001all right all right I'd like to call this meeting for the region 15 Board of Education to order for Monday March 10th can we please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America the stands indivisible the mission of region 15 a collaborative Community committed to Excellence is to educate every student to be productive ethical and engaged in a global Society through proven and Innovative learning experiences whose decision making is based in the best interest of all students we'll start with our student representative Mr Brendan F good evening board um May 5th was an eventful day atog while junior took thep seniors hading successful presentation day for senior projects um also tomorrow at the high school the national Society is working with the Red Cross organization
002that host second flge there and then looking into the near future there will be a districtwide stre festival on March 12 and March Madness March 18 um this past weekend students from both midle school particip students were able school districts and attend various workshops um also at both midle schools the transition process is in full motion with School counseling efforts to support the 8th and nth grade course selection process as well as the initial Outreach for fifth and sixth grade um at Memorial Middle School students that are part of the master um Club presented their projects at the New Haven Regional competition the students projects scen topics from medical Mal practice to title n's impact women's sports and two students won first place for the project on suffer missal fall they will now move forward
003to presen this at the state level on May 3 at RMS RS Coral hosted a coffee house event pass to Showcase a variety of student life performances the event Su successfully raised over $400 towards the AR music department moving on to the elementary schools students across the district celebrated the read Across America week with different reading reading Focus activities um at P element past Friday stud to Welcome State Representative Jason bushong who took time bu schedu to school the students were excited as you read the stories and answered questions about M joh and what a state representative does would fourth MERS at PS had a great time on a Field Museum of History elementool Ki off event imagine huge success as well as guest leer day which had over 100 guest leers um and yes
004another state representative William sud though also read story and answer questions to stud there and then as you can see coming out of the F and techn arts department the first showing of strict musical right around the corner the first showing being 23rd 21st and then from the athletics department just want to say congratulations to the voice di team for winning great thank you any questions for Bron on his report right thank you um next we have a student presentation of Shrek the Musical WR tool up and she can give you a little bit of a overview everyone I'm bring up my students stage manager um and director of the last play uh s to everybody right hi guys we're going to give you a little sneak preview of our our spring Musical musical um
005our actors today are going our wonderful Henry marks Addison and then our' got Addison Evans Hann Al Sarah and then on the piano we've got our pit player will grayon the [Music] I got some otherwise and you they all [Music] guys [Music] I that's kids but yeah yeah yeah thank you so much a great effort basketball GL to see all right so it's March 21st March 21st definitely will be there um all right so next we have the curriculum update a math P to 12 in science I know right sure to sing sorry maybe your right thank you very much for the opportunity tonight to share some updates in science and math um a few weeks ago we did the update for social studies Ina BL so we're moving on tonight to science and that
006and so we we'll first start talk about science um and if we follow a similar format to what we did last time which is what are some new things and what are some of our next steps um if we go to the next slide for elementary science what's new for science is nothing because we working on the newonics program new math program and some teachers at the element L have also been filing social studies resource so there's a lot of new stuff that has been happening and so science is the one consistent uh academic area this year and we're continuing to use um the correct science uh units are things that we've been using for the past probably five years some of the next steps though are that um we have some f grade teachers
007bre throughing open side Ed which is the resource that we're currently using for Middle School and right now and it's actually a state recommended resource right now opened is not complete they haven't completely written Elementary version yet and so there are only a few units that are available but right now some of our 53 teachers are taking a look at those um to see if that's something that we want to eventually invest in at elementary level um but not for next year as these are still new if we move on to um to Middle School like I uh just mentioned open S is the resource that we using for few years now this is our fourth year of implementation so over this past summer we've been working on developing some assessments and some scoring guides
008looking at the end the unit assessments and some interim Assessments in between the units so that we have some data um similar to what I mentioned at the uh last curriculum presentation where we talked about Ela we talked about social studies our teachers have been working with the partners for educational leadership on the use of data and how do determining structural strategies to implement in your classroom Based on data that you gather um from students one of the things that's um relatively near this year is a collaboration with our secondary ml teacher our multilingual teacher where uh that teacher has been working with science teachers on how do you make accommodations for the curriculum and for assessments so that um all students can access those assessments better and so it's interesting in that the um
009the accommodations that we do for ml student for accommodations that are for every student and so um teachers have been losing notes and giving feedback to the ml teacher about what are some things that they like about the the uh changes and the accommodations and what are some things that they want to keep um similar to what we've been using in the past along those lines there a similar collaboration with the special ed department and working with teachers again to make sure that we can accommodate but also modify it says in the I and so there's differences between the words accommodation and the word modification so um I like to think of accommodations start with starting with an A and starting with the word all also starts with an A so accommodations are things that
010can need for all students it does not change the content where modifications actually can be changed in content and that is based on I and so we've been working with the special ed Department to make sure that we have accommodations and for modifications for our assessments and our curricular material again so that all students are able to access that one of the things that we've been working on in the middle school is using those interim assessments um we' have those for esac we also have them now for ngss for the Science assessment and so leaving those into what we do in in the classroom in curriculum so that um students get a practice on what those types of questions are before we get to the ngss assessment and so what are some things that are
011coming next um we do have some curriculum uh writing for this coming summer which is again continuing to work in refly those assessments and those scoring guides um similar to what we talked about with pla andal studies incorporating um the attributes of the portra of a learner that we talked about a few meetings ago and um having our uh Middle School instructional teacher leader or itl collaborate with fifth grade and with high school so like that transition from fifth to sixth grade and then that transition from eighth grade to ninth grade and uh to talk about what instructional strategies are we using that that should be common uh vertically and then identify between the the NGS practices and the content and for high school science we talked with PNC at the beginning of the school
012year about um the curriculum revisions that were done this past summer so there's a list of some of the courses that we worked on um this past summer a couple years ago we uh developed um a region 15 curriculum template and so I think I might have mentioned this last time we're work these in hold the curriculum that we currently have into that new template and so um just don't have enough people power to be able to do that all in one summer so as we revise each of the content areas we're putting that into the new temp and so we started some of that work last summer um we've been focusing on ensuring that the classroom tasks or activities or assessments are aligned to the ngss standards and those scien engineering practices that are
013part of ngss um and specifically on um two of the scientific practices so that idea of Designing and conducting experiments and asking question questions and defining problems um again we've been looking at um the practice test for ngss to kind to incorporate those into um what we've been doing in class again to give student practice on how to um how those problems are um worded and what those tasks would look like and uh they also have been working with partners for educational leadership on data and how those instructional strategies can be implemented to improve instruction Based on data that we gather from students and so um uh what's coming up next are some curriculum revisions for the different uh courses that are listed up there um and that ECE the creation of the ECE physics
014which is Grant funded um again looking at how we um Infuse those attributes of proport a learner into the high school science curric Matic um so as you know um or I hope you know this we Elementary uh have been implementing the illustrative mathematics and so the co name is illustrative mathematics 360 so it's the newer version of illustrative map as their primary resource in tier one and so um in addition many of our teachers have been incorporating um practices from building taking classrooms and we talked a little bit about that I at the board treat so some of that really is how do we get students to work together to solve problems how how do the problems that we have have multiple entry points so that every student who participate in answering those problems
015and also getting students up out of their seat so that they can move around and work with one another and um not uh sit down and fill out a worksheet which you'll see from comments the students in a little bit um we've also been working on um uh creating districtwide family cover letters so one of the things um that we thought to do this year was instead of just sending home the assessment from Iram to send that shows you what the content is that that the children are working on and um what the content is for the major clusters for that academic par and so um according to the common core standards and the Connecticut core standards there are major clusters for for mathematics that major grade level standards that have to be taught and
016then there are supporting and so what the coaches have been working on is creating those family letters and getting feedback from teachers to show the major clusters that students are working on and how towards Mas bels we also use that major content cluster when we talked about srbi criteria because we had to change our srbi criteria because it was based on um our former resource that we used and so we had to make sure that it aligned with IM and again we looked at like what's the major content for each of the grade levels that um that we have in elementary school and then looking at how students did according to those I IM actually has a lubric implementation luri has broken down into various parts and so um some teachers have been um used
017that to set their goals this year and as you know we had a new educator evaluation uh um um plan this year and so some of the teachers decided to use portions of that rubric as something that they can base their goals on one thing that we started this year with school-based learning walks in all four of the building so um reason to do that was to go in visit classrooms and to um analyze and fan around what students learning in class so not only did we have um people from each of our buildings go to the other buildings and do that but we also had people from other districts come in who are thinking about implementing in and wanted to come and see it in action and so we had some school-based Learning Blocks
018um not only with people from our district but people from other districts coming in and seeing different and then we have a weekly R so um these is Elementary happen before school so around 810 to 9 o' when it's professional relevant um for teachers and so um for the mathematics this year topics are things like fluency what does that mean in mathematics that building thinking classroom um um strategies how do we Implement those in IM as we're implementing uh the philosophy and because having a math um each building this year we were able to have weekly meetings at every Elementary building and for every brain where before they were in one building you know one week and then had to go to another building another week so we weren we weren able to be as
019responsive as we needed to be and so um by having a coach in every building we're able to have like that just time TV so if teacher says um I need a a wrap session on something the coaches can go and build that and can actually view that that so what's new one of the things we're going to do this year is we're going to survey teachers to get food back um in order to begin planning PD for next year so we actually plan PD for next year in spring so by the time teachers go home um for the summer there's already a plan on what those days the district may be the PO days are going to be like for next year so we want to get some input from teachers on what are
020some things they want to go deeper into next year with regards to elementary mathematics and continuing that um work with Integra building classroom strategies and how does that combine practices better in elri um one of the things we are making to new is those classroom visits because it's nice to go into other people's classrooms whether those are people in building or those are the people's P um across the district to see um how it's being implemented and to get some ideas on what we could do in our own classrooms um and uh one of the things that we're doing this year which I think when I present the ml uh presentation uh we're going to be having a math portion to the multilingual Sumer program in the past it's only been literacy and so this
021year through grants were able to add the math portion for ML students and the coaches actually they're the ones planning this they're the ones that are going to be delivering this and so we're going to be extending um this day so it goes from 9:00 in the morning until 2:30 in the afternoon so we have a literacy portion for ML students and we also have M portion in the but more to come with that I don't know one thing so I thought this was really this is actually feedback from students um we talked about having them work with Partners we had randomized groupings so you didn't necessarily have to keep your own own partner as a student teacher randomized the groups and um actually had vertical surfaces put up around the room so vertical surfaces
022could be something as similar similar that chart were hanging in the room or it be something where you're able to eras um more like a white and so um here these are just some Fe this is just some feedback from students where you know they felt confident because they had a partner or they were relieved that they didn't have to pick their their own partner It's Kind f for them or that they like work with other people they like getting up and standing around the room so all feedback from um from students about the strategies that we're implementing this year in elementary mathematics second grade second grade yeah and so in addition to um the work Ty coaches are already doing um three of our coaches volunteered to participate in a project project with Dr
023Shel Jones she a mathematician at Central Connecticut State University she written a couple books about mathematics ring mathematics and she um uh heads a global and community math stories um project and so our coaches chose to research about Connecticut stone walls which I thought was so interesting um where that you talk about there's 240,000 miles of stone walls in Connecticut and how that's end up to circle the Earth 10 times um and that stone walls were bu built by Native Americans more than 12,000 years ago and used by farmers in the 18th and 19th century so they met with a whole bunch of experts in the field that are all listed there from um Linda Elliot from the southberry Historical Society to a geologist at Yukon um and what they did was they actually built
024lessons um about the stone walls here in connectic MTH and so um as of March 4th you the next um slide as of March 4 it's actually posted on the M website so if you go to m UMC were the only group from Connecticut that's listed um they list not only um United States but also different um countries from around the world who have submitted um the story for mine and we are the ones right now representing Med is pretty and so you can see all about uh resets that they did you can actually look up the um the activity that they put together and pictures on there so a teacher can go and pull all of this all these different activities off the map website using their classroom so what's in Middle School mathematics
025actually um Al ma 60 is new we had the older version of I last year and so we bought the newer version this year uh we talked in PNC at the beginning of the year about some curriculum work that that was done we with the pacing gu really to map out and frame what the year would look like um as a guide so to make sure that we cover the content needs to be covered so when students go to the next grade level they're prepared again that collaboration with that multilingual teacher is something that's new this year and we're actually excited about then they look at the um assessments how they're accommodated and then get feedback um to the coach and to the um the MultiLing teacher um we started some vertical meetings this year
026with our instructional teacher lead at the High School for Math and our math coach at the middle school um to talk about that transition again from um from 8th grade to n9th grade and what that should look like the partners for educational leadership still work out that we did with Middle School um and we just started this year implementing some learning mods and so um that's when Middle School uh teachers are visiting each other's classrooms with um guiding questions uh to see what they look for when they when they visit each other in classrooms and interesting thing is that all our M School MTH teacher have attended at least one building thinking classroom professional uh professional learning opportunity again your strategies on how do you randomize group groupings how do you get students up um
027around the room to start answering some questions how do you make sure that they have multiple entry ways to be able to answer a problem to just not sitting there not knowing what to do and so um what's next we have some curriculum work um coming this summer again that forun of learner attributes to continue that vertical conversation with the high school teachers and um also by having the high school teachers come visit some Middle School classrooms and having some Middle School teachers go visit some high school math classrooms and um you want to continue and deepen that professional learning with building thinking classrooms not for teachers requests they said they want more um more PV on that just quick question on the hyos tutoring that you had gotten um last year with the grant
028yes is that not part of the mdal school mathematics so it is um it's it's a it's a lot smaller version than it was last year um because the the funding actually so um last year we had 258 students this year we had about 100 um and we have two tutors in each building right now and so that actually ends this year and so there was um we did receive something from the state saying that there was a proposal um to continue the tutoring but we but each district have to match um the funds if we wanted to continue getting a grant we got to match so that's that's a proposal I don't know if it as actually G through yet um so this is kind of a12 um one of the things that we've
029had in the past is um a map towns Club at the middle school and um the conversation was how do we make this more inclusive for students and where it's not just about about participating in like a map um competition and so one of the things that was designed was to Pilot a map one of the elementary schools the pilot at the middle school and we have math club here at the high school and so we U were're able to do that this year with the help of of a parent who um was nice enough to actually be the um Club lead for each one of those different levels and so for the Middle School um we said that competitions or M really should defined by one competition like it shouldn't just be a math
030club it should be a math CL um wanted to um get more students involved and excited about that and if you don't like ma counts like how to make sure that you still can come to a club and do mathematic and participate um and so uh one of the things that we had was each school coming up with their own logo and their own motto and uh some of the um I guess the uh the confinment around that was that it had be about exploration how do you explore in Mathletics how do you investigate in Mathletics and how you make sure that you're that you're able to work with the team in mathematics and so um he expanded the numbers of competition over four which is math counts so this year we did math counts
031we did the American mathematical competitions and uh the mathematical Olympics for middle school and so what the picture right there is from a couple Saturdays ago where region 15 hosted for the first time the northwest chapter of competition for mathematics this is the first it's ever been here in region 15 so to the next slide um posted over 60 student participant participants and more than a 100 parents showed up and so on that February day um Kudos region 1 because our MMS team was placed first in the team division um Mo Shambo had two students that advaned to the individual performance a third place finish and sixth place finish um Mor also had two students who advance to the individual performance at 15th Place and 17th Place finished and so March 1st they all went
032to Yale and they participated um in the state competition and while we didn't have any reg students that went to the N that would go to the national competition our students did really well overall we're actually waiting for the information about where they placed um in in the competition so as soon as we get that we can send that out to you but especially thanks to Mr s who's the parent that um did this at the elementary the middle school and high school level and then listed there are the middle school and the elementary um teachers who who ran the club and then um special thanks to Chris wsh who's our department chair and J Perez who helped kind of organize um everything behind the scenes to make sure that the competition ran off smoothly
033so mat is a national competition where um kids work on problems on math problems and so um based on how many you get right you can advance at the the regional level the state level the national level and so this is a picture just showing you how packed this library was on February 22nd with all the parents of the students here and so we talked a little bit about in um the beginning of the school year during uh PNC about the revisions that were done in the summer um for mathematics so the preal and the algebra the iCal work um one of the things that we uh talked about is pce courses were the early college experience courses and so we established a partnership with Southern Connecticut State University to have that ECE course or
034that early college career course in probability and statistics um High School teachers from M also work with partners for educational leadership that whole idea of using data to determine instructional strategies for improvements um we talked a little bit already about that instructional teacher leader at the high school meeting with the Middle School to make sure that we have that vertical alignment and so what's next is um uh actually um having a high school teacher applied to teach that say uh that um SC Su ECE probability statistics course and communicating with the teachers of the high school and the school counseling departments regarding the common language about the course how do we make sure that kids know what that course is when they go to sign up and they go to register um there's a list
035some C curriculum work we want to do this summer that's um again looking at that college Al because that we revised it last summer get feedback teachers who taught it the summer and incorporating that feedback um probity stics Personal Finance in cat and then um again add those actives for fortive learn I just want to show like that corner picture of some high school students um using vertical surfaces working together answering problems um that build classrooms um strategies that we be talking about thank you thank you very much Dr all right any questions for Dr about kind of open up that for um what from a dollar perspective that look like what is one is it part of our existing buet and if why wouldn't we want to do that so I just try to
036understand potential matching costs what would that look like so the challenge right now is the costs are extreme uh the grant that we applied for and that we utilized last year was 370 or $400,000 right totally almost five right so we look at to replicate that would be 250,000 same LEL funding um we also found that there are multiple vendors some of the the advantage of using the vendors in state brand they vetted them uh and they had a list but as we worked with MERS a lot of the folks that they were sending us didn't have a background of mathematics so we were doing in-house training um and so some of the conversation is can we rep replicate the structure uh but do it the most effectively if we're paying $250,000 trade people once
037we get there for a fraction of that would feel like we' been build internal structure we do have interventionists we do have some tutors uh what we didn't have before that high dosis tutoring was the model that we implemented so I think there's some internal conversations of the success that we found and something that we didn't find was that a based on the structure or the people within that structure um and then I think our current thinking right now instructure matters a lot and training people ustri mathematics they were not going to train um it is a more sophisticated approach to mathematics um so making sure that we have kind of um control and some like line of sight who those people are and the training they get before we have the work um I
038wanted to ask about the transition from middle school high school um using UST mathematics through we've also before talked about using high school algebra um I was just wondering to talk about like in that in that kind of zone of transition from middle school to high school um where was making transition so last year the first year that we used um elri math algebra for the eth grade students that are in the algebra course and so um one of the things that we thought was interesting when we looked at the data um that class did really well according to according to the state test according to and so one of the things that that that illustra map does is explain to you why um and not just go and plug in numbers and so we
039talk a lot about like that conceptual understanding like understand why you things before you actually just start pluging numbers and so um that's where that conversation with the I at the high school and the coach comes handy to talk about what are some things that um the high school really wants to make sure that kids are know and are able to do and making sure then that we're giving them practice in ath grade to be able to do that um we've also Ted lot about like what the midterm looks like so what should the midterm um look if you go and look at um The Common Core what they say is that there's a very small percentage of assessment that should be procedural and so a lot of it is about um that whole idea
040of being able to apply to thinking and be able to understand the why of what you're doing so we talked a lot about how that midterm should have things on there that is about the why it's about conceptual and a very small number of things that because eventually have to get procedure that's the most efficient way to do mathematics ised but knowing why that procedure works and so um that's where those conversations are coming in that's when the vertical visits are coming in and so um we make sure that we do the same content um as the high school algebra class so um that's where our pay and guides come in really handy make sure that we cover the same content that the high school cover so that when get to the high school they
041can move on to the next course you don't have to worry about them missing things because because of so we've been able to align that so we're a couple years down the road now with aligning to njsm standards and using that assessment um can you share a little bit uh I looked in the in the slide and we made mention that we're still working on aligning certain grade levels to those in jsns can you talk a little bit about how that has transformed our science curriculum and how that might continue to evolve as we get for the m one the best example I can give you is um at the beginning of school year we had a district actually call us and ask what were we doing in middle school science because of because of
042the scores and so we yeah did we did talk about um open S Edge we also talked about the schedule the middle school schedule and how you know there is that block of time about at least 50 minutes you know five out of six days to be able to new sign and not everybody in middle school has that and so that was a conversation with the other District Bo they didn't have um in sixth grade every day a student having science which is really interesting and so um I do think for Middle School um we've been working really hard the itl been working really hard with teachers on how do we use that resource um to do to make sure that we're getting all the NGS as practices that are in there for high school
043realigning all of our brick because again it's people p to be able to revise going different courses to be um in line with practices and theosophy of ngss until we've been working on that I would say um the struggle Elementary always time um you know the time during the day to do so many minutes of literacy so many minutes of math you have social studies you have science so being able to fit that in one of the things we talked about was how do we um kind of align it so that we allow me for literacy is about a science standard um or a science concept how do we make sure that we can kind of blend those things together so it's not in silos which takes up a lot of time and you can
044then embed some of those things and be able to get everything done so um so we're working on that it's a work in progress like like everything but um it's been it's been a big change um for the past few years and when I got here we didn't we didn't start ngss and so I think um at PNC we spent a couple a couple meetings going over what that actually means and how it was a big sh for for all of us as Educators to to align to like that philosophy that um phenomenon being able to tell a story and carry that story through the entire unit that that's really different than the way we were science where you know it was kind of Sil to do an experiment move on to the next experiment
045and not car it through so um I do think you know K Middle School um you know was other District were kind of recognizing that um you know doing pretty well so um continue doing that so follow up to that is um you know so understanding that that's a pre- transformative shift feel like we're pretty close to the other side of it just yeah yeah there's a few things where you know pre revise and then um you know the process for revision is as you revise you then go and try it out over the course of the school year keep track of some of the feedback you want to do and then go to revise again over the summer so that what continually rising and improving their practice is something that you'll see as right
046yeah as you look through um you know the curriculum you'll see some of the the same things happen One Summer and the next summer it is that great thank you sh down to success of that s structure is what's being devel it'll start in fifth grade where we have you know for most science instruction because departmentalized to go through training a broader sense of science instruction more special and then K4 be the next phe that's where it's you know it's not going to be kind of I don't want I want to be clear not that the shift open S nbss is easy but when you talk to say a first grade teacher that has so many other things how do we Ed this that phenomenon structure the mindset and way that still allows them to
047implement you know every Direction the implementation of they want everybody wants 90 minutes right wants 90 minutes math once 90 minutes soci there's not in day them all up and so you know it is about how you kind of create cross paths so you kind of while you're teaching social studies in science in the math you can bring that in that's the heavier Li especially our I think that that's movie approves the math link um that the um stone wall that talks about talks about social studies and math so like that integration the more you integrate especially Elementary multiple content areas the more you're able then to get everything again just not the time so I'm wondering about that too is that is that just kind of K that that all came together or is
048that something that we had you know kind of which part well the idea of like picking a top anding kind of this crcular like I call unit unless I think we encourage staff to go out and see what's happening you know that well we want you to focus your energy on What's happen team we also want you to be at these conferences talk to the people so it was that the kind of organic piece was we've done a lot here specifically with what's mathematician and I'm a mathematician and you know kind of the idea that especially young women see themselves as mathematician so through that work you know you meet with people you talk to people what are other projects happening and you know we we changed our forun of a graduate to be fortun
049of a learner because we want our staff to have that mindset of how do I grow and so that's kind of that structure very cool I'm just happy to hear that the Middle School schedule that was a labor of love and I'm all for collaborating in content are anyone ask Contin that happened at the LMS oh Club yeah yeah school club so we talk a lot about Equity across of our our schools so I recognize that was positioned this presentation as pilot I understand it's supported by parent or whomever thank you to that individual and for all the support that you guys are providing um will that be if as it moves forward will it be um is there an opportunity to include students other schools whether not there'll be bus there or whether it
050will be you know opened up to GS PS mes so I'm glad you um you mentioned that because I did say last Wednesday that there was $800 added to my budget and that I would explain it tonight so I'm glad you said that because I forgot to explain it tonight so the $800 that's in um my budget under I want to say other purchase Services is um to support those um that math club at at the other Elementary School that or all four elementary schools have it um the two middle schools will have it and the high school will have it and so that money is for all those three competitions that were listed because you have to pay to to join those so the money um is in there to be able to do
051that and so one of the things is um having a staff member like that was listed up there uh run that club after school questions all right thank um next we have board retreat discussion um so Josh asked me last week you know what are we going to do the retreat and what are we doing it on and I said good question um and I thought um I would kind of open that up to the board to get an idea of what you guys might like to see for a retreat um typically we always do a data presentation or preliminary data presentation but I don't know if there was some PD that board members would be interested in or not or what you guys think St some person just sooner you can get that D
052out there the better I know people have their busy schedules and there's never gonna be a perfect but you never it's a summary to you yeah be great um just the data di though I thought was really worth I just think that should be like every year because it allows um di so you can see how it really you can really drill into different whether it's a school or a grade level or a classroom right down to student and how that we're talking about individual student but how um how you're using that information to make inform decisions and then out District sort of correlate some you know some of its practices to either an increase or or decrease score so I that's anyone else have any ideas of P or something [Music] that that could
053be a whole day two yeah I mean I think it's worthwhile to invest in PD know I've been saying this for a couple of years right to learn about each one of us and what our specific drivers are how to work together because right I think that sometimes we always drive towards consensus but I think it's I think it's healthy to not always be a consensus right we're here elected to have you know a specific thoughts and and I think we need to do have a PD session right on how it's okay to express those and it's like okay to disagree right but I think sometimes that's like taken offensively and I think that we could have you know we could even spend like an hour like how to have open and honest conversations with
054each other without Miss yeah good just um some feedback there were a couple things that came out at the summer Retreat last this past year that were rather striking um so I think that any real big kind of um moments for learnings case studies um where we can kind of whether that's it's it's not so much control down of the data but it's kind of looking at holistically where we're making impactful decisions how it's influencing what we're doing and were there some learnings that came out right so um I remember some of the conversations over some of the scores right the outliers there and then there was also some changes that have been made well with that impacted class size um relative some decisions that had been made so things like that from a transparency
055perspective 100% I want to see and anything that you can give us early even if to kind of better allow us to understand some of that information into that conversation would be all right anyone else um you're always welcome to also email me if you think about that a little bit more so it looks like you guys want to do a retri um and so we'll come up with a date and you know definitely give me feedback um as to any others you have want I know that end of year is real crazy I feel like obviously it's almost too late is there any OPP or earlier I know it's hard because you're some of those last minute decisions going into planning September and I know that a lot going on gradation and all that
056early like what what are you thinking early you mean June yeah back by but we get data back think we got it like two weeks before the retreat right right thank you everyone again email me any other ideas you have and we'll get TR and I will start working on that um right so next we have a approval of minutes may have a motion for approval of the February 24th 2025 regular meeting minutes so Mo thank you heather do I have a second thank you Steve any questions or changes comments on the minutes okay all those in favor I any Nays exensions right all I all right next we have information and proposal reports policy and curriculum commit Miss Heather the policy and committee at this evening um we discussed we took a little bit
057of detour we discussed some uh business policies in the 3000 Series um one of them was 3292 um which is an investment funds policy that comes capital F pension fund a new legislation that enables us to create an educational expense fund so we talked about some Communications of that we talked about how to the black policy thank to Mr Martino for coming to join us explain how that works um we did a free on L with we approve that policy we will send their review and board um we also picked up um I the these policy in 000 um we did also pick up um policy 1330 um is about facility use fees um this was not to crack open facility use um necessarily but to just add um some clarifications discuss as we that
058and that's it um we talked about possibly meeting next um is very move for meetings possibly think Cann all right any questions for Miss fire right next we have financing facilities committee Miss Shannon Calo we today at very bus day for all of us um so we talked about the bond rating and the bond schedule and that those conversations will happen this week and a half week now right to kind of talk to where we'll get raid as we go out to the bond package we talked about Sumer projects the H unit all the things that we are team up um to get done this summer some of the AG components right keep pressure on time right because we're her in the game J right um and then we talked about our short-term investment Revenue
059um we Revenue right on the money that's kind of sitting in our accounts we talked about interest rate that it's earning now just roughly 400% Finance ter um yeah well I work at sparter BS so 4% right but that's very much tied to where we are right from a rate perspective right so you know from personal side right we're projecting for RS over the next year so it's a conversation to be had something that potentially from a savings perspective like a leging perspective if we wanted to increase that Revenue number um on a projection of what we're making Now versus what so I guess the risk tolerance compensation we're currently earning more than noted under Revenue yes yeah so I think we there's like a $100,000 excess in there right now that we're earning more
060this year's budget so next year when we budget it right we budget the same level as this year but if rates don't decrease right there's potential that we could still earn right $100,000 as a conversation right because I think a great environment I don't think where the rates are now that's a longterm one year situation right so then if we over projects that Revenue right now we're in a deficit starting just fine so we're going to talk more about that at the budget meeting I imagine okay Workshop okay any questions an exhibit from the finance packet of Interest okay all right thank you follow next we have PTO advisory Miss Sharon so PTO advis met on March 6 and the topics that were raised by the superintendent included superintendent proposed budget also there the discussion
061over the new communication T excuse me which I believe is called parent sare and how that will be ultimately rolled out in a phase approach um for and students and stuff um big back on that conversation was also um related to security and Pi protection du to the recent Power School breach and then lastly there was a very robust Conversation Over portrait of the next meeting is scheduled for great any questions for is that okay and next we have board member comments coms just to come back on the retreat um has been talk about potentially breaking that up as opposed to doing it just in one day trying to catch one day as hard and I know in the years that I've been able to attend I've never felt like I'm not have my laptop
062open and doing things on the side right so it's hard to kind of focus you are so I don't know especially if there's modules there's a modular approach to this Retreat there would be consideration [Music] last we've been hosting Heritage maybe we'll just put together a little survey board members and include dates times options we may not find consensus but we to findet spot yeah and last and last year we didn't we get it done one day we have to continue it another day is it in September do we continue it in September so we kind of did days right any other board member comments Steve sorry there was uh happen to see it on Facebook and I play now but the robotics team the 2064 I think we all got the email as well
063but I think um don't know but I feel like that's the best that they've done in in quite some time and I think it's a great example of where a lot of people wrote in and then they were redirect the chain of command then it seems that Dr Jones had had met with them and was able to alleviate some of their concerns or provide information or space it seem to really pay offs I just thought that was a great just a great example of bondag a command and getting stuff I just want to say thank you right for extending the experience right to the board members I the first time I had went and it was really eye opening and really great to hear from students what they were doing right the choices they were
064making towards college and it was interesting some of them I asked right I walked around and kind of tried to talk to as many students as I could like is it something you're going to and some cases right they're like I'm definitely going to do this double down I really liked it and some you are like I decided that wasn't for me and just as a learning experience that's an amazing thing to be able to realize as a senior because I've had seniors in college come intern three over the summer and said oh this is not what I want to do and then they go back to school which is fine like they start learning before they go the world this is like you are thinking you really enjoy something and then when you're in
065it you're like oh no this isn't a good fit right you like the situation summer like I like the sales aspect or this isn't something I want to do you know pull it on something else I think that's a really great experience that there's probably resistance like in the beginning like why do I have to do this but I think everyone can of came out of it with like a really good direction on what they wanted to do and so I just felt that was great and it was really nice to be able to experience that to be able to see them and kind of talk about like their their aspirations was a good like almost like a little Capstone right over their kind of exp and where they are so thank you for the
066the invited just a big thank you s here's a little bit to our earlier fun this evening to everyone that organized the Sports uh basketball team was a lot of fun um and hopefully and I hope it continues and if does continue as next year we organize prce but it was a lot of fun so thank you it was a great idea and yeah um I wanted to um to say thank you um to Steve again for doing our uh bad fun lat newsletter that went out to um the public I know I just I just appreciate it Steve no one appreciates you like I do it's so funny um just appreciate everyone uh getting an update on where we are on the repair bond in the very public way um and that newsletter is
067up on our website so thank you um the board has been invited to a cost of making master class I think I've been you know throwing some trash to Mr Bader the Italian teacher like saying try wanted to do a meatball competition so this is the p a pasta master class that they did I think last year it's combination of international um quisine class and Italian 3 I think it's March 20th 9:45 so if board members would like to attend let Miss megleo know um and that will be a fun time um the other thing I wanted to talk about and to say again um we have been spreading it on social media um and I know there's a different um a press release going out hopefully soon um that on March 13th we are
068doing a community conversation about the gainfield and pomog Elementary School fusibility study and that's from 6 to 7 o'clock at gamefield again for the public to come and you know start to give input on the different ideas for gamefield and pag Elementary School it is being run by um Tech Architects um who are gonna you know get that feedback um it's one of three conversations that are going to be happening last week we had our Think Tank which was um a meeting with Town officials uh board members and Administration um to kind of again do like a little think tin that was a great discussion um the community conversations um anyone can come um to P or to ganfield Elementary or any of them um in that conversation will be recorded and up on our
069website I'm sorry oh they're offering a tour too oh great so anyone comes and gets a tour as well some all right the first one's atfield second one's Ates and the third one is at right so this Thursday the 13 is that gainfield six to seven right yeah yeah I'll an email yeah yeah we'll do I'm I'm into the pasta thing too definitely go into that um all right any other board member comments I guess as long as long as you brought up the possibilities coming up um I just wanted to address you know some of the comments that I've seen been um along the lines of post they they going to combine the schools and I just wanted to make a comment that um there is an overon conclusion to this committee is very
070much um a topic that is under discussion and that um that will be influenced heavily by what spaces are available to us um and also what wants out this so very any coms all right next we have the superintendent report superintendent I know I'll that sry be animatic the first one though I touched on I did want to clarify and uh give some appreciation we tend to throw a lot of shade at Hartford um um when they make decisions that negatively impact us but uh the legislators and the governor did find a path in order to allocate the funds and make up the shortfall in the excess uh cost grant for this year um does fall short of the overall allocation so we appreciate that they Clos the Gap um but I do appreciate that
071they're committed to the funds and I think the piece that um is important to us and provide some confidence that they are going to make adjustments next year and so as we're sitting in front of a proposed we feel that even more confident in the projections we made are going to be supported by legislative action if they take no action we of a problem but I think we're all pretty confident that they went all all the foods they had to do to make it work for this year they are going to make something happen next year um I wanted to bring up three celebrations tonight um the robotics team that Mr Sani mentioned and their performance this past weekend they finished second um at the competition has been grow place um we had a first
072grader um from Long Meadow that took first place in the state's dream big competition and that brings uh recognition to the chat Savings Plan um and she will receive $5,000 into her cheat savings account um and then the third was the National History Day um that Brendan uh had mention once you go through kind of the full competition cycle for those students we'll bring them here um and make sure we recognize the good work that they're doing um I also want to thank all the board members that um were able to play tonight uh with our Unified sports team I want to thank the students for taking it easy on us um some some of us U maybe myself included have not run that much in a while um so tomorrow morning's probably going to
073be painful uh but I very much appreciate Miss bregman and the work that she's done and the students that all participate there um I think it's great that they us to play them um it we might have been Canon poter for them but um you know I I look forward to more of those events and um you know that I don't think there's that many opportunities students can get that up close and personal through the work board M just it was fun some were not taking the you know till the end once they built up the lead and I think they dialed it down a little bit U so I just want to thank you all for my thank you do have some spicy board members learned a little tonight about our all right um
074next we have comments from citizens the Board of Education will recognize citizens of middleberry and southberry and citizens are asked to State their name their town of residents and to limit their Thomas of treatment no okay um next we have regular business requiring board action may I have a motion for approval of the summer 2026 foreign field trip of the Board of Education approved summer 2026 B field trip in Costa Rica July 6 2026 to July 14th 2026 thank you heather second by Shannon okay um another opportunity for going to Costa Rica um is for the summer of 2026 um if you remember at the beginning of the school year in October the two other field trips at the board f um one to France and one to London so um the France one is
075the end of June this one would be the beginning of July and then the London one um would be the end of July so the opportunity for students to go to any one of those they the cost vry for this one's a little less far yep yeah the others were around 40 400 32 around 3200 about enough space right now for about 45 students they want to um with six adults despite um the ef4 which we've been using the past few years um the person um requesting the person doing International I'm sorry we got stop and this would be the second time we posted Costa Rica I think was our first trip when we reinstated travel this was the first experience that that we did question so the par trip and City and all wonderful
076big all everybody com these amazing opportunities for students um but I from a cult perspective is also going to be language perspective so like the span the children in Spanish class get like the first grer fusal or how or is it just open to the general public is that how we did it for the French trip I'm just in my mind I was thinking Paris and P city was very language focused this did not read that way so it's open to every this one open to everybody the French trip and thec City Middle School but the par STP open summer open okay perfect F yeah they do actually and and the adult one too the adult um up too I'm curious please open all or is it senors um no please open you find just
077maturity [Music] spectrum and they must Insurance any other questions no all right all those in favor I any NS sentence right it's unanimous all right announcement of future meetings um I forgot to put in here on tomorrow March 11th feasibility study committee is meeting here from 5: to 7 um that will be recorded as well um and that's open to the public um Wednesday March 19th we have our board of education budget workshop at the here at 6:30 um Monday March 24th we have PNC at 6:30 which might get cancelled as well as a Monday March 24th regular meeting um at 7:30 which also might get canceled so stay tuned we'll make decision maybe next week about that um we just have had so many meetings lately um so we'll okay especially in March it's
078been tough okay when yeah the feasibility meeting tomorrow yeah so is there the agenda for that meeting like what the discussion be about yeah basically somewhat a standard agenda we had a series of meetings with Community officials in schools they would do an update that all right um so Wednesday March 26 we have another budget workshop and that one will be with the boards of Finance from middleberry and southberry and that starts at 6:30 and that will be followed by a board of education public hearing um at the media center here at 730 may have a motion to adjourn all right second by sh all those