001welcome to the uh Board of Education regular meeting um first order of business that we usually lead off our meetings with is the Pledge of the allegiance so if you join me America to the for it stands one nation God indivisible liy and Justice great thank you uh starting with recognition all right so we got a full house abut exciting so I'm going to pick this to Shannon G it's nice to see you again Shannon and you are going to introduce our Cass Award winner to start I think is the first thing we're doing perfect okay well thank you so much uh for having us this evening and celebrating the Arts we have so much to be proud for um I'm Shannon G I'm the art department supervisor of K to2 of visual art and
002I'll be um celebrating the Visual and Performing Art so if I could have ni Vasquez please stand up standing in the back okay so I am so excited to honor Nia Vasquez as the Connecticut Association of school Cass award recipient for excellence in the visual art showcased through her exemplary work in advanced placement 3D design Nia's dedication extends beyond the classroom supporting peers and teachers as a teaching assistant in visual art classes her commitment is evident in her efforts both in and out of school attending workshops like the summer pre-collegiate portfolio workshop and summer Ceramics program to Foster her artistic growth Nia's accolades including Awards in our high school art show Scholastic art Awards and crt's National Art Exhibit highlight her exceptional abilities as she prepares to pursue art at the Harford art school with
003her $31,000 a year scholarship from we are very excited for Nia's promising future congratulations and so blue brocker could not be here this evening um but we are excited to celebrate him as the recipient of the cast Performing Arts award for four years blue has enriched our Jazz Ensemble with exceptional musicality and dedication as a valued member of the Gospel Choir band for three years Blue's contributions added contributions added depth and soul to our performances blu's leadership as a triam officer exemplifies a true passion for music and a commitment to Excellence collaborating closely with chorus director Rebecca Saltzman blue has played an integral integral role in enhancing our musical programs and concerts we're delighted to hear of Blue's future plans to attend the Peabody Institute at John Hopkins University where he will major in music
004for New Media specializing in scoring music for film and television so congratulations to Blue [Applause] and I think next we yeah I'll te this up a little as you can see this space is not the greatest space for our Gatherings right but one of the things that is special about this space is we utilize our student artwork to really kind of decorate it and bring it to life so it's a tradition we have in our district and this is the year where we changed out the student artwork um so we are going to honor those students whose artwork got picked and framed here yes and I just wanted to share that um imagine it framed custom framed each design um each work of art with a beautiful really enhancing each piece individually and in two
005years it's the gift of the Board of Ed to families so I'll be finding all of you when you're in Texas we have a we have a participant in Texas that so will be returned to you for your home so um thank you so how did you do are do you guys Sharon you are the yes all right so I have the pleasure of having Anna suset is Anna here is Anna here like a foot tall on this thing there we go I don't see her yet but I did see her in school today okay and so maybe she'll come yes okay great oh she's here hold grand entrance exactly she can come with you sorry hi there so Anna Anna yeah okay so Anna I want to congratulate you by presenting you with this
006certificate for your art achievement and keep up the good work thank you all [Applause] right and Anna pie is right over you want to show me which one is so this is part of what we do too so we're going to be scooping you want to point want to go took me a minute to figure that one out so your other on good and then the next person that I have is Lucia is Lucia here oh there you are hi so again here's your certificate and you want to say what grade you're in uh I'm in sixth grade and Anna is in the 12th grade I forgot to say um so hopefully you'll keep this up right for me okay but here's your certificate and then you want to show us [Applause] okay I'm up
007next so I'll wait till you come see all righty I have the honor of presenting to and it's going to be in the back on the back wall of course so is had here she's ninth grade you know she's here is she here is she at in the hall no okay well L Lua Vasquez her piece of work is right there if I'm correct yes that is right there and actually I'm going to it's a metal jewelry piece ace Jew um anyway so that is wonderful and uh Lua is ninth grade as I said in sinsbury high school and this was about vision of The Graduate and hers was about comp about vision of the gra graduate competency innovator and actually that is very Innovative so wonderful so we will give her her uh Achievement
008Award um at another time the second recipient is Adriana G did I pronounce it seventh grade right behind you nice to meet you how do you pronounce your last name Ki okay I knew I would get it right about 10 times later all right now your award I believe is back here and would you like to tell us Mrs wild your favorite [Music] oh good for [Laughter] her persever took so after two years do you have a special place in your home to this I'm actually going to private can I share a little secret with you I also have a mask collection congratulations well I am going to give you your art Achievement Award congratulations [Applause] your future in your future education and for you that noticed I was lyia two for two trying to
009purchase the artwork if I stand up any longer I'll be buying it all who's next okay hey everyone thanks for coming out tonight all right so I've got a few here so the first one is for Christian stward is Linda Lynn yes uh hey Linda thanks for coming up from Texas Tex so this is for Christian's piece so you can give this the pieces over here cor she's holding Christian we got this piece right here congratulations everyone's very proud of you you should be very happy with your work it's up on the wall if you haven't seen it yet what do you want to say [Music] christianet all right in the next piece uh Payton here stand up congratulations priz Waton part award congratulations to both of you very happy with the work we've both
010done it's a collaborative [Applause] piece I think I'm next I have the honor of presenting two Awards the first to Jack Pinkham who's in second grade oh there you are Jack hi I have a second grader I know this must be a lot and so this is Jack's work right here can you tell us a little bit about it is it a street scene a city scene it's beautiful thank you so much your's your award and thank you so much for sharing it with [Applause] us right next one is for Valentina bmore did I get that right Valentin here okay well her piece is right here and she's in fifth grade and she is watching the clock so much to Valentina thank [Applause] you Colin Cedar cullin Griffin get it right um this is your
011piece right over here it's fantastic congratulations well I know I saw you in the play yeah and I know I've seen you in the Gospel Choir so I'm loving that I get to see you here do you want to tell us a little bit about why you did this yeah sure so this is um photogra I merge together using Photoshop prop process but it's sort of about um expressing the uh lived experience of depression um and just mental health as a whole um from day to day and how that can fluctuate um throughout your life there's a QR code you can scan there's a whole video where I explain how I did it and anyone who visits Town Hall can come up and do that because these have all these already put a lot of
012effort into the QR code codes in the story behind each of these but thank you very much and [Applause] congratulations Samantha Fitzgerald she here Samantha over congratulations and achievement Art Award um so everyone was doing like ship syncing and like Monsters and stuff so I did not want to do that and I just wanted to do something more happy so um perfect great colors very bright and cheery and do you wonder you sold it you sold it here I have the honor to ask Molly K over your pictures over here with me how are you congratulations and this one is your beautiful one you want to tell us a little bit about it uh yeah so um um I made an OT because um my art teacher said I have to and and um they're
013also adorable and my favorite and I and at Christmas I um donate um I donated money for OTS because some is in danger what is the story well congratulations here's your certificate [Applause] and then the last I have is Evan Porter Evan nice to meet you Evan I like your shirt really cool one in your art all the way over hereti so you want to tell me a little bit about it or what do you think I like rainbows love it too what is this what is this got here thank you and who is this person here do you know that person or is it just that's you that's so cool dad you're going to be up here for forever for two years you're going to be up here [Music] [Applause] all right I'm well
014prepared as I the last one right behind by Hannah am I saying that right Hannah Hannah right here you tell a littleit about this Sons love the game suici speaks to me so thank you very much congratulations aming we got them all yes that's it congratulations everybody and thank you to the board for um the the um gift of the framing and um for honoring each student that was great um okay so in case you all don't know this is one of our favorite times it is wonderful thank you thank you thank you [Applause] do you want me to go to the to Scholastic I would go to this and then yeah okay so um I'm also here to celebrate the Scholastic art Awards which is a huge um State and national competition for our
015visual art students grade 7 through 12 and we have quite a few um recognitions this year some are hanging in this room so so we have a variety and I would like you to just notice in the um the variety of media and formats so we have sculpture and Ceramics this was a Best in Show in the state of Connecticut it's awesome um we also have Clay smoke fired pit fired clay at viente Garcia so the students are getting great experiences um that help with the competitions throughout the state print making in 8th grade um this was a gold key wow we have uh 2D two dimensional like Flats 3D and Technology strands in all of our um grade levels so here is a film and animation in eth grade that was recognized um digital
016art cure Gable this is also cure Gables in a drawing and illustration and um this piece was actually just hung at the matatu museum for the Congressional Art ex exhibition uh this was a fashion photography we have a great fashion course and and um this piece was recognized as Best in Show uh at the um local photography contest as well so we have two pieces that were created by Cedar 10th grade um and I just we have a Simsbury Alum that is his sister Willa that also we're recognition she's in art school now but so photography here and here's his digital art piece that was recognized with a gold key it's amazing this is miam salta so her portfol her photography portfolio was accepted um and presented at the University of Harford and we can
017recognize Nia Vasquez sitting back here here's an example of her 3D work of art just one piece that um is incredible you can see her work at the art show and all their artwork at the art show next week as well lisen aiva here's a fused glass piece so um the the students are also working in a variety of meter from clay to Glass another glass sculpture in the round that's lit um beautifully and this was also recognized and this this was Best in Show um also best in film and animation in the state of Connecticut from one of our students at SS High neor Terry does have it has the music to it can't hear the sound but if anybody's is familiar with stop motion animation every time this little figure moves it's muted
018yeah she got it here we go that's amazing [Music] just think [Music] J [Music] s [Music] w [Applause] great job it is a great job P you're right good point so um so yeah thank you so much the students put so much time and effort and the teachers and we're so proud of our program and um we're so proud of all of your efforts and please come to the Henry James art show on um tomorrow night and Thursday and then next week um it's the ssur high school art show and the students will have their castal presentations and their senior um examples of their portfolios where you can hear insight into their process and see their final product and um they're exceptional so thank you so fantastic just again want to thank everybody for coming
019out and you do not have to stay I'll give you the exit SL thank you thank you sh I have to click down on 17 where I you are you used to the tech have to just Advance it from the bottom K CH here great job thank you very much got chil it's always oh absolutely let us get our heads out want to get her in front of it did you get a picture of Hannah in front of her you may okay come back please at any point and take pictures if you yeah could you grab one for me you do you need a pack it oh wait there extras yeah there's more at the end I'm sorry I'm sorry I only got one extra do you want to pack it to the right by
020the door oh my gosh get me one Josh way enough for everybody sorry sooud oh my God that's just amazing are you kidding me yeah please grade yeah so that's a lot of talent right she's an up andc Comer 100% enjoy every minute oh my goodness so talented and so humble hair last like that's favorite that's my favorite beautiful hey can we can we keep can we keep rolling here folks all right is thank you Con well that's nice it's a good how are you [Music] yeah hi Miss excuse welcome we have two more introductions tonight all right you jump right in okay good evening everyone I'm excited to introduce the board to our two new uh Representatives student Reps for the 2425 school year so they will take over the big shoes that are
021left by Sophia and Matt um so excited to welcome you to um and introduce Macy GS and raphaela Rosario who will be here next year as our co- um leaders as the student representative so fantastic congratulations a lot to offer and I think they really have so many assets that bring the voice of our students to um the board and back to the student population so Macy attended teril elementary school and rafhaela was at squadron line so they started here in Simsbury and both of them are um belong to different organizations they've started different things like the Simsbury volun teens we also have the um the wish um Group which U raises money for the make a wish and then you've got different activities like Athletics and student organizations that they both belong to that
022I think will be a great highlight and asset to um that relationship between the board and our students great we love having their welome very impressed with all the things that they're involved in and um the different things that they do after school before school and all all hours of the day they both just came off one came off the golf course and one came off the the tennis cour pretty darn good yeah they do app sop and mat for representing high school and of our schools conat see you in the fall I had the pleasure of meeting both of them and saying they're they're involved is a complete understatement I there is a long list of organizations that they engaged with so looking forward to working with them both so moving on to public
023audience um moves to committee report okay to start sopia yeah I was gonna start by saying that the Simsbury high school art show from May 22nd to 24th and then Andrew James art shows this week I know it's said but really I like kind of peaked in and it's really amazing stuff um and also Simsbury high school is in the final week of AP testing which started on the 7th it'll wrap up this Friday um and then on the concert side of things we have the pops and jazz concert May 16th the coral review May 2 and then we also next week it's going to be a busy week have Capstone presentations on the 23rd um for juniors and seniors and then we also have Junior Prom this Saturday a right and then Henry James
024student council had a really successful Spring Fling Festival looked really fun there was a lot of Inflatables um and then both terrail and Squadron have upcoming carnivals and auctions to fundraise for the PTO on May 21st and May 16th respectively and then all the elementary schools are wrapping up their SP in ngsx t testing this week aesome thankk you just nothing for me except to add I think there's a band concert Thursday too yeah that's pops oh that's the pops one got it okay it's on my calendar and I just like forgot about it recently so yeah nothing to add a busy time of year it's a very busy time of year so it's a real buy time of year because you'll be happy and I guess we're all happy that the legislature ended on
025time at the final hour last week and tomorrow is the legislative wrap up um I will be attending usually NE will you be attending also I am are you picking me up pick you up I'll drive right by and pick you up you know I'll even bring you coffee so um so this will be tomorrow we will have a press conference and obviously you heard which um bills were passed education fund fing teacher assert Ed mandates inter inquality disconnected Youth and the task forces and then we'll have the legal update on the CRA font we have front we have a positive note that the changes to the education funding in the implementor reinstated the rest magnet school funding and this was really important and it's all important for all the the the rest magnet schools
026and and we obviously are part of part of one so it allows reduction of local tuition costs so it's not only us but it's all the rest all the magnet school students in tuition so these funds which were $40 million it doesn't seem like a lot but it it is a lot were included in the final budget last year but they were removed from the governor's proposed budget for 2025 so um we're hoping that the language and the bonding bill will be available so more to come on that we worked really hard we advocated and really stressed because that was the one area that all the rest really pleaded to keep that to keep that in so more to come on that throughout the summer into the fall so so that's where that would impacted
027everybody that would have impacted crack in terms of yes this was this magnitude and local districts who would have had to pay yes significantly more towards magnet schol tuition yes so that's why it was real important and and we testified and you know on behalf of crack and on behalf of the rest regarding the magnet school tuition funding and and because we don't want to see those cost you know being absorbed by by local districts which if this funding doesn't get reinstated there's a probable chance that it will be so so we don't know where this is going to end up on the governor's desk but we're we're still hoping and and that we'll find out more more tomorrow on that but ask me anything ask me anything you want I got everything right here
028for all the bills that were passed and and those that weren't passed so um so we'll see what we let you go to the wrap up first yeah so so that's that's what's going on in the legislative front so um there'll be more to come they'll probably come back nothing on excess cost as we they did not take that on no no no they did not take that on they were very um deliberate this year because again it is election year so many are running again in November so a lot of them shied away from certain certain bills and certain certain amendments and certain things so they purposely did not touch some ear so we'll see what happens um but you know one never knows what's going to happen and and of course they'll be
029out now and then they'll be in campaign mode you know through November but that is again something that we all you know camp or we campaign we advocated on behalf of you know behalf of cab and and and and uh and crack you know throughout the state regarding that area so um and and spoke with our legislators about that so you know I wish I had more posi news on that but that's it so okay what time am I picking you up Neil tomorrow it's a 9:30 start we'll talk after sure so um we have it's part of our packet the a first read of the policy and then I attended the um Wellness committee meeting I'll let Sue add most of that but we um have some we did a review of some some
030national some other um um school districts across the country we looked at their um nutrition programs and I'll let Sue take it from there sure so we this is a Rejuvenation of our Wellness committee and we have a policy that guides our practices in wellness and every three years we have to do a deep dive and use an assessment tool to say where we at and we publicly share those results on our website so this committee comes together there are community members on this uh committee certainly Sharon is our Boe rep uh our director of health services our uh director of nutrition services teachers and we have a student representative from the middle school so we will be looking at Best Practices and seeing what improvements we can make to Wellness here in Simsbury um
031we had a curriculum meeting um since our last meeting because we um we continued a c the original curriculum committee meeting um talking about uh assessments for um students and so we will um we talked about re-evaluating our assessment process and we will our conclusion was that by Fe in the fall we will have a program and a plan in place to how we're going to assess how we're going to figure out our assessment practices best practices and what will work best for our students and what and our needs of our curriculum just want to remind everyone that we have an early release day tomorrow across the district for professional learning so it will be building based and uh principles are still working hard on their strategic plans and buttoning up things for the remainder
032of the year so that's the great work that will be happening tomorrow afternoon that's it um just to mention that at the end of April one of our big events of the Year our staff recognition day was uh a great celebration at Henry James um we celebrated lots of folks who have been with the subur public schools for a long time and some of our folks who will be retiring uh one of the other things that I want to give some public recognition to is it's at that event that we name our par educator of the here so I want to publicly congratulate Liz mutch who is a par educator at squadron line so um congratulations to Liz there are nominees for each building and then a district committee takes it from there and um
033we have loads and loads of great par Educators in our district and um it's hard to choose one but this time um Liz's application stood out so congratulations to Liz it was a great day it's very fun to celebrate great and everyone sorry I missed it and I heard Jen did a fantastic job J opened it on behalf of the board she loves public speaking exactly we have a spot for her in graduation I heard yeah we're gonna tuck her in a lovely day I I just wanted to mention one thing briefly also about the general assembly is because the reimbursement the construction reimbursement formula we uh have an additional $530,000 coming in for the laimer construction so uh much gratitude to representative Osborne on her efforts uh with that so I just want to
034make sure we'll that great wonderful and I would just add a big piece of the puzzle with Sol with the passing of the budget um so I want to thank everybody that that went out and supported us and thank all the boards um working through the process together and it was certainly tough challenges that the town was faced with I think an example of a community that comes out and supports its its education and I think it ties to what you SE tonight when we talk about what makes District special and what makes our district different are some of these opportunities um for kids to explore their passions so we need to continue to think about that as we uh as we Advocate uh for for our programs in our our community abely okay so
035on to recommended actions first up is the approval of the minutes of the April 23rd meeting approve minutes is there a second I will second thank you any discussion all those in favor Iain two abstentions uh next up is Personnel so uh few things to um get your vote on tonight the first is a recently announced retirement of the wonderful Lea Co who serves as our preschool uh supervisor at um Squadron line been a special education teacher in uh other capacities in the district before this role um in this role she is the key person transitioning students um uh our most needy students in many cases from birth to three into our preschool starting a relationship with some of these families that may last through 22 years of age so she's the one ushering people
036in for often a very lengthy relationship just has a special touch with her team so well-deserved retirement congratulations to Leah um and the motion is there for your consideration I'll move that the Board of Education accept the retirement of Leah Co effective June 30 2024 second any discussion thank you very much for your passion to each and every one of those students that she's touched abolutely all those in favor I I second item tonight is a resignation um of McKenzie Sullivan no relation uh who uh McKenzie actually uh started as a long-term substitute last year at Central School when one of our teachers had to go out for surgery and then it extended um and we ended up hiring her and then brought her back for this year um but at this point McKenzie um
037believes it's time to return home to New Hampshire so we're glad we got to bar McKenzie for two years before she um heads back to where she's from um so her uh resignation is effective June 30th move that the Board of Education accept the resignation of McKenzie Sullivan effective June 30 2024 second second any discussion all those in favor I I any oppose and then two uh items that we can take together because they are both announcements of an intent to retire 3 years from now as you know the sea contract allows teachers to give us advanced notice of their retirement which can help in the succession planning process um so two um long-term Educators here in Simsbury the first is Scott Beringer who's a math teacher at Henry James started at Simsbury high school
038for a brief period of time but has really made his home at Henry James for a long time um as you can see on the exhibit 22 years for Scott as of now and then um the re the reverse is true of Karen Wescott who was a Simsbury High School teacher when I started went to Henry James for a while and then has come back to Simsbury high school and um Karen has been with the Simsbury public schools for 33 years so these two have already done 55 when you add it up um and they're willing to do six more at this so um the motion is there for your consideration motion I'll move that the Board of Education accept the notice of intent to retire of Scott Beringer and Karen Wescott effective June 30
0392027 I'll second that motion discussion again a huge thank you for the longevity and the continuity that they were able to give and the care they gave our students all those in favor I uh moving on to the collective negotiations I'm assuming this is you too this is me too so we recently entered into negotiations for a threeyear um uh continuation of the contract with our school Nurses Association um they they had a six-person team led by Christen decowski from Squadron line school um as their negotiations Miss lumy joined me for the negotiations which were very successful and um conducted in a very positive spirit so the the summary here in your exhibit would indicate um first where the general so a three-year deal the general wage increases begin for next year in the 2425
040school year with a general wage increase of 2.5% followed by 2.8% in the second year and 3% in the third year there is some additional compensation in years one and two that I'll talk about in a minute we did um uh agree to um a slight increase in uh there's a element already in the contract about if you are a nurse working in a larger School you get a little bit of a differential and we added a few dollars to that and then this was just codifying um the work year of our supervisor uh we we made a change when Sue Beardsley that may name may be familiar when she retired we hired a new supervisor we came to an agreement about what that year would work look like but it wasn't codified in the
041contract so this is really just taking care of that under health insurance um the parties agreed to um leave the premium cost share the same for this year year and then it would be raised a half a point each in years two and three um those of you who have been on our Personnel in negotiations committee know that with our bargaining units we have been um um looking to implement a cost-saving measure about um precertification of more expensive procedures the nurses group accepted that as one of the uh important elements of our insurance agreement um a little bit of uh a uh new uh we just had a very important um teach uh nurse in our uh group Patty Warner is retiring at the end of this year she had given us a years's notice
042of that and it was really helpful for us in succession planning so we did add language of the contract saying if you've been with us for a long time and can give us a f year notice um it's a it's a slight stip end to um help help uh us with the planning of that uh brought the dental up to where it is for the teachers um and then here's the other piece of the compensation that's important this was a group that had not been paid in the past for a lot of holidays um so we did agree to add a paid holiday in year one of the contract in this case it'll be New Year's Day and then in year two of the contract so over the course of the contract they'll get two
043additional paid holidays which is um about as good as a general wage increase I mean it doesn't keep but it it is a a good method of compensation so I would say that in year one it was the 2.5% that they agreed to which was a little lower than some of the other groups but they also got the holiday so it was it it um is uh a very Equitable agreement from where we put our other groups um and I think that would be sort of where I would end it the rest is sort of miscellaneous language changes and I'll leave somebody to make the motion if you're I'll happy to answer any questions and then see if you uh are ready to take the motion any questions for now I'll make the motion move
044that the Board of Education ratify the proposed changes in the collective bargaining agreement between the Simsbury Board of Education and the Simsbury School Nurses Association for the period July 1st 2024 through June 30 2027 I'll second discussion just quick quick how how big is the unit that's all unit is uh 13 or 14 members something like that one one nurse in most of our small schools two it Squadron Henry James at C high school but then as you know from the non-public we provide nurses in our in the master school and cob school and that's a requirement of the all those in favor I post working easy thank you uh gift uh my one of my favorite always is accepting gifts um this time from the Boosters club yes so in accordance with your policy
045any gift that Simsbury schools receive that exceeds $1,500 needs board approval so tonight this gift is to the baseball booster club in the amount of $2,500 it's from an anonymous donor and the gift will be used for baseball equipment inclusive of a wind screen so there is a motion there for your consideration this evening that one move that the proposed gift of 2500 from the anonymous donor be approved second second any discussion I think that's great very uh all those in favor you great thank you next up is our Equity update yes our annual Equity up here yes she is you want to te this up a little bit still I would love to so it is just so great to have Dr Tyresa Bachelor as one of the four directors under the teaching and
046learning team and Dr Bachelor brings such depth and perspective and Brilliance to the work to ensure that each and every student in Simsbury gets what they need and has access to the incredible programs and extracurriculars that we offer here in the Simsbury Public School District so with that I will turn it over to Dr Bachelor thank you see can you hear me okay so I hope that you all had a chance to look at the exhibit if not that will give you more detailed information about some of our measures um before I begin I also want to introduce and acknowledge my partner Tanisha Grant she is our open Choice liaison this is her first year and so she brings a wealth of knowledge um as a former social worker as a community member as a
047parent so I'm really happy to have her on my side and she's my partner so just want to acknowledge that a lot of the work that you're seeing here um is because of her work and her vision as well so thank you publicly for all that you're doing thank you so I'm going to start here with our Equity drivers our Equity drivers which are on the right show that our Equity work is not siloed our Equity work is in complete response and support of our strategic plan so everything that you see on the right is basically the strategies what we're doing to ensure that at all levels of the organization we're meeting these goals so for instance in order to have a premier Workforce which is one of the Strategic goals we have to focus
048on staff retention and staff recruitment if if we are are spending um money on professional learning and bringing people here but we're not retaining them then we're not building our capacity so our Equity drivers again are in complete alignment with a strategic plan the work is not siloed and it's not separate next I want to make sure that we ground ourselves in what Equity means um and our vision for Equity so Equity is really looking at the way that we see our systems our structure and our practices it's the way that we do business and Equity is not just for some students it's not for one demographic of students Equity is looking at all of our students finding ways to make sure that all of our students are seeing the vision of a graduate that
049they have voice that students are present so remember Equity is looking at the way that we do our business so some examples of what Equity looks like um from the director of equity and access is professional professional learning so professional learning for the teachers in terms of equity is the way that the teachers are working in their plc's teachers are looking at data they're looking at student work they're asking questions about what all Learners need in order to be successful our teachers are also looking at what students need Beyond Simsbury Public Schools um so there's a big push in our equity and reimagining what our students are going to be doing in the future another area that I focus on if you look at procedures and protocols some is reactive um but a lot is
050is planning planning ahead so some of the protocol work that I do is working with different department supervisors to see what are some things that we need to put in place to support our teachers and to support our students one example would be a disc protocol that we um develop through the um history department and it's ensuring that all students have voice um looking through different perspectives so we take the vog and we look at our standards and then we develop protocols to help the students access um again I'm part of the teaching and learning team so this work is not siloed that means that I'm looking at everything through an equity lens I like the fact that I have a team of people pushing my think I'm pushing theirs um we we work together
051in service to the principles and to the teachers so our job for teaching and learning is to find out what each School needs um and support them so we're in service to them I want to really talk about give you stories today because you have the data if you look at the exhibit um the the data is presented by other directors and by principles but I want to tell a couple of stories if you're going to allow me to do that tonight okay so there's two stories here um if you look at the picture and one story is the story of a student that's on Equity Council and this student took a look at the surveys from um Dei diversity Equity inclusion and belonging week and the student said you know what Dr Bachelor we
052need to do something so that we're bringing all of she the student said you're doing a great job of making sure that we have this week but we need to come together and do more things together so I said what would that look like um big part of my work is student advocacy and student voice because if we allow the students to tell us what they need and how to do it then it gets done right if we try to do it from our lens our adult lens then it a great idea quickly goes wrong if students were not involved so the students said well if you look at the climate survey Dr Bachelor the students said that they wanted more food I said okay great but again tie that to the standard and tie
053it to the right where I I know that we want food but tell me more let's dig a little deeper and that's my work my work is to really help the teachers and the students understand their space and equity and push their thinking the same way that they push mine so the student came up with the idea of the taste of simsberry so here's a story of another student a shy student who is in The Culinary Department with Miss jurga and um doesn't like to speak or like to be in the spot light but a student that really thinks through planning um and that student did all of the planning most of the planning um and you wouldn't believe what goes into um hosting a taste of simsberry like there there was a budget they
054had to look at um the the different allergies but this was an example of a great event through Equity through the lens of two different students who were champions in the work um and the result was we had 76 students sign up to come we lost count of how many um adults were coming because they had a ticket but they were coming more than once and the places that were represented were Dominican Republic Puerto Rico China Poland France and Italy and so this is ju just an example and they prepared food based upon those backgrounds and they broke bread and shared and yes talked to each other and learned about each other's backgrounds and cultures and food and absolutely and the other thing about Equity is it's not to say that one culture dominates another
055but also just finding what's common so one of the things that they learned was that there's food Staples and a lot of different cultures that are similar um and so like this was a great way to celebrate there was music games candy the candy didn't go over so well but and and then students were together students were sitting together talking together their students that during different lunch wave would not ordinarily be sitting together and having a conversation so the next area my title is equity and access right so access to me is really that accountability measure for me to say am I making sure are we making sure that all of our students have a way a entry point to all these guaranteed experiences now access to academics is not just something that is a
056given we assume that we have great academics here we have great policies we have great practices and all students are engaged but sometimes students need additional support sometimes students need motivation um and the the great thing that I've learned about access through the students is that it changes so in one year the Partnerships that we have in enrichment and after school programs that we have for students um are are things that students want and then it quickly changes so access is really about finding ways to make sure that all of our students have an entry point and I can't wait to show you some access points um later when we start talking about our students so Equity markers how do we know that the things that we are doing is working now you know with
057Equity it's it's different work than our math and reading where you have specific um data points now although there's no specific data point for Equity there are Equity markers to let us know how we're doing along the way um and so I started my work by looking at the recommendations that came from the equity Council before I came and they they took a data dive and they came up with some really great recommendations so following through those recommendations and looking at all students this is how we look at our markers so we can see how we're doing along the way so there's two things that I I want to talk about here and one is the enrollment and honors and enrichment or Advanced courses um and one of our markers is to increase that for
058different populations over time and we do this how we do this through the things that you saw on the other slide making sure that there's professional learning for the teachers making sure that teachers have time to talk together to share practices making sure that once students are enrolled in our honors and enrichment courses that the teachers also have support with helping all of the students um we also did work with the school counselors to find students who could be in the courses but were not taking the courses to find out why to to find out how we can support them while that's happening we're also reducing which is the second point the second bullet we're reducing the percentage of students that are enrolled in basic and remedial courses um and another area here was looking
059at our English language Learners um and one of the things that I want to mention also is that as we do this work for some students it actually benefits all students so when teachers are looking at how do I have conversations with um our Hispanic students that are excelling but are not seen in the in these courses what are some those conversations are some of the same conversations that I need to have with other students um so these practices again what it have us constantly thinking about what are we doing for all students so one question on that one so is when it says U 15% within that's three years going forward yes so another Equity marker um is to take a look at our suspensions and as we know that there is a disproportionality
060rate among suspensions for students based on race but there's also disproportionality of suspensions based on whether students are in general education or whether they're in special education and um I want you to know also that some students fall into more than one category um so it's important to look at this now this is not something that is a something that is just unique to Simsbury around the country people are taking a look at this data um and one of the things that we found is that when we have students that are that are not engaged in extracurricular activities if they don't have mentorship if they're going straight home and they're not connected to the school Community those students are more likely to to to have they're more likely to have disciplinary referrals from a teacher's
061lens we took a look at what are students being referred to and so this is the work of the teaching and learning team we spent a lot of time this year talking about discipline talking about Behavior talking about tiered instruction um and trying to learn from the data what is the data telling us what can we do differently for some of our students um how are we engaging them what conversations are we having with our students can I ask a quick question about this was the look that you took was it from K12 or it's just a high school lens so we look at at K12 because that's a very good question thank you because a lot of times the the data will show if we look at data just from one lens which is
062why why we're always going to look at it from multiple multiple measures and multiple people at the table if we just look at our data you might find or you might assume that it's mostly the middle school students that have the the high rates of discipline but discipline comes in many forms so it's not just when a teacher writes a student up and there's a office refer or a student is suspended yes it is a data point but we're also looking at what's happening at our elementary schools how many students are spinning time with our with our counselors or or time in in the office talking about their behaviors or how much time does it take to redirect students um are students feeling comfortable in the classroom so we're looking at different data points not
063just suspensions but this is our overall suspensions it would appear that it's more so for high school and middle school because that's where students get suspended but we go all the way back to what is the story that's happening before that what are some of the things that the students are being suspended for um one is even unpacking students that are disrespectful so there there are some different types of equity data that we need to look at we have to look at culturally um the our linguistic Learners we have to look at it from many different angles of why different students are being quote unquote disrespectful um let's understand what that means um is it because they're disconnected is it something that we as a community Community can do to change that and we do
064have a couple of things that we're gonna do to change that Jess I love appreciate that question so are you seeing um trying to figure out how to really ask this are you seeing maybe the students who let's say have had a history of discipline let's say they had started in elementary and just kept going through High School are is that sort of population and are you able to D down say boy if we caught just this in second grade while we're making it up right we really could have had maybe a little bit more success with this individual well we can see Trends we can see um we can see that some students over time uh have had mult have needed multiple supports um and so it's looking at were those the right supports
065um did we have them in certain supports for longer than other students when do they enter into supports we look at um how we how the families are involved and engag and what other ways can we bring the families into our conversations so through that some of the teaching and learning team has look at the sit process th um so what happens before students are referred to the process so yes we can see some Trends over time so one of the things that we had talked about when we were having some of those um earlier conversations is um ensuring that we're also looking at are you know if a student is being sent to the office are they being sent to the office from the same teacher right because it could is it you know
066the cultural thing or is it that one teacher versus another looks at you know Behavior differently right because it can be sub um and so you still incorporating that as well yes and I I think um the other thing that we need to look at also is the way that we have these conversations so that that's that's my my work um we use different prot cuse one is a problem of practice when a a principal or a teacher can talk about um a problem or something that they're that that they haven't solved and sometimes it is different types of student discipline in a building so it could be students using language it could be students eloping it can be students leaving from the cafeteria um using a problem of practice helps get everybody in because
067everyone has to be involved in the solution not just ID find what the problem is um so our work through our plc's and problem practice is to really ask the question is what is it that we're trying what is the problem that we're trying to solve um who is impacted by it and what are what are the strategies that we've already used and what strategies are working for some um what are not working for others and what are some ways that we can that we can make some some changes and some shifts to see if those work for for our students and again it's another example of once we start fing focusing on something for one group of students it impacts positively on other students so I'm going to start talking about our encouraging words
068campaign um which is one example of of how to work on we're working on several things at this at the same time we're working on language we're working on a community we're working on um families and Community working together um we we've identified that language could be hurtful um and so that's an example of the way that we can uh attack this um it's not just looking at individual students now there are some students that are a tier three students that are receiving other support but when we look at our disproportionality the the rate at which some of our students are being suspended is still much higher than others and and again that's not a Sims that's not just simsberry that's overall but I just so you can move on but I think the thing
069that you're pointing out too makes a difference is um the cultural compet competency part of it right because because what one may look at as being disrespectful may not really be it just may be you know how we engage right yes and we're also trying to um you know through through through the work that we're doing we're also trying to make sure that everyone is is aware of what a welcoming and belonging environment feels like for everyone so some students will say to me it's okay for me to say certain things or do certain things because I'm within the comfort of my group and I have to help them to understand that we are a community of all of everyone and although you might not be impacted by something that someone says or the way
070that someone is responding there is an impact to the larger group and so again it's coming together as a community to recognize that and and that's what diversity is Right diversity is not a dirty word diversity is just different so I there's some things about me that's different and things about you and how do we come together and make sure that this is a a safe space that's going to motivate everyone to to be their best and show up as who they are the more you do that the less disruption we're going to have because then I have a mutual respect when I can say that doesn't feel right to me let's change that right and then you might get the doctor be like okay you GNA knock that off right right um but again
071those things are built over time en the exhibit the numbers we talk just the 15% years that goal see it's like an ambitious goal it's a good goal right it's good just look at the numbers in the exhibit so when we say 21 to 22 and then compare to 23 to 24 is that one year or twoe span because there's no like 22 to 23 so I'm just curious there because the numbers add up to about four maybe five% and if you if that's over two years right like you're 45% over two years how to get to 15 and three if that's just one year track and and I asked that not for like technical detail do you feel like the plan is in place that just needs to make out G traction and kind
072of snowball or do you feel like the plan still needs some reworking so it's kind of like a two-part right so the the first thing that I looked at was our student population and how how much our student population had changed for those groups of students over time and we have one population of students our our Hispanic students that has grown over the last two years and um and the way that they grew is not just from students coming from Harford through our open choice but students that are living in the district so there were students that we had not identified or thought of as maybe being linguistic Learners or maybe having some cultural differences because most of the time if you look at some students you cannot always tell um you know their intersectionality
073their their backgrounds so when we when I started to look at our Hispanic students and our black students and see how how they were changing over time and how many were um high school students that were going to be graduating that's how I made the marker in terms of if if we keep these groups of students here if they don't move because they love living in simsberry if they stay in in an open choice because they know that we're providing a quality education that they belong here and that they're welcomed here if we keep these group of students with the with the um plans that we have in place that we' already been working through our teachers are on year three of some of the trainings our principles are on year year two of developing
074um the these plans for culture and climate so yes we are on the way and also the population had changed since then so I I factored that in ambitious but again not doing this alone and I think um even putting a number to it makes um every everyone aware and accountable to what we're trying to do and it also doesn't mean I don't want people to think that it means that we are going to purposely not suspend or or or not discipline or redirect students because of the data it means that we're conscious of the fact that there are some differences that we need to acknowledge before there is a concern it means that we're taking a look at um understanding our students and and Building Things in supports and before problems happen just to
075go back to the sorry J did you want to no it's okay I'll wait okay just to go back to the um the goals set in place for moving students into honors classes and out of remedial classes the the work that you you and your team are doing are you drilling that down because we all know kids get tracked right you go into middle school and you're on a math track and an English track and that leads them to high school are you are you pushing things down to the elementary school level to kind of help fulfill that goal so at the elementary at the elementary um level what we're doing is making sure that students that have historically been an intervention for a long time have a a way to get out so that
076they have a path to have access to those classes so it's looking at the the tutoring how long there in um intervention um we do have think math which um will allow us to to take a different look at how we assess students and how we give feedback to students so that's happening at the elementary school and at the middle school is where I think that's where I can answer your question where we're taking a look at the tracks that students are in that they are in in math and finding ways to um work with the teachers to support students so that they can have the courses that they need before they get to high school so Elementary is making sure that they have the skill set to do the work Middle School is making
077sure that they have the endurance that teachers are supporting them some of the students just need stud study skills um some of the students need organization some need um their parents to understand the work that they have to do so that um they they can support them at home and we're we're communicating the same expectations some students need to stay after school some students need to to work through lunch at times when you see our tutoring program some students need to work through lunch but they can bring a friend with them um because they need to know how to Advocate and ask for help and support um a lot of times the elementary students are stuck because they're they don't have they don't have access and they're in the cycle of intervention so once we
078so we're we're hitting it at all levels and and hoping that that will make some of the changes let me let me jump in here let's go to Jen and then we still have quite a bit of the presentation so so let's let's keep FL rolling I'm totally find way the okay okay so here looking at honors courses and now I'm gonna tell some stories again um so honors courses if we look at our enrollment from 2021 to 2023 the increase for our black students and the one point for special education although it seems marginal those are big changes because what it represents is seats so I put the chair there to remind me of how I was going to explain this um typically because what I want to show is typically what we want
079to do is see that more students can sit in these seats so it's not to say that every student who has an i or who is in special education is going to sit in a seat but we have students that may have an IEP and they're working through some things in reading but they could be phenomenal in math and they need the encouragement and the support so some of the students with the right supports and we are based on um equity and making sure that every student has what they need can now access these honor courses so this is an example of yes we're we're showing that there are some students who before were not accessing these courses whool are now accessing them the same with our Advanced courses and advanced courses and I I
080had to look this up I was like okay which are the advanced because I I guess I'm not that advanced in some of these areas but this was looking at our preal our physics to our Advanced theater transitional Spanish um some of our Hors courses are English French and our Latin courses um and here again it's when we talk about equity and we talk about all students in different student groups we're not just talking about race we're talking about social economic status we're talking about students are in special education and I have one student who falls into multiple categories who said that teachers with compassion understand my complexities um and and I and I know where that word came from that word came from um working with Miss Grant if I will say so Miss
081Grant works with this student um and just having that person to with the student and that person one of the people was Miss Grant to help the student organize and know if you take this course I'm going to be working with you I'm going to be right along with you to help you organize to check along the way to talk to the teachers to make sure that the teachers um teachers need so support too they have a lot of students um and so making sure that the teachers sometimes teachers need a a extra period to sit with a student um so sometimes it's covering class for 15 minutes so you can meet with a student so that that is one of the stories and I and I want to go to us so I showed
082you some Equity indicator some measures of success and now I want to show you a snapshot so going back to some of our measures one is again the discipline um so one of the things that we're using to tackle the the discipline and the academics at the same time is our mentoring program last year we started the Legacy program which is a great partnership we are still in partnership with Legacy um our students go there on on Saturday but Tanisha and I said you know we need to develop our own mentoring program because it's great to have someone from the outside come in but what do students really need students need someone right there all the time um to to be the support so our new model that we developed um is a model where
083our we have middle school students and this was our trial year it's going well our middle school students um they they have a mentor and the mentor the first component is that they meet with the parents so every month they talk to the parents and it could be virtual it could be on the phone but there has to be some parent communication and the reason why I wanted that is because it's also breaking down barriers sometimes and we think that it's overwhelming for our students in middle school it's equally overwhelming for our parents um so having that one person that they know that they can talk to and say you know I got a call can you check on this for me having the teachers know that if there's anything that I need to work
084on to support the student let me know having that one person has been really beneficial the students have to write um in their Journal um at the end of each month and they have to send it to Tanisha and I and this is just some examples we have students that um we're working on goal setting so they set a goal and then their mentors help them to achieve the goal and they're they give them some real time like okay you know why you didn't reach that goal right um and this is a life skill like how how many how many of us need to work on goal setting so they're learning this life skill early um through this mentoring program uh in the beginning of the mentoring program it was really important about building relationships
085and understanding who the the students were and students were like barely talking and um so we had them bring a friend with them because again um although my partner is the open Choice Lis on she works with with our students so bring a friend um this is a community and they started being a friend and so we're hoping to expand the program next year awesome um another example I I think I've mentioned it before is our campaign that we're going to launch our encouraging words campaign um so I started by talking to some students about um whether or not they what what they thought we should do about the language and some of our buildings now I know you don't believe that students have language that they're using the buildings but sometimes they do um
086and my concern is is is always I don't want to do something to students that they don't appreciate I have to do this with students so I started by just asking students whether they thought this was a good idea and and I'll tell you some things that they said but the the idea is to have a committee of about 15 members um I've already sent some things out to parents I have some um parents from Latimer where's the other one terrail and Squadron um who are joining me in the committee and we're going to build this like it's going to be a year-long K12 we are telling people that we are going to be using encouraging words um we're we're going to have um students the high school students it's funny when I met with
087them they're like oh yeah that's a good idea because the elementary kids need it okay I'm GNA go with that I'm gonna go with that so they came up with all these great ideas they said we're sitting there like yeah they said they're going to make skits um they're going to make PS say so they have all of these great things that they want to do for the elementary students but at the same time that will help them too right um so I'm working with Legacy Foundation Deacon art will help me on the community side because I think it's a community thing it's a way to bring everyone together um Meg Evans is the elementary principal working with me um at the middle school the guidance counselor is working with me and at the high
088school the national Chinese Honor Society so I'm excited about this I please hope you can hear them go hi um my name is Natasha and I think this campaign is important because it can go hi um my name is Natasha and I think this campaign is important because it can cause people to want to harm themselves or other people and make them be depressed hi my name is SAR I think this campaign is important because a lot of people don't know what they're saying and how it can impact people and how they like can affect people at the end of the day and that was short but these are two middle school students who were shy um who at first said they didn't want to be on camera and I think one I think her
089parent actually said you need to do this but I'm I'm trying to show them that you know they have voice that people respect their words that people are listening to them and so I'm hoping that these are two students who will join and do the PSA I also I'll send these around um these are from uh Elementary from Vladimir Lane so um in each school I I also um Mentor a student from each Elementary School and and I go in and I work with them in their class and so we did two activities um cuz I I have have to ask kids do we want to do this campaign and this is and this one is from um this the student that I Mentor um but the the whole class was like yes we need
090to do it we they we did an activity um Miss Eddie did an activity the toothpaste activity have you heard of that right so you do the toothpaste and you squirt it and everything comes out and then now you got to try to get everything back in the tube can't get it back in so um her whole presentation was that's what happens when you say her full words and and so really getting kids to understand the meaning at at at a early age um and so those are some of the things that came out of the class so I'm excited about um about next year and and doing this campaign and and I have no idea what is what it's going to look like I mean I have an idea I have a vision but
091um it's really going to be up to the students in the committee do you have a lot of voice so so some of the glows some of the things that um I I think I could be proud of this year and I can say that yes we're hitting some of our markers and we're we're doing the work um one is our employee resource groups I I mentioned before that we have a bipac group next year we're going to have two employee resource groups and the second group will be determined based on an interest survey that the staff take um one of the things that we did this year was we um Neil Neil and I worked with our new teachers and we sent them a survey um to see their sense of belonging and see
092our we living up to what we promised they were going to experience um working here in simsberry um and so we got a lot of great feedback and and they felt that um we were listening to them we were hearing them we don't just hire them and then okay see you at the end of next year and then you tell us how it goes so we're making sure that we we check in on them um the mentoring program that I mentioned our increasing educated diversity plan um some of the things that have come out of that plan is also looking at uh how we find talent and and how through the questions that we ask teachers we actually find out what their talents are be before they come to us um the reallocation and repurpose
093of existing Choice grants so in the report you will see that there were some shifts that we made we were able to provide some books from some decodable books at every Elementary School um then Tanisha and I wrote some some grants so we got um funding over $95,000 for the summer Middle School Academy we just some Grant that's significant Grand dollars we just found out that we got a a much smaller Grant $400 for um marketing it's it's for marketing um but you know every opportunity we can get um also um changing making some shifts in tanisha's role her hours are 10 to six I'm sure the principles appreciate that kids now have more access to sports and food and transportation and the after school because she's there um and she's not just there for
094Choice students for all students um because you know students now all students can go home and between sports and there's a place for them to go and she likes to feed them um and another is our K12 everyday speech curriculum um that's one of the things that the high school students are working with me to identify which lessons are going to be taught um during the connect period so those are some of the glows from the year and next steps and again Equity work I I started with is in alignment with our our strategic goals and I'm going to end there so under sustainable strategic Investments rebooting the equity Council um some of our members are going to to be leaving they've they've been on for for a a while and some students are graduating
095so we want to look at we had great recommendations and we have data where where are we what are some of our next steps and and looking at our measures of success um I want to De develop a framework um I have some Draft plans of a framework so that we can really make up public in terms of what we mean by equity and what we're working on so that will include showing what our Partnerships are showing how we get feedback communication under student growth and success um I I won't be redundant but but the big one is the encouraging words campaign um and for connected School culture I want to expand the mentoring program and take some aspects of the mentoring program that teachers can can then use with individual students that they're working
096with through the sit program and through our Premier Workforce um continue to work on increasing educator diversity plan um and again that that is a a plan that we had to submit through the state um Sue and Matt attended uh great conferences with me this this year on Equity so thank you for being for attending with me um I've also presented at aspa and I was on a panel could be on a panel again next month so I I think what we're doing is the right fit so thank you for your support and great for the policies that you have in place and for for always supporting the work for all of our students real quick I just want you always do a great job with you know demonstrating the coherence of the bo goals
097and I just want to say publicly from a timing standpoint for our board and our Administration and your work as we head in to that development process next year we really have a great opportunity to um kind of quantify some of these things um targets goals and just we're doing the work but make it clear from top to bottom that that it's the priority thank you thank you thank you great job thank much I know some people have question yeah so I had a question which was first oh my God we've done so much work here It's amazing And thank you so much and so I almost embarrassed asking this question but it's like do you do you like on that discipline one you you stated about uh the 20% reduction um for black and
098white students by 20% and Hispanics by 25 I was just curious do do you ever take a step further back to say just by gender like how much higher the male discipline is versus female and or is that too broad and no I think and it depends on the school so these are the overall um broad based when looking at the district but individual principles are asking those questions when when you see a discrepancy between boys and girls um the same with with classes I think we're moving away from looking at gender as much and looking at um the way that students present we have some we have some students that um that have historically had more suspension than others so for those particular student it's not it's more so how can we decrease the
099amount of referrals for that particular student right so because I I wouldn't want people to say that oh but it's because of those five kids so if those five kids were not here we'll have a great climate and culture but those things change over time so it's looking at if you're a principal I might look at five students who who I I'm passionate about helping them to not struggle as much um and I want them to spend more time with the classroom teacher than than outside so I'm going to look specifically at their data um the time of day is it during different um different like I would if I'm going to act up I'm going to act up in math right I might need to get out of math class so right so I
100identifying where it's happening and and and trying to figure out what the root cause is and that happens with the teaching and learning team too you know we we talk about different data points does it look different for different schools and then what happens when all of those those systems that you have in individual schools now they all come to the middle school for two years and what happens there um so those are the conversations that that happen at the teaching or learning team but yes for some of the boys it's more individualized um and and then also giving students the grace to make changes so if something's happened and and Tanisha is already working with some students that are going to be going to the middle school already predicting what are some of the
101things we need to put in place some of it is just acknowledging that there were some some difficult things that happened in elementary school here here's going to be some different things that might occur next year and that's what the summer Middle School Academy is like stopped me from talking like a a big part of that is that social piece um we're going to be at at the middle school um and so our principles when we had our ep the principles were already identifying students who will be great for that program because we want to give them a head start of this is what it's like here right this is what it's like set up for Success one follow so just kind of back to my earlier question I don't I want to but slide
10227 has the numbers I was kind of referencing so just I just want to make sure I'm clear on the goal we're saying right is that the goal no the one the next one the chart so is the goal to get 15% increase on this slide on numbers that if I'm reading this right over the past two or three years has only gone up 3% because that's what what I was getting at on the traction versus the plan unless I'm reading it that so these are two the those are two different measures so this is a measure of the percentage of Honor courses and what we want here is to see that more of we want to make sure that students that are black Hispanic and in special education have more opportunities to sit in
103seats and honor courses and so when when I came here and that was one of the recommendations of the equity Council we took a look at why were these populations of students not enrolled in honors courses and so a lot of that work was done with the counselors um conversations with families with students and so that's what you see here now the other um this is yeah this one y yep so we want to in we want to increase from the number by 15% with three years so that's five that's 5% each year and again if you look at where if I can tell you where some of our students are now who have had the conversations with their counselors their school counselors and their parents more students are going to be taking those courses
104because again I started with how many students based on the A and B's that they're getting in their current courses could be in honor courses and that number was high so josu had asked the question whether or not hey is it different now because there's a structures in place and now you're going to work the structures so the answer to that question is yes so that we can be rigorous rigor rigorously trying to obtain that higher percentage I think that's great and the reason I asked to follow up on it because I think two things number one if we reach that go led by you that's pretty amazing to say if you take a step back and say a number that went up 3% in 3 years before a plan was put in place then
105escalated to 15% in 3 years that's good in any business anything anywhere that 3% growth became 15% growth in that same amount of time right and so that's why I was just asking is it traction is it just getting that momentum going it sounds like like anything right the plans in place get the momentum going but yeah I just wanted to Circle back just to kind of show it since it's on screen that what you're looking to do is take a number that Mo 3% in 3 years to go to 5% 15% over the next well 5% each year right 15 over three but but again if if we look at how many but if we look at how many students could have been in honor courses that percentage was that percentage was high I
106think it's a fantastic thing to WR to show it's a combination of these numbers in retrospect probably should have been higher is what I'm hearing if things were in place yes but then taking that and then growing it either way what you're doing is taking our student population here and giving them opportunity that wasn't happening and that's that's impressive and ambitious so I think everyone should just kind of seeing those numbers is impressive so thank you anybody else thank you very much thank you thank you appreciate going thank you thank you I love your shirt the minute I walked in it's so F it's great I think the pants are better the shirt I'm a dolphins fan I but what does your shirt say BR broken color Sil color oh nice that's good stuff absolutely
107I feel bad all right to go folks thank you thank you Dr Bachelor thank you Miss Grant next up is the proposed fee schedule yeah and an exciting followup to our Equity presentation I get to talk to you about something we have not reviewed in a couple of years here which is the fee schedule for the schools there I think this is something we we used to look at more regularly we got off track um actually when we weren't renting out our schools during covid there was a pretty long period of time where we weren't um inviting as many groups into our schools so it is definitely time to take a look at it um this we've simplified the document for long-term board members who used to there used to be um different levels of
108fees um I work on this with Carol Mitchell who's our business office coordinator um it was very confusing for all about which level of so we just decided to come up with a universal fee structure so when you get into the document past the exhibit page you can see we're looking at a four-page document the first page and a half is what it costs to rent out a space in our elementary and middle school um and um um I will note that the major addition to this since the last time the board reviewed it is that we needed to come up with a fee for our Henry James Auditorium we didn't have one before um Carol and I at the time that we did start renting it out made it a fee equivalent to the
109main gymnasium just said let's put that as a fee we that's the fee we've been charging um but I want this to be able to be reviewed by the board um if you don't you know if you have different opinions what we should be charging mostly what we do on this is put a very minor increase about 2% a year just to cover costs of utilities and and maintenance I'll talk a little bit more about the labor for the most part if our building is already open we tend not to charge you to use a space um there are exceptions to that but if certainly if a community group is using I mean there's not that much opportunity during the week because um most of our buildings are are used um certainly the middle school
110and high school are by our inter Scholastic Athletic program but um certainly Simsbury youth basketball might use a gym during the week at Central School um if the building is already open we're not charging you because it's already open the custodian is there you know that's how that's and it's a community organization um where we tend to charge is if you are um we are opening the building for you uh and um we do have pretty substantial fees from two different um religious two different churches in town that use our and that pay pretty substantial fees to a one to run CCD on Sunday mornings um one of the churches in town runs its CCD program through our classrooms and then another church has uh Christian Christian education yeah um and then another church has
111um taken to renting our Auditorium on most Sunday mornings and other times they rent the cafeteria right after and we have charged them those fees um and they've been they pay them and it's a good it's it's a source of Revenue um for the district when when a great fit when your community can use our buildings for sure yeah right yeah and Sunday morning using the Henry James Auditorium it makes sense for that group we're we're not using it on Sunday morning so um so the auditorium isn't Auditorium is a significant ad when you look on pages two halfway through the second page and the third page that's where the high school comes in I would say um because like if you want to use the high school on um a Saturday it's pretty difficult
112on a Sunday uh um we do have Community organizations rent it out we don't usually charge for the facility but we will charge a custodial fee so if I could draw your attention to the fourth page this is where we actually generate more of the fees and you can see that um that we have um custodial fees audio tech fees and then if you need to use a kitchen people can't just come in and use our kitchen one of our nutrition services folks have to be there um so what we're more charging you for is the labor that it costs to open the building it to be um that with uh that that I would say um is where more of these fees come the actual rental fees are primarily the religious uh services that
113rent them and a few smattering in the rest of the year when a special group I mean we've had the we've had places like dance recital that want to come in and use it and well we'll charge you a fee and um it all works out and um it's not a tremendous amount of Revenue over over the course of the year but um certainly the reason why we charge like the overtime to bring a custodian in on a Sunday which is a pretty significant cost should not be borne by our operating budget has to be borne by the people who are asking us to open the building so that's what I have to say about that we would vote it's typically come in front of you and then we vote on it in two weeks
114so I just have one question sure go back to you comment about the gymnasium and Henry James I'm looking at Main gymnasium Theon and Henry James the main gymnasium at Henry James so yes because unless I'm looking at an old yeah the main gymnasium 10 252 it's 25260 right but then that you said we synced it up with the main gymnasium cost which this says 321 did talk about the auditorium the auditorium there you go okay all right thank you for that y the um two questions one is is that do I understand then that so Town Basketball does not pay since we're if they have practiced during the week because we're already opened correct and so we would still we would charge them for custodian or we don't even charge them for that we
115charge them typically at Henry James and Simsbury High School on the weekend I just we just got the Simsbury youth basketball Bill put together because it's extensive all winter long and I don't think there was a single week night thing on there it was all the weekend when we have to keep the building open in order for Simsbury youth basketball to finish yeah and then for elementary schools and Henry James for the gymnasium or whatever do we chart like laimer the elementary like wouldn't you think we would get more for a laimer than we would for Tera although I love Tera we're going to have to I would think we're going to be renting L gymnasium pretty full not totally full size but that would good big yeah it's beautiful so I'll Carol Carol and
116I for next year will need to come up with a fee or Latimer's um spaces new spaces at the gym I don't think any will rent anything other than the chip do we charge for use of the fields um we um Mo most of the fields are town space we do have a we do have a fee for the turf that is occasionally okay utilized yeah oh but so the fields at like our elementary schools those are Town Fields pretty much I see okay I didn't realize that and they maintain there's a contract that they maintain all the L it's even the chch it SS be part of the soccer just like Squadron I'm just saying I'm all noted what's next I know I may not be enough grass on that field we talking about
117anything else great it out there Josh see what you're doing uh textbooks all right so each new spring the Board of Ed we always do a preview now with curriculum committee oh you have a little you have one to pass down for me Lydia thank you everyone would be so gracious um they're always previewed by curriculum committee and then they come forward to the full Board of Education so um there's not a vote tonight but I want to share with you what's on the docket for a ad option and then if you would like to come and borrow look at any of the the texts here please feel free to just contact me and we'll make sure that that happens there are three texts that are coming forward for our Asian American studies course uh
118you may recall this is an early college experience course this is a course that was written um with the uh Teacher Michelle Henry in conjunction with staff at Yukon and she was featured in edweek and there's been a lot of phenomenal press on this this course last year was in Pilot it is coming out of pilot now after a year so uh three texts for your consideration again no vote tonight but we will vote um at the end of May the next is you um have received presentations about think mathematics so these are the think math texts for grades one through five um they are doing some updates and some revisions nothing that would look incredibly different from these texts but as they are new moving from math and focus to think we will have
119to adopt that text series okay and there is and I made this to be a separate kind of textbook adoption the kindergarten version of think mathematics is called develop Roots it's very much a play based math centered and it's truly developing those foundational skills so as they are not called think mathematics but developing Roots I'm putting this under it falls under think in the curriculum series but I'm separating this out as separate texts so in the um exhibit tonight you will see on the back of that exhibit all of these texts clearly denoted uh again two weeks of review they've been brought to curriculum Council before I always make sure that we're doing that so they can ask any questions about the texts and then we will have a motion for your consideration on the
12028th thank you you're welcome questions anybody excited this is where I get my summer reading from every year so this is good it's good thank you uh policy first reading yep so it's the time of year where we typically approve the um Bo updates to Board of Ed policies that have been reviewed with the policy committee so the policy committee met twice I think once at the end of February once at the end of March to review um two different kinds of policies one which is um miscellaneous policies that needed attention because of changes in the legislature or other things that we noted that needed date and then from time to time we do a full policy Series so in this case the policy committee looked at the 2000 administrative series which is about a
121lot about the roles and responsibilities of the superintended of schools so um the so I'm going to go down the list to just give you a brief explanation the process um for this is always a little cumbersome because we do a policy first reading tonight there's a chance to ask questions for a second reading two weeks from now when we meet and then you don't get to vote on them till June so it takes three steps for us to approve this which um always seems laborious but we're gonna get through it we're gonna do just fine so um two very minor changes to your board of ed bylaws which is actually um not a numbered series but it sits at the front of the policy book the first was um a note that we listed
122five standing committees we don't have five standing committees of the board the wellness committee was improperly listed as a board committee it's not really a board of education committee as we spoke about earlier tonight it's a district committee where one of your members sits as a representative so your board committees remain curriculum the negotiations um policy and communication so we just struck Wellness from a standing committee the second was a more significant change of allowing remote um participation in a meeting so preco this board did not allow telephoning into meetings or in the Modern Age more likely zooming into meetings um other boards in town did you could um call in for your board but you couldn't vote and this would be a change to allow that now that somebody could call in and vote
123which would be consistent with how other boards in town are currently operating so you can note those changes in the redline copies that Katie wild sent you um and then then five other miscellaneous policies 4210 we talked about about a month ago the minority teacher recruitment policy a piece of legis ation that required boards to update that policy under a new name of the increasing educator diversity plan so I brought you that plan a month ago this is just the policy catching up with that uh really pretty much a title change I'm no surprise if you've been following the news that we had to change our 5112 point1 the age of entering kindergarten policy to reflect last year's legislative change of about September 1st being a cfff date uh the old cfff date and now
124going to um January 1st but allowing a waiver so when you look at the edits that were sent to you you will note those changes under um required attendance there were a number of changes coming through as a result of a legislative change um one of them is a minor change that we made locally to um give some flexibility to administrators and secretaries and how they accept absence notes um and allowing email communication to do that the more significant changes in the policy are about um changes to both uh how schools will deal with truancy and chronic absenteeism specifically with uh treny interventions that are would be required which um would be the schools must conduct a mental health assessment of any student who is Trent and must allow uh must provide parents with uh
125access to information about 211 services and other so all of the um and then some other language around um chronic absenteeism and what schools should be doing if their rates of chronic absenteeism hit certain rats so more of a you'll see more Redline text in that one that we would ask you to review if you haven't already under Suicide Prevention and intervention Sue took the lead with this policy there were some um required changes in this one um due to the legislature as well require requiring you to have a policy many districts did not we did have a policy so it required us to update our policy um and it also requires us to provide access to a crisis L Crisis Line 988 n thank you 988 that one escaped me so it's okay um
126so that was the suicide prevention intervention and then the last miscellaneous policy diplomas and certificates some changes that were required most significantly because of the requirement now that a financial literacy half credit be part of the required so that sort of changed um the overall credit structure that is required for graduation beginning with the class of 2025 sir thank you and um a minor change to some test score cut offs that uh happened for our basic skills graduation requirements that were a catchup um of our practice and then some required language around the completion of the FAFSA that um needed to get into our policy so that was all of the miscellaneous policies that we took care of in our first meeting we convened again at the end of March to go through the 2000
127series again mostly about the roles and responsibilities of the superintendent what we did for that is compare our series to what cab has for its model series our series comp compared very closely to Cab in so the last time this got reviewed however many years ago we probably were working off the cave series as a base but we did add two new policies that cave had that we didn't one is about the board's responsibilities in recruiting and hiring a superintendent and the second was about um anybody seeking to do educational research in the schools and what they need to do which is basically work through zun's office if they want to do that so I do that tonight I'm not going to repeat all of that two weeks from now but that's kind of the
128nutshell of what these are all about your opportunity over the next two weeks if you have not already had the chance to read them is to get to me with any questions so that I can raise them when second reading comes don't feel obligated to contact me can um but we we do need do a sec I mean the four policy committee members have already seen these so I'm really addressing the other four members um who may not have um been involved in the intricacies so you're there for us Neil is all right that's good to know well thank you NE thank you that's a lot somebody who just went through the faf so that makes the hair on the backg I'm sorry you don't even say it out loud don't even out loud federal
129government on board [Music] anyways um let's move on uh the second public audience okay um at this time we need to move into executive session motion make it make can I make a motion we move into executive section session to discuss a um matter that we're supposed to discuss evaluation evaluation matter I'm going okay so I I guess I need a second second thank you any discussion thank you all those in favor thank you we're now in