about it think about where we need to be down the road and um and then we started to consider some possibilities during our last school committee discussion we presented an option for discussion but I do I will say that in retrospect I think that that may have been a little Hasty in that we focused on one particular project and I I don't necessarily think that that um you know no one had made a decision it was to begin the discussion um so I we're going to talk a little more tonight about some other options um the the long the town's long-term Capital Planning Group I I've got to say it's been very encouraging so I've been a part of three meetings um in which the the focus has been looking at the town's capacity to borrow um and what it would mean to the town to undertake a series of projects um it's it's it hasn't happened I haven't been a part of anything like that in 13 years here so this is a great step to to realize that we need to tackle um these projects and and consider at least have a plan in place in which we could attempt to implement along the way um the town does have a great deal of capacity in terms of borrowing when you look at it and there'll be a lot more talk about that down the road um and they're looking at a 40-year window of of um projects so that's going to mean a lot for us since you know the ages of our buildings but um the other the other thing that I thought was very encouraging is that the msba is has um has announced that they are going to open up their accelerated repair program um which is great for us because the roof is really struggling here it's it's a major problem so um I'm going to be attending that on the 14th and in the meantime I've already contacted an an engineer who we've worked with before to help us with some of the information that we're going to need in order to be ready to apply when um you know when it rolls out for msba so we're um we're working on that and we'll keep you posted once I find out more on the 14th so we had we had drafted these goals sort of inhouse and in the subcommittee we discussed them and we brought them to the school committee last time and and I think they're good goals but um you know the school committee can really decide if these are the right goals for us to focus on for long-term capital planning we we focused on providing an effective and appropriate learning environment for all students pretty obvious one um we need to do that and we don't have that currently so it is a goal um replace our aging buildings in a strategic way that can be supported by the community so so working with the the town long-term capital Improvement planning committee the um Capital Improvement planning committee at the Town level the finance committee select board Town Administration um in order to be strategic and figure out a way to roll that out I think that's our that's our goal there impact a broad cross-section of the community obviously we want to you know like closing the kushman school okay that's maybe goal but that shouldn't be the goal um we need to try and impact as many kids as we can with our plan and um so that's where we included that goal and then increase opportunities for early childhood education I think it's well we added a classroom this year in the budget we had we had to um we we have too many kids and we're going to have more and the pandemic hasn't uh you know has certainly only increased the need of young kids um so that's not going away and we want to be able to focus on that and we want to be able to focus focus on that in a way that's Equitable across the town we understand we're not going to be able to operate full day prek for all all Dartmouth students it's not going to happen not any time soon but we we can do is offer opportunities that would be Equitable across the town for people to have access and have an ability to to send their student to to a preschool class where right now it can be kind of prohibitive we have a very big town and um we have most of our classes at one school in one end of town so um one of the goals would be to you know be able to increase opportunities in one way or another either by increasing classrooms or at least offering access and feel free to stop me at any time I don't need to talk the whole time but so can I ask about early childhood education because I know right it's it's a real crisis in the state right now um both in terms of access but in terms of cost um and I don't I agree we're not in any position to offer free early childhood education um but given how much we know about the how important sort of early childhood education is to getting students on track um is the barrier cost or is the barrier space because if it's space I think that's an important consideration and I also think it helps build support for this because so many parents are so concerned about I mean their private preschool is very expensive so is this more is it more a cost thing or is it more of a space thing I would say it's both it's both cost and space and right now we we have the kushman Early Childhood Center which is largely uh for our students that are identified through Ida so I mean the pairs are certainly welcomed in but we exist because we're supporting the needs of our our high need students right yeah I'm just curious as like again we're not going to offer it for free but if we offer it at a if we have the space and we offer it at a reasonable cost where it doesn't cost the district very much or any money right we basically cover the cost I don't I don't wonder whether um a lot of parents would take us up on that given sort of the crisis that's out there and in in finding qualified providers finding safe providers I know if my kids were that age and I had the option to pay to go to the public schools I probably would do it in part because I would have confidence in the ability of the Dartmouth public school's ability to deliver a safe and quality um EXP experience for my kids there are definitely some opportunities that we could look at Dr Jenkins having come from you know Brockton just this past year we were involved in a grant a cppi grant that partnered the public schools with our community providers so it wasn't one or the other was how could we work together uh so I thought that that was really important at that time in that community and I think that's would be similar here in Dartmouth where we do have Early Childhood providers who we'd want to partner with so that they don't see the Dartmouth Public Schools as competitors but instead as a way that we because I think that you're 100 I know you're 100% right that we have a real crisis not only in the state but across the country in terms of being able to provide high quality Early Childhood opportunities for students um and we get I think it's half the money for uh a prek or age student and so working within those conf finds this something that I think we could do as a community thank you and to to um sort of reinforce your your point of trust right you you might trust the public school system to be able to do that well even more so if we were able to figure out a way where the preschool classroom that you're going to be sending your student to is in the school that they're going to be going to kindergarten in and um and moving on so I I think there's a lot of opportunities there but so I think it's worthwhile including something relating to that as to what it actually how it turns out there are some different options to look at for sure I I put this in the presentation pretty much every time because I I do think you know it's important that we understand that our oldest building is more than 100 years old and that we have three buildings from The Middle 1950s and one from the 60s and our probably our most pressing need is in the one that's only 21 years old which is the roof so um they don't make them like they used to they don't they don't they don't but um you know I do I do think as a frame of reference this is always important for us to consider so I was thinking when Mr Watson mentioned or actually was Mr Shay when he mentioned 1977 I'm thinking I take 1977 would be be our second uh second newest building so um but anyway so there are lots of options to consider for sure and um we're going to talk about three tonight there's there's more things we could do there's different variations of these options um in s in subcommittee we focused on these three and um I think they're all worthwhile considering so option A is pretty similar to the one we talked about last time which was focus on replacing the middle school with a new school and we focused on a high school um the the reason that we focused on that uh was well we'll talk a little bit more about the pluses and minuses afterwards so I won't get into that too much but what I did do in this slide was I add the fact that um the next project after that building would have to be replacing either the pot or jelo school and then the one after that would be replacing the other one um you're not going to get multiple projects at one time from msba you're going to have to do it gradually so you know it's not like 1955 that's not going to happen again so um so we'd have to have a plan in place and then the Quinn school would also be towards the tail end of that remember we're looking at a 40 year window um we have to spread these projects out so that's what we would be looking at option A can I ask can I ask you a question about that when when after last meeting I heard people the question that they got can you explain how would the middle school project work people are like there's not a lot of space there like does the middle school close while you're building a new building on the site do you build it that was the most common question like people were just trying to figure out like yeah how do how does that work cuz that middle school is in use right now so maybe could you explain that yeah I think I think I think the way it would work would be um we're not going to hold you to this but sort the high school right right that the high school would be built immediately behind the middle school or actually option A or C would work the same way okay so there would be a building built immediately behind it is somewhat challenging yeah it causes problems but this is a messy situation that we need to rectify so we'll be prepared to to deal with that um there it would likely be built so that it would be somewhat lower than slokum Road in terms of the main entrance because there is a fair you know fair drop on hawthor Street between between the Middle School main entrance height let's say slm Road height to um to where the baseball field is in the back I don't think it would need to be built all the way down to where the baseball field is could be built up and then the land could be adjusted somewhat so that you'd have like a logical entrance into the building um so a middle school or High School option A or C would would likely be M would remain open during construction it would have to I mean we have no other option that's what I was just trying to wrap my bra around it a couple people asked me that definitely not without a some challenges I mean but on the other hand I mean I've personally Liv lived through you know major renovation while kids are in a building so it can be done I mean that's that's rough this is a separate building at least so um it's it there's not a lot of room to move around there but we would figure it out and and make that happen so thank you you're welcome Mr Oliver I had a question Mr Kylie and my apologies if this came up at the last meeting I didn't get a chance to rewatch the video what would msba be willing to commit to as far as do they have and I maybe um you'll talk about this after you attend the uh the meeting that you're going to but what would msba be willing to commit to do they have stipulations as far as what they would prioritize over what the school committee wants like can we can we go to them and say this is what the school committee in the town is looking for and you you know yeah I mean they so for instance if we went to them and said um we want to renovate the middle school they would say no we're not going to do it because it's buil it's from 1955 the cost to renovate versus versus build new doesn't make any sense it's you wouldn't get your bang for your buck in the end in the project certainly they will have they they will be driving the bus the bus because they are paying 50% right right and they will hold that over our heads until we comply with what their wishes however I do think that um communities that are are prepared to move forward and that they have confidence that will fund projects they'll listen um they want to do successful projects there's we in subcommittee we talked at our first meeting a lot lot about msba projects um and it's funny because following that 2016 msba survey you would think that all of the projects following that would be targeted at the worst rated schools they were not they were targeted at communities where um they were ready to do projects and some of them were not really rated very low the schools that they were getting projects for S quite surprising really when when I looked because I looked at every project that they've done since 2016 and um looked at the ratings of the buildings and how old they were and the the size of the buildings and was it related to um overcrowding or things like that there wasn't a lot of overcrowding because the Massachusetts population declined but but um so there wasn't a lot of a lot of direct correlation to the building rating for what what they approve so what I believe is that they will approve things that they think are going to be important to the community um so I'm sure that they might we could put in for something and they could say h we don't like that idea they could do that okay um our hope so um we had we I had had a discussion with uh Chris Marky um who had uh offered to set Dr Saba Maguire and I up with somebody from msba um to talk to about this I think what we're going to do is go to that you know go attend the meeting on the 14th find out okay what's the what's the groundwork that's going to need to be done for the high school roof and any other information we can find out about how they're going to open up their projects and then hopefully sit down with somebody from msba and say are we are we off base here thinking this this in the yeah yeah but so we have that msba obviously we need msba funding to do these projects but we also need to be um cognizant of of trying to be a part of what the town is putting together for the long-term capital plan which is moving pretty quick pretty quickly that they're working on that so I want to have you know we want to be going in both directions at the same time for sure I have some more questions but I'll hold off okay um so option b uh is to look at elementary schools first so basically you just take what we were talking about in terms of replacing the middle school and moving it down the list um so you'd move the Potter or Dello schools up and do those and then uh and then once those were done you'd be able to close the kushman school you'd be able to rework things and then um and then you'd focus on the middle school and the Quinn School following that so in this in step four the Middle School stays the middle school or the middle school probably the high school it probably stays the middle school because the problem you're going to have is it it's not quite as flexible because you know building a high school would then allow this to be a middle school yeah right um it may not be as likely that msba after building two brand new elementary schools that we have grade five in would then say Oh okay that's fine we're just now going to build you a middle school with an extra grade even though we just built the elementary schools 10 and 20 years ago with those grades it probably wouldn't work out that way so most likely it would just be a middle school I would think at that point um not just it would be a great middle school so something to think about for sure and then replace the Quinn school at the tail end I think that's the kind of common denominator most likely um option C would be you tackle the middle school and I think this has Merit too um you could have some flexibility and you could look at fifth grade at that point and I think you could come up with a pretty good justification of why that might make sense um the whole redistricting and closing the kushman school could kind of slide around depending on the approach you took with number to replacing the middle school so it gives you a little more flexibility that way um but then you'd be back to okay now we've got to choose which one Potter Dello obviously you know we've talked internally about how you might choose that and you you know you obviously have to think about um the situation in in the that particular area of town and what how what you need to focus on in terms of available property that could be built out the current enrollment and so forth and and you know try and figure out what direction to go in in terms of those but that's also a little while down the road so um things change of course and then uh and then replaced the Quinn school so those are kind of three options that we considered I mean I considered others but I couldn't come up with another way that made enough sense to put it on paper as a as an option D but I'm open to suggestions and you know if if anybody else has anything else they want to think about in terms of the order of operations um we absolutely can talk about that so these are more like our thoughts than they are your thoughts right you haven't had a chance to talk about this so I don't want to I don't want to dominate this part of the conversation because I think what we're going to what we're going to look at here and and hope for in the in the Fairly near future and it doesn't have to be at this school committee meeting but at some point in the near future we're going to really need some preliminary direction that we can go back to the long-term planning committee with and say hey we really thinking that this is the direction that we want to at least put on paper for the moment and see what it looks like in terms of town borrowing down the road and how it would fit into the next 40 years so um I mean I put some advantages and disadvantages but and I'll I'll go through them but um but again it's it's more up to how you folks perceive these projects than than how I do necessarily um option A it has the most impact immediately um um you know it impacts high school kids middle school kids Elementary SK kids preschool kids it impacts everybody um I I think that placing um our sort of center of our school community at the center of the community has a lot of benefit um I think that you know we just we just saw that uh in your packet tonight that you have 400 400 students Dartmouth students attending GR in the Bedford Regional Vocational Technical High School right so for us to be competitive we need you know this would make sense right this would be a competitive Advantage um can I hop in for a minute of course um in regards to what you were just saying Mr Kylie and maybe this is for Dr Sab Maguire as well does Dartmouth High School currently have any recognized Innovation Pathways that the state recognized right now and if not why why don't we and is it is space an issue I I know that we don't I we have the former principal here um Who Um can talk more about that uh I would say space is definitely an issue I mean right here we have a band that doesn't have enough space for practice uh within the building so we know that space is an issue in this physical building right now now right so I I guess I vaguely remember at some point sitting at this table with Dr gford talking to us about Innovation Pathways and I I don't know where that was left um but I'm just curious and because certainly this leads into why we would need more space or a different type of space um because at the end of the day we're all elected and we represent the the community um so it's important to have these I think have these uh questions answered in order so we can properly uh answer them from community members do you want to talk about where you are with this that's not the only reason why we don't have Innovation Pathways and we are um actually part um we've had some meetings already this school year to start building innovation Pathways um it's going to take Partnerships between you know our schools public universities uh in the area and so we're starting those conversations um we've met a couple of times with Partners uh from Brockton public schools to see it's about um a lot of these these programs are about bringing them to scale as well uh High School darou size doesn't always have the number of students to you know fill multiple Pathways you can't can't be all things to everyone right so partnering with you know Brockton public schools and you know public universities would allow us to offer more for our students but it would require that partnership so that we could fill out um programs but certainly space is part of that equation as well depending on what path what Innovation pathway you end up uh pursuing I think the other important thing though to bring up is we heard Mr Watson say that there is a 400 student wait list um to get into sh voke so obviously there are students that are interested in attending a school that has those kind of opportunities and we don't have them here in Dartmouth so that again speaking to the competitive Advantage if we're able to offer some of those opportunities we'd have't we'd be able to keep more students in District right exactly and is my understanding that the Innovation Pathways we can't in order to get the funding we can't offer a pathway like a shot pathway that new beit V has correct unless they can't unless they can't accommodate our students right right and if there's a weight list then there seems to be some opportunity okay thank you that sorry for for interrupting don't be sorry please feel free um and it it also in addition to that would uh would distribute preschool across the town the fastest right we'd be able to move fifth grade into a middle School setting and then adjust accordingly at the elementary level following that so there's some advantages there um I do think there's a significant disadvantage and it is that it would be the most expensive project um so building a new high school these days like we were just talking bu Diamond at 300 million um ours might not be that much but it would not be an inexpensive project by any means and it would clearly be more expensive expensive than the other projects that we're talking about the other options B andc so um you know the the elementary option is it's least expensive move up front um it actually would be more expensive than C overall because of the time value of money and and escalation costs over time um you know building an elementary school first would be the least investment that the community needed to make early on in the in the process um so that is you know obviously Money Matters um it would you know positively impact a portion of the town's youngest Learners right away um so those kids I would think would benefit from that project immediately and then hopefully their whole academic career would be set on a you know higher trajectory because of it so I I think that's a positive too um I do think that it's difficult to decide where you go first in that in that scenario um you have two schools that you know are equivalent um so you need to pick one U so it does take multiple projects to implement to you know be implemented in order to impact families townwide so um um it might it would also take multiple projects to close kushman I would think un there are ways around that but I don't think it would be the right way so I I think um I think it would take multiple projects to get to that point um and it's not quite as flexible like we talked about in terms of option C where you have the ability to then adjust possibly adjust the middle school size and sort of Implement some other changes like being able to uh close the kushman school and and provide pre prek throughout Town um with option A or C you wouldn't really be able to do that with B up front um so option C is actually the least expensive of all the options um because over time it would be cheaper to build a middle school than certainly cheaper to build a middle school than the high school and it would be cheap to build that first um and get it out of the way and then build the elementary schools after that so um that is kind of you know and a little more flexible obviously so um you know I think when we're looking at this well I won't I'll let you folks talk about it and see see what you think rather than me make conclusions yes um so in terms of most expensive least expensive eventually this gets paid in the form of repaying the loan which gets paid by the taxpayers so that loan will be paid over a great number of years I I as the taxpayer would say well how much would I be paying for plan C versus plan a because a does seem like it make a lot of people very happy if it had nothing to do with money and if there wasn't that much difference in my taxes between a and c I would go with a if there's a big difference see so I would want to know that yep yep and I we'll talk a little bit about next steps but I appreciate that feedback and we'll talk more about that Dr jins so for me I think B is not is my least preferred option I think the middle school is our worst school and that's not in terms of the people or the students or the education but the quality of the building that is in the greatest need and I can remember I think we were actually sitting in Quinn school doing an executive committee meeting and it took way longer than it should have because I couldn't build a bridge over the fact that the Architects recommended the elementary schools over the middle school and so I think I like puzzled that out loud with you all for like 45 minutes until everyone was ready for me to shut up so I don't I can't support a plan that that that puts that really last I think our students need that most um I agree with the with that's about the question about what is the cost I think we need to know and we know that this these are not going to be hard estimates but in order for us to make a an educated decision we need to know ballpark what that difference is going to be you know 100 million 10 million like those are two very different numbers um my other concern is we think about this is the politics of it right these are going to be overrides and what if we blow it all on the very first building and the town never says yes again right and so if we put the middle school last or right that I I deeply worry that that's it that's all we get um I've been involved in these campaigns long enough to to have that worry me um so yeah we're developing a 40y year plan plan but there's no guarantee that the town's going to say yes because unless I'm wrong it's going to require repeated ass going back to the town right so I think we need to think about that right like what if we're only going to get one which is a high probability in this community what's the one we want um so yeah I think those are my sort of initial thoughts but I definitely probably because of the political risk I'm not willing to put off um the Middle School um whether we build a new middle school or build a new high school I'd want to see costs associated with that but I me personally I don't want to wait Mr noons yeah thank you madam chair uh Mr Kali Dr sa Maguire um when you look at replacing uh the Potter in the Potter in the melow schools uh type of deal what are we looking at off the you know or do you have an idea as to what the size of the school would be for the number of students type of deal I mean I think right now they're like a 500 capacity give or take if my memory is any good and and we have some blips in enrollment in the last few years where we've seen a fair amount of decline at the at the Dello school um you know where we're under 350 students presently so I mean it's been a pretty dramatic um you know decline in that in that building um so obviously that plays in msba is not going to build a school that is thinking you know 30% bigger than what it the current enrollment is I'm sure they're not going to do that unless they have a good reason for it we do have some factors in the community that may play a role um obviously the closing of the kushman school can play a role in that we do house currently kindergarten at the at the kushman school in addition to preschool so those are factors that you know need to be spread out throughout the community so depending the order you were of operations that you were to do these in you'd be factoring that in and msba would too um also growth in the community I I don't know I mean the rail is just about here you know after you know Decades of not being of talk um so you know how that impacts our student population I'm not sure um so there are other things and we're actually working on uh getting some census uh Census Data um some help with that to get a a better look at it um more scientific look and and I and I guess is if if if you look at this is a 40-year plan uh you've got five schools you know that we're looking at uh two ele you know three elementaries middle and high school it's almost like one project every eight years if you spread it out that way so you know does it have a chance who knows but you know that's that's the way I look at it m type of deal so yeah okay I mean it's been done in other communities but obviously it's it it's uh a challenge and and just to clarify it's a debt exclusion right it's not an override little different it's for a defined period of time it's for however long the um you know the period is typically for for a school construction it would be a 20year period although that now you can extend that to a 30-year you used to not be able to do that but you can extend it to a 30-year so essentially you're taking a 30-year mortgage uh versus a 20 year I that's not necessarily going to be up to us to decide um that but um but those are options that are out there for sure thank you madam chair you're welcome Mr Oliver thank you madam chair uh so for me to really wrap my head around this and make a recommendation at some point uh when we're ready down the road um I would love to see some kind of uh um survey go out to the community um to just get a taste of the appetite for for the citizens in this town as to you know and this committee or Administration can certainly work on um of the facility subcommittee work on some of the the types of probing questions um but to me I think we we represent the the community so it's important for us to really see at because at the end of the day right we're going to need to sell this we're going to need to sell this to the community um so I think it's important that we uh we Engage The stakeholders in town um and just to if not anything else just to hear what they have to say and what their thoughts are whether maybe we put out these options to them obviously at the end of the day it's the school committee that's going to vote on moving this forward um so you know I I think that's at least the start for me um in addition to that uh Mr Kylie I'd be curious as to what are we looking at like um Dr Jenkins said estimates rough rough rough whether it's you know ballpark of 200 million versus 150 million um and then I would be interested in seeing the actuals on the debt exclusion um for you know by for $100 million versus $150 million and what the taxpayer would pay we can provide that for sure yeah we um get you one building May oh right oh Absolut absolutely I'm I'm I'm just using examples um maybe we should use bigger examples so we know that 200 million 250 million yeah yeah but those are large numbers and certainly scares people so remember that the town's share would be approximately 50% right depending on depending on um if it were a model school um you know there's a little extra reimbursement from the state depending on the level of efficiency of the new building there might also be some some uh percentage points available to us for um like if for instance we were to try and like the new thing is um in in New School construction is trying to get to Net Zero um I don't know I don't know but that that could be something that would where the state would also uh invest a little more in our buildings but but yes we we can we can work on um that's kind of in my next steps is I I really want hopefully have some direction and I think I'm getting that in terms of where we need to head um and in terms of the long-term capital planning committee um I think the beauty of that is that uh this is basically they're waiting for us to to say like what are the scenarios that we might be considering so that um they can see what it would look like in terms of the impact on the average home value you know average taxpayer and so forth so I I think they're ready to do that work with us so that's that's encouraging Dr Jenkins well you know I think Chris is right we need to think about what the community you know is interested in at the same point in time I think we have to be flexible about this because we are thinking about the community as a whole and if the town has something like I don't know we need a new water plant or something I'm not saying that we do but that that's really expensive and that needs to come first because it affects the health of the community and maybe we do so it may be that we we don't end up recommending one but we rank the options because I think again we do want to work in partnership with a town we're not the only Capital needs in this community and if we have to move things around in order to come up with a plan I think we should be flexible and we should be prepared to be flexible in that way right yeah it's a it's a great point and I I've got to say like right from the start with that long-term capital planning committee the discussion was no one was entrenched so it was yeah there are other needs we know that like I I know that everybody everybody there understands that there are other things that are also important so it's not a fight this is about creating something that's meaningful for the community moving forward and understanding that there are going to be priorities and and you know let's face it a 40-year capital Improvement plan is not going to end up being exactly what you put down on paper and we all understand that one thing that you know might be of interest is if if the committee were interested in having one of its members come to the long-term capital planning committee um we have had some other members of appointed boards there and I've been been representing the the school committee but I'd be happy to have one of you and I don't know whether it's a member of the fields and Facilities uh subcommittee who'd be interested or any of you um I'd be happy to have you there uh at those meetings with me and you know assisting and and offering your input and the next one is next week on the 15th so can we also to follow by Mr Oliver's suggestion of a survey maybe we might want to work with the town like I could Envision something where we asked about schools on one page other needs on another page and then the third page is around and you rank them right um so because there's no sense in doing two separate surveys right could certainly bring that to the committee next week to that not it's not a committee the long-term capital planning whatever you want to call them group and uh and offer that up that that would be a great uh great suggestion I think so I'll just I'll just close with you I think obviously bringing the high school back to the the center of town would would be beneficial in a lot of ways but I also am very cognizant and recognize the difficulty of this building even being built um and how hard um people fought for this building um so um you know it's it's tough it's tough to make one one decision over another right now at this time so uh that's all I have thank you um I I mean I agree with everyone's contribution to this discussion um very thoughtful so thank you uh I just wondered um in my notes what others haven't really asked I guess um when you talk about like a difference in cost between building a middle school and building a high school I'm I'm thinking about the discussion earlier around you know not necessarily per pupil space but per activity space per 21st Century Learning space per um Innovation you know um Pathways and all of the you know things that we really want our students to have access to or strive to be a part of you know from look forward to being part of this community moving forward um you know talked about the band not having enough space and the competitive nature of everyone fighting for space in our you know between the track or indoor you know courts and that sort of thing um what is the difference um what are the things that make a building a middle school um less expensive than building a new high school it's a good question um I mean first of all typically a high school is a larger building than a middle school um just based on enrollment right you usually have three three grades versus four um although we may not be seeking that right so that would have some impact but it is also based on programming right the what we have in in this building um that we utilize versus of course our our Middle School was a high school so there's quite a quite a bit of space in there that you might not have in a normal uh in a normal middle school but um but it's based on the programming that we offer and the variety of programming that we offer and um you know I think it would be hopefully um significantly more advanced than this building um if it were a new high school but I you know I think what might be helpful I can see construction costs have been problematic and there's not a lot of new buildings because the msba can't afford a lot of new buildings right that these projects have been been so expensive that they had to shelf roof repairs right and say we can't do roof repairs anymore because the other projects are eating up the things they had already committed to were eating up all the money but what I can do is share some of the current projects throughout the state and begin to get an idea of they're not necessarily going to be exactly similar to this project but um of the magnitude and the ones that I've seen it's been fairly significant the difference between a high school and a middle school um but it's significant and then we pay half of it so that's a little less significant then but still still it's going to be it's going to be a decision to make you know for sure and I really appreciate Dr Jenkins thinking a little bit more about surveying um I I wrote public hearing and then Chris said survey uh and doing it together that was Chris's idea oh sorry Chris give credit to in conjunction with adding on you know making sure that we're being mindful of of having it be part of a larger surveying of all of the uh proposed projects for um this 40-year plan when I'll be 90 um so and actually if you could speak about the timeline of of any project we talk about me being 90 in 40 years but um we're talking about impacting hopefully impacting doing all of it right you know least amount of money largest impact bang for our buck all of that um but the reality is whatever we roll out uh what what is the time frame yeah I mean I think you know best case scenario like all this just falls into our lap in the state has no other projects and they really want to do something here um they I I would say that it would probably be four years before a building could be constructed um at Absolute minimum best case right and it likely would be more than that it's you know we got to be realistic it would likely be more than that so it's it's a way off um we're not even at you know we're not even we would need to be ahead of where we are we don't even know what the state is doing yet for msba so once we know that we'll have a little bit of better idea of timeline whether we could move a project forward this year I don't really even know um if that's realistic it might not be so that would push it out a year and then there's a feasibility if if we were to be lucky enough that msba wanted to work with Dartmouth which again I think that we have some favorable they haven't done first of all msba has not done a major renovation or construction project with darmouth this building was not part of the msba program this was part of the Department of EDS SBA program was one of the last buildings built under that program and they went out of business after that but um but but um you know I so I think that we might be a candidate um we have borrowing capacity we have very low debt in this town extremely low so compared to other communities so we are set to you know be a candidate for projects and maybe that would make us attractive but I do think that if we were lucky enough then there would be a feasibility study period that would take a while like maybe a year and then there would be a design hopefully that follows that that would then take a year to design um and then construction would take a few years couple years probably probably two years depending on the size of the building that's very helpful because that really tells the story of it's not just you know we could survey the students to see their best you know the dreams of what their school might look like but this really is going to impact our our really young new families in in the community to say you know if they're planning to you know they young family and their little infant might be utilizing uh one of our new buildings by the time they're of of age and in school so um it's really important that the community recognize that um that that's part of of the whole equation Mr no yeah thank you madam chair I mean just to follow along on that timeline uh you're you're looking at for discussion purposes students that are in second and third grade at this point in time maybe if you know the stars all align as they say being able to walk into a new high school type of deal you know and then you know students you know other students being able to you know move into a middle school and all you know that type of deal so there's a lot of you know that's a positive aspect of it type of deal but that's where you know it's those students there that are are the ones that you know we have to be looking at and is going to be you know on the front burner yeah and I mean just now the construction the public construction industry hasn't recovered from coid I mean we're getting some timeline shocks with looking at you know 80 to 100 weeks for certain types of products in public construction like so that's like if you order it you get it in two years and then you can start building it so even after we go through all that just the the backlog and ordering has been I mean I hope it comes down sometime soon because right you can't get anything done yeah for sure it's certainly a challenge but um certainly worthwhile considering so I'll I appreciate all your your input there that is very helpful um few other things that we just need to think about though depending on the approach you take um the dmouth Memorial Stadium some something that should be you know I was just there I was there Friday night with lots of other people and still needs some work by the way it was uh $6 million our bid came in and we don't obviously don't have that so um but something that should still stay on the radar um you know in terms of renovation of this building at some point way down the road yeah you have to think of that too and then depending on what you choose lots of other things need to be maintained right so the HVAC systems in the buildings the windows the roofs the athletic fields the security fire safety technology all of those things are are things that are going to have to going to have to be maintained um and depending on how this process looks and ends up being implemented we going to have to face those um for instance I I I was part of the Quinn roof project well that was right when I started and it's going to have to be replaced in like 18 years so it might have to be replaced even if it's on this list in the 40-year window it might have to be replaced telan kushman's about 19 years out most likely it'll need to be replaced Potter about 20 years from now and the darmouth middle school if we don't do if we don't Target that project we'll need to be replaced 20 to 25 years down the road so um lots of other things are more pressing need than the roofs but those are big projects the roofs are obviously in terms of like Windows and Doors HVAC and so forth those those things you know we're going to have to tackle some of those things um before then but things to think about um so we've had some discussion tonight I think some good discussion um we've talked a little bit about prioritization and things to look at but I I do think that we can bring back to that long-term capital planning Comm ite some ideas and get some more information from them and I can do some more work in terms of research and cost estimates and so forth and bring some more information maybe back to the subcommittee first and then back to you folks um and then to Chris's uh suggestion and Mr Oliver's suggestion and you know Community awareness we we need to First gauge you know what uh what the what the appetite is in the community but then also keep them aware of the process along the way and try and you know build support so but those I think the wonderful thing is is that you obviously all just named all of our next steps as part of the discussion that we just had so thank you Mr n thank you madam chair you know and just going excuse me just going back to other considerations with the renovation and the stadium and everything else is the fact that you know as I mentioned at the subcommittee is yeah you know the turf fields already you know has a life of about 15 years give or take depending on how much it's used Etc like anything else you know it's four years in already and you know in an 11 years that's going to have to we're going to have to look at getting that fixed yep replaced that's for sure yeah never ending battle mhm thank you thank you sir thank you thank you ma'am thank you and so now I will turn it over to Dr superintendent report thank you so much um so first M oh I Mr Nunes we are going to talk about M it's Sor my fault not that I'm looking to I thought I missed I missed one I apologize so um I and I know we had mentioned this at an earlier date that overall we're pleased with the mcast scores uh we certainly saw significant growth moving back toward what some consider to be Pand pre pandemic student achievement um and at the same time I think it's important that we recognize and I think you'll see in the presentation and Mr Tal's going to join us but I think what you're going to see in the presentation is that there's still work left right we still we always have the work in front of us we haven't fully recovered from the pandemic as people refer to it as the pandemic slide um and Mr Nunes with that in mind mcass is only one measure of student achievement um and so we'll talk about other things that we're truly celebrating here in the Dartmouth schools but mcast is one measure and it is an important measure for us as a school community and so with that I'm going to turn it over to Mr tbolt and he's going to give you an overview again this is a District overview of how the community of Dartmouth um uh faed this past year thank you Dr Sabre Maguire and thanks uh to members of the school committee I'd like to say you saved the last presentation for the the the last presentation for the best but it's m cassen so it is what it is um so as Dr Sabre McGuire said uh this is really a highlevel kind of District uh overview of how we fared on mcass uh in 2023 but I always like to start with reminding folks what mcass is um and why it's important and so mcass is a comprehensive assessment system that is uh used to measure how our students are doing on grade level standards uh and for ELA and Mathematics that occurs from grades three through eight and then again at grade 10 and for science Technology and Engineering that's at grade five grade eight and then at the high school um which for Dartmouth High School occurs after for most students uh after nth grade and that's um biology is is the exam that most of our High School uh students take um why does mcast matter um one reason is it's one measure as Dr s McGuire said it's one um data point that shows how our students are progressing in comparison to other students across the Commonwealth um but at the high school it ALS also takes on some added weight because it's in part used to determine whether or not students graduate with a high school diploma and so it takes on a little bit more weight at the high school um level I also this slide might look uh familiar to most folks who were on the committee last year when we presented we um purposely included again this year because I think it's important to frame our mcast results in the context of what occurred uh during Co 19 uh learning loss is definitely a very real thing thing uh the impact of coid is a very real thing um when the department of Ed held their uh conference call earlier this year they actually framed it around trying to get back to the pre-pandemic achievement levels and performance levels um and so that's 2019 so four years ago already um but it's just I think uh important to know uh to note rather that although coid is over we are not back to normal right um I know that folks would like to think we are we all wish we were but we really have a long road of recovery ahead of us um in terms of how disruptive the pandemic was to to Student Learning so some Trends across the state for Massachusetts um the department of Ed was cautiously optimistic that the pandemic slide or the um you know the pandemic slide was halted uh particularly for ELA and math um and they also noted that stte results you know science technology engineering results were fairly unchanged but that there were some slight declines um overall uh in in St as well but the biggest takeaway um I think from the state's um conference call earlier uh this year was that our youngest Learners who were probably most impacted by coid they're just starting to enter the testing the the mcast uh window so our our grade three results that you'll um that were included in this data those students were in kindergarten when the pandemic began and for our current third graders who are just going to take mcast for the first year now they entered kindergarten during that hybrid year that year that was also very disrupted so um we're going to see the impact of coid in our data for several years ahead um and it just again um I think is a cautionary Tale for us all to be mindful of even though the pandemic is in the rearview mirror its impact is not it's very much remains with us some trends for Dartmouth Public Schools um in terms of ela um well I guess I would just say overall Dartmouth as Dr Sabre mcgu said uh performed strong in comparison to the state um as we typically do so that's certainly something to celebrate and be proud of we have uh significantly um more students who are in the exceeding or meeting expectations performance level uh in ela and math in comparison to the state and we also have significantly lower percentage of students who are not meeting expectations on those exams as well and that's true for grades three through eight as well as grade 10 in ela and math um and in terms of St we slightly exceeded the percentage of students meeting or exceeding expectations in grades five and 8 and we were just below um where the state uh performed in terms of meeting and exceeding expectations uh at the high school level this chart here kind of gives a high level overview not just of our exceeding and meeting expectations students but of all the performance levels and again as a reminder um or for those of you who maybe aren't as familiar the um performance levels are exceeding expectations meeting expectations partially meeting expectations and then not meeting expect uh expectations and so obviously we want as many students as possible in the upper two categories of either meeting or exceeding um and that's really uh our Focus uh every year is to try and grow all students and kind of um help move all students to the to the next category uh performance level if you will another um measure on mcast that's often overlooked is student growth percentile and this is a measure to determine uh whether or not students are growing in comparison to peers who performed similarly on the previous mcast so um typically uh you know we'd like to see between 40 and 60 um that's considered typical growth um obviously we'd love to see high growth uh which is 61 to 100 um you can see from this slide that darmouth falls into that typical growth category across the board for grades 3 through eight as well as grade 10 um and if you're wondering why science doesn't have SGP listed it's because the state does not calculate SGP for science because it's not given as frequently as Ela and mcast which is given in every grade from three through eight and then again in 10 so here's a slide that's really important it shows the that long road to recovery that uh I've referenced already a few times and it's a a slide that's modeled after a similar one that the state shared with all of the district level leaders um but it really shows the difference between that 2019 that last uh normal school year if you will that pre-pandemic performance and where we were in 2023 so the bad news is there's clearly uh significant work to be done to get to the pre-pandemic um levels the good news is in a community like Dartmouth we were stuck starting from a high Baseline right we consistently outperform the state so those numbers in 2019 were higher than the state as well um so you know that That's the Silver Lining if you will um and you can you'll note that in grades three through eight in mathematics for example that difference is only one percentage Point um so you know great progress in that area grade 10 Ela mcast is you know uh at that four um minus four so we're in the ballpark there as well we're going to continue to um work hard to make sure that we're closing uh this slide and um reaching the or exceeding really the pre-pandemic levels because that's the ultimate goal one of the other areas that we really want to look at as well is we want to start to dive into our student subgroups um so this chart here uh and the next several charts all show you know this is Ela the next one will be math and the last one is science but it shows two student subgroups the first one is all students which is exactly what it sounds like right it's how every student uh in grade three through eight in performed um the high needs student subgroup is any student who is a multilingual learner so any student who ever received ESL Services any student um with a disability Andor any student who um call ifies for free or reduced uh lunch so is economically disadvantaged um and the reason um we highlight these subgroups is because we we our performance we don't want gaps right our our mission statement is a quality education for all Learners we want that to be the case in terms of outcomes as well and so it's a matter of equity and so we just want to make sure that we're doing everything we can to if there are gaps where there are gaps to understand why and to do our best to support all learners ERS and again these these um you know the breakdown here this is nothing um unique to Dartmouth this type of data is um you know found in every Community across our state and Country all right so I think it's important as well to kind of look at how Dartmouth compares to similar districts in terms of our demographics the department of Ed does this for us by identifying or cohorting us with 10 similar districts um the the tool that the state uses is called the dart tool um and so they just group they select these 10 districts these are not districts that we cherry-pick it's the state says okay based on enrollment based on the percentage of students who are high need students based on the percentage of low-income students that you have students with disabilities uh English language Learners these are the districts that are most similar to you um and that's a helpful comparison for for us to see how we perform uh compared to other districts that are like us and you can see um from the chart that we are more than Dartmouth more than holds its own against similar districts in fact we're above the the mean um for this group of districts across the board um for the most part but just to highlight some of the areas here in grades 3 through eight darmouth had the highest percentage of students meeting or exceeding expect expectations in our Dart districts so that's certainly something to be celebrated our SGP uh in ela for grades three through eight was also the highest uh in this Dart cohort and again that sup is so important it shows that all students are learning so um whether students exceeded expectations on the last mcast or were partially meeting what have you it Compares our our students to like performing students uh to show how they've grown uh for grades three through 3 through eight for math uh meeting or exceeding expectations again um highest percentage in our Dart District um so more to be proud of there with SGP for grades three through eight in math Dartmouth had the second highest uh in our Dart group for grades five and eight on the St in terms of percentage of students meeting exceeding standards we are um right in the mid-range of our of our do District just a little just slightly above um the mean there for grade 10 in terms of our Ela meeting and exceeding expectations we are um darmouth high school was the third highest in our D district and uh for SGP for grade 10 Dart students had the third highest SGP as well I want to just take a second to highlight um SGP at the high school level last year was an area that we identified when we presented as a room for for growth for us and I'm proud to share that the the teachers um you know and our students have really done a nice job in this area and it's reflected here in our data for math Dartmouth High School has the second highest percentage of students meeting or exceeding in our Dart District and then for SGP again at 49 um I know our our Math teachers were very um you know pleased when they looked at their data to see that we were right at that typical growth um you know which again was an area last year that we identified as um an area where we could see some improvement and then finally for St uh for the high school we were just um we're just below the mean uh in terms of our performance for students meeting or exceeding uh expectations uh on the St exam in high school we also recognize that you know for members of the community some of those districts Triton for example I had no idea where Triton was um so I I looked it up when I saw it as part of our DOT District Mr news but we wanted to um include Bristol County districts so that you know people are familiar with um Fair Haven and Westport and Somerset and seon and SW and communities that are are closer to us um the one um and we're holding we're more than holding our own in this grouping of of uh districts as well the one cautionary um tale I would say is probably better to use the median in this group because we do have Taunton New Bedford and Fall River which are large Urban centers which kind of skew that the the average skew the mean um so using the median as a comparison is probably a little more accurate um to get a sense of where we fall um but we wanted to include that data for you as well all right so I think if I was sitting there my question would be so what are we really doing to address the learning loss and to make sure we're on a strong road to recovery um from the co 19 pandemic and so efforts to accelerate learning include things like ensuring great appropriate instruction occurs at each level in each building every single day across our district uh we have a strong commitment to that um we also continue to leverage Grant um and District funds to provide additional learning enrichment and support opportunities and again um those show up in things like the the middle schools uh after school programming that we've had for a number of years uh at this point it shows up in things like the acceler atomies that we've run during vacation weeks as well as during the summer um just this past August we ran literacy accelerated Academy as well as a math accelerated Academy we were able to service about just under 200 um students um you know and that's intense um several hours of instruction uh in literacy or math so we are taking action and leveraging funds um strategically so that we can can address these um challenges in addition to that last year we spent the year the curriculum Council as well as the district leadership team updating our district curriculum accommodation plan to make sure that we have clear um and effective teaching strategies to support students so that they can access grade level appropriate material um and that's being implemented this year across the district um and again we continue to focus on high quality teaching and learning so our buildings have all dug into their mcast data at the building level conducted item analyses um really trying to understand you know where we outperform the state where we're maybe not as doing as well and then more importantly why and what can we do about it does it require you know curriculum um uh um tweaks does it you know what is it that we need to do in response to it and and those decisions are um examined during common planning time and implemented by teachers and building leaders across the district we're also um Mrs Pavo and the curriculum Council worked last year to um develop a curriculum review cycle that will be in the process of implementing um moving forward and again the idea behind that is to make sure that students have high quality instructional materials um you know across the board and with that we'll answer any questions thank you thank you thank you Mr tibo for the presentation um certainly I think it's fairly good news uh for the for the dmouth public schools um great presentation and I appreciate all the data um personally I like looking at the the D data as well as um I appreciate you throwing in the Bristol County data because I thought you know if I'm a family right because all this information gets reported out to the state it's publicly available and then you have real estate agents and you have other different USA Today I think uh World reports they they rank school districts on a lot of this data and it's good to see that especially for this area from a family um looking to move into a town in in Bristol County that we're not too shabby when you look at our um our grade 10 scores actually all of our scores including our our sgps um we're holding our own in Dartmouth for sure there's definitely some work that that could be done um of no I I'm I'm just curious uh looking at the Bristol County information that um I'd love to know what Mansfield is doing and for grade 10 to get those uh U those scores of 76 and 75 um so uh just throwing that out there I'm just curious on their curriculum or something that they're doing but overall uh this is great I'm I'm I'm proud of the work that we that everyone is doing here in in Dartmouth I so I appreciate you saying that about you know what is Mansfield doing because that is something we always want to do is learn from one another in the dis in um this profession and we certainly don't um show the comparison in terms of for comp competitive sake although we are all competitive I think but it's more to do exactly what you just said is to see how we stack up and and if there are lessons to be learned from other districts we should do that one of the other points I I just wanted to highlight because I forgot to mention it um is that I do think the return on investment for education in Dartmouth is um extremely strong Mr Kylie did uh look at the per pupil expenditure uh for both the dart and for Bristol County um and dart was you know about 3% um lower than than the average in those two groups so I think that speaks to the return on investment right um bang for your buck um definitely uh is a strong point for Domin public schools and we appreciate certainly all the support that we get from the community so thank you Mr TBA thank you um so I'm curious about the additional learning opportunities and um what we need what more we need to do um do we need more teachers tutors um I'm concerned with our Esser positions is that going to take away from our ability to keep our students moving forward and catching up um uh so what are what are the hurdles um is IT personnel is it losing those people in the future so I I think um you raised some good points I think that particularly given the budget discussion that the community is going to be having I would say now is not the time to to turn away because we know that the needs are going to be here for a number of years um to come and I think it is people and it is Personnel that are servicing our students on a daily basis and I think that's the bulk of our budget is Personnel so um you know I I I I I think you rais highlight a very important Point th those are ongoing conversations that we're having and I know Mr Kylie had um presented at the last meeting a preliminary preliminary preliminary yeah um budget presentation and you know we meet about this I would say just about every day and we're meeting with principles right now to have these conversations and these are the kind of things that that we're talking about but we have a little ways to go before we're really able or ready to come forward to the community to talk about um you know what the possible challenges of of the implications of the budget could have on the schools but as Mr tbot just said the majority of our budget is human capital and so if we're looking at any significant budget cut cuts it would be to Capital and we do need people and the folks different than and what we heard earlier um from from the votch school is I mean they they obviously made wise Investments with their funds and I think Dartmouth also made wise Investments with the funds and I've said this before that at the time the immediate need here in Dartmouth was for personnel um and you heard them talk about things like they have positions family engagement there isn't a family engagement specialist here in Dartmouth um so and other things the capital Improvement I saw the nurse's office by the way and it is it is truly state-ofthe-art um and that's for student use that that isn't part of their CTE program that is really part of how Stu what students are um what they have access to and it was quite different than what we have here and that's not a terrible terrible thing it's just something for us to look at but Personnel is critical for us yeah sure thank you Mr TBO I know we kid all the time my opinion of mcast and such but I do appreciate this and and uh the students effort and everything else I am assuming that you're able to drill down to you know the finer points of this with the students and everything else and you know and I don't mean to single out the students but know exactly you know did the student have a bad day does the student not test well things of that nature and make adjustments as they as you go forward with this yeah so there's a plethora of reports that the state puts out um you can see exactly individual student performance you can see subgroup performance you can see um based on individual questions and what standards those questions are meant to measure so um that work is typically done um at the building level because every you know School uh is different grade level is different um but yes absolutely okay and you know with and as uh Mr Oliver said you know looking at you know both the Bristol County and also the uh the uh the the dart that they gave us uh you know that they compare us to uh I agree I kind of like Bristol County better only because you know you're looking at a whole bunch of different you know and you happen to mention driton type well that's a if my memory is any good that's a regional school so you have a whole bunch of different communities that are in there versus you know ad Doats or a f Haven or you know that type of deal so that's my two cents thank you madam chair Dr Jenkins so I agree with my colleagues I think this is great I really do think Dartmouth gets um real bang for its buck and in terms of what we do and what our staff do um but I do want to ask some questions about the science Technology and Engineering scores um that seems to be an area where we're struggling and I also noticed in particular that the decline at the high school level was from 22 to 23 and it was quite large and I'm you know we have science departments my colleges you know goes from the humanities and the social sciences we give us a book and a computer and we're good um to The Sciences and Engineering which are they're not just human intensive they are capital intensive you need lab supplies you need lab equipment you need the most advanced technology um I know our science and engineering and Technology teachers are excellent um is any of this a reflection of our inability to keep up with other districts in terms of the Technology and Engineering and all of that stuff in a classroom that that that they need for 21st century uh education so I think there's a lot to the science results in particular um at the high school level in particular it's only the second time we've given the Next Generation science exam so last year was the first year uh and then this was the second year um I also think that when we look at and we had a very preliminary kind of conversation uh Mrs poo myself Dr s Maguire um when we look at the elementary level we're very focused on literacy and math and not as focused on as on science um curriculum materials need to really be looked at in those areas all of those things factor into that the other thing that I noticed um was that Bristol County in general didn't do great on the science technology engineering exam so um I think that's you know there's something to that piece of it as well I don't have an answer I wish I did um but I guess um you know I I I spoke with um Mrs lson our um science Lead Teacher um her the biology team at the high school was looking into their data and really doing an analysis I don't think it's a matter of funding to be completely honest I know that our biotech lab some of our Labs Dr bangs has done a very good job leading the science department um and making sure our labs are state of the art a few years back we had the Capital skills grant that kind of um some of those funds were used to strengthen the biolab so I think it's more a combination of different factors and not just um certainly not the funding piece I don't believe so can I follow up with that too in in your presentation you noted that our students and this is my experience with my kids they take the Bio exam um are there other options for the science Technology and Engineering and like how does does that work are we comparing Apples to Apples in other communities are there multiple versions of the science technology exam um have we considered allowing students to take other options if that is a possibility so that's a good question there are multiple versions of the science test at the high school level um many schools do take biology um some schools do take a physics first approach um we don't do that that um you know that's certainly something that could be discussed um but um you know we have typically our students if they do take another version of the science uh exam it's because they have to take a retest option and they're no longer in biology so then we would have them um perhaps take a different exam other times they retake the biology and we support them either they might enroll in a marine biology class assuming they've passed bio um you know our biology class in ninth grade so um in terms of what other districts are doing I can't tell you spec I would have to look that up but I would say most of the districts are bio yeah if they're taking different tests it might be a different sort of comparison and not that it's different than right Math versus math right correct just I just want to add to your question too because I and I agree we're looking at high school we're talking about high school one thing that Mrs paa we've all had conversations about that we have not in the in the district from to my knowledge and again four months in here um we have not made a significant investment in science resources at the elementary level so those if those resources aren't there I mean we can't fault our Educators for not um teaching science with the Fidelity that we would expect and we can't expect students in ninth grade to be able to uh learn everything there is about science in their freshman and sophomore years of high school and I know Mrs paa wants to talk about this because I just saw her jump up um so I will add a couple of things to this first I just want to thank Mr tibo for um really kind of taking the Reign on This MC I've had a lot of other things that I have been um had my hands in and so I was really appreciative of him taking this on I I have a couple things to say about the science the other thing we have to remember is that science by and large is a Hands-On activ ity and the science scores across the state took a decline and I I really do believe that a a large reason for that is we had a couple of years where we weren't allowed to put our hands on anything right so the other thing we have to remember is our kids were shifting their learning and the way that they were learning from doing Hands-On activities and experiments and getting in an understanding to really having to glean that information out of a textbook from videos from Mystery Doug if you know anything about elementary science he's a he's the man at the moment um and so the other other thing you know the kids are only tested in fifth and eth grade so the test in high school obviously the test is a compilation of the topics that they would have learned over those years so we have to remember the modality and the way that they were learning was very was shifted and to Dr s McGuire's point it was shifted away from something that we had already kind of created ourselves so we haven't really gone through our our uh science team is going to go through that curriculum revision process and be looking for some high quality research-based instructional materials in the area of science um because it is an area of the curriculum that you know post pandemic we were worried about our kids reading and their math and we did a lot of integration of social studies and science into those areas but science also needs to stand alone and be able to be a subject that we teach and talk about how to integrate the ELA and the math into science right it's it's sort of a reciprocal relationship and so we have to look at all of those things but also remember that our our kids are um learning and new in different ways and we have to make sure that we have the resources and the curriculum materials that reflect that um and and give them that solid building block because that test that they take in fifth grade in eth grade in high school is not just on that one year of information it's a compilation of information all the way across so I'll just close by saying I don't disagree but right it is the only area where we fall below the median as compared to Bristol County and to other districts and so I just think it's something that you know Mr TBO said we really focused on this and we really you know we really improved I can't remember what it was I think maybe 10th grade ELA and I hope that moving forward that this that the science um uh you know curriculum the integration and the testing because there is something going on there and that is nothing about our Educators I mean I know all of our Educators they are really great um in this area my kids took a ton of science classes they love their science classes they they were really good class classes but you know I'm hopeful um given too right how much how many students want to go into stem Fields um to make sure that our students are ready and adequately prepared to enter into top level universities in those fields that's it thank you thank you any else um I guess my only um I know that the in one of my previous roles um policy and advocacy I know that some legislation that is pending for the Department of Elementary and secondary education to take the data that we provide them and to um publish it in a way that allows for cross tabulation and really spe getting into the nitty-gritty around um different groups of students um so that at at any rate we provide that data to them and I'm just just curious in terms of lumping the high need students students with disabilities students with uh socioeconomic um are we able to I heard somebody there drill down to the nitty-gritty because I know we give that data to desie and I hopefully desie will then publish it for folks to really make some more Equitable decisions in their um planning so they do publish it okay it at some point it becomes like trying to take a drink of water out of a fire hose though right because there is so much data that you can get lost in it right so that's why you notice we group the grades three through eight I could have we could be here all night we can go grade three grade four grade five you know same for our student subgroups by the grade level like there is so much data and that the department of Ed does publish it um so I guess the answer to your question is absolutely there's no shortage of data um coming from the Department of it and we are as a district examining that data yeah by subgroup yeah so I think that's part of your question and that is happening at the school level thank you thank you very much this is great thank you I do have one question and I'm not sure one last one are we internally benchmarking students in science anywhere using any kind of benchmark assessments so we yes we do the the answer is yes we do you at least at the high school level um the um the biology Team all of the teams really have common benchmark assessments that they that they give that they compare results on um so yes and as I shared um each teacher was looking at their own uh data or were about to be looking at their own data a week or so ago when I met with Mrs Larsson um and looking at the major uh strands um you know ecology Evolution um there were two others um and and so really taking a focused look at how our students performed by standard uh if you will great thank you thank you very much thank you okay thank you thank you Mr tbol Nice really wonderful job um again we know we have work to do uh so this is really just a snapshot of how we did as a school district and there's a lot to be proud of in there um and at the same time we're having conversations all the time about how do we get better because uh it's always our goal to be better than the year before because when we say we were talking about our students and our students performance levels so we'll continue to focus on that you asked about uh uh benchmarks I love that question and you know at this point at the elementary level we aren't benchmarking students in science and that's something that we need to take a look at and again going back to Dr Jenkins question about resources we do need to to some instructional resources in the district and science is definitely a priority um so do you want me to just keep going so just a couple of things that I I know I'm a broken record but Kimberly redlon will be join will be joining us November 20th as our new assistant uh director of student support services and she's going to come and introduce herself so she's going to be like you know this person we've been talking about for a number of months now she is going to be here with us on the 20th and again the broken record is we continue to seek applicants for educational support professionals that is going to be ongoing throughout the year and we're encouraging our viewers our residents if you know somebody please encourage them to apply to those positions because they're truly needed and again the same thing for our substitute situation um as far as climate and culture I had mentioned at the last meeting that I'm still working toward meeting with each of the school districts PTO I've been able to do just about all of them meet with them on an ongoing basis uh the I have the Quinn coming up but remember the main goal there is not only to meet with folks and get and get to know people and what the individual schools areas of focus are but also out of this to create a superintendent pack that will be accessible for uh School folks I mean parents across the district and similarly similarly we're doing the same thing with with our Educators um today just today uh Katie Pavo and I were at the Quinn school meeting with the school's certified staff just to talk to them again about the superintendent entry planning and how that their voice is so important and will impact the results of that entry planning and how we're really going to need them to help us help to to help to inform us as to what our next steps are Katie Pao just mentioned that she's been busy and she's had her hands in lots of different things so I want to acknowledge that work that's been done not only by Mrs Pavo but also um it's our central office staff um Jen sh masad who has been out in the hotels working to register our newcomer children and we have I would say at this point 24 26 as of Wednesday right about 24 to 26 students that have uh joined the Dartmouth Public Schools I have to say I'm incredibly heartened to see the welcome that these children these students have received from each of the schools we've been in constant contact with our school leaders and hearing from them uh that the teachers have been thrilled to welcome new children into their into their school into their classroom communities the children have also been equally welcoming uh we've been able to purchase little pocket translators so that when our students enter school they have I think it's about this big um but they have and I think we've got lanyards on them now oh not yet but we're working on it so that our youngest stud oh was that Mr Oliver did you help us with that thank you okay uh so those are going to be really helpful uh but again many of these students not all of them but many of them are learning to speak English our principles our teachers our El teachers I want to tell you have gone above and beyond to welcome our students into school and you should be proud of the work that they're doing um I know that it's not only about our students who are living in you know the the hotels not the most ideal situation but we all know that homelessness is a huge issue in our country and and so that is impacting the Dartmouth public schools and what we've had to do is spend more time thinking about what the mckin vinto ACT is how it impacts our school district and how under that act we support our students and our families the way that not only the law dictates but beyond what the law dictates doing what's right for the families that are impacted and do fall under mckin vinto so at our next school committee meeting um we have we are planning to have a presentation about mckenny vinto so that we can not only educate the public but just give everybody an update uh as to what the mckin vento ACT um actually is about and how we are supporting our students in the Dartmouth schools and so I just want to say though like on an upbeat note and that is upbeat right so we have the darmouth we we care I don't this this little newspaper is the best advertisement for the D Dartmouth Public Schools so I want to thank them because in it I picked it up and I thought well this could say the Dartmouth Public Schools so we have so much to celebrate here in Dartmouth starting right with Dartmouth Junior nabs top prize in math competition and those are equally important things to we have you know the obvious public uh the public celebration of our football team we have our band I know Mr noones is definitely going to update you on where we are with that so I won't steal any of that Thunder I've learned that along the way um uh we also have two students who have won an miaaa essay and multimedia contest and that's a state way Statewide contest and there are only two Awards in the state Tabitha cabal Elliott and Molly Cunningham are receiving in this award Thursday night at Gillette Stadium and they're receiving that award in front of 1,500 people so we have our Dartmouth High School junior step way who really wasn't expecting to win the Invitational mathematics meet at Worcester poly Institute on October 20th but he did in fact win so that is really incredible news and something I think we should all be celebrating and then as I flip through I see you Mass Dartmouth in here as well Dr Jenkins so lots to celebrate there uh Dartmouth High School art hangs in the New Bedford Gallery X so our students artwork is being highlighted celebrated um in new bedford's Gallery X has anybody been there yet I was there this weekend was a great great show high school outwork that's that's exactly what this says we have the Potter Dello kushman and Quinn Elementary Schools I love this this um headline scare up a good time at annual Halloween events and so every one of our elementary schools celebrated with their students for Halloween and I never really knew much about trunker treating but I've learned that Dartmouth is absolutely committed to trunker treating and that there is quite a bit of participation in the community and then you have because we're not done right so then we have Dartmouth fall Sports qualifies for state tournaments we have football we know we were at the football game Friday night well some of us were and it was really exciting it was a little bit of a nailbiter um I wasn't too happy with that because I had just said something that my husband said I think you just jinx them um so now I've learned not to say award until the game is over we have field hockey uh we had our boys soccer team I think played tonight this afternoon L at 4: I I don't I don't know the result do we have any updates when I came by at 5:00 it was nothing nothing yes I don't know that's what I didn't get a chance to see what quad or what you know that type of deal but our girls soccer team we know made it into the tournament and I think they lost one to nothing um yes but still something to be celebrated and then of course we have the Dartmouth High School Marching Band which I love this sweeps the regional competition at Ruckers and I know Mr noones is going to talk about what that experience is about and the reason that I share all of this with you is because I I we talk about a lot of important and serious topics here not that these aren't important and serious but these are really the things that we celebrate and the Dartmouth schools and there's so much here to be grateful for uh wonderful student body wonderful Educators here supporting our students every day and so I mean I know I'm excited to be the superintendent here I know I'm out a lot because of it but this is great because I love football I love watching the band the cheerleaders by the way they also just won their compet They just won a regional competition as well and they're in another one this week and so many of your athletes and your musicians and your Scholars are being recognized for their work across the state across the country so um that's pretty exciting thank you thank you very much um and I just want to thank you for your leadership during this time and your the team um in welcoming these new students and um your letter that you sent out to the community really set the tone um for really talking about you know the humanity and all of this and so it really it was a a source of Pride to read that letter that you put out and I just wanted to acknowledge that I also want to acknowledge I really enjoy the little details and I'm en really enjoying the the uniformity of the PowerPoint presentations I don't know if it just uh it it's there's something to be said in that really setting the tone and being that one Dartmouth and so that detail wasn't lost on me um and um the only thing I have before I turn over to my colleagues and specifically Mr noon to update us on the band um is that this Thursday will be a special ed parent advisory council meeting at 6:30 at the kushman school um and so that's all I'll share and I'll move it on to my colleagues Dr Jenkins so I just want to follow up um earlier this evening we heard from juniper I believe her name was um asking us about the trays in our cafeteria and I've been thinking about that a lot this whole meeting um and about how we think about sustainability in our district and what the efforts we undertake to do that um many districts that are larger than us that have more money than us have a person to do those sort of thing right that might report to Mr Kylie um who is a oneman band over there um but we don't at the same point in time I think her comments point out how how kids young people in particular really care about this as we all should they're leading the way on this and I think we as a committee and as a school district should recognize that and sort of bring them into the fold and have conversations about this so I'm wondering if we could maybe put this on our agenda for a future meeting um and maybe Dello could reach out to we don't have Juniper or her mom's contact information but let them know that this is going to be on the agenda um and I just think it might behoove us to think about the ways that we are doing this whether I just did a quick Google and some um some schools have their own sustainability committee that looks at the operations within the schools um some other communities Do It townwide um and do it across the town in the schools but um I really you know just want to thank Juniper for her comments tonight it really got me thinking about this um and I hope it gets us all thinking about this and I also hope it leads to some action so I appreciate you adding that and I do want to say I want to thank Mr Kylie um Miss Juniper has been awesome she wrote a letter and um I do have her mom's contact information um and Mr Kylie had been responsive um I believe also one of anyway the elementary school um in in some plans around um and I should have been more detailed I just didn't want to take up time during public comment um responsive in recognizing the um the need that Juniper really spoke to but I really appreciate your adding on that I would like that on a future agenda but I just want to thank Mr Kylie for being responsive and talking about um the planning to kind of get back to and do better in that area in terms of the uh reusable specifically to the reusable the ways in which we provided lunch during Co and all that and so yeah I really appreciate her uh leadership I couldn't do that at her age for sure thank you Mr NES thank you thank you madam chair yeah uh Dr sa mcgu talked about the sports teams in the tournament and still ongoing and so good luck she talked about the cheerleaders they took second the week before they took first this past weekend in Norton it was funny uh the assistant coach is also a band parent and I saw her in New Jersey and I knew that they had you know performed that day I says how'd you do she says we got second I said is great she came over to me after the band was done while we were packing up and everything and she went the judges made a mistake we came in first so I said well that's a good mistake to make that's the best you know those are the best ones to make type of deal uh as far as the band and all seriousness as it was in the dth weekly uh the band of America Northeast Regional two weeks ago the the 28th of uh October uh they won the they won the uh their class in the preliminaries uh and then without any props as our truck was broke down on the George Washington Bridge oh my yeah just you know and that but uh this the the students being you know well taught and you know in the right mind and right frame and knew what they had to do went out and performed anyway without them and still did an excellent job we got the props and everything and they went out in finals and uh got an 86.6 and they took all the captions in both prelims and uh in finals uh went down to metti last week uh this past Saturday uh and they got a 9805 for the seventh year in a row they've you know uh we took visual music overall and uh overall performance and general effect so we took four out of the percussion I should say uh and uh so we took four out of five you know categories type of deal the colag guide came in second and uh this week uh we're headed to uh the Lucas Oil Field Stadium uh in Indianapolis for national champions for bands of America uh the prelims are Friday and then from there if you're fortunate enough you got the semi-finals uh during the day on Saturday and finals are on uh Saturday night with the Ws technically at the moment scheduled for 11:30 so uh it I can't it is anybody looking to uh to watch it online if you not you know that that's not going uh bands of America does have a website and you can subscribe subcribe to the online Ser you know the online that they have I can't for the life of me off the top of my head remember what it is but there is a a streaming service that you can uh subscribe to so that's all I have and we'll be back early Monday thank you just lost my thank you Mr NS does anybody else have anything that they want to add uh so our next meeting is November 20th go ahead November 20th at 6 pm thank you Mr Nunes um and so with that I will um entertain a motion to go into executive session for discussion on non-instructional conf contracted service provider Madam chair make a motion we adjourn to Executive s executive session for further discussion of non-instructional contracted services and not return to open session second any discussion all in favor roll call yes yes Elizabeth Coughlin yes John N yes Shannon Jenkins yes meeting's adjourned thank you oh my goodness I [Music] do

CMS is November 10th 8:15 to 10 and then CHS is November 10th 10 to 10:45 so basically if you want you can spend the whole day if you're a veteran in our schools and go from one school to to the next we're very excited about that November 9th through the 11th if you go right outside they're in their prep week right now that the C s play the play that goes wrong is Thursday November 9th at 7 Friday November 10th at 7 and Saturday November 11th at 2 and reach out to the Canon high school office if you like tickets November 14th through the 16th is early release conferences the Harlem Wizards featuring I've been told myself will be here on Monday November 27th I do not play basketball very well um I'll be cheering on the can high school or the C Public School staff the best I can from the sidelines those tickets are going fast going so if you to see me yeah get your tickets I can't play basketball that way and I can't get hurt um the next Board of Education meeting will be held on Tuesday December 12th I'll take any questions out of superintendent's office at this time any member have a a question for the superintendent okay hearing none we'll move to the assistant superintendent report Mr Bishop thank you chair Daniels I I'll give a quick report tonight uh I want to say thank you to the members of our professional learning committee uh they are currently over at Canton Intermediate School continuing the uh final details and the preparation for our professional learning day tomorrow uh in Kon our professional learning committee consists of a number of different staff Gabrielle hes Jessica Deo Christina D JPI Stevie Giuliano Ashley lepain Robin nardini Kelly Washburn and Kathy Watson these staff members who uh represent staff across each of our schools work together to be able to develop the professional learning opportunities for our uh for our staff so it's an opportunity for us to be able to um survey our staff see what it is that they need and then our staff go into action to be able to develop the the professional learning and the professional uh training that goes along with that we're very excited about uh our Allstar cast that we're bringing forward tomorrow uh our staff are actually our our presenters along the way and we'll be inviting Justine Ginsburg tomorrow to be able to give uh the key address Justine is uh with our Farmington Valley Health District and she'll be delivering a keynote on resilient uh resilient teachers building resilient students so we're very excited about the opportunity to be able to work tomorrow to learn and also to be able to serve uh and I also wanted to be able to throw it as as our uh curriculum committee has spoken and as the board has been aware too as we've spoken about uh foundational literacy uh as well two weeks ago we had a meeting with the State Board of Education and I wanted to just share how immensely proud We were of the work of Mrs Kathy Watson um and representing the uh research work that we have done in support of literacy at the Cherry Brook Primary School the work that she and Chris Woods have worked in together to be able to to develop our program and then share it with the state was really outstanding and we got fantastic fantastic feedback that we can Pro that we can receive from them uh and we just await their uh their final determination which we hope to be able to hear by the beginning of December any questions for me any questions for Mr Bishop yes will you give us an update or something may curriculum committee what professional development entails absolutely absolutely I'd be happy to be able to provide the uh uh the list of of offerings and what not as well we'll send that out um Claud will put that in my Friday update attachment to the board thank you any other questions okay thank you okay on to the better part of the meeting a student student Representatives report Magie you want to start or okay so each of the student Representatives have pick to school to report on Simone normally reports on CHS and CMS she's not here right now so I'll read what she has I report on CIS and Juliana reports on cbps Simone has here that the play that goes wrong is on November 9th at 7 the 10th at 7 and the 11th at 2 and please come support our high school actors as they've worked immensely hard during his first quarter balancing School in the play and Friday November 10th CHS and CMS will be having their own Veterans Day celebrations for CIS David harrold International award-winning actor speaker and disability Advocate performed for all students in his solo play a little potato hard to peel he used his humor to share the highs and lows of growing up without a right hand fifth graders and their students tools for inter for emergency planning step program and this is their annual training led by kcer team the Canton Police Department in the town of Canton and as a school they collected 100 1,9 uh $380 for Leo the police dog uh congrat congratulations to Aiden Maja who was declared cis's kid Governor Adrian ran on a platform of ending racism we had a very successful fright night it was great to see so many families present student council Representatives participated in their first Cross grade level meeting last week they worked collaboratively to plan a schoolwide tour Drive for Kon Caris andc will have conferences on November 14th through the 16th even conferences on the 15th thank you mag and I'm reporting on J Primary School like Magie said and um honey the cbps mascot has been visiting um many classrooms who have earned 50 positive cards um to this dat the overall students have earned 1,187 cards that's really good um on Tuesday October 31st the kindergarteners participated in all School Halloween parade um now I'm kind of covering um the writing units that each of the grades have gone through so uh kind kindergarteners are nearing the end of their second wning unit which is called Show and Tell first graders are finalizing their first narrative pieces of writing in their unit called small moments um second graders are launching their non-fiction writing where they basically write about something that they're super passionate about and third graders are writing are in a writing unit called The Art of informational writing where they basically investigate um what authors included the so yeah very good any questions for Maggie or Juliana I think those are great reports and thank you for keeping us to date on the other schools appreciate that okay the other fun part of our meeting comes up now with Canton celebrates with Mr Moore we get to uh um acknowledge some of our some of our outstanding students I guess Mr Mr we'll start with the middle school we'll do the Thunder up to speak so um this is how it's going to work parents so so you know Mr Moore will speak about each one of the students bring students up but then after we'll get a nice Kodak moment with the whole board and your students you can take as many pictures as you want um and then we'll go from there okay Mr Moore all right well thank you very much for having me and welcome everybody uh if you've ever spoken to me you know that I am uh extremely proud of everyone at Canton middle school so to have an opportunity to continue to brag about our students is uh something I gladly welcome we have an exceptional student body who do exceptional things every single single day and these students at the from the outset of the school year or in some cases at the tail end of last year have shown themselves to really be uh doing some special things and I'm proud to be able to highlight a few of them this evening first um I would like to talk about our student council so CMS is deeply invested in student leadership and student voice uh we are not the school community that we are without our students and the student council is a very serious part of representing the entire student body bringing things to me making our school the safe special and positive place that it is this year um we and we run our students through a very challenging and rigorous election process they must campaign they must give speeches in front of the entire school and this year I believe that the um the entire uh the entire body of students who ran were the strongest candidates giving the strongest speeches that I have heard in my career they made incredible pitches they understood uh what they brought to the table and what the school needed and so I congratulate everyone who ran on an exceptional campaign season I've never seen anything like it these are the students that were elected to our executive board so first uh winning the position of our co-president I congratulate Finley [Applause] Lazer also winning position of co-president llin [Applause] odama and not to be outdone seventh graders come stepping up to the plate and saying that they needed a seat at the table and earned it winning the position of Vice President Hugh [Applause] Jacob he finally rounding out our executive board uh seventh grader with the position of secretary Archer Heath well done well earned and well and uh a great election season and there already doing great work on behalf of the school um next so if you also if you've ever spoken to me you know that uh when it comes to State assessments when it comes to tests and putting a a number to a child that is not why we get out of bed in the morning right but uh sometimes that means that we don't celebrate exceptional growth on these types of Assessments and perhaps we should so as I dove into our data there were a couple of students too that stood out as making uh exceptional growth beyond their peers a steady upward Trend no matter where they started these two students showed above and beyond exceptional growth on last year's smarter balanced assessment and they should be recognized for the hard work that goes into that because it's not something that happens by accident so first lroy sailor and also making exceptional growth uh well beyond the average of our school uh reading codo [Applause] and finally uh a student who I'm recognizing uh that the school recognizes for their leadership when it comes to social justice um Gabby oer is a leader in several organizations at our school and has been since the beginning of their middle school career uh notably at the end of last year Gabby traveled to Yukon and represented our school at a uh at a leadership conference they were a part of the student panel that's shared their experience while fighting for social justice causes and through school activism and and additionally they were instrumental in our uh in some of our schools the foundation of some of our schools most uh important and impactful clubes so I recognize for their leadership in social justice and just planed being amazing Gabby [Applause] oan I should have seen that coming I should every time so to to follow up with Mr Moore I'm going to talk about our high school um student leader right now and then we'll bring the Middle School up and then we'll get our high school student to come so I can't say I wrote this Mr pipo wrote this we're excited to honor Isabella Mesa one of our senior leaders at Canton High School as Bella was was unable to attend the previous can celebrates meeting we wanted be to be sure to recognize her contributions to our positive School culture here tonight as an officer in this for the student council Bella is a part of a team that goes out of their way to create student Le activities and to make people feel welcome she was a leader in facilitating our nth grade orientation before school even started this year and worked with her student council visor and CHS Administration to set up tours meet and greets and a general welcoming experience for incoming freshmen B was similarly invested in CHS Spirit Week by the way it was really really good that recently took place leading the student council in her senior class to an energizing and his spirited day Bella continues to demonstrate her leadership to CHS through her various roles in the drama club as they prepare for opening night of this year's ball play on Thursday Bella will be showcasing her direct directing skills as well through her ma through her C Mastery project in December by producing and directing scenes from a mid summer Night's Dream we're so thankful to Bella for her continued leadership at Canton High School congratulations [Applause] Bella so I just want to say before we do the photos first of all I want to thank the parents because these students really become the core of what we do here and I want to urge you all to continue to Fan the fire that you've already ignited with these students and then to the students we sit here because of you we we stand we sit at these meetings because we're thinking about you and you by being here tonight encourage us that's what makes us excited about Board of Education meetings when we see what's going on with all of you so again thank you very much now take the I think we got to learn from last time that the board every all the board members have to come up and then we'll start with the middle school students so Middle School students you can come on up too Mr Mo we're you watch this all people in the back brings back all the memories maybe we can get in front of this thing you got a picture okay everybody good I'm gonna move here may parents will stand here as long as you want oh the professional is here sir the most important one right now is the one in the Middle with K who's got her hands up in there all right okay now anybody could do whatever need everybody good okay let's get our high school student I don't know if we should get a picture or an [Music] autograph good K we need one more okay all [Music] set you got the whole board this change tomorrow might be for the scrap else all right you all look good three two one wonderful thank youbody okay all that excitement promotion okay right now we get back [Applause] to you're not staying for the caterer what that all right um let's let's turn to uh Mrs Mrs Kowski uh to hear our October financials please okay well uh this should be relatively quick as we had a very detailed finance committee meeting this morning that went over um everything and in in Prett detail so I was just going to say that the uh expected yearend variance right now and early in the year so this could change uh when we the other but right now it's 93,000 uh unfavorable at this point and that's taking into U account an estimate of uh any kind of Billings that we get back from the Hartford school district and uh also an additional excess cost reimbursement that we would anticipate from the budget 80% um to about 88% so um I think that was about as much detail as I was going to go in for this meeting unless Russ has something to add Russell um no so um at today's meeting we've approved the es financials which Don just covered um and then we also approved Dr Gman to begin the search for the math coach which is going to happen immediately math coach for CMS for CS and CHS n CHS okay great okay uh any other any questions on the financials we seem that we're only 3 months in so uh we're moving along and it's exactly as Dr Gman had presented to the board of Finance I think we're tracking pretty close to that right now so okay all right thank you Donna okay this is the part of uh our program that we go to public com and um um I'm just going to read this um our goal here is a partnership of community engagement we enhance communication Pathways for student staff and the community in order to build responsive supportive connections for all c community engagement and attendance at Boe meetings is welcom the public comment segment of the meeting agenda is set aside so the Board of Education may receive public comments procedurally public remarks will be limited to 3 minutes and citizens will be asked to identify themselves name address please because the board of education is limited by the Freedom of Information Act that discussing only matters on the agenda so don't feel don't take it personally if we can't respond back to you because you're going to give us comments we'll take that into into consideration but we cannot comment back because it's not on our agenda for time be the board of education is not permitted to engage in discussion of the comments presented so that's just a procedural com comment so having said that would anybody like to speak to public comment yes and Andrew ly for fine ACR drive thank you and it's came to the board tonight I wanted to show this to the board it's a packet called America's Heroes there's 20 Pages here and one individual per page that it talks about and really it's kind of the better title is kind of a better uh it's better titled America's forgotten Heroes because some of these individuals used to be in our history books from what I understand going back Century maybe century and a half and they were removed at some point from the history books and no one today really knows their names so I got this from an organization out of Texas called wall Builders and they're dedicated to teaching America's forgotten history and I thought this would be a wonderful wonderful tool to have in our at least in our High School classrooms not so much Elementary School there's nothing graphic in here at all certainly is age appropriate but I don't know how much the kids would understand at the elementary level but certainly Middle School maybe Intermediate School and definitely high school and I wouldn't say these Americans these these forgotten American Heroes need to be in the curriculum wouldn't be opposed to that but you know at the very least could the uh history teacher at the start of the class just pull up one just a front and a back sources cited at the bottom of each page and just read it to the class and expose the class to whoever the individual is on the page and some men some women all black Americans who have either never were in America's history books despite their stories being absolutely incredible or they were at some point and they were removed so I think this would be a wonderful tool um I think the fastest way if the it's something the board wanted for the classrooms and the administration wanted for the classrooms I could loan this copy this this pack of to you and you just make photo copies of it and you can have many photo copies as you want obviously but I wanted to read just a a few of the handful of the names and just a couple words about what they did I'm not going to read the whole thing um this this first woman right here uh Stage Coach Mary Fields 1832 to 1914 she lived she was America's first black female US postal carrier Phyllis Wheatley 1753 to 1784 America's first black poetess uh let me see another one here uh blanch Kelo Bruce 1841 to 1898 he was the first black man to preside over the US Senate James armistad his story is incredible it's one of my daughter's favorites I told I told this story to her um he's uh lived 1748 to 1830 he was America's first double spy back American Revolution um let's see George Richard Patterson America's first black uh was him and his family but America's first black family to manufacture Automobiles and there's one more and if you want to know more about him I'm assuming it's going to be accurate um all these stories could be made in the movies all incredible stories um but there's one actually going to be made into a miniseries bass Reeves so if you search bass Reeves trailer on YouTube you'll find the trailer it's actually coming out on Paramount I think this month but he lived 1838 to 1910 he was America's first black us Deputy Marshall in the west I think there's a series on Netflix for that right now I was coming out on Paramount plus oh Paramount plus I'm Sor sometime this month I think it started Sunday night did it start see I'm behind I need to watch it cuz the trailer the trailer looks amazing so I recommend checking the trailer out thank you um so yeah something that board's interested in if you wanted to take the packet read it over leave it with Mr if you leave it with Mr Bishop we'll get it back here we can uh and then he can make copies and we can uh move it through curriculum just to take a look yeah perfect thank you very much that's all I got and Andrew is one of our hometown veterans so thank you thank you very much appreciate I put sir your name and address please yes uh my name is Step jams I live at 117 Bunker Hill Road my wife and I have lived in Canton since 1980 and our daughters graduated from the school system and they're all employed and productive citizens thank you very much um I I'm not sure of what the security Protocols are that are being taken at this time to protect our children but I think it would be when I was driving by Cherry Brook School on the day or the days of the incidents there was a patrol car parked at the entrance to the school and I didn't know why but I think it would be wise if there were a patrol car and an officer parked at the entrance to every school Whenever there are students at the school to prevent people from thinking about coming in to do harm to your children and to also be there if somebody does decide to do arm to your children rather than being four or five minutes away I don't know rotate the officers through the day so that nobody gets stale and nobody gets bored or complacent but that's it I think there should be an officer at the gate thank you very much thank you Mr Jinx thanks for coming to all of you appreciate it thank you anybody else in the audience would like to speak for public comments all right seeing none we'll go to online sure anybody online online would like to speak if you're joining us online you can go ahead and use the raise hand feature of zoom and I will call on you by your Zoom name if you'd like to make public comment I don't have any raised hands okay all right well thank you all thanks for the comments that we had uh we appreciate it and um we'll move into Old business I don't think there is any old business right for to deal with Okay so let's go to new business and uh first up is uh showcase schools Canton Middle School is that Mr Morgan it is yes sir all right our students and teacher were hard at work preparing and they were trying to time it appropriately they are here and I have sent that text accordingly um while they are making their way down um I can get started and actually I'm starting with you if that's all right who's in control of our slides here all right we'll put you to work cover point in your packet tonight to board members thank you and here comes your students more so as they are settling in Canton Middle School is heavily focused on or always focused on engaging all Learners and making sure that we have authentic learning experiences happening all right just to quickly illustrate tell about that concept of authentic learning or what it is to be engaged I have a quick math question for the board give it a Russell 10 divided by two is it two or five five excellent can go home well done if I could ask that in a slightly different way could you give me an example real or made up in which you would need to divide 10 by two and I'm going to look for two volunteers here please give me an example from real life even if you need to make it up in which 10 would need to be divided by two I'm going give them give you a moment to think Russell math person I have 10 cookies and I want to give some to Juliana and I want to keep some to myself and so you're going to give her you're going to give her half how many do you keep I keep five x one more my my wife does this with my food portions every night you took 10 cookies and she says this is a low-level example but I I would ask you to think for just a moment if when I asked the first one how many of you may have checked out or we quickly put it to someone else and we just kind of waited for the answer to come and even the person answering the question the amount of turning in your mind was probably pretty quick you did the math problem but your engagement was low and if you weren't for some reason invested in that math question in that wrote practice you were able to opt out of the entire process but when I asked for some volunteers I asked the exact same math question just in a slightly different way you probably had some sort of a reaction to it which was oh my God I hope he doesn't call on me or you started to think okay when would I take 10 when I divide by two all right probably much more likely than in the first this is a bad example a low-level example of a very important Concept in education Educators have a few variables at our disposal and it's basically our words and our time what do we choose to say and have students do every minute of the class period and we can ask it in one way or another inauthentically or authentically and the response we get from our students can be dramatically different same math problem the way we ask our students to engage in it a person with much better examples than I could provide you with because that's the best I could do is Miss Ashley the pain canton's teacher of the year and Canton Middle School's Science teacher on team hybrid so I'd love to invite her and some of the Stu some of our students up to talk to you a little bit more about such authentic learning experiences at Canton Middle School Miss Le hello good evening thank you Mr Moore my name is Ashley leaine and I'm the team hybrid science teacher um and so K if you could for me so I've been doing a little bit of research just to kind of get the grasp of what student engagement really is and it's that mental state students are in while learning representing the intersection of feeling and learning and thinking and then I also found an interesting one where student engagement refers to the degree of attention curiosity interest optimism and passion that students show while they are learning or being taught and so in the next slide I kind of took both of those and I put them together and I found wow student engagement in my brain you know you get a little caught up sometimes with teaching I was thinking you know students you know quietly paying attention during their classwork and it's just so much more than that it's students invested in learning through authentic experiences in the classroom so I have a few examples Today Show you um one in seventh grade and one in eighth grade and so I've been looking at the two Dimensions sort of of student engagement with un the left being that commitment and motivation piece what are the students intellectually doing how behaviorally in the classroom are we supporting them through being curious and making those Active Learning connections and finally with that emotional connection what am I doing with my students to really connect with them in the classroom and make them feel you know supported as they're learning and on the right side how do I structure the classroom how are students engaging with each other how are students engaging in the content and how are students engaging with me and so at SC in science at Canton Middle School we are providing opportunities for student ownership with authentic tasks through both independent and collaborative activities we are encouraging deeper learning with creativity through the application of learning in real world contexts and creativity based projects you know it kind of seems like sometimes everything has been thought of and what I'm really trying to encourage with my students is that that creativity is still there you are still able to create so many new things and I'm trying to also kind of squeeze in there those embedded tasks of writing CL claim evidence and reasoning statements Gathering data graphing data analyzing that data so that they can act as real scientists even in a middle school classroom so for my seventh grade example you guys want to come on over so this is the students first real daily science class and so my my goal for them is to really come in as authentic scientists being able to actually do science and so what we're trying to do is understand the scientific method and undergo experiments so today they're going to talk a little bit about the magic sponge lab that they uh did in late September I'm Hannah AB I'm Jules Mary I'm Kon chunky and I'm Bridget Rodriguez okay so we started our magic spun lab by making sides with our data and our work this is like mine and so the first slide we did was our hypothesis slide which was which is this is our hypothesis if you put the magic animal in the water the water temp and the different water of temperatur is hot and cold then the creature will stay the same by because it will absorb the water and not the Heat or the coldness the thing we changed in our experiment which was the independent variable which was the water temperature so we Ed the magic sponges to create an experiment hold on actually can they come out can there thank you sorry girl that's okay um we use the magic sponges to create an experiment in which we put the sponge capsules in different temperatured water as you can see from the dated chart okay um from the data chart we graphed all the times and temperatures you could see that the hot water made the sponge capsules grow the fastest with an average of 36 seconds to grow in the hot water um and once you get all the data you need to put it in a graph which looks like this and since the colder one took longer time it needs a be bigger bar and since the hotter one took less time it should have a smaller bar and then and then once you do your graph it leads to the CER after all of that you get to put it into a CER a CER is claim evidence and reasoning the claim for magic sponge cerss is the most effective temperature for magic sponge capsules is hot water the reasoning is for that because the hot water melted the gelatin way faster than the cold water thank you for listening they did such an awesome job talking science and doing science I'm really proud of them they done a great job so with my eighth graders if you guys want to come up so we're kind of beefing up the science a little bit and I've been really talking to them about you know how do we create things and and research science in such a googleable and AI world and so what they are going to talk about now is taking science and applying it and creating something new with an element superhero project hi I'm Eva and me and we are doing and and we are doing a element superhero and we're creating a superhero based off of an element of our choice so I am doing a superhero named Phil Phil is based off the element of calcium because calcium is found in teeth so Phil is a dentist and Phil was bitten by a radioactive piece of dentures and then he has he got superpowers and and his he uses toothbrushes and Dentures to fight crime and not only do we create a superhero but we also learn about the history of the element like my element calcium was discovered in 1808 by Sir Humphrey Davey and it was originally calcium oxide and it was heated up by limestones and that's just like a little bit about my element and yasmine's going to tell you a little bit about hers Okay so my element is thallium it is found in electronics and poison um I decided to do a villain for my project because I don't know I just decided to um so a little backstory about mine um mine was discovered in 1861 by Sir William Kooks by um he burnt dust from sulfuric acid although I'm not done researching I still um I'm not done researching so when I'm done researching I'm going to create the perfect example okay we learned how to locate elements on the periodic table by groups and periods we also learned about valence electrons and electron orbitals and before we did all that too we also figured out how to locate an element on the table how to find the protons and electrons and how to use the protons and electrons to calculate the number of neutrons and Miss Le she's a great teacher because something like this could be really hard for people if they just take one glance of it but miss Le really makes sure to make it less scary and more fun so it's easier to learn uh she makes it fun and time flies by when we're in her class and I would like to end this with an element joke but all of mine are are gone thank [Applause] you oh my goodness I swear I'm not also teaching them stand up science comedy that just happened but um so in my last slide just a really overarching goal at Canton metal school is through engagement students will have greater emotional investment in their learning and they're just going to have extended curiosity that continues Way Beyond Cherry Brook and CIS um encouraging creativity problem solving and out of thebox thinking to really deepen learning so that they can have these skills for life to really tackle all of our Lives problems it's promoting choice and how students demonstrate their their learning and different differentiation in a non neurotypical world you know we need to be able to solve problems in so many ways and I think engagement and really trying to have them be creative is a great way to do that so thank you guys so much can we can we bring the students back up maybe get a picture with the board for our uh for our newsletter if the students could come back up take one more picture yeah how about that why don't you guys if you just watch the CHS if stand in the front and the boorder will squish it behind you and this will be great right how about right back here so we get just watch the cords that's all be great for a newsletter right you're all in there you're good all right ad [Music] so when you get your diplomas in high school you can say you're front of the Board of Education all right we'll compare that picture thank you very much any before you leave any any questions by the board members um to any of the students any questions I thought it was extremely informative and you made actually science fun for me and it's hard to do so thank you very much okay thank you okay so Mr Moore you're still on Canton Middle School continuous Improvement plan please absolutely so I would just like to thank Miss Le and thank you to those students for presenting to you uh tonight um embedded in there is just a great example of the type of things that happen every day at at Canton Middle School um I am confident that when people walk through our halls and walk into our classrooms as you will be as you're invited to on Wednesday you're going to see that type of activity in the different content areas uh taught at the different levels but learning at C Middle School is uh we're really focusing on that authentic learning that engagement and really making sure that we've got uh an unwavering focus on every student grow and in learning like that you can meet a student where they are at and challenge them appropriately uh and whereas in my in my bad math example if you had that skill mastered it was too easy for you and if it was too hard for you you you don't have an entry point the type of teaching and learning that Miss leine and the students were just demonstrating has an entry point for every student is challenging and rigorous for every student and is going to push their scientific mathematic organizational writing skills um and that's the type of thing that we're focused on as a school so our Improvement plan speaks to um those components to make sure that uh that learning is authentic rigorous challenging for all and that students are growing we meet them where they are and they're Improvement so um we have call that up here um we have six areas of focus that are in line with uh the the district goals and the first one is on student growth and achievement our overall goal is for students to improve on their um assessments uh students will improve their reading and math skills and the primary measure for that will be on the Spring State assessments the smarter balance assessment um specifically um we're looking to have every student's average growth Target be 75% or greater the average growth Target achieved which again I look forward to I can dive deeper into what that that means but in short we've had a history of focusing on proficiency specifically the sentence proficient and above is one that has dominated The Narrative who is if you remember if you remember the state assessments for a long time they've been four performance levels one and two are either uh you know below standard or approaching and then three and four proficient or exceeding and we' talked about the percent at proficient and above we will continue to focus on that because every student uh we we love them all to be proficient but I love the changing narrative at the middle school which is to say that every student is growing no matter where you are you are improving so to do that we're going to make sure that we uh create a uh a turnaround plan as part of the commissioner's Network right so uh this idea of growth um is a particular area Focus because we were identified by the State Department of Education as having a lower than expected growth grade or the average growth Target achieved for students in Canton Middle School at present it was focused on uh Ela and our high need students but it pointed out that our growth rate for all students could be and should be higher so that's where that comes from and we opted to join the planning year of the commissioner's Network I've been very grateful that we made that decision as partnering with the state to form a turnaround committee to do a an audit uh an audit which included a site visit from two representatives from the state Department of Education and now the self-re self-reflection process begins of if we have great teachers doing great teaching like what you just saw and students aren't growing as much as they could we have a challenge that we are excited to grab hold of and and and go straight at so we are uh in the first couple months of this turnaround process and engaging in the self-reflection and one of our goals for the year is to create a plan by the end of the year of what we can do both right now and in the coming years years to make sure that every student is um exceeding the growth that the state might expect uh of them we will um as part of that formatively assess students using our available formative assessments the key ones being star and a renewed focus on the interim block assessments teacher plans and Department plans will align with that idea of know where your student is and make sure that instruction and curriculum is adjusted appropriately to move them forward and we will uh increase the targeted academic support based upon that formative data when I know where you're at what am I doing to make sure that you're moving to your next most appropriate step so those are our our key areas uh of uh key action steps in summary surrounding student growth and achievement moving to Partnerships and Community engagement our goal is to celebrate and engage our school community Through increased partnership and improve uh improv effective communication we want to make sure that parents feel uh connected to our school and uh communicate with in a proactive manner one way that that will happen that's unique to this year is that there's parent participation in the turnaround committee there's also the teachers all have allet goals related to proactive communication between school and home and uh maintenance maintenance of some uh teacher websites which have been revised based upon parent and Community feedback we're also looking to make sure that we have um increasing and really relevant and meaningful community events both here in the building here in Canton and in Hartford and then finally on this slide uh our third area of focus is financial s sustainability and efficient operations in which our goal is to create a forecasting model to anticipate and meet the needs of students as part of that we'll make sure that we're utilizing all the the data around class projections and capital needs to make long-term plans for things like textbook uh Capital Improvements and uh and equip so we'll make sure we're forecasting out in those areas and we'll analyze student achievement data and uh and create a turnaround plan part of which will be recommendations for appropriate Staffing and [Applause] support our other three uh uh categories are the learning environment and belonging in which our goal is to foster a safe and positive learning environment that encourages students to demonstrate and strengthen the attributes of a Canton vision of a graduate and as part of that we will make sure that we continue to rely upon our successful advisory program enhancing it with the skill of resiliency you heard that that will be one of the focus areas for teachers tomorrow um this idea of being resilient and flexible meeting a challenge doing hard work and persevering through it it's important for our staff it's important for our students and we're infusing that into our advisory program and uh that work will also be informed by the Desa results we will uh increase restorative practices and Infuse the CMS way into um our you know more fully into our school through things like town halls and celebrations making sure we have a purposeful intentional and continuous plan to tell students or help students understand and taught as needed the expectations of our school and our community and then celebrating them when they're doing that thus promoting more of that behavior in the meantime we will um also embed the vision of a of a graduate into our curriculum instruction and assessment to embrace diversity we our goal is to continue to foster a safe inclusive and responsive School environment in which all students are seen and valued so they can do their personal best and in this area we're really focusing on student leadership and student voice making sure that students are empowered to lead through both uh in-class activities and extracurriculars the students that were here uh a student a class lesson that asks the student to design the lab they are not just reciting what it has been told to them previously they are creating they are owning they're developing and in that is choice and voice you heard the students mention that so we want to make sure that our instruction is both culturally responsive and personally responsive to everyone's individual level meeting them where they're at and challenging them appropriately and then also extracurriculars like the student council Representatives that we are proud to to celebrate tonight as well as some new opportunities such as our newly initiated excuse me our newly initiated Warrior Squad which is uh as we were listening to student feedback the work I mentioned earlier about promoting the CMS way of uh choosing kindness selecting respect and making responsible choices I was doing a lot of thinking about those values and how to celebrate students and promote them doing it and we and we realized that students weren't necessarily involved in those decisions and that work so the warrior Squad is going to be the way for student leaders to be involved in that work both in the building and in the community spreading a positive culture both here and through community service um and then also we will we will review School climate survey data and results to ensure that uh our instruction is responsive to meet students where they are and finally the last category of goal is uh Workforce Development and we're going to build the capacity of all Educators through a focus on data informed instruction and intervention so as I've been talking about that that unabashed focus on growth we need to make sure that teachers are well trained in the tools that provide data that would then allow them to adjust their instruction and then have the support to implement that that instruction so utilize informative assessments to uh inform data team meetings and student stent intervention processes and providing professional development to all staff to build the cap build capacity in this Focus area of uh growing students one step at a time so that's a quick overview of the six uh six goal areas aligned with our district goals and the action steps that we're committed to and that are already in many in many areas already up and running to help us achieve them and have a really great school year I'm happy to answer any questions you might have all right so let's uh let's start off with uh student growth and achievement any questions so I I would uh I I'll I'll kick it off a little bit do comments or questions only question questions and comments you have question or comment please go ahead you can go first go ahead well I mean c certainly so for two years now we've been watching and it's not just sitting at cms's doors but we've we been seeing uh we we would like to get back to our days we've been leading in our Durk and we're not there yet and we we've actually we we recognize there's been some improvement right but there has to be the the Improvement we we've gone from here to there and we have to get up here more our trajectory has to be more in this direction give give me some sense that uh cuz I in some ways I feel that we've lost a couple years because two years ago we started in and we had different data analysis we had star and we had the other one and I think the board was totally confused by by that we didn't know which one we were going to choose now we're in the star G give me some um some confidence that that we're going to continue to move in a in a more rapid trajectory because I don't want to lose another two years yeah that that's that's fair and I think it's the it is um I think it's been it's it has been the work always for all these teach teachers to serve students well and then to answer the question that is being posed here if we have Miss leay throughout Canton middle school and are doing great work and still getting those results we need to have like unfiltered conversations about what's what's missing right what is missing and the decision to proactively partner with the state to do that is really that idea of pulling the curtain back and getting into it and answering the question of so if great teachers are doing great work then it has has to be somewhere in what DEC you know what's being covered at what time in the right order for the right amount of time so we need to engage in some curricular analysis and then we need to make sure that we're doing best practices and doing them all the time I also think that we've underinvested in the interim assessments which are aligned with Smarter Balance which when they came out a few years ago pre- pandemic they were simply a practice tool and we didn't revisit them once we were disrupted we hadn't gone back to them because of that experience before we didn't know know or understand the value part of our learning right now is learning the value of those blocks which should point out some of the curricular either gaps or areas to accelerate to go even faster or remediate to build up a student in an area an area of weakness so we we've as we've been talking about star for two years we've been building our Mastery with it and those of you who are able to come on Wednesday will be able to see and and peek under the hood of our intervention process and how that keeps us focused on standards and how those should inform and ruction especially when a student is is struggling and then this will be a new piece for us because uh we still need to make sure that we're moving quickly so what are we missing and I I believe that the inim assessment blocks which are aligned with the smarter balance assessment will be the next key to unlocking the decisions that we make and making sure that they're strategic and efficient so kids are growing even faster and then the last thing I'll mention just in terms of leading the dir is not the work that we are doing with the state We are Becoming leaders in understanding the smarter balanced assessment which admittedly but I think that some of my colleagues from surrounding towns that they were standing here are just kind of like look our comfort level with the CMT because it was paper and we would sit there and as as the kids took it we would read along with it the CMT was a flawed assessment as our all summi of Assessments in a way but our familiarity with the old CMT was way higher than we've ever had with a smarter Balan assessment taken on a computer screen that is differentiated for the student our knowledge of it I'll give you a great example we were flaged for for the our growth Target I had to ask the question well what's the growth Target what's the growth Target and I'll tell you we got mixed answers at first and really had to dig into and I can tell you now with certainty how the data was was designed how they're making how they turn the four four bands into eight buckets and then they're looking for students to move from one bucket to another and I can tell you about how they gathered the data in 2014 to get you to the 60th percentile of the next bucket right we are now informing other towns who are also struggling in different ways this is where the state's focus is Shifting away from proficiency and growth and we're leading the way and understanding how we can teach to that which is frankly more in line with the values that I have our teachers have and I think we have here in Canon proficiency is excellent and we we need to lead there but growth of all student you're not justy to move a real risk of the proficiency conversation was the the kids on the cusp you could move percentages it can't middle school every kid is a percentage right with with just the class size if you're focusing on moving the twos to threes you're forgetting about ones and fors and that's not right a growth mindset and understanding exactly what's being asked of us and knowing that our work is doing that intentionally We are Becoming leaders in I know the behind the scenes stuff that I never knew before and that's translating into our instruction sure and that all sounds good and that's why this board's investing in you even further by this additional add to staff with the math coach intervention person that uh the superintendent has um has been behind but um we're hoping to see that growth and not just at CMS but across the board this is not just at your doorstep but uh the superintendent knows that this board is more now involved and interested and how we begin to move that needle but we we don't want to do it at the expense of you know we're beating the kids up for testing and all the other things that go on with that so there has to be a balance but we still have to achieve the the academic uh growth that we're looking for and and I I truly believe Jeff you're the right guy for it yeah I mean I hope so and I share the sentiment I am hungry to bring you results that are that are reflective of our amazing students and amazing teachers I won't do it at the expense of the Humanity of our kids and the belief that every kid deserves a childhood we can do this in a balanced way that's about I see you I know what you need I can help you get there and we can do it like a superhero element project where they were having fun at the same time we can do both of those things and and I'm I I I also hope to bring you those results so what what you heard principal Moore say and you'll hear all them administrat there there's a sense of urgency here folks and there needs to be that balance of urgency and where we are with um student achievement the middle school being involved in the commissioner Network school not only is going to help our Middle School it's going to help all our schools and if we get selected to be a commissioner's Network School this year is the planning phase but if the middle school gets selected to be a commissioner's Network school there could be a significant amount of money that is poured in to the middle school that will also benefit all our schools relative to staff and professional development so I I I got to commend Mr Moore for I'm not sure Mr Moore you could have said the growth model as well as you said the growth model when I first started here in July so it's clear the the the professional learning that Mr Moore and his staff are getting is getting there and they've been here two or three times so I think that's a fair question by the chair thank you Kim you had a question there's more comments comment please do I need a couple minutes I have a I have a comment um yeah my this is something I mean I'm kind of going to flip it on this because I respect the work that Jeff I get what he's doing and I don't want to negate what he's doing in in the commissioner Network turnaround but I feel like I think of this differently because I don't know if you take this cohort of eighth graders for example you know we're talking all about Middle School what we're going to do now and that that's critical because there has to be growth for these students but but I caution us because that's that's one part of it but there's another big part and it starts at preschool in kindergarten and this cohort if you take the eighth graders for example I'm just using them they started out as the first Canton kindergarten class they were supposed to go to kindergarten full day and they weren't the first Canton full day class so we're sitting here with very concerning results and yet they were our first kindergarten class um I wrote some not um the foundation really begins and CH you know um we missing leadership there uh when this eight group of eighth graders was in kindergarten the you know phic awareness phonological awareness that should have been in place it wasn't um the science of reading is the new term that the state uses science of reading it sounds great and it is current and new but these students should have had phological awareness phic awareness from day one those are our eth graders right now who are struggling and they did not have what they needed in kindergarten so to look at the middle school right now and be be looking at you know zoning on these teachers in this school and this principal you know it's it's true not though I mean I think it's important to set the tone that children's learning it it it it can blow up as a volcano in 70th grade if you don't have the the foundation you know um now there's the science of reading coming into play but we need high quality teachers at the early age just like we do at the middle school um accountability the math program I believe this eighth grade cohort they were one of the first classes to have the new Switch of math program that's another thing that I read flagged in my notes technology use when they were in second grade we went one to one with Chromebooks um you know a lot of what I'm saying is not just new to C it's not it's not an attack on Canon it's the educational system across our country and you know technology Us in grade 2 that they threw the Chromebook in there with one toone use um you know CH we need to think about brain development children's brains how they develop some of the things this group of seventh and eighth graders is doing their childhood has been very very different than than grads before them you know I I question you know is it is it a a educational system problem not just in Canton but everywhere you know you think about their brains and how they work the online games that they're doing at school a lot of learning is through online games I caution us using this there's a dopamine effect you you do these games um for reading and learning it's not as active engagement we just heard a presentation about active engagement putting children on games I will not mention what they are but like the learning programs in school are not as active engagement as real high quality teachers delivering active engagement lessons I wrote that down about online learning and and what not to mention that this age group is one of the first age groups that has come out where the technology of what they use outside of school I think is impacting their brains impacting their learning impacting their development um we need to make sure that CH children leave C being able to read and write and have strong mathematical skills and be critical thinkers so I'm concerned that we're going to go into continue on with quantity not quality and I and I just I think we need to give children students a chance to like I pause think and digest I think we're pushing very hard in our country in our culture of Education that they're not getting a solid bras on things in that foundation and then you have pockets of Mis learning so that's just my speech it's almost in support of you Jeff that this problem didn't just it it it landed at you but I think it's been you know I I appreciate your comments I I think Erica heard it and curriculum I think that's a good place to to continue to vet this John heard it so but I appreciate your comments thank you I'm a little passionate about it but that's good that's what we want Erica um I was just going to ask about the interim assessments that you were talking about um have they been implemented so far this year or are they is this something in the pipe coming down cor yeah we you we gave the star as a fall assessment star goes fall winter spring and then throughout our goal is to fit in three for each content area roughly November December January or or or therein we're trying to align them as best as possible with units so they don't feel like just another thing and that's work that we will probably do we're going to do as well as we can this year excuse me but um without without it would be untrue to say that we have a masterful understanding of exactly where to place them and where they best are but we will give them with Fidelity this year and deepen our understanding of them so that that that assessment calendar for the year is happening okay and those those interim assessments are preparation for the aspect yes right where that they were born of kind of uh question types and content examples that are precursors to the summative but what they've deepened over the past few years is a reporting mechanism so a student can take a practice in a particular math area and then get out a report of these were the this student or these this group five strongest questions five weakest questions and then we can do a deep dive into this we can accelerate here we should do some reteaching here and if there's a student that need if we can't ret these particular things in the class how do we utilize our Tutors or other resources um during school after school to give the students that foundation so okay and those assessments the are the I don't know if assessment is the right word but those practices W haven't been implemented since since preco correct yep Dr Gman was a champion of giving that and uh a a downside to them at the time is that they were just practice and then as we were investing in Star as a feedback tool that paid dividends and shouldn't go anywhere that all continues to be a very useful tool for us this uh as we work with the state and as I look at the problem and try to understand the solution that seems to be like that could be a critical component okay so this should help as early as next year's as assessments that is my goal my goal is to bring you increased scores this year okay thank you Mr Mor two quick questions for you um first is you know obviously in order to get where we're going we need to know where we've been I I understand we're just sort of sifting through the process now but from your perspective and Kim on her perspective on it but where do you and the administration see that we've maybe taken some missteps to get to this point in the first but maybe not mean missteps is the wrong word but where have we sort of aired that we're having to have this conversation in the first place we're done right now where have we aired so I haven't I haven't framed it in that way uh I think that we are obviously operating in a context of just a shifting world right and so have we have we adjusted accordingly I feel like also um maybe personally I see great teachers doing great things on a daily basis and have been known to say the sentence of you I'm not a principal because of the smart to balanced assessment right and I think that the there is a renewed we must lead with intent right we and like the that can be true and we can be focused on this particular outcome because if we're doing this good good work we will see these outcomes so I think I'm certainly feeling a shift within myself that I don't know was an error I don't mind maybe er er we're saying that we have to do something different right or that we have to change something I think that we have an absolutely solid foundation a better than average Foundation like great you come and see you will see the great teachers doing great things and the state was blown away by the people in the building the right people are there and we have amazing kids have we been focusing on the right data to inform especially intervention and support that's probably the biggest miss that I have not put as a champion as a key focus of mine and that's shifting and you know I want to commend you on your and your commitment to not teaching the test and that sort of as an add-on to that how do we you know how do we show off in a similar way to the metrics right how do we show off in a similar way to the metrics how we're doing at on these sort of intangibles right that again that I think are are frankly more important than test but they're important to us here in Kenton the state OB looks at different things how do we show off in a way that that people who are number Centric or data driven can appreciate sure I I mean question that I think that I think that one of the best places to look for that would be how many families have kids that like middle school or sometimes love Middle School I work in a middle school because that was not my experience right I look back in those as as somewhat pained years and going through a school system that I think largely was just like I don't know do your thing and I think Kon middle school has an incredible community and kids that come home and it's not perfect and nor nor is every day it's not going to be Challenge free but it is an intangible that's told through the stories of our kids that I think love their middle school experience and look back on it fondly and as you see our weekly updates and see all the incredible things happening very few none of those updates are about test taking skills right it's about it's about a life in a community that I'm really proud of and I think that kids are doing well within uh so I think we tell the story through all those other things through the soccer game through all the fun stuff that's happening and the fact that kids are resonating with it and they're like they're well poised to be challenged in this particular way without taking away any of those other things no let's let's keep amplifying that message I think it's fantastic Mr shyler has a question yeah I look forward to hearing in more detail on Wednesday and I should preface it by saying Middle School hadn't been invented yet when I was in seventh and eighth grade so I didn't have a bad experience there uh I I I like what you said uh in terms of we don't have to become test prep University to improve test scores good instruction that takes the test into consideration results in learning and good test scores um and like that you've said it Ryan said it it's important to always keep that in mind because teaching to the test frequently gets the opposite result uh but ignoring the test you know also causes a problem so you need to need to find the PATH there I was sort of shocked to hear that that your colleagues haven't taken apart the esack test it's been around for a decade you know I'm not certain what everyone's been waiting for uh so I'm glad to hear that that's being done as well uh do your and I hope on Wednesday you'll explain average growth Target so that I could understand it don't ask me I don't have enough time tonight I I can go deep please don't do it now um do teachers have learning goals associated with achievement so yes we have a whole school learning indicator in which this goal is one that we are committed to as an entire Community I will mention though that I did not mandate the that metric as a teachers's student learning objective because it seems uh it does not seem relevant yet a thing that we are still learning how to get to is not yet immediately motivating so every teacher goal is focused on growth most of them are using star something that we've mastered over the last two years that I can look at and more immediately say I know what that means and therefore I can do this better by the students so our whole school is committed to this as an outcome but individual teacher instructional goals are more tied to metrics that we have more familiarity with at this point probably will be in the future though and and we're a marking period in what are you seeing uh we are seeing we're seeing again another great school year with great kids doing great things we're seeing areas for for growth see with a growth mindset what I'm seeing is opportunity I'm seeing students that at this point I couldn't tell you if we're seeing like a stronger group they're well on their way the fall data points are in we've worked as an entire staff to go through them and we know how that impacts our upcoming units and the support that students need so I'm seeing to start the year off we know where our kids are at and we are getting better than ever at knowing what they need at both the group and individual level and are our kids below were you'd exp them to be coming into seventh and eighth grade this year so the goals that we've set are based upon them as a cohort and so it's more useful to think about their their trend line and as of right now their trend line is is where I would expect it I'm just trying to I'm trying to accelerate it so no I think students are right where we would expect them to be doing you know moving from 6 to 778 I'm trying to we're we are trying to do something that will accelerate it even past that thank Jeff thanks for tonight I appreciate all the comments we look forward to the spring when we can have this conversation again and hear good news you and I both so we have the Board of Education meeting for those of that for those of you that can attend is Wednesday morning at 8:30 to 10:30 where Jeff will take even a deeper dive into to his continuous Improvement plan you'll be able to go visit classrooms on that day and he has staff um ready to talk if you can't make it this Wednesday and you want to go another day to visit the middle school at a different time we will set that up too so you're able to um spend some time at the middle school just like we brought the school to you tonight we think it's important for you to go into the schools and be able to see what's happening thank you Jeff thank you okay all right Mrs mle is here tonight to give us an update on the group Personnel Services plan you have per PowerPoint in there also all right good evening everyone thank you so much for having me I know you've been um patiently listening um to a lot of important information all evening so I'm I'm going to do my best to be um thorough and detailed but also to the point um so thank you so much for having me um I'm so excited it will stand up here saying that I'm very proud people's Personnel Services director in this District um and I'm excited to share with you our road map for continuous Improvement and also provide board who was um tremendously supportive of Thrive with an update as to how that program is going also just want to give a shout out to Mary pelli um she is our fantastic um Cherry Brook Primary School Drive special education teacher and she's here tonight as well the support thanks for being here thanks for being here Mary okay so just as principal Moore shared um our continuous Improvement plan um is tightly aligned to the Board of Education goals um it's also tightly aligned to uh Dr gan's strategic Vision um for Student Success and achievement in Canton and this plan is also aligned uh to each of our building principles continuous Improvement plans so what I love about this is we all have a laser-like vision um for where we need to go or laser like Focus for Success um and our action steps are a little bit unique and this is the opportunity to share um what we're doing in in PPS that we're incredibly proud of so the first board goal is student growth and achievement um and within this goal we have a focus on closing our internal achievement gaps um and what I mean by that is we want all students to grow by more than one year's growth on their curriculum based measures so for example uh when we look at star data we know that one year's growth is 50 SGP so that's the um student growth profile our goal is to do better than that with our high need students we know that we are meeting them where they're at and they have the potential to really accelerate their growth with some targeted focused construction um so we set a rigorous goal of doing better than one year's growth and improving by 60 SGP in that area we're also continuously looking at our individualized plans for our students through their idps and making sure that we are meeting our students where they're at but that we're also holding them to high expectations for growth um so those are our areas of focus uh within student growth and achievement board goal two is around Partnerships and Community engagement uh when I think of this goal I often uh related to our parents and our students are our partners in this work so we want to make sure that our parents and our students have a voice within the PPT process while also acknowledging that we do so much more than just what happens in a PPT meeting we have follow-up conversations outside of outside of them we're continuously talking with our parent parents and how to support our students best so that they can access their learning in a meaningful way um and we're also you know I'm I'm meeting with members of our community um to seek out opportunities to increase the dialogue um and make sure that our parents are feeling supported and that they're aware of the outside resources and supports that are available um so one area that we're really exploring is um considering uh the startup of a Canton special education PTO and that'll give our parents um an opportunity to meet with other families to make connections and to build relationships and Partnerships and also an opportunity to you know connect um with myself and other Educators um so that we can continue to meet student needs uh board goal Three Financial sustainability and efficient operations thank you when I think about people I think about programs I think about Thrive I think about our learning lab program I think about our preschool program and I'm just going to say right here I am incredibly grateful to this board uh for supporting Thrive and helping us get that into place we are realizing already that we are s keeping more kids in District which is saving us tens of thousands of dollars we're also um looking at opportunities to be incredibly strategic and how that we are using our res resources and allocating and reallocating based on ongoing student needs um so that plays a huge role in the financial sustainability of this district and I again thank you for your support next slide please learning environment and belonging is board goal four uh and from the PPS lens this is really all about creating the conditions uh that are necessary so that all of our students can learn uh think of it I'd like to explain it in a way that we um we do Universal screening uh for academics at the foundational level we use dibles to make sure that we have our foundational reading skills in place uh we give foundational screening tools um and math and this is another opportunity to to get a sense of where students are at and it aligns really nicely using a tool called the Desa uh which looks at skills such as goal-based thinking uh taking personal responsibility and I really believe that it aligns very nicely to our vision of The Graduate and what makes for employability for our Learners as they grow and move Beyond Canton uh it's an opportunity for us to look at our students as a holistic learner uh Mary actually says often when we have conversations about student needs she says maslo before Bloom so it's all about making sure that our students feel safe secure ready and available for learning so that they can then move forward and access um the content um so we have to address those needs first and foremost and from My Lens from a PBS lens that's what learning environment and belonging truly is all about uh board goal five is embracing diversity this goal uh within our department focuses really on again connecting back to student growth and achievement to take a look at those High need subgroups we acknowledge uh that there's urgency we know that there's a need to do better in those subgroups and all means all so in order to do our job really well we have to grow all of our students um and that that means we're looking at everyone as a whole when we talk about achievement uh and then also programming again right making sure that we have the right Pathways in a Continuum of supports in place so that all of our students can grow and succeed uh when you meet one student with a disability met one student and what they need is unique and individualized that's why we have IEPs that's why we need to have a Continuum from Full inclusion to Resource to special programming like learning lab and Thrive um it's it's really truly a Continuum and it's keeping more kids here in District um and that that's wonderful for our students to be in their home schools and their home Community uh and then lastly the U board goal six Workforce Development this one is a key uh within P services and within this District We Believe wholeheartedly that our job is to make sure that all of our staff have the supports and resources so that they can do their very best work for all of our kids and continue to move student growth and achievement forward uh so we are prioritizing that um within the district this year in particular our par Educators we've partnered with Quantum behavioral Consulting um to develop a competency Series in behavioral skills training which will provide 18 hours of targeted professional learning for our non-certified staff we are also investing and continuing to invest in our special education teachers I heard comments this this evening around the science of reading and making sure that best practices are in place at a foundational level for reading so we're investing in our teachers we're making sure that they have the training and support they need whether that's getting their associate level in Orton Gillingham which is a best practice in teaching reading um through Wilson to Spire uh we're also training our speech language Pathologists in something called prompt which is um a best practice research based me re research-based method for teaching students with a praia um so lots of training there and we're continuing also to acknowledge that just like we want to make sure our students have the tools and social competencies to be successful that we as adult Learners are acknowledging that we need to continue to look at our skill sets in terms of resiliency so we're offering reflective tools and opportunities and training um in that area all the way through um verbal deescalation practices and physical in interventions through our c CPI training so those are just some highlights and examples of um trainings that we're doing but we believe that if you that our teachers are are are a wonderful asset and that if we invest heavily in them that they will have the skills and supports they need um which will realize outcomes for for our students and that's what's best for everyone so that is the continuous Improvement plan and I also as promised wanted to provide everybody with an update on Thrive uh so this uh slide here is my attempt to connect our board goals um to the program specifically so this is a highlevel overview um but when you look at student growth and achievement we have 18 students currently participating in the program this program is heavily rooted in behavioral data collection um specialized the specialized therapeutic supports and we are continuing to closely monitor how our students in that program are doing the um our Thrive teachers meet weekly to discuss student cases to look at the data and to make adjustments as appropriate um and it's really about first and foremost that maslo before Bloom right making sure that our students are safe um and have instructional control so that they can be available for learning uh so that's this year it's all about setting the foundation in that area and then from there we move to our Partnerships so our biggest partner this year uh within the community is quantum Behavior through them we've contracted we have 1.4 behavioral Consultants working every day in our schools uh they're actively present meeting with our staff reviewing best practices helping to support individualized program binders um and looking at the data and providing um feedback to make sure that our um our programs are as strong as possible they have also provided us with five contracted Behavior Texs throughout our district um many of them are working within our Thrive programs um and they have a high level of training and work underneath the consultation of our bcbas and to make sure that uh all of our student needs are being met in those areas uh we have our three classrooms available in the dist District uh we have a reset space at Cherrybrook primary school we are very flexible within the Thrive program we've recognize that each student's needs are unique um some of our students are able to push in the general classroom and we always look for opportunities to do that when when we are able to um and other students require a much more intensive pullout model where they're getting some one-on-one instruction so the program really is very flexible it's based on what our students need um and again it's under the the guidance and direction of our board certified Behavior analysts uh in terms of Workforce Development I've already shared a lot about our training so I won't um go into that again but we are well staffed in the district within this program we have our three full-time certified special education teachers we have our par Educators uh dedicated to each of the programs um and we continue to just focus on training and building capacity and supports for that program what's the ratio of Bara student to teacher so it depend I would say it depends on the which building we're talking about but in general it's like a 1 to2 ratio it's pretty small um we have um How many pairs do you have in your room right now yeah six six so so that's just about a one to one five sorry almost a 1: one ratio in that program yeah next slide please so highlights and Next Step where are we going with prve um so I wanted to share with you that we are keeping more kids in district one of my big goals this year was to significantly slow the rate of outplacement we've been successful in doing that so that is saving us money not having to outplaced uh we continue to work on securing and ensuring that we have the right resources and time available for our staff um to meet and get the training they need tomorrow's PD for example our Thrive staff um have dedicated time specific to their programs um individually they can work and and develop their programs with the bcba and then they also have time set aside in the afternoon to meet as a district with the other Thrive teachers um just to talk about each other's programs and how they can support one another and continue to like brainstorm and and problem solve and it's nice to have a a community of of providers that have a similar experience and support one another so we're going to continue to provide opportunities for that uh we're going to continue to closely monitor as we work toward making sure that we have a really strong and solid foundation this year uh for next year again continuing to build upon our training building our um Community Partnerships um and we're starting to look at are there students who are presently out place that may be ready to transition back so that's something that through my office and through our ppts without a districts we're keeping a close monitor on and looking for those opportunities um moving forward three and four years out uh I think the biggest most exciting thing that I'm hoping to be able to provide for this district is a revenue base from this program so we're going to be exploring the option of um having a tuition based model where seats are offered to our neighboring town towns we have a best practice program in this District that we're really really proud of um in this end of the state there are not a ton of out of District close by resources available so we have an opportunity here to um support our neighboring towns and also help to bring in some Revenue in the process so that is a big long-term goal of this program um and we're going to you know hopefully by 26 27 we'll be in a position where we're able to offer those seats what question you have so I I did one question relative to that so kind of a delicate way best way to ask this because a parent asked me this so if a student was identified uh with some just slight special needs how is that student then um how is that student integrated with the other special need Student so that that student doesn't feel I mean there's different levels I'm trying to find out the the best way to say this the parent asked you know is my son is my son feeling because he's in with other kids that may have greater special needs is he is he feeling um I don't want to say labeled um trying to think the way she said it but um is there a way that he's into a group that's in his same level so he's not into something that's more intense yeah I appreciate that question so what what I will tell you is is it specific to thrive or in general she didn't say Thrive she just said she said my my son has these needs and I'm worried he's in with this group I don't want him to feel that he's you know that the group is too intense or not enough intense I'm sure just trying to Parrot it back the best way I can yeah I appreciate that so what I will say is that within special education uh we talk about placement last in the PBT process so when we meet as a team team we talk about present levels this is where our student is performing this is what they need to grow these are the accommodations in supports to get them there these are their individualized goals and then we have a conversation around what environment is least restrictive and the best place for that student to make their growth so it's a very individualized process and as I um spoke at the very beginning there really is a Continuum within special education so it starts with full inclusion in the General Ed classroom students with IEPs are general education students first and foremost so we start there and then based on that individual's learning needs we we move towards additional supports or additional environments that will provide the structure so that they can access so it's really dependent and we meet we meet our students where they're at and we'll meet with our families and parents know their kids better than anyone else that's why they need a voice in that process actually the parent said the child's very happy where he is she was more worried than probably he was so yeah but thank you you're welcome any other questions yes sure um of the 18 students that we have in Thrive are you able to comment how many are we kind of retaining or we able to come back like all those 18 are they current 18 that we brought back or were there 10 of them that were already here those are all Canton students that we're already here okay um presenting with um significant behavioral disregulation needs so I I don't know if anyone remembers last last year when I was giving a presentation I said we are seeing increase levels in data supporting that we had multiple students with this regulation um so having this program has enabled us to provide the right um structures and learning environment to ensure that those students can access but they are current students could go out but they they would otherwise likely I would there would be a a portion of them that we would be considering yet we have um we have a couple of instances of hybrid programming that's happening um but no none that are 100% back yet the other question was of the you know the behavioral consultants and the contracted Behavior texts are I know that they're here to support students for very specific needs but we have students that pop up with new needs inve the district or are younger and developing are those Tech and behavior consultant ever able to support other students that who are unidentified has that been a resource in the district so right now our behavioral Consultants are available for all of our students they consult specific so behavioral Consultants just for clarity they don't work with students directly they consult with our teams and our administrators so our bcbas are here for all the behavior Texs tend to work with one or two specific students with specific needs so those Betts are in place for for specific purposes so they are not available to all but our bcbas are absolutely available to everybody for support thank you any other questions Jo couple quick ones the 18 young How do they break down by by school um so we have I don't have that at the top of my how many do you have at Cherry six at Cherry Brook and four at CIS six at Cherry Brook four at CIS and the rest are at middle high school and if uh if you added two three five seven more youngsters would you need that much more staff or does the as the staff gets you know better at it through practice and through professional development are able to incorporate more youngsters into the program without more staff so I would say it depends on the students needs it's individualized um so there are situations where we have staff that can support multiple students and then we have students who have specific needs that require intensive one-on-one supports so it would just depend thank you welcome Anya um I know one of the things you mentioned um was slowing the rate of out placements and just looking at the 18 students I'm just curious in your mind how many of those students would have been outplaced without G that's a hard one to answer um so I can tell you that I am aware of two students in each program that without this without Thrive we would likely be considering an outplacement just was Wonder from budgeting cost thank you a good question any other questions for bar I just have a comment I think the um the special ed PTO is a great idea glad to see that I think families will really like that um also just I was just thinking um you know I remember back when you started you we had talked about that there would be kind of a learning curve for high school special ed students and I'm just curious how you found that over the last year um I have had an incredible support system um with Drew dep pipo and Ruth Kidwell and and even Jeff I uh meet and uh regularly we have conversations about student achievement and growth and um yeah you just you pick it up as you as you go through so yeah high school was new to me it still is newish to me um but I feel very confident and comfortable in supporting the needs at the middle and high school great thank you for the question thank you very much Barbara thanks for coming tonight good presentation thank you Jeff appreciate it thank you okay let's uh let's move right into the um we'll move quickly through the uh standing committee reports Russell anything you want to report on finance no okay thank you policy Joe he we met again tonight for the meeting uh you know we've been considering the move to uh Shipman's policies for many of our policies keeping several of our own uh and we originally planning on bringing up for a vote tonight we may still do that uh but it's it's it's important that all of us have a chance to read the new policies before we vote on them you don't want to be voting on something that you haven't even looked or haven't even read I know you wouldn't do that so we thought that that uh we would make a motion tonight for a first read of the policies uh with the implication being we wouldn't vote on it at the December meeting we vote on it at the January meeting or longer if we need longer so everyone would have a month or two to read through the policies so you know what you're voting on uh it would help if as you read through them uh you knew how to do that because it's a little bit complicated uh kir is going to send out a video for those that are at the policy meeting for how to do that it really isn't all that complicated but it's a little bit tricky and I should be able to to help you with that and certainly she would you know you can call her email her and she'll or John and she'll take care of that I should point out that that John is now a veritable walking encyclopedia on our policies he's read them and reread them and read them over so any questions about policy are very good source which brings the last one before I I ask for a motion that uh as you read through uh if you have questions or concerns about a given policy get to John you like those questions to be out there by the December board meeting which is the 12 12 so that he's got we have time to discuss him in committee and he's got time to get answers for folks um and in your board packet is a uh list on one of the many pieces of paper in front of me that that gives you the policies that we've vetted over the past five six years that we're going to keep so while you're welcome to read them again we will be voting on them we're going to keep them uh and over time we'll be looking at them again see if we want to change them and over time we'll be asking chip to look at some of them to make sure that we haven't gotten ourselves through a jam down the road all that's a little bit complicated but uh questions before we I just put the motion on the floor and then answer questions we'll do the we'll do the motion at the end but um any questions for Mr shiler he he mentioned earlier he suggested everybody book a 7-Day cruise and take the policies with that because it could have take seven days to this this could solve your problem do the best you can so we'll we'll bring that motion up at the end okay okay thank you very much a a no questions okay uh curriculum and technology so we had our October meeting um we just did a review of Canton High School course updates and proposals uh in in a short summary is the 10th grade current Global issues class will remain intact and what used to be a half a year of thir Global issues in a half a year of Economics is now going the economics part is going to be replaced by personal finance which is a state requirement right and um now there's going to be an economics elective for 11th and 12th graders um and we are focusing on increasing our ECE offerings which are early college experience classes uh changing the the Canon Mastery project from a0 five or from one credit to 05 credit we reviewed the district standardized performance update and we had our initial review of The District Equity action plan very good busy yes we're going to try we were talking about how we um are going to need to move our meetings from 1 hour to 1 and a half hours just to get everything done and and those are on the um third Wednesday is it thir yeah I usually 9:00 yeah our next one's November 29th 9:00 a.m.

oh yeah Julie 6:30 I think it's that we get together without a doubt you're right I agree here espa here Fuller Jenny HG here kry pav here Don rener here GI H here and Al M here thank you all right we have a quorum let's stand for the Pledge of Allegiance Pledge of aliance to of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all I keep W to after I say that right tonight we're going to start with student perspectives I'm sorry South high up I like those moves though all practice hi everybody Arwin lip principal D Grove South um M Martinez our director of Student Activities and I um work together every time we have the opportunity to showcase a group of students here at the board meeting and we're really excited tonight to highlight student council we were sitting and reflecting and thinking on really what a fabulous start to the school year we've had how many different activities and events have really helped our you belong here motto come to life and when we reflected and went through it and I want you all to hear this too um so much of what we've done has been LED and implemented by student council um these four young leaders their sponsors uh Chris Chris Esposito and Jenny Wolf and also uh led by De Martinez we're just so proud so I'm going to let them talk I'm going to first introduce Lily and then we're going to hear from Isabelle Grace and Juliana and I'm excited for you to hear what they've been doing hi everyone thank you so much for having us here it's like such a big pleasure to be able to come and share what we've been doing um this year we've had a lot of different opportunities to Showcase what we've done and like the resources we've had to be able to like show the school what we've been able to do and one of our big things was that you belong here um starting from the beginning of the year that's been just like implemented in every way possible and it's really amazing to see where that's been able to go I was able to speak to the Freshman on the first day of school and I was able to mention that you belong here and I just really think that throughout that time since then I've just been able to see it throughout the entire school so in our presentation we have different um aspects of where we've implemented that both within the school and our community so we're excited to share that so my friends are going to come here and we're going to talk about it so um my I'm Lily I'm a senior and I'm the president hi I'm Juliana I'm a junior and I'm one of the vice presidents hi my name is Grace I'm a senior and I'm the other vice president hi I'm Isabelle I'm a senior I'm the communications officer and then if just turn one to one to advance yeah you ready perfect okay so I'm going to talk about Halloween fun fair this is an annual event that student council plans and runs this is essentially a community Trunk or Treat so members of the community get to come to the school for free and different clubs each set up it was indoors this year because of weather but normally it's outside and they set up a trunk of a car and decorate it and they have games that kids from the community can participate in and they get candy so it's a really great way to get involved with the community it's wonderful for community outreach the kids and the parents love it and it is one of our I think it is one of our main things that we do and something that we are very very proud of and it was very successful this year despite the change that we had to make from outside inside on very short notice that's just some more pictures cool the chicken okay so the next event we did was schoolwide Bingo this took place during homecoming week this year and this was our kind of way to like get involved with the Le the week leading up to the homecoming dance so we passed out Bingo sheets to each access class for students and teachers and we also had some available in Student Activities for those who wanted to participate and on the Block days we would send send out the Bingo numbers during block periods and resource periods so that kids even when they had like resource or lunch could like play Bingo and like fill out their sheets along with them and when they got Bingo they could go to Student Activities to get prizes and we passed out stickers bucket hats uh DJs merch so yeah and this was our way to kind of include students and staff and get them really involved and spirited during the week of homecoming more pictures and then one of those prizes was the South side strong sticker so at the beginning of the school year all students received or had the opportunity to receive a Southside strong shirt and we valued that Motel just throughout the school year along with you belong here so I was able to have the opportunity to take that logo and turn it pink one because of Barbie pink and our homecoming thing but also because um of home like homecoming took place during October so breast cancer awareness and we throughout the week our school was able to raise and donate to the Susan G Coman foundation so it was really important to me to be able to find that connection from students and bring that into our community once more so another upcoming event we have is working with the foundation blessings in a back pack we had a parent from District 58 reach out to student council asking dgs students to help um District 58 families in need so we're going to be making 500 bags with motivational cards to give to them wow very good and yeah that's all for what we've been able to do this year it's been really amazing to share all of our experiences and to be able to keep pushing for that student involvement which was really important to us um from the start of the school year we met over the summer and that was a big thing was like how do we get people involved our favorite thing is our Instagram we've been able to use it a lot more this year we post on it all of our Bingo numbers were shared on it so it's been really cool to just take this New Perspective to what student council can be and be able to to share with all the students in the school so thank you thank you questions from board members yes so the the Halloween fund and how is that funded for you guys are you ra money or I mean that's so cool to have the the the candy and all that never yeah so that so all the um Candy comes from our Student Activity so me and Miss Martinez work very closely that week so we're able to like get our funding from them and then we're also so our we I don't think from my knowledge we don't bring any in anything from that event but it's really important it's a good way for just the community to get involved and just like really come together because it's so fun like just looking around you're like oh like all these kids like they're all like together and like some of them know each other and then you know maybe later on they'll see each other in a picture that they took when they get to high school so it's just a different event that brings like so many different age rents too there's like little babies so like midle schoolers so it was really cool question the 500 bags you guys are putting together are those like backpacks or what kind of bags you put in together just small bags I think they I'm from my we haven't done this so this is the first time doing this event so we're really excited to see how it goes but from my knowledge it is backpacks where the backpacks going to come from do you know I think it's from the foundation so blessings in a backpack is like a general not General but it's like a large organization so being able to so that's coming from one parent I think works closely with them and they're bringing them for us wow and there's so students are coming half mostly a little bit more than half from student council but also from Key Club which is another organization and then you guys will prepare them and stuff them and get everything together next Monday for today so so this is only November so we're we're we're talking about September and October and you guys have accomplished all that I just can't wait to see what's going to happen the rest of the school year I'm excited too yeah you guys are doing a fantastic job thank you so much thank you thank you thank you so much all right uh student board member reports keep the South theme going you want to start first sure okay so hi board members so this for the past let's see last time we met we had our homecoming and that went off that went off and it was everyone loved it there was a lot of feedback from it especially seeing how it was indoor this year and along with that we had our homecoming parade and that was also fun to see along with the trunk Retreat that was another Community kind of Outreach we got to go around this area over here and give out candy to those little kids and I was actually so I actually participated in the student council like part of the parade and um we were behind Dr th's car it wasn't my car okay well a really cool car it was a cool car and it is not my car right so we were behind them and we we missed we didn't really get candy but we saw we were right behind him so we kind of said that student council funded Dr th's candy so that way and if anybody asked cuz all we had was a sign and then no candy but it was a good EXP experience no doubt and we all got to again like see those little kids and begging for that candy but having that experience you know that memory and then along with that we also had um two cross country runners go to State this weekend and I our boy cross country Runner Josh he is a senior and he finished top 35 in the state while our girl cross country Runner she finished 20 top 25 in the state so they both did very good for their seasons and we're excited to see one of the girl is a junior so we're excited to see where she'll be next year and then along with that um Everybody November is that time where we're all like striving to get our grades up because there's a few more tests until you know winter break and all but we're also looking very forward to uh Thanksgiving break so there's that too and there's a few like gr gra grateful things we're doing for Thanksgiving for example like our gobble grams where we're selling those through Key Club and we can just those are just meant for like they just write a note you would pay a dollar for a note and those will be delivered through the classrooms throughout the day of Thanksgiving week and that way like you can give it to your friends teachers just to show that you're grateful for them right and then along with that uh seniors just had their um the first first deadline for college app so we're all a little bit more calm and relaxed and uh there's one more deadline left so there's that too for seniors so overall we're having a good November and we're again we're excited for Thanksgiving and winter break eventually um on the north side of things we had homecoming as well um there was definitely we had we got a lot of feedback on it being inside versus outside there were pros and cons to both with outside it was a lot cooler and like less scrunch and there was a lot more room um because inside it was in our purple gym and this poor these poor people that were running the water stand at The Stance like the water was just going and it was in these like little cups like these like little Gatorade cups and I don't think there was like an empty Cup on the table at all or like a full Cup on the table cuz people just kept taking them it was really really hot in that room um but the inside had a really cool stage setup and even though it was inside there was an outdoor option in case you wanted to go outside so that was definitely a really good feature of it the photo booth was so fun um I I love the photo booth that was awesome um and then the spirit days had mixed reviews so um all in all like most most of them were really good like it was like mostly good feedback on the spirit days so that was fun and then um for Sports North had a very good sports weekend got to say really good sports weekend um our cross country team finished first in St which is awesome and our girls or boys cross country team and then our girls cross country team finished second in state and the football team beat Hershey which is also awesome so um we have our next game on Saturday so I I will be there Lincoln Way West right yeah so we will be there um and yeah and then we also um we just had our first student Choice day for Access and um that went off really well um it a couple students had a little bit of trouble discover figuring out which room they were supposed to be in just because they chose it like a week and a half ago so they were like where am I supposed to go um but they really liked being able to choose earlier how most students said they really like to be able to choose earlier however there were some students that were like I don't know when I need help until the day before so um maybe just like keeping the deadline window open a little bit longer um people really liked the open gym that one filled up really quickly um and then another feedback we got was the access lessons um most access lessons take around 10 minutes so maybe putting more access lessons into one day so like doubling up on access lesson days so that way there's more room for student choice that way students are really able to utilize what access is supposed to be about but yeah good stuff awesome any questions is that the first time in history that our CrossCountry team has finished men's first women's second I mean that's just a phenomenal accomplishment in this state like that I believe that's that's the best finish for the teams that we got yeah yeah that's fantastic last year we were third and fifth boys were third girls were fifth um so this year um one two and pretty sure it was the best finish we that's fantastic it'll be the best finish until next [Laughter] year yeah bring home those first place trophies next year EXA and I I'd like to compliment Dr M for organizing a fantastic celebration at at dgn that was well attended um I I showed up around 7 o'clock in the learning Commons and there were about five people in there including Terry myself Dr DeMent and maybe two other people and um uh we went outside and there were hundreds of people outside um awaiting eagerly and uh with great anticipation and then we came inside and then the boys and the girls walked in to much Applause um and I can tell you that um both teams were very grateful for that acknowledgement by the community um and it was special and it's it's special day for them and it's a a special time for them to be able to celebrate like that um and they're they're I mean they're in a sport that is not basketball and it's not football right so um having an opportunity like that is unique for them so I was very appreciative of that and the memories that those student athletes will take away from that are Priceless I mean that's something that they will remember their whole life I mean when you know when I think about it it reminds me of as long ago as it was but the Super Bowl celebration that once upon a time we had in Chicago but it's just amazing those student athletes were remember that for their whole life so that is just fantastic it's really special how Sports bring our community together and it really doesn't matter which sport but it has this really unique way of bringing us all to the same place in joy and in happiness and in celebration and it was just really really cool so thank yeah I did inform Dr DeMent this morning this is two years in a row with state championships and sports so she's just got to keep it going yeah yeah we will we're on a good streak right now you are on a good streak yeah Saturday we'll tell the tale yeah we also have swimming WS that's right we do yeah we still have swimmers at both schools right let's go and is is that at Westmont again yes at the navori best place I have no slips for reception all right schore report I'll let you drive so last last month I guess it was last month I presented about SAT scores they were preliminary and I shared that the score core card would be coming out on October 30th which it did this year unlike some of the previous years we're going to have several presentations three to be exact on different components in the score port card so a little bit shorter and a little bit more focused rather than having one that lasts you know an hour or an hour and a half um so we'll both shorter this um so today thank you g [Laughter] f not I'm just G to move on um so key areas um today I'm going to talk a little bit about the summit of designation going to talk about some of the school report card changes every year there's changes and quite frankly I think that the state did a fantastic job with some of the changes uh in this year's report card so I'm really excited about that and then we'll talk today about graduation rates so those are the three areas that I'll talk about tonight so I mentioned the summit of designation and there's a lot on this screen but essentially I wanted to share that both North and South received a rating of commendable and we pretty much have since the rating started a little bit of a history in the sense with Co occurring so the first couple of years we were commendable Then They Carried the designations over then there was a year of not assigning them and now we're back to assigning them so we've continued to be rated as commendable there were four designations there's Now sort of a fifth one this time um but to be commendable you need to have uh it were none of your um subgroups are underperforming so you have to have so all your subgroups need to be performing for a high school the graduation rate has to be at least 67% which ours is substantially over that but we do not fall in the top 10% of schools so the the top ratings exemplary that's the top 10% then there's commendable which is by far the bulk of schools and then there's a couple ratings below that um targeted comprehensive and now there's this intensive group as well so in order to um to think about it this way we get a score based on a number of indicators indicators like SAT Math proficiency evidence-based reading and writing proficiency science eel there's a number of scores which I'll show you in in just a minute and then we get a total score and they take all the high schools and they just list them and then when they get to 10% they draw the line as long as you don't have any of those like I talked about no underperforming subgroups as long as your graduation rate is 67% and that's where they draw the line and there's some other factors um that that go into that so we again are considered commandable can you talked about can you what what does it take to be in the top like what is the graduation rate so it's it's a comparison okay so it's a comparison so it's always going to be a moving Target it's not about attainment right it's not like if you get this score you are exemplary or if you get this score I guess you could look at it the other way you're comprehensive um it's it's a comparison to other schools so it's it continues to be a moving Target but I can I'm going to show you in a couple of slides how close we are okay um so I said I wanted to mention some of the key changes um one of the changes I really like is the schoolhouse visual which I'm going to show you in a couple couple of minutes I think that's a nice way of of laying it out so when the public or even Educators go in and look it's right there you can kind of see where where we land the Illinois Science assessment this when I say this year it's really last year but this year's report card um was not about participation so in last the previous year it was about participation in other words the percent of students who were supposed to take the test that actually did test now it's based on proficiency and that will continue moving forward there were some changes to Chronic absenteeism the way it's calculated specifically they altered it in 2022 um and now we're back to the previous way it was calculated the way it was altered in 2022 did not impact us it was about schools that declined by a certain percentage got bonus points that is an area of focus for us that is an area that we're working on it's an area that we'll present about in December um so we did not get those bonus points but that is a key change this year that now um they're going back to the previous calculation and then for the first year they started reporting on the on the indicators you may recall several years ago we did several presentations about um College and Career Readiness indicators and what it would mean for a student to be considered a distinguished schler or College and Career ready and this report card even though these indicators do not impact our summative designation in other words they don't impact our rating the data is there and this is really an opportunity for the state to get the information out there as schools work through some of the Kinks with that data these are huge data sets um and so that's something that the state is working on and that schools are working on and I can tell you for sure it's something that we are working on so to give you an example some things that are up there uh um Junior and senior attendance for juniors and senior students the expectation is that it would be 95% that's you can go in and look at how we rate it on that um also the Fine Arts indicator which will not impact us for a few years it's also on there so there's some information that's available in the report card that isn't impacting our designation but that ultimately May or will in terms of the Fine Arts indicator it will um but we have a couple a couple of years on that so wanted to talk a little bit about the schoolhouse Visual and this is obviously a PowerPoint right but if you were to log in and look at one of our high schools so this right here is obviously South High School there's a Schoolhouse this did not exist up until this year so even though there's 2023 in the corner it looks like you can pull it down there's nothing to pull down but it will in future Years be there to pull down and as you can see in while while there are some blank areas which is sort of interesting um you can see where the different ratings come from so for example about half of that bottom part of that Schoolhouse is graduation rate well half of our rating is based on graduation rate you can see on the the left side Ela Proficiency in math and then you can see some of the other scores one of the scores that's not listed there is the Science assessment so there's a instant kind of look at how we're doing um in terms of that Schoolhouse which I really like because it's a nice quick quick look what's really nice about it what's the 2161 oh that's El progress to proficiency so El progress to proficiency came out several years ago before before the pandemic and it looks at how long it takes our students to get to become proficient proficient means it's based on one score it's called the access test we give it every year near February but there's a there's a window um and if students score a 4.

[Music] good evening I'd like to call to order this uh meeting for November 6th of the Dartmouth school committee um like to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance if you're able IED algi to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic hands one nation God indivisible liy andice for all thank you everyone um roll call Kate here here here here yep thank you uh I just want to remind folks that um this meeting is uh rebroadcast on DCTV channels 9 UM on uh Wednesdays and Thursdays at 5: Friday at 6:00 a.m. Saturday 8 a.m. Sunday at 2 p.m.

have to tell you for the number of people on the Board of Education meeting so we're thrilled that you're here tonight we're going to go a regular business uh you'll hear reports from myself the superintendent assistant superintendent uh the student rep reports and uh from our business manager and then we'll be doing something very exciting we'll be recognizing some of our outstanding middle school students and we're so grateful that uh you've made it here tonight and I think we have some a wordss to to hand out so that that'll be great so with that we start our meeting with the Pledge of Allegiance so if you please rise with me I guess I'll leave us off I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the repic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy Justice for All there's nothing better to hear with this young lady was saying the uh the pledge it's always to hear one of our students say it and one of our younger students it's always uh it's great to hear good job good job uh tonight we kick off with the uh the Chairman's report and tonight the the only thing I I really have to report uh to the board of education is we have a very active week coming up I'm sure we're going to hear it from our our student reps um that we we have some great things going on both in sports and arts and entertainment and things of that nature uh I I'm just going to make one comment about the week because you're going to hear more from the superintendent on this but I just want to reiterate uh that we had a little bit of a a crazy week last week uh at the high school but safety has always been a priority of the Board of Education I want to restate that uh the Board of Education continues to review and monitor and analyze our our safety uh policies and to make sure we have the right treatments we have a Safety Committee that's set up in each one of the schools it's constantly well in conjunction with the police department it's constantly reviewing our safety um treatments and the things that we're doing to make our schools safer some of the things that you don't hear in social media uh you won't hear a board of education member typically commenting on our safety because we don't like to talk about our safety and let people know exactly what our strategies are what our plans are I know you'd like to hear more about it but I'm sure the superintendent will touch base on that a little bit later but I just wanted to emphasize the commitment this board of education has especially in this time uh where I think our world is a bit unsettled and uh so I think parents have the right to be concerned I think parents have the right to talk about some of the things that they were talking about but I just wanted everyone to know that safety is the number one priority of this board and we will continue to monitor it and we have a superintendent that sits on the uh I think the state State safety board um so we're we're on top of it so um we'll have a public session later in our meeting public comment if anybody wants to make a comment on that so um other than that that's all that I really have so I think I'll turn it over to the superintendent for his comments super thank you Mr Daniels welcome to everyone to the November 6th Board of Education meeting tonight I'd like to welcome Mr Moore his staff and Mrs mle who also will be presenting her continuous Improvement plan shortly after the updates Mr Moore will be acknowledging Canton middle school students I also want to let you know there is one high school student who I will be fortunate enough to talk about tonight in honoring that uh student for her accomplishments in the Canon public schools and then Mr Moore Mrs McLean will be providing an update regarding their continuous Improvement plans I agree with Mr Daniel last week when I get a phone call early in the morning um with a safety concern it's very stressing not only to myself um but also to everyone in the the schools we treat every thing and everything that we hear very seriously within the can Public Schools I can't thank the Canton Police Department enough for partnering with us immediately um I do need to State this is an active investigation in my entire career that was probably the most email alerts and phone calls that I've had to make in my entire 30-year career in in a short period of time but we wanted to update the community as much as we can and and share with you as much as we could and with it being an a active investigation we had to be very careful on the communication that we did um let out into the community um knowing that and I'll be very trans arent any communication that we did send out wound up on social media and wound up on uh local news stations so we need to be very careful with um as chair Daniel said of what our plans are and what our safety plans are we don't release our safety plans to uh social media so we need to be very careful in how we communicate but what I can say is that we partnered with the Canton Police Department really well and our staff in the C Public Schools I sent them out an email on Friday did a tremendous job and our kids were were did a really nice job I was visible in in the schools all week um last week really walking around our buildings and adding a a presence so our students and staff knew that um if I felt safe that they should feel safe is very important that the leader was in the schools and I was in the schools all day on day one and day two pretty much all day also and then on Friday all day also so um I that's all I really have to to say about that um it was just a very unfortunate thing and I know the question on some people's mind is what's going on it's an active investigation by the Canton Police Department on a positive note the National Honors Society of kanton High School inducted 23 new members on Wednesday November 1st students were selected through a rigorous application process based on their scholarship leadership community service character congratulations to all those students I just came from an unbelievable volleyball game that our our volleyball team we can't be more proud of of that team it came down to the last two points um we're very proud I believe that was one of the first times they made this state tournament so to get a home match in that game and I I know we got player right there so that was [Applause] and we have girl soccer we have and the students I'm sure will go into this girls soccer and boy soccer and field hockey all start tomorrow our football team is making a run our cross country teams have done really well so we've had a great fall season due to Election Day tomorrow there will be no school uh but the staff will be working on their professional development activities I'm sure Mr Bishop will speak about that upcoming Veterans Day ceremonies at all the schools this is a time where we invite all veterans into our schools so if you don't if you're a veteran and you don't have a place to go this Friday um call the assistant superintendent's office Mr Bishop will um provide you and get you signed up to attend one of our schools but Cherrybrook Primary School theirs is 1110 from 1:45 to 3 35 at Cherrybrook CIS is Friday 11:10 um at 10:00 a.m.

and we rotate location but um where we go I'm not sure that Cru that I talked about we'll be at the high school conference that okay any questions about curriculum technology okay and uh finally Communications Felicia do you have anything you want to mention on well um we didn't have a most recent meeting um we will have a newsletter going um for final edits to go to print um that'll be shared I don't know are we sharing with who we sharing with prior yeah we'll we'll excuse me we'll review with District leadership but also uh with M Jordan as well with the uh idea of it being published and out in valy press by 121 that's all that's great thank you thank you any questions for and Communications okay uh in your packet there's a calendar of events that clud was nice enough to put together that uh outlines November through December um filled with concerts and um some early release dates and all sorts of great stuff so um poliy me right um so whatever you can do to help and attend that's great any questions about the calendar of events good okay thank you all right moving right along let's go to any board comments board member announcements comments M anything the board would like to uh mention or ask the superintendent I guess no okay great um all right board action items let's go to um the consent agenda um Dr Gman you want to comment anything on the consent agenda I think it just the motion just approval of the Motions okay uh the minutes and the donation guess we'll send a thank you to the uh CF right John uh on that so can I have a motion that the cam Board of Education approv the consent agenda I need a I need a first Russell thank you second thank you Cindy first and second any further discussion or comments questions all those in favor I opposed okay I think we're unanimous um let's move to the shipment policy and we're just going to go with a first reading on that I think the motion we we were uh we were um possibly going to get into a little bit deeper approval on the donation yeah approval on donation consent you just dids there's a donation yeah you did you do the approval of the minutes so may it's aent agenda so you only need one motion yeah so you approve both of those under I'm just counting make sure we I know y yeah anything that's put under that consent agenda you review it and then just one motion information on it well no it just in the past we've always done it separately so that's what I thought too but no it's fine okay I know I know okay so shipment and Goodman policy we are going to take a motion just to uh adopt those policies as a first reading only um so can I have a motion just to adopt is a first reading and we will take it up again in December okay first Felicia I think you need to read the motion in the motion actually says um policies as a first read yeah so as first read indicated so you have to read that whole thing to comprehensively revise the camp board of education's policies the board approves the adoption and deletion but we're not approving the adoption and deletion of policies that's why we're reading no that's a first read a first read first read yes so as a part of this motion there there's three there's three parts okay and the first is appendex a the curtain board policy for deletion M which is our current K policies will then be deleted m appendex b new policies for adoption which is what we all have the link for what we reviewed and then appendix C is the current board policies that we currently have through C that will remain unchanged which is on that memo all the list the listing that will remain the same that we're going to keep M so this motion is saying that as a first read we're going to be doing all of this and then final approval will be at the December 12th that's what we talked about yeah that's okay I'm sorry thank you very much no no no I I I didn't think we were um I okay we're good so we're going to move to comprehensively revised Canton Board of education's policies the board approves the adoption and deletion of policies as a first read indica in the attached appendix a and appendix B and for clarity current board policies to remain unchanged as indicated in attachment appendix C the administration is directed to incorporate the newly adopted policies into the board's policy manual and archive the policies designated as rep the policy locations are appendix a current board policies for deletion appendix B the new policies for adoption and appendix C is the current board policies to remain on un changed we have a motion accordingly have have a question we will as soon as you go first and second then we go then we'll go to questions discussion so can I have a first thank you s um thank you Maggie yeah I'm not coming to you second okay now I got it good all right now discussion okay Felicia I just have a question of where you're reading that from because on this is just says first reading so I don't know if I'm missing something that's I have the motion is prepared by the I here it just says first reading right yes yeah make it sure okay Kim we can we can vote it we can ully vote it down you know it's nothing's adopted it's just to move the process along yeah and it's only the first reading come back at the second I think we decided that may be not until January yes and again just ask if you if you get questions to get it to John as soon as possible perfectly by the 12th of December okay and so we're going to this website to read them I will show you right now just so you have so hold on hold on we're not going to show it on so Kier is going to send you out John's going to send you out a video of how to manipulate the the website so at 9:00 tonight you're not going to remember what says so she's going to create a video record it and then send it out to you so you can read the the policies on the website so um the expectation is that and that's why kidding L there's a lot here but if we're going to if we're going to exchange our policies somebody in the public asks you okay well you did that and there's a cost of $4,500 did you read the policies that's why we want to give you all the time in the world to be able to look at these policies and read them so Kim we have a first in a second yes we do okay so we have first and second any further discussion on it all those in favor I opposed okay thanel I was the yes oh yeah sorry thank you very much okay all right um Dr Gman do you want to explain the uh calendar yeah so the school calendar 2425 we tried to get that early to this year last year last year it was a little bit later there are some changes based upon some negotiations that we've been working with uh the the teachers you will notice that in August in pink the first three days are professional development days for the teachers 26 27 28 with one of those days to be determined just a teacher direct the day that they're able to do what they need to do to get the school um up running the Thursday and Friday will be two half days just like we had um this year with the first two days being half the other major uh things that are different for us is November 12th 13th and 14th that will be secondary Middle School and High School conferences and then December 3rd 4th and 5th will be the elementary school conferences It lines up with how their the the high school and the middle school are on quarter the elementary schools are on trimester so it was too early for the elementary schools by saying that if a parent needs to meet with a teacher before the trimester and they should reach out and if vice versa if a teacher is struggling with the student they're going to have to reach out um the other major thing um that is out there back in Mar in March the conferences are on the same date the this 18th 19th and 20th and then um we do have June 11th is going to be another teacher professional development day that's the day after school ends so we can close out the year in in a professional way so there is a change to the mountain school days we this year we have 183 school days for uh students we're going to go to 181 school days with the teachers getting two additional professional development days we learned that that that was important to the teachers during a negotiation time I I do not feel that it's going to be detrimental to our students educational uh process to um bring it down to 181 I do think it's important to keep 181 for flexibility um by this board that if we did need to make a change on anything that we have a one day flexibility uh with our with our students so this is a first read um I would say if you have any questions regarding the calendar before the next meeting please reach out to Claudia and we'll address any questions that you have um through email um but I'll take any questions out this time so the conferences for the um K to 6 the second set Falls in on the same days correct so those are correct correct so it's only the first trimester and the first quarter that were off the elementary people felt that the 18th 19th and 20th lined up fine thank you further questions can I take a motion to move the camp board of education approve the 2024 2025 Canton Public School calendar as a first reading thank you Ryan thank you Cindy first and second any further questions for the superintendent all those in favor I opposed 90 thank you uh the second one is the UN trip uh that they're having in the new I think in the new regs this will just be approved by the superintendent it won't have to come before the board but right now it still has to come through the board so um you want to mention anything about the UN trip it's a it's a trip that they do every year um to Yale and it has my support through meeting all the regulations that we set um through board policy and administrative regulations so that is my support questions uh may I have a motion thank you Russell uh Erica thank you for a second uh any further discussion all those in favor I opposed great okay that closes out the regular part of our meeting uh I need a motion to Camp Board of Education move to go to Executive session at uh 9:05 and we're inviting Dr man and Mr Bishop for the purposes of contract negotiations and uh District safety thank you Kim thank you Felicia all those in favor I this won't take long

CMS is November 10th 8:15 to 10 and then CHS is November 10th 10 to 10:45 so basically if you want you can spend the whole day if you're a veteran in our schools and go from one school to to the next we're very excited about that November 9th through the 11th if you go right outside they're in their prep week right now that the C s play the play that goes wrong is Thursday November 9th at 7 Friday November 10th at 7 and Saturday November 11th at 2 and reach out to the Canon high school office if you like tickets November 14th through the 16th is early release conferences the Harlem Wizards featuring I've been told myself will be here on Monday November 27th I do not play basketball very well um I'll be cheering on the can high school or the C Public School staff the best I can from the sidelines those tickets are going fast going so if you to see me yeah get your tickets I can't play basketball that way and I can't get hurt um the next Board of Education meeting will be held on Tuesday December 12th I'll take any questions out of superintendent's office at this time any member have a a question for the superintendent okay hearing none we'll move to the assistant superintendent report Mr Bishop thank you chair Daniels I I'll give a quick report tonight uh I want to say thank you to the members of our professional learning committee uh they are currently over at Canton Intermediate School continuing the uh final details and the preparation for our professional learning day tomorrow uh in Kon our professional learning committee consists of a number of different staff Gabrielle hes Jessica Deo Christina D JPI Stevie Giuliano Ashley lepain Robin nardini Kelly Washburn and Kathy Watson these staff members who uh represent staff across each of our schools work together to be able to develop the professional learning opportunities for our uh for our staff so it's an opportunity for us to be able to um survey our staff see what it is that they need and then our staff go into action to be able to develop the the professional learning and the professional uh training that goes along with that we're very excited about uh our Allstar cast that we're bringing forward tomorrow uh our staff are actually our our presenters along the way and we'll be inviting Justine Ginsburg tomorrow to be able to give uh the key address Justine is uh with our Farmington Valley Health District and she'll be delivering a keynote on resilient uh resilient teachers building resilient students so we're very excited about the opportunity to be able to work tomorrow to learn and also to be able to serve uh and I also wanted to be able to throw it as as our uh curriculum committee has spoken and as the board has been aware too as we've spoken about uh foundational literacy uh as well two weeks ago we had a meeting with the State Board of Education and I wanted to just share how immensely proud We were of the work of Mrs Kathy Watson um and representing the uh research work that we have done in support of literacy at the Cherry Brook Primary School the work that she and Chris Woods have worked in together to be able to to develop our program and then share it with the state was really outstanding and we got fantastic fantastic feedback that we can Pro that we can receive from them uh and we just await their uh their final determination which we hope to be able to hear by the beginning of December any questions for me any questions for Mr Bishop yes will you give us an update or something may curriculum committee what professional development entails absolutely absolutely I'd be happy to be able to provide the uh uh the list of of offerings and what not as well we'll send that out um Claud will put that in my Friday update attachment to the board thank you any other questions okay thank you okay on to the better part of the meeting a student student Representatives report Magie you want to start or okay so each of the student Representatives have pick to school to report on Simone normally reports on CHS and CMS she's not here right now so I'll read what she has I report on CIS and Juliana reports on cbps Simone has here that the play that goes wrong is on November 9th at 7 the 10th at 7 and the 11th at 2 and please come support our high school actors as they've worked immensely hard during his first quarter balancing School in the play and Friday November 10th CHS and CMS will be having their own Veterans Day celebrations for CIS David harrold International award-winning actor speaker and disability Advocate performed for all students in his solo play a little potato hard to peel he used his humor to share the highs and lows of growing up without a right hand fifth graders and their students tools for inter for emergency planning step program and this is their annual training led by kcer team the Canton Police Department in the town of Canton and as a school they collected 100 1,9 uh $380 for Leo the police dog uh congrat congratulations to Aiden Maja who was declared cis's kid Governor Adrian ran on a platform of ending racism we had a very successful fright night it was great to see so many families present student council Representatives participated in their first Cross grade level meeting last week they worked collaboratively to plan a schoolwide tour Drive for Kon Caris andc will have conferences on November 14th through the 16th even conferences on the 15th thank you mag and I'm reporting on J Primary School like Magie said and um honey the cbps mascot has been visiting um many classrooms who have earned 50 positive cards um to this dat the overall students have earned 1,187 cards that's really good um on Tuesday October 31st the kindergarteners participated in all School Halloween parade um now I'm kind of covering um the writing units that each of the grades have gone through so uh kind kindergarteners are nearing the end of their second wning unit which is called Show and Tell first graders are finalizing their first narrative pieces of writing in their unit called small moments um second graders are launching their non-fiction writing where they basically write about something that they're super passionate about and third graders are writing are in a writing unit called The Art of informational writing where they basically investigate um what authors included the so yeah very good any questions for Maggie or Juliana I think those are great reports and thank you for keeping us to date on the other schools appreciate that okay the other fun part of our meeting comes up now with Canton celebrates with Mr Moore we get to uh um acknowledge some of our some of our outstanding students I guess Mr Mr we'll start with the middle school we'll do the Thunder up to speak so um this is how it's going to work parents so so you know Mr Moore will speak about each one of the students bring students up but then after we'll get a nice Kodak moment with the whole board and your students you can take as many pictures as you want um and then we'll go from there okay Mr Moore all right well thank you very much for having me and welcome everybody uh if you've ever spoken to me you know that I am uh extremely proud of everyone at Canton middle school so to have an opportunity to continue to brag about our students is uh something I gladly welcome we have an exceptional student body who do exceptional things every single single day and these students at the from the outset of the school year or in some cases at the tail end of last year have shown themselves to really be uh doing some special things and I'm proud to be able to highlight a few of them this evening first um I would like to talk about our student council so CMS is deeply invested in student leadership and student voice uh we are not the school community that we are without our students and the student council is a very serious part of representing the entire student body bringing things to me making our school the safe special and positive place that it is this year um we and we run our students through a very challenging and rigorous election process they must campaign they must give speeches in front of the entire school and this year I believe that the um the entire uh the entire body of students who ran were the strongest candidates giving the strongest speeches that I have heard in my career they made incredible pitches they understood uh what they brought to the table and what the school needed and so I congratulate everyone who ran on an exceptional campaign season I've never seen anything like it these are the students that were elected to our executive board so first uh winning the position of our co-president I congratulate Finley [Applause] Lazer also winning position of co-president llin [Applause] odama and not to be outdone seventh graders come stepping up to the plate and saying that they needed a seat at the table and earned it winning the position of Vice President Hugh [Applause] Jacob he finally rounding out our executive board uh seventh grader with the position of secretary Archer Heath well done well earned and well and uh a great election season and there already doing great work on behalf of the school um next so if you also if you've ever spoken to me you know that uh when it comes to State assessments when it comes to tests and putting a a number to a child that is not why we get out of bed in the morning right but uh sometimes that means that we don't celebrate exceptional growth on these types of Assessments and perhaps we should so as I dove into our data there were a couple of students too that stood out as making uh exceptional growth beyond their peers a steady upward Trend no matter where they started these two students showed above and beyond exceptional growth on last year's smarter balanced assessment and they should be recognized for the hard work that goes into that because it's not something that happens by accident so first lroy sailor and also making exceptional growth uh well beyond the average of our school uh reading codo [Applause] and finally uh a student who I'm recognizing uh that the school recognizes for their leadership when it comes to social justice um Gabby oer is a leader in several organizations at our school and has been since the beginning of their middle school career uh notably at the end of last year Gabby traveled to Yukon and represented our school at a uh at a leadership conference they were a part of the student panel that's shared their experience while fighting for social justice causes and through school activism and and additionally they were instrumental in our uh in some of our schools the foundation of some of our schools most uh important and impactful clubes so I recognize for their leadership in social justice and just planed being amazing Gabby [Applause] oan I should have seen that coming I should every time so to to follow up with Mr Moore I'm going to talk about our high school um student leader right now and then we'll bring the Middle School up and then we'll get our high school student to come so I can't say I wrote this Mr pipo wrote this we're excited to honor Isabella Mesa one of our senior leaders at Canton High School as Bella was was unable to attend the previous can celebrates meeting we wanted be to be sure to recognize her contributions to our positive School culture here tonight as an officer in this for the student council Bella is a part of a team that goes out of their way to create student Le activities and to make people feel welcome she was a leader in facilitating our nth grade orientation before school even started this year and worked with her student council visor and CHS Administration to set up tours meet and greets and a general welcoming experience for incoming freshmen B was similarly invested in CHS Spirit Week by the way it was really really good that recently took place leading the student council in her senior class to an energizing and his spirited day Bella continues to demonstrate her leadership to CHS through her various roles in the drama club as they prepare for opening night of this year's ball play on Thursday Bella will be showcasing her direct directing skills as well through her ma through her C Mastery project in December by producing and directing scenes from a mid summer Night's Dream we're so thankful to Bella for her continued leadership at Canton High School congratulations [Applause] Bella so I just want to say before we do the photos first of all I want to thank the parents because these students really become the core of what we do here and I want to urge you all to continue to Fan the fire that you've already ignited with these students and then to the students we sit here because of you we we stand we sit at these meetings because we're thinking about you and you by being here tonight encourage us that's what makes us excited about Board of Education meetings when we see what's going on with all of you so again thank you very much now take the I think we got to learn from last time that the board every all the board members have to come up and then we'll start with the middle school students so Middle School students you can come on up too Mr Mo we're you watch this all people in the back brings back all the memories maybe we can get in front of this thing you got a picture okay everybody good I'm gonna move here may parents will stand here as long as you want oh the professional is here sir the most important one right now is the one in the Middle with K who's got her hands up in there all right okay now anybody could do whatever need everybody good okay let's get our high school student I don't know if we should get a picture or an [Music] autograph good K we need one more okay all [Music] set you got the whole board this change tomorrow might be for the scrap else all right you all look good three two one wonderful thank youbody okay all that excitement promotion okay right now we get back [Applause] to you're not staying for the caterer what that all right um let's let's turn to uh Mrs Mrs Kowski uh to hear our October financials please okay well uh this should be relatively quick as we had a very detailed finance committee meeting this morning that went over um everything and in in Prett detail so I was just going to say that the uh expected yearend variance right now and early in the year so this could change uh when we the other but right now it's 93,000 uh unfavorable at this point and that's taking into U account an estimate of uh any kind of Billings that we get back from the Hartford school district and uh also an additional excess cost reimbursement that we would anticipate from the budget 80% um to about 88% so um I think that was about as much detail as I was going to go in for this meeting unless Russ has something to add Russell um no so um at today's meeting we've approved the es financials which Don just covered um and then we also approved Dr Gman to begin the search for the math coach which is going to happen immediately math coach for CMS for CS and CHS n CHS okay great okay uh any other any questions on the financials we seem that we're only 3 months in so uh we're moving along and it's exactly as Dr Gman had presented to the board of Finance I think we're tracking pretty close to that right now so okay all right thank you Donna okay this is the part of uh our program that we go to public com and um um I'm just going to read this um our goal here is a partnership of community engagement we enhance communication Pathways for student staff and the community in order to build responsive supportive connections for all c community engagement and attendance at Boe meetings is welcom the public comment segment of the meeting agenda is set aside so the Board of Education may receive public comments procedurally public remarks will be limited to 3 minutes and citizens will be asked to identify themselves name address please because the board of education is limited by the Freedom of Information Act that discussing only matters on the agenda so don't feel don't take it personally if we can't respond back to you because you're going to give us comments we'll take that into into consideration but we cannot comment back because it's not on our agenda for time be the board of education is not permitted to engage in discussion of the comments presented so that's just a procedural com comment so having said that would anybody like to speak to public comment yes and Andrew ly for fine ACR drive thank you and it's came to the board tonight I wanted to show this to the board it's a packet called America's Heroes there's 20 Pages here and one individual per page that it talks about and really it's kind of the better title is kind of a better uh it's better titled America's forgotten Heroes because some of these individuals used to be in our history books from what I understand going back Century maybe century and a half and they were removed at some point from the history books and no one today really knows their names so I got this from an organization out of Texas called wall Builders and they're dedicated to teaching America's forgotten history and I thought this would be a wonderful wonderful tool to have in our at least in our High School classrooms not so much Elementary School there's nothing graphic in here at all certainly is age appropriate but I don't know how much the kids would understand at the elementary level but certainly Middle School maybe Intermediate School and definitely high school and I wouldn't say these Americans these these forgotten American Heroes need to be in the curriculum wouldn't be opposed to that but you know at the very least could the uh history teacher at the start of the class just pull up one just a front and a back sources cited at the bottom of each page and just read it to the class and expose the class to whoever the individual is on the page and some men some women all black Americans who have either never were in America's history books despite their stories being absolutely incredible or they were at some point and they were removed so I think this would be a wonderful tool um I think the fastest way if the it's something the board wanted for the classrooms and the administration wanted for the classrooms I could loan this copy this this pack of to you and you just make photo copies of it and you can have many photo copies as you want obviously but I wanted to read just a a few of the handful of the names and just a couple words about what they did I'm not going to read the whole thing um this this first woman right here uh Stage Coach Mary Fields 1832 to 1914 she lived she was America's first black female US postal carrier Phyllis Wheatley 1753 to 1784 America's first black poetess uh let me see another one here uh blanch Kelo Bruce 1841 to 1898 he was the first black man to preside over the US Senate James armistad his story is incredible it's one of my daughter's favorites I told I told this story to her um he's uh lived 1748 to 1830 he was America's first double spy back American Revolution um let's see George Richard Patterson America's first black uh was him and his family but America's first black family to manufacture Automobiles and there's one more and if you want to know more about him I'm assuming it's going to be accurate um all these stories could be made in the movies all incredible stories um but there's one actually going to be made into a miniseries bass Reeves so if you search bass Reeves trailer on YouTube you'll find the trailer it's actually coming out on Paramount I think this month but he lived 1838 to 1910 he was America's first black us Deputy Marshall in the west I think there's a series on Netflix for that right now I was coming out on Paramount plus oh Paramount plus I'm Sor sometime this month I think it started Sunday night did it start see I'm behind I need to watch it cuz the trailer the trailer looks amazing so I recommend checking the trailer out thank you um so yeah something that board's interested in if you wanted to take the packet read it over leave it with Mr if you leave it with Mr Bishop we'll get it back here we can uh and then he can make copies and we can uh move it through curriculum just to take a look yeah perfect thank you very much that's all I got and Andrew is one of our hometown veterans so thank you thank you very much appreciate I put sir your name and address please yes uh my name is Step jams I live at 117 Bunker Hill Road my wife and I have lived in Canton since 1980 and our daughters graduated from the school system and they're all employed and productive citizens thank you very much um I I'm not sure of what the security Protocols are that are being taken at this time to protect our children but I think it would be when I was driving by Cherry Brook School on the day or the days of the incidents there was a patrol car parked at the entrance to the school and I didn't know why but I think it would be wise if there were a patrol car and an officer parked at the entrance to every school Whenever there are students at the school to prevent people from thinking about coming in to do harm to your children and to also be there if somebody does decide to do arm to your children rather than being four or five minutes away I don't know rotate the officers through the day so that nobody gets stale and nobody gets bored or complacent but that's it I think there should be an officer at the gate thank you very much thank you Mr Jinx thanks for coming to all of you appreciate it thank you anybody else in the audience would like to speak for public comments all right seeing none we'll go to online sure anybody online online would like to speak if you're joining us online you can go ahead and use the raise hand feature of zoom and I will call on you by your Zoom name if you'd like to make public comment I don't have any raised hands okay all right well thank you all thanks for the comments that we had uh we appreciate it and um we'll move into Old business I don't think there is any old business right for to deal with Okay so let's go to new business and uh first up is uh showcase schools Canton Middle School is that Mr Morgan it is yes sir all right our students and teacher were hard at work preparing and they were trying to time it appropriately they are here and I have sent that text accordingly um while they are making their way down um I can get started and actually I'm starting with you if that's all right who's in control of our slides here all right we'll put you to work cover point in your packet tonight to board members thank you and here comes your students more so as they are settling in Canton Middle School is heavily focused on or always focused on engaging all Learners and making sure that we have authentic learning experiences happening all right just to quickly illustrate tell about that concept of authentic learning or what it is to be engaged I have a quick math question for the board give it a Russell 10 divided by two is it two or five five excellent can go home well done if I could ask that in a slightly different way could you give me an example real or made up in which you would need to divide 10 by two and I'm going to look for two volunteers here please give me an example from real life even if you need to make it up in which 10 would need to be divided by two I'm going give them give you a moment to think Russell math person I have 10 cookies and I want to give some to Juliana and I want to keep some to myself and so you're going to give her you're going to give her half how many do you keep I keep five x one more my my wife does this with my food portions every night you took 10 cookies and she says this is a low-level example but I I would ask you to think for just a moment if when I asked the first one how many of you may have checked out or we quickly put it to someone else and we just kind of waited for the answer to come and even the person answering the question the amount of turning in your mind was probably pretty quick you did the math problem but your engagement was low and if you weren't for some reason invested in that math question in that wrote practice you were able to opt out of the entire process but when I asked for some volunteers I asked the exact same math question just in a slightly different way you probably had some sort of a reaction to it which was oh my God I hope he doesn't call on me or you started to think okay when would I take 10 when I divide by two all right probably much more likely than in the first this is a bad example a low-level example of a very important Concept in education Educators have a few variables at our disposal and it's basically our words and our time what do we choose to say and have students do every minute of the class period and we can ask it in one way or another inauthentically or authentically and the response we get from our students can be dramatically different same math problem the way we ask our students to engage in it a person with much better examples than I could provide you with because that's the best I could do is Miss Ashley the pain canton's teacher of the year and Canton Middle School's Science teacher on team hybrid so I'd love to invite her and some of the Stu some of our students up to talk to you a little bit more about such authentic learning experiences at Canton Middle School Miss Le hello good evening thank you Mr Moore my name is Ashley leaine and I'm the team hybrid science teacher um and so K if you could for me so I've been doing a little bit of research just to kind of get the grasp of what student engagement really is and it's that mental state students are in while learning representing the intersection of feeling and learning and thinking and then I also found an interesting one where student engagement refers to the degree of attention curiosity interest optimism and passion that students show while they are learning or being taught and so in the next slide I kind of took both of those and I put them together and I found wow student engagement in my brain you know you get a little caught up sometimes with teaching I was thinking you know students you know quietly paying attention during their classwork and it's just so much more than that it's students invested in learning through authentic experiences in the classroom so I have a few examples Today Show you um one in seventh grade and one in eighth grade and so I've been looking at the two Dimensions sort of of student engagement with un the left being that commitment and motivation piece what are the students intellectually doing how behaviorally in the classroom are we supporting them through being curious and making those Active Learning connections and finally with that emotional connection what am I doing with my students to really connect with them in the classroom and make them feel you know supported as they're learning and on the right side how do I structure the classroom how are students engaging with each other how are students engaging in the content and how are students engaging with me and so at SC in science at Canton Middle School we are providing opportunities for student ownership with authentic tasks through both independent and collaborative activities we are encouraging deeper learning with creativity through the application of learning in real world contexts and creativity based projects you know it kind of seems like sometimes everything has been thought of and what I'm really trying to encourage with my students is that that creativity is still there you are still able to create so many new things and I'm trying to also kind of squeeze in there those embedded tasks of writing CL claim evidence and reasoning statements Gathering data graphing data analyzing that data so that they can act as real scientists even in a middle school classroom so for my seventh grade example you guys want to come on over so this is the students first real daily science class and so my my goal for them is to really come in as authentic scientists being able to actually do science and so what we're trying to do is understand the scientific method and undergo experiments so today they're going to talk a little bit about the magic sponge lab that they uh did in late September I'm Hannah AB I'm Jules Mary I'm Kon chunky and I'm Bridget Rodriguez okay so we started our magic spun lab by making sides with our data and our work this is like mine and so the first slide we did was our hypothesis slide which was which is this is our hypothesis if you put the magic animal in the water the water temp and the different water of temperatur is hot and cold then the creature will stay the same by because it will absorb the water and not the Heat or the coldness the thing we changed in our experiment which was the independent variable which was the water temperature so we Ed the magic sponges to create an experiment hold on actually can they come out can there thank you sorry girl that's okay um we use the magic sponges to create an experiment in which we put the sponge capsules in different temperatured water as you can see from the dated chart okay um from the data chart we graphed all the times and temperatures you could see that the hot water made the sponge capsules grow the fastest with an average of 36 seconds to grow in the hot water um and once you get all the data you need to put it in a graph which looks like this and since the colder one took longer time it needs a be bigger bar and since the hotter one took less time it should have a smaller bar and then and then once you do your graph it leads to the CER after all of that you get to put it into a CER a CER is claim evidence and reasoning the claim for magic sponge cerss is the most effective temperature for magic sponge capsules is hot water the reasoning is for that because the hot water melted the gelatin way faster than the cold water thank you for listening they did such an awesome job talking science and doing science I'm really proud of them they done a great job so with my eighth graders if you guys want to come up so we're kind of beefing up the science a little bit and I've been really talking to them about you know how do we create things and and research science in such a googleable and AI world and so what they are going to talk about now is taking science and applying it and creating something new with an element superhero project hi I'm Eva and me and we are doing and and we are doing a element superhero and we're creating a superhero based off of an element of our choice so I am doing a superhero named Phil Phil is based off the element of calcium because calcium is found in teeth so Phil is a dentist and Phil was bitten by a radioactive piece of dentures and then he has he got superpowers and and his he uses toothbrushes and Dentures to fight crime and not only do we create a superhero but we also learn about the history of the element like my element calcium was discovered in 1808 by Sir Humphrey Davey and it was originally calcium oxide and it was heated up by limestones and that's just like a little bit about my element and yasmine's going to tell you a little bit about hers Okay so my element is thallium it is found in electronics and poison um I decided to do a villain for my project because I don't know I just decided to um so a little backstory about mine um mine was discovered in 1861 by Sir William Kooks by um he burnt dust from sulfuric acid although I'm not done researching I still um I'm not done researching so when I'm done researching I'm going to create the perfect example okay we learned how to locate elements on the periodic table by groups and periods we also learned about valence electrons and electron orbitals and before we did all that too we also figured out how to locate an element on the table how to find the protons and electrons and how to use the protons and electrons to calculate the number of neutrons and Miss Le she's a great teacher because something like this could be really hard for people if they just take one glance of it but miss Le really makes sure to make it less scary and more fun so it's easier to learn uh she makes it fun and time flies by when we're in her class and I would like to end this with an element joke but all of mine are are gone thank [Applause] you oh my goodness I swear I'm not also teaching them stand up science comedy that just happened but um so in my last slide just a really overarching goal at Canton metal school is through engagement students will have greater emotional investment in their learning and they're just going to have extended curiosity that continues Way Beyond Cherry Brook and CIS um encouraging creativity problem solving and out of thebox thinking to really deepen learning so that they can have these skills for life to really tackle all of our Lives problems it's promoting choice and how students demonstrate their their learning and different differentiation in a non neurotypical world you know we need to be able to solve problems in so many ways and I think engagement and really trying to have them be creative is a great way to do that so thank you guys so much can we can we bring the students back up maybe get a picture with the board for our uh for our newsletter if the students could come back up take one more picture yeah how about that why don't you guys if you just watch the CHS if stand in the front and the boorder will squish it behind you and this will be great right how about right back here so we get just watch the cords that's all be great for a newsletter right you're all in there you're good all right ad [Music] so when you get your diplomas in high school you can say you're front of the Board of Education all right we'll compare that picture thank you very much any before you leave any any questions by the board members um to any of the students any questions I thought it was extremely informative and you made actually science fun for me and it's hard to do so thank you very much okay thank you okay so Mr Moore you're still on Canton Middle School continuous Improvement plan please absolutely so I would just like to thank Miss Le and thank you to those students for presenting to you uh tonight um embedded in there is just a great example of the type of things that happen every day at at Canton Middle School um I am confident that when people walk through our halls and walk into our classrooms as you will be as you're invited to on Wednesday you're going to see that type of activity in the different content areas uh taught at the different levels but learning at C Middle School is uh we're really focusing on that authentic learning that engagement and really making sure that we've got uh an unwavering focus on every student grow and in learning like that you can meet a student where they are at and challenge them appropriately uh and whereas in my in my bad math example if you had that skill mastered it was too easy for you and if it was too hard for you you you don't have an entry point the type of teaching and learning that Miss leine and the students were just demonstrating has an entry point for every student is challenging and rigorous for every student and is going to push their scientific mathematic organizational writing skills um and that's the type of thing that we're focused on as a school so our Improvement plan speaks to um those components to make sure that uh that learning is authentic rigorous challenging for all and that students are growing we meet them where they are and they're Improvement so um we have call that up here um we have six areas of focus that are in line with uh the the district goals and the first one is on student growth and achievement our overall goal is for students to improve on their um assessments uh students will improve their reading and math skills and the primary measure for that will be on the Spring State assessments the smarter balance assessment um specifically um we're looking to have every student's average growth Target be 75% or greater the average growth Target achieved which again I look forward to I can dive deeper into what that that means but in short we've had a history of focusing on proficiency specifically the sentence proficient and above is one that has dominated The Narrative who is if you remember if you remember the state assessments for a long time they've been four performance levels one and two are either uh you know below standard or approaching and then three and four proficient or exceeding and we' talked about the percent at proficient and above we will continue to focus on that because every student uh we we love them all to be proficient but I love the changing narrative at the middle school which is to say that every student is growing no matter where you are you are improving so to do that we're going to make sure that we uh create a uh a turnaround plan as part of the commissioner's Network right so uh this idea of growth um is a particular area Focus because we were identified by the State Department of Education as having a lower than expected growth grade or the average growth Target achieved for students in Canton Middle School at present it was focused on uh Ela and our high need students but it pointed out that our growth rate for all students could be and should be higher so that's where that comes from and we opted to join the planning year of the commissioner's Network I've been very grateful that we made that decision as partnering with the state to form a turnaround committee to do a an audit uh an audit which included a site visit from two representatives from the state Department of Education and now the self-re self-reflection process begins of if we have great teachers doing great teaching like what you just saw and students aren't growing as much as they could we have a challenge that we are excited to grab hold of and and and go straight at so we are uh in the first couple months of this turnaround process and engaging in the self-reflection and one of our goals for the year is to create a plan by the end of the year of what we can do both right now and in the coming years years to make sure that every student is um exceeding the growth that the state might expect uh of them we will um as part of that formatively assess students using our available formative assessments the key ones being star and a renewed focus on the interim block assessments teacher plans and Department plans will align with that idea of know where your student is and make sure that instruction and curriculum is adjusted appropriately to move them forward and we will uh increase the targeted academic support based upon that formative data when I know where you're at what am I doing to make sure that you're moving to your next most appropriate step so those are our our key areas uh of uh key action steps in summary surrounding student growth and achievement moving to Partnerships and Community engagement our goal is to celebrate and engage our school community Through increased partnership and improve uh improv effective communication we want to make sure that parents feel uh connected to our school and uh communicate with in a proactive manner one way that that will happen that's unique to this year is that there's parent participation in the turnaround committee there's also the teachers all have allet goals related to proactive communication between school and home and uh maintenance maintenance of some uh teacher websites which have been revised based upon parent and Community feedback we're also looking to make sure that we have um increasing and really relevant and meaningful community events both here in the building here in Canton and in Hartford and then finally on this slide uh our third area of focus is financial s sustainability and efficient operations in which our goal is to create a forecasting model to anticipate and meet the needs of students as part of that we'll make sure that we're utilizing all the the data around class projections and capital needs to make long-term plans for things like textbook uh Capital Improvements and uh and equip so we'll make sure we're forecasting out in those areas and we'll analyze student achievement data and uh and create a turnaround plan part of which will be recommendations for appropriate Staffing and [Applause] support our other three uh uh categories are the learning environment and belonging in which our goal is to foster a safe and positive learning environment that encourages students to demonstrate and strengthen the attributes of a Canton vision of a graduate and as part of that we will make sure that we continue to rely upon our successful advisory program enhancing it with the skill of resiliency you heard that that will be one of the focus areas for teachers tomorrow um this idea of being resilient and flexible meeting a challenge doing hard work and persevering through it it's important for our staff it's important for our students and we're infusing that into our advisory program and uh that work will also be informed by the Desa results we will uh increase restorative practices and Infuse the CMS way into um our you know more fully into our school through things like town halls and celebrations making sure we have a purposeful intentional and continuous plan to tell students or help students understand and taught as needed the expectations of our school and our community and then celebrating them when they're doing that thus promoting more of that behavior in the meantime we will um also embed the vision of a of a graduate into our curriculum instruction and assessment to embrace diversity we our goal is to continue to foster a safe inclusive and responsive School environment in which all students are seen and valued so they can do their personal best and in this area we're really focusing on student leadership and student voice making sure that students are empowered to lead through both uh in-class activities and extracurriculars the students that were here uh a student a class lesson that asks the student to design the lab they are not just reciting what it has been told to them previously they are creating they are owning they're developing and in that is choice and voice you heard the students mention that so we want to make sure that our instruction is both culturally responsive and personally responsive to everyone's individual level meeting them where they're at and challenging them appropriately and then also extracurriculars like the student council Representatives that we are proud to to celebrate tonight as well as some new opportunities such as our newly initiated excuse me our newly initiated Warrior Squad which is uh as we were listening to student feedback the work I mentioned earlier about promoting the CMS way of uh choosing kindness selecting respect and making responsible choices I was doing a lot of thinking about those values and how to celebrate students and promote them doing it and we and we realized that students weren't necessarily involved in those decisions and that work so the warrior Squad is going to be the way for student leaders to be involved in that work both in the building and in the community spreading a positive culture both here and through community service um and then also we will we will review School climate survey data and results to ensure that uh our instruction is responsive to meet students where they are and finally the last category of goal is uh Workforce Development and we're going to build the capacity of all Educators through a focus on data informed instruction and intervention so as I've been talking about that that unabashed focus on growth we need to make sure that teachers are well trained in the tools that provide data that would then allow them to adjust their instruction and then have the support to implement that that instruction so utilize informative assessments to uh inform data team meetings and student stent intervention processes and providing professional development to all staff to build the cap build capacity in this Focus area of uh growing students one step at a time so that's a quick overview of the six uh six goal areas aligned with our district goals and the action steps that we're committed to and that are already in many in many areas already up and running to help us achieve them and have a really great school year I'm happy to answer any questions you might have all right so let's uh let's start off with uh student growth and achievement any questions so I I would uh I I'll I'll kick it off a little bit do comments or questions only question questions and comments you have question or comment please go ahead you can go first go ahead well I mean c certainly so for two years now we've been watching and it's not just sitting at cms's doors but we've we been seeing uh we we would like to get back to our days we've been leading in our Durk and we're not there yet and we we've actually we we recognize there's been some improvement right but there has to be the the Improvement we we've gone from here to there and we have to get up here more our trajectory has to be more in this direction give give me some sense that uh cuz I in some ways I feel that we've lost a couple years because two years ago we started in and we had different data analysis we had star and we had the other one and I think the board was totally confused by by that we didn't know which one we were going to choose now we're in the star G give me some um some confidence that that we're going to continue to move in a in a more rapid trajectory because I don't want to lose another two years yeah that that's that's fair and I think it's the it is um I think it's been it's it has been the work always for all these teach teachers to serve students well and then to answer the question that is being posed here if we have Miss leay throughout Canton middle school and are doing great work and still getting those results we need to have like unfiltered conversations about what's what's missing right what is missing and the decision to proactively partner with the state to do that is really that idea of pulling the curtain back and getting into it and answering the question of so if great teachers are doing great work then it has has to be somewhere in what DEC you know what's being covered at what time in the right order for the right amount of time so we need to engage in some curricular analysis and then we need to make sure that we're doing best practices and doing them all the time I also think that we've underinvested in the interim assessments which are aligned with Smarter Balance which when they came out a few years ago pre- pandemic they were simply a practice tool and we didn't revisit them once we were disrupted we hadn't gone back to them because of that experience before we didn't know know or understand the value part of our learning right now is learning the value of those blocks which should point out some of the curricular either gaps or areas to accelerate to go even faster or remediate to build up a student in an area an area of weakness so we we've as we've been talking about star for two years we've been building our Mastery with it and those of you who are able to come on Wednesday will be able to see and and peek under the hood of our intervention process and how that keeps us focused on standards and how those should inform and ruction especially when a student is is struggling and then this will be a new piece for us because uh we still need to make sure that we're moving quickly so what are we missing and I I believe that the inim assessment blocks which are aligned with the smarter balance assessment will be the next key to unlocking the decisions that we make and making sure that they're strategic and efficient so kids are growing even faster and then the last thing I'll mention just in terms of leading the dir is not the work that we are doing with the state We are Becoming leaders in understanding the smarter balanced assessment which admittedly but I think that some of my colleagues from surrounding towns that they were standing here are just kind of like look our comfort level with the CMT because it was paper and we would sit there and as as the kids took it we would read along with it the CMT was a flawed assessment as our all summi of Assessments in a way but our familiarity with the old CMT was way higher than we've ever had with a smarter Balan assessment taken on a computer screen that is differentiated for the student our knowledge of it I'll give you a great example we were flaged for for the our growth Target I had to ask the question well what's the growth Target what's the growth Target and I'll tell you we got mixed answers at first and really had to dig into and I can tell you now with certainty how the data was was designed how they're making how they turn the four four bands into eight buckets and then they're looking for students to move from one bucket to another and I can tell you about how they gathered the data in 2014 to get you to the 60th percentile of the next bucket right we are now informing other towns who are also struggling in different ways this is where the state's focus is Shifting away from proficiency and growth and we're leading the way and understanding how we can teach to that which is frankly more in line with the values that I have our teachers have and I think we have here in Canon proficiency is excellent and we we need to lead there but growth of all student you're not justy to move a real risk of the proficiency conversation was the the kids on the cusp you could move percentages it can't middle school every kid is a percentage right with with just the class size if you're focusing on moving the twos to threes you're forgetting about ones and fors and that's not right a growth mindset and understanding exactly what's being asked of us and knowing that our work is doing that intentionally We are Becoming leaders in I know the behind the scenes stuff that I never knew before and that's translating into our instruction sure and that all sounds good and that's why this board's investing in you even further by this additional add to staff with the math coach intervention person that uh the superintendent has um has been behind but um we're hoping to see that growth and not just at CMS but across the board this is not just at your doorstep but uh the superintendent knows that this board is more now involved and interested and how we begin to move that needle but we we don't want to do it at the expense of you know we're beating the kids up for testing and all the other things that go on with that so there has to be a balance but we still have to achieve the the academic uh growth that we're looking for and and I I truly believe Jeff you're the right guy for it yeah I mean I hope so and I share the sentiment I am hungry to bring you results that are that are reflective of our amazing students and amazing teachers I won't do it at the expense of the Humanity of our kids and the belief that every kid deserves a childhood we can do this in a balanced way that's about I see you I know what you need I can help you get there and we can do it like a superhero element project where they were having fun at the same time we can do both of those things and and I'm I I I also hope to bring you those results so what what you heard principal Moore say and you'll hear all them administrat there there's a sense of urgency here folks and there needs to be that balance of urgency and where we are with um student achievement the middle school being involved in the commissioner Network school not only is going to help our Middle School it's going to help all our schools and if we get selected to be a commissioner's Network School this year is the planning phase but if the middle school gets selected to be a commissioner's Network school there could be a significant amount of money that is poured in to the middle school that will also benefit all our schools relative to staff and professional development so I I I got to commend Mr Moore for I'm not sure Mr Moore you could have said the growth model as well as you said the growth model when I first started here in July so it's clear the the the professional learning that Mr Moore and his staff are getting is getting there and they've been here two or three times so I think that's a fair question by the chair thank you Kim you had a question there's more comments comment please do I need a couple minutes I have a I have a comment um yeah my this is something I mean I'm kind of going to flip it on this because I respect the work that Jeff I get what he's doing and I don't want to negate what he's doing in in the commissioner Network turnaround but I feel like I think of this differently because I don't know if you take this cohort of eighth graders for example you know we're talking all about Middle School what we're going to do now and that that's critical because there has to be growth for these students but but I caution us because that's that's one part of it but there's another big part and it starts at preschool in kindergarten and this cohort if you take the eighth graders for example I'm just using them they started out as the first Canton kindergarten class they were supposed to go to kindergarten full day and they weren't the first Canton full day class so we're sitting here with very concerning results and yet they were our first kindergarten class um I wrote some not um the foundation really begins and CH you know um we missing leadership there uh when this eight group of eighth graders was in kindergarten the you know phic awareness phonological awareness that should have been in place it wasn't um the science of reading is the new term that the state uses science of reading it sounds great and it is current and new but these students should have had phological awareness phic awareness from day one those are our eth graders right now who are struggling and they did not have what they needed in kindergarten so to look at the middle school right now and be be looking at you know zoning on these teachers in this school and this principal you know it's it's true not though I mean I think it's important to set the tone that children's learning it it it it can blow up as a volcano in 70th grade if you don't have the the foundation you know um now there's the science of reading coming into play but we need high quality teachers at the early age just like we do at the middle school um accountability the math program I believe this eighth grade cohort they were one of the first classes to have the new Switch of math program that's another thing that I read flagged in my notes technology use when they were in second grade we went one to one with Chromebooks um you know a lot of what I'm saying is not just new to C it's not it's not an attack on Canon it's the educational system across our country and you know technology Us in grade 2 that they threw the Chromebook in there with one toone use um you know CH we need to think about brain development children's brains how they develop some of the things this group of seventh and eighth graders is doing their childhood has been very very different than than grads before them you know I I question you know is it is it a a educational system problem not just in Canton but everywhere you know you think about their brains and how they work the online games that they're doing at school a lot of learning is through online games I caution us using this there's a dopamine effect you you do these games um for reading and learning it's not as active engagement we just heard a presentation about active engagement putting children on games I will not mention what they are but like the learning programs in school are not as active engagement as real high quality teachers delivering active engagement lessons I wrote that down about online learning and and what not to mention that this age group is one of the first age groups that has come out where the technology of what they use outside of school I think is impacting their brains impacting their learning impacting their development um we need to make sure that CH children leave C being able to read and write and have strong mathematical skills and be critical thinkers so I'm concerned that we're going to go into continue on with quantity not quality and I and I just I think we need to give children students a chance to like I pause think and digest I think we're pushing very hard in our country in our culture of Education that they're not getting a solid bras on things in that foundation and then you have pockets of Mis learning so that's just my speech it's almost in support of you Jeff that this problem didn't just it it it landed at you but I think it's been you know I I appreciate your comments I I think Erica heard it and curriculum I think that's a good place to to continue to vet this John heard it so but I appreciate your comments thank you I'm a little passionate about it but that's good that's what we want Erica um I was just going to ask about the interim assessments that you were talking about um have they been implemented so far this year or are they is this something in the pipe coming down cor yeah we you we gave the star as a fall assessment star goes fall winter spring and then throughout our goal is to fit in three for each content area roughly November December January or or or therein we're trying to align them as best as possible with units so they don't feel like just another thing and that's work that we will probably do we're going to do as well as we can this year excuse me but um without without it would be untrue to say that we have a masterful understanding of exactly where to place them and where they best are but we will give them with Fidelity this year and deepen our understanding of them so that that that assessment calendar for the year is happening okay and those those interim assessments are preparation for the aspect yes right where that they were born of kind of uh question types and content examples that are precursors to the summative but what they've deepened over the past few years is a reporting mechanism so a student can take a practice in a particular math area and then get out a report of these were the this student or these this group five strongest questions five weakest questions and then we can do a deep dive into this we can accelerate here we should do some reteaching here and if there's a student that need if we can't ret these particular things in the class how do we utilize our Tutors or other resources um during school after school to give the students that foundation so okay and those assessments the are the I don't know if assessment is the right word but those practices W haven't been implemented since since preco correct yep Dr Gman was a champion of giving that and uh a a downside to them at the time is that they were just practice and then as we were investing in Star as a feedback tool that paid dividends and shouldn't go anywhere that all continues to be a very useful tool for us this uh as we work with the state and as I look at the problem and try to understand the solution that seems to be like that could be a critical component okay so this should help as early as next year's as assessments that is my goal my goal is to bring you increased scores this year okay thank you Mr Mor two quick questions for you um first is you know obviously in order to get where we're going we need to know where we've been I I understand we're just sort of sifting through the process now but from your perspective and Kim on her perspective on it but where do you and the administration see that we've maybe taken some missteps to get to this point in the first but maybe not mean missteps is the wrong word but where have we sort of aired that we're having to have this conversation in the first place we're done right now where have we aired so I haven't I haven't framed it in that way uh I think that we are obviously operating in a context of just a shifting world right and so have we have we adjusted accordingly I feel like also um maybe personally I see great teachers doing great things on a daily basis and have been known to say the sentence of you I'm not a principal because of the smart to balanced assessment right and I think that the there is a renewed we must lead with intent right we and like the that can be true and we can be focused on this particular outcome because if we're doing this good good work we will see these outcomes so I think I'm certainly feeling a shift within myself that I don't know was an error I don't mind maybe er er we're saying that we have to do something different right or that we have to change something I think that we have an absolutely solid foundation a better than average Foundation like great you come and see you will see the great teachers doing great things and the state was blown away by the people in the building the right people are there and we have amazing kids have we been focusing on the right data to inform especially intervention and support that's probably the biggest miss that I have not put as a champion as a key focus of mine and that's shifting and you know I want to commend you on your and your commitment to not teaching the test and that sort of as an add-on to that how do we you know how do we show off in a similar way to the metrics right how do we show off in a similar way to the metrics how we're doing at on these sort of intangibles right that again that I think are are frankly more important than test but they're important to us here in Kenton the state OB looks at different things how do we show off in a way that that people who are number Centric or data driven can appreciate sure I I mean question that I think that I think that one of the best places to look for that would be how many families have kids that like middle school or sometimes love Middle School I work in a middle school because that was not my experience right I look back in those as as somewhat pained years and going through a school system that I think largely was just like I don't know do your thing and I think Kon middle school has an incredible community and kids that come home and it's not perfect and nor nor is every day it's not going to be Challenge free but it is an intangible that's told through the stories of our kids that I think love their middle school experience and look back on it fondly and as you see our weekly updates and see all the incredible things happening very few none of those updates are about test taking skills right it's about it's about a life in a community that I'm really proud of and I think that kids are doing well within uh so I think we tell the story through all those other things through the soccer game through all the fun stuff that's happening and the fact that kids are resonating with it and they're like they're well poised to be challenged in this particular way without taking away any of those other things no let's let's keep amplifying that message I think it's fantastic Mr shyler has a question yeah I look forward to hearing in more detail on Wednesday and I should preface it by saying Middle School hadn't been invented yet when I was in seventh and eighth grade so I didn't have a bad experience there uh I I I like what you said uh in terms of we don't have to become test prep University to improve test scores good instruction that takes the test into consideration results in learning and good test scores um and like that you've said it Ryan said it it's important to always keep that in mind because teaching to the test frequently gets the opposite result uh but ignoring the test you know also causes a problem so you need to need to find the PATH there I was sort of shocked to hear that that your colleagues haven't taken apart the esack test it's been around for a decade you know I'm not certain what everyone's been waiting for uh so I'm glad to hear that that's being done as well uh do your and I hope on Wednesday you'll explain average growth Target so that I could understand it don't ask me I don't have enough time tonight I I can go deep please don't do it now um do teachers have learning goals associated with achievement so yes we have a whole school learning indicator in which this goal is one that we are committed to as an entire Community I will mention though that I did not mandate the that metric as a teachers's student learning objective because it seems uh it does not seem relevant yet a thing that we are still learning how to get to is not yet immediately motivating so every teacher goal is focused on growth most of them are using star something that we've mastered over the last two years that I can look at and more immediately say I know what that means and therefore I can do this better by the students so our whole school is committed to this as an outcome but individual teacher instructional goals are more tied to metrics that we have more familiarity with at this point probably will be in the future though and and we're a marking period in what are you seeing uh we are seeing we're seeing again another great school year with great kids doing great things we're seeing areas for for growth see with a growth mindset what I'm seeing is opportunity I'm seeing students that at this point I couldn't tell you if we're seeing like a stronger group they're well on their way the fall data points are in we've worked as an entire staff to go through them and we know how that impacts our upcoming units and the support that students need so I'm seeing to start the year off we know where our kids are at and we are getting better than ever at knowing what they need at both the group and individual level and are our kids below were you'd exp them to be coming into seventh and eighth grade this year so the goals that we've set are based upon them as a cohort and so it's more useful to think about their their trend line and as of right now their trend line is is where I would expect it I'm just trying to I'm trying to accelerate it so no I think students are right where we would expect them to be doing you know moving from 6 to 778 I'm trying to we're we are trying to do something that will accelerate it even past that thank Jeff thanks for tonight I appreciate all the comments we look forward to the spring when we can have this conversation again and hear good news you and I both so we have the Board of Education meeting for those of that for those of you that can attend is Wednesday morning at 8:30 to 10:30 where Jeff will take even a deeper dive into to his continuous Improvement plan you'll be able to go visit classrooms on that day and he has staff um ready to talk if you can't make it this Wednesday and you want to go another day to visit the middle school at a different time we will set that up too so you're able to um spend some time at the middle school just like we brought the school to you tonight we think it's important for you to go into the schools and be able to see what's happening thank you Jeff thank you okay all right Mrs mle is here tonight to give us an update on the group Personnel Services plan you have per PowerPoint in there also all right good evening everyone thank you so much for having me I know you've been um patiently listening um to a lot of important information all evening so I'm I'm going to do my best to be um thorough and detailed but also to the point um so thank you so much for having me um I'm so excited it will stand up here saying that I'm very proud people's Personnel Services director in this District um and I'm excited to share with you our road map for continuous Improvement and also provide board who was um tremendously supportive of Thrive with an update as to how that program is going also just want to give a shout out to Mary pelli um she is our fantastic um Cherry Brook Primary School Drive special education teacher and she's here tonight as well the support thanks for being here thanks for being here Mary okay so just as principal Moore shared um our continuous Improvement plan um is tightly aligned to the Board of Education goals um it's also tightly aligned to uh Dr gan's strategic Vision um for Student Success and achievement in Canton and this plan is also aligned uh to each of our building principles continuous Improvement plans so what I love about this is we all have a laser-like vision um for where we need to go or laser like Focus for Success um and our action steps are a little bit unique and this is the opportunity to share um what we're doing in in PPS that we're incredibly proud of so the first board goal is student growth and achievement um and within this goal we have a focus on closing our internal achievement gaps um and what I mean by that is we want all students to grow by more than one year's growth on their curriculum based measures so for example uh when we look at star data we know that one year's growth is 50 SGP so that's the um student growth profile our goal is to do better than that with our high need students we know that we are meeting them where they're at and they have the potential to really accelerate their growth with some targeted focused construction um so we set a rigorous goal of doing better than one year's growth and improving by 60 SGP in that area we're also continuously looking at our individualized plans for our students through their idps and making sure that we are meeting our students where they're at but that we're also holding them to high expectations for growth um so those are our areas of focus uh within student growth and achievement board goal two is around Partnerships and Community engagement uh when I think of this goal I often uh related to our parents and our students are our partners in this work so we want to make sure that our parents and our students have a voice within the PPT process while also acknowledging that we do so much more than just what happens in a PPT meeting we have follow-up conversations outside of outside of them we're continuously talking with our parent parents and how to support our students best so that they can access their learning in a meaningful way um and we're also you know I'm I'm meeting with members of our community um to seek out opportunities to increase the dialogue um and make sure that our parents are feeling supported and that they're aware of the outside resources and supports that are available um so one area that we're really exploring is um considering uh the startup of a Canton special education PTO and that'll give our parents um an opportunity to meet with other families to make connections and to build relationships and Partnerships and also an opportunity to you know connect um with myself and other Educators um so that we can continue to meet student needs uh board goal Three Financial sustainability and efficient operations thank you when I think about people I think about programs I think about Thrive I think about our learning lab program I think about our preschool program and I'm just going to say right here I am incredibly grateful to this board uh for supporting Thrive and helping us get that into place we are realizing already that we are s keeping more kids in District which is saving us tens of thousands of dollars we're also um looking at opportunities to be incredibly strategic and how that we are using our res resources and allocating and reallocating based on ongoing student needs um so that plays a huge role in the financial sustainability of this district and I again thank you for your support next slide please learning environment and belonging is board goal four uh and from the PPS lens this is really all about creating the conditions uh that are necessary so that all of our students can learn uh think of it I'd like to explain it in a way that we um we do Universal screening uh for academics at the foundational level we use dibles to make sure that we have our foundational reading skills in place uh we give foundational screening tools um and math and this is another opportunity to to get a sense of where students are at and it aligns really nicely using a tool called the Desa uh which looks at skills such as goal-based thinking uh taking personal responsibility and I really believe that it aligns very nicely to our vision of The Graduate and what makes for employability for our Learners as they grow and move Beyond Canton uh it's an opportunity for us to look at our students as a holistic learner uh Mary actually says often when we have conversations about student needs she says maslo before Bloom so it's all about making sure that our students feel safe secure ready and available for learning so that they can then move forward and access um the content um so we have to address those needs first and foremost and from My Lens from a PBS lens that's what learning environment and belonging truly is all about uh board goal five is embracing diversity this goal uh within our department focuses really on again connecting back to student growth and achievement to take a look at those High need subgroups we acknowledge uh that there's urgency we know that there's a need to do better in those subgroups and all means all so in order to do our job really well we have to grow all of our students um and that that means we're looking at everyone as a whole when we talk about achievement uh and then also programming again right making sure that we have the right Pathways in a Continuum of supports in place so that all of our students can grow and succeed uh when you meet one student with a disability met one student and what they need is unique and individualized that's why we have IEPs that's why we need to have a Continuum from Full inclusion to Resource to special programming like learning lab and Thrive um it's it's really truly a Continuum and it's keeping more kids here in District um and that that's wonderful for our students to be in their home schools and their home Community uh and then lastly the U board goal six Workforce Development this one is a key uh within P services and within this District We Believe wholeheartedly that our job is to make sure that all of our staff have the supports and resources so that they can do their very best work for all of our kids and continue to move student growth and achievement forward uh so we are prioritizing that um within the district this year in particular our par Educators we've partnered with Quantum behavioral Consulting um to develop a competency Series in behavioral skills training which will provide 18 hours of targeted professional learning for our non-certified staff we are also investing and continuing to invest in our special education teachers I heard comments this this evening around the science of reading and making sure that best practices are in place at a foundational level for reading so we're investing in our teachers we're making sure that they have the training and support they need whether that's getting their associate level in Orton Gillingham which is a best practice in teaching reading um through Wilson to Spire uh we're also training our speech language Pathologists in something called prompt which is um a best practice research based me re research-based method for teaching students with a praia um so lots of training there and we're continuing also to acknowledge that just like we want to make sure our students have the tools and social competencies to be successful that we as adult Learners are acknowledging that we need to continue to look at our skill sets in terms of resiliency so we're offering reflective tools and opportunities and training um in that area all the way through um verbal deescalation practices and physical in interventions through our c CPI training so those are just some highlights and examples of um trainings that we're doing but we believe that if you that our teachers are are are a wonderful asset and that if we invest heavily in them that they will have the skills and supports they need um which will realize outcomes for for our students and that's what's best for everyone so that is the continuous Improvement plan and I also as promised wanted to provide everybody with an update on Thrive uh so this uh slide here is my attempt to connect our board goals um to the program specifically so this is a highlevel overview um but when you look at student growth and achievement we have 18 students currently participating in the program this program is heavily rooted in behavioral data collection um specialized the specialized therapeutic supports and we are continuing to closely monitor how our students in that program are doing the um our Thrive teachers meet weekly to discuss student cases to look at the data and to make adjustments as appropriate um and it's really about first and foremost that maslo before Bloom right making sure that our students are safe um and have instructional control so that they can be available for learning uh so that's this year it's all about setting the foundation in that area and then from there we move to our Partnerships so our biggest partner this year uh within the community is quantum Behavior through them we've contracted we have 1.4 behavioral Consultants working every day in our schools uh they're actively present meeting with our staff reviewing best practices helping to support individualized program binders um and looking at the data and providing um feedback to make sure that our um our programs are as strong as possible they have also provided us with five contracted Behavior Texs throughout our district um many of them are working within our Thrive programs um and they have a high level of training and work underneath the consultation of our bcbas and to make sure that uh all of our student needs are being met in those areas uh we have our three classrooms available in the dist District uh we have a reset space at Cherrybrook primary school we are very flexible within the Thrive program we've recognize that each student's needs are unique um some of our students are able to push in the general classroom and we always look for opportunities to do that when when we are able to um and other students require a much more intensive pullout model where they're getting some one-on-one instruction so the program really is very flexible it's based on what our students need um and again it's under the the guidance and direction of our board certified Behavior analysts uh in terms of Workforce Development I've already shared a lot about our training so I won't um go into that again but we are well staffed in the district within this program we have our three full-time certified special education teachers we have our par Educators uh dedicated to each of the programs um and we continue to just focus on training and building capacity and supports for that program what's the ratio of Bara student to teacher so it depend I would say it depends on the which building we're talking about but in general it's like a 1 to2 ratio it's pretty small um we have um How many pairs do you have in your room right now yeah six six so so that's just about a one to one five sorry almost a 1: one ratio in that program yeah next slide please so highlights and Next Step where are we going with prve um so I wanted to share with you that we are keeping more kids in district one of my big goals this year was to significantly slow the rate of outplacement we've been successful in doing that so that is saving us money not having to outplaced uh we continue to work on securing and ensuring that we have the right resources and time available for our staff um to meet and get the training they need tomorrow's PD for example our Thrive staff um have dedicated time specific to their programs um individually they can work and and develop their programs with the bcba and then they also have time set aside in the afternoon to meet as a district with the other Thrive teachers um just to talk about each other's programs and how they can support one another and continue to like brainstorm and and problem solve and it's nice to have a a community of of providers that have a similar experience and support one another so we're going to continue to provide opportunities for that uh we're going to continue to closely monitor as we work toward making sure that we have a really strong and solid foundation this year uh for next year again continuing to build upon our training building our um Community Partnerships um and we're starting to look at are there students who are presently out place that may be ready to transition back so that's something that through my office and through our ppts without a districts we're keeping a close monitor on and looking for those opportunities um moving forward three and four years out uh I think the biggest most exciting thing that I'm hoping to be able to provide for this district is a revenue base from this program so we're going to be exploring the option of um having a tuition based model where seats are offered to our neighboring town towns we have a best practice program in this District that we're really really proud of um in this end of the state there are not a ton of out of District close by resources available so we have an opportunity here to um support our neighboring towns and also help to bring in some Revenue in the process so that is a big long-term goal of this program um and we're going to you know hopefully by 26 27 we'll be in a position where we're able to offer those seats what question you have so I I did one question relative to that so kind of a delicate way best way to ask this because a parent asked me this so if a student was identified uh with some just slight special needs how is that student then um how is that student integrated with the other special need Student so that that student doesn't feel I mean there's different levels I'm trying to find out the the best way to say this the parent asked you know is my son is my son feeling because he's in with other kids that may have greater special needs is he is he feeling um I don't want to say labeled um trying to think the way she said it but um is there a way that he's into a group that's in his same level so he's not into something that's more intense yeah I appreciate that question so what what I will tell you is is it specific to thrive or in general she didn't say Thrive she just said she said my my son has these needs and I'm worried he's in with this group I don't want him to feel that he's you know that the group is too intense or not enough intense I'm sure just trying to Parrot it back the best way I can yeah I appreciate that so what I will say is that within special education uh we talk about placement last in the PBT process so when we meet as a team team we talk about present levels this is where our student is performing this is what they need to grow these are the accommodations in supports to get them there these are their individualized goals and then we have a conversation around what environment is least restrictive and the best place for that student to make their growth so it's a very individualized process and as I um spoke at the very beginning there really is a Continuum within special education so it starts with full inclusion in the General Ed classroom students with IEPs are general education students first and foremost so we start there and then based on that individual's learning needs we we move towards additional supports or additional environments that will provide the structure so that they can access so it's really dependent and we meet we meet our students where they're at and we'll meet with our families and parents know their kids better than anyone else that's why they need a voice in that process actually the parent said the child's very happy where he is she was more worried than probably he was so yeah but thank you you're welcome any other questions yes sure um of the 18 students that we have in Thrive are you able to comment how many are we kind of retaining or we able to come back like all those 18 are they current 18 that we brought back or were there 10 of them that were already here those are all Canton students that we're already here okay um presenting with um significant behavioral disregulation needs so I I don't know if anyone remembers last last year when I was giving a presentation I said we are seeing increase levels in data supporting that we had multiple students with this regulation um so having this program has enabled us to provide the right um structures and learning environment to ensure that those students can access but they are current students could go out but they they would otherwise likely I would there would be a a portion of them that we would be considering yet we have um we have a couple of instances of hybrid programming that's happening um but no none that are 100% back yet the other question was of the you know the behavioral consultants and the contracted Behavior texts are I know that they're here to support students for very specific needs but we have students that pop up with new needs inve the district or are younger and developing are those Tech and behavior consultant ever able to support other students that who are unidentified has that been a resource in the district so right now our behavioral Consultants are available for all of our students they consult specific so behavioral Consultants just for clarity they don't work with students directly they consult with our teams and our administrators so our bcbas are here for all the behavior Texs tend to work with one or two specific students with specific needs so those Betts are in place for for specific purposes so they are not available to all but our bcbas are absolutely available to everybody for support thank you any other questions Jo couple quick ones the 18 young How do they break down by by school um so we have I don't have that at the top of my how many do you have at Cherry six at Cherry Brook and four at CIS six at Cherry Brook four at CIS and the rest are at middle high school and if uh if you added two three five seven more youngsters would you need that much more staff or does the as the staff gets you know better at it through practice and through professional development are able to incorporate more youngsters into the program without more staff so I would say it depends on the students needs it's individualized um so there are situations where we have staff that can support multiple students and then we have students who have specific needs that require intensive one-on-one supports so it would just depend thank you welcome Anya um I know one of the things you mentioned um was slowing the rate of out placements and just looking at the 18 students I'm just curious in your mind how many of those students would have been outplaced without G that's a hard one to answer um so I can tell you that I am aware of two students in each program that without this without Thrive we would likely be considering an outplacement just was Wonder from budgeting cost thank you a good question any other questions for bar I just have a comment I think the um the special ed PTO is a great idea glad to see that I think families will really like that um also just I was just thinking um you know I remember back when you started you we had talked about that there would be kind of a learning curve for high school special ed students and I'm just curious how you found that over the last year um I have had an incredible support system um with Drew dep pipo and Ruth Kidwell and and even Jeff I uh meet and uh regularly we have conversations about student achievement and growth and um yeah you just you pick it up as you as you go through so yeah high school was new to me it still is newish to me um but I feel very confident and comfortable in supporting the needs at the middle and high school great thank you for the question thank you very much Barbara thanks for coming tonight good presentation thank you Jeff appreciate it thank you okay let's uh let's move right into the um we'll move quickly through the uh standing committee reports Russell anything you want to report on finance no okay thank you policy Joe he we met again tonight for the meeting uh you know we've been considering the move to uh Shipman's policies for many of our policies keeping several of our own uh and we originally planning on bringing up for a vote tonight we may still do that uh but it's it's it's important that all of us have a chance to read the new policies before we vote on them you don't want to be voting on something that you haven't even looked or haven't even read I know you wouldn't do that so we thought that that uh we would make a motion tonight for a first read of the policies uh with the implication being we wouldn't vote on it at the December meeting we vote on it at the January meeting or longer if we need longer so everyone would have a month or two to read through the policies so you know what you're voting on uh it would help if as you read through them uh you knew how to do that because it's a little bit complicated uh kir is going to send out a video for those that are at the policy meeting for how to do that it really isn't all that complicated but it's a little bit tricky and I should be able to to help you with that and certainly she would you know you can call her email her and she'll or John and she'll take care of that I should point out that that John is now a veritable walking encyclopedia on our policies he's read them and reread them and read them over so any questions about policy are very good source which brings the last one before I I ask for a motion that uh as you read through uh if you have questions or concerns about a given policy get to John you like those questions to be out there by the December board meeting which is the 12 12 so that he's got we have time to discuss him in committee and he's got time to get answers for folks um and in your board packet is a uh list on one of the many pieces of paper in front of me that that gives you the policies that we've vetted over the past five six years that we're going to keep so while you're welcome to read them again we will be voting on them we're going to keep them uh and over time we'll be looking at them again see if we want to change them and over time we'll be asking chip to look at some of them to make sure that we haven't gotten ourselves through a jam down the road all that's a little bit complicated but uh questions before we I just put the motion on the floor and then answer questions we'll do the we'll do the motion at the end but um any questions for Mr shiler he he mentioned earlier he suggested everybody book a 7-Day cruise and take the policies with that because it could have take seven days to this this could solve your problem do the best you can so we'll we'll bring that motion up at the end okay okay thank you very much a a no questions okay uh curriculum and technology so we had our October meeting um we just did a review of Canton High School course updates and proposals uh in in a short summary is the 10th grade current Global issues class will remain intact and what used to be a half a year of thir Global issues in a half a year of Economics is now going the economics part is going to be replaced by personal finance which is a state requirement right and um now there's going to be an economics elective for 11th and 12th graders um and we are focusing on increasing our ECE offerings which are early college experience classes uh changing the the Canon Mastery project from a0 five or from one credit to 05 credit we reviewed the district standardized performance update and we had our initial review of The District Equity action plan very good busy yes we're going to try we were talking about how we um are going to need to move our meetings from 1 hour to 1 and a half hours just to get everything done and and those are on the um third Wednesday is it thir yeah I usually 9:00 yeah our next one's November 29th 9:00 a.m.

but once again look through there the reason I'm going to bring up number three Community oriented because I think you might hear that word or something similar that came out today so be aware of some of these things so I'll let you have a little quick look at that question five is the experiences that you would like to have in your new superintendent you can see it was not a six but you know I don't see a whole lot of sixes so for you to have two is a little bit unusual experience with business and operations of a school district was your number one with a 5.95 power score as you can see what I thought was a little bit interesting on this is that the people that responded on that um experience with business and operations of a school district 47% of your respondents on that question had that as their number one priority you see the way that works number two previous superintendent experience um obviously you can tell me that you can tell me that's something you prefer but I will tell you the chances of one of your top candidates in a have an experience with superintendent probably going to be kind of rare unless somebody is from this area they want to get back you know they have experience in that but uh we're finding in almost every search it's not just Central planes that experienced superintendents are retiring not moving to other positions unless they're going from Central Plains to Salena for you know a theoretical Step Up question six are all of the uh individual responses and you can see only 88 people decided to uh answer a question on that particular uh form um I I'll be real honest with you I was a little nervous that there would be some really scary comments in here there's only one comment in here that I have redacted for the public I did not redact anything that's in front of you because that's your information I have given uh Diane one that if anybody would ask for an open records act I think you feel comfortable in giving this public one that she has because it's got there's a specific name mentioned in here that it's not it's just that's your information not The public's information so that one's been we can take a whole lot of time and read through these uh but I don't think that would do us any good right now but obviously I know you're really interested so please look through those and take some time at home when you have an opportunity to read these some of these you may or may not like uh but you know I I already see Mr worth got a smile on his face so all right and then the last question is the single quality that you would hope the board would use to separate uh one great candidate from another that's question number four that I asked of them today and I have never ever seen this come out any different than what you have honest trustworthy and strong Integrity is always number one always number one now your number two is fiscal operations and management expertise if you remember that kind of was pretty high on one of your other questions so something for you to consider I've done a lot of these um some districts you never hear that once anything about budget it is so far down on the list it doesn't seem to have interest to the folks that respond yours in my opinion seem to kind of Rise Up a little bit you would know why better than I would but I wanted to show tell you that although it may not raise a yellow flag to you it's a little bit not that it hasn't showed up in some districts but a lot of districts you won't even see it it's way down on the list so if we go back to question three if we would please I would like to have anybody that would be willing to say that um yeah I I agree with these no I think flexibility ought to be a lot higher than it is I'd like to make those notes to myself so I'll be aware of what the board so any comments from the board board members about question three I would sure entertain any three or how many it's whatever you tell me now I've highlighted just the two but that's just CU I did that doesn't mean you you might highlight the top four communication for me top three okay the one they had number one would be my number one person say that again Mr worth I want to make sure the number one on here the personal strength do right okay would be really high on your list anyway and it sounds like on yours too and I agree on communication so I've starred that for my information any other comments from board members on transparency too I I if I had my worth I'd almost have transparency and skilled communication almost the same related I think it confuses folks because to me I think they're so closely tied but yes I'll I'll highlight that also I think relationship Builder and collaborative are almost yeah so what's interesting is uh approachable relationship Builder well I better be cautious on say because I don't want you to think the way I'm thinking but I think you will see that on the comments today kind of kind of came up to the top relationship Builder collaborative uh being out in the about within the communities seem to come up kind of high which to me is collaborative build relationship Builder being collaborative yeah okay any other comments on question three before we go to the board I almost feel like that kid first personality that's more the building administrator more so than yeah and obviously you want your superintendent to be have a kids first but unfortunately they don't have the same opportuni as the principles do with kids yeah yeah that's what I definitely miss going from Principal to a superintendent was the kid relationship when I going into a building they didn't know who I was anymore just that guy that shows up once a week or something all right question four is the leadership qualities you can see efficient manager of resources and budget was very high and remember the comment I said earlier that's pretty uncommon not that it doesn't but I'm not sure I've ever seen it number one I may have seen it in the top three on occasion but a lot of times it's in the bottom half and then proactive forward thinker was number two then number three Community oriented involved with the community U I'll just let you look through there but comments about how you feel about this ranking things that you want me to emphasize or something that you think you want me to add or change some priority to I number one for me definitely number one is number one and those of you that said shook your head okay I kind like this day to advocate for school system I think that's probably going to be fairly number six okay any other comments or anything you would like me to be aware of didn't that when we went through the survey a year and a half ago wasn't the efficient manager of resources and budget in the top one or two so it seems to be a consistent thing U and I think I almost once again I don't want to put thoughts in your mind but I think you'll see that from the results of today also have from a year and a half ago do you I do not I meant to grab it I can send it to Diane tomorrow morning she could afford it the the survey that we did a year and a half ago I think it's pretty similar especially the top where the top ones yeah I think we did one and then another Direction yeah which okay all right so question five are the experiences of your Nick superintendent as you can see exper experience with business and operations of a school district and number two which was pretty high uh was previous superintendent experience you can see between two and three there was more than a 1.0 gap between those two that's why I highlighted one and two but once again I'd like to hear from this board who gets to make the ultimate decisions what what you feel about these rankings I guess I wouldn't want somebody to be completely eliminated just because they don't check the box of having previous superintendent experience does anybody else feel similar to that that could eliminate over half so all that add yeah that'd be great want to make sure that it's not like being a tiebreaker for you if everybody's really good and you have one with experience I me it might be something you consider okay I'm not one ever had experience get good you know the uh there's going to be a superintendent of the year in the Kansas and I'll guarantee they started as a principal wen't superintendent might as well be somebody here yeah yeah any other comments on the ones that were a little bit farther down on the priority list that political advocacy I mean is that fall under the deal of like trying to find grants and stuff like you know it want to grow out I wouldn't say that's exactly but I think obviously grants are usually at the state Regional State and National level so it does make some sense done pretty job GRS yeah okay I guess when I think of that too the politial efficacy and stuff it's justum being able to network so I mean if they know other people and relationships can help your District out at times by who you know yeah whether we like that or or not yeah okay then question seven is the one that U I said your your results on question seven were similar to what I see everywhere and I think we all want somebody that's honest trustworthy and got high integrity but any other comments on that question and once again remember number two had something to do with fiscal operations if you notice number four goes back to just what you were saying Mr WTH about advocating for the district at the State national level it came up number four on that list so I would like to say that I cannot imagine I would recommend somebody that's not honest trustworthy or has Integrity I mean I'd sure like to think I missed the vote if I didn't do that so I guess if we look at that almost then says is fiscal allow number one you know to the board I mean that's all what we want number one I know that but i' sure like to think that's going to be a given yeah yeah okay all right so any other comments or questions on this I've made my little notes based on what I've heard from you as a board okay then uh today's session I'd like to hand that out to so kind of unsaid as you are well aware there needs to be a lot of weight put on what I heard today but remember that was only 21 people as opposed to 141 but these are the people that are working for your school district so they have some uh knowledge of the inner workings of your school district so as you can see of the district office and the administrators there was six in attendance and the staff we had 15 I think everybody invited was there we had five from each yeah so each of the buildings had representation uh fun fun group I really appreciated the folks that came how you Pi the group what we did is we had the administrators uh sent out an email to all of the employees to say who would like to be on this group and then if there was more than five then they put them in a hat and picked out a name but we wanted to make sure we had at least one classified position on everyone so we had four certified and one classified exps so that a good way to do it I think that worked out for you well as you can see the first question is the most important leadership and personal qualities that was question number three and three and four in the online survey these tally marks for the first three questions is a group response so I put them in groups of three to four and they had to come to consensus on question number one of the two or three things they would report so the groups they had to they all had their idea and then they had to advocate for whatever they were going to report if we give it uh if everybody has an opportunity end up saying 15 it Waters it down so much and we never come up with Trends I still wouldn't say we came up with Trends because there just wasn't enough people but I think you'll see some things that either match or do not match with what you just saw so most importantly leadership and personal qualities you can see the first four three different groups so we had a tie but look at the look at the one that happens to be alphabetically three different groups had budget they might have said budget they may have said FIS fiscally responsible but I put it in kind of the finance heading three different groups said approachable being visible having a community presence I'm not sure that really came up real high on the community survey I mean it's there but I you know it didn't really rise to the ones that I highlight it doesn't mean it's not important also three was good communicator transparency I put that one together so people said effective Communicator good communicator transparency I put that in there then three was Visionary being a decision maker that can follow through and then one group said trust or being trustworthy and if there's not a tally that means at least one group said it not something I made up so uh one group asked not to be a micro manager and another one said being supportive of their personnel so listening to that one how how how do you feel that one matches with questions three and four of the online survey pretty close is there things you want me to be aware of while I'm starting to V candidates for you I'm surprised that trustworthy didn't pop up a little bit higher yeah um some times it depends on your current leadership on how high that one goes or how low that one goes and try to make them understand that it's not what your current leadership has it's what you want in your new leadership because I don't want if if I'm bad in communication and I'm about ready to be replaced I don't want somebody to say well Gary's a terrible Communicator we need commun that's not what I'm wanting this any any comments on question one all right so then if you look at question two what are the strengths and good points of your district and if I would have stopped there I'd like to think they could have written 100 things really fast but I want to qualify that with that you want the new superintendent to understand and support so the new person doesn't come in and tear something out that everybody loves so as you can see I can't count those tallies I think there're six six different groups said something about a strength of your district is how it's family oriented there's Community Support there's Community involvement uh the students are involved in school and community so I put all those in one heading you may not if I did it tomorrow may not be the same and if you did it might be but in the time I had that's how I put it together so six groups said something that fit within that category then five groups said something that has uh something about the staff so you can see how it was said throughout that it would had something to do with staff or the offerings of which staff allow the kids to have so that's always good to have and this is not a black market anyway of course we had 15 U staff members part of that and you know they it it actually it is hard for teachers to brag on themselves so but it did come out obviously and I think the community would probably say the same and then with four groups said something about your sports and your co-curricular offerings your student programs in school Community your virtual program so Student Center so things that I thought had something to do with your school program your Co or extracurricular program I put into that group so four different groups said something there and then so here's what's interesting remember how high budget fiscally responsible you only had one group that said anything about finances on that question and it's supposed to be a good thing you know to strain so I'll let you make your own judgments on why that might be sometime teachers and staff members when the budget is going pretty well and they don't have to suffer because of the budget it's not on their mind and I know the teachers have had to suffer maybe a year ago but right now I think from what I'm hearing you feel like you're getting on a better Financial track so the teachers are seem to be of that in my mind from the conversations I've all right and then a really interesting thing I I heard one group said it but it's kind of fun to hear that highly qualified alumni are returning to your communities to become residents which is really fun to hear it's really nice to hear so congratulations on that well as you can imagine then question three or one are the critical needs and challenges we only ask for one to two responses on this this is public information that has no reason but a lot of times your candidates will call me what are they wanting in central plains this is public information I'll send this off to a candidate and we don't want the critical needs to out number the good things not that it would but so one to two responses nothing really came up ex and nothing I don't think that would surprise you uh number three or excuse me uh three groups said something about the division between North and South animosity between communities it's interesting because I'll I'll be honest when I came here I thought I was going to hear that a lot more and that's really the only question that I heard it specifically said but it's interesting the teacher groups you got teachers from the North and the South and they were having great time together you know they were working well together uh three is Unity uh that possibly could have went into that one and that would have been six groups you know now that I look at it now I probably could have put that in that group three is budget so you know the last group now it's a critical need all of a sudden so it's interesting which then vastness and diversity of the district not diversity in your student demographic like uh ethnicity and poverty the U diversity of the district you know you're 30 miles apart in some districts and then uh with two groups said things about your deferred M maintenance your infrastructure overc crowding or infrastructure issues I should have had a comma after structure and the overcrowding especially at Hollywood so I don't know about those things but that may or may not be something that you're aware of and the last question the rules changed they did not work in groups they each got to have their own single response to this question so I think you'll count 15 different talles because or 21 different Tes there please don't count cuz I may not got it right so U the question is our separating quality questions the way I answered this is what would be the single trait you would want the board to use to choose between one great candidate and another great candidate I call this the tiebreaker potentially so let's say you have three interviews are all pretty good but two of them are fantastic they fit your criteria and and Hallelujah what are we going to do we got two candidates fear theoretically you know if this is really important to you one's really good with uh I hate to use that one because it's more character issues which I think you're not going to have but let's say one's really good with budget and one's really good at being approachable well which one's got the higher theoretically you might look at that that's how you break the tie but once again this has got to be important while the board thinks because you ultimately get to make that so I guess I'm interested in hearing on that single characteristic uh how you as board members feel about that I would say that yeah someone who has more budget experience Financial experience appro okay any other comments board members I would agree with that okay thank you we were talking about that today uh of course I always be strong in budget but then I don't want to be afraid to go into the office and ask him a question he still has to be approachable about the budet there's a balance there got to be a balance yeah all right so hey thank you for that not to make that more difficult for you no I know the board clerk carries a big weight in school districts I well aware of that all right so let's look at uh salary schedule comparisons I'll hand this out to you folks all right so I did not include your central plane superintendent salary because it's kind of different so right she would have that for you what that total is So what I've done is is put some comparisons together so for an example the first page if you can see that is by enrollment so if you would look at that gray column enrollment that's got in order like the 20 districts that are directly larger than your District enrollment and the 20 districts that are directly smaller than your your uh District so if you were able to plug your number in there you know how do you rank with those 40 school districts make sense so far what you're seeing okay so if we go to page two I really don't know why we do this one this is your ksb region so there's big districts in there of 3,000 and then there's District small earn use so salary comparison the only importance there is would give you some Regional comparisons but only probably the ones that are similar in your enrollment would you have any concern on that the next one uh the next several page is your classification so your 1A classification if you look at that now your school district is a little bit different uh because at least until recently you had two different high schools you know so you know if you put your District enrollment together it might be a 2A District you know what I'm saying so but these are all of the 1A districts so you can look at those salaries and then you can plug in your current salary to see where you might rank in there and there's two pages of that cuz there's a lot of 1 a school districts and then lastly is a salary comparison for your league so a lot of districts really view that as one of their most important things is to see where you stand within your league so you can see the salaries based upon your league and then when you're able to plug in your salary for Central planes or where your proposed salary might be however you wish to do that to see where it goes so as I had said recently I'm not here to tell you you're either behind or you're ahead or your average that's up to you but what I would really uh recommend for your consideration is some point between now and your interviews come up with the salary range of which you're comfortable in paying I'm going to use round number so don't think I'm trying to hint to you but let's say we're and I honestly don't even know right off hand what you're currently paying so I don't know but I'm going to use round number we would we are willing to pay anywhere from 95 to 120 for an example that would be your range all right now why am I saying you do that something you ought to agree on as a board so when you offer I I would hate for you to do that that last night of the interview and you're trying to get an offer made before they take a job somewhere else and now you haven't talked about that and and now you might make a decision that you regret because you want that person so badly and you haven't had time to think about it and you offer 140 and then you realize oh my gosh what do we do you I'm just using numbers you see what I'm doing so please be proactive and considering a range that you're comfortable that you also think is going to be representative of a school district your size on some of these higher salaries how do we know that they're superintendent on the principal you don't now there if you ask me specifically if there's somewhere in the area I might be able to help you out I'm pretty sure thaty sure yeah and then even the ones if you happen to see some really low ones yeah a lot of times those are simply because it's a combination and they're just reporting the superintendent salary or they're only working two days a week and they're interim and they're going get making 50,000 so there are some stories behind the really loans so so a range of salary that's not something you'd have to do tonight but I would highly recommend on your December agenda that you have a superintendent search agenda item where you can talk about those items um that's up to the board go from there and you'll also want to confirm some other things so make sure on your agenda that you have super tenant search at your regular December meeting DEC just under General discussion okay so any questions or comments about what you see with the salary what's that form that says total board DP those paid benefits I think it's right I think yeah paid benefit the last one is um total salary plus Fringe is that yes that's it do you know most of the superintendents in our district yeah probably come pretty close yeah are most of them uh experienced superintendents or they you know two or three years or are they looking at 15 if I know them I would be able to tell you that I'd also also be able to probably tell you that they're two or three years in this District but they've been in another district 10 years before that yeah okay so if you have any specific questions you can get those to Diane I'll do my best to get an answer for you I don't think that on the last page I don't think Lewis is in our in our I'm not sure why that's showing up there you know we have a big spreadsheet and I know I don't know were they ever in your District or maybe they never got six we have eight schools in our league so I don't know why well Lewis and Maxville compete together don't they they're shared they have I know they are in junior high yeah so I wonder if somehow that Maxville and Lewis are connected in some manner they have two boards but they share kids on the at the middle school and the elementary level I believe so I bet you that's how they somehow got connected okay I bet you Lewis and Maxville cooperate for activities would be my guess okay all right here we go let's just keep moving on the next thing for your consideration and as you will know your board clerk is prepared darn you we need to talk about an interview day what that would uh look like in a district of your size so uh the last time you did a superintendent search Diane actually had records of what your interview day looked like uh what she has in front of you there is absolutely nothing wrong with this interview it's this the schedule for the day it would probably a little bit longer than what most districts your size would be and I I because I look at hundreds of these I know exactly why it's a little bit longer that you provide you gave an opportunity for them to meet with each principal in their building what I would have recommended to you is that all of the administrators come together in a common meeting or you know rather than not that that they need to have a tour of their building of the buildings in your District uh but to give them time within that tour to meet with the principal it's going to add some time but if you want to do it exactly like this there's absolutely nothing wrong with that if you want to shorten it down uh I would have some suggestions on that so what I would highly recommend obviously is the interview with the board so if we start from the from the top or from the bottom work back then a dinner with the uh board and the candidate so it's 6 o' here a lot lot of times it's at 5:30 but your schedule is a little longer so usually like a 5:30 dinner done at 6:15 or so adjourn for 15 minutes and then go into your formal interview so if it started at 5:30 your interview might start at 6:30 but 7 once again there's no issue with that just where we go we would recommend that there would be some sort of a reception so that the staff can meet each candidate that is difficult here because of three different buildings so if you did it you would if you have it in one building you would want to make sure it's scheduled that the Wilson faculty and the holwood faculty for an example could get to Claflin to the common meeting or if you have it in Wilson how long will it take for somebody to get there so that would typically be after school at some point so your staff can be there because you obviously can't let 50 staff members out without letting school out so that's another thing to consider so that does put a little bit of a wrench in because of your vastness of your District was the word I heard today you would want to have a tour of your district and the tour of the district and Diane told me that you may already have a tour guide to identifi which is fantastic but we would highly recommend it not be a board member so she didn't tell me who and I don't need to know but in your District I think it's really important that they see all three of your attendance centers Wilson route and Central PL high school high school if obviously if we Wen in Sal they wouldn't go to Every grade school so that could be a long tour um because your superintendent may live in any one of your communities who knows you may even want to have the tour guide drive a little bit around each of the communities too U that is not that is not a willy-nilly tour that needs to be a little bit planned out even when you're driving through the communities you know you're going to end up at the high school to give them a tour or the other schools but when you're driving through the communities you're driving through you're showing them the parks and recreations the City offers you know Swimming Pools Parks uh if there happens to be medical centers of you know just things that you think would be important for a new an important person within your community to be able to see you know and bushon no longer has a school that is within your District but it also is a pretty viable Community Within District so that that could lengthen your tour if this board chooses to do that I'm not advocating one way or the other that's going to have to be a board decision but it's going to be a long tour getting to at least three communities and walking through buildings now the tour guide is the one that's in the vehicle with them taking them everywhere when you get into the school we typically would say let the principals kind of take that doesn't mean the tour guide can't walk along with them but let your principales guide another thing to consider Diane if the principles were here I would say this um I've heard from candidates why did you happen to choose Central planes over you know when I toured the high school or Elementary they had kids giving me the tour I thought that was the most awesome thing now I'm not saying you have that type of people ready but it's pretty cool to hear a kid go I got you got to see this classroom Mr or Mrs so and so it is so cool what we're doing that's a lot better than a principal doing it once again that only happens in our very small number of districts but it has resonated with a few candidates so if you're able to do that it's a great consideration if you can't nobody knows the difference so something to consider Dian y okay um we would highly recommend they meet with your principals and your district office staff so the three ladies in the district office that's the three I'm aware of right and your two principles um in your schedule that you did many years ago they met with the principles um in the building and I think that's why it's a little B longer if they came at noonish for an example you would tell them when you call and that we'll have a meal for you you'll meet at the district office at noon we'll have a meal and you'll meet with the principls in the district office staff so that's something to consider so not that they won't talk to the principles you know when they get into the buildings but they'll have an opportunity if you do it oneon-one it does get a little bit long for the candid so something to potentially consider there so that's another thing you can either talk about a little bit more after I leave today but at that December meeting I think you're going to want to have something typed up that you're comfortable with so that's done you know so when we're ready to start the interviews in three weeks we're done we got that taken care of okay question so far all right all right so on the interview day and Tamara will talk to you the third time but usually it's the board president that calls to say we would like to have you come for an interview I'll try to do my best to have that we'll talk about that a lot more but you would want to offer lodging if you can because somebody's coming from 300 miles away and they got to be here by 11:30 noon 12:30 so that night You' say we would we we sure would like to offer lodging either before or after because if they're done at 9:30 they may not want to be driving home you get home at 2: in the morning so Diane mentioned that you may have some airbnbs that at least she feels comfortable with but it's ultimately a board decision to say yeah D and go with it or however I know how this works Diane okay so um I've recommended to Diane if the board says we want to offer lodging which I sure hope because it's a good look that you would give her release her to go ahead and get those reserved because you can always cancel them but at least you get those dates out there for them so I don't know if you want to say anything more about b&bs or if they have a preference or no I don't yeah yes and I was just going to mention that because um the last time we did I don't know if we used the Wilson hotel but we might have it I know we used the Ellsworth hotel and the candidate preferred stay in gra event so I think we just need to let them know their options and then they may want to say no I get points with the Hol in or whatever and then go and if the Wilson is an option u a lot of time they depend on what direction they're coming from if they're coming from Northeast Wilson might be a great opportunity if they're coming from the southwest they might wantes stay and if they're in central Hollywood I don't know if they have anything but probably not unless it's an airn something like that so guess you don't have to make that decision but be aware you're trying to make it convenient for the candidates you know if they need to go northeast they don't want a Great Bend to stay because they're going opposite of the direction they're working that's kind of what we did the last time is where they were coming from okay all right meal um as we talked at 5:30 approximately 5:30 there would be a meal U so the board has to choose on whether you want the school district to provide the meal and that's perfectly fine if you do or a caterer or whatever you may have but you know we've got five days reserved I'm going to be pretty honest with you I don't think we'll have five interviews I don't like to give five but we want to have those but your cater or whoever your food service would need to be start thinking about that that in case there is four interviews that they're prepared it does not have to be a fine meal it can be don't worry about it they're not going to complain while you serve them because that's a bad look just don't say you should have interviewed yesterday we had Stak sorry we're having hot dogs today but don't don't let them compare but um whatever you have there's no complaint uh a lot of districts I would say 95% of the districts now are having the meal in the same location of the interview if you go into a restaurant the meal is an executive session still because they are talking about things that are still not yet public information it's pretty hard to talk privately in restaurants that don't have a a room that you can close and then you have a waiter or a waitress walking in on all the time so if you have an interview here or if you have an interview in one of your schools uh the meal would come there let's say 5:30 you have a meal could be plated could be Buffet no problem you're done at 6:15 you clean the room everybody goes 15minute restroom break clean up the room come back in at 6:30 for the interview once again there's no right or wrong but it seems to be a little bit more convenient to do it in the same location as the uh interview what about uh the candidate's spouse the we don't recommend they bring a spouse but if you bring one I'm not going to I mean if board wishes to do that please do we have found it has created an imbalance uh sometimes when the spouses cuz sometimes the spouses are uh not the best look for the candidate I guess I hate to say I was just thinking about uh if they want to bring their spouse because this could be a potential employment opportunity for the candidate and they do the tour and that's all great but then when it comes time for the dinner and the interview the spouse really should not be a participant because it's an executive session well that makes it kind of UNC we would recommend to you that if you bring a guest and we would say would you like to bring a guest once again you're showing favoritism to somebody that may or may not be married even though you're not they may be thinking that if you say bring your husband or wife um you can invite anybody you want into an executive session that's true yeah so if you want a guest to come we would say that they're invited to everything from the 12:00 through the dinner within the interview they're no longer involved the hard part on that is what are they going to do for the two 2our interview you're going to have them set in the hallway here are you going to get them to the hotel if you do if they take the car how you going to get the candidate you know or somebody going to take the guest to the hotel you know however you wish to do that now I'm going to I'm going to say this you may or may not agree but the female candidates for some reason their spouses just don't want to come they're not going to take off work but the men candidates their their wives show up so now all of a sudden it shows up that oh they're married but now the female spouse show shows up they're married or not who knows but now everybody it's it's we've we've had female candidates say they believe it's an imbalance when a guest is invited because my husband who I love dearly is not coming and it just it's a signal that some it's not necessarily a good or maybe don't uh offer don't make the offer to have this the uh guest unless they say what about my and if they bring if they want about that time but if you you well you might want to know before because do we want to invite in gas once again it's not we've just seen there's been an imbalance okay but but it's up to the board I'm not going to say it's right or wrong there is no right or wrong on it it's just creates a I can see where there would be that but I can also see where I mean this is where they're potentially contemplating moving to yeah absolutely and you hate to make them feel welcome I was going to say one of our big things is supposed to be family yeah oh no yeah and if you said we want them to bring a guest absolutely I would never second guess it I'm not going to tell anybody you say yay or nay because when we were told not to recommend it anymore no jeez I'm I'm small I do a lot of small districts that's really important yeah so plus they can always come back and like if they come for the interview and he goes home we got to go see this place you know then they can always make another trip out orever C should be in your District before the interview coming a week or two before and driving around and with the whole family if they had children that they would already have a pre but once again you please do what you want to do not necessar say you can bring a guest but if they as then right they can accommodate or try yeah okay we'll disc anything include through the meal is that what you're thinking well we would not recommend at all they in the interview that they would be part of everything but the formal interview we have had and I'll just say that out front there's been spouses that have ruined the interview for the candidate yeah where they answer instead of the candidate and the board's go who who's in charge here we're looking for a superintendent you know so we not hiring yeah please don't put this stuff in the paper I'm just taking the photographs he's listening online so yeah we're on know I know all right so we've got lodging uh we uh you're going to start considering your interview day the meal plans you're going to come up with a salary range the last thing that I want you to think about are the interview questions uh in the back of your manual there is way more interview questions than you'd ever ask uh I'm going to send an electronic copy of those questions to Diane tomorrow what I would highly recommend P 30 is when they start yeah page 30 is where those are at so what I would highly recommend that you consider doing this if you if you wait till your December meeting and go over this I'm telling you you're going to take three hours to try to come up with the questions that you want to ask so I would recommend that you each look through those and you identify the 21 questions you would ask if I was the only board member in the interview you would send those to her you don't have to type you say question 4 6 9 10 she's going to go through those and if seven board members say we want questions to and that's going to be for sure one of the top 21 I would also highly recommend that you allow your newest board member to be part of that because she's going to be part of the interview questions so that make sense to you does does Diane have your email address I do okay all right so do you like that idea board or do you want to do you want to waste three hours at your December meeting trying to figure out all these questions well in How I Feel maybe 21 Questions didn't get the top 21 might have to add cou yeah and what you might end up happening the reason I'm saying doing this early enough that you're not waiting till the first day what I'm going to Diane you had a little work ahead of you here that if you send those to her I have recommended that this get done so at your December meeting here's the 21 questions that appear to come out then if you wanted to look at that point are we really want to ask question number 21 I think this one's more pertinent than you can do that as so now I would highly recommend that if you add a question that's not in there just simply send me an email I'll make our attorneys look at it and go is this a question that won't get this board in trouble and you all know what those questions are that's page 28 is the questions you don't have don't confuse the two sections to make it did you say that for yourself or you want somebody else that to make it clear then you could just email me and like dson says I want question 1.3 2.7 2.13 and you do 21 of those does that make sense and then I'm going to put those all together and say wow I had everybody picked this one same number so that's going to be for sure on there and then we can decide who's going to ask those questions and you will all ask the same questions to the three different candidates so you get the same answer and you can Tally what they're saying does that make sense so Tamara what I would recommend is she said that rather than you be the only one to ask questions at all seven of you hopefully they'll have seven board members there ask questions and if it's okay with you she could just assign those so when it comes back on that Tamar when you look at it you're going to know you do questions one is the board president eight and 16 for example and she'll even have your name written on that so um so I'm going use you Tammer as an example when you see your three questions the other questions are important to you but you can think what is a good response to my three questions so when you guys get together you know I've thought enough about this Chad might say I I thought this response was really good because I've had some time to think about that questioning before I asked it it's also a good look if the questions are uh labeled to Tamar ask this one yes I yes so during the interview it's a good look rather than going after you ask your question ah don't you go with number two yeah go it's a better look when you look like you're organized so that's why I think assigning board members to the questions just a real each will ask three that's where you get 21 Questions all right so Diane what day would you like these to you well if we were going to try to have them by the December meeting if you could get those to me by December the 4th which is like the Monday prior then I can go ahead and get the things printed out and uh have you assign which questions and you guys can practice if you get them to her sooner you wouldn't be upset would you yeah no you could start working on a little bit but I am going to take off a week vacation so at Thanksgiving so but that's I thought December the 4th of we could we'll have the board stuff done and so at your December meeting uh the things that you'll want to talk about so D if you take a little bit of time your salary range the interview you day try to get that down to where you have it on a piece of paper so that's done obviously you have your questions you'll want to confirm that you've got hotel or lodging for La a better term and that you might even want to tell Diane tonight uh we want the school system to make our meals or we want to have this um because I've done a lot of these are some things for your consideration if you have multiple cater Caterers you want one one cater to do one meal or you just want to bid it out and have them because you know the culture in your communities better than I do if you have three caters and you just say cater number one you get it and cater number two and three are going oh what the heck I didn't you know so it's something just to consider your interviews can be in any location um I don't want to make it hard for you or easier but you know they don't necessarily have to be here Holly or Wilson but your interview should be in the same location for each of your candidates decide there the tour uh you'd want to maybe talk about that in the December meeting whoever your tour guide is um you know who we where we going to go where we want to take them and make sure your principles are aware that they'll probably be given the tour once they're within the building or possibly students if they are ready to go so these are just discussion topics that you want the board to kind of think about that and we'll put those on the December agenda and under just general superintendent search that we can go through okay and then they can turn they they'll have their questions I can hand out their questions because I already have those done and the good news is you have December meeting to get all of this decided on so when you start your interviews that's all done that's you're not thinking about anything but the recommendations when I come to you on January 8th remember January 8th I will come and uh bring all of the hard copy applications to the board uh they'll make recommendations based upon the phone calls the betting the screening the characteristics that you've identified for me tonight and then you'll make a decision we want to interview Gary's recommended or not and go from there and then call will be that tonight I'll I'll coach you that evening on how to make the phone calls like I said I will have asked each of the recommended candidates whether they still have interest so you'll know that um and then I'll ask them specifically are there some days between these five that you're going to have to come any day the board asks you to come but is there some that are worse or better than you and I'll try to have that set up a little for you and then also that night we'll talk about how to make the deal and when to make the the offer so that you'll have that I so if your last interview was Friday for an example we'll talk about when they need to be contacting for for you contacting them if they don't call you in the time you address because you don't have time to wait around you're going to give them a very specific time I need to know by this date and time and it's not very much time I will tell you that there's been a lot of superintendent positions opening up since we've last talked and there are some districts of similar size Central Kansas are open so you are kind of uh I hate to say in this manner but potentially in competition with them you're a little bit ahead because you're first in the queue I told you right right off the bat you're you're still number one you may be a week ahead of or three days ahead of some of these other districts but you'll be a little bit of ahead if you have common candidates so are you saying that let's say for example January the 8th is the board meeting you've got the three candidates we got a call let's say I'm gonna say three let's say we do the interviews Tuesday Wednesday Thursday just that same week then at the end of the Thursday interview they should make a make an offer so that would okay now unless it's too late you're not going to call somebody at 11 o'clock at night but if you're interview's done at 9:30 you have your little conversation and there is no doubt the seven of you can come to consensus that quickly if it's 10:30 or earlier I would say call if it's later you might wait till very first thing the next morning but this is the point you can't wait because I will be able to tell you if KSP is doing the search I I will be able to say these three are good candidates and here's why but I am also aware that two of these three have applied at and they're interviewing next week so I'll be able to tell you that if we're doing the search I will know that if it's they're doing their own search I won't have that information but I will share which I will share to the other districts too but they're a little bit behind you so that doesn't necessarily take an extra meeting like like after I'm just thinking of I have to attend that Thursday night then after they're all done they know for sure it's going to be Mr Smith or whatever uh that it's too late to call then just the president can call the following day that doesn't have to be a meeting okay okay but as soon as you get the we'll talk about this third visit as soon as you get somebody that says yes to your offer U you're going to get a contract signed contract in your hand immediately we'll talk about this and can be done by facts it's legal and then you're going to have a special meeting if you can get it together if they if they if you get that signed contract in the office at 8: am on Monday you're going to try to have a special meeting at Monday night to get this thing done or we could do a zoom meeting you could I we can't all get together that would be the first that meeting would be the first time that your public will actually know who their new superintendent there is there's nothing said up until the approval of the new superintendent's contract when you come out of that last interview you're not going to make any Motions like Gary's number one Sue's number two because first of all you don't know if number one's going to accept the job you just talked about it you come to consensus on who your top candidate is and you're going to make the call what's ramifications if they sign that contract and they still back out well they could sign the contract until the board acts on it it's really not official what if we approve what you know like employment's weird what if they something comes up like well I can't I can't do it now we start this that's an attorney question my attorneys always say Gary you didn't stay at holiday in last night so don't answer those questions U that's why I'm here we've got five attorneys when those come up I'll call an attorney get an answer for you right now you know do we do we have to whatever it is yeah so that's why we have five educ attorneys to help us with this get to those tough questions I have a question on the so January the 8th you're going to recommend three people I don't know I mean whatever yeah is are those three names confidential they're confidential until the day they interview okay because I might have people calling me and say who you got who you got so what I will do I we'll talk about the next visit in the manual there's a release that we would say probably be your Clerk so the day of the interview 8:00 in the morning there's a little press release our first interview is Gary secret he is currently the superintendent principal of whatever uh here's what the schedule for the today is we hope you can be at the public reception that's all you're saying you're not releasing all three or four or all two that first day I will tell you I'm not going to say that public that's okay I just didn't know how confidential the candid it's problematic if you release them too soon because you're going to have everybody everybody in the district doing their own investigation and somebody in your district has a cousin in the district they're at and they fired that cousin and all of a sudden this teacher can't believe that you're considering hiring this new superintendent that fired their cousin and the cousin was the worst teacher in the history of the world but it's hard to convince everybody that's what it is okay good know and I'll make sure you get all that stuff electr okay yeah okay any other questions before I take off you give us any updates along the way like that you received yeah I've got to be cautious on that I told the staff today that if you absolutely said I want to know how many applicants I'll tell you but here's why I would prefer not to if I would tell you two it's now public information and somebody's going to hear about and go what's wrong with Central planing there only two apps I'm not applying may have been the person you wanted if I said 20 someone go ah 20 I don't have a chance I was going to apply should have been the person I'm not saying it works that way but you're not going to get very many applicants anyway and I'm doing everything I can to optimize the number I will tell you I've got a phone call from somebody and I hope they apply that's what I can tell you there I think this person would be a good candidate but I think they're also going to apply to another District too so you have a question we don't want to jeopardize but if you told me Gary you work for us I'll I would tell you but I will also tell you it's really really early nobody has enough applicants yet yeah because I've looked at everybody we toing I think we got six of them out there right now so osbor is open that's a potential competition fairly close to you fairly similar size Minneapolis North Ottawa county is open just north of Salina in Ottawa County Otis bison just came open Monday night that's official smaller District but it's in your area um there's another District in South Central Kansas coming open Monday night that I can't say anything about but I'm going there Monday night to get there started they're behind you but it's also a district that would potentially be in draw the same similar Ty can and then Cheno is open which is just probably far enough away that it wouldn't be in there for a district also okay once again you've got my email and if you have any questions I would be happy to answer those go thank you very much thank you yeah had a fun day thank you you know I'm available your questions okay okay thank you get through there is there any of this saying that you want to go into a little bit more tonight as far as lodging meals I any of that or you just want wait um I think probably my plan is if it's okay with you is just to interview the uh Food Service staff to see if this is something they would like to do you know we would obviously pay them um to prepare the meal each evening but they may not want to but I I think the last time I did it we gave them the first opportunity I do remember when we interviewed for U the last superintendent we catered the meal every time with the same caterer and it was out of Ellsworth but I don't know if they're still open or not it was some Steakhouse in Ellsworth and they catered every single meal and we just let them choose the menu and they brought him in containers and it did they bring him in containers or did they bring for Beth style I can't remember which but it worked out just really well really well I don't think I don't think so either but that's who we went to that was a while ago but um I as far as you guys know the district better than me I don't know who the Caterers are if there is even any this was a restaurant we just approached and then they decid they said yes we will do that for you and they brought all the meals to Hollywood so elor to Hollywood wasn't that far we did everything in the Hollywood so if we do cater you could have the dinner right here and you know and everybody will be in the same place or we could do high school cafeteria or I mean know doesn't matter you guys have think about that but I just I I thought about the food service ladies first and we can pay them and their employees and they're in the district and keep the business coming local the food that we purchased would not be through Food Service we'd have to pay for that separate because you can't run that three F service but it's a thought I think the other big thing for is maybe time depends on what day have it on yes and and I'm not saying that they would or they may not want to because they're going to be busy I mean they have school meals to prepare and all that I just remember it it I've done this so many times it might have been the time before we did it they served lasagna and they just served something you know that was more like a ceral kind of smothered thing or whatever um so yeah we can if you guys know of a caterer you know that you think would come and bring the food we can talk about that for sure we've got a little time as long as we give them the dates we know the dates we know how many evenings means that's the most important thing and I haven't looked at the school calendar yet but the dates that we're looking at we could have activities basketball games it's going to be right smack and basketball season so Junior High and high school so be a busy time but I like the idea of having it in a row get it going get it done don't stretch it out I did fail to ask him and I was going to mention it to him too if um he did mention today to our group that if don't have anybody to you'll have to extend the opening long we don't have any applicants at all but it sounds to be like that we will so maybe that's not going to be an issue well should asked what is our limit have two we run with two or we going to try to extend it on or there's only one appin you're going to run with one that may depend on their recomend I mean he may have a strong recommendation based on what who those are yeah if you have two and they're both very strong than I think two but if you have one and you're going that's all we have then you're going to run yeah for you don't want to just settle like restur what if the restaurant had group secluded from other part he said the same thing you still have a way that will come in with the dreams still have this that's the only downfall on having it at a restaurant than at this place people cautious of what said when the comes in but I'm just trying to think of if they don't care well that would be a good plan too if they would have like a little Buffet set up they could make their plate and then go into the room and have your tea and water on the table then you wouldn't even have to have any service but that could be manageable I'm trying I'm trying to think of how we did it when that restaurant catered and I think they brought the containers and it was the serving and we went through a line and serve say like the Mexican restaurant in Ellsworth we've used them for meals at the office and you can get trays of like you want faitas you can have trays and everybody can make their own yeah yeah I yeah I'm GNA I'll make call one I mean there's like all I think I can think of boots and Kon and I don't know like B and Char it's all it's all bar M's made some meals for board meetings before too she always does a good job huh wouldn't be opposed to asking her if she was interested in doing that too she's also District employee right yeah fact class um yeah but again those kids could be busy after school you know with the activities but that would be Terina Templeton in back class um we'll think about that I'll I'll keep you guys keep let me know if you know some and I'll try to keep things in mind too um we'll I'll take a look at the school calendar to see what's happening that week for that so and then the lodging um I think it depends where they're from but I the Wilson Hotel would be great if they're coming up from that part and then um all I mean Shelley Weber's my neighbor she owns the house right next door to me is the Airbnb and I can ask her I mean I just that there's people there today at her M of state so that would be a place it's a three bedroom I like the idea of giving them the option to choose here's here's your different options because everybody also has a little bit different preferences too aside from location hotel hotel hotel that's all I want Hotel you know well like you said it depends on where they're coming from or on top of it you know they might okay I'm doing an interview on Thursday I'm not going back home we're going inter Kansas yes you know to family yes so I'm going that way instead of back to the east I'll let them choose I can give them some options of where to stay and then I'll let them choose for the for the lington hotel too that's very nice hotel over there that's pretty new I'll do um we'll work on the questions um do we need to have with the hotels I'm not so worried about prob to get a room but yeah I'll ask J tomorrow for that what she thinks during the week it's not as bad as weekends so I don't think we should have issu but and it's after the holidays are over so I know people put way in advance on of okay we um the the schedule I just Ed as an example that we did with Mr Clark the schedule so I was thinking more starting early afternoon we don't I mean it's up to you guys if you want them to tour the bushon building the community building in bushon um they can see the facilities of the football field and that because that's where we have our Junior High activities maybe that would be a good idea to drive through there and see that so we'll have to figure out how long that date will take um but the meeting with the staff after school I was looking at um finishing the tour at Wilson and meet with the Wilson Staff after school from like 4:30 to like 4:15 like 45 minutes it doesn't have to be something real long 30 minutes to drive down here and then another 45 minutes with our staff and they'd be done at 5:30 and then maybe a break and eat at six go so I was going to work on that scheduling of of uh the tour see how look but there's yeah there's a lot to do on we had the KSD auditor here today and then we had this is there anything else you want me to come in call Job um we could start you know um the comment that he made we could start late morning here with the administrators and I can have we can have sandwiches or something here just to visit with them and then you have the administrators done then go on with the tour take a staff later that way you're not cramming it all in because we are kind of far apart so I'll think about that you guys will need to think about no salary we could talk about that in as well I got that marked tour meal loging questions and you said you wanted the questions by the 4th of December okay yeah I want to make sure I wrote that down yeah if you guys can go through those questions and just circle what you'd like to ask that's how I did it the last time and then I kind of tally to see what was the most popular those are the ones that I picked but if there's let's say you pick 21 questions and just say d i I really want to be the one to ask this question then that's okay I mean you know if it's a popular question and all seven of you write it down then I'll make sure whoever really wants to ask that question I'll get that on their list so you know there might be something that might jump on as you but you understand what he was saying you're going to ask that same question to all three candidates and you're going to have a little place and you're going to write down their answer for question I'm gonna have that question on the page for you and then the next page will be candidate B that same question and you're going to write down does that make sense okay so you can kind of keep everything straight in your head because it would be difficult to ask several different questions to all the different what's going on that week I did like his statement of having the student the tour of the I like that too I'm not sure if that would work but we could sure try because I thought that was a kind of cool idea too place to start with that each building administrator and see if they maybe they would recommend students that would be good at doing something like that um sometimes the student though could take a while I mean it might get off schedule Oh Come you like when he said come look at this we got this going you know or whatever but it gives them a little hands on oneon-one with the candidate which is makes them feel important and it's all about the kids anyway sure I can find that roughly need know what our enrollment is total we have 80 we we have 225 at got about 148 or 49 at Central Plains these are just random throwing them out there you can add those together that doesn't include the Lakeside Learning Center yeah so what you got roughly you know kids come and go a lot right oh we did okay any other questions comments feel free to email me if you went over a lot of stuff email may get a question or whatever I guess if we're asking building admin to find a student who's G to ask them is that something one of us used to do or is that something um I feel like we're putting a lot of things yeah um I actually could probably just get a feel from them and say once we get the tour schedule down that interview day schedule down then we could just decide if that's once if we want to include a student with that tour you know what I mean and then they can pick one or two I'm going to say it's probably going to be a junior or a senior but I could be wrong could be a Junior High kid or even both like sixth grade or fifth grade you know for elementary um that can be released class and you know yeah and be comfortable doing that too be comfortable being friendly being comfortable with showing them around and sh items that they're do so that would probably ask an administrator to pick or a teacher okay there's nothing else I would entertain a motion to adjourn motion by Josh second second by Alison all those in favor say [Music] I thank you everybody

kind of situation so it's not feasible for them to come to school at 8:00 if they're getting home that late so I would like to revisit that situation again yeah especially with the Third Day games that's my yeah sure okay yeah anybody else in the have anything to add to the next agenda then well hold on unless um are we going to be dibles testing middle the school year or middle of the Year Benchmark testing by then I I believe you know what I can check with Miss coming up so if we do have that then maybe an update on the Benchmark middle of the Year absolutely you uh you uh is that what they just did is that the benchmarking that we just did no for dibles is your primary um early literacy skills so there's three benchmarks Yeah we actually talked about that in our leadership if we have results by then maybe if we can have that for the next agenda item if not we can do that in January when I believe so yeah fifth I think if we have that we we'll present the sure okay no more agenda items then I will ask for a motion to move into executive I'll make the motion to move into executive session Mr Hopkins Mr C I miss ol hi M Rodriguez hi we are now in itive session okay and