001and students in our community it's time for us to wade into some difficult topics that can cause some strong reactions most notably over the last number of years our classes curriculum professional development and special events have increasingly included much more in-depth study in social and emotional issues racist studies and detailed sexual and gender topics while i certainly see that these may be important issues for children to confront it is incumbent upon each and every adult here and at home who is responsible for the well-being of a child to deeply reflect on whether the prevalence and prominence of these matters is appropriate throughout our schools or whether they are sensitive topics that often interact with very personal issues and family values and are better taught at home while our simsbury teachers are excellent i sincerely question
002their qualifications as psychologists or social workers to be conducting emotional learning that sometimes borders on group group therapy at a time when our students by our own statistics are falling well below benchmarks post-pandemic particularly in critical areas like math wouldn't students be better served having additional subject matter time than taking four hours out of precious class time to have equity week i want my children to be kind inclusive thoughtful and good citizens and i teach them that every single day but right now we're all just doing the best we can they're trying to figure out who they are and how to pass the next math test but instead of class time they now get to attend sessions on anti-semitism put on by the anti-defamation league or what the chef versus o'neill lawsuit said about equity
003instead of equality in education sure there are are alternatives like the queerness of disney villains and how to make asian wontons but those were not unsurprisingly full those were unsurprisingly full now that we've been unmuzzled it's time to start having some very real conversations about what our children are being taught and whether it really belongs in the classroom let's take off the masks and start talking thank you okay um is there anybody else who would like to speak all right uh seeing now we're gonna move on to committee and board of ed communications so alex we're gonna start with you yes um so at 2 in last week um we celebrated all things music with special thanks to miss grasso and dr ford for organizing performances by the special chorus and the orchestra um central
004is running a twin and triplet spirit day this friday the 25th additionally it's been announced that the scholastic book fair will be up and running again during parent-teacher conferences from march 15th to 17th latimer will also be having fun this friday with their popular virtual bingo night from 6 to 7 30. um at squadron line the science fair is returning for the first time since the start of the pandemic on march 25th and registration has begun for that event and also squadron line is accepting orders through march 30th to buy a sapling that can be planted in families yards their goal is 140 saplings planted by april 30th to offset a year's worth of paper usage at the elementary school and then announced that for all elementary schools um registration for sixth graders to choose
005their middle school language and music courses closed yesterday the 22nd at henry james a new book club has started with the next meeting commencing on march 14th all are welcome for a fun discussion with the first book being the raft by s.a voting and then finally the high school sign ups for equity week opened this morning at 7 a.m all students will be attending four sessions during the week in mid-march to learn more about various cultures perspectives and social issues and lastly the spring play of the high school is decided to be radium girls and the first wave of auditions is being held tonight terrific thank you very much tara um i did we did have a um a meeting a curriculum meeting um a couple weeks ago and it was wonderful and we talked
006about um a new course uh geo um advanced uh advanced placement human geography which is um going to be it's i don't know what we know yet how many people signed up for because the um school the classes are just being signed up for now but um it should be a nice opportunity for more students to be able to go in depth with a topic that they find a passion for and it'll be a great chance another opportunity for extended and in-depth learning um we also talked about um desa which is a state mandated opportunity for our um our sel our social emotional learning things things that we've put into place and it is um desa is a way of measuring um the success levels and of the of what we're doing so um i
007know we'll hear more about that as time goes forward but that is metrics that are in place and we will be um using them to monitor what we are doing and hopefully see monitored success and we also spoke of just for the two biggies those are the babies and just yeah it might add on to that that the elementary tool to measure that learning is actually teacher generated through eight questions we communicated with families the week before the assessment they had the opportunity to opt out if they so chose we had very few opt-outs and they've actually decided we heard last minute last week actually that the high school self-assessment is being postponed until the fall so we'll hear more about that okay terrific thank you not at this sharon i didn't even see you
008sneak in hello hi so um alex mentioned some of the things i was going to mention already but i um was able to um watch the spirit council meeting and the spirit council is considering changing their name and the name that is going to go before the border selectmen is the council of diversity equity and inclusion so there was a lot of discussion around whether or not they should have equity in the name because of the equity council and wanting to make sure that within the community since most of their focus is community and ours is the school that there's not confusion between the two it's going to go before the board of selectmen and the board of selectmen will make the final decision okay um so that was one and then the other was
009around um there was a discussion around the minority recruitment fair that's coming up and my question around that one is whether or not um dr batchelor is participating in that okay um because that wasn't clear in their discussion and then um you mentioned equity week so thank you that's it okay mr watson uh nothing right now okay [Music] sue we received a pleasant surprise that this state subcommittee that got together to discuss remote learning and the guidelines sent those guidelines out to districts yesterday so we are in the midst of reviewing them they are also hosting a series of webinars to kind of explain and provide context as we delve into them further so i'm signed up for that webinar next week and then i will report back to the board but the guidelines are
010really written as opportunities for innovation for school districts so again certainly more as we make sense of those and decide um any implications for sims but to clarify that's just 912 at this point correct or is it everything nine nine twelve right i just didn't want people thinking we were gonna have that for the younger kids okay yeah uh i think i'm gonna have a couple comments after mr curtis okay amy all right uh mr curtis all right um lori and her public comment mentioned the transition towards a mask optional model so i wanted to just kind of update people on where we are on that and kind of revisit the the timeline okay uh a little bit and give the board an opportunity to uh to comment on things so um we are transitioning
011you know the mandate uh will be lifted on february the 28th that is supported by both state department of education state department of public health we've been having ongoing conversations over the last week and a half two weeks about the guidance that was being developed by the state department of public health with our farmington valley health district at this time they're in support of this move towards the mass optional model as well the participating farmington valley districts are all moving in the same direction on that and they actually surveyed districts across the state and it's 90 percent of districts on the 28th will be moving to the mass optional model so just some interesting data when we looked at our community in our area we were looking at our very high vaccination rates which we've
012talked about and updated the board on before um the fact that hospitalizations that hospitalizations is a metric now that dph has focused much more on in terms of talking about decisions moving forward and certainly the capacity in the hospitals is in good condition now and we've seen a significant decline i think the latest count today was about 240 individuals across the state hospitalized the case rates have have really plummeted i mean they've gone down fortunately over the past three to four weeks significantly um and dph has talked about the realization that omicron while um highly contagious is a much more mild version in terms of the symptoms that our students get particularly school-aged children so that those were the driving factors the the guidance that came forward from dph was kind of thematic you know
013it really talked about the data points that i gave you but didn't have specific cut data points to make decisions more kind of analyzing trends as we move forward to make decisions uh and the language that they used i liked it i know we're sending a letter out to the community tomorrow um is that we're transitioning from what they call the pandemic emergency response model towards a model that really aligns with a more standard approach to the management and control of a virus so it's one of those strategies we're going to focus on during that time frame before we pull back on other things but certainly this is a step that people have talked about for quite some time we appreciate all the input i know the board has as well that you've gotten and
014i've received to help us arrive at this decision and we're prepared uh to move forward on the 28th um farmington valley has been kind of working on uh just some concepts and things that we're going to share uh with with both our staff and our parents later this week and i'm going to kind of kick it to neil to talk about um a couple of those pieces you know we're really moving the focus away from counting the individual cases towards identifying any clusters or any significant outbreaks that that will take place so it's it's definitely a different uh philosophy in terms of how we monitor things uh even as the the masks come off go ahead yeah so just a few things that are highlighted by this transition from emergency response to routine management the
015most important one is one that's been in place all along we are going to continue to emphasize to people stay home if you're sick and the most important thing is uh to we do think that at-home tests will help with that if people can take an at-home test and have it be negative and you know be able to attend school but we're going to ask people to continue to be conscious there will still be quarantines of positive cases and that remains in place of a five-day quarantine followed by wearing the mask on day six through ten so that would be the only requirement in terms of that one of the main parts of the strategy is this self-test kits and they are now widely available and will become even more widely available you may have
016seen some stories school districts were invited to a phase three of picking up literally thousands of test kits and the instructions that we were given is to give two test kits which have two tests each in them to every family every staff member they want people to have a set of tests at home for use when they need them so that test pickup which was originally scheduled for friday just got snow delayed so we will pick up our tests in the middle of next week and probably be distributing them at the end of next week so we'll put out a communication to families to say hey on this day we're going to send kids home with tests and they're for your home use um as you as you see fit it's a really important element
017of the strategy of this becoming more routine um as you remove one mitigation strategy of the farmington valley health district and all 11 schools districts involved have agreed to reinstitute some semblance of contact racing when omicron had it at its uh most contagious point you simply couldn't contact trace the cases anymore now that they will be at a more manageable level they're asking us to do at the elementary level just a classroom and lunch based contact race not to quarantine people but to simply call those families inform them there may have been a close contact you decide if you want to test your student with your child with one of the tests we provided for you and it's an information but it's not to be quarantining people anymore and farming valley is very much like
018moving away from that strategy at the secondary level middle in high school where the vaccination rates are higher than they are in k-6 the the strategy is much more of analyzing your positive cases to see if you're seeing what they're defining as a cluster three or more cases on for instance a hockey team or this english class like are you seeing patterns that would cause concerns to then um be at a greater level of information and potential testing of the population that you're seeing as a cluster um we will continue with um the rules um i don't know if this is one that's going to be real popular but we want to keep getting it out there the bus rules are not changing so we are going to ask parents to send if their child
019needs to take a bus tour for a van to or from school that is federal mandate that um they still need to have we here that might change in the next few weeks but for the beginning of this um we hope people will simply cooperate with a rule that may not make a whole lot of sense in this context but people need to the other place i do want to just say publicly where a student who is mass optional might be asked to put on a mask if they enter that space would be a nurse's office that's the other place where they might be given one of these disposable masks for a few minutes while you're in here in case somebody in there was contagious and then they could remove it when they left but
020that would be the only other place where we might um require a mass for a brief period of time and then lastly um farmington valley health district even though vaccination clinics have sort of slowed down they want to offer one more chance so if there are folks out there who want who either want to run through the first two doses on the dates are march 2nd and march 23rd they're going to be we're hosting again at henry james it'll be early evening and you can also get boosted there if you if you haven't been boosted so it's sort of a whatever level of service you need for your vaccination that's happening is that open to all ages that is they'll take any they're really just throwing it open to the communities okay and we're happy
021to host so um and otherwise as we are moving into this i do want you to be aware that as mr curtis talked about mass optional our teachers are holding age-appropriate conversations about what's going to happen on monday you know some of us will be masked some of us won't here's why people make those decisions and they're um you know they're being very thoughtful about making that a community conversation about what's going to be a change for our very littlest ones who have never not had a mascot when they come to school so um that that's started and is going well and i think we'll be continuing over at least tomorrow we'll see where we are friday with the new stuff here we go sure do we know um i guess maybe we won't know
022until next week other schools or or places where they still want students to wear their masks if our students go for a sports event or or something else um well we know that in advance so we can you know abide by the the hosts yeah so this i think the ciac needs to get some clarity on that quite frankly okay there they have not been really clear about that um because if you're playing a hartford school for instance that's a district that is said they're going to keep them asked right so um uh i think we are seeking some greater clarity than that but wouldn't we just honor it's like if i you come to my house and i say please take your shoes off you take your shoes off wouldn't we just honor if
023we're playing in that district wouldn't we just try to honor what they want done what does the ciac that may be the policy for for the ciac the interesting thing is right now the actual timing is state tournament time so a lot of these things are played on neutral sites so um [Music] i think they have to you have to figure that out i think you might have different teams doing different things and you're going to once the basketball and hockey are done in the next few weeks the vast majority of your activities are going to be outstanding that's right the outside would be not an issue right right it's just the intro right thank you um thank you very much uh i would like to give everybody an opportunity to comment on this point
024in time it's been a long time that we've all been working with this and i would first just like to give my praise and thanks to matt and neil and sue and all of administration everybody who was on a task force in the summer of 2020 and again in 2021 and everybody who worked to build distance learning all of it i this you guys have led us through a very difficult storm and i'm very appreciative so with that said i would turn it to you all to make your comments yeah i was just gonna if i could just piggyback on what you said this is easily been the most divisive issue since i've been on the board and i appreciate your guys work on this certainly with the masks it's been science driven it's been
025metrics driven now some people may not agree with some of the metrics but the motivations have not been political nor have they been emotional so i appreciate all your guys work on that um it's it's as sue just said it's been quite quite a couple years and i'm hopeful that we can move forward and i hope the the students who want to continue wearing masks get the same respect that the folks who wanted to get rid of the masks do and i hope i'm glad we're having those conversations yeah that's an important piece of the puzzles the climate yeah lead with kindness right i'll say something uh i completely agree with what jeff said and sue what you said but you know what i'll say is i just want to thank all the kids i
026mean true over the last two years what our kids have been through as a parent um of the current 7th 10th and 12th graders um it hasn't been as difficult for them you know for my kids but it certainly hasn't been a fun experience wearing a mask for two years i know my senior um is and my daughter as well have been counting down the days and they're hopeful for a snow day on friday so that's one last day um no pressure seriously um you know it's it has been a couple of years and the kids i can't even imagine how it has been for the five and six-year-olds who have never gone to school without a mask on and and like you said jeff i hope the kids that choose to still wear a
027mask are you know feel safe doing so and and don't feel threatened in any way just like those who take them off shouldn't feel threatened so kudos to you matt and your entire team over the last two years has done a phenomenal job anybody else i concur i think um it's been a very difficult job but as always we've stepped up and done it with thoughtfulness and with gathering as much information as you can to make very reasonable and responsible decisions and we've been we're very lucky to have you all doing that and um thank you very much i'm glad we're slowly getting out of this it's going to be a great place but respect being respectful of each other is always our are important aspects in our primary care our health and welfare of
028our kids our primary care and hope will all be kind to each other i i agree with everything that everybody has said um it's uh not the masking is not something that i'm sure anyone enjoyed some people you know it they really feel safe get used to it um it's um it's been a hard hard thing to do and the administration the teachers the uh you know the students the parents people coming to the meetings it's um it's been difficult and i i appreciate the guidance that we've gotten especially the transparency i think that we've been very um open with the community with with the board um as to what we're following what we're doing how we're going to make the decisions and you know i hope we don't have to make any other kind
029of decisions anytime soon but i feel confident that we'll follow the right experts and guidance and metrics going forward but uh i i certainly appreciate everything that that uh matt you and your team uh in the whole uh the whole district has done throughout this um look back on this someday sometimes sharon you have anything you want all i'll say has been said um and it's been interesting times um i i'll i'll just say and it'll be interesting to look back and like we were just saying to see how this plays out into the future but um most importantly um as you said i the kids you know and um it'll be good to see little ones running around you know without masks but those that do you know let's just be kind um you
030know kindness is the way so um lydia who could not be here she's traveling she did ask me to just read a comment she said superintendent curtis has owned coveted mitigations and procedures from the start we are consulted discuss approaches and concerns weigh in on considerations and are always kept informed we have always relied on decisions based on the superintendent's recommendation of what is required and not required we followed the mass mandate heard from parents on both sides of the issue i fully support the superintendent's plan for mask optional based on the guidance from the dph local positive metrics and local health advisors by highlighting the need to help students with the transition while balancing the needs of keeping schools open and more importantly keeping our children safe so with that um we can move
031on to recommended actions alex i didn't ask you if there's anything you wanted to say about being masculine i'm sorry you're more than welcome to add to the conversation i think i was thinking about it today like um how i think it'll be fun like english class discussions to like see people's nonverbal cues i think a lot of what i do in school is not me speaking it's like a lot of facial expressions so i think it'll be fun to actually leave the room in a discussion and that kind of thing yeah very good yeah um okay with that i'm looking for approval of minutes of february 5th 2022 workshop notion that we approved the minutes from the workshop okay and a second and all those in favor aye all right and i'll abstain um
032approval of minutes of february 8 2022 meeting uh can i get a motion and a second okay uh any discussion all those in favor aye okay and moving right into adoption of the 2223 school budget mr curtis so we had an opportunity um at our last meeting um kind of the culmination of our work from november to present the budget as it stands to the board and tonight it's up uh for adoption um so if there's any comments any last questions that board members have we we are here to answer them it's a budget that we feel good about i think we've identified the needs through our principals and program directors that will support our students and support our staff next year and i think we've had good dialogue along the way um about the
033rationales for those and how we can offset and limit the cost to the best uh of our abilities utilizing grant funding and collaboration with the town i think we've been pretty creative there uh the town as we said in the um workshop has received some very positive news about grant list growth that should really help the offset amy yell at me if i'm saying too much offset tax increase right which is which is important you know if we can present a budget that identifies the needs and we feel good about it and we can do that in a way that really minimizes the impact of the taxpayers it's kind of the the best of both worlds and i think we're in that situation this year so i already agree i don't have a question about
034this but um just for the benefit of the folks watching can you just a quick note on process like where is it going to go now from here after we adopted that sure so once the board of education adopts the budget uh we move it to the board of finance for a presentation i believe that's march 8th tuesday march tuesday march 8th um so amy and i will present the budget and staff will take questions that they may have it's always a very rich dialogue they then can move that to a town town meeting a non-town meeting public public hearing where we present again and public has opportunity to comment and from there uh they set a mill rate that will go to referendum i don't have those specific dates i don't know if you
035have the timeline i got it right here public hearing should be april 5th yep so um that would be our first public hearing um i'll just make a comment on the on the budget that we've got in front of us i i think that uh everyone did a fantastic job putting this together um explaining the needs and in the additions i think one of the one of the fantastic things we did this year is we looked beyond just the next 12 months and uh and said okay to make sure there's no cliffs and and really came up with a nice plan on how to you know go beyond this budget year right and and look ahead um and i think that that's we always do that but we actually have a plan in place for
036some of these items and i think that that was that's a great way to to look at this i uh attended a meeting with the board of finance um along with wendy mcstudios and maria as well and um you know there was a lot of appreciation for the thoughtfulness in which the way we did the work was done with our budget um the town is still at the in their process but the fact that um we were so thoughtful and wendy and lisa both attending our workshop were very appreciative of all your discussion points and all the all the thoughtfulness and work that went into this budget so thank you and i actually thought that was really helpful to have a couple members in attendance and be able to go back and share that information
037with their board yep um and the process has seemed quite collaborative to me this year it's been it's been yes a positive yes i would agree i stick here all right anybody so if we're ready um i would like somebody to read the motion please anybody oh go ahead oh somebody i'll move at the board of education adopt the 2022-23 school budget in the amount of seventy seven million thirty thousand eight hundred nineteen dollars which represents an increase of two million five hundred eighty four thousand two hundred thirty nine dollars or three point four seven percent in a second please any further discussion all those in favor all right thank you all for all your hard work uh approval of policy revisions so this is a lasting step in a long relay race here to
038approve the 1000 series revision the policy committee met last year over zoom and then this year to uh review the community series as it existed and then enhance it with four new policies based on some things we had seen in the the cave model and so it went through the curriculum committee the first reading and a second reading curriculum policy my goodness through the policies [Laughter] it's been smooth so far until i started speaking tonight so it's ready for a vote all right can i please get a motion on the policies i'll motion and is there a second one okay uh any further discussion all those in favor all right um and now we are on to the cancellation of the march 8th regular meeting so this would be just what we said that the
039budget process um i would ask that you all not go out on march 8th but come to the board of finance meeting with us so we can present the budget together uh with matt and amy um so i need a motion to cancel our regularly scheduled meeting so that we can be guests of the board of finance and a second please just a second okay all those in favor okay um katie you're gonna make sure are they do we have any details about that meeting yet where it is or whether it's online or in person okay all right i just wasn't sure if we were moving away toward everybody being in person or not yet all right um and now we are up to the central school report so excited all right so we have
040we have a whole team here exciting [Music] brian's getting company so so as the team's getting settled and i'll hand this off to sue in a second but just wanted to say we've been talking about math instruction for several years at the board table in terms of an improvement initiative and different things we are working on relative to uh teaching and learning instruction supporting uh through coaching and we are going to get a little snapshot of what that looks like when it all comes together uh tonight and how this work is flowing through central school because we have teachers and coaches and curriculum directors and the principals so should be a good uh a good look at what mathematics looks like in the elementary schools and how we support our students all right here we
041go i'm excited i feel like i should be on that side of the channel all right ladies we know how to get it done um this slide should not be a new one to board members this was the office of teaching and learning's prioritization of the strategic plan and for each of our goal areas where we were really focusing so tonight this presentation is about how do we take that strategic plan work and priorities what does it look like from betsy seed as the director of elementary curriculum from beth seed as principal all the way to the classroom what happens with kids each and every day so those highlighted components of that slide are the areas of focus for tonight's presentation and again it focuses on reducing the achievement gap our focus overall on math
042instruction and good math pedagogy and what does that look like ensuring what do we do when our kids aren't responding to our instruction what does that intervention structure look like and finally how do we utilize our collaborative structures to make that all happen and that's what this team at central school is going to do this evening so starting from my left also in pink we were thinking spring megan leonard a 6th grade teacher morgan pierce kindergarten teacher lisa smith math coach principal beth hennessey and director of elementary curriculum betsy gonzalez and i'm going to turn it over to betsy for that next layer of elementary curriculum and alignment and then we'll hear from beth and her team about how this work is really living in central school thanks sue so my role is to work
043with sue and our elementary principals to align our district priorities that are outlined in the strategic plan and then to establish consistency so around these efforts so across the five elementary schools so there's uh certainly similar patterns and trends and similar work happening in each of our schools for sure this year we very much have kept math at the forefront of our work with our principals with the coaches with our classroom teachers and our teaching and learning team which has been really exciting and certainly very engaging so back in september i highlighted for you some of the goals that we're going to define our focus for the year in math and have certainly guided our specific actions that we've put into practice throughout this year those focus areas include how we're monitoring student growth and
044achievement of standards and this is in our effort to close the achievement gap in math implementing a very flexible model of intervention that includes support from some additional math tutors that you supported as a board that allows us to intervene by pushing into classrooms to respond in a just-in-time manner and to also pull some small groups of students out for some additional teaching and support we use our coaches to support our teachers in delivering our core instruction that we deliver in tier one to all students in the classroom and we've certainly enhanced our process for how we look at data and use that data to make instructional decisions at the district level the building level the classroom level to get right down to those student needs which is most important so tonight we're going to
045make these actions come alive for you um with get and give you some concrete examples that explain our work to date so the work really begins in the summer when in july and august i have an opportunity to really reflect on our success and our growth areas and really look for patterns and analyze some trends across all the math data that we have so that's a really important step to have time to do that in the summer and then as betsy is saying uh this year we brought back the coaches so i'm lucky enough to have a partner the coaches if you might remember were in teaching positions last year so this is the first year during the pandemic we were able to bring the coaches back in and working with lisa smith day in
046and day out has just been just been wonderful to really help them move the work forward but we had to uh betsy helped refine the intervention model that really was able to help us support all students and really look and really be flexible about and lisa's going to talk a little bit about that how we're able to really support students with the intervention model but we were hiring tutors at the same time we were building schedules we had a lot of work to get off the ground but another really important piece was my opportunity to really share my vision with the faculty and make sure i could break that down into action steps that were really making sense to teachers so we talked about what our targeted plc work would be how often we would
047look at data throughout the whole year what data we would look at and really working with lisa really trying to figure out the support teachers would need now that the coaches are back and if you remember i hired five teachers over the summer so there's a lot of professional development opportunities needed from having brand new teachers or experienced teachers so again the collaboration with lisa just to make that come alive we started off meeting once a week twice a week three times a week you know with lisa being in the role it was just so great to have a thought partner together to really map out what our work would be throughout the year we set long-term priorities short-term priorities we really looked at some data we talked about how what our data structures would
048look like and with lisa coming out of the classroom last year really has the pulse on what teachers would need and the support they would need so counting on lisa to help craft those professional development opportunities for teachers and then having an opportunity to come back and share our growth with teachers and share our successes in an ongoing way i'm going to kick it over to lisa we'll get into a little bit more detail okay so as beth mentioned this is my first year as a math coach i previously taught third and fourth grade for several years at central so this has been a really fun new challenge for me for sure um it was definitely a hard decision to step out of the classroom but i was really excited to kind of take on
049this leadership opportunity and i've always known that we have the best teachers ever at central school and just getting to work with them kind of more in this professional capacity has been um amazing um so i it's funny because taking this role right like you tell people you're a teacher you don't have to explain that that's easy but when like my family and friends like well i have a new position this year a math coach like what's a math coach like nobody had math coaches when we were in school so i feel like i really like kind of explain my job simply as like i get to work with teachers and i get to work with kids right like i get to help teachers and i get to help kids like at the basic level
050i feel like that's what i get to do every day um and so kind of in the helping and working with teachers side of it it started at the beginning of the year um with really collaborating with almost every grade level on those student learning objectives right so the measures that teachers have to kind of say how their students have grown and achieved by the end of the year i got to sit down with i would say every single grade level team and consult and collaborate on those slos some teams got to we're trying out some new assessments and data markers that they want to look at this year um and i think megan's going to speak about this more later but just quickly megan is you know an island she's the only one that
051teaches sixth grade math here at central so i she and i share our slo mine is the same as her so we're kind of like in this together um we identified that at the beginning of the year as kind of like a priority grade level so we own those kids and we own that data together and she and i constantly get to look at it and and talk about those kids um i also get to fulfill my like love of still teaching by going into classrooms and co-teaching or modeling for teachers as well as like planning units and lessons and small groups whole class kind of everything in between with them and as beth mentioned we have four brand new to teaching teachers at central and multiple teachers that are new to grade level so
052there's plenty of professional development and kind of like what does good math instruction look like professional development and collaboration to kind of go around i also um have the opportunity to join them in their plc's um to look at student work or talk about students in intervention analyze math resources and i even i have a two first grade and one second grade intervention group myself to kind of keep me grounded in the work of kids um and teach me content that i was third and fourth grade so i get to learn a lot about second and first grade math by kind of doing the work alongside teachers and with kids so the other uh you know bucket is helping kids um and so really the other big part of my job is kind of managing
053our math intervention program or mip so as beth or betsy mentioned like thanks to you guys we have two tutors this year um which has been unbelievable because i'm able to offer not only our kind of pull out small group intervention that teachers are used to but i'm also able to have those tutors push into classrooms and so they're able to help all students and help teachers that has been uh like something that i know teachers have really appreciated this year something that's new and different and really helpful to them we also have kind of changed our intervention model to be more fluid in the past there was sometimes specific dates for cycles where students could enter and exit but now we are being way more responsive to student needs and we're not waiting for
054a specific date for oh well you know the next cycle ends this student needs help but it's three more weeks for the cycle like i'm talking with teachers we're looking at data and they're getting started in a small group right away um which has been also really helpful um and as beth shared like our weekly meetings between the two of us help us to prioritize students and intervention focus my work across the building and my work with teachers um so it it's just been like the it's funny coming into a position as a math coach for the first time when math is a priority for the district um but it's been like somebody said welcome yes but it's been such a blast and it's really just like reinvigorated my passion for for teaching and learning
055and working with kids and i've been able to witness that on a couple of occasions i'll just walk in and go what are we talking about today ladies oh let's show you this this new kind of data set that we have on these kids that we're struggling and this is how they're doing now and it's a it can be celebratory and certainly reflective but it's extremely real and collaborative so it's been a pleasure to watch you in this role lisa well as a new teacher to sim carry i was really drawn to the level of support that samsberry has to offer to teachers i think that's really unique um and so for me there are several opportunities to meet with grade level colleagues to discuss learning goals to plan instruction especially during those plc times
056that we have which has been really helpful we also have specific student-centered plcs where we get to bring all of our data meet together as a grade level to discuss what we're seeing right now in the classroom but yet we also have that flexibility to adjust our instruction adjust those learning goals based on the data that we have in front of us and within those plcs i'm also able to collaborate with lisa and all three of us as a grade level are able to meet and discuss and talk with lisa about um planning to receive support for the in smaller groups for students that may be more more beneficial um and then it's also been so fun and awesome to collaborate with lisa because she has played such an important role in my own classroom
057i having her in my classroom were able to co-plan and coach teach lessons which i think my students enjoy just as much as i do um and i was scared of kindergarten before this year so morgan has helped me not be scared of her and um mrs smith is a familiar face in our classroom and she has really become a member of our kindergarten team our classroom team which is extremely important to the kids um and something that is also really important to know is in kindergarten the assessments that we give to students have to either be done individually or in smaller groups just based on the way the assessments are created and so having a math coach and lisa in my classroom is really helpful because she's able to support me in giving those
058assessments within the classroom and then as an educator i encourage my students to be lifelong learners and so it's really important for me to be a lifelong learner as well and so the professional development opportunities that i've had i've received and i am continuing to receive are extremely beneficial i get that ongoing support and feedback based on this the standards and the implementation into the classroom and then i'm also able to you know continue to collaborate with lisa to create specific instructional plans that meet the needs of the students of each individual student and help them grow as learners um and like lisa mentioned sixth grade's a little bit more unique in that i'm the only um sixth grade math teacher here so while i do utilize google meets to virtually meet with other uh
059sixth grade teachers and coaches across the district lisa and i can meet more in real time and talk like right in the moment about the kids that are in front of us so we're able to analyze data we look at next steps for instructing our students and then also really looking at those adjustments from how the students are doing what can we adjust with the teaching and i think what's really exciting is to that we can pinpoint areas where students may need support and i think what's really exciting with the mip program is we can help the kids before and during the instruction because when students do go to see math tutors they are essentially previewing what we're about to learn and that really helps to build you know obviously the concepts that they're learning
060but just that confidence when they come into the classroom they sit up that much straighter their hands go out more often and they just feel more comfortable and want to be a part of what's happening and not only are the students going to meet with the math tutors in my classroom they push in and they've really become part of our community you know we are one big family and they're trying to help everybody kids you know ask them for help as much as they help me they're able to help kids that are in that math program but then also you know other kids that may have their hand up um you know very often because they have become such a part of what we're doing i send kids down to um where the math tutors
061are to tell them how they did on their last test and it's just it's so exciting to watch the kids be so excited about it and go down and tell like other special adults in their life how they're doing um and i think you know one of the things that lisa also touched upon that's really important about this the math program the myth program is that it's fluid kids are um we're really able to be responsive to the students needs so they can enter the mip program and get you know the help that they need and then oftentimes lisa and i are talking about how we can possibly exit a student because they have you know really learned and shown growth over the past couple weeks and can move on back into the classroom and
062i think what's really neat too is that because those tutors do push in all the time is that you know it's not cold turkey those kids can be asking questions from me or those tutors that come in all the time and they can really you know get again the support that's needed both in the classroom and if they go to see the math tutors but um i think that that's one of the most important things it is that it is so flexible and i think that's why it works so well pat did you need the new staffing levels of tutors to create this yes okay it's kind of one-handed yeah okay yeah can i ask a question before i don't want to break it but i feel like we're getting there but i i love
063everything i i'm hearing and i'm [Music] how do we get kids to be passionate about math and i i feel like we're we're almost there talking about like raising our hands but but what else are we doing to get it it sounds like like we're it seems like we're doing all the right things to teach them what they need but how do we get them to really want to learn math it's it's it's hard it's the kind of thing it's gotta stigma sometimes um what what are we doing to kind of get that make it fun yeah my answer um as folks too is uh the pedagogy of the program that we're using is really not about having one answer it's really helping kids build the model use manipulatives use the abstract to really approach
064it in three different ways and that's where sometimes you hear parents saying i don't know about this new math but the new math is a way to really engage kids and also the amount of time that we use small group work together and get kids working together get them excited and in the math and focus program every lesson starts with what they call an anchor task it's like kind of like a real life problem or a word problem that gets kids digging in in like an inquiry model so we're not standing up there like direct instruction you're going to do this this and this we're really posing something to kids getting them invested in it and then really giving them the tools to work together i was going to say two correct way from wrong
065classroom teachers thankfully it's not been that long since i was a classroom teacher but i feel like the um passion the the kids who are excited about math are the ones who are confident in math right that's usually how it goes so i feel like if we can build their skill level and gain them like megan was talking about that confidence like that's when they come alive right that's when they want to do it and they want to take risks and they want to engage is when they're feeling confident about it it's the when they don't feel confident then they tend to be like oh i'm not good at math i don't like math i don't want to do math right makes sense well i think there's like a fun energy and an excited energy
066in there too because we say like three ways is a successful day yeah so the kids really try to find like at least three ways if not more how to solve some sort of math problem that is put in front of them but i think too you know for the this year with my students um particularly we've been talking about like putting them in real world situations you know we're talking about today like you know taxes putting a sales tax on to you know you buy a five dollar foot long at subway it's not just five dollars you have you know and putting it in those real world situations for the kids it's like 12 bucks just to tag on to you said something about how confident kids are always happy so you you spoke
067about the mip program um and the timing so i'm like so i'm old school i'm liking it back to when we had tlc at squadron line like kids could kind of zip in and out oh you only needed it for three weeks off you go are they as you see improvement do you push them back to the classroom or do they have to finish something which i think in the past we've kind of like even held on to kids before because like oh the cycle's ending we'll hold on to you for three more weeks but no we are in constant communication like we usually often wait for megan i will talk about like all right let's just see how they do on this end of unit assessment you're good to go like boom then you're
068done and it's very celebratory because that's a confidence post in and of itself exactly exactly and and i feel like if you're right an intervention but i think also if you have a kid who's struggling and i had a couple of those that if you can grab them before it becomes so daunting and you're not waiting for some magic timeline right that can be really helpful to have them not have that bad reaction to math yep in a pandemic that there's a lot of kids who have needs reading needs we have a reading intervention program the math program and really i give betsy the credit of having the vision to create this intervention model where we have this flexibility oh okay this kid was going to get three days of math but you know what
069they might need still need two days of reading right we have some flexibility or you know what we're going to shift it then maybe they're only going to get one day of math and a couple more days of reading so this flexibility this year has really just been so fluid and just so student-driven and what students need understand any repeat you know patterns with the kids yeah yeah there's you know there's definitely lagging skills that we see um so definitely but that's where the in and out is just so helpful or we have kids who just stay in because they just continue to need that boost day after day right and having two tutors we can always adjust groups too so if we need to adjust students and groups or who's delivering the support we
070can do that so we just have a lot of flexibility to make those decisions for kids i was just one more question and and so the the kid who has that number sense who can kind of look at you know eight plus five and just know what it is do they are they still needing to break down and find their three ways do we encourage like are we discouraging them from just giving the quick answer and no because that automaticity is really important as well right there's the kids who just know it yep but as the work gets more complex we really work on some of their problem solving skills in showing it in different ways okay so they're a little bit more flexible in their thinking okay thank you this is a a common
071model in all of the schools it is yes math and focus betsy this is year six oh no really yes yeah i can't believe it and this is k8 right yes correct but we're talking k-6 but i know that the same curriculum is k-8 right i think it's important so there's there's similar structures and supports at all five elementary schools um that was hugely important but since it was central's turn they're like we want to give an update on math and we think it's about time so i said let's let's do it let's get after it we're proud of the work that's right each school could tell a very similar story around these goals that we set forward with the principles in collaboration and while beth and lisa meet multiple times a week i meet
072monthly with all of the coaches and where we have district conversations around the world around the priorities and around the actions so each school has the coaches just as we okay betsy how many coaches do we have in each school we have one in each school one in each so there's five of you yeah and so you guys can come together to help each other too always all the time yep great great anybody else we didn't mean we don't need to derail you if you have more i'm sorry we have four more please that's a little bit more please this is all good yeah we just wanted to give you a sample of some of the data um we use curriculum-based assessments and some computerized based assessments so you can see that we're looking at
073data in september and we've added another we're going to be stu teachers are administering some of the assessments right now to come up with the march assessments so you can see some of our growth here and then some of the next steps that you've heard all of us talk about of really determining kind of who needs a little bit more push in support where's our flexibility do we adjust intervention groups we just had meetings with kindergarten through second grade last week to just really get creative about what their needs are we have protocols as morgan pierce mentioned about looking at data throughout the year you sent an email out today about some professional development for fifth and sixth grade for math coming up and of course lisa continues to work with teachers um in that
074area and this year in the curriculum we added 15 more minutes of math time so that's a really important piece that in our school day so we knew we had some gaps and the pandemic has created some gaps and we wanted to be able to shift around some of our curriculum so we added 15 minutes of more math time in what we call a supplemental math block so that's been really key for teachers as well so can you explain the numbers a little bit more though sure um so these are some results from a computer-based assessment called star so you can see our second grade results are pretty same so having second graders take an assessment in september is really really hard on a computer on a computer so um we're not that worried about
075that yeah we're not that worried about we're a little surprised to see those december results but these next results where kids have had more opportunity to practice more time on the computer um we should see some different results but you just see some of the growth that we're seeing um each each time that we give the assessment and this is just one data point you know we have the chapter assessments and teachers have quizzes and tests and so forth but you can just see kind of the growth that we are making so what's happening in fifth grade yeah so this this is not a surprise when i talked about analyzing the data in the summer if you go back to the s back scores which is the standardized assessment this was a cohort that we're
076really worried about this was where we definitely saw some gaps so this is the work that really lisa and i prioritized with the fifth and sixth grade teachers this year to say how can we close some of these gaps what's the work we can do and that's where we get to design the intervention program to decide push in pull out how much do we put more of our support there right now because the little ones are just coming along right now and so forth so that's why we have that flexibility to do that in fifth grade is by far the most rigorous content heavy math in all of elementary school it is insane it's like for sixth grade fifty were proficient or does that mean they were getting 50 of the problems in the star
077test of right now they're getting 63 of them right or is it pretty much the same thing okay yep provision cool and how will this trends late to next year when they leave so those six like looking at the numbers for the sixth grade they'll go over to henry james right so what will happen there we have vertical team meetings which run k-12 so we share the data with our department supervisors at the middle school classroom teachers have conversations from 6th grade teachers to 7th grade teachers and we will continue to monitor growth and progress and use the same data that we use now to make informed decisions about students who might need some additional support as they continue their math journey when they're at the middle school okay and if you remember we didn't
078have the intervention programs in place last year right right so we're really trying to close some gaps right now and seeing some really good results i was going to say you're pleased with what you're seeing yeah the kids are responding they are and we've also added more content back in to respond to some of the skill gaps that we've noticed we've been able to add more back in this year sorry sharon i didn't need to step on you there oh no no and i was saying and you know the carryover will be to the intervention that we have at hams too so you know it hopefully will blend nicely we chose very um distinctly who we wanted to have on those vertical teams sharon for that purpose so these are results that we meet actually
079monthly as a math vertical team and delving into some of our concern areas and data points in a way that we truly haven't before but i think with the shows you have the symbolism of the target right and it's how do you use student performance data to set the next growth target for increased improvement and really happy with the growth we've seen so far and looking forward to those march results and then what how that will translate to the state assessments of espla in the spring great job thank you and really that's the end we're just really hoping this came alive for you and you can see the connection between the school work and the teaching and learning team uh that sue leads and the essential collaboration that we have really as a as a
080district to continue to work forward and and towards these targets and as i said we're really proud of the work and i'm so grateful for the hard-working teachers that we have because it's all about the teachers okay we are making great progress and our kids are really working hard every day so i hope to share some of our successes at the end of the year what's so great to see is that it's not just the kids going into a classroom and learning it's the whole system behind that's behind the classroom work and and the help that i just love to see when i i get these presentations so thank you all oh you're welcome and the other thing is i just you know i hope some of those little ones who were fearful of math
081are coming up and saying i'm excited about it now you know what i mean and you just see their whole persona just change you know but that goes back to what you know todd was saying you know then you know they're excited right right well and it's always nice to hear that an investment we make as far as the tutors and the coaches go is paying off so i'm hoping you all feel really supported that the teachers are all uh benefiting is that really is going to make those kids excited about math and you know if you guys are have the tools you need to get the job done then that's going to only translate to the kids all right appreciate it great job great thank you all very much good it's good to hear
082good news about math we like that that makes us happy um all right so now we are back to our second public audience is there anybody you would like to see [Music] yep nope you're fine three minutes name and address please [Music] good evening everybody this is i'm stacy walzack 35 banks road in simsbury i did speak at the last meeting for the first time i hope i'm not someone who speaks at these meetings all the time but i just have some thoughts i wanted to share with the board just as you recall i'm a mom of a one-year-old and a two and a half year old and my my husband teaches in the system as well first i wanted to thank you guys the board for making the decision to give choice the teachers
083and the staff as well as the students we are going to go through a period of transition perhaps we might want to call it a period of desensitizing where we have to get used to seeing each other's faces again but i'm confident that our community is strong and will be supportive of one another and each other's choice um i think that's very important and i'm very happy that we continue to echo that um but i stand here as obviously a parent of a really young child who's two and a half and i guess i just wanted to create awareness that the masking isn't really a closed issue if you want to call it that because the reality is that the youngest kids who are two and three and four don't have vaccinations available to them
084and therefore most teachers teaching that age and parents of children that age are not comfortable unmasking their children and until the vaccine is available and therefore many local day cares in sims ferry will continue to mask until that vaccine is available while you can all probably imagine where i um what side i sit on on that issue um i just wanted to again raise awareness that you know they're still struggling to teach you know social cues at that age articulation and vocabulary and i wish my k teachers were still here i actually wanted to talk to them i wanted them to hear this because i really think that um i worry about you know readiness as those kids who are two three and four come into the system we potentially have a pipeline of children
085like for three years that could be behind in those areas and you know we could point to studies in either direction i'm telling you based on feeling my child has been impacted and i could tell you based on peers of um you know of other parents they feel the same um so again it's just awareness and um you know you might have seen the news recently where the cdc decided to update their milestones for early childhood and they've done it i think it was this week for the first time since 2004 and i don't really have an opinion on it quite yet because i haven't had a chance to dig into it but um one of the things i thought was interesting was you know the milestone used to be at you know 24 months
086a child should be able to speak 50 words and now it's moved out to 30 um to 30 months so like these milestones are shifting i hear my buzzer sorry but just a quick um just to close i guess my comment would be that um we might want to start thinking about that you know how are we going to handle that for um the kindergarten age you know i don't i dare i say it's a blind spot i hope it's not and i think we're already dealing with it to some extent but my daycare whom i love tremendously has um they're practicing masking at two years old so just something to be aware of thank you thanks stacy thank you is there anyone else [Music] all right with that um our next board of ed
087a regular board of ed meeting will be march 22nd at tootin hills um and just please remember march 8th board of finance meeting be there be square can't wait to see you all there if it is virtual someone will send us the yes the link yeah sure yeah yep okay um with that i'll take a motion to adjourn promotion that we adjourn all those in favor thank you all [Music]