001But the state is not really at this point expanding uh any of the schools the enrollment. Um so not at this time. Not to put because it would be put on the teachers. Would the building be able to even do that? Well, if we I wouldn't want to push it if it's if it was if you're if we're talking like um expanding it to grade eight, we would have to have less classrooms of each. Like right now we have four of every grade level except prek. We have five. So, we're where we want to be. Yes. Yes. Let's put it that way, right? Absolutely. And that really makes me happy about seeing the 30%. Because I know when we go under that at some of the other magnets and we can't backfill it with Waterberry
002kids, it drives me crazy. So, to be right at the numbers of what we're supposed to be to 7030 and the number we're supposed to have in a school, that's great to hear. Right. Yeah. We're very excited. We don't want to lose any funding. No, no, no, no, no, no. I didn't even go there. Um, no, I was glad the numbers were adding up and it's where you want to be and and uh, of course it's it's really all about the teachers. So, you really should have them stand up so we can recognize them. If you don't have any more questions for me. No, I want to see them stand up. All right. Does anybody else [applause] I also have my building sub is here. [applause] Oh, dedicated. But I do believe your custodian is
003on his honeymoon. Oh, yes. I happen to know. [laughter] Yes, he is. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Does anybody else have any more questions since Tom took over for me? Love them. It's okay. Thank you so much. Thank you. [applause] Commissioner Van Stone, can you get the sign in sheet for Miss Swain? Thank you. Okay. So, [laughter] so we have no public speaking. Secretary Serrano Doro. I move to add to the agenda item number 4A data privacy agreement with Hill for Literacy Inc. Second. All in favor? I oppose. Motion carries. Thank you. Item number one, committee of the whole, Mr. Nard Zozi and Ron Cassellis. This is to request approval of a project authorization letter PAL to allow WDC to manage administer the Wilby High School football field renovations project. Uh yes um it is
004for the design and also construction. Does anybody have any questions? Um It's minor. It's minor. Um I saw some misspelling in the the verbiage. Um high school in particular was misspelled. Um will that be fixed so you don't have to come back and do any kind of amendments or anything? Yeah. Okay. That's Thank you. Can you explain the I could explain the project. Yes. So, what we're trying to do here is approximately around two acres of property that we want to uh redo the football field. Right now, um it's in an area where we have a lot of water concerns and we want to be able to use that field. So, what we want to do is we want to do a site improvement, do some regrading, site utility work, storm drainage, and do some
005landscaping, maybe some new bleachers and lighting. So, we would hire a a a civil architect to uh [music] come in and and give us a design. We would put out an RFP and then after the RFP, we would go out for construction uh bids to uh to build the project. Uh so, our main concern is is to get the field so it's operable. You know, whether it rains a couple of days, you don't have any problems that the that the children can't use the fields. So, our our main concern is to get the fields back operational. um so it's usable and upgraded. It's been a while since the um field has been upgraded and that's be phase one for what we what we have for the budget. Commissioner Oro. Hi Ron. Hi. Is this going
006to be a grass field or artificial turf? Well, I'm going to have an alternate for grass or turf to see how the numbers come in. Okay. So, we I would love to have a turf field. Um but our main thing is is Roco is to have the um all the under drainage work so the field can properly be used. That's our main concern. Commissioner O'Brien. Hi. Am I correct um in the reading of the proposal um that this is being paid for through a grant? Yes. DEDP deep. Yes. Okay. Commissioner Van Stone. Thank you, Madam President. You um it hasn't been that long because that field was redone while I was sitting on this board. So, it's been done in the last 10 or 12 years. Um but I know we had issues maintaining it,
007which I would came to be surprised that certain fertilizers that you do need are not allowed on school properties. So, I would second what Commissioner Horso said about considering the turf field. I know it will cost us more upfront, but um I I think it should be considered because we definitely did quite a bit of work down at the Willoughby football field. I'm going to say eight or nine years ago. Yeah. But um it it looks awful. I've seen it. It really didn't hold up whatever it is we did. I thought we worked on drainage. You may want to go back and check. Well, yes. uh the importance of the drainage is and I want to try to maybe change the grades a little bit but my number thing number one was for the turf
008so low maintenance um so that's one of our top priorities to we did not do bleachers the last time and I remember that was a mistake yeah we're trying to put in the bleachers and any extra money we're going to have alternates for like a scoreboard bleachers so if there's extra amenities we will do that so we're going to have a list of things that we can pick and choose considering what the budget we We have good facilities in the city. Willby deserves to have a good facility. Yeah, the team deserves it. Probably however we configure it. Hopefully, you could also play soccer because down the hill that soccer field down the hill when you can't get you almost can't get to it. Correct. So, it' be nice if that's a multi-purpose and soccer could
009be played there as well. So, if you can consider that when you look at it, that's one of our choices also. Good. Because we'd like to have more than just one thing playing in the field. Have you considered uh having someone from this board be we do have I'm not on it but we do have a building committee. Yes. And I think they should be involved uh and it should definitely be a consideration so that liaison to you guys could come back and let us know what's going on. We would like the committees as we're going into design phase for conceptual schematic design develop so you know all the times we're doing what's happening in the phases. So we'd like to be very transparent with this. So everything that we draw on paper show um
010we could always be a part of it. So we don't want to make decisions that have to then when you look at it. So we want you there for early hours. If we look at you guys like a contractor in this case. Y we always have input with the contractors. Y and we we're told as things are developed what's going on. So I would expect that here too. Absolutely. We we like that very much so. Thank you. Thanks Morrison. Thank you. Are there any other questions? Thank you. Item number two, request approval to participate in the repeat study, understanding how children learn to read. Chan and crew Good evening, President Hernandez, Vice President Brown, Secretary Serrano Adorno, Commissioners, and Superintendent Dr. Schwarz. Tonight, we have with us Yale Professor Doc Dr. Kenneth Pew and Shamar
011Barton from the Yale Child Study Center. They would like to partner with Waterberry Public Schools in Yukon Waterberry on a research study to gather data on understanding how children learn to read. They're here this evening to provide the board with some details about the study. Dr. Pew will start with a brief overview of who they are and what it is they do. Thank you so much and and thank you for considering this. Um so um I am part of something called the Haskins global literacy hub which is a joint connection between the school of medicine the child studies center at Yale University where I'm also on faculty and the university of Connecticut where I'm also on faculty um and it is um being currently housed at University of Connecticut Waterbury uh and my colleague Dr.
012Fumiko Haft who couldn't be here tonight uh who is the dean of Yukon Waterberry has been instrumental in getting all of this research on how kids learn to read and I'll just tell you a couple of things and then I'd like Shamar to present our study uh but Fumigo has been very much working with the community to try to bring educators and researchers together to learn from one another and to cooperate so the the global literacy hub involves people from many fields ranging from neuroscience to education uh linguistics and psychology etc. Um the work that we do that I do is funded um exclusively by the National Institutes of Health. These are research grants um and we study how children acquire reading. We begin the question at a very young age because it really all
013starts in preschool as you guys know even better than I. And then we study using two kinds of tools. Cognitive testing which are very helpful and certain kinds of non-invasive totally safe brain measures like EEGs and NESCAPS which Shamar can tell you show you some of our our quick slides. Um but the reason we use those two measures and the reason why we bring brain measures to studying how children learn is because the brain measures are extremely sensitive to individual differences to the differences between one child and another and they help us to understand diversity in children. What we address are three broad questions uh in this program with the hub at at Waterberry. One, how does how do children acquire reading? Two, why do some children struggle? And three, the $64,000 question, how can
014we use science to improve treatment? And so we work closely with the schools in partnership uh in order to and we bring our research in so that we're working with the teachers and with the students to promote science learning and science education. But at the at the core of all of it, um we are basically trying to help kids to avoid uh the difficulties through life that I've been studying for 30 years if literacy does not uh get taken care of very early on. So we're here I'm here tonight particularly to answer any questions about why we do what we do and and etc. Uh my young colleague Shamar Barton grew up in Waterberry. uh went to school here, did his bachelor's at University of Connecticut, um has been working with me as a grant
015coordinator, project coordinator for the last few years and soon will be going to grad school. Um uh [applause] and he's working very closely with the schools and he just has a few slides if they come up to show you the details of the study so that we can answer any questions. Shamar, thank you. Shamar, the the board has uh the information in their packets and we're going to put it up in a moment, but you can speak. Uh do you have uh the packet of the slides? Uh yes, I do. Thank you. Okay, great. And the board has in their packet, but we'll get it up in a in a moment. Um I could start and then catch myself up later on. Um and let me know if I'm speaking too low. I've been told
016I have a very low voice, so speak up. So um as Ken said, the study that we are proposing is called the repeat study. The repeat study stands for reading patterns explored across tasks. Um pretty much bring this my I got the slides right here as well. So why our study matters? So reading and executive function skills are core to academic success. Um the repeat study explores how these skills develop in the brain and findings will help educators and clinicians tailor instruction and interventions. How we go about um study learning study learning uh reading in the brain. We use pretty much three steps in our study. The first step will be reading assessments. So children will meet with us for an average about three to four sessions online. Each session is about one hour. um
017they vary based on the um participation of the child. As we know, they got very short attention span. So sometimes it might go along a little bit longer than usual, but usually the average is about three to four sessions. Um they are scheduled based on the family's availability. So like they can schedule as quickly as in like the first week or if they want to prolong it over months, it's up to them. We will just keep reaching out to them until they complete the study. Um the next step of our study would be Oh, there it goes. But the next step of our study would be through FNERS. Um so NERS stands for functional near infrared spect spectros spectroscopies. Sorry, hard word to say. Um this cap is a light cap pretty much. So it
018signs a little flashlight onto the scalp of the child. It doesn't hurt. It's not hot at all. It's a combination with EEG. This capab is able to show the blood flow in the brain. Um, as kids are thinking or doing certain tasks, we can see how one part of the brain starts to activate more when kids are focusing on one particular task. Um, we're focused more so on the motor region of the brain. So like when they're you know think not motor reading reading region of the brain and so we're hoping to see like when a child is engaging in reading there's a focus of blood flow going towards that region. It's like I said in combination with EEG and EEG is pretty much looking at the electrical activity inside of the brain. So, we're
019pretty much trying to get like a nice visual area. Um, the last portion of the study would be an fMRI. This portion is voluntary. Um, we would just like to use it to pretty much correlated with what we find with the FNERS, but the um, fMRI is completely safe. It's a, for those who don't know, it's a big magnet pretty much. There's no radiation. We have children very young going to the scanner all the time. And what we will usually do is do a mock scan before they even enter the scan. So the child will get a little practice run, see how comfortable they are with it. If they present well, we'll introduce them to the real scanner, get a scan done, and at any point during this study, even if they're inside the scan,
020we if they decide, you know what, I'm done. I don't want to do this anymore. We'll end the study right there for them. So usually, and that's for any portion from the beginning to the end, we need to get the child's consent all the way through and assurance. And so whenever they want to say I'm done with the study, they're free to go. Um so we're usually recruiting between the ages of about I say 8 to 13. Um we have permission to go from 7 to 15. Um it's a voluntary participation as we said. So like the child has full control in the situation for how far for how far they need to go. Um they are paid quite well for this study. They don't have to pay anything to be a part of this
021study. They are paid about a $25 an hour rate for all basic reading tests and for the FNER test. And they get a solid rate of $50 for the scan when they jump if they decide to take the fMRI portion as well. Um, so how do we ensure safety and privacy? This is a IRB approved um study by Yel. We de declassify all not declassify, we make sure we code and de um identify all data that comes with the child. So like even when it comes to the fMRI pictures, we take off the portion of their face that you can see during the scan. So like you could just see the brain if anything. Um it's stored in a secure server that only Yale approved people have access to. Um all people that will work
022with the children are background checked early and they need to be a part of our IRB to even getting any kind of access to any kind of data related to any children or families. Family data is also stored in a secure server as well. So for the last [music] portion partnering with waterbury schools um we seek to strengthen literacy and STEM partnerships in in this community. um give back through outreach, build bridges between family, schools and university researchers and continue safe recruitment and family outreach and share group level results and educational insights. As Ken said, I did grow up in the Waterberry school systems. I went to Bunker Hill to Westside to JFK to finally graduate and then go on to Yukon. I think very fondly of this school system. It did raise me and
023get me to the position that I am here today. So I would like to use Ken's resources to greatly amplify what water what array projects you know need to be worked on and help students achieve greater heights than even not have reached currently in my position. So perhaps we um can I just add one more thing before we take questions. Um so again uh on behalf of Dr. behaved as at at Yukon Waterberry. You know, there are a number of projects and partnerships and professional development on research, current research for educators. And we're very interested, as Shamar said, in giving back to the community and working as partners. This is an example of an NIH study. Everything's safe and approved, and it's it's really interesting and useful. I can I can tell you this. We
024learn a lot, but we really are about working closely with the community and learning from the needs of the students and and the faculty. Um, and Fumiko and I are here at all times uh on behalf of Yukon Waterberry, Yale and and uh and and stores uh to answer any questions and to be here to give more information. So, I did want to share that and um that was terrific Shamar in terms of the details of our study. Thank you. So if can we answer some questions if you have? Secretary Serrano Adorno. Thank you, Madame President. Uh great presentation overall. Um I'm I'm reading your your goal here is to understand how the brain supports learning to design better educational and clinical interventions. Is this study going to be open to, for example, bilingual students,
025English language learners, or special ed students? Everybody has different reading abilities. So I'm curious to see if if if it's open to those families what the study would would be, you know. Yeah. Yeah. So the work that we're doing which is again to understand how kids learn, what kinds of things can go wrong and how we can design better uh learning opportunities that are consistent with the way they learn, with the way the brain learns. And we take a very special focus in my lab and all of these NIH projects on kids who are neurodeiverse. So there's a real focus on kids who are falling behind not just due to limited opportunity but also to the challenges. These kids are often extremely bright and fascinating kids but they struggle in the literacy domain. And so
026we're very much focused there. And on the question of uh ESL learners, um we are one of my PhD students is beginning to develop uh a set of measures that will extend this to look at English language learners because as you I'm sure know um in the school district, any any school district, uh you're you're adding a whole lot of complexity to the process of becoming literate if we don't pay attention to home language, to vocabulary, and all of the other things that actually start, you know, birth to five. So, we also do work on that at Haskins, but we're very much focused on that. The the second language population would not be starting right now, but most likely by next fall. Okay. Thank you. Thanks. Sorry for the long answer. No, no, no. Great
027answer. Thank you. Thank you, Madam President. Commissioner Arland. Go ahead. Latoya Arlin. Thank you, Madam President. Just a quick question. How many other schools have you partnered with so far? And how have the outcomes been or the results? So again, I I do want to be clear. We're not assessing schools and we're not looking at outcomes in schools. We're focused on individual children and we are trying to understand diversity and how to use this kind of brain and cognitive information to improve how we teach the child. So we work with a lot of schools. We've had very good experience with um a number of schools where we've recruited partnered with the teachers so that our team can come and do professional develop PD uh so that we can explain the latest research on you know
028on brain imaging and and and education. Um we in the first five years we worked with East Hartford schools we worked with Windsor and a bunch of other places. We also are collecting data um in uh several LD schools including uh the AIM Academy in Philadelphia. Shamar and his crew were down there uh in the spring uh with Southport School, with the Windward School, but we're very much interested in being in public schools because we want to understand the full range of challenges that children face that some of those schools uh are a little bit less likely to face. So, we broadly recruit. Again, we're not focused on the school as the unit, but we're focused on the child. Well, we've had good partnerships and um a long history, actually a very long history at
029Haskins of working in Connecticut. Thank you. I hope that answers. Yes, Vice President Brown. Yes. Good evening. Uh this sounds very exciting. Uh I'm very familiar with Haskins. Uh Margie Gillis, is she still working? Is she still there? We we we always she's busy with her amazing work in Waterberry and many other places. I mean, she started work at Sprag School many years ago. She's the best and and we make sure she's still listed as one of our key people. Yes, she's she's amazing in the whole idea of the science of reading and I remember her up at the state capital really helping the legislators to understand. She was amazing. Exactly. But my qu my question is in terms of you know uh as you said birth birth birth to five you know we know
030that you know oral language and synapsis and the how the brain develops and we know that kids you know from birth I mean just the communication talking to a child singing to a child just just that whole interaction with the environment and the adults in their life uh has is a critical part of language development indeed. So I'm just wondering, you know, how that fits in in terms of when you assess somebody where they are, is there a way to kind of say, okay, how have they developed thus far? What has been the environment, you know, in terms of language development? Exactly. So two things this particular study that Shamar shared 7 to13 we just get extensive histories you know uh parents teacher clinical reports so that we know a little bit about the challenges
031but we have other grants other research that starts really young okay and we we're kind of like sort of filling in the gap so we do work on on babies and EEGs and how they acquire language and what are the risk factors in the environment or in their experience. Uh but then this study begins a little bit older. Uh and it's looking at kids who've already been through reading, most of whom are struggling, and it tries to understand the brain connections and the cognitive mechanisms on how we can reach them. So it's a little bit focused, but we we never separate them. So we're our model of reading starts at birth. We always say annoyingly and Margie says to good reading starts at birth. Yes. Not literally but in in terms of language. Um I
032also do a lot of work on the transition from preschool to school and some of the oral language abilities that need to be in place. I'm sorry guys, I'm total nerd. So don't let [laughter] me don't let me go too far into this. I I just want to make sure that we understand that there's a continuity here and you don't wake up and you're five years old or seven years. No, we we we take a we take a birth to 10 perspective. The other thing in our global literacy hub which is now housed at Waterberry um and at the child study center. The global literacy hub has research in many countries. Right now we just finished a massive study in schools in Argentina, Brazil. We're about to begin a collaboration in India. And the reason
033we focus on that is to understand language diversity always from the point of view of preschool and up because as you as you rightly say it starts there. So we have a lot of things and one one thing I would share is we love to share all of that with with professionals including the global work. So thank you. Yeah of course Commissioner O'Brien. Hi. Um very interesting report. Um I have a two-part question. One is approximately how many of our students are you hoping will join in this research. Um so in this particular study um we're researchers so as many as we can convince to join to be honest with you. But um we would anticipate because we're recruiting in different areas. We're also starting data collection in New York City at the Child Mind
034Institute that are collaborating. I would imagine that we would seek somewhere around 50 kids a year if that is, you know, if that works. Again, we work closely with the school. Um, my colleague Nicole Landy, who's also part of this enterprise, is actually bringing a EEG into the schools and and and it allowing students and teachers to work with them on the project. That's part of the value we think in education. But basically, we're looking to get as many kids as we can. And my second question is because you're starting like age 7 to 13. Yeah. Um does your study take into consideration with the history that you gather regarding children that have experienced at a young age toxic stress? Yes. Um, so we are able to measure that imperfectly because we didn't see them
035back then. But we have these other projects at at Yale and and Yukon Haskins uh that are focused on very young babies, toddlers, and we're we're like interchangeable parts, the research community. We all work together on each other's projects. Um, those are really difficult and important questions that we we take on. We try to get a measure of it. And I will tell you one last thing. I know I need to shut up soon, but uh but um that what I I I do want to tell you is that in my study in this one with seven to 13 year olds, Shamar and I are doing um we have a a disproportionate number of kids who are struggling with anxiety who learn differently. And you know this and one of the things that I'm focused
036on in this brain research is whether we can mitigate the anxiety in order to improve the learning outcome. And so we pay a lot of attention to stress. Um there's even I'm beginning some work with our colleagues in New York on mindfulness um as a potential tool. Our focus is not on just being less stressful, but whether that benefits reading and learning of that sort. So, we're we're focused on those things. Um, be happy to share all of that information as well. Okay. Thank you. Of course. Last but not least, Commissioner Van Stone. Thank you, Madam President. Through you, could you tell me what IRB approved means or who it is? It has an acronym, but can you have a follow? It's just it's an acronym. Do you want to tell them or should I?
037You should. Okay. Um uh so it's uh institutional review uh board and it's essentially human subjects protection. So when we do a study and we get funded by the National Institutes of Health or the National Science Foundation, we go to the IRB panel, the Institutional Review Board, and they rake us over the coals to make sure everything is, as Shamar so nicely said, deidentified, safe, there's all systems in place to make sure there are no risks or that risks are minimal in any study. and we have to follow those rules that then the university imposes on the study uh to the tea and so these issu there's a lot of issues with brain as shamar said with can we identify people can this be misused I even do some work with genetics not this study
038and that also brings up you know risk so the IRB is our way of showing that we are uh meeting the highest standards and I'll be honest uh the Yale version the Yale medical version is really tough for researchers which is great for the world because uh it it's very strict in terms of protecting the child. So that's all it is. It's just the uh essentially the human subjects protection is the technical jargon. They rake you over the coals but you haven't met me. I I I can tell just by your earlier comments about the football field, but yes, um they they do rake us over the coals, but I will tell you I'm prepared. We can hang and talk. We'll see. But um what I was going to say is that we um these
039things look a little scary. They're they're really harmless. Okay, I'll tell you about You kind of already caught where I'm going a little bit. Now, this is u it's a study. So, basically, this is a study. Yeah. Basically, our students are subjects. Mhm. And there was questions about what you have so far. Now, if it's a study, you must have a goal of how many subjects you need. Yes, of course. And it doesn't seem like you're answering the questions about how many you already have. Oh. And you're asking us for up to 50 students. Sure. But I really haven't heard a real answer about how many you already have. I'm sorry. I'm I'm not I'm not hiding anything from you. So, right now we have how many children in the cohort? I think it's 75
040that have been recruited into this study from all over including at New Haven, at our lab where they come in, at stores, and now at Waterberry that are not recruited through the Waterberry School District, but other partnerships or even by advertisements. We are looking to run over 250 in the next three years. We are also recruiting in New York City and we're recruiting elsewhere because we have this bring the equipment in model. So, my goal for Waterberry, I was being a little bit, you know, I I I didn't I I didn't mean to be uh uh deceptive. I meant to be cute. We are get as many as we can because we need to get to 250, but it won't be through Waterberry. We have a very good track record and this study is fairly
041new. So, I can't tell you what it brings. That's why we do the science. But I have 25 years of studies like this that led to this particular hypothesis and test that I can share what we've learned about. Well, when you went before this IRB, you must have had to tell them how many subjects. Yeah. But not how many would be in Waterberry. No, I get you there. I'm wondering what we anticipate because you're not going to get to a conclusion unless you meet your goal. Absolutely. or at least be able to write a you always you could write a conclusion now but you know it's not going to meet the expectations of whatever this board must have been expecting of you. So the board doesn't really I mean it's we shouldn't get in too
042much into the weeds. I'm happy to answer though. Oh I have no problem getting into the weeds. Okay. So what I would say is the the IRB is meant to protect people and make sure we're playing by the most careful standards. The science of how many people should participate was reviewed by the National Institutes of Health who gave me the grant. So when I submit the grant, I say how much how many people we need to have enough power to look at something and we have estimated that to be over 200. And what is your expectation of the study? So the expectation of the study is exciting. I in the last years I've I've I've answered three questions with the research we do. How does the brain develop connections when reading goes well? And we've
043done quite a bit on that. Second, how does the brain differ when reading doesn't go so well in terms of those cognitive and brain connections? We've done fairly well. The third $64,000 question, knowing about the brain, can we design opportunities to learn interventions, treatments? I'm funded, this is a treatment study in a way and we're funded to look at how we can change the brain and therefore change reading and the idea or the conceit of all of this research is that the brain gives us an exquisite lens on the individual child and we're trying to teach to the child. So the goal of study simple understand neurodeiversity and teach to it and ultimately to design studies with these brain caps on that teach to an individual child. And we're moving as quickly as we can
044after 30 years of science to now do the one thing that neural people often say, teach to the brain. And and I'm glad you put it that way because my next [clears throat] where I was going next was are you looking to change the method of teaching or are you looking to change curriculum? And it sounds like you're looking to change the method of teaching. Right. So this is not a study aimed at evaluating or promoting either curricula or treatments. I do a lot of research with Cadillac evidence-based treatments and how it affects the brain. uh things that are that have been well evidenced at NIH and we don't really assess which one's best and we're not we're not in that that there are people who do that research and it's important. This is really
045about understanding the child more deeply before guys I've been doing this for a long time and I've been able to show that the brain changes and that's all cool. Now I want to teach to the individual. And so our goal is not about changing schools, changing curriculum, but adding science that better minds than mind, better education minds than mine will turn into curriculum. if you had a look at your conclusion and I'm sure you at least try to start putting it together at some stage. Sure. If you're not there already. Um do you feel you're on track to achieve what you want to achieve out of this study? Yes. Um s I I I would never have done this particular study which is kind of pushing the envelope unless we had enough data to think
046we could my questions are sending them all out the door. Yeah. Okay. I Yeah. But I have one last now my concern for our students. Absolutely. And that is your process. When I saw that hat or helmet, right, it concerned me. Um Sure. It that looked a little frightening for students. So, I'm a little worried about our student. I'm I'm worried about our students. Yeah. Other boards of education are worried about all your other students in the study. I'm worried about our students. Both that helmet I'll call it a helmet uh and the MRI concern me greatly for our students. Great. This is I'll answer. I know we're must be way over time. So, one, I'm always over time. Oh, good. Uh so am I. Uh number one, the fMRI is optional. It is safe.
047It's been deemed safe. It's extremely informative to science, but kids do it or you need the helmet. Now, the helmet is not a helmet. It's a cap. But here's the thing. We can bring it here and show it to you. It's cap. Uh, it's soft. But what I want to tell you is kids generally do not find that scary because it's a it's a cap. We show them all kinds of things. We put the cap on and the kids I also saw the stuffed animal with the sim. Yeah, we do all kinds of things. But I I will tell you that um if a child feels the slightest teensiest little bit, I'm a grandparent, the slightest teensiest bit of of fear, I tell them to go home and have fun. We do not want to
048scare kids, but most kids do not find an EEG cap to be particularly scary, I must say. So, to be clear, like the cap is like a swim cap. It's very stretchy, like thin material. Um, the little not I can't bring it back up, but like all the electrodes that you see are little light bulbs that click onto the cap. There's no direct contact to the skull or to the head at any point. At most, what we will do is we'll take these little earpicks and go into those holes to like move here. So, there's more like direct contact. The light shines in, bounces off, and hits a detector that's also on the cap. And that's pretty much all it is. At most, the kid will feel like weight on their head. So, we have
049like poles to hold up the cords so it's not too much weight in their head. And usually what we'll get from them is them falling asleep during the study. That's it. Okay. I got to be honest with you. The only thing I want out of this study is the results, but I'm not so sure or your conclusion, I should say. Uh not as much so about having our students do it. So, I'm just being honest with you. Oh, absolutely. But it's a very interesting study and I certainly would love to read the conclusion. So, thank you. Thank you so much, sir. So the parents would have to agree to having that study done. Correct. Of course. Okay. Of course. Thank you. Commissioner Lopez, I'll be quick. I promise we have a seven. Um I know.
050Um I just wanted to say I was part of a research fellowship and got to learn a lot on how doctors perform these studies and um it's very safe. um it's very safe. So, I just wanted to say um I know that you're going to be bringing back the research uh results, you know, that you guys find um to teach our to to bring it to the teachers, right? Um but I had a question on whether you would do any activities with the children that are not participating in the study to kind of get them into science. Yes, that was my question. You should answer that because what you guys did at water Yukon Waterberry, right? So I am very big on giving back to the community as much as possible. Um for kids that
051don't want to participate, I do want to get them and we do want to get them engaged as much as possible into neuroscience and into STEM activities overall. Um that is a goal of uh Dr. Haft um of Yukon. Um she's big on outreach and everything like that. In fact, um for Bunker Hill Elementary, um because I went there and also because my mom currently works there as a um parah, uh I have reached out a couple of times to like do like little demo uh STEM demo demonstrations for them, pretty much like clay models of brains, you know, for them to figure out how the brain works. Um I brought in like just like real brains, like little sheet brains that are perfectly safe this, you know, just to show them, you know, hey,
052it's cool. It's a brain, everything like that. um little activities that you know get them engaged in the science of um neuroscience but science overall I like to do um just to build a good strong foundation for them when they go eventually into higher degree higher levels of you know STEM fields and they get you know excited about it because they saw a guy demonstrated a brain one time that kind of thing and and that's beautiful and just to add one thing so Dr. behaved. I'm sure many of you know her. Um, she is always thinking about ways, you know, she does that event in Waterberry at the Palace Theater for high school students. She is telling me, she told me to get in the car and be up here today because she couldn't be
053here. Uh, especially to let people know that this idea about science learning in for the community is at the top of her pri agenda. And of course, she's dean of Yukon Woodbury. So that also along with Jamar's uh working with kids and teaching science which he's been amazing on. Uh that's something that we take very seriously. Thank you. Well Shamar, I was going to ask you to give a shout out to the schools that you went to in Waterberry. I Boxill is one. Bunker Hill is one my alma mater. Westside Middle School and then John F. Kennedy High School as well. Oh jeez. All right. Thank you guys. Thank you. Sorry to keep you guys so long. Oh, you're fine. Number three. I went to both of those. That was only number two. I know.
054And you got a summer learning. Numbering update. Make him a science teacher somewhere. Recruit him to be a teacher. I know, right? Stop playing around with that research. All right. Good evening, President Hernandez. Good evening, Vice President Brown. Good evening, Secretary Srano Adorno and board commissioners. And good evening, Dr. Schwarz. I'm here with our director of college and career readiness, Mrs. Nari Tuset. And we're joined this evening. What is that? And we're joined this evening. We're joined this evening by our summer school program coordinators. will begin with uh Miss Bridget Gomez, our elementary program administrator, and then to be followed by Miss Kendra O'Brien, our middle school program coordinator and administrator, and then finally by Miss Kelly Donahghue, who was our uh program coordinator for our high school uh summer school programs. All right, so
055without any further ado, Miss Gomez. Good evening. The extended academic support for 2025 summer elementary pro program aimed to reimagine and reignite students passion for education through an accelerated approach that focused on providing and implementing SEAL science ELA math and enrichment. So let's take a look at attendance. Uh this year we had just over 1100 students register for summer school this year. uh that in grades K through four that was a slight drop in enrollment from last year where we had just over 1300 students. Uh as you can see attendance was solid with at least 70% of students attending regularly and this slideshow shows our weekly EAS attendance for Carrington Gil Martin Dugen Reed and Winnacross. Our largest enrollment was at Reed School with 277 students during the second week of our program. This was
056also our best attendance week with 96 students who attended during our second week of the EAS program. And here we can see attendance across all grade levels at EAS. Second grade stood out with the largest enrollment with 342 students and had a 77% attendance rate. Our kindergarten group actually matched that with same attendance rate with 77% also. I'll also offer the board our attendance rates for our U magnet school programs at Maloney and Rotella. Maloney and Rotella are are our grantf funded program which aligns with our EAS summer program. Each school had 58 students that registered with an average of 92% attendance for both schools. Uh I'm going to jump ahead real quick because I want to stick with attendance and uh show you some of the attendance rates for our extended school year programs.
057Uh we had four and fiveday self-contained programs for our ESY students. And I want to share with you some of the uh program attendance rates for our 4-day program. As you can see, uh, uh, our BDLC students in our preK kindergarten programs are definitely, uh, well, uh, needed and well attended. And here's a quick breakdown of some of the five-day program attendance rates. All right, but let's talk about some academics. Let me kind of go back a little bit. All right. So, every year we try to assess the impact of our summer school programs. Uh, traditionally we've done this by administering a pre-post test uh to the students during our summer school session. Um, however, one change we made this summer is that uh in order to um create more instructional time, we've eliminated that
058pre-post test. Um instead we freed up more instructional time by asking our supervisor for research and assessment uh Miss Tara Badeston to run a more sophisticated statistical analysis to give us a little bit uh using our uh district benchmarks to give us a little bit better understanding of how the effectiveness of our summer programs. And so when we look at uh literacy, I'll just remind the board that uh we utilize our MClass and our I Ready uh uh assessments for literacy and math for our beginning, end and and uh our beginning, middle, and end of school year assessments. Uh our analysis is basically a means comparison of the end of the year assessment at the end of last school year and the beginning of the year assessment that the kids just took this fall a
059couple months ago. And essentially what we're trying to do is just ex examine the difference of the averages or the means for the students who attended uh who attended summer school versus those who didn't attend summer school on these two measures. So when we look at literacy we found that on average or on a whole that the students uh declined 112 points from end of year to beginning of the uh year assessment. However, when we drill in and we find that the students that did not attend summer school declined actually more than the students that actually attended summer school. So, we also saw a difference in math. On average here, the students declined six points from end of year last year to beginning of the the school year this year. Uh when we drill in
060here, we find that um students that did not attend summer school declined about six points, whereas school uh students that attended summer school declined about five points. Now, both of these results, and I'll kind of show you both uh tables, both of these drugs for reading and math were statistically significant differences, meaning that there was a positive effect that we're seeing, and it is a real thing. All right? It's not it's not a chance event. This allows us to make the inference that our summer school instruction is effective. And actually in both pair uh in both uh subject areas uh we also could probably generalize and say that you know the findings that we see here with this small summer group can be you know uh generalized or upscaled to a larger uh population. So
061the way I try to describe it to people is that statistical significance basically means that in a dark room of student achievement there's a there's a light there's a light on there's a little flashlight in the back of the room. Now, we don't know exactly maybe how bright that light is or how big it is and that's something for further study, but at least we can tell from the data that we've collected this summer that, you know, there is a light on. There is a positive effect. Um, so needless to say, we're happy with these findings. Last year, when we came before the board with updates, we gave these recommendations. We're happy to say that we actually implemented all those recommendations. But furthermore, uh we're ecstatic because um we think in particularly in seeing the
062gains in math or the different the uh performance in math, uh we kind of shied away from leaning on technology and leaned on more hands-on activities. Uh but we're mostly ecstatic about the fact that we had um all teachers, we had no vacancies. All of our teachers were certified uh and uh certified for our kids this year. So, I showed you extended school year. So, what I'll do is just take a quick break and ask if there are any questions about elementary before we move on to middle school. Are there any questions? Move on. Good evening. Um this year the middle school summer school was focused more on students that were at risk of being retained due to failing two or more e core academic subjects. Um the curriculum was designed by the district subject
063area supervisors and grading was kept to the district policy of 85% for content knowledge, 15% engagement and 65 was required to pass each course. Um, I met in May with the middle school principles and we had 140 total students who were recommended for summer school due to the risk of being retained. Um, 111 of them did register. Now, we did have a parent square set up for all the recommended students. Letters went out from the schools, letters went out from myself. Um we followed up repeatedly and we made phone calls to all the parents as well who did not register their students and some of you know we did get a few more students at that point after the phone calls were made. Um so of the 111 registered total in grades 6 through 8,
064108 ended up attending. So 79% of the recommended registered and 97% of the registered attended. Um also the proficiency out of the sixth grade as you can see up there 27 students attended in sixth grade and 100% of them all 27 rece um achieve proficiency in the required subjects to move on to the next grade. 39% in seventh grade or 98% and 40 in eighth grade or 98%. So overall 106% 106 of the 108 um achieved proficiency in the required subjects 98%. And daily we had approximately average about eight absences. So we had a 93% attendance rate as well. Is there are there any questions? I have one. Okay. So, why do you think that the students did better during the summer than they did in the classroom? Well, I would like to think my
065staff was amazing. I had a great staff. Um, I also the classrooms, we had three groups in each grade, so the numbers were a little smaller, so they had, you know, more small groupoup instruction, more individual um attention and help. And also we had um opportunities for teachers to pull students and you know to work with them in the library one-on-one when needed. And so that's why I think they did a lot better. I mean not did well in summer school compared to during the school year. Thank you. You're welcome. Okay. As far as the summer internships, oh, sorry, we've seen the city internships repeatedly, so I'm not going to review these numbers again. Nothing has changed. Same departments. These are some pictures of our students getting the hands-on experience with the various departments. So
066at the in between all the um internships and as far as the student experiences the I'd really like to read one because it stood out to me. It's the student who uh was in the water department. I mean what student really wants to do an internship in the water department. However he did and I I just thought it was amazing that he said those moments whether sweating it out in construction or revitalizing the reservoir gave me a real sense of pride and purpose. I walked away from this internship with a deep appreciation for the hard work that keeps our water system running and a ton of practical skills I'll carry forward. I thought that was pretty powerful for a student who had no idea what he was walking into for the water department. We need
067it. Again, we have our health internships at McCall St. Mary's and Waterberry Hospital. 28 students participated shadowing and hands-on experiences and these are their certificate award days for finishing the program. Then we have our early college high. They had a one-week program at Post University. It was for the incoming early college high students. They had 24 students participate in this oneweek program. Uh they participated in enrichment science, math, and business activities taught by program instructors from the district. They also toured the campus to learn about possible majors at Post University. Here we have some pictures of the students where they worked in groups to develop presentations utilizing the junior achievement be entrepreneurial program. and two quotes from students who experienced the program. All right. Next, we have our high school summer school credit recovery. Mrs.
068Donahue. Oh, sorry. Do you have any questions about internships? Does anybody or early college high? the young person because I don't know if it was a male or female at the water department. Uh did he get an internship there? He's he's actually a Crosby student. I know. Oh, Crosby. Y he's um not that it has anything to do with this, but [laughter] he is very interested in all kinds of extracurriculars. He's been walking around Crosby looking for a debate coach for weeks. [laughter] He's very motivated. Just wants to learn as much as he can. Nice. Thank you. Um for our high school summer learning program, we were at um back at Whams this year. The biggest difference this year from last year is the number of students. We had significantly less students. Um students were
069charged, I think it was $200 a course. So um we did have a lot less students. The positive is all students received the credit for the courses they took. Um we did a lot of work with interventions with students with parents. Um our whole monitors doubled up as BTS. Um so we were really in touch with the teachers, the students and the families to make sure they got those credits. Um we had six seniors that graduated through summer school this year. Um one of them I think was on a video featured through the um district. Um we had two sessions, an 8 a.m. and a 10 a.m. Um we had all sessions staffed like middle school. The students definitely had an opportunity in smaller classroom setting to really get the content they may have missed
070um during the school year. This is the courses that were offered um was surely based on enrollment. What students enrolled for which courses? Any questions? I'm awake. Commission Commissioner Oso. No, I just noticed on the water recur academy had zero. Is there reason why or they all? So they had all their students earn the credits they needed or they were going to be taking Imagine Learning right now during the school year which is free. Okay. To recover the credit. Thank you, Dr. Schwarz. Yes. I just want to take a moment. I know we're a little over time, but it, you know, everyone says go into education, you get the summer off and um not true. Um and uh the immense amount of work that goes in in April, it's really a lot of the work
071in March, April, May, and June. And then when the kids come, it's it's a little easier actually, believe it or not. But it's all there's a lot of sweat equity that these five uh individuals of the school system put into this summer among many other people uh whether they're on the cabinet or the teaching level and every teacher that signed up like Dr. Johnson said, you know, makes a major difference in students. that summer slip is real and um I can't thank you all enough for the hard work you put in for the summer and um I know our students and our families really appreciate uh everything that you did and I just wanted to thank you commissioner Van Stone. So close. Thank you, Madam President. Tru you you thought you were going to get
072away without me talking to you. I was waiting to the end because it's my my comments are generic to cover the whole all the programs. Okay. Now, now you're going to sleep. I already cleared the room. [clears throat] um you've proven a couple of the points that I have with this data as a as a global comment is one is uh I'm a proponent of year- round school which before people get worried about that you actually end up with more time off because it's like a tri semester is the thought I have and these numbers with kids who continue education through the summer uh in in a school setting do improve. So coming off of that one piece of data and this is great data you know you really put this together well for us
073uh you know to show the improvement year-over-year that type of thing but in the actual classroom if a sixth grader goes to summer school do we know by the end of seventh grade his improvement his or her have we looked at that is it carried over for individual students to actually do better because of summer school. You showed some data that supported that. Yeah. But as they go through, yeah, the quick answer, commissioner, is no. We we haven't we've obviously just started doing this analysis with the elementary level and we haven't upscaled it to any of the secondary levels, but maybe that's the next step for us as we move forward. Okay. Um, credit recovery, we got to find a way. We should, it's it bothers me so much that we charge the students, you
074know, for that program. We really have to find a way to uh to make that free for the students. They're the at the time of summer they're they're maybe the most important student there. We had six graduates. I mean it's it's such an important program. Uh and it shows that the student wants to recover and wants to get that diploma. Um, I'm sure we had students that needed recovery of credits and walked out the dorm. We probably never see them again, you know. So, so we really need to uh I think that's an important program. We we really need to strengthen that program going forward. Um, I love the the grammar school level one, elementary one, because those are also kids who want to learn more. You know, they're not there because they failed the
075class. They're there because they want to take on something else. And the other point that you brought up uh you may not even realize it supported another thing and that is we need to get do a better job with technical education. The young man who work for the water department or you know we need to get those kind of experiences for these students. College is not the only answer anymore. We need people to get back into the technical field. Uh guess what? they're working when some college students graduate and aren't. So, you know, we need to get back into the uh I mean that experience for that that young student is just amazing. Where else is he going to get that if we didn't give him that opportunity? Um we should do more of it.
076Um you know, we have career academy, but that's that's more engineering uh health services to go on to those fields. It's not necessarily anymore that we expose our students to machine shops or carpentry or plumbing trades, any of the trades. And I think this one gen proved to us that it's an offering we need to do to engage our everyday students ones that come in at 7:00, go home at 2:30. We need something in that group of students to ignite something for them to go forward. So very good presentation. You know how I love the the numbers uh and you had plenty of them for me to go through. Uh and it really came good conclusions out of them. So I appreciate the way you put that data together. Thank you. I have a question.
077Vice President Brown. Good evening. Thank you so much for the information in in kind of you know rewinding and the identification of the students who might need the extra help during the summer. Is there any way we could kind of look at okay two months before the ending of school and do some intervention with with the students because the numbers really are not great for the ones attending high summer school. I mean there's so many other kids who who probably could benefit from it. So, I'm just wondering how our intervention programs within the schools prior to the end of the school, if there was something we could do to identify them earlier and and maybe beef up a tutoring program or beef up some kind of intervention before the end of school. Is this for
078high school or for all all grades? Well, I'm kind of speaking generally, but I'm I'm particularly probably interested in the middle school at this point because then that carries on to the high school. So, I I just wondered if there's a way to kind of identify them earlier and think about what resources and maybe this is this is for an analysis of because it's because it's smaller classrooms, it's hands-on, it's individual attention, it's all the wonderful things you do during summer school. So, if there was a way that we could, you know, kind of build in some kind of early intervention, um, and may maybe, as you said, maybe it's it's something to do earlier in in in the elementary school. Uh, but we have too many kids just falling through the cracks here. I
079mean, the numbers are are are are too low for the population we're serving. So, I guess it's just, you know, to be to be discussed and to say how are we using our resources uh to really get the bang for our buck here. Thank you. Just to just to add in, I think I mean the elementary system has a very robust intervention system to be honest and it's not because I'm the superintendent, but I would say one of the best in the state of Connecticut. And that a lot of that goes back to when Gian Frenis was a math supervisor and Dina Mortonson was an ELA supervisor and they they worked. So the the amount of tutors and the amount of literacy facilitators and reading teachers that we have at the elementary teachers elementary schools
080where a lot of other districts specifically districts our size have gotten rid of those positions. We have kept them under our budget. So we have a pretty robust intervention system. I know the middle school teachers work in a tier system as well. Obviously it gets diff more difficult as you get up into the system. Um, and then high school. Uh, the reason, yes, the numbers are are certainly low. We talked about it last year, but just remember that we offer our high school students in our comprehensive schools 32 options for credits when they need 25 to graduate. So, you get eight eight credits per year times four is 32. There's 25 to graduate. So, you have seven opportunities to um maybe not earn a credit to still graduate. And then we also have imagine learning
081that we run after schools to for students to earn credits at as well. So there are lots of different supports and opportunities. And then even if a kid doesn't have um eight credits uh in their schedule, we've also worked with them to have a study hall where they take Imagine Learning and kind of earn a credit as well. So you you might see the lower numbers, but I when you get the uh the larger report um I believe next week on when I'm going to go over all the data, you could see that we're leading our DUI in graduation rates. I think we're like above the 90s now. And so we are graduating students still um at a very high rate and that's because they have so many options to earn those credits um right
082now. But it's a good point and we can continue to work on that. I think it all comes down to um obviously the size of the classrooms which means you know budgeting and also um how many how many interventions we can put in place with the budget that's passed. Yeah, that's the truth. Thank you. Are there any other questions? Thank you so much. Thank you. Good job. Final enrollment report. Mr. Oh, beanie. Good evening, President Hernandez, Vice President Brown, Secretary Serrano Adoro, Board of Ed Commissioners, and Superintendent Dr. Schwarz. Thank you for this opportunity. I just wanted to now that October 1st has passed and we have our official uh enrollment numbers. I'd like to go over some of those with you uh that seem rather um stark as far as some differences over last
083year. And there are quite a few numbers here. So I'll be glad to email this to you tomorrow. Um there's a lot of numbers here so don't try to write them down but u there are some significant changes. So overall in the district uh we're down 334 students uh which is 1.8% uh reduction. We went from 18,644 to 18,310. Uh on the grade level shifts uh significant increases uh prek up 93 students 10 and a half% increase. Kindergarten 120 students 10.8% increase. Uh so there was a you know strong prek tok uh transition there. Uh sharp decline in uh in grade one minus 302 students 21% decrease. That's because the um we had some grains gains in grade four 138 students 10.3 in percent 10.3% increase grade 8 145 increase for 11% uh some of
084these are pretty significant um but drops in the grades five through seven uh almost 6% and grades nine and 10 um um 6.8% to 8 minus 8%. So, high school grades 9 through 12 are down 214 students. So, the high schools are a bit a bit down with uh enrollment which is 4%. Uh high school levels uh net loss 214 students uh except for uh Waterberry Arts Magnus School and Career Academy. uh career academy, excuse me, Waterberry Arts Magna School pretty much u stagnant increase of nine students and career uh plus 26 students. So still relatively small increases but they are those two do have increases. Um middle schools um three grades only 19 plus so that was a small increase. Uh Westside had the largest uh gain 66 for almost 7% increase. Elementary schools
085decreased by 101 students uh with Bucks Hill experiencing the largest drop with 91 students for a 17% reduction. Wow. Um Kennedy had a high school reduction of 110 students. Again, Bucks Hill 91, Willby 84, Walsh 57, Crosby 51, and again the Westside increase of 66. So, you can see there's some some break breaks in uh the trends from what we've experienced over the years. So, this this u some significant ones. I will email this uh information to you tomorrow. I think they have it in their backup. Oh, good. We have it. Okay. We don't have the comparisons, but we have everything else. Commissioner Van Stone. Thank you, Madam President. Through you, Nick, this is good data and you know, I'm looking at at Chase and they're they're they're down from years past. There was a
086time when Chase had 900 kids, second largest elementary school in the state and it's now at 656. I've never seen it like at that number ever. The other one that jumps out at me, concerns me a little bit, uh, as much as you know I love Career Academy, you you know, we've gone through that for since its opening. That's correct. And, um, 215 freshmen. That sounds like it's over what we thought we were planning for at the for we don't really have a charter for the school but our expectations that that worries me a little bit because if that continues and it's you know over the sophomore class it's uh 50 more students significant they they've been underenrolled for quite some time commissioner as a whole. as a whole. Yeah. Because once you go there,
087you you either stay there or go somewhere else. Correct. You don't come in as South. Correct. So, um if that continues that we get over 200 and they're moving to each grade and all of a sudden we have over a thousand students there. No, the sweet the sweet spot there, Commissioner, if I may, is about 210 a grade level is really the right number. We want to be in when I was there we brought always brought in 210 215 want to get to that 840 850 I was going to say it gets us almost to 900. Yeah it'll be under that because you do lose some but 840 850 is a a nice number. It helps it helps the other high schools because they're quite large. No it's I'm just seeing that 215 and it's
088I haven't seen a incoming class at 215 there I don't think in a very long time. It it that is correct. You are absolutely correct. But it should be in all honesty. All right. Let's uh we got to just be careful with that number. Yeah. As much as I would love to make it double that, we we're just not our planning does not support that. Correct. Again, I think the original plans when I was there, I think it's 840 850 is [clears throat] is where it should be. And you don't uh overenroll and you run overages in classes. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, we have a plan in place for a reason. Yeah. You know, so we can't really get up to that bigger number. So if he's at 215, he can go to the 210
089next year and and and Yeah. Okay. Yeah. But if we don't have that many or the class sizes small, they are. I was just going to say They are they they they they have room for additional enrollment. Let's put it that way. Okay. Let's just stay the other three grades are quite low compared to the 250. Okay. We just got to keep an eye on that. Yes, sir. Thank you, Commissioner Orson. You know, there's a decrease. I know there's a lot of movement, families, whatever. But how much does ACES affect us at this point? Uh I think there are two grades now. They're high schools, right? So the freshman it's the hops, right? That No, no, no. I mean at the high school I think 9 and 10. So they have two grades. So that
090affects it. Uh and that's going to continue to affect it, you know. Yeah. If I may step in. Yeah. So that so you saw the decreases in high school enrollment. So that that's part of ACE's we contributed to that. You saw the first grade uh lower. That's because the kindergarten age changed last year. So now you see those numbers effect in the first grade. And then anecdotally, we've heard that we've also lost some students uh based on some immigration concerns as well. Thanks. Any other questions? Thank you. Thank you. Data privacy agreement with Hill for Literacy, Inc. Jan. Good evening again. The reading and language arts department respectfully requests the approval of a data privacy agreement between the city of Waterberry and Hill for literacy. Water public schools has maintained a partnership with Hill for
09110 years in order to support teacher practice and develop literacy facilitators to improve literacy outcomes. As part of its continued collaboration with partner districts, Hill for Literacy is now requiring a data privacy agreement. This request is being made to ensure compliance with that new requirement. Are there any questions? Number six, Jan. The education department respectfully requir Commissioner Lopez, did you have a question? No, I was going to say we're on item five, right? Yeah. So, we just did 4 A. That was added. 4 A was added. So, five. So, it's not in the agenda. Yeah. Go ahead, J. The education department respectfully requests approval to apply for the Carl D. Perkins grant. This year's allocation from the Connecticut State Department of Education is $628,213. No matching funds are required. Perkins funds are used to purchase
092curriculum, software, equipment, and supplies for many of our CTE courses, as well as to provide for professional learning for teachers and development of new pathways. Are there any questions? Now, number six, Jan. The education department respectfully requests approval of amendment one to the contract between the city and Savas Learning Company LLC. In August of 2024, the city entered into a 4-year agreement with Savas Learning to provide grades 6 to 12 curriculum and assessments. The purpose of the amendment is so that grades six through 8 can participate in a field test of SAVIS's new momentum middle of the year and end of the year tests. These new assessments will allow us to measure student growth in comprehension and vocabulary and will enhance our ability to deliver targeted tier 2 reading interventions. Are there any questions? Thank
093you, J. Thanks. Number seven. Um, Miss Bellow is not here, so you have the information in your packet. If you have any questions, she will answer them next meeting. Item number eight, Mr. Albini. Good evening. Once again, the education department respectfully requests your review and approval for the first amendment to an on call environmental service agreement for Asbestous Hazard Emergency Response Act. That's a HEAR. Um this um amendment is for a six-month extension as well as $15,000. It will get us to the end of the school year, June 30, 2028. We have to do midyear reports at the six-month level and then we have to do a yearly report uh on asbestous uh in the schools and it um it makes us uh responsible so that if we're going to do any amend uh any
094uh additions any construction uh we uh we make sure that we contain any asbestous and we notify the state so it it keeps everyone safe in the building students and staff. Are there any questions? I just have a quick question. Thank you, Nick. Um, in terms of the $15,000, additional dollars. Is that coming is that out of our budget? Correct. So that the state didn't give us extra money to do this extra work. That is correct. Thank you. Okay. Another unfunded mandate. Thank you. Thank you. [laughter] Item number nine, the education department respectfully requests your review and approval to amend the professional service agreement with Connecticut RISE network that provides access to the RISE networks data hub platform. This is amendment one. It is um requesting the addition of Crosby High School to receive the
095same services uh that uh Wilby and um Kennedy have at this point. Uh it is a three-year amendment. It's $14,400 per year for a total of $43,200. And it would be uh out of uh Crosby's Commissioner Network funds. Um and this is um provides a lot of data all in one place, one location. Uh student uh is meeting with a counselor, a a an administrator, they can get grades, SAT scores, uh log entries, um you can get almost any uh PSAT scores, SAT scores. So, it's all in one location and uh you can have a real candid conversation with a student. Uh, so this is for Crosby. Are there any questions? Okay. Item number 10, Mr. Albini. Uh, the education department has received 19 requests for building and school facilities use by schools, school organizations,
096andor city departments as listed in your packet, and they request board of education approval. Item number. Are there any questions? Item number 11, Mr. Albini. The um the education department has received two requests for building and school facilities use by outside organizations. Uh they are Nanowag High School for the Kennedy High School Pool uh Metsa Yosedai Hurra Crosby High School Pool and Gymnasium. The education department has received two requests for building and school facilities used by outside organizations and they request a waiver that is brass city athletics for the westside gymnasium and waterberry ballers for the gener general gymnasium. And thirdly, the education department has also received four requests for building and school facilities use by outside organizations and they request a waiver as they were granted waivers in the past. That's Brass City Athletics
097for the Maloney Gymnasium, Catholic Academy for the Gil Martin Gymnasium, Brass City Athletics again for Westside Gymnasium, and Bridge to Success for Reed Library and Art Room, Gil Martin Library, Library, Lobby and Community Room, the Roberto Clementthy Library and Gymnasium, Wendel Cross Calf Stage, Gymnasium and Art Room, and Dugen Room 211 and the art room. Commissioner Orsel, so the waiver they're asking is they don't want to pay. Is that correct? That is correct. So, who pays for the custodians? We do. We do. Unless it's Are there any other questions? Thank you, Mr. Albini. Thank you. [snorts] Item number 12, discussion 202526 school year calendar. Dr. Schwarz. Thank you, President, and uh good evening uh to you all, Vice President Brown, Secretary Srano Adorno, and commissioners. I just uh you know there was a uh a
098calendar mishap that went out uh about a month ago and uh that showed a calendar that some people uh some people liked uh in terms of the current school year and some people didn't like and so um I guess it was worth a discussion uh tonight. I have engaged um obviously administrators, teachers unions too as well. um a lot of mixed feelings on all of it. Like usually with calendars, it's never just one right answer. So what you're currently looking at and the debate was over the winter months in January specific. So if you have your backup, if not, you could probably follow along because it's pretty easy. New Year's Eve uh falls on a Thursday, which means that students and teachers and staff would come back on a Friday, January 2nd. Third and fourth
099is the weekend and then Monday is the day before three kings day. So the students would come back and staff would come back for that Friday and Monday and then they would have the sixth off on Tuesday and then come back on the 7th. Um and so the discussion was um prior to losing a day to the uh the water uh concern earlier in the year um was was discussing that Friday and Monday. So I do have mixed reviews from staff. Some people like the idea of extending that Friday and Monday. Some people don't want to extend the end of the school year beyond two more days because we've already lost one and the summer and the winter has not come yet. So, this would be adding three days onto the end of the calendar
100right now. And then the other concerns I've heard, um, just to expedite this because it's come from some of you, was also the idea of going all the way to basically January 7th for elementary students and parents ability to be able to take all that time off um, because of the winter break and then all the way to January 7th because obviously our older students are mostly self-sufficient. Um but if you look at our most vulnerable students, our needy students, our high need students, um that's all the way to January 7th without breakfast and lunch at school every day. And that's also a long time for elementary students. So there's no one right answer. Um I know some staff would like that all the way to January 7th and others don't want to extend the
101holiday u they don't want to extend the summer work. And so um because there was some internal discussion and I heard from some board members, I figured it's better to just put it out there. um and then you know let you all discuss it because in the end you have the the the calendar vote knowing that we're very over and there's a very patient um very patient uh young children waiting for us to get there. We will also could have an opportunity to discuss this more when we if we go to a vote next week but um turn it over to the president at this point to see where she wants to go with it. So, do you guys want to discuss this now or do you want to actually take a look at the
102calendars and hold off until our regular meeting? Can I just ask one question? Sure. Ask two. Ask two. No. Well, that was one. So, now you get two, right, Roco? Two and what Roco said. I I'll ask two questions. Um, can we look at the data to see what our attendance levels are during those two days before the break? So, you come back on the seventh, right? The second. Yeah. So, it's going to we could, but I think the uniqueness here is that the second's on a Friday, right? And so, I think in previous years like has attendance looked like for this because I mean we're we're tracking truency and all that attendance. So if we're making it so, you know, difficult for for parents to get back or the kids to get back to
103school, then we should look at that. We can look at that. Uh lead up to the next meeting. That's that's the end of my discussion. If the second was if the second was on a Monday, I would say it's probably high because if the second lands on a Monday, it's a natural start of the work week. If it's on a Tuesday, it's probably high. If it's Wednesday, it's probably high. Thursday, you might be pushing it Friday. I mean, we'd have to go back seven years, right? or to to go back to look at what our data was when it was landed on a Friday, but I can I can pull that data just to see what it's like and and you're right. I think that's all the concern. So, it's like, can we let elementary
104students and our high need students really be home that long without the support of the schools? That's one question. On the other hand, what's our absenteeism going to look like on those days? I can tell you right now that no matter what the choice is, whether you keep it, whether you change it, or whether you move it, there's going to be a section of people that don't agree with us. I became a commissioner. I can I can guarantee that. But I will get the data. Commissioner Vance Stone. Thank you, Madam President. Through you, you always grit your teeth when you call me. We're going to discuss it next week. Remember, well, I don't think it's a good thing to discuss it next week because then we're going to vote on it. What are we going
105to do? Vote no. Take it off the agenda. So, to do it on the night we we vote, I don't think is a good idea myself. So this did come my way from a teacher uh with the concern and she made some good points. But then when you said tonight about the non-educational services we provide like breakfast and lunch and in some cases some sort of dinner. Um, I'm kind of having a change of mind and my opinion, we should have school on the second and the fifth and I just probably made Well, I don't have any friends anyway, so I can't lose any. But, um, you know, because then there's a commissioner network half day in there as well. Yeah. Not the whole, but just But our commissioner network's getting bigger. Yeah. So, we
106can look at that, too. I mean, that could be It's all a factor, but I think the outside services May as well just discuss it tonight. I think we need to cuz next week it's right next week it's a yes no or take it off the count off the agenda and that doesn't help Dr. Schwarz. So my discussion is I think we should keep it the way I'm looking at it right now. That's not a vote, it's a comment. Yes, Commissioner Orsel. A couple of things. Um I know that you said about the breakfast and the lunch on the 2nd and the 5th. Could something be arranged like we did during COVID where they can go to school and pick it up? Because I I'm also thinking about if you close the schools for those
107five days or seven days, how much you're going to save on electricity, how much you going to save on heat, you know? I mean, I I I think you got to factor that in a little bit too, you know. Yeah. So, we It's a good question. I asked uh the State Department. I engaged them when the uh when we had the food uh you know the crisis right now actually before it it happened. I engaged them the Thursday before November 1st thinking that if SNAP benefits were reduced or eliminated what we could do about it and they said right now the same um so during COVID what happened is the federal government relaxed all the regulations that Adam has to now abide by and they're very strict as you know regulations in that department. All
108of them are currently in place and they're non-flexible. And so even in the current situation I'm in, I can't have the flexibility I had during COVID to do certain things. And so um unless that changes, which I don't anticipate it, I won't be able to to to use our food services in that in that manner. But it's a good point about the you know not opening of the buildings. we're going to have to keep them open at the tail end in June obviously and you run into other issues of heat. Um and and again we haven't had winter yet. So the like I said there's no good good answer here. But whatever we do, you're running up to that Friday and Monday and you're going to have low attendance rates. I can almost guarantee it.
109Um and then on the other hand, um if you run it too late into June, you have to worry about the heat. you have to worry about um what our snow days are this summer um for this winter. I mean, and then um and then also like I said, the intangibles of what schools provide in terms of consistency for students, but also um the reality of especially our younger students being home from December basically 24th all the way to January 7th and then um how parents can manage that with their own work schedules. All of those things are people those are things that all people have brought up to me. Me standing in the middle just saying this is this is where we stand. Um Commissioner Srano Dorno. Thank you. Quickly. Yeah, I I think
110I was one that that actually spoke to Dr. Schwarz about this. Obviously, my concern were the chronic absenteeism of the amount of people, but not even just the students, even staff. We've had issues with staff absences as well. Um I know celebrating Three Kings Day, you know, for a lot of Latino community, you know, for those that go to Puerto Rico and celebrate, they're probably going to take that long weekend to or whatever the case because that would be our Christmas. Um so I'm curious to see what absences are even from the 5th until the 6th because we kind of continue that. Um I am aware of the concerns with the food. But I'm hoping that our our governor and our um state reps and legislators are coming through with certain things and um I'll
111be praying for for good results. Um that was my concern. Not only just the absences of the students but also of the staff was also my concern. So if we can get some of that data, but I would be okay to come back on the 7th without the food. I'm hoping that by then the food then the SNAP benefits would already maybe have taken into effect. Um that you know just thinking of that type of the absences if that's something that is um important data that we need. Thank you Madam President. Yeah. Well that's true. President Vice President Brown. You know like uh Dr. Schwarz said it's six of one half dozen the other. They're not going to make everybody happy, but just from our years of experience, we know the absentee rate for Friday
112the 2nd is going to be off the charts. They're not going to come back. The teachers aren't going to come back and a lot of the students are not going to come back. I mean, we just know that they're not. So, I guess I'm landing on, you know, not going back to school on that Friday at least. I mean, I would be I would be in favor of going back on the seventh and adding days on the end because we're not going to have big snow days. But I'm predicting no snow. No, seriously, we know that that that week they're not they're not going to come. They're not going to come to school that Friday. We know that for a fact. So, I mean, I I would just add the day to the end or
113take it off if if we're close, take it off of one of the long spring breaks we have. Oh, boy. Okay, that's like I said, nobody's going to be happy. You started the conversation, dear, in saying that. They have their plane tickets for Florida already. So, so anyway, uh whatever anybody decides, we're not going to please everybody. But I just think that one day though [music] I we know they're not going to come to school. [snorts] Question. Commissioner Orsel, we know they're not going to come to school, so let's have it as a school day so we won't lose a school day at the end. I I you know, the absentee is I don't know. I'd say come the second and the fifth. That's what I would I'm sorry. What did you say? have a
114school day on the 2nd and the 5th because at the end it's going to be you get those schools with no air conditioning in in June is going to be worse than now. You know that's that I think that's going to be a big problem. Okay, Commissioner O'Brien. I'm not as optimistic as Liz is with the weather this year since Leninia is in control. Um, how many days are we allowed at the end of the school year to add on? Technically, school in Connecticut can go to June 30th. Okay. Thank you. And June 30th is the last possible day for a school year. Whether people never have to be right, it's come down to that a couple times. It's come close. I think I think that Yeah, I think the So, the the other the
115other thing that I heard that was floated around was similar to this week or you know and Tuesday was off right so come back that Monday let you know as it's it's a natural start of the work work week you get your Tuesday off and then we're all back in business on Wednesday so I heard that floated as well instead of having two days maybe just naturally finish it off on that Friday since we all have that experience so maybe you cut the cut the I was thinking cut it in half and then we it we take off everyone and so it's like but that's that's another option I'd throw at the board if if I know because there's no good answer here but that could be something I mean this week I can look
116at the attendance on Monday and can give you that information about what happened this Monday very similar to what that that week would look like which is that Tuesday so I'll come with some information for you um I see some nods so we'll go okay so what I was thinking was extend it to that Friday like you said and then come back on Monday and then be off Tuesday. Yeah. Instead of going from the the 9th to the 7th or whatever it is at least that way you add one day you work one day you're off another day. I think that's a good day. And right a half a day for some students the next. I think that right there kind of would work for everybody. It's a compromise. You get Absolutely. We have to
117compromise because being in a classroom at 110 degrees in June is miserable for our students. So, I think I heard the message. I thank you. Yeah. Yeah, I think that works. Yeah. Thank you everyone. Let's move on because we have some children that are ready to go to bed. Some adults, too. [laughter] I will I [clears throat] will do every slide justice, but I will go quick. So, you haven't called me yet. [laughter] Dr. Schwarz, thank you. Uh, superintendent update tonight. He's ready. I feel the same way. Gil Martin career day was an amazing day. We were invited by Gil Martin to talk about um what it is to be a leader in the community. Had a great time engaging uh every grade there. Uh all the way from explaining what a superintendent does to
118prek all the way up to the upper grades was really fun. Um Bob Haxi was there also talking about the mayor's department. Unfortunately, he was pulled away with a a crisis in the city, but uh Bob Bob represented the the mayor's office to talk about what a mayor does. It was a great career day at Gil Martin. I also want to thank all of those in the Waterberry public schools who uh gave to the district-wide Pinkout Day. We were able to raise over $13,000 for Pinkout for St. Mary's to be able to support those who need uh um uh additional funding to be able to get tested for uh breast cancer. I want to thank um Williams uh students for coming out and supporting this initiative. Wendle Cross. Uh the amazing uh opportunity to to
119go to Wendle Cross and speak to the students who earned a three or four on Smarter Balance last year. And I saw a special young student there I took a picture of and sent to the board president of uh who who who earned uh that that status from Wendle Cross last year. So congratulations to all Wendross students and specifically Julius for earning that award. State Street, you know, they got their culinary going on. You saw it. And so we we as promised, I I had a bake sale and I had them come to central office. I said, "Don't I said, "Charge these suckers a lot of money." So they did little too much. But they It was good. They were charging $4 muffins. But everybody was raving about them. Everybody was raving. Gian even Gian
120we were talking about she's like, "This is like professionally made." She's like, "And not a lot of sugar. It's good." So, um, they are going to do a popup sale. I think they're going to do next time they're going to sell some soups and do some things over. We'll get them to city hall, kind of get some money from them over there, and then I will let you all know when that's going to happen. But I'm so happy about State Street and that culinary department. Attendance Works is a is it's a national organization that came to visit um Kingsberry School uh along in collaboration with the Connecticut State Department of Education to learn a little bit more about how Kingsberry is tackling chronic absenteeism. They had huge reductions last year under the leadership of Principal
121Sam and they came really to learn about what we're doing here in Waterberry. Uh again leading the way in some of our schools in these efforts. So I want to congratulate uh Hannah Sam and the entire uh the entire staff at the Kingsberry School. Robotics Waterberry Championship. We have a we had a competition. All five teams were we're were we're were we're were we're were we're were we're were we're were we're were we're were scraping and scrapping and competing and also collaborating because that's part of robotics is helping each other as well. And in Career Academy, one of the new teams came out as the Waterberry uh champions. And so congratulations to Waterberry Career Academy. Really congratulations to all five teams. I mean again having all five high schools participate. We really should feel good
122about that. and uh so excited to watch what they do next in the big event and will be uh many of us including some board of ed commissioners, district administrators, and community leaders were able to visit the Harlem Children's Zone, the Practitioners Institute in New York to learn a little bit more about their cradle to career strategies. Really excited about where that work's going to take us next. Uh we just had a follow-up meeting uh this week. um and really just learned a tremendous amount about how they break down the uh the blocks into a supportive atmosphere where they're really wrapping their arms around the community saying from cradle to career we got your back and we're going to support you all the way through and um some amazing data that comes out of that
123that zone in Harlem that we can replicate here in Waterberry. So looking forward to continuing those conversations and and talking to the board more about that. Just want to say a shout out to Crosby JOTC who had their breakfast on October 5th, 25th uh to help raise money for equipment for their upcoming competitions. And of course, our Crosby culinary students had to chip in and and help make that breakfast. So, I was happy to to attend and uh the students there did an amazing job. Also, shout out to the Mount Olive Senior Center who had their 50th anniversary. I was able to attend that and um I was put on the spot by Monroe Webster to speak and so when I did I I pitched this opportunity for some of our students to really lend
124their hands at the senior center. I think it would be a great opportunity to learn a little bit about the old school way of doing things and then and then they can vice versa learn about some of the new ways. So we we were talking about how the kids can help them with technology and they can help them with some of the basic life skills that maybe not we we don't always get nowadays and uh they love the idea. So, I'm looking forward to further conversations about that. And I want to congratulate Miss Amanda Sola, who is our uh uh the leader of our SEPTO or uh special ed parent teacher organization who was recently recognized by United Ways Impact Connecticut as an emerging leader. She's really done a fantastic job and looking forward to
125helping her. Um uh who's really connected to that Mr. C's voice uh organization as well. and uh we we put her in for a nomination. The city was giving out an extra mile award uh for uh uh anybody in any department. Uh we we put up Dorian Biolo as a nominee and the city hall. Uh they they selected her to win the national uh extra mile uh day award, extra extra mile award. And uh we were so happy because obviously uh through all of the finances and all of the ESSER funding and all the grant funding and all of the all of the alliance grant funding that she's she's had to work with throughout the years. Uh she was able to uh earn that award and um we had a little party for her to
126to celebrate her. Um nice close close almost there. Uh I was able to go to Harvard. Uh uh uh I had the honor of attending uh the Harvard Kennedy School's Institute of Politics where I was able to uh uh engage with uh former Secretary Miguel Cardona um and other leaders across the way including uh former first lady Joe Biden who was there as well. Wow. Uh WPS celebrates Hispanic Heritage Month and I just wanted to give you a a heads up here. Um uh because uh we did post a video on social media, but even though we're over I can't not play this video. It's a minute and a half. So bear with us because it will all make us smile and then we're getting closer to the end. So go ahead, Jose. Hit hit
127that video. Yeah, it's on. If you just hit the next button. There it is. As long as the sound is on. Oh, got to turn it up. The last slide was about the food drive. I've went into that and I'm going to remind everyone to follow us on social media. Can you turn the volume up? That's okay. So, what we'll do, Jose, is um I'll make sure I just send you all the video itself, but um in the background as it plays, I can kind of walk you through it, but there are bands that are our own bands. This isn't just a band. This isn't just a dub over music. This is actually our bands playing at Hispanic Heritage. And you can see the different activities. Um that was just so so so awesome. just
128an an awesome celebration of culture and the students and the and the schools are doing a better job every year of making sure we're bringing the student voice into these celebrations and so really excited about what I saw and looking forward to doing this more in the future. That's the Bucks parade. That was wonderful. A lot of dancing. What do you think, Commissioner Serrano Dorno? Can you thinking Zumba? Can you keep up? They're pretty good. Well, my favorite part about this one is at the end of this video, you'll see a a principal. Well, you'll see at the end of this, you'll you'll you'll see a principal that dances across the stage that might need a lesson or two. Oh, [laughter] he's better on the basketball court than he [clears throat] is. Nice job. And
129that that completes my report. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. All good. Secretary Secretary Superintendence notification to the board. We can all read alone. Can I have an adjournment? Motion to adjourn. A second. All in favor? Opposed? Motion to carry. We are now going into our special meeting. I move to convenience. No, I got to start the meeting. Oh, so we don't have to. Gotcha. Sorry. Good evening. This is November the 6, 2025, uh, Waterberry Board of Education special meeting. We'll start out with a silent prayer. Dr. Schwarz, lead us in the pledge. Absolutely. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. I have a roll call. Vice President Brown here. Commissioner Anthony
130Ireland present. Commissioner Latoya Ireland here. Commissioner Jackson. Commissioner Lopez present. Commissioner O'Brien here. Commissioner Orso here. Commissioner Serrano Adorno here. Commissioner Van Stone present. President Hernandez here. Secretary [snorts] Serrano Adorno. May I have a motion? I move to convene into executive session for discussion concerning the appointment, employment, performance, evaluation, health, or dismissal of a public officer or employee and discussion concerning strategy and negotiations. No, that that's it. Second. Can I get a sec? All in favor? I oppose. So move we are going into executive session. I just highlight Oh, I Yes. Can I have you by that's good to know. presentation. So I spent $400 once $60. video. That's what you call. You should be looking at the meeting. It's fire. I I let you know. Don't say I don't. I'm just going to meet
131somewhere. I'm actually going for a few years since it was there last year. It's on the Cardona will be Yeah, I'm supposed to be driving. I'm thinking I might want to stay. Yeah, I've only been there once. It's nice. You want to know that? Was she [music] Hey. Hey. Hey. [music] Order of business with the record reflecting there were no votes taken. Second. All in favor? I oppose. So move. Item number five, committee on school personnel, Commissioner Orso, appointment of supervisor of science. Ladies and gentlemen, I move to approve the appointment of Lindseay Davenport as supervisor of science effected upon execution of employment contract. Second. Discussion. Dr. Schwarz. Thank you, President. I'm pleased to recommend Miss Lindseay Davenport as the science supervisor for Waterberry Public Schools. Miss Davenport brings over 13 years of secondary science
132teaching experience and five years as a middle school science curriculum specialist to her role as science supervisor. A passionate advocate for highquality science instruction, she has led professional learning initiatives, overseen a department of 18 teachers across two schools, supported beginning teachers as a team mentor, and played a key role in the Southernington public schools transi transition to the open sed curriculum. Her deep expertise in the next generation science standards coupled with her leadership in curriculum alignment, assessment-driven instruction and technology integration has strengthened both teacher practice and student outcomes. Miss Davenport is dedicated to supporting educators and ensuring that all students have access to rigorous, engaging, and inquirybased science learning experiences. And then pending your vote tonight, uh we would be more than excited to welcome Miss Davenport to the district. look forward to her expertise,
133enthusiasm, and collab collaborative spirit that she will bring to advancing science education for all Waterberry students. Oh, I just lost my train of thought. Is there any further discussion? All in favor? I oppose. Motion carries. [applause] Okay, thank you so much. Um, good evening, President Hernandez, Vice President Brown, Secretary Serrano Adorno, uh, Board of Education Commissioners, and Superintendent Dr. Schwarz. I would like to begin by sincerely thanking you for the opportunity to serve as the supervisor of science for Waterberry Public Schools. It is truly an honor to be entrusted with this role and I am both humbled and excited to continue advancing science education for Waterberry students. For the past 15 years, I have had the privilege of teaching middle school science and for the last five serving as the middle school science curriculum specialist.
134Those experiences have shaped who I am as an educator and a leader. They have given me a deep appreciation for the incredible work our teachers do every day and the boundless curiosity and creativity our students bring to the classroom. That's my son over there. All right. [laughter] Um, when I first stepped into my own science classroom in 2011, I knew I'd found my calling. Though my path to teaching wasn't a traditional one, I've always loved science, math, and working with people, which initially led me to pursue my undergraduate degree in nursing at Yukon. But it wasn't until I spent a semester running group sessions in an adolescent psychiatric unit that I realized my true passion lie in teaching. Seeing how curiosity and connection [laughter] could spark growth in young people changed everything for me. In
135many ways, a love of science was in my DNA. My mother was a science teacher and my father an engineer, so perhaps it was only natural that I would eventually find my way into the science classroom. From that moment on, I never looked back. As I step into this new role, I am committed to continuing that work, to building strong partnerships with our teachers, aligning our curriculum with the next generation science standards, and ensuring that every student has access to engaging, equitable, and highquality science learning experiences. I believe deeply that science education has the power to transform lives, to ignite curiosity, inspire problem solving, and prepare students to be thoughtful, innovative citizens in an everchanging world. To the board of education, thank you again for your trust and your confidence. I am deeply grateful for
136this opportunity to lead, to serve, and to continue growing alongside such a dedicated team of educators. And finally, to my family, especially my husband, my daughter Emry, my son Jackson, and my parents who are all here with me tonight. Thank you for your unwavering support. I'm excited for what lies ahead and look forward to continuing this important work together. Thank you. [applause] Congratulations. No. No. All about the kids. She has her child. We have her top. Yes. Do we want to her introduce her? She did. Okay. She did. Okay. Stand up and recognize. How about you let your family stand up and be recognized? Yeah. Have them stand Have them stand up and be recognized. Yeah. Okay. [applause] So, I'm assuming that's grandma out there with [laughter] this. This is my dad, the engineer. My
137husband. All right. Congratulations. Thank you so much. Okay. Does anybody wish to remove an item from the consent calendar? [laughter] Tom. Tom, you got one more time. [laughter] 6 6.1 Committee on Finance requests approval of amendment one to the professional service agreement with SLR International Corporations for AHA Aera testing 6.2 Two, committee on finance request request approval of the amendment one to the professional service agreement with Connecticut Rise Network, Inc. for data hub setup configuration and implementation for an additional school. 6.3 Committee of the whole request approval of a data private agreement with Hill for Literacy Incorporated. Commissioner O'Brien, may I have a motion? What's she saying? Welcome back, Jackson. We're [laughter] going to motion to appro approves consent calendar items 6.1 through 6.3 as read. Second. All in favor? I oppose. Motion carries. Make
138a motion we second. Second. All in favor? Opposed. We are adjourned. Thank you everyone. You like it? [laughter]