001the region 15 board of education's order for monday october 25th the mission of region 15 a collaborative community committed to excellence is to educate every student to be productive ethical and engaged in the global society through proven and innovative learning experiences supported by a strong community whose decision making is based on the best interest of all students um we're going to start this evening with the presentation by uh dr kerry chieta on our region 15 assessments screenshots so thank you good evening madam chair members of the board superintendent smith and members of the community thank you very much for the opportunity tonight to present the region 15 assessment overview during this evening's presentation um we'll review the assessment results for um for a few different um assessments the smarter balance balance assessment which was given
002last spring to students in grades three through eight in math and literacy this past falls administration of the nwea math assessment which are in grades k through eight in math and literacy the next generation science standards which was an assessment given last spring in students in grades 5 8 and 11 the school day sat data which was given last march for students in grade 11 and advanced placement uh data which occurred last may for high school students after that we'll share a bit with you about the district initiatives around teaching and learning but before we begin um it's important to remember a few things the first thing is that the goal really for last year was to maintain schools and have them be open it really wasn't a focus on assessments a reminder that instructional
003time last year was compromised and even the spring of 2020 it was compromised we had hybrid schedules we had early release days we had mass breaks during the school day students were quarantined staff from quarantine we had remote learning we had changes in the way that we delivered our curriculum that was all based on the protocols for keeping kids in school during a pandemic as always these assessments are one point in time and they're part of the picture that we have for students it's not the entire picture and that these assessments provide us teachers and administrators the information to help with our work this year in differentiating our curriculum and meeting the needs of our students additionally it's important to um remember this that came from the connecticut state department of education usually we compare
004um fact results to our dirk or our district reference group which really are districts that are similar to ours but what the state is saying that is that we can't do that this year and the reason that we can't do it is for a variety of reasons and so they ask not to make comparisons to other districts for the 2021 20 or 20 20 21 school year because how students learn whether that was in person hybrid or remote varied across districts in schools in addition who and how many learned either fully or mostly remotely varied across districts and schools and who and how many were tested remotely varied across districts and schools and who participated in full-time in-person testing um varied so we're not going to be able to compare those to the dirt which
005we usually do so let's talk first about the smarter balance assessment and as you may remember smarter balance measures student achievement in grades three through eight each spring um it's based on the connecticut core standards in both language arts and mathematics and that these standards are actually a set of learning expectations for what students should know and be able to do at each grade level to be ready for college and the workplace in english language arts and literacy we look at reading writing listening research and inquiry and for mathematics is about concepts and procedures problem solving and modeling data analysis and communicating reasoning if you'd like more information about these assessments there's a more in-depth explanation about these in previous presentations that we've made to the board on um on data and those are on
006our website so let's take a look at our first table here um on this slide is the region 15 aspect scores for each grade level for both ela and mathematics this shows the percent of students at or above goal for each grade a level of three or higher when we look at this information for ela the percent of students at our goal in ela includes three through eight range from 56 percent in grades six and seven to seventy one percent in grade three for literacy more than half of our students at any of the grade levels listed here are three or higher for literacy and in some grades more than two-thirds of the grade level met or exceeded the goal grade three 71 percent grade five is sixty eight percent grade eight is sixty six
007percent if we look at mathematics the percent of students at or above goal for math in grades three through eight range from about half of the grade 48 in seventh grade to 72 percent of students at or above goal and grade three about half or more of our students are at level three or higher in each grade if we go to the next slide this slide shows each grade and the percent of students at each of the four s back levels last spring so we can see on this um graph what percent of students were at level one at level two at level three and level four for each green at the top that m slash e stands for meets for exceeds and so that percentage is actually what we just reviewed on the previous
008slide and it's the combination of students at levels three and four so how does this differ from the last analysis that we did which was back in so while the shape of these bar graphs for the most part have stayed the same there's been a shift in the percentages slightly more students in level one and two compared to the 2019 school year the next slide is actually the same thing except for mathematics and so again that ending at the top is meets and exceeds and should be the same as what we reviewed a few slides ago and again when we look at mathematics and compare the shapes of the bars for this year compared to 2019 the percentages of students at level one and two are slightly higher than the 2019 uh data the next
009slide for sbac is the region 15 and state aspect five-year trend and so when we look at previous non-covered years and how the region s back scores were in 2021 compared to previous years we'll look at that and then we'll also look in a minute at the state but let's first take a look at region 15 scores over the past five years remembering that we did not have a score for the 2020 school year because no district in the state of connecticut took us back that year for ela the difference in the percent of students at a three or higher ranges from 10 percentage points to 16 points over the past five years um it also shows that in the past five years we've been in this are in the 70s so 72 all the
010way up to 78. were slightly lower this year in 2021 at 62 percent for math the difference in the percent for students in the three or higher range from 15 percentage points to eight percentage points over the last five years scores it were in the mid 60s and just we approaching 70 in 2019 and so as you can see in 2020 there was a death if we click the state data appears and again remembering that we can't do our derg analysis like we normally do so we looked at the state information so when we look at state data while there's been a range from nine percentage points um to seven for ela the state has consistently been in the mid 50s um prior to this year where region 15 has been about 15 to 20
011percentage points higher for math the state has been consistently in the 40s prior to this year and the difference between the percent at or above has ranged from 12 to 9 points this is compared to region 15 where we've been about 20 or more percentage points higher in mathematics and so while we've seen a dip in the 2021 school year um we haven't fallen really far below where we were compared to the state lingered in one second because i don't want the takeaway to be about us comparing to state data right now i think the main reason we want you to see this is that the dip that we saw from 19 to 21 was similar to what other districts across the state experienced that's kind of that covid um experience that we're working through
012which is similar here and is representative of what happens when you have a compromised school year so we expected to see some uh dip last year and what was interesting is that art that mirrored kind of what the rest of the state saw regardless of their starting point um so this slide shows the aspect data for english language arts for the past three years for students in various categories or what the state calls student subgroups students can be part of one or more of the groups listed here you can see that some of the percentages are similar to previous years some are slightly higher than previous years and some are slightly lower than previous years we know that remote learning quarantining having a compromised delivery of instruction changes in routines and delivery of curriculum have
013impacted some of our students more than others which is apparent in this table right here the same holds true for mathematics so if we go to the next slide um this shows the student categories or student subgroups as the state calls them for the past three years in mathematics and again the same thing you can see some percentages that have stayed pretty similar to previous years some that are higher or lower similar to the category um data for ela we can actually dig deeper into this data to see the number of students in each of these groups the grade level of each of these students if there are previous data points for these students and to gain a clearer picture more than this one point in time because we know that the past few years
014of going to school during a pandemic impacted some of our students more than others if we now change to the nwea map results so the map assessments are given in both math and literacy for students in grades k through eight three times a year the results from this universal screener are used to determine the instructional levels of students and to measure academic growth throughout the school year these data help us with our work on planning and differentiating by providing us with information about each student what they already know what they're working towards and what additional practice they may need we'll have a more in-depth presentation on nwea map assessments in the winter um when a member of the nwea team will attend one of our board meetings but in the meantime um um there are
015i'll go over a little bit with you there are five academic or achievement percentiles for nwea map assessments so um the red is low and that's where uh the percentile is less than 21 there's a low average so that range is between 21 and 40 percent percentile the average that yellow is 41 to 60 there is high average which is the green 61 to 80 and then a high average 81 or higher percentiles are used to compare one student's performance to that of a normal the percentile means the student scored as well as or better than the percent of students taking the test in their grade there is about a 68 chance that a student's percentile ranking will fall within this range again if the student tested relatively soon the following slides provide information on
016the percent of students who are average and higher so that yellow and higher and also who are high average and higher according to achievement percentiles so we'll talk about the yellow and higher and the green and higher so this slide shows the region 15 nwea results for literacy this past fall this first table in yellow shows the percent of students in each grade k through 8 who were in the average or higher percentile ranges as you can see the percent of students who are in the average or higher range from about two-thirds of the students in grade two so sixty-six percent to ninety-one percent of students in grade 6. 85 of our students in kindergarten are considered average or higher that next table is the percent of students in high average and higher and so
017as you can see from the table half a more half or more of each grade level is considered in the high average or higher percentile recently nwa has put out research to show the connection between students scores on the map assessments and their projected score on sbac the research states that based on a student's score on the map has starting in grade 2 it can be projected that if that a student uh they can project a student's target to receive a three on s back so that last column one more time this last column shows what percent of students in region 15 are projected to be on target to get a three on s back this range is from 54 in grade 2 to 75 in grade 7. this score includes those students that are
018in that high average range so that green and also some students in the upper portion of the average range so here's the same information except for mathematics so that first table shows the percent of students in each grade k through eight who are in the average or higher percentile ranges the percent of students who fall um in the average or higher percentile ranges from 65 in group 2 to 89 in kindergarten 89 of kindergarteners in region 15 are considered average or higher in mathematics in that percentile wage when we then take a look at the percent of students who fall in the high average or higher percentile these range from 50 percent in grade 2 and 3 to 63 percent in grade four with half or more of our students in each grade level at
019the higher average or higher percentile and again that last table will show you the percent of students who are projected to be on target to get a 3ns back and so it ranges from 47 percent in grade 2 to 64 in grade 4. and while second graders don't take s back it is projecting if they are on target to reach a three when they do take it and again this last table are the percent of students in the high average and higher ranges would also include some of those students who are in the upper range of the average percentile so the next generation science standards assessment in the spring of 2020 and grades 5 8 and 11. and so as you may remember the spring of 2019 was the first year that the students in
020the state took the next generation science standard state test and since we do not have testing data for the 2020 school year we only have two years worth of data these data points are not of a cohort meaning that they are not the same students and therefore we can show each grade level but it's not the same students year to year so as mentioned the ngss assessment is taken in grades 5 8 and 11 in the spring we have data for 2019 which was the first administration of it and this past year 2021. as you can see there were only a slight difference in the percent of students who received a 3 or higher in both grades 5 and 8. for grade 11 those asterisks are listed there because there was not enough of a
021sample size to get a relatively accurate percentage of those who received a three or higher so last spring students at the high school were on a half day schedule and therefore grade 11 students were provided with the opportunity to participate in ngss assessments one afternoon last spring if they wanted to stay after school and take the assessment while some students did that stay it was not enough to give us an accurate score less than a quarter of the grade 11 students participated usually districts have to have a 95 participation rate in state assessments but last year this percentage for participation was weighed because of the tandem so this next slide shows the student category or the student subgroups for region 15 and gss assessment for the past two administrations of the assessment in grades 5
0228 and 11. and just a reminder again that this is not cohort data meaning that these groups for each grade and across the grades are not the same students but different groups of students each year and in each group also a reminder that we don't have the grade 11 data for this past administration of the assessment um for the reasons that i just stated so the school day s.a.t which was march 24th of last year for grade 11 students and so here's information about the school day s.a.t for the past few years the asterisk here for those scores for 2021 is there because these fours were taken from the college board site and not ed site which is usually where we get the information from these asterisks are there because when and if that information
023becomes available on the ed site there might be a few point discrepancy but not enough to make it a significant difference and so we put those asterisks there to be fully transparent and say that those scores for 2021 are taken from the college board site additionally these scores do not reflect the same students it's not a cohort that we're following these are scores of juniors each of each of the years listed if we were to compare each of the junior classes across the years you can see that the 2021 scores are a bit lower but just a reminder that last year the high school had a hybrid schedule and then early release days in the spring i mentioned that we're not able to get the dirt or the district reference group information for sbac so
024we're also not able to get that information for the school day sat but we are able to get data our data the state's data and the total group data the total group data actually refers to all u.s and international test tapers as you can see by the data provided region 15 outperformed the state and the total group for both math and literacy and again the high school last year was in for half days in hybrid schedule this slide shows the percent of phs juniors last spring at each level meeting and exceeding approaching or needs to strengthen as we look at these we may wonder how do these data points compare to the state or total group if we take a look at literacy the percent of students who met or exceeded at the state level
025that highest level was about 59 compared to phs which is 74 while the percent of students at the state who need to strengthen that lower level was 34 compared to phs is 19. if we take a look at the total group those are u.s and international uh test takers the percent of students who met or exceeded was 58 and again phs for literacy was 74. and that lowest group the total for that lowest level for the total group was about 34 and again phs is 19. we can also do the same thing for mathematics the percent of students who met are exceeded the state was 37 compared to phs 55. the percent of students at that lower level who needs to strengthen the state was 57 phs is at 40. if we take a look
026at the total group the amount of international test takers and u.s test takers the percent of those who met or exceeded was 36 in mathematics phs is 55 and who need to strengthen the total group is 56 phs is 40 so the only piece i want to add to that is that in connecticut all juniors are required to take the sap as part of the state assessment where when you look at national and international numbers a lot of those scores are self-selected so students only choose to take them if they leave them for college so that that gap between where we're at and the rest of the region is a little wider when you look at everybody at pop rock high school um so advanced placement tests um are more challenging opportunities for students to
027take college levels work in high school they provide an opportunity to potentially earn college credit or opt out of basic college coursework with successful completion of ap courses or exams there's numerous studies to link the participation in ap courses to college graduation rates and in some cases students who participate in ap classes are 20 to 60 percent more likely to graduate college students who take an ap course or more likely to be successful in their freshman year of college and actually return for their sophomore year and it's a metric for gauging the preparedness of high school students for the first two years of college this slide shows data for the past five years for the total number of ap students the number of exams the number of ap students within three or higher and the
028percent of the total ap students with a score of three or higher last year was a bit different in that students were able to sign up to take the ap exam but could opt out prior to the examination date this was different than what was done in previous years which was that when a student signed up to take the ap assessment they had to take the ap assessment that being said when you look at the row of words titled number of exams the number of exams at phs were higher than the 2017 number and close to the 2018 number and the overall percent of total ap students with their three or higher still in the 70 range with 72. so this is a slide that shows the region 15 advanced placement scholar summary for 2021.
029and so if you look at the slide we have 45 ap scholars that means students who receive scores of three or higher on three or more ap exams and their average score is listed there we have 29 ap scholars with honor those are students who receive an average score of at least 3.25 on all ap exams taken and scores of three or higher on four or more of these exams we have 43 ap scholar with distinction those are students who receive an average score of at least 3.5 on all ap exams taken and scores of three or higher on five or more of these exams we have two ap capstone diploma those are students who earn scores of three or higher in ap seminar and ap research and on four additional ap exams of their
030choosing we have 10 ap seminar and research certificate students who earn scores of three or more or higher on ap seminar and ap research so you may be asking yourself how did the region do compared to previous years well in 2019 when we did our last date of presentation there were 122 scholars just two more than that are listed there last year during the paper so we want to talk a little bit about um the region 15 district initiatives or improvements and the following slides um you've actually seen before because they were in uh superintendent smith presentation at the last b.o meeting on districts goals they were also shared at the board retreat and we also shared them at our administrator retreat over the summer so this learning framework from the connecticut center for school
031change now known as partners for education leadership this is the framework that we're using it starts with responsive teaching based on the students in front of us and using formative assessment in real time it's looking at prioritizing the essential standards and skills for grade level or for the course it's designing tasks and activities for students that deepen learning and helping students with their self-efficacy students ability to succeed and reach their goals but also helping them be advocates for their needs and it's scaffolding learning which is where differentiation comes in all of this is cyclical and continues each time that we plan a lesson or a unit and it's an ongoing process this next slide talks about grade level learning and i and the part in blue that says no student has gaps in all areas
032and all students have gaps in some areas and instruction needs to consider where students are and adapt the instruction to meet each student where they are this year we've been focusing on grade level standards and skills and prioritizing rules we're also having conversations about the prerequisite concepts that students need in order to do the grade level standards and skills and part of that work is through tier one so this next slide should also look familiar the learning framework that we've adopted is not about intervention or remediation it's about strong daily instruction and high quality teaching and learning and over the past few years we've been focusing on tier one instruction the work that the classroom teachers do every day with their students we have been focusing on what the learning objectives are each day how
033do we engage all students in learning and take into into account how students learn best we started this work a few years ago and even last year especially in k-8 literacy we focused on planning lessons that took into account the grade level standards and the needs of our students we didn't just read a script that was provided in the curriculum but started tailoring the curriculum to our students needs based on grade level standards what we found out was that there was a need for deliberate structures to support strong daily instruction in high quality teaching and learning those deliberate structures included time to meet with one another and with department chairs with coaches to do this work and that's where our purposeful planning comes in so ka teachers have time during their school day to work
034with their math or literacy coach and their or their department chair the high school teachers use their professional learning communities or their plc time to work as a department just with the support of their department chair and purposeful planning can include all of those things looking at grade level standards um compacting or extend expanding the curriculum based on what our students need looking at data and analyzing that and determining what next steps are differentiating looking at our students academic needs social needs emotional needs really listening to what our students need and so why is that important it's important because our work this year on differentiating the curriculum is not so that we have high test scores but that we ensure that our students are learning and are able to understand and apply grade level standards
035and skills then the test scores will come you don't have to focus only on the test folders but it's not only about teachers who have the deliberate structures for support to support strong daily instruction in high quality teaching and learning we as administrators need that too and that includes superintendent smith and that includes themselves and so we work with the connecticut center for school of change um and they're actually going to meet with us tomorrow um they're going to come and meet with us and talk about instructional leadership we're going to visit classrooms with them so they can coach us into what differentiation looks like in the classroom and how we support teachers we have monthly principal meetings with elementary principals and secondary principals we have individual meetings with administrators to make sure that we're
036supporting them on what they need giving them that individualized instruction we uh have monthly district principal meetings with cabinet and we can participate in purposeful planning of your teachers and again that's to support the teachers um so that they can then do the best instruction for their students and that i think that that's so telling that last part that says research shows the highly effective principle the average student gains an additional three to five months of learning and math and reading and so measuring success measuring success is not necessarily about higher test scores the past 16 months have only proved to support the idea that success isn't defined by any one metric we're accountable to the process of continued improvement and improvement that's defined through numerous measures in addition to the more standard measures of
037school and district improvement um you also look at other things like safety social emotional um safety of our children the operational challenges that we face being in a pandemic and really this idea of growth really depends on trust and honesty and we know that this year we're still trying to survive living and learning in a global pandemic we're all learning how to ensure that students are achieving but that they're also safe and happy at school and with that thank you very much i appreciate your time thank you very much doctor i appreciate that um does anyone have any questions okay heather so i have um i have a couple questions but i'll start with a pretty specific one which was about um way back when you were talking about s back um i had noticed
038that the um the score seemed to be very high for grade three um in particular and i was wondering if if that is consistent with maybe the past test scores or is that something new i would love to blame it on the introduction of phonics do you have a rationale for why that should be um so when we look at um third grade that in the past there has been that trend we're third fourth fifth grade there's that there's that upward um i guess let's do it this way if you're looking there's this upward um trend and then um nationally there's a dip when we go to middle school and then it recovers when we go to high school so um um i do think we have a strong math program in elementary school so
039the bridges program i think has helped with that uh and these students actually have had that by the time they get to third grade now they've had it in kindergarten first and second grade um and they get to third grade one of the things that we did figure out was current sixth graders are the first group that have had bridges since kindergarten um so it will be interesting to see how that progresses um i do think the phonics has helped that we have put in over the past few years and that those students would have had um mostly all of the phonics you know with the exception of a little bit of code thrown in there so thank you so much great presentation um regarding math and recognizing this is a year that we can't
040compare dirt and i've asked this question in the past and recognizing that that those data points are in aggregate nationally do we know what are their schools let's say in our dirt or even taking that assessment i know it's relatively new to region 15 but to me that helps to put some of the information you're providing into context and i'm not sure if that would be available maybe in future years but just to understand how prevalent is this testing nationally as well as in the state i think that would be really really really helpful to understand so we can get a list of um the districts that use that um the only thing we wouldn't be able to get was their scores like you mentioned that like last time yeah yep so we got i
041can get you the list of of either like derby districts that use it or we want to do like in the state of connecticut i think it would just be helpful to put some context um from my perspective and then i wanted a question on the way to map and that was around growth um clearly we talked a lot about how people perform average high average attend those but we didn't talk at all about growth recognizing it was a pandemic recognizing the benefit of being in school right having that instruction so we were not expecting growth but how will in the future that growth score utilize and if you could also speak to how it's being measured as a parent i was struck by i thought okay it's the second year from my child taking
042the test i would have expected the growth to be based off of the spring of 2021 it's actually comparing its last fall so could you speak a little bit about growth and what your thoughts are for how that's gonna be used in the future yeah yeah so um one of the things i didn't show on here once about that growth because we started this year um really as like the initial the baseline um knowing that some students do have um previous nwga map assessment scores and that some don't and so over the course of this school year you'll also get to see um more of the growth uh for the three administrations of it but we didn't include that in this just because um it was it was kind of hard to like you know
043keep track of like who who uh participated last year and who didn't um but when we do an um a second uh um presentation of nwea so hopefully i think we have it for like the winter-ish we'll be able to show you the growth from this falls uh administration of it to the winter administration and what that group looks like the way that nwa tracks existed the metric built into the system is that every every student grows 100 which is what we're expected to do if you're at the 58th percentile and you grow like the 50th 58th percentile is benchmark at each section of the assessment based on the number of weeks instruction so if you were at 58 percentile in september and you do what you're supposed to do you'll be at the 58th
044percentile in jail which is where our job is to change the curve so we want students to move more than expected and we need to do a better job at figuring out where they are and it's limited then right so that's where it's important that we start to look at uh that average high average where they're at and if you're in the 98th percentile then like our goal is to keep you the 98 in order to do that you need to continue to grow but if you're in the 43rd percentile then you need to increase your arc so that you move up your percentile of access and part of that assessment is to give parents that information too so that if there's uh something that's preventing a student from if you're at the 98 percent
045and you start to decline and you have a conversation well what do you do to keep you motivated and engaged and with rigorous instruction to keep you in that high achieving piece and it may fluctuate between 9 30 and 98 or whatever but we don't want to see a downward trend and if you're in those lower ranges what do we need to do to increase the opportunity for you to move on and that's a specific you know when you see that map assessment you can drill pretty far into it look at specific standards that students will show and i'm really looking forward to having those folks in because there's a lot of questions surrounding those those metrics so thank you for scheduling that um speaking of nwa so i'm thinking back to as you're going
046through this i'm trying to recall that the parts of the year carry you list them at the beginning but i'm trying to remember like the environments in which these tests are taken and i remember the first time we did nwa right and how challenging that environment was because we were in a remote environment and there were you know any number of problems and you know god bless us those proctors that we're trying to coach those second graders through taking this you know remotely um but a larger question um you know you'd mention the the ngss uh tests and the challenges of administering that to 11th graders um i also know i think the ap test this year was a different format and kind of a different way of administering than they're usually administered so i'm
047wondering uh with regard to the other tests like what challenges did we have in ministering them last year and how does that reflect you know how you view the data that we got back from the last year's results so that's a good question so um like you you mentioned in the spring of 2020 our first administration of it was remote um so we did ask for our volunteers um and luckily a lot of teachers wanted to um be in on the ground level and learn how to proctor it and he did that remotely so we were able to uh do that in the spring um knowing that when we got back to school in the fall that you know we were going to do it for all students and that really was our baseline that
048really was our first administration of it um some of the things that um you know so i guess some of the challenges were logging in um like how do you log into that you know we're teaching kindergarten to log into you know using the computer um the amount of time that was spent because i do think um we have such conscientious students that they want to make sure that they're able to answer all of the questions and one of the things that we found was it's adaptive so as you get the answers correct um it gives you harder and harder questions and so kids want to spend more and more time to try and figure out to get the right answer when in reality it is going to give you harder and harder questions to
049kind of pinpoint where you are and you're not going to be able to answer about 50 of those questions so helping kids realize that it's okay not to know because that the program is is made that way that you're not going to know all of the answers so i do think it's really about teaching kids that it was it was okay to you know like really how to take that test um i don't the good news was that we were in school or most of us were in school so that we had that time set aside to take the assessment whereas like the high school ngss was after school it wasn't during the school day you just kind of have like that captive audience whereas for you know kindergarten through eighth grade you had the
050captain audience they were in school so um so i do think we were able to get really good baseline data last year um and get kids to practice that and teachers to practice that and problem solve with the technology um so i do think this year ran a little bit smoother that first administration of it which uh these tests that we were due are still administered like on paper versus online um [Music] paper i do know we talked about um the psat and teaching kids to bubble because we don't really bubble anymore and so um stacy's whipping on and the secondary principles we're talking about like for the psats like we have to go back and teach kids like how to fill in like the whole bubble because a lot of these assessments are online
051and and we don't really do that anymore um this has been measuring success do we um still do like that i think it was called a climate survey but it was like a safety social emotional that's a sales requirement we have not administered it over the last few years but yes the plan is to i think right now we try to dial back some of this conversations with students around social emotional and there's a baseline of we're assuming that everybody's struggling with some social emotional trauma-informed kind of conversations but yeah the plan is you know what can we remove um there's one more thing for our schools to take on right now but yes that's why you haven't seen as you dated um so one of the things that i appreciate about having all this
052data is is that we can break it down with the claims positive trades um and you know as i was looking at it i was wondering um so we do have data on say like time meetings or special education students who are taking these exams and i wonder um you know what value is are these exams um providing to those students um is the data being used in the same way is it being shared across the teams um i guess i just wonder your thoughts about how this data can help some of those people like us yeah so that's a really good question so if we take the nwa um data as an example so all teachers have a login so they can log in and see each of their students that are in their
053classes in addition to that the administrators can also see that data as well as our coaches and our department chairs and so some of the conversations during that planning time has been to take a look at your classes map data and and to look at who is in those different percentile achievement percentiles and then you can even drill farther and see what skills students are ready to learn and what's what skills students have already kind of like done well on um in addition you do have map accelerator which um kind of populates and then we'll say if carrie needs help on you know like being able to multiply it'll give carrick some practice on multiplying so we'll kind of take what your um results were from your and from your mac assessment and it'll populate
054some practice that i could get so a lot of the planning that we that the coaches have been doing the department chairs we've been just starting to look at that data because it came out maybe a couple weeks ago so looking at how that then impacts what the lessons that we plan uh for our students so it has been really useful the other piece is that especially when students who are struggling one sometimes they get really frustrated with tests because especially at the start of balanced assessment because they don't know those answers where the map assessment adjusts so as kerry said before that you're going to get 50 of them right so it's a test that's while some of our higher-end students struggle because they want to get them all right um the test is
055designed your analytical side it's your zone of proximal development that's really what it's looking for is what you're ready to learn and so it can be much more diagnostic for students who are below grade level they're going to get standards that they're ready to learn and the other thing that the smarter balance test is a master test so it's looking for how many students have mastered the grade level standard not necessarily for kind of specific growth within standards that might be below grade level where the map assessment will help teachers uh have those conversations about student learners about where they're at and a lot of times students even um students who are struggling also have areas of strength or relative strength and now you can start to see where that relative strength is even if
056it doesn't show up like on a smarter balance because it's kind of like you either hit the benchmark or below it's not as specific as well where are you if you're below the grade level stance any questions um next may i have a motion for approval the minutes of the september 27 2021 regular meeting to approve the minutes of the september 27th 2021 regular meeting thank you any discussion changes anything all those in favor aye all right thank you next we have information and proposals board committee reports policy curriculum committee mr steve ciriani uh report in that pnc met on september 27th tonight uh to discuss uh the 1000 series of policies um we'll be meeting again about that but that's the work we just do in the last few years thank you thank you
057um next we have finance and facilities committee mr john clemson uh the finance and facility committee meet on october 20th to receive an update on our ess r3 application which will include affordable classrooms at lmes uh also we are continuing to track current year expenditures which you have to say the report was for september uh so it won't be a short report and where everything is and are monitoring our special education costs we also review the october 1st abm which shows a small ship to middlebury by 0.31 or only 29 students our next meeting will be on wednesday november 10th at 6 30 pm thank you next we have pto advisory this hazard wire the pto advisory met on october 7th and um the hot topic of conversation was about volunteering and protocols around people
058having pto volunteers in person and [Music] the takeaway was that ptos volunteering in person are subject to the same state mandates as other personnel so that is i would just like to say that you know on behalf of the pto that those uh those mandates are not coming from pcos but from the same state guidelines um that all personnel are following um the advisory council also discussed a number of planned projects through the year and we'll meet again on november 4th thank you next we have a smart update with mrs heather rogers i am so pleased to confirm that there are two very timely and important presentations coming up internet safety concepts on november 18th and hidden in plain sight on december 19th because internet safety is only a couple of weeks away i want
059to give a little more background of that event but we'll also give a brief overview of hidden insight scott driscoll of internet safety concepts will be presenting to both middle schools and the high school as well as hosting an evening event for parents the student presentation heightens students awareness of what could happen if they are not thinking about safety or the consequences of using today's ever-changing technology students will learn how a picture shared could impact their future how comments on a social networking site can come back to haunt them and how cyber bullying if not addressed appropriately can have severe outcomes presentation topics are tailored to the specific age group and he will be presenting at both middle schools and high school topics covered range from the following social networking positives negatives and potential impacts
060cyberbullying protecting yourself and others and creating a positive outcome texting and sexting popular trending apps picture sharing video chats sharing too much information the importance of privacy settings email concerns creating your digital footprint or tattoo how technology can help or hurt your future for the accompanying parent presentation he will go over how the constant surge of new information programs and apps make the world just a click or text away but with new advances comes new dangers and concerns parents need to be aware of the technology their children use and the trouble that can follow if safety rules are not in place most apps can be used in fun positive ways but not all programs are appropriate for all ages this program shows parents the positives and potential pitfalls of today's most popular programs the next
061presentation of hidden influence that plain sight is also not to be missed the presentation centers around an actual model of a typical teen bedroom they go over the very creative places that one could hide vaping paraphernalia alcohol drugs or anything else they may want to keep their parents from seeing this presentation is for adults only i really do urge parents to attend these two presentations both of them were some of the most informative workshops i have been to as a parent our community is so fortunate to have the assistance of smart to bring these parent universities to us i hope everyone takes advantage of these presentations they are worthy of clearing your calendar maybe if we all have the tools and engagement to help us succeed as parents we will see greater results in our
062community it is not something i speak lightly of you don't have to think of these presentations as only for parents experiencing difficulties they are for everyone the best thing we can do as parents is be proactive involved and aware have the conversations early and often i hope there is record attendance this year please note our next lpc meeting is tomorrow night thank you thank you very much and thank you to smart for providing that to our students and to our parents that it's really wonderful thank you next we have the superintendent's report superintendent smith so i'll start tonight with weather the october weather report is that tomorrow may be a little messy and we already have some challenging bus situations so let's tune in and i think our email and texts are quiet in the
063morning uh but just make sure people are aware uh parent conferences are coming up um oftentimes the supply of conference slots isn't enough to meet the demand this is more true at midland high school where teachers have much higher course loads or student loans so there may not be a hundred shots of parents want a conference just to remind everybody that teachers and parents can meet anytime not just during conferences so if you didn't get a opportunity to meet during these official conference days that parents and teachers can arrange to meet outside of that i'd like to thank all of our bus drivers who remain flexible as we try to piecemeal together the challenges and i would say to parents hopefully by the end of this week maybe early next week making this martino a
064little bit we do have an app coming where parents will be able to track their own child's bus and provide them more specific times a lot of times our buses are combined last minute or they get on routes that have more students than expected which alters the actual times so once that act is up and running uh parents can actually see the estimated time that their child will be dropped off or picked up and be able to adjust i'm hopeful they'll be able to run a pilot uh in the next eight to ten years or so maybe a little less um and then this pack was used by a lot of other school districts so the pilot is more about making sure our data structures are all set and the parents can log in um
065it's not gonna be like a three-month pilot once we get the system up and running we shouldn't be able to move from pilot to production relatively quickly i think as most board members know that our schools are still dealing very much with the impact of the pandemic and we want to manage those demands whether it be the quarantine demands instructional demands the other challenges of running events and everything else that we try to work through in a way that balances safety and instruction i know i've been critical of some of the department of education and department of public health officials that we work with trying to find some clarity and consistency so i felt it important to say that yesterday the commissioner called the emergency meeting of superintendents at four o'clock in the afternoon on
066a sunday because they were looking for information for what's happening in our schools to help inform some conversations they were happening having with the um other members of kind of the state management around public schools in this environment so i just wanted to to appreciate that the commissioner didn't just make assumptions or really reached out to us and gave us the opportunity and we met for about an hour and a half over things like quarantine and all of the mitigation and structures happening in schools so i thought that was important um kind of on another piece is that we have two clinics coming up um hosted by the paparazzi health department and that as student vaccine becomes available they will host um probably two clinics uh for children five to eleven a lot of the
067state's plan is to roll it out through pediatricians but to help offset the initial um administration that schools uh bacterial school hours it'll probably be on a saturday but for obviously anybody who chooses um we'll open our doors just like we did in foreign thank you very much next we have board member comments okay i would just like to extend a really big thank you to mr smith with neglio and all of the principals and staff we had the fortunate opportunity to be invited and i was happy to attend on some of the tours at the school and i just want to say they're absolutely fantastic this is the second year that i've been able to participate um and it brings me a lot of joy to seeing the school demotion as the students very
068much engaged we saw some amazing you know just teachers in action it was a true privilege um i'm sure it's a little bit stressful for people to know the support of education is coming in to observe and go on a tour but we were really excited just with open arms and it was an absolute pleasure so thank you so much really a great opportunity i just want to say big thank you for all the hard work and the good work that's happening um so i have a couple items i'd like to touch on and the first is uh some additional kudos so um and if i'm saying anything that is privileged please cut me off so my child was involved in a quarantine situation at the middle school a couple weeks ago and i wanted
069to commend the efforts of the administration and principal bernardi um the quarantine was lifted thoroughly once it came back i'm looking at you tell me if i'm saying something i shouldn't but uh once it came back that the initial rapid result was negative when there were two positives or sorry two negative pcrs suggesting the rapid tests may have been negative or may have been you know a false positive um so i wanted to commend that as an example of some you know you don't always have i think the structures to make those kind of common sense decisions and um it would have been far easier to just let the quarantine period run out and keep those kids out of school but you didn't do that you know you made a common sense decision here and
070like those students that were quarantined back in early and i think that just goes to show like the commitment to in-person learning didn't stop you know it started this year like that's just another proof point of how committed you are to keeping our students in school so i appreciate that extra effort and allowing our kids especially my kids to come back to school a couple days early so thank you for that the second thing um and i meant to ask you this earlier i apologize but um will we know soon about um seating our student representatives for this year do we have any thoughts on that we had really good ones last year and i would love to hear more about what's happening yes we have students and just more of a structure yeah that
071was going to be the follow-up question they were going to be invited in person yes so that is that is our attention okay cool uh and then the third thing i want to say and um just piggybacks i think on some of the other comments that were made today um and that is um you know i think we are you know we are working as best we can again you know josh you've talked a lot about kind of the long tail of the pandemic and how we're not quite in a post-pandemic period just yet but i think we're experiencing uh some different challenges this year that's making this year you know in a unique way just as difficult as last year right with a different set of challenges so i appreciate how we're kind of
072navigating those um but one of the areas i want to make sure we maintain you know our focus on is parent engagement and we heard heather talk a little bit about having volunteers back in the school building um and when i think of parent engagement i think that it's kind of two promise it's one our parents having an opportunity to have those discussions you know with their children's teachers and to meet those teachers face to face um you know we had some some roblox efforts that prevented in-person open house but i was encouraged to hear you say that if anyone wanted to have a dialogue with their children's teachers i think that's important i think that needs to be heard like there are avenues to meet with your teachers you know even though the traditional
073avenues weren't able to do that this year so i want to make sure parents hear that and know that that is available um and then the second thing is just um i do think we realize that try as we may you know school is still very much about a physical space um and we are spoiled in region 15 for years you know we have a small community and it's been very open to our parents and a lot of the vitality of our schools is the parent engagement in the building so i want to make sure we continue to focus on ways to have parents come back slowly in a measured way but getting parents back into the building some parents have students that started a new building last year and still haven't been able to
074set foot in building so understanding that there are a lot of challenges to getting parents back in but i do want to make sure we're committed to you know starting as much as we can to bring parents slowly back that's all i have to say i just want to say i took a tour of mes and mms okay a couple weeks ago and i was very very impressed with the socialization of the students in the school the organization in the schools to handle any of the problems but really the atmosphere of the students in every school that i was being in there and being in the classroom to see the atmosphere of learning and the atmosphere of socialization in there i was very very much impressed with it and i know there were many many
075parents that were very very fearful of it but i must tell you uh what the superintendent has done martino has done the entire administration it definitely presented a very very safe situation i want to thank them for that [Music] so i i would just like to echo um what sharon and john said um so board members were invited a couple weeks ago we would go into each of the schools with the superintendent and walk around anywhere we wanted with the principal um i always think that this is such an important opportunity for board members to take up because it's our job to look behind the curtains um and see what parents cannot see um so i think the board members who came in and you know and embraced that opportunity i'm also very much think
076uh superintendent smith dr chief adams martino um for allowing us to come and just have a good luck and be able to talk to the principals um it's always a wonderful learning experience and it's funny um i've been doing this now for several years and it seems like every year has a different theme and i remember like when bridges came out all we wanted to see was the bridges in action and see how the kids were doing numb getting number sense in kindergarten we were trying to figure out so and and this year and i would say last year too the theme was definitely just wanting to see learning and just wanting to see the students um and so that was in the principles like what do you want to do we're like i don't
077know just let us you know take us show us what you're proud of and um it was i echo what john said you know i think it weighs heavily on many of us that there's this mass mandate that we're bound by um to see the students again in small groups interacting in classes to see the students running around at recess um having cafeteria time and just seeing how that all worked and seeing learning happening and hearing from the principles of how things are going well it just uh it was good for the soul um so i appreciate that we had that opportunity and i think the other thing that really struck me with the tours is that um you know you talked about the purposeful planning and we talked about that in august at our
078retreat and you know mr smith was presented as our board ford goals it was so cool to go to different rooms within the schools and see the rooms dedicated to the teachers doing this purposeful planning it's almost like a school within the school for teachers um so i was just really excited about it i'm just really excited that we have this hope um to address the needs that have happened during the pandemic and to actually see and be able to touch um is just you know is wonderful no amount of teachers can do that for me so and it's hard for me to say to you guys like this is great i mean believe me but um it just was really wonderful um and i'm really excited that we had that in our budget and
079you get to see it in practice and you know hopefully it works like you guys will um it does so thank you thank you very much yeah i'd like to thank shannon cavallo for her dedication and time to the week with the weekly readers store at mes she was doing a fantastic job all right so are we all anymore um next we have comments from citizens um citizens at home are able to call into this meeting by dialing um it's on our agenda number is one three one two six two six six seven nine nine webinar id eight eight nine two eight 2829-6258 and the passcode is 305-629 the board of education will recognize citizens of middlebury and southbury and citizens are asked to state their name their town of residence and to limit their
080comments to three minutes um i have my phone and i will be able to keep track of everyone's time um in accordance with region 15 board of education bylaw section 3932 speakers are asked to express themselves in a civil manner with due respect for the dignity and privacy of others who may be affected by their comments while is not the board's intent to stifle any public comment speakers should be aware that if their statements violate the rights of others under the law of defamation or invasion of privacy the speaker may be held by legally responsible um and just that you know the it is our policy pursuant to the freedom of information act that we do not respond to public comment but please know that we very much welcome it um and we are definitely
081listening to you and when um you do come up to the podium can you please um sign in your name um so that we have an accurate reflection of your name spelling for the minutes um and just you know make sure you're clear about your name because i like to take notes of just speaking so um you can in an orderly fashion go ahead and go up to the podium and then i will get people that are calling middlebury i noticed my name within comments were left out of the minutes from the september 27th meeting i'm pretty sure this might be a legal and i'm sure you're all aware of it we'll address it it's become a burden for me to continue to talk about this but it's important to me if you're standing on
082a corner in south berry holding a blm sign this is a fact and i'm going to call you out on it we should really all be filing a grievance against this region for indoctrinating our kids and teaching them appropriate pronouns by supporting this diversity and inclusion curriculum you're going beyond your sole responsibility to teach students about reading writing and math this is not the kind of stuff this region needs anything else does not create jobs and this is what we're paying for teachers are not licensed doctors we should not be talking to our children about emotions mask wearing or the vaccine we need to return to basics these changes in schools are taking rights away from parents letting children be referred to by pronouns a parent does not know about enforcing masks or requiring student
083athletes to be vaccinated is doing just that when we talk about inclusion the most excluded parties and all this stuff are the parents i also cannot believe this region thinks it's appropriate that someone from safe haven is coming to memorial and discussing seo and sexting i know some of you have kids in the district and i just can't believe you want your kids to be learning about sexting from a complete stranger this is absolutely inappropriate it has no business being part of the curriculum please put your mask on it's a requirement in this building please put your mask on thank you appreciate it very much i'm sick speak for you at least i'm linda richie from south kerry and yes i'm here again tonight's standard parents to fight for their rights it seems like there's
084only one sign of rights here which i can't believe it's like a movie that i talked to about a month ago about astonishing a mother's death and you showed it in the region you said you're trying to show the kids to stand up for something then it will change a community i ask you region 15 board to stand up for this they are not going to mandate shots do you know what is it in these shots do you know what they shot into your arm i do because the ingredients have come out i would never ever ever shoot this into a child's arm it is an experimental drug it is not a vaccination they change the definition of vaccination january february wikipedia this year because it didn't meet the colon shot because vaccination stops the
085spread of a virus and it stops you from getting a virus a culprit shot does not do any of that all it does and i'm going to tell you you're going to see a mass exit from your schools if you try to shoot these kids and mandate these kids with shots they are deadly you watch the other countries they're starting to shut it down now because of the biocarditis that the kids are getting and the athletes the teenage athletes that are dying from it the doctors that have been censored and they will not let anyone talk that has research good strong truthful reason this is a little bit of it and i have sent you more i've got tons of at home i will send you it is truthful research what you want to do
086here are fine but what you do to these children god help me i will stand here till my death and i will fight for them because they do not have a choice but they do have a voice and in our state governor our state has listed about the billions of millions of dollars that we will lose if we do not continue with these esser funds coming down through and if we don't continue with math mandates and shots in our children we can't continue getting the funding from the federal to the state to the state education to you guys and i'm going to tell you the nuremberg code you better look it up i have this and you know what you're all health accountable the nurses just said i only did it in the nurburgring trials
087they they were sentenced because you've got to get the truth all you're listening to is the mandates because of the money because the money very much yes i'm sorry can you say your last name again i didn't catch it i couldn't hear what you were saying there to be honest with you my name is jamie but the other that's out there you this is the third board of education meeting that i have ever attended and i attend these meetings because i care about the health well-being and education of my children my husband and i moved to southbury for the schools in region 15. and here i stand speaking out to protect them from the declining quality and leadership from the board of educators mr superintendent you have been provided an enormous amount of information from
088me and the most important individuals sitting behind me and from many individuals that were not able to attend this meeting tonight this information was given to you to make a change have you made any changes the answer is no you have not made one change after the immense information the facts the data that we have provided for you for the last three meetings you have done nothing for our children and you talk about how you love seeing with the education going on in the classrooms our kids are adapting to these things on their faces they are adapting are hiding their smiles you are hiding their life behind these masks that are absolutely irrelevant you can get covered regardless of wearing a mask you can get coven regardless of the vaccine i work for one of
089the biggest pharmaceutical companies on this earth do your research i have even one change since the beginning of the school year superintendent no the answer is no you've done nothing that we've asked of you you told us that your hands are tied your hands are not tied you are choosing to do nothing you cannot make a change by sitting down in this chair you need to stand up and speak out just like i'm standing here right now i'm standing here right now do you think i want to be here standing here no i do not but i do it for my kids i am their mother just like everyone in this room behind me has stood up we need you to be the champion for our children we are here for you to rise up
090use your voice use your voice use your power please what more do we have to do tell us we're listening if there's anything that we are not giving you please tell us because it obviously means something to us we're desperate to protect our kids it starts with this mask josh my name is jamie it starts with this mask you know what's gonna happen next my little four-year-old girl oakley and my little boy bryce is gonna have to get injected by a vaccine and god knows what if they end up being sterile we don't know they could grow up and not be able to have kids we don't know why because there's no long-term outcomes we don't know thank you very much my name is harold ziddle from middlebury i emailed some of you in regards
091to the black lives matter painting outside this building never received a reply there's no place for politics or personal agendas in this school system by allowing that painting to be there you're promoting a political movement that burned down cities and defunded the police the same police that you have here protecting yourself against us so-called domestic terrorists that painting should be removed immediately and should have never been allowed to be painted on taxpayer property as a lifelong resident of middlebury and a region 15 graduate i'm disgusted at what is allowed to be taught in this school system without informing parents we want a question and answer session with you guys and we're not getting we want answers you guys represent us we're parents of this community and we're not getting any answers this is the fourth
092meeting i've been to and we still have not the answers we don't get the answers we're going to have to go public we're going to take full page ads out in the newspaper this is getting ridiculous we just want a question and answer session so we can discuss what is going on thank you can you say your last name against search button and you want gift so blm is painted on the rainbow why what is bll blm is a marxist organization they want the destruction of the nuclear family abolition of private property they want to reach segregation of american society they'll say we need to upheave the white misogynists colonialism imperialism culture take down systemic racism issue in indigenous peoples give way to people of color blm is marxist ideology it's political speech and it
093does not belong in our schools feeling in prominence in 2015 with the hands up don't shoot the big lie michael brown never said it it was a complete and total line george floyd's video set the world on fire and blm movement fueled two billion dollars in damage it's confirmation bias saying that the police are hunting down black people the numbers don't bear failure aired out 30 unarmed blacks were killed in 2018 and 2019. so i'm trying to run the police over with cars i've been trying to grab their weapons this is out of over 335 000 police interactions is that worth redesigning american society connecticut society south fair society no that would be foolish yeah blm will have us organize around things we can't change like skin power gender they want to prioritize race school
094sent out an email and had a conference for incoming threshold in the name of diversity equity and inclusion we should care about the character and content not the skin color but now everything is racist it's racist to care about college that's the lazy way to think about your fellow olympians so let's reveal you're systemically racist for a white supremacist society if you disagree you're cancelled you're a racist sit down shut up how did any of you read the actual blm literature you see their website before they sanitized it should i tell the 10 year old boys that i coach that they're oppressors you know i'm loyal this is the fruit of crt and i know we don't teach crt it's called locism call it diversity equity and inclusion it's not equality which you're worried about
095it's all the same thing and you can build it so we have people post on facebook they'll put a sign in their yard or they'll paint a mural on school rounds blm does not help my people you supporting blm does not help black people everyone's afraid to be called a racist don't be a sucker racism is saying the skin of color matters black lives matter mural is a bernard we are in the very middle there i just want to kind of leave um this meeting with a couple of questions i would like for you guys to address like we studied before we would like a q a session where we could actually help you and we would hear your responses versus not just digging and talking and um you it will let you feel your
096input and feel better um also when we say that okay our hands are tight i do believe that to extend the hands of the board are not tight um mr smith you said you met up with other superintendents it was an emergency meeting we would like to know what was that outcome we would like to know the feedback we would like to know um all the comments everything that you've presented our voices will be heard with anything um also math mandates for parents for example i've seen multiple boarded at meetings throughout the state of connecticut not all the requires there are multiple school buildings school coverage where parents are allowed to speak freely for more than six feet apart right so scientifically and logically why do i have to wear a piece of paper um
097another thing i'd like to bring up is a couple of emails that i received about parents volunteers in schools and the parents had to show their vaccination status upon entering the school is that something is uh regional promising where is this coming from are we discriminating if they're against parents who are not vaccinated with how does that but we're discriminating it against parents who weren't connected i i would like to understand where that policy coming from you know who initiated if i have a whole bunch of questions i'd like those questions to be addressed and answered um and i'd like to just kind of yes all right announcement of future meetings wednesday november 10th we have finance at the central office at 6 30. also monday november 8th we have tnc at bumper rock high
098school at 6 30. also monday november 8th i have a regular board of ed meeting um at the media center at 7 30 we will be discussing principal goals called principal school principles um monday november 22nd we have a pnc meeting at the high school at 6 30 and monday november 22nd we have a regular meeting of the board of ed at the high school media center at 7 30 and we will have our enrollment report at that meeting i may i have a motion to adjourn please thank you richard do i have a second sharka second by john all those in