And it has to do with fats, saturated fat, sodium, and sugar content. There's a very uh long list of items. It's very specific. Um and this includes any food that is sold in the school store, vending machines, cafeteria, culinary, fundraising on school premises. So that's just motion one which is in your packet. The second motion tonight is the food exception for food exemption for the board of ed. So by participating in the HFC if we want to participate in a food exemption which means that uh there are certain foods that are exempt for events after the regular school day or on the weekend. So the regular school day is midnight to 30 minutes after the school day. And this exemption gives us the ability to sell foods that are not compliant with the HF HFC during uh games, plays, debates, doesn't apply to regular like practice, rehearsal, and meetings, but concession stands, which is also a source of revenue for some of our clubs, that would allow us to participate in HFC, but also have our concession stand.
Why? because it was the first um year of the implementation of in instructional empowerment which um the table turns on to me. So PLC's, professional developments, um instructional sprints, um rigor appraisals and most of I'm going to stress out the look and learns where I learn a lot from look and learns. So the feedbacks comments there um I use them as my motivation also on how to solve my problems on how to address the needs of the students and on how to address um um their needs in all subjects. So through IE through instructional empowerment um I can observe how my people's learn learning develops and changes as a result of the implementation. So instead of being stuck for example if instead of being stuck and doing nothing I can see how students take charge of their own learning students in in turn they progressively thrive in teambased structures where each team member develops into a trusted peer and problem solver enabling the group to successfully take on take on increasingly a challenging learning task and transform them from unproductive struggles those two productive ones where team members support each one another.
And then the third motion as your packet is just the beverage exemption. So, the same thing I just said except for beverages as well. Um, and the one other thing you should know is just the vending machines never get an exemption. You always have to be compliant in your vending machines.
So they refer one of their tools, they refer back to their getting unstuck um getting unstuck thinking guides and also the um back on track thinking guides and learning target and success criteria thinking guides. So so what my each one of my students have this um packet with them every day. So um these tools are their um reference on how to go along with the lesson also. So they posters in the teams a feeling of belongingness and shared community and accountability accountability for their learning. So they um additionally they learn and practice to be a problem solver and critical thinker. So they establish their own learning culture with the team structure as an outcome. So moreover, I use I use daily data to better determine who are these students need help and to address their needs in all subjects. So that will be included both in planning and during tier one instruction in order to meet the full extent the full intent of the standard.
So, with that said, tried to be brief, but does anyone have any questions about the healthy food certification? Do you have samples? I don't see any. No. Then noted for next year. Yeah. That might influence the vote here. Erica always brings them. Oh, he threw the Erica always brings them line. I've wrote it. Samples. Okay. Samples. Yep. Yeah. Check in with her. Um, we're we're taking this all as a clump of three separate ones. So, you you don't vote on two and three if we don't get past one. All right. Let's pass get past one. So, Dr. Hurricane, let's start it off. I move that CGS section 10- 215F. The Cheshire Board of Education certifies that all food items offered, Thank you, Dr. offered for sale to students in the schools under its jurisdiction and not exempted from the Connecticut Nutrition Standards published by the Connecticut State Department of Education will comply with the Connecticut Nutrition Standards during the period of July 1st, 2025 through June 30th, 2026.
So I'm going to show you um one of the evidence um documenting evidence which um instructional empowerment um gave us. So I made um a digital copy where I can monitor which um success criteria that they need to uh that they need that that they need help. So I monitor them daily. So I use this data data um to identify which students that needs help during two time instruction. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much.
This certification sell shall include all food offered for sale to students separately from reimburseable meals at all times and from all sources including but not limited to We must have had our lawyers write this. It's it's yeah very prescriptive. um school stores, vending machines, school cafeterias, culinary programs, and any fundraising activities on school premises sponsored by the school or by non-school organizations and groups. Is there a second? Mr. Gripple seconds.
Any questions? Thank you, Ken. Thank you all of you. Thank you. It was wonderful. It was wonderful. Learned a whole bunch of stuff. It's hard to know where to go back to. Item 1.4, fall and winter assessment data comparisons. Would you put this up, please? Well, you've heard a lot of information. So, um, what I want to share with you is I had some PowerPoint stuff that came came with these data. Um, but I think I want to just talk about this for a few minutes. Um, kind of just to show some quantitative data if you will. So, if yeah, just the top part if you would please. So, if you notice uh first of all, it's got language arts and math. Secondly, the grade levels. The third column um these are the national Galileo benchmarks uh between fall testing and the second first and second test.
Any discussion? No. So, all those in favor of the motion that is on the floor. Unanimous. Great. Number two, Mr. You want to take that board of education not sold from a vending events. For example, soccer practices rehearsals are not regular schooles.
Okay. So, um, I could go into all of the the research kinds of things of how they got these numbers and, uh, if you're like me, you can read them and understand them for about five minutes and then you go, okay, essentially it's saying this is the prediction for growth from first benchmark to second benchmark. Okay. The next column is the average amount of learning for first semester last school year. uh when we were brand new with MOI uh for our schools, our Galileo scores. So you can see in language arts uh compared to the national uh the national expectations for growth during that uh between one and two uh it doesn't look good. Language arts does not look good. Everything uh was lower in math. first grade, second grade, and third grade uh were a bit higher than the national uh expectations. Uh and then from fourth on up, not so much.
Any discussion of the second motion that's on the floor? I think we're on the discussion. You have no discussion or comment, right? Was calling. Okay. Thank you. You're second. Thank you. Um, all those in favor of the motion that is on the floor for food exemptions. Unanimous. Third one, take it away, Miss Cullinin. Yes. Motion number three for beverage exemptions. Second. and by Dr. Herkin. Discussion seeing none, all those in favor of the third motion for beverage exemptions is unanimous. Thank you, Miss Taylor. Um, next item would be a chair's update. Um I don't have information but I do I I just from the town council's meeting into today um you know I do feel a little discouraged but I also feel a bit encouraged as well. You know typically the budget as Dr. or so and presents it each year is an opportunity for us as board members to support and and help the continued growth and and progress of the district and and I and that needs to continue to happen, right?
So when we compare uh those data from last year when we were just starting IE and uh learning a new model of instruction to implement and uh enhance what we're doing, um then we can compare with this year. uh Cass if you'll roll it up a little bit please. Thank you. So once again on the left or in the third column uh is the national uh are the national benchmarks and you'll notice that a couple of numbers in there if you compare them to the ones for last year there are a couple of numbers that are different. That's because they recalibrate those every year uh based on national uh national norms. So essentially this is like if you're thinking a bell curve, those numbers really are that top of the bell curve number. Okay. Um so now we we're using our model of instruction to enhance uh what we're doing and uh for language arts you can see uh it looks way better than last year.
Um so I think my message tonight is really um like Mr. Perigini alluded to is I really invite residents to attend the meetings that are coming up. Um please share your opinions, your ideas. you know, this is a community effort um and and a community impact clearly. So, um I just really strongly encourage that you um come out in support of our schools. You know, the board um we did we did our due diligence in trying to tackle every line item so that it we moved it favorably to the town council. And so from this point on, we really um are asking the the whole community to come to the town meetings um ask clarifying questions so that we can understand that the the impact that's going to happen on our community. There is a deficit. We recognize that as Mr. White said, I'm I myself am very unsure of Congress and their actions to support us.
Um but we still have some work to do but overall Cass if you'll bring it just down enough to see the weighted average. Whoop. No, I just need to. There you go. Thank you very much. So, if you notice for language arts last year, the weighted average for for ELA was a negative 69%. For this year, it's a negative 9%. So, it demonstrates growth even though we don't have the growth where we as much as we want, but it still shows a significant difference in the learning that's going on for our students. When we look at math, um we can see that every grade level except eighth grade has shown a a a greater growth at the middle of the year than um is the anticipated growth for the middle of the year. Uh and from a negative 32% to a positive 44%. So um uh pretty big change.
Um but at the same time, you know, there are ways and opportunities um for you to testify in support of certain bills. Um specifically the um Senate Bill 1511, which is ongoing discussions right now before the vote. Um obviously that's going to have implications and changes to the ECS formula. Um and also I think there was another bill that dropped today for grants to improve. Ben, if you can clarify grants for school improvement or new grants for school improvement or a dedicated fund that would uh support school updates like uh physical plant updates, building the capital budget items. So that's just another opportunity if if you can support us in that effect too. So um outside that again I wish everybody a happy spring. Uh spring is a time for growth and we want to continue to see cheshure grow. Clearly it is growing. Um and so you know there's no better better way than to um come out in support of the school system because as somebody once said that you know nobody moves here for the night life um or you know the other night life would be the arts obviously it's very impressive.
So what this is really showing is not proficiency, it's showing growth. And as as some of the other as some of the principles have pointed out to you, that movement of those kids and a couple of those graphs were pretty pretty easy to tell when you move the students from red to yellow and from yellow to to green. Um uh even those kids who are still in the red, some of those have moved from the very bottom to maybe the top of red uh to be that. So growth is significant. We get growth before we get proficiency. So I don't want to belabor the point. I just wanted to share the information with you because I saw this as being very promising relative to our specific data. Um uh I like it that we're going to be looking at some other possible testing options. Um uh you know and and see if we've got something that will serve us uh give us better data.
Yeah. So, that being said, um I am going to just um announce the upcoming meetings that you can all participate in. The next board meeting is April 7th, Monday, April 7th at 7 p.m. Um it is a policy committee meeting at Humon Boardroom. Thursday, April 10th at 7:30 is the regular business meeting at Town Council Chambers. April 21st, 7 p.m. is the curriculum meeting at Humon Boardroom. And then just for the general Chester public schools calendar, March 21st is PD day. So the schools are closed um which is tomorrow. So Mr. Hanland 7 a.m. Right. Right. And then um April 14th to 17th will be spring break. So all schools are closed. 18th is Good Friday. Schools are closed then as well. And then we go to May which is Memorial Day. Um schools and district office are closed. Um, with that, can I get a motion to adjourn?
And I don't mean necessarily better in the sense of we get better numbers that we can go, "Oh, the data look better, but a a tool that um better meets our needs." So, it's a good thing that we might be looking at those. So, I don't want to belabor it. If you have questions about it, I'll try to answer them. I'm not the I'm not the data data guru guru on these kinds of things. I depend on other people for that.
Any questions? Okay. Item 1.5, adjourning the workshop. Do I have a motion to adjourn the workshop or do we have first of all, do we have any discussion about what we saw, what we heard? I mean, these guys obviously did phenomenal work. They put together some nice numbers for us. I'm very very happy with that. Thank you very much. Every single one of you guys. You need a pat on the back. It's really good. Thank you. Um, anybody else want to say something? Okay. Just I I'd like to say that I'm just thrilled to be allowed to be part of this and I just commend all of you and just thank you for doing what you do. You guys are awesome. So, my hat goes off to all of you. Very, very awesome. Thank you. And as a new member, I would just like to say that I really would love to come and see some of this in action.