001[Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Good evening. Today is September the 4th. Hello. [Music] Excited. You need a guest back to school. This is a regular workshop for the Waterberry Board of Ed. We'll start out with a silent prayer. We'll have our student rep lead us in the pledge of allegiance. Brillan. I pledge allegiance 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. Principal's report. Mayor Pen, excuse me, Mayor Penerooki, President Hernandez, Vice President Brown, Honorable Commissioners on the Waterbury Board of Education, Dr. Schwarz, Deputy Mendoza, and ladies and gentlemen. Good evening. Uh my name is uh Pete Mccasen. I'm uh very proud to be the principal here uh at Westside Middle School. And uh what we have
002for you tonight is a brief presentation uh demonstrating uh the growth Westside Middle School has made uh in particular over the last three years. And it's incredible growth. Before I begin though, I do want to uh recognize some people that are here tonight. First of all, I want to recognize we have five student representatives from our student council. They are all eighth graders and they're going to get mad at me, but I'm going to make them stand. So girls, if you could stand. We have Jamie Rosario, Valerie Espinosa, Devine Rodriguez, Elizabeth Rodriguez, and Victoria Gonzalez. They are all members, like I said, of our eighth grade class and student council representatives. They are ambassadors to Westside Middle School. I'm very proud of them and I know they're going to do great things over the course
003of this year. So, I want to thank them for coming and Mr. Katch for being the co-odderator of our student council. So, thank you, Galades. And I'd also like to recognize I'm going to ask all the teachers from Westside Middle School to please stand tonight. We have a large contingent here and what you're going to see is because of them. [Applause] Once again, it means more to me that they're here than I could say. So, thank you. And like I said, the progress that we made is because of all those people that just stood. So, uh, to begin, I just wanted to lay the groundwork in terms of what we've adopted over the last, uh, five years being in the commissioner's network, but in particular, the last three years. Uh, myself, um, Mrs. Raldi, who's
004to my left, my sixth grade house principal, Mrs. Mancini, to my right, who is my seventh grade house principal, and Mrs. Fucci to her right, is our eighth grade house principal. the four of us along with another WA members of the Waterbury contingent were able to go up to Harvard uh a couple summers ago and participate in the turnaround conference. And one thing that the four of us took back was the whole concept of the instructional core and in particular the instructional task and that is what leads all of the teaching and learning that goes on here at Westside Middle School. The instructional core as you see in the graphic is three elements, teachers, students, and content. And at the center of that is the instructional task. The task is what students are actually doing
005in the classroom. And there's a a mantra that we say here, task predicts performance. It's what the students are doing is going to dictate how at any time and you can walk into any classroom and you will see elements of this instructional task taking place. It's really something to see. It's not traditional learning. A lot of times it's loud, it's messy, it's a lot of collaboration. The teachers do a great job of relinquishing that power and letting kids, you know, solve a real world problem. I like to explain it as if you ever saw the movie Apollo 13 when all the engineers and scientists are in the room and they have to fit a square peg into a circular tube to get the astronauts home. Well, that's what it is. It's a bunch of kids
006sitting at a table on the floor kneeling, doing whatever, trying to figure out and problem solve. And it's it's a it's a great thing to see. Definitely a little nerve-wracking at first. It was an adjustment, but once again, the people that are sitting behind me had such a awesome growth mindset. They relinquished that power and now we're seeing the fruits of of that labor. So, this is our uh little history of the commissioners network. If you look at the 2019 2020 initial audit, uh Westside Middle School was deficient with the category one in many categories. And you could see it's uh broken down by what we refer to in the turnaround uh community as the taco standard talent, academics, culture and climate and operations. And uh once again, as you can see there, we had
007much work to do. In year one, we we made some growth. Once again, the best part about the staff here at Westside Middle School, they're very positive. They're very optimistic, but they never settle. And that's why as you keep going year 1, year 2, 3, 4, and then our exit, which was at the uh in the spring of last year, you could see the growth that we made. And as you can see, I and I truly believe that that is uh a very true representation of our school community because we still have work to do. If you can see, they're under 3.2 student attendance. It is definitely something that we need to work on and continue to work on. We've made growth this year as you're going to see in a minute, but it's still
008not satisfactory enough yet. But everything else, I am very proud. And once again, that's the fruits of the labor of the teachers in this building and the students adopting what their teachers have been teaching them. This is some startling data, but I want you to see point out the growth. If you look at the 202021 school year, uh, in particular, if you look at the, um, percentage of students chronically absent, which is roughly in the middle of the slide, we were at 60.1%. Last year, we finished at 25.9%. Obviously, we had nowhere to go but to improve, but that is a dramatic dramatic improvement, and I'm very proud of that. Also, if you look at the number of out of school suspensions or number of suspensions, out of school suspensions, excuse me, for the 2122
009school year, 1,131. Once again, nothing to be proud of, but obviously coming back from the uh the shutdown, it was we we dealt with a lot. As you are all aware, last year we had 321 out of school suspensions, but not at the expense of maintaining a safe and school environment. And I I would put our school up to anybody in terms of the safety and security of our building. Um but once again, that is because of the relationships that the teachers at Westside Middle School make with their students and that is always our mantra at the beginning of the year. That is what they started doing last Monday and they're continuing to build those relationships and they are able to deescalate kids in the snap because they're able to build those relationships prior with
010them. It's it's once again an amazing thing to see. And um if you look at this next slide, we always talk about the two types of data, qualitative and quantitative data. Obviously, when we talk about um observations and and people's opinions, it could be, you know, skewed a little bit. Well, this is hard evidence. This is smarter balance data. Obviously, it cannot be skewed. And if you look at the 2122 baseline with the one that's in the column that's in gray, those were our original scores from that school year. If you look at the very bottom, that was the accountability index score for 2122 45.2. And you could see from the 22 23 23 24 25 school years we have steadily improved uh just receiving actually only about a week and a half ago receiving
011our score of a 54% for accountability index. Once again a great achievement. Are we happy and settled? Absolutely not. I still think there's much room for improvement as do our teachers. But the point is we are moving progressively forward and you could see the three-year growth rates all the way in the column to the right. how far we've improved uh you know some numbers like the 22.2% for uh in progress towards English proficiency and literacy the 72.8% for ELA performance for all students. Once again we're so proud of these numbers because once again the teachers adopted a growth mindset, took on a different instructional approach and went with it and they hit a home run with it. Once again this is the proof here. It's not a subjective thing. This is hard data to show
012the improvement that the students at Westside what the students at Westside Middle School are doing and the improvements that they're making. At Westside, we believe that the key to student success is academic performance, attendance, and positive behaviors. And that is what we circle everything around. And if you look here, once again, another uh chronically absent data slide. If you look at 2020 2021 and you can see the hard numbers at the top, we had 562 students, 60.1% chronically absent as compared to this past school year, 2425 school year, 242 students chronically absent. Once again, we're not settling at that, but we're making improvements. It's the only time I want to see a a bar graph go down. So, it that is what we want to see. We're on the right path and it's because of
013the efforts of the teachers, the house principles here, our LEAP team, our chronically apt or uh CAT team and uh other members of our school community, other support staff that are getting the job done. And once again, I wanted to highlight our decrease in out of school suspensions. Once again, I I think we do a good job of dealing with behaviors that are unfortunately not appropriate for school, but also from the assistance of the board and the assistance of uh of our central office leadership with the uh adoption and and Mayor Penerooki's support on the yonder pouches. Once again, the yonder pouches are a gamecher and you don't have to listen to me. You could ask any of the teachers that are here. It has transformed teaching and learning and I can only speak for
014Westside but teaching and learning at Westside. We really didn't have a cell phone issue in terms of instructional and during instruction but we had it in the calf. We had it at dismissal. We had it at arrival which caused issues. Now with the yonder pouches we see very very little if anything at all. And it's because of those yonder pouches. So, it was one of the best things that I believe you as a board did to support us being on the front lines in the schools and I want to thank you for that and I want you to understand that what you did is making changes, positive changes for all students and for teachers. Also, we have the halo detection systems, the behavior counselors, restorative practices, and we also have a restorative afterchool detention program
015that has and and in school suspension program that has helped where we have students reflect on why they're there and how to not repeat the same issue to get there again. And as always, uh and this is in in coordination with Dr. Cormier, who's our uh professional uh learning facilitator. We we're going from good to great, but we want to go from great to even better. Once again, we never want to stop. We want to never take our foot off the gas. Keep moving forward. And I have no question that with the staff here at Westside Middle School, we'll continue to get better. And I'll have more positive things to report um in the future to you because of the teachers. Once again, it all goes down to the teachers. The teachers in this building
016are amazing. they get it done and we have awesome students that trust them and believe in them and do what they're asked and once again we get the fruits of their labor in our uh excuse me our accountability index and in our testing scores. So with that I am uh done with my presentation. I would obviously entertain any questions you may have and I want to thank you for giving us the opportunity to present to you tonight. [Applause] Commissioner Orsel, thank you. Peter, I just want to congratulate you and all your staff. What a great job you did. These statistics are fantastic. So, keep up the good work and all you teachers out there. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Or. Commissioner O'Brien. That's a wonderful report. Um, and I like the way the numbers are
017either going up or down in their positive way. My one question is with this Harvard process and on hands learning and thinking things through, has it been a benefit or are we still learning how to deal with it when it comes to our children that have IEPs? Great question. Task predicts performance in every classroom. Granted, it's modified in certain classes, but I could tell you right now, you can come up, we can go into our scope classrooms and they are doing a task type activity. Granted, it's trying to meet the needs of the students that are in the class, but task predicts performance is our mantra here. So, at various So, if you went into our eighth grade pre-alggebra class, obviously it's going to look different than in another class, but there is a task.
018It's created at the level of the students that are in front of them or in some cases multiple tasks depending upon the students that are in front of the teachers and they are responsible for meeting certain criteria whether it's on a rubric whether it's a a collaboration sheet whatever the case may be in order to get to the end product. Okay. Because I just don't want to see them get lost in the shuffle. Not at all. And I don't either. Thank you. You're welcome. Commissioner Van Stone. Thank you, Madam President. Through you. Nice job. Thank you. And um you know, I tell you, whenever we see numbers from principles when we go out because we go all the different schools for our meetings, I usually I'm the one that throws the blanket on the celebration
019because we we're looking at numbers that are changing by 2% 3%. You you have numbers that are four-fold going up. It those are amazing. now and the commissioner network I think was a great tool for you guys you know and what it offered you whether it be the Wednesday you know PD whatever it may have been those things really helped you it's going to go away and it it came with quite a bit of money so and I've been asking this question how are we going to move forward to keep this going because I think what the state does we're taking It's great that they have you graduate from the program, but I really like to see the money keep coming because how do we keep the train moving? Correct. So, what are some of
020your plans to uh I I know it's part culture. Sure. Right. So, that that probably is great. And with this this group of teachers that are here tonight, I'm sure they're going to make this train keep going. I'm sure they are. So, but it it's going to be difficult. Very difficult. uh Commissioner Van Stone and that's something that myself and uh Mr. Balsamama over at Wallace and Mrs. Gilmore over at North End, we talked about a lot. It was great to get an extension year four and five, but we said, you know, the sustainability piece that was the terrifying thing for us. Once again, the the growth is a credit to all those people sitting behind me. There's no question about that. So, one thing we were able to do, um, we met with, uh,
021central office leadership at the in the spring of last year, talked about what things we could sustain, what things we could part with. Uh, we made some hard decisions. Um, here at Westside, we were fortunate enough that I still receive a, uh, school improvement grant. So, we were able to fund some of the initiatives, the ones that we feel are very powerful. For instance, the content coordinators where that's department level leadership similar to a department chair at a high school. We have department level leadership here for our academics. That has been a gamecher. They lead department meetings. Um, we also are able to uh continue with Wednesday afternoon professional learning uh through that SIG grant which once again and I welcome any of you to come up at any time to see the work that
022goes on whether it's a team meeting, a house meeting, a department meeting, the conversations that are happening, the intentional planning that is happening. And another big part that I didn't put in the slideshow is all the teachers do lesson plans. And that has been a game changer. I know that's something that everybody did 50 years ago and then they got away from it. Once again, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. We brought it back and it forces people to think about what they're doing and why they're doing it and how to change it and the convers and once again we always tell our teachers, you know, if you're teaching the same subject, you guys could all hand in one with all your names on it as long as we know that this is going
023on. And a lot of them choose not to. They like the to keep the the the personal piece of it, but the collaboration is excellent. So, to answer your question, yes, it's scary. we were able through uh Dr. Schwarz, Mr. Mendoza's um support along with central office leadership to keep the primary pieces of what we all felt was able to drive this improvement. So, I have my fingers crossed. I'm hoping it continues. But, as you mentioned, the mindset that the teachers have, I think nobody wants to go back to where we were, you know, five and a half years ago. So, I think that alone that's going to drive our improvement moving forward. Well, it wasn't easy, but you got there. It was awful. It was It was a battle. Change is not hard. And
024they're going to tell you that it was hard, especially in the middle in the midst of COVID. But that's why I credit all the improvement to them because they could have easily said, "Pete, the heck with this. I'm leaving." And they didn't. They stood firm. They adopted everything that we did that we believed in, and they ran with it. And that's why they deserve all the credit for this. Well, I give them a lot of credit, but I also give credit to you as the leader. Well, thank you. But it's more of them. I can tell you that they're all telling me no in the crowd. But that's okay. But um I'm glad you mentioned the person personal part of teaching because when I visit the curriculum teams over the summer when they're going through
025what we want to bring in new, I always tell them I said I know we're going more and more, you know, to the electronic version of this that and the other thing. I say, "Please, please don't take the teacher personality out of what you send to us to approve. Never take the teacher personality out of curriculum." And I tell them that every time I visit. So, I'm going to take you up on the Wednesday afternoon. Anytime. I would love to see how that goes. I don't want to be in the way. Yep. But I just want to maybe sit in the background and see how that goes. Absolutely. And just to speak to what you just said, but I do like coffee. Whatever you want. Uh just to speak to what you just said, our
026professional development uh facilitator uh Dr. Cormier uh one thing he always says is uh instruction is like a uh magazine better home and gardens. So he says there's an instructional framework just like a just like a kitchen. A kitchen has to have a sink. It has to have cabinets. It has to have a countertop. It has to have a stove. But what color you choose to paint that kitchen or what type of countertop you want to have, that's up to you. So we have an instructional framework at Westside Middle School where there's learning targets, success criteria, do now and whatnot. But at the same time, the teachers could use their specific strengths, weaknesses, um, tailor it to the classes that they have to change those things to meet it. So every class here begins with
027a learning target and success criteria, but it's going to look very different across the board and depending upon the grade level, depending upon the teacher and the student sitting in front of that teacher. Great. So, and we have some tough budgets coming up, but I keep hearing about Dr. Corner. So, I think that's something we're going to have to make sure we keep in the budget. He is uh an he's amazing at what he does. He he's very good and and once again, he's the other half of this, the teachers and him. Last thing, I did see the great improvement in attendance. And I also saw one of your bullet points said your attendance counselor was making phone calls to the homes. Mhm. Is that working? I mean home getting to the I see the
028vice principles uh so the vice principles do a good job of that as well. We've already been uh identifying students that have missed some days to begin. Um I would credit the LEAP team. They the LEAP team does an excellent job. We have uh Mrs. Kitney. I believe I saw her here. She's the in charge of our LEAP team along with other members of the team. Um but to me I didn't want one group or one person responsible for attendance. To me it was a schoolwide thing. Great. So, we do attendance incentives and I mean I I I mean I'm sure they will tell me I talked too much on the PA, but I I kept trying to say to students, you need to be here. We want you here. If you're not here, you're
029not learning. You're falling behind. So, I want them to know how important it is for me to take time during morning announcements to say it every single day. Um that they know to come here. So, I'm not sure I would want to be calling. Thank you for doing that. Thank you, Madam President. Any other questions? Thank you, Commissioner. [Applause] Do we have public speak? Tom Commissioner Lopez. May I have a motion? I move to add to the agenda item five slash um- A and agreement with College Board. Second. All in favor? I oppose. So move. Committee in school facilities, Mr. Albini. This is exciting. Good evening, Mayor Perooki, President Hernandez, Vice President Brown, Secretary Serrano Adorno, Board of Education Commissioners, Wham's board of education representative, and Superintendent Dr. Schwarz. Thank you so much. With me
030this evening is Mr. Robert Cle from Cle Associates. Uh we're here before you this evening for approval uh of a manual of the manual uh for the five uh solar photovoltaic uh solar solar projects on five schools um Wendler Cross General Sprag Tinker and Westside. uh we're moving through the process as quickly as we could uh to make sure that all the incentives that are out there we get uh we take advantage of them. Uh part of the project is funded through DAS. Everybody knows when I come forward with a very large project that's uh a DIS funded project uh that represents about 79% of this of this project. The remainder will be uh funded through a federal incentive and on top of that there will be an incentive by Eversource uh with additional uh
031monies over a 20-year period. So uh the total project cost estimated at this point, they didn't go out to bid of course, so they're projected is $3.6 million. Uh we'll get final numbers once we get further into the project, but that's what we are um projecting for and what it will cost and what was bonded. And um and then we'll go from there as we go forward. We'll be in front of this board and the board of alderman with further uh information. Uh, with that, I'm going to let uh Robert Cle take over and give some uh additional information, some specific numbers, costs, uh uh uh expected return on the um solar energy and the I think it's $230,000 annual uh for um Eversource. Correct. All right. So, we'll let uh Mr. quickly give you
032uh additional information then we'll we'll take your questions. Good evening everyone. Good evening mayor. Good evening uh president and commissioners and uh superintendent. Is a pleasure to be here tonight again. I'm uh Rob Cle as introduced by Nick Albini. I am the uh retained council for the city and alongside with my colleagues at CSW Energy, I'm the city and Waterberry Schools District's consultants for clean energy deployment uh at the city, both on things like the city's landfills, but also like the five schools in front of you. I note that uh earlier this evening we met with your building committee um who had in front of it as well this project manual and professional cost estimate. That is one step in a multi-step process of getting to the department of administrative services to DAS to approve
033the city going out to bid for these five school rooftop solar projects. We're here at your workshop meeting tonight. I I want to note that you're not voting on this tonight. We're here to present this opportunity, answer your questions, and it will be teed up for your next regular meeting, which I believe is in two weeks on September 18th. So, at a high level, as as mentioned, there are five schools. These are five schools that have recently had their roofs replaced. And that's kind of the key for DAS is that they only want to see their grant dollars for solar projects on recently replaced roofs. And as you'll see in the project manual, they care a whole lot about ensuring that any additions to your roof does not void your roof warranty and that the
034contractors are uh licensed and capable of doing that type of work without undoing the good work you've done to replace the roofs on these five schools. Um, as Nick mentioned, this is uh was bonded by the city at a cost uh total of 3.6 million. My colleague, if he were here, would say that that's like the MSRP price on your car. What that enables us is to go out to bid and get the competitive marketplace to bid and hopefully come in at a price lower than that once we send the the project manual out to the solar developer marketplace. As mentioned, DAS will pay for almost 79% of this through the state grant. It is a reimbursement process. So, unfortunately, the city puts up the money first. After the project is completed, it then gets
035reimbursed by the state. What we have a unique opportunity right now is through the federal investment tax credit, which is still available um at least through the end of this year and probably through uh July of next year. If you commence construction before that time, that will provide a federal tax incentive. Even though you're a nonprofit, you're you don't normally have a tax bill. The inflation reduction act did allow for a direct payment um for the deployment of solar projects by municipalities, nonprofits, and others. So that's the potential to have the full cost of these solar arrays paid for in part by the state and in part by this federal tax incentive. What's even better news for you, and what Nick alluded to, is that the state's uh clean energy programs administered by Eversource also
036want to give you an incentive for generating clean energy, generating clean electricity from the roof of your schools. So, they're willing to pay a premium for every kilowatt hour of electricity that comes off your roof. And our estimate is that that would be um cumulative across the five schools about $230,000 per year for a 20-year contract that you now have with Eversource to produce that power, which translates to about $4.6 million over those 20 years. So, the long and short of the financials is that you get uh 79% paid for by the state. likely that remaining 21% of the physical asset paid for by the federal government. So then after it's built, you're basically at no cost. You then generate revenue because Eversource is willing to pay you for the electricity you're generating. I do
037note and we talked about this in um the building committee that there will be an operation and maintenance contract that the city will be going out to RFP for soon and on the city's um uh will be paying for this to make sure that your solar arrays are operating at peak performance because you get paid for every electron of electricity they're producing. So you want to make sure they're producing well and then you have um experts in this field to monitor and make sure those um systems are operating at peak performance. You will though and Nick and his team and actually each individual school will have a monitor. Um we have the developers um install a display so you can actually real time monitor how much solar energy is being produced at your school. But
038the outside contractor will be the one who will notice, oh, that panel is not performing. And they'll have the contract with the city to do that type of maintenance and response, which is uh something that we don't want to put on the the school um facilities and operators. Um so that's probably so the general next step. Again, thank you to the building committee. They voted to approve having the chair of the building committee sign off on this project and the form and moving it to the next step of the DAS process. In two weeks at uh your September 18th meeting, you will have in front of you the formal vote to hopefully approve the project manual and the professional cost estimate and authorize the chair of the board of education and the superintendent to sign
039all the necessary forms to get us to DAS where the DAS uh grants office will make their um review of that package and then hopefully sign off on it pretty quickly and allow us to go out to the developer marketplace and find you a developer partner uh for these five schools. That was a lot. Um but I'm happy to answer any questions you have at this time. Commissioner Orso and then Commissioner Van Stone. An important point that you made at the uh building committee was that DAS won't approve the roof if it's if it's older than six years. Correct. No. And then this was a um we tried hard to get these five schools into the queue in time because again DAS is looking at the clock on your warranty and wants to make sure
040that um and and that's why frankly there you have plenty of other schools with with nice roofs but they're already 10 15 years old. You don't want to put solar on and then have to pull it off because the roof is leaking and needs help. So, you want as new a roof as you can to have that solar be aligned with the roof warranty. Thank you, Madam President. Through you, a couple things concern me and that's the u we pay upfront and get reimbursed. Programs like this sometime disappear and uh then we'll be holding the holding the bag on the cost. Um, it sounds great that we can get this and almost come out making money when you look through the whole plan. So, that that piece is great. I'm I just um going to
041keep my fingers crossed on those, you know, because they tell us now, yes, we do the project and then it expires or they terminate it or what have you. It's always nice to get the money in front. No. And and commissioner, I I do appreciate the the concern. A couple of things. One, the the board of alderman have already approved the bond authorization. So the city has paid for it. Um but the the second part is that the DAS has given us a grant commitment letter. This is their longstanding um school construction grant program um that is you know routinely reauthorized and and reinvested in by the legislature. But I hear you that um which is part of why we hope to move quickly because uh it'd be better to get these things up and
042running and and paid back uh sooner rather than later. Approval of bonding is uh never on my worry list. I know it would be approved. So, um, you know, some of the other things is that when these bids come in, I want to look very closely at what they put in their terms and conditions about change request because I, as Nick know, I've had it with change request. Um we people come into the city and they under bid things happen and then we approve these you know we give them more time on the calendar because their suppliers aren't supporting them and they we say it's no cost but that's not no cost yet six months to a schedule there's cost somewhere somehow there's cost there's no such thing as a no cost change request um
043so I really want this contract to be very stern learn about change request because I will push very hard to not approve them because I think we get taken advantage of with the change requests. So, please make sure they understand that there's a wild Irishman that will be coming after them if they start throwing around change requests. Okay. Thank you. Liquidated damages, as they say. take a look at that to make sure that there are some incentives for them to move at a quick pace that I'm okay with that. So, we will make sure that there is something uh that gives us some leverage here, right? Especially if those incentives help us have work being done uh when school's not in session, right? That that's always a better situation. So, thank you. Thank you, Madam
044President. Vice President Brown. Yes. Uh thank you for the presentation. Um, I think this is a great uh environmental initiative and I do want to mention that Dr. Schwarz did mention in our committee meeting which I think is an excellent point that you know the revenue coming in at some point down the road you know when this when this uh the warranties expire we want to make sure that we have some money set aside for the you know for the um continued use of the solar panels. So, I thought that was a really good idea. So, we need to make sure we think about that as we as we move forward. Thanks. And Commissioner, thank you for for raising that was another good point from our building committee meeting. Um, that's under the general term
045of decommissioning. So, at the end of the life of the roof andor the solar panels um which is probably around 30 years um making sure you have funds available to ensure that um the equipment is disposed of properly, whatever should be disposed of. I do note at 30 years later you will already have the electrical interconnections and the pieces there. So whatever new technology yes you will want to replace the roof but you may be well positioned to put something whatever is the latest greatest version of solar at that time back on the roof after you replace it. Yep. Thank you. But budgeting and and keeping that cost future cost in mind is is sound practice. Commissioner Latoya Arland. Thank you. And again, thank you uh for in the workshop, excuse me, in the committee
046meeting. But just uh one question, is there a time limit on the grant or on the process period as far as when the um solar will have to go up? So, I believe the DAS grant is usually a three-year time. Yeah, I believe it's around three years. The um the federal incentive, they're more concerned about when you're starting your work. So there are opportunities um to demonstrate that you've commenced construction by simply having the contractor purchase certain amount of items that could be done if that can be done before the end of this calendar year. That's a benefit. But there is another window that goes into uh July. the completion of construction um can then happen I believe three years for the federal incentive after you start but again to the commissioner's earlier point our
047goal is to engage a contractor have them move relatively quickly um for the sake of all of us to um get the reimbursement process moving faster um but clearly you also will start generating that revenue faster faster the faster the they are built. Thank you. Any other questions? Thank you. Thank you so much. Look forward to seeing you in two weeks. Thank you. Committee on finance. Yes, Miss Tusant. Yes. Tucson. Good evening. Good evening, Mayor Pinerooki, President Hernandez, Vice President Brown, Secretary Serrano Adorno, Board of Ed Commissioners, uh, student representative, and Superintendent Dr. Schwarz. Uh the college and career readiness department respectfully requests the approval to enter into a three-year contract with Zello, Inc. to provide a comprehensive college and career readiness platform for students in grades K through 12. This platform will support student
048success planning and ensure meaningful college and career readiness awareness, exploration, and experience for all of our students. Are there any questions? Commissioner Osell, busy night, what's the cost for this contract for the three years? 17952. Thank you. You're welcome. Are there other questions? Commissioner Lopez. Yeah. I'm curious about the implementation period. So, what's the plan there? So once approved, we will make sure that we have all staff trained train trained and we are in the college application season. So we definitely have to start with our seniors. So those counselors will need to be trained immediately to make sure that all of our our students college applications and fast information gets out there as soon as possible. And as soon as that training is in place, we will make sure we roll out to all of
049our our students. We do have something in place already for K to2 in regards to college and career, but obviously once our our staff is trained. We're looking at hopefully January, we will slowly implement some of the things from the platform. Awesome. Thank you. You're welcome. I have a question. Vice President Brown, uh, good evening. This is this sounds like a great opportunity for our students. What is the role of of parents or, you know, adults in the students life? I mean do they have access to this or you know what is the support system for our students? So absolutely that was one of the scope of services that we were looking for is that we really wanted it to be user friendly for students families and guardians because we do know that previously there
050were many issues with families trying to get on the program that we were using. So they assured us that there's going to be a more userfriendly platform so that they could be involved. Great. Thank you. You're welcome. Any other questions? Thank you. Item number three, Miss Brenis. No. No. I'm sorry, Miss Menses. I apologize. Good evening, Mayor Kariski, President Hernandez, Vice President Brown, Secretary Adorno, Board of Education Commissioners, Student Representative, and Superintendent Dr. Schwarz. The pupil service department requests the approval of amendment number one to the memorandum of understanding between the city of Waterberry Schools and Clingberg Family Centers Incorporated. The purpose of this agreement is to continue to provide mental health services for seven schools and Waterberry Public Schools. The following locations have been approved for grant funding. Tracy, Tracy, you just pause that.
051Sorry. I think if you could speak a little bit louder. They're having a hard time uh picking it up. Sorry. It's okay. You don't need to apologize. Doesn't get loud. Okay. The following locations have been approved for grant funding. Dugen PreK8, Reed PreK8, Westside Middle School, Carrington PreK8, Wilson Elementary School, Windcross PreK8, and State Street Program. The staffing will be as followed. Three clinicians. Each clinician would cover two schools, one supervisor who will cover one school and supervise three clinicians and the community health worker to be assigned to all seven schools to support family needs. The city shall not be responsible to compensate the clinicians supervisor or any employees of the family center for services rendered under this agreement. This will continue to be of no cost to the city of Waterberry. The term of
052amendment number one to the MO of you shall start upon execution of the mayor and shall terminate October 3rd, 2026. Are there any questions? Commissioner Van Stone. Thank you, Madam President. to you. It's one question very easy hopefully and it's um how are is this uh center vetting their employees because uh in the in this environment outside organizations have had some difficulties the last few years. So I want to make sure that we're vetting these people. Thank you. That's a really good question. So our clinicians go through the same vetting process through the human capital protocols. So, we're looking for background checks. Um, we're also looking for their certifications and their credentials. And then they do go through fingerprinting through Susanna Silva. And we you normally see them in school. They have a red um
053lanyard and that shows that they're vetted and they're that's how our contractors are vetted. That is absolutely the perfect answer. Thank you, Commissioner O'Brien. Well, half my question was already taken. Um, that's good. My other question is how are they going to be held accountable because it is an outside resource and even though they're being vetted, who's going to be monitoring them to make sure that our students are safe? So, they're in they're in our all of our schools, the seven the schools that we named. Um, Mrs. John's, who's the director, as you know, she uh meets with them regular. We do have the supervisor who actually works out of our office. We're communicating with them. Um the principles, we're connected with the principles. They have logs. We see how they're working with students. Um
054so as far as checking in and checking out, how they work with students, those are all a process that's vetted with us and they're closely monitored. Okay. Are there any other questions? Thank you. Item number four. Now, Miss Furnace. Good evening, Mayor Perooki, President Hernandez, Vice President Brown, Secretary Serrano Adorno, Commissioners, Student Representatives, and Superintendent Dr. Schwarz. The Office of Early Childhood respectfully requests approval of a three-year contract with Teaching Strategies LLC in order to continue using the Creative Curriculum Program for curriculum cloud subscription and the gold portfolio assessment system. The agreement provides for digital and print materials as well as assessments and professional learning to support pre kindergarten classroom teachers in 52 classrooms. The total contract amount is $215,5920 and will be funded through the alliance and title one grants question. Commissioner Van Stone.
055Thank you, Madam President. Through you, we talked a little bit about this so I understand what's going on here a little better. Uh, and my concern was about being finance committee, not curriculum committee, but you informed me that it's the the curriculum is not changing. So, um, what we call the book of our approved curriculum is okay. Um, but I've just seen now and then where, um, curriculum packages go through finance, which they must, but they don't come through the curriculum committee. Um, I'm satisfied that this one doesn't need to. Um, but you know, we talked about at least me being informed as chair of the curriculum, but uh, so as long as the curriculum's not changing, I'm okay with it. And it's just because as we talked when I came on the board and
056first president, Vice President Brown was the chair of curriculum. We found that the curriculum hadn't been looked at in 20 years. And I don't want to go back there. Okay? So let's just be careful if curriculum's changing. We make sure it gets approved by the board to go in the book. Okay. Thank you. Uh I I don't want to go back there either. And this is it. It is the same curriculum curriculum we have been using. What we did was we tried to amend the original contract purchasing said no because of some things and we had to go out to RFP. The committee selected the same curriculum again. uh which was great. It actually ended up that we own a lot of the components, teacher kits and things like that. And so as far as
057curriculums go, this is relatively inexpensive because what we're purchasing are licenses, additional kits for new classrooms and things like that. Okay, Dr. Schwarz. Thank you, uh, President. And yes, I remember uh 3 years ago we did have a very large committee of teachers who selected this program and we did go through the curriculum committee. You're right, Commissioner originally for the curriculum and so the continuation of that is typically passed through finance if if nothing changes. So that's the that's the process. Um so you are correct. Yep. The original one whenever we alter it uh significantly or change curriculum, we always go curriculum committee first. Uh but in this case again um although we've gotten some feedback specifically like at the annex about other things we can do so we are looking into that what we
058could do with this curriculum um because there is a lot of modifications accommodations that need to be done there we know that uh but the overall the general consensus of the teachers were let's keep with what what we have right now but then we need to so we might be coming to you with some some other things there where we have to think about uh that large group of of students as Well, and we've heard that from Commissioner Brown as well. Are there any other questions? Vice President Brown. Yes. Good evening. Thank you. Um, in terms of the curriculum, we've had it, as Commissioner Vance Stone said, for a while now. what type of evaluation are we doing um to make sure that it's meeting the needs of our students especially with our uh ESL
059students, you know, our bi bilingual students because a lot of what I'm hearing from a lot of teachers is that, you know, a lot of our students are coming to prek not speaking English. And so I'm just wondering if the curriculum uh accommodates that. Yes, it does. It's a very hands-on curriculum. Uh, one of the changes we made that I I didn't mention a minute ago was we we really looked at the assessments. Mhm. And so, uh, Mrs. Bergen and I sat down and we looked at the assessments for four year olds as opposed to the three-year-old program and the half-day program. And so, we kind of went into those. There's five domains with um targets, several targets in each domain. We prioritize those for the half-day programs, the special program programs, the three-year-olds, so
060that those goals are more manageable and they're the the more important skills in that group for three three-year-olds and four-year-olds and half-day programs to kind of um develop those skills first so that we can build on those for all of our students. So we had to look at it through a different lens. Uh we're also looking at you know pacing in different things and as Dr. Schwarz said where will we need to supplement and you know for which programs possibly all great that that's that makes a lot of sense because I think when we were seeing readiness for kindergarten uh you know I think would be good to know you know kind of if this curriculum is really helping our students be ready for kindergarten which obviously the staff is thinking that it does but
061I think we have to be vigilant and be adaptive which it sounds like you are. So thank you. Thank you. Are there any other questions? Item number five, the academic office requests approval of a first Lego grant agreement between Waterberry Public Schools and ReadyCT. The grant would provide $10,847 to each of the three rookie teams for team registration, equipment, and supplies. This year, Westside Middle School, North End Middle School, and Wham's Middle School will establish rookie teams using the first LEGO grant. Uh, Commissioner Van Stone, the answer to my first question because the paperwork doesn't tell me what schools. So, thank you. And the other question I have is pretty interesting actually in the contract. Um, and I already told Nick about this. It's in our package number 622. It's doesn't even have a page
062number, but it's it's item 2.3 that says, make it bigger for me. Grantee published any statement or press release about this grant. Grantee will name CT and Connecticut manufacturing innovation fund as the organization providing resources in support of the program. grantee will provide grant grtor with copies of any statement five days prior to a publication and I know with these kind of activities we do tend to try to publicize them uh maybe have a newspaper or some cases a TV station who knows this paragraph I would love to see eliminated before we sign a contract because otherwise every time we do anything like that we got to tell them five days in advance that we're going to be using them in a public setting like that. We do tend to, you know, if we have
063an event, we do tend to credit the people who have, you know, given us grants and helped us. The way I read this, and I could check with legal, is that any statement or press release about this grant, right? I'm more inclined to think that if there's something released, it'll probably be something about the work that the students are doing and where you would credit, you know, that this was funded by legal ease though may want to give us an opinion on it. Okay. Thank you. [Music] Are there any other questions? 5A. Miss Fes. Okay. The Department of Education requests approval of an agreement with the College Board to administer the PSAT to grades 9 and 10 students in order to prepare them for the SAT in grade 11. The term of the agreement is
064one year and is funded through the Alliance Grant. Are there any questions? I'm sorry, Madam President. We don't have the information, so it's a little hard to have the questions. Oh, that was the add-on. It was the added, but it should be in your packet on an email packet. I copy my packet a couple days ago. So, okay. Thank you. Thank you. Be different next in two weeks. Yes, sir. [Music] Right. team. Good evening, Honorable Mayor Perunki, Chairwoman Hernandez, distinguished members of the board of education, Dr. Schwarz. Um, tonight we come before you to request approval of the Jackie Carol temper uh contract. This is a collaborative effort between us and the city. It was went sent out to RFP between both entities. The response rate was excellent. We had 11 firms respond. In order
065to get through those responses, we put together a committee of uh Mr. Mendoza, Deputy Superintendent, myself, and distinguished HR Director Tara Shaw. Um I can report to you tonight that we're requesting Jackie Carol be approved basically on three pieces of information. One, they've been incredibly responsive. that they're the current uh vendor to us for emergent needs that happen in staffing on a quick and immediate level. Two, um they have provided to us staff that are incredibly knowledgeable of Waterberry itself. And I I will speak out of experience in our office. It makes a difference when you have someone filling in that has a reference point to the city of Waterberry. So they understand where Westside is, they understand uh who the principal is. That matters. And finally, I would just share that Jackie Carroll has
066shown and demonstrated a tremendous ability to provide employment opportunities to the very citizens of Waterberry. So, it's really a cohesive uh opportunity for us to utilize them. Again, um I do want to share that the contract finances, so you are all aware of it, it is a three-year contract with two options in years four and five that could be executed at the will of the city. The not to exceed number is $255,000 for each year. That brings the three-year total that has I believe been earmarked by the finance office to $765,000. Um I do want to address and I understand this was collaborative but the um each department has to set up its own POS and even within for financial controls uh within the education department itself we have over uh I just counted 15
067different POS set up or requisitions set up. So if a bill came in from, and I'm making up an example, the registar uh voters's office, it wouldn't be able to be charged to the board of education. So those strict controls are in place in order to monitor it, audit it, and make sure the funds are coming from the right buckets. I'm happy to answer any questions that you might have. Commissioner Van Stone, your feedback. [Music] Thank you, Madam President. Um, yeah, I think both Commissioner Horses, we're we're jumping out of our seats to talk about this one. The one thing you didn't say, you gave them, you did a great commercial for Jack Gerald. Um, but were they a low bid? You had 11 bids and I I look over at Commissioner Horso, that sounds
068like a pretty big number for the city to get that many come in. We do address um financial controls throughout the the contract. Um, I'll have to check on the specific numbers for you because of the bid process, but we really put a lot of emphasis on the ability of them to be responsive to the current needs and that they were the current offer off um firm. Okay. I'm just just asking because with 11 it's it's nice to stay comfortable with the same organization if they're working well. So, I may not care they were a little bit, but I just would be interested to find that out. What's the funding source? I believe it to be and I'll yield to Dorene on this but to be the general fund. Okay, that is correct. Now my
069concern gets higher. Yes, it's enough to exceed 255k. Correct. We have passroughs if that's what we're going to call them for the registars's office, refuge department, city inspectors and then us. And although the contract is not to exceed the three other departments and us the number says approximate. So when those other departments start going over the figure in here that means that's that much less for us but we're running the show. So how are we going to control those other departments that if they gave you an estimate which I assume an estimate came in from the city departments. Um well actually the city inspector says definite 64,000. The others say approximate. Um but when they go over that's going to chip away at the 255 whether we like it or not. Meaning 178 that we
070feel we need could get chewed away. How are we going to control that? Well the we work with uh Miss Shaw's office directly on this. her approximates approximate uh ex estimation across the city was that the their usage would be decreased in the years ahead. uh they benchmark a high point for the registars's office for example that's just one um due to the presidential election they had an intensive yeah I read that in the thing so at this point we really believe that the 255 mark will be will hold below that overall but the contract covers the next presidential election correct plus there's a two-year option at the same cost so they'll be around for the ne the the'll be around for a presidential election in in this contract. So that that really concerns me.
071It concerns me when we're a pastor, whether it's this whether it's money that we have to send to the private schools, you know, it it puts a lot on this Biola's department. And this one looks like there's no way to control it the way I read it. So I think we need to really look at this. Okay. Thank you, Commissioner Orsel. Hi, Jean. Uh first of all, Jackie Carol has been servicing the city for many, many years. But what type of staffing are we talking about? We talk about secretaries uh uh that type of thing or because it says professional services, but I mean the secretaries are professionals, but I was just wondering what type of people we're talking type of uh employees. Thank you for the question. It's an insightful one. I can share
072for example in human uh human capital we have one clerk that works for us uh many years ago we decided to go with ESS as our vendor for substitutes um in order to decrease uh the expenditure on the city side or our side by going with the vendor we needed one person part-time only 19 hours to help man uh and support our efforts on substitutes whereas before it's my understanding and this was before my time there were as many as three employees with benefits So overall, those are the types of positions. Um the I can't speak for the registar, but I believe that that's a ramp up for the election season for different needs that they may have to to carry out uh logistics. Thanks. Are there any other questions? Thank you, Jean. Thank you.
073Have a great night. I'm going to take this moment to introduce which I apologize our student representative from Whams. I don't want to get your name messed up. So, can you introduce yourself? Brillan McDougall. Brillin. Brillan McDougall. Great. I'm a senior at Whams. Nice to have you here. Hello, Dorine. Good evening, Mayor Perooki, President Hernandez, Vice President Brown, Secretary Serrano Adorno, Board Commissioners, Student Representative, and Superintendent Dr. Schwarz. Um, I'm here to present the final expenditure report of fiscal year 25, which was last school year. Um, I would like to point out, um, that we ended in the black. Um and a lot of that was due to cost containment um throughout the year, especially the second half of the year, especially when we were notified that our ESSER funds extension um could have been
074revoked. Um so we were worried about covering what was already committed funds in ESSER um with all the various projects, HVAC projects that were going on. Um so um through that process we did cost containment measures um and then we were told towards the later half of the of the fiscal year um that we would be receiving those funds and then I came to the board for a transfer for that just in case. So that 1.4 million is showing on the last page under the transfer to syncing fund which was 1.4 million transfer. Um and then we were able to put another um 113,000 into there. So we have 1.5 million going into the sinking fund that'll go into the capital budget board of ed unallocated that is usually used um towards many uh building
075projects, roofs, uh elevator projects. Um there's always matching funds when we go to the state. So this can allow us our local portion to be used. Um I just want to point out again this is the last budget that we have that benefits from the ESSER funds. So it'll be a very different budget in the current year. Again we do have cost containment measures but trying to give the schools all the opportunities and the best that they need but you know still being financially responsible and and being able to sustain um what we have. The only other area I want to point out is below that the bottom um you'll see the alliance non-reform of the 57.7 almost 57.7 million and this 57.7 million is really what would be in this budget if we didn't
076have the alliance grant and then we move some of this operating cost there and you'll see the remaining surpluses that we didn't um touch which helps in the current year because we were able to offset the budget with this revenue that we have. So, any questions? Um, again, I just want to say this is unudedited. So, we're just leaving a little bit of like $12,000 that will go to the city. But, um, this is unudedited. In fact, our our outside audit firm is on site now. But, um, if anybody has any questions on the final expenditure report, are there any questions? Commissioner Van Stone, you knew I was coming. Of course, but this is the final budget. So, or not, not even the final. This is closed, right? Totally closed. Fiscally closed. Yeah. Unt unless
077there's any audit adjustments, but fiscally closed. Yeah. Uh, so the only thing I could say is like I've mentioned for months now is this overtime, which you don't control. However, it it ended up being about a half a million dollars. There's two old overtime lines that I added together. Uh, and it's in roughly a half a million dollars. So, you know, Dr. Schwarz, we got to really look at that. I understand certain conditions, but a half a million dollars in overtime. Let's just hire more people. Um, so that's really the only one that jumped out at me. There's a lot of red, but you obviously did a great job with offsets. The the the red numbers here are sunk. We can't do anything about them. There's some cost, but in the end when you're able
078to balance in the positive, that that's amazing. Really amazing. Plus utilizing numbers to offset the coming budget. Just fantastic work. Um maybe I should ask the mayor this question, but how long are we going to be able to hold on to those old surpluses? We're doing our best to to try to cover or else there's deeper cuts be deeper cuts when we do budgets. or if he calls you and wants to take him back, give give me a call. Great job. You're you and your team just how we end up paying our bills, worried about what may get cancelled, which we've talked about that for years. It wasn't just this one to get cancelled. We worry about them all getting cancelled. Yeah. Well, in the beginning, right here in the school, they're no longer going
079to get commissioner money. Right. Right. So, and there was a, you know, one point we didn't know what was happening with the entitlement funds and that too, right? So, you always have to worry about those coming or going, but thankfully they all came. Yes. This year. Yes. This year. So, but great job. Thank you. Are there any other questions? Thank you. All right. Thank you. Item number eight has been removed from the agenda. So, we're going to move to number nine, Mr. Albini. Good evening once again, honorable board of education commissioners. The education department has received 22 requests for building and school facilities use by schools, school organizations, and or city departments as listed and they request board of education approval. Are there any questions? Commissioner Ireland, thank you. Um, I just have one question.
080And I noticed for Rotella for 7:35 to 8:35 is before care program. I don't think I saw that before. Which one is that commissioner? We are under says Wallace and it says facilities rotella. Do you see it Nick? the WCA white collar union. Is that the one you're referring to? No, no, it's No, this is the before school program. Three, the third from the last. Commissioner Ireland, just so you know, that that program is a long-standing program at Rotella. Uh they they and I believe I believe it's their magnet. They get to use their magnet funding to be able to pay for that. Um it's a great program. I wish we could offer it at all of our schools. Uh some of our schools are able to afford uh something similar to that like boost
081sometimes comes in and helps out but Rotella has had this for a while. Maloney has something similar and they use their magnet funding to support that before school programming. Would we be able to get something like that maybe in the other schools? Possible possible. If you asked me five years ago during time I would say yes. I mean I so it's interesting that you ask that because we have the extended school hours program for our elementary students which is after school programming and so there could be some consideration in the future that extended school hours could also be used in the morning instead of the afternoon but I don't think there's enough in the grant and the funding to do both. So one thing to consider for those later start schools is to do that
082in the morning for students to help accommodate parent scheduling. Um, most of our schools start early enough that they choose to do after school uh programming. A lot of our elementaryaries start at 8 or 8:35. Um, obviously if there's some funding opportunities to get that, I'm all for it. I think before and after school care is really important for students development. Um, and and maybe there's an opportunity to also work with some of our community partners to do something before and after school. Okay. Thank you, Dr. And I believe Roberto Clemente has something before school as well. Okay. Are there any other questions? Thank you. Number 10, Mr. Albini. The education department has received one request for building and school facilities use by an outside organization. That's the sun sunshine dance studio. Kennedy High School
083auditorium, gym, calf, and dressing rooms. Uh, the education department has received four requests uh by outside organizations requesting a waiver. East Mountain Sports at Wendle Cross and Rotella and Gil Martin Nest which is formerly neighborhood housing services for Waterberry Arts Magnus School atrium Calf Library Media Center three classrooms city youth theater at Crosby auditorium calf and gym and the education department has received seven requests for building and school facilities use by outside organizations who have requested a re a waiver and have re received a waiver in the past. That's Waterberry Ballers at Generali Gym and Chase Gym, Waterberry Knights Chair, Maloney Gym, Gil Martin Community Club at Gil Martin Cap, East Mountain Sports, Wendler Cross Gym and Rotella Gym, Waterberry Unico, Kennedy Heist Room, Conference Room, Connecticut Rebound is the Wilby High School gym, and
084City Youth Theater, Crosby High School Auditorium. Are there any questions? Thank you. Number 11, Dr. Schwarz. All right. Thank you. Good evening, Mayor Pinerooki, President Hernandez, Vice President Brown, Secretary Serrano Adorno. Let's not forget her. I think a few people forgot her tonight, so let's make sure we we keep her in the introduction. There are of course our uh board of ed commissioners and our student representative. Um I see a lot of people still in the crowd. And so this is the this is the point. We're going to get to that in a minute, but uh we have two uh appointees tonight. And so I'll I'll go through as quick as possible our uh my superintendent update. Um I just wanted to let the board of education know in the followup uh that I I
085gave a few updates last week on your questions. There was one more question um uh from uh Commissioner uh Lopez about adrising students working in after school programs. Uh Na followed up with that and right now we have three students who are being employed in such programs after school but is also currently uh looking at community organizations to see any of those who are interested to also accept more edrising students in those programs to to to be uh placed for work. So we have three students there. I also wanted to follow up. Uh last week I uh might have mispronounced the name. So I want to just correct that. Uh and I apologize. Uh Norman uh Fidelen, he is a former teacher, the vice principal and principal at Barnard School who passed away. Um he
086was 100 years old and I just wanted to make sure I pronounced his name correct correctly. So forgive me for that. First week reflections just real quickly. Uh we're off and running as you all know. Um I particularly enjoyed the first day of school. I was able to get to eight different sites. Uh I've been able to visit the schools across the district and really enjoyed uh seeing commissioners out uh visiting our schools. Mayor was out visiting our schools. Um and I really had an amazing uh experience riding the bus with the Kingsbury students. and one particular young man who is definitely going places. He was he jumped right in and started talking as you could see if you if you watch the video. It was really fun to do that. Um looking forward to
087being able to do that again. And after the first two days of school transportation delays as typical in the first day or two, they did even out and so some students getting dropped off near 6:00. Now we've gotten that down to 5:00 and so uh that was that was done after Wednesday. your typical transportation issues in the first week, but um they were all handled pretty pretty quickly. Said that need to improve our registration process for families. And so one one of the things that I promised one of our commissioners is not not always tell the good stories but also tell the honest stories. It's so need to improve our registration process for families. We're still registering students to be honest and to be um uh transparent with the board. We had uh 30 new
088registrants Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday this week. So that's backing up those that came at the last uh the week before school started and thought they could come on Friday with school starting on Monday. Obviously you have to each family a family could take 10 minutes, a family could take two hours based on what they come with. And so um talking with Sandra and Nick, you know, we're coming up with a few ideas for next year to try to expedite the process as best as possible. Obviously, the the earlier we can get people in, so we need to do a better job of communicating about the start date and getting people in to register quicker. Um, and we won't have those backups. Uh, but right now, we're still backed up with people registering, which is good.
089We want them to come uh obviously and register with us. Uh, but we need to do a better job with that, including the transition from students from Bucks PreK to the kindergarten. Always a difficult transition for some of our students, our little friends at Bucksill Preschool, and transitioning them to kindergarten. Um, but I do want to highlight and I will later the amazing job uh of our u our talent department and our human capital department for hiring and we'll talk about those numbers in a little bit. Uh, I'll go over this quickly. Burlington adopt a classroom. Uh the uh Burlington Coat Factory moved to a new location and generously donated $5,000 uh to uh one of the closest schools to the new new location which was Chase Elementary. So we're grateful for them through Adopt
090a Classroom to to donate $5,000 to Chase. We want to thank you for that. We had a lot of backpack donations over the the course of the first few weeks. We wanted to thank uh Hoops to Help. Uh this was a picture at Wilson, but they went to several of our schools uh where uh they were able to donate not just backpacks but supplies for students in need. Um and those backpacks go pretty quick as you can imagine, not just in the beginning of the year, but we keep them because things happen. Backpacks get lost, backpacks get broken, and and and and so we keep those for the students and uh they'll be used throughout the year. So we appreciate that. We even had a visit from one of our aldermen, uh, Ruben Rodriguez, who
091came to Wilby and wanted to donate to to Willby High School because he had some, uh, more teenage appropriate backpacks, uh, for students, and so he wanted to go up there and and provide that support for for the students at Willby High School. We appreciate that. The board received a staffing update from the human capital department. And so I just want to go over um some basic data. Uh you can look at the breakdown of this. You'll get a more uh robust report actually and uh I think it's next month or the month after that uh where the human capital department will come and break down these numbers and and talk to you in more depth about it. Uh but basically as you remember 2022 was a very difficult year. You know we we were
092at 244 vacancies. uh that would drop to 194 and 23 136 and then um contrary to popular belief we have 56 vacancies right now currently in the district 53 being teachers three administration um and if you go to the next slide you can see that um the good old math teacher and the deputy and I know that a line graph shows change over time and so we wanted to show that on a line graph uh obviously 56 six. Uh uh still difficult for us. Um not where we want to be just yet, but I would have to say that the human capital department, everybody that works in that department, it's a team effort, uh really worked hard at uh filling these vacancies as quickly as possible. And that represents right now a 97% fill rate
093for our uh teachers and administrators. So um instead of focusing on the 56 uh which we are obviously doing on a daily basis, the 97% fill rate fill rate we are very uh proud of. Uh we'll continue to to to work on uh to to closing that gap. Um and as a reminder, just you know, this is a good time that social media isn't always the best source of information in terms of accurate data. We'll do the best we can to get it out. Um, we're also not going to respond to everything that's on social media because then I wouldn't have much else to do. Uh, but we will post things especially when it comes for print media especially. And so, you know, we want to make sure things are accurate. Um, as a reminder,
094we have 3,500 employees. Sometimes we forget that. You and so, uh, 3,500 total employees. So, it's not just we don't just fill teachers and administrators as the board knows. There's 2,000 uh employees beyond that that work in the Waterberry public schools to make magic happen on a daily basis. Um and we always keep jobs posted on our website because we need a candidate pool in case we need a library media specialist. We might be full right now, but we'll keep those jobs open on our site because in case somebody leaves as that happens, uh we want to be able to go to a pool to look at that. Um and so I was really excited to that and like I said there'll be more information to come and a more robust uh report for you.
095Similarly um I'm just touching on some data updates. The data was finally un uh embargoed from the state department. Uh we get a lot of emails that say don't share this, don't share this, don't share this and then they share it and then we find out. So, um, we found out last week it was going to be unembarggoed and so this is the first time I could present to you. Obviously, uh, and typically uh, the board gets a full report in November, uh, that that goes into more depth, but I can give you some highlights right now, uh, for this for this report and then, um, you can get ready for the the the larger report in a in a month or two as the accountability index gets processed for every every school. Um first
096uh first one on your on your sheet should be the math results. You can see this is proficiency over time. Um you can see prepandemic levels. We kept that there on purpose because that's our first marker is to get back to prepandemic levels and then get to the state averages. That's our goal as a district. Uh you can see that um from third grade we're very close to that pre- pandemic level increases of 3%. fourth grade increase of 6 and a half%, fifth grade 3% and so on and so forth. Um, and uh, I'd like to highlight how close we are getting to there, but we aren't quite there just yet. Um, we're one point under our pre- pandemic level, but we are closing that gap and we're closing it rapidly. And I was pleased
097to see that all grades had an increase in their proficiency of meeting the state target. ELA. Uh the vast majority of our grades uh met the state state target. Um this is and I know that it sounds counterintuitive, but typically when you introduce a new curriculum, it takes a while for teachers to learn that new curriculum. So you don't always see that bump right off the bat. Um you could see that reflected in some of the lower uh grade scores where you implement a new curriculum where it takes teachers a year or two to really kind of get that change going for them. Uh but overall again an increase of almost 2% uh overall in our ELA results as a district and we're up uh from 2122 about 4% as a as a whole. You
098could see also on our NGSS which is our science uh standardized test uh we are up in all uh three grades uh by about 2% 4% and 3% and overall we're up by approximately 2 and a half% as a district for NGSS results uh inching closer towards that prepandemic level. And then finally, we have our SAT results. You'll see in the next slide ELA results. We went up 2.6 percentage points, which is higher than our prepandemic level. So, right now, uh, we have closed that gap. The goal is to sustain that closure and maintain it and then move forward towards the state average. So, I was pleased to see in ELA that we were able to increase beyond the prepandemic levels. And um in addition to that uh I was pleased to see that mathematics
099although extremely low and not happy with the total number um compared to our historical um performance we are above the pre- pandemic level as well in SAT mathematics. Again the goal to get beyond that and get closer to the state average especially for our high schools. So, lots of green. Um, something uh to to to certainly look at. It's not all uh rainbows and kittens, but it is something that uh we are proud of. Everyone worked really hard last year, but um one year of of that type of growth uh always comes with a asterisk of maintaining that level of performance and then moving it forward. So, we're not celebrating it um uh just yet. We're recognizing uh uh the the the root causes of why we think that growth happened and implementing that and
100moving forward with accelerated growth. Something a little bit more light-hearted than hard numbers. Uh United Way campaign kickoff breakfast happened this morning and our uh excellent student representative was there uh along with nine of her fellow students from across the district. uh high schools being uh represented from across the district uh to start off with the United Way campaign kickoff breakfast where they were able to learn a lot more about what United Way does for their community and and how important philanthropy is regardless if it's with United Way with any organization. um and they all really appreciated that healthy salty breakfast that was uh served there and um were asking if we could replicate that type of bacon going on at our schools and unfortunately um we know that we can't do it. So I
101was glad to give them that opportunity to see the larger business community uh and how they support uh our uh local needs. Nice. Now, with that being said, okay, see, see, I had this I had this slide I had this slide first on the superintendence report and I knew better, so I put it at the end because then everyone would leave after after Jackie got it. Um, but I'm really excited for the next two two slides. Um, uh, thrilled is what the slide says. thrilled doesn't really capture uh uh the feeling of many of us at central office to welcome back Jackie Davis. Yes. Uh to the district as director of climate and student supports. Uh she rejoins us from her most recent role. We loaned her to Yale for a little while. We let
102her, you know, to to be the project manager there for clinical investigation at the Yale School of Medicine. Was really proud of her taking on that leadership role there at Yale. Uh her return marks a continuation of a long-standing commitment to our Waterberry community. Since beginning her journey with the Waterberry public schools in 2008, she served multiple impactful roles including district climate and attendance coordinator, leader in residence, behavior technician, and prevention specialist. She is a proud Willby High School graduate. Miss Davis brings both deep experience and personal connection to our district. We are elated to see the positive act uh positive impact that she will make in her new role. And I want at this time invite uh Miss Davis to come up to the microphone and uh say a few words. [Applause] [Music] [Applause]
103She's back. Good evening, Mayor Penerooki, President Hernandez, Vice President Brown, to Secretary Srano Adorno. Um to the student representatives, all the commissioners, to Dr. Darren Schwarz, superintendent of the Waterberry public schools and to my Waterberry family. So, let me begin by saying I agree with the assessment of Dorothy that there is no place like home. All right. So, I am a very proud product of the Waterberry public school systems. I was a student here for 13 years. Um, after I went and earned my graduate and undergraduate degrees, I had the privilege of coming back and working alongside some wonderful educators and community partners for another 13 years. And tonight, I am I'm honored, I'm humbled, and I'm excited about coming back now as the director of climate and student supports. And so, I bring to
104this position a village mindset. I know that it takes the collective efforts of the entire Waterberry community to surround our students and provide them with the support, the encouragement, the accountability that they need to succeed. And I know this because my village is here with me tonight. And so I am grateful for my family. That's the noisy folks in the back. I'm grateful for my church family. I am grateful for my former basketball coach, Coach Haxi. All right. follow through. It's all about the follow through. And so I take that with me into this position. Um, and I am especially grateful for my mom who is a retired Waterberry teacher. [Applause] And so I am mindful of the fact that some of the students that this position will focus on have not yet realized the
105strength of the village that is around them and it shows up in some of our data. The data is getting better, but if you look at some of our attendance data, discipline, and consequently academic performance, there's still more that we can do as a Waterberry community. And so that is the call to action that I answer. I will show up every day to help ensure that our students know the strength and the warmth of this community. And so thank you for entrusting me with this extraordinary uh responsibility. I am so humbled and proud to serve. And I have on my ruby red slippers tonight because they have led me back home. And I am so glad to serve my village, Waterberry. [Music] [Applause] Yes. So glad to see you. Welcome again. Awesome. Great. Good idea.
106You see something [Applause] Commissioner Vansstone. Thank you, Madam President. I I I must say some words. Um, he's you know, when I was told a few weeks ago that this was going to take place, I I was just overjoyed. Um, I'm I'm so glad she's back. And if there is ever a job description that the perfect person is fitted for, we found her. Yep. I mean, if there's anyone that could pull off and do wonders with this position, Miss Davis is that person. And I I just so glad she's back. As you could see, when we saw each other tonight for the first time, we gave each other a big hug. Um, and I I I'm I'm lost for words. Could you imagine that? No. No, not really. How How What's going on? just in
107writing, Jackie. Thank you for coming back. Well said, Dr. Schwarz. All right. Thank you so much. Uh well said. And uh Miss Davis, could you do me a favor as well? Um because we also have uh an awesome announcement as well. So if if Jackie and family can also support my next announcement, I would appreciate it. Uh because it's also a homecoming of sorts. And so I want to uh go to our next slide as well. And um I just want to preface this with selecting these positions at central office. Assistant superintendent, director jobs, I take very seriously because I have been here long enough to see some amazing hires. I have seen some times where we've hired and it hasn't worked out for whatever reason not to go into. The reality is is these
108are really really important positions for the district for the culture and climate of our district and for how we can operate and move forward as a team. So all of these selections uh including Jackie and now moving to our assistant superintendent selection we vet and take very seriously. And so I am equally delighted to also welcome uh Mr. Anthony Brooks, who will be returning to the district. [Music] So, Mi Mr. Brooks is is began his career as a fourth and fifth grade teacher at Walsh Elementary School. All right. Some some some people have a special place in their heart for Walsh. Do you want to did you want to say something? Did you want to say go Walsh? And go Walsh. Okay. I was. So, um, since serving at Walsh Elementary School, he's had the,
109uh, privilege of serving as a leader in many positions in the Hartford public schools as well. Uh, we're and we, we're not going to hold that against you, serving as a principal Baton STEM magnet school for the past six years. We are thrilled to bring Mr. Brook's depth of experience, leadership, dedication back to Waterberry. We look forward to the positive impact he will have on our schools and our community. And I just want to say before um I let you address the group that um not only do we appreciate what your family being here and celebrating this moment, uh similar to Miss Davis, your mother also worked here in the Waterberry public schools, I believe, for 30 years. Absolutely. Is that correct? Almost. A bit less. Yeah, close enough. We'll round up. But she also
110worked in our schools as um I believe a bilingual or bilingual education teacher bilingual education teacher sir at Chase Elementary School. And so again um finding good people is is is part of the responsibility that I have and I really feel strongly that not just our first candidate tonight but our assistant superintendent uh that we're welcoming here tonight. uh I am equally uh excited for and can't wait to get to work with you. So without further ado, Mr. Anthony Brooks. Absolutely. Thank you. Good evening, Mayor Prinerooki, President Hernandez, Vice President Brown, Secretary Serrano Adorno, Commissioners, Superintendent Dr. Schwarz, and members of the Waterberry community. I'm truly honored and humbled to be appointed as assistant superintendent of schools here in Waterberry. This is especially meaningful for me because my career began here as an educator right
111here in the district where I lived and worked as a fourth grade teacher at Walsh School. My time in Waterberry was a family affair as my mother who's in the back as my mother was a bilingual education teacher at Chase To return now in this leadership role feels like coming home. Over the past two decades, I've had the privilege of serving students and families across elementary and secondary levels as a teacher, instructional coach, and principal. In every role, my focus has remained the same. making sure that every student, regardless of background, has the opportunity to learn, grow, and discover their talents and passions. I'm excited to bring those experiences back to Waterberry. I look forward to collaborating with Dr. Schwarz, Deputy Superintendent Mendoza, Dr. Johnson, and the central office team to achieve the district's goals.
112I'm excited to build relationships with our principles, teachers, staff, families, and of course, students to ensure that every single student has highquality learning experiences that make them feel seen and ignite their curiosities. Together, we will build on the great work that's already underway, strengthen supports for students, and ensure that every child graduates ready for the next steps in their lives. Again, I'm incredibly excited and eager to get to work. I thank the board of education and superintendent Dr. Schwarz for this opportunity and for welcoming me back to the Waterberry Public Schools community. Thank you. [Applause] You say get to work. Nice to meet you. Welcome. Where am I? Just want to I don't know if you have last last one. Thank you. And as always, I don't want to tell you what to do, but
113follow us on social media uh for the latest and greatest of the Waterberry Public Schools. Thank you very much and congratulations to our two new appointees tonight. Yep. Great. Item number 12, superintendence notifications to the board. That's it. Can I have a motion to adjurnn? Motion to adjurnn. Second. All in favor? I oppose. Motion carries. We are adjourned. Have a good night. Nice job. All around. Good night. All around town.