But unfortunately the bad news is that was not as strong students this year. um and our response rates were lower than last year with the five essentials. So, we'll need to take a look at that and how can we improve that student engagement for next year. Um the survey is definitely comprehensive. As you can see, these are just a few examples for each um category and and the families in the audience probably maybe you remember completing this survey as well. Um but it's very comprehensive. Um and you can see for the different um categories that are listed um res respondents were asked to strongly agree which was ranked of five down to one that likered scale and you do have a handout um I should point out that's Hank's showing you right now that handout and it provides um more detail. So, as far as the as the survey scoring, like I said, it's one through five.
So, um I just want to add that I understand the intent being the summer. Um I just don't have the summer off and it's I'll do my best. Okay. Um, do people want to move it to 5:30 or do we want to stay at five? Are you able to do 5:30? Yeah, I' I've been able to. And And I may be able Well, five is cutting it. Y unless I Yeah. I mean, you leave. I mean, I I work until 5. Yeah. Yeah. So, I can I've been able to make it for 5:30. Um, five is going to push it for me, too. Okay. I think that we should change it. Is 5:30 okay for you? Yeah, I should be able to get here by 5:30. Okay. All right. That's fine. We're all good on 5:30. Okay. Um, any other qu comments, conflicts? Okay. I will say um Mr.
Um, and individual responses of four or five are considered positive, three neutral, and then two or one negative. And then for those combined responses as we go through it, and you can see down the list, three and above are generally positive, and then there's the neutral, and anything below 2.5 is considered negative. So, as I said, there's the overall snapshot of all of the scores, and that represents um all responses, and overall, it's it's pretty positive. Um we we have a couple that are lower and a couple that are higher in the staff categories. And I'm just going to go through domain. There are five domains and then categories within that. And I'm just going to briefly highlight some key takeaways from that. So under safety you can see is um comprised of rules and norms, sense of physical security, sense of social emotional security and online safety and um within each category as well there's a score distribution and we can kind of dig deeper into what is comprised of that overall number.
Mr. Nunes is not here this evening, but he has informed me that he will not be able to make June 23rd. Um, as long as he's the only person who can't make it, uh, we can still hold that meeting. Um, but if other conflicts arise, uh, I just need to know. So, we will have know if we have a quorum or not. Um, also not on the schedule, but a thought is, um, perhaps we would do our summer retreat on August 18th as we only have one meeting that month. Um, we don't have to decide on that tonight, but because you didn't have time to think about that one. Um, so other than switching the times to 5:30, I don't see any changes from what we've written down. So I don't think we need to vote on that. Or do we? No. All right. I think that'll that'll work.
So you see that the 3.0 know for staff is a little bit lower and we go into it and we can see the score distribution that 22% of staff responded negatively about rules and norms. Um so it's a lower level of sentiment and this kind of had to do with uh the consequences issued for when people break rules as well. But for the most part, physical safety was very positive for across all um audiences and staff were more neutral on the social emotional security as well as online safety. For the domain teaching and learning, it was very high for support for academic learning as well as social emotional learning and that 4.6 from staff is one of the highest and again the just the general takeaways it's very positive. Um all c all people feel the schools provide academic support and are encouraging and um for the social emotional learning that we help them to succeed.
Um, so how about superintendent's update? Great. Um, I'm actually going to start off with by inviting Mrs. Denisio up. She's going to share some information about what's going on in the early childhood world. Excellent. Hi, everybody. Hi. Um, last time I was here, I think I was talking to you about some changes in the preschool program. So we, you know, decided to institute half-day preschool for three-year-olds and um remain with the the full day for four-year-olds. So it was a little bit like planning a party and then you don't know who's going to show up. So um we had preschool um applications and we did our lottery and people showed up. So it was very exciting. Um I obviously it was a big change and families had to sort of adjust to that, but um not too many complaints so far. We had a total of 69 applications.
As far as interpersonal relationship includes these categories respect for diversity, teacher student relationships and peer relationships. You can see the 4.8 is the highest um ranking and that was by staff. But as we dug deeper, um we looked at the um the the details of the family responses, which was 4.1, but we saw that 20% responded negatively. So they marked a two or a one when it came to teacher family, teacher student relationships. And so that's something we'll need to dig into and and find out um more information what's going on there. Uh institutional environment includes school connectedness. We heard all about how important that is. physical surroundings and social inclusion. And these were all very positive. The majority of everyone listed a four or five. And then finally, the leadership and efficacy domain includes administration and leadership and collective efficacy. And this you can see is green.
Um we were able to fill 18 three-year-old peer partner slots and 25 um four-year-old peer partner slots. Um there is currently a weight list of 14 students and those are all four-year-olds. So in the past our four-year-olds used to get priority and now because we opened up the three year old classroom it was sort of um made for a little bit of a more equitable experience which was a change for families but um I think a good change. Um, so screenings took place this past Thursday and Friday. 46 um, little students came to Kushman School to be screened. Um, they had balloons outside. They did an awesome job. It was a very organized and calm and welcoming environment for those families. Um, and as you know, all of these changes sort of coincided with um, a new administrator at Kushman School. So I said, "Okay, Stephanie Ricardi, this is what we're doing now." and she has um taken this and ran with it.
It's it was only um a staff question. And that three-point low is one of the lowest, but it was neutral too. When we drilled down, there was no there were no negative um categories with this question. 77% were neutral even though it's a 3.2 and then 71% um were positive about the how they work with one another. And again, just more positives. Um people who ranked four or five is the majority in these categories. 100% were students, staff and families for support for academic learning, school connectedness, physical surroundings, and respect for diversity. But of course, then there are items to address those rules and norms um which gets back to kind of the theme of the day. Um and teacher student relationships, we'll investigate further and then administration leadership effectiveness. We'll be taking a look at that. And also with this um survey instrument, we're able to have benchmark data from schools nationwide so that we'll be able to compare and look at that as we continue on with this instrument.
Her and the staff have been very busy um working on program descriptions and expectations for three-year-olds versus four-year-olds and sort of what that day is going to look like. So, lots of good stuff happening at Kushman. The lottery um and the application process was a success and we are ready to move on to um the 2025 2026 school year. So, good stuff. Excellent. Thank you. Thank you so much. A couple other things that I'll update you on. One is um MCCAST. It's still going on. I'm sure Mr. Oliver, you're aware of that since I know that that's a focus for you and your district. Um, but I just want to say that our students, our staff, families, everybody's doing such a remarkable job with a new program. And special thanks to Jonathan, his technology team, I mean, they have really been working hard to uh support the schools on really a daily basis.
So that is the CSC. Hello, I'm back. Um so if you saw me getting up gingerly, it's not because I'm reluctant to come up. It's because my 503year-old back wasn't ready for all the yard work this weekend. So um uh as Hank mentioned earlier um we did have an outside consultant working with me this year. Um Insights Incorporated uh CT long was um my connection and um this survey included the activity athletic survey that I extracted and put into the other presentation. So you will see a reference to it later and that is to the data that I had already presented. So before I get started, I did just want to kind of go through the process that we went through. Um in past surveys, I created the questions. I ran them through teams of administrators and teachers. Uh this year it was different. working with the outside consultant.
I mean, just the other day, we had a um we had a a wif-fi disruption as students had uh some many students had just begun the testing process. And of course, you know, everybody from our technology coaches to Jonathan who was in jury duty or he didn't get selected maybe because of this um because he had to step out to deal with some of of the challenges, but they were able to get things up and running. And again, I think that Wi-Fi outage, what was that related to? I think it power outage. Power outage. So, there was a power outage. And so, those are the unpredictable things that happen that we have to contend with. And I'm just really grateful to again the school-based folks who just they just I mean, they take it in stride and they're just really incredibly flexible. And I think that um you know, it's really commendable what they were able to manage.
We took the indicators and measures and I ran an ran an activity in our leadership team meeting and instead of asking them for the questions they want asked, I asked them what did they hope to learn from the survey and they gave me lists of uh things that they had hoped that they would learn. I turned that information over to our consultant. They created the questions. They sent it back. I sat with the administrative team. They sat with their department chairs. They looked at the questions, gave me feedback. Some of the main feedback was it was clear that the consultant didn't quite know what capstone experience meant in education. So, um I did a quick call with them, gave them a couple of examples, they reworked their um capstone questions. Uh and then they created the platform for the survey and then distributed that survey.
Uh the middle school alluded to their literacy night, but I have to tell you, I was able to attend the literacy night and listen to students who were finalists have um get up to a microphone or a podium and read their poetry out loud. And there was such a wide range of emotions expressed. I mean, there were some that were humorous and there were some that were really moving pieces of writing that you begin to understand that even with middle schoolers who we think or sometimes people joke um maybe don't have a lot going on in their they do. There's plenty of of thinking going on and and what a wonderful way to give kids who might not otherwise have that opportunity, those quiet students who are quietly writing their thoughts or being creative and some of what you know they're experiencing in the world around them and they were able to put the their probably pencil to paper isn't the right word because I think everything's typed but they did go to the microphone and they were really proud and it was really wonderful to see kids who had that kind of opportunity for self-expression and some of the folks involved in that.
So um they also then presented that survey data back to me and gave me the opportunity to drill down into that further. Um I presented at DT last week which is our district leadership team. I'll be presenting here and then Hank um Courtney and Arwin have asked me to meet with each department chair and also all of the other strategic indicator teams so that the activities and athletics team you can see that I've already sat down with them. we've gone through the data and they've presented that way they can look at the data as they're making their plans for next year. So I have a meeting with principles um Dement and Lip on Wednesday to prepare for the department chair meetings that will then happen through the end of the year so that they can prepare how they're going to work on what their portion of the district goal is as they set those um goals for the next school year.
I just want to mention because there were again our educators there to support our students. There were probably I don't even I I'm not good at estimating there had to have been about 30 kids who read poems and there was some artwork as well but Laura Gardner, Daniel Leafrey for well I can never say his name right. Lefay uh Stephanie Kamar Susan Tullson Paul Lante Susan Peach pel peel Mike Mlan Erica Palatroni Lauren Seagar Vicky Varicus they and Sarah Deas all there to support our students that night and it was really wonderful and the kids were excited. Um and then the very next night was the um the junior honor society and the induction of the at the same school and probably with many of the same people and other people helping to support that event as well. Um, from what I understand, there were 64 seventh and eighth graders who were inducted that evening.
So, for equitable and supportive environment, um, one of the things that comes out immediately is, sorry, did it go back? Oh, sorry, one last thing. I'm glad I clicked black. Okay, so um, a favorable response is a four or a five. So, if a if someone answers a one, two, or three to a question, it will not show up in the favorable responses. So when you see that data for favorable responses, just know that that is for a respondent who has chosen a four or a five. Three does not show up as a favorable response. So for our behavior um in expectations, it's clear that the families and the students report that they understand what that behavior is and they even say that they under that uh they have trusted adults in the building that they feel like their students are treated fairly. However, the staff reports how much they struggle with the behavior and it's a significant difference between the two.
Both evenings the DHS string ensemble performed. So, sort of as a as a welcome to the event. So, that was really lovely. Um, I'll move on to budget and capital improvement. Jim, Mr. Kylie, I think we've talked a little bit about it this evening. Yeah, I mean I I think we've talked budget. the in terms of capital improvements. Um the town had indicated that they had uh expended the free cash at the October town meeting so had very little to um to move forward with in in the spring. Um what that meant for us is that they have placed a of our technology request that was $250,000. they have um moved forward a $50,000 recommendation. And then for our um the other the project that we the biggest project that we actually have in the works right now is we have a bid that'll be opened on Friday for the fire alarm repairs at the Dlo and Potter School.
So when we look at expected behavior, the first one is about the expectations. Do students understand the expectations? Do parents understand the expectations? You can see that that's a fairly high favorable response rate. Again, a four or a five. Um however the level of those expectations or the staff feeling like they can support uh positive student behavior is lower uh than 50% and so that is very different from our families but then also the consequences for the behavior. The staff really struggles with those consequences and are they doing enough to one correct behavior or two specifically get students to class? Our relationship mapping was also part of that. You can see that 78% and 73% respectively with our families feel like there is a trusted adult that the students can go to during the school day. However, when we did the relationship mapping activity, the question we asked staff was, did relationship mapping make you more aware of students who need that connection?
they didn't have the money and uh so what there will be is an article on the town meeting warrant to move money from the long-term capital stabilization fund of which last year they put a million dollars in to fund this project. So, it'll be a separate item, not included under the capital improvements, but obviously, you know, it's an important project and we're obviously well on our way to being ready to complete it um with the bid opening this Friday. So, hopefully that bid opening will be successful. We'll be able to get the funding on June 3rd and we'll move forward and do that this summer at both of those buildings. The other um capital improvement related item is um the the MSBA. Um we we've as you recall we we filed a statement of interest for the high school roof um and windows. Uh with the MSBA, they have not acted yet on their accelerated repair program um projects.