001[Music] Good evening everybody. I'd like to welcome you to the New Britain Board of Education regular school board meeting. It is Monday, May 5th. Cinco de Mayo. Happy Cinco de Mayo everybody. It is 6:00 p.m. Um, Asia, can you call the role please? Absolutely. President Marino here. Vice President Diana Reyes here. Secretary Anthony. Mr. Esales here. Mr. Kay here. Mr. Joseph Dro here. Miss Andy Parker here. Miss John Pina here. Mr. Jose Rivera here. and stand right here. All right. You can stand for the pledge of allegiance, please. Mr. Rivera, would you lead us, please? Yes. I pledge allegiance 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. Thank you. Okay. I'd like to take a
002moment of meditation putting out there teacher appreciation week. Let's just have a little thoughts about appreciating all of those that are serving and supporting our children of teachers in the high school. Absolutely. Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Uh, no one's signed up for public participation, but is there anyone who wishes to address the board? Going once, going twice. Nobody online. They keep coming out. I'm just I'm admitting them now. Okay. All right. Seeing as there are no requests for public participation, we'll move on to reports. Sir, you're on. Good evening everyone. Thank you for being here. Um at our May meeting, the end of the school year is rapidly approaching. I'd like to echo the board president's thoughts and uh give a hearty thank you to our teachers for at the start of
003teacher appreciation week. Thank you to all the members of the community who help us celebrate teacher appreciation week. All of the PTOs and community groups and parent groups that make it possible to provide gifts and nice things and experiences to teachers to show their appreciation. Wednesday is also uh school nurse appreciation day. So, thank you in advance to our school nurses. I want to pay a pay a special thank you to Miss Lori Butterfield and the pupil student uh pupil services department for the really excellent autism fair that took place last week. It was very well attended and very well organized. Um lots and lots of really good things happening after school. Um as always, I want to bring your attention to the district dispatch. The board has an advanced copy in front of them.
004I think this is an especially nice district dispatch. Um, for uh the stories inside, I want to just give a special shout out to the two recipients of the superintendent challenge coin this month. Ms. Gera at satellite careers academy really working hard to get students not just in Spanish but also in Arabic the seal of biliteracy. really amazing work happening there by one of our teachers and Miss K as she's called Lucine Collatian at Lincoln School really uh pleased to meet with her. She was nominated by her principal Gina Kavalo for helping to put together the Ukrainian um uh culture night which was very well attended and Miss Velasquez attended that and had really really positive things to say. Excellent story cover story about celebrating cultures at Small. I hope you'll get take a chance
005to to read that. Building bridges to the future. Um, I'll say it's not all that common that middle school kids get a chance to work on high-tech manufacturing. So, it's something that maybe is not as well known about the offerings that we have at Slaveen Pilaski, but it's something that we should certainly be uh proud of. And uh, finally, among all the other nice news, I want to bring attention to uh, the really excellent program put on by Dr. Sanders and her staff. They're celebrating excellence and education night was wonderful. What a great night uh for us to celebrate last week. Uh you've got the pair of educators from every school of the year on the left and the teachers of the year on the right. And no, I'm sorry. They're they're um mixed inter
006intermediate, but they're actually scattered across both pages. And you've got our parent educator of the year, Miss Matthews from Lincoln for the district. And Mr. Fornal is our teacher of the year from the high school. So just a really wonderful way for us to celebrate the hardworking people of our district. and um it was a pleasure to to be there on stage and and shaking hands with all of the the awardees. Uh the other part of my uh report as we wrap up is um a thank you for me. Every school year seems to go by faster and faster in my career. Um we're coming to the end. Um, I just want to say uh as an intro to the presentation you're going to have from Miss Velasquez in a few minutes. Uh, this really
007is uh a way for us to show our appreciation when we show some of the the gains that you'll see, some of the improvements you'll see in the data that are presented tonight. That's not without hard work of every facet of our staff. That's operations and instruction. Everybody uh has a hand in making the district move forward. If the the schools weren't clean and safe, then we couldn't open on time and we couldn't get kids to class. If our para educators weren't supporting our kids, right? You can go on and on and on. It truly is uh the work of every single uh person, every single staff member. Um and most especially our teachers on teacher appreciation week. I know it's a weird thing to do when I know I call myself a nerd all
008the time, but we're going to celebrate the teachers by, you know, via looking at the data because I think it's worthy of celebration. And that's my report for this evening. Thank you, sir. All right, moving on to committee reports. We'll start with policy. Um, there were a few items that we discussed, uh, but we decided that we wanted to work on them a little bit more before bringing them to full board. Um, so they are not on the agenda tonight. All right. Finance. Um, I could not attend last week's meeting, so I'm going to yield to Miss Parker. Miss Parker did double duty. Yeah. Yeah, she did. I got I want to thank her for doing double duty last week. I heard she did a amazing job performing a miracle, too. Okay. U we covered
009quite a few items and uh because it's such a long agenda, we double up on some things, too. But we approved some contracts and purchase orders, accepted some grants. Uh we had a nice report from facilities and the uh IT department. And there are some items on the consent agenda tonight for that. And now personnel. Okay. And personnel. Okay. Very short. And I did a good job on this too. And and so we got our usual report on staff and update and and and looking better all the time. Really appreciate the work that they're doing. Uh we did some memorandum the understanding and some job descriptions and that was it. Thank you. All right. And curriculum uh on the agenda tonight, Madam President, we have four uh well more than four courses. I wouldn't break
010them down, but uh science courses at the high school. uh physics, botany and zoology uh which are half credit courses botney and zoologology as well as CPU which is science education for public understanding program uh which is I hear unique to New Brighton High if I'm not mistaken. Um so so the agenda for consens thank you. All right board reports. I just want to say that um Dorto I was at their uh student of the month celebration not only because my son had got got an award but um you know just to support the school as well. Um but they did an awesome job. This time around they did something new which was they had the teacher who nominated the child receiving the month student of the month award. write out a paragraph about them
011and it I had I hadn't seen it in all my children have been through in are still in Dorto and it was pretty nice because they they were able to tell the families why they received the the nomination and the certificate. Um so it was it was quite quite nice. Congratulations. Thank you. I have a couple of things. Um I also attended the U excellence in education awards last uh week and I was very impressed with the ceremony was I love not only because the award winners itself but actually the whole ceremony itself really spotlighted the hard work that teachers did. I think Dr. Sanders, you did a phenomenal job and you and Miss putting together um Olivia, you did a really great speech, too. Um and Dr. Sanders is still mad that we surprised
012her. I want her, too. Um, I also had the chance afterwards to talk to a few principles about their plans for uh, teacher appreciation week. And I was really touched by some of the plans. Every year, I mean, um, TK and I told both, you know, as teachers, you know, we see how some of the principles, you know, maybe they might have coffee and donuts in the teachers. really some of the plans I heard the teacher the principles were really going all out to show how much they care. I've heard plans especially from Miss FGNO um you know nacho uh nacho bar uh bars in the teacher lounge or um one I really want to see what they're trying to do with the the ice cream truck uh cart in the hallways. I mean really
013teachers are working hard this year. Ever since co you hear how teachers struggling hard and to show that that small thing really shows that a principal cares. So really um I know we have a couple principles in the st audience today. Thank you because I know last week was principal appreciation as well. So thank you for the hard work you guys do and thank you for showing caring your staff. And my final uh board for two is has the date been set for adult education graduation? It has. Mr. Richardson might know that our is Miss Elbert in the room. It has. We can get that to the board. Thank very much that one can. Anyone else? I just wanted to mention that both Barbara and I went out to um one of the boys baseball
014games last week and it was just nice being out there um seeing them cheering each other on and the families were out there. It was just a really nice night to be out and um it was just really great to see to see them out there. And um also wanted to point out that one of my former students, one of my former preschool students actually was PAR educator of the year. [Music] That was pretty cool. We weren't going to go there. I thought I was really old or something. I'm still afford. Um yeah, I don't want to steal um our student rep's thunder. She may be talking about this more, but a lot of things happening um at the high school. Uh back on stage is this Friday. So, choruses uh as well as yeah,
015the jazz band and some small acts. Uh the 20th is the high school band uh concerts. The 28th and Hal's. I don't know all the other schools, but I know those three. So, your local school, there's concerts coming up. Um so, check them out. I see Mr. There's my lead in the audience who always does a great job in the lighting for the shows. So, thank you. Um, and then the parade always the 30th of May, 6 p.m. And, uh, all the middle school, high school bands will be representing as well as many student groups uh, and uh, league groups as well, community leagues. So, Tina, so I just want to say thank we'll start off by saying thank you to Miss Butterfield and the staff for putting together a really cool um autism fair
016that was held for the first time over there um at the hospital for special care school. It was just so much fun to connect with other um community organizations that I already connect with as a special education parent. Um, CTFSN should be on everybody's dashboard. And then I met this young man who actually is a baker. Um, so his name is George. And young man George actually bakes cookies and went into great detail about his cookies. And so for a $16 purchase, I told him to put the other $4 towards his business so that like he can expand. And on the side told his mom that maybe he just wanted a little vacation and this is okay. or I was ain't going to get them very far, but you know, like if everybody would do
017that. So, it was just phenomenal seeing um the community being able to connect with um a child with me too was just so super special. He just he didn't even need a capo. He's got an oven and his oven mitts and he was like ready and he got pictures. Um this past weekend was the NAMI walk. Um for everybody interested, NAMI is an amazing organization as well. Um I belong to the Connecticut chapter, but either way, this past weekend had their community walk in in Walnut Hill Park. The other thing is um I too attended the recognition ceremony um that Dr. Sanders invited me to. See, she's already told me to shut up. It was phenomenal. It It was phenomenal. I had I had not clapped that hard in so long and it was just
018celebrating everybody. It really was cuz the You had young ad rising students in the back. We had staff that was recognized. It gave me a chance to applaud even Asia in the front because she was brought up too. Like everybody it was thank you. Thank you. And you know like so often we forget to say thank you and and I'm sorry I don't say thank you enough cuz I love you know that. Um and the other thing too is that we also were competing with senior prom night upstairs for anybody that wants to know. The two seniors were super senior. He held her hand and he was wearing gle green glitter and he wore an sparkled out. my man was sparkled out and it was phenomenal watching that. So, thank you that even though we
019had a little bit of a hiccup with the parking, it was fun to watch that. So, from the early early to the little bit of ov and it was it was so much fun. They had some good cheesecake, too. Anyway, all right. So, thank you. Thank you. Thank you for allowing me to share with all of you and sit next to you. Well, my only addition I was going to I was waiting to see if you're going to mention it was the guitar ensemble in front of my daughter. Yeah. Dr. Santo, but I don't know who those kids were, but that was phenomenal. Whoever those that young man did the guitar showing my Yeah, that was Yeah, but point is it was just I don't expect greatness. I've been at the high school. I've been
020to, you know, the performances, but I just didn't think it was going to be that like, you know, I was like, "Wow, right there. But it was good, too." It was just like, "Holy smokes." I went on talking to people at school today in high school. It was like, "Wow." Yeah. Our performing arts program that was broader performing arts. Yeah. That's just like that's what we do. I mean, that's just that was a great little there. Um the only thing I was going to add is we have a couple other ceremonies going on tomorrow night. We've got the top 10%. Yeah. Um there is also the um academy graduations on the 13th and then there's the college credit presentations on the 15th. And I'm missing one. What was the other one? Mr. Richardson informed me
021that the adult dead graduation is June 17th. Okay. And then May 20th is the JRO ROTC awards I believe. So a number of happenings upcoming and celebrations of our students and staff. All righty. Was June 17th? Yes. And what time? 6. And the college credit was college credit is on the 15th at 6. of May. That's a Sunday. May 15th. I look at the wrong Thursday. Thursday. All right. Student reports. Uh I will be saying this one cuz I was late. Um excuse my tardiness. I'm sorry, guys. Uh for student reports right now uh us seniors we have senior pres presentations still due this Wednesday. Uh me and Azim are will be presenting this Wednesday as well for them. Uh we're also excited for graduation and prom as well. Prom on the 16th and graduation
022on the 13th. um anything else in the school is what you already said, all the major ceremonies and the events um that we will be participating in as well. I'm very excited for that. And honestly, I'm just excited to see how the summer starts for New Bron. So, yeah. Awesome. Thanks. Yeah. And like just to basically summarize what you said, it's just like excitement is really building around the school. The weather is getting better. You know, us seniors are soon. We just have a month left. So, you know, things will break down. But yeah, you know, nothing major sort of for them. Then prom coming up. Okay. 16. Okay. All right. Thank you both. Thanks. All right. So, now we have a presentation. Yeah. So, as um Mr. Velasquez comes to the podium. Um, as
023we always do, we like to share with the board, you know, our outcomes to date. And as I said earlier during my superintendent report, um, the the things you're going to hear about, the progress you're going to hear about, it's certainly not universal, but it's pretty darn close. There's lots and lots of positive news to report. And, um, what I want to say is none of these things happen by accident. It's not a thing. It's not uh, by chance. It's lots of people making really really hard decisions over and over and over over again. Many of those decisions um the the the board also, you know, shares some credit for when we've come before you with program changes or schedule changes, updates. Um you've put your support behind some of those decisions. So, uh you
024know, you deserve to be uh to have some credit for some of the successes that Miss Wasquez is about to talk about. Wonderful. Good evening. Ed the last deputy superintendent and lots of energy in the room and it's so wonderful that this presentation is actually coming um on the week that we appreciate teachers because they have a large part to do with why we are seeing this kind of data. So um I'm just going to ask you to advance it. All right. So we decided that we were going to echo um the superintendent's convocation presentation. If you recall, he started to talk about investing um or or or planting green planting seeds and we talked about them as green shoots that were starting to sprout and we believe this data actually represents that in the
025best of ways. So that quote here is is really um about this theme. So you'll see the first slide that you're looking at there is actually for the smarter balance test. We administer the smarter valves from third grade to 8th grade in ELA and mathematics. And so what you're seeing is data from three years of administration. So there's a bar, if you look at the first set of bars, ELA third grade, right? That is showing that we had an increase for two years in a row. We're hoping to add it this spring. The 2025 bar isn't there yet, but it's showing you that the growth u trend from 22 to 24. and then across the grades. So you'll see we have essentially 12 administrations of this test every year, right? Two per grade level. And
026what we're seeing is at least nine of those administrations are showing that year-over-year we have growth. You'll see where there aren't the check marks in sixth grade. That's problematic. And we know that we have some work to do there for transition from fifth to sixth grade. And then the eighth grade ELA also didn't show that pattern. Next slide. So what we have is on the next slide is uh is data that is about the K5 breeding. And of course two years ago the board decided uh that we would make a huge investment in that area and so we adopted a new program. It's called ARC. That's why the top is called ARC ERA. ERA is the actual administration is an assessment where teacher sits down with students every within every two weeks they do a
027oneto-one assessment to see what how the kids are reading and so this is about readability and you'll see that there's three levels there's the proficient level at risk and emergency. So in the first set when you see proficiency you see in the first two years of administration we are up to 44% of students being proficient over 34%. So we're headed in the right direction. the lowest administration, the lowest category there, emergency, you'll see that we've decreased 13% or 13% points of students who are reading at that emergency level. So, we are again headed in the right direction. Even though that's a decrease, that's exactly what we want the lowest level to decrease. Um, this is an important data point for us. It is the one that we collect most often. So, we watch it really
028carefully. The next set of the next set of data is from Dibbles also a reading assessment where Earl is students reading texts or books to teachers for the assessment. This is really about skill work. A lot of phonics is closely watched here. We all know with the science of reading legislation two years ago that this is an important shift for us to make sure that every student gets the foundational skills. And you see there for every grade level K one, two, and three where this um assessment is given, we're on an upward trend. Next is our um Spanish lit similar to Dibbles in that it is assessing skills. What's nice about this is of course you know at Dorettto we have brought back the dual language program and so we have kids in K through
029third. for the last three years, we've been adding a grade at a time. And so um there's a little bit um of more variability here, but what I like to see on this graph is that see by second grade, those are kids who've been here since we started the program again in kindergarten and they're 61% of the students are reading proficiently in Spanish. So that's um you know we are not only headed in the right direction we're also um really being supportive of them at an early age and that's going to be really important for them to be bilingual eventually which is the goal and mask is the lectura assessment that's similar to the dibbles exactly yes it's the Spanish version of the dibbles essentially any any thoughts on the kindergarten 24 25 yeah so
030that does represent two different sets students. We're looking into that. Um we don't know if the variability is just that particular cohort of students. Um but we have definitely dug in there for sure. Yeah. And we want that trend, right? We want it up to into the 60s by second grade. You know that um kindergarten is of course um we we try to balance out the classroom with students who are native speakers from home and English speakers. So the next slide is actually about our multilingual learners and we're really excited about the fact that we have a lot of students who made it through all the levels of uh the multilingual supports that we provide. There's five levels that kids and then graduate out of the program. And so you'll see the bars there represent
031the number of students who graduated at the different elementary schools. And so uh we've had a lot of um increases there as well. The next slide shows the state test for high school. So in the third administration, this data is um very preliminary because the data only came to us maybe weeks ago. Um they will still um be making sure that that that data is accurate, but that's where we stand right now with some slight increases. um not anywhere where we want to be but it's an upward trend which is good. The next slide is actually something that we've been working on um since the superintendent in IBM we have we um work a lot on what would be a really good emphasis across grades and across content areas and we decided on depth of
032knowledge which is actually a measure of rigor. Um we've also um we've also started to talk a lot about standardsbs based instruction. And so what we do is um and this is with all administrators, we actually check to see that lesson plans are being evaluated and that they are um written to actually incorporate the highest level of discourse engagement um so that the actual lesson plans are headed in the right direction. Right? So that last bar says that in the last trimester which is actually still in play because we still go to the end of the year right now our data is showing us that 75% of the lesson plans that are written by teachers are asking higher level questions right deal what we call DK 3 and four it's showing us that when we
033observe students in those middle in the middle bars there for discourse that we are hearing students um demonstrate that they're taking on the content at the highest levels three and four and then also student work. We collect things like writing samples or even math problems that students show us and demonstrate on in writing that they're taking on the content as well. Um again in in in the discourse and student work we have more work to do there but it continues to be the emphasis of the district growth plan and also each school growth plan. The next one is um something that will be celebrated at that um evening. Uh this is the number of students who are getting uh college credit. We're taking courses for college credit. And um you'll see that even though that
034bar that 536 dipped a little bit, I don't have the data for the uh second semester yet. So that should go up actually. Even though a lot of the same kids are going to be the ones that take second semester, they there's probably going to be some that haven't. So um I know that number is going to go up as well. Oh, and just to note there, right, we we tried to calculate how much of a savings it is, and it's at least a quarter of a million dollars if each of those kids got one credit, right? And I multiplied it by what a what's tuition is a CCSU?4 million. Yeah. So, and then um the next slide is average teacher absences. That is headed in the right direction. Um this of course is something
035that um it's it's a lot of work at each school uh making sure that they support teachers. And then the next slide is chronic absences. Um we have seen an overall um decrease. Um what you see there is bars for there's overall multilingual learners, students with disabilities and then we did the three grade level bands, right? Elementary, middle, and high. all going in the right direction. Still more than we needed to be. Our goal is to get that under under 30 would be nice. Um right now we're at 32.9 overall. The next slide um is really, you know, about a lot of um recruitment efforts by HR um a lot of grow your own, right? We have a lot of programs that that are based on this um research research that says, you know, if
036we have a diverse educator group, then our students um students of color will achieve at higher levels, right? That's um out in research. And so we just wanted to remind you again all when when you hear about all these efforts, that's what it's about. And we're doing pretty well compared to the state, right? So, um, teachers of color are 22.7% versus 12% at the state level. Now, I'd like to invite um, Dr. Lewis to come up. Um, we're spotlighting Jefferson because there's been um, Dr. Lewis has been wonderful about really being data driven, right? Um but I I'd say in the in the last um three years that I've been working with him, I'd say this last year in particular has been quite special because every time I go there is an anecdote about how
037they use data to move to improve um outcomes. And you'll see at the top the very top there where it's circled, it's showing that 52.3% of his students are proficient in reading. Right? So, um, there's a lot of really wonderful things happening there. You'll only hear about some of them, but I wanted to give them some kudos. So, please join us. So, thank you, Dr. Lewis. Good evening. Thank you. Good evening, Dr. Gasper, board members, senior leadership, audience members, my Jefferson family, and fellow admin across our district. I'm Dr. Chanel Lewis principal over at Jefferson and I just want to take a brief moment to talk to you about the story of Jefferson. And our story at Jefferson is a story of commitment. When I first took my principal ship in 2019, I was immediately
038aware that I was the fourth principal at Jefferson in a short period of time. So I knew that our student staff and families not only needed but deserved a leader that was going to be there for an extended period of time. And that's been my commitment. How many of you have ever worked out before? Okay, I'm not taking tallies. We can It's okay. So, so here's what happens. You commit to that workout, your regimen, your routine. You do about a few weeks. You get to 30 days, you don't see any results. You might make it to 45, 60, 90, and maybe at around 90 days in, you finally start to see results. And I've been at Jefferson for six years and I'll be honest and and transparent. We spent a good portion of my career
039at the bottom and a lot of metrics for data. But what I'm saying to you all is with Jefferson and our commitment, we experienced what's called the plateau of latent potential. That's the difference between your effort and your intended outcome. So what's happening now is as you look at those slides, you'll start to see the intended outcomes and the return on investment that our senior leadership expects in every one of our schools. And I do agree that this presentation tonight comes at a a very appropriate time where we give our gratitude to all of our teachers. So I would like to publicly thank all of my teachers and staff over at Jefferson for their ongoing commitment and unwavering support. All right. So now we'll take a look at our data. And what you see at
040the top is our ERA data. So ARC uses ERA to measure students reading proficiency. And from year to year, you'll see from April 2024, we had 211 students at the emergency, which is the far left quadrant there. And this present this past April 2025, we reduced that to 117 students. So from two 211 all the way down to 117. My goal that I set with our staff was that we would reduce the number of emergency students and we would cut that in half. We didn't quite do that and that's okay because we made a ton of growth. And my staff asked, "What do we do when we don't hit our goal activities?" And I said, well, for one, we look at all the learning that has occurred along the way and we've done a ton
041of learning and we're only going to continue to refine our practice. When you look at the column on the far right, which is the number of students that proficient, I also said that we got to get over half of our students there. And that number from last year was uh 109 and at present, April 2025, you'll see it's at 201. So slightly over 50%. Um, again, kudos to my staff and all of our teachers at Jefferson because everyone that walks our building has positively contributed to the success of our students and the overall success of our community. If you look at our Diblas data, you'll see four colors. Red, yellow, green, blue. Red is below benchmark, yellow is at risk, green is right at benchmark where we want to be, and blue is above or
042exceeding. So you'll see from year to year with our Dibbles data that we've shrunk the percentage of students in red and we've grown our percentages at green and blue. So I don't have all of my slides up here. But as we talk about the story of commitment and the story of Jefferson, I want you all to realize and view it through this lens. All of our data mirrors that. So we're shrinking the number of students that are below grade level and we're growing the number of students that are proficient on all of our metrics. I also want to highlight our attendance. We had over 200 students receive perfect attendance for the month of April. So, not only are our teachers and staff committed, our students are committed as well. And we're seeing that return on
043investment. Just wanted to advance to the last slide. And this is our I apologize. I said last slide. There we go. Be careful. All right. So this is the data on our office referrals from 2024 2025. This present academic school year. This slide is very ironic because currently and for most of our year we have led the district with the lowest number of office referrals. That wasn't the story last year. Just a year ago we led the district for the most number of office referrals in our district out of 10 elementary schools. Not a point that we were proud of. And I will say today I am proud of that because we had the lowest referrals in our district. So if you look at our total as of April we're at 157. Last year we
044had several months where we had 133 in one month, 125 in another month. So in two months alone we already had surpassed our current total. So we're doing an impeccable job with our office referrals. We have some solid systems in place. We're using MTSS. We have circles. We'll start our day off. So each student gets a nice check-in and a great way to set the tone for the day. We talked about the energy in this room. So imagine that at Jefferson at 9:00 in the morning just to get each and every student ready for success. So what you put in is what you get out and that's how you find the return on investment. Um again a noticeable decline since November of 2024. We did a data dive on this document a few weeks back
045and we realized that back in November 2024 was when we actually hired a social worker. So we started the school year two months without a social worker and we still were trending in a great direction. So that's what I have to share with you regarding our data and our growth. Thank you for allowing me to share this data with you all and I invite you all to join me in my optimism for doing great things not only at Jefferson but across our district as a whole. as well as it's just going to sum up. So, actually um we were going to do questions and then it goes to you. Okay. Are there any questions now? Well, why don't we just wrap up and then we'll see if the board has questions for either you or
046or Dr. Lewis. I'm not going to read through them all, but on the last slide of the presentation, you've just got some bullet points. These are just some of the reminders that I have for you of the work we've done together in the past for years. These have been very, sometimes slow, sometimes purposeful, always purposeful, I should say, sometimes controversial. There are plenty of times when people thought this was crazy. This will never work. That's nuts. And what we know is uh what's really well established in the research and the literature on the profession is there is no one magic bullet quick change of the type of change that we needed as a district. There is no magic wand. There is no simple solution. It's a million tiny little changes for the better like the
047ones you've just heard about from from Dr. Lewis at his school. So, uh, I like to remind everybody of this from time to time. And for those of you who were on the board that interviewed me, you'll remember I said this was a three to a five-year process. Well, we're coming to the end of year three. So, we're we're just starting to see the green shoots. And I really do think that's a that's an apt analogy to say the types of changes we're seeing. It's just the daffodils at this point. It's just the tulips poking their heads above above the soil. Um, I believe there's a lot more to come. Of course, we're very hopeful about the state test, the the one that the kids are taking right now in grades 3 through 8, but
048we know test scores aren't everything. So, that's why we wanted to give you kind of a really nice broad view of where we stand and but even more importantly, not just where we stand, but where we're headed um as a school system. So, with with that, Dr. Lewis, Miss Velasquez, and I would be happy to answer any questions about the presentation. What is your SAT numbers? The SAT testing numbers, the breakdown and math. So those are in here. You mean the results? Yeah. Yep. That was this slide. So for ELA, 31% of students and then 8%. You're wondering average score? Yeah. I'm sorry. He's wondering about average score instead of percent. I don't have that. I guess average scale score. We compare it to state and national. Anything else that we can answer for you?
049Yeah, I guess Jefferson school. How many students do you have in Jefferson school? 390. I don't have a question. I just want to say thank you for your work and I share and I on board with the optimism that it's just going to keep getting better. Thank you. Can I just say um I actually have a couple of family members that attend your school. Um and I hear very wonderful things about you and your staff and Wendy Clark and I go back many many years as Girl Scout troop leaders. Just putting it out there. This is my 32nd year as a Girl Scout. Um and so I just love the fact that you let you know like make that part of the engagement as well and it brings a lot of positivity. So I thank
050you. The Castros are my are my cousins. So there you go. Great. Thanks. Thank you. And the test scores the test now we get that's August. They will not be public until late August. Typically late August, early September depending on when the state says they're ready. Correct. Yeah. Okay. Fingers crossed. Yeah. What what I've said internally is that these other tests, the the dibbles, our own I Ready tests or I those are the things that they're the kind of current below the surface of the water, right? Um a lot of the data you saw tonight was kindergarten one two. Well, those those students don't take the the the state test, right? So as we see this growth, right, that's why one of the reasons why it does take years is when when we really focus
051on kids at the earliest age, right, then they'll metriculate up and then they'll start taking that state test. But we're hopeful. Uh everything's looking in the right direction. If if we don't see the state test scores pop, we will not be discouraged. We we feel as though the right work is happening. And um you know, something else that I've said to the principles council is we we have no illusions. We're not smarter than anybody else. We are not uh more talented or gifted than anybody else in what we do. What I've said to the principles is my goal is we will be the best at adjusting. When we find something that isn't quite working, we're not going to shy away from it. We didn't just show you the data that was up tonight. We showed
052you all the data. Some grades down, most grades up. And we get serious about that. So, we are looking and and it's not just lip service for tonight's meeting. We're talking often and deeply with our middle school leaders about what needs to change at the middle school level to to help kids achieve better there. So yeah, very very hopeful, very optimistic, but um also realistic I would say. Do we feel the the the co bump is kind of I think now and in the future many doctoral students will write many dissertations about on that period of time. Not Miss Vasquez though. First h first isn't on time isn't on time co but you know it's what it proves to me is how irreplaceable our work is through no decision of our own. We lost a
053lot of our ability to conduct our our good work and the impacts we see have now lasted for years. Right. Uh quite frankly, the thing that has changed most drastically since co that continues to concern me is student attendance. Now, of course, we again we we will be the best at adjusting. We are always looking for new and better ways to engage families, but it's also true that some families are just choosing to keep kids home much more often than they used to. Perhaps for what they deem to be good reason. Um, but of course we want them here and we are doing everything that we can think of and we will continue to change. But I'm most concerned and it's obviously it's not just in Britain, it's statewide and nationwide, right, that um chronic
054absenteeism has has not recovered. I think what we are seeing though when we look deeply at the data and Miss Velasquez or Mr. Richardson can correct me if I'm wrong is that con it's it's a it's that group who has lots of absences and Miss Wiggno I know at her school works really hard on attendance as well when you when you change how you do the the rather than looking at the chronic absenteeism when you look at the ADA the average daily attendance it's well over 90%. So through kind of the state legislation and the state accountability measures, we got used to looking at kind of the negative side of it. How many kids are not going to school more than 10% of the time, which yeah, that's that's something that we we we should
055continue to to work on with families. But when you flip it and I right, it's still the data. When you choose a more optimistic view with the data, who is going to school, it's typically for all of our schools well over 90 90%. You think I'm on track too, Miss Vasquez, with the data? No, I could have included that. Um, well, the reason I asked the question is remember my grandson was in kindergarten co hit and that when I saw the sixth grade hiccup, I was just wondering if that was the still remnants from that and trying to play catchup with that. It it could be and and um but we've also had now three or four solid school years with them since. So um I think my message is what we do, what you
056do as board members, what I do as superintendent, what every staff member does really matters. And when you take that that away from us, when you when you take the kids out of school or full-time or hybrid, part-time, there is an impact, right? You know, I was actually looking at homeschooling numbers today and some people thought that CO was going to be the great migration to homeschooling and I think a lot of parents found out but other otherwise. So, we're at we're actually just below the state average. We have fewer homeschool kids than average. It's a little bit less than one half of 1% of our of our kids do homeschool. So, I think it's it's such a a myriad of things. Uh but yeah, I think the impact will last um a while a
057while because again I think what we do is important and when you take it away the the effectiveness goes down. As somebody who's doing your doctoral dissertation on product absentes and co I echo what you said and I found that I was doing a lot of research over the weekend on families and I found exactly that and it's also international issue that a lot of parents after co tennis is no longer a priority for some parents between um feeding your families all wide variety of issues sending your kids to school for some of them is no longer an issue that's why family outreach is a severe your priority and I know that's one of the efforts that you guys have stepped up is getting reaching out to the families engagement parental engagement become a big
058issue and I know you guys are working hard on that. Yeah. So I I would just, you know, close my portion of of this by saying thanks again to every single staff member. And I I know that's tr that gets repeated a lot, but it it is true. These types of movement in the data don't happen without again school nurses, pareducators, custodians who are keeping place clean and safe. every single facet. School administrators, principles, assistant principles, instructional coaches, family school liaison. It honestly, you don't get this much change by accident. It's not a fluke. It's not by chance. It just happens when more people are rowing in the same direction in the boat. And and you know, I'm encouraged. I'm very encouraged. Yeah. So, one last thing I'll say is that there was one thing
059I couldn't capture in the data because it's just anecdotal, but it's the reason um Dr. Lewis was here also is that we get to go in and watch teachers talk about instruction and students. And I've got to say in the three years, over the three years, that has changed really drastically. And I I think we've got some principles here who will probably have tons of stories of where you go in and nowadays I'll go in and listen to, you know, like a a third grade teen just talking about students and I am amazed at how much they know about those students. They It's not only the academics, right? They know about family and the siblings that they have in the school and the friends that they've made and what happened when they went to the
060nurse, right? I am amazed at the kind of work that they're doing because we know it's all of those pieces, right, that make a difference and more and more it's just amazing how um that's their level of professionalism. So kudos to the teachers who it's teacher appreciation week. Um they're doing an amazing job. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. [Music] Okay, moving on. New business. Item A. Can I get a motion to approve the minutes from the regular board of education meeting for April 7th? Second. Any [Music] changes? All righty. All those in favor? Any opposed? Any extensions? All right. Item B, personnel transactions and extracurricular appointments. We have a motion to approve. So move. Second. Thank you. Any discussion, questions? All those in favor? Any opposed? Any extensions? All right, we have the
061enrollment reports. As you can see, and especially as we go into our um presentation to common council for our budget next week, we continue to trend slightly up. Very slight uptick has been true um at least for two years now, I believe. So, we continue to trend up in in enrollment. New Britain High School, as Mr. Pierce uh predicted, has leveled off just below 2500 kids. You guys can tell us how busy the hallways are. During passing time, I don't think we need a motion to accept information. That's just information. Thank you so much. All right, moving on. Item D. Motion to approve contract between CSDMB and New Brit Roots to provide enrichment classes during the C summer program. So move second. Any discussion, comments, questions, concerns? All those in favor? Any opposed? abstensions to
062myself. All righty. Okay. Anyone wishing to take any item off of the consent agenda? Madam President, if I may, I just make the statement that as we did last year, um I want to say thank you very much to the central office staff and to the principles. I've requested that we get board approvals for prospective purchases that we intend to make if funds allow in the 2526 school year. That's why you've got a very large consent agenda. So many of these items are tagged 2526 for the fiscal year. Um, of course, they will only be purchased if if funding allows allows as approved by uh common council and then when the board deliberates changes to this budget. Um, and as we did last year, the goal here is to reduce the amount uh to which
063the superintendent needs to use summer authority if if the board chooses to grant it again this year. [Music] All right. No one wishes to remove anything off of consent and I have a motion to approve consent agenda. Second. Any discussion, comments, questions, concerns? All those in favor? Hi. Any opposed? Any abstensions? Good. All righty. Thanks to Miss Parker, we didn't have to go through each one of them. All righty. Any other business as permitted by law? Motion to adjurnn. All those in favor. Any opposed? I opposed. All right, we are Thank you all. [Music]