001okay um so we are now live and we can um I think first call the meeting to order sure I'd like to call the um meeting at The Amity Board of Education communication committee meeting to order at 5 42 pm great the first item on the agenda is the approval of the minutes from the November meeting um those would have been on the second page of the agenda or the board packet foreign have any edits um to the meeting minutes I wasn't at that meeting okay um and then do we have to make a motion to so we just need one person to make a motion to approve I'll make a motion to approve okay thank you all of those in favor if you can just raise your hands clearly so that the camera can
002see you and abstentions okie dokie all right um the next uh item is public comment we did not receive anybody requesting to attend the meeting for public comment and we did not receive any correspondence so there is none and then that brings us to um our topic or agenda item that we are discussing tonight which is um the discussion um impossible action on any monthly Communications but I think that also overlaps a bit with anything that we're working on for the board corner of the website so I don't know if anybody who was tasked with an assignment has either a anything they want to share I can set up a share screen or be if there are any questions or information that you're looking for to continue to draft your section of the Board website
003I'm talking tasked with the um achievement um achievements for the district um achievement yeah um and I wanted to just ask this group here if there are things that um that you would like to see um or you think that would be good to highlight in an achievement Corner besides um you know the usual stuff like our SRP program was featured on the news couple weeks ago maybe over a month now or two months um and just other things that are like that are that we can find in the like Twitter or Twitter website on Twitter and other social media accounts um thinking about like actual achievement of thinking back to the um some of the information that you shared last night Jen um would something like that like some of the highlights from positive
004highlights from that be something but then just like to open it up for everybody to see if they're specific things that we think would be helpful um I have some notes um that I wrote down from in response to one of the public uh comments last night um just to sort of address any misconceptions about [Music] um students student achievement at the high school I mean there's a section on my board presentation that I give for the budget so you guys will see it in February um that highlights kind of sort of all you know it's a lot of our academic and arts and athletic achievements um that we've had that don't get captured necessarily in in like the state types of reports so like the actual number of kids who participate in the SRP
005program or the number of students in our pre-apprenticeship programs um the total number of uh kids who are taking AP classes um things like that um so I can probably send you some of those slides because we put together a fairly decent amount of information for that budget presentation but it kind of gets buried in the budget presentation and it's not really out independently the other thing that I think nobody ever knows that we have until they have a kid who's a senior and they start applying is our school profile um because you um so it's something that gets submitted to the college when a student applies and it's what the college uses to sort of weigh the value of one high school against the value of another high school when you have you know
006millions of kids applying from all across the country to some of these colleges so I can share that with you too because again I think it's something that has a lot of information in it um that sort of speaks to the quality of a high school the high school that we have but again nobody knows that they that it exists or that it has the information that it has literally until they have a senior College oh I'm sorry is this the College admission profile of 2022 2023 that has the C EEB code on it yes probably okay I sent it to you today Carol oh okay oh okay okay um do we have information on like the types of colleges like the colleges that our students I know that your data the data yesterday showed
007that it looks like more kids are taking a gap year but for the kids who apply um do we have data on um like where they um end up like where they get accepted to how many colleges our graduation program always has the list of all the colleges the kids are going to so we don't have it prepared for this year but I certainly can get the list that we had from 20 the class of 2022. is that that's on page three of this right so I think it is but I don't know it's as comprehensive like literally the graduation profile I think lists every like it's everything and I'm not 100 sure if the if the profile has every single one well it has from albertus Magnus to um Xavier and the reason so
008I've looked at this in the past and it's had Yale on it and this year it doesn't have Yale so my question was who puts this together and it doesn't say how many kids go to each college or university on here yep so our counseling department puts it together based on the student reports um because we're required to do that and um and we don't list the the numbers necessarily this has been um so it's been a contentious publication at times um because for those students who were did not get into their colleges of choice it causes a little bit of we'll say frustration anxiety Bad Karma all kinds of other stuff um so we I think there there used to be a time where we actually listed where every kid was going kind of
009individually and this became sort of the happy medium where we talk about the schools kids are going to but not specifically who or what um yeah it used to be in the trident yes it did like yeah it was a student yeah it was a very public kind of thing and research sort of said this is probably not the best way to deal with this so over time you kind of scaled it back a little bit colleges just to listen to colleges they go to but not who how many games which one yeah right okay I mean I think the other good information again if while we're talking on colleges is the data and I think it's in one of my super it might have been in the last superintendent's report the one from December
010um the number of kids who got in through that um automatic admissions program yeah um because that was a pretty significant number of kids who automatically qualify for entrance into our Connecticut College systems okay I sent it to everyone I already had it on my phone so thank you and then um [Music] uh other recognition I know we usually have the student recognition at the beginning of our of our meetings um but any other sort of awards um sat like for sat performance or uh not usually for specific test performance it's usually more holistic for the overall students but we have and again we've never kind of published who gets those Awards it sometimes ends up in the paper if we do a quick press release but let's see so we've had our National Merits
011um the finalists come out in the first week of February um then we do the Caps award the Cabe award the cast award and the skaza award so we should we just finished caps I think um Abe might be next month and then Cass and skaza tend to be like more in the May June time frame Janice there I get the feeling that we should also um based on public comments also include information that compares like our students performance to other districts like doing other districts or the state level or national level so that we can sort of you know highlight for everyone or illustrate for everyone sort of where where we sit in terms of like academic rigor and like you know the robustness of our our um school programs so are there suggestions
012for like um are there existing sort of metrics that are already um compared in that way that that can be included because not necessarily already but I think we can again use some of the stuff that um we've done very briefly with the dirt data I think um and and again this is you know this would be a heavier lift for my staff because there aren't really repository the state doesn't like schools to necessarily compare themselves to other schools right Standalone do your own Improvement so anytime that we look for anything that requires us to compare ourselves within the durg we have to go searching for all that information on our own because the state doesn't just provide a filter say on all of their data repositories that lets you just filter out by Derm
013b or dur day um so it tends to be a little more time consuming but we do have and you may be able to just do bullet blurbs of like where we rank in the dirt with SAT Math we're at s-a-t um English with the accountability report um so we we can definitely get that information to you it will just take a little bit more time the information that we got when we were having one of those special about how like Amity having to take the special ed kids from the sending Elementary districts being more cautious with them was causing like our budgets and everything to be more blown up I feel like this is information people ought to know and they presented as a positive thing like Amity is like yes we look different
014from the durg but it's because we're doing this great thing and being able to you know assess the kids and bring them back oh yeah and I think highlighting and just piggybacking on that Jenny um highlighting some of the great things um about our specialized programs like where you know kids are sort of um Landing how how many you know graduates with an Obama things like that um so not just focusing on um not to exclude special education or other programs yeah and there was there was the thing in the superintendent's report I noticed about I think the transition Academy that was they were they made some thing that had something to do with soap and someone on a vacation style one of the things that they manufactured in Tennessee so I feel like that's
015the kind of thing that you can put in that highlights the great things that make people proud that doesn't have to be about this many people who went to top colleges thank you um yeah and and I will say in almost every one of my again everyone monthly superintendent's report Mr Brandt submits a couple of items that are related to our sales Spartan prep or transition Academy program so you can almost always find something in those superintendent reports that you know we'll we'll dive into something that that our special education programs and kids are doing um the other thing too is that um almost always well not almost always but typically we do um have a blurb related to one of the unified programs whichever one happens to be running at that time um so
016while that tends to focus a little more on social and skills and sports or theater um those are also usually captured somewhere in that superintendent's report thank you and are we thinking this is um [Music] um more like what's the sort of style we think for the for the board Corner um like narrative or a mixture I mean it's hard if people are just looking at maybe like short uh paragraphs and then like bullets to support um bullets with examples I don't know I think bullets and pictures will get you far farther than anything that says narrative because people I mean all of the information we've talked about is some place already but like nobody nobody really takes the time to look forward to read read it very much yeah yeah I mean and even
017I'm thinking the the our profile report it is a media report there there are a lot of words on there um and it's great and it really high you know highlights everything that's awesome about Amity but um I do like your idea to um Carol of if we have links to videos of kids doing cool things that we that maybe we have a way of kind of tagging some some videos um I know today we had um both local channel 8 but also ABC News out of New York um doing if working on a feature for something that our kids are doing so um so yeah so I I know we have you know definitely some opportunities there yeah oops sorry the videos are there like students who can't be videoed on or posted on
018yeah if if they're in connected with any one of the ones that we're doing for news broadcasts we've already cleared them with the permissions foreign just add a section that says cool things happening and Amity and tag the videos but if you're gonna so rule of thumb is people don't read and it's bullets are easy um Graphics easy I worked with sales people for a long time they don't read they'll even send them something it was bulleted and they still didn't read it and they're still calling me about it I'm like okay sure so let's talk about it but um maybe I just like to talk I don't know uh but definitely bullets and if you can just Link in the resource the source that also is helpful too for those who do like to
019read and want to know more to have a link back to the source um I was just thinking to book it it might be helpful too to readers to like um to bucket some of the different highlights right so that if I'm like I don't care about I don't know some area some domain um I can I can like my eyes would be drawn to something else and I can read about that um that might also help people I think that might also increase like people sexually reading some of it if it's sort of um very clear which what types of things are being highlighted um quesadir yes um that you're asked about the uh so I was asked between performance 2019 in the patch article which showed our numbers increase from 2019 in Elaine
020uh um it showed our numbers increased in terms of sat performance I'll try to see if I can you hear me in this noise yeah the kids are like having a blast here right so uh so what I remember I have these graphs that I did actually a comparison I think I might have even shared this with you Jen at some point the ELA SAT scores and the math SAT scores uh according to that data Amity was the only school that actually had an increase with respect to 2019. so I was somewhat surprised when I saw the yesterday there are numbers had fallen and I couldn't rationalize why that was the case because when we look at Ela in math at the district level it's not just SAT scores it also has to be our
021seventh and eighth grade smarter balanced for Math and Ela so it all gets combined together into one and at like one total metric and we did we did not perform as well at the middle school level in ela and math well so it would be fair if I wrote my FAQ uh using the data on the high school because I really wanted to talk about the high school yes so so if you use the SAT data you're correct but if you use the over and that's the problem is that there are so many sources if you mix up all those things then it's not clear what exactly you're actually reporting right because yeah so so I'm so I I was almost ready to give you guys a document and like and I saw this yesterday
022and I'm like okay well what am I going to be doing like you know because these numbers don't tell you that okay good okay great so I'll mute myself again but let you guys continue yeah okay so this was again in the spirit of like you know showing the achievements of the school Etc as well like you know so uh yeah and and the other thing is uh we we did talk about this uh participation in AP scores epic tests as an important reason why our school dropped to 28 because that was like in October I had done this analysis where we looked at uh why where was the only place where we were doing poorly worse actually the most definitive place was in the percentage of people taking uh SAT scores and you're you
023mentioned that that was because in many schools they asked people to do it and we have we don't do that and uh but would that be even reasonable to ask the students to do that like you know would people not push back I feel like people might think I'm gonna take our AP class there are pros and cons to it um you know uh you know Mrs laplant is absolutely right um the number of colleges that are accepting AP credits at this point has dropped off precipitously um and for a lot of our seniors who are going on to many of those prestigious colleges that are listed on our profile report they just don't take them so our kids by the time it's May don't see the purpose in spending the money for the exam
024or the stress of taking it um we could you know force their hand and say you have to but then it goes to Carol's point that when you start to say you have to we may become on the hook for paying for them and if you figure at you know whatever an AP test is like is it like what a hundred dollars it's more than that even right it is yeah we we would administer 943 of them we're talking about a fairly we're talking about a huge chunk of budget that we we would have to provide to to mandate the AP test um you know and I do think that in some schools I mean again it's a cultural thing too over time our students have become culturally okay with not taking the AP test
025they're they they get like sort of the relaxing non-ang anxious anxiety provokings um you know benefits um I think there are schools where a lot of the kids you know still continue to like for whatever reason have that cultural like competitiveness where they they take their AP exam um and I can pull the exact numbers from enrollment in AP tests last year and then how many kids actually took AP tests but I'm guessing that we only test about 80 of our students to begin with and and I think that kind of is reflective because I think if you look like about 80 percent of our students pass the AP test well that's because every kid who takes it tends to pass um we get very few ones and twos but just not every kid takes
026it have you seen has there been a drop-off or a change in the number of students or percentage of students who take AP courses it's been pretty consistent from from at least the four years that I've been doing the these budget presentations where I can see the number from one year to the next um it's it's been relatively consistent there I think we had a slight increase in like 1920 but it's more a factor of when they um when AP tries to make money and splits all these courses into a b and BC and then we start offering all of those then sometimes we get a little bit more participation because kids have more choices but um but overall I think the number has stayed relatively flat yeah I did I looked at a couple
027like just spot and different in some in our Jurgen outside of our dirt from the Ed site and I didn't spend a lot of time and I didn't look at the percentage but from the few that I looked at we're not the only District who's had uh more absenteeism or oh yeah that's like across the board everywhere so um yeah and um wait I was just gonna say so oh the other thing that's interesting about AP is we actually permit well anybody can take AP but it's pretty typical in our school for sophomores to start taking AP tests and any sophomore taking AP test isn't even counted in any of the metrics because they only look at Juniors and seniors so our whole group of sophomores Who start taking AP um U.S history and some
028of the AP Sciences don't even factor into the AP count so and and all of those kids usually do take the AP test so I think it skews our numbers to a participation rate that's even lower at times I I had a question about that last night um Jen is the denominator for that AP test participation those who take the test or those who are eligible to take the test those so the denominator is those who are eligible so any kid who's enrolled in an AP test okay yeah okay um I mean I I don't know I can't remember what you said you found Donna but I suspect that we would see the same thing um I'm gonna clap to Jenny I suspect that we'll see the same thing um happen at other schools that
029are sort of similar in terms of like demographics and the number of students participating AP exams because the reality is they're all applying if they're applying to these like top tier schools right and the schools I imagine the schools are like we're losing a lot of tuition um then we'll see the same thing happen at other schools that are sort of comparable to um I've looked a little bit at the Dirk numbers and they vary um it's not consistent so I think there is something else at play there that and again I don't know if it's just an expectation that's been established I noticed that Farmington Farmington wins the uh South Windsor all of these places have much higher numbers oh really yeah and so that's how we are membership even though I think on
030other metrics of performance we do find uh you know schools like South Windsor for you know whatever reason like you know I think a lot of new uh new people have come into these communities these are like extremely excited about education like you know and things like that and so these kids are doing differently than some of our more established districts where like you know people are the new Millennials are like you know in a different mindset in terms of the trade-off between yeah Etc so again I don't know all the theories behind it but I noticed that the numbers are quite different and that's what why I was asking Dan about like you know why why are our numbers different like you know why is this drop-off been and uh and so there's but
031yeah it also seems strange that the sophomores who take this are not counted even though they are included in the denominator that seems like a very strange thing who does the reporting on these numbers though so so like these would be I mean the the the AP will actually because we we don't provide the numbers to these people so I'm assuming they get the information from AP itself and um you know and and I think they accurately reflect both our enrollment in an AP class and the number of kids who end up taking the AP exams um because it's all tied back to our school identifier but um but again the metrics that both the two Newsweek and um Niche use is they only look at 11th and 12th grade students and one of them
032may only look at seniors so it's really deceptive because it doesn't paint the whole picture of every single kid who's in so if students are taking it early because they are hard-working kids we you get penalized and like you know a more successful School District then gets penalized but this is the same issue that I was also asking yesterday about the uh difference between the regular or you know all students versus special ed students because there is more scope for better performance right if the student's really good and whereas there are potential challenges for some of the special students to do well and so this inequality might appear to be more a significant uh this thing where if generally students are not performing well so uh I'm gonna you know I don't know how easy
033or difficult it would be for you to look at the data but at least I I'm tempted to you know look at it and again part of the problem is you don't want to sound like you're making a lot of excuses for our numbers right at the same time we don't want to be penalized for successful performance as well so it's like you know my thing is if students do really well like you know and then that is the reason we look back uh at least it's useful for people to know that our best students are doing well and that's one of the reasons why we might be having this Gap compared to schools that don't perform so maybe at least if we can look at some of the drga and these districts and find
034if this Gap is higher than the state for these School tools as opposed to schools at the lower tier that is what is driving it that might be a useful piece of point of information to provide yeah I I am going to look at that because I actually suspect that um and I could be wrong but I'm going to guess that some of our alliance districts that which are our most challenged districts also have gaps um so I don't know but I'll I'll double check but I just have a suspicion that Hartford Bridgeport New Britain they probably have performance gaps between their High achieving students and they're low but the point with the gaps is that their gaps might be like you know what absolute level gaps it's not relative gaps the threshold the level
035is low for both yep yes it's entirely possible right and and our challenge is like you know the level might be higher for the all all but like you know the it's it's a lot harder to you know again I don't know that you know I haven't looked at this course I don't I'm just giving this conjecture but uh but I don't know like you know meaning it might be harder to improve performance of the special ed students than it is of the uh students who are performing and let's take a look at the data I don't want to conjecture and go apart too far ahead of myself on this number until we look at the data well and Dr sudir I'm going to give you a report that I can't say every single person
036on this Zoom call will be interested in but it's actually the state's document on how every single one of those metrics on the Next Generation accountability report is calculated so I will give that to you because I know that you will take that in gleefully and absorb it all that I will pass that on at some point so that you can because it may address some of those calculations there even in that extra Nation okay I I was taught there and but those are the great people do a homework assignment and the others to be able to these are the two questions I had that I wanted to check in before I wrote some of the documents that I was planning to write thank you um and so we the um the Highlight um does
037anyone else have any um anything to share or to discuss um related to an extended funds or diversity equity and inclusion the other sort of topic areas that we were going to write on um I mean I can briefly at least give the committee an update on what Mr Davis and I have been drafting for this month's report um if you just give me a second I just have to pull it up so I'm not really looking at anybody um so we will have um uh hopefully an introduction a paragraph on the application of the unexpended funds just um highlighting um you know the the board's vote and then sort of what this has um in terms of an impact on the town's um allocation payments um I used um some of Mr Davis's comments
038that he made in the chairs report regarding kind of communicating educational concerns and using the chain of command and I pulled a little bit from that board policy to just kind of reiterate the process of when a parent has a concern over something that happens in that's an educational matter related to their kid in a classroom kind of the appropriate pathway that they follow for actually having conversations instead of just coming and having three-minute public comment that never resolves anything for that person um I did we did a brief just introduction about the budget for 23.24 the fact that it was presented to AFC and then when the town finance committee presentations would happen with encouraging feedback from citizens at those Town meetings before the board adopts it I did a little um and then
039I tried to pull some of the highlights from the superintendent's reports so I pulled the Highlight on the boa Boutique which was the school's thrift store um the upcoming virtual keynote which those you know again are replacing the parent universities and that information just went out to our communities but we'll put it in the papers the scholarship resources that are available for the seniors and just a reminder not just to them but to their families they need to go to the counseling office to look for those and then I did put a blurb in about the soap lift that um Dr Turner had mentioned earlier um so I just sent it to um Mr Davis today so I'm sure he'll take a look at it and then do his edits and what he does to
040kind of Polish it up but that's sort of where we are right now um you know the Dei I it's the same people who are beating us with what is it beating a dead horse with a stick it's you know it we're not getting any different information and I think kind of much like the topic around what is a controversial issue what somebody considers Dei curriculum I think is a personal interpretation and I I don't know that we're ever going to get resolution when they say we're teaching it and we say we're not so I'm glad to hear I I I was like thinking a lot about that after hearing that comment and wondering how and maybe I'm like maybe you're right like there's there's no way around it but um wondering how we can
041sort of distinguish curriculum like even defining like what is what is curriculum right um versus you know um our Dei initiatives that we have um set forth um so I don't know or where that would go to sort of Define here's what curriculum is and you know I don't know I I had a hard time I I thought I felt the need to sort of um provide I don't know some type of response to sort of distinguish those two things it is really frustrating when you know that it's um it's certainly a misinterpretation or just a misunderstanding or just not having enough knowledge in education to know the difference it's and wanting to be able to give that distinction however I don't know that everybody is listening as much as we try to explain it
042I don't know if people are are willing and able to understand what we're saying and accept it and believe it the people who are saying this have no intent to understand like you know they they know what they are talking about they are the ones who Supply us raise our University videos which are you know nonsensical right and they are built with an agenda they're sending you are sending us to us and saying you are the uneducated Souls you should be reading upon this we have all read a lot about this stuff but the problem that I I you is are we missing people in the middle and in some sense I think a lot of what Carol is saying I don't think the ones who are coming and talking to us are the people
043we need to convert are there people in the middle who are who may be persuadable right like you know who are who may want to hear what is this version because they might be thinking oh we don't know therefore let's assume the worst rather than they are not persuaded so I think that's kind of the trade-off would our Communications help with people in the middle you're never going to persuade those reports work I don't think it is lack of understanding or that you know they are motivated to believe I agree and I feel that it's really important that we have an answer out there so someone who hasn't had the time or like Amy Says isn't in education and doesn't know what these sorts of considerations are has an answer that sounds reasonable and they
044say oh okay that's what this is it isn't as scary as I sometimes feel it looks like on the internet but but an answer to what because they're quite their accusation is we're teaching CRT in our curriculum and and I think Mr Davis has very unequivocally said no we are not there is no Dei curriculum and there is no CRT in our in our instruction and it's not even a reasonable explanation it's it's a flat out denial you know so I I guess I don't know what you know right so I think Carol's point and the way I think Jenny already I think is writing something about this as well so yeah I do but I think that the point is to say you know redefine the questions not in their terms because you can
045never talk on their tongues right I think we have to talk on what the school is thinking about and how we are thinking about so that the people in the middle who are reasonable and want to understand get our Viewpoint in a way that is digestible and understandable that I think should be our goal I don't think we are going to be ever able to respond on to use it well this is our definition of the AI you know this is not your this is what somebody somewhere else somebody has told us is the EI you're never going to be able to write in that terms I think we asked the question ourselves and then answer it in the way we've been going through these FAQs and other stuff and that's the best I think
046we can do so I was working on it and I said like why do we ask these questions and why do we pursue these issues sort of thing and the portrait of a graduate like talking about these are the Community Values these are the things that I we want to produce in the student and all of these things have to do with understanding diverse perspectives being able to work with other people understanding your audience things like that so I feel as though we can make an argument in terms of why we're looking at these things why we're trying to include books that that make everyone at Amity see themselves so that everyone at Amity can be this portrait of The Graduate who has the ability to work with all these different people in these ways
047so I'm thinking that that is an argument from our community's values and makes it clear that it's homegrown it's us it's these families and what everyone here wants to see and How It prepares our kids for a word absolutely which is much more diverse and like and they may not like the world global citizen maybe we take away those trigger words and how we say this but like ultimately our kids have to operate in the world and like you know and and uh and preparation like this is important and like that's what we are uh preparing those kids so restated in our terms and then write it I think is the best we can do it I I completely support what you're saying um but to Jen's Point Jen you know what you're right as
048far as the people who are coming they're coming in angry and there's no dissuading them they don't they're not asking the question it's not as if they're open-minded and asking the question and wanting to know what is going on it's like oh I heard this and can you please tell me more it's the it's it's a very accusatory and from a very angry point and the only the only hope I have is that the numbers are coming down of the angry people coming maybe it's because it's the winter I I don't know I'm sure at the budget time you'll see all of them I'm sure it will change again but um yeah it's hard to it's difficult to respond to statements because that's what they are they're statements it's much easier to respond to questions
049because questions at least provide us an opportunity to you know craft or seek an answer um right I leave the meetings wondering like what what is the ask I I mean tell me what your ask is because we're trying to help you understand what we're trying to help them see it or not having a Dei initiative that's true I think honestly I I don't remember if it was Carol or J or somebody at one of the meetings that simplistically if we could just change the name and like not call it Dei then maybe they wouldn't equate it with CRT um but they they want Dei that terminology eliminated from All Things education but I think under the wrong pretenses because I don't believe that they would say yep racism anti-Semitism that's fine and Amity I
050don't think they would say that but I don't think I don't know it's it's I think it I think it's hard um I think it's hard sometimes to think about how intentional we have to be as individuals as school districts School teachers right to make sure that all that you describe doesn't happen right and this is this is exactly why we have these initiatives right um because if we're not intentional then you know we're we're sort of we're in my mind like we're we're okay with whatever happens so um the best you're hoping for the best without actually trying to plan for that right but that doesn't work hoping for the best doesn't work I wish it did yeah it's not a strategy they don't really want the district working towards like one Amity they
051want us working towards okay candle discipline problems in a punitive manner they are not trying to be proactive they want they want punishment for the students who misbehave um but that is an excuse for not doing anything right and it doesn't teach I mean no but but I I don't know but to me this is strategy to suggest don't do anything and any action you know we can select the people who cross this threshold by a huge manner that requires a punitive action but like you know every other level of issues you will deal with it and you don't talk about it and then in Reverse they also tell you that look the only reason why this is an issue right is a morality is because you talk about it if you didn't talk about
052it our kids will be so innocent and like you know there would be no problems at all right basically this is what they keep telling you and like you know meaning and we know that that's not you know uh yeah as you said hope is not a strategy and that's what they're basically telling you to do which is a good way of saying don't do anything the other one is you know failing to plan is planning to fail but you know something else is that I think we need to remind the community when when this is you know High School's a stepping stone and when our our kids leave they're going out into the world where by the way every organization has a Dei statement colleges universities have entire departments dedicated so I I'm I'm
053not sure what where this is coming from other than being disruptive and a board meeting do you think it's Jenny do you um and you may already have um um that's in your um in in your write-up but do you think if you do you all think it's helpful to like make connections to like um research that shows I know this is getting very but research it shows like the benefit of like having an equity lens right in no matter what sort of um fear you're working in right having an equity lens the benefits of diversity right you come up with like you solve problems better you come up with you know better Solutions like it's just it's just better for for society um yeah I was writing something like that in the Pro like
054going through the the portrait of The Graduate thing the problem solving thing like the value of learning to look at problems from different perspectives lets you ask better questions and I started I feel like I was starting to perhaps get too complex um yeah yeah I myself I would love to go through and put down the research and everything but I suspect Jen's face is kind of I guess but yeah no one would want nobody's gonna read it but it wouldn't be it wouldn't be awful to link people but again you we start to walk a very sort of fraught line because depending on where that research is coming from then it starts to take out yeah and I I certainly have seen it there is definitely research out there that is incredibly biased in
055all kinds of different ways and without kind of a level of expertise around what is going to be sort of a more neutral line it's a reputable I would be very low to putting up research if you can't convince people on probate and diseases you're not doing the 10 minutes their own research so I think we are opening a Pandora's Box uh when we start reporting on research because we will immediately get the counter research I think what you can connect back to and I don't know how much they have but these are the State Board of educations and the csde's position statements around diversity equity and inclusion because if we are agents of that state as a board right connect back to them because then we're operating as agents of the state and what
056their beliefs are okay yeah that would be that would be the best strategy because you don't understand requirements yeah I I agree I I think that you want to still focus on Amity and we are a public school and you know we all we do have these beliefs but I think if you start going down that rabbit hole it could be your problem I think connecting with a question eight stuff is really like key like this is not just us but like yeah yeah okay everybody believes us when we say oh that's part of what we have to do as as the state requires that in just link it in yeah website a question that would be really helpful to me while I'm working on this thing what what focus groups went out into the
057community like who are you talking to if I can Define who in the community's values be queried like can I say business people like I mean um so there's an entire portrait of The Graduate section of the website that you could probably live from where we talk about the process where we took okay got the information from if you don't find enough there and it's then certainly um cycle back around to me but there's okay yeah I looked at the page I saw the thing in a summary I didn't but I didn't go clicking for other things because yeah so at the bottom there's kind of like a set of little tabs and I'm pretty sure one of those tabs talks about the process and how we developed it I'll make a note um okay
058so um it's 6 30 so we're right at time does anyone have any um final questions or suggestions um did you all talk about um what the finance committees how they communicate budget information we did not get to that homework assignment okay perhaps we could email it to you as a way of making that not be delayed sure okay you know here's this is just a an off question and you know we talked about the restore it was being done I can't remember the name um that was done in December off the top of my head Jen you mentioned it um our professional development no no you know at Amity that the thrift store yeah Thrift Store okay you know what about the bees you know we have the bees and there's honey and there's
059a beehive and is there anything like you know cool things people don't know about I didn't know that until my son told me I was like yeah beehives and honey it wasn't a board it wasn't a board packet last year I'm like really let's talk about that let's talk about the bees let's talk about that honey I love that um yeah there's all kinds of things and they happen all the time and this community is it's it's funny the community is so um acclimated to learning opportunities that our kids have that nobody thinks that they're amazing and and so like weird stuff happens and Mr Hauser Mr picaro and I tend to notice it because we're like newer and so like stuff happens and we're like that that's weird um but like the other day
060and this is a perfect example Mr Hauser's outside doing Bus drop off in this little group of people comes traipsing up and he's like can I help you what are you here for and it turned out to be um a professor from Yale who brought the entire Yale acting class who's putting on a production of Macbeth to come talk to our Advanced acting class and all our 11th graders who are reading Macbeth and like we're like and and and so the college kids engaged our kids just about how you perform and act and do Shakespeare and Macbeth and the interpretation of the whole play and we're like and and he's like nobody told me this was happening he's like this because everybody thinks it's so normal and like it's not normal like people don't understand
061you just don't get Yale's professors and their acting troop walking into your school to do a two-hour presentation in the black box theater yeah so so part of our problem that we've had even like with the um videographer is people don't tell people stuff is going on because they think it's just a normal part of the school day foreign so it so it takes so it takes effort to figure out the cool stuff because nobody thinks that it's abnormal or cool they just think it's just what happens in high school it's it's it's it's not it's a fun fact about Amity and and so I'm always kind of bugging people I'm like you just have to call Art Alan the video guy and like just tell him to come and film what you think is
062a normal thing because it's not normal our culinary classes are so high quality our auto shop is amazing and everybody's like these are just the classes I'm like no this is not normal my daughter took culinary she was she took Advanced culinary as a sophomore she was coming home with meals like yeah yes it's like you could have like a mock Beat Bobby fit in culinary and learn something so you know that would be interesting Jen what if you invited some of the board members to come in and see some of the classes just to suggest just you know to see some of the things because you know we know the classes are there but unless you have students who are taking them you know wouldn't it be interesting to know hey are these are
063bees going to get the new B vaccine this guy that's there I'm sure I don't want to maybe I shouldn't bring that up because maybe that's controversial as well that there's a B vaccine and we're going to give it to our bees so that they can you know be immune to the bee diseases so um yeah we could definitely you know and again let me we can work on something like that at some point I don't see why not but um I mean we have what about you know is so who who is Seth Davis so Mr Davis is um our instructional coach ours he's our our newest instructional coach for technology so um he um so we we had one coach Miss Lassen we have so much technology in the district we needed to
064have too so he has some specific tasks related to technology um probably the biggest one is the website rebuild and then doing our social media but he's also our Point person for a whole bunch of other things PowerSchool scheduling grading our Raptor emergency management system he's got a long list of other things that he's assisting on I mean what about I mean this may sound like a strange question people take pictures of everything on social media but even The Culinary like if you my kids take pictures of meals that we make like oh this is beautiful I'm like you guys are so weird sometimes but um they'll I mean posting that and you said even the auto body or isn't there like design there's like I was just looking through it just because my I
065have a I have a sophomore and all the courses that are available architecture yep so I think that's really what we need to use our videographer for because he really can because he does nice little two minute videos of the classes and the kids so it's something that we'll have to we'll we just have to be deliberate and purposeful in having him come in and do that is there anyone who does any type of communication who oversees everything within the district no that's a missed opportunity um to just kind of pull everything together and actually have a plan social media so I mean bigger you know there are districts that hire you know PR Consultants or in and or a PR specialist um but it's uh it has never been something that um frankly it
066as much as I know that it's harmful for us it's not worth the money that it would cost in terms of a teacher a para or any of the other support staff that we have right now to help run the district well it's funny you should say that because I did a little booking over the weekend and there are districts who hire Communications directors oh yeah and that is their their job to pull together the strategy and marketing plans there are actually open positions right now in many of the school districts that are looking for um teaching positions as well we're going to hire it's going to be a teacher not a communication specialist but I also have to go being um I have to pick up my daughter so not to cut you off
067because I do I think it's an important idea and to get all the positive information out I do think that's a positive idea too but I think that's a conversation for a whole meeting yeah well there's a conversation for a whole meeting the other thing is that at least you can hire marketing people unlike teachers where you can't find them yeah that's true and that also helps with the school's image it helps retain teachers it helps also recruit teachers because where do you want to work you want to work somewhere that's that has something to offer you not just a job somewhere you're proud to go and somewhere that has you know some really cool things that are going on with within the district and somewhere that is just maybe small but can also pull
068together a team and involve your community and everyone's proud I want to be respectful of Amy's need to leave and once she does we won't have a quorum anymore so um uh Madam chair if you um would like to perhaps uh use your powers to adjourn the meeting I'd like to um adjourn the meeting um I'll I guess I need to make a motion make a motion to adjourn the meeting at 6 40. okay perfect thanks very much everyone appreciate it yeah thank you everybody