East Windsor, CT BOE Meeting - 6/10/26

001allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Welcome everybody. It's nice to see so many faces. Um we uh I know that Corine and um Casey both uh let me know that they will not be too. So we have a quorum but not everybody. Are there any added agenda items? No. So we will move on to accommodations. >> Uh yes. Um, so we have our Christophel Apple award uh recipients uh and their families with us today. Um, Dave Moer is unable to attend. I believe uh his daughter's at high school graduation uh tonight. So, we're certainly um happy for him and his family. Uh the Crystal Apple Award is a quarterly recognition to one of our staff

002members from each school. It is in partnership with Horus Man and Dave Moer. Um nominees can be any staff member uh certified or non-certified and they demonstrate through their actions supportive and caring relationships. Uh they help uh build a positive and compassionate school climate. Uh they encourage a love for learning um and uh encourage the process for student success both academically and socially. They challenge students to reach high expectations and demonstrate a collaborative approach to teaching and learning. Um, so with that, we're going to start with Broadbrook and I believe it's Mr. Brian who's going to introduce us to our broad recipient of the line up. >> It's two pieces. >> Okay. >> No, we have to always make sure we say that. >> Okay. So, I'd like to introduce Emily Swanson, who is one

003of our brand new prek teachers. Um, but she um has definitely made her mark right away here at Broadbrook. I would like to read one of the nominations for her. I would like to nominate Emily Swanson for the Crystal Apple Award. Emily has been a phenomenal addition to the Broadbrook School team and PreK program. As a first year teacher, she has successfully taken on many challenges while creating a well-managed, engaging, and supportive classroom environment. Miss Swanson consistently goes above and beyond for her students. She not only makes learning fun and engaging automatically, but she also creates a classroom where every student feels safe, valued, and supported emotionally and socially. Her caring and compassionate approach helps students build confidence while encouraging a love for learning and personal growth. Emily has developed strong and positive relationships with

004both her students and her families. Always making everyone feel heard, included, and respected. She demonstrates professionalism, collaboration, and kindness throughout the school community. Whether she's supporting students in the hallway or assisting fellow staff members whenever needed, through her dedication, and high expectations, Miss Swanson has helped her students achieve tremendous growth academically, emotionally, socially, and behaviorally. She is truly a wonderful addition to Broadber School and we are incredibly grateful to have her as part of our team. >> We have Mrs. Dit for middle school. >> Yes. So we are going to Mrs. Gadori. She is our district literacy humanities coach. She kind of does it all. Wears bunch masks. I do have Mile and Mr. Richard who actually are joined to present. >> Yeah, I I had a really great presentation for you as I was

005driving over here. I was practicing it. It sounded fantastic. I was shooting from the hip. There was even music playing in the background. The windows were down and everyone was really well or I was enjoying it. >> All right. So, I'm here. >> I don't have that one. I'm going to read from the scrolls. It is with highest admiration, respect, and appreciation that we, the seventh grade team, nominate Kathy Gdori for the Crystal Apple Award in recognition of her exceptional dedication, leadership, and commitment to excellence in education. Kathy's passion for teaching and unwavering support of our students and our colleagues has had a profound and lasting impact on our school community over the years. wearing many hats and filling many roles throughout the day. Kathy has been seen working with students and staff. If somehow

006she still makes herself available to anyone who asks through her kindness and professionalism, Kathy is approachable and has an ability to actively listen to figure out how to best support you. Regardless of what she is has going on, Kathy is tireless in her efforts to provide support for instruction, assessments, MTSS, cafeteria duty, and the list could go on. She continually inspires those around her to learn, grow, and achieve her best as she sets the standard and example through her own studies to gather more knowledge to share with others. Kathy exemplifies the qualities of an outstanding educator, demonstrating compassion, kindness, and a genuine commitment to helping every student succeed in guiding support guiding and supporting teachers in all content areas. This year in particular, Kathy has gone above and beyond her duties in the absence of

007her coaching partner, Holly. She has taken on many of the responsibilities of Holly's position without hesitation. She has she always has the best interest of both students and staff. Kathy's positive influence reaches far beyond the classroom and serves as a model for excellence and education. I remember when Kathy began working in the East Windsor Middle School. Immediately I knew she was someone I wanted in my corner. I immediately began to seek her out for support knowing she was wellinformed and knew her stuff. She has always given me support, guidance, and direction when I have needed it. Kathy is always calm, never judging, and always recognizes the position the teacher is in when guiding, directing, and supporting staff from different areas of instruction. Please recognize Kathy as our next Crystal Apple Award recipient as she truly

008embodies the spirit of the Crystal Apple. This is uh Himemensky for high school. >> I would like to call up Brian Maltesi. >> Your sneakers. Good school colors. There we go. Sweet pieces. Two hands. >> Two pieces. >> Two hands. Two pieces. And I will read his write up. It is with great enthusiasm that I nominate Brian Maltesy for the Crystal Apple Award. Since rejoining our school community two years ago, Brian has made a significant and lasting impact on both students and staff through his dedication, adaptability, and genuine commitment to student success. Brian has an exceptional ability to build authentic rapport with students, creating a classroom environment that is welcoming, safe, and supportive. He knows his students well, their strengths, challenges, personalities, and learning needs, and uses that knowledge to support them both academically and

009personally. He's often one of the first to notice a subtle shift in a student's behavior that might signal a larger concern. And he consistently brings those observations to the team so that support can be put in place quickly and thoughtfully. One of Brian's greatest strengths is the way he brings humor into the classroom, creating an atmosphere where learning feels approachable and enjoyable. His personality allows students to relax, engage, and take risks in their learning. There's a natural energy in his classroom that helps students feel comfortable while still maintaining strong expectations. He understands that meaningful relationships and a positive climate are essential to student growth. And he uses humor intentionally to make learning both productive and fun. What truly sets Brian apart is his willingness to always try. Regardless of the initiative, strategy, or new expectation,

010Brian approaches it with openness and professionalism. He gives 100% consistently and implements with fidelity. He is a learner at heart. He seeks to understand new tools and approaches fully, asks thoughtful questions, develops expertise, and then create systems and structures that best support student success. Over the past two years, Brian has shown continued growth in his instructional practice. And that growth is reflected in his students outcomes. His students consistently demonstrate measurable growth in their mathematical abilities with ninth grade math performance under his instruction outperforming the state. An impressive accomplishment. He is skilled at adapting lessons to meet students where they are while also pushing their thinking and challenging them to deepen their understanding. His ability to different differentiate instruction and respond to student needs has been a key factor in that success. Brian is also a

011tremendous asset to our staff. He brings a unique unique perspective to conversations, contributes thoughtful ideas, and consistently approaches challenges with a positive attitude and humor that strengthen team morale. As a member of the ninth grade team, he is collaborative, dependable, and deeply committed to our collective work. His passion, resilience, and sense of humor make him someone both students and colleagues value greatly. Brian Matassi exemplifies the spirit of the Crystal App Award through his care for students, commitment to excellence, collaborative mindset, and positive impact on our school community. We are incredibly fortunate to have him, and he's highly deserving of this recognition. Congratulations. I just want to add I've known Kathy uh for I want to say probably 15 years and uh she's always been topnotch. I've known Brian since I've been in district I think

012now 23 years. I can always say he's always kids first and I don't know anyone that has a much uh East Windsor pride as he does. and uh Emily just starting getting to know you but you are a testament of uh the talent new talent we want to continue to recruit uh two weeks Windsor so certainly we are very uh blessed to have all three represent us uh tonight >> that's congratulations >> this is a great way to start the day um so you're welcome welcome to stay and watch our meeting and know but um we absolutely understand if you want to go home and do something other than that. >> Brian, you didn't have to be the first to pick up on your way out though. We do want to get your picture from

013the photographer. I did I forgot to mention that >> before you try to run out too quickly picture >> so I didn't want to say with all those people in the room that you'll notice on our agenda that we only have one public participation because it seems like we never have public here and and we had a room full. Although I thought it'd be kind of not appropriate for me to say it there. We have one at the end of the meeting and I felt that you know it it just makes it clutters the the agenda. If we need a one at the beginning of the meeting if we see there's somebody we can add one or we can move up the one that that's in but we never have used the public participation that

014I that I know I can share. Uh, oh yeah, Paul Anderson did Paul right on five years. >> So the the reason for the early one is for them to tell us something that they want us to work on. The one at the end is if they seen something at the meeting and they were waiting to comment after we made a decision or something. We can it can be a sort of variable thing. We can move it around if we need to. Um so it's on to the um minutes. There any discussion on the minutes or can we just approve them? Have a motion to approve the May 22nd 27th regular meetings. Um board seconded by Courtney. >> Any discussion additions? All those in favor? posts. We don't have our Oh, you are here. >>

015So, um, this is your last meeting with us. >> Yeah, I guess. >> We love having you here. this the student rep is just a a really cool thing and for you to been you know I mean you have been steady here all the time I think you missed one for a track meet or something but um um thank you so much for the time that you've spent with us and we appreciate you >> thank you for letting me come >> so it's on to your report >> with the Broadick Elementary School they recently hosted a hands-on meet the instrument nights for third grade students these evenings allowed students to explore and try out various instruments firsthand, helping them officially sign up for the band program starting this fall. Congratulations to our fourth grade students

016for successful spring concert held at East Windsor High School on May 19th, demonstrating dedication, hard work, and musical progression over the past year. The students showcase exactly how much they have grown with the performance of Ode to Joy. To ensure a smooth and confident transition into fifth grade, our fourth graders took part in a visit to East Windsor Middle School. This opportunity allowed students to explore their upcoming environment, ease any end of year anxieties, and build anticipation for fifth grade. Highlighting our commitment to the real world educational experiences, a selected group of students participated in a specialized STEM field trip to a Harford athletic event. This opportunity allowed students to see other students STEM projects across the state and enjoy a Harford athletics game. Fourth graders took a field trip to the Connecticut Old State

017House. This experience connects their social studies curriculum, allowing students to explore local history and foundations of civic development firsthand. This field trip was provided entirely free of charge to the district through a generous state grant supplemented with funding from BT. Onto the middle school, it has been a busy and exciting time at East Windsor Middle School. We were delighted to welcome the the Broadbrook Elementary School fourth grade students for a visit to experience middle school life firsthand. On May 28th, we also host a successful fourth grade parent night to help families learn more about the transition to middle school. We are excited to welcome our newest students to East Middle School next year. On May 19th, our fifth and sixth grade students showcased their musical talents during the spring concert. Their hard work, dedication, and

018enthusiasm were evident throughout the throughout the performance, and they did a fantastic job. We are incredibly proud of all of our student musicians for their outstanding efforts. On May 28th, East As Middle School 7th and eighth grade band and choir students participated in the fantastic festivals adjuct adjustification event. Students had the opportunity to perform or collegiate level adjudicators and take part in interactive clinics designed to strengthen their musical skills and performance techniques. Their their hard work and dedication were recognized for outstanding results. Middle School band gold rating, middle school choir, platinum rating, the highest honor awarded at the festival. To celebrate their achievements and recognize their commitment, perseverance, and teamwork, our middle school music students enjoyed a fun-filled day at Six Flags New England. Congratulations to all our student musicians and these remarkable accomplishments. Thank

019you for representing Eastman Middle School with such pride, dedication, and excellence. East Windsor High School. On Wednesday, May 27th, no 26th, the East High School softball team hosted Windsor Loss for a special Stronger than Cancer game in support of our senior Gabby Guzzi. After recently completing her chemotherapy treatments, Gabby was proudly declared cancer-free, make the night even more meaningful for everyone involved. Both teams came to celebrate Gabby's strength, support, and important cause and create an unforgettable evening. We are incredibly grateful for the amazing turnout and the overwhelming support that helped make our fundraiser such a success. Thank you to everyone who stayed and cheered us on even through the downpour. Your support was another reminder of how strong and caring our community truly is. Gabby is a diligent student who is not afraid of a

020challenge and never hides her panther pride. As a true reflection of our portrait of a graduate, Gabby exemplifies what it means to be a lifelong learner, a dedicated self- advocate, and responsible citizen. Everything she does. I want to give Tim one more thing to uh report on because it'll take one thing um off my list later, Tim. But you had your uh senior graduation walk today. You want to share that with the board? >> Uh it it was it was fun. I got to go back to through all my schools and walk through and I got to see all the different grades and all the kids and they all stood on the hallways and cheered us on and some of them had signs and it was it was very nice to go back to my

021old >> now. But you start at elementary and then work your way up to >> I think we went middle school first and then went to school. Okay. >> Yeah. So we have video of that too. So we'll be posting that at at some point. But u that was a tradition start last year. So you're the second. >> Oh well. >> But yeah I was here. >> Didn't the prek kids walk to >> the kindergarters? The >> kindergarters walk. I know they're books. >> Oh that's very cool. >> Yeah. So, we'll have some video to share uh later on, which >> remind us what your your plans are for next year. >> Uh I'm going to Springfield College and I'm going in their doctorate program for physical therapy. So, it's a six year. >> Welcome.

022Good luck. Break a leg. >> See you tomorrow night. >> Yeah. Awesome. >> Congratulations. >> So, next is our upcoming meetings. Um the the June 10th board of finance meeting was cancelled. Correct. >> That's tonight. >> Um >> wasn't it moved to the 15th? >> Yeah, correct. So there was a little confusion because um >> they usually >> if you were at the meeting they it said they were going to have it on the 15th but when we called they told us it was on the 10th and then they did do a cancellation and then reposted it for the one day. >> They usually do it the day after the referendum but I think maybe they had a feeling they knew what was going to happen and need the time to figure out what they're

023doing next. >> They they moved their entire meeting their meeting that would be next Wednesday the 17th is now being held on the 15th. Well, so there's no meeting on the seventh. >> There's no meeting. I think that's what I understand. I see. >> So, um invited to the graduation tomorrow. They're coming. Um and we have the schools uh reviewed in in of the year by all of the schools, which is always really interesting. So, Where's yours? >> Uh, so we'll start with broccoli. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Al is pressing with her handy dandy remote control. Hi. Good evening. Broadbrook School year in review. It works. Excellent. Okay. So, as you know, everything we do at at Broadbrook School in East Windsor is focused on our strategic plan and our portrait of the graduate, looking

024at high quality instruction, robust systems, um, and making sure that all of our students are reaching the benchmarks they need to reach to graduating citizens. Next, we're going to go to student data. Um so uh in literacy RI ready data shows a positive trajectory. 70% of our students are reading at or above benchmark. We've been really um working hard and our data-driven decision-m and our targeted our targeted tier 2 interventions which we saw dramatic movement through. um we have significantly increased the number of students who are at or above a benchmark because of this. You can also see here in our bar graphs um the positive trend continuing to move forward. You can see that uh all of our trends especially for this year are moving upward um in the area of reading and I

025ready for the benchmarks. Can I ask a question on that last slide? I can go backwards. Yes. So, is it by cohort? So, are like the grade three that's all of grade three. So, all of those years or the is it traveling with them like it was last year second graders or No, it's just third grade. So this is so you have this is as um the 2022s third grade 2023 24 25 I mean if we >> yeah you would have to through a whole lot of I just want to make sure can do that I'm joking >> thank you welcome u PBS is also making Oh no I had move backwards I'm sorry. Uh, in our dibbles, as we strengthen our tier one instruction in literacy, our tier one intervention is also seeing improvement

026in specific areas of of literacy. Some of our highlights, grade one has made significant increases in all areas. Grades two through four have high oral reading fluency and grades two through four have also seen an increase on the maze which me which measures vocabulary and comprehension. >> Can you explain what dibbles is? I don't know what that is. >> Sure. Dibbles is dynamic indicators of basic early literacy. And I know that it says it right here. But no, we've been actually using that as one of our benchmarks to be able to look at um not only the I Ready, but using the dibbles because it gives us a better idea of what students need and then what areas we need to make sure that we're continuing to to uh fill in especially in those tier

027two or tier three um instruction. >> Can you describe kind of like what it looks like when the teacher assesses it? So um the students will take it as a especially the underage is a one one and what it's looking at are um how students are able a able to identify um either blends especially at certain age levels um >> nonsense >> their nonsense words start reading aloud as the teachers are assessing >> oh the kindergarten they're doing letter naming fluency >> the maze is probably something you've all seen before you have to fill in the word with something that's you have you're reading and there's a blank and you're going to fill it in. the maze is one of that and that's a little bit more at the second through fourth grade level. >>

028Thank you. >> Uh just like RI ready reading, RI ready math has seen improvements as well. Um we have seen significant number of students who have moved out of the red. Here we're seeing a very low number of students who are performing below grade level. um 58% of our students are meeting benchmark which is an increase from our over the last two years. Um but one of our big things is that we are seeing less and less students who are in the red which is um falling behind in the area of math. Also as compelling in the uh math is also the same thing that we are seeing in our reading for our bars. Many of our bars are continuing to go back up. Uh we are seeing a strong imple implementation of our tier

029one instruction and making sure that our data driven small group instruction allows us to meet students where they are. Um we are using common formal assessments. Our teachers know exactly what mathematical concepts require reteing and they are doing that in their small group instruction. Similar to dibbles, a cadence is where we also can evaluate the foundational skills in early numeracy, computation, and problem solving to help us identify students who may be at risk for math difficulties. Um, we are doing all of this through our NTSS process. Going down to our initiatives. As Matt just mentioned about MTSS, uh this was our first full year of implementation and we are already seeing the profound impact that it is having um on our school and on our students growth. Um so we have been working on refining

030those systems and protocols that we created last year and looking at implementing them this year. And we already we had a meeting this morning in which we are talking about plans for next year of how we're going to do that continuous improvement uh with our MTSS systems. Um but as I said the conversations that we are having around interventions, student data on a regular basis, uh progress monitoring that's happening and what interventions we need to put in place um has made a tremendous impact on our school this year and we're very excited about the growth we'll continue to see next year. uh structured windblock. I know we've mentioned this before with our windblock, but this year we took a much more uh structured and purposeful um stance to it. So each six weeks, which is

031our intervention cycle, grade levels took a look at their data to be able to plan for small group instruction. Teams also implemented structured literacy during this time, which I'll tell you more about in a second. Um and also the with I read learning uh one thing we put in place this year is that all grade levels uh started to assign uh lessons in the personalized learning that were directly aligned to the reading and math units that they were teaching. So it in addition to the students having that practice at their level of what they needed uh they also were getting uh grade level practice as well. structured literacy. Uh Michelle Wy uh who was one of our grade one teachers um has completed coursework is now our literacy specialist and she brought to us uh

032structured literacy which aligns to our science and reading initiative that we've been working on now for the past couple years. So uh Michelle met with each bay level K through two um did some PB and then did ongoing coaching throughout the year with them and um helped to make sure that they were implementing those structured literacy lessons. And basically what it is is that it's taking um the reading breaking it down to even smaller components uh based on what students need. So like here's a picture of example where students are building words and looking at the sounds that are reading words. Um but it is all very much based on what the student need is um around literacy and then providing that direct instruction. And I'm sure you all can remember when the math wizards

033came to visit you. uh this has exploded this year. Um as so what we started doing after uh the initial board red presentation is uh we started doing some regular assemblies or induction ceremonies as we called them. So as students reached that level of becoming a wizard or earning a certificate they were acknowledged. Uh we had them all lined up in the gym the wizards sitting there with their hats facing their peers. Uh it was it was been really awesome. Um, our last one is going to be on the last day of school and we have students who are working very hard >> to get their hats for that last day of school. Um, and next year we're going to have different colored hats. So, like if you were a second grader and you got

034your master wizard, you could get a different color hat next year. So, trying to incentivize them to continue working on them. But, um, it is a huge deal around here. Uh, building thinking classrooms. This is uh work that was done with one of our outside consultants who's been coming in to provide this professional development to all grade levels K through four. Uh and while we're focusing the implementation around right now in math, the goal is to have them utilizing these instructional strategies in all subject areas. um as it has students working in groups, problem solving, um using a structure and then um there's an important part with synthesis and discussion at the end so that it brings uh the learning very clearly into focus for all of the students in the class. Uh SEO has

035also focused quite a bit this year as a district. Uh we're going to be implementing Ruler uh which is uh out of Yale and focuses on children being able to identify what their feelings are and what they need to do in order to be able to help regulate them. Um in addition, we built a staff charter uh that talks about how we want to treat each other as a building and the classrooms will be doing that in the fall as well. Uh we also had uh multiple professional development opportunities with academic leadership association who worked with um all staff or professionals and teachers around how to build relationships with um all students particularly those um who challenging behaviors and they're more difficult to build those relationships with. And then we had a grant funded after

036school class. Uh these went on from January to June. Uh there were four clubs, xylophone club, craft club, book club, and makers club. all very very popular. Uh when we put out the signup sheet, they were filled within a matter of seconds. Um so hopefully we'll get this grant again because uh the students really really enjoyed participating in these in these afterchool clubs. Um we had many clamoring to try and join but unfortunately they were full and actually even went over capacity. We were supposed to cap at 12 and we had groups that were at 20. So uh they were very popular. And now just a few highlights. So again, we're partnering with our community with the Halloween safety presentations and fire safety. Uh vacation learning challenges continue to keep kids working over vacations. We

037partnered with the Springfield Thunderbirds this year. So you can see Biscuit there with his best friend from Springfield Thunderbirds and our principles of the day, which is the the coveted prize. Uh our monthly family mileage clubs have continued and continued to be very successful. uh and we added on a STEM night with one of them uh which was great. So it started as the mileage club was ending. We had families who just came for STEM but we had a lot to my club and then went to STEM and we'll be continuing STEM night next year as well as we saw that popularity. Uh so Naraj our grade three teacher um she went through the teacher residency program with the state of Connecticut to become a teacher and uh they reached out about excellence expect excellence

038award and as I read the criteria I said this is absolutely Sophia um because she is certainly excelling as a beginning teacher in our school and so she uh won the award from TRP uh and was even given a citation from the governor which she was very proud about. We continue our tradition of one school, one book with a boy called Bat. Uh, and this was a book that uh focused on a young boy who um has autism. Uh, so it was a very nice inclusive book to be able to read as a school community. And then we had Read Across America. Our high schoolers came down to join us, which is always welcome. We always love when they come. Carol Hall also came to read a book to students on a different day. Um,

039and some of our Eastwinder PD came as well to help read stories to students. uh theater works. We brought them in once again. This is always a highlight as they turn our gym into a theater and they did magic school buses day. Uh if you look very closely in your picture, you can see Biscuit dancing up there with Miss Danielle. We had a parent who was fantastic and he uh dawned the costume and danced kept right up with her. I don't know how he did it, but he did. And uh then musical performances of course we talked about with our fourth grade band and our winter concert in December. Um all of them were were highlights for the year. Uh field trips continued as we said with grade four and the STEM field trip that

040happened. And then we have something that will be coming soon outside the back of our school. Leer Arts Commission reached out to us to do a bottle cap project. Um so it'll be kind with some flowers. That's her um mockup of the boards. Um but you can see the students during lunch spent time gluing the bottle caps onto the boards. Um so they're very excited to see what their final project will look like. Um so every student in the building had a hand in in building that. So that should go up sometime this summer and we're very much looking forward to building on our successes next year. Thank you. >> Thank you. You're welcome. You're such good safar like I noticed that like 70% of kids are or reaching benchmark for reading and stuff. Does

041it seem like the highest that we've been at in like the recent >> for the whole school? Yes. And yeah, 74 for grade three which is awesome. >> Yeah. What is the what is the state like average for reading out? Do you know? >> I don't know or Darl. >> Yeah, I mean just to clarify that's I ready. So that's not our state assessment >> um you know benchmark assessment we use highest celebratory. >> It's a great I'm just excited to hear that that it's going that means it's going to you know continue. >> That's our goal. But I mean, I don't want to ignore it because I feel >> Thank you. Thanks, Carrie. >> How's everybody doing? >> Good. >> Feeling good. All right. >> There we go. All right. Fortunately, graduated. So, getting

042ready for this. >> I am. I'm ready. >> So, I just want to say my first year being, you know, principal Eastville, Tim was in fifth grade. So, it's really nice to see him blossom, lost a person. >> We knew he was gonna be great, but >> lost here last. >> All right. So, one thing about fortunate graduate, one thing we always focus on informed lifelong learner learners at East Windsor Middle School, self-aware individuals, uh, students that can reflect and then responsible citizens is one of the big ones we focus on. >> Sorry. Oh gosh. >> Yeah, I know. I know. I I'm not used to these fancy things because we don't you know all right keyboard >> we use keyboards fancy things are all right the strategic plan uh implementation we used uh continue

043to create a positive learning environment that's one thing we really focused on is at the middle school and you're going to find out in our slideshow all right first is attendance right so we really focus on attendance because if kids aren't here they can't learn right that's the big thing so one thing is our goal this year was 95% attendance rate we at 94.5, which is almost a 1% increase from last year, which we you can see on this graph, the the darker color. I'm not really good with my colors, but it's uh that's where we are this year. And the other two colors were from last year and the year before. So, we went up 1%. Uh and our chronic absentee rate has dropped. Uh last year was at about 17%. So, this year

044we're at 15.1 and then I looked the other day and it was at 14.8. So, it's very exciting. So, uh, we do a lot of work with our chronic absenteeism. Uh, so students who are not coming to school, we try to talk to them why they're not coming to school. We put things in place. We put in the sentences in place. Uh, we have teachers checking in with them. Uh, they check out with them like, "Hey, you know, so glad to see you." If they're absent, you know, the next day like, "Hey, we missed you yesterday." Really, it's really important uh for kids to come to school and feel that they're being missed, right? Um, in my office, too, I have a wall of students that check in every day. They highlight if they've been

045here five days in a row, they get a little prize from our prize box. Other teachers who did the same thing. Um, so we really focus on our chronic absenteeism. All right. One thing we really worked on, especially uh Dear Drew, too, was our special ed. So last year at the middle school, it was like 33% of special a kids were chronic absent. Um, so one thing we implemented was that every week we during our attendance meeting, we would have a grade level special ed teacher meet with us. So they would come. So for example, one week would be fifth grade. So the fifth grade special ed teacher would come in, then sixth grade would be the next week and we kind of come up with plans for the special ed kids, come up with

046incentive plans. So we dropped a lot, right? So it's it's amazing. Look, look at that dropping. So and we're already coming up with plans for next year. Um so we're already creating incentive plans for these students for next year. Um and really the special teachers really jumped on board. Uh they're bringing them up in PBTs and our 504 students too. We bring that up like their attendance because if they're not here, they're especially our special ed kids. They need the most learning and they we have amazing teachers and we want them to get all the information from our great teachers. All right. Then one thing we implemented this year was our weekly attendance competition. So in my newsletter to our staff, I have all the attendance data for grade levels, right? So one thing we're

047like, all right, what can we do to really promote attendance per grade level? Because our teachers are very competitive, right? I'm very competitive person. and I try to compete against Miss Henderson all the time >> and Miss Fox I you know >> we do so great level wants to win right so we came up with this chain attendance chain so the grade level with the best attendance for the week gets to have that chain so here's Miss Shme wearing that chain her uh she she wore it around she would I don't think she wanted to give it up she was trying to leave the building with it one day I was like miss you got to give it back um so we we recognize the grade with attendance uh we celebrate it and you can

048the Kids get really excited when they see their teachers wearing an attendance chain. >> It was on Amazon. It was really cheap, too, which was great. >> They thought it looked like a paper chain. Oh, it's it's like from a 3D printer. It's really cool. >> And it hangs outside the hallway and the teachers pick it up and walk around and kids are like the chains. >> Yeah. Oh, yeah. They're running around and >> it's a big deal. >> Yeah. >> So, all right. So, another one is Oh, sorry. >> We're supposed to share. very passionate about the middle school lessons on sharing and taking turns. >> I love the middle school. I do. >> Um, so we just had our students spring survey. Um, and as you know, we're really working on the relationships

049and making sure students have a relationship with an adult in the building. Middle school is hard. Um, there's a lot of things going on for kids and they need to have somebody that they can go to in school. Um, so we only had three students that share that they do not have an adult in the building that they have that strong connection. So we're at 98%. Um, it is a blind survey, so we don't know who they are, but it's like, okay, we got to get those three kids somehow. Who do we think is kind of missing that? So we are looking at our students trying to figure that out, but three out of 297, I want to say 96. Um, we're we're getting there. Um, so close, but it is really important to us.

050We do want to make sure that all students have somebody that they can go to. And as you can see, Mr. Richard, you give us an incentive. And these lovely ladies got to decorate him um and dazzle his head, put a little purple little dye in there as one of their incentives for I think this one was I Ready? >> Yes. >> Are you ready? Um so just you know even if it's something fun but they make that connection on different levels and they can talk to um a variety of staff um from cafeteria staff to our secretaries to pair professionals. Um we have particular check-ins and checkouts if somebody's just struggling and we notice. So that is something that we are really working on and focus on. Um like I said middle school can

051be tough so it's really important. So I have a question. When you're when you're doing well of congratulations, you're not asking for specifics, which I understand, but could you ask um as you said, is it a par professional? Is it the secret nurse? And we actually we actually do ask we ask who you have the connection with. Okay. Um and then we can go through and see which ones have said like have chosen somebody um if they chose none. Um but we do know we do have some percentages of adults that are really making some really strong connections. Um and that's how we know it is pair professionals. It is some of our cafeteria workers. It is our nurses. Um so it is every sing I think I every single staff has at least one

052student. >> That's great. That's that's how that's >> and it's always too like you see students from previous grades having that connection with a previous teacher. So they like you know you see them at the end of the day asking go see that teacher and you know the teacher says yeah. So they go and check in with that teacher too. So I think that's really positive too. >> So next our math I ready data. Um we just had some really key performance highlights here. Um grade seven achieved the highest spring benchmark with 58% um reaching that proficiency. Grade five showed the largest increase um which was a 20% 26% increase um which can be really difficult right there. learn some of them are closing the gap but also continuing to move forward. Um so it

053just really demonstrates the meaningful progress that that we have in math um and just that significant as you can see here this is the reduction um of students at risk. So we've gone up in achieving proficiency but also the students at risk have gone down. >> And then our reading data so we had two grade levels that hits 60% or more. So our seventh and eighth grade uh hit in reading. So you can see right here they start off the year in sixth grade one. Oh sorry sixth grade sorry 46 to 62 and then 44 to 61. So they had a huge increase and then fifth grade showed the largest improvement again going up by increasing by 30% almost 30%. So you can see that and again as Linda said too the decrease so you're

054seeing those students at risk decreasing uh by double digits right there. So, one thing we're really going to be focusing on is our students in the yellow, right? Uh the students who are just staying, you know, one grade level below, we're really going to put some introductions in place in math and reading. Uh we plan for next year. Uh so for our tier two, our teachers uh teach another block. Uh for those students that need that support and then tier three, we have our rampant group. So our teachers have done a really good job. our ELA and math teachers have really jumped on board and they they're really they're in our end of the year evaluations they're talking about, hey, next year this is what I want to do. They're they're really pushing because they

055want the students to grow, right? We want students to leave the middle school ready for high school and to be on grade level reading and doing math building things in classrooms. I thought you're doing this one. >> Um so, so we are using this this year in in math. Um however it is something that we are looking to extend as Brad Brook had also said. Um but it really promotes that active learning. Um you know we get fidgety. We don't want to sit for an hour in one class go to the next ones an hour in another class right we get tired of doing that. Um but this really they they get up there talking they're up at these um vertical boards as they're um said in BTC. And what's interesting is there is one

056student who will scribe. he's he or she is not allowed to speak and then the other kids have to do all the talking and they have to do the writing. They will switch roles while while in this um so it really really um supports collaboration and communication. You really have to nail it down and be precise which goes back to um vocabulary and incorporating that as well. um they have to justify and explain the reasoning because when we come back to to the end, they have to have that deep understanding because they're going to share out, right? There's going to be that synthesis at the end. And so, everybody has to have that deeper understanding by the end. And it's the job of the team to make sure everybody does have that understanding. So, it

057really is getting the kids up and moving and have a better understanding of the concepts. And research shows that really the kids learn best from one another um because they can put it in different terms. So, this has really supported that as well. And I think one thing that math teachers have done a really great job is the flexible grouping. So for example, you might have a math problem. So you have a different group and the teacher has um these different programs they use to create groups real quick. So they hit a button and then the students are getting into different groups and they're being more flexible. So especially middle school it's really hard sometimes not to be with your friend, right? So that's one thing strategy working is like sometimes you know you're not

058going to be able to work with your friend. You have to be flexible and we've seen the students really grow with that. What is also impressive is this is something that um the mass had PD on this year and they just jumped in after that I sat with them in that first PD they're like no we're going to try this tomorrow and they're like how do we get the vertical boards up how do we start we want to do this um within a week they were trying in their classrooms so just something that was really um impactful learning for teachers >> another big uh PP we worked on this year was science reading we focused on vocabulary so that was an area we felt that all classroom teachers could work on, right? Um, is vocabulary.

059So, we had science and reading professional development throughout the year. So, it wasn't just the teachers, right? We're talking about Paris. Our tutors also came to this PD. Uh, we had a group of teachers, our literacy committee that met and gave PD. It started in August and went throughout all the year ended in May. Uh, and gave teachers, you know, things they could use the next day in their classrooms with vocabulary. >> Thank you for understanding. you go through the school now in like the seventh grade hallway, they have a whole vocab wall in the hallway. They've created uh in our science classrooms, they have vocab tier 2 words that teacher goes over with them. They have they put them in their vocab uh interactive student notebook and then students in eighth grader are also

060using vocab. So, every classroom is teaching vocabulary and we, you know, we're this is something we're going to continue for next year, too. >> Yeah. So, what was really interesting is that you can see these word walls and interactive notebooks in art class. You can see them in computer science and using them in music class. So, it is throughout the entire building where they're talking about parts of speech and um different words and how you can break a word apart and if you see this part of the word in future, how do you you know try to just understand using different morphology tactics. So, it's been um it's been a great highlight for the students as well. Um teachers are telling students, okay, now use your vocabulary words. So, they're kind of making them use

061those words, right? So it's not just a one time we learn this word you we're going to use it we're going to talk about it >> it's going to be in their writing they're adding into their writing which is key like day in the past they were not using these words so >> all right so MTSS is one of the things that has really been our big driver is we have weekly grade level meetings and then we have our leadership meetings. So, our grade level meetings really look at the rotation. They look at the attendance, right? They're looking at behavior data. They're looking at academics. And then they're looking like, all right, how's our meeting going? Like, what do we have to change? Is there something we, you know, that's not working for us? Uh,

062you know, is there something in the paperwork that we need to change? And then that really pushes our MTSS leadership team and looking at our tier 2, tier three students, our students who are chronic absent, our students that are, you know, um, just really struggling putting interventions in place for behavior. Uh, we're doing check in, check out. Um, and then academics is really key too because we have this year Mrs. Dich actually was our lead for math. So she really did talk about the data and math with Kathy Gdori who was here earlier. So Kathy and H and Kathy and Linda really did talk about like intervention, what's working. Uh and then we had students getting out of math and reading support and going back into uh elective class. Um it was really fluid this

063year. So it wasn't just like all right, you have to wait till the end of the quarter or you know, oh um the teachers really analyzed the data to look at, all right, they reached it where that kids ready to leave tier three, they're going to go tier two and this is the things they need and it's really was individualized. Okay. So, another thing that we have been doing is we have a lot of the after school activities. Um, we had the grant fund, but also we have the school clubs. Um, kids are creating their own club, so it is student based. We have the sports programs which have been going really well. Um, cross country coming off in the fall, just finished up track um and basketball in the winter. We have the student

064incentives like pep rallies, behavior incentives. Um, we have the ready incentives. A lot of of the grades are doing weekly incentives. Um I know fifth grade does it on Fridays. I think sixth grade as well. So there's just a lot of things that are um going well for students for incentives. We have our advisory lessons um by we have them twice a month. Um this is actually one of those lessons. Um what has been really great about our advisory lessons is our educator rising students who are in that program have been starting to write those lessons. Um so you know they have a different perspective, right? So they come and they say no we need to work on this. So this lesson that you see here is actually a creation by our students. Um and

065the feedback from both staff and students says these lessons are the best that we've had. Um so they're really getting a lot of out of it. Um and again that those are from students from five through eight helping to create those lessons. They're putting together the um Smartboard lessons the slides and gathering materials and making sure that they have it all put together. they know what the objectives are. Um, so they really are doing exactly what a teacher would do for a classroom lesson. >> And then to incorporate student voice, we actually had some of our students from Ed Rising join our safe school climate to go over the survey and really help us understand why, you know, certain questions like why did students answer this question so we could dive deeper into the question.

066So now I think that was really important and and parents too. >> Yes. Yeah. And they and again they come with that different perspective of like well no we we have adults that we can go to but sometimes it feels like this and so this is what we need to work on and just hearing from them you know and again we're talking about sixth seventh and eighth graders I don't think we have any fifth graders so this year um but they just had a different perspective and and the sixth grade hearing from the eighth graders in that meeting we're like okay here we what you're saying so if I try this and just learning different strategies as well so it was a really good opportunity for staff as well >> and again arts as you

067heard earlier. Uh you know we have uh Miss Moy has done a great job. Our whole school is full of artwork. Um so she does a great job putting all the student artwork around the building. We have so many amazing artists. Uh and then we have our band and chorus. Uh you know parade our festival we just went to platinum was the first time they ever got platinum. Um so that was amazing. And Miss Simpson does believe the band should have got in uh platinum too, but she thought the judge was a college judge and was just grading him harder because, you know, she was very upset about that. I >> very passionate about >> she's very passionate. She's ready for next year and she's ready, you know. So, um and then leadership development is

068really a big one. The student voice. So, we have student council and leader, you know, rising. Uh the student voices really have come. Um our student council really runs our pep rallies now. um they're coming up with ideas for incentives on a monthly basis. So I think that has really helped. Um, one thing we talked about is looking at attendance, right? So our if students don't want to be here, right? So our incentives, they're working because kids come to school on those days. They want to be here on those days. So that's very positive. >> Yeah. So we really are recognizing, you know, student achievement. We have our um, every grade has at least two award ceremonies. U, one in the winter, one in the fall. I mean one in the spring, sorry. Um, seventh

069grade likes to go above and beyond. They got seven one for each quarter. Um, but just really celebrating the student success is really important. Um, they have to understand how much we believe in them, right? And you know, if you ever attended an award ceremony, you will see kids high-fiving high-fiving high-fiving each other as they win those awards. Um, you know, they're just really like congratulating each other as they're succeeding and getting those achievements. So, it's really nice to see. I mean, you know, we see all these kids up here. It's it's how much growth are you making. It's not necessarily your on grade level, but the work that you're putting in is recognized. The effort is being recognized. Um, and again, the parents are proud, the staff are proud, and the students are proud.

070So, if the students take pride in their work, we're really going to see that that growth as we go forward. >> Yeah. It wasn't always cool to be smart, right? So, I think that has changed in the middle school. We really have pushed like in general, that's amazing, right? So, kids have really celebrating that piece. Uh so I think that is and then you have the North Central Act of kindness. Uh we also have the problem solver award which we give out weekly. Uh you know just recognizing students for the amazing things they do at the Swinder Middle School. And then staff has grown a lot this year. Our staff has done an amazing job. Uh so we have committees right? We have our beautifification committee uh that has helped us with making Eastville school

071looking, you know, a little more prettier. Um then we have our staff engagement. So, this is a new committee this year. Uh, one thing our staff engagement was one idea we had was u we wanted to have staff present more, right? Because they're going to staff just like kids learn more from each other than they do from Linda and I. We can go up there and talk forever, but they want to hear from each other, right? They have great ideas. They have great things they're going doing in their classroom. So, we started small this year. So, for example, Kathy Gori was here earlier. She did a little class, 30-minute class on sea glassing, right? So, next year she's going to do something else, right? So we just wanted to do something that they liked a

072topic and teach other people. Uh we had another teacher teach Japanese to the class uh teachers so teachers could sign up. We had baking and things like that. So the goal for next year is really to change that uh to still do fun things but also to do more instructional strategies that they can really take and use into their classrooms. Um and then we had a literacy committee which was great. They met monthly. Uh you know they gave up a lot of their times to come up with PD strategies for our staff. It was very engaging. All the staff in our survey had shared like it was one of the best PDs they've ever had. Uh because it was ongoing. It wasn't just one quick thing. And then our grade level and vertical leaders really

073Lyn and I have really uh they have really stepped up. So it's not top down. They're the ones leading uh the change in our school. And then one thing that Rober talked about is ruler. That's one thing we're moving towards too for next year. Definitely we I think maybe in fall we talked about the mood meter when I was here, right? So, just talking about how we're feeling and how does that change, right? If I'm really excited, right, but I need to sit, you know, what strategies do I need to change and coming up with um different uh my gosh, not mood meter, sorry. Uh different strategies to help students come up and change and also with just not meter. >> Men moment. Thank you. So, having a metam moment, I had one to reset

074yourself, right? So, and get a great spot. And then there's our softball team, too, that went undefeated three and 0. Uh, so it's >> interesting. >> 13 girls. They're amazing. Uh, so they're a great group. So, any questions? >> I have one question, but I think it's more for Deerra than you. Okay. um due to the chronic absenteeism that they talked about with special ed is that kind of across the board for most school districts is a >> um at the state level the target goal is 20%. >> Oh um so we're we're running I just did the comparisons across the state and so the state is about 25 26% chronic absenteeism for special ed. It is a statewide issue. >> Yeah. >> Um, another question. When do the ESPback scores come in? Is that

075like >> So we This is great news. So we have a draft, right? So this is how can I share? No, >> it's not public. >> You could share. You could share trends. >> All right. So there's a good trend. So >> stop recording. I'm just joking. Um, this everybody close your ears. Um, no. So the trend is we're doing so one thing for some we made a a rule not rule we made an incentive for the students if they made 60% proficiency schoolwide uh they could duct tape myself to the wall if they made it in two areas they could duct duct tape Linda to the wall if they made uh three areas we I'd we'd celebrate everything like I don't know get a ice cream truck in the school or something I don't

076know we figure that out uh but so right now the trend is one grade level has 60% and math and reading. So on Monday, >> nothing's finalized. >> It's not finalized. It's still a draft. It keeps going up and down. So Monday, they're leaving. You know, I we want to celebrate. So Monday, I'm letting the students, we bought 25 rolls of duct tape. They're going to duct tape me. Seventh grade students are going to duct tape me to the wall. So hopefully 25 rolls of duct tape is enough. Uh >> I don't think so. >> I did a m I was like trying to Google it and see if Google would let me know. Like I put my weight in there and see my >> You got the extra strength duct tape. So, >> which

077wall are you being >> I don't know. That's I have to talk to the custodian to see which wall at the port or maybe >> are they gonna put you on and then >> Yeah, that's the wall. Yeah, hopefully. Yeah. >> Very scary when the stool gets moved. >> We'll videotape it and hope for the best. Please don't fall. >> I may or may not school or not school. asking for a friend. >> But we do appreciate all the work you've done here before. >> Uh it's going to be What time's your lunch on Monday? >> We're going to start until somebody gets me down. >> We'll see about that tonight. I'm going to keep you guys. All right. Um, so as you'll see with the high school presentation, we have a lot of vertical

078alignment in our schools. You'll see a lot of similar themes with MTSS attendance, the initiatives. So, um, which is really promising for the district. So, like if kids are getting it in Broadbrook, they're getting at the middle school, and then they're going to also be getting it at the high school. Um, just like the other two buildings, we worked on the street. We work off the strategic plan that you all set. And you'll see a lot of our academic, behavioral, and attendance data fall under goal one, which is the portion of the graduate. Um, and then a lot of our access to equity data. All of those resources that we do to allow all students to be able to access all things that comes in with goal um two. And then our goal four really

079talks about our community involvement and the ways that we outreach and bring community into the building. You'll see that throughout our presentation as well as that how we hit goal four. Also, we also link everything back to the portion of the graduate and everything we do at the high school just like sounds like all the other schools around this thing called MTSS. And we have systems in our building around attendance, behavior, and academics. And through our presentation right now, you're going to see some data. We're going to give you a slide of overarching data for the school. And then the next slide will be a cohort that we highlighted that did particularly well in that area. So speaking about MTSS and structures, MTSS really helped us develop those meeting structures. We have meeting structures in

080place that help us progress monitor using data um and that data is communicated through the postit. So there are five quick things that Mrs. Anderson sends out every um Sunday and that data really helps us develop tier one, two or three strategies or plans to really address academics attendance and behavior. Um, and just right here, if you look at this, three years ago, our chronic absenteeism rate was at 31%. Thast year and this year we're at 19%. Of course, next year I want to do better. Um, but you know, we are we work we are working hard just like the middle school and just like the elementary school really trying to bring that chronic absent them down through incentives, through home visits, through one-on-one incentive plans um because we need our kids in school to

081learn. Um, and as Mrs. Anderson said, we wanted to highlight some folks. So this on this side you have grade nine um grade nine attendance. Thank you middle school. You've set some really good um um guides in place. 86% of them had 90 were in school 90% or more of the time. Um and then 10% were 80 to 90 and 4% less were were in school less than 80%. And then our grade 12, this is a three-year comparison. Three years ago, only 73% were in school 90% or more of the time. We got them up to 85. Um, so it really working with our attendance team that meets weekly to really figure out why our kids are not coming to school, how do we support them to get them to come to school, um, and

082what we can do as a school just, you know, to get our kids to keep coming. And then the same thing again, we have a behavior team that meets weekly. Um our goal is to really you know decrease overall behaviors but part of that goal is not just decreasing behaviors but helping students understand their behaviors and work through their behaviors. Um so as a team we've discussed ways in which we can help students identify okay what is my problem? How do I approach it? Where are the resources I need to turn to to solve my problem? So this way a behavior that's this big doesn't become a behavior that's that big. And if you take a look at this chart right here, um the darkest line, um we have been able tore decrease overall behavioral

083referrals in the last three years. Um our reset room and our reset room supervisor has been instrumental. We have students now recognizing like, okay, I'm not in a good spot. I need someone to talk to and he has been instrumental and helping um have conf restoative conferences between students really to help them work through those issues. So this way again that little behaviors are become something very in academics. And then if you look up here, this is class of 2028, grade nine versus grade 10. So last year is in green. Um excuse me, school year 24 was in the green, school year 25 is in the red. Again, we see it just trending lower. And then grade 10 behavior overall. Again, we just see the behavior decreasing. again helping those students obtain the skills necessary

084to work through any issues that they have. As far as our academics, we have a schoolwide goal of 80% proficient grade level proficiency and 100% growth. That will still be our goal next year and we will continue to have that goal until we reach that 80% proficiency. And we will do that before I leave. He spins an ice. You're going to get there. Um and what the ways we measure that is internally and externally. And one of our internal measures is the the EXL system. Um it replaced the exact path that we had in previous years and at one point was it replace something called my path. So we've had a lot of iterations of this. Um and so we uh we did it for the first time this year and our fall diagnostic did

085not was not successful. We didn't implement correctly. So we only have the winter to the spring to compare right now. And this is whole school progress grades 9 through 11. Um the bottom bar is the winter um testing and the top bar is the spring. The blue chunk is kids that are above grade level. The green chunk is kids on grade level. The yellow is one grade below. The lighter pink is two grades below. And the darker color is three or more grades below. Um what we saw here for the whole school is that we moved from kids on on and at grade level from 26% to 36%. And we saw the red band decrease from 58% to 43% in reading and writing. So that was for the whole school in reading and writing. Um

086in math we had some growth as well on same bar distribution as far as blue being above green being on um yellow being one below two below and more than two below. We saw that we went from 15% of on and above grade level to 20% in math as a school and from 58 and that red bar decreased from 55% um to um excuse me from 58% to 55%. Our cohort highlight is that that grade nine that we were talking about. Um and um one of the things that was referenced was Mr. Maltesy tonight when he got the award. He's our grade nine math teacher. We also are seeing the impact of the the middle school and Broadbrook's work that they're doing with students as they're coming more ready to the high school to do

087what we need them to do. And so the bottom um bar, this bottom bar right here is reading. This is just grade nine cohort. This is their reading and writing um in the winter, reading and writing in spring, math in winter, math in spring. Um, and what you can see here is that the ninth graders went from 38% on or above to 48% in reading and writing. And if you look, if you can look closely, you can see that the this bar right here, the blue one, we went from 33% above grade level to 42% above grade level. So that was a huge gain. And then as far as in math, we saw we went from um 30% to 35 on and above. But you can see we significantly we took we took these kids

088in the green and moved them into the blue. So we're so we're and we're seeing some some small growths in the red. So we know we have to do a lot more with this over here. But we are seeing that we are not we are teaching to the high and we're moving the high as well as attempting to move the low. So the percent that are a grade two three below are all those kids getting interventions at this point they are um they are in some of them they're getting intervention a lot of them are getting intervention within the in their in the classroom some are getting pulled out for intervention as well not all of them though one of our you'll see one of our um goals for next year is intervention and one

089of the things about intervention is we want to learn we want to teach our teachers to do tier 2 in the tier one classroom because we don't have enough resources to intervene with all of that. So, um, some of the stuff that elementary school teachers are really good at is doing small group instruction in their tier one classrooms. Secondary educators, we weren't trained to do that. So, we're going to try to build off of what the elementary school teachers can teach us and the middle school teachers can teach us and bring that to the high school. So like if I have like a whole classroom of math students and I have this small group that needs to work on a skill, the teacher can go pull that small group within the classroom while the rest

090of the class continues on with on grade level instruction. So we're going to work on that next year. >> The kids that are not getting intervention or they just I'm just you said some of them are some of them aren't. So we it's a scheduling it's a scheduling situation too in the high school because you also have to earn credits and so we can't pull you out for intervention then you don't have enough credits to graduate. So it's kind of like this game we have to play where we determine like where we're going to pull. So we did run an intervention this year. Um it's it was called ASSE and we backed that up to chorus and the course so that we could pull kids from chorus and have them meet intervention but still earn

091the course credit at the same time. Um, so like games like that we're trying to figure out how to play so that we can have more students access the intervention. So, >> and what are the tutors follows the whole program here? >> So, the the math tutor that we have a math tutor right now that we have one math tutor for the whole school. You don't have any other tutors in any other spots. So, um, we have pair professionals for special ed population, but for not all of this bread is special ed. So, um, so that's why we really want to get our tier one teachers to be able to apply the intervention since we don't have the resource to help pull all that. We do a reading interventionist and she pulls quite a few

092um people, but tier two and tier one you want to do three to four students twice a week, you know, and so that's like we schedule as many as we can into those things. >> Yeah. I don't doubt that you're a It just is concerning to me and I feel like like >> yeah, >> it's still concerning, you know, and it's not for lack of I think trying ever I I know that it's way more complicated than I could ever probably understand, but it's still concerning. >> No. Yeah. I mean, we we're not we're not like jumping up the down. Um and and we definitely but we are moving in the right direction and we're trying to keep keep going with the momentum we we have through some of the programs we're doing to kind

093of move some of that red into those other. >> Yeah. Do are any of those kids willing to do like I know like there's at tutoring like I know some of the kids will stay and tutor other kids or like I know like teachers are most of them will stay after and stuff like that. Are those kids like maybe not as willing to do those things then? Sometimes it's challenging to get a 16-year-old that can maybe go or stay after school to work on their reading skills. Um, and sometimes it's hard too to like find the motivation strategy to get them to work. Yeah. >> Like we we we want to for some of the kids that are falling in that red bar, we honestly I don't think they're red. I don't think they try

094on these the diagnostics. Um, and one of the things we talked about in our SAT and PSAT data is um at junior year you kind of figure out where what your path is. you kind of know like am I going to be going into a trade? Am I going to do vocational? So maybe will we do the universal SAT as our test? >> They don't really care because they know they're not going to college. They've already made that decision. So it's kind of like trying to motivate them. And we do we do like a ton of incentive things, but they're not jacked up and excited about getting a wizard hat, you know, like it's like hard. It's hard. I wish they were. So the teachers said like I know cuz the teachers are in the

095classrooms and they're teaching them and they're doing better in the classroom with stuff like or those conversations too that like you guys are having obviously with them like this is what it's showing is this kid struggling like that classroom. Yeah, there are some kids too like um we we definitely like know like some also our kids know how to game system. >> Okay, so we have some students in that red that know that it's going to put on an action path. It's going to count for homework. So by grade at second grade level, my homework assignments are going to be a lot easier, >> but then you reset it and you try to make them take it again. And so it's just a lot of that stuff too. So it's it's it's as real as

096we think we can get it, but there are there are a lot of gaming going on, right? Maybe not something. >> I I got above it. >> I'm not I'm in the sixth year of Springfield College. Why are you talking to me? Right. >> That wizard hat though. >> U Okay. So, am I on the right side? Yeah. All right. So, as far as No, I'm not. Yes, I am. Okay. So, as far as this, this is from College Board. So, College Board um says percentage of college and career ready um and they do it based on if you reach benchmark on the SAT and they take the whole school and this is our last four years of data. So, you can see in 2023 the the black bar is math, the yellow bar is

097um reading and writing. So, we are trending in the right direction as far as our our our whole school hitting benchmark in reading and writing. Right now, we're at like around 53% and in math we're around 30% as a whole school. And that's up from back in 2023 we were at 48% for uh reading and writing and we were at 24% in math. So we are moving in the right direction. Of course we'd like to work speed this a little bit faster but we are going um in the right direction. >> Is the benchmark for that also 80%. >> The aggregate benchmark for all grades >> for college and career readiness. So, the the way the uh this the college board sets it up is they just say that if you hit get like a

098530 on the math and the and um 480 on the 530 to 480 on the reading and writing, you've hit benchmark and then we just compare it against the state. They don't really tell you what they think is what they're aiming for. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, so this is basically just the total percentage of students across all four grades that hit that bench >> benchmark for their grade. Yep. And so, so yeah, we're trending in the right direction. And then I can show you um for the cohort highlight. I'm not gonna see them better. Do we try it now? >> Oh, try again. Go ahead. Um as far as growth too, I want to show you this. Like if if the yellow bar right here is one year's worth of growth for each co

099grade level, the darker yellow bar is two years worth of growth. and how many points they've gained on the SAT. So you can see our grade 10 cohort in two years that we've had them. They've gone from they average a 60 point gain on their SAT scores in the two years we've had them. The 11th grade in the two for the last two years in data they're in like the 30 point range and as a whole school if we average them all out the whole school is around 30 points of of trending and growing. So although we have this big red band the red band is moving higher. It's getting it's moving up. And that's in reading and writing. And this is in math. You can see math's even doing a little bit better as

100far as moving higher, which is good because we we're lower in math. So, we want to make more gains. And so, you can see same same uh distribution, one year's worth of growth versus two years worth of growth. And you can see that our seniors were over 40 points of growth um for the past two years. Our ninth graders made huge gains um with one year's worth of growth. And then I talked about the intervention the bar the the bars right here on this side. This is the students that were in math intervention compared to their um peers that were not in intervention. So that you could see that they grew higher. Their two years of growth was more than their the whole cohort if they were intervention. Same thing with ELA. So the intervention

101that we started last year is working as far as like getting those kids to move. Um so we're going to try to we're going to keep doing that more and more next year. So our quarter highlight is the ninth grade. So on the this this left bar right here is how we did. So green is making benchmark. Yellow is approaching and red is not meeting. And the one on the this right here is how the state of Connecticut did. And you can see that the ninth grade cohort outperformed the state of Connecticut in reading and writing and in math on the PSAT this year. So we're pretty proud of that. We're excited about that. Um, and so we're going to definitely celebrate that next year with our our ninth graders and our 10th graders. As

102far as access goes, I talked about goal two. We had a fast initiative where we tried to get students to families into the to workshops and do uh fast workshops and we had a senior signing day. And you can see that um the the light bar was last year's class and the darker bar is this year's class. and we had almost 80% of our students get it fast with them which allow them more access to secondary schools. Um, which is really really good. Um, right now I as far as like the exit surveys from the seniors, 87% of our senior class is going to two or four-year college next year. So that's great. So and now and a lot of them are going for free because if you filled out your FASA you can go

103to CT State for abs for no money at all. So that so that was really a huge access uh barrier that we're trying to over overcome for our students and their families. Also we tried to do some more scholarship support this year. You can see this is last year the number of number of students who filled out the common application was 11. This year we had 31 students fill out the common application. So we we gave more students the opportunity to earn money. Um you can see 19 students earned money and 35 this year. So that's a huge gain. The reason there's more students than applications is this some kids went out and found separate app another source to to do it. They didn't just use our common. And you can see we gave out

104a little bit more money this year. So we're opening more access again to students and we're helping support them. And the donors were excited this year. They even said like they were so excited to have quality applicants. They had way more quality applicants this year and they like that the forms and the essays and all the stuff was filled out much better. And so we're going to continue to like help support our families and our students in filling out those p that paperwork. Is that guidance involved too? Yep. >> Okay. So, we continue to work on our pathways programming. Um, we have six pathways overall. Construction, hospitality, tourism, transportation, education, public sa service, safety, and business. Um, and we we are always looking for job shadow opportunities, any opportunity we have. And really, we always

105are looking at our curriculum and the courses we offer. So thank you curriculum council for supporting the courses. Um this is just an example of the business management and entering marketing and sales pathway program. The different courses that really have just come on in recent years like business concepts one and two intro marketing sports marketing um have been really really helpful for our students to get the knowledge they need in their you know in the career they're pursuing or the pathway they're pursuing. Um this year uh we really took on a lot more through our pathway advisory board and based on student interest and need last year. If you remember we had a a surveyor group design professionals come in and do a a half day kind of program. Well that we just took off

106and we actually had a whole surveyor's day. So if you were in the fall at East Windsor High School, you saw a drone flying around. Um, we had a group, a consultant group from New York come in with design professionals, teach our students how to use a drone to map the terrain, to really look at the terrain. Um, they were able to use the old what they call the old school equipment as well as the new modern technology and this is really just exposing students to a career field. Um, there the surveyor field is desperately looking for people. So, we had about 30 kids participate back. Um, we have a huge interest at the high school for law and public safety. So, naturally with that, you know, I'm going to have a day. So, we

107did a long public safety day. We had the fire department, police department, and emergency services department all come. They developed. It was great. They all had hands-on activities for our students to do. We had students using the fire hose, which actually was pretty comical. Um, a lot of watering of the grass that day. So, um, but the kids absolutely loved it. Um, and I'm happy to say, you know, if you talk about job shadow opportunities, this is the second year in a row that one of our students job shadowed at the Harford Yard Goats. Very exciting. Um, if you saw the post, Cooper King, our student, was there a couple weekends ago, very exciting for him because Nessen was there at the network channel. So, he really got to see broadcasting at that level. And

108he was funny. He said, "Oh, this is what you're supposed to talk about, not supposed to talk about, and this is what you push, not push it." And it was just very, very exciting. And we will plan on growing this program more and more and looking for those opportunities whether with the day whether it's an opportunity with a business to have our kids get hands-on opportunities. Um part of we have also have college and career planning. Um every March we have think about your future week. Um school counseling department does a phenomenal job putting this week together. This week consists of um about six field trips to different colleges and post-secary options. This week also includes our PSATS SAT day. Um it also guest speakers from different career fields. Um this year we brought back

109the mock interview process. This was something that was kind of defunct for the last couple years and I really appreciate our pathways advisory board, our community and business leaders helping us plan this. They came in, they they kind of said, "Okay, this is what we can do." They actually volunteer their time to interview our students. So when you go to an interview, you don't know who the person sitting across from you. So they really had that experience and we had our 10th and 11th graders do this. They were provided instant feedback of how they did where they could, you know, grow from and the kids had a blast. They hadn't, you know, they didn't really know. They're like, I don't know if I'm going to do it, but they walked like, wow, that was pretty

110cool. So they feel better if they're going to apply for a job. I wanted to but so my son is a 10th grader this year finished it and it was perfect timing because he literally interviewed for a job with parks and racks like over evil vacation and he pulled out his computer and we like went over because they had the questions even there to practice with. So like he literally practiced before he went in with me and so I wanted to tell you that that was great because it was like perfect time for him and he got jobs. So but he felt more confident and he was able we just did mock interviews at school and >> and thank you for that and why we chose 10th and 11th grade because that's usually when they

111start going for those job interviews, right? It's given that that opportunity. >> Sure. >> Um okay so real life experiences. Oh boy, we had a lot this year. So we had a lot of curriculum based field trips. Um first and for you know Spain our a bunch of our students went to Spain. They went to the royal palace. They were having churros. They were meeting I mean look how happy they are. Tim I think you were Tim. Tim what did you think of Spain? >> It was it was great. I loved it. >> It was amazing. Right. We're getting our kids to see the world. Um I know you guys heard about this great group of kids called Educator Rising. Um I'm excited because they joined our pathway advisory board. um as members, student members

112of our path being advisory board, but they our kids went to two conferences, one for cast, one for CIRC, presented, learned how to make lessons um and just really started networking. I'm really proud of this group. They're they're wonderful. And then model UN went and they actually had a great opportunity. Just give me a lovely syrup. Um they worked with a Romania delegation. So they were able to meet the UN ambassador from Romania. Um two students worked on um international trade and another couple students worked on um protecting international waters. So they were work on these these bills if you will and simulations and they were able to meet with the the ambassador from Romania and speak them directly. And then for community service and outreach I'm still up here. Yeah. >> Um, so one

113of my favorite events that started three years ago is the annual basketball game between the police department and students. We'll win next year, but it was a great turnout as usual. It was a great and it all went to um to the parks and rec scholarship. We had our national honor society host their east annual Easter egg hunt. Um, and our mentors as you heard from Mrs. Fox and Mr. Ryan came down and we had our read across a mirror day. Um, again, our students love these experiences and they look forward to that. >> We also had a great year at our performing arts just like the other schools have talked. Our band, our music program is exploding right now. Um, we had a lot of cool field trips, very very many concerts, but they

114were all amazing concerts. We had a drama production um as you as you know and we got recognition for that like um the band just like the middle school they the band received a gold um adjudication and the the chorus that small chorus right there of one two three four five six seven I see I see a sibling in there of seven um seven students got the platinum rating on the chorus and the high school's never gotten the platinum as well so that was very exciting for them and they was super excited. I was in a meeting with someone and Janna came running in literally open her like I know I'm not doing this. So we just got flat out. Okay. And then she shut her and then so that was that. So she was

115very excited about that. Um our visual arts program is also expanding. Um we've worked a lot with the community. There had monthly art showcases now at the library. Um we also have partnerships with the community art group that the the seniors did their annual graduation boards again this year. We also have if you walk down the W wing. So if you come to graduation tomorrow night, take a look down the Wing. You have all the AP art students are up there. Also the 2D um the photographer 2 students art is up there. We highlighted artist of the month and um one of our AP art students made these beautiful shirts. These are for the seniors and it's it's a panther and um the freshman year color is green, the sophomore year colors red, the junior

116year color is blue, and the senior color is red. That's also why I use blue, green, red, and yellow on my charts. Um, but anyways, uh, so that's kind of how, uh, we've kind of expanded our visual arts program. And then also our athletics, continuing the community outreach with the basketball game. Um, we had some real successes in that area. We have two students continuing on with their athletics in college next year. They're both going to perform at in on track teams. Um, uh, Evan and, uh, Kaylee. And then we have Micah there who was a state class M state finalist. He's a freshman in wrestling. And so we have big things for him. He's gonna win the open for sure. And then um we have a lot of uh students that got all conference

117um in their in their respective sports. So we really have individuals really expanding um their talents in the sports program. Um and we of course have our annual sports banquet >> and our question. >> Yeah. >> How did our pole bolster do? >> I don't remember. Do you know we did >> I think fourth. >> Yeah. Fourth. Yeah. >> And he just started he just started last year. >> Yeah. >> Who's here tonight? His brother got the the >> younger brother got too. >> He's a he's going to UHart for art. Um and then he's doing >> um planning for next year. Our process for doing that as we talked to our committees, our MTSS team, our ILT um our instructional leadership team and our safe school team. We did a rubric uh assessment of

118how we're doing with an MTSS rubric with our leadership team. We surveyed the staff. We s surveyed the students and we looked at our overarching data. And so we we really think we've made a really good plan for next year. We're adding a fourth team to our schoolwide teams. We're adding a literacy team to the school. Um so now we'll have our instructional leadership team that will focus on our our instructional commitments and look at our our walkthrough data and how we're impacting tier one in our tier one instruction in our classroom. We'll still have our MTSS school team. We'll have our safe school climate team that will really focus on the SEAL curriculum and the ruler curriculum that you've already heard about from the other two schools. And now we're going to have some

119a literacy team that's going to take some of the science and reading stuff that we've learned from Broadbrook in the middle school and bring that into the high school to help improve our reading scores. Our core initiative next year are progress monitoring. It's going to everything's going to be under for monitoring. We're going to try to take the things that work with the MTSS team and now make it a whole school. So let's all look at what we're doing in our classrooms. monitor what we're doing and look at the data of what's going on in our classroom and then intervene in our classroom where we need to. So we have a pocket of students that isn't performing where we want them to within our classroom. How are we going to now fix that? So that's

120one of the things we want to do next year. We're going to stick with our instructional commitments. We're going to add a literacy focus. Um building off what the middle school has done with vocabulary. We're going to continue that trend at the high school. Um so we're going to kind of use some of this common language that the middle school's using and the science of reading modules that um they use. We're going to now implement those the high school the rulercl curriculum and then once again the intervention stuff that I talked to you earlier today about um continuing with that work. >> No, I'm just I'm really just proud of what you guys have done. I know it's >> you say that. >> Hey, I'm a ringer. No, I just you guys have the hardest

121group to teach and you're making progress and thank you. >> So my understanding that that the earlier grades are feeding you more students that have progressed more so that it's going to help improve absolutely high school. >> You can see you're seeing you can see it 100%. I mean, the ninth grade cohort this year is a dream. They were just a dream of a cohort. Um, but but but they I mean, they have their challenges, too, but they're but their challenges are very very manageable. Like, you can it's it's a lot. They're just more ready for school. >> They're coming in. >> Yeah. They know they have to come to school every day. The attendance thing is not a big issue as much anymore. Behavior, you know, behavior is behavior. It's going to it's going

122to have pockets. It's going to raise its ugly little head every once in a while. Um, but academically, I think they are much stronger. you know, you look at that ninth grade data and and it really is carrying school right now. So, I think um I do think we're making huge gains and it's from a lot of the work that the Broadbrook School and the middle school are doing. So, hopefully we can continue the trend. So, >> good job, guys. >> Congratulations to both and that transition. I mean you're you're learning from you know from the middle the middle is gonna take a big impact. >> I just want to say that when I started 5 years ago there was absolute need for improvement and as it started here where it needed to. We have

123progressed so much farther than I thought we would in 5 years. you've all done an outstanding job. Um, I mean, everybody knew that it needed to be revamped dramatically, that our teachers needed to be rettaught and uh, they're little children is, you know, that's the product we're working with. They can't fix like that. Um, but we have made sustained progress from the youngest children and now it's getting to the high school in a much faster time than I thought that we could that we would do it. So, kudos to all of you for everything you've done. >> I agree. Actually, um, when we started, Morin and I started at the same time. um as as did our superintendent and he and he didn't have great information for us back then. It was really not always

124happy news, but he said um and and I was just telling somebody this the other day. He said, "I have a plan. You're going to have to stick with it. It's not always going to be easy or go well, but we're going to stick with it and it's a plan and it will succeed." So absolutely kudos to you all and and Patrick as well. >> Thank you for the way you take care of my >> applause. The rest of you guys, >> you know, there's an applause for the other two schools. >> Mr. Know who supports you. I don't make it. It's Mr. Saturday intention >> being applauded verbally. >> Waiting for your speech. >> Thank you all for that. Um I know it's a long It makes for a long meeting, but I find

125it serious. Um so we're on to the superintendent report. >> Uh yes, I have a few updates. Uh so our teacher of the year was announced this morning. Um we did post on uh social media. Um it's Amy Wise, a fourth grade uh teacher. Um was recognized in front of her class with her family uh district and school administration. Um I can tell you she's been an outstanding practitioner uh for a number of years now. welld deserving and her love for kids is evident in every day of her. >> Facebook. >> Um, thank you Tim for uh speaking on the walk earlier. Um, so I did have an update on that and we will uh we'll have that as a future social media post as well too. But uh that was very nice as well.

126Um, I did send it uh an email along with the packet, but Darl and I did recently participate in a podcast hosted by Focus Schools to speak on the topic how central office leadership can support building based leadership and teaching learning on so that recording is out. Uh, focus schools will also be hosting. Did they already meet with the three principles or that's >> Monday. So that's scheduled >> Tuesday. Um so they'll be meeting with our three principles um um to do a podcast um discussing the important work taking place in each of their schools uh to improve the daily teaching and learning focusing really on the actions that you just saw um that they highlighted in their presentations and they will also speak about the alignment and cohesion um across the buildings. >> How

127did that podcast happen? I mean, >> so they've done uh consultant work in um our schools um over uh the last uh few years uh primarily focusing on our instructional uh teacher leadership work um but they also provide consultation um uh services across school districts across the country and they approached us to highlight the work because they felt like what we're doing is very unique. Um, so certainly feel privileged. Um, and uh, yeah, so that's how that took place. Um, Laura this week had an interesting uh, outreach from a community member um, Patricia Sullivan um, with an exciting opportunity for our students to help name the two uh, Eaglids currently living at Beline. Um, so they're reportedly 9 weeks old. Um and updates uh can be found on the Broadbrook um bald eagles Facebook page

128um which I will say I have gone on since and it does feature many wonderful photos and videos of the Eagles and their young. Uh so one of our classroom programs which has spent um the la last two years closely following Jackie and Shadow, the famous Bald Eagles of Big Bear, California and their Eagllets took this opportunity very seriously >> and after careful consideration of seven different pairs of names. Uh they narrowed it down to two finalists and was informed today that it's Millie and Yoshi were selected. excited. Um we appreciate the outreach uh from the community member and uh our kids enjoyed it very much. So that just took place this week. So uh that's really it for updates. Thank you. So we have old business. Um 20 27 um budget is the first

129item and um I don't know if who had time to read the email that I sent. I didn't send it till like 3:00 this afternoon, but I I would like I know that the the administrative team has been working hard on trying to figure out what we're going to do for our budget, but since the final decision was just last night, certainly we can't expect them to have it all together. Um, and I think it it's important for them to have some feedback from us, um, as to what priorities are or ideas that we might have. Um, and I usually start at the far end, but I'm going to start and go this way this time. Um so um Norin, if you would start with with your thoughts on um where we should head um

130with the budget or >> so it' be helpful for me to summarize the finance committee like >> oh yeah that's a good little bit about the finance committee um talked about earlier. >> Okay. So we could do that first. >> Yeah. So um so the budget freeze that we implemented has helped with the end of the year. Um as we've uh stated uh really just will go into the 2% and help offset next school year. Um uh to date we have currently reduced uh the budget by uh four salaries. Um so that was already uh done. That's where we are. Um then just based on end of the year financials and I want to stress very very preliminary salary adjustments with incoming replacement new staff. So staff we know that are leaving. We're hiring those

131new staff. Um those are working to our benefit and open enrollment. Um um we do not anticipate any further reductions to staff. contingent. Want to stress contingent contingent contingent. Uh that the $226 um,764 of state educational supplemental funding is applied in addition to the 2% and not as an offset. So if it's replied as a reduction to the mill rate, then we're likely looking at additional staff reduction. So certainly u Monday's uh board of finance uh meeting is uh uh very important to understand where we truly stand financially with that supplemental um uh state educational funding. Do we know um just from the meeting like they didn't seem to have an answer at all? Like do we know what their progress is in learning how that money's like are we expecting them to know that

132at the June 15th meeting? I would I would respect um expect I mean um impress upon um that uh we need to uh know where where they stand because obviously um it impacts >> our decisions um uh going forward. I will say my concern um like from the board of finance that leadership did say after the meeting they felt that um money should go to uh uh the board of education and seemed to indicate they'd be willing to take a vote if that was necessary. Um, now that was one member obviously not representing the entire group. Um, but that that was positive >> and I think we need to ask for a a definite answer one way or the other. We can't continue down this path >> Yeah. >> of planning unless we know >>

133that it's outside legislation and it's not coming from >> the town from a tax thing. It seems to me that it's it's additional. But >> yeah, what do I know? >> Um, by they have no option but to do it on Monday. They have to set the mill rate by the end of day 15. So, this situation's got to be resolved Monday. >> And where they're putting that money will make a difference. and they have to pay they have to then have the tax bills go out so they don't have time to wait after that >> decision I'm sure will be done you know yeah and I think I talk about this I think as well >> so aside from uh gofundme any other ideas or priorities are definitely don't do this or I I

134don't want to I don't want to cut staff period. I want to cut any staff if we can avoid it. Um and knowing the number would be very helpful in figuring it out. Um but unfortunately we're kind of stuck in Monday evening. Um and truthfully um I'd like to hear what everybody else says. I I spend so much time on this and and trying to back in the I literally I spreadsh trying to figure out if they go that way, what's it going to do over here? What's it going to do over there? of um kind of confused but priority is to keep as the teachers where they are to the best of our ability for me. We spent a lot of time training everybody. We spent a lot of time getting this up going

135and um it's a priority for me. >> Uh well, I agree with Norine that it's a priority, but I've been giving some thought to I don't know. Could we approach local businesses and ask them to sponsor a grade? Could we um I don't even various grade booster clubs, you know, we had booster club for sports robust music booster club for music. Uh, I mean, I realize with the lack of um people going to the polls that I'm sure there's going to be a lack of folks interested in in running these things, but um I'm just trying to consider possible additional revenue sources that we would be able to offset some of this shortfall with. That's my piece. Um, I mean, again, I think it's hard without knowing what's actually going to be happening with that

136money, which it needs to be stated. I fully think I I don't understand how it could go any other way besides coming to education. But with that being said, um, I would agree with Norine that I would obviously like to keep staff in place. Um, I also have full confidence that Patrick and Ryan will be, what do you call it? squeezing the pennies scream all the pennies are going to be screaming so loud. Um yeah, I mean our school all the needs they're they're set. We need everything. Don't have I mean I would I'm still kicked off Gary. I'm with you. Well, I mean, first I I really have a lot of faith in Brian and Patrick to make the decisions that Angel made. Really do agree with them. Um, I think after tonight and

137hearing a lot of information tonight, um, I would especially want the high school to make sure that it has the tutors that we can afford and the intervention and specialists that we can afford there because obviously it's definitely needed there and it's not needed everywhere, but um, I think that would be a big priority for me is definitely keeping that stuff in place there. Anything else? Sure. But I don't know. I mean, we need everything. So, it is what it is. It's not an easy decision if things do and I don't want to be the one to make all those decisions either because it's not easy decisions to make, you know, but hopefully it will work out. Money's coming to us and >> Betsy. >> Yeah. I think um I mine already if we're looking

138at right now. And again, like I said, everything's up in the air, but my priority is to maintain classroom teachers in teaching positions. That would be a priority for me uh overall in terms of what's happening particularly. Um it's even if for a year we have to maintain what we have and just kind of sustain what we have for a year I I really believe that that those classroom classroom instruction is really um a key for me. >> I mean I don't even know I mean just like I completely agree with everyone else. Um, I think in the email that you had sent out earlier, you said the projection would be a reduction in about $78,000 that we've been looking at. Um, >> that's what we lost last night. Yeah. So, >> so yeah. So,

139assuming that and that's assuming that we're able to retain the $260 some odd dollars, right? Um, >> no. So, that's that's kind of like that's where we are right now. So, but like that 77 plus thousand has already been reduced. So, like the summary I gave, we're already kind we're already there. So, >> you're saying it could potentially go up by a further reduction of >> like based on where we are like we can maintain what we have assuming that we have the 226. Well, if we don't have the 226, then we have to reduce by that amount >> by the 726. Okay. Okay. Okay. I I mean, yeah, I think ideally I would like to see us maintain the services that we have, but I don't even know other than staff positions, like I

140don't even know where what line items we could cut from that would hit that 226 number. Um, I would hate to see a reduction in staff. And Patrick, do you I don't know if you have this answered yet. Would that be a reduction in like instructional faculty like your regular like teachers or would that be more support staff that you're looking >> Yeah, I wouldn't be comfortable speaking to that because I would speak with those individuals first if if they were being considered. >> Um, yeah. I mean, I don't know if there's any other line items that we could reduce from. I don't know. I mean, I'm just looking at like miscellaneous things. Like, I feel like everything that we have in here is already like the bare minimum. So, it's hard to say like

141where we could even cut from. Um, I feel like in the past, technology has always been one that we've pulled from and that's kind of that we've had to sacrifice. I don't know if that's something we could continue to chip away at moving forward or if that's like an absolute necessity. Again, I you know, in normal times would not advocate for that, but I don't know if there's any room there. Um I just I just don't I don't know. Um can you also clarify um I mean I'm just looking at the budget that you had presented to us earlier this year. Um what is it? I just lost it. Um instructional supplies. So what's the difference between the schoolbased instructional supplies line items versus the district instructional supplies? I can speak to that for school

142days first. >> So looks like there's it looks like there's separate line items for like instructional supplies under each school and then there's another line item for the district. >> The districtwide one is is typically connected to uh like curriculum purchases. >> Okay. >> Um you'll see there's general supplies in there as well. So usually general supplies is more of like um uh you know not paper, not notebooks, not test materials. It' be um you know facilities for example it's you know toilet paper, paper towels, things like that. Um things not related directly to instruction. Um >> but as far as the supplies go, I know we we >> pretty much exhausted every avenue there. >> Yeah. >> I mean it's not going to get us 226,000 unfortunately. >> Yeah. I don't Okay. I just

143wanted to be sure because I know it's been said um in the past and recently that the board of ed has, you know, has to have a say in in what cuts are made. And um I've heard publicly from from people that, you know, there are other priorities that they think the public thinks are, you know, possible savings. Um uh administration is always one. Bill lo will always say, "I only got one principal. Why do we need to um why do we have to have somebody that specializes in curriculum?" You know, we hear all that stuff. I want to be sure that if if you all are hearing that and and you're comfortable bringing that up, then we need to talk about it. But bring >> I have two things to say. >> First, with

144respect to the public, that's here today. >> And not not to be nasty or anything, but when 1,000 people come out to vote on the budget and then you see all these naysayers on Facebook commiting and they're they're putting out weird and wacky things that people don't understand, but they just sound good. >> Um, I don't get people coming up to talk to me much. >> Yeah. >> I I I meet a lot of parents. I I don't you know I don't >> well I I've been sitting at the polls for three referendums so those thousand people you have better access to that than I but um >> and trust me I'm an advocate for everything that we're doing here. >> Yeah. No, I know that and I just wanted to get it on the

145record that I think that every person that we are currently employing is responsible for all of that. Daryl for coming up with ideas and getting out and all of you people for implementing all of that stuff. Our kids are getting a far better education now than they were 5 10 years ago. And I thank you all very much and I think that you are all necessary. So if somebody says to me that we have too many vice principles or because I've heard that stupid one before. >> Yeah. I mean just to speak to that a little bit because I actually had the opportunity to research that a little bit because that came up. I don't know if it was our last board meeting or our last board's uh finance subcommittee meeting. Um it did come

146off. >> Um and the meetings went together a little bit. >> Um I will say um I went on Edite because you can look at the data. Um now the data will go from like 25 to uh like you pull it out for 24 25 and some of the data will be from the previous school year and some will be from 23 24. Uh but if you look at our districtwide and school um administrators on at site, our total is 10. And then if you um look at our closest alliance districts, so alliance districts with similar needs, especially like when you look at our free and reduced lunch, uh you have Enfield, Windsor, Windsor Locks. They're all also um alliance districts are all bordering obviously different sizes. Uh but Enfield has 39, Windsor has over

14730, and Windsor Locks has about 11. Um so you take Windsor Locks, their closest size. Um you start to look at some of their other resources a little bit more. They also have seven more school counselors, social workers, and school psychologists. I believe they also have an SRO at every single building. Um and then digging deeper in the data a little bit, our free and reduced lunch is the highest among all those districts. So even among the high needs districts, we have the highest need yet. I mean, I know we saw the data, but we also have the lowest percent for chronic absenteeism and we have the highest percentage of students on goal for smarter val balance assessments for math and reading. So we're also performing at higher level than those surrounding um uh districts.

148Um and I can tell you I just completed uh the evals um for our building administrators. They're doing over 350 walkthroughs per year. That's not going to happen if you're reducing it. We're talking about the instructional work. That's not going to happen if you can't have targeted feedback coaching on best instructional practices. And then I know we looked at the work of our pathways. Um the uh revision work that takes place with our curriculum over uh summer. Um and let's not forget the traditional like responsibilities for school climate and discipline. um like that's going to drop. And then uh I dug a little deeper. I looked at East Graanby. Uh they're closest to us in distance and enrollment. They have actually less enrollment to us. Um they have about nine administrators. Um so we have

149one more, but one of our administrators is fully grant funded. Um and um oh by the way, they do pay about 2,000 um more per student of local tax money per pupil. Um so just to put it I mean that narrative is out there. Hopefully that gives you a little data comparison um as far as not just from the funding the performance um but numbers. So I I would argue I would strongly argue that like um like we have the appropriate amount. Patrick, the other thing and and I you know I've said this before too when people talk about bigger school systems and and the you know um and I know full well that you may have a big school system but a big school system is difficult of course to manage but you know

150what a smaller school system has unique needs as well in terms of administration and providing services for for kids on a you know on a on a different kind of a budget. basis in terms of what we have. You still have to provide quality education. You still have a certain amount of students in a classroom. And so the you know that rationale about well you're a small school system, you don't need all that is quite frankly I'm saying other words but it's below me in terms of in terms of what I what I believe. >> Well, I would give you another step of that is the when they start quoting the per pupil to you, you have to turn the lights on in every building. You have to heat them up. You have to have

151water. You have to have food. And all these things there. There are there are fixed costs that you know before you even open the door. All of these things need to be paid. And it's a small town. And then we've also had people say, "Well, you should combine with somebody else." Nobody wants us. >> It's not like we have an ax. Well, they they will pretty soon. They're going to be wanting to come. They're gonna be jealous. >> Yeah. >> So for all of them who keep saying that you spend too much money on the students, I think it's bologoney. >> Well, when you spend the money on the students, I think what it what it means is that students are getting you know that whole part of you obviously talked remember the parent that

152stood up at the last meeting. This was at the um this was at the public >> uh for the uh transportation. Yes. And she wasn't she wasn't there to talk about her child. She stood up and talked about her child who had special needs and what the school system is doing for her child. Now, I think if that is a strategy, if we could get a parent every once in a while to just be there and say, "I want you to know this about my ch child." We can sit up there and we can talk about things until the cows come home, they say, "We heard from you before." But another, you know, another parent being there every once in a while will make a big difference in what they have to consider and think

153about. I also think that we need to put more of our uh successes, get them out more, and then we all make an effort to share that out to everywhere because I'm sick and tired of hearing people saying that our reading and our kids can't read and write and and do math when they get out of here. That's ridiculous. And we need to promote ourselves better because we're far better than that. Far better. That's my own. We're in a really difficult times because of um because of our brandless debacle and things I think have gotten escalated >> too because there are competing interests and unfortunately when things like this happen there there is a um natural inclination to protect oneself or on the side and that has really reared its head this year. Um, I've

154had people saying to me what I'm hearing that you have all this money in this special fund and blah blah blah blah blah, which is our 2% fund. And I have explained to those people that yes, there is money in this 2% fund. We utilize some of it. We are very, very prudent with it because we are in a different situation than you know and the question was actually asked me well why doesn't the town site get that so they can do whatever they want and I'm like you know first of all I'm not going to get into that with you but I'm going to tell you our side we have a 2% on because the legislature realized that we have a massive special ed situation that's why they created it was because special ed

155is so unpredictable years ago they realized we got to do something to help Um, we utilize that money very judiciously to ensure that we are reducing the tax burden as much as we can because we are the highest percentage in town because we are. But we cannot just take that money and just go spend it on whatever. we have to worry about if a special ed student moves in and needs out placement that we have $200,000 to cover it because that might be what it costs because the only other way for us to get that money and and the person I had this conversation with was kind of like oh I didn't know that. I said you know the only other way to get the money is for us to go to the board of

156finance and ask for an added appropriation which is possible which requires a town meeting. And what if it fails? They don't give us the money. We don't get the money. So then what we have to do is we have to go over back to wherever we have to go to to come up with $200,000. And that means saying, okay, I use third grade as an example this year because my granddaughter So we have to go in and say, guess what? Tomorrow you're all getting split up among the other three classes because we can't afford to pay for your teacher anymore because we have to do that. So, we can't just don't have this pot of money that we're just willy-nilly going out and buying flowers or something with. We sit on the money and we

157use it as we have to and we're very we have to be very cognizant of what we're spending it on. It's not some random pot of money. Um, and I don't think because of how things have gotten so difficult this year, there's a lot of that going on. And that's not it's not healthy. And um if anybody approaches anybody about those kinds of things, I think it's important for us to just stand firm in we have a very good grasp on our finances. We plan based on what our plan is, not not pulling things out one day because we feel like it. um that everything has been set up in a strategic plan and we are best suited to make those decisions because we have the information. Not that we aren't hiding anything. You can

158have anything you want. Um and then the idea that the same person is like, "Yeah, but on niche our test score like oh my god, niche is a forprofit marketing company. If we want to pay them, we got great score because they'll do whatever you want." um don't go but it perpetuates itself and unfortunately we're stuck there but I think the people who get approached we just need to kind of stand firm in we have absolutely seen marked progress there's no doubt that our kids are progressing there's absolutely no doubt when you look at a bar graph at the end of the year that says our first graders there's only this much red that much Um, and back to the budget part of it, once everything gets laid out and we know what's going on

159with this $227,000, and I am very very not a person who wants to spend any more money than we have to out of that 2% fund. But if it comes down to a a position that we need, Patrick, I would might be willing to go and take a little more out of there than we had anticipated >> and keep our fingers crossed. Oh, and go >> and then if we got to go to the gofundme route, maybe we do >> go, you know, I mean, well, I think with caution to the to the board of finance that we'll do that, but please understand now we don't have that reserve if we need it for special. And that being said, I don't I'm not super hopeful about the budget for next year given that it's going

160to be a revalid year and I think people are also going to be upset by the hit in taxes that they're going to experience this upcoming year. >> Well, the reval will be the year after. The reval starts the reval numbers follow 27. That's always >> No, but they hit for the They hid for the >> But they'll know what their value is and they'll be projecting and they won't be happy. >> Yeah. I There's always something. >> They're so expensive. Like honestly, as a taxpayer and as a person like it's just very expensive. So like I I can understand in some way why people are not wanting to raise taxes more >> and it's unfortunate because our costs always go up. But I do think it's probably going to be a trend with how

161expensive wise it just gone. And >> I was going to say the economy itself. >> We're not the only community that that had referendum and then it failed. I've seen summers all around us. But I wish people could understand, you know, and I wish people could understand if you if you read some of the research, good school systems is are one of the the most positive things as far as economic development for our community. And you know, good school systems bring business, business bring families, families, you know, invest. And it's got to get better. will get better, but it's got to get built and good school systems provide that vehicle. >> Okay, I think we've gotten Wait, we've given you enough feedback. >> Yes, >> Brian's calling out tomorrow. >> Did you have anything you

162wanted to add to that? >> No, no. I I mean, I feel like I have a solid understanding where we are. Um it's really just having next piece of information on how to proceed and um recommendations bring forward to uh the board. But that's critical information uh to have um um that we'll have uh Monday night. >> I think you certainly have full support of the board in in whatever sounds across the board that we're all on board with what's happening for us. >> I appreciate the trust. Thank you. And that's you have the trust because you've proven you and Darl and Ryan and everybody that's here tonight. Um, you make it easy to sell. We just have a tough tough customer that we got to sell to. Okay. Um, then we'll move on to

163the school renovation project. >> Um, you have a memo in your uh packet. I mean, I don't Yeah, >> I feel like it's a pretty good summary if you had time to read it. It's kind of where we are right now. We have an ad hoc uh committee uh ad hoc committee meeting meeting next Thursday and uh I'd imagine uh there will be some good discussion at that point. >> He didn't. Yeah. So, it would be good for anybody that that's interested in that to to join in. Um leaison and subcommittees. I don't remember. >> You had no comments at the beginning of the last thing. You don't remember this one? >> At the board of selection meeting, which is where they held the town meeting, um the the money was approved to to get

164moved to us for the purchase of the the van. or one man. Correct. >> One. >> Anyone else? >> Okay. Public participation. >> Um any miscellaneous? >> Said one. the um church lighting team offices have their annual golf uh fundraisers. So golf them. So if you need information, you may contact me because I'm on the booster club for that as well. Um when is it? >> It's August 30th. It's a Sunday that's actually going to be uh maybe it's St. An's. >> Oh, St. >> Yeah, it's in feeding hills. Uh so if anybody they're looking for forsomes it's going to be fun dinner lunch everything included and always looking for sponsors we sponsors and prizes but good time >> nobody else miscellaneous >> not a miscellaneous update but question for the next ad hoc meeting

165are the representatives going to be invited to that because I know that was something that we talked about last time >> um CSG and uh the diamond group >> or the state >> legislators >> can I mean I I can invite them >> I I personally feel strongly that that should happen. I think that there should be a conversation collectively between us and them um just based off of what Jamie had reported to us last time. I feel like that was the biggest mishap in just the miscommunication that kind of fell apart throughout the process. So even if it's just they come to this meeting and then >> and the senator >> if that I don't know >> you have to recall only um Brett Foster only came to the board event so the rest

166of the ad hoc committee is going um be catching up a little bit >> which is why I think all of them should be there so that that conversation can happen amongst everyone that's involved in the process rather than just continuing to be silent. >> Okay. I I I don't know if anyone else feels the same way and I know it's difficult to get them all on the same timeline to attend a meeting but at least extending the invite gaps. >> Did you say standing invite? >> No, just maybe for the I know that was also something that we had talked about. I think we should do a standing invite which would give them dates of every meeting and if they care to pop in, they care to pop in and if there is a

167meeting that has something that we think is particularly important that they attend, then we star it. But >> you mean for the ad hoc committee? >> Yes. >> Well, let me just say it's not bad news to me, but I think this is the last meeting of this ad hoc committee because it was an 18month committee. So that has to be part of this discussion itself next week of what goes on after this you know I mean are they going to extend it? >> Can we as a board start our >> I think we need to have a yeah regroup. >> I think I think I think the board of ed needs to regroup on what they're doing but remember that we're in partnership with the town because they're the ones that would do the

168financing. So, we can't just come to them with a fully done cake and say, "Okay, now you pay for it." >> That's not what I'm saying. But I'm saying, can we Yes, you guys have the pocketbook, so we're going to invite you, you know, so you'll be a part of it. But if it will be led by our side and not that side next time, >> but it is led by ours. I mean, >> no, it hasn't been. >> Well, Denise has been the chair. >> It's supposed to be the chair, but it's supposed to be shared. But things are happening both board of selectmen and the board of governor. >> It was not the other committee. You're right. Michael >> well and we weren't really aware of what was happening which was became clear

169at our last meeting. >> Certainly through there were things that Yeah. Yes. >> I personally think I'm not on anti but I think it needs to come back to us. I keep not necessarily long term, but I think we need to bring it back here and regroup and refocus and figure out where are we going with this. Um, I keep going back to when we met at the South Windsor schools, um, with the superintendent of South Windsor and they were not successful in their first go around trying to get their plan done. >> And she she she was very clear about keep it in the school. >> When you start bringing in the outside factions, that's your downpart because they have competing interests. And when they brought it back just to the school, they were

170successful and they got their 10-year plan done with like 10 schools or something. Um, and that makes logical sense. You know, you have competing interests. You you just naturally do. So, um, we do have to be you have to involve the town at some point, but I think maybe we need to regroup and refocus as to where are we and whatnot. So, but So we have the the ad hoc committee meeting next week and I think after that meeting maybe we as board have a discussion. Um we have the last meeting of the of the this fiscal year. So that one might be kind of full but the following one which would be in July. we could actually have a room. we could have a fun, you know, I was thinking about the Donald in

171terms of so a lot of times I mean kind of kind of starting as as you said pausing and then regrouping because I think those somehow we have to involve the community in terms of the investment piece and I'm talking about I'm talking about not financial investment but investment in their you know in their uh report and you know I'm I'm just knowing what what he was talking about and what he was talking about was really kind of just continuing to try and have these conversations on a ongoing basis and it's not through Facebook. It's just not going to happen. No, >> it's got to be more relational, I think. So, as I said today in the email about thinking about agenda items, jot down ideas that you have for for that kind of discussion

172for our first July meeting. Um, and you know, it'll be and and you'll get more information or ideas probably from the ad hoc meeting and who knows what else is going to happen in the meantime, but um yeah. Okay, thank you everybody. Um, we have an executive session. We only have 10 minutes and I don't think it'll it'll be enough um because it's the superintendent's um evaluation. And Brian, you and I had said at the last meeting that we would write down everybody's ideas. Patrick, you did say you had the folders, correct? >> I do. Yep. >> So, um, we'll we'll get those sculptures back again. I am freezing. >> 72. >> Your airflow across. You're in it. >> So, um, I suggest that we we beyond 9:30. I think we can extend it beyond

1739:30 without being specific as to 10:00 or 10:30 or whatever. >> 9:30 is not >> to extend it. You're not thinking of it. >> Okay. >> Well, I am saying that I'm staying here until 10:30. >> Me neither. >> So, >> I'll make a motion to extend the meeting beyond 9:30. >> So, the motion's made by Free and seconded by who? By Gabby. >> I'll make a motion to go into executive session. >> Wait, wait, wait. need to fly. I mean, >> I'm sorry. Sorry. >> I won't fly out of >> all those in favor. >> I opposed. Okay. Now, >> I make a motion to enter executive sessions to include Patrick Hudran, superintendent of schools. >> Second made by Narin, seconded by Courtney. Any discussion? Those in favor? You know, twins.