State Board of Education Meeting - 6/3/2026

001like to call the state Connecticut state board of education meeting to a >> order [laughter] to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Welcome all and happy June and finally looking like weather out there, which is nice. And happy Pride Month everyone. We're going to start with our public participation. I will remind you at the front of the table to please state your name address and there is a three minute limit on those remarks if you could call. Good morning. I'll be calling um people for public participation two at a time. The first two speakers this morning are Javon uh Javon and Joseph Scolopic. Hello commissioner and board members. My name is Javon Zakalovic 34

002Burnsburg Avenue Bridgeport Connecticut speaking on behalf of Joseph Sakovvic and future students of Bridgeport. We are going on record today so there's no confusion next year when the state inevitably tries to change the narrative. So, we are telling you today why Bridgeport will require approximately $30 million in additional funding in fiscal year 2020. We want you to plainly we want to state plainly what that number will not reflect. It will not reflect mismanagement nor overspending. It will not be a local failure. It will be the predictable and avoidable result of state decisions specifically on one time abundant that are not guaranteed. Bridgeport is currently relying on roughly $15 million in supplemental one-time ECS related funding and another $10 million in non-recurring tax stabilization grants. That is $25 million in temporary funding. These dollars are not

003outside of the ECS formula. They are not permanent and there are no built-in increase for fiscal year 2028 to replace them. Only flat funding at best. Before we discuss any expansion or improvement, we are already facing a 25 million hold from the expiration of these one-time measures and $15 million in escalated costs. Bridgeport escalated costs are mainly driven by contractual obligations and inflammation. This is not discretionary spending. This is not this is the cost of keeping the system operating at its current level. Additionally, there is $5 million that was authorized by the general assembly that has still not been released. Students are absorbing impact. When you put this together, the math is simple. A loss of temporary funding combined withheld funds and going on ongoing cost pressures results in a structural gap approaching $30 million

004to school board cuts. Nothing is wrong with Bridgeport. This outcome exactly is exactly what happens when temporary funding is used to solve permanent problems. This is not stabilization. It's just it's just delay. We've seen this pattern before. A 2013 study identified many of the same issues we're discussing today, including a foundation level as two low povers that understand need and a wealth calculation that distorts a district's true ability to be. board members uh Joseph Kov 334 Burnswood Avenue Connecticut as my son said the poverty foundation level is way too low to pay rates understate the need and the well calculation that distorts the district's true ability to pay. Many of the recommendations from this 2013 study were never fully implemented. So while current reviews are important, they will not matter if the conclusions are allowed

005to sit on the shelf for another 13 years. With that in mind, we want to place into the record a set of recommendations based [clears throat] on the existing ECS formula. First, the foundation amount must be increased to 17,500, beginning with a minimum of 14,500, increasing by $750 a year for the next four years to move us closer to the actual cost of education. Second, the formula must better account for concentrated poverty in districts where poverty levels approach 90%. Small changes in waiting create significant differences. Increasing the poverty would more accurately capture the true cost of educating high need students. Third, the wealth calculations must be corrected. Current formula weights property wealth at 70% and income at 30% overstating local capacity. typing to a 40% property and 60% income model which better reflect actual fiscal

006reality when these adjustments applied are applied together formula produces approximately 30 to $35 million for Bridgeport not a bailout it's what the formula yields when it reflects real work conditions which would help all districts see basically equitably um equally important and predictably establishing an an annual foundation increase which would allow funding to keep pace with rising costs Bridgeport is not asking for more than our kids deserve. It is asking for honesty and funding and a system that reflects equity rather than temporary temporary appearance. Finally, special education received grants must be fully funded. Now that's 15% but at 100%. And the reimbursement rates for excess cost must increase as well. Got we got to drop that four.5 times. It's at least 3 plus 5 3.5 or 100 cost shares. at the emergency. If this is not

007done, a negative outcome will not be as surprised. It will be the result of decisions already in motion. Today is June 3rd, 2026. We are going on record to make sure the record is clear for next year. Thank you. >> Thank you. The next two speakers are Sarah Fer and Jasmine. >> Do it again. >> Yes. Go ahead. Hi, I'm my name is Sarah Turner and I live at 115 Riverview AB in New London, Connecticut and I'm here today to speak about our Connecticut statute, the school governance council. I had started reaching out to the state department of education in the spring of 2025. We in New London are [clears throat] required to have school governance council under the Connecticut General Statutes, but we failed to have one since before co I've been working with

008members from the State Department, John Brezanelli, Judy Carson. I did actually get into a um Zoom meeting with the commissioner earlier this year and expressed my concerns. It is now June. We did the school did hold an election process. um there were members that were elected and then I went back to all the information that's provided on the state department of education website and clearly even though the state department indicated that they were instructing the school on how to do it correctly, it obviously is not in line with what's on the website. I watched the video. I've read the everything. I printed out some emails for you all today. I did send another request to Judy Carson and John Brazanelli and the principal on Monday. I failed to be able to ever get anyone on

009the phone or via email often. Um it's just kind of like kicking the can down the road. The commissioner did acknowledge when I was in that zoom, that parent zoom a few months ago that there does need to be some um revisit to school governance council as it sounds like maybe in its current outdated form. It's not in the best structure to meet the needs of the the schools and the communities it serves. But I will say I reached out to Windham schools yesterday and they still although they said it doesn't always work the best but they still have their school governance council up and going and the reason why they said they do is because they received title one funds and so they have an obligation to follow the statute in New London. I've

010been asking for this. My daughter who is now going to be going into her senior year. I had been asking for the last two years just to get some help and support. The state has indicated they've come down several times and have reassured me time and time again we would get this going. So what am I asking for today? I'm just asking for clarity. If we are no longer going to follow the Connecticut statute or any of the things that are on the website, please just tell me. then I can stop wasting my time and your time and everyone's time on trying to, you know, implement something that is no longer in its current standing. But I think that it sounds like we're not the only district that is um suffering with um this, you

011know, um outdated maybe um legislation and um it is very difficult especially as I listen to Bridgeport talk about their financial struggles. We obviously in New London have the same issue and when we are going through a process where we are deciding last minute to close an entire school and an entire program and there's really no community input. Um there's plans being submitted to the state but we have no we we don't know what those plans are and um it is really difficult every year going into school not knowing what to expect what what what guidance we have and my understanding is that you know our local department of education >> oh sorry local department of education is like a pass through for the state department of education you know to work on the behalf.

012So, I would just ask that please, you know, please get us some guidance soon before we get to next year so we know what we need to do. Thank you. >> Um, my name is Jasmine Jones. I am or I want to say street, Connecticut. I'm here uh to advocate for Amastad Academy Middle School. Uh, my son is a scholar there now in the fifth grade. He started at Amastad um in first grade where I decided to put him because I saw the work that was being done in the classrooms as a staff member at the middle school. So when I made the decision to enroll him in Amastad as a parent knowing all of the hard work as teachers are pouring into our scholars, I knew it was what was best for my my

013student. Um, I'm I'm really here as a parent just advocating on the behalf of our charter regional. Not only am I a parent who's deeply invested in my son's education, I also work at the middle school. I've been at the middle school for 11 years where I have poured into hundreds of children and hundreds of children have poured into me. I know for certain without a shadow of a doubt that we are changing lives at my school. And to even think about there being a possibility of the charter not being renewed and how that would affect the families, the kids, our community, it is it is devastating. Um, I'm not sure if or where anybody is from, but if anybody has ever come out to our school community events where not only our scholars come

014out, but the children in our neighborhood, even if they don't go to our school, participate in these events and it is a a lovely place to be. >> Thank you. The next two speakers, Tiffany Johnson and Tanisha Eper. Good morning. My name is Tiffany Johnson. I live at 470 Howard Avenue, Connecticut. And I just wanted to say thank you to the state for renewing the charter. As a parent who has been part of this community for the past seven years, this decision means more to me than words can fully express. This school has shaped not only my child's education, but their confidence, growth, and future. Over the years, I've watched teachers, staff, and leadership porn to our students academically, emotionally, and personally. Renewing this charter means continued opportunity, continued support, and continued beliefs in children

015like mine. It means families like ours can keep being a part of the community that pushes students to dream bigger, work harder, and believe in themselves. As a parent, there's no greater feeling than knowing your child is in a place where they are seen, challenged, supported, and loved. So today, I just want to sincerely say thank you for investing in our students, our families, and our future. Your decision truly impacts lives, and my family. >> Good morning. My name is Tana Edwards and I reside at 168 Tahoe Street West. I am requesting a waiver for the foundations of reading certification requirement. I have served as a special education teacher with New Haven public schools for the past 5 years working in a self-contained classroom supporting students with a wide range of behavioral and competencies. My

016instructional responsibilities include teaching reading, writing, and math as well as providing life skills instruction for grade two through 8th grade. For my upper grade students, I also support transition planning to prepare them to shift to high school. My professional experience has strengthened my commitment to the special education field and demonstrates my capability to serve diverse learners effectively. I earned my masters of arts and teaching and special education case from Southern Connecticut State University in 2022. Although I completed the program successfully, the um university was unable to recommend me for certification because I am no longer a student. As a result, passing the foundations of reading test has remained the only issue preventing me from obtaining my initial certification in special education. Despite my dedication, I have been unable to meet the certification requirements through this

017assessment. I have taken the foundation of the reading test five times without reaching the required passing score of 240. I have considerable time, efforts, and financial resources and preparation, including hiring the tutor, which is right here. Um, completing multiple structure literacy trainings during the 2024 2025 school year. Unfortunately, these efforts have not resulted in a passing outcome and the ongoing attempts have created financial hardships and significant emotional stress leading me to question my future and my career. I deeply committed to given the urgency of maintaining my employment and continuing to serve the students who rely on my support. I respect respectfully request consideration for a waiver and then attach other documents showing my complete foundation to rename testing score. Thank you. I've never spoken with Michael. >> The next speaker are Are you Donna? >>

018I am Donna. Okay. Yeah. And I wasn't on the list and I know how to count to two. >> I have you I have you on the list as Donna. >> Okay. Is this on? >> Yes, it is. >> Okay. My name is Donna Timone and I live at 55 West Prospect Street, New Haven, Connecticut. Um I taught New Haven for 30 years. I'm still in Haven tutoring part-time at sound school. I'm here as an advocate for Tasia Edwards whom I have tutored since her sophomore year in high and through college and definitely for foundations of reading. I would strongly urge you to wave the foundations of reading tests which is required and I understand that my reasons are that she is an effective teacher and this is also supported by her supervisor's input. If

019you think back on your own educational days from which teacher did you learn the most and why? It wasn't his or her credentials. It was the passion for teaching and that is what made you happy. It's excellent with the students you are teaching. So I would again ask that please wave uh requirement so that she can continue teaching and feel secure about her job. Thank you. >> Thank you. That concludes public participation for this morning. Thanks. >> Yep. >> Item number four, the consideration of the minutes. May I need a motion? >> Move. >> Second only addition um additions. All in favor of the chair. July just a minute. Start with you um attended the aggra science convention just last weekend. >> Thank thank you madam chair. Uh it was a fabulous uh session that

020we had at the Nawag High School. We had 700 people in attendance. Uh and there were a variety of competitions that they had. I was asked to judge the prepare speaking contests and we heard about everything from climate change to genetics and genomics uh to all the things that are happening with regard to to um to animal breeding. Uh we had the winner of our competition uh spoke about foreign land in connect in not only Connecticut but around the northeast and across the country. And so just a wide variety of outstanding young people coming together to talk about agriculture, natural resources, and food and nutrition because those are the areas that covered a mechanics as well. And so for anybody that's not aware, they also do some fantastic plant sales. And so I'm pushing them

021to do a passport to aggra science uh activities in their in their showrooms. They they have a variety of things they sell. We heard from uh our last speaker about Bridgeport. They they actually do fish sales. So, we've got some amazing young people out there getting ready to uh make career choices. And I thank you, Madam Chair, for allowing me to to share my my day with the aggra science students. Thank you for attending. Just a couple of reminders for the board members. Uh there is a blue ribbon celebration next Tuesday at Connor High School at 1:00. And a reminder, our next meeting [clears throat] is actually our retreat on August 5th and that will be held at Willow Fox Technical School in Meredith. You'll be getting much more information about that. We're going to

022move on to committee reports. The first one for item 6A, academic. >> Good morning everyone. The academic standards and assessment committee met on May 19th. We had three items for updates and discussion by committee members and just want to give the board notice that um or remind the board that part of this committee's process is that information around academic standards and assessment comes to the committee itself. We have an opportunity to digest it to provide feedback and these items some of these items will be brought to the full board. Um so you'll get the full benefits fuller benefits and the update. Uh we started off with a brief update around financial literacy for state statute um is now provided to students and they can receive up to a half a credit. Uh there was some

023recent press coverage about what's happening in schools around this which was very exciting particularly for those of us that come from a background where this was prioritized as a means of ensuring you know um financial security, financial stability and independence. We also had an update about the model curriculum that the department of education employs and an update about right to read and how important this is. you know that this state has a commitment that every student has the right to read at or above grade level independently and proficiently by the end of the third grade. So we received an update as to how that is progressing. I do want to thank Dr. Hughes and Irene Paresi for all of their support in this committee and ensuring that uh we receive these updates and again they

024in turn will be coming to the full. Want to thank the commissioner for her commitment to this as well. >> Thank you. Accountability and support. We met last month to review and get an update on a review of our charter schools. Our next meeting will be in two weeks on June 17th in which Hartford Public Schools will be only our only agenda item that day. Finance audit and budget. Mr. Harris. >> Good morning. Um our finance audit and budget committee we last met uh May 6. We are a committee that meets quarterly. So our next meeting probably will not take place until uh early September. Um [clears throat] the department as a whole is very busy uh with audits of uh various systems around the around the state and uh business as usual. >> Thank

025you. Bur legislation and policy. >> Thank you madam. Uh the legislation policy and development committee bypassed our meeting last month because Laura very graciously made to come and present to the whole board and we will not be holding any meetings today. uh there's nothing critical on our agenda due to the length of today's schedule. So, thank you. >> Yeah. Not have our tech schools or um psychologist with us today. So, I'll move on to NASBY. Um thank you to Dr. Lavis and Miss Record for attending our last member exchange. Um a lot of interesting things. In fact, right as of today, right now this morning, I guess the US Department of Education is taking on the education budget. Um, so we should be hearing a lot more and I'm sure Laura is right on that

026and looking at that, but they uh we always get a federal update on our meetings and that is taking place today. Um, we went into our um Northeast Exchange like we usually do during the call and a couple of um the main thing was a lot about screen time and and of course you see that all over the country that that's taking up NASA is taking up that I know CDA and AFC are taking up that issue as well. Um, I'm going to let the board member and I think some of the board members saw the the email from NASPY about there is a member exchange that is going to just concentrate and focus on screen time with a little bit of cell phone issue on Monday on June 8th. So, if you did not

027get that link, let me know and I'll make sure I send you out. Um, the person that is running it is the one that um, he has done, I believe he's from Utah. he supports and pushes a lot the digital delusion book um that he recommends everyone should read about um the screen time and really getting to the core piece of why we want what are we looking at what are we looking at as our end game some other things that we talked about during the p um the breakout session were personal pathways and so of course we know is right on that um our student members and how student members are elected or appointed to the board how long they serve was a topic that a lot of us for sharing and nasi within

028us some more from throughout the country on how that happens. Um and then oh snow days and makeups was discussed as well being in the northeast or the winter and um a lot of discussion on how the different states handle. It was interesting to hear um some still allow the virtual re virtual learning um adding on days how it's done the waiverss all that type of thing. Um so it was a it was a real interesting northeast conversation. Um, so that is it for NASBY and then your SER report is in your supplemental folder. Lots of really famous there as always. Thank you for that. I am going to ask for um an item to be moved at this point. Item 11. It is our student end of the year presentation by the state student

029advisory council on education. We have many students with us this morning that are just so eager to get back to school. Um and we I ask that we can move item 11 at this point in the HS. >> So we are on item 11 end of your presentation by the state student advisory. >> Thank you very much. Uh I'll have Paris our chief academic officer who work with the students uh to join. Uh it is always a delight to have our student voice in the room for board presentation. So with that, welcome. [cough] >> Can we stand please? >> Can some of us stand? >> Certainly. >> Yeah. So as mentioned we are the state student advisory council on education and our group will be presenting math today. Um, as we mentioned before, we are

030the state student advisory council of education and we're presenting our maps today. My name is Mood. I've been serving on board for about two years and I have the privilege attend the magnet school in Connecticut aerospace. I am Tasn Musa. I come from New Haven Academy. I saw some New Haven representation today and I have the privilege of representing New Haven and uh surrounding districts as the student. So today we our project focuses on um exploring the challenges and the opportunities in teaching and acquiring foundational math skills. Um, and our final goal was to ensure that every student in the state of Connecticut can acquire a strong mathematical foundational skills at a younger age. Next slide. The subjects for today are our math foundations, math applications, as well as the problem with math and the

031way to slave it and math equability and access. So, we will be starting with our student interviews. Um, I did interviews in the um district of New Haven and I did it with fifth graders and I also did it with seventh and eighth graders. So, we started with the younger grades to see when they were learning their foundational skills like decimals and fractions. 100% of them were having troubles with them. They were confused. they were they found them really difficult even though it was later in the year where there should have been done with them by then. And then 100% of them found it hard really hard to ask for help. Um 80% of them were embarrassed to ask for help from their teachers but they found it easier from their peers. And then 100%

032of the students stated that they were usually behind and that had a really negative uh mental it had a really negative effect on their mental health. And then 100% found that there are differences when it comes to students with different backgrounds. And um a story one of the students told me is they had a Japanese girl come in and she was ahead of the entire class even though she came later in the year because the resources she had in the after school programs she was able to be in. And then moving on to our seventh graders and and our eighth graders 77% of the students still found fractions and decimals to be difficult. That is two years later after fifth grade. Um, and there was barely any time to focus on the students that wanted

033to get ahead because of the time dedicated to students that were behind or to the students that were kind of making trouble in the class. And again, embarrassment from asking help from teachers continued on to those older grades. Um, extra gaps in English learners was still found um in seventh and eighth grade. And then they also I asked them a question about high school preparation. All of them were like I don't feel prepared from my math side to enter high school or to enter a workforce in the future. Um and at uh East Stro Magnet School in New Haven, only six students in the eighth grade class were taking algebra 1. I went to that school and we had an entire class filled with students taking algebra 1. So from looking at that, I saw

034that we were going backwards instead of improving these foundational skills for students to enter high school with that foundation already. And then struggles with different level students continue students are being separated and labeled as better and less even though gaps within each class still continue to be there. I've had the privilege of interviewing Dr. Voca who is the deputy superintendent of Craig. She is second in command the data analyst and resource allocation. She provided me with data about crack district uh block assessments and crack district as sback scores which are up there. Um after hearing the student interviews I want to see whether the data reflected what students were telling us using assessment data provided by doc by Dr. Voka. I found evidence of growth in foundational math skills partic particularly in areas like operations

035and fractions. However, significant gaps remain in areas such as alge algebraic reasoning and geometry. The data shows that while students are making progress in core mathematical concepts, growth is not consistent across all skill areas. These patterns patterns align with themes from the interview where students describe feeling more confident with foundational math skills but identify challenges when applying concepts to more complex problem solving steps. The data and interviews together raise important questions. How much should a student's zip code determine their educational opportunities? Students are not starting from the same place. Differences in access to resources, academic support, and prior preparation create can create inequities along long before a test is taken. If we want a truly equitable education system, we must look beyond test boards and ensure that every student, regardless of where they live, have

036access to the support and opportunities they need. >> Thank you. Next slide, please. >> Um, hello. Um, I'm Jermaine Brown. I'm from Academy Science and Engineering um in Enfield. Um, today I'll be talking about um improving math. Um, please go to the next slide. Um what are we trying to solve? Um the way that math um is taught in school um is not the best um way taught um is because math math is really a challenge um to students. Um as you guys can see the data um the best way that we um thought to solve math was to better um align with math with people's um possible job outcome or when they're interested of studying in college so they're more engaged with math. And then also breaking up the math classes so they're not

037as big as students work better in smaller math classes. Um as a student who also struggles with math um I found that being in a smaller classroom um was helpful. Um and then bringing those small classrooms um to other schools should help students to better to better be successful for math. And if you guys start that at a young age age, it should be um very helpful. >> Um next slide, please. So, my name is Kathy Bailey. I attend Woodland Regional High School in Beacon Falls, Connecticut. However, I'm not here today to represent my district, but rather speak on some issues I've identified and some potential solutions for those issues across the entirety of Connecticut. Um, next slide, please. So, I'd like to begin by looking at some SBA disparities we've observed over the last

038couple of years. Now the purple line up top demonstrates the state average for um students meeting or exceeding expectations on um ESPback sorry on spec uh tests and obviously our state performs very well. Um our state on uh is continuously rated in one of the top five for education a lot of the time switching between first and second with Massachusetts. I mean I think everyone here knows our state is good at education in general. Um, and I think our state is very passionate and focused on education as well. I mean, if you look around this huge room of people, everyone here is, everyone is here because they're passionate on this issue and some branch of this issue. However, if you look further down on the chart, we can see some areas where there definitely is

039disconnect. I mean, if you uh focus if you focus mainly on Hispanic or black students, um their average is almost half at about 25% and multilingual students are as much as a third at 15%. So, it's obvious there's some sort of disconnect going here that we need to address. Next slide, please. Another problem that I've identified and this only spans more as the wealth gap expands more but even myself I acknowledge I'm from a very wealthy district. I'm very privileged and even now my school sees a lot of problems with the limited trajectory specifically in math. Um, I go to Woodland and bas the the highest math level you could tap out at at senior year is calculus which is a privilege and opportunity to be able to take as a lot of colleges I've

040been hearing from my peers who are going into STEM don't even offer base level calculus because it's kind of an expectation in those higher level STEMbased colleges that you get a calculus education before entering college. However, there's a lot of schools where calculus isn't offered at all because they can't afford to offer these classes or the teachers or support that's needed. Um, this basically means that even when attending public school, not a STEMbased school, just a public school, your zip code is deciding how much you'll be able to succeed even past the high school level in the future of your education and career. Um, next slide, please. Initially, we've I've identified a lot of problems concerning educators. Now while individual mu m m m m m m m m m m m m m m

041m m m m m m municipalities meeting district to district bides a teacher's education which means the wealthier districts can afford to pay their teachers more and therefore oftent times get more qualified and better rated teachers. It the the problem continues to the state level as the state helps subsidize a lot of teacher pensions postretirement and they have to give those pensions based on the teacher salaries. This means more state funding is funneled into the pensions of these already higher paid wealthier districts than the lower or the sorry the districts with less money in the first place. Additionally, due to widespread vacancies because as we know co we've had immense teacher s shortages in all areas. Um, the board of education has also reauthorized multiple emergency policy provisions such as the emergency generalist number 2011

042and number 202 permits which allows for teachers who are not trained to teach at these higher levels of ed of education. teachers that are trained to teach in the ed uh elementary and middle school levels to fill in in these high school positions because we don't have the teachers for it which is immensely obviously going to affect these students educations as they don't have the correct materials and the teachers don't have the correct training to be able to give them this background to carry them into the future. Next slide. So what can be done? For one thing, I think the state board of education needs to focus on more teacher equitability across all areas. Whether that is providing more funding in the salaries or providing funding to districts so they can hire more teachers to

043cover more classes. With this, I also would promote the idea of math labs. It's something we have at my school and had and many of my peers had at their school. It's bally a it's basically a teacher that sits in an office all day and throughout the day during their study hall or lunch or advisory period students can go in and pro uh and receive extra support for math. This is direct support and it makes it much easier because obviously teachers especially short when there's a teacher shortage don't have the time to meet with students which is a big reason a lot of students fall behind. Additionally, we uh I would suggest or we would support the idea of the use of online curriculums to help students advance further in math courses if their school's

044unable to provide them with one. I know we already do online courses for a lot of language classes like ASL. So, I would be saying we should um promote more online curriculum supported and funded by schools so teachers or students can advance if their school no longer is a able to support them through that. and also would give students a second chance because a lot of the times even with schools that provide these higher level math classes, if they're not good at math in sixth grade, you can't get on that accelerated pathway ever again. So, this would provide a second chance for students to always become more accelerated as time goes on, as needed. Thank you. >> Hello everyone. [clears throat] And now for what I believe is the best part of the presentation. [laughter]

045So as as I said earlier, hello. I hope all is well. My name is Adam Schwiki from West S High School and I'm very happy and jolly to present today. >> My name is Olivia Kusa. I'm from Massac High School and this is my first year on the board. I'm also very excited to present today. >> Hi, good morning to the board and thank you for being here. My name is Kayla Len and I'm a senior at EOS High School and we're very excited to present to you today math applications. So that would include any sort of career involvement way that math can be applied to future [clears throat] careers and making sure that students are very well aware of how they can bridge what they learned in school if they continue their already. Now

046I don't really know why text however I'll just explain it right over to you. Now the problem I would love to highlight today is essentially students think math is useless after high school. Now unfortunately this is the reality and some data to back the statement up. Essentially around 60% of high school students don't strongly believe math is useful in real life. Additionally students confidence drop in math drops by over 10% during high school. Now of course this is a vital problem because if we allow students to continue on this p on this mindset on this pathway we are setting up for failure because at the end of the day every field in the top 10 most delicious career pathways after high school require math whether it be medicine and calculus statistics whether it be engineering

047and solving various different pathways. It's very val problem that we need to tackle and now I like to hand it over to here. I would like to talk a little bit about the underlying information when it comes to math. Um, and so I'll share a little bit of background as to be sort of my experience in school. And the way that my school works is that we were able to accelerate math as early as middle school. But I realized that a lot of the acceleration sort of solidified after maybe 8. So the students who have been accelerating math and have continuously improved and been the top achievers, they sort of created like a little vacuum. So now there's students who are at the bottom and and even if they want to accelerate or put in

048more effort, they wouldn't be able to focus in greater math distributions. And so the focus of our group was there's this very significant hurdle that we face when it comes to why are students not achieving math when they may be coded. Um and I talked to a lot of teachers around my school and my district and the consensus is that this hurdle is very heavily tied to math identity. So how do you think about yourself um in relation to math? Are you math first? I hate math. I see that all the time. I hate math class. I don't want to go to my class. But I think that there's a very strong logical tide and how well you achieve is very much based on how much you think you can achieve um when you're in

049the classroom or how much you think that you were able to apply math to your future career. Um and so we talked about how I think it's like 94% of workers that use math in their job in some sort of capacity. And yet the statement that I hear the most often is that I don't think I'll use calculus in my or I won't touch algebra 2 in my future. And so we have to sort of tackle this this idea that at some point throughout our high school and middle school career are believing that they will never use math again. And um they also believe that if they're not a math person, they are less likely to go into a math related career. And I want to talk a little bit about the gender gap. um

05058% of bachelor's degree degrees in the United States are made up by women, but within the STEM sector, only about 20 25 to 35% of STEM degrees are. And so there's a very significant gender um sort of like facet of this where a lot of women also believe that if they're not a math person, they cannot achieve. And I think that that's really important for us to tackle in our solution. And so I would hand it off to the pure. Thank you, Kayla. Um, next slide, please. All right. So, um, as Adam mentioned before, um, the main problem that we identified is that students think that math is useless after high school. Um, so our solution was to simply connect math to careers in classes. And the strategy that we used to outline this is

051to add career connected math to the state's K K through 8 model curriculum in order to inform students how every unit that they learn is actually tied to a real job that they could be interested in. So take healthcare for example. If students are sitting in class learning about ratios and proportions and statistics or geometry, instead of them wondering um or kind of going to the conclusion of I'm never going to use this, this isn't relevant to what I want to do in the future, we can show them how it is relevant to anything that they're really interested. So, in the healthcare field, doctors, nurses, and pharmacists, they're all using this type of math in their day-to-day um um jobs. So, um, just having or showing them how math is applied in what they are

052actually interested in. Um, we're trying to eliminate that math person gap that Kayla was mentioning before in order to boost their confidence and strengthen math identities in students across Connecticut as a whole. Thank you. Next slide. So, it seems that our slideshow had been actually updated. So, this was supposed to be deleted, but next slide, please. All right, that wraps it up. If you have questions, um, please feel free to keep before we move on to the next topic. Any questions [clears throat] from board members? >> Well, I really love your presentation, especially when you brought up the gender gap as well as connecting math to careers. I think that's really important. Um, I had a couple of questions for you. So you mentioned that you found math gaps within each class level correct. Do

053you think there's any mclassification going on at any of those levels where students may be putting in like too high of a level of class than they are supposed to be in. Um and two you mentioned how disruption was also causing the math gap. So I was wondering did you notice when you were interviewing teachers that there's more that they observe more or less than certain levels of those math classes and if there's any school policies that have contributed to >> I can take uh a little bit of first question then I'll let everyone else sort of give their two cents as well. Something that I've noticed in the past couple years at my school is that when we we're like very stratified and very like clicky with the way that our classes are arranged.

054And I'm sure that these people can attest to it as well. What I mean by that is like the classes the the people that I've been taking classes with for the past couple years have been homeless. It's the same group of maybe 10 or so kids and and they are constantly in the same my I believe that there is something that has to do with the way that counselors recommended classes. Um, and when I did a little bit more research into this, I noticed that it's it's this sort of like I don't know, you can call it a sociological concept, but I think it's more of a more of a like this is the the result. It's social inertia. And it's that sense that once you are in these stratified groups of people, it's very

055hard to move between groups. So, if for example, I take a CC classroom or a college and career class, it takes a lot of guts to to walk up to the counselor and say, I want to take the advanced or like college credits. And I think that part of it is due to the fact that the process for switching between course levels is so layered in bureaucracy and it's it's very hard for a student to do that because maybe you need a counselor recommendation need uh confirmation from your last year's teacher enabled in order to to source these classes. So the social inertia portion of it is more than just policy. It's also like the culture. So, how do you make up your school culture? The way that uh students find out hard to change

056options, there's something about the the energy of the classroom or the way that you teach that makes the advanced classes almost seem like the or makes makes them seem like exclusive. And I think that's something that we really it's a it's a much larger issue uh that deserves more attention. It's like we have to think beyond the the tangible policy of this and think beyond the numbers. There's like a very prominent cultural aspect and why students join younger grades. Um talking about fifth and eighth grade. Um and it also has to do with the culture because um ever since we were middle schools and elementary schools, we've never thought of the idea of staying back. It was never an option teachers talked about or um our counselors talked to us about it. It was like

057everyone was passing whether you were doing good in math classes or not. You were just moving forward. But for the students that were ahead like the eight students I mentioned, they are labeled as tag students as talented and gifted. They are put into their fires because they are on fire. they're achieving all these things while the other students that might be on the level where they're supposed to be or they're genuinely struggling because they are not receiving the help, they are labeled as ice. They're stuck. They're frozen in their place. So, I feel like it's also about the culture. And I feel like teachers just have gotten used to this system where it's like, let these students just keep on going. The next teacher will take care of them. >> Yeah, I would definitely like

058to piggyback off of that. I my little brother for example last year unfortunately he wasn't able to take honors classes and nothing's nature and to be quite frank it was like fighting like up a hill you know what I mean it was truly a fight to get him into honors and AP level classes because first off the teachers wouldn't recommend him for it right number one and and his counselors also doubted him now how do you expect students to grow how do you expect them to reach the American dream if they're constantly being you know doubted at a young age so we had to genuinely really fight for his place in honors and AP classes and and just so many other students like I mean thank God I'm able to be like his mentor and

059help him out a lot. I was able to truly push him. But many students unfortunately don't have that sort of mentor figure, someone who can push them, someone who truly, you know, believes in them. And I would truly like to advocate for those type of students for sure cuz I have firsthand experience with this type of scenario. And there's also a lot of um issues you have to consider including race and actual poverty lines because as we said these school districts are underfunded and underresourced which therefore makes the students not really care about their education which then leads to them not being able to get well-paying jobs which leads them to not be able to leave the same school districts that didn't serve them right. And it's like a neverending vicious cycle that never ends.

060Um, that's why like a lot of those rates other than the state average, a lot of the rates I demonstrated between race, race and poverty and language barriers are all sit around the same because those communities are all embedded in one another because they all stunt one another and then they never can improve or get any better. Um, so we need to address these root causes. And that's why it's more about equitability, which means providing resources where they're needed rather than just giving everyone the same resources. Because in a system and areas that are system systematically repressed and have been systematically stuck in these same places, they need more help to get out of these areas. And we're just not providing that for them. Hello. Thank you so much um for your presentation. Uh again,

061math education equity is really important. Appreciate y'all bringing up this matter. So I again have uh two questions. Uh the first one is about the uh gap in pursuing STEM careers. Second one is about the correct district launch assessment. But my first question is you mentioned that there is lower percentage of women who go into uh STEM related fields or get a masters in a STEM related field. So I was wondering as the board of education or independently in schools what measures can we take to reduce that difference and my second question is regarding the blotch assessment. Um why specifically do you think uh for example some categories are increasing in percentage while other categories are uh decreasing a lot like why is that a huge shift why is that occurring? >> Thanks so much

062for your question and for your interest in the gender gap for for math. Um I'll start off by just like explaining a little bit of context too. For the most part, students or or girls in elementary and middle school tend to outperform all the way up until middle school. And once they hit high school, there's a shift almost consistently across the board. After these students reach high school, boys tend to outperform. And my belief is that there's a very predominant like social uh reasoning behind this. And I think that the board should probably focus a little bit more on the supports that we can give to women in STEM. And I think that a lot of it comes down to some of the subconscious factors. So representation. All my math teachers growing up have been

063male. All of we I can't name many applications. And I think that that is just an example of some of the subconscious like biases that we present. Um and throughout the transition between middle and high school, there's a lot of there's a lot of mean it's it's a rough time, guys. Um there's a lot of social changes and a lot of relationship and neurological changes. But I think at that time when you're when you're so neuroplastic and you're so malleable, we have to really focus on making sure that middle school girls are able to see themselves in math leaders, whether that be engineers or astronauts, mathematicians in general, anyone in the STEM fields. Um I think that increasing that representation is one of the easiest and most uh direct ways that we can do and

064it's not hard to do. we can uh put like a little thing in the curriculum to work in a certain dedicated I've seen some schools do that but it's something my district so that's just sort of my my thoughts on that. Thank you very much for the question >> regarding your question about the block assessments. Um, it all just goes back as Kayla mentioned before into math identity and how you see yourself as like at such a young age people already determine themselves as I'm a math person or I'm not a math person and people are so quick to think about themselves into one category because um I think many in my experience I've always been taught math in just one strict way on a whiteboard or smartboard and teachers aren't realizing that there are

065different type of learners There's hands-on learners, there's audible learners, visual learners, and through that um students just pick up concepts faster. So, the simple concepts are obviously going to come easily just by seeing it come into play. As well as exit tickets, the way they're given to students. Um I've seen in my personal experience in like u middle school it was only the basic skills that only got exit tickets and the complex skills were only just given in tests and it really affected like oh once you get that grade from such a complex um um lesson you're immediately downplaying yourself because it just messes up like as um Kayla mentioned like your mentality is just automatically put into one of the two categories of I'm a math person or not. And add in addition to

066that um in uh the exit tickets like a lot of people like you can work on them with your peers while the test is just like individualistic and that is both. You can do it with people and without people. And I think we need to stop putting that um stigma and mindset that you need to do problems on your own. It's only about what you can solve and not what what others can solve. Like teamwork is a thing. You're not going to be alone in the future. you're going to be working your with others in college in your job and I think it's really important that people realize that. >> Yeah, certainly. I mean to be quite frank I feel like we kind of allow stagnancy schools we kind of allow comfort and of course

067we grow when we're uncomfortable. I mean right now my my heart is beating like I could feel it. You know what I mean? It's we always grow when we're uncomfortable and I feel like we have to change truly change the culture of schools to help students kind of open their eyes to understand that you know we have you have to become comfortable being uncomfortable like dreams die when you're stagnant. So, I feel like if we can really open students eyes, if we can change the culture, we can shift the mindset and [clears throat] if we if we can of course do this and of course you guys are all here to help us out in doing this and changing the minds of students in Connecticut and hopefully all over the US, I think we can

068certainly make a positive impact. Thank you. >> Sorry, I just have one more one more. I'm sorry. Um, we talked a lot about culture like large scale culture change. But I think it's it's important to say that one of the simplest things you can do if you ever get the chance I urge you to school with us sit in a classroom and you can see you can see the girls raise their hand like this. You can see the guys raise their hand like this and I think there's a lot to sitting in classroom with us. So thank you very much. >> Thank you. Um, good morning. Thank you so much for your presentation. Um, I'll just share a bit about my own personal background to give you context. Um, I'm an anomaly in your situation

069and that I am a high school teacher. Uh, I teach physics and I have a degree in physics, but I very um much understand what you're saying about gender gaps and math identity because I was often the only woman in my class when I went through um not only upper high school classes like taking AP for example in high school. My high school didn't offer AP any calculus and I did have to go to a different high school um in order to take it. Um, I really applaud what you said, um, about making career connections in the earlier grades. I think that that is something that is very frequently overlooked. It's something that as a high school teacher, I know we focus a lot in high school on college and career readiness, but I really

070love the idea that you presented about making those overt career connections into math um, in the earlier grades, particularly in upper elementary and middle school. what you said about um social inertia and math identity really struck a nerve with me. Um that's one of my pet peeves is grown-ups saying I'm not a math person. Um and the analogy that I often use is that um as adults, young adults, older adults, um we often will go out to a restaurant in a group and eat and you'll ask somebody else to figure out the tip or you'll figure out how much do I owe. Well, I'm not really a math person, but um we would never pass someone a menu and say, "Hey, I'm not really a reading person. Could you tell me could you tell me

071what that dish is?" Um and so like we have a systemic society cultural issue about a math person. And so I would just put a pitch to the adults in the room, mind your words about how we speak about math. Um I was also particularly struck in my question um is about uh the leveling and sort of the getting stuck in an identified bubble or stratosphere. Um and I see that all the time as a high school teacher. So you know you can be in CP college prep classes or honors or AP track. Um I do happen to be that person that goes around and hunts for kids in my high school going why like you got a really good score on your math SAT. Like I look up their SAT score like why aren't

072you taking an AP science class? Like you should be like why are you in a CP algebra class? Why aren't you But I I understand that I'm the anomaly. I I hear Adam what you said about the struggles with the systems that are in place in terms of uh seeking the ability to level up. So, if you had the ability to you, you had the magic wand to change your high school's policies around how kids get identified for certain levels or certain types of classes. What would you do? How would you change the system particularly like 8th grade through 12th grade to make it better for kids like your brother? [clears throat] >> Dolly, that's quite the question. I like that. Okay. So, how would I go about changing the system to ensure that kids

073get >> What would you want? What would you want it? I mean, I heard what didn't work. So, tell me what you think would work. >> I think someone like you to be quite frank. Someone who like someone who like can light a fire under someone cuz these kids like there's so many just gems in the rough, right? D so many diamonds in the rough that you would never think to find. However, if for example, like you said earlier, you go into classrooms, you kind of hunt for people who may have the better scores, who may be more interested in learning, then you could like I feel like just just to put it like frankly, I would ask people like you, maybe like three, four or five teachers, something along those lines, just people in

074general to go to like maybe class to class, see who participates the most, see who has the best test scores, and like first off, understand their mindset, understand why they're not pushing themselves to go maybe to the higher math class, high reading class, things of that nature. Understand the why behind it and then light a fire to them cuz of course, you know, we all like encouragement, but some kids like truly need it. Some people may not have the parents or figures to push them to, you know, achieve the highest levels of success. However, if we can have maybe dedicated people, maybe teachers, maybe like I don't know the staffing needs like once a month or something along those lines. We choose two or three teachers per department to go into classrooms, go into test

075score analysis to see which case could maybe be, you know, talked to and spoken to and pushed essentially to achieve greatness. I think that would be something very well cuz like the human connection, the interaction, speaking to someone, understanding their mindset, I think it would really like open the kids' eyes instead of just, oh, my test score is high, hooray, like, you know what I mean? I think that human connection is really part of it. >> I'm going to suggest that to my high school principal. Thank you. You know, and just to follow up on that a little bit too, I think, you know, earlier you spoke about um ESPback scores and test scores and recognizing some of the high test scores. So often students are never sh never they never are talked to about

076a certain score. They got the score, but they don't really they might not know how exceptional that score is. And I think that's very important that that is looked into. I mean a lot of um schools have intervention classes or math lab classes or reading you know and that might it might come in that you know look how far you've gotten this score and I think students understanding scores better than you did it or you didn't is really beneficial especially in our younger years I mean they get these things they get them in the mail but we've learned through a lot of districts and schools that there's never a conversation about those scores Sometimes the parent will ask, well, what does this mean? Where does where does he land according to everybody else? But I

077think that's important that if the student knows, you actually sit with the student and almost make it a competition. Uh because we know as when it comes to ESPback, especially as ESPback gets to the eighth grade, it's they don't want to do it anymore. It it's not important to them. It's important to everybody around them, their teachers, their school, their superintendent, but the kid taking the test is really like with us back at this point. But I think if they looked at it as you're right there, let's see if you can get here and almost make it a competition because they love competitions. >> They they just love that. So, I just wanted to say that because there's so much of when we talk about scores, I think we have to spend more time talking

078with our students about their scores and not just they need to do better where they are and just get them like you did so well here. [snorts] It's nice now to see a lot of our schools do not put um you know your top group in in in middle school as your algebra group because we learned that you could be excellent in math not so much maybe in English and so to put those two students together we learned that we now have to learn it with math too that it's just you just don't you know put all them they need to be able to choose where they where they land and I love the part about the careers attaching careers and they're bruised at that happen because elementary children would not know like if I

079want to be a doctor they might not know how important math is to get there you know I mean you could be a doctor you can be a landscaper you're going to need to know math and you know and I think that's important that we can push that at an early age >> so I know your colleagues are waiting to present officially uh But I just so appreciate the voice in this space and really things that you've given us to think about. I know Irene Paris who you worked with who is a curriculum sorry uh I'm sure is thinking about some of what you've mentioned but should know for this board that this past session we did have legislation passed uh that the department will be working to redesign high school math pathways. uh that

080was in the governor's uh budget prop uh his uh proposal work that we now need to do uh and really take a look at professional development providers that's going to high quality math instruction to support our educators uh and and more so just know it is a focus for us for the work that's that's to be done. The other thing I'd say though and you you've uncovered I mean some really key things that we need to think about on climate and culture and mindset in this space which you all spoke to. I I kind of geek out on space and so you know Artemis 2 going to space was a big deal for space. Alman Kang watching what was going on there. But you know it was so important to then take a a look

081back at what they call women ma mathematicians who pioneered the space race and learning all of that and excited about it and be able to share that with our students. the point that you made about, you know, who your teachers are and what's going on. And so, we will endeavor to continue to do that and to work with our school districts in that space. But thank you so much for what you've offered here. Uh don't believe that it's not heard uh in how we need to move forward and to support the work that you're doing and that your voices will be those in leadership not too long from now. uh that will make sure that we're not just talking about when we talk about equitable access to all our students regardless of where they are

082in the state. We've uncovered some of those kinds of things that happen when either by your appearance or how you show up that folks think you should be there. And I want to remind the board as well that we do have a math position statement that really talk about math identities and some of the things that you've called out is the work that this board has done. So we will certainly keep you posted. Uh but thank you so much for your voice in the room today >> and talk about diamonds in the rough. Here we go. So thank you very much for your presentation. >> Thank you very much. >> As we transition these scholars will go out. We'll bring in the group from to artificial intelligence. I did just want to share that our

083partnership with the calf and the way it's doing that work is so important and critical and these leads were brought forward by the commissioner with the students who really dive deep and investigate. So I appreciate all of her work the partnership with Cass and the students many of them are graduating but I already asked can I call some of them back as we continue to do this building the new statute. So we'll we can now bring in the next group where artificial intelligence was the other focus and the two split up based on passion and interest to carry one. >> Ar is um Teresa I'm sorry is she here? >> She is she's just helping the students come in. We'll bring them in so that we can >> Okay. Because I do want to share

084something with her. She helped me a great deal as you know with uh NASB. Yeah. >> Absolutely. So we'll bring them in. Okay. Thank you. Madam chair, all I could think of was this would be a great cohort to work with a on some things because the data analysis they did think was just terrific. Really was Thank you. Anyone can start and introduce. >> Hi, we are part of the Sassy group as well and we're talking about artificial intelligence in Connecticut education and the positives and negatives we what changes we think should be possibly made. And I'm Ella Bogner from Daniel Hand High School and Madison and I'm >> Sienna Beth from W High School. >> I'm Kayla Fletcher from Harford Public High School. >> I'm Victoria Melvin from Farmington High School. >> I'm Ken

085from Starford High School. >> I'm Ky Jabber. I'm also from Farmington High School. asynowski from Lime Blind Pay School. Next slide, please. So, we have broken down our presentations into a couple subgroups. Our first one being academic integrity and ethics and then our next one being AI for learning and then future readiness, personalization, and then our final proposal on what changes we do each week. Next slide, please. So to give you all a little bit of an overview of what our AI committee has done this past year as part of the state student advisory council, we had to do a lot of research obviously since AI is a very new um concept and topic especially within K through2 schools. Um and so one of the first things that we did is review our own district

086policy. So we all obviously this state board comes from students across the entire state and we believe that our schools um are very diverse within itself. Um, and so by looking into our current policies, we're able to get a better insight into what current administrators and teachers um, believe regarding AI and how it will be used throughout the curriculum to kind of give us a basis for the current thoughts around it. Um, the next thing that we looked into was the AI education pilot program that was done with around eight schools in Connecticut um, this past year. Um, and so they used a couple different platforms such as Magic School AI in order to evaluate how it could be used potentially um, to improve schooling within education. And then the next thing that we did

087is we wanted to obviously reach out to teachers. These are the people who obviously are talking with students, meeting with them every single day. And so their input was very valued by our group. So we interviewed um, and collected data from around a hundred teachers across the state. And this was anonymous teacher feedback so that we could get some real thoughts and opinions to see what we could do as a state board to see how we can make it the best possible adjustment and proposal um to be implemented. And then the last thing that we did was identifying the root cause. I know that AI usage is definitely very prevalent within high school and college and that's kind of what you think of when you think of AI and education. It's definitely those upper grade

088levels. But through kind of our research and interviewing, we noticed that the root cause actually doesn't necessarily start in high school. But it really comes down to even elementary and middle school because this is when kids are definitely the most impressionable. And seeing a new pool AI tool that can do all your work for you is definitely a lot more appealing on the younger age. And so building these habits young does definitely impact the future. And that's something we'll get into later on the presentation. Next slide, please. Um so one thing that we really tried to look through um during our research was just in general how it was increasing how the usage was increasing. Um and we pulled some key stats from our research. So 83% of K through 12 teachers reported using generative

089AI in school from in 2024 which was a 32% increase from the previous year. Um, it's also noted that 59% of K through 12 teachers are certain that at least one of their student is using AI in the classroom. So, we really just during our research process realized that the growth is exponential and that there does seem to be something done about it. So, we decided that our focus was to be um was going to be like geared toward like properly educating students on AI literacy um to foster environments where both teachers and students work together to use it for meaningful academic growth. Next, in one of the larger AI group, we kind of focused on the ethics of AI and how to preserve academic integrity in the classroom in the face of this dual.

090So we focused on three main questions which were how should we define cheating by using AI? What types of assignments should allow the use of AI and to what extent? And then finally, how did using AI to assist with schoolwork impact the learning process for students? Next slide please. >> Um so artificial intelligence is not necessarily a negative thing we've come to terms with. Um and there's actually many beneficial parts of it for learning for students. Um it is a great tool for students to utilize without being at risk for plagiarisms which that has been the biggest concern of AI in schools. Uh we realize that it is great for test preparation, editing, um work and then different types and it also works for different types of learning styles. Um so for studying it's very

091good because you can create interactive methods such as games. Um, it also generates practice questions that then can give you an immediate response where it can either tell you, no, this is incorrect. This is actually how you do it. Or it can break it down and help you kind of go through the entire thing. Um, which is great for students that can't work with tutors and can't always be with their teachers asking questions, especially so at home. This is a great tool and source. Um, so it's also great for editing, as I was saying. So it can correct grammar and spelling that students can struggle with and then it can also help students identify what areas they might be struggling with so they can in the future realize what they're doing and who's better with

092that. Um it also is great for an explanation of curriculum and assignments. Um so it can accommodate all types of learning styles by breaking things down for people that might next slide please. So for the next group focusing on future readiness, we kind of defined it a slightly differently. So future readiness for our purposes was preparing youth for higher education and employment. So um definitely as I mentioned previously, the root of the problem really starts in elementary school when students are very impressionable. Um and having access to all these amazing tools definitely has does cause some detriment to their future education. So that could be going into high school and dealing with things like college applications, more rigorous school work, National Honor Society applications. There's just a plethora of things that happen in high school

093that you need a strong foundational writing and critical thinking skill to be successful at. But then that also moves into college when the impacts of using AI are a lot more detrimental to the student body. And then obviously into careers. I think all of us here have definitely heard of how some career or anothers have been impacted by TI right now and how it will be impacted definitely within the next um 5 to 10 years. Um and so yeah, students as early as elementary school have been seen using AI. I think one of the anecdotes that we found through our research was third grade was one um many students were using AI. Um and just because of how accessible it is and how popularized it is through social media um which is something that younger

094students have increasingly more access to um it can definitely the spread of it is rapidly increasing. And so these problems are seen throughout all age groups um and diverse communities with AI. But you know like um Ella previously mentioned there are some benefits to it. So the thing with artificial intelligence and K through2 education is really finding a good common ground between balancing the um cost and also the benefits. Next slide please. So we used a Google form that we sent out to we sent it out to all of our teachers throughout many districts all over Connecticut to just kind of identify where AI was being used in classrooms. As we all know, it is being all day for many different things. We found that 91 out of 108 teachers are using AI in their

095classrooms and it's not limited to newer teachers and about 67% of our teachers that responded have been teaching for more than 15 years. And the major concerns that they were facing using it is that there's a loss of critical thinking and creativity with it. There's an over reliance on AI. There's a decline in students writing skills and there's questions that they have on the ethical boundaries of AI of what's good and what's bad and the real challenge that they're facing is how to teach students students to use it responsibly and we want to be able to allow students and educators to work with AI rather than winning against. So some of our ideas for increasing future readiness regarding AI in K through2 education um kind of surrounded multiple different topics. So for example implementing AI

096education into the curriculum is definitely very obvious one and as you seen by the previous slide statistics it's something that teachers across the state are already starting to do. Um and so that can come with increased teacher um training or education on the topic as to how it can use how students can use it within education because AI whether we like it or not going to be a part of the future. Um and so it's going to be a very uphill battle if you decide against it. And so really embracing it and learning how to use it efficiently and effectively without the loss of critical thinking skills is um a really pivotal especially in this time. And so in the same nature emphasizing interconnected relation with AI in different content areas and addressing the implications

097to use it in these areas. So using artificial intelligence for math or STEM related things is definitely very different from how it could be used within humanities. And so that's something that definitely needs to be addressed because for a lot of impressionable students they can all seem one and the same when in reality there's a lot of differences that can occur within that. Um as well as AI career specific data. So, as we mentioned previously, um using artificial intelligence throughout your K through2 education or even in college is severely going to impact your um employment opportunities or the job that you would like to seek out in the future. And so having more information surrounding that while you're in your formative years and have more flexibility within deciding what career path you'd like to go

098down um is definitely very um impactful for students and something that can help them achieve a more um realistic goal towards their future. regarding how artificial intelligence has been impacting that and of course fighting the root of the problem like we mentioned previously. Um definitely targeting elementary and middle school students because they're the people who are being exposed to it probably first as they move on through their K through2 education. So teaching them the rights and wrongs of using AI um is definitely the best way to mitigate it for future concerns. Next slide please. Um we also um looked through all the different AI platforms that students and schools are using and we've determined that even though students might be using chat GBT on the side and at home there's a lot of schools that

099are using chat bots like notebook magic school AI and smart sparrow and those pro programs are very different and are already backed by many schools state which um these programs help um schools monitor how students students are using AI while they're are allowed to use AI. Um we've also determined that there needs to be a universal guideline set for all students um to personalize their AI experation include obviously to building study material providing spec specific tailored feedback um and guides to student whatever academic they need. Next slide please. Um so while we determined that students definitely need um direction with using AI chat bots um the other side of like personalization is how students actually um use the chat bots. So, we dug into um Notebook LM, which is a specific um chatbot. Um and

100at my school, we use it. Um we show we on the slide you can kind of see part of the chat that I started. Um but I'm able to input my rubric for an assignment, my paper, and then the assignment details. and this platform specifically from the sources I upload um to then provide me specific feedback. Um and we determined that personalization is important because in a lot of AI tools especially open um forums of AI information is being pulled from all the corners of the internet um and unsolicited advice or information might be added to a project. Um but in terms of like actually embracing AI while moving forward in education um we're suggesting that platforms such as notebook LM are um part of the step forward because more specific feedback can be provided

101especially based on assignments in a classroom setting. Um this paper I asked specific questions like how can I um improve my thesis and they gave me tailored um it gave me tailored feedback based on the guidelines of my paper um that which were provided by my teacher. Um similarly I was able to upload my note sheet and the um chatbot assessed my notes in my paper and was able to provide me feedback for where I could include more of my notes in my paper and where I could where I was like lacking notes. It didn't pull notes from the internet for me to add, but it um it offered me broad but still pointed feedback of where to go next. Um, and we've as like a group, we like this approach because it's not thinking

102for me, but giving me direction to then go out and research more and to think more on my own, but still it offers that support for students who might not have access again to tutors all the time or teachers all the time or maybe they don't have parents at home that can guide them in the right way. Um, so that's kind of our take on the personalization aspect where there's definitely more room to grow and a lot of students can have access to this. Um, we just need to make it um, statewide. Next slide. So our overall proposal to you all, you know, something that we talked about throughout our presentation is that we want to further educate the younger generations, the elementary students on AI usage and what is good and what is bad

103and how it should be used in good ways rather than bad so that we can further implement our different ideas of how we want to use it so that they're not using it in the wrong ways growing up throughout their schooling experience using it in the wrong way so that it doesn't create bad habits. And we want to show them what's helpful uses and what's harmful uses. And attached in the slides show we have blinked a presentation that would be created that would be presented to elementary students that is tailored to them for what AI is and how it should be used. And like Victoria mentioned with just creating different platforms and boundaries for AI for students and all particularly. >> Well, you picked a wonderful topic to present to us today, one that we've

104been certainly talking about quite a bit and so is the entire country. I love the fact that your presentation is based on elementary because that's most important. I think when we look back at cell phones in schools, one-on-one devices in schools, the biggest error that was probably made is that we just didn't teach them the correct ways to use things. Uh AI is with us and we it is, you know, it's the responsibility of our schools to make sure that they're educated early and educated correctly and responsibly. So, thank you for that. Board members, I'm sure you have some questions. [clears throat] Smart. >> Um hello. Well, thank you so much um for your presentation. Uh so for some background, I go to South High School and that school is one of the pilot programs

105uh for as one of the pilot programs for AI from out of school AI. So we're a big AI school. Um for example, teachers teachers use Notebook LM uh to help us learn uh during our humanities classes. And I believe that AI is very important to both understand how to use appropriately uh but also its limitations. So um I have a question uh for you all is specifically for unmmonitored AI chatbots for example chatgbt or claude um I see uh students or here's uh in my school who use those on modern chat bots for assignments they don't perform as well as students who don't or use mo chat bots uh for tests um the performance of test. So my question to you is how could we encourage students to not use those unmonitored chat bots

106uh for school completion of class assignments and to rather pivot to those monitor chat bots like notebook LM or magic school AI. >> Yeah. So I think definitely from my personal experience I really didn't know that platforms such as Notebook LM or Magic School AI really existed until um we started looking into this topic. And so for a student, you know, being like on the sassy board, just think about the millions of students or hundreds of thousands students across the state who definitely don't know about it either. And so that really comes back to our initial proposal of educating students on the proper uses of AI and also the better um ways to have better results. So I think one of the things that sticks with students and I think generally most people is really

107statistics, right? Um, and so if students are exposed to the percentage of people who maybe use unmodderated chat bots like you were mentioning and their success within education versus students who use more modern platforms that are kind of more adaptive to K through2 education, then seeing the stark contrast in results and success is definitely an indicator to especially high achieving students or students who have some kind of plan for their future, want to go into college, want to get a career in the future. um to kind of see those results a little bit more clearly. >> As a high school teacher, um I'm well aware that you all navigate this land much better than we do. [laughter] So given that um we're talking about being to educate kids, obviously first we need to educate people

108that are doing the education. So from your personal experiences that you have in school, what do you wish your teachers knew how to do with AI that maybe they don't or maybe only a pocket of people in your schools know how to do, but you wish all of my teachers knew how to do this. Can you give me some examples? Um, for me personally, I have a few teachers that will use AI, you know, whether it's notebook LM or Google Gemini is actually one that's very popular among my teachers. They will use them to create like quizzes and games that they'll let them post on like our Google classroom for us to use like interactively. So, it could either um be something that can give you a game to play or it can make you

109a quiz. It can also break down the individual steps of how to do specific things. Um, however, not all of my teachers know like that these tools exist and they see AI as just being something that will do the work for us and is bad. However, the teachers that really embrace it and give it as like a resource for us is something that I know a lot of um other students also really appreciate. Um, so I guess just using it in a way that can give us lots of like studying tools and things like that and like almost giving us like a teacher at home is something that would be very beneficial for students um and for teachers to know that they could even I think would be really good for teachers. So when you

110kind of educate students on our school has been kind of embracing this idea, but it's teaching um teachers how to tell students about like bringing the right type of prompt for AI and ensuring that AI can be the most successful that you make it based on the prompt that you would use. And a lot of students just use AI even if they're using the correct platform. um just really like conversing with it. That might not be the most efficient way to get the results they want. So I think it'd be good for teachers to talk to students about using the correct wording to get the correct type of feedback. >> Any other members? >> Dr. Lavis or Dr. Zimmerman whoever like go first. [clears throat] >> I can start. Uh, thank you very much for

111your presentation. Um, I just wanted to say that I really appreciated your presentation on the Stanley topic. As a teacher who's currently redesigning his whole course around the use of AI, I found your insights very valuable and we'll all try to incorporate them as we move forward and dealing with this and it's great to get your perspective on it. So, thank you very much. >> Dr. Lavis, >> again, thank you so much for this uh data that you provided. It's very interesting and it's a topic that we have been talking about and my a as a I used to be a high school principal and my uh question to you is uh AI is is important and it's not going to go away but it cannot take the place of a human. Um so how

112do you address social interaction and balancing in school because it as human beings we are socially bound and how do you balance in schools uh AI and dealing socially and helping each other in the classroom. Do you understand what I'm saying? [clears throat] >> Um I think I I think for my school personally a big thing that we do is you um act like the person next to you or your peer first before you um go to anything else. So I know for our ECE um society class my teachers have us like when a question is really difficult. we have she has us talk to our peers and try to figure it out as a group first. Um we only move on um to asking her and then the last step is AI. So I

113think having AI there as like a last step kind of thing um helps with the social interaction part and it [clears throat] helps you I guess go through the question and try to figure it out for yourself first before you see like alternative that is. Hi. Um, just to add on, at Farmington, we have something um similar where classes that have um opportunities and time built in for AI make it clear when it's um acceptable to be using a platform and when um it is like time for student interaction. Um teachers do a really good job of laying out like our classes and like our agendas for the day. um and is very clear as a student when okay this this time is for student um interaction like especially when we're writing big papers we

114have a lot of peer feedback days so we have specific days that are dedicated to peer feedback but then on the other hand we have specific days dedicated to AI feedback days so I think that a clear saturation of like when AI is acceptable and when it's not is also useful for students so there's no like blending and in between and so the AI usage doesn't fully take over from the peer side because it is easier to just type in a prompt and sometimes like have a like that back and forth conversation but I think the distinction of like the times is helpful. Just to add on to that I think um looking at this teacher survey data that we found from you know that we mentioned through the presentation a lot of what they

115said is that when they did use AI that 91 um teachers that did decide to use it in their classrooms mainly used it for assignments. not necessarily like in school activities. So, and I think um as a student, you know, seeing my peers around, that's when AI usage is definitely probably most efficient and effective um using it at home like somewhat like we've mentioned throughout the presentation is like a home tutor tutor or something um to help you out with your assignments when you're at home. And so I think that the balance between socializing in school and getting the opportunity to build your collaborative skills within your classmates, your peers, your teachers, I think that's something that's definitely still valued within education as a lot more students are more inclined to use it when they

116don't know how to approach something or they want to use it um on the assignment, which obviously isn't the proper way to use it, but unfortunately because of the lack of education, that's what a lot of students have come to. adding on I think from my experiences in time when my school they use the most is when can't contact a friend because they're sleeping and that's the time when like it the most is when they're on like a time crunch and they can't ask someone socially. But in school, especially in my school, we do value social interaction. A lot of us don't because like uh AI can like explain things but teachers are still valued as kind of the head explainer of things. So [laughter] um students still I feel like learning from teachers better

117than learning everything by themselves. >> Yeah because ultimately your teachers are the one who are grading the assignment and not AI. >> [laughter] >> Dr. AI is not coming. You don't know that they're very [laughter] question. Do you find that your teachers are teaching the use of AI sort of critical reasoning because I I mean I used AI that frequently where I put in information and and information came back I actually know. So, you know, everything on the internet, they see it, I've read it, it must be true. U teachers pointing out critical thinking on how to analyze something just because from AI, it's real, is it not? >> Yeah. I have a personal experience with this actually in our crunch class. My teacher, she did a really good example for us where she had

118she asked Chashibbt to do a summary of a movie that we watched and it gave us a summary and then we all wrote our own and we compared it to the one that AI wrote and AI was pulling information on the internet that was not true to the movie at all. And a lot of it was false compared to the ones that we wrote which were actually correct and that was just really important for us. Then also I know within our district we have professional development days for our teachers that where all of our teachers are going through different AI workshops where they're being educated on how to use AI in their classrooms which is very important because then they're also telling us and I know in my English classes we are told that we

119can use it to give feedback but not to write our essays for us which I think is really important that teachers are explaining when we can use it and when it's not going to be accepted. and also on a lot of our rubrics and designs that do not use AI or AI accepted. Um, and also on the STEM side of things, it's really great to explain things for us like we've mentioned before, but when we don't have that teacher connection that we can have at night at 10 p.m. when we're trying to do our homework, but I think teachers, especially in my district, are teaching when we can use it and when it's going to be wrong versus when we can't use it and be right. Thank you uh very much and it's so great

120uh for this presentation uh that you've shared with us and kind of zooming out and I don't know if you all you know board members are aware that yesterday governor Lamont signed public act 2615 uh which uh is uh legislation establishing youth online safety protections and regulations over uh artificial intelligence. So this is uh for our state and it's interesting uh because a part of it is combating youth social media addiction. So there's some thoughts about that, but the one that's really interesting uh to me is um same regulations of artificial intelligence and it's about uh those regulators of chat bots uh like requiring them to make sure that they're detecting uh suicidal ideiations uh indications of self harm and having protocols as to how to respond with appropriate resources. And so I just think

121it's interesting that you should know that the adults around you are trying to look out for protections uh for you and I know that is same in the classroom as well. And so just wanted to put that in the space. But really appreciate your presentation what you're experiencing. Again, I know Irene uh you know gotten information from that and from the pilots that we've done to allow us as we look at digital literacy and and safety and how to use this new tool safely. really important because I think it gives us it's not going away. Uh so we just need we need to get smarter so that we can help to make sure that you are supported. So thank you. I want to appreciate Sherice who's in the room and if you want to stand

122Shereice she does this uh work always reach out every year and said I've got this really eager awesome group of students. What's the topic that we should be exploring? And then we get this at the end uh which is really great. So, thank you for all that work and Irene again, thank you for shephering uh this uh through the process. >> So, I'd like to follow up on that. Sharice, finally, we get to meet each other. I I reached out to Sharice what almost two years ago now um because this council came up in our NASBY discussions um about you and NASBY is the National Association of Board of Eds. So, it's Board of Educations across the country. So, I reached out to Sherice. She gave me she was great to give me some information

123about how you're selected, how how you get on this council, what does the council do. Um earlier I had said in the northeast we had a lot discussion about our student members on the board. Um and at that time shares had given me all this information. I passed it out and it went to Montana, to Texas, Delaware, all these states that were asking about your council. So, I'm I can't wait until I can send this one to the to the NASBY um office to let them know this is this is this year's NAS um student council presentation because there are a lot of people across the country are wondering how like how does Connecticut have this in place? What what do they talk about? And I find it very interesting that both of the topics

124that all of you did were part of the governor's plan signing into legislation just recently. So you're right on the correct topics and you couldn't have picked better ones. So I thank both groups your director Irene for this wonderful this is always the presentation we look forward to each year. So thank you very much. It was excellent. >> Thank you so much for giving us your time. We're really excited to present to you all today. So have a great rest of your day. If you can get other quick I got to come and take a picture of course with all of you. So that would be great >> us because you're up next to go to learn right back. [cough and clears throat] >> That's right. >> Where I want to go. that is true.

125[laughter] >> No, that's not even everything up for the rest of us. >> She's [clears throat] colleges we've talked to history. >> It's amazing. All right. [laughter] Anyone? It is the report of commissioner. >> You got nobody. Pause a little bit. >> [laughter] >> I didn't even look up. [clears throat] I like you. >> Oh yeah, I know. >> I remember driving in those days. [laughter] >> Oh, no. so much. >> Yes. >> Education. I was in school. >> [laughter] >> Yes. [laughter] >> Okay, now we're all back and we will move on to the commissioner's committee. >> Thank you very much. Uh, Vice Chair Brenham, Senator and our board members, we are in June. That means that we are also winding down and closing out the school year by report. Um, as always, uh,

126the front matter is, uh, the reminder of our state board plan. Uh, and also on strategic areas, uh, that we focus areas that we work on. I wanted to pause on that just for a moment. Influence students are present and engaged is one of our strategic areas because you know that attendance is a precursor to engagement. It is a precursor to learning. And we want to take this time as a shout out to our kids, families, students, and community partners. As this past April, we reporting our local rate on record uh for this quarantine school year. Uh rates uh dropped from 17.2% 2% in March to 16.7% in April. And I know we use percentages, but these are students attending school more regularly with attendance gains across nearly all their student. So, they're encouraging folks

127that let's let's finish the year strong. Uh that we're keeping our fingers crossed that we can finish the year lower than we did in the previous year. Uh but just really wanted to pause uh to share that information. On our next slide, we have our traditional enrollment data. that's not changing. Uh that is there uh for us. Uh I use this you should know everywhere I go I'm always using this information remind us of course that we have looking at uh just highlighting for you under our equitable access to education priority area uh that the department released a high quality special education incentive grant program for local and regional boards of education to support uh in district's regional special education programming and services for students with facilities. This is funding that we received in the

128budget is $18.9 million. Uh 8.9 million in programming and 10 million capital improvements. And what that really means doing we heard loud and clear from superintendent about the need to work together in some cases to try to bring back students who are outplaced uh special education students back into district. uh and this board, this was one of the expansion item proposal board uh that uh that was picked up uh and and it was in the budget and so we're now deploying uh that application. Uh this past week uh along with the talent office uh we met with the advisory council for teacher professional standards and the administrative professional standards to discuss uh just updates uh that we have and there's a picture on the screen of all those who were in the room with us

129to talk about uh basically updates and recruitment and retention uh efforts uh that is going on. But if you recall that we accepted those two reports a couple of months ago and this was our inerson submitting and as you can see on the screen a big thank you to Sharon Fuller as Sharon in the room that Sharon is in the room waving at us for uh the work that she does. Uh they called her out in the meeting as well and thanking her for her being a joint representative for both councils. Um so we were able to do that uh safe and healthy learning environments priority. Just calling out for you that we are in the mode again of uh putting out um applications uh to our districts. Uh one of them is uh the

130uh 21st century community learning center. That's federal funding for after school. Uh and that is out there for districts uh to apply for funding as well. Uh and additionally uh we have $7 million state budget uh and appropriation for the learner engagement and attendance program. to the LEAP program that we lean upon to support uh the improvement in attendance and we do have one of only a couple of state actually a state line item in his budget to support attendance. So we're really pleased uh to be able to have that that we can deploy for the next school year. Uh as Vice Chair Benner mentioned this morning uh that we have six schools in the state that's been selected for the 2026 Connecticut Blue Ribbon Schools recognition program. Hope you can join us uh in

131West Hartford and the schools are great elementary school in Oxford, Nathan Hill School in Meridan, New Leon School in Greenwich, Richfield High School in Richfield, West School in West Hartford and Western Connecticut Academy of International Studies, Elementary Magnet School in Danbury. Very pleased to see we have uh the women school in Alliance districts uh in our state uh which we're also pleased. So hopefully I think we've sent information out so you can register and that we can hopefully you can join us in West Hartford uh for that recognition program. In your supplemental packet today you'll see a document uh it's CSD initiatives partnerships and resources to inform the Connecticut Career Pathways Commission document. uh we've had our first meeting uh the vice chair is a part of that commission uh and uh subsequent to that

132meeting we unified it was important that we put it in one place all the initiatives you've heard some of it here at the board meeting but wanted uh commission members to have this digest of the work that has been occurring uh impacts that we've been seeing all because part of this this uh the commission's efforts is to level up or to scale some of the work that is happening So it was really important for us to share what is actually happening uh which the upcoming meeting is what is called discovery and again it is learning about what is happening across not only the departments and and districts but higher ed institutions and others as well so that division can can work together uh to scale the work uh and to develop a really thoughtful uh

133implementable and sustainable plan. the uh internally we came together for an in-person all staff meeting. Uh and uh you should know that the basis of the work that we did together was look again looking at our state board comprehensive plan and the seven focus areas uh and to get all the voices uh across the agency. we've not been together in one space for quite some time and folks uh it was really uh awesome for folks to be together uh in that space uh especially I think in that room we had like 52 new staff members uh those of you didn't on the board knew you know few years ago we were truly struggling with our internal capacity and it took us a while uh but by the time we got together we had 52 and

134I think this past week we're brought up to 53 new members uh that we've added to the agency. So you can imagine how important it was just for people to be in the same space together uh and to meet each other outside of a screen uh which is really wonderful. I was able to join uh for statewide presentations uh Congressman Joe Courtney uh Dr. Pitchard who is not here today members of the United States military and electric boat leadership to give remarks at their fifth annual signing day. uh more than 300 students. I shook all their hands came across the stage uh from over 50 schools uh that we have from neighboring states uh accepting job offers at ED and it was really just awesome as these students got their art hats uh and and

135really so that they can join our growing workforce uh and we'll be doing some followup there so we can learn exactly what is occurring and how does parenting right after they get into that program and how can we uh continue to help to augment uh that uh as well. I wanted to share I believe Irene uh if you're still in the space uh with us uh just to talk a little bit about our Connecticut curriculum teacher leader fellowship uh that ended. I think we have a picture uh with you about what we've accomplished and where we go from here. So I've invited Iran just to join us to sit in brief about that. Thank you commissioner. Any chance to talk about curriculum? I will take it. So we have it. So yes, we have come

136to the last session which was module 6 on Thursday, May 28th. And if you can just go back this slide. Thank you. Um so we convened our Connecticut again recognized by their superintendent district leaders. um these are teacher leaders for curriculum that really have a passion for curriculum and we came together to um really put their vision in motion. So they had to come with their vision for curriculum at the local level what they were going to do um to make change um in their district and so we made them do a vision board. So it really was like a capstone for curriculum vision boards and um we had 46 teams come together create their vision board on the spot. We gave them 30 minutes to do it. They came prepared. They had art supplies

137and we were in three different cycles of a gallery walk in um at 450 here in different buildings. And the feedback that we received from the end of survey of the event is the collaboration with other districts was so incredibly powerful. Making their vision visible to others and getting feedback in the moment that they can actually transfer when they went back to district and just let's keep this going. We have to continue to collaborate. So these are those that attended. They received their certificate and these are just some examples of the vision boards which you can see that very thoughtful. Um it is about systems that they're putting in place locally and refining policy or even just creating policy that didn't even exist before and based on our toolkit that we've provided. They're able to

138do this and they really felt empowered. Um I really do think that we've now repositioned the state department of education with uh the commissioner's leadership and the support from Dr. Hughes that we are central to coming to us first about support for curriculum design and development and I think that's really important with our tools. So um yeah we're going to do this again. We're going to have another wave of um curriculum fellows and we hope to connect wave one and wave two because that's what they want more of and they said we might have to get out of get out of our bubble so that we can see what others are doing because of what it's the same conversation. It's the same challenges regardless of where we're we're learning. So, thank you again commissioner for

139letting our welcome. Thank you. >> So, um those are the high level uh updates that I wanted to share and now we go to uh some updates for Hartsford, Bridgeport and Springfield uh in that order. I have opportunity to join with Before I go there just for the board. If you don't yet have the invites in your inboxation, I'm sorry uh schools verification. So, you will get that today. All right. We will start with Harper's presentation and the update is in your supplemental packet if you want to pull that out. [clears throat] >> Good morning everybody. It's good to see you all again today. I know that you'll be breaking for lunch. I will not be the one to hold you up. very um quickly on April 17th the agency entered into a contract with

140Larson Allen LLP conduct a compilation of forecasting statement of revenues and expenditures which is phase one of the contract followed by a forensic audit of HPS's fiscal year 24 256 budgets which comprises phase two for this project of the CLA comp compilation of forecasted statement of revenues and expenditures that's report and management letter is included in your packets that intervention uh phase two of the forest audit will begin Friday this Friday June 5th and continue through August of 2026 um the very brief movement you will see um CLA the CLA report has been that the $22 million deficit originally reported by HPS um is a result of a few three major areas really. Um an in inaccurate estimate of a 6% vacancy rate, but it was actually lower. They hired more than they had estimated

141by half. As a matter of fact, the vacancy rate ended up being 3%. Uh they [clears throat] also hired staff at a higher salary than what was budgeted. So as vacancies came up, they brought these folks in but hired them at a much higher rate um which a large deficit and also when projecting their budget they assumed a flat enrollment which impacted re revenue course revenue uh sorry enrollment declined and then so did associated breaks based on student population also. uh CLA found that the actual deficit was about 33% higher than that. It was 29.5 million as of April. Um and the difference is that HPS did not include the cost for part-time Halloween employees. They did not realize $3 million from the city from a sheriff services agreement. uh and they underbudgeted their fiscal

142year 26 uh benefit and that's the difference between 4 to 22 and the actual 29.5 that CLA found. The CLA also identified some concerns around building of special education costs to HPS for our program students attending out of district choice programs. So that's just a really high level summary of their findings. Uh, I'd encourage you to take a look at their management letter. You'll also have the law answer before. [clears throat] Thank you. You guys hear that clicks in is fine. [laughter] Thanks. Uh, thank you that we introduced. So, I I appreciate the sort of breakdown. I appreciate that you guys provided the report from the um from the auditing firm help you know how how we arrive. I guess just for context um you know on the one hand obviously you want an accurate

143estimate of your own finances and it's best estimate it's accurate you know to the dollar at the same time you know projections are projections and we ask our districts to do a lot it's hard to ask them to predict the future um you know these funds kind of evolve with each school year and I guess I'm just curious like what your perspective is on how common it is that these kind of provisions in the deficit will take place in different districts across the state right to be able to news. You can see that it happens sometimes. So, I'm curious if this one stands out to you in some way. And I think there will always be Charlene. You're correct. They're projections and and conditions changed throughout the the fiscal year. I think what CLA found

144were some they mentioned some other issues that triggered their uh their interest. And when uh you're under budgeting for benefits, when you are not including entire class of of salary, part-time hourly employees, that is a concern. Um so yes, certainly you see districts that they have protections that go up, that go down. Um, and I think that CLA was was concerned not about changes in conditions, but sort of a blurry absence of certain things that were even considered, >> right? Yeah. And and typically as as districts um identify the overfill rate based upon estimates of vacancies as they hire at a higher rate than what was anticipated, but they uh projected an 80% um salary refill rate, right? As those numbers start to change, districts should often raise that talk about it, find ways to

145mitigate it and have that done. >> Of course. Yeah. And I guess the question is like compared you know some of the information if you read this document it's like some of it was sort of coming alive as this reporters before this report was being conducted. I guess the question is like what is a reasonable time frame in which to incorporate incorporate that I notic in New Haven there was like a something like a $4 million upward revision from you know $4 billion division the deficit this year and again it's like it's hard for me to assess I guess as a board member who's not in every day you know when is this a deal and when is this something that is like okay well projections are projections so I appreciate the insight that it

146might have to do the nature of of the updates, but I also want to make sure that we are, you know, there's a degree to which if we did this degree of oversight for other districts, it might also find things that [laughter] we wish they were doing different. That's kind of the tension I'm trying to navigate. My mind here, I think this this allowed us to understand uh the district's current status, >> right? And I I'm totally unfolded to give it more information. It's better. I guess the question is like okay um what's the best cadence at which to collect that information is there how do we make sure it's worth the cost you know it's hard to get right a firm we took our time their time the question is like how much value

147are we getting um but no I appreciate the fact that the information is out there thank you I guess the final question I just have what's next was that's where can you tell me a little bit more about the next step as as Keith had mentioned um we are initiating being the process of a forensic audit and the expenditures over the last three fiscal years and how those decision making uh across budgets has occurred and if there are any anomalies similar to what has so we use that information going forward yeah to this investigation like >> well similarly to Bridgeport as as we've shared over the last few months we can understand some of the fiscal controls that are strengthened. Our previous work was to develop some of those with our support from public works.

148Now we're understanding how that's impacting >> and how so I would appreciate an update on the public works things the next time we have an opportunity to talk about this because to me I guess you know when we came in here it was like we were really worried about some of these you know some of the basic fiscal controls I think right as well as personnel um hopefully some of those have changed and leadership team they're totally different so I move forward is trying to make sure that we can >> excuse me as vice chair had mentioned at the start of the meeting. Uh the district will be able to report on some of their properties. >> That's very good. Okay. Go forward hearing that. I think >> I think this the results of this,

149excuse me, are um this review that CLA has done go hand in hand with the work that public has done in terms of this office uh the controls of the the things that they needed to improve on. That's one of the takeaways basically. So the takeaway from something like this is here we have a CLA that's come in and said these things needs weren't considered and they should be. So hopefully the takeaway is going to be when they're developing their budget also their budget projections as the year goes on they're trying to greater level of accuracy. Yeah, I mean I completely agree that anything you can do to help make the projections more accurate for the most part is is a desirable thing to do with going forward. >> I was going to say uh

150this is all about helping and supporting uh the city because we've all heard about not having enough resources to do the work that's necessary. Remember that this all started uh because again folks get confused about what we did with public works which was not a fiscal audit. It was strengthen the system based on the things that we learning at the time but the this board said we need to be there to provide that level of support. We have CC4 recommendations again on uh supporting the system and making sure the system improved. what we got here was issues around the actual finances uh which is very different and so all of us I mean in the work that the board has charged us to do is being able to answer the question about how are we

151supporting districts and students with the resources that they have uh and we know there's another issue that's happening across the state about funding for education at large uh but you've got a big example here from Bridgeport yes there's funding but there's also how you're utilizing the resources that you currently have and that is important. I believe that's important for sport as well as we're looking at outcomes for students ultimately uh in going in that direction. So is there more support that will be needed after we go through that we've gone through that you've all acknowledged we've all acknowledged and superintendent Harford is new he inherited this budget uh I think same is true maybe for the chair and so I think it is a positive for us to understand what may need to be strengthened

152uh and what needs to happen and for the district to be able to also answer that question around what resources do you truly need and and how do we go go forward so I think that's all the part of being able to support and the sports, right? Um wanted to make sure that that is indeed happening. And so you'll have conversations at the at your accountability uh meeting so you can have this dialogue back and forth better understanding and then how can we continue to provide support what specifically then is the support that's necessary beyond those 64 recommendations for strength in the system. Is there something else that need to occur? uh and I think we will learn that objectively and then be able to to take action uh in that space and you know

153I looked over at Jessica uh smiling because we manage over four billion dollars here and how do we make sure that we're in taking the time to understand are we over are we under and if we are what are we doing to mitigate I mean that is a just a part of the process but in order to do that she's got to share with me or I've got to query and understand accurately you know how we making those projections so that we can take the appropriate action. I think in general, not simplistically, what those are the kinds of things that we would expect uh that would be happening and as a leader, we want to make sure that that is in specify the board's information. The report that you have um just like any other

154report that it comes to the board first and then this will be made public. Um but it was not made public until we see it as a board first. And so what we're seeing now um certainly the contents was shared with Hartford when they met with them. Um, but it will be shared u the actual report will be shared with Harvard as well as the mayor uh and already done at this point because we now have it. Um, and we'll get into as we always have into the weeds we so to speak and accountability support which is actually with Hartford where we began years ago but that's sort of where we began and we'll return there uh to discuss in further and to have dialogue directly with Artford. That's the that's the venue to do

155that. >> Based on what you just said, my question might now actually be for you. Um, in light of the three bulleted areas that are on page two, um, to me, bullets one and three seem like a systemic issue that occurred in fiscal year 26 budget. For zones in the fiscal year 27 budget, had the same errors in it. So, do we know that that has been adjusted for next year's budget or is that something that we will be digging into as you said? >> That's what we're going to hear from Hartford that they actually discuss this further because you're correct. I mean, we saw some of these already in place before this new leadership took over and now we'll hear directly to Dr. Zimmerman's point, every district has the magnitude in the cities is

156is that much greater. So it's it is harder. But I think the key is to have regulator regular reporting and monitoring probably every two weeks in public at at a board meeting so that adjustments that need to be made can be made because it's it's it's hard to make a an adjustment June. It's a lot easier to do it in October and November. But I do want to say um based on the report what it said we draw some silver linings here because if the vacancy rate was expected to be 6% and it's only 3% that means we're getting more teachers in classroom and if the uh budget compensation rate for the staff uh actually turns out to be higher than what they proply just that they were filling the vacancies more but also it

157may very well mean that they were hiring people with more experience and better education credentials is again really important for improving the public school students. So I do think it is about monitoring and is about the magnitude of the system but with regular reporting I think big adjustments and having a reduced vacancy rate and better qualified teachers that's the goal >> Mr. Harris >> everything that you have said very very true. Um, however, my comment and that is no questions because I want to thank Hubes for your diligence and unpeeling this uh helping uh Harvard uh take care of their own. That's the ultimate goal. Now I I just thank you for what you're doing, what the uh work department is doing, the auditors, the the associates, uh you know, job well done. Job well

158done. >> Thank you very much. Um we'll move on to Bridgeport. >> Thank you, Commissioner. Good afternoon. Okay, good morning. So, a running joke, right? Um, my pleasure to update you on Bridgeport Public Schools and I will be brief considering the length of last month's presentation from technical assistance support. Uh, primarily uh focused on the work governance and oversight. Um since around March uh we've been supporting the district with understanding uh the expectations relative to openings for the permanent superintendent position. Um we've been going back and forth with the board chair. Um, and essentially there was a a keen focus on making sure that the board had adopted new and updated bylaws uh and administrative policies that were most specifically relative to uh the oversight of the superintendent primary role of so um the board

159has done their work in that way. uh they have updated those policies, worked with Cave in doing so, adopting many of their model policies um to show uh industry standard quality if you will. Um and we were notified by the board chair uh just recently that we have selected a firm by the June one deadline uh that we had hoped for. Um and under the commissioner's uh support for the district, we are going to begin the conversation with them to support them financially um with costs related to that search so that they can undergo that without so please question. Thank you very much. uh employment that can bring us just to there's in your packet there's a warning closer and uh they'll Hello. [clears throat] >> Thank you, Commissioner. Good morning all. Uh we're um

160happy to report out on a special education update. As the commissioner mentioned, in your packet, you have a high level overview of the activities related to the West Med report and their recommendations. Um this is a very busy time for special education. As I'm sure you're aware, uh this month especially is a heavy volume for annual reviews for our students and planning as well as their extended school year programs that will be starting in a few short months. Our team supporting those activities. Uh we wanted to highlight the commissioner mentioned uh the competitive grants that we just rolled out uh to enhance capacity within the district to support especially intensive student needs within the district uh with the goals of educating students in their neighboring schools and community. Uh our IDA grant application was also

161submitted this past month which was a culmination of coordination and collaboration across departments. Our local districts are also completing their IDA grants um actually this past Friday. So our teams will be reviewing 170 plus applications uh and we're looking for those coordinated services. Um with regard to the recommendations and professional development activities, uh we are continuing the next phase of our statewide rollout around IEP quality. uh moving from compliance and process to quality of results for our students and also expanding to general education teachers and administrators and uh our activities have been in district and uh extremely successful for those kinds of dialogues. That's a wonderful collaboration with our partners at circ as well as the resk alliance. Um, I also wanted to mention we are engaging with our partners at uh PCG who support

162the special education data system. We have a new Connecticut league that we've been meeting with on a regular basis. My name is Jennifer flag uh to move us to the next phase of activities supporting our districts which will kick off with a usability study over the summer months and into the fall. So at this time I'll turn over to Katherine to talk about some high level activities related to infrastructure. >> Thank you Brian. Thank you and for everyone here today. Um I will talk first about our complaints. I'm not going to read this information to you. I know you're relieved. As you can see, we continue to achieve well over 90% compliance with our federal 60-day timeline. That is primarily due to the extraordinary efforts of our complaint investigators, including our complaints coordinator, Jen James.

163We have this year stood up a very comprehensive tracking process for every single complaint that comes through our office from receipt through the investigation process through determining sufficiency, coming to our conclusions and issuing our findings letters. Obviously, that's very successful at the moment. Again, the efforts of our complaint investigators cannot be overstated. They're working very hard because um as you are also aware, we continue to experience an incredibly high volume of complaints. I think over the past four years, we're at about a 64% increase year-over-year from four years ago to today. We have already surpassed 300 complaints received this year as compared to last year, we were somewhere around 260 270. So just to put that in a framework reference for you. Um we are also uh engaged Midwest and specifically on some process mapping

164and talent mapping activities. For anyone who's familiar with lean processing or six sigma we went through a full process mapping activity focused on um issuing guidance documents getting them all the way through drafting development uh review approval published to the field. That activity was very well received. We found it very helpful. We will be applying the results um of our adjustments to that process this summer. We're very excited about it. And speaking of CIRC, we are going to be repeating that process mapping activity for some of our processes where we engage with CIRC to work on some projects and then some internal processes within the bureau such as issuing our reports from on-site monitoring visits just as a couple of examples. So, we're finding that to be very very beneficial. you're interested, you could read

165flow engineering as I did to learn a little bit more about some of the processes wested has coached us through. Um, and talent mapping was scheduled. It's another another process and uh professional capital activity was scheduled for last Friday. Unfortunately, we had to reschedule it. will be happening this Friday to better align the staff that we have with the work assignments and required um and best practice work that we need to do within the bureau. >> And uh just finishing up with our next steps. Um as Katherine mentioned, the work with the complaint investigators in due process are helping to inform our technical assistance as well as activities next year. Uh we continue to have monthly meetings with our parent and board attorneys which have been really well received and we are exploring a new

166uh informal dispute resolution process called IEP facilitation state and very excited about rolling that out as well. Um under the leadership of the deputy commissioner and with her support we've been collaborating and coordinating as well on our educator um shortages related to special education. Uh we meet with Dr. Tucker and Dr. on a bi-weekly basis. Um we have some competitive grants that were supported by the commissioner and um part of your support um in last year's budget to look to enhance the profession of our PAR educators and career pathways for them as well as shortage areas. So we continue to meet on a bi-weekly basis in those coordinated activities. And uh we're happy to answer any questions. And thank you commissioner for your support. Thank you very much, Brian. Any questions? Right. Uh thank you

167uh very much for being here. The final presentation that I have previously on Connecticut fresh ed uh John Fanelli will be joining us. I don't know. And this was a specific request. Thank you, Miss Bur. Uh and our vice chair to provide this update uh to you all. >> Thank you. I don't know who was the genius in scheduling that we start talking about food at exactly noon. [laughter] Very impressive. [clears throat] >> Good afternoon. I'm John Prinelli, division director in school health, child nutrition and family services. I'm here to talk about the fresh ed program. You go to the next slide. So CT fresh ed is really a statewide brand um that we developed to amplify and celebrate farm-to-school efforts not just in schools but also in childhood programs and summer service programs. There's

168really three components which you may have seen on the banners outside. There's the cafeteria and the classroom and the so I'm going to talk briefly about all of those. So the regional farm to school coordinators is a partnership with the uh Yukon uh cooperative extension. Um and these five coordinators I like to refer to them as matchmakers. They work directly with districts uh to connect districts with farms and they work directly with farmers to help farmers understand how to approach schools uh to have a relationship um for purchasing local products. uh in the past year they've helped actually procure over $2 million in in local food uh for schools and we're going to go onward and upward from there. Um the bilal program is >> I just want to make sure that the board members

169have it's in your packet in the deck that we have. So thank you >> and you can go to the link of the CT freshed compass uh and it will navigate you through all of this. >> The B local program used to be called the um local food for schools incentive program. We changed the name because that was also the name of the federal program. So, just to keep things straight, um this year we have a million and a half dollars um state funds for for trips to uh get reimbured at 50% of their expenditure on local foods. Um and next year we actually have $3.5 million for next school year. So, um again, a lot of support for supporting our farmers. Um so this is to allow schools to buy uh local products in

170what we refer to as either non unprocessed or minimally processed foods. Right? So these are uh whole heads of lettuce. But minimally processed could mean that the lettuce is shredded and bagged or you know butternut squash is frozen for preservation or uh in order to for convenience or you know preservation but but can't add can't add fats, can't add sugars, can't add anything. So really it's the whole product. The CT fresh compass is an online tool that uh we worked with the Yukon RD center for health policy to develop. Um it really is a sort of soup to nuts uh apologies for the word [laughter] way in which schools can assess the their situation. What is happening in each of your schools? What is your participation in school meals? What is the acceptance of the

171foods that you're serving in school meals? what are your ability uh to purchase locally, right? Who are the farmers in your communities? Who are your champions that are going to support you in this effort when you're moving it forward? Shows areas of needs and really creates a road map uh forward um that with our team and the team at Yukon and then and the navigators that they can help connect make those connections to a plan forward for those schools. Um you'll see in the upper right hand corner the CT grown for CT kids week. We also partner with the state department of agriculture that provides grants uh to school for a number of things. Um some really exciting things is purchasing um retired shipping containers to have um hydroponic growing throughout the school year. Um

172opportunities to build green houses so that they can schools can actually grow um food on site um so that they can use them in all of their programs. So also um part of this the second part of this important piece an important sort of advancement on on farm for school which is um the classroom um and why does it matter? Why does the classroom have to be? And and just to be clear, we're not talking about, you know, two apples plus two apples equals four apples, right? What we're talking about, we know that health healthy students are better learners. We know that hands-on and garden experiences, enhanced STEM, enhanced literacy, uh enhanced environmental education, and students understanding of nutrition. So we're partnering with the academics office to uh develop a farmto-ch child curriculum um for

173inclusion in go open CT which is the academic office digital library for standards aligned uh culturally responsive instructional resources. So that will be coming up. Um the initial curriculum development will focus on grades K to 8 with grades 9 to 12 uh quickly following. Um it's a it's a curriculum women's learning that includes nutrition education but also connects students to understanding Connecticut's agricultural economy um Connecticut food systems workforce opportunities you know everything from agriculture farming culinary careers and and food service operations. So, this dubtubales very specifically with the the work that that deputy commissioner Hughes in the academic office is doing around industry recognized credentials um to get students more interested and understanding what career possibilities there are um in in these fields. Uh next slide, please. So, here's just uh some of our successes.

174Um over two million invested in local foods. We've got over 200 farmers engaged in this in this work. Uh 136 of our 170 uh National School Lunch Program sponsors or have signed up for the program. Um 50 sponsors have completed and submitted the Compass to help them move forward. We've done field trips and we continue to offer trainings in partnership with the University of Connecticut uh on all of us all of this moving forward. Um uh so the other thing I wanted to mention is that the community aspect of this right so we want to make sure it becomes part of the community um and this local sourcing um includes include improves uh food safety improves transparency understanding where your food comes from. It helps students understand that there are people in their community that

175are growing this food. Um it gives families confidence in the meals that they're are being served in school. Um, and it lowers the carbon footprint of the of the foods that are being served in schools. They don't have to come from across the country. They're coming from right down the street. Uh, it strengthens our local economy. It supports farmers. Um, and again, it introduces uh students to pathways in agriculture, culinary, uh, understanding of supply chain economics. And hopefully those students will be interested in those careers, stay in Connecticut for sustainability of those interested in Connecticut. Some of you may recognize that this aligns very closely with the the CDC model. We got the whisk model, the whole school, whole child, whole community model, which incorporates all of these things, including family engagement, school climate, culture,

176um [clears throat] social emotional understanding in all that work. So, it's purposeful that it's we align it with that, right? Emotional wellness, physical wellness, all at the same time. Uh, and the last slide I'll show you, if you haven't been in a school and seen school lunch um, lately, this is what school lunch looks like today. >> So, we would really love it for you ambassadors out there that say, "Geez, I saw what school lunch looks like now, and it doesn't look like anything like I remember." Um there are a number of things on that that that plate in the middle is a bonme wrap and it has daicon um radishes and carrots um from Vigant Farms in Wila. Um the on the right hand side the kale come came from Subedge Farm in Farmington.

177Uh and much of the lettuce is coming from the H2O farm in Guilford. Um, so just an idea of of how this works and what what these presentations look like um, in school lunch. And I will tell you that what was the most interesting to me is we're not just talking about apples in the fall or or butternut squash in the fall. We're talking about farms that are providing poultry to schools. We're talking about farms that are providing honey to schools. We have a farm that's growing wheat that is being used to make whole grain pasta for school meals. My favorite one is we have the Stonington Kelp Company. They're throwing sugar kelp in the ocean and they're providing it to schools to include in their meals. Chopped dried in their salads. They're making sauces.

178They're making all kinds of exciting things. And this kelp farms are essentially a zero carbon footprint because it grows in the ocean, doesn't require fertilizer, doesn't require fresh water. Um it's really exciting stuff. So, um I before I stop, I just want to um acknowledge Shannon Yearwood. Shannon, please. Shannon's the force behind all of this and the work with Yukon uh all of Yukon and her team uh just have put this whole thing together and it's just been an amazing amount of work and and um district as you can see districts are jumping on board uh and improving school meals as a result of supporting local farmers um and it's a win-winwin all around. So thank you. Thank you, John, and thanks for helping us to have a mind shift uh around what school meals

179are or what they can be on today. So, just appreciate it. I don't know if you have any questions or comments. You know, I'm not going to like this one yet. So, Shannon, a shout out to all the amazing work that you do with John to you as well. I think that one of the things that that has really come forward as we start taking a look at how can we have healthy kids is making sure that there's healthy food and and I think that really started to hit home for a lot of us when during co you know and before that I mean that's not to say that this has not been important but when we saw so many young people that didn't have access to good fresh food and and whole food not

180just something that was processed you know that they could get out of a can and so just a huge shout out and I want to thank all of you for putting this together uh to share with us, you know, some of the things that are are happening. And I I know again the the love that you have for dietetics and healthy kids and and again, John, the work you're doing, Shannon and just thank you so much for for elevating that our kids deserve to eat healthy at school. No pun intended, but I just want to go on the record as saying that I do eat school lunch almost every day and it is excellent and I particularly do appreciate the fresh the fresh fruit and vegetables um that we have. I know my students do

181too because they often secretly pocket the extra food that comes out and they are eating it all day because they shouldn't be technically in class. Um but the the the change particularly since the pandemic um that I have seen in my own high school has been remarkable uh particularly around those areas and it is a really good thing to see kids wanting to and have access to at school really good fruits and vegetables. So thank you for highlighting this. >> Thank you. Just Oh, sorry. >> Just to echo, my son's a student in the big public school. So, he won't let us send a bunch. [laughter] >> And some of this, I just comment on New Haven because some of this really relies on really innovative practices by food service directors. One story from New

182Haven is they had a they had a frozen strawberry fruit cup and no one ate it. No one ate it. And then they let they said, "Well, let why don't we defrost it? We'll serve it at room temperature." Nobody ate it. Nobody ate it. So now they specifically take it out 40 minutes before lunchtime. So it's still slushy. It's not warm. It's not frozen. It's still I mean those are the And >> that's like that's a real thing in my high school too. So, those are the those are the things that these creative folks find these school um nutrition programs that were really good. >> I can remember when smoothies were offered for breakfast and we had the best early attendance. No one was starting once these smoothies were going to be offered. >> They

183were in line for those smoothies. >> Have to tell you, I've been retired now for 20 years um from the Bloomfield schools. And if anybody knows somebody from the Bloomfield Schools, give a message. Don Harris is coming to check them out [laughter] because I ate school lunches all my time there like that. [laughter] >> Dr. Carlson, >> I just wanted to say thank you for both of you and for everybody who's part of the program because for many of the kids that you know we serve at Connecticut Children's and across the state, this may be the only time of the day that they get fresh fruits and vegetables. So important that >> next is a farm to hospital program >> actually and even with that some of the hospitals are actually having gardens out the

184roofs now to fly fresh fruits and vegetables into the hospital [clears throat] >> John thank you very much and thank you that to Shannon and the team behind you uh not many people know that we have in John's area we have registered dieticians uh that's there along with other committed folks that they're doing this work uh every day. So truly appreciate appreciate you and the work you do. >> Thank you. Thanks for the opportunity. >> And we're going the last I just wanted to let you know uh the Blue River Commission on K12 Funding and Accountability convened for the first time tomorrow uh at 10:00 uh at the LOV. It will be streamed as you can well imagine and I know the folks watching uh will pay attention that there'll be opportunities you know I'm

185pleased to invite the vice chair of that commission uh Nami Wagner interim uh chief of staff at the governor's office uh is the chair and so we start tomorrow three-hour meeting scheduled for tomorrow at the LLB uh and you know certainly will not tomorrow but we we'll be working to make sure that there's community engagement stakeholder engagement and I'm sure people have a lot to to share and to say and we'll be making sure that that is occurring. So just wanted the board to be open that as well. Thank you. >> I think we can get a few more items in before we break for lunch to um on aa scholar award winner. All right, back to the table. Let me just make motions for um A, B, and C. >> Thank you. >> Go

186second. all together. I didn't realize they were all the same. >> Came. Thank you. >> So, annually, uh, we, the Department of Education honors an individual who attained the highest score on the general education development GEC test during the previous calendar year. Connecticut's GED testing program provides that opportunity for youths and adults not enrolled in school to obtain a high school diploma. And annually we honor that an individual with the highest GED test score. So it is recommended that the state board of education recognized Brian Hung as the GED scholar for 2025. He earned a total of 750 out of a possible score of 100, which is the highest score attained in Connecticut during 2025. This achievement brings honor to him. Certainly the state board of education and the state of the United and thank

187you for your consideration. >> It's ready for a vote. All in >> favorations. They're not here. >> No. >> Okay. We be follow up with a certificate and a letter. >> Thank you. And resolution. Next item. Next item B. So, thank you all. Um I do want to take a moment um with this particular item to recognize the career and technical education unit and specifically Shan Mcuan. Mr. Mcuan serves as our program manager for all of the state career and technical organizations also referred to as CTSOs. So for a background career and technical student organizations are co-curricular opportunities in Connecticut school that are committed to the development of individual leadership skills. CTSOs are part of a comprehensive high school and the Connecticut Technical Education System. Students and their teacher adviserss engage in these groups that

188collaborate in hands-on applications of um real world experiences. Each CTSO participates in state and national competitions where students can transfer their learning and skills and compete for titles for recognition, state seats for themselves as an individual or a team at a school. And we have heard um from many graduate testimonials include the importance of their participation in a school CTSL and what they've learned and that that learning experience um has done great things for them beyond high school. I've had the pleasure [clears throat] of um visiting some of the events and um enrollment is on the rise so it's getting its recognition specifically attended DECA um at the opera turb exceeded the capacity. I thought for sure they were going to close the forest and SBA was, believe it or not, breaking at the seams

189at the convention center right next door. So again, enrollment is on the rise. The department continues to to devote time and oversight to modernize our PTSOs and access to resources um in direct service of the state board um plan, the five-year comprehensive plan. And specific to this strategy, we released a statewide CTSO overview and operational pride book for consistency and coherence that was published in November and shared statewide. We also conducted a competitive application process to invite other national organizations to be recognized as a state CTSO. Um after a rigorous review, we have since added ProStart in that culinary space and Ed Rising as a CTSO. So one, two or seven. Yeah, there are nine. So before you are seven that are being recognized, this is what we received from the organizations. So um DECA,

190which would be Fairfield, Warren High School, for Ed Rising, New Britain High School for FCCLA, Windsor High School, Nanow High School for FFA, Farmington High School for HOSA, and Valley Regional High School for a technical student organization also known as TFA. All in favor I post. Congratulations to all new schools. >> And the teachers are really important to that process too. So it's important to recognize the teachers of these schools in this chapter. So it's nice to hear that it's so >> yeah that career connected learning is happening. >> That's the next item. The before you is a recommendation to recognize five individuals for their accomplishments to achieve basic education or secondary school completion. Uh whether that's the GE program or ESL or US citizenship preparation programs and opportunities that truly do provide um unlocking

191their potential for sure um in adult education centers across the state. So I'd like to name the five individuals before you. We had Lexi Escantino from New Haven Ading Leo Chien from Norwich Adult Education, Lani Lee from Wallingford Adult Education, Anna Pasana from Literacy Volunteers at Family Centers, and Malish Shishan at at Advance. So, I think you'll agree upon reading the testimonials um before provided by the adult education centers that these five individuals are role models and inspiration for all of us. I do want to recognize um our own folks here at the state department that are strong advocates for adult education. Sabrina Mancini, Susan Kosaba, Marcy Reid, and Lauren Lynch. It is through their support that the adult education centers can create accessible learning and opportunities for our 18,000 960 adult learners statewide. And

192certainly thank you Commissioner Russell Tiffer for your persistence and u reminding us that we do serve all learners, student and adults. Um it's also important to share that these learners were recognized on March 13th side by side with the commissioner and the governor at the case conference. So it is clear from the summary of their accomplishments that these learners have unlocked their potential through these achievements. So thank you for your consideration in >> favorations to all of them. >> Thank you and copy of the resolution. Thank you. Item 8D, the consideration of approval of certification for Ten Tanesa Edwards. Oh, second. >> Good afternoon, Vice Chair Ben and board members. Uh we're here today uh requesting consideration of approval for initial certification for Tata Edwards uh unit coordinator Kar to provide you with background information.

193>> Good afternoon board of education members. Tasia Edwards is requesting a certification waiver for issuance of an initial educator certificate. She completed her special education educator preparation program at Southern Connecticut State University which included the required dyslexia related coursework content and she provides practicum and she has been serving successfully as a special education teacher for the New Haven public schools in August 2021. She successfully completed the practice 2 specialed test and received a score of 233 on the foundation of reading test which is the cut score by seven points but also falls within one st standard error of measurement of the passing score. If practis excuse me if Pearson offered a bridge option like practis in Connecticut for the foundations of reading she would uh qualify for that alternative testing option. New Haven public schools

194strongly supports their candidacy and special education teacher and they have strategically focused her professional development on successful implementation of the reading curriculum, systematic structured literacy for students with learning and language disabilities, evidence-based literacy interventions, literacy lesson design and implementation, and the role of assisted technology in supporting read development. If Miss Edward's request for initial educator certificate is granted, she must complete all requirements necessary at the time of application to advance to the next level of certification, including but not limited to successful completion of the team beginning educator induction program and professional experience. Questions from the board. All in favor of voting for this waiver. All right. Post. Congratulations, Miss Edwards. >> Item AE, the adoption of the CCB's 2026 proposals regarding sunset regulations. Rodriguez and Deputy Commission. >> Good afternoon everyone. Um we're here just

195to do much of what we've done in the past and to go over the regulations that we have been working on. regulations were approved by the board um education preparation uh and certification board in January and I'm sorry in December and then LPBC uh in February I believe it was or January um and so now they are before you so for approval these are the ones that were um identified as some settings um many of which we have placed language for and or identify other regulations that need to appeal um So that is um the gist of the packet like we've done in the past. We've been able to push flyer at these meetings. Um so we ask for your approval on these so that we can continue the process of entering it into the

196next. >> Any questions? I know this went through LPC so I'm guessing this forward. Any questions from the board? >> Favor. I opposed. Motion carries. Great. Thank you so much for your support. And with that, this is where we will break for lunch. 30 minute break for lunch. >> Yeah. Like >> [clears throat] >> Yes. Change my name. We are going to move on with our agenda. I motion for a draft the review of the state charter of Emma. Hello. Oh, thank you. Um, hello. I'm Lauren Arandi. I Good afternoon, vice chair, board member, commissioner in board packet for your consideration is the renewal of Amastad Academy. With me at the table is Borman Bandi, elementary school principal, Jasmine Watts, high school principal, Dinkens, middle school principal, and Alex Guns Guns May, the representative from

197the governing council. Amastad Academy, a school that has served the New Haven community for 27 years. Mission is to prepare students to deepen their knowledge of self and community to excel at college, career, and life and to lead lives of purpose and leadership. It is not just a statement. This mission is visible in the classrooms, in the hallways, and in the voices of the 34 community members who showed up to the public hearing. Every single one of them supported the school. Amastad currently enrolls 1,089 students in grades K 12, nearly 79% of whom qualify for free and reduced price meals. Amastad's mathematics, academic, and both significantly outpaces both the state and host district. Its four-year graduation rate of 90.5% include the state average and far surpasses New Haven's 72.5%. Nearly 78% of the graduates are

198entering postsecary pathways which is above the state average on discipline. A hamstad earned a tier one rating reflecting low suspension rates and low disproportionality at a time when both assault [clears throat] rates in the state rated tier three. The chronic absenteeism, while still of focus, has improved steadily, down 10 full percentage points over three years. A testament to the school's commitment keeping students engaged and connected. Fiscally, Amastad has demonstrated strengthened cash reserves, including its cash on hand from 125 to 130 days. And the governing council has financial oversight structures in place. The renewal consider the renewal conditions will support the school in formalizing and documenting those structures to ensure long-term sustainability and transparency. on governance. The Amastad Governing Council has bylaws in effect that have shown responsiveness to the CSD feedback and the renewal conditions

199will support the council in strengthening board composition, documentation, and oversight practices to reflect the full capacity this school deserves. The areas identified for continuous improvement include on track to graduation rates, ENLA performance services for English language learners and students with disabilities as well as teacher certification standards. This is an opportunity. This reflects an opportunity for the school and 27 years of community trust to reach even further. The CSD recommends a three-year renewal based on its current strengths, its commitment to continue its improvement, and the commitment to the students and family served. At this time, you will hear from elementary school principal Lauren Romani, and then afterwards, governing council member Alex. >> Thank you, Dr. David. Um, I already started introducing if I jumped ahead. Uh my name is Lauren Armandi and I wanted to first

200say thank you for this opportunity to speak on behalf of Amastad. Um I'm joined here by our other amazing principles Jasmine and Hana and our governing member Alex. And so over this charter term, the AMAD team is proud to have made meaningful progress in student outcomes. Our math school performance index increased from 50.3 to 53.1. and our [clears throat] smarter balance math growth improved from 63% to 70% of target targets were reached. We also maintained strong graduation outcomes with a 90.5% four-year graduation rate and a 96.7 six-year graduation rate. And although there are many strengths that we are proud of, we recognize that there is still area for improvement in a number of critical areas. We're actively taking action in these four core areas which Dr. Judkins touched upon briefly. We are proud of the

201progress that we've made in reducing chronic absenteeism. It was at about 50% during 2122 and we are down to 28.3% in 2425. We are working closely with our families and our school attendance teams to continue this trajectory downward with chronic absenteeism because we know that our kids need to be in school to learn. We are also increasing teacher certification through retention incentives and certification support with 30 educators currently pursuing traditional certification which puts us on the path to be over 50% traditionally certified as required. [clears throat] We are actively working on strengthening our special ed recruitment and retention and expanding our services for English language and multilingual learners through the artel art program which have been an amazing partner with us. We're also addressing the onfactor graduation indicator reflecting the percent of our ninth graders

202earning six or more credits. We've made significant changes to ensure that this indicator rebounds strongly. Last year's dip in that number was due primarily to programming gaps that have been addressed with new leadership in place and important school schedule changes to allow students to achieve those credits. So alongside our governing council, we remain committed to continuous improvement, ensuring that every student receives a high quality education that prepares them for long-term success. And we respectfully request renewal and again, thank you for our your support and partnership in helping us achieve that. We'll turn it over to Alex. >> Good morning and thank you, Dr. Jenkins. And really, thank you to all the principles here. I really love that school's function for our kids. Um, good evening uh or good afternoon actually members of the board. Uh,

203my name is Alex and I'm speaking on behalf of the governing council here today. Thank you for the opportunity to speak here today. It's not full consideration throughout this renewal process. Just also want to say it's an honor to give thanks to principal Lincoln who used to be my high school teacher. thought, you know, [clears throat] I'm a proud homestead alum. So, I think it's also I just wanted to recognize that and recognize especially for that. Um, so as a governing council, we remain deeply committed to the long-term success and stability of the school uh and ensuring that students and families continue to have access to high quality educational option uh in the medium community. We definitely recognize the concerns and recommendations raised by the Connecticut State Department of Education regarding uh various governance practices,

204operational oversight, policy review processes, financial controls and responsibilities of the board. uh who definitely take this feedback seriously and understand the importance of maintaining strong governance systems that support transparency, accountability and effective school oversight and and so throughout this process the governance council has really reflected carefully on these areas uh and has already begun uh reviewing internal practices related to uh board operations recruitment and onboarding processes policy and manual updates evaluation procedures, financial oversight and compliance systems. Uh we've already identified a teacher representative when the board and partners work to calendar out the six required meetings for next year. um among other things. And we understand that this work uh really does require continued attention of all the uh directors on the uh governing council um and ongoing collaboration with school leadership um principles uh

205and other um relevant stakeholders. But we definitely view this renewal period as an opportunity to further strengthen the systems and structures that support the school's long-term success. Um and we really remain committed to continuous improvement, thoughtful governance, and ensuring that uh our students continue receiving the educational opportunities uh and support they deserve. And so as a the representative of the board of directors, we respectfully requesting renewal of our charter and truly thank you for all your partnership consideration. accountability and support. They had a update from Amast. All in favor of the renewal of Start Academy of New Haven. Post motion carries. Congratulations. Item 8G, the renewal of State Charter Elm City College Preparatory School in New Haven. Motion >> move. >> Second. In your board packet for your consideration is the renewal of L City

206College President. With me at the table is governing council member Leticia Douglas, elementary principal Serena Johnson, and middle school principal Lenov. Elm City College Preparatory, a school that has been a part of the New Haven community for 22 years. has a similar mission to prepare students to deepen their knowledge of self and community to excel at college and career and life and lead lives of purpose and leadership. And this was supported by 13 speakers who testified and supported school. Students who testified described ECCP as an amazing tool where I can continue to flourish and the students praise teachers who help us grow our brains. The mission was visible during the site visit in elementary and middle school classrooms. We're building foundational skills in small groups. Bold statements lining the middle school log where students and

207staff have made a commitment to grow public and fifth graders playing instruments in band class absorbing immediately and applying their teachers feedback reflecting a strong school culture. BCCP currently enrolls 760 students in grades K through eight with 78% qualifying for food price rice meals. The school demonstrates strong and sustained community demand maintaining a wage list and drawing students from across New Haven and three districts. on performance. ETCP results tells a story of students outperforming their host district context. ELA and math performance looses for high need students exceeds both state and New Haven averages which is a meaningful achievement for English serving predominantly black and Hispanic students from lower income household. Progress towards English proficiency is complete is also above state and district averaging. The six-year graduation rate for high need students reaches 97.6% and postsecary

208entrance climbed to nearly 83% well above state average. On discipline, BCCP earned a tier one rating reflecting low suspension rates and low disproportionality. We have a district at state. Fiscally, ECCP has strengthened its cash reserves from 105 through 115 days to maintain positive cash flow for consecutive years. On governance, the council has bylaws in effect and has already moved to expand board membership. The renewal conditions will support areas in formalizing structures and documentation that will ensure the school's long-term sustainability and accountability. The areas identified for continuous improvement include academic growth in ELA and math, chronic absenteeism, on track to graduation, staffing for L and ML students, and teacher certification improvements. Then these areas reflect not a lack of promise but an opportunity for a school of 22 years in a community the community to reach

209even further. The CSD recommends a three-year renewal based on ECCP's culture and shared commitment to do what needs to and continue to become. At this time, um, Serena Johnson will provide an overview from a principal perspective. >> Good afternoon, members of the board. My name is Serena Johnson. I'm principal of Elm City Elementary School, and I'm here along with Lisa Renault, who is the middle school principal and governing board member Leticia Douglas. I am honored to speak here today on behalf of Elen City College Prep. Um, we appreciate the opportunity to share the impact of our school that our school continues to have on students and families and we respectfully ask for the renewal of our charter. Most of these results demonstrate strong outcomes for students and we are particularly proud of how we have

210served students with high needs. Over the past three years, our ELA performance index for high need students has consistently exceeded the state average, including 57.5% this year compared to the state's 54.9 in 2004 2005. LA City also outperformed the state and math performance index for high need students u 51.3% compared to the 50.6%. Additionally, 100% of Elm City students over the past three years participated in courses aligned to college and career readiness, exceeding the state rate each year. Our six-year graduation rate for the high need students reach 97.6% this year compared to the state's 87.3 and our postsecary entrance rate of 82.9 far exceeded the state's average of 67%. Elm City uh sorry, Elm City students also continue to make strong gains in English proficiency and literacy, outperforming the state over the last two years.

211While we are proud of these accomplishments, we also remain focused on continuing improvement. While chronic absenteeism has steadily declined from our 33% to 25% over the last three years, we recognize our rates remain above the state average, and we are strongly committed to continuing to implement targeted attendance support. We're also expanding our teacher certification supports, strengthening special education, recruitment and retention, and increasing services for English learners and multilingual students by leveraging the RTEL program. Finally, improvements um additional improvements are also already underway at our high school academy. Schedule changes have been made for the next year uh to support students taking the required seven credits in freshman year and beyond the state's six credit indicators for nth grade to be on track to graduation. Alongside our governing council, we remain committed to ensuring every student

212receives high quality education that prepares them for long-term success. And we respectfully request um our charter our charter to and thank you for your continued partnership. our charter to be renewed and thank you for [laughter] thank you. Good afternoon everyone members of the board. My name is Leticia Douglas. I am speaking on behalf of the governing council for the Elm City College Prep Academy. I thank you for the opportunity to speak today and I am honored to be here. Uh we appreciate the feedback provided in the renewal report and view it as an opportunity to continue strengthening our governance practices and board operations. We are actively prioritizing board recruitment. Recently we recruited and welcomed a new board a new board member who currently serves as CEO of self special education leadership fellowship. We are excited

213to benefit from her experience in special education and we are continuing to take proactive steps to recruit community leaders who bring valuable perspectives to support LA's continuous improvement. We are also actively working to fill our treasures vacancy and recruit additional members including the required parent and teacher representation. All of this is already in motion. In response to the recommendations outlined in the report, the board has been discussing several areas of continued improvement, including board procedures, meeting documentation, committee operations, and oversight practices. We are committed to holding at least six board meetings during the upcoming school year. The dates are currently being finalized and we understand the necessity and urgency to be in full compliance and we are actively working to ensure we fulfill that responsibility. The governing council remains committed to supporting the long-term success

214of the school and continuing to strengthen its practices in alignment with the state's requirements and board expectations. Thank you again for your time and consideration. [laughter] >> Questions or comments? U all in favor of the ring rule of the city I postations motion. Okay. >> I have a motion of the renewal of the state charter for the achievement first bridgeport academy. So move second. In your board packet for your consideration is the renewal of Achievement First Bridgeport Academy. With me at the table is Stephanie Fox, middle school principal for Achievement First Bridgeport Academy. Raj Mara the governing council chair for treatment first push board the elementary school principal the lead in we are here today to consider the renewal of achievement first brushport academy a school that has served the bridgeport community for more than

215for 19 years a's mission to prepare students to deepen the knowledge of self and community to excel at college career of life and to lead lives of purpose and leadership resonates clearly at the public hearings where 22 of the 40 individuals in attendance step forward to testify in strong support of the school. Parents, students, staff and alumni alike spoke to achievement first culture of relationship as a foundation of his impact on student growth and confidence. The Achievement Source Bridgeport currently enrolls 1,54 students in grades K through 12 with nearly all residing in Bristol and is 74% qualifying for free or reduced price meetings. The school maintains consistent community demand with a weight list that has remained above 60 students across the past three years on performance. their genuine bright spots. Achievement first academic growth for

216both for both all students and high need students meets and exceeds the state average. It's a meaningful signal that the students are making progress. The ELA performance index for high need students outperforms the state and hosted. The school's college and career readiness exam passing rate of 49.5% exceeds the state and achievement for Bridgeport's four-year graduation rate of 89.6% far surpasses Bridgeport schools. on discipline. AFBA earned a tier one rating this year, a notable improvement from prior careers. We've achieved no suspension rates and low disproportionality at a time when both state grade tier three. Additionally, AFBA is the only school in this renewal code that has achieved full compliance with ELA and ML statutory requirements and the CSD commends the school's seesaw staff for their expertise in family outreach. Fiscally, AFBA has made steady progress in

217strengthening the financial position. The pool has moved to a positive total margin, significantly improved its debt service coverage ratio and maintains 173 days of unrestricted cash reflecting stronger reserves. Renewal conditions will support the board continuing that momentum formalizing financial oversight structures and documentation to ensure long-term sustainability on governance. The council has passed bylaws that in effect conditions will support continuing open sight practices. The areas identified for continuous improvement of math academic growth on track to graduation rate chronic absenteeism student reinvolvement trends in teacher certification progress. These areas reflect not a lack of commitment but an opportunity for a school with 19 years of community investment to accelerate the gains already underway. The CSD recommends a three years of charter renewals. At this time I'll move from Stephanie office. >> Good afternoon. My name is Stephanie

218Fox and I'm here with Shirley Garnett, the principal of our elementary school, as well as Reggie Blra who is on our governing council. Um, I am the achievement first Bridgeport Middle School principal the Bridgeport chart and thank you for your opportunity to speak today and for your thoughtful review of our renewal application. Bridgeport Academy remains deeply committed to preparing all students for success in college and career. Our students continue to demonstrate strong outcomes, including exceeding the state's college and career readiness benchmark with 49.5% of students meeting readiness indicators compared to the state's 47.2%. In addition, we are very proud that 100% of our 11th and 12th grade students enroll in college and career pathway courses during high school. Our strong outcomes are also reflected in our 89.6% 6% 4-year graduation rate and 95.1% six-year graduation

219rate and continued public demand with a current weight list of 163 students. Importantly, our high need students have consistently outperformed the state in ELA performance over multiple years. For example, our ELA performance index for high need students was 58.9 whereas the state was 54.9. In addition, CSDE rated our school as MOEs across all multilingual learner compliance categories and commended commended the strength of our T-OL teachers, the individualized scheduling of supports based on student needs, and the consistency and fidelity of services provided to students and families. We have worked hard to meet the needs of all of our students and have prioritized staffing decisions based on how seriously we take the responsibility for ML, EL, and SPE compliance. At the same time, we recognize our areas for continued growth and are actively taking action. We are

220continuing to work on decreasing chronic absenteeism. While we have improved from 39.1% in 2223 to 27.3 in 2425, we remain focused on further progress. We are also increasing teacher certification through retention incentives and certification supports with 21 educators currently pursuing traditional certification. Finally, we are committed to ensuring our 9th graders are successfully demonstrating on track to graduation, successfully earning six plus credits in freshman year. In fact, under the new high school leadership and schedule improvements, next year all freshmen are positioned to take seven credits in their 9th grade schedules. We recognize both the progress we have made and understand the work still ahead of us. Alongside our governing council, we remain committed to continuous improvement and ensuring that every student receives a high quality education and support that they deserve. We respectfully request renewal of

221our charter and thank you for your partnership and continued support of educational equity and sorry, excellence and parent choice. >> Good afternoon. Uh I'm Rajie Lra. As has been said, I'm the chair of the achievement board uh for Spring Bridgeport board. Um thank you all for the opportunity to speak today. Uh before I get into these statements, I also wanted to thank Dr. Jenkins and her team uh throughout this process. They have been transparent and supportive uh and very much appreciate the communication and the back and forth with with their team. So um with that the Jur Bridgeport Board is very proud of our school's progress in multiple areas including but not limited to what was described by doc Dr. Jenkins and her team as a model English language learner program. The school team has

222been deeply committed to serving all students strongly. We recognize the areas identified by the uh Department of Education throughout the renewal process and appreciate the feedback and the guidance provided. The school and governing council have already begun to closely review those areas and we understand that strong governance, oversight, compliance, and operational effectiveness are critical to long-term success and stability of our schools. We remain committed to strengthening our practices in these areas. This includes continued attention to board governance and oversight practices, financial monitoring and reporting processes, policy and manual review procedures and recruitment efforts related to board vacancies and required representation. In addition, we are reviewing and refining internal processes related to board documentation, evaluations, policy approvals, data verification, and compliance monitoring to support greater consistency, clarity, and accountability moving forward. The governing council is also

223working to strengthen oversight through more consistent monitoring of school performance and financial operations while continuing to collaborate closely with school leadership and the network. While we recognize there's additional work uh ahead, we are committed to addressing these concerns thoughtfully and collaboratively in support of our students, staff, and families. We appreciate the partnership and support of the Department of Education throughout this process, and we view this renewal period as an important opportunity for continued growth and improvement. I also want to thank the two leaders on either side of me. without their work, the improvements and the high level of achievement that you see in our schools would not be possible. So these folks are just amazing and want to make sure that they're recognized as well. Thank you [clears throat] questions, comments. All in favor of

224renewing the achievement of First Bridge Academy say that opposations. Motion carries. Thank you Dr. Jenkins and your staff for today as well as all of you to see there. Thank you. Item AI I to receive balance report motion. Some belt board members that have been with us for a while. We certainly know what this is all about. Good afternoon everyone. Um Mike McKan, legal director just came to hat. As as Aaron just referenced, this is one of the annual rituals uh along with me wearing my server suit after Memorial Day. Um, [laughter] >> but I have to say that Laura Anastio is our office has long handles um this area and one of the many areas that Laura is so capable handles and she is really the the authority on this. I'm going to allow

225her to I'm gonna be quiet. She speak. >> Thank you. Good afternoon everyone. I'm so used to saying good morning. Um so um each year as as many of you know we receive the racial imbalance report um to see which uh schools in the state of Connecticut are basically somewhat out of balance. They have more students of color concentrated in one or more schools in their district as opposed to the overall district population. Um the statutes look to the boards of education to rectify that in some way to spread out students so that they are being educated in diverse schools at least so that the population reflects the population of the students in the district. um you know we have have not been um enforcing the racial imbalance statutes recently because there has been a

226um moratorum on enforcement um imposed by the legislature. So, um, at this point, we have, um, a a stay on notifying the school districts of, you know, the the racially balanced schools until 2030, unless, of course, that changes in the next few legislative sessions. Um, [clears throat] but how, you know, it does not necessarily stop us from having to issue the report and receive it and make note of of the racially imbalanced schools. And as you can see on page two of the report, um there are four schools that continue to have racial imbalance. Um I think they're familiar to those of you who have been on our board for many years. Um two of them have been identified since 1999 and the others were identified in the um mid 2000s. So it's been quite

227a long time. uh as a testimony to the fact that it is extremely difficult to um uh get these um issues resolved in u at the low level. Um so in any event we are at a point where we you know need to accept the racial balance report. Um I will not be notifying the school districts this year in accordance with uh their amendment to the statute. And um you know the last legis legislative session there was some movement to you know have the um FDE conduct a study uh of the racial balance laws to see if there are other ways to um to get a better you know closer result to what we are speaking. Um, I don't know if that's going to we can hold in the next legislative session, but we will

228not see it. >> I I just want to add one thing because Laura uh noted that a couple of these schools have been on the list since 1999. So, new board control of that. Um when prior to the moratorum the process was that Laura would do this study she would issue district report she'd notify the districts they would come before the OBBC we would uh say what are you doing about this they would have to they ordered to submit a plan submit their plan and then nothing would change and they they come back a couple years later and try a new plan and the problem was is that we really had no enforcement mechanism except to bring them up here, put them under public scrutiny and hope that they could uh do something. I mean

229uh now I have to say the last time that Fairfield came up because they've had various plans. In fact, my first LPDC meeting back in November 2021, they would recommended Fairfield to talk about this and uh they they did have a district-wide discussion about even redistricting So I I think particularly the current superintendent Mike Castani uh really was you know working with the board to try to come to some resolution but uh that that in the report uh as far as the redistricting goes and then as Laura said aside from the report uh and it's ongoing now for another few years. So I did I just want to clarify that you know it's not like we could say you got to do X Y and Z period we're going to you know have that enforced

230by DH not have that authority [clears throat] >> and I think one of the difficulties that the districts tend to have is that there is a lot of community opposition to having their children move to another school. there's a lot of uh close ties to the neighborhood school and it makes it very difficult for the districts to come up with a solution that will actually physically move children around the district. So, you know, in all fairness, this has been a very difficult issue over the years. The school districts that have been successful in, you know, uh eliminating racial imbalance um have either closed the racially imbalanced schools and distributed the students elsewhere or they have completely reconfigured their schools. Um, and in some districts that's just not um, as easily done as in others. >>

231It, you know, it's interesting too in that when Laura talks about there was, you know, opposition in local towns and the opposition came from both ends, both from the racially balanced school where people would say, well, I I don't want my kids to have to go to another school because of the racial imbalance. and other people were at other schools and they'd say, "Well, we don't have to go over to that school because of that school's racial imbalance." So, really cutting both ways. And in fact, some years ago, parent filed an a federal office for civil rights, he was part of saying that students who are in racially imbalance, they were being adversely affected by this whole law. They're going to have to leave their school. uh we've we probably got OCR to expose it

232but it took a while. So this this is something that that you know the original when you talk about resistance one might scenario I mean really pretty much cross cross the board because people understandably don't want to leave their school. I I know this moratorum that was now 2030. This is the second if not third time they've pushed it up. Is there any moratorum on not having to file the report? I mean did they ever consider that? I mean it's such a a great amount of work to be done that you know and just so the board knows this is you know statuated the reports to be made. We have to accept it but that's that's all this mortgage will go. So we'll have to do this next year. Is there ever any thought that

233part of the process will be to put a moratorium on the report itself and not until they figure out what they want to do and not have you do basically work that really isn't at this point necessary? >> That's an excellent question. Uh far be it for me to be able to delve into the minds um which uh I don't know. I I think my my thought this pure speculation is that there's thought that if they did that they'd essentially be putting the whole statute to bed and that might be a bad look. I can still say this is important to us. We still have to do this report state boards aware of it. So I think that'll probably keep going. >> Yeah. Is there any indication in the report because all I can think

234of is districts that work very hard to make sure that they fall in compliance. Is there any indication by the report that some of those districts are saying why should we we don't why should we and that they're sort of swaying to almost being out of compliance. Do we have an increase in that or at all or >> I don't really see that. Um you know so I think that that's the plus um out of this I think there is a concerted effort but you know the the difficulty is that districts don't have a whole lot of control over who lives in which attendance zone. >> Right. So um you know there there are schools that kind of go into and out of um the imbalance. For example, Smith school in West Hartford is right

235on the cusp. We have um a school in Hampton that is in again out again. Um and it it's not because of their policies or procedures. It just it's just the the overall population living in within that. >> It's housing like >> Yeah, it's housing. It is housing. Yes, >> it really is. You're right. is absolutely a housing based issue. So I'll see you can uh so a little bit of context uh setting and background into the change legislation and I'll have Laura be prepared to jump in here as well I think will be helpful. There are lots of conversations. This is the second time that it has been pushed and I think it's 2028. Um 2028, not 2030. Okay. >> Um and so it was initially 2030 and then legislators got involved and and

236said it's 2028. The reasoning being as somebody said before that they don't want to use this this issue, but they recognize that this piece of legislation has been on the books since >> 196 40 years or something. So it's been there for quite some time and being bigger. We should be looking if there are other ways to address this issue and look across the country to see if there are any practices that we can't do. And so last year when they it was really about not so much about concern about us doing the report as it was about the districts and what they needed to do and to pause that for a while until the department was able to do a study or report to figure out to bring forward recommendations. However, the money that

237they never appropriated funds for us to do it. So, the time expired without that report done uh because the resources were not there. And I'll let you pick it up from here, Laura, because you were very much a part of that conversation. >> Sure. Thanks, Commissioner. Um this year, they did originally um the legislation did say 2030. Um but they ended up amending that on the floor of the house to do 2028 and then again require us to do a study. We told them how much money they would need for an appropriation in order to conduct that study and partner with an outside entity to get that done. They did not give us the money. >> So it got moved back to 20 from 2030 because folks really were concerned that they didn't want to

238push it out that far. But let's do the report. So they move it back to 2028. who don't have the resource to do a study. So I'm processing what that means for us because I don't want this to be just continue to do that. But they were very I think they were very concerned and wanted to make sure that we were paying attention to this. But what is the right attention that should be paid and what is it that we want to recommend moving forward and sitting here I can't give that recommendation. Uh but I just wanted you to have a context of kind of how we got here and the time moving to where we are. But clearly I think lawyers support that there were concerns about this issue enough that folks were saying

239we didn't want to wait until 2030. We wanted to move it back to 2028, but money still didn't materialize. So, I've got to figure out if there ways for us to to do this, even without an appropriation to get it done. >> For the newer board members, I would say the the schools that you know were mentioned, I think probably twice, if not three times they came to legislation policy over the years and it was here we are again, here we are again, then come to the full board and even sometimes legislation policy and then to the full board it would be a whole new story. friends and who was sitting in front of us and who they brought with them. So, it really was something that just was every year and it got frustrating

240as a board. What can we do? They're out of compliance. What can we do? >> Dr. Zenman, >> thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I might um so I last pre-morritorium uh year on this issue I think was one of my first hearings. I I concur with that summary of the disability was an appearance how it felt to the uh in that that situation. I guess I would the question I had was just sort of a substantive one a little bit. You know it's unclear we didn't have much enforcement capability value of this sort of public uh testimony. It's unclear as sent to the districts. I guess I'm wondering, you know, if you were to sort of put in a graph, you know, some of these uh longtime uh imbalances is the level of imbalance,

241has that gotten worse or is it the same or gotten better since uh since the moratorium was imposed or any changes we should be aware of? It it depends on the school, but um for example, uh Charter Oak in West Hartford um they actually did they got an appropriation for a very large school expansion many years ago. And that idea was to create space so they can bring students in from other attendance zones and that would solve the problem. And it actually did for quite a few years. and they were had the highest racial imbalance um in in the state and they went to be imbalanced which was delightful. I was thrilled. Um but you know now they're creeping back up again because again you know it's a very popular school and the students who

242live in that zone is a magnet school but they have the right to attend that magnet and they want to um and the district does not want to say no to them. So, um, so that was that situation. I think with, um, Fairfield, it seems to have pretty much gotten worse and worse as each year goes on. Um, they've had some fluctuations back and forth, but, um, on the whole, I think it's gotten worse. And, um, [clears throat] and with New Lebanon and Hamilton Avenue, uh, my impression is that it has gotten slowly worse. It hasn't really gone down at all. >> Yeah. So, as I think we've correctly noted, a lot of this is outside our control, depends on housing. Um, at the same time, I wonder the back of your mind is the

243fact that you might be sitting in that hair and talking to us about it might have affected behavior at some level, which gives me hope that if we do deal with this issue, bring back a revised version some way in the future. Anyway, I can agree with the commission on her. Thank you, >> Dr. I certainly agreed that we need to keep this at the forefront, not to let it slide. If we don't pay attention to it, no one will pay attention to it. And he said that this is a long racial purp of enrollment when schools get overcrowded, school districts will redistrict. They will redraw the attendance lines. So I mean the point is it can be done and in my experience in multiple districts [clears throat] and Hampton was one of them. Um

244in in Hampton in particular I remember we drew the fines to balance the student population better. Um we had so many evenings at night of parents coming up saying I don't want my child to move. I don't want child to move. In the end, we we had to do it. We had to make sure that it was also racially balanced when we did it. And I can tell you that in the end, I didn't get I was the assistant superintendent. So, that was a really the complaint department, assistant super. [laughter] I did not get one phone call after all of that like warfare, the public. I did not get one phone call saying uh I hate this redistricting. Quite to the contrary, I got phone calls from parents saying oh I I really love the

245school and these were from some parents who actually stood up to complain don't do it. And then then years later not too many years later was region 10 which is Harington and Burlington tiny district and I did the unthinkable. I moved to Burlington. It's to the Harlington school that day. And again, same experience. The only calls I got after positive phone calls saying, "I love that school. I love that, you know, in that case, I love that they're in the smaller class size and I love the teacher." So, I I guess my point is saying this is done redistricting. We've changed attendance uh catchments in the past. It can be done. And I'm just sitting here thinking what would be great is if we had like if you're on the list like two times >>

246then you have to do something. I mean I don't know what our teeth would be to enforce that. I think there is there are mechanisms available to address this and I just think a reasonable rule of you try this and if you didn't do it two times then we're going to come in and help you. I think that may motivate the creativity within districts. >> Yeah. >> To actually figure out a way to get this stuff done. >> The questions comments. No, but [laughter] >> I remember this being discussed, five, six years ago and there were some districts that just drew a line in the sand. it wasn't going to be done because if I transfer one kid from or group of kids from one part of the town to the other part of the

247town, they better get on a school bus and travel for 45 minutes. And does that make any sense? And it would, you know, you're right in that it can be done. Um, but what's the fallout that's going to come? You got lucky, I think. you got lucky and but uh it's it's just not going to happen that way. And uh and I looking at this list and this is five or six years later. I'm seeing some of the same schools still there. >> They're the same schools from 12 years. >> Yeah. Thank you. I will share [clears throat] reaffirm my commitment. >> Yes. >> Uh just to make sure we'll find a way. I know we again the resources wasn't there but I don't believe it's something you just let sit dormant and go hunt

248again the next session because I do believe that there's advocacy for the schools to not have to come before the board and I can understand that and for the board to have to engage in that. But at least you know we don't know what we'll find. uh but looking to see what is what is occurring across other states and benchmarking some of that and seeing then if there different things we recommend I think is is worthy of making sure that we do that. So I've been looking under our couch cushions uh to see what we have for resources and what it costs even though we didn't get the resource to do it to make sure we do some due diligence around it as well. Yeah, because we we'd hate to see other and I'm glad

249to hear that other districts are not just saying, "Well, the state isn't even looking at this. Why should we go through it?" So, I'm glad that's not the case and that when we have to look at it next year that there's more schools on. >> Okay. All in favor of the receipt of the racial imbalance. I carries. >> Thank you very much. I may have a motion for eight actual put them together J and K for recognition of our student board members. >> Second find the name names in the third paragraph. [clears throat] Okay. Whereas section 10 10-1 of the Connecticut General Statutes provides for the appointment of two student members to the Connecticut State Board of Education. And whereas Governor Ned Lamont appointed Samar Baka Bas of South Winsor to the state board of

250education for a one-year term commencing August 18th, 2025. And whereas during this tenure, Mr. Bat has served with distinction and has contributed greatly to the board's discussion of education policy issues. Now therefore, be it resolved that the state board of education extends to SEMA its appreciations for its commitment to education excellence and equity in Connecticut's public schools and best wishes for success in his future endeavors approved this Thursday of June 2026 by the commissioner and myself. Congratulations us a few words. Oh, you want a picture? You want a picture? [laughter] >> You can't do it against the >> wind against us. We had the flag and it threw me this morning. [laughter] >> Okay, we'll go over here. >> You get the net. I appreciate somebody. Yeah, I think that was >> um um I

251want to say I want to give a big uh huge thanks um for the opportunity to be on the board and really voice um be the voice to students here um in K and it is a great responsibility to talk to great responsibility to be able to advocate from all the way from Greenwich to Hartford to South Windsor and all around and being able to talk with all of you and gain knowledge on topics all the way from chronic absenteeism to the economics behind how we distribute money. It's it's a great knowledge to have. It's a great knowledge to learn uh throughout my time on this board. And given this opportunity, I'll make sure to carry it further. Uh well, I'll be going down to uh Nashville later for college. But taking this knowledge down

252and then hopefully spreading it to empower students and to um empower student voice. And I really want to say that I'm once again truly thankful for this opportunity. and [clears throat] I will I hope to stay in touch. >> Whereas section 10-1 of Connecticut General Statute provides for the appointment of two student members of the Connecticut State Board of Education. And whereas Governor Lemont appointed Hanisca Lala of East Graanby State Board of Education for a one-year term commencing August 18th, 2025. And whereas during her tenure, Miss Lala has served with distinction and has contributed greatly to the board's discussion of education policy issues. Now though therefore be it resolved that the state board of education extends to Hanisca its appreciation for her commitment to educational excellence and equity in Connecticut's public schools and best wishes

253for success in her future endeavors approved this third day of June 2026. Thanks. A few words. I have to thank everyone on this board. I've learned so much from you all and I've been so happy to be on this board and to hear your guys' stories and your life experiences and I think I've been truly humbled and I've experienced a lot that I never thought I would on this board. um being engaged to these deep these conversations and like smart said being able to represent students from all across Connecticut is such a great privilege and I plan to carry this knowledge um to Washington and Lee and Virginia where I'm going to be an education policy minor and I think all knowledge that I'm doing is definitely going to help me. I don't know exactly

254what I want to do in the future. I'm thinking of getting my JD and maybe being involved in special education lawyer [laughter] [clears throat] >> and I just couldn't have done it without all of you and thank you so much for this opportunity. [clears throat] >> Well, thank you to both of you. wish you the best of luck in your two schools. Enjoy all of it. I'm sure um at lunch for those of you outside the board, we had really good discussion about how members of the state board should come on and what we're going to do. So, I think your input that we heard that you know might see some changes, you know, asking was going to the governor's office of course um and asking maybe for some changes with your input because it

255was great insights to hear your thoughts on maybe a two-year term versus one uh commitment and and and also the um collaboration with the student council um and having regular updates from that student council instead of hearing just once a year from them actually having our student members being the leaons to that council. So really great. So thank you for that and we wish you the best of luck. Okay, our last agenda item 8 x Oh no, sorry. Where am I? 8 L adoption of our meeting schedule. Have a motion. Second. Okay, you have that in front of you. You might notice and I think I think all the sent out expla explanation to you. You'll see that um February is is skipped there. We did that intentionally. The commissioner and I spoke a lot

256during this session. The staff is um very busy time for them. It's everything is condensed because of vacation. So, we thought it might be a time that we could really just skip over that period of time. Um and that's why you don't see one. And then you see just the other ones. Um the January 13th is because we all meet on the session and that's the first Wednesday because I know we're so used to the first Wednesdays and that's why they're designated in that way. So even and the end is oh yeah no the end of session we are okay because they actually we will have a June meeting session will end after us on June because all the rigma roll they meet after the first Monday after the first Wednesday and we >> [laughter]

257>> We figured out that they will finish. >> They end June 9th. >> Yeah, they end June 9th. And so we actually going to get our board meeting. >> Any questions or concerns with the >> that meeting that have a July meeting? I mean I know the last two years we did a lot and the reason has always been like >> it's always tentative and a lot of times I I I can remember recall I think once that we did and it was only was the session ended and we had to do something based on that session though we've had that happen um if you can recall our last retreat the board we had to have a meeting we had to take up the cell phone um guidelines issue um so there are some things

258that come out of session that we we have to do it but we should always look back through that like for the cell phone, we knew we didn't have to call just the the special meeting. We did it before our retreat. We actually had a board meeting and held our retreat. So, a lot of that that's on current things that happen. >> We may be doing it at this retreat. Yes, visiting several policies [laughter] at this retreat, but we really work very hard internally in our planning to at least give that July month off so that we try to frontload and do other uh things that we don't necessarily have to July if we can. We always put it on it, but very, like I said, I think I can recall once that we actually

259met. >> We know where the retreat is. >> Willox Willox Technical School in Meredith where the retreat is. We don't know our evening meeting. That's usually that's determined later into the calendar. That's that's the meeting that we hold. >> Do you know where the evening meeting coming October will be? >> No. No, no, not that could be Yeah, that will be discussed. >> You have questions? >> No, I'm just hoping in your inbox you just received the invitations for the Blue Ribbon Schools celebration and he is looking forward to see all of you there. >> Yes, >> that was f there was many of you there last year. I know when we were in North it it was connected to our meeting our our evening meeting and it was it it really is just um

260wonderful and Connecticut is one of the first was the first in the country to honor even though it was canceled at the federal level and we continued with ours Connecticut um in fact I was asked about that honor asked me the other day if Connecticut is doing it yes they are it's already scheduled so all in favor acceptance of the calendar I posted motion to move. >> Thank you. I see some of you calling >> academically.