001okay yes we do have a quorum and we will start with the pledge of allegiance which i just said to myself uh i pledge allegiance to the flag the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all um at this time i would like to turn things over to the superintendent for the celebration of excellence great thank you good evening everybody so i'm pleased to announce this year that we had eight students from bcs who participated in the eastern region middle school music festival on march 4th and 5th at enfield high school in order to be accepted to the festival students had to record and submit a virtual audition back in december the auditions are highly competitive and it is an
002honor to be selected for one of these elite ensembles during the festival students rehearse for several hours on friday evening and again on saturday morning and perform a concert on saturday afternoon featuring several pieces of challenging and exciting repertoire please join bolton public schools in celebrating the following students for their accomplishment nicole denunzio and allison hartzog who both played flute in the eastern region concert band and natalie ansaldi maranatha cram ayanna gamble adriana miley grace osborne and kelsey perkins who sang in the eastern region treble choir our students did an outstanding job performing their music and representing our town at the festival i want to congratulate all of them give them a round of applause well done well done at bolton high school silas gourley was accepted into the eastern region high school jazz ensemble
003and kaylee sheehan was also accepted into the eastern region high school treble choir both students prepared recorded and submitted video recordings of solo works they received feedback and scores from trained adjudicators these scores earned them acceptance into the listed ensembles the festival was scheduled to happen january 7th and 8th at eastern connecticut state university unfortunately the festival timing coincided with the omicron variant surge and was postponed but then later cancelled when an alternate date and location could not be found however i want to congratulate silas and kaylee for both being accepted into eastern regionals and all the work they did to get there so congratulations to them and to all of our students tonight well done our students are on here so i'm wondering if any of them would like to share anything or say
004anything about their experience and you don't have to but feel free to do so okay i think i gave appropriate wait time so i'm gonna move on um it is also school board recognition month so i would like to share that our school board members are vital to public education and to our system here in bolton march is school board recognition month and it allows us to show our appreciation to all of these dedicated individuals for all of the time and effort that they devote as volunteers in support of education in the bolton public schools they are dedicated individuals who demonstrate an unwavering commitment to our district and the success of our schools and our students on behalf of the students staff of the bolton public schools and the bolton community i would like to
005take this opportunity to thank chair o'neill vice chair sue pike secretary ben davies board members chris davey scott rich ria klein and diana pagano we are very very fortunate to have such thoughtful and dedicated community members serving and supporting our outstanding school system i want to thank you all for all that you do and that concludes our celebration of excellence this evening uh thank you very much um now we'll move on to comments from the audience are there any audience members who would like to make a comment this evening um i guess that's a no uh do we have any additions to the agenda this evening no we do not all right on to routine business oh wait a minute do we have the uh the it's on the agenda under new business okay thank
006you you're welcome you're i just want to confirm you're talking about the diversity survey correct for yeah i didn't i didn't see it under new business number four yep okay it's there don't worry we'll get to it okay um as far as routine business goes um looking for a motion to accept minutes of the february 10 2022 board of education business meeting so moved this is chris a second ria thank you chris and maria are there any edits or any um comments we made about this these minutes all those in favor of the motion please say aye hi is there anyone who is opposed or abstaining that motion passes um seeking a motion to approve the minutes of the february 10th 2022 budget workshop so moved a second thank you kristen scott are there any
007edits or comments on these minutes all those in favor of the motion please say aye aye aye anyone who is opposed or abstaining uh that motion passes now i'm looking for a motion to accept the minutes of the february 24th 2022 budget workshop so moved second are there any edits or comments on these minutes hearing none all those in favor of the motion please say i all right and lastly looking for a motion to approve the minutes of the february 24th 2022 special meeting so moved all second real okay urea and chris do you have any edits or comments about these minutes um one correction of a name spelling um the eighth public speaker should be deborah stevens with an s at the end good eye chris and i just want to compliment that these
008minutes were very very detailed actually all of them were very detailed and did a very accurate job of portraying the meeting so all those in favor of the motion please say aye aye does anyone else oppose or abstain so that motion also passes um that will bring us to board of education committee reports uh first one we have is kappa so the kappa committee met on march 3rd to review both the town capital improvement plan and the board of education's plan with the hope of arriving at a consensus and sending it to the board of selectmen for approval um this was accomplished the total list for both groups has up to about 463 000 which is in the range of the one mill that is required by the charter the final list that's being sent
009to the board of selectmen for their approval includes two projects for the school systems the bcs door replacement is getting the remaining funds necessary to complete to to do that project money had been set aside the previous year and the balance was approved for this year and there was another 140 000 uh assigned to a garage at the bolton high school storage building for the vans and athletic equipment the original proposal had been for six bay but it was determined that a four bay would would be sufficient for it and they um the money was we had a we had a bid price for the six bait right so we anticipate what the amount of money would cost to do with four bay that 140 is covers part of it the the hope is to
010be able to use low sip funds which is a state grant for municipalities to pay the balance of that if that doesn't work then this money will be the the remaining balance will be added to next year's list so that the purchase can be made anything else andrew uh no i think that that that covers it right yeah um yeah i think we did all right with kappa thank you um on to curriculum chris you want to handle that sure um curriculum met on march 1st and we discussed the two new courses that will be presented during new business one on writing composition style and technique and the other an ap english language course uh thank you very much on to finance uh just let me show you mine okay uh we met yesterday and
011um the uh we're 55 expended compared to 56 percent last year uh special education at this point is has been stable but as we know it's an ever changing landscape and uh super uh attendant hecht will talk about the transfers and the board of ed um [Music] finance fiscal year 23 budget thank you uh so the first one is uh just to cover the balance needed to replace the 25 computer lab desktops and it's out of health insurance into the online subscription and online subscriptions which was a re-class we needed to purchase additional athletic supplies we needed to pay for bcs music performance masks that was before and the mask mandate went away and we still have students choosing to use them which is great um should they want them we have them we had
012to purchase some additional social studies instructional supplies we had to reclass to cover uh the increased costs for the chemical waste management piece at bolton high school a reclassification to cover operations costs to increase uh repair for the bhs garage and the bhs server room hvac units a reclass to cover the increased cost of the new postage machine rental for bolton center school as well as the boe postage machine rental and then in terms of education currently we're still projecting to fully expend regular education instruction scroll down a little bit more just if you would for me great thank you same for special education again i want to remind the board that we do not anticipate receiving an excess cost grant this year because we haven't met the criteria for that uh we are looking
013for um to be fully expended under administration support and central services at this point in time it's just too early to actualize savings there yet and then we are actualizing some savings more savings and personnel benefits of uh 37 000 and as we shared you can see our expenditure there so we're looking currently at a projected budget balance of 200 000 i want to remind the board that the reason for this is because we still continue to have unfilled positions in the bolton public schools and you will hear about more this evening when we get to uh resignation so if we could scroll down a bit further please a little bit more yep perfect nope up up a little bit there we go so we are asking this evening for um two pieces a transfer
014request of 35 000 which i'm going to speak about in a minute and a commitment on the boards part which would be a separate um motion to give back 140 000 towards next year's fiscal 23 budget just as a reminder the board of education presents its budget to the board of finance next thursday night um and at that time ideally it would be good if we can tell them that we are able to offer this up at that time so if we could scroll down a little bit further please to the next page thank you so you may recall that in our um kappa request we had to we had on there replacing the blinds at both bolton center school and bolton high school it was shared with scott andrew and i at the kappa
015committee that that those purchases do not meet the kappa uh criteria set forth in the charter and uh the board will need to come up with those funds through their own budget to replace it and it's a grand total of about a hundred thousand dollars um cassell and i had a lot of discussion about this um and i i think the prudent thing to do at this point is to um transfer 25 000 into john's budget um to go towards one quarter of the repair of those blinds seeking out what are the worst ones in both schools and replacing those at this point and maybe we can try to in the coming years um find additional monies uh to do the rest of it sort of do it in a multi-step process like we do
016for a lot of things in kappa and an additional ten thousand dollars to go into john's budget because it just came to our attention that we have some um issues with the bleachers at the high school and we have some elements of the bleachers that need to be fixed to keep it safe so i told john to get moving on uh getting the vendor out here to take care of that and that's about sixty two hundred dollars um and i'd like to leave a little more room in there if in the end he has enough money to refinish the floor um prior to the end of the school year at bolton high school on the gym floor it's not looking too good right now and hopefully maybe we can possibly try to get that done
017either operate over april vacation or towards the end of the year when the gym is no longer being used questions for me okay so i guess hearing none will first need a motion on the um february transfers please yes we're looking for a motion to approve the february transfers so move to ria thank you a second thank you scott uh we have any questions or comments about the february transfers that we went over hearing on all those in favor of the motion please say aye aye anyone opposed or abstaining all right that motion passes uh the second motion we are looking for is a transfer of 35 000 i think it was out of benefits and into operations and maintenance so moved i'll second that chris maria and chris do we have any questions about
018this transfer hearing none all those in favor of the motion please say aye aye aye aye anyone who's opposed or abstaining okay so that motion passes and the third motion we are looking for a motion to commit 140 000 dollars back to the town and board of finance uh next week at our budget presentation to the board of finance so i would just add to that from fy22 budget savings towards fy23 budget please so moved this is chris thank you chris and ria do we have any questions or comments about this motion you're not all those in favor of the motion please say hi i think that was everybody anyone opposed or abstaining all right that motion passes and i'm sure they'll be very glad to hear it um moving on now to bhs student
019representative reports thank you i'm euron hi um seniors are still applying and receiving acceptances and also committing to college and we're also working on capstone presentations and our senior night will be taking place on april 21st where we present the national honors society is hosting a blood drive on march 21st and we also just had the phonathon for the bolton scholarship fund on february 27th and 28th that went very well our next donut club meeting is on march 18th and the student council is having a meeting tonight the yearbook is getting the yearbook ready but they think it will be done by april break and the drama department is returning to their live live theater this weekend with a production of chicago which is actually where michael and mr mercelli is friday night the tickets
020already sold out and but they are still available available for friday i mean saturday both shows in sports news the boys basketball finished their season with a record of 5 and 14 and they're ranked 12th in the n triple c and the girls are play just played their quarterfinal game on tuesday and they won 42-27 against summers and they're advancing to the semi-finals in new britain on monday against thomaston they finished the regular season with a record of fifteen and five and they came in fourth in the intricacy tournament now we're the fifth seed within and there's four more teams left track is still having pre-season conditioning right now but in their indoor season the girls came in third and then triple c and the boys came in fourth and spring sports will start at
021the end of the month and that's it thanks em feel free to stay or go do what you need to do him thank you very much um we'll move on to community meeting reports do we have anyone who attended any community meetings i can report on the bolton scholarship fund i guess on behalf of the bolton scholarship fund i want to thank mr miceli mr jensanti and everyone else who helped assist with the phonathon and a huge thank you to all of the national honor society students who made calls to homes throughout bolton by all accounts it went very well uh applications are now available on the bsf website for our 2022 scholarships the application deadline is may 3rd at 11 59 p.m so get your applications in before then the same deadline for both
022high school students and students currently in college or graduate school that concludes my report thank you chris is there anyone else okay uh now i'd like to turn things over to the superintendent for the superintendent of schools report thank you very much i'd like to turn it over to mr giard to start with an update from bolton center school uh good evening everyone a first bullet there mask updates a brief update about mask wearing since february 28th when masks became optional right from day one everyone in the school community students staff families have all been super respectful of everybody's max choice uh the places where masks need to be worn the preschool program the health room and for those individuals who tested positive who came back on day six through ten if they're symptom-free has
023been seamless and honestly it's the respect has been shown throughout the entire transition because of the positive environment and culture that exists at the center school and in bolton public schools so it's been it's been amazing the transition pta donation i'd like to publicly thank the bcs pta for their generous donation of over ten thousand dollars in equipment to support the steam and technology education program at bcs the donation needs the purchase of littlebits steam coding class packs vex iq competition kits and vex go classroom bundles the little bits already came in and the students and staff have been using them in the classrooms and have loved every minute again a big thank you to the pta for continuing to support the staff and students at bcs and it's literally year after year so that's
024a huge a huge thank you and i'm going to turn it over to mrs saffron to talk about read across america thank you all right i'll take a moment to look enjoy those pictures some of our pictures so throughout the month of march we celebrate read across america and our nation of diverse readers we began with our school-wide spirit days that ran from tuesday march 1st through friday march 4th we enjoyed hat day dressed like your favorite story character day and on friday students were encouraged to cuddle up with their favorite book while wearing jammies to school some rooms invited guest readers from within the building while some classes are having mystery readers zoom in all throughout the month just a tiny bit of the fun that we were able to capture there beyond that
025along with the spirit days we joined the national education association in celebrating our nation of diverse readers with daily school-wide book talks during the morning announcements each week we explore different themes and recommended books to expand our minds and our imaginations this year our themes are following your passions or interests award-winning books empathy and kindness family stories and women's history month and it's become a fun part of our morning announcements i think that concludes the bcs report all right thank you very much any questions or comments for mr giard or mrs safran okay hearing none i'm going to turn it over to miss johnson who's going to give the report for the high school because mr misali is at play practice good evening everyone new this year all of our juniors will be taking the
026sat online on march 23rd we have the capacity for all students to test simultaneously with desktops and chromebooks and students are even given choice as to which device they wish to use mr ginsanti and mrs goulet our grade 10 english teacher met with students over the past few weeks stressing the importance of the s.a.t and answering questions regarding the test we have used our connections time for students to practice as well as prepare paperwork which some of us will remember the old bubble sheets like mr giard said things are going very well for us at the high school with students and staff respecting each individual's choice regarding ask wearing thank you very much any questions or comments for miss johnson before we leave bolton high school i just want to let you all know that
027we play again a reminder against thomaston monday night 7 45 new britain high school and i will send you a link if you wish to get tickets so you can come and join us and support our girls on monday night in the semi-finals and i'll leave it there thanks and now i'd like to turn it over uh to director of hr and student support services beth goldschneider good evening thank you for asking us to present to you tonight we will be talking about how public schools supports the social and emotional needs of our students and i think um to mr giard's point that when he was talking about the masks coming off that just speaks to what our our culture and our climate in our school district is is all about right people accept each
028other's differences and their choices and um it's just it's it's really a wonderful thing so so i have a frog in my throat strong me crazy so i apologize um so as you know integrating the social emotional and academic needs of students is vital to their success so we are really fortunate and you are fortunate to have your children in bolton public schools because we have so many really truly wonderful supports in place already from preschool up to our kids in the transition program to meet those social and emotional needs we have a lot of interventions that we're going to talk about we have a lot of support staff and we have our teachers and our paras and and all of the staff in the buildings on a daily basis for every single moment supporting
029the social emotional needs of kids right social emotional learning is not just a lesson that we teach or it's not just a one-time kind of activity it's embedded in everything that we do so our teachers have really embraced that kind of learning and i think both schools have created a climate where kids feel safe to take risks and feel safe to talk to us about things that are going on the kids in bolton are really lucky because it is a small district and teachers and staff really know the kids um you know kids don't get they don't get missed or they don't get passed because we know them teachers have good relationships with kids um teachers and paras are the eyes and the ears in the school and they hear things that might be going
030on with the student or maybe a concern that comes up and they pass that along to either an administrator or to one of the school counseling staff members so you know there's a group of people who are really watching out for kids um on a on a regular basis on a daily basis um so i'm gonna talk a little bit about um i'm gonna introduce two of my staff members who are with me i'm very pleased to introduce taji and santi school counselor at bolton high school he'll be presenting with us and phil medeiros school psychologist at bolton center school is the other person who'll be talking about the supports that we have in place so this next slide i just want to talk a little bit about it talks about what our support staff
031is um consists of and this is just the counseling staff this isn't special in teachers or other related staff members these are the people who really look at the social emotional well-being and the mental health kinds of issues so currently in our district we have 2.8 school psychologists we have two full-time at the center school and point eight at the high school although that is shifting a little bit more because of some staffing we have two school counselors and we have a school social worker so we have a lot of support staff for um meeting the social emotional needs of our kids so i'm going to turn it over now to mr g insanity and mr medeiros to uh go on with the next slides so jess thanks thank you our practice of school psychology
032is very aligned with best practices outlined by the national association of school psychologists our main areas of practice include assessment of potential disability that includes cognitive testing rating scales to gather information across people and places and observation of potential environmental factors so that we can integrate this and other evaluators information with day-to-day performance this allows the team to understand all the factors influencing students ability to learn counseling and social skills in schools is focused on what students need to be successful academically emotionally behaviorally and socially therefore we focus on development of specific skills such as self-advocacy or making friends we're always looking to develop students who can eventually apply these skills independently lastly school psychologists consult with and develop emotional behavioral support practices that are evidence-based within a three-tiered system from tier one or school-wide
033and classroom management practices to tier two or targeted supports and lastly a tier three or an individualized level of support next slide please some of the other things that our school psychologists do we teach a well established and comprehensive curriculum called second step to middle school students they'll be more about that in a later slide we respond to crises whether in the larger community or just a moment in a classroom to meet immediate needs such as safety or de-escalation and longer-term needs we receive referrals when anyone is concerned that students may be at risk of suicidal ideation whether in statements notes or even social media so that we can assess the risk and provide the appropriate level of support we consult with classroom teachers on supporting whole class needs and whenever possible we use students
034as role model peers in this learning students learn by doing more than listening and they learn more of the school's social emotional culture from what their peers do than what adults say next slide please so you'll see some overlap between all the different roles of counselors the school's social worker primary role and is really to provide that information and resources to students staff and parents also you'll see that they counsel students with needs that impact their learning addressing relevant issues in school including school attendance and social adjustment adjustment issues and often serve as liais between students their families and community-based supports next slide please some of the supports for uh social emotional learning as phil had said as well uh teaching a tier one universal social emotional learning curriculum the second step program to our
035middle school students um also and i think that's one thing we do really well i think we have a very coherent team the crisis intervention um you know serving serving on that we all serve on that team and support that also conducting risk assessments and providing teachers with tier 1 strategies to address needs in the classroom some of those examples would be a break card or practicing deep breathing and mindfulness also you know our school social workers are running groups and involving model peers for counseling and social skills instruction the next slide please so school counselors also serve as a first line of defense in addressing students social emotional needs that may become barriers to academic success promoting a positive environment that enhances students ability to properly manage social demands of their lives this is
036accomplished through direct services such as classroom curriculum and individual counseling as well as indirect services which is examples would be collaborating with staff families in the community next slide please some of the supports for social emotional learning you know i'd have to say that flexibility is the key in supporting our students counselors welcome our students making themselves available to address their various needs helping students and families feel more comfortable when more serious issues come into play we provide counseling to students who may come to school after a loss to process feelings of uncertainty anxiety or issues that may seem less pressing to some but concerning for that student we strive to ensure that students families and staff are validated and listened to while walking them through a difficult time and offering support and resources as
037appropriate next steps may consist of conflict resolution to working with families to access community supports we often think and work creatively to ensure that students are able to access classes when it's necessary for a student to attend a program outside of school such as a partial hospital program or a php program and one of the last things on the slide are home visits which may be conducted to reach students and families that have been unsuccessful in attending school or or those meetings next slide please not only do our student support service staff conduct classroom lessons but our teachers provide opportunities for social emotional competence our teachers service partners with support staff from implementing curriculum and then embed learning topics and vocabulary within their classrooms teachers model appropriate and respectful behavior during group and classroom discussions
038they create a safe and nurturing environment where students opinions are respected teachers know their students they know them well enough to consult with support staff often up before delivering a sensitive lesson or topic and they and they ask and know when to not to cold call a student as director gold snyder said earlier teachers and students are often our eyes and our ears and these systematic supports foster caring and responsive school environment next slide please okay so we talk to teachers to see what some of the things are that they do in their classrooms and throughout grade levels and this is a really fun one for me because i taught preschool and early childhood for years so it's exciting for me to see these things carried over in a classroom so some of the ways
039that we see social emotional learning addressed with the younger kids is teaching kids how to deal with their strong emotions in the classroom in the heat of the moment we teach those kids as little as three and four-year-olds how to do belly breathing how to count to ten or maybe five if they're three um do some yoga exercises taking us some space if they need to um we also teach cooperation and sharing and we're teaching strategies right in the moment so we you know those teachable moments about you know when the kids are tussling and pulling over a toy how we take turns and you know and work on those sharing things we also use literature to pre-teach what to do in certain scenarios we may use social stories for some kids who maybe can't
040read a book but maybe a social story works for them uh we also work on teaching children how to appropriately ask others to join and play or how to politely decline if they don't want to play with that particular group of children or with that game we provide classroom space for kids to take a break if they need to sometimes it's just why don't you go over on the bouncy chair or some teachers may have like a chill corner or you know a little area for the kids to go into if they need to kind of regroup and have a moment to pull themselves together we also teach young children how to recognize others and their own emotions in response to some situations so you know how to respond to something that's really exciting how
041to deal with that and not get overly excited and also how to deal with things that make them sad so we really teach them how to you know what emotions they're feeling and how to handle them and deal with them we also are working with kids to recognize differences disabilities and abilities and how to engage and play with diverse peers and really always validating a child's feelings doesn't matter what the feeling is that child is feeling it and then working together to solve the problem or resolve the issue that the child is having with that particular feeling if they are next slide please at bolton center school our elementary teachers implement the second step curriculum to maximize integration of the lessons throughout the day these lessons include topics like empathy emotional self-awareness and regulation and
042social problem solving for issues like exclusion and peer pressure in the middle school the second step curriculum is taught by psychologists social worker and school counselors these lessons were fresh and build on earlier lessons with topics including respectful disagreement and compromise perspective taking substance abuse prevention and preventing and responding to bullying and cyberbullying zones of regulation is an easy to use system and curriculum we use that categorizes emotions into energy levels for example the emotions sad maybe in the blue zone resulting in low energy or the emotion feeling silly maybe in the yellow zone resulting in high energy the system then allows for students to develop a toolbox of strategies based on what they need to do with their energy level pbis refers to a broad set of practices that are how we teach good
043behavior to our students the most recognizable aspects to most are bark tickets these are a way to recognize and reward good behavior and shift focus away from attending negatively to negative behavior i had mentioned earlier tiered supports sometimes known as srbi this structure is based on allocating resources to need first with effective school-wide practices that serve the strong majority of our students to uh tier two or targeted practices that are focused on a specific area of need for example staying focused to complete work what do we do for these students and then finally at a tier three or individualized level what do we do for this student for whom those steps have not worked we also widely use check-in checkout practices frequently these involve emotional check-ins including zones of regulation check-ins these are when we
044review expectations and anticipate challenges that may arise across a day this is when we review strategies to meet those challenges and review contingencies for example if i use my strategy this is what will happen at checkout we often take advantage of that time to look back at the day in a non-confrontational way of giving feedback for example i might look at it and say it looks like you did great in math what did you do that was so successful or it looks like you had a harder time in reading what was challenging there and were you able to use the strategies we talked about this morning these check and checkout systems are also often tied to reward systems as we move kids from extrinsic and tangible motivators to the intrinsic motivation of their own successes
045next slide please okay so uh some examples of school-wide supports at bolton high school um would be you know our personal goal setting um instruction on managing frustration um and collaborative student scheduling we're always making sure that our students are involved in the scheduling process and decision making process connections is another example it's a regularly scheduled time for students to work with their teachers on various academic tasks teachers and students were purposely scheduled together to support both academic and social emotional needs the implementation of a freshman cohort program supports grade 9 students transition to high school by utilizing a common schedule with teachers for increased access for support transition and various team building activities another item to reference would be the bigs and littles program which is a student-led program that pairs volunteers or upperclassmen
046with incoming students by interest and they utilize survey data students actually create the survey and collect that data to to make those pairs the bigs facilitate new student orientation they do student tours uh they foster or facilitate question answer sessions and organize various activities activities are supported by the school community for instance one of the activities was an art project that was planned and prepped by our art students and our art club participants which further provided opportunities for socialization mentoring next slide please and supports for staff so supports for staff were accomplished in many ways as identified in this slide i'd say most importantly to note is the ongoing communication collaboration and flexibility practiced and supported by staff and administration from the beginning stages of planning for learning to return to school schedule administration solicited
047ongoing feedback to ensure that staff are well supported flexibility once again both of administration and staff was essential when classes had to be covered in order to support our colleagues when their own children or family became ill listening and responding to staff needs especially when struggling with social distancing um so another example there is conducting outside staff meetings on on a warm day when we weren't quite ready to gather as a school community indoors so those are some of the examples that i'd like to references regarding support failure muted thank you the gentleman can you go back on slide please all right of support and learning are the same whether we're talking about students or staff so peer-to-peer support and teaching is critical and we provide a structured time for that support in staff again
048for some of the same reasons of that non-confrontational peer-to-peer empathetic and analytical critical feedback that can be so helpful we include simple low-demand and fun challenges to promote wellness with associated prizes that go with participation for those and lastly recognition and gratitude whether it's the simple thank yous in words or cards whether it's the small gifts or whether it's events like the popular treat cart that comes around with baked goods teachers are mostly motivated by their love of the kids and teaching and more than anything they want to know that people can see and understand that the work they're doing is their calling and that they're doing their best so that is a critically important one next slide thank you phil and todd i really appreciate everything that you've done for this presentation and talk
049about support for staff yesterday when we had an early dismissal and i was kind of freaking out because we hadn't finalized the presentation todd and phil stayed after work got out almost two hours and stayed with me till two o'clock yesterday afternoon in the snowstorm working on the final touches so i'm very grateful and appreciative um so thank you i hope that everybody learned a few things and there's so many more supports for emotional social emotional learning for kids that we couldn't even capture everything but we can open up if it's okay with superintendent hack we can open up if there are questions absolutely before anybody has questions or comments i would just like to say thank you very much to beth to todd and to phil it was an outstanding presentation and really you
050guys did a fabulous job and greatly appreciate all you did um putting it together including yesterday afternoon appreciate that any questions or comments from board members um i do ria have there been a noticeable increase in the number of episodes of students needing help based on you know the this period of the pandemic that you've noticed because obviously it's it's been an issue around the country so how are we doing in bolton so todd or phil do you want to speak from your perspective and then i can kind of speak about it phil sure what i see is not what we began planning for in the spring of 2020 the kids have been remarkably resilient remarkably good with all the practices i guess what i see now and these are difficult connections to make because
051community behavior is so complex but after a long period of working so hard you know things things build up i wouldn't say that there's a any dramatic increase in behavior referrals but i think that you know our kids have sort of been a long time coming to get out of some of the more restrictive things to be able to play in a structured way at recess and get back to a natural way of doing things that really supports their ability to be resilient and get along yeah i would agree phil and i think also i think we've gotten so much better at embedding social emotional learning and supporting kids throughout the day that i think that we're able to to deal with those things before it gets to a crisis level so i think when
052we see things kind of coming up you know stirring up a little bit in a classroom or with a particular student again staff may let us know because the staff really the eyes and the ears for us so we catch things early and kind of nip it in the bud and deal with that really before it gets to that that critical point so i think that um maybe through the pandemic we've we've had a um a little bit more focus on social emotional learning because it's been such a hot topic but i think we've always done it well but i think we've um we've kind of fine-tuned our practice a little bit times you headed up did you have something to add yeah i would say the same it's harder for me to really paint
053that broad brush i think we you know we meet students where they are individually um i don't know if any of any of the issues that were we work through um necessary may have still been there if if there wasn't a coven so i think um you know that's another good thing i think we were able to catch things very early so and um i don't see you know knock on wood i don't see us uh doing any more or any less you know but some examples are you know like students are very social right so so uh they definitely communicated when they were able to see their friends on a on a full schedule um was a big help um then we see patterns of for post-secondary planning where um students in the years
054trying to get motivated to attend a college that they can't yet go and see uh those are a lot of the issues that we were trying to work through and create opportunities for them to stay motivated and and see this through you know for those better days um so i think those are some of the examples that we work through it sounds as though you've been i'm sorry oh it just sounds like you've been very proactive all along so what what i'm hearing is a lot of proactive um action you know in initiatives um i had one more question so how so uh how does the social worker work does the social worker go to both schools yes yeah he's split between the two schools he has two days at one school and three days
055at one school right now and that could change based on needs and numbers it could change maybe next year but that's um how we started this year we are really very fortunate with the uh the number of support staff we have um so uh we just thought that the social worker would be best suited at both schools so um full staff both sets of staff can work with him and um you know he can oversee kids in both school as well so that's the split position right now every year just to your point earlier about being proactive i think just a pat really bolton on our on our back many of these things and most of these things were in place well before the pandemic right so we've been doing social skills curriculum we've been
056doing zones all of those things we were in place and most of the things that that i talked about for early childhood or that phil and todd talks about is being in place at both schools they've been in place for a long time you know we have fine-tuned them and maybe tweaked them and we were always looking at ways to improve our systems and our practices but none of them really came to be because of the pandemic i mean these are things long-standing interventions that we've had in place great thank you very much and thank you for the great job you've been doing thank you any other comments from board members thank you again everybody very much it was a great presentation appreciate it very much feel free to stay but feel free to go
057all right so thank you very much that was very informative and um hopefully we continue to be proactive and keep that in a good place i don't believe we have any unfinished business this evening um so on to new business and resignations thank you i'd like to uh inform the board this evening that bolton high school math teacher pete turgeon sadly is going to be leaving us and we wish him well in his uh next endeavor and thank him for his many years of dedicated dedicated service to the bolton public schools and bolton high school we also have a resignation from bhs special education teacher chris driscoll and bhs english teacher caitlin moriarty and we wish them well in their endeavors and we also have a resignation from a daily substitute at bcs chelsea de
058nino uh that is it this evening for resignations thank you now we are on to a couple of new courses uh the first one is writing composition style and technique yes thank you uh well we're hoping to we're looking to move forward for approval a new course this would be a one semester elective uh i just wanted to make sure that all board members received with their packet a short overview it looked like a chart with that okay i'm seeing some head nodding so great thanks just want to make sure because that has the the very brief overview that you could have read um in preparation for this evening uh mr dennis is with us this evening and i want to thank him for his hard work and he is the academic leader in at
059bolton high school for english and we are always looking for new electives and new ways to support our learners at the high school and the writing composition and technique has been a course we've talked about for a few years in in bringing forward and we feel that this is a perfect oppor perfect time to be doing this in that this course is designed for all students uh from students who really want to develop skills because it may not be their strongest area to students who are already strong in writing and it is designed to be in a workshop model so that the structure is already differentiated for the variety of learners and really preparing all students for a post-secondary writing experience this is a new course that would have a for this year a zero
060budget impact uh because it would be focused primarily on a variety of resources that the teacher would gather to help um the students who are in their class based on interests and uh the focus of the time it is it stays contemporary with the resources as needed colin is there anything else you'd like to add about this course no i think that that's pretty much it it's designed to help improve students writing skills across the board that's really what we were looking for we saw the opportunity for that that many students reached out and said they wanted to get better at writing beyond what is embedded within the curriculum so we wrote this course with that in mind as an opportunity for those students doesn't give me any questions thank you all right now we
061are looking for a motion to approve the new course writing composition style and technique so moved this is chris a second maria thank you chris and maria does anyone have any comments or questions i just want to thank mr dennis and uh ms malinowski for working on being able to offer this course i think is a great addition for our high school students and i really appreciate that it's a course that will hopefully appeal to you know both kids who need a little extra help with their writing and those who really enjoy writing and want to take it to the next level i think that there's a lot of flexibility with what can be done through the course so i'm excited to see it offered is this just all purely additive to the course selection
062or are there does every do courses also be removed to make room for courses such as this so we have um electives in the junior and senior year and so it would be based on it would be added and then you would we would make the decisions based on what students are selecting okay for that all right great question thank you scott there any other questions or comments i would say that this sounds like a good course to me and i love the zero budgetary impact aspect of it uh and uh if there's nothing else then all those in favor of the motion please say i anyone who's opposed or abstaining okay we have one new course how about ap english language and composition moving hand in hand uh ap language and composition really would
063be that next level this is a college level course of very much what the writing composition style technique is we already offer the ap literature and this would complete the english ap offerings by offering the ap lang it is also an ap course that we are able to offer at 11th grade for students who may be interested which also opens up some areas that we haven't been able to in with some other courses so very similar course again there is no desire so ap always has textbooks that they um have on their list but uh the teacher who's gone through the training sees no need for purchasing this that textbook that would go along with this feels that we have all resources in place to be able to teach it uh ap certainly did a
064amazing pit our college board really all the way around we heard about sjt coming online college board has really pivoted to be an online resource so there are many more online resources than ever before uh including the assessments that kids can take along the way and teachers can can and access at various points so it's way it's much more robust especially for a writing course which is a little different from some of the other ap courses we've brought forward so this one is also a zero budget impact colin again anything else uh yeah i would just like to add um adding ap lang really provides the opportunity um for those students who aren't highly motivated readers to still get an ap english credit and that that's really the biggest reason why we're adding it is
065uh not just for improving the writing but to access all of those learners because not everybody not everybody wants to really invest in the close reading that ap lit requires because they're more of a writing kind of student but they still want to be able to get some ap credit for english in high school and this just allows us to cover those learners as well okay so now i'm looking for a motion to approve a new course ap english language and composition so move to korea second thank you and scott do we have any questions or comments about this new course um i would just like to um really thank the uh curriculum subcommittee for spending and uh colin spending um some really solid time with us in over looking at these courses before we
066prepared for this evening support is always welcomed um and greatly appreciated so thank you for all all of the members uh chris ria and sue for for your time and supporting this thank you does anyone have any other questions or comments or discussion um i would just like to say that i am very very supportive of all ap classes we have added several of them in the last few years and i think it is excellent opportunity for students also attractive to those from other towns that we have been trying to attract and um again love the ap no budget impact uh course that we're offering so all those in favor of the motion please say aye i i that was everybody's very unopposed or abstaining all right we have two new courses that is excellent
067and our last piece of new business is the town of bolton diversity study was asked by ria on behalf of the diversity committee um then that we have in town to put this item on the agenda so ria would you like to tell us what we are looking at thank you uh i just want to say that there are three members of the diversity committee uh with us tonight amanda gordon our chairperson it's the commission uh uh kaijuan gordon and anne decker they came uh they're they're at the this meeting with us um i just wanna uh i am a member also of the bolton diversity commission and uh we pr uh amanda gordon presented uh to the board of selectmen on behalf uh the the diversity survey and they um i don't want to
068read this to you so i'm just going to kind of summarize it uh they approve the distribution of this survey to assess the strengths and opportunities around diversity equity and inclusion in the town of bolton so that's basically the goal the the board of selectmen supports this so the the survey is targeted to members of the community and school-aged youth in grades 7 through 12 and transition the survey collects demographic information from respondents but does not require submission of any identifying information so it is anonymous and uh we will analyze the responses of aggregate data only and will be that will be shared with the stakeholders without any identifying information the board of selectmen is requesting that the board of education and the superintendent of schools facilitate the distribution of the survey electronically to the
069bolton public school students in grades 7 through 12 and the transition program and hard copy surveys will also be available upon request i have been working with dr uh i mean superintendent hacked on the email and survey distribution that will go home via school messenger and um and we'd like it to be completed by friday april 1st um we're hoping that this is completed and we are ready to have a report by um by mid-march or may the latest um i'm sorry we want it ready by july or august and then we will present our report to the board of selectmen uh are there any questions were there any concerns from the administration side on sharing the survey with students so i did have some conversations with both rhea and ann um they did share
070a draft of the survey and i had some questions or comments about it just because i wasn't sure about a couple of the questions and they they did some revisions which was great you know kids can choose to participate or not um and because there's no identifiable information um you know i think it's good information that they're trying to glean um you know from the survey so hopefully you know we we have a good population of students who will complete it it is going to go home to parents um and ria and i did have a conversation about that you know is this something we're going to ask kids to do you want us to ask kids to do in school or go home and what ria had shared was i think the the commission
071had thought that it was just better served to go home and then you know parents could at least if they wanted to see it with their kids and make a decision or not you know whether or not they wanted their kids to to um fill out the survey so how will it then be distributed will you send an email to parents or students it's going to be a school messenger and we do have students believe it or not that are signed up for that as well um and uh so and ask that parents share it with you know their child who's of the appropriate age for the survey um should they you know so choose to do so and ask them to complete it okay chris the school this um the school district is just
072um helping us to distribute and get the survey completed but they really don't have this is from the commission the diversity commission not the school district so we just wanted to make you know have that separation i have no question specifically just a comment that i am happy that we are able to use our network to distribute information on behalf of the town and this is a noble study and hopefully will provide us with some useful information thank you does anyone have any other comments or questions hearing none uh do we have any future business no we do not just a reminder board a finance meeting next thursday night 7 15 where the board will present its budget hope to see you all there uh with that said we are looking for a motion to
073adjourn so moved a second thank you scott and maria is there any questions or comments on the motion all those in favor please say aye hi hey hi opposed we're abstaining i believe that was everyone in favor so we are now returned and thank you everyone for coming this evening