001Call show that all board members of the committee are present and Marissa is watching us remotely and will take the rest of the admissions and Josh would you just let in we No one's showing on the screens I can see. Okay, we go. Thank you. Okay, approval of the agenda looking for a motion to approve the agenda. So moved. Second. Discussion all those in favor. I. We have an agenda. The minutes were submitted to us electronically and presented again tonight. Will someone move to approve the minutes? So moved. Second. Discussion anything need to be changed? All those in favor? I. We have approved our minutes. Public participation members of the public and staff may bring to the committee's attention information, ideas or matters of concern related to all the duties and responsibilities of this committee.
002This committee will not allow comments regarding specific staff members or personal grievances. The time for individual remarks will be apportioned according to the number of speakers and will be limited to 5 minutes per speaker unless extended to the chair and that will not happen because we have a full agenda tonight followed by another meeting with what looks like it could be a long agenda. Does anyone want to speak? No one wants to speak. Thank you. Uh School improvement. School improvement. This is school improvement policy is next. If it has to Yeah, if it has to do with policy committee business. Anyway, uh Mrs. Ferguson, would you please introduce our guests for the community partner report? I would love to. Um so Travis Tannoias is familiar to most of you and Travis's co-worker is Chelsea? Chelsea,
003thank you for being here and I believe we have someone else on Zoom. Um tell me her name. Kathy Hanley. Kathy, right. Hi Kathy, can you hear us? I can. Hello everyone. >> Okay, great. So I'm going to let Travis and his team tell you a little bit about their organization. It's the Western Connecticut Coalition. Is that correct? Okay, so take it away. Thanks so much for being here tonight. Well, thank you all for having us tonight. As you all some of you are familiar with me. My name is Travis Tannoias. I'm a resident of Torrington and so is Chelsea as well. Um and our co-worker Kathy lives down in Fairfield I believe so she's not in person with us tonight, but we work for Western Connecticut Coalition. They cover region five of DMHAS. So
004it's a regional behavioral health action organization. Um tonight we're going to be speaking a little bit on nicotine and vaping um and cannabis as well and Kathy and Chelsea will be covering those issues. Um my position is as as a legislative liaison is to set up these meetings and hopefully connect with the public and see how we can collaborate with our elected officials to push some great initiatives. So thank you guys for having us tonight. We're very grateful for the opportunity to speak. Um so I'm Chelsea Capitanic. I am a certified prevention specialist and like Travis said I work for Western Connecticut Coalition. Um we are the RBHAO or the Regional Behavioral Health Action Organization like he said for DMHAS region five. So we cover 43 municipalities um the greater Danbury, greater Torrington and greater
005Waterbury areas um and we do a lot of great work, but first before I get to that I'm going to let my colleague Kathy introduce herself. Hi everyone, Kathy Hanley. Um I am also a certified prevention specialist and a program manager with Western Connecticut Coalition and like uh Travis and Chelsea just said we do cover a large geographic area. So I'm so happy to be able to join you remotely uh from my town hometown of New Fairfield which is quite a little bit of ways from Torrington. Thank you. So what does an RBHAO do? Um we really practice uh behavioral health promotion throughout the entire continuum of life. Um so we really focus on prevention efforts with substance use. Um we focus on mental health promotion and we just try to equip equip our communities
006with the tools that they need to support their youth, their adults, their older adults, um everyone in between. And we also do a lot of support for our local prevention councils. So I don't know how many of you in the room are familiar with the Torrington Awareness and Prevention Partnership. Um but we provide a lot of support to them and they are one of our local prevention councils. Uh we support 26 of them. And my focus I am a program manager that focuses on cannabis prevention for people who are under 21 and harm reduction for people who are 21 and older. Um but what we really do at Western Connecticut Coalition is we build on community strengths to bolster the protective factors and buffer the risk factors that contribute to substance use and mental health
007concerns. We're very data-driven with our or with our efforts, and I'm going to let Kathy jump into some of the data about nicotine and cannabis use. Great. Thank you, Chelsea. Um, a couple of the other things that we cover, too, and I I have to do a little bit of a shameless plug for our gambling awareness team, too, just because I know that that's something that might be affecting uh younger folks in our schools with the expansion of sports betting and other gambling opportunities, and also suicide prevention. So, uh we do provide uh lots of education, awareness, and training about those uh those topics as well. Um, so, like Chelsea said, we are here to focus on a little bit more on nicotine and cannabis efforts. And uh what we like to do when we
008talk about the work that we're doing is balance a little bit of concern with hope. So, you know, we've just talked about some heavy topics related to, you know, substance use, mental health, suicide awareness, things like that. Um, but but we also like to shine a little bit of light and bring some hope to our communities, and we can do that with data. So, um we're happy to report that most youth in Torrington are not using nicotine, and they are not using cannabis. And we are very fortunate that the Torrington um Prevention Council that Chelsea mentioned a few moments ago um has been collecting youth data in your community. Um, our work is very data-driven. It helps to um inform our work. We we do multiple assessments across the communities that we service in order
009to help us prioritize the issues and really understand what they look like at the local level so that we can put strategies together to address things, and also measure our um successes, which is another thing that we use data for. So, we are happy to report that from the 2023 Youth Voices Count Survey, we did look at your data, and uh your past 30 day use rates among youth for cannabis and nicotine are both at about 3%, and you had a good response rate from that survey. So, we are happy to report that, and those those numbers do align with what we're seeing across our region and across the state that most of our young people are not engaged in these behaviors. Um, that does not mean that our work ends here. We do still
010have to support those who are engaged, and we also want to make sure that we're continuing to keep that age of onset very low and prevent um young people from engaging at all in these behaviors, uh especially anyone really who's under the age of 21. And so, uh like I was saying, you know, if we we we need to balance hope with concern, and if we want health, we need to talk about health. And so, we're here to promote some of our programs um that we're we're doing in our communities. And so, I'll start by talking a little bit about the underage nicotine prevention program. That is one of um one of the things that we're doing within our substance use prevention. And so, I am the program manager for that. We have um within
011the five regional behavioral health action organizations, our RBHAOs, there is a team of people just like me and Chelsea, plus the other staff members that we have in our office in Watertown, focusing on different areas. So, the underage nicotine prevention program covers the entire state, and the things that we are doing with some funding from the Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services is raising awareness about this issue. We are providing education. We have a library of resources that we share. We are going to college campuses and into schools to do tablings to talk to young people. Uh we are going to be developing a campaign, and we are also doing our best to promote cessation supports. We we understand from our youth survey data that um many people are looking to quit, and that
012goes for adults as well. So, you know, us promoting cessation services is not just for kids, it's for really anybody. Um, we unfortunately lose a lot of people to tobacco use um in here in the United States, so we're always trying to encourage folks to quit, and there are free resources that are offered uh throughout the states. So, we'll make sure that you get connected to that resource. Um, and lastly, I'll just mention that we're we're considering the environment when we think about vapes. They're very complicated um products that contain batteries and hazardous waste, and we're concerned about what's happening to those when when folks are done with them. There's not a great uh plan in place for disposal, so we're working on that as well. So, that's a little bit about the underage nicotine
013program, and then I'm going to go ahead and turn it back over to Chelsea. Thank you. Thanks, Kathy. Um, a lot of the cannabis work that I do involves prevention, like I said, for people who are under the age of 21. Um, a lot of the work that we do kind of overlaps with the nicotine program, which I'll get to in just a moment, but one of the big pushes that we have with the cannabis program is promoting safe storage. As we all know, cannabis is legal for adults 21 and over, um so there are a lot of parents that maybe have young children and cannabis in the home, and we are seeing an increase in calls to poison control and to emergency department visits. But there's some hope in that these lock bags that
014we push out there completely free. Anyone can get one, and it's shown a lot of success in just getting some conversations started about, you know, safe storage, and you know, kind of removing some of that shame and promoting action in place of that. Um, so that's, you know, a lot of the work that we do with the cannabis, like I said, overlaps with the nicotine program. Um, we're focused on doing community education just like this. Um, one of the most powerful protective factors that we can provide as a community is just talking about things, and you know, making sure that we're getting evidence-based information that we can then share with our youth, and you know, promote those positive behaviors. Um, and we also focus a lot on promoting those positive community norms by flipping it
015and saying, "Hey, most teens are not using cannabis or nicotine." Think about how powerful of a message that sends and kind of makes kids feel like, "Oh, wow, I'm in the norm. I'm not going against the grain by not using it. Um, I'm I'm actually pretty normal," which is what any youth wants to feel, right? Um, but the overlap, especially with that education, involves kind of addressing the retail environment. I'm sure, you know, you've all seen some of the vape stores that are in Torrington. Um, there's been uh I believe a 40% increase of those establishments um in our region since 2021 across those 43 towns, and Torrington's no different. So, we really advocate for strong policies to reduce access um with both nicotine and cannabis at those establishments, as well as provide education to
016the retailers themselves, and develop partnerships to hopefully, you know, get them on the same page with us. Um, and a lot of the work that we do involves the education sector. Um, we work with law enforcement, parents. We work with businesses, um you know, substance use treatment facilities, all different sectors, but our schools are some of the champions of the work that we do. So, what does that look like for us? Um, a lot of capacity building so we can provide education for staff just like this. Um, you know, we have a big training that actually we're going to be providing for Region 20 schools tomorrow um to cover nicotine, cannabis prevention, um having conversations with students, the whole nine yards. Um, we can also offer parent education. We have a work group, which if
017you open the folders that Travis so kindly passed out, we do have a flyer for that work group. It meets on the first Thursday of every month from 11:00 to 12:30, and we do offer it in a hybrid format. We offer a Google Drive with all of the notes and um resources that we share in case you're not able to attend. But mainly, we really want to just uh network with partners in the work that we do and share information as widely as we possibly can, um because you just never know who knows who that might need to see it. And the last thing I'll mention um is, you know, we network with our local prevention councils, so I really encourage you to check out TAP, which is the Torrington Awareness and Prevention Partnership. I
018believe they do um the Insight Group here at Torrington High School. I used to work at McCall as well. I know how awesome of a program that is. Um, but we also offer policy review. You know, we we love to partner with our schools to help them to promote evidence-based best practices in their policies. And I'm going to turn it over to Kathy to close us out. Thank you, Chelsea. So, yeah, we we really appreciate the opportunity to come here and speak with you folks tonight. We're just giving you kind of a brief overview of what it is that we do um in hopes that maybe we can develop some additional relationships uh to work with Torrington schools to protect youth. Um, building building relationships with people is really something that's at the at the
019crux of the work that we do. Like we are community organizers. We can't do this work alone. We're a small staff of about 10 people covering 43 municipalities, and so we bring all of the sectors together when we are looking to tackle um an issue. And so, working with our schools is really important. Taking a multi-pronged approach to all of this work is really important, and using uh multiple strategies to look at looking at policy and and and approaching it from lots of different standpoints is really important. And again, I just like to bring us back to that um you know, feeling of of concern and balancing it with hope, and uh I think we can do that um together, and we're stronger as we as we work together as a as a larger community.
020So, um I hope that we can work together with you folks, and I know that you probably have questions. Uh we just we do, you know, have a large body of work that we're working on in addition to nicotine and cannabis, so we're happy to um field any of those questions with you now. Thank you. And thank you. And so this is a state agency? So we are a non-profit but we work very closely with DMHAS and we kind of get some of the funding from the DMHAS block grant to our local prevention councils. Okay, any other funding besides block grants from the state? That's a good question. I'd be happy to look into our funding revenue but Kathy I don't know if you have any answers for that. I think primarily the the way
021we do our work is through contracts that we have with the Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services but we do have other funding streams. Yes, we do. But primarily it's the work that we're doing through DMHAS. Okay, thank you. Who else has questions? Someone has to have a question. Do you do classroom visits? That's a really good question. We can definitely talk about that. Our capacity is kind of spread thin across those 43 municipalities but we can always talk about you know arranging something. Something I'll add to is when I was a student at WestConn separate from Western Connecticut Coalition we did programs and trainings through this organization on suicide prevention and overdose prevention. So obviously depending on the demographic and the content of the information that was really helpful for college age students
022especially to do in classrooms. So. And if you don't mind what I'd like to add to that to the answer to that question is that we're really good at helping to connect folks to resources that are available. There's a couple of things that I want to mention on the nicotine side of things the Tobacco Health and Trust Fund through the Department of Public Health is starting to distribute additional funding across the state to bolster our prevention and cessation efforts. And one of the things that will be offering to schools through the Catch My Breath Foundation is some additional curricula that that schools can use in a training of the trainer. So if you have staff capacity to be able to do some additional small group work within your school district you may be able to
023take advantage of this training of the trainer program and as soon as we have a more formal flyer put together on that we'll get that out to everybody cuz the funding was just announced in the last couple of months so it's fairly new. In addition to that there are free things that can be downloaded from Stanford University and other really important resources. Stanford does an amazing amount of research on nicotine and cannabis and offers all kinds of free downloadable resources to schools as well as the American Lung Association. So we can make sure that we share all of those resources with you folks as a follow-up to tonight's program. So then it would you have offered your services and you would hope that somebody from the school system would avail ourselves of it. Is that
024what what happens? I'm sorry, can you clarify the question? >> Well, okay, you're going to you're going to Region 20 tomorrow. How did you make that contact? Sure, so we provided a community training in Litchfield where the assistant superintendent attended and wanted us to then train her staff. Okay, so somebody from the school system would reach out to you and invite you Yeah. >> to us and just as you have we appreciate that you've offered yourselves to us to present to the board and it's been very useful. Sue, you want to say something? Yeah, I was just going to say we were excited when Travis when you reached out and we're happy that you're here tonight. So thank you all of you. We would love I know you're saying that perhaps you don't have the
025capacity right now but we would love to continue the conversation get some information. I know that's probably where Aaron was headed. We definitely um could we have a need for you know raising awareness around all of these topics. So I hope that we can continue and you know engage in a partnership. I know it would benefit everybody. We're always happy to talk about doing staff trainings as well because our capacity as an organization might be spread thin but sharing the information with people who can then share information with students and their parents and their networks you know that's how we get a lot of the work that we do and build the capacity for ourselves. So we're always happy to connect and we appreciate you giving us the time and the platform to come and
026talk to you guys. So thank you. Something I wanted to add to is we actually also met with Mayor Spino recently and one thing that came up while we were talking about a lot of this is disposable of just vapes alone. So that was just one topic of conversation meeting with her and discussing ways of just handling the waste of these products alone in our community kind of led from that conversation from that. So we're hoping as well from here we can lead into more discussions of how we can collaborate and help. So and I can also connect with you Sue about setting up some trainings and with our co-workers and seeing what that looks like. Great, thank you. Thank you. Aaron again. With that in mind I see that you have a social media
027presence. Is there a mailing list like an email mailing list that staff could get on to so that they can get updates in regards to what's available? Absolutely. So if you go to our website which is wctcoalition.org you can sign up for our mailing list and if you want to reach out to myself or Kathy our email addresses are throughout the packet of information that we gave you. We can add you to our list that's specifically for the Breathe Easy Work Group which covers nicotine and cannabis but we also have plenty of resources that we can just share with you to download and share as much as you'd like. So yeah, absolutely. Okay. Thank you very much for coming tonight. We appreciate it and expect that we will be doing business with you. Thank you.
028Glad to hear it. Thank you everyone. Thanks everybody. Thank you. Okay. High school report. I'm going to ask Miss Conway if she would just report on our visit to the high school. She does that so much better than I do. Me. John gave me a compliment. Yeah, so myself John and Belle went to THS on last Thursday. Thursday. Thank you to Mr. Scott for giving us a tour. Um we did take a quick look at the the gym floor and heard a little bit about that. We saw the new auto mechanics room shop which was really impressive. Saw foods class, couple history classes and art class. Did hear a lot about their successes but I'll leave that up to Mr. Scott to review and yeah, we had a great visit. So thank you very much.
029And as as usual certainly as usual in the high school we saw a very well run school that seemed to be getting a lot of things done except and the AI committee will be interested in hearing this. AI is no help for scheduling. It is still a bear. It's a monster and has to be done by real people considering real other people. So anyway, all yours Mr. Scott. All right, well thank you so much. We have one more participant on our panel who will be coming back in for just a minute and joining us. But I thought tonight we would do our presentation a little bit different. So we have a few of our outstanding student body here and Kadida's going to kick us off. That's off. Okay. Hello, my name is Kadida Fraser and
030I am a senior here at Torrington High School. I am the president of the senior class, captain of the track and field team and the founder and president of our Black Student Union. I'm here tonight to introduce the annual Torrington High School School Improvement Committee annual presentation. This was a very exciting year at THS and I think you'll be thrilled to hear about our progress and accomplishments this year. Our presentation today will cover student population and demographics, student data, some program highlights, THS Early College opportunities, teacher professional development, student student behavior trends and some highlights for the senior class. Okay, so first we're going to look at our demographic trends. So you'll notice in 1718 our population um I want you to pay attention wait wait a minute. I want you to first pay attention
031to the the number of students that we have which is 884. The following 20 to 2021 we have 888 students. And then this year and 2526 that number bumped all the way up to 1028. So we have quite a difference in the number of our students. We then want you to just take a quick peek at our demographics which has changed. In that 1718 year we had 55.7% white students and 24% Hispanic and Latino students which were made up the the bulk of our population. Fast forward to 2526 and 39% of white students make up our population with 38% Hispanic and Latino students and then a diverse group in between. Hello, my name is Miley Yoa and I am also a senior at Torrington High School. I am a 12th grade representative in the THS
032student focus groups. I served as a student representative on the committee to create the portrait of a graduate for Torrington Public Schools. I am a current member of the Science Club, the planning committee for Raider Rally community fundraiser and an inductee to multiple national honor societies. Among the largest highlights of the past year was the students performance on the STAR assessments with an increase in students at or above state benchmark from 48% to 54% on STAR reading and 13% to 18% on STAR math assessments. Additionally, our four-year graduation rate has increased by 11% with a final rate of 88%. This graduation rate has only been reached by Torrington High School four times in the past 20 years. Hi, I'm Erin Sullivan. I'm the English Department Head at Torrington High School and some call me the
033cruise director around here. So, I'm going to cover what's happening at THS. We had in the fall our third annual THS Harvest Fest which was visited by over 70 vendors here in our new building and we had a great turnout for that. A lot of great community connections formed. In addition, we had the Holiday Spirit Project and just recently our Easter Egg Hunt run by Chef Tom in community partnerships. We also had our annual Deck the Halls event which has happened I think for about the past 10 years where the students get into a friendly competition around the holiday time to really bring some spirit and and some joy to the hallways here at THS. We are in our third year of our E-Day competition our E-Day extravaganza which celebrates diverse interests here at the
034school and it is a day in the fall and the spring where students are able to choose from a myriad of workshops that are offered by the teachers specifically to form stronger bonds between our students and teachers and to share common interests so that we can build those relationships. We paired that in the fall with a pep rally as well and the event was probably our biggest hit yet and we are looking forward to another one this spring. In our new auditorium we've hosted the USAF band, our course THS and TMS drama productions, the Apollo 11 documentary taking full advantage of our new wonderful space here being able to host those programs. Likewise in our new gym, the unified basketball tournament, the Naugatuck girls basketball tournament have all been able to be offered. We also
035have coming soon our eighth Raider Rally event. This is an event community fundraiser that started back in 2013. We have raised over $100,000 for our local charities in the eight years seven previous years that we have run this program where students band together in order to support our local food banks and shelters. And as of right now we have raised over $4,000 with donations still coming in and again community partnerships and as Miley mentioned this is a student run program where they are working together to form that. Not on our slide but I just wanted to add in addition we have a robust international travel program run primarily by myself and Angel Norridge branching out into cultural exposure but also we're looking to add in service projects with that travel program. Okay, we had two
036teachers that were unable to join us tonight that originally said they were going to be joining us. So, filling in for Mr. Spletzerger is Steve Barton our Torrington High School Student Services Coordinator. Thank [clears throat] you. Just to put over our music program a bit here, our enrollment growth, our band student participation increased by 55% and our orchestra by 34%. Our choir maintained a stable foundation while still growing by 2%. Our Dallas Brass, the THS and TMS band students received master classes and lessons followed by a live performance with Dallas Brass professional musicians. Some band achievements and performances, all A ratings at the CCSU Music Festival which is the highest evaluation. UConn Band Day with over 1,000 high school musicians. Drum Line World Mental Health Day Ceremony. And the drum line and chamber choir at
037Torrington's Torringford's Veterans Day Ceremony. The music technology recognized at CT and New Jersey Music Educators Association conferences. It was featured in Tune Monthly Magazine volume 23 number six. And the next slide just shows you some pictures from our outstanding music program. The other teacher that was unable to join us tonight was Colonel Chloris. So, filling in for Colonel Chloris this evening is Chase Elliott. I'm Cadet Colonel Chase Elliott. I also serve as a captain on the football team. Our ROTC program recently had our annual inspection and we earned a total overall grade of 94.8 which is exceeds standards. We also recently hosted our the Air Force Rock Band Full Spectrum here. And we just are doing many other events and we recently completed a helped in Chef Tom's community service event for Easter. And so
038the cadets helped in just organize everything, make sure everything went smoothly. And we also filled all the Easter eggs for this event. 5,000 eggs. The next slide just shows some pictures of recent award winners we had. So, this was during our inspection. We had on the left is Cadet Nick Borgia. In the middle is Cadet Anna Camille Nott and then on the right is Brody Castle. Hi and good evening everyone. I am Amy Ferrari. I am a business education teacher as well as the CTE Department Chair here at THS. I'm thankful to take a moment to talk about how proud I am of so many students who have successfully completed what's called the Future Bankers Internship Program over the last three years here at THS. For those of you who are not familiar with the
039program the Future Bankers Program which is brought to us by the Northwest Regional Workforce Investment Board seeks to motivate and target talented students who may be interested in pursuing a career path in the financial services industry. The students are committed to 60 hours of live virtual classroom instruction through the American Bankers Association which leads them to receive the widely recognized Practel online teller training certificate. They uh at during spring break in just over a week the students are placed in various institutions that we partner with for a week-long paid internship where they will job shadow, network with professionals and be involved in daily branch related tasks. In addition to the certificate that they earn for the teller training, the program is eligible for three college credits for intro to banking, principles of banking. I financial
040community to continue to bring meaningful career related experiences to everyday learning. Thanks. In addition to our uh Future Bankers Internship Program we have also maintained our health care internship programs both with the Charlotte Hungerford Hospital and the McCall Behavioral Foundation. And additionally we were able to begin the process of aligning an additional health care internship with the Waterbury Hospitals. Okay. Oop. Josh, if you could head back. I'm Andrew Marchand, one of the assistant principals at the high school. New courses [clears throat] for the 26-27 school year that we're looking at. One of them is 27-28 up there, the introduction to fire science which we brought forward to the school improvement committee earlier. But the UConn Physics 120, you guys have all actually approved all of these courses but we are looking at running them for
041next year. The UConn ECE Environmental Science. And you'll notice that we are kind of steering we are steering more towards UConn courses instead of the AP courses. There is a little bit they're very extremely rigorous but you don't have to take that test and that's the only thing that really the college credit is based on is that test at the end of the year. Whereas the UConn credit if they can pass the course and understand that they go by the same standards of that they would in college. So, it's much more accepted out there accepted at many more universities. The students have really really liked them and and kind of grown to them. AP Seminar is the next one we're going to start running. That's an opportunity for students in grade 10 and it's going
042to be open in grade 10 to take an actual AP class and that's more about research and I'm how to presentation. More about presentation and research and learning how to actually stand up in front of people, present, and get more rigor out of the classroom so you're ready for your other classes coming up. We have a new interior design course and a digital drawing course, which will be pretty cool. We're offering more electives cuz we are We have a lot of students that are trying to get into all of our elective courses that are very popular. So, it's been very nice. Okay, the next two slides are about our SAT and PSAT data. As you know, that the SAT data does not come out for this year until over the summer. So, we do not
043have any results for the SAT for this school year. But, if you take a look at the SAT reading data on the first slide, we did increase not by a large amount, but we did increase again in the 2025 school year. So, taking a look back at the last three consecutive SAT school days, you see a steady rate of increase for our reading for information scores. The PSAT, we changed the dates of this year. We had traditionally tested PSAT 8 9 and PSAT 10 11 in the spring. This year, that was moved to the fall. So, we no longer have consecutive cohort data for that. Though, hopefully next year we will start seeing some cohort data again. The next slide is the SAT PSAT math, which continues to be the largest area of concern and
044growth possibility for our school. As you can see looking back over the last three SAT school days, we were at 17%, 19%, and 17%. We have taken some new approaches this year to try to improve those SAT math scores including our math department posting a SAT question of the week in which students were all given SAT practice questions. And if they answered the question correctly, they went into a drawing in which they could win a prize. So, we're trying all kinds of different ways of trying to get that SAT math score up. But, these are the results as of now. Who is this Mr. Marshall? I'm Elizabeth Goyette. I'm one of the science teachers here at THS. And I'm here to present about our AP data and our ECE course data. So, one of the
045things that we're extremely proud of with our AP is we've seen a about a 15% increase between 2024 to 2025 in the percentage of AP students scoring a three or better. And with that 15% increase, we've also seen more students act having access to AP courses as well. And we'll have hopefully even more with the addition of our ECE physics and AP the environmental science. So, with our ECE, we do have 14 courses currently offered. And then we have at least 300 216 students taking at least one course. And one of the great things about that is they if they pass, they earn that college credit. We have about 4.9 credits per student, which amounts to many students saving a lot of money over time having graduated with some courses already transferable to colleges. Okay.
046So, the next slide is about the professional learning that we engage with our teachers in. As you have heard me say for the past 6 years, I believe the best professional learning comes from teacher to teacher. So, we have maintained that model again this year. We are now in the fourth year of new teacher workshop here at the high school. Our new teacher workshop is open to all first and second year teachers in the building regardless of the amount of past experience that they have. We meet monthly with all of these teachers and we cover a variety of topics everything from classroom management all the way up to the simple things like how to fill out a field trip form. Classroom lab is also in its fourth year. Classroom lab is organized by Marla Cain.
047She's one of our instructional coaches. Classroom lab brings together a group of about 10 teachers. They visit each other's classrooms in order to give each other feedback to help improve instructional practices. Professional learning at faculty meetings has continued now for our third year. We do host an administrator professional development for myself, the assistant principals, Mr. Barton, and we do invite the middle school administrative team as well. This is our third year of administrative professional development. We have an inspiring administrators workshop that we've had for the past few years. This is for all of our teachers who are interested in pursuing either obtaining a 092 certificate to become an administrator or already hold an 092 certificate and are considering going into administration. And then we also introduced a critical friends protocol, which brings together course alike
048teachers to get them into each other's classrooms to learn from each other. I get the behavior slides. So, the first one up you'll see the top five referral categories. This is pretty interesting if you look at the at the data for these for these slides here. You'll see where defiance and insubordination was um extremely [clears throat] high back in 22-23. We've done a lot of work with the administration team after that where we came through and we've developed very consistent strategies and a progressive discipline policy that I believe that has led to a very a big decline in a lot of these numbers that you're going to see here. Now, granted the numbers in the white, which are current year 25-26, are only up until now. But, really we don't have much further to go.
049So, it's it's a pretty good outlook. If you look at the defiance and insubordination, way down from last year. Skipped class is way down. Inappropriate location is down. A little bit. A dress code violation is probably the one that we are we are seeing quite a bit of more than we have in the past. Um There's several reasons for that. The tech violation you'll see is down actually. We are still following through with all of them. We do have a lot of a lot of write-ups. We have a lot of write-ups that come in for dress code and for tech violation still. We're at about 400 there. And we're in April. So, we do have those coming in. And if you want to go to the next slide, Josh. Some other referral data here. As
050you scan across, you'll see the decline here all the way over to the right. But, the big numbers that I want you to look at are the the physical aggression is down, the disruption is down. Um Really the the the fighting, if you take a look at the fights that are here, um you know, it's actually way down. We have not had many of those. And a lot of it is again due to it's it's it's due to the the strict policies that we do have here. Use of possession and tobacco is down. And the use of restricted substances, which would be the THC and the cannabis that they were referring to before, is way down. That is a overall testament I think just to the administration, but to our security team as well who
051have in the past couple of years have done sweeps throughout the building making sure they're walking in and out of the bathrooms consistently through the teachers who are always monitoring. I mean, I think a lot of it, and I could be wrong. I feel I'm optimistic as well, but I think the new building, people have a lot of pride in the new building, too. We're not seeing I don't want to say this too much, but we're not seeing any any major of the major issues. I think there's a lot of pride that is coming in through this building when people are walking in. Um So, to actually happen right away was was pretty impressive for the community to to back it up. If we look at the We can move on to the in school
052and out of school. Next slide. Yeah, perfect. In school and out of school suspension trends. You can see the suspension trends are way down as well. So, that's across the board as far as in school and out of school suspensions. We are you know, the state did mandate restorative practices. We do practice restorative practices. But, along with that does come consequences still. Restorative doesn't mean you don't have consequences. It just means we try to repair what's going on. So, it has been working. We have a great um reflection room and restorative behavior technicians who have done a fantastic job with really deflating any kind of issue that may pop up and use preventative measures for that. We have a very responsive security team like I said. The admin team has been working well. Um And
053I mean, we can't we have to point out the obvious of FAST. I mean, once we had FAST come into play, that has helped tremendously in our building as far as the I believe the culture and what's going on. But, it's not just FAST. It's the way everybody else has been really working together. All right. Hello, my name is Nate Peppler. I'm vice president of the senior class. I'm a member of the planning committee for Raider Rally as well as the president of the Thespian Honor Society, an active member of the drama club, the Spanish Honor Society, as well as a recipient of the Seal of Biliteracy. On this slide, you're going to see a few highlights of where some of our classmates of the class of 2026 are going to be heading off to
054next year including Harvard, Boston University, as well as the University of Connecticut. We don't have a full list of where students will be attending this early in the year. But, we will certainly get that list to you as soon as it is avail- as soon as it is available. Um, I personally just committed to Boston University this past weekend. Um, among the Thank you. Among the significant individual accomplishments of our seniors this year, we had a senior who will be receiving a full ride scholarship to Washington and Lee University through the QuestBridge Scholarship. Um, another student who received a full scholarship to Boston University as well through the Horatio Alger and ECMC programs, as well as an additional senior who qualified as a National Merit Scholarship winner. Okay. And that is our presentation. Um, if
055you have any questions, we'd be happy to take them, and that's it. Thank you. And let's remember those figures that Andrew was showing for disciplinary figures are with more students. So, as the numbers are down with 200 more students, that's that's something to keep in keep in mind. Uh, questions or comments? Who wants to say something or ask something? Good presentation. Variety of presenters. Go ahead, Jeff. Mr. Putnam wants to say something. >> [clears throat] >> Uh, the numbers look great on the discipline and and all of these things. Great work to the whole team. Um, the question was on the restorative practices. You said that the in-school and out-of-school was affected. Those numbers are being contributed to by restorative practices, but those restorative practices would still be a discipline referral, right? I mean, so
056the trend is still in a positive significantly positive direction. Yes, the total number of referrals is down dramatically, and, you know, to Mr. Marchand's point, part of it has to do with our security team, part of it has to do with restorative practices and the RBTs, but I think largely it mostly has to do with our students. Um, our students have incredible pride in themselves and in their school, and really the culture of our building has come a really long way in a handful of years. And for those of you who may not have been at the FAST Academy presentation, the referrals at FAST aren't It's not like they just moved to me. It's a significant improvement across the board, so that environment seems to really be helping. So, thank you all. More questions or
057anything else to say? Aaron. Uh, I just want to speak to that. I actually was discussing with my sophomores one day the idea of culture and how you define culture, and I asked them to define the culture of Torrington High School, and the first word that came out of their mouth was family. And I think that the administrative team and the work they've done and the work that the whole school community has done to really build and improve that culture is sort of wrapped up in that anecdote. So, please. We just want to thank the students for participating. It was great to see you all. Thank you for your contributions and congratulations and best wishes going forward. Congratulations, Nate. I would echo that. Thank you very much. And to the professionals who showed up tonight,
058too. A lot of people involved. Thank you. That's it. I'm going to let them go. Thank you. Thank you very much. Uh, update. Distinguished Alumnus 2026. The committee met just before this meeting, and we have selected our distinguished alumnus, and that will that person will be contacted, and then the information will be made uh, public. But, we are very confident that we have chosen a very good candidate. And thanks again to Mrs. Ferguson for the work she does to put it all together so we can just You are most welcome. It's my pleasure. Thank you. We're going to miss you in this capacity as well as all the others. Uh, AI Committee progress. Only put it here uh, just because there's no other place to really make the announcement. We met on Monday night, and
059met for about hour and a half, maybe, and have a path forward to uh, sorting out artificial intelligence in the Torrington Public Schools. And topics for future meetings. Anyone want to add something to that? Say what? Math program. That will happen probably the June meeting because and and I can jump ahead to make this announcement. This committee will not meet in May. It will meet in June, but in May this time slot will be given to the uh, artificial intelligence committee. So, if you're interested in that, just come before the Policy Committee meeting and and and be here for that and see that. Um, but anything else for future meetings? No? Okay. Comments for the good of the order. Aaron, please. Thank you, too, my fellows at THS, students and um, faculty and admin for
060a great presentation and great meeting. Thank you. Bill. Good meeting. Thank you. Good meeting. Good meeting, John. Very efficient. You finished right on time this time. Special for you. Special for Policy Committee meeting. Uh, great meeting. Thanks for the great presentation, and that's good to see that one of the goals of the new building was if you build it, they will come or they will stay, right? And it's great to see there's 20% more students staying in Torrington Public Schools. It's a testament to the good work everybody's doing, so thank you very much, and have a great night. Mrs. Ferguson. Mr. Wilson. Yes, thanks to everybody who participated tonight and who presented tonight, and I'm looking for a motion to adjourn. So moved. Second. All those in favor? Aye. We are adjourned. Thank you. >>
061Here we go. Call to order. Jason LaFrancine Erie. >> [laughter] >> Call to order. Yeah, we have Bill. We have John Kisco, and we have Kristen Conway and myself. Um, can I have a motion to approve the agenda? Second. All those in favor? I. Can I have a motion for the approval of minutes? Um, so moved. All those in favor? Can I just ask for a fixing of the spelling of my name? It's not a capital L. It's not a capital? It's lower case. Sorry. That's okay. Oops. Who was the second to Public participation. >> [snorts] >> Members of the public and the staff may bring to the committee's attention information, ideas, or matters of concern related to all the duties and responsibilities of this committee. This committee will not allow comments regarding specific staff
062members or personal grievances. The time for individual remarks will be apportioned accordingly to the number of speakers and will be limited to 5 minutes per speaker unless extended by the chair. I think Miss Machado Good evening. My name is Sandy Mangan. I am speaking to you this evening as a former kindergarten teacher, a current literacy interventionist, and the TEA president. I have been a teacher in Torrington for 37 years. Over the course of my career, I have taught second grade, first grade, a transition class between kindergarten and first, and [snorts] kindergarten. During that time, I have witnessed significant changes in curriculum expectations across all grade levels. The rigor required at each level has steadily increased. In fact, much of what I once taught in first grade grade is now expected in kindergarten. I taught kindergarten
063for 10 years, and I have seen firsthand how our youngest learners can struggle to navigate a full school day at just 4 years old. During the 24-25 school year, the first year the state implemented the new kindergarten entry age, the difference we saw in student readiness for kindergarten was remarkable. Students were better able to focus for longer periods, write their names, recognize a substantial number of letters, follow multi-step directions, and manage basic self-care tasks such as putting on coats and opening containers. That's just a simple list. It could go on. Developmentally, the mainly 5-year-olds were ready to be away from their families for the full day. I didn't have children crying because they were overwhelmed by the expectations of a full day of kindergarten. Children who begin kindergarten before they are developmentally ready may develop
064lower self-esteem, become easily frustrated, and exhibit behavioral challenges. Allowing waivers for 4-year-olds creates the potential for significant age gaps, sometimes more than a full year within a single classroom. This difference is meaningful. Between the ages of 4 and 5, children experience critical developmental growth, particularly in executive functioning skills such as attention, working memory, and self-regulation. During this time, they also develop important physical and cognitive abilities, which are foundational for early literacy skills tasks. While many of us recall attending kindergarten at age 4, the reality is that kindergarten today is vastly different than what we experienced. It isn't even what it was 10 years ago. It is no longer a half-day, play-based program. Today's kindergarten students are expected to read, solve addition and subtraction problems within 10, including word problems, and produce opinion, narrative, and informational
065writing pieces. What was once a 2.5-hour play-centered experience, often including rest time, is now a rigorous 7-hour academic day. In today's kindergarten classroom, recess occurs about halfway through the day. Play occurs at the very end of the day with a focus on content integration. Children who begin school when they are developmentally ready are far more likely to experience early success. Those who are not ready often struggle. We have seen 4-year-olds who were not developmentally ready to face challenges that led to frustration, a dislike of school, attendance concerns, and delays in learning. In the past 2 years, some of the students granted kindergarten waivers have required intervention support, been recommended for summer school to bridge the gaps in their learning, or have been considered for retention due to difficulty meeting kindergarten standards. Our district offers options
066other than kindergarten for the students who have birthdays between September 1 and December 31. We have a full-day integrated pre-K program that accepts model peers. We also have the full-day THS preschool program. Both programs are full day, are play-based, and are developmentally appropriate for our youngest learners. The pre-K programs have additional adults in the classrooms that also provide support for the students. A typical kindergarten classroom only has the teacher. There [snorts] might be an additional adult for parts of the day when there are students that have that support listed on their IEPs. For the start of the 24-25 school year, Connecticut passed legislation to change the date at which children must turn 5 to enter kindergarten. When the legislation passed, there was a waiver option. With the signing of Public Act 26-1, the governor has
067made waivers for the 26-27 school year optional for school districts. The waivers are removed completely for the 27-28 school year. We all want our kindergarten students to begin their educational journey with confidence and success. For that reason, I strongly encourage the Board of Education to eliminate the waiver option for the 26-27 school year. Uh, three of my former kindergarten colleagues also wrote letters who could not be here this evening. I did share them with Marissa. I think she may have sent them to you via email. I also [snorts] have um six printed copies that I can give you. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks. Who's on the list next? Carly Goodwin. Good evening. My name is Carly Goodwin and I'm a parent in this community. When I first went in February to ask for change on
068the excessive use of tablets, I was given the excuse of hands being tied and the blame was passed to teachers. Well, I am not okay with that answer and to be honest, insulted at the assumption that I would be. What I do suspect now is that we decided to follow the herd, spend an obscene amount of money on one-to-one tablets, and now no one wants to admit this might have been a mistake. Thankfully this year we have been blessed with three wonderful teachers who do their best to limit screens, but with no limitations or guidelines in place, the future is what scares me. In case anyone isn't aware of what's happening, let's begin with the most concerning. With the increase of screens in schools, adolescent depression depression and suicide rates are climbing to disturbing levels.
069Kids are being flooded with artificial dopamine. I'll let you look up the side effects from that, but as a nurse in this community, I can tell you that that statistic has already started to infiltrate our town. A 12-year-old should never be having thoughts of self-harm. So, that part needs to sink in tonight and prevention needs to start immediately. Moving on to cognitive, besides the increase of behavior issues and the addiction aspect, look up the reverse Flynn effect, which is proving younger generations' average IQ scores are lower than their predecessors, which is happening for the first time in over a century. If that's not alarming enough, current MRI scans are showing structural changes in the gray and white matter of these kids' brain development. So, executive functioning, literacy skills, and normal brain processing are all being
070affected along with a steady decline of comprehension. So, first it was lowering of the SAT standards and now that it shows alterations on most standardized testing. So, is this the current plan for all of our kids? To keep lowering the bar to justify the scores? What's next for the future class? Participation awards instead of diplomas? We need to stop lowering standards and start raising them. This is the future, the next generation that's going to be taking over, and now more than ever we need hard-working, mentally stable members of society. Bottom line is this, parents want the tablets gone and the books out of storage. We are all set with waiting to hear what's next on the list of side effects from these edtech tools. Our kids are not experiments and their mental health is not
071a game. It's time to go back to paper-based learning and human connection. The fact that no policy was ever drawn up prior to the introduction of these is extremely irresponsible. I am not anti-tech, but I do believe in limits. There is no need for tablets during recess or free time. And honestly, elementary students shouldn't have them at all. Lexia and all these game-based supplements need to go. As for middle school and high school, the fact that everything is computer-based is a shame and I hope very soon we can all recognize that nothing will ever beat hands-on learning. So, after all the research and studies that are out there, can you blame me for assuming that the only reason the district defends these is due to money spent? If hands are truly tied, then direct me
072to your leader because I'm not backing down and I will fight for you as well. And if there are any teachers who are protesting to keep these devices, then I would highly suggest you start questioning their true passion for teaching because if science proves time and time again the dangers of edtech learning, then who are these tablets really benefiting? I'm going to end by reminding you of Torrington School's mission statement, which is to graduate all students with the knowledge, skills, ethics, attitude, and confidence to succeed in their future. The real world doesn't lower their standards, they hire the applicants who can meet with them. So, if you're truly aiming for their success, you need to formulate a policy with only their best interest in mind. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you. Ella
073Lee? No. >> [clears throat] >> Good evening, board members. Um my name is Ella Lee and I'm a student here at THS. Um You may remember me from the beginning of this year when I came to speak about the student dress code. Um I'm here today because I cannot and I will not stop until change happens because that's what school teaches us to do. So, a few months ago I went to Yale University to participate in the annual Model United Nations conference and there I wore this exact outfit defined as business attire or business casual. I fit the strict dress code there and at THS this would get me a dress code referral despite the consistent argument that this dress code supports professionalism. But that just hits the surface of contradictions our current dress code
074holds and aims to do. Now, I'm not here to attack the board. I'm simply here to stick up for myself and the hundreds of girls in our schools that are affected by sexist policies instilled by the people meant to protect them. To remind everyone, the handbook states that the dress code policy aims to maintain a safe and stable learning environment, but I believe it does quite the opposite. How can we promise safety and stability when the dress code targets not only the female gender, but body parts that are not the same on every person? Now, I took a survey a couple months ago asking students if they have been dress coded and 71% of students who answered yes were females. The other 29% were male. This difference alone is a problem. Whether it is intended
075or not, females are facing an unfair amount of backlash and I felt and feel it is time accountability is taken. Did you know that as of January, the amount of dress code referrals had increased by over 21%? Is this something we should celebrate? Is this what we intended? In that survey the same in that same survey, students shared their experiences being dress coded and it was sad to see how many girls felt targeted due to having bigger chest or bigger stomachs. Stability cannot be promised when our policies are focused towards body parts which are not all the same. Our efforts should not be towards limiting females and instilling outdated and sexist policies, but rather perhaps teaching the students of the school about the harms of sexism, about how women are minorities. Because in that same
076survey again, not one, but several students claimed that the dress code did not target a minority, but they do target girls as if girls are not a minority. And this isn't a silly mistake. This is a failure of a diverse education. So, I ask the board today to take this feedback and truly absorb this and how the current policies affect us because 95% of surveyed students want to see change. Please think about our education, how this dress code is affecting student-teacher relationships, and most of all, how this affects the female students in our school. Thank you. Good job. Kajeda Frazer? No, okay. Good evening, esteemed board members. Um you guys should remember me from earlier. I'm Kajeda. Tonight, I come to you with an urgent matter. As discussed in a recent article done by the
077Raider Report, our high school newspaper, racism persists as a problem in our school. It has also been made clear that the racism occurring is mostly through microaggressions and interactions that are overlooked. This begs the question, what can be done? I believe that it's that it is worthwhile to look into implicit bias training for our district. This training helps organizations foster a more inclusive and productive culture by increasing awareness of mental shortcuts that can cause unfair treatment in hiring, promotions, and daily interactions. Faculty would be able to learn to recognize their own, often unintentional, prejudices and blind spots, as well as reduce prejudice behavior, resulting in more respectful, collaborative, and harmonious interactions among colleagues. Our neighbors, Farmington Public Schools and Simsbury Public Schools, have also moved to improve their own equity and push inclusion initiatives. In
078an effort to remain equitable, an inclusion initiative would greatly benefit our students as well. As stated in the recent article, 101 THS students shared their thoughts and experiences with racism. Although the second most common common response claimed that racism is not at all an issue, many of those students went on to describe experiences they had witnessed or personally faced. This contradiction reveals how racism is often viewed within the school community. Racism at THS isn't always visible, but the experiences shared between students and faculty show that it is often that it is real and often dismissed. I hope the board will find it in themselves to properly investigate this issue and come up with an effective solution to the bias security. Thank you. Thank you. Good job. Uh discussion next steps. Admission to the public schools
079at or before age age five. Kim and I can handle this one. Um Sandy actually kind of uh got us started in her um opening statement. So back in the school year 24-25, the state of Connecticut passed some legislation as Sandy mentioned that um put some language around changing the start age or the start date, the eligibility date to start kindergarten. Prior to that, Connecticut was um maybe one in six or eight states in the country uh that still allowed four-year-olds to attend kindergarten. So the the date was moved from January 1 to September 1. So students who were not five prior to September 1st were considered ineligible. However, there was a provision built into the legislation which allowed parents to make an official request to be considered for a waiver of that um So
080districts up in up until that point in Connecticut um up until now actually would we we established a process uh kinder parents could register their kindergarteners and we would assess the students based on a number of criteria to determine whether or not the district believed that the child the four-year-old had met the established criteria to attend kindergarten. >> [snorts] >> Uh there's been a a lot of pushback at the state level. And what has happened now is that the this law so the provisional language is being removed basically from the law. So effective next school year, 27-28, if a child does not meet the age cutoff date of September 1, turn five before September 1 they have to wait the following until the following year to enroll. There is this buffer year. So this coming
081school year, 26-27 um where boards of education, local boards of education are being charged with deciding, do you want to stick with the waiver process for one final year or does this board of education want to just say, okay we're going to implement the law as it stands with the September cutoff date right now. So that's the question. It is and Kim can speak to the the Shipman part of it and the policy part of it. So what you have is a blog that was um generated by Shipman and Goodwin right after the law that Suja spoke about was signed. They have not drafted the model policy yet because this is so new. However, we're bringing it to the policy committee because I think for OTL and for the process, we need to know what
082the board's position will be. We will bring the draft policy to next month's meeting for formal adoption, but in order to meet the timelines for kindergarten registration, we need to just understand what the board's position will be uh on what choice they want to do with the options that Suja gave. >> Right, because we're having parents question us now, right? We have parents of four-year-olds who are asking uh where the board stands on this. Should they register their child in the hope that they will be granted a waiver or should we help them find a a preschool option for next year. So we're kind of testing the waters tonight. This is a tough one for me. I have two bear babies and I started them both early. Um one is September 29th and one is
083December 3rd. Um looking back I wish I'd made a different decision for my younger one. Uh she struggled a little bit socially, emotionally, mature-wise. My older one, no issues. Um but I definitely see what uh Sandy is saying and we definitely don't want to put kids in a position where they are struggling. Um I wish I had that information 13 years ago. Or actually eight years ago, closer to that. But you know what I mean. When I was making that that decision, I I wish I I had that information. Knowing what she said and and seeing those stats, I would have made a different decision regarding my second one. Um I have a late birthday, December 10th. Now we're talking 40-something years ago, but my mother has always said that she wished that she had
084waited the year. Um I hope I turned out I think I turned out pretty well at this point. But back then and and just my own personal experience, my experiences through elementary school early elementary school socially was very difficult um being a December 10th baby um and going in when I was four years old. Um so I would implore the board to um to not do the the the waivers um for this coming school year. Uh I agree. We don't need four-year-olds in kindergarten for their own sake as well as for the sake of the more mature kids who are ready to benefit from the program in kindergarten who will then have to have children who are less prepared for kindergarten as classmates who then have to be attended to. And there are a myriad
085of preschool programs available in Torrington. Uh and uh people might argue that I'm not I'm not sure how accessible they are, but I know they exist. There are a lot of them. So I would recommend that we not [clears throat] buy into the uh deferral again. Uh I would just add that, you know, unlike some of the other topics on the agenda like AI where there's not 30 years of data, Connecticut is one of the last states to this party. The data is vast and has existed for 20 years showing that being a five-year-old coming into kindergarten is the is the right move for students. So I would be in support of leaving the going early and saying no waivers this coming year. You you've made me think of this, John. We work very hard
086with families of four-year-olds to help them find a preschool option. We have the program here at the high school. We have some programs in our three um primary schools. So we we we really do work hard to find placements. And for the income eligible people, there's the Head Start Early Head Start program as well, which is a fantastic program. So I was a December 18th baby and maybe that explains all my problems. But I'm in a I'm in agree >> [laughter] >> But I grew out of them. But I'm in agreement. I I I'm perfectly fine with it, so. Thank you for the image of you as a four-year-old. Next on the agenda, uses of computers in the classroom. I'll have you know, Miss Megan and I actually wrote this little speech I'm going to
087give. But my oldest son helped me fix the grammatical errors. No AI. Um but before we start any discussion, uh I want to start by saying this clearly, this is not about being anti-technology. It's about being pro-student and pro-learning. The Board of Ed represents the students and the parents. Right now, we need to ask the honest question, are one and one to one devices and constant access to technology actually improving the student outcome? Or are they creating new challenges inside our classrooms? What we're seeing is concerning and obviously parents are as well. Academically, students are struggling to focus for sustained periods. They're skimming instead of deeply reading, relying on search and now AI instead of developing their own thinking. And this is not all students, but it's it is it is many. Access has increased,
088but retention and critical thinking have not improved alongside it. In the classroom, devices are often a source of distraction. Teachers are spending more time managing screens than engaging students. Even when students appear to be working, it's difficult to ensure they're actually on task. Many EdTech platforms track data, build long-term behavior profiles, and are deliberately engineered for addiction. Uh as we know the last week the the California lawsuit uh YouTube was found guilty of just that. Or Google, I guess. Social and emotionally, schools are now dealing with issues that used to stay outside the classroom or outside the school. Social media pressure, anxiety, cyberbullying child pornography are entering the classroom through these devices. And pornography. And development developmentally constant stimulation is impacting students' ability to focus, plan, and persist through challenges. These are foundational skills that
089technology cannot replace. That can only be replaced or be kept in place by the teacher, in my opinion. There's also a financial reality. We are heavily and I don't know Mrs. Goodwin and I this wasn't we didn't talk about this, but uh there are financial realities. We are investing heavily in devices, platforms, and infrastructure, but the return on that investment in terms of student learning does not seem to be there. At the same time, other schools are beginning to step back step back as are many parents looking at this problem we're having with students and with their children and wanting it addressed. We're limiting phone use, reducing They're limiting phone school phone use, reducing screen time, and returning to more direct human-centered instruction, textbooks, paper, and pencil. Not because they're behind, but because they're they're
090responding to what data and science are telling us all. So, the goal is not to eliminate technology immediately, but to right-size it. To make it a tool, not the foundation, to to be intentional about it, when and why we should use it. >> [snorts] >> Because at the end of the day, this is about enhancing student learning, student well-being, and teacher effectiveness. One of the key questions that we are we should be asking, are these tools improving the learning outcome? Right now, and I'm just speaking for my own research, I've been doing this starting with this about 2016. I don't know that I can find a study that that doesn't indicate the outcome is not has not been enhanced. And in fact, most of the time in most cases technology has reduced as Mrs. Goodwin
091talked about the IQ. This is the first Gen Z is the first generation that is not scored better on IQ or test scores than the prior generation. It's never happened in the nation's history with public education. If these tools were truly improving outcomes, we wouldn't see declining attention, increased anxiety, widening gaps at the same time that become central in our schools that we should be addressing. That's why I think this conversation matters and this is the way we're going to take it. I don't know where it's going to take us, but we're going to work on it and we're going to try to make everything better for everybody. And the students come first. So. Thank you, Mr. Ucolito. Um I This is This is a tough one. I know it's a hot spot for a
092lot of people. Um everybody has a different opinion. Um AI aside, um I would like to see the use of computers in classrooms limited. Uh I would like to see a policy in place for each grade level um as to how many hours uh per day they can be on their screens. Um I would like to see more paper and pencil being used in the school as uh I've seen some handwriting samples, specifically from my own children. Um they're not good. Um many kids cannot write in cursive, especially at the high school and middle school level. Um so, I really uh I think we're doing the children in this district a severe disservice uh by uh not limiting their screen time. That's my opinion. Thank you. Jeff, I'm sure you have some thing to say.
093Uh just I'm going to reiterate this point. I've suggested a couple times in the last few meetings that the data to this exists. We talk about reducing the screen time or is it too much? Is it We actually don't know how much it is. So, do we Has anybody requested and I I can't actually ask her, but you can, Mr. Ucolito, if Um we don't know right now. Um the problem Listen, I I will say what I said last two nights ago. We don't know anything about the technology we're using. Nothing. We don't know what the safety, the security, the access to the technology. Are we monitoring it? Are we doing what technology has told us to do, which is to always be checking on or who's grabbing their data? Where's it going? Are they
094profiling? We don't have access to the data right now. We've I've asked for it. It's not complete. Um it's it's not complete. We don't have a system in place right now that we know of that can give us complete and accurate data. So, so we we are monitoring it. We I I know that to be true. It >> But can parents call you and ask them how much their child is is using their computer? So, what I can tell you is I met with Rachel. I met with our IT director just this week. She has a meeting scheduled on April 8th with Lightspeed, which is our filtering system. Um they literally, ironically enough, very coincidentally, reached out to districts. She was among We were among them due to our size. They are just launching something
095now that will give us the data. So, what you've mentioned a couple times, Jeff, we are not able to get that granular data. We can get Google, you know, we can we can drill it down to how much how many Google apps the kids are accessing and that sort of thing, but we are we don't have the ability, the capability right now to answer the question, you know, how how many minutes per day on average is a certain grade actually on their device. Well, I let me just finish, Mr. Ucolito. I'm not actually asking for on active. We can see how many hours the devices are powered on a day. That information we should be able to acquire from You know, how just how much is the device on? Like not even in use, but
096is it on? Cuz on can be in front of a student and you know how this works. I mean, look at the social skills of kids today versus 25 years ago. We we've seen it. They don't A lot of them don't know how to look at somebody as they're speaking or look around the room. I think I We joked about it a few months ago. But what you don't want are kids in classrooms with screens in front of them as a blockade between them and the teacher. It blocks the connection to the student. It blocks it so much of that learning experience and the connection we all talk about having an adult in the room or in the school in the school that you connect with. If everybody sits behind devices all day, that's very
097hard to develop. And and we see that. I see it in the real world interviewing people for a new position at my own company, the change in people's social skills over the last 15 years is significant. I'm just asking how much time is the device on? I agree Lightspeed will get you far more of the information about browsing habits, how much active time they're using, but for starters, we could start with just how much how many hours is the average computer on during the day? I I haven't spoken to the director about IT to make sure that we actually can get that data, but in my world, it's very easy to get, so I would think that in our state, there's probably a way to get it. We may not have it, but we could
098get it. But the problem with that, Jeff, is it's not the over overlying issue of the mental and physical and emotional effect, the the neuroscientific explanation and data as Mrs. Goodwin brought up, and it's it it's everywhere of what screens do to do to children. And it depends on the age, but I'm not going to read the numbers out because we're going to continue this meeting anyway. We're going to bring in real information and we're going to come up with a plan, I think, talking to other members as well, where it will matter what grade. In my opinion, I'm being honest tonight, first through sixth, if not eighth, no screens. And the data will support that. The neuroscience will support that. The studies will support that. I'm not saying I have an answer, and it
099will be debated. But we have to first look at how the children are being impacted, what the parents are seeing, and making a determination of how we incorporate, you know, the the the computer usage. But it's going to be a it's going to be a discussion, and it's not going to happen immediately. And we need to be able to access I think parents have the right to opt out. They have the right to do whatever they ask for. So, one of the I think one of the things a lot of schools are doing is parents want to be able to see exactly what their children are doing on screens. Screens can be a weapon for children. We shouldn't give the kids a computer at certain ages if the parents don't want them to have a
100computer. My grandchildren don't have them. Well, one of my granddaughters does does up in Litchfield. Other than that, there's no screens. And that's their parental option and choice. And that's at home. Well, as a board of ed, in my opinion, we're we're obligated to protect this children the children from whatever they're being threatened with, well, whatever's not giving them the best education outcome possible. So, we'll evaluate that. We'll study it. We'll talk about it. Jeff understands than anybody, but there's also the the person it's also the the side where the children and their health and well-being and the parents' desire to not have their children in front of screens while in school is just as important. I do my personal belief is at least high school computers, however that gets done, I believe in I
101believe in a computer lab for lots of things that Jeff probably knows better than anybody, that's studying computer science and all those things that lead them to a great a great opportunity in the computer in the science business as relates to computers, but it's it's it's going to be a discussion. For anybody in the room, it's going to be a discussion between everybody, I think. I I think my my point was just that I I think a parent would agree that an hour out of 7 hours a day is very different than 4.75 hours. That just it sets the bar. How much time are these computer devices being used? If it's 4 or 5 hours a day, you're you're sitting in classes using a computer all day long and you're not necessarily interacting as much
102with the staff member. If it's 37 minutes average in in a kindergarten or first grade class, I think it yes, there may be parents who don't want to see screens at all, but 37 minutes is probably very different to a parent than 3 and 1/2 or 4 hours. That was all my point was is that knowing that helps us develop how much of a problem if it if we're going to if the group agrees it's a problem have we created. The American Society >> Understood, we need a baseline and we're we're working on that. We need a baseline and I will I will tell you the American Society of Pediatrics and psychology psychiatrists indicates up through fifth grade no more than 15 minutes. Now, whether that's right or wrong, I don't know. We'll have to
103address it. Um some say none, but that's why we're here to talk about it and Jason's been waiting, so I'll go ahead, Jason. That's all right. Um just to to clarify within our district, we are only allowed programs and software that follows certain federal privacy um laws, right? That like the the data collection and stuff like that. So, we we adhere to that as as far as a safety issue. Um I've had parents who've opted out of no computers. Um so, I I have had parents who refused to sign for computers and I have students who are um don't don't use computers. So, there there is that ability for that to take place without school policy. Um It it makes it a little bit more difficult, but I'm not saying it's a bad thing. I'm
104not saying it's a good thing. Um the 274 pages which you know, Mr. Putnam admitted was the first packet he's never read cover to cover. I've read it all. That's just the beginning. There's a lot. I sent you more, you know. >> I know you did. Um I appreciate you putting that together at the request of all of this data that you're talking about. Um it's obviously you've researched the negative effects of of computer use. Um No, no, no. >> there is there is some characterizations that are overly broad. Um the there's mixed outcomes. Um The effectiveness uh largely dependent on implementation, instructional design, and teacher integration. Um And then also we are not sufficiently supporting um some of the the the negative aspects. Um You know, correlational doesn't account for significant um variables like
105pandemic, um changes in academic standards, broader socioeconomic factors. Um it also doesn't look into that passive consumption and active instructional engagement. Um And that's particularly important in educational settings where technology is often used to support learning, collaboration, and accessibility. As a special ed teacher, um I rely heavily Let me ask you a question. Would you rather have your student be taught by a teacher in front of the classroom or would you rather have them use a screen? I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I >> I know what you're saying. I know. I know. Um you will not find a computer teaching students in my classroom and Mr. Wilson in the uh Alliance District came into my classroom um and saw a
106very engaging lesson that was taking place without computers even on the desk. So, I I'm not what we say is not an end-all and be-all. It's it's I I'm here in a way to kind of play a devil's advocate I know. From the teachers side. Um But as a special ed teacher, um there are and obviously with whatever policy there would be those exceptions to ensure that those those students who need that that um access um get it. Um I don't think that you would find a teacher that has or wants a student on a computer for the entire 7-hour school day. I don't know that you would find a teacher that that is looking for that. Um I don't disagree. >> think that we need to go into these discussions, whether it's this discussion
107or an ADAI discussion, without having our preconceived um ideas and agendas and listening to all the data from all the people to ensure that we have a solid policy that is going to benefit the students and give the teachers what they need to make sure that we have 21st century learners. All right. One second. I don't disagree with you, but I'm going to ask somebody to to answer the question honestly, what benefit does a student and this is the overriding question. Is it a textbook or is it a screen? And I ask people that do the research all the studies because you know how to look for them. I yet to find in 3 years a single study. Some say they can't be the same, but you brought up a lot of issues that need
108to go along with that that take time, money, effort, and consistency. And we live in the school system where we have We have uh Mrs. Miss Stoller, for instance, she has some I think honors mostly. I'm not sure if it's all honors. Okay. We have we have a different levels of students that may have in in my case maybe parents who can afford to buy to you know, pay for tutors and parents who pay more attention. But the but the majority of our students are lower middle income. Who don't have access to all these these things and who need more than anybody, especially if parents aren't active in their education, which mine weren't. Mine never were. They need a teacher. And a school at home at night doesn't replace the teacher in any way, shape,
109or form or the review by a teacher. And we have to look at that in a way that gives the the students that in in my opinion in in age groups that we know that computers can harm them. Any kind of harm to a student should should tell us we should never have a computer in that classroom. But again, there will be exceptions, especially with what you do. There are a lot of studies that indicate the importance of having them available to you, but and then maybe eighth sixth through eighth grade there's a different level. Then high school there's a different level. Um some people discussed last night maybe in eighth grade introducing I I mean, senior year introducing you know, a level of attachment to higher technologies. But we need to come up with
110We need to come up with a policy in the end that addresses mental health and well-being. Are they better served? And it they they do get better served as they get older. That's a fact. And that is brought out in many of these these these discussions. But the discussions have to make sure that the children are considered first. Teachers are important, but our job is to make sure the teach the students get the best education possible. And you're right, there's a lot of issues that we need to be addressed and I don't disagree with you. Uh Ms. Ferguson, what was the copyright data on that history book you looked at in a history room the other Do you remember? I mean, granted it's a history book, so but It was it was in the '90s.
111Yeah. So, we What does that have to do with the question? >> had textbook adoption and and so and and again, I'm just throwing out I'm I'm not She's She's hit me with that a number of times. There is a lot of things that this that you as a board will have to supplement in materials without the use of computers. And that's just bringing that to to the forefront and there is a lot of experiences that may be limited because of um you know, a computer cart. Again, I'm not saying one way or the other. I'm just these are the things as a teacher that I have the experience in the first-hand experience with and in talking with the other teachers in the room. Um I I I think the one thing that we would
112say is that we can't get get rid of computers completely. But I don't know that you would get much pushback if it was um limiting you know, who and what and when. I don't disagree. And again, I preface it with we don't know where we are right now. We have no information. You talked about the apps. No, we have no access to them. They profile. We've not I don't even think we've shut off the apps. I don't know I've asked Rachel that Rachel that once. Have we shut off the apps so they do protect the privacy? Any apps that we use for education. Um Lots of things are required, but if you look at some of the research, Google, for instance, gives you the ability to Jeff knows. The ability to shut off, but they
113don't shut it off. So, there's a there's a lot of things we assume, but we don't know and we have to know. We have to have these answers and and I think that's important that we address all those things that you brought up, especially, but I'm not considering cost. I know they do. But if we're going to spend money on computers and apps and licenses and I mean, I don't know how I know Litchfield is spending $250,000 just to renew one of their licenses and I I'm not sure which one it was, but that's in a school of I don't know. How many schools in the middle school? 200? Not even, but it's a fortune. It's a lot of money. We have to keep renewing it and there needs to be return on investment analysis
114as well. I'm not going to do that. Here he's going to have to do that, but you know, textbooks are better when it comes to kids learning, but that may not be the only answer. That's all. That's I mean, they've they've done their research and that's some of the some of the questions people have. And would a would a textbook from 1990 be better than a you know, an online textbook? We know that reading a book a child learns more and and retains more than reading a screen. So, you know, what is better? I don't know. I personally didn't have computers when I was young. But I can tell you and this is I've said this before. My six children when the computer and all this technology was introduced in the classroom, my first four
115children had a much better outcome in a much better learning environment and a much better understanding of literature, mathematics, the sciences, geography, God knows. I mean, all these things. And my last two kids with computers had a lot less attachment or interest in the ability to to remember and to pay attention. And it it became an issue. And and they've they've brought up the issues last last week or 2 weeks ago about what their children have gone through. And again, we have children we have to protect and we have to teach and the teachers need to teach. And hopefully I know we'll come up with the I know we'll come up with a plan. We will. Um but hopefully it's as much science-based as it is anything else. Um John, do you have anything to
116say? You made a mistake by asking me to talk. The perceived social, emotional, academic, and intellectual deterioration of our children. It's true. I mean, I I say perceived, I don't mean it's not real, but we've been watching it for a long time. SAT scores peaked in 1963. That was a long time ago. I was a member of the class of '63, by the way. But they've been going down ever since and that includes a lot of time before computers were introduced into the into the classroom. Uh you know, and and kids experience it. The technology we had when I [snorts] entered kindergarten at age 5 in 1950 consisted of electricity, lights, and we had central heat, and there might have been a ditto machine, things like that, but none of this. But that's not why
117they're worse. Things are worse, but I think a lot of it has to do with just plain the way we we treat kids, the way we look at kids. We don't have enough kids. You know, they're Too many kids don't have brothers and sisters to go home and fight with and learn from and argue with. Some do, some don't. But the computer, I think, does does its share of separating people from other people. And I certainly would have rather have a kid looking around at his or her classmates, even if they're looking for a chance to get in trouble, rather than just focused on some whatever image is on that tablet or that that screen, otherwise, especially in the younger grades. I'm not too worried about it in the high school. Uh I would be
118more worried about too much. But I do go to classrooms in the process of and not that often, not often enough, but I see a lot of classrooms where you don't see a screen open. Uh so, it's I I think Sue is right. We We need to get figures on actual use. How much time does does the average fourth grader have in front of a screen um before we can really work But I think you're right. Overall, we're doing too much of it in the lower grades. I don't argue with that at all. But I'd like to have some figures. Yes, Kristen. Thank you, Gary. Um I think we can all agree that 7 hours in front of a screen for a second grader is just completely inappropriate. Um so, I would love to see
119some data on, you know, exactly what grades and how long they're in front of the the computers each day. Um and I'm certainly I'm in favor of a policy outlining what is appropriate for which grade levels. Um obviously increasing as they get older into high school. Um there's a time and place for computers. I'm I'm not interested in having them removed from the schools at all, you know, completely, but I do believe that the time needs to be limited, especially based on age and grade. Um I try really hard not to bring my personal experiences with my own children to to these meetings, but I do need to Um this is not the majority and this is really only happened once with both of each of my children. Um what my younger child, um who's
120in eighth grade, um she is in an Italian class and 95% of the lessons are on the computer. Um and I know that because I see her PowerSchool. >> about specific classrooms and I don't know that this is the time or place for that to happen because I was asked to discuss it. I just I feel as if there's Okay. No, I think Jason's right. That's too easily identifiable. Yeah. Oh, well, that Okay. >> That That needs to But we talked about I don't so, but talk about But that's identifiable to the situation and regard >> Make it generic. Well, I think parents need to be more aware of what is happening in the classes um and how much time their children are spending in front of a computer every day because I don't think
121many know. Or how many classes are being taught by AI. J- Jason, I can defend I'm not going to I I understand what you're saying after I said it. But I can tell you because I get pictures. I'm not going to tell you what classes, but I've told people on this board by a lot of parents that are Torrington regulars who grew up in Torrington of what their kids are doing in classrooms on computers, which should never be happening. Some of them all the whole entire class for the entire whole entire year. YouTube. And you're right, we need a policy that stops that from happening, prevents it from happening because once the teachers know they can't do it. And it's not all the teachers, it's probably the minority of the teachers. But you know, there's
122two segments to this and two sections. One is the youth. Youth is is health and well-being. Um as it was with cell phones with with the kids in high school. But the other is crafting a policy that as with our discipline policies are working. Thank you, Mr. Marchesseault and everybody else at the high school for staying on top of it. But we need a policy that also applies to technology so that the teachers know exactly how much time or have an understanding how much time in each classroom, what how much time and what they can apply it to. Because as I in the packet, you'll see it can be helpful in a lot of cases, but it's on a limited basis as to how and what is most effective on a screen in the curriculum
123versus what's not the most effective. And it's going to take a lot of time and it's going to take a lot of a lot of deep dive. Um so, I think in high school there's obviously it's it's it's a little easier to come up with an answer, but in the lower schools, I agree, but there is a there are some disturbing things that have happened, which I've mentioned. Parents have sent me where the entire class is on the screen. And all the homework. So, we have to get that and we have to stop that. Go ahead. Can I just because we may not have to build the wheel here. Ms. Schelte, is there districts that have any kind of a policy that limits that we can look at or Shipman could win? Is there anything
124out there that we can use as a basis rather than reinventing the wheel? Because we're just right now we're I mean the issue is out there. I mean we were very limited in the information that we're getting based on what you've presented, what some people have presented. There's the AI committee. Um but I mean, I think everyone can agree that something needs to be done. Shipman does not have a model policy right now. Um we have looked for other model policies and I think it is certainly something that is um being talked about at multiple state levels, including our state level, and being talked about in school districts, but we haven't been able to find an existing model policy, but Shipman is always available to us to draft a policy with whatever parameters we want
125to start with. So, I think that's where we're at with the conversation is what you know, what parameters do we want to give them and then we can start to draft something and then that may be their new model policy that they have available, but but that's kind of where we're looking for in the discussion is what parameters do we want to start with and then we can certainly have that discussion with Shipman. I don't know. Mr. Do you know, would it be would it be something that our this committee can suggest the district put out a district-wide survey of all stakeholders on computer use and the um thinking that is out there to help formulate where we're going with or where you may go with parameters? I don't think so. I I again we
126don't have a year to do it. There's I think there's enough information that many of the board members have have researched already. I don't know where it's I mean, it can it can easily be put together. I have drafts here that other districts have used. But it's not like anything you'll find in Connecticut other than that, maybe West Hartford, um which isn't as restrictive. I can't find a single school in Connecticut that has taken into consideration the health and well-being of the children. In K through K through 8, there's not a single one that even addresses that. And and the effectiveness of computers in K through 8. But again, we're going to have to decide based on what's out there, what ages is it appropriate we can find based on science. I I don't know
127that a teacher can tell us what they think. I'm not criticizing the teachers. How much time a student should be on the computer because the the time on a computer is what impacts their ability at younger ages especially to formulate what's necessary to to continue to move forward in school, to continue to improve in school. I I'm I'm not looking for that survey for the teachers to tell you how much time a student, but what is the usage within the classrooms from the teachers? What are the parents' expectations of the district? What are the students feel I mean, if we're putting together a policy that is >> Are we going to ask the students what they think about having computers? Why not? They have a Because our job is to make sure we give them
128the base I'm not going to argue with them. to be active members of our of of of civics. What a better way for them >> Give a kid a Give a kid a computer and AI to take home. You think he's going to cheat? Nine times out of 10. We don't You're asking for something I'm not I don't think we're going to do that. We don't have time, but the board can decide that later. Uh just a quick one. Just a reminder that technology has been in this district for a very long time. I was at East School before Mrs. Ferguson had even started in Torrington Public Schools. The principal at the time was uh Bob Doyle. Uh wonderful man, but it was like an hour a week of technology. There were computer labs with
129Apple IIes and IIgs and some really old TRS-80s for those geeky people in the crowd. And we went down there and did Reader Rabbit, Math Blaster, um Sticky Bear Typing if anybody's old enough to remember. I mean, we do have to remember that technology can't completely disappear because the state's still going to make us take tests. And we learned to type. There is some research that shows that the student of today, despite all of the technology and touch screens, the average person's typing speed on a real computer has actually decreased, which is mind-blowing. Uh but if you think about it, we do have a responsibility to make them able to use technology. Students of today are professionals of tomorrow. In the professional world, people spend a lot of time in front of screens. Do I
130think that means we should have them all the way up? No, but there is a moderate amount or an an appropriate amount of time as they get older, Mr. Eukel that we have to figure out what is it. So, what are the things they can do? We learned in textbooks, but we did do practice on a computer. There's there is a time and place. It was an hour a week, not like now. And that was because the technology was expensive and not available and it wasn't the same. Now, it may have gotten easier, right? We can we can do all these extra things and so we have. The devices got cheaper and we had to work from, so we did. It doesn't mean it's the right choice, but we have to find what that right
131choice is. >> And that's why I personally think a computer lab offers the most opportunity. Because having a screen in front of everybody doesn't increase anybody's ability. I mean, kids today and this is what kids in Torrington are doing. Kids today are pulling up chat GPT and they're taking one screen with a draft, the other with their essay, and they're and they're dictating to the chat GPT today what words they typical they they they put in some of their own essays. And chat GPT can take their prose and tie the and bring the two together, so you can never ever a catch them cheating. They are way ahead of us. So, I think why I think a computer lab is best and I have that Nobody Nobody's told me whether they like it or not
132and and the board of ed other than two people. A computer lab gives them the ability to learn what they can do on a computer, what they can use it for. But to have it in every class when you're studying history and civics and mathematics, I know one of our best math teachers isn't here. He doesn't believe in them at all. So, we have to investigate where it's best. I mean, I I still believe in in in the computer lab. I might be wrong, but we need Excel, we need all the things that that kids do when they get out of college, when they go into the office space, where they go into their job, whether it be scheduling on a computer, whether it be, you know, PowerPoint, which I think is still used, whether
133it be Excel. All those things are good to learn and we need to teach those things. We don't need to to teach We don't need to teach them how to draft an essay and then compare it on chat GPT. They already know how to do it and we want to stop it. But anyway, you know, you're you're going to be on the board discussing this, so we'll hash it out, you know? But anybody else? You? You can say something. You're leaving in June. I I think I agree with everything that everybody has said. I think there needs, you know, I think it's extremes are dangerous. Um I think we need to find a balance. I agree wholeheartedly that there need to be limitations um at every single grade level. And you know, the the amount
134of screen time that our younger students should be spending is slim to none. I I don't think that there's really a need for it. I mean, I'm thinking about the comment that was made earlier, I think by you, Kristen, about the handwriting. You know, we've started We brought back cursive handwriting instruction. I mean, we have returned to basics in so many ways, right? And we've done that. It's taken us about four or five years now to really get that rolled out nicely that we're starting to see the benefit, right? We've we've switched back We've moved away from the whole language model that took the nation by storm back in the early '90s and we've seen the instructional casualties of that. We've moved back now just recently to, you know, back to basics with mathematics instruction,
135but understanding that conceptual understanding is is so important, too. I agree with with Jason and with Jeff, too, that, you know, the the technology that's available, I mean, we need to make sure that our students have an understanding and that they they graduate with the skills that they're going to need in in the world. Um I don't think we should I don't think the extreme is ever the way to go. I And as the kids get older, um and teaching them to use the technology, that's that's we're obligated to do that. I think we need to find a safe way to do it, a responsible way to do it, um uh an affordable way to do it, um but you're talking to, you know, one of the older people in the room who I refuse
136to read from a Kindle. I need a book in my hand. I I'm, you know, I've got the 300-page packet that I'm making notes on with a pen. Um so, there you go. There's my comments. To Kristen's point and I'm I'm I'm gratified that that that uh that that Sue just said that cursive writing is is is is coming back because well, to Kristen's point the the the the uh the reason why when they get to to the middle school or the high school they can't they they um they can't they they can't uh read cur uh cursive is is uh is that for um for quite a while cursive has has uh has um hasn't been taught. You're You're correct. And we're back to basics. I mean, the success going back to basics, you
137know, is is coming out every year. And by going back to basics and getting away from, you know, whatever every five years there's there's a new there's a new idea someone has, but basics is what works. Back to basics, but we have to remember the world that we live in. So, yes, our youngest learners should be out playing. They should be out on the playground. They should be playing and running and, you know, playing doing puzzles and learning how to share and all of those wonderful things. Solving their problems, as you said, John. You know, going out and staying outside till the street lights come on and duking it out in the neighborhood and that's how they learn conflict resolution. That's how we did, right? Um so, yes, but we have to remember the world
138we live in and the technology that we have and I do think we have an obligation to make sure that that they know how to use it responsibly We just need to define what that is. Right now, we don't know what that is. That's all I've been saying. We got to figure out what it is. Mr. Marshall can probably help a lot on that. He's taught a lot of it. But um Excel, PowerPoint, um all those things. Uh do we have those anymore? Okay. No, I meant we tell we still have the classes here. Okay. Yeah. Those are important things. I I do I'm just going to say my last comment of the night is that you can't figure out where you're going to go if you don't know where you are. time limits for
139Um where does it harm the kids the most? And I actually Mrs. Goodwin, really the information you have on the young kids is probably the most um understood and the most out there, most information out there. And then, there's information introduced in high school. I I know that most of the studies say one-to-one doesn't work, but cards work. Um it's unlimited. You can restrict it. You can keep track of it of what goes on. The teachers can watch it. But then, the the question the the response to that is how much teacher how much time do teachers have to be following kids to see what they're on the what they're doing on the screens. It's just one more cost and and one more time element that takes away from the you know the paper and
140pencil, but I know that's not the only answer. But every single thing we bring up had like Jason said, there's another side to it. And and especially in his group of kids, there's there's a lot of data on that as to how computers can enhance that. And access to screens can enhance some of those students. So, maybe I think we have to do a deep dive as best we can, John. I was just going to say I've taken some notes on what you guys have discussed this evening. So, you know, we can reach out to Shipman and see if they can kind of put together some kind of a template to start with and then bring that to next month's meeting for you to kind of discuss some of those parameters. You know, I wrote
141down some of the notes about grade levels and and limits and and, you know, parents opt in like I wrote down some of the notes that you all discussed tonight. And now that we kind of have an idea of at least a guideline of what you're looking for, we can try to have Shipman create something that at least as a jumping off point. And there are templates out there just so you know. In fact, there are some people in Litchfield looking for some right looking at them right now. Um that other other states and other um school districts are using around the country that have started this process first. Um and I have some of them. I can share them as well. They're they're pretty simple to follow. And and and they back everything up
142that they suggest with the data. And then, each each level of of of study, whether it's K through 6 or K through 8 or K through 5, you know, they give the reasons and we can debate we can talk about those things. And what they what they suggest for high school so on and so forth. Thank you. And thank you, Kim and Kristen. I think that's a a great idea. I think the template is needed. And and to Jeff's point, I think we already know our director of technology is going to get us where we're at currently, right? So, if currently in second grade we're at 32 minutes, I I really yes, we can put it in policy that under 40, but I think to have that as a springboard and a starting point is
143critical. Or else, I think the conversation is just going to go in circles for one argument or the other. And I I do think that and and this is great research, Gary, and I know you've shared it with me. And my phone is out of date now because of that. So, thank you. Um but I think that, you know, we have to be cognizant. And and I think Sue's point is well was well worded, right? We're we're at a totally different age, right? And I was in a classroom yesterday. I was in an AP math classroom where the AP book was on the computer, but every student had their notebook out and was doing the actual calculations. They were not using anything on the computer other than as a textbook. So, I do think there
144are times where that screen time as just a it's on is not a good indicator, either. It's a stroke mechanism where I think the new Lightspeed will get us into that. Because just having a device on Kristen has had her device on, no offense, all evening, right? But she has not been on her device all evening. She has been using it to to follow the agenda and to do other. So, we have to just be careful of that, I think. And we have to look at that. So, I think the starting point to your point, Jeff, but I also think, Gary, when we have that data and we have that point in specific, and then Kim can reach out to Shipman and give you that template. Then as a board, you can argue, "Hey, I
145think it should be zero minutes." Okay, I think it should be five. I think it should be 10. But I think that that's where the medium has to take place because I I didn't hear and I did listen to everyone's argument. I think everyone understands that there is a time and a place. And I think, you know, Jeff, you hit the nail on the head. I mean, the the state of Connecticut, every single test from third grade through the full day SAT which just happened is on the computer. So, unless we go away from that, and we could write our our state of Connecticut and say we're not taking the exam, I could tell you that is the reality of where we're at. So, but if that's where the board wants to go, by all
146means, I think you'd make every teacher happy that we're not going to take a state test. But I think [laughter] I think we have to just be aware, and we have to then have that time to really educate our students on how to use it effectively and how to do it you know, so that they have the best results possible on the assessments. And the assessments aren't the end all be all. However, we all know that we have to take assessments from the state of Connecticut. So, I just bring that up because I Jeff mentioned it, and I just don't want that to fall on deaf ears. And that's not the reason. I am not saying one way or the other. I think that we are just in a in a different world, and I
147think we have to be cognizant of uh time constraints. I think is very appropriate. I think that's a a real solid approach that the board wants to take. But to get that starting point first, then to put the parameters in, then you could argue and make it a a full out policy that can be in applied and that obviously people will um agree with and obviously adhere to. Because that's what policy is, right? When the board sets a policy, every employee of the Torrington Public Schools has to adhere to the policy. And every student as well. So, I think we have to to just be aware of that, but I think having those pieces in place is just going to make it for a seamless transition. And that's where I think Jason was going, and
148I certainly don't want to speak for him. Uh but I think that's where he was going in terms of when he was even thinking about the global survey, right? Let's hear what parents want like you said, parents are sending you screenshots and parents are texting you. Okay, well, if parents think there should be zero minutes or parents should think there be 100 minutes. I think it would be a very broad spectrum. And I agree, Gary, I think we don't have the time because the board is is made this a very paramount and pertinent issue. But I think having a template in place with the suggested times gives everyone on the board the opportunity to speak their opinion and then to come to a consensus and then from that consensus to policy. So, thank you for
149the time. As Mrs. Ferguson had suggested in past discussions, it's going to be a process. But uh one thing I do think we should start doing is stop teaching to the test. Um I know other schools have talked about how much time it takes them to train their kids on tests. And it doesn't ever seem to amount to the time that we talk about here. Um we talk about a lot of we're talk what I've heard is it's a lot of time. Uh other schools have said they've come up with ways to you know, make it more efficient and make it more effective. Um I think that has to be addressed, too, because if we spend too much time you know, teaching to the test, it's less time that the teacher the teachers have to
150teach the children. Um and that's never been looked at. Other schools are looking at that right now. Um so, there there are many ways to to make us more efficient. So, um and again, I I'm only worried about the children and and their health and well-being and improving the outcome because we're making lots of changes to make it better. And yes, Jason, I agree on a lot a lot of things you're agreeing you're talking about, Jason. We agree on a lot. We've shared information for the last 3 months. Topics for future Topics of Yep. >> [laughter] >> Yeah. What What might that be? >> [laughter] >> Is there anything Oh, we have to talk about the uh the policy that Shipman's going to come up with? That's next meeting we're going to talk about computers.
151Anything else? Oh, wait a minute. Yeah. Yes, facilities issues. Yeah. Graduation requirements. And you raised your hand. Uh yes, I'd like to see um some information on the nutrition um policies uh regarding the lunch and breakfast menu um as well as the wellness committee that we're supposed to have. And uh we need to relook at dress code based on um the changes we made for the um the staff and uh the protest yesterday as well as the student comments tonight. I second a look at student dress code. You got that? Oh, and then we also had a request by a board member to talk about grading. Yes. All right. Hold on. Where am I now? Ja- Jason, you're wearing me out. Comments for the good of the Comments for the good of the order. Let's
152start with Jason. Um okay. Good meeting. Um as a rep- resented to this committee, I appreciate the respect of being uninterrupted as comments are made in the same way that I do. Um continue to protect the identity of any staff member in the comments we make publicly similar to the public participation statement at the start of each meeting. Uh I would like a better configuration of these tables so that my neck isn't hurting, possibly in a V. Um it's it's difficult for that eyesight and and seeing where people are at. And uh happy Easter. Jeff. Uh certainly happy Easter to all. Um just my comment on how number of hours on a computer in a day. I'll split it in half. Now, maybe Mr. Duclos, you can request the information how many classrooms don't have
153a textbook that require us to have a computer on all day. The idea was how many hours a day we're relying on technology to aid in the education of our students. So, if it has to be on for a textbook, you are looking at a screen. So, that's that was the reason for my request on number of hours that it's on, but maybe the better approach is the LightSpeed data plus how many classroom of our 265 classes that we teach, how many of them actually have a textbook versus require a computer. And have a great holiday everybody and thank you for all your effort. Lots of good things to come. Bill? John? In addition to my wishes for Easter, I wish a happy Passover to everybody who has been celebrating that for the past hour
154and will for the next several days. Great meeting. Thank you. Great meeting. Thank Chief? Happy Easter everybody. Thank you for the parents for sticking around and thank you for the interested teachers for sticking around. And administrators. Can I have a motion to adjourn? It's been a while. You have a motion to adjourn? John? Second.