Torrington Board of Education School Improvement and Policy Committee Meetings

001e e e let the roll call reflect that uh Mr uko is missing otherwise all the committee members are here and Marissa you'll take note of other people who need to be mention thank you a motion to approve the agenda so moved second discussion all those in favor all we have an agenda approval of the minutes I have a couple of things to say uh before that then someone else may want to chime in uh Mr uko was not at the meeting last month and when it says Mr Klein was quite the celebrity at the building that day not to take anything away from Mr Klein but I think it was Mr Knight Mr Knight who was being referred to in the uh remarks that generated that in now anyone else see anything needs to

002be am in which case I'm looking for a motion to approve the minutes as sent second favor we have approved our minutes thank you and now we move into the oh public participation Josh is there anyone out there in cyber land yearning to talk to us and is there anyone here I will not read the Spiel in that case discussion and next steps Community partner now it's been a while since we've had a community partner report so Mrs Ferguson could you please just remind us what a community partner is sure so a community partner is a Community member and orun agency and or organization with whom um the charington public schools LS arms to support District initiative to enhance District initiatives and sometimes to um create develop initiate District initiatives uh sometimes it is uh

003100% volunteer sometimes we are able to find Grant dollars to go along with it to better uh serve our needs um we have many with um Area Health we partner with the hospital the YMCA we partner with organizations um such as at Advance right uh who I think was our last committee that we had on on the agenda a few months back who help school programs and that's sort of thing and tonight we have Mr G here who can explain to the committee the many varied um projects that we work on together thank you excellent synopsis of Community Partners and now you can introduce Mr gapy specifically it is my great pleasure to introduce to you this evening Mr Tim gapy um with whom the district has worked for many years in many different capacities

004right um I did tell Tim just so that everyone knows he only had like 10 minutes so he's not going to be able to tell you everything he does with us um because they are many a number the list is long right um but he and you did have something in your packet that he had sent me which was kind of a summary of um some of the highlights yes right yeah so take it away Tim start that clock 9:59 I didn't don't say h low in 10 minutes but anyway we'll do it tonight so anybody that doesn't have these these are just couple of the notes that I have for tonight so first of all thank you guys always for allowing me to accentuate what goes right in the jinton public school system because

005it's and it's astounding amount of things that do go right um I own Lichfield County Sports but part of what I do at Lichfield County Sports is do the same thing as catch people doing things right um we started the torington public school magazines I think were like five years in with the objective of putting out what goes right every single day the first uh the next magazine that is coming out is another yths magazine which will be the new school edition it'll feature uh 12 students four teachers with them especially the kids talking to their seventh and eighth grade self about why what we're trying to make sure we do is keep kids that are in the system all the way up through to where they graduate so I think we've had some pretty

006good success with that I'm amazed with the kids how they respond because they don't just give me generic answers you know they come out with very thoughtful things so uh that's first on the agenda second is gaff's Corner which was one of the more fun things I've ever been able to do in the last couple of years where we started at at torington high school where I would sit down with some of the most amazing students most of them I didn't know it's not just all the sports kids that I know it's just kids and you know we were able to you know capture who they are what they do the one young lady that was talking about Vincent Van go I never knew much except for the ear but then I knew a lot

007more once I was done so our objective with gap's Corner this year was to do it a little bit differently was to do a show in all six of our schools and on the list you'll see there at tford we did something on Veterans Day right at the high school we did the 125 Year celebration of basketball and the alumni day which was attended by over a thousand people at the middle school um we did here with chel the we did eight different interviews with kids on History Day that astounded me how much they researched how much they did um for seventh and eth graders is absolutely amazing there one young lady that translated 2500 words from polish to English about the Holocaust I still shake my head on that right she went on I

008think to some Statewide competitions so my point is we still need to and we need to even more accentuate what goes right because we know something goes wrong it's going to get out there right so my job is to make sure that when things are going right we end up accentuating them more how am I doing Su you're done doing good all right good so next magazine that we had was a celebrating Excellence magazine at the end of the year and uh shelle you will be the first one to know this and be pleasantly surprised where every year I usually ask the schools to give me a whole bunch of information two pages worth of information on what's gone right that year now I know that this year especially there's some different things happening in

009the end of this year with a whole bunch work going on so I'm not going to be asking you for input I'm actually going to come to I'm going to go to the schools and interview 30 students um eight from the high school six from the Middle School four from our lower grades because I think as a way for us to accentuate who we have in our school what better way than to just sit down and and talk with them underneath on the torington public school website there's a link and I thank you guys for putting that in there for Gaff news Corner well right now you could actually go watch the show shows that I've done so far we have one left to do um at Forbes towards the end of the year and

010so with not doing an end of the year magazine I it's going to take a little stress off the schools but we'll be able to accentuate the different kids and one of the great things when I met with Sue and uh Donna Labby and Michael Wilson was we want to talk to the under the radar kids right this is not necessarily going to be the star that everybody knows about that gets all the publicity anyway this is going to be the kids that like that young lady with the 2500 words hello didn't know who she was but now I'm incredibly impressed with uh with who she is and so we're going to do that for uh the end of the year and then the last thing we have going on is the toron Kids Marathon

011which will be held right out there on May 22nd I love doing it in the middle school this is my seventh year of running Kids Marathon uh last year we had 1300 kids in two different sessions out there on the field and Kids Marathon for those that don't know created by Rod Dixon former Olympian back in 1972 who realized the fact that kids under the age of 12 the obesity rate was 35% I'm thinking it might even be a little bit worse right now so we talk about healthy eating we talk about exercise we talk about drinking water instead of Gatorade so that day out here if anybody is around on May 22nd in the morning it is remarkable there will be 29 classrooms set up on that school twice second and third graders come

012in they set up on the field we talk to them about nutrition they get out there and they run a couple of laps out there and the whole time we are accentuating how important it is to be outside to be with your classmates to be with your community um get them on the bus fourth and fifth graders come in do the same routine DJ in the middle of the field it's just an incredibly um energetic day I love having it here at the middle school although it was kind of challenging in the beginning because there is no track there are no bleachers but we created that right we kind of create a track and I'm staying at the middle school I love it because I got plenty of room to do you know what we

013need to do so the thing that comes with the kids marathon is the mentors um I get between 50 and 60 mentors from torington high school that come that day and a lot of these kids might be the athletes who these kids might know or might have seen so we'll have mentors with every single classroom and I think from anybody that was from the younger grades we didn't lose any children last year which is a great thing they all came and they all got back on the bus and they left because they have their own classrooms the mentors come and they kind of hang out with the kids and just really give them a great example the fourth and fifth graders stay here with us and have lunch and it is just one of the

014greatest days you know I ever have as far as just watching these kids uh Sophia fola and AAL frit are is in charge and this year it'll kind of be a completely student run Kids Marathon because these kids got in touch with me a month ago and said Mr gath we had had a great year last year we'd like to make some improvements hello can I sign up for that that they're that involved in wanting to do this we don't let kids come that aren't going to work these kids have actually picked the 60 that are coming now that one kind of slacked off last year so it is five and a half hours of good exercise good work good mentoring and it's the same thing I'll hand out some of these magazines that have

015um it's my magazine but has some of the pictures of what the kids doing the kids get so much out of this too both the young ones and the older ones so can I just add something because I shared during my little summary of what a community partner is but sometimes we secure grant money to help some of the things that we do one of the perfect examples is when kids Marathi we were able to secure some grant money so that every participating child gets a t-shirt right every participating child gets a medal right that sort of thing yeah and and thank you to you guys because you guys all get them there with the bus right so getting kids getting those kind of kids coordinated to come in know two times in a row

016and the rest with it is absolutely amazing but try to get more publicity for it this year um and then we'll see where it kind of goes in the future so am I good under 10 doing great I'm good guys thank you so much for questions go get them questions comments anything any I don't have a question um but uh everything sounds great wonderful uh my daughter actually got asked to be a mentor this year so she's went under 60 um she's looking very forward to it um she's a high school athlete yes cheer is a sport okay um I have to clarify I know good um she so she's looking forward to it coming um it's it's the most amazing thing I have with because I don't have to tell these kids twice it's

017just go run it I mean the field they go and they they scour the field to make sure it's spotless when we get there and then we leave it's the same thing and that is what I think that this whole message is about is you guys allow hear the bad news about what goes on in the schools 97% of what goes on in the school is probably just fine 3% are Knuckleheads well okay so in the high school that might be 30 out of a thousand we got to pay attention to the 970 so that's what I try to do U I was just talking with before on with Ronnie is that I love theater right so you know this year I am watching the rehearsals of working because I do it like a sport

018so I do it from the first rehearsal all the way to the end it's one of the things that'll be featured in the magazine because uh I went saw Justin Torres uh in a production down at thomist and he's a young man that graduated from THS and was in the Heights he became Emanuel Miranda literally transformed himself he was in the show rent you know this weekend so we need to keep accentuating what goes right with our the show oh it was stunning so good that's one of the things I was better I would like to say about Tim is that you know you say you were there Tim is always there he's he just is everywhere we are right so we were a couple of weeks ago at gole webm more for literacy I

019never reached out to Tim and asked him to come but he was there right just filming it all he was at their toying for literacy night as you heard him say he's everywhere and he captures some of the really special moments that we would probably otherwise Miss because we're all so busy you know we don't have the time to run around with a camera but he does and we very grateful so that's really Beauty community and it all happens without a lot of trauma too which I appreciate you know it just happens it's supposed to you know and he was very modest just now where he said you know you can go on the website click on gaff's Corner yes if you click on GFF corner you can pull up these video clips that he

020has painstakingly you know filmed and edited and worked with some of our it folks right to and then posted on the website so that if you weren't at the event you could kind of be can live vicariously through Tim you know and and if you think about the building of the school you know I was standing out in the bud with Mario two and a half years ago as we started doing the vision how it was going to go up and I was part part of the aditional Jeff's back there you remember we were in the gig was first getting it past and then they'll watch it grow you know from the first steps all the way through too much of what happens in our community now is because we're kind of a News desert

021right so the register is pretty much gone the Republican is in a different state with with her so not a lot of good news or bad news out there so we need to keep well well what did I say about Kids Marathon if somebody fell off the bus and broke a lake g me would have been all over you know what I mean but aside from that it was like this big so we need to make sure that we put out you know the good news about what's going our community is what we make of the guys right so we believe we're a great Community that's what we're going to strive for and it goes I don't I don't have a question either but but a comment when my when my daughter was in was

022in elementary school um she did the she she did the Kids Marathon and she got a she got a whole lot out of it apprciate still going strong though still going strong well thank you very much Mr G we appreciate it than you keep up the good work I guess is I'm sorry if I stepped on something you were question just a comment to say I was here I stopped by for an hour last year for the marathon and it was a very well-run event very smooth the kids were having a great time it was respectful if you haven't seen it in person um take that even only take an hour out of your day it's worth going to see Tim did a great job and everybody was very supportive even the kid mentors were

023fantastic fastic and keeping track of all the kids and building relationships with some of those kids so you know some of the older kids as you get older so it was it was really nice to see Chelsea Cliff with uh 141 versions of Simon says because we try to exercise with the kids and the rest of it so and some of the kids this year have stepped up and said I'm gonna take care of the exercises I'm like okay thank you you thank you Tim okay next on the agenda you know what you're welcome to stay I might find out some good as exting well I think probably Shelly and CHR disagree say I need to turn this over to you because Kristen made a school visit this time so at least tell us what's

024going on here so yeah I um came Monday morning um was here for just over an hour had a very nice visit it um accidentally walked into my daughter's classroom which she's not happy with but that's okay um I so one of the things that I really like about this school and the curriculum is the offerings um I call them specials but you know I realize they their wi classes are okay thank you um yeah keeps changing they're going to be specials too um but the the 3D printing class is just so cool um I actually stood behind a girl I don't know what GR maybe seven seven um and she was designing something and I was talking to her about it and she went on for about five minutes talking about bearings and hinges

025and wheels and showing me it was like completely out of my league but it was so cool and she was so passionate about it and Mr Douglas seemed really passionate about the kids too um learning and you know talking about it so that was really fun the um sustainable art class with um Mr coin am I saying that right um I saw a basket made out of old newspapers and some of just the really coolest projects that these kids are making with recycled or upcycled materials and they're having a blast and then I saw an art class where they were doing portraits um I could never do that I'm not an art person at all but these kids were pretty talented um I was impressed by their portraits um I also got to see some

026um let's see I made some notes oh the math game that was super fun um they were there was a small class of maybe eight kids so four team of two and they had earned a reward um to play a game and of course the game was educational and they were talking craziness exponents and this times this and all craziness anyway I would have needed a bit of a refresher to involve myself but they were so into it and so happy to be learning um and having fun at the same time so that was cool um I like to see kids get rewarded um with educational things so that was that was fun um I got to see the new past fail program for the elll students yes um which seems to mainstream for our

027teachers and make it easier for them to um assess in grade um I also got to see some classrooms with students who were who were learning um and they were very engaged um students were well behaved staff was happy to be here um in a quick plug for the drama show um I did send it out to the board members I know Marissa sent out the ticket link as well they are doing Wizard of Oz on a couple weeks there's Thursday Friday and Saturday shows the 10th 11th and 12 anything else no we just really looked at a variety of classes the math class you were mentioning was actually one of our intervention classes so it was really great to see the the kids were so into it it was fun yeah it was it

028was a good visit so thank you to miss Ral and te I love visiting the school yeah I do I love coming here and I will say that was not always a true statement I'm sure I love coming the kids were having a blast and they were well behaved and honestly you have to throw in a little bit fun with learning because otherwise the kids are G to you know they're going to go off on tangents and their minds are going to go elsewhere and but they were having a blast and that the teachers seem to really be involved and it was a great great morning and Mrs raldi has sent down a package that you'll probably want to walk us through absolutely it's going to be a tag team effort Mr Ling's going to

029begin for us absolutely so in our updates and thank you uh Kristen for that um it's always nice to persectives and and M Ferguson like it's nice to hear that people want to come to the Middle School I've been here a very long time I like it um but we're doing some really great things we're continuing to improve you know there's certainly um many things that we can continue to work on um so if we take a look at the next slide Josh if you want to look for me great so we're this is just a breakdown of our demographics at this point um taking a look at hopefully everyone can see that you've got it in your packet um you know what we what we break down for um our different ethnicities um in

030groups and then taking a look at the characteristics of what you know a TMS student looks like so um our uh 10% um roughly 504 kids our IEP students are right around the 18% Mark and our elll students at 17 and a half% so really 46% of our population um has a 504 an IEP or elll so we've done a lot of work too as you heard with our um elll program and really working with our students to you know meet them where they're at and meet their needs to make them successful um all right attendance is um our chronic absentee rates continue to go that's a really big positive for us we distribut a lot of that to our LEAP program um the LEAP program if you don't already know do a quick little

031synopsis um we have teachers and um counselors and social workers that are trained that offer up their time to head out and meet with our um families um at either a local place or their own home and get them you know ready to come back into school depending on what the situation might be going on and as to why they're they're a little bit more absent that we would like to see them um and then we certainly have um our attendance meetings as assistant principles with each of our houses and each of our grade levels where we talk about our kids and our concerns for you know again really bringing our kids back in that are struggling to make it to school consistently um so we've done some really great work on that and that's

032been a couple year process um our next slide is talking about our star reading so this is our you know our temperature checking along the way um you know our highlights here we reading for sixth grade if you take a look at that from fall to winter this is our new Benchmark program that the Board of Education offered for our sixth grade we have done a lot of work in getting that up off the ground here um it has made some tremendous strides we're seeing lots of positive um transitioning our students from really their kind of fifth grade selves still at the beginning of sixth grade into our almost seventh grade selves now um and and making some great strides um on our our testing to see that hey are they getting something out of

033the program and absolutely we're seeing those things there um and that we're continuing to you know show our growth along the way as far as um you know our math and our reading um and where our students are at with um you know our our proficiency rates so we're we're continuing to make stries you know do we want them to be higher absolutely um we're continuing to make those growth those growth pieces there we just add while yes we want them to be higher and they're going to be higher they were significantly lower not too long ago correct yes so this is right and you know sometimes when we're talking about things like really pushing with our elll students and you know s of the new past fail options and really immersing our students in

034classes where you know it's challenging enough for them doesn't go right on our testing so we're really working hard um at moving through that and we have of course Mary Gad and we're gonna just give her a little shout out come right in hit the ground running um really building up our our different programs Humanities wise um I know um Miss TR has also been around as well and that's going to be really helpful moving forward and taking a harder look at our math and our science and our stem um if we take a look at our next slide um speaking of stem our highlight here is our eighth grade you know really consistently doing pretty well for our ngss so we're really proud of that which means our eighth grader once we're getting our

035sixth graders and our seventh graders through to eighth grade we're we're getting them to that point where they're going to be ready to take on high school and and meet with more success there so we're really excited about those and then our last set as we've kind of talked about um we are higher than our state level for literacy growth rate which is awesome um so we're really excited to see that especially if you think back to our demographics side you know having a higher Hispanic population and um you know bilingual population honestly different multi level uh population we have lots of different languages I think it's like on parents SP it's like 11 different languages that it translates into to communicate with our families and obviously our students as well so um we're we're

036doing some really great there as well and I believe your slide excellent so Snapchat of where we are as far as the numbers but we also wanted you to know the work that we've been doing this year so we've hit really five different major sections first we worked with our entire staff on our vision mission and values we needed to come together and be aligned with how we Define oursel and where we're moving towards so we'll talk a little bit about that our implementation of Benchmark which U Miss Sterling talked a little bit about out we focused a lot on our mtss process as well as building teacher capacity to support our elll students um we really realized in working with Joanne I see her down there that our teachers really have a heart for

037our elll students but they needed support in being able to instruct them so that's been a major Focus this year as well as the portrait of graduate bringing that into the building so how we've done those things if we go to the next slide Josh our vision and Mission was really a a collaboration of all of our staff members we started it with it with um our back to school PD and it's been something that we've pushed through departments to really Define out what is our vision who do we want to be and and what is our mission how are we doing that and we've come up with to empower all students to strive for personal excellence and make a positive impact on our community we didn't settle on this until we could get consensus

038from our entire staff and we went back and forth to revision after revision after revision and our mission and the and the great thing that stood out in all of the work that that they did with this is what really highlighted was the staff Bel it's really the shared partnership with family community in school that really Rose to the top of you know how we're really going to do the work and Achieve our vision um and it's through these Partnerships that torington middle school is committed to cultivating a challenging Equitable and supportive learning environment within that work we also wanted to identify the values that guide us so as we have discussions and Josh we can go on to the next slide and I won't read to you what our definitions are but we actually

039did the work of defining who what are our values what do we hold dear what can we all agree on that guide our thoughts our work in our decisions and we really came up with responsibility Equity acceptance collaboration and high expectations and then we move forward with that work to come up with a working definition of each so that we knew when we're talking about these words what we all agreed on what they would mean to our school community so we're at the part now where our staff has agreed upon it and we'll move forward with that work and we'll share that out with the school um Benchmark Hillary's going to talk a little bit about right so this has been my baby this year I was really excited to take on um this this

040part and and work with the materials that we have um and also to work with another um partner that we work with literacy how so in sixth grade we took the program the reading program for bmark we did um break it apart into the two teachers that we have for the program um really being able to break down um and and build the the background knowledge for the students um into the narrative text that they're reading the engag um engaging informational text that they're reading um and really meet them where they're at so we could see and as we're starting to see with some of our numbers that growth of okay we we have some gaps in our learning along the way or we're still have a little bit of leftover um maybe some decoding

041or or learning to read type of um skill work and strategies and really helping our teachers to be able to support our students moving forward with that so that we're getting some higher levels of comprehension work with our students a a lot of collaborative work happened with the students um being able to focus in groups um getting the students to talk to each other a little bit more um I guess sometimes at elementary level it's a little more um when they're in a classroom all day long with the same you know 25 kids um they're used to doing that when we get here sometimes it feels like they're not ready um to work in groups or it changes for them so we spent a lot of time working on getting kids to talk about their

042learning and be able to share that out which is translating nicely to their writing it helps um support them there um we had some our coaching cycle support has helped us um guaranteed assessments to know how are we making progress along the way not just through star and aspect but making sure that our teachers are consistent across the grade level and the different houses as well um and then quite a few professional development opportunities um between de Benchmark um Consultants coming out to help us l H Consultants coming out to help us our own internal people our coaches um and really just building um this program to benefit our sixth graders in their reading their literacy their writing which ultimately you know sorry I'm a biased language arts previous language arts teacher um to really

043build them to working in all subject areas yes just I just want to drive home the point that this is a new instructional delivery model for the sixth grade teachers yes and I'm assuming I we don't know for sure for everybody yet because the survey is not done but many of those folks will teach sixth grade next year as part of the 456 school yes where it's going to be even a little bit more different right so this year was kind of a nice Bridge or transition to help those folks really kind of make that transition absolutely and I think um you know shout out to our teachers who took this on in sixth grade um it it was it's quite a learning piece there's a lot of moving parts to the program it is

044a different model for them but they really took it on um put in the the work that needed to be done our the next slide Josh if you wouldn't mind our coaching Cycles have been really helpful as well so we had um a a sixth grade coach specifically and then our our seventh and eighth grade um coach for literacy and um numeracy and they've been able to get into all of our classes but it's really been nice um having that coach tied to the sixth grade level too um and what you can see is you know our coaching sessions 258 coaching sessions with our teachers which is amazing um and anyone who's ever taught before Mr CCO I know you have and then certainly those that have it it you have to keep up with

045it our our profession is constantly changing so having coaches to really help you know um give feedback and and push our kids further um to make those changes it's it's been great so you know lots of um in-class support our meetings they they attend our meetings for SST our um coaching Cycles um really very very helpful and then doing some direct student support and direct student support great there's a little bit of that that's been helpful as well so this comes back to me talking a little bit about our MTS and I know we've talked a little bit about this but I feel like this is the year that all of the pieces are coming together it's been a fewy year process in bringing this to fruition and we work really through four different main

046meeting types the team one is where every student in the school is getting talked about we have a team two where it says okay from all of these kids that we talked about in Team One teachers really worked on this year with guidance and with the assistant principles creating support plans for students and monitoring those support plans and when those support plans aren't working coming to the SST meetings and through that SST meeting what it's been wonderful is it brings all of the Specialists together in that in that room and we already know all of the things that have been done because we have a system of looking at the plans and it's really enabled us to say okay yes we've done all those things yep Sue is in the room now we need to

047go to special ed referral so it's created a mechanis where we we are able to offer supports to all of our students in a way that's most efficient for all of us like the fewest amount of meetings because a lot of the pre-work is done in other meetings so the the purpose of this each meeting is very defined um and theno have the attendance meetings that go through gry bubbles teams and then those F uh filter into our SST meetings so I feel like you know we've really worked hard on that piece of it in order to meet all of the needs in our in our building sh just for the committee just mtss is multi multiple TI systems of support and SST um Student Assistance team yep right so this is Kristen you've been

048intrigued by this and it's interesting because shelle's right this is an opportunity for every student to get that kind of attention she was going through it I was thinking to myself this is perfect because yeah and it's it's very when you you're in a large large building communication we all say we want to talk about kids or we want to do this but sometimes that's not efficient and sometimes we can't get the right players together so by creating a system that we all use that filters through all the teams has really enabled us to within each team deploy the supports that we need to deploy and keep track of how those supports are working and by the time we get to SST pretty honestly most of our kids that go to referral we've done all

049the pre-work you know we've talked to Carri our psychologist and it's sort of yeah we've done the work and we see these pieces and we know now that maybe this is something that they need and it's also enabled us to and Steve you'll probably appreciate this is there was always sort of that end of the year let's refer students and using this system what we've been able to do is track the work from prior years so we were all peed up at the beginning of the year for some kids that just needed a few more things so we were able to space that out a little bit more for our students which helps our staff as well in being able to deliver the supports they need I think too what what's really nice about this

050process and also having the house system as well is making sure that in a school of a thousand kids we don't lose anybody yeah that we're on every single person and even even our kids that are like Tim just mentioned like they're doing the right thing they're great kids but maybe they're not a sports person or you know know where they're not failing something we're still looking at them we're still having a moment to make sure they're continuing to succeed for themselves and that's that's a big feat I mean I'm sorry we're find ourselves in the B for that so if you want to go to the next one we kind of just wanted to know what are the supports that are available to all of our kids we do have advisory we have a

05130 minute learning lab that we arrang this year with core teachers which was different than last year all of our kids have access to our homework Center tce a week um and they also have access to our student support center which directs them to either an counselor or an administrator and kids self Advocate when you give them a mechanism to do that and we see our kids coming in all the time we know it's happening before anything because our kids are quitting to tell us um so that's wonderful we've also really worked hard for the tier one to have guaranteed experiences I strong strongly feel that it's it's my role to make sure at the end of a student if a parent comes to me I can say I know that your child received this

052instruction in our school all kids are guaranteed this instruction so we've done a lot of work around that we have opportunity for student leadership we just went to actually the young entrepreneurs club which was started by a student two years ago and taken over by Matthew is it now they actually did a sharp tank yesterday that we went up we were sharks and judged them they all gave us their business proposals it was the best thing that I have done one of the business proposals we quite didn't understand because it was Tac and my one question was is this is this legal can we do this and the response was wow Mrs raldi it is a great and it was wonderful to hear these business forgiveness later forgiveness later yeah well he went to tell

053me why it was the gray area I was like okay um but it's it's wonderful to see the students leading things and the fact that it was student gen generated taken over by a student we have lots that are started by kids which is great we also look for opportunity to recognize whenever we can we have our Kudos breakfast that we've done monthly which you'll hear a little bit more about our house Awards continues our students love to be recognized and we're getting more and more positive bus Awards which is wonderful when I see what I think is a bus referral in my mailbox and I pull it out and I get to call home and tell the parent how great their kid did on the bus so that's been really nice to see this

054year if you go on to the next slide Josh we also have tier 2 supports which are a little bit more intensive our counselors um are there for check-ins as needed either weekly daily some kids are twice daily we do have lunch groups with our counselors we partner with um torington you Service Bureau they come in for lunch groups we also have math and greeing RTI which you did see the math RTI we we have Viking time which meets during our homework club that are um students that we identify that need to be there every day and we work well every day that it meets which is twice a week and we work with the parents we've had HDT tutoring here we have a schools based social worker we have an alternative program and we

055have all of the individual student support plans that we're working through our team meetings um and if you go to the next slide give you an idea of the numbers of kids within intervention this has broken up between Ela and math and of course across the grade levels for ELA if you look to the right the 132 that's students that were supported by those interventionists in either a one two or three trimester levels of support the way the columns go over if you look at grade six we have 31 students who had one trimester support in ela 10 students who had two trimesters and five students who had three trimesters and that's been another Improv in our programming is entrance and exit criteria we were students we worked really hard with that within math we've

056had 153 students supported and if we go to the next slide this one I thought was really interesting the blue if you look at it these numbers are sgps which from star with student growth percentile so how quickly a student is growing to their grade level to their like peers and star the blue just to give you an idea is core classes how quickly the gr the students are growing the yellow is intervention so those students are getting a core class and they're getting an intervention and as you see they are growing much more quickly which we would want they're getting a double dose and then GT tutoring that's coming through the state so across the board students that are receiving interventions are growing more quickly than their grade level peers but they have a

057farther amount to growth so we want to see a more aggressive growth to get them closer to Great level so this was really reaffirming when I pulled this out and disaggregated this to be able to see that our interventions are making a difference with our students okay and likewise we also looked at our in ela interventions we do see you know that our students are making more but we do want to make more Headway in there so that we can get growths that are more comparable to our m gross and this slide has to do with and um Krist alluded a little bit or talked a little bit about the work that we're doing with our elll students and our elll students are going out into our classes much earlier than they had in the

058past in working with Joanne and you know working with the elll Department was a way for students for teachers to feel comfortable to assess students that have language abilities that may not be at the level in which the the curriculum requires them so how do I assess these and how do I look at these students and we wanted a really concrete way so we did work in order to develop rubrics with that are specific to each content area so that teachers would have a way of looking at it while building their capacity to know what students can do um and what we found out we worked through we did some surveys of our teachers to find okay is what we're doing working are we giving the PD that you need as helping you into to

059be able to support our students and what we found is that 70% of our teachers said that the that what was helping them with the students was the PDS and the staff meeting work and things like that that we were doing um so that was reassuring and they've also 70% of them said they were using strategies that they picked up over the years so it's been in their mind they want the El students and then we sort of asked them like how are you feeling right now about this do you feel like you're doing a good job you feel like you're trying you need more practice do you want to tell us and I always look for an honest answer help get me out of here I don't know what I'm doing and we had

060nobody tell us that in fact close to if I add the bottom two percentages about 80% of our teachers said that they felt like they're doing a good job supporting our L students or they felt like you know what I'm on the way I just need a little bit more practice and you know as we talk about teachers and how they're feeling and they and you know whether or not they're stressed part of them feeling well about what they do is feeling like they have the capacity to do the work we're asking them to do so this was really reassuring to us as well then if we go on to the last one the last things that we've been working on are our PG Kudos um and basically what we realized is at the middle

061school level our kids needed concrete examples of what is a conscientious learner what is an effective collaborator so we came together to create a program where teachers could give out little Kudo tickets when they saw the attribute we were highlighting from the month and students that received those Kudos could go to a monthly breakfast and at that monthly breakfast we took each award that the kids received we read out why they receive that award to constantly give these are examples of these attributes so we're going on to our last Kudos breakfast um and the kids are a little bit sad that it's it's coming to an end with that but our next level of work if you want to go to the next one Josh was now okay we're dabbling with what are these definitions

062what do these Kudos looks like uh these PG attributes look like in real life now it's how do we truly implement it in our building and like most of the work that we do at this building we do it staff-wide and so now our staff is and these questions have been sort of teased out into several different meetings our staff is really working through these questions to come up with how how are we going to embed these skills into our work how are we going to assess the growth of P so basically we're at that point now where we're getting staff feedback as to how we'll implement this through next year and then the last slide is just some pictures of some of the amazing things that happen here thank you very much you're welcome

063questions comments discussion points comprehensive picture of what's going on here that com and what makes it look like a different building a different it is a different building I'm going to be brutally honest these ladies have heard me say this it wasn't all that long ago that I used to bless myself I walked into this place different place this stff been a lot of work I know they really done a lot of work and it's it's a different building and it's just getting better every day I to say I benefited from coaching sessions with our coaches in a way that has helped me they do challenge you and you know they're my colleagues and I've been teaching a long time but there's always something that can be better that you can do different and meeting

064with them has helped so much they've recommended books they've recommended changes we meet regularly they help me collect my data so I know that I'm what I'm doing is working marvelous opport unities and they're always available even if I finished my coaching session and then need to go back and ask a question they're own there to help so they're great huge asset if I could sure your kids the most stunning ones that I've done so far of all the jaffan corners just sitting with those so I was so impressed with history day and how well they presented themselves so don't forget to call me when there's things like that happen I'll come up I'm hey I'm everywhere dial well I think the Shark Tank is gonna be one of the six that was amazing good

065Jeff you have anything to very nice presentation I have no questions much do your surprise Mr P You're The inser View thank you thank you for the presentation and work that goes into it and the work that it shows you know yeah thank you if I could just take one minute John I apolog um love to see the improvements with the with the scores um it's no secret I don't put a lot of stack in test scores just I I realize I should um and and I have more in the past year and a half that I've been on this board but I don't think that it um is a true reflection of the amazing school system that we have um you know some kids just aren't good test takers um but that's not a

066reflection of um how amazing our staff is and how hard the kids work so um you know I just I like to say that when we do look at test scores yes they're important absolutely and we should look at them um but they are not a true 100% reflection of the amazing students and staff we have at 22 Public Schools so thank you I appreciate your time Monday morning as well um keep up the great work I love the the program like Sue said it's it's definitely an area that I've liked to see both the middle and the high school um Administration kind of take on that challenge of those kind of Middle Ground students who might get lost in the shuffle a little bit who maybe don't qualify but you know aren't quite you

067know tag or onor Society students you know it's those middle ground and I love to see the programs where they're not getting lost right so thank you okay thanks moving on through the agenda we have the distinguished alumnus update the committee met before this meeting and selected a candidate Mrs Ferguson will make contact and when the contact results in confirmation that that person is available announce the announce that first questions about it so far again thanks to Mrs F thanks to Mary gra completely give this all to Mary she's the the Wonder Woman Who Behind the Scenes pulls on together it's a lot of paperwork a lot of paper lot of paperwork that needs to be done right and needs to be Y and she's very meticulous and as John said I will make contact

068with the selected um nominee prior to um the April board meeting so that which is when we usually but thanks to everyone involved in that and now we are moving on to topics for future meetings we have the math program textbook adoption proposal we will have that we will have course proposals we will of course have the high school report meaning is the high school focus building and those two things are probably going to take the full that's an agenda that's certainly an agenda um anyone have any comments about any of that in which case I am looking for comments for the good of the order starting down the end of the table please thank you nice to be here and nice to hear your report iaps that you've made to be working I would

069like to thank Tim for all the really wonderful PR he has generated um over the years um and especially in the past year um and all the work that you've done for Kids Marathon when we first started that program and and how that is really Evol and thank you Shelly for just a great report on TMS I'm Hillary and I really want to acknowledge the tremendous of the leadership of shell in in making the E instruction or the instruction of el is really a key part of what every teacher is doing the E population at TMS is about 17% and uh so it's been really uh a year-long process and um the teachers have embraced and accepted not only accepted have really just done a great job reaching out for professional learning and um and

070then trying strategies and and I think having some fun with it as well so anyway thank you um like Kristen said it's the middle of the road student that seems to be my tenure on the board that seems be lost so it's great that you're reaching out to everyone and and they're not lost anymore so I appreciate it so much thank you greatly I I would just like to thank everybody you know the challenges within a school are are so immense that good work can't be done without everybody and the supports from op have been wonderful um just in general as the district as well as what the board has provided us with and Tim just your conversations with the kids as I watched you do those interviews your true love of kids is just

071so apparent and and I thank you for noticing all of those kids so truly around this table um the support is unbelievable and I just really feel like we're on the precipice of really moving forward um that was a great really great presentation my kids have been out of here for a long time and things have definitely changed since then I mean years and years ago and Tim I work at Vogal and those kids come back from Kids Marathon and they're bouncing off the walls with excitement but they have you they can't stop talking like they're just like they have such a good time when they're here I hear a lot of good positive stuff when they come back and they just're they're just really happy to be up here and and being outside and

072having fun they they really are thank you for that you great great meeting great presentations and I think it's important that we find a way to take these successes and find a way to use Tim's platform the Publications for the school to really bring forward the good things that happen you do an awesome job with that stuff interviews with the kids and things but if we as we grow with this we learn about these things that the average parent probably doesn't know Happ right I mean we do all these great things and not leaving kids Behind reaching out and the succcess stories and we have a great partnership that we find a way to really bring that so that it's not oh my God a good thing is happening it's oh great another great thing

073has happened great job everybody thank you very much Ronnie um I want to make sure you know you are all invited to the wizard of us when we started that we had over 50 student 505 or something auditioned and we had another like 30 sign up for crew numbers have kind of dropped but what's interesting is the kids are coming back and want to help with the show don't forget me next year for drama I know I couldn't do it this year the kids are interested and they love being in they love being with their friends and they do sound Heavenly you'll be so impressed beautiful performances great meeting thank you again to Mr ndi for the hospitality Monday morning and for the wonderful presentation uh thank you to Mr GNE because um You probably

074don't know this about me but my biggest pet peeve is that torington residents like to complain and not focus on the good yeah and like you said it's like 97% and I I wish more people were so involved with the schools and knew all the great things that were happening and the amazing teachers we have and the kids and everything that we're doing that's great everything that we saw here tonight and that's just a snapshot that's just one school um I have had one child come through here and I have another child who's in seventh grade um and they're both doing well um I have absolutely zero complaints um so keep up the great work um and then another quick shout out for Wizard VZ please come see it you will see a cute little

075seventh grader um in that show and the kids really do work really hard and they do everything they do the set they do the music they do the lights and they're so proud of themselves and it's huge confidence booster for them so please come out and see the show it was a um great meeting I I I enjoyed um um both um uh both of the presentations both what's going on here and the community community partner with the with Mr gathy and I I think that the you know the the way that the that that that that you described the Japanese cor of working with the kids and talking to them and interviewing is is a really really cool idea I know just thank you very much Tim thank you thank you very much to

076H and shell for that Beau presentation very comprehensive I know it takes a lot of work putting it together in between the daily work so thank you very much and thank you Tim for thank you Tim because uh I frequently bring uh your magazines with me to recruitment fairs when I'm looking to recruit staff and being able to show the photos and all the awesome stuff that we're doing uh is great so it's wonderful to have promotional materials to hand out to people to take with them so uh I've passed out a lot of magazines this week so I'll be excited for some new ones that I can share at the upcoming job fairs and great presentation of the middle school it's great to see everything you guys are doing so thank you yeah fantastic

077presentation Sterling really getting to see all the good happening of at the middle school here Mr gaffy I loved how you were highlighting you know all the good things that we have going on it's kind of like that uh sign on the back of the old the vi there it's hor great place it's what I love to do guys sh you're saying when I talk to these kids I'm usually at the end of my sitting at the end of my seat because I don't know what they're gonna say all of them ask me what are you gonna ask me I'm like I have no idea what what what does every teacher ever ask me what are the questions gonna be I don't know we're just going to have a conversation and I will just continue

078to do this for as long as I can so thank you for having Rissa great Josh and I have three things to say one Dr Buchanan isn't here but she did send her feedback for the distinguished alumnist award remarks were quite useful to us uh secondly thank you for all the presentations tonight so much work goes into everything that we that we hear about here it's just good to see the tip of the iceberg very much again and the third thing is uh the media strikes again and there's been some unfavorable or unpleasant things going on in the media and I just want to say anybody who questions the intentions of the people who are presenting the budget and and who are trying to get things done around here is is totally wrong it be

079expensive but it's certainly not dishonest of people to say this is what we need to do that's in fact the job this is what we need to do so there's nobody out there trying to Hur anybody um and looking for motion toour so move second forur thank you all e e e we at 6:35 um terms of role we have the um the members of the committee minus G is there a motion to approve the agenda second all in favor anybody have any questions about the minutes uh is there a motion to approve the uh minutes second all in favor Jos do you have anybody on for public participation okay so we'll move on to um discussion and next steps for the policy number 504 student dress code to jump in sure okay so what

080you have in the packet is so what we were charged with doing we were asked to do remember the last that we didn't me last month month before was to draft something and send it off to our attorneys to sh in for their blessing which is exactly what we did um we had conversations with the administration that was something that came up at the previous meeting um what you have in in the packet is the current policy which is just that little blur and then behind it what draft that Shipman has looked at has edited has had inputs with and has said with pass legal muster um so now it is is here for this committee to look at and Pull Apart question comment do whatever but this according to our attorneys would would would

081serve us well if this is where our board wants to go okay um I'll open it up to a discussion before I get started it looks it looks bulletproof to me and well shipment I mean they're telling us things that they can defend that that we can do given our intent so I'm starting off by saying yeah it looks good to me I can tell you that what we initially sent them what we came up with was much more of aose we had some introductory language that they struck right away and said no that's just going to get you in trouble um it opens you up too much interpretation um they had us add there's a sentence in here about Crocs um that was an ad that should that should have been an ad or

082a delete I I left it there for the board consideration um the attorney said you know Crocs are so ubiquitous today you need to either say Crocs are permitted or Crocs are not permitted because there's going to be too much interpretation um the the com everything you see they reworked essentially we ours I'm almost embarrassed to say I mean they completely so um anyway thank you you're welcome bill you have anything no I'm good actually you semi answer the question my question was going to be for the benefit of the committee what did Shipman and Goodwin kind of lean into right because you have the things that we kind of threw around in the last meeting that thought were important we weren't sure and then you sent it them which ones did they go you

083really need to make sure these things I'm sure there was a subset that the committee would want to hear that ship this we won't say Adam about you already said they rewrote after it so well they they really did I mean I I can tell you some of the their rationale you know I'm reading the message your aspirational language production as well intention but very problematic okay translation get rid of it exactly and they actually redlined everything you know so restrictions on student parents should be tied to specific educational interests particularly avoiding disruptions to the educational environment so that was what it was always making sure that it was tied to disruption to the educational environment um let's see what else I reframed Provisions so they're all written as items the board has prohibited rather

084than some being restrictive and others being permissive um and then he goes on to say are you going to permit CRS you know you got to say one way or the other um and then they had very strong opinions about the um the discipline the consequences attached to this and they said we're really unable we had we had to committed something that said um out of school suspension for a fourth violation and they said we can't do that it's now statutorily not allowed so the biggest teeth you can sink into it is what's on the piece of paper it would be difficult to justify an out school suspension for a dress code violation uh given the changes to statutes governing suspensions yeah it says con General statute XYZ requires a non school suspension beinged now

085the student poses a danger to persons or property or such a disruption of the educational process to Warrant exclusion from school you just um oh yeah thank you so they really their whole uh their guidance was everything needs to really specifically State what's not allowed or you know where are you going with this that's why honestly I put in yoga pans are permitted because without it there it left it up to interpretation seems like this is they really wrote this more to what do you not want to see more so than the clothing what do you think is the distraction or the educational impact rather than individual it you named out some things that like Crocs or yoga pants but this is far more specific to you can wear something as long as it cover

086what it needs to C that's that was their you know to prohibit crop dos anything revealing I mean you could read it go ahead okay so it's your I'm just trying to provide the background okay so I'm gonna say I I like that the cracks are allowed um because in my conversations with some some folks in the school system um we don't want to um make kids feel they have to go know sometimes that's that might be what they have yeah um so and you know they really don't CL a safety hazard but so let's talk about age age um while I agree um what is AG uh tights or spandex garments unless they are covered by another garment yoga pants shall be permitted if the top is of tunic length or longer so there's

087a couple of things that I think are still too broad um when we're saying spandex garments I think we're saying bike shorts here is that what we're trying to eliminate is tight shorts so the language that we had submitted to the lawyer read tights are not allowed in place of pants right that was what we wanted to eliminate right and this is what they came back with so I don't think that's it and I don't I didn't think it was B short I I'm going to go back to because I agreed with your comment from two months ago when you said this is really this is not a correct use of this there's probably spandex in my sweater you know exactly so I think I think we need to be more specific with what's and

088I understand that Shipman put this together and while I appreciate their work and everything that you've done in the back end I think that it's still Broad and I don't really know what's not allowed here and that's why we added yoga pants are permitted and I think they were trying to help us you know it's types leggings I you know what what we we have actually had kids show up in Penny H opaque candy pose but that's what I would call them and I know I'm old but that's that's what I would call them too but I that's essentially what they are and that's the initial dress code that we we were looking at those samples it talked about tights specifically tights meaning that you wear under a garment tights or panty hose tights that

089are worn under a Dr the spandex piece is I 100% agree with you on that 100% I would never want to see that nor would I let the child wear it but I'm just concerned when it says spandex garments because it's just too broad I'm sure we all looked at our tags right now strike or spandex I that's what I Wasing we just say tights unless they are covered by another garment I would be perfectly fine with that does anybody else have anything as long as Shipman is good but I do just want to address the tunic length or longer are we trying to basically say the midriff must be covered because that's covered in another line item which I'm 100% I'm boor with I just want to because a t to me a tunic

090is like halfway down the thighs agreed so I personally think that's I mean this is 2025 we're a public school system I want the kids able to go Express themselves while still not distracting and you know wearing things that they should not um the feminist didn't need going to take over in a second and I don't want it to and honestly the tunic length or longer came up at at the last policy meeting that we had so that's why that language was included that was exactly that was Gary's right Gary wanted that in there and I think you're right I think that's where he's headed is that you know okay if you're going to wear yoga pants or you're gonna yeah right yoga pants yeah if you're going to wear yoga pants then don't wear

091a crack talk with it completely understandable and and I agree 100% I just think tunic length or longer is a little um the term yoga the term yoga pants is so we could say yoga pants or leggings right shall be per there so sh and govern wants us to say that whether they're permitted or not correct and the reason I'm asking is because you're right Kristen at the top it talks about the crop tops and that's ultimately the issue the the leggings because as of right now this spans all grade levels not just high school middle school like you got to think about you know the younger kids that we've talked about before so the language of yoga pants Andor leggings I guess or something shall be permitted do we need to reinforce I think

092if we add leggings cery we're going to get people are going to I think I think leggings tights I think they kind of covers it yo so to me and this this is a generational thing and Kristen's probably right there with me yoga pants to me are the flare what they call flare leggings now sorry like they're looser at the bottom oh I don't have any like that versus the legging that seriously this is where we're at the legging that you might wear that's an athletic legging but that's that's where I'm at but that's what we're gonna I know I I hear you I don't know how to fix that because yeah there's the Lulu Lemon material that I would consider to be more an athletic pant but then there's also just black cotton leggings

093you get it Target right and we My worry is actually the students that have sensory issues that don't that can't wear a jean yeah or a what I don't even know what I'm wearing it's got Spex in it but it's not think this this provides for that though if we say tights really this is tights are not permitted unless they're covered by another garment yoga pants shall be permitted I mean if you want to add yoga pantsleggings it doesn't have to be leing I think it just needs to be I don't know how El to refer to it I I think we're try yeah like I'm trying to get rid of the spandex garments because it's too broad but I'm trying to make yoga pants more broad at the same time so yeah sorry okay

094go ahead can't you put tights or yoga pants unless they're covered by a garment because yoga pants shouldn't be covered by a garment they don't a lot of them won't wear it was well but if they're the tight yoga pants that are athletic pants as long as they're covered by a garment why would they want why I think covered by a garment means like a skirt or something tight we back to the P thing the tights are ping people were kids coming in in nylon stocking yes but I'm saying I'm saying yoga pants put yoga pants with tights but they're different they're different because the yoga pants are on top of t t correct some Y Yoga Pants are like typ well right the material matters and that's like a whole they're not or opaque

095they're regular pants where they wouldn't require a skirt or something to be worn over oh sorry so two points on that with that in mind if you were to use language yoga pants and leggings that are not see through shall be permitted period oh sorry what are you trying to what are you trying to fix with this line item what is the well what Gary wanted is I'm just GNA be like full disclosure what Gary wanted is that if a student is wearing yoga pants or a tight legging that the top come down over and cover the B I know that's what he I I know that's what he wants too and he also knows that I'm Viet against that um because I think that it attacks our female students um and not our male

096students which again I'm try not trying to bring out the feminist in me but that's what it appears to me um I just I still think that the spandex garments is too I do like the idea of let's get Okay add on that perspective in regards to being I think that what you run into is even jeans could have the same cling quality good way to put it yes that other pants do and I do feel that we do as a school system need to adjust to time periods and um it is common usage in society to wear non see-through tight fitting pants even if the B as would like is not covered and so I think in keeping with that the suggestions here that you eliminate the line um tunic length and longer is

097in the best interest to pushing a policy forward Gary's not here and and I know his position on this um I hear the phone would me now actually yeah I'm like I wonder if he's watching and he's for the texting um but yeah I I would agree also having just now at this a you know this age and older like a lot of our kids in front of us that are coming in wearing a sweatshirt and and a pair of athletic pants yeah and as we get closer with weather a you know biker short you know just a short version of it or cpre length so I I do think we have to take out tunic length or longer because I I'm I'm not even sure that it's possible to find clothing like that having

098a 15-year-old in a 13y old well I mean I we've covered the crop top shirts and blouses reveal the chest stomach out in the back shoulders you know I I was at one of the schools yesterday and saw a student who was beautifully dressed I mean I actually complimented the outfit it was lovely but it wouldn't have passed mustard with this policy because it there was this much Skin showing right around here between the waistband of the pants and where the tow and I think that's what he's right and I definitely do agree with that but it it's addressed in Gary was also pretty adamant about the length he used the reference back when we were all in school right was the you know you that was for short that was for he was also

099looking to avoid like you know somebody showing up in athletic shorts that were four and a half inches long right so I don't know how we which I'm I'm fine putting something like that in like a bike short like Nike Pros just comes to mind because I have a cheerleader and that's what she wears to practice not to school to practice um I certainly would agree with that being out in there somehow I don't know we I didn't see anything that address exceptionally short it was the one side yeah I think I think that's helpful in that aspect um and I think I brought up at the last meeting like if we talked about sports uniforms for like a moment my girls play volleyball those shorts are very shorts so they would they could wear

100their Jersey to school to promote but not the shorts which makes sense that's for the court and during the day you have to have what what does it say reveal not revealing the upper thigh or underd I'm okay that's it covers it there yeah it covers it there we don't have to enforce we Sorry sh so I'm going back to yoga pants do you do you want to just say yoga pants shall be permitted period or is there a way to compromise and say yoga pants shall be permitted provided the top waistband or something or but yo yoga pants aren't the top yoga pants are the bottom I think that get covered in a to right is covered in a I would think I do think it needs to uh whatever term we want to

101say we're saying non Seether but what opaque opaque yeah tights or opaque any kind of see-through bottoms any kind definitely agre the B don't think you need to go the top if we're going to use the top line as applying to everything below it okay if you felt the need to add and you know so so long as all other aspects of the policy are met sure should say you don't need that already said but if you that's up to you guys well they put it in the two but but that's because we had stipulated you know that we wanted something covering and if leggings were used in place of pants however given what eron just pointed out it's very true sometimes a pair of skinny jeans right has to be written to avoid what

102you of what the material is right that's the whatever the distraction is to education that's how the policy has to be written all right so tipes unless they are covered by another garment yoga pants are permitted I they leave it at that they may ask you to include since you're saying you're giving you a blanket permission it may have to say yoga are permitted so long as it doesn't violate any other I don't think we had to do that with the CR I wasn't sure but concern you're saying it's yeah no if we go back to a shirts and blouses that reveal the chest stomach abdomen back or shoulders one with the thighs just say a that's not right yeah why is that a that's yeah I thought I thought I read upper thighs where

103did I it is it's the second a about four it's the second oh okay there's two A's yeah I'm gonna have to go back should it just say articles you want do you need to specify all these things out or can you just say articles of clothing that expose I me that just might be then then you get away from from the whole spandex concern the chrisan no they were very very very direct about they were explicit like we need to be no it says right here yeah I mean I definitely appreciate the you know diligence that they took with it% or other or other ready to move on I have some a different a Different Light item in the dress code sure go ahead all pajamas and another sleepware don't kids wear pajama pants

104like we're trying to get away from we're trying to have kids not come in unless it's a p unless it's a special Spirit day okay so if they have a tactile issue theywe right there sweatpants or leggings or other sort of athletic now that yoga pants are allowed I they can wear yoga pants I'm not pajamas okay okay because that's that's all I see right so we're try I get what you're saying yeah but I think I'm at least I'm thinking hope that so pant would be able to fill that vo again I'm going back to my visit to the high school yesterday and the teacher who room I was in hosting the special which was um but she said in advance of she had to sit her kids down and say please don't to

105school tomor we're have special and she said by and large roll out of bed and don't bother getting dressed I know I know well that's what we're trying to get away from yes even for like the family that um I I think um the sweatpants covers it you can get a black pair blue pair gray pair there's cheap enough ones that exist at you know say Walmart or you know e the thin straps correct used to be two fingers I don't know if it's no we don't do that anymore two sub yeah it depends on yeah good point you know it's it was the spaghetti strap notion and also if you're thinking about guys for example like you're talking about the the S well yeah but some of those way low come down here and

106and it's basically nothing that's and we've addressed those I have but that's why this was put here right so I struggle with tank tops in that there are appropriate tank tops where chest is covered and it's just a sleevess and some of our buildings are really hot not here as much that's I'm open to talking about that I just don't know how to make that slightly better I'm sorry to bring that piece up but I can't cot and I I know I don't count in this at the moment but of course I want to you know model appropriate I'm just trying to figure out how might we adjust maybe we leave tank tops as what's not allowed and get rid of sleeveless shirts because they could be a difference right a tasteful sleeveless shirt as

107you're describing right especially on somebody in third grade who's wearing this pretty little sleeveless shirt but I think if we leave tank tops in there it covers what we're worried about it covers those those things that are made of mesh not wearing anything right right yeah well I also believe that we could add the the the first letter a um the the second concern you have about the boys shirts that dip down like that right we can take care of that is covered with blouses that reveal the chest stomach abdomen because that would be revealed in that correct so you could say a sleeveless shirt and a young man who comes in with something that reveals too much you can say you're violating a you can allow referring to sleeveless shirts like that cover your

108shoulder right like that's what you're saying yeah that they're like wide enough that cover shoulder would be permitted or more of a tank top there are some and some of the kids do wear them um they're they are like a either two or three finger type of style they're covered they're they they come high in the back they come high in the yeah they right they're not revealing in the way that they don't not showing their undergarments so that would be the but if I'm okay with not having to fight all those battles too um you know and and look at every little I'm worried about that we're going to get caught when someone comes in with kind of an appropriate tank top but now I got to say no you can't because of what

109we have WR written because it's not just a sleeveless shirt so you're saying T Tops is included in a the first a yeah yeah I think it would be so just so what what if take off take away C because it's included in a the first a or perhaps in a if you wanted a little bit more crop tops shirts and blouses and tank tops that reveal the chest stomach ab and back for yeah that's a possibility would that be a compromis I like that I was going to say crop tops comma tank tops and Shir and blouses I'm on board that the chest blah blah blah so we're going to going to forget about sish shts that's in the 1940s right okay okay we'll make sure the80s trend is kashed yeah when I when

110I first read that the dress code I I think one of my comments to Gary's Gary was this is not a 1950s boarding school and I don't want to thank you I I do think there's a there's a line where our students can express themselves and keep with the trends but still be safe and appropriate for school can I bring up a line yes um mem when we were talking about this two years ago what is I'm sorry M hats hoods bandanas and any head coverings that conceals the identity of the individual student that does what conceals the identity of an individual student okay except for medical yes I just didn't not I just didn't didn't hear the the last part of what you said sorry about that um when we were discussing this two

111years ago um when it got postponed and we you know moved um a lot of discussion was had in regards to hats and bandanas and the discussion was that and and the feedback from admin in my building at the time was that hat and bandanas actually do not conceal the identity of the student they actually help in identification of the students on the videos um I understand that it is customary for hats not to be worn indoors if we're going back to tradition but I do feel it's another one of those Traditions that has um changed with the times and I'm concerned that coming down on that with the students is not the benefit of that is not worth the negative impact to the student ground do you I'm yeah yeah yeah I think that

112that is one thing that we've strongly enforced here and we don't have it we have a maybe a few program students that have higher needs and I have to be honest with you I feel like that is one of the things that helped us shift the culture are here because and for me when I'm looking at videos I think if there is a concealment and I don't know who I'm looking for yes if somebody said that the kid with the red hat just did that but more often than not we're looking at groups of kids and we are better able to identify them and I strongly feel like that's helped shift the culture in this building because in school we just don't do that and it's become it it it's just an act of of

113compliance in a sense that here we don't do that and and I feel like it's really helped our building because I remember when I first came in it was like no you can't do that it's not going to work here we thought we were going to be fighting the battle and it honestly it really hasn't been that big of a deal and I and I have to like do they put them up sometimes but now it's kind of funny I walked down the mall one time and I just did this to a kid because it's just if you do that and they take it down it's that symbol of yeah I'm I'm respecting that and for the most part they do it you have have your few that really push it that are not an

114exception to the the situation but for the most part we have those conversations with them with their families I do also agree it's kind of along the pajama line like that is a line that we're trying to bring you know dress code back to just a bit sorry as long as we're looking at M down the left hand column first second third fourth protective hairstyles I'm sure that means Pro I'm sure that should be protected hairstyles because the reference afterwards is right to the crown act where kids R allowed to wear their hair anyway they want you know it's funny that you bring that up because I'm going to go back and confirm with the attorney but we had two years ago we we went back on that word and I want to say that

115it was cuz I questioned it too but I know but I we will do remember we went back to a abuse of the language I know but we'll we we will definitely go back and make sure okay thank you yeah no it may be that that's what they intended but well and on that I'm so there is a I'm trying to think of how how do that so A number of our kids will come to school wearing Bonnets and in with certain students it's you know it's the greased up hair and that's what they do and it's like a couple days of they're supposed to be we ask them to take it off because we don't allow that governs um so I don't know what needs to be clarified with the lawyer on that pie

116is that because it says here like the silk bonnets that the but it does and I'm wondering if protective hairstyle I don't know it's commonly used by by the African-American Community to protect their hair while they sleep it's recently gained popularity with other populations because it's just especially if you have like like hair like Cur so is that what this is protective prot well the reason that some of that exists is because when they do braids and cornrows and lacks like at times and my daughter's into hair and stuff so at times it's it's like heavy greasy product that they're putting in it and it's it honestly protects from clothing and stuff I'm not sure if that's fully the indication there much time in their homework as they do on their ha I would like

117when you're putting like a lot of products in your hair it protects your clothing like your pillow I'm not saying that should be allowed I'm just saying that's a piece that I know that exists right now the way I'm reading that those bits are allowed right that's what I was actually going to bring up I was concerned head but it says including but not limited to so just in case anything changes so I like wigs and head wraps is what I get concerned with that would be more I I would take it head wraps like yes MD yeah but then if you keep reading and hairstyles right and hairstyles as individual braids cornal lock twist band knuts so the band knots and the and you know and this afro puffs whatever but the those are

118like the band knuts are a little bit more that's religious or in our cultural yeah yeah we want to make sure that's all I just want to say something and again this is just because so removing a hat indoors traditionally is a sign of respect good manners right right and I think that's where right just laughing at good manners I know and I feel like I don't know that we want to get away from that and it you know that was all it goes all the way back to Medieval Times when a knight would come inside and take off their helmet so that they could show that they were not there to harm anybody so I I I mean that's just sh wants to make it part of the culture and it is you know

119that kind of respect making that kind of respect part of which we can definitely appreciate certainly backwards and I have to say in the amount of times that we've I've asked students to remove bonnets it was simply a fashion statement and it wasn't if you think to it like and have we ever I don't think I've ever had a situation where they've taken it off and the hair is I did have one just one and we made we fixed figured it out we figured it out because to me if if we're doing that then we have to do hats and baseball caps because you know kids will say to us I just had a bad haircut and we'll be like you know what that happens sometimes but we can figure this out I just worried

120about the second half of this wording and I think that's where the lawyers comes in to clarify what the protective hairstyles I mean Aon is definitely not a protected hairstyle or head WRA or covering of any kind for religious or cultural reasons it's used by everybody um it's TR traditionally used by the African-American Community but like I said somebody I sleep with on it because of the amount of stuff I have to put in this map of the head but I wouldn't wear it to work I my opinion doesn't matter but it it does I would like I would still like to have the ability to ask a child to pull their head their Hood down right and not walk through the halls of school I think we should I I don't think I'm notoc

121remains here that's just after hearing Shelly say you know what a instrumental part of the culture change at TMS the hats have been I certainly don't want to beap um those kids are taking that from here to the right would do it I'm I certainly am fine with leaving that in um just because I got in my way with the yoga dance give a take just to throw this out there this is also a Monumental shift from what we were going with before so it would be crazy to think that we're not going to sit here after the warm weather comes out 6 months and ask all the administrators hey did we do well by you or there a couple additional tweaks we should make for the September startup of the school year you should

122just put it back on the agenda for a quick review and feedback from Administration did it work did it not work and and be committed to seeing it all the way through is my two cents on it okay it's not going to be perfect we're going to [Music] try okay at the risk of elongating this meeting even further um do we have anything else related to dress C whether it's a line item or discipline part can't speaking now or forever hold your piece at least two weeks until Gary yeah until Gary comes back and gets mad at me the only thing I'm going to bring up is the sandal slides are we we we want to B that that is wearing sneakers to for gy class right it says that it says cracks are allowed

123sneakers are W for physical education classes totally get that um but we do have a lot of kiddos wearing slides oh that's that was about safety honestly yeah so I I'm just I just want to put that out there because that maybe that may be a ble we might a little bit you know even at the elementary level those that flipflops are not allowed or the kids are not allowed to play on the playground continue it on out maybe that's s six months from but I don't know you guys deal with it every day we really should take your feedback is important because you you're you're out there so if you guys feel strongly about it this committee I'm not on it but this committee should know right should know what those concerns are and

124take it into consideration that's that's why we have do what we do this I just we have a number of kids that wear it I I could almost care less either way I get the safety Factor but this has to work for the whole District I know yeah okay I'm just y That's see it's on the tip of your tongue to you're ready to no I totally understand that it needs to go for the and you know if kids can't go out to recess with it then we need to support it here and I do understand what you're saying we do have a lot of students that wear it um but it it has to be a whole District policy and I understand that piece so what about I'm going to say is what about

125the Crocs that have they do Crocs as a brand right does make a slide just going to say it oh I I was going to say it you well just say they're there so you have to be if you be considered a sport slide so you would just have to say it's close basically you're saying close to and you make the exception it's Clos to but Crocs Arla which says that well I got at least with a strap the back CL style Crocs yes there are I was thinking slides are slides Sports slides or are those like call them clocks whatever like I think slides refer to like soccer slide right yeah like um I want to like a flip flop just has just has the strap over the velro strap right because there's I

126mean I have slides to wear for shoes that that are sport slides that's different that's that it's it's just a weird wording I think it's literally a wording thing no oh not truthful no my sle ones the wedge slides that's what I'm also thinking so I just wanted to that's not what this means right this means like the Adidas last right but it says sport sandals so I don't know if you want to say sport slides or just leave it and go with the flipflop sports sandals and slippers I feel like covers what we're concerned about I don't know to your point I don't know that we need slides in there because again even the Crocs are technically a slide unless you put them in sport mode right back on them but really what we're

127concerned about are those athletic I believe the athletic slides that's what I'm yeah are the athletic slides the ones that yeah you concerned about open toe that's yeah I could go along with that I could go along with the flip-flop sandals and slippers not allowed but like get slides out of there because maybe it's just too it just opens upm but is that a safety issue having open to shoes yeah well slides are open toes could be or they could be like more of the Clogg look what are Clos toe Crocs to then you avoid the the you sayoc if I were student I would I'm just thinking what would I argue and I would argue that it's a Croc because a Croc is a brand and really the first half of that footw that

128Mars the floors or poses a safety hazard so we can go close toe Crocs are allowed would be your are we leing slide in here I think we should take out slide and I think the sports sandal like we're saying Sports sandal slippers and the flipflops yes I'm sad about any to you're saying anything open to can't be open open toad but are we are you trying to say that anything open toed is not oh oh uh and slippers and slippers is stay there yes abely slides out you can't say open toe stuff because slides are open toe could be but those are sports sandals we're calling we're say we're saying no to those right we're said no to sports sandals but you're right that's the same thing isn't it isn't a sport a slide

129that's why I say it's almost like it's in there twice so if you get rid of slide Sports sandal is more open and basically what you're you're against I see what they saying so can you say Footwear that Mars the floors are posed a safety header including flipflops open toad shoes you could if you're arguing for open toe shoes you just go open toe shoes but that's that's you guys think yeah I'm I'm concerned with getting as strict as open toe shoes I feel like at at our level plenty of our young ladies come in with sandals that have a thick sole that have a strap but a portion of their toes might be showing M and I I think that like an esad or something a little bit of I'm just tring we have

130a number of te fash open to in there I think it's too now what about not the sports sandals but the the shoes that don't have a back they have a you just slide them on that's a slide but it's not but it's close toad that's a clock it's like a clog or SL like and it's that's a lingo thing so I think if we take outside and do what we said the sports sandal what was the other one slipper and right the FL to to Ellen's concern sorry if it's a safety hazard we'll deal with the first half um concern I think that those types of shoes that you're speaking of don't pose the same safety hazard as the sports sandal because the foot is more protected and more nestled into the foot and

131they're not likely to go flying off the way the Adidas soccer slides are like I can't walk in that's why that's why I think taking slides out is okay I think it it serves I can runp I all right I took slides out I want to go back and just clarify crops are we leaving it crops a lot or we changing it closed toad crop I think we have to stay closed to stay closed to there's so many versions of yeah because you can get the fake generic on you mean so you're doing I think that like it's becoming like the lawyers were saying it's becoming ous ter it's just like CeX good example or Band-Aid or true true but never Diet Coke there's only one than one more there's there's no generic for diet

132code um all right does anybody have anything else like really this is like speaking out Place John you have anything else before we on the dress code close comments in the dress code um just for the record I think this was well thought out and I'm it like so I feel like we collaborated very well as a team on this dress policy some people were got what they wanted me um and some we have the admins here to help us get through some of the wording and what really should be allowed and what shouldn't be which I'm thankful for because they're the ones that have to enforce it but this is kind of like a marriage we all kind of work together on it and um well and honestly I think it's better than anything

133we've ever have that's good as long as it's enforceable and realistic well we'll see put it on a at the moment it feels enforceable we'll see what actually happens well and that's what that's why policies are so you can and it doesn't administrators or teachers and but you know I'm glad we had everybody working together on this and brainstorming and when does this go into effect well it goes if you move it to the full board meeting in April it it right away right after May first Kim just did the little research while we were sitting here on the word protective versus protected and it is protective really say correct I know it sounds weird we don't agree but just just a quick question because we're making a couple of adjustments do we vote to

134send this to the full board tonight or do we have to wait no you vote tonight to move to the full board okay so you have to entertain motion okay so do I have a motion to send policy number 5040 student dress code to the full board so move all in favor I all right so move to the full board with the Chang with I'm sorry yes with with the Amendments thank you thank you thank you administrators absolutely us yeah and teacher feedback too you know I mean I think that's important cuz yeah this this is a different time and I think we have to be mindful of that too so um topics for future meetings uh Jack had wants to see this come up again in August to see how it's or whenever yeah

135maybe August might be too soon right I mean or whenever whenever you guys think you you look at it and go this is working I mean this is really your short your warm weather you're going to go through we's next winter whatever we just want to make sure you're you feel supported like this is not set in stone it's if it needs to be fixed right it just needs to get back on the agenda all right so a dress code policy review at some point within the next few months maybe once I would recommend we wait until the seventh and eighth grade are up on to their new campus and you know because that's going to solve a multitude of sins just a multitude of s just move people it alls off so what used

136to happen was if the administrators or the teach if the teachers had an issue with the address code they go to the administrators administrator would send it to the chair of policy and then if it needs to come back to be discussed it can be at that point so if it's working it's working right no news kind of yeah yeah whatever um and did we still have to look at the staff dress code and was brought up at the same time yep okay oh yeah Donna wants to bring forward the noning reserve account right yes nonlinguistic we can put that on for May um moving on to comments for the give the order Miss ceden great meeting yeah ditto thanks forut and all working together great clish thanks for allowing a voice to those who

137are on the committee yeah thank you to all of you who have that valuable input that we just wouldn't have we're not there every day you have anything uh just to to thank ad the administrators and and others for their input which uh um help help guide us through the process you're r a good meting tonight thank you thank you John appreciate that I got about two hours notice thank you good morning good meeting you good down there got to love Josh okay um do I have a motion to adjourn all in favor to 7:30