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Santa Cruz thank you I just want to thank our school nurses for the valuable work that you do each day and I am also thankful that we have many school nurses at our campuses that we've been able to keep them they've been an integral part of success of our students and I'm glad that we can have those as qualified nurses at our campuses thank you Miss wood mr. Carr would echo the sentiment that's been expressed and and I think as Miss wood just commented I was going to say the same thing we hope that our school nurses know how much we appreciate them I think this board has gone to great lengths to make sure that we keep nurses even when many other districts have we've had to pare back and pursue other alternatives we hope that sends a message to our nurses how much we value them but we also personally say thank you Thank You mr.

Castellano here if you have any questions thank you dr. McCord governing board members item seven point zero one is before you you have heard the rationale is there a motion thank you mrs. humphreys is there a second second Thank You Jenny there is a motion and a second is there a discussion on item seven point zero one I did have a couple questions for mr. Custer um what grade levels are we giving these Chromebooks to I know that seventh grade definitely students are receiving a new Chromebook what other grade usually receives an in Chrome but dr. Turner Cruz members of the board dr. McCord ah yes good question John and thank you all for hanging in there earlier for a little blip appreciate everyone's patience with that um this will be for our incoming ninth graders as well as our seventh grade so our refresh at this point how we've timed that is that incoming freshmen get a new device and then they keep that device throughout the remainder of their high school career and then at the junior high we rotate the devices around more years where we replace them so this here is actually a a year where we're replacing the seventh grade devices thank you comment questions board member yes dr.

Carr and so the resolution is affirmed and this governing board extends its appreciation to nurses and our health care workers in our schools after McCord anything else sir move to item 6 which is the consent agenda items I have a motion thank you Miss Humphries is there a second car we have a motion in the second is there a seeing and hearing none then we will move to the vote those who affirm will say and those who didn't is a name and miss Wilson you motion carries you have five I thank you mrs. Wilson when I moved to action item point zero one student devices dr. McCord thank you dr. Santa Cruz governing board members item seven point zero one student devices for fiscal year 2021 it is recommended that rwq 20 - 122 Chromebooks student devices for fiscal year 2021 according to the following responsible and responsive vendor CDW government LLC technology services is seeking to purchase Chromebooks use in the upcoming fiscal year the district intends to purchase approximately 7,000 Chromebook as well as associated provisioning asset tagging and extended warranties for vendors responded with pricing to the Chromebooks associated services and the extended warranties all four vendors were considered responsive and respond of all technology services and conduction with purchasing department requests the approval of the utilization of the Mohave purchase contract 1:5 I - cdw-g - 1 0 0 - for the purchase of Chromebooks for students use including associated services and 4-year extended warranties for each Chromebook from CDW government LLC the contract will be in effect for one year with the implementation beginning upon award the approximate cost is two million three hundred twenty three thousand seven hundred forty-one dollars and that will be coming from fun 631 out of we have mr.

Santa Cruz if I may um mr. Castellano I I was gonna ask you so are these updated in any way from the Chromebooks that we have are is it similar to what what we've been purchasing in the past they're pretty similar they have newer processors obviously those change over years so this has newer processors in them this year we're actually going to change brands to a different device so every year we spend a lot of time discussing that and then we talk with the students why not see if there's anything different they would want but we're gonna stick with a very similar device but it is a different brand some of the reasonings for that is availability of parts more accessible and we also have our last year if you remember we started a for an outside service that's repairing these devices so they also work this is this brand as well oh that's why we've chosen to switch brands and what which brand is it these will be Dell devices but there'll be similar size and similar functions yeah almost exactly the same form factor we hope a little sturdier great let's see I also was gonna ask about the bond oh you know what let me just ask one more thing so will they work seamlessly so some students will continue with their Chromebooks and then these others now will help Dell it should be seamless in all the you know the Google classrooms and all the things that we operate with well we'll just Davis yeah absolutely it's a chrome operating system on the devices so exactly the same okay so this is from the bond fund and this was the 2015 bond correct and we had in there as part of the technology that we had as we went out for that bond was to go for things like this yeah absolutely it falls the letter of what that bomb was passed for we're getting toward the end of that technology bond or that money that we have toward technology spending in that bond aren't we yeah getting close so what's our plan for the future for because we're gonna need to continue to refresh right absolutely um yeah I I we have a plan that's planned out from another five to seven years from now so and Bonnie I'm gonna let mrs.

Castellano here if you have any questions thank you dr. McCord governing board members item seven point zero one is before you you have heard the rationale is there a motion thank you mrs. humphreys is there a second second Thank You Jenny there is a motion and a second is there a discussion on item seven point zero one I did have a couple questions for mr. Custer um what grade levels are we giving these Chromebooks to I know that seventh grade definitely students are receiving a new Chromebook what other grade usually receives an in Chrome but dr. Turner Cruz members of the board dr. McCord ah yes good question John and thank you all for hanging in there earlier for a little blip appreciate everyone's patience with that um this will be for our incoming ninth graders as well as our seventh grade so our refresh at this point how we've timed that is that incoming freshmen get a new device and then they keep that device throughout the remainder of their high school career and then at the junior high we rotate the devices around more years where we replace them so this here is actually a a year where we're replacing the seventh grade devices thank you comment questions board member yes dr.

Betts jump in with that her and I work together and she knows the plan that we have laid out for the Refresh but mrs. Betts I'll let you answer that piece of it if you will bett Thanks thanks John so so Ms wood one of the reasons why we put off that last eight million dollars of bond spend on the 2015 bond was to be able to continue the commitments that we've made with the Refresh is over the next three years so so we waited another another year year and a half to sell that last eight million dollars which about three million dollars is designated for technology so we are monitoring that and ensuring that we are meeting the commitments and the refresh cycle that was planned back into that team another question about the warranty if we have a warranty if we're buying extended warranty for these Chromebooks will that mean that they will be repaired under the warranty by the company or how does that work yeah great question so um yes that that's exactly what it means these devices will have a four year warranty on them so it will cover the life of what they're expected that's cover and then we always still cycle these down to our elementary schools so the current senior devices and the current seventh grade devices that will be refreshed will be able to get another year of use out of those at our elementary sites oh that helps us refresh with elementary sites at least for that extended amount of time that we can get out of the de life of the devices all right thank you welcome members any other questions miss wood that's the question that I always ask what's our long term plan I I think the as was commented earlier in the meeting the availability of this technology allowed our district to come up to speed very quickly and to do some things that some of our neighboring districts haven't done so it's been a real blessing that's in place too miss woods question and has been responded the long-term plan is really important so that's so that we we don't take something away in the future that we get used to thank you mr.

Santa Cruz if I may um mr. Castellano I I was gonna ask you so are these updated in any way from the Chromebooks that we have are is it similar to what what we've been purchasing in the past they're pretty similar they have newer processors obviously those change over years so this has newer processors in them this year we're actually going to change brands to a different device so every year we spend a lot of time discussing that and then we talk with the students why not see if there's anything different they would want but we're gonna stick with a very similar device but it is a different brand some of the reasonings for that is availability of parts more accessible and we also have our last year if you remember we started a for an outside service that's repairing these devices so they also work this is this brand as well oh that's why we've chosen to switch brands and what which brand is it these will be Dell devices but there'll be similar size and similar functions yeah almost exactly the same form factor we hope a little sturdier great let's see I also was gonna ask about the bond oh you know what let me just ask one more thing so will they work seamlessly so some students will continue with their Chromebooks and then these others now will help Dell it should be seamless in all the you know the Google classrooms and all the things that we operate with well we'll just Davis yeah absolutely it's a chrome operating system on the devices so exactly the same okay so this is from the bond fund and this was the 2015 bond correct and we had in there as part of the technology that we had as we went out for that bond was to go for things like this yeah absolutely it falls the letter of what that bomb was passed for we're getting toward the end of that technology bond or that money that we have toward technology spending in that bond aren't we yeah getting close so what's our plan for the future for because we're gonna need to continue to refresh right absolutely um yeah I I we have a plan that's planned out from another five to seven years from now so and Bonnie I'm gonna let mrs.

Carvin point well made any additional commentary any additional question hearing and seeing none then we will go ahead and those in favor please signify by saying aye I'm saying nay mrs. Wilson would you please hold for president motion carries bye-bye thank you mrs. Wilson okay we are now at item 8 the journey this brief board meeting is there a motion for adjournment Thank You mr. Chetty mr.

Betts jump in with that her and I work together and she knows the plan that we have laid out for the Refresh but mrs. Betts I'll let you answer that piece of it if you will bett Thanks thanks John so so Ms wood one of the reasons why we put off that last eight million dollars of bond spend on the 2015 bond was to be able to continue the commitments that we've made with the Refresh is over the next three years so so we waited another another year year and a half to sell that last eight million dollars which about three million dollars is designated for technology so we are monitoring that and ensuring that we are meeting the commitments and the refresh cycle that was planned back into that team another question about the warranty if we have a warranty if we're buying extended warranty for these Chromebooks will that mean that they will be repaired under the warranty by the company or how does that work yeah great question so um yes that that's exactly what it means these devices will have a four year warranty on them so it will cover the life of what they're expected that's cover and then we always still cycle these down to our elementary schools so the current senior devices and the current seventh grade devices that will be refreshed will be able to get another year of use out of those at our elementary sites oh that helps us refresh with elementary sites at least for that extended amount of time that we can get out of the de life of the devices all right thank you welcome members any other questions miss wood that's the question that I always ask what's our long term plan I I think the as was commented earlier in the meeting the availability of this technology allowed our district to come up to speed very quickly and to do some things that some of our neighboring districts haven't done so it's been a real blessing that's in place too miss woods question and has been responded the long-term plan is really important so that's so that we we don't take something away in the future that we get used to thank you mr.

Carr were you about to say something I was about to make the motion but I will instead second thank you I suspect there is no discussion with that in mind we will take voice boat without polling the board all those in favor of German please signify by saying aye I hear five eyes we are adjourned thank you everyone have a safe night thank you thank staff board members everyone

Carvin point well made any additional commentary any additional question hearing and seeing none then we will go ahead and those in favor please signify by saying aye I'm saying nay mrs. Wilson would you please hold for president motion carries bye-bye thank you mrs. Wilson okay we are now at item 8 the journey this brief board meeting is there a motion for adjournment Thank You mr. Chetty mr.

P mr. Thompson mr. Mario mr. Kane and especially the one that's about to edit this video which is mr. booth because you guys have believed in my business and you guys have always tried to help me out not only in school but out of school and just push me in all aspects of my life so I want to thank you guys for that I want to give a huge thanks to all my teachers this year for everything that they have done for me you guys have been a huge help and I just want to say I miss you guys and can't wait to see you again bye thank you to all the a CIT teachers and staff I would never have made it here for more for your help and support hi I'm making some lessons because they're encouraging and helping when we're in school or out of school due to the cold i-19 cannot be in school right now but they're doing the best that they can do I know it's not easy teaching to a Chromebook because it's not learning through a Chromebook but they're doing the best that they can do and I appreciate them for that and I love them for that and I miss them so much and I hope to see them soon [Music] thanks for feeding our curiosity if you have me as a student you know I asked a lot of questions I think you're all teachers for all the hours you spend the attention you paid that means that you can the knowledge that you passed on your techniques offering help under full faith time you spent teaching every to give the chanson centered here to think every one of you guys in recognizing guys I miss you guys and stay safe from Jennifer thank you

mingle le who said you have a great pair of lungs you want to try the French foreign it's it's not easy but you can do it it it brought a lot to me in terms of building confidence working through struggle it taught me an awful lot about who I was as a person than and what I was willing to to take risks on and I think that music programs are essential to building character and students building collaboration and teamwork can't perform well when people don't perform together it allows first to see an ability it time management and the importance of practice the importance of failing before succeeding you know visual arts programs are in many ways it's easily adaptable in professional and professional environments and they by having access to artistic opportunities it allows students to gain a whole lot more of some of those transfer skills and background skills that they don't realize that they need in other areas and I think that they are extremely important I would support their continued success within the school and find ways to create to work with the teachers of everything from budget to scheduling to make sure that students have access to those experiences while they're in middle school so that they can identify if there is a a personal interest or a personal passion that can be carried on through adulthood thank you if we have a period of time next year when we have to rotate between in-person and online instruction what will you do to ensure students are engaged in their learning and what will you do to ensure that there's socially no social emotional well-being is being addressed I think in a time where you have to leave the classroom and you can't put eyes on people every day you have to create a sense of community in a different way one of the ways that technology allows us to do that is setting up a variety of forums and chats where you can have multiple faces on a screen at the same time I was I am a big proponent of bringing families into the school whenever possible to have conversations I would have you know four times a year I'd have either a pizza with the principal or coffee with the principal four families as well as opportunities to discuss a variety of concerns a variety of topics with families that are pertinent to the Middle's well so I think in the in the event that we would have to go to more of an online or digital type of learning environment I think my role shifts from being the person in the building to the person on the screen providing forms for families to come in to talk in small groups may be setting up opportunities to talk to families by the way in which their students are teamed for learning or talk to organizations and the different the way in which students may be organized through sports or the arts or their service programs but also in the same way meet with the students talk with that open up the the lines of communication with the town and with the resource in the resources within the town that we might be using for supports for students and finding ways to connect them you know for for those social emotional supports as well I have two teenage children myself and the the period that we're going through now with them they were on top of their homework but not being able to communicate with friends you know in a meaningful way is they called and for some of our student and the only way they see their friends is is that school they maybe don't they live on the opposite ends of town they don't have the ability to get to one another if they can't be outside with one another we need to find ways to create those those spaces in those places for students to meet and to gather and to talk and maybe host do-it-yourself activities through a zoom meeting so students and have materials and you can have a you know a cap ain't day a paint night for for students where they can log in and watch the art teacher and go through the steps the painting something and then display their work visually and you take a snapshot of the zooms screen and you post that online so that people can see it where you have a book club for students where they all can read a book online and then they certainly discuss it and that's something that they can do to remain connected with their with their families or with this argument that their friends are with the school community I think you have to engage families in a way that makes sense I recently joined a group chat where a lot of people there their children were in the same third grade classroom my children are highschool age so I didn't have a lot to relate but just putting parents together in the room and being the facilitator for that space they talked an awful lot about what was going on at home and shared ideas and agreed to send each other their projects or a way to you know connect to work on a collaborative assignment and I just listening to the ways in which families just need space to get together and the permission to do that it brings about such great opportunities to stay connected I think the other thing that would be my responsibility as a principal to do is to facilitate the discussion with teachers on a regular basis to check in with students and how are we working with them academically how are we making sure that their assignments are getting done and if they're not how do we check in with them using the supports with guidance and maybe our if we have adjustment counselors or other people that we can use to do do the check-ins it might even be a check in with me and and other members of the administrative team just to say hey we see that this is going on do you want to talk about it a little bit can you tell me what you're doing so I mean one piece of your work so I can see how you're doing and what can we do to help it's making yourself available in different ways but still making yourself available and making sure people know that you're there and that's a really important piece when being on the other side of a computer can make you feel very isolated thank you what are your fundamental beliefs as to what instruction should look like at the middle school level um there are days where I think the instruction should look like a little bit like organized chaos I like walking into a classroom where information about what the students will be learning is clearly posted and that it guides the instructional practices of the day whether it's what the students are doing what the team teachers doing or both I think effective instruction in the classroom setting uses you know learning outcomes objectives for students as a guide to do check-ins but that as much of the as much of the work is going to be demonstrated by the students then you have to have them engaged in the activities of learning and for some that's going to be producing and creating and using their hands and for others it's gonna be using words for still others it's going to be using their gifts app-v online to be able to find supporting evidence for an argument and then being able to create you know it create something or develop an argument to demonstrate what they learned um I talked earlier about ha moments with students and I think that those are the things that in a classroom you know when students learn something when they say now I get it and this is how it Connect as to what we did yesterday or I see how this is like what we talked about you weeks ago when and they were able to make that connection without the teacher giving it to them or without the teacher providing several prompts and for every student it takes a little bit of divid you a little bit of time different amounts of time but every student has the ability to get down a ha moment and when we when they get that and they're able to communicate that out you know that learning is a team play it's because the student has figured out for themselves how something relates either to the real world to what they've discussed in class and they're able to demonstrate it in multiple ways another way which I think learning takes place is what's do engaged in a very energetic disagreement about what something means or whether or not the answer is correct I think it's learned very well from one another and they're able to in some ways present information and an opposing argument without appearing to be bhaiyya or without giri to have all the answers and sometimes I'm having all the answers or even having the best right answer is a way for students to work together to come to consensus and in a classroom middle school learning does have to have a component of effectively both collaborating with others but also taking personal responsibility for their work when you're working in small group so even in partners it can be very easy for a student who wants to do all of the work just do it and I think that the role of a teacher and the role of an educator in general in the in the classroom setting is to a course and a certain amount of personal responsibility so that each person had contributed it's in the success of a group or a partnership and that they can also talk about what they did independently to show that they contributed to that out or that outcome or that success they had together thank you what is your view about discipline in the middle school in your response please include issues such as cell phone use hallway norms and expectations around kindness what I have been able to read a little bit about on the school's website is that arms stands for what looks to me to be a set of core values their expectations students and so the first way which I would take a look at student discipline is is what are those centralized core values and what do they look like in different areas of the building what does what does it mean to be safe on in waiting for them posture being on the bus versus what does that look like in a classroom what does that look like in the cafeteria but what the safe look like we're tied when you are communicating with the other on and that that takes on a rule that has both this little attributes and verbal attributes but I think if you use those tenants of what your core values out of what your expectations are for students is also a way to guide what your on code of conduct should be and therefore some of the expectations if discipline is required or consequences are in need of being handed out you're looking at what did the student do that violated those expectations that we have as a whole school to be safe if they're running through the hallway with scissors well that's not safe and running in the hallway itself is not say so what behaviors do we want to see so we can and then say why wasn't your behavior what we expected what did you do that didn't line up with what what our expectations are in school and then you have the ability to have that conversation about with students about well what do you think that should look like for you how could we how can you change that behavior next time and talk about what it was what it could be and what it should be and then what consequences naturally fit with that type of behavior and in some cases um itself the behavior self-corrects through a conversation in other cases consequences have to be handed out hallway norms I think you have to establish that the hallways need to be safe they need to be somewhat quiet of though we put a lot of students in the narrow space using lockers and walk into class it's not going to be on you know pin drop quiet and I think think what you have to do is you have to identify how do you provide a sense of helpfulness and support for others the ability to get to class on time means you're not hanging out I think when you're talking about you know the boss it might be sitting your seat and you make sure the busy appropriate number of people per seat you don't stand up while the bus is in motion and then you introduce and then you infuse what are those acts of kindness that we expect from people and we expect them please doesn't thank-yous go a long way and if we need to model that behavior as adults and caring others in the school if we expect our students to do that we have to have hold the students accountable for what they did and why it was wrong but then we have to give them an opportunity to show us that they can learn from that and not do it again and your consequences need to be gradual enough so that students don't feel like they've been so overwhelmed by what they had as a consequence what you gave them rather than seeing you know I did this it wasn't right I earned this consequence I can be better by doing this in the future and I this is where restorative practices and restorative you know it kind of a restorative plan would go into place for a student to allow them to earn back a privileges and at the same time return to the learning pulling students out of school pulling students out of class for consequences prevents them from learning and then they're going to struggle coming back into the learning environment because they were in trouble they missed some school they're now behind and then you're gonna pull them back into an environment with they don't have all the tools for success and they're coming off of a consequence that that they were already upset about so I think you have to set up a system for them to maintain as much time in the classroom as possible and you have to have a frequent review of what your what your code of conduct is and what your disciplinary codes are and adapt it to meet the needs of the students to meet the needs of the school to address the issues that might come up when you have a first-time offense it's something that has never been seen in the school you want to make sure that you are addressing that effectively quickly and that the consequence fits the behavior that was shown I think that those things that you have at your at your disposal your handbook your code of conduct those things need to be reviewed to take into account of all of those things um and that the consequence is meaningful the students learn from it it doesn't last forever and then when they come back to the environment where they had the issue in the first place they are welcomed back as a learner who's going to take some time to do show better behavior and show a better a better connection with the adults and the students in they're classroom and you're community on the bus and that you follow up follow up with families communicate keep with them and make sure that you follow up with the T teachers and the students later on to say hey how's it going how it what what what's happened since the last time we met to discuss this how do you feel about it now in making sure that you close that loop so that the student doesn't feel like they got in trouble and that's all it is and that they don't have an opportunity to process or to you know to check in and to make sure the things are really moving in a better direction thank you what is your vision for what thoughts are ideas do you have for bringing any sense of joy compassion empathy for each other and unity to the middle school at the student level staff level and for the whole school I think one of the things that is essential to building a positive and joyful culture and climate within the school is a way in which you responsibly and and at the same time exuberantly celebrate achievements of others and in a lot of ways schools are really great as celebrating when their sports team makes it to you know first place or when the band program gets a gold medal but as a school you I would want to see a way to celebrate straw a small and large successes of students that that may not just be tied to very big organizations or structured clubs and activities or events within the school day I think you I think there's a place for identifying the celebration of students who succeed well academically succeed well athletically succeed well musically a but I think that any system that brings joy to the school and promotes and fosters kindness and empathy you know social responsibility is one that captures students and staff doing the things that we want them to do to be good people and identifying what what does that look like do we want to be treated and how do we want others to be treated in our school and when we see those things happening we have a system for celebrating those things whether it's a student helps another student pick up books how do we have acknowledged student who was the helper when you have a an upstander in a situation where a student is not included and that person concludes includes a another student in an activity or you know sits with now sis without new student just came in today and introduces them come around how do we foster that and that might be developing programs like student ambassadors who are responsible for introducing themselves to new students in their grade level and following the students schedule for a day so that they can get acclimated to their peer group into the routines and how lunch period works and where do I go to catch the bus at the end of the day so setting up some opportunities for students to become leaders because they are strong in those skill sets and then demonstrating those things throughout the school making peer connections between sixth graders and tenth graders at the high school or you know ninth graders and sixth graders where they talk about transitioning together so that when our seventh and eighth graders become high school freshmen and sophomores they have the ability to talk to six graders incoming to seventh grade about what it's like to transition to a new school here is what middle school is like here's what here's what these classes are all about and here's how you have to be prepared so I think finding ways to build that capacity and our and our students by modeling that effectively with staff and really identifying what do we want to do as a school to make our make our environment welcoming making sure that people welcome visitors when they first come in the door having a policy of introducing yourself when you answer the phone it seems really elementary but in many cases those things get overlooked in the busyness and the craziness of the day but they are important how we talk to one another how we stand when we talk to one another how we communicate our needs and how we administrate patience and understanding as adults is more readily able to transfer to students when we can model it ourselves and then say and this is what we expect and here's why we expect it and praise and praise and acknowledge when that happens I think that the more you builds the opportunity to celebrate students for all kinds of things we expect them to be and we expect to see I think those are going to be the things that bring the joy because you're able to say I have a group of seventh graders who are phenomenal with including all all students new students I have this group of eighth graders who are motivated to provide service to the community and this is how we're going to demonstrate that and show that and we want to celebrate that because it increases the connections that we have rather than decrease thank you as principal communication with families students and teachers is key how will you communicate effectively with each of these stakeholders um I've mentioned a couple of times that I I do like to do sponsor and host opportunities for families to come in and and meet and talk it might be on a particular it might be on particular topic of the month it might just be here's an opportunity to come in and have a conversation about the things that we might be concerned about at grade level or with certain types of curriculum and invite parents in and I do believe you can't just have it one time day because not everybody is available on that one time a day so I alternate my when I was when I was having meetings I would alternate so the first one might be in the evening where families could come and I get the on junior Honor Society students to provide babysitting or where my ADA minding service in the gym and have some cooperative games so that parents could come wouldn't bring their younger children to have some babysitting so that they could come and in some pieces it would be having a meeting and that you know in the library with a pot of coffee and some fresh-baked cookies and having with families who could come during the day and not in the evening I say I think making yourself available and providing an opportunity to kind of open and I please excuse the pun because I would have say it this way even if it wasn't your acronym but open your arms to the community and the public and let them come in to meet with you to communicate with you I'm a big fan on two-way communication by sending out quick surveys when I when I want to investigate something using your using your school council as a way to communicate to other members of the community and having a having some responsible use of social media to reach out to families who might not be able to connect with us directly because of work commitments or other family commitments being able to get information out and bring information in so I think that that is really an important part I think communicating with students you need to develop opportunities to go into classrooms just sit I'm a big fan of sitting at lunch with a group of students and finding out a little bit about what's going on in their world not just at school but what do you do for fun and I see that you're wearing a dance you know a dance studios jacket here tell me about what kind of what dance what what is your your preferred dance the f-type and do you do perform competitively get thing to know the students and talking with them about their interest both in school and out of school is a really big piece and also getting students involved when there are concerns or when we want to make a move to something different we want to try something new you need to have student buy-in if it's going to be related to the students if they if if something's gonna fall flat with the students you want to have a heads up on that you want to have people who can chain be in that with their peers you want students to be able to bring other students in to a new activity a new Club a new way of thinking a new behavioral support system a new incentive program you want to have student involvement because they are going to tell you what whether or not something's going to find and you want to know that before you put it out there because if students don't want to be part of it they just won't and so you want to be able to bring them in and of course without without the role of your ear faculty without being involved in the decision-making process you can as a principal I could ask you to to do a lot of things but if the faculty doesn't feel invested and if their if their opinions haven't been considered that's a tough thing to just go on blind faith and to do something that you have a lot of questions about so prepping the prepping faculty members and members of the school staff being able to have input from all aspects of the professionals in the school I think that it I think it's a very important part to include a lot of people in making initial decisions about the direction that your school wants to go in because we all work there a principals just a role in the school and sometimes it's not the most important role in the school it's it's the person who has to cheerlead the causes and celebrate the successes and provide the support and in some cases filled the tough questions but it's it's a role that is valuable but the rule that everybody plays and what they bring to the table was equally valuable and when you're having those discussions as a principal I would want to step back and be one voice in the room not the only voices thank you can you give an example of a change you have led in one of your schools what stretch did you use to engage staff and teachers and bring people through the process also how did you communicate the need for change and get input from the broader community and how did you evaluate the outcome of the change one of the things that I had done in one of my schools was to take a look take a look at why we had students who had difficulty in and and it was a it was an EM cast from a data-driven on situation where we were taking a look at why our students were not performing well on any of the the state based assessments when it came to writing open responses and what we what I did and to look at that was first start with the data and talk with since he's talked with some students and talked with the with the teachers but we found was it wasn't so much about writing it was about the reading portions that they would have to do first and what we found was that students in some cases felt that writing was for English class so maybe social studies class but why do I need to write in math so they would they would leave skim the fast and he would write very little and oftentimes they wouldn't Express or describe things effectively so as a group of team department heads in this particular middle school so we started there with the with the leadership team and I unpack a unpack the data with them and said this is what we see let's talk about how do we get students to to write more write better write more effectively write more often and any of those are on the table let's let's brainstorm so we had a brainstorming session with our leadership group and it was the gym teacher who was the you know the health and wellness department chair who said students need to know that they should be able to read and write in in gym class that they should be able to read a fitness article and know how to apply what they're doing he says I often times have to demonstrate something when I give them instructions and I give them paper instructions to read over and they asked me to show them again how do I get them to read fool or understanding and it was his comment not mine that led to that discussion of adopting some closer reading practices and through that we were able to almost eliminate the idea of popcorn around Robin reading which had been a staple for MU that particular middle school for a very long time we found that it helped our LLS reall students who struggle to read in English and pronounce things in English because suddenly we weren't we're encouraging them to read out loud just for the sake of reading out loud we would oftentimes pair students off and engage them in this saying to somebody read aloud and then having the fashion about the material in gym classic write articles every Friday and just Gerald about how that article might have applied to them or if it didn't apply to them what was something that they learn from the article and so teachers through the work of the the team leaders worked with their departments to develop a way in which once a week in the non the core academic classes students would be an aged in writing and in order to writing I need to read something or discuss something and then run alright so we were encouraging reading in different areas reading different types of material but that at the end everybody had a writing sample from every class at the end of the week that was based on whatever it was even the student shows so the teacher chose to share and just by getting students into the practice of writing through generated opportunities brought those those writing scores op students we're getting zeroes not writing anything we're writing things and students who are struggling with getting supporting details and evidence 14 ideas we're doing better with that and we modeled some of our practices based on the the skill set of English teachers but really every every department worked together to come up with some common kind of ways to introduce that class and then track monitor and we keep came back together as small departments and then cross department to talk about these variances during our our faculty meetings we devoted a series of our faculty meetings OOP talking about how our students write in who's struggling now class is what different earring up I department with English you talk about those things English teachers understand what skills their students might need remediation on it took two years on but it was very successful over those two years to bring students back into this idea that we do need to write off all the time and we need to practice what we what we think you know and it was really the problem presented itself through data I presented it to the to our leadership team but really took on a life of its own when the teachers became invested seeing students to see overall and not just on the Sarai's that suggests in their ability to communicate through with spoken words hi I don't know what changed but the audio is starting to deteriorate more we will we will try another question but I just want to remind the community I mentioned earlier that you and I will go on a different platform and go through the questions again I'm just gonna continue with the last two questions that were asked via email and I believe there are four so questions in the chat once those questions are asked we will go on a different platform and try to pass the questions with better audio and help that video okay alright so the next question says how do you foresee your leadership style influencing teacher instruction and how have you supported teachers in meeting the needs of all students I like to I'd like to think I like to think that I am an invitational leader and a collaborative leader I do believe in meeting with people who want to meet and sometimes people who need to meet to discuss ways to improve instructional practices improve student learning opportunities and their their personal achievement both academically and as part of the members of being part of the school community and I think that that that ability to communicate in collaborate brings a lot of people into a room and you put a lot of ideas up and then as a group you gain consensus we want to try first and we don't describe the rest of the list but I think in my role of leadership I believe you that collaborates at early and coming up with lots of ideas means that if the first one doesn't work we can try another one but we all have a say in what up on the board we all had the opportunity to speak up you know and teachers donate your time I'm asking them to donate their time again to sit in on certain meetings with certain topics I want to be careful that we you know that we do that when it's something that impacts the school it impacts the students and then impacts them and so you want to make sure that you're respecting and honoring their time that they're giving by giving them a voice in the process and giving them an opportunity to make decision I think that as a leader I'm also somebody who will respect the need to acknowledge when I have made a mistake when I have done something that is um is not necessarily how I would have wanted to do it and the the opportunity to make amends to that or to take personal recognition and responsibility for that I think is a key piece in being a leader because you're not always going to succeed you're not always going to know the right thing to say the first time or the right fix for a problem the first time but I think that by being the role model who's able to take ownership of what what I've done or what I need to do or or a way in which I may have dropped the ball is essential to be having other people feel comfortable saying the same thing and being able to go to fix that that error and move forward with it responsibly and through you know through actions as well as communication they think is key and that would that's something else that I believe very strongly in and then finally I model what I would expect they would not I would not not do something that I wanted a teacher to be able to do if I if I want to instill a belief about kindness then then I lead with kindness and those are those will be things that are whoo I am NOT we article the community of learners in the community of Li Peters and straitens back on for the rule that everybody plays I think it's a big piece of that and then finally I think how will that impact how will that impact teachers and students I think ultimately I would live by our core values and our expectations and I would I would hold people accountable to them but I would hold myself accountable to them as well and those are the guiding tenets of what your school expects academically socially emotionally physically and I would want to demonstrate those things as part of who I am and the role that I play so that when when it comes time to ask others to do the same they have a role they have a model of what that looks like they have a model of how they might do that and then they can take it take it and make it their own and hold people to the idea that is what we are and who we are as a school and what we expect and that message goes directly from the top to the to the to the you know to all of the other pieces all of the other parts of the school there really is no bottom of the school it's it's it's from our core and our foundation and it should rise through all of the members of our community so demonstrating and holding people accountable for it and celebrate being those things when they have anything or a big part of how we need the school thank you the next question says please discuss the steps you will take to include restorative practices at the middle school my understanding is from what I've seen is that the process has started so the first step I would take would be to do a review with school leadership and school teachers on where where the school is in terms of adopting restorative practices what has been working but has not been working and what hasn't been tried yet and I would want to take I would want to start as a learner of how we sort of practice as a restorative initiatives have been brought into the school so far I would want to then outline some steps on how we're going to take a look at adopting additional practices we would need to do a needs assessment what are the needs of the school where where do we need to see restorative practices take place what are the impacts of certain types of behaviors what behaviors are we seeing that would benefit from less of a disciplinary code and more of a restore process and how do we get there so I would want to ask them very direct but some open-ended questions and have members of the of a team of expert others in the school when and as well as members of administration and then perhaps people from other buildings so that there's some continuity there between what we're doing in the middle school and what's being done at the elementary school how do we grow that so that students have an increased sense of we're not going to teach them something they already learned and are able to do in elementary school in terms of behaviors but we may want to expand upon those those expectations and those practices that we have based on the behaviors we see at middle school that they don't see at elementary school and then how do we best tie that into transitioning our students at the end of their experience in middle school to high school expectations and how do we gradually build the responsibility within our students to hold them to a higher to a higher level of community responsibility and I think that those that would be the next pieces who is that team and how will we work together to make that that continuity that pathway between the elementary systems the high school systems and what is our role and how do we build our how do we build our restorative practices with those two things in mind so that we can pick up the students where they're at and bring them forward to where they're expected to be by the time they're high school students and then I would want to be part of the implementation process but those initiatives particularly when we're particularly when we're rolling out something where you know we need to provide support to staff you know again the principal assistant principal Edina students they are their roles that we play they have certain parts of the discipline that teachers do not but you don't want to um create any practice that disempowers the role of the classroom teacher in terms of developing or developing relationships with students and maintaining positive ones in the classroom so you want to have a series of behavioral interventions at the classroom level that teachers can work through and become experts yeah that can minimize the minimize some of the behaviors that remove a student from the classroom or require the intervention of a school administrator and you also want to have the ability to go back and include that teacher when something has happened so that the student in the process of going through the restorative techniques or going through a restorative circle or a service learning opportunity is able to report back to that teacher that they learned something from the experience and that the behaviors less likely to happen and because of what restorative technique was used but to also at the same time close the loop to show the teacher that some some learning and some responsibility taking has happen and that I would want to take a look at getting students involved and being socially positive ambassadors for the practice I would want peer I would want students to come and talk to us about what it is that they're experiencing when their peers engage in behavior but it's not acceptable or inappropriate how can we help support the students who are in those areas who are part of that part of that experience when a when a student miss B he's or has some real difficulty and some challenge in the classroom it's not just the teacher and the the student who's acting out or having difficulty that's impacted it is anyone who's heard the exchange it's anyone who has been in the room and how do we provide supports to ensure that students feel continued to feel safe or continue to feel like they can engage with this with with all of their classmates how do they feel that they can support the safe classroom environment and and speak up when when the when need be to help the student who's miss who helped the student get back on track or in some cases to be supportive of the classroom as a whole to say any of this behavior is not acceptable and here's why so we have to take into account the fact that behavior that is demonstrated by one student has an impact on a variety of other people who may not be directly involved and how do we support those people to because they walk away from that classroom experience and they may have a memory of it that should be you know should be addressed if necessary um because the communication needs to happen so that they feel secure and their own ability to be safer to learn how and and be active in that classroom thank you know there were some questions in the chat the first one I see how do you ensure that paraprofessionals are seen as important parts of the arms community I've never referred to a paraprofessional on as anything other than a caring other and teacher in the building when you're working with students you are their teacher you may not be the content teacher you may not be the lead teacher in the classroom but you're still a teacher of students you still are responsible in some cases for mitigating behavior or to bringing a student back into a learning environment and dealing with the struggle of the challenge and so they are a valuable and integral piece in that student success and they that is a celebration unto itself but para a assistant in the classroom a student support person provides a function of you know a lot of responsible feedback to the classroom teacher in some case just to the administration and certainly their their observations their work is important to how do we report out the success of the student the challenges of the student and create the plans for the student that are necessary for their success so I would want to ensure that the paraprofessional had avenues to have time to talk with the teachers about the individual students or group of students that they're working with that they have time to review lesson plans or to ask questions when they're being asked to cover cover an assessment or to be able to teach teach a certain skill that they maybe don't have a lot of practice in themselves I would want to take a look at how we can support them making you know creating lasting bonds with your students and whether or not they need some additional support academically or you know some sort of training to provide them with more skills and more resources and making sure that that happens for them their success as a professional in the school leads to the success of the student that they are assigned to and in some cases when they're working with a student in a classroom with many other students in a classroom teacher it's instrumental to the success of the entire classroom that that person as they are I have also found in my experience working with care professionals staff members with students that they have a lot to offer in terms of opportunities to reach out to students that they're not assigned to in a classroom I used to have a student who needed to practice some breathing exercises and the paraprofessional was a it was a yoga instructor a part-time after school hours and helped that student and develop some deep breathing techniques and just to address a anxious moments or situations where they became frustrated easily and that eventually translated itself into an after-school Club for 10 weeks to teach students a little bit about yoga because the person was an instructor you know as a certified instructor and there was an interest there in the in the students to to have that opportunity I've had other pair of professionals who worked as EMTs who were licensed instructors and ran CPR for state classes in our school for students who either needed them for first scouting or because they wanted to have that experience and so I find that there's a way to tap into the the skills that all of our staff have and you're you are a teacher of students so you become a teacher in the eyes of the school and again it's a rule it's a rule that's different than a classroom or content teacher but highly valuable and I would want I would want on those individuals to know that they're necessary from the success of our students and it makes them extremely important to the success of the school thank you what do you think the role of middle school is in the development of a learner's identity and skillsets we don't have enough time to go through all of it I'm sure middle school is a really important really important part of us student transition again they come from Elementary School where they might be in one class for most or all of the day with with one set of teachers and one said students that they become really close to whether it's out of necessity or out of out of a sense of friendship or both and they come to the middle school then they have a lot of transitions they have a lot of different teachers they're being exposed to content perhaps it's a much more at a rapid rate and they have more personal responsibility for their own success it might be the first time that those students try out for something and don't make it you know they may they may want to maybe expose the first time to an activity or a skill that they've never seen before and they want to try it out it's also the one of the first times I've seen an experience this is a parent but the experience is a principal where a student might come home that day and say oh mom you don't have to go to that meeting the principal said it's not a big deal when really it is so they suddenly become a little more friend focused a little less family focused a little more interest focused a little less community focused and I think the role of the middle school is essential to allowing students to try different things to succeed and fail in a safe environment where people genuinely care about what they're learning and what they're doing and we maintain a very strong role in communicating with the families I think you know once students get to high school and they're making a lot more choices on their own communication the communication may drift off a little but I think the role of a middle school is to still find ways to communicate out to the parents what we're doing and here's the opportunities and here's what's coming next to communicate with families on small struggles and small small successes as well as to be open to the communication that comes in from families when they see or they see something that doesn't make sense they have questions about the curriculum they want to have a conversation about how to better support their student home or they want to know what what else is available in the school because they've heard so many things and they they just want to be able to sort out the conversation of the day from their students so I think middle level education is is a huge part of the students growth it's a huge part for parents to transition from you know a small school small classroom one classroom environment to having more communication specifically with certain people at certain times over certain academic concerns who are social concerns or community based concerns and I think it allows the student to have some do overs have some opportunities to try things on say it's not for me and find something else and that's why having a very strong and rich co-curricular program within the school day an extracurricular program outside of the school day is essential for the students to really kind of find what their niche is middle school should be a place where students aren't exploring their skills and deciding you know what are some things I might be good at how does that translate to what you want to do in high school or I might want to do if I go to college or I go into a career or I go somewhere else what is what does that look like and it's never too soon to start to expose them to those things so that's another thing middle level education is good for teen taking those students while they're still highly interested in showing what they know and try and channel that some way for them to help them about what they might be good at later on and then finally to be a caring place for students to come to every day to look forward to seeing a new set of faces to being ready to be challenged in in their learning knowing that if they struggle people will be there for them and to feel confident that they have become better because of that experience and it's a place where students all students should have someone and some something that they can belong to that matters to them and know that they matter to the school thank you another question from the chat says can you please comment on your very short tenure as principal of two middle schools with the most recent just being one year as principal of North Ridge Middle School mm-hmm in relation to the the tenure that I had North Bridge was a town where I taught for twelve years as a public school high school teacher and I was very passionate about the learning that was taking place there and I felt a very strong connection to the school in district so when the opportunity came to go to North Ridge School District I was out as principal ah I was very happy that sense of wanting to we join the community we're done my teaching and they had really felt the wrong connection to this one the community unfortunately I had um you know a I had a personal concern that needed to be addressed in that first year educator on my yacht my children who are now older teenagers were not dangerous then and there was a need to make a decision about what I was for a job in order to support what was going on and my family at the time and I took I took the opportunity at that point to have conversation with my administrator and chose to make a very tough decision you know it's a tough decision to say I need to be able to take care of this part of my life and I have a school community and school family that was going to be impacted and if I was taking care of the school and community part of my life then my my family was being impacted and it's hard it's I it was a very difficult decision to make and made in the best interest of what I needed to do for my family thank you for the same time I'm looking at the chat to see if there's something that may be a quicker answer because you only have three minutes left how do you support students and make sure they can reach their full potential if students want to be more academically challenged provides specifics of what you would you have done and will do to support them as a principal I can't claim to be an expert in all content areas but knowing that there are needs for students who need greater academic challenge one of the one of the ways in which I have worked with curriculum leaders and with school teachers is to identify what are those areas where students have a personal interest and if they are accelerating through the curriculum at a much faster rate how can we assess quickly they're still in a particular area of learning that you need to need to be able to identify and say that they're successful in and then how do we dig deeper for some students it might be providing them with an opportunity to investigate and use a math class where they might be excited in percentages and you know algebraic concepts and move them into a deeper where they can use some of those skills to develop understanding statistics probability give them some deeper instructional practices that are supported by wherever they are in the curriculum but it's it's in addition to and they can receive credit for working on those things that they're able to show that they have already mastered this bill that's being taught in the class in science class that's you know having students develop their own experiments you know creating opportunities for students to participate in geography B's in the National History Day and you know science fairs will allow students to deepen their own learning and and maintain attachment to the to the the school and the curriculum at the same time I think helping students identify what their their areas of interest are and it's never too early to have a conversation with an individual teacher appearance in the student about what can they do in addition to the work so that they can learn more about this because they want to be they want to be an aero science you know they want to go into aeronautics oh you want to go into nursing how do we help I'm in the health class develop a greater a greater depth of knowledge and understanding learning and how can we tie that into the curriculum so they can get credit so the work and at the same time it's a you know go off to a different different aspect or a different prong of what you're covering in classes that they can individualize their instruction individual instruction and individual learning shouldn't just be based on what learning needs are available learning needs half at the address but it can be based on how well the student already knows them it's material so how can we move them forward and more quickly um I think that that applies in all areas whether it's a student who is able to do an independent study with the music teacher because they want I'm a second instrument and they have an opportunity an opportunity to build that into the students day I think looking at schedule flexibility talking with the teachers about opportunities that help the the school's curriculum grow but at the same time help an individual student girl is all very important to Auntie you look at the needs of all learners the same time being able to go back and find ways to remediate small groups or individually with students who struggle having something available for the students are a little more accelerated it keeps all of the students piecing at the same rate in the classes so that by the end of the year all students I've been exposed the same material just a the extent to which they're able to individualize their work maybe more money meter what they already know thank you and thank you miss soda for telling us about yourself and your qualifications for this position as I mentioned in doing two or three times in this forum we will try another platform to see if the the audio is better if the audio is not better than what we have now I will not send out that video if it's the if it's better then I will send the video or post the video with the other videos that are here from the other forums so thank you all in the community and staff and families for joining joining us the sessions were recorded and will be available for later time and once again we will try again to have this meeting miss otter and if it comes out well we will post that as well thank you all terrific thank you everybody for coming today I appreciate the time and obviously you know the part of your day that you spent with me

that meant that the students across the state who had the same score as the students are building were doing better than our students essentially uh and so that because you came to chestnut then that means you weren't doing as good as the person across the state and by the end of that time that sixth grade group we took their sgp all the way to 73. that meant that they were doing better than 73 of the students in the state that had the same score as them so what those conditions that we put in this just belief that we can do this that we're going to create safe learning environments this kind of focus on our planning are we planning from data am i as the principal prioritizing teacher professional development and helping and coaching teachers uh once we have that in place uh do teachers feel safe to take risks so do we have safe relationships for students do we have safe relationships with our teachers and then finally do the teachers know what to do and the students know what to do based upon the feedback that we're giving them and then just undying will to want to be successful if you get a community behind that effort and you have a community supporting that effort you will be successful so again just to bring it all back together uh the best way to promote equity and close that achievement gap uh is to make sure we have strong relationships with students to make sure we're prioritizing our planning and our teacher professional development and then to again have that all means all no excuses attitude that we are going to do this no matter what and that comes from the community and the team that is working just to help those students thank you your response touched on several questions that were submitted but i will ask the questions anyway the next question says what is your plan of action to ensure that english language learners and students with special needs make significant progress again i'm going to go back to my background as a special education teacher and the way that i always think about planning and how to address those gaps is i use the phrase what gets measured gets improved so first would be to analyze what is actually taking place and look at the data that we have once we see that data we as teachers can say here is a reasonable goal that we want to move this student to not only that we have to communicate that to teachers and parents and once we see that goal and the student sees that goal it becomes tangible and if we're providing feedback on a daily basis towards reaching that goal if our planning is saying all right i need to scaffold for this student down to this level or i need to scaffold for this student up to this level or i need to provide accommodations or modifications then we will work to move that group but it starts with identifying that group and being aware of the data for that group and then planning from the data for that group my schools that i have been part of in the city of springfield have had the majority of the population be english language learners i started an english language learner academy at the high school of commerce specifically for our english language learner students so the ones who were level ones level twos first year language uh speakers they had a separate supportive academy that they would do for some of their core content classes and then for the electives they would be back in the regular um student areas i i mean with the students and students classrooms but they would have support we hired additional paraprofessionals so really we created this community that we wanted students that struggled with language to be able to support each other we wanted to have teachers that specialized in supporting those students um to help them and we did the same thing when we went to chestnut we we prioritized our english language learners because at chestnut uh 97 of the students um were um at one point in their lives not english language learner speakers or the primary language was not english at home and that's a very incredibly high percentage uh and so again immersing myself in the culture is key to making sure that you are moving students that are minorities that you are moving students that are non-english language speakers that you are moving students that are struggling with special education or have special disabilities that that prevent them from accessing or learning like regular regular students but going all the way back to that original concept of do we know who these students are do we know what their needs are specifically and does that student believe that we have their best interest in mind through that relationship that we have built with them and if we have these conditions and if we don't stop our planning and we are always working to move that population and we are consistently checking in with our progress uh inviting students parents in to talk about progress so a progress report isn't just something you're receiving on paper it's a face-to-face interaction that you're having uh if we have those conditions in place we're monitoring what's taking place we're giving the teachers the development that they need to be able to work with a different population or to focus on english language learners uh the the students have been able to succeed and i have shown success at my previous schools in changing the um achievement gap and shrinking that gap between ell students and sped students at my schools because again i have them at my heart um because that's where i started uh and so that's that's kind of the way i would summarize how i would do that thank you with change in administration comes changes in policy procedures and methodologies how would you or how do you plan to streamline existing systems and utilize staff feedback when implementing new initiatives that's another great question and i'll start with again my experience is that this is what i have done i have come into environments that have been either told by the state that there's going to be change that's mandated uh or have gone to a point where change is going to be coming and so as i walk in as a new leader the first thing that i do which is kind of a core uh strength of mine is i listen i listen to what's going on i can't make any decisions and i can't have what's in the best interest of everybody if i don't hear what is taking place and people don't believe that i am listening to them so i always want to make sure that people understand and can i can that i'm there to listen and that's the first thing that i will always do is listen and once i listen i can then start to formulate a plan but i don't create plans myself in any school that i have been to because if a plan comes from the top down there are likely people who do not buy into it and then they do not implement it or they do not implement it to their best so the whole core to my leadership philosophy is that i am a team builder and i start with building the team so if we are going to streamline policies and processes i am going to ask teachers to be part of that team and i have a phrase that i use is that i want to lead myself out of a job i want if i am not there everything to be able to function and continue because the teachers and students are part of the decision making so i every school i go to i form what i call a teacher leadership team and it's a group of teachers that makes the decisions for the school and i'm just a member of that team and so i try to build consensus from the ground up i listen to what people have to say i bring colleagues in teachers other administrators and put them at the table and then we work together to determine what is best for the school i also always have to include students in that discussion because without students i am nobody i am not a principal if there are no students in that school and so students voice is so important and making sure that what we're doing is helping them in the long run uh and so i always try to bring people together that again is first and foremost i make decisions based upon input uh and then i make decisions based upon team consensus and i try and strive to build that as a principal i uh not having been a teacher i was actually a union representative for teachers when i was a teacher as well i understand the struggle that teachers have and i understand the struggle that students have and i want to make sure that they work together and are at the table to make the decisions that are necessary and then i also make sure that we have a school council where the community and parents are part of that decision decision-making body so i don't am not a top-down guy i am a consensus building individual and i like to make sure that every voice that i possibly can find is heard and then represented in the decisions that are made and i have the experience to do that in leading schools from designing a school from scratch uh to leading schools through state mandated change with lots of turnover uh and lots of change and leadership for years and years and my goal is always to stabilize to build teams to prioritize and find student leaders teacher leaders that can then continue to be the voice and so that's kind of my approach i listen first then i build consensus and i invite teachers to be part of the decision making team students and community members so that's how i would plan to make change streamline policies uh even at my current school uh one of the biggest changes that i made coming in uh we changed the schedule and then i also created a separate middle school the grades 7 through 12 were all interdispersed throughout the building and we created a separate middle school with dedicated middle school teachers uh to focus just on middle school students and the changes that came from that uh just allowed the school to start to grow into a new direction where we prioritize our middle school and we're prioritizing our high school and it's not all intertwined and interdispersed so by creating these smaller communities we were able to make big changes but that's just an example of how i've come into positions with my experience and led them through change i've done that by listening and i've done that by building consensus with the stakeholders thank you what is your experience with performing arts departments and what vision do you have for the role of performing arts in the middle school that's an amazing question because for me watching a student who has never picked up an instrument or ever considered themselves an artist uh when i get to watch them perform or when i get to watch them display something and i can see that i've never done this before and now i'm doing it and i feel confidence that is when i will just i can't hold it together i will cry because that is one of the absolute most proud moments that i have experience doing this at chestnut middle school we did not have a music program we had a music class we turned that program into a full music program we partnered with a community music organization that were able to provide instruments for every single student in the music program we hired teachers that had experience in music and i prioritized that because again if i believe that relationship building is the best way to reach a child i also believe that not every child will be reached by a core content teacher so being able to express yourself outside of a math english socialize or science class is the key to building that well-rounded person that i talked about at the beginning of this time and so i always push arts i always push performance if there's a blank space on a wall i will tell the art teacher fill it display something on it i will tell the music teacher you can go and perform at a soccer game if you want to go and perform at the high school i'll coordinate with the high school to have you perform i always want students to be in a position to show what they know that goes back to that core belief i have the only way to truly know a child is learn something is to watch them teach it or show it to someone else and then students then can find who they are at that middle school level so arts music clubs electives uh are so important to the student experience it cannot just be math english social studies and science and another example me as a myself as a leader i always try to give professional development to my elective teachers on how to incorporate core content standards into what you're doing if i'm a music teacher and i'm going to have students compare and contrast two different genres of music i might look to an ela standard on writing an argumentative essay and so i can then make sure that as a elective teacher i am supporting core content instruction and standards and my knowledge of those standards for ela as a core content teacher will only help the school improve as another condition for effective and promoting equity and closing that achievement gap that's something that i've done at chestnut middle school i've actually converted a lot of elective teachers to what i would call core content teachers because i would have them use ela standards as the standard or a science standard if we were talking about a stem classroom to make sure that they are helping core content teachers because if we want to promote equity to ensure that all students have access to everything that they all have access to the same high expectations same learning then all teachers need to be working off of what everybody what the core content teachers are doing as well to support because once we have that community of support right and once because again the state judges us uh on our mcas scores on our um you know attendance suspensions if we're all working together to focus on those goals that we set as a team then we will understand and get to that final point so to summarize i have experience and i am passionate about promoting the arts uh and then again i have that experience of of putting art programs in place that are sustainable and helping teachers who are in those programs help core content teachers and build that community we're all working towards the same goals thank you if we have a period of time next year when we have to rotate between in-person and online instruction what will you do to ensure students are engaged in their learning and how do you ensure that their social emotional well-being is being addressed i can go back to a personal experience uh on march 13th very similar to um amherst public schools my current school we made the decision before the governor announced the closure that we were going to close for two weeks and when we made that decision i pulled all the staff at the end of the day and i said we are going to plan from here on out as if we are not coming back and our priorities are student engagement and well-being and so we use those relationships that we have we use that concept of none of this is the student's fault that everything we are going to do from here on out is to build our relationship with that student to maintain contact with that student and to support that student no matter what work actually became secondary for us it was how can we put ourselves in a position to have weekly or daily contact with our students while they are gone so they feel that we are still part of their lives on a daily basis the next monday and tuesday excuse me the 16th and 17th of march i actually brought in my middle school student my teachers and my high school teachers we did professional development on google classroom and we planned a monthly calendar for the students and parents to know that at this day on this time we were posting work to google classroom and this is the schedule and we also created a schedule of online office hours and that schedule of online office hours was monday through friday so every day a teacher was going live on the computer to check in we got stu we created a form that parents filled out a survey if they needed technology we got as much technology as we possibly could in the hands of families who needed it to ensure that students were able to access things we worked to build packets of work for the students that weren't and we assigned teachers to consistently check in with those students so i feel that we were ahead of the curve because we thought from day one that this happened that our priority is supporting social emotional well-being of our students and families and maintaining that relationship and that contact with them and then we would get to the work once we felt that the student was in a position that they understood what was going on they felt supported in how to do the work and then they could actually access the work and so that is the experience that i have had and i've been leading staff and students through this pandemic as we speak my communication to parents i i'm communicating with parents daily i have sent out facebook live messages uh since the beginning of this pandemic talking to parents about how to become a teacher uh and and that struggle that we go through of i have a different relationship at home with my child because i am not the teacher so when i ask my student to do something and they say no i then go back into parent mode and it could be a conflict and so i really wanted to make sure that we were supporting our students and families first making sure they were had the technology they needed making sure they were fed um and so those were priorities right off the bat and they will always continue to be so going back to this if this happens again in the fall uh we're i'm going to be prepared for it and again the way i'm going to do that is by just giving you kind of gave you an example of what we've done at my school now in order to support that movement to online education now i have teachers that go live twice a day and we're actually providing you know as best of instruction as we can we have a gigantic sheet that teachers keep track of who they've had contact with from the week our advisory teachers reach out no matter what once a week so again i've prioritized that relationship and that contact as the number one aspects of this pandemic and that's how we're supporting mental health i have a stat team student teacher assistant team that we meet weekly where we funnel all the emails from teachers who get things from students that say i'm struggling i'm having a hard time i want to quit and then we prioritize how we as a support adjustment counselors guidance counselors nurses our paraprofessionals are reaching out to support those students so again my experience in leading through this uh has been we've tried to stay ahead of the curve we've been consistent with our expectations and that no one will be hurt through this process because it is not students fault and so again preparing for that uh on a side note i'm also a master scheduler i'm creating conditions where this can happen uh is key to like the core of what i do and so being able to plan for this being able to plan if we only can come back with 10 students per classroom do we have seventh graders on one day eighth graders on another day um where will we put them how will we transition um what will it look like do we take temperature at the door um all of these things are things that i'm currently thinking about and planning for next year at the school that i am in so my experience in doing this uh the kind of the philosophy that i just explained that we always prioritize that relationship and that support as the first thing during this pandemic i think it is exactly what i would continue to do and i would be doing it at uh amherst uh with a different team but that team was the key to all of this so there you go thank you what are your fundamental beliefs as to what instruction should look like at the middle school level so i'll go back to those three core beliefs that i stated about myself number one relationship building is the only way to reach a child number two the best behavior management tool is a well-structured engaging lesson and number three the only way to know a child has learned anything is to watch them teach it to someone else if we create those conditions we then create a safe learning environment where students want to take risks and when i walk into a classroom that i see a teacher as a coach and i see students doing the majority of work i know that really good things are happening and so we think about what that looks like right if this is a math class is is there focus or do we know where we're going do we know what standards we're working on as a student do i know why i am doing this is there coherence uh that means that is what i'm doing building upon the previous day is what i'm doing part of our future lesson so i as a teacher can tell a student you need this because next we're going to this and then can i always come back to this concept of rigor do i understand that i need to help students just yes understand how to do the math but do i also help the students understand why they're doing the math and why they're choosing the processes that they are and can i make sure that they're spending that amount of time on real world application so are the problems that i'm giving the students getting them back into thinking about the real world and thinking about math in the world around them and then if i go into a literacy classroom and i think of all other classrooms besides math as literacy because they can be text focused so is that text that we're using in that class complex can you make multiple meanings from that text that text is that text above skill level and or is that text tailored right to where that ell student needs it to be or that special ed student needs it to be so they can be part of the same thing that everybody else is doing is it all about getting back to that concept of evidence am i citing evidence from the text am i supporting my beliefs with evidence from what i've learned and then am i building knowledge and are the teachers ensuring that students are building knowledge over time so to summarize when i walk into a classroom if i can see conditions for a safe learning environment if i can see conditions of effective planning and i can see students doing the majority of the thinking in class then i know really strong instruction is taking place and if i also see writing writing for me is what it shows thinking there's the old um you know think pair share i like to change that and call it think right hair share because if i can get a student to write their ideas and thoughts before they begin to discuss them a student who doesn't like speaking in class a student doesn't like turning and talking to someone next to them they already have their thoughts planned out and then it's much easier for them to feel confident turning and talking or raising their hand and asking to talk to the teacher so again if i see those conditions if i see them in place i see that relationship and that teacher as a coach i see the positivity in the classroom then i know really strong instruction is taking place so as a principal i like to make sure that my staff is that's where we we spend our time on professional development and learning to make sure that those conditions are present and how to uh build upon them once we get them thank you what is your view about discipline in the middle school and in your response please include issues such as cell phone use hallway norms and expectations around kindness okay my view on discipline again comes back to restorative justice restorative practice and pbis if there's a student in class that is on a cell phone the first thing i will ask teachers to do or i will train teachers to do or things that really good teachers will do is they will not call that student out but they might say something along the lines of i'm really glad that so and so and so has their cell phones away because this was a time where we're not having cell phones out and i thank you for that and then hopefully that student will understand that we are not calling them out that we are putting them in a place where they can hear that is the expectation and they can put the cell phone away now having a really strong cell phone policy i think is key to the cell phone problem that can exist in schools i have experience creating a new cell phone policy at my current school where we essentially almost eliminated the problem because it was very clear what the consequences were it was very clear that what happened in each classroom would be the same throughout the building and so once we created that consistency and described it to students and held students accountable to that that is when we kind of every student understood that cell phones were not something that we're going to be on when it is not time to be on them in a classroom and so the cell phone policy i think is always key and if the policy doesn't articulate exactly what the expectations are that would be one thing that i would reach out and try to change right away and then i can also tell you another thing about the hallway norms so after listening when i came to my current position hallways were a problem once we created a different middle school academy again for our seventh and eighth grade students we actually started the year by having all students transition in lines from class to class i actually made room movements so that all core content classes at the middle school for that team were next to each other so i created conditions that made it favorable for students to get to class on time so students would line up in one class they'd walk out in a line the teacher would be greeting them at the door for their next class the teacher would welcome them to class let them in a few at a time give them the instructions in the hallway and then move students into class and when we started the year like that first the teachers noticed right off the bat behavior in hallways was non-existent students were not getting in trouble students were not spending time hiding in bathrooms students were not where they weren't supposed to be and the biggest positive change was that was that bullying or students getting in trouble was almost eliminated in the hallway students were getting the class on time now if you're a student and you're sitting here listening to me right now you say walking in lines as seventh and eighth graders well we started that way and then once the expectation was established that we get to where we go on time and we had that high expectation we relaxed that so then teachers were letting students go on their own to their next class and just standing at their door but we could always pull back if we noticed that things weren't going the way we needed to we could always pull back to that so that was an example of how we made a change at a school to kind of take back if you will the hallways and then after students understood the expectation they were following it consistently we said hey eighth graders you no longer have to walk in lines being escorted and that was great and then we didn't have issues but if we did we could go back to it and same with seventh grade seventh graders showed that they could make it from place to place on time responsible um respectful uh and kind to each other and once they were able to be able to pull back so that was an example uh and so my my kind of best way to say that how do we ensure cell phone usage stops is to have a really strong cell phone policy and consistency from classroom to classroom and consistency in the accountability of that policy to stop hallway norms again uh having coming from pbis and restorative practice actually posting in the hallway what the norms are is key so students understand them and if they're not following those norms to put in conditions or put things in place that we as adults are monitoring those hallways very tightly and we are using our our ability to transition students as key to getting them to the next class on time and prepared and then kindness kindness is the core if you're building relationships with students that they believe in you and you're expressing that always be kind uh that that no excuses there's no excuse for hurting somebody there's no excuse for making fun of somebody uh and if you believe that that kindness and you're modeling that as a leader i am out there modeling all the time if you're doing that students will follow it and if you're always upbeat like i am if you're always positive with the students they're less likely to want to do something that's going to change that feeling that they have and if they do we're going to restore it we're going to say this is what you did this is what hurt and this is how we can make it better because it doesn't make you who you are one mistake so to kind of summarize again stopping cell phones is about having consistency in the implementation of the policy and then making sure that all teachers are doing the same thing and that all students understand and are working together on it hallway norms i've given you an example of an of a way to stop um students from not getting to places on time logistically making moves with teachers to to kind of support quick transitions from place to place and then again for me being present i'm in all transitions all the time all the hallways i try to get to and if i'm not there i know every one of my teachers is on their front lawn as i call it greeting students when they come to their house and then making sure that we're kind that stems from that core belief that i have of relationship building so that's how i would ensure that hallways are strong that we think of the hallways as just a time to get from point a to point b uh and then when we get to point b we are ready to go and so that's kind of how i would how i would do that thank you what is your vision or what thoughts or ideas do you have for bringing a sense of joy compassion empathy for each other and unity to the middle school at the student level staff level and for the whole school this that is the core of what i do i've been in positions where i've walked into schools that have had 12 or 13 leaders over the past 12 or 13 years and my job is always to start by changing that culture and the way you change that culture is one with high academic expectations but two is with those cultural expectations that i've discussed before the belief that no matter what that relationship that i build is key to the success of what we do in this school number two is really having the voice our teachers and students feeling that they are part of the decision making and the community at that school and if they do they're going to be less likely to destroy that community if people don't feel that they're part of something they're not going to be working towards that common goal so developing that common goal is key for teachers and other stakeholders if i get all the teachers together and we come up with what our goals are for the year then we work towards those goals and everyone can hold each other accountable to those goals i can ask the question what are the goals for the school now and if you can think and articulate them if you're a student and you can say these are the goals that we have this is what we want to reach then once everybody knows those we're in the right direction but if you can't think of those now then that's where i can come in and that's where i can create solid plans with a team to build that joy to build that unity specifically in the community i love getting the community involved and the way i always do that is by showing off what we do at the school because many times the community doesn't know what great things happen in the school students could be doing wonderful things we could have a community we could have a garden we could have a robotics team we could have a you know a role-playing game club and if there's community members out there who do that and they didn't know that the school was doing that and maybe they have old things they would like to donate or new things getting that community involved by showing off what we do is key so thinking in terms of building joy are the students involved in what takes place are the faculty part of that guiding process for them as to hey you have a voice do the faculty feel with me as the administrator that they are heard again my door is always open i am always out and about i am always listening um for me it is so key um and again the way you build that joy too is with uh a person who doesn't want to to go anywhere uh i've spent the first 17 years of my career in one place uh and for me i want to end the last you know 18 years of my career in one place and i hope that's amherst regional middle school because once you have that stability and once you have that person who will stop at nothing to make sure every student feels that joy in what they're doing to make sure every student then leaves that school and goes to the high school with that joy and comes back into the community with that joy they're going to want to stay in the community they're going to want to raise their family in the community they're going to want to run businesses in the community and so it really again going back to that first quarter second question why middle school it's because we are so capable of answering um and shaping lives for the students there uh and so that joy and then just give you some examples i actually have what i call the heinek ding dong cart i literally buy ice cream for the entire school i get my cell phone out or a speaker and i play the ding dong cart music or ice cream truck whatever you call it and i go down the hallways and i reward students when i see them doing things if the goal was to have no students in the hallway when the bell rang you're getting rewarded for it if the goal was you know 100 participation on a certain assignment in a certain class you're going to be rewarded for it so having that kind of concept and to give you one more specific example at chestnut middle school every single one of my teachers i asked them to be part of an after school club so every single day monday through friday there were at least two clubs that were taking place in the school and there were multiple teachers who were part of those clubs so if one teacher couldn't stay then the club didn't you know the club could still happen so we came together as a staff and said we want our students to expand their horizons not just during the day but after school and every one of us is committed to doing that and once the teachers believed in that we had clubs like i said every day of the week i didn't have students going home and students i want you to stay at school as long as possible because then i know what how you are being shaped i want you to stay there as long as possible so you can have fun doing other things besides your core math english social science or elective classes so doing things and then as a teacher if you are passionate about something can you bring that passion into your club and what you do after school if you love riding bikes if you love playing ultimate frisbee if you love doing yoga or mindfulness or meditation start a club and get that going every day because then again that relationship that you can build as that adult you're going to have students that you may never thought would have come to your club just because they might not like doing it the activity but they like you and that's the most important part back to that old adage students aren't going to remember what you taught them they're going to remember how you treated them and that's at the core of how i build joy in school thank you as principal communication with families students and teachers is key how will you communicate effectively with each of these stakeholders communication is a core strength of mine my current facebook page right now is filled with communication that i have given to the families every day since this pandemic has started uh and when i say every day at the beginning every day as teachers and students and parents start to feel more comfortable then i started to pull back because the communication was repetitive um and so it's always about the check-in too so for me communicating is something that starts with listening if i can hear that something isn't going the way it needs to whether it's in the classroom whether it's from a student saying i'm not being treated fairly then it's time to start that communication how do we bridge that communication i like face-to-face communication i love typing communication i just love communicating because again if a parent doesn't know what's going on in the school or in the classroom they're going to guess and if they're guessing and it could lead to struggles between them and their child because the child could be saying one thing they could hear different reports from the teacher and the report card could say something totally different so for me it's about bringing parents into the school i have an open door policy anytime a parent comes if i can i will meet with them if not i will ask them to wait if they can't wait i will reschedule and if i need to i can go to their house i have no problems being that key communicator for the school and again the more the community knows what is taking place the more that they are likely to be involved in supporting the school and for students again i am around the students all day that is what drives me i am working with students i am sitting in classroom with students i have this thing that i do all the time where i actually come in dressed as a student backpack and all and i will go from sit in one class and i will be a student in that class and i will follow that group wherever they go i will eat lunch with them i will talk with them uh and so for me uh that that's kind of the best way to communicate first is to listen and then second is to ensure consistent lines of communication across the board from students whether it be explaining policies during assemblies i love creating youtube videos and so again if you're not able to hear my message you can go back home and watch my message and i also want to make sure that families understand that i'm not just a person talking to you via email i'm a person i will send video messages back to parents so they can see my face because again you can misread things through email through the way text is written so if you can hear it from me i like to leverage the technology that we have to communicate i also like to hear again listen i like to send surveys i like to make sure parents voices heard students voices heard teacher voices heard and even community members voices heard so again that communication is literally the second thing about me is listening communicating uh is what those core kind of strengths are and how i would bring that to amherst regional middle school thank you can you give an example of a change you have led in one of your schools what strategies did you use to engage staff and teachers and to bring people through the process in in your answer please cite how did you communicate the need for the change and get input from the broader community and how did you evaluate the outcome of the change having been a turnaround principal uh change is 99 of what happens in the turnaround school changing school culture changing academics changing curriculums changing times changing schedules changing the school day i have lots of experience making change at school one of the biggest way that i think um to to implement that change is again starting with the comm the stakeholders the teachers and the students so listening and hearing what is taking place and what students and staff feel needs to be done once i can hear that and i can form that team of dedicated staff members that want to make the changes we can then decide what those changes will be to give you a specific example walking into my current position the schedule at the school rotated it rotated seven days six classes a day so listening to teachers say and talk about how the hallways were an issue how consistent implementation of policies was an issue we made a choice to change to a non-rotating static seven class a day schedule each class ended up being 50 minutes long and that change was something that the school had not had in as long as they can remember the schedule always rotated so being able to say all right i've listened to everybody i have this core team of teachers that that's willing to be part of this teacher leadership team we decided that changing the schedule to a static non-rotating schedule is what was going to be best for our students and separating the school from a 7 through 12 school into a 7th and 8th grade school and a 9 through 12 school so those were two huge changes that the school had not experienced for the previous i can't tell you how many years so things were different those things were different from for staff and they were different from students the outcomes of those changes sorry i think it usually comes in twos yeah it might have stopped um the outcomes and how we monitored those changes was through consistent monitoring that leadership team meets daily i shouldn't say daily leadership team meets weekly but we also have daily check-ins in the morning so we can see is this working what is going on and that comes back to one of my core strengths as an individual is my ability to reflect i am such a reflective person always thinking about what was what i said and what was received as the message and how can i make sure that that message is clear and so that was one really big drastic change that had not happened at that school and once that did happen we noticed hallways were clear every teacher knew where every student needed to be at every single time there was consistency in the amount of time spent per class so it wasn't you were going three days in one class you didn't see that student for two days you saw every student every day so that consistency of your knowledge building that consistency of your education really helped uh and then just having again that consistency of that schedule is what really made change at that school initially but it wasn't something that has been thought of or done in previous so again i started the conversation with listening i heard what the problems were and then i i added in could we do this and then i brought people on board that could help do it and believed in it and so it wasn't just me coming to all staff all families all community members and saying hey i'm your new principal and i just decided that we're changing the schedule that has is totally different than how it has been for the past x number of years it came from the team that this is how we are going to approach this because these were the issues that we're experiencing and once again that team buy-in and when it wasn't just coming from top down from me then everybody kind of filled in and so that was just one example of a major change that that took place uh in a school and how i led that that change and so communicating that before school even started i invited my seventh graders in for one day my eighth graders in for one day my high school students in for one day gave them schedules before they walked in the building had parent nights multiple parent nights before this happened to inform them and say this is what we've determined based upon what we've heard and what we've seen and that's how the change was able to take place but i also have experience making change culturally coming in uh and really trying to make teachers believe that every student counts so i've been able to shape teacher beliefs i've been able to shape student beliefs and again bringing that joy because if everybody believes in you with that relationship are you going to be successful the answer is yes because i will stop no matter what no matter how you treated me the day before i will always be there for you i will never give up on you and i will never make excuses as to why you're not getting the service that you need uh and so again having that consistency again of being able to listen being able to make changes as a team and then being able to communicate those changes as a team to all the stakeholders is key to making change and then to evaluate it me as a reflective practitioner consistently scheduling times where we are focusing and getting together on specific actionable items uh and having that teacher leadership team is key to making changes that last and can be implemented without one person being the key to that you know the cog in the wheel if you will if everybody's pushing that wheel and one person has to take a break that wheel will keep rolling and that's kind of the main thing thank you how do you foresee your leadership style influencing teacher instruction and how have you supported teachers in meeting the needs of all students i i smile really big right now because it's literally my favorite thing in the world to do is to to be coaching teachers to improve student performance uh being able to sit with an educator and engage in conversation with them about what's taking place to engage in conversation upon about what they are seeing and what students are doing and then figuring out a way how to move that needle together is key and i love doing it i love helping develop i love developing i love giving professional development it is one of my favorite things in the world to do i am a coach right and for sports and so i bring that philosophy into my administrative style i am your coach i am here to help you i am not a gotcha principal and i know there are they exist out there i will never walk into your room and say you are doing this wrong i will never call you out on anything because that makes me then above you and without you as a teacher i'm nothing because without you as that conduit to the students then we don't exist so again it's it's the most important thing in the world for me is prioritizing teacher development and coaching them uh through change whether it's curriculum change whether it's change in state standards whether it's change in online or distance learning uh and if it's something as you said you know i've been doing this for 25 30 years i don't know how to use google classroom i'm not gonna it's about well what can we start on with and how can i inspire you to say the bottom line it's all about the student and what we're doing to prioritize your development is going to help students i have a phrase that i say um teachers need to learn at an higher or accelerated level more than the students if we want to change or close the achievement gap so your learning has to be taking place as a staff member higher or at the same speed of the students learning so for me as an administrator i need to prioritize that i need to make sure that the pd that i am giving you is based upon the goals and the vision that we set for those of you who have seen my resume you can see a document on there called the vision of excellent instruction that is a document created by teachers that outlines what classroom instruction looks like and what we will do for teacher actions and what we expect student actions to be and once we have that goal and that vision every piece of professional development that i give or we deliver because i love finding teachers that are doing things amazingly well and having them be the ones deliver the professional development once we have that going the professional development is interesting to you we've all sat through pd where it's sit and get you'll never get a sit and get pd from me my pd always starts with modeling or introducing the topic giving you time during that session to incorporate or think about it and make it yours and discuss it with your colleagues and then i'm sure some of you have guessed is to show it off to show how you are going to implement this so that's what a pd session looks like that i deliver um and so again it's making sure that i am modeling consistently all the time what i expect teachers to be doing whether it's teacher interactions in the classroom teacher interactions in the hallway parent to parent student to student i'm always out there modeling so again having that relevant professional development prioritizing teacher learning and not only that but creating conditions where teachers can learn during the day specific example chestnut middle school high school of commerce north brookfield junior senior high school all in springfield academy all of those schools i created a schedule that had daily every single day um professional learning community time for teachers i prioritize that that means not only do you have a prep period you also have a period to meet with your team and that team time can be either professional development it can be data analysis and it can be just time for you as a team to discuss students needs that has been put in place as a cornerstone of turnaround at all of the schools that i have been in the teachers now at my current school the middle school uh absolutely love and cherish that time that they spend together in addition to their prep because we were able to create a schedule that that solidifies that so for me my leadership style is a coach for me i prioritize teacher development and i prioritize relative professional development that is based upon our goals and that teachers agree that it is worthwhile doing for them i model all the time my expectations and again i like to put conditions in place for that to happen so that's how i would make sure we're prioritizing thank you the next question says please discuss the steps you will take to include restorative practices in the middle school again that you're you're at the core of my belief uh relationships right and then the repairing of damaged relationships is what makes a difference in a child's life if you're a child who's been told that you're a failure if you're a child who's received nothing but grades or suspensions you're going to think of yourself and see one thing my job is not to suspend you my job is to follow policy and i always tell students i don't want to be in a position where i have to suspend you because you've done something that is breaking something that is written down so my goal always is to restore the relationship if i come into a classroom and i take a student out for a walk i'm going to bring that student back but the one thing i am going to do is follow up with that student and that teacher together if possible i have implemented restorative practices at all of my schools currently at north brookfield we are in the process of creating we have a whole entire team 13 teachers that are creating a vision of restorative practices across the school because it's not something that was implemented it's in the process of being started right now and i am leading that that charge because i believe in the power of restoring relationships as a key to improving student performance and behavior telling students they're suspended telling students their failures telling students they're wrong only solidifies that in their brains and if they come from generations where that is what is expected of them and they don't have that hope that's where i come in with that restorative practice and making sure that they have hope so if it's not already created i would create a vision for restorative justice and restorative practice at the school i would create a specific schedule of when these things would happen in terms of community meetings uh circles uh to make sure that we are always putting restorative practice and the prioritization of relationships at the forefront of what we do in our building and again that word our building if you feel you have a stake in it if you're a student and you've been getting in trouble excuse me in the same class over and over and over again and you say mr heineck that teacher never listens to me no matter what i do i'm wrong if you don't have a chance to be able to say that to that teacher in a forum where everybody is there to listen first then you will not feel heard and you will not feel that you can take risks in that room and you will not feel motivated to want to do the work in that room or even be interested in it so that core of restoring the relationships is that is the core of my belief in how we change culture how we bring joy and how we as teachers can help our students understand the overarching sense of community building because again i'm now showing you through a circle or through a restorative practice or through positive uh pbis that i am here to help you with positivity i am here to help you with the learning that needs to take place to improve the behavior that you're showing and i'm gonna support you even if you mess up because again we don't expect if student could change their behavior instantly they would but we have to teach the right behavior if we see problematic behaviors and i never expect a student to know how to make change because everybody is different so if i say you know you're not supposed to be doing that that's wrong because they might not know how to do something differently they might not have the confidence to do something differently they might not have the confidence to ask somebody how to do something differently or explain their thought process and restorative practice is the key to doing that so creating a vision to summarize creating a vision of restorative practice for at the school ensuring times are in place for restorative practice um uh community meetings and circles to happen and ensuring that teachers staff students community members know through communication that this is what we are going to do first and that's how again an example i've been able to reduce suspension rates drastically at each school i have been at through restorative practices but not just by me doing it by a belief that everybody is doing it and so that is where that team building comes in and the team consensus on our our goals thank you at this point we are turning to some of the questions in the chat the first question comes from a student and it says how will you make relationships with the students at farms so again uh that's a great question because i am always with the students i i mean any other any staff member that you ever ask about me is he is always out and about my i am out there asking you questions i am playing games that you're playing i will sit and watch you play minecraft on your phone if that's what you're doing and then i'll ask you to tell me how to do that so i can take it back to my five-year-old son who is trying to learn minecraft so he can start playing uh and so i am always with the students i i try to think like a student all the time and i try to always be empathetic and again that's a core belief and i've worked so hard over the years to always be empathetic to students needs and so students feel comfortable talking to me they feel comfortable listening to me because i'm not walking down the hallway yelling at students i've actually don't think i've ever yelled in a school before um always saying hey what can i do to help you let's get you where you need to be oh you're you're 10 minutes late you don't have a pass come on i'll bring you and i'll say you were with me like i i will do things to help a student feel comfortable but then the next step that i'm going to take is to teach them what they need to do if they need to do something differently but again it comes back to that relationship i love to do fun things i love having assemblies i love having competitions i love having uh fun times dances um my current student council at northwood junior senior high school has 77 student members on it so that they they love to be part of a team that is designing activities and i give them free rein what do you want to do give me the calendar if it fits i'll approve it if it doesn't fit we'll find a date for it to fit if it's something that's outrageous and it's something you guys want to do we'll find a way to make it work with when the constraints that we have but again for me my job is to help the students without you without students i am nothing i do not exist so everything i do in this world is to help you become your absolute best and i will always be there for you no matter what no matter how you treated me the day before no matter what happened to you the day before no matter if you've been suspended nothing i am going to be there with a smile greeting you and helping you along the way every day no matter what and if you're a student right now who is on here and you're like oh i get in trouble a lot i'm going to be your best friend and that sounds weird to say but i'm going to be there with you trying to keep you out of trouble and teach you what's right to do and if you're one of the top students i'm going to be right there pushing you i'm going to say to you you know how could you have done this differently what do you think about this and i'm going to push you into things you like for me having that sense of humor is key if you tell me i want to write short stories or i want to design cartoons and you show me something that you've done i'm going to encourage and push you to do that um no matter what it is specifically if you feel that you are going through changes right now uh if you don't feel like you're the person that you are on the inside on the outside i am there to support you i am there to grow you as the person you want to be not the person that people may want you to be but i want you to feel comfortable being you whoever that is and the way i do that is by having fun with you and being out there with you uh and just always being that person that is there for you and then doing lots of fun things too i have a three-year-old daughter a five-year-old son i've been a middle school principal i've been a high school principal uh i know um what makes students tick and i know that because i listen to them one of the best pieces of advice that i've ever gotten in my entire life didn't come from someone above me it came from a student and all it was it went like this mr please just listen to me that was it and that advice i take all the time if you're coming into my office and you need to talk i'm going to let you explain what's going on i'm going to listen to you i'm not going to start by telling you what you did wrong where you're going next and how long you're going to be there for i'm going to listen and that i think is what makes me really strong at building relationships uh and plus if there's any basketball players in here i've coached basketball i can cross everybody up at the school i promise you that and we can continue to have fun things that take place on a daily basis thank you next question says what can you say about the cultural context of amherst and how is that similar or different to other schools in which you have worked so that's that's a really good question and so i have always worked in urban centers i've always been drawn to students that are in minority populations i myself and every school that i have worked at have actually been the minority and so for me it's about always wanting to put my best self forward and model for students how to put their best self forward and if we're all again working towards that same goal um and always trying to improve that's why i want to be an amherst because every time i walk down main street every time i would drive down any street um if i was delivering something to someone's house because i i worked after taylor rental and hadley um i would always be overwhelmed with this sense of community support with progressive thinking with the idea that we our job is to help others around us no matter what and so that type of cultural context and speaking of different races i've always been wherever i've gone drawn to helping students who need it the most and whether they've been they're in generational poverty whether they've been marginalized whether they are not heard it is my job to instill civic responsibility in everyone i come in contact with to make sure that we as a unit can help everyone become better and even if i see moments of injustice happening if i see racism happening if i see bigotry if i see sexism i attack it i do not allow it and i think of that as educational moments i may not be able to change your beliefs at home but i can definitely change your thought process and hopefully instill empathy in you so you can see that your words actions languages have outcomes that are devastating to other people and then i always like to if i do see it make sure that we are doing going above and beyond to repair that to repay that so again for me the town of amherst is a melting pot of cultures i celebrate all cultures one of the things that i've done at chestnut uh with the multiple cultures that we've had there is we have days where we celebrate if there was a specific day in your culture that was a day of heritage or a day of remembrance i would make sure that that is announced i would make sure that we would do something in each classroom that makes the spotlight on that culture because most people who are ignorant or bigoted or racist don't know about what takes place in other cultures so again so to educate is always key for me i cannot stand those things i cannot stand bullying uh i attack it with vigor and i insure you and i say this all the time to my parents and students there are more of us who stand up to racism there are more of us who stand up to bullies than there are of racists and bullies and if all of us together walk up to that person and say this is not tolerated this is not allowed this does not happen here at our school or in our community then it will stop happening and so to inspire you to be able to be part of that on that side of it that's my goal but for that cultural context of amherst that is what has drawn me to apply to this position that's this passion you can see coming through me right now i want to be in the town of amherst because of that cultural context and that always ability and that belief that the community is there to help everybody at all the time and i want to grow that in students and i want students to take that and come back to the community educated working and having the ability and want to raise their family in that community thank you how will you ensure that paraprofessionals are seen as important parts of the community at arms the best way for me to describe this is paraprofessionals are that invisible bridge there's somebody sometimes the teacher will say oh you did really well on this and there might be a para sitting in the back of that classroom smiling because they know that they put that time and effort in to bridge that gap between what the teacher was saying what the student heard and what they are able to do paraprofessionals in my opinion are the lifeblood of the school their role is more important than anything that can be described on paper and it is way more important than the salary that they make i have meetings where i prioritize paraprofessionals i give equal training to paraprofessionals every single teacher training that i do i invite paraprofessionals too because there's no one that i know that doesn't want to become better at what they do and paraprofessionals in my opinion are the best relationship builders so when i need something done when i need a relationship with a student that doesn't have one with anybody it's usually a paraprofessional that i turn to to say hey this is what you do this is what i see you do you bridge that gap you build that relationship because you believe in that student and you treat that student with respect so again paraprofessionals for me are key because they are a member of that community and they are a member of that community that sometimes goes unnoticed but when students do things that are amazing you can always turn and see a paraprofessional behind them a teacher behind them and i treat them as equals in that right is that they are the one of the most important aspects of building relationships in schools you next question says can you share your thoughts on collaborations between the middle school and umass also what are your thoughts on opportunities for our students to participate in umass programs well i can start with i am a graduate of the eisenberg school of management at umass uh so umass is at my heart um and so i'm gonna give you a specific example um when i was at chestnut middle school i actually had sixth grade seventh grade and eighth grade and we started doing college trips so i was taking sixth graders seventh graders and 8th graders on college visits to get that will or instill that i want to go to college no matter what no matter how no matter what my social economic status is no matter if no one in my family has even graduated high school i am going to get instilled in you the importance of going to college or having post graduate plans and so that bridge i created at chestnut between lots of the schools in springfield springfield college western new england university westfield state university by getting students to go there and so once that the college can see that hey i am a member of this community that wants to involve myself with you then i can start to make those connections so building on connections that i already have at umass i would love to see students being over there for classes i would love to leverage i know i just read an article in the paper about umass giving money to the town of amherst for the schools how can we make sure that that money is also then spread out back to the college by saying can you use some of that money for your professors to include our students in things that they're doing can we make a connection between the school of education where students are training to be teachers and other departments across umass saying you know we have this lovely strong robotics program at umass you're training as a umass student to be a teacher can you work cooperatively with the robotics department in the teaching department to bring lessons to our students in the middle school and can we then get our middle school students over to umass so again that key that umass is probably the biggest community member for our school system uh and so in being able to get the students over to umass to see what it feels like not just to walk through it or drive through it but to be part of it to be in it for professors are working with them as well professors are working with our teachers to collaboratively plan i think that is key and to bridge that gap is my responsibility and the responsibility of the team that i put on an outreach team uh and so again that collaboration between all of the colleges um is in the the surrounding area are so important but it all starts with being able to reach out and if we can hire an another example at chestnut middle school we hired a person to do solely that the the position was essentially student life coordinator so their job was to reach out to colleges to reach out to businesses to say how can you come support our students can we bring our students to you and so i've had experience putting a person in charge of that to build those connections because again i know how hard a teacher's job is i know how much students have on their plate so finding time to do that extra reach out is always challenging so again to build and put a team in place that will do that or maybe to even hire someone that will do that to build and bridge that gap so that the community is coming together to support our students and our students are able to go back out into the community to see what it is like is key so i prioritize that and being a umass grad i look forward to doing it thank you the next question says you've worked in springfield which has a unique identity and population under your leadership if you had to brand the middle school to the community city state what do you want its identity to be uh so if we were talking in terms of my chestnut middle school in springfield our brand was we were a pac p a k we were productive accountable and kind those were our values and so anywhere that a student from chestnut went we brought those values with us i think as a principal i think one of the the best compliments i've ever had as a principal from another principal a colleague was a high school principal and he said to me he said jason i can tell right away which students were yours because again with you know lots of middle schools in springfield all feeding into five or six high schools that was one of the biggest compliments i ever had and i brought that back to the staff and i said this is because you did amazing work you were able to believe as a staff and productive accountable kind and you were able to make students believe in being productive accountable kind uh and so that is how we start branding we create the vision of what we want teachers to be doing in the classroom and what we want students to be doing in the classroom and then we distribute that to everybody we distribute that to the community so again the middle school in my opinion in amherst um should always focus on core values so these are the core values of amherst regional middle school these are the core values of the people that are in it these are the core values of the teachers the principals the custodians the paraprofessionals the cafeteria workers the anybody that steps foot in there and we take those values and we spread them out into the community and so we want to be known for what we do best which is help other people and stop at nothing until we can find success uh and if you can do that and if you are kind in everything that you're doing that is how i would want amherst regional middle school to be seen uh and then you think about the programs the clubs that that the school does that are the students are passionate about does the community know what makes the school tick does the community know what these clubs are and how they're happening or what the the sports teams are doing um and so again it's that sense of are we all doing this together based upon the norms and values that we have set and i gave you an example of what we did at chestnut and that goes back to my core belief too that phrase all means all no excuses and if you believe in that we don't make excuses for ourselves uh we get things done when we need to we're productive accountable kind that's just a good example of the beliefs on how i would do that thank you please provide an example of how you have inspired students i'm gonna go all the way back to my second year third year teaching where i had my first student that i was responsible for graduate uh i can tell you his name right now because i'll never forget it but i won't say it um but this student came hating school came not ever being successful in school was 19 years old and started was still a freshman and so through the course of the year working with this student building that relationship with the student showing up at that student's doorstep on saturdays to help tutor them uh i i was able to get that student to graduate and i'll never forget that moment when i was standing there watching him walk down the aisle uh and i just was overcome with emotion because i i put in the effort to build that relationship with student and this student i don't know i have lost contact with them i don't know where they are today or what they're doing but i do know that if i saw them we would remember each other and everything we did together instantaneously because that relationship that we built was so powerful that it changed that student's life and the fact that i just wouldn't give up and i think when that student saw that that hey listen i'm coming i'm gonna help you through this yeah i know you just threw something i know you struggle with mental health i know you can't you have trouble functioning but i'm not stopping and i'm gonna be there to help you and just slowly working with that student we got them to graduate and then in terms of doing it on a larger context um i still have students come up to me today from when i was the principal at the high school of commerce to say mr heineck i remember you changed our lives uh when i started there you can the bottom one percent school in massachusetts hallways full all day long two hallways empty students learning and students believing in themselves uh and it all came back down to that tenacity uh and that relationship building that i have so i still have students coming to me today saying mr heineck you inspired me because you didn't give up on me that that sign i have a gigantic poster it's 12 feet long it says never give up it goes everywhere with me uh and so teaching students that teaching students that phrase all means all no excuses and teaching them that there are a hundred people working in this building that believe in you that that's kind of how you can how i inspire students and always it comes back to being there for them thank you and thank you for telling us about yourself and your qualifications for this position thank you all for joining this forum once again the session was recorded and will be available for viewing at a later time this ends the second session thank you thank you everybody you

skip right over that part okay yeah no go ahead um dr. Brown all right so the age the annual HRR a poster contest run by our own Lisa Grambling has concluded and the the online celebration was last week and kids were recognized for all the great work they do in celebration of the environment and I will leave the rest of this for at least it's you present and so missus growling I will turn it over to you thank you dr. Burrell so I am happy to present the 13th annual HRR a poster contest winners I got a quick lesson and how to share this so I think I'm good can you guys see that yep so this is our 13th annual poster contest and we are just so grateful for all of the talent that we have with our young artists and let me just try to get to the second slide here so we have eleven towns that participate in this and Brookfield this year had a hundred and thirty five participants which was a little less than last year but we had eight regional winners which was a little more than last year so that just speaks to the talent that we have with our with our students the first-place winners receive a $75 check and the second-place winners receive a $50 check the third-place winners receive a $25 check and that's on a regional level not on the school level the contest kicks off in January we send the templates out to the schools and the entries and the judging are due by the end of February so that I get the first second third place winners and I send all of the first-place winners k12 to the regional level and that's how they're judged that this could not happen without the building principals the secretaries who that I send huge boxes of templates to and I know they scream at me every because they have to distribute them but they do a great job especially the coordinators Alissa Larson at center school Clarissa burchett huckleberry Shannon Bush Ellen Emily copper at whisker near and Mark Belinda and Carolyn D'Arcangelo and the BHS science department really really helped to get this contest going so this year the theme was glass and how to recycle glass and the focus was to educate the community on how to separate glass from the mixed recycling station well as you see a minute we we had some very very creative entries so I wish that we could all be together and we could hand the students the posters and their ribbons letters went out from the principal's to let them know about this meeting tonight so hopefully they are watching so that they can see their artwork and hear their name being called so without further ado I am going to start this PowerPoint and we're going to start with kindergarten so this is our first place in the garden winner and she placed first regionally and this is Kaylie Clarkson and for kindergarten second place this is Stella Peters all right these kids are so talented we it's just it's just so fun to see all of this kindergarten third place this is Han wen Jiang and as we move to first grade we have first place first grade Delaney Kelleher and this is first grade second place Natalia Freeman first grade second place No Noel Hall I believe we had a tie for second here oh no that was second grade sorry this is first grade third place Evan Baco this is second grade first place Justin Shaw this is second grade second-place Roxanna um Bellotti I'm gonna apologize if I don't pronounce anybody's before and this is second grade ki Shahi tokus third grade first place and this was the first place regional winner Rachel eggie and they were all honored on April 22nd this is third grade second place Stefania doctor third grade third place Joe Sheeran this is fourth grade first place and won second place regional winner whinnies Aang fourth-grade second place Julia Hofstede fourth grade third place Shang dasheng fifth grade first place this was the first place regional winner Cristiano Pereira fifth grade 2nd place Jack Alger 5th grade 3rd place Olivia's ezza sixth grade we didn't have any entry so we're gonna move to seventh grade this is first place this was also a first place regional winner Alvina Bulow eighth grade first place vitina Abdullah Ron eighth grade second place diagur is kamar this is eighth grade third place Abby Mahoney some of the names are familiar some have sent entries for the first time this is amazing this is ninth grade first place and second place regional winner and a Lynn and Payton Sheldon that was just a beautiful entry 9th grade second place Aisha ganar and Sabrina Jian Vincenzo 9th grade 3rd place Jaden Lalor tenth grade first place and another first place regional winner Bailey Mahoney 10th grade 2nd place ELISA Silva 10th grade 3rd place Larissa de lisle 11th grade first place Vince testa an 11th grade 2nd place and first place regional winner she enters every year Jenna Durazo so I just want to take this opportunity to thank all of the regional winners all the winners that one locally everybody that sent an entry and they they worked so hard and we hope they participate next year and we hope that we can see each other physically next year so thank you very much Lisa thank you for organizing that was wonderful so so much talent it's a lot of fun to be a part of this I'm a small part of it a lot of the cool you know the coordinators really do everything but thank you Lisa thank you you great job with those names some of the announcing skills there ya know congratulations to all the winners that was absolutely that was amazing the amount of talent that we have here ok so we can move on now to public comment so perhaps somebody pop done but is anybody anybody that's here want to speak in public comment ok ok so we can move on to the student representative report do we have a student representative here today I thought Monti was going to be able to be people not sure mr.

[Applause] [Music] jairs haha thank you for continuing to motivate and support us during online school and just know that we miss you guys a lot for teacher appreciation week I want to give a shout out to shut up mr. SC you know I miss going to here as a class and I was talking to you but I hope you're staying healthy and staying safe and making the best our situation we're in right now what I'm seeing you guys I I miss you cutie all the chefs are my favorite forever G I appreciate all the work that the Teaching Fellows put in for us to keep us going and this year all thank you for all the 815 staff members and the teachers we really appreciate you and really making so much I would like to thank all of my teachers because you guys have helped push me through the years and helped me work hard and become the best version of myself but I would like to give a special thanks to all of my media teachers teachers like mr.

okay it says that we are live so let's begin good afternoon and welcome to the last of three community forums to meet finalists for the Amherst regional middle school principal position I am Doreen Cunningham the assistant superintendent of diversity equity and human resources this virtual platform that you are viewing from YouTube has a chat feature where you are able to submit questions for candidate response questions were also submitted via email we will get to as many questions as possible during the allotted time we ask that communications via chat follow the norms that we would follow if we were in person meaning we will use appropriate language and be respectful with our communication also this is a reminder that the sessions are being videotaped each candidate will begin by giving a brief bio and sharing why they believe that they are the best candidate for this position and why they are interested in Emer schools today we have miss Jennifer Sauter miss order please tell us about yourself and why you believe that you are the best candidate for this position and why Amer schools well thank you for having me today and I am very interested in being part of the Amherst Public Schools family and community and I thank you for the opportunity today one of the many reasons why Amherst interests me as a school district and in particular the middle school is the size of the community and the diversity of the individuals within your school and a new district I went to the University of Massachusetts Amherst as an undergraduate and actually started my teaching career at the UMass education school as a post-grad cr+ key a student and a lot of the experiences I had as an undergraduate student then in my first years as a residential educator and the public school teacher on our be missed on many of the things that I have learned and hibbity able to experience in western Massachusetts it's always been a desire of mine to come back to Western NASA as my children have gotten older and I see that the Emperor's Medical School position opening at this time it's a great opportunity for me to see if I can come back in some way to the to the place where I found my passion for education in the first place why do I think that I am a strong candidate for the position of principal in your middle school is I come to to the point in my career where I have over 20 years of public education experience both as a teacher of high school students and an administrator at the middle school level in my current position I where's the head of school and special education is rated for a special school State Approved special education school program for students with developmental delays and autism and that has increased my experience of my expertise in the areas of how to support students with on learning needs and diverse skills and abilities iam Hearst Middle's school it has an awful lot of tenants of my own personal philosophy about education wanting to build restorative practices which is something I worked very hard on as a middle school administrator and the public schools to establish ways to reduce the number of suspensions the number of detentions that student have students have by tying the disciplinary codes to the code of conduct and the core values this world by finding ways in which students behavior can be I identified as opportunity based learning assistants as members of their own community and giving them an opportunity to in some way make amends and do over where they may if I'm ever awarded would be acceptable in school or outside school so there was sort of practices initiative that has a place in your district is is one that speaks very directly to my own interest in maintaining student attendance in school Jennifer can I offer your audio is very choppy so we're having difficulties hearing you I'm wondering if you can close out the link and just re-enter the chat room absolutely I'll try that hold on a second hello again hi so just as when we started at the beginning you sounded perfectly fine it was as you continued to talk that you went in and out okay and so I'm going to need you to respond to that first question again so that everyone can hear it thoroughly absalom do you need me to react the question or do you know what it was no I remember what it is okay great thank you thank you um so hello again everybody my name is Jen Sauter and I'm going to make my very best attempt to summarize some of the things that I had said previously in an answer to the question why Amherst and why do I feel I'm the strongest candidate for the position I started my educational career at the University of Massachusetts is an Amherst as a student in the post baccalaureate program and my first experience both in residential education and then later public education came in Western Mass some of the strongest foundations for my educational philosophy and my approach to working with people comes from my experiences at UMass as an undergrad in the marching band program with George Parkes he was somebody who identified for me some of the things about myself that really became strengths in the field of education whether it was working with challenging individuals or planning and management and being able to adopt a doctrine of to be earliest to be on time and I feel very strongly that those experiences led me down the path that I had as a 12-year public school educator seven years at the middle school level as an administrator and now in my work in residential education currently working with high needs populations and learning a lot more about the services that are provided to special education students and students with diverse social emotional needs I find myself at a point where I realized that my passion and that education is in the school setting and wedding with no school suit on variety of personalities and learning to become better people through their mistakes and their risk-taking is why Amherst Empress middle school teacher is so appealing to me the opportunity to join up with the people looking at restorative practices is something that speaks very strongly to my own interest in my own facilitation of linguistic practice programs in other middle schools in one of the middle schools I worked and we were able to effectively use restorative practices combined with some positive supports for students to reduce their out-of-school time by more than 50% in one year it was also extremely important to address how we could take a look at the needs of students academically and balance that with some of the educational ports that we would need in terms of their social and emotional well-being and it seems like Amherst is very invested as a school at the middle school level but as a district in a community and supporting students both emotionally academically so that they can achieve success as strong citizens in their community as well as well-educated individuals in their own right so why I see myself is strong candidate for the position is in a lot of ways what Amherst is looking to continue in their traditions and in their expectations for student learning and for students ports for growing a strong and committed faculty are all part of how I feel about what education should be a collaborative second home for our students and for the adults who provide supports academically and otherwise an opportunity to celebrate successes big and small and then the ability to create a connection with the community and to be an extension of the community that is seen as an asset not just for the students but for everybody who comes in contact with the school thank you the audio situation is still where you are going in and out and at time okay there's a lag I'm not sure if you move the computer or what's going on but your responses we heard maybe every other word I'm so sorry about that I've I haven't touched the computer although I moved it just now as you were speaking to see if there was a way that I could position it a little better right so I can hear you much better when you're that close so I don't know what's going on so I'm gonna happen I'm going to lean in a little bit you'll get very close to me so with you sounding fine right now I'm going to take the chance and ask the next question the next question how how will you close the equity gaps for students at the regional Middle School I think one of the ways in which you have to look at what the equity gaps are is by taking a look at the the data and having conversations with individuals I don't think that it's one it's going to be the the job of just one person but it becomes the responsibility of the the head of the school the principal to ensure that steps are being taken in order to bring students in at whatever ability levels they are academically at whatever emotional levels they need supports for initially and find ways to make connections with caring others find ways to promote collaboration between classmates and to take a hard look at the the struggles that individuals and groups of people have in the school and and open up the school to those conversations they're not easy one to have but planning with a goal in mind knowing what you want that to look like and bringing people in that have different opinions than you but working towards the same and I think you need to have the investment of your school staff your students family members and members of the community to take a look at how do we provide those supports to build success in all of the populations of students whether it's it becomes a an ethnicity question if it becomes an academic question if it becomes a situation where some students have greater social and emotional needs outside of school that impact them in school you have to take a look at what those what those individual situations are and identify how can we make those situations that are for more students and how do we identify what can we fix first or what can we work on first and how will working on one particular aspect trickle down and into other other areas of support and need for support for students I think you have to have a lot of conversations I think you have to be willing to bring people in in a variety of ways whether it's face-to-face meetings where in some cases bringing people in that can provide supports and opportunities to teach each other and harness the strengths of the people who work with the students every day I think one of the biggest ways that we can impact change is by identifying the ways in which we as caring adults in the school give back to our students and how do we make that or how do we make that stronger how do we develop a culture where success is the center for all students and we take some person a personal responsibility and the initiative to identify what does that success look like and how do we then once that small step is achieved how do we move forward with that and one of the ways I think that that would work successfully is making sure that every student has a connection to the school in some way whether it's through an extracurricular club or activity through a sport through a way to volunteer through making connections and having natural mentorships between students and and carrying other staff faculty paraprofessionals members of the school community as a whole and then finding ways to build build from those things once students feel that they are cared for and they're trusted and they can trust then you can have those deeper conversations where we can debulk some myths and we can address the issue is on what do we want to see our school look like and how will we get there together and the role of the principal will be to initiate those things to find other ways to attack a concern when the first play fails and to champion those successes and celebrate those with the people who make them possible which are you know in many ways the people that work with our students every day their families at home and the students themselves thank you but next question what do you like about middle school students oh my goodness um there are lots of things I like about middle school students I think one of the things that I really enjoy the most about middle school students is they try on so many personality over the course of their time in a middle school it might be the first time where their friendships are not based on where they live in a neighborhood but on the interests that they have I think in a lot of ways middle school is a place where you could meet the same student three times in the course of the day and have three totally different interactions based on you know how they approach a situation - nor what their interests are what their mood is in the moment but it's never tall and and that's I you know what I love that middle school students bring an awful lot to the table they change your conversations frequently they have a lot of interest and they want to try a lot of different things and I think it at the heart of it - middle school students when they come in to a secondary level they don't want to achieve they want to be successful and in some cases it's the first time we're their abilities don't match the rigor of the coursework and they struggle and they in some cases that presents itself as them asking a lot more questions in some cases it it presents itself where you have to look a little harder to find out if if if they really understand or if they need some help but those aha moments that come from middle schooler it's when they finally get something where they've finally achieved something that they've been struggling with or they are able to run the mile at the speed that they wanted to rap and it's they find joy in so many opportunities to learn and be successful and they want to tell you they want you to be part of that they want you to know more about them and just the communication level that happens at the middle school and the enthusiasm students have for who they are as individuals as they learn about who they want to be I think is the thing that intrigues me most and makes me excited to come to work every day in a middle school thank you thank you if you are chosen to become the next principle of the middle school how will you support students with mental health disorders one of the things that I have had a lot of opportunity to experience recently is working with students with high emotional needs a very delicate situation in a lot of ways when you're working with students with mental health concerns or students who meet the emotional supports to be successful in school and I would want to be able to work with our support staff the you know the guidance and the health professionals that work in the school and in the district to be able to provide supports within the classroom and ways in which we can reach those students to develop both the confidence and a competence in themselves and to help them address the needs that they may have that are roadblocks to their ability to participate there is more than one way to address the need of a student and if you're just looking at a mental concern a mental health concern with anxiety that presents in very different ways for very different students and I think being able to address each student individually and identify the ways in which we can support their learning in school support their need for additional assistance or additional emotional opportunities it might mean working with an 8 an outside agency or an outside resource to provide some support groups for students with similar concerns bringing in opportunities to have people work in peers on projects within the community that will help them build more confidence and competence for to be able to build a greater sense of self to work with families to provide the supports and the understanding about how we can support them at home through the school and through the opportunities that we can provide to the students and finally I think making sure that we are aware paying attention to the signs and the signals that students are giving us that they're struggling like and paying attention to the things that they're doing that are not academically driven and being able to have open conversations with with families with you know with people in the professional community our healthcare providers and the outside resource is to bring bring our students into a place where they can feel that they have somebody there to talk to or that they know that we can find them someone who can be supportive of them and that we can support the families in that in that role that they have to it if they need it thank you I'm looking at some of the chats and the question is do you have the or have access to headphones and maybe an earbud or something because it's still very choppy to monitor let me check very quickly I am Not sure that I have if not terminal mic if not what I can possibly do is after I ask you these questions on this platform you and I can go back and I use a different platform maybe Google Google Hangouts or such and I ask you the same questions again so that we can at least try to see if we can get responses without the intermittent gaps okay okay sure so the next question says what is your plan of action to ensure that English language learners and students with special needs at the middle school make significant progress it's a very good question and while English language learners and students with special special education needs and supports have some similar interventions in many cases there is there are some differences in the way in which you might approach that in a school I think the first thing that I would want to do is to make sure that those students and their families had had access to in the case of English language learners I would want to make sure that we were able to identify that students had access to materials and resources and their families did on that would provide a strong transition into effectively using on English while at the same time providing opportunities to effectively translate the materials that we have at home so that they can so that students can engage in the work and families can be supportive of that I think regular communication with families the use of interpretive services making sure that our documents and our information that we share with families is updated to reflect the language language spoken in the home of the language spoken by the parents and at the same time providing resources to families and and training and how to use them so that information can be communicated and or easily translated back and forth at home for their native language or their language of origin and English which would be used in the instructional practices for the most part in the school I also believe that students appear with other students who have the young and have the ability to collaborate with students in the classroom will increase the experiences of the students who are English language learners and and provide that social support you know the more colloquial language skills that might be difficult working with teachers to engage in more frequent practice and about contextual cues and contextual vocabulary and how do we teach something something that is in in written or and spoken word how do we teach that in the way that provides multiple examples and multiple opportunities for practice I believe that students will succeed at a faster pace if they are provided with you know student supports they tend to be able to associate a little bit better and a little more effectively with their peer group in some cases if they have a question or they're not sure so preparing students up with with collaborative learners in their classrooms or in some cases reaching out high school and finding students who are part of the National Honor Society that can come down and provide some service hours for tutoring to provide support in working with the teach the classroom teacher might be all ways in which we can engage the student with other students in order to support the learning and then finally looking at how we assess the student at various levels formally and informally on how they're using language and providing supportive feedback on where we might expand their learning or expand their opportunities outside of school to engage in you know to end to engage the families and that I think for language learners would be hopeful and and would provide students with a sense of being part of the community rather than not understanding and being excluded from the learning opportunity for students with special needs I think you have to take a look and rely on the the experience and the expertise of the special educators the families because the feelings are the first educators and in many cases they know so much more and have so much more to share with with the schools about how their child does best in certain situations socially academically what their interests are and try to bring their interest into the classroom so that there is some real-life application to their learning finding ways to modify curriculums of those big broad topics the students have working knowledge of but then how do we find those areas of interest that we can hone in on for students with learning needs to keep the information relevant and to make sure that they are learning at a rate that might be best for them but that they are making measurable gains each time and if they're not being able to convene a team and have a conversation about what else can we try what else can we do how else can we meet the needs of that student how can we adapt our schedule and our service delivery so that the student is maybe getting a different delivery of the of the service but maybe it's a better a better method to do it that might mean providing books on tape for a student who is more of an auditory learner rather than a visual learner and allowing them to listen along in a classroom and then being able to modify Simon's assessments in accolade according to how they learn best that they can demonstrate learning in a different way for a student who has difficulty speaking the link but it might be giving them an opportunity to use this speech-to-text translator and to develop something that they are able to do and practice and then be able to use that as a tool for developing their own presentations I think that there are a lot of opportunities using technology as well as using the resources of the expert teachers in the building to build the capacity of those students without having to pull them out of the classrooms with their peers thank you with change in administration administration comes changes in policies procedures and methodologies how do you plan to streamline existing systems and utilize staff feedback when implementing new initiatives well I think you look at the school improvement plan and you take a look at the things that are working well in your school in your district in the first way that you do that but is to have communication with the sequal ders in the school in a lot of ways things that are working well in providing success for students you want to filter all of your future decisions through what is this going to do what is this gonna mean how is this going to impact our school culture and our school community and I would start with talking with members of the the faculty and the staff and the students about what is it that you really love about this school what are the things that we do really really well what are the traditions or the habits and the you know the things that the school does to celebrate success that you want to see remain here and why why are they valuable why are they important and how do they reach the students and they you know and the community in a way that shows that students or successful students are capable and that students are going to you know do it you know create them with it within themselves a better sense of being a member of the community and with that it's going to come the question of what do we need to be better at and and where do you think we need to go on and the people that are in the school now know that better than I would and I would want to listen to the things that they are concerned about is there is there not necessarily a culture issue but is there an academic issue is there not an academic issue but is there really a an issue in terms of the emotional sports that we have for students do people need to be better trained in a particular topic related to student well-being and how do we bring that in and where are we going to get our our strongest my strongest but forward keeping in mind that we want to put the students needs first and we want to make sure that whatever we bring into the school is going to provide with the largest the largest number possible student successes so I think that when you're looking at changing the culture and the policies and the procedures I would rely very strongly on the people that are already in the building to help me identify what I can't in the data that might be produced by this school through assessments or through surveys or through conversations that have been had with the district leadership team I'd welcome back to the school and find out how do we make our school better what is it that we want to see what do we want to be great at in five five years what do we want Amherst middle school to be known for within our community and and how do we get there and then develop the plan that is going to drive drive us in that direction and filter all of the decisions that we're going to make through that plan thank you what is your experience with the performing arts departments and what do you have for the role of performing arts in the middle school just like sports are very important to some students there are many students who come to school every day because they look forward to beyond look forward to chorus they look forward to an art class and in many ways those hooks give lifelong skills in the same way that you know learning how to throw a ball or how to kick you know how to play play the game of soccer allows for collaboration and sportsmanship there are a lot of opportunities through music and through the arts that are extremely important for building character and the skills necessary to be strong adult individuals I myself personally learned how to play my instrument in middle school because I had been a vocalist at from elementary school on the school plays and you suppose were a big part of my life in middle school and I played I play the French horn and I played from 8 the summer before my 8th grade year I still dust it out take it out take it out play it every once in a while but like I said it was the it was really the marching game program at UMass Amherst that brought me to Western Mass and brought me to the school where I then do you know learned that I was meant to be a person in education and if it hadn't been for my eighth grade music teacher mr.

um okay good morning and welcome to the second of three community forums to meet finalists for the amherst regional middle school principal position i am doreen cunningham the assistant superintendent of diversity equity and human resources this virtual platform that you are viewing from youtube has a chat feature where you are able to submit questions for candidate response questions were also submitted via email we will get to as many as possible during the allotted time we ask that communication via chat follow the norms that we would follow if we were in person meaning we will use appropriate language and be respectful with our communication also this is a reminder that the sessions are being videotaped each candidate will begin by giving a brief file and sharing why they believe that they are the best candidate for this position and why they are interested in amherst schools we begin today with mr jason heineck mr heineck please tell us about yourself and why you believe that you are the best candidate for this position and why amherst schools well first let me say good morning to everybody and thank you for taking part in this and we know these are trying times right now so the fact that there are people on here willing to ask questions willing to watch that are invested uh in making sure the amherst public schools specifically amherst regional middle school are the absolute best i just want to say thank you for that and i also want to start by saying that i do believe that i am the best candidate for this job based upon my experience and my love for the town of amherst uh i actually started off as a special education teacher at an alternative school in springfield and so i've been working with students that have always had difficulties i've been working with students who have struggled with um their upbringing who have struggled with mental health who have lived in generational poverty uh and i've been working with students who have not had a voice in the community and so for me bringing out that voice and inspiring students to believe in themselves and inspiring students to believe in the world around them and to take part in the world around them are some of the core beliefs that that i have my experience also as a leader in the city of springfield and my current position my my job has always been as i said to instill that hope and belief i've been able to lead schools through change that is kind of what i have specialized in is turn around school work but the biggest most rewarding uh position that i've held was when i was the principal at chestnut middle school i was able to start that school from scratch and thinking about how we can make a direct translation or correlation between what's going on now in our world and how schools could look so different when we come out of this uh i have that experience of starting schools and redesigning schools and really the core comes down to is that i believe that as a team we can solve all of our problems and i try to inspire those that are on the team from students teachers community members to really take part in what they're doing and love what they're doing and then grow that into a solid foundation of education for our children students and the students that are watching this now the other thing is that i absolutely love the town of amherst when you think of a town that for me is always on the forefront of thought that there's so much potential so much uh hope with all the colleges around i have i've gone to umass i loved every second of my time at umass i continued to live in amherst after i was done at umass i've lived in south amherst i've lived in north amherst i've worked in amherst uh for me every time i am i am in amherst i just get this overwhelming sense of community this sense that everybody is willing to reach out and help if you need it and that's a place where i want to be because that's how i am and i want everybody to feel that sense of community that sense of civic belonging and i want students to grow that sense and i want them to be involved in the community and i want them to set goals that they wouldn't normally have for themselves so my experience as a principal leading change my experience as a principal changing uh school cultures and inspiring students who have been marginalized and focusing on populations that have been underserved my role having been a teacher i understand what what teachers go through and how to help teachers uh work their best to give the students what they need and then again my just love for the town of amherst and antonio's pizza so just to throw that out there thank you what do you like about middle school students that's a great question because again that is where i found that you know i believe that i was put on this planet to be a principal that is my goal in life that is the job that i love the absolute most i can wake up every morning with this renewed sense of vigor every single day because i am going in to change students lives to inspire them to be their best and what i love most about middle school students is that they are at that age where they you can literally watch their futures being shaped in front of you if you do things for them and you believe in them and you build strong relationships with them as students uh and people then they will reach out and do amazing things so that age where people are like excuse me why would you want to be a middle school principal those are the toughest ages because students are finding themselves finding who they are that for me is where i want to be i want to be in a position that i can help guide a student's future i can help give them hope specifically if they've not had hope that there's a future for them i can make sure that if you are one of the top students and you want to be one of the top students that i can push you in a direction uh that you believe that you will not make excuses for anything in your life that you will never give up that you will always be productive accountable and kind uh the core values that i have but the middle school students i absolutely love i can build the best relationships with all students but middle school students i always have gravitated towards i love working with them and i love that there is just so much raw potential in middle school i can build skills that the middle school students need for the rest of their lives and for me that is that is the key i also believe that having just about every future potential resident of the town of amherst in one building at one time i want them to get that sense of civic responsibility that sense of community involvement and then that sense that i have higher goals and high expectations for myself i want to go to college and then when i get back from college i will live and prosper in the town that i grew up in and that happens and you bring students back to a town with different skills and qualities they can start businesses and so really it's just that middle school is where it starts is where you become your own person and i love being able to shape that so my experience is being a middle school principal i am currently a 7th through twelve principle uh and just my absolute love and just undying determination to make every student feel that sense of civic responsibility and giving them goals uh and you can watch that become a change or part of someone's life it is instilling that hope that you can do whatever you want and that's why i love middle school students thank you if you are chosen to become the next principal of the middle school how will you support students with mental health disorders well i think that comes back down to again my background right i was a special education teacher in an alternative school and i was working with students who struggled with the most behavioral issues in a self-contained classroom so it was me seven to ten students every day uh and one teacher's aide and many of the times what i was having to say about the math was not as important as what was taking place in that life so my core belief is building relationships that that's what makes me who i am and so with those relationships that i'm able to build students like to open up students feel safe students feel comfortable and that's the environment that i like to create throughout the school i believe in the phrase all means all no excuses and so that means that no matter what is taking place in your life i am going to be there to work with you no matter what no matter how upset you were with me for something or a teacher for something no matter what's going on every single day i am going to be there fresh to help you become your best and so supporting mental health starts with building that relationship so the teachers also can build that relationship and understand that not academics is always not the most important thing taking place and are there safe learning environments so does that mean that you as a student who struggles with mental health feel comfortable talking to someone are there people that are similar to you that struggle with you that we can have a club with i think that's incredibly important is to group yourselves with people who struggle like you uh and if you do struggle finding that that that person that you can confide in and say what is going on so that core belief i have that number one belief that relationship building is the key to reaching a child is really how i support mental health i also believe firmly in restorative practice and i also believe firmly in pbis so positive behavior interventions and supports so you're going to find for me as a leader that i'm going to make sure that our teachers are treating you positively that we are rewarding you when you're doing the right thing not calling you out when you're doing something wrong but always being positive and creating an environment for you to feel successful and for me as a principal my door is always open i'm actually rarely in my office i am a principal who is out and about all the time i am in the classrooms i am at the lunches i am with the students as much as i can so i can be there to support if you're not feeling it in a class i'll take you for a walk i'll listen to you if you're having trouble at home i can sit with you and help you call your parent to think through the issues that you have if you say you know my parents don't listen or my parents don't hear me and same for parents i can try to work with you to make your child the best and that kind of relationship as the forefront of what we do and build at a middle school is really key to supporting students mental health and again and if a mistake is made we fix it uh begin i believe firmly in restorative practice that the rebuilding of the relationship is needed not a punishment that's punitive thank you how will you close the equity gap for students in the middle school that's a very good question and that is something that i have dedicated my life to as a principal in the city of springfield and urban center the equity gap and the achievement gap went hand in hand and so for me putting myself in a position to help the students who need it the most is what i i do that is where i feel the most comfortable and that is where i always gravitate towards so by able being able to close that gap is more than just you know talking about it i think the biggest way i've been able to close that gap and i've had experience closing that gap and the numbers at previous schools that have shown that gap to close is because first we have to believe in that relationship once we create that relationship with the student students can do absolutely anything if they believe that you believe in them and the second way the best way to reach that the best behavior management tool is a well-structured engaging lesson so are the teachers planning lessons that the students want to be part of are they planning for the students who struggle are they planning for the students who are at the top and then the last way to kind of make sure that the conditions are right to close that gap or to promote the equity is to make sure that um the only way to know a child has learned anything is to watch them teach it to someone else so if you can put those three conditions in place this core relationship belief that everybody has that we're there for you no matter what this kind of idea that we are going to spend our time planning we are going to spend our time effectively planning uh for all of our students and then we are going to make sure that students are showing what they know not just to the teacher not just on paper but to their other students once we get those safe learning environment conditions in place we talk about having high expectations when we have high expectations for students it means we don't give up and we don't stop until they reach those expectations and then no matter how far we have to plan backwards no matter how far we have to scaffold down that's when we get to this core place where we can say i'm reaching this student where they are and i'm setting and giving them feedback to get where they want to be once you have that feedback loop now in there and students are actually getting feedback beyond just grades beyond say you know you got a 60 on this if you give a failing student a 60 it doesn't tell them anything as to what they actually can do well and it look they feel and look as if they are a failure if you tell them that they need to cite better evidence from the text or that they missed the concept of theme here and if they went back and tried to rewrite this sentence specifically talking about theme then they have an actionable plan that they can do to improve their skill and so trying to always make sure students are getting feedback that is actionable and specific to their needs and praising them when they are doing the right thing that's how we start to move the achievement gap and promote equity because if you're planning for all students then all students will be moving in the right direction specifically if you have that relationship with them and so you're going back to my other experience uh at chestnut middle school when i started at chestnut middle school there's the student growth percentile sgp um we started with an average of 24.

watch it I came prepared this time okay Rosa we're live okay so good evening everyone today is Wednesday May 6th and I call the regular meeting of the Brookfield Board of Education to order so let's all stand where we are for the pledge I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation indivisible thanks for the flag Debbie sure okay so we have all of our board members here tonight so the first thing that we are going to do this is always that's such a nice time of year even if we have to be a part we can still appreciate some very important people in our districts so the first thing I want to do is read a proclamation designating the week of May 4th you may 8th as teacher and staff appreciation week so whereas the Brookfield Teachers open children's minds to the magic of ideas knowledge and dreams and whereas Brookfield teachers keep American democracy alive by laying the foundation for good citizenship and whereas Brookfield teachers demonstrate a passion for teachers that inspire enthusiasm for learning and whereas Brookfield teachers fill many roles as listeners explorers role models motivators and mentors and whereas Brookfield teachers are the key to the quality and success of the Brookfield public fabric field schools and whereas Brookfield teachers continue to influence our children long after their school days are only memories be it resolved that the Brookfield Board of Education supports and endorses May 4th to May 8th 2020 as teacher and staff appreciation week and that the board extends wholehearted appreciation to the Brookfield teachers for their outstanding contribution to the children of our community and urge all members of our community to take the time to recognize and acknowledge the impact of teachers on our lives so thank you very much and we can't hear any of your applause because you're all on mute button thank you very much it is truly truly appreciated and now more than ever yes of course okay the other exciting thanks that we have to give is a proclamation designating today may 6th as school nurses day whereas through their skill and expertise our nation's school nurses helped to foster a healthy nurturing community in which our children can learn and grow and whereas most often school nurses are the first and sometimes only line of defense against the illnesses and conditions our students face making their contribution to the education and welfare of the student population invaluable and whereas the nature of their profession calls on their ability to take on the roles beyond that of health provider acting as teacher confidant mentor and friend to the students of Connecticut and whereas today's society presents students with an overwhelming number of physical social and mental ill and school nurses have become an essential component of effective health programs both in and out of the classroom and whereas the overwhelming dedication school nurses show to their profession and the children they care for stands as a testament to their commitment to the success and wellness of Connecticut's future generations now therefore be it resolved at the Brookfield Board of Education supports and endorsed May 6th 2012 a and that the board extends its wholehearted appreciation to Brookfield nurses for their outstanding contribution to the children of our community and urge all members of our community to take the time to recognize and acknowledge the role of these nurses in our lives so thank you very very much thank you on behalf of myself and all the nurses thank you you're very welcome thank you rosid if i may that's animal Forja one of our nurse leaders and we're just so appreciative that she's here representing the nurses and Alissa Larson is also have joined the meeting representing the teachers tonight so thanks for the two of them for attending and congratulation yes thank you so much all right where do you thank you okay up next we have public comment I don't think anyone is anyone here from the public that wishes to speak okay and Rosa we also I don't know I wanna make sure I have the right copy of the agenda in front of me we also have the poster contest presentation oh yes sorry I'm mrs.

Verlander can tell us yeah I thought Monti was gonna be here as well but it appears that she is not I'm checking my email right now to see if for some reason she is maybe she's watching live I don't know but I'll take I'll check my email right now I'm not nothing in my email right now so I don't if she's watching live there might be a delay I'm sure she'll email me if there is something and then I'll get back I'll send a message to the chat and let people know and then we'll figure out we can maybe look we're back in I know she's certainly anxious to say hello to everybody she misses the board as much as you miss to school so you know I did get a chance to see here last week and she looks good but she's you know she misses school okay such base with her soon then we can move on to written correspondence okay quite a bit we have Dana caller regarding spring break Ron Jaffe has shared multiple timely and informative articles with us over the last month Joseph VC wrote regarding distance learning Glenn Rooney wrote regarding information on substitutes and a teacher survey Elijah huling wrote regarding compensation for coaches of spring sports Arthur Pilsen wrote regarding investing in our schools Monique Matthews wrote regarding reimbursement for the Washington DC trip Linda Kalman wrote regarding the grading changes at BHS and but wrote regarding spring coach stipends and Victor Lopes rich Luca Laura Orban Julian Barratt row leslie Ruggiero lisa temple mary kay PLO irene korea wendy campbell Carrie Columbo Jamie clavin's Jessica Jessica Robin me and Shannon Riley Lisa Carazo bunny testier Kelly lefaucheux Ron Jaffe Scott McCarthy Meredith O'Connor Tricia Freeman and Daniele lingo wrote regarding the budget I was a lot of Correspondence thank you okay up next we have approval of Board minutes okay I make a motion that the board approve the minutes listed below is recommended the regular meeting from April 1st 2020 and the special meeting from April twenty nine twenty twenty second thank you Bob all those in favor aye aye okay the votes unanimous we can thank you we can move on to the superintendent's update thank you there's a lot to talk about I know we've met several times with special meetings and so forth but it's really been a very busy month a very different than all of us the first thing I want to share is a real special thank you to all of the educators here on this meeting protecting our most vulnerable students connecting with our most vulnerable families planning for distance learning from everything from personnel to technology students families each other it's been absolutely amazing what we pulled off and although we're not alone with the great colleagues we have in the state and in this nation it has been incredible walker field has done as a school district and with the support of the Board of Education and the parents and everybody working together it hasn't been easy for anyone and we've all been for the most product it's a most all of us have been extremely patient with one another and I'm talking about the entire community and supportive and cooperative and really flexible working together and it's been amazing and I've been inspired by it rather than exhausted by the situation and so I can't I can't thank my team that's on on this meeting and the other folks that aren't necessarily on the meeting it's just been incredible so thank you and I see that Alissa from our teacher group and certainly and our school in the meetings as well so just incredible I can't say enough great thing to that end to the proclamations that Rosa read today the Teacher of the Year and staff member the year process for cognition are still in place and going on so we're really excited about that we have some tremendous news from Brookfield High School for the second year in a row they're ranked uh.if with nationally with US News and World Report the high school ranking continues to climb something we talked about five years ago and mr.

skip right over that part okay yeah no go ahead um dr. Brown all right so the age the annual HRR a poster contest run by our own Lisa Grambling has concluded and the the online celebration was last week and kids were recognized for all the great work they do in celebration of the environment and I will leave the rest of this for at least it's you present and so missus growling I will turn it over to you thank you dr. Burrell so I am happy to present the 13th annual HRR a poster contest winners I got a quick lesson and how to share this so I think I'm good can you guys see that yep so this is our 13th annual poster contest and we are just so grateful for all of the talent that we have with our young artists and let me just try to get to the second slide here so we have eleven towns that participate in this and Brookfield this year had a hundred and thirty five participants which was a little less than last year but we had eight regional winners which was a little more than last year so that just speaks to the talent that we have with our with our students the first-place winners receive a $75 check and the second-place winners receive a $50 check the third-place winners receive a $25 check and that's on a regional level not on the school level the contest kicks off in January we send the templates out to the schools and the entries and the judging are due by the end of February so that I get the first second third place winners and I send all of the first-place winners k12 to the regional level and that's how they're judged that this could not happen without the building principals the secretaries who that I send huge boxes of templates to and I know they scream at me every because they have to distribute them but they do a great job especially the coordinators Alissa Larson at center school Clarissa burchett huckleberry Shannon Bush Ellen Emily copper at whisker near and Mark Belinda and Carolyn D'Arcangelo and the BHS science department really really helped to get this contest going so this year the theme was glass and how to recycle glass and the focus was to educate the community on how to separate glass from the mixed recycling station well as you see a minute we we had some very very creative entries so I wish that we could all be together and we could hand the students the posters and their ribbons letters went out from the principal's to let them know about this meeting tonight so hopefully they are watching so that they can see their artwork and hear their name being called so without further ado I am going to start this PowerPoint and we're going to start with kindergarten so this is our first place in the garden winner and she placed first regionally and this is Kaylie Clarkson and for kindergarten second place this is Stella Peters all right these kids are so talented we it's just it's just so fun to see all of this kindergarten third place this is Han wen Jiang and as we move to first grade we have first place first grade Delaney Kelleher and this is first grade second place Natalia Freeman first grade second place No Noel Hall I believe we had a tie for second here oh no that was second grade sorry this is first grade third place Evan Baco this is second grade first place Justin Shaw this is second grade second-place Roxanna um Bellotti I'm gonna apologize if I don't pronounce anybody's before and this is second grade ki Shahi tokus third grade first place and this was the first place regional winner Rachel eggie and they were all honored on April 22nd this is third grade second place Stefania doctor third grade third place Joe Sheeran this is fourth grade first place and won second place regional winner whinnies Aang fourth-grade second place Julia Hofstede fourth grade third place Shang dasheng fifth grade first place this was the first place regional winner Cristiano Pereira fifth grade 2nd place Jack Alger 5th grade 3rd place Olivia's ezza sixth grade we didn't have any entry so we're gonna move to seventh grade this is first place this was also a first place regional winner Alvina Bulow eighth grade first place vitina Abdullah Ron eighth grade second place diagur is kamar this is eighth grade third place Abby Mahoney some of the names are familiar some have sent entries for the first time this is amazing this is ninth grade first place and second place regional winner and a Lynn and Payton Sheldon that was just a beautiful entry 9th grade second place Aisha ganar and Sabrina Jian Vincenzo 9th grade 3rd place Jaden Lalor tenth grade first place and another first place regional winner Bailey Mahoney 10th grade 2nd place ELISA Silva 10th grade 3rd place Larissa de lisle 11th grade first place Vince testa an 11th grade 2nd place and first place regional winner she enters every year Jenna Durazo so I just want to take this opportunity to thank all of the regional winners all the winners that one locally everybody that sent an entry and they they worked so hard and we hope they participate next year and we hope that we can see each other physically next year so thank you very much Lisa thank you for organizing that was wonderful so so much talent it's a lot of fun to be a part of this I'm a small part of it a lot of the cool you know the coordinators really do everything but thank you Lisa thank you you great job with those names some of the announcing skills there ya know congratulations to all the winners that was absolutely that was amazing the amount of talent that we have here ok so we can move on now to public comment so perhaps somebody pop done but is anybody anybody that's here want to speak in public comment ok ok so we can move on to the student representative report do we have a student representative here today I thought Monti was going to be able to be people not sure mr.

Blanda and his team and certainly the students who file in year after year from the elementary and middle schools into the into the high schools helped that and the rank actually went from 38 last year to 31 out of you know 170 plus high school so doing quite well there and certainly nationally ranked whiskey near was ranked the number one middle school Unified sports program in Connecticut this year so another shout out to not only mr. Baldwin because it involves our athletic department and mr. render the principal but also mrs. y donek and her team in PPS and special education it's been incredible what they've done and not only for those students who are most vulnerable but for our supportive students and that work with with all of the kids it's it's just been incredible to growth and what have done for our school district across the levels Big John yeah can I just throw a shout-out to mr.

Verlander can tell us yeah I thought Monti was gonna be here as well but it appears that she is not I'm checking my email right now to see if for some reason she is maybe she's watching live I don't know but I'll take I'll check my email right now I'm not nothing in my email right now so I don't if she's watching live there might be a delay I'm sure she'll email me if there is something and then I'll get back I'll send a message to the chat and let people know and then we'll figure out we can maybe look we're back in I know she's certainly anxious to say hello to everybody she misses the board as much as you miss to school so you know I did get a chance to see here last week and she looks good but she's you know she misses school okay such base with her soon then we can move on to written correspondence okay quite a bit we have Dana caller regarding spring break Ron Jaffe has shared multiple timely and informative articles with us over the last month Joseph VC wrote regarding distance learning Glenn Rooney wrote regarding information on substitutes and a teacher survey Elijah huling wrote regarding compensation for coaches of spring sports Arthur Pilsen wrote regarding investing in our schools Monique Matthews wrote regarding reimbursement for the Washington DC trip Linda Kalman wrote regarding the grading changes at BHS and but wrote regarding spring coach stipends and Victor Lopes rich Luca Laura Orban Julian Barratt row leslie Ruggiero lisa temple mary kay PLO irene korea wendy campbell Carrie Columbo Jamie clavin's Jessica Jessica Robin me and Shannon Riley Lisa Carazo bunny testier Kelly lefaucheux Ron Jaffe Scott McCarthy Meredith O'Connor Tricia Freeman and Daniele lingo wrote regarding the budget I was a lot of Correspondence thank you okay up next we have approval of Board minutes okay I make a motion that the board approve the minutes listed below is recommended the regular meeting from April 1st 2020 and the special meeting from April twenty nine twenty twenty second thank you Bob all those in favor aye aye okay the votes unanimous we can thank you we can move on to the superintendent's update thank you there's a lot to talk about I know we've met several times with special meetings and so forth but it's really been a very busy month a very different than all of us the first thing I want to share is a real special thank you to all of the educators here on this meeting protecting our most vulnerable students connecting with our most vulnerable families planning for distance learning from everything from personnel to technology students families each other it's been absolutely amazing what we pulled off and although we're not alone with the great colleagues we have in the state and in this nation it has been incredible walker field has done as a school district and with the support of the Board of Education and the parents and everybody working together it hasn't been easy for anyone and we've all been for the most product it's a most all of us have been extremely patient with one another and I'm talking about the entire community and supportive and cooperative and really flexible working together and it's been amazing and I've been inspired by it rather than exhausted by the situation and so I can't I can't thank my team that's on on this meeting and the other folks that aren't necessarily on the meeting it's just been incredible so thank you and I see that Alissa from our teacher group and certainly and our school in the meetings as well so just incredible I can't say enough great thing to that end to the proclamations that Rosa read today the Teacher of the Year and staff member the year process for cognition are still in place and going on so we're really excited about that we have some tremendous news from Brookfield High School for the second year in a row they're ranked uh.if with nationally with US News and World Report the high school ranking continues to climb something we talked about five years ago and mr.

Rafferty coach Rafferty and coach Roman those are the coaches of the Unified sports and all the support staff that help out throughout the year with that that's the reason why the program is where it is because of those guys just want to mention them Thank You Dean that was great I'm glad you mentioned them the other piece is I just want to let everybody know in case they wouldn't think that we wouldn't be doing this mr. bland and his team are doing all kinds of senior planning they're meeting with senior leaders and having lots of conversations about the things they can do to plan you heard the governor most of you who have probably watched the press conference today yesterday talked about graduation and you know the concerns about in-person graduation ceremonies that he had in his reservation so we're working on all kinds of things and the different recognitions that need to take place whether it's Porcha Lee or the other plans that are going on so mister be assured that mr.

Blanda and his team and certainly the students who file in year after year from the elementary and middle schools into the into the high schools helped that and the rank actually went from 38 last year to 31 out of you know 170 plus high school so doing quite well there and certainly nationally ranked whiskey near was ranked the number one middle school Unified sports program in Connecticut this year so another shout out to not only mr. Baldwin because it involves our athletic department and mr. render the principal but also mrs. y donek and her team in PPS and special education it's been incredible what they've done and not only for those students who are most vulnerable but for our supportive students and that work with with all of the kids it's it's just been incredible to growth and what have done for our school district across the levels Big John yeah can I just throw a shout-out to mr.

bland team are working on that and when they have plans ready they will publicize those and communicate with everyone i'll also wanted to as part of my extension and i thank you is just talk about distance learning for a very I've sent out I think now a total of fifteen numbered updates as well as three flu and corona updates prior to that I've communicated quite a bit our principals and teachers are sending all kinds of emails and again I I do want to address email fatigue with the public we don't try to tire parents out with the amount of communication but we want to make sure everybody's informed there's things we're really paying attention to engagement in connection for our students there's real two areas we really need to think about especially now where the governor has post school for the year that's a concern of all of ours that you know we don't want to see students check out I guess is the best way to say it we need to keep them engaged and really need to work with our staff to make sure we're reaching out in all kinds of ways not only to students but to the paper so the families and parents because the last thing we want is is them to to peel off their engagement and their attention to their learning when we go right through June 19th and we want to make sure we're getting as much out of this distance learning as we can so I want to make sure that message is out there we've also been extremely responsive not only our principals and tech department in terms of all the work they're doing and under dr.

Rafferty coach Rafferty and coach Roman those are the coaches of the Unified sports and all the support staff that help out throughout the year with that that's the reason why the program is where it is because of those guys just want to mention them Thank You Dean that was great I'm glad you mentioned them the other piece is I just want to let everybody know in case they wouldn't think that we wouldn't be doing this mr. bland and his team are doing all kinds of senior planning they're meeting with senior leaders and having lots of conversations about the things they can do to plan you heard the governor most of you who have probably watched the press conference today yesterday talked about graduation and you know the concerns about in-person graduation ceremonies that he had in his reservation so we're working on all kinds of things and the different recognitions that need to take place whether it's Porcha Lee or the other plans that are going on so mister be assured that mr.

Ruby's leadership with the specifics of distance learning it's been incredible but mrs. white onyx Department it's been amazing what they have done of working with our most needy students our most vulnerable students and really connecting and making sure they are learning and it's been a very difficult process some of the parents probably in some of the communications that Amy read express concerns and the difficulties their children are having with distance learning and we appreciate that and we're doing everything we can to help in this current situation the other pieces we've been able to build organizational capacity I'll get to that at the end of my comments there's an immediacy to strategic planning I just want to move to that we really need to be thinking about a couple of things with reopening now that we know we're out for the year the team has already started to talk about reopening and what that might look like not only the reopening steps that are kind of fundamental basics that we need to do to make sure our students are learning check in on how their learning has gone check on their emotional stability and where they're at and then develop intervention plans that we need to those are big pieces that we need to do when school really starts again and we're gonna assume for now a traditional start even though we need to be ready for other formats in addition to that we need to think about transitions the students moving from one school to the next how do we end the year as their way we can connect and have closure and say goodbye and those kind of things registration is a big piece while especially our kindergartners I know that Eric and Maureen and the team over at center school with mrs.

bland team are working on that and when they have plans ready they will publicize those and communicate with everyone i'll also wanted to as part of my extension and i thank you is just talk about distance learning for a very I've sent out I think now a total of fifteen numbered updates as well as three flu and corona updates prior to that I've communicated quite a bit our principals and teachers are sending all kinds of emails and again I I do want to address email fatigue with the public we don't try to tire parents out with the amount of communication but we want to make sure everybody's informed there's things we're really paying attention to engagement in connection for our students there's real two areas we really need to think about especially now where the governor has post school for the year that's a concern of all of ours that you know we don't want to see students check out I guess is the best way to say it we need to keep them engaged and really need to work with our staff to make sure we're reaching out in all kinds of ways not only to students but to the paper so the families and parents because the last thing we want is is them to to peel off their engagement and their attention to their learning when we go right through June 19th and we want to make sure we're getting as much out of this distance learning as we can so I want to make sure that message is out there we've also been extremely responsive not only our principals and tech department in terms of all the work they're doing and under dr.

diamond are working tirelessly to make that work along with these Walsh our power school guru it's just a lot a lot of work going in on that and then really the need for technology equity access and an additional support in the area of Technology and technology integration is is the future we've kind of always known that but it's really upon us to be thinking about that so those are areas we're really going to be focusing on as a leadership team and starting to vision and think about what we need and what we you know what was the future going to look like we need to be realistic that while we're planning you know we're budgeting for a more traditional start for the school year next year we need to be thinking about the situation and the public health crisis that were in we may have to be we don't know this a distance-learning model again to start the year or some kind of hybrid model where we really look at time and structures and make some changes there that are significant for families and their staff so in in verbal community so we just need to be ready for that I want people to know that we're thinking about those things while no definitive plans have been made we need to be thinking about those things we are thinking about those things and we'll take our guidance from the state connective state Department of Education along with Public Health guidelines and getting near the end oh I wanted to share with you another thing that's very interesting and Gina jump in on this one if if the numbers going up mid distance learning and the fact that we cannot be together Gina why Ghana our director of special education has reached out to the families for trans electronic transmission of special education records and 87% and if that numbers gone up Gina correct many parents are affirmative and want that and we needed to get their explicit permission so we've really moved into in a great direction there the other 13% that's okay we're working on other physicals safe physical ways to make sure records are passed on to parents and parents past records back to us and that's okay that's their choice and we've worked on that together and we accommodate those needs and then the last the last couple of things I want to share is capacity development opportunity we as an organization taking advantage of the time that we've had in the change in work environment for some training there's a lot of webinar work that's going on in all of our different disciplines whether it's our nurses our paraprofessionals not only are there helping students in family but with the shift in the way their time is allocated they're also getting additional training and then our custodial team and this come up in facilities report but they not only have done all the disinfecting and sanitizing from Washington walls top to bottom but now they're cleaning areas that they've never been able to get to because of our capacity issues as well as painting and other maintenance type products of projects in fact the two gym floors have been you know refinished and so forth in the time that we've been out so there's a lot of good work going on I've said a lot I don't know if anybody has questions for me and all I'll stop there thank you John if I could just add because I really bless that Eric is with us and he developed our distance learning website and then I don't know how he taught me I'm very difficult to teach but he taught me how to be a webmaster and I just want to thank the principals and the teachers that are doing all of the curriculum work because on Fridays at 3 o'clock I pretty much have all the curriculum for the upcoming week that that actually I'm not going to name names but I've got people at eight o'clock on Friday morning who have documents to me and the principles work with their staff and the curriculum is provided to me by three o'clock and that gives me Friday night and Saturday morning to work with Eric who corrects my work and I'm very appreciative of his feedback I feel like a student myself and then the principal's after I do that work go on I send them a text or an email to let them know that it's up and then they get back to me with any Corrections and feedback on my work and that's how it is able to be rolled out so I think that we have to really go back to the level of the teachers and their leadership from their principals because I'm just like doing the mechanics of that work and people may not and I'm not trying to like make everybody into a martyr but the amount of work that the teachers are doing and the principals are overseeing to be able to get that work in a fashion that I can then take and immediately put online is countless countless hours of work and that's at the elementary level and then at the secondary level and including Dean's team kind of in that secondary level because of the the format that is utilized to provide the distance learning through Google classroom that work is ongoing and it's seamless and I I'm not actually not really that intimately involved in it except when I can get into Google classrooms because Dean and Mark and their teams are totally responsible for overseeing that and I don't know if even the people that are on this in fall can even fathom the amount of hours and the amount of work and the amount of interpersonal contact that has to go on in order to make what we're doing happen and what we're doing is something that just that people weren't trained for that people have risen to the occasion to be able to do and I feel very confident that no matter what comes our way that given the fact that the principals and the teachers were able to basically just in a turnaround be able to do this kind of work I'm not really even though it's daunting to think of what lies ahead I'm not I'm not afraid of what we face in the future because I think that if we can continue to keep the people that we have on our team and not lose them to other districts because of our calendar and our our contracts and our our budget time if we can keep the people that we have that are so valuable employed that our leaders are going to be able to work with us at ESO Devon myself and Eric to be able to do whatever it is we have to do whether it's you know whether we're back in school the way we were before which let's be real that's not ever going to happen whether we have a hybrid program or whether we have to do distance learning because of a spike in the incidence in in the disease that we are facing now I just feel really blessed that these people are able to do this and it's not easy people are complaining about what's going on in their own homes everybody's got their own little resume of what their life is like but we have to be mindful the fact that our administrators and our teachers are living the exact same nightmare that everybody else is living and they're being able to do all this work while they have woken older kids at home sick parents neighbors in need their own families sick and dying and and it's working and even the people that we know about that who have the most severe inflictions of demise from this you know disease and the current situation that we're in they are still getting up every single day and doing the things that they need to do for the children of this district in spite of their own personal traumas and we can't get into what all those are but just believe me when I tell you that there are people that are dealing with death and destruction and their families but in spite of that with their teams and their leaders their principals in their building they are still delivering to our children and I don't I don't even know how else to say that then just to put that out there and so I'm really I'm really impressed and inspired by the principals and by the the teachers who are really frontline people and nobody can understand what they're doing and the the only thing I'll take a second to throw on to Maureen's point too is if you haven't had a chance to take out a check out the the e-learning site it is there it is linked on our district homepage and for good measure I did I did put it in the chat take a few minutes and take a look at it it's it's really a a great group effort among hall and it is publicly available to be seen so enjoy Thank You Maureen thanks Sarah I didn't know if there's any questions from the board okay I didn't I'm not gonna let you not you guy who's gonna talk is who we always have a habit of all jumping on each other and I want to I have a question for dr.