001[Music] good evening see you good to see you today is [Applause] oh good evening to today is March 6th uh this is Waterberry Board of Ed Workshop meeting yes can we have a silent prayer [Music] so I see we have a group of students that is going to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance I to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one na God indivisible withy and justice for all we will now recite the they're raising their hand they do for please introduce yourselves hi my name is Elena Garcia and I'm in fourth grade oh hi my name is Miles ZTA and I'm in the fourth grade hi my name is Angel Ruiz and I'm in fourth grade hi my name is William W
002katanda I'm in fifth grade my name is Amy M Perez and I'm in fifth grade my name is your Mar Tapia and I'm on fifth grade my name is Ki Sana and I'm in the grade hi my name is alra Riley and I'm in fifth grade thank you so [Applause] [Music] much okay okay we'll have the principal's report by Miss gimz good evening hear me good evening mayor panuski president Hernandez vice president Brown secretary Serano adorno Board of Education Commissioners Board of Education student Representatives interim superintendent Dr Schwarz welcome to Buck Hill school I am Mrs jenez the principal of Buck Hill and this is Mrs Thompson the interim vice principal welcome thank you for giving us this opportunity to share um what we do here at Buck Hill and share a little bit about
003our school and about our staff here we go there we go okay our school is made up of multiple programs we have um three programs in one school we have regular education we have bilingual education and we have a center based learning which is our autism program um all programs are K to 5 we have 14 um Elementary regular classrooms 11 bilingual classrooms and four CBL classrooms we have amazing students here this is part of our bu Hill family um our staff and our students we are all working together um we'd like to create a uh atmosphere of being a family here um if you see our teachers are really um they're really dedicated ated to making sure that our students um have a good time learning as well as have things that they need
004inside and out of school we plan many fun things here at Buck Hill school we try to offer our students many learning opportunities um connect their learning to our community we had a visit from the mayor with the third and fourth grades who invited him um for a little Q&A on what was his plans for the future for the city of Waterberry um so that that was very interesting and we also had a Veterans Day performance where we had local veterans come in and have a Q&A with our students as well this year we've started working on College and Career Readiness for our students in kada 5 um in the beginning of the year we gave all students a survey to see what careers they were interested in based on those careers um lessons were
005developed for uh for each month so that students can learn about those careers that are interested that they were interested in as well as other careers in April we're going to have a big career day where we're getting um local members to come in and share um their careers with our students and part of our um fifth grade promotion our students uh are going to have a display board for their promotion ceremony where they're going to display what careers they would like to um maybe embark on in the future we wanted them to have a plan when they go to Middle School um as to what they would like to be when they grow up so one of the Partnerships we have here at foale is a partnership with Career Academy and they have a
006strand called called ad rising and what it means is Educators Rising we students who are interesting entering the field of Education um attend an internship with some of the local schools here in Waterberry so we started a penp pal uh communication between um this class at Career Academy and one of our fourth grade classes and they exchange pen palal letters once a month and in November they did their first meet and greet in which the students from carer Academy came over with their Lead Teacher and their vice principal and they participated in a winter activity so we're hoping we're hoping by continuing this partnership these students come in and they share what they're doing in high school and they share what their college and career goals are and we're hoping they Inspire some of our
007students to do the same in terms of the attendance here at Buck Hill we are currently at um 15.5% of our students who are chronically absent so in the past as you can see in the 2122 school year we were at 25.4% and I'm sorry we are currently at 20% our goal this year is to end the year at 15.5% and what it means for a student to be chronically absent is they have or are close to reaching 18 or more unexcused absences from school so some of the ways we keep our absenteeism a chronic absenteeism low and we encourage our students to come to school is we have a family support liaison through the Prevention Services from the Department of Children and Families and she establishes relationships with our families and she helps with
008those daily phone calls and she offers services to our families who may need them another way we look at our attendance data is through monthly cat meetings so chronic absenteeism um we have a chronic absenteeism team and we identify Trends in our absences and lastly we have attendance incentives so last year at this time we did A Walk of Fame where students who had perfect attendence got to walk the red carpet and kind of be a superstar upon entering the school that day we also have a monthly Spirit calendar where we do events throughout the month and hopefully we encourage students to attend school on a consistent basis so here at Buck Hill we also have our PBIS interventions in supports that take place on a daily basis so as you heard in the opening
009ceremony we have our Buck Hill pledge that we resite every day over the loudspeaker we also have our expectations that we not only address at the beginning of the school year but we address them throughout the school year and we are always revisiting them So currently we have 11 out of school suspensions and five in school suspensions so those are decreasing over the past 3 years you could see that Trend and our goal this year is to remain under 15 out of school suspensions uh here at Buck Hill we mainly suspend for an out of school suspension for um Al a physical altercation or physical aggression so some of the ways we keep up our positive behavior we have monthly PBIS celebrations in which we look at the attendance data through cognos and we pulled
010those students who have demonstrated positive support and they're all allowed to participate in a monthly Celebration by grade level we do positive office referrals so instead of a discipline referral they get a positive office referral sent to the office and they get a shout out over the loudspeaker our social worker and school C are consistently doing lunch bunches daily to promote Cooperative learning and how to handle feelings and deescalate when necessary we are always reviewing those behavioral expectations especially um in our recess stations and in our lunchroom so when we looked at the behavioral data we noticed in that's where most of our behavioral issues were occurring so we developed a plan to improve those two areas this school year so our students now have assigned recess stations in which they visit a specific station
011each day but throughout the week they get to go through all the recess stations when they're outside rather than just running freely outdoors and also last year we had three lunch waves consisting of two grades per lunch wave and this year we now have six lunch waves to eliminate all that congestion and we're able to safely monitor the students and just have a little bit more control over them which also significantly reduced the discipline referrals that we had um lastly we also implement the Second Step social emotional learning program daily in all K5 classes um this is our historical data for reading um reading has been challenging here at buff hille school um and looking at our reading data we were able to um pinpoint those areas that our students were struggling in and created
012a uh intervention plan to address those so all of our professional learning is focused on phonic fluency and vocabulary to ensure that our students are making gains in Reading um the first year of in implementation we definitely had um 17% growth last year we took a little dip down um which we did have other factors that did um prevent us from making them all the gains that we would have liked to see last year but this year we our goal is to be at 45% by the end of the year to kind of make up the loss that we had last year so um we are providing students um with a systematic approach to phonics instruction daily both in tier one and tier two and our strategies that we have stayed focused and true to
013for the last three years is small group instruction for for tier one and tier two we have also been implementing the E erri which is the enhanced core reading enhanced core reading instruction program which focuses on Phonics and foundational skills in reading and we're implementing it in the regular and the bilingual classrooms and we've also implemented um this strategy of uh a vocabulary using the tip chart across the content areas in which we also include we have a large um population of MLS as our bilingual students transition into the regular classrooms so we um implement this chart both in in English and in Spanish as many kids um our ml's trans use their language one to transfer that knowledge into language too um we also focus on um targeted professional learning so when we have
014our collab days our staff meetings um and planning time is all centered on um focusing on building our teacher skills and teaching those foundational skills as well as planning um for these to implement these literacy strategies with Fidelity um K to 5 math um in math that's the strength for us at this point in time we definitely um when we came in we we started strong with math as it was a it was an area in need many of our students were not one but two to three grade levels below in math so we definitely needed to um tackle math with a different approach um and we've uh done so over the years we've made a lot of growth and I want to explain that 138% um when kids make 100% growth that's like a
015year right growth but our kids were so far behind they needed to make more growth than just that one year typical growth so so with the plan that we put in place we had many students making one to two years growth in a year span so again we use that vocabulary the tip charts small group instruction and last year we had 42% of the kids um on grade level for math staying true again to those same strategies and and literacy we also apply them to math it's small group instruction vocabulary um we really um set a lot of challenges for our schools and we celebrate we celebrate All success we celebrate kids that are on grade level we celebrate kids that make growth we celebrate kids that make improvements we want to make all students
016feel that you know what they do here it means something for them in the future and we want to celebrate them every single day we have reflex math which is another program that we use to um help students build their fluency and in addition subtraction multiplication and division and so we also celebrate them as well one of the things that we've done here for Math and we've seen so much gains is Teachers um monitor their data weekly to make sure that kids are making gains and they're able to adjust instruction um to meet the needs of the students in math here's some of our we like I said we have I ready Champions when you read that reach that monthly goal of the lessons pass with 83% or higher they get a pizza party we
017have T-shirts they get the announced on the loudspeaker the kids are really excited we also have the um reflex Superstars something that we started this year which is a districtwide initiative is U building thinking classrooms where the kids are right there they're working in collaborative groups to solve um math problems they really enjoy that um so we've also implemented that in our after school program as well so after school here we have two programs and we try to service all kids um so our es program Services grades four to five we both focus on academics with reading and math we have book clubs and again the math with the thinking building classrooms uh we have sports as enrichment and arts and crafts we also have the 21st century program which is for grad 1 to
018three again with focus on reading and math enrichment and we do a lot of family engagement activities through the after school program science kids love science here we do a lot of inquiry based and Hands-On learning and um the kids love it the teachers love it they're engaged they're making inventions to solve the problems of the world and so here's just a a picture of some of our kids with their inventions based on whatever the problem that was presented in science class and that is what we have for you today thank you for giving us this opportunity to share a little bit of what we do here at Buck Hills School awesome any questions commissioner oan um great report I have one question and that has to do do with you said you increased um
019the number of lunch waves and when does lunch start for these kids and how long do they eat for so um they get a 30 minute lunch period daily and lunches here start at 10:30 and we go up until 1:30 thank you any other questions I just want to say thank you uh principal YZ uh Buck Hill was the first school I was able to actually get acquainted with when I came to Waterberry over 12 years ago and it was because of math and we were the first focused school and uh what I find interesting about Bucks Hill is that when I look at your teachers uh behind you which we'll we'll ask to stand up in a in a minute to be recognized I see a lot of the familiar faces that have been
020here working really hard for the Buck Hill students and so that data really makes me happy to see uh where we started and where we are now and I know that has a lot to do with your leadership but especially the teachers who have come day in day out to work for the kids here at buckel so I wanted to thank you all for for your efforts there can can the buckell teacher stand [Applause] [Music] [Applause] vice president Brown evening I just I I just want to say that you know the board has the opportunity to go to many schools and this was one of the best uh reports I've seen so Kudos it was very um you gave us data you gave us you know it wasn't it wasn't superficial you gave us the
021real data and we really appreciate that and we really appre appreciate the uh growth and all the dedication that that obviously is going on in this school so thank you thank you thank you thank [Applause] [Music] you tonight we have willby high school student represent reprentative Milan Renee tumba 11th grade hello there's no public speaking so community of the whole number one request approval of an education affiliation agreement with writers Health Management Incorporation DBA Chester house for educational experiences for students CNA clinical hours to meet the Department of Public Health's CNA requirements Miss Fess good evening mayor perusi president Hernandez vice president Brown secretary Sano adorno Commissioners student representatives and interm superintendent Dr Schwarz the career and Technology education department respectfully requests approval of an agreement with writers Health Management Inc for Waterbury Public School
022CNA students to fulfill clinical hours at chesher house in Waterbury to meet the Department of Public Health CNA requirements any questions I just had a question vice president Brown thank you uh Jan is this replacing didn't we used to have a partnership with uh Avatar is this replacing it is there is this a whole different program we were actually working on this to have an additional partnership with Abbott Terrace so now we lost Abbott Terrace this took us about a year um to get this partnership we're currently looking for additional Partnerships because we have two schools working with St Mary's right now we don't know that St Mary's can't take any any more this year and we don't know that we'll be able to continue that in the future because we believe the um Department
023of Public Health is focusing on the students getting their clinical hours in nursing homes and um we've already tried four or five more we're still continuing to to get more Partnerships to make sure that our students uh get their clinical thank you very much Jan is there a cost uh no there is no cost commissioner arand yes yes just one question Jen how many uh Partnerships do we have now was it just the two you mentioned or uh right now it's St Mary's and chesher house thank you any other questions thank you J thank you request approval of a letter of agreement to establish partnership with the governor's prevention partnership with what Bank to provide mentoring and substance prevention to students at Waterbury Arts Magnet School grade 6 through 12 Miss Johns and Miss ham
024Sam yes I just want to jump in uh typically you don't see Miss Miss Sam uh uh up there but I want to let everyone know she's going through a very rigorous uh 093 uh superintendent program and so part of her project is to uh create a program within District from start to finish and all the wonderful paperwork that goes behind it including also presentations like this and so you may have been wondering why Miss Sam was up there uh so she's been working on this project I just wanted to give everyone that context good evening mayor puski president Hernandez vice president Brown secretary adoro for ofate commissioner student representative interm superintendent Dr Schwarz thank you so much for introducing me I'm Hannah Sam principal at kinsbury school but as Dr Schwarz said tonight I'm
025here in a different capacity Water Public Schools request your approval of a letter of agreement to establish a partnership with the governance prevention partnership this collaboration the governance prevention partnership an organization dedicated to safeguarding Connecticut's future Workforce joins Force with websterbank to provide mentoring and substance prevention to students at Waterbury Arts Magnet School and the program utilizes the everyday program mod M mentoring model and the peer prevention Advocates program aimed at supporting students Excel academically strengthen their social emotional development improve attendance and build financial literacy skills the partnership agreement will cost the City of Waterbury $15,000 with title for as funding source the term of agreement will begin on the date executed by the city and will conclude on March 20th with a final report provided on April 28th 2026 are there any [Music] questions
026thank you yeah we we let you get away easy Miss Sam okay thank you all right thank you so much good update special education people Services Miss John's good evening everyone mayor perusi president Hernandez vice president Brown secretary Sano adoro for bed Commissioners student representative interim superintendent Dr Schwartz my name is Wendy Johns I'm director of pupil services and I have the pleasure this evening of giving you an update on special education and pupil Services first we're going to start with our special education update not only um do I need to thank uh the special education uh Department as a whole our supervisors um we do have a vacancy right now we had um some interviews yesterday and we'll be moving forward with um some candidates um but I also want to thank our tireless
027teachers support staff social workers School psychologists related service professionals our principles assistant principles everyone who's working tirelessly in schools to support our students families um without them we wouldn't be able to make our special education department function um and we recognize that um we need more staff and we're working on that so we're going to go over some of the things that we're working towards in the presentation today but as you can see um due to the vacancy we did have to shuffle um some different schools around and those are listed for you in board backup today from last year to this year um the district enrollment has increased um 16 students but you can also notice the amount of special education students that have increased so when we're looking at the amount of overall
028students that have increased there's definitely a discrepancy um and obviously meeting the needs of our special education population continues to grow as a department as a whole we had some major Focus areas for this year for professional development obviously we we continue to throughout the year have ongoing deescalation and support training for our staff we not only support um Provide support training excuse me for teachers but also our parent Educators we also Support Agency staff to make sure that everyone in our school district is provided with the proper training that they need uh to meet the needs of students also we move towards a new uh functional behavioral assessment um behavior intervention plan training through the use of uh prevent teach reinforce which is a research-based methodology um to write um research-based plans to make
029sure that the needs of students are met we also are working with our students who are in our transition program at um Connecticut State Community College and willby we're partnering with uh Parks and Recreation um to make sure that we're creating different job shadowing Pathways so that's very exciting we are in the process of making sure that our homebound manual is meeting the needs of students and families and we have updated forms that are being disseminated to all staff members we also have ablet which is a very exciting partnership where we're able to actually provide access to families through their insurance to provide assist of technology in the hands of students so it can actually go to home and school and provide access um and then program it here at school and consult through insurance
030providers so that's a very um important partnership that we developed this school year we also are working closely with the state um by doing an indicator 12 audit through our office of Early Childhood uh to make sure that we're staying in compliance with our birth to three students and finally we're working very hard to provide mainstreaming opportunities for students and our self-contained settings um to make sure that we're exiting students that we can to make room for students that need to come into those highly exclusive programs ongoing efforts to address our special education vacancies obviously we're utilizing every method we can including um our par educator path pathway excuse me to Temporary authorization um in special education which is actually a certification that the state provides us um currently we have 11 um long-term Paras
031bed authorizations that are currently being utilized congratulations to um Educators that were able to um move from being an LTS or long-term PA professional who are now serving as a desp teacher and that is something to be celebrated they actually stayed in the City of Waterbury and we're very fortunate to have them and that's something to be congratulated we're also working very closely with Southern University we've created a pipeline and we're soon to be expanding to actually hire School psychologists they are actually creating a DP um pipeline so that we can hire our own School psychologists through that uh certification so that's also very exciting uh special education department um obviously we're also always looking to find ways that we can be fiscally responsible um we've actually started and this school year um looked at
032how we can closely monitor students that are in our out placements um so we developed an out placement Matrix we actually rank our out placements and ensure that they have certain things that need to be in place we've actually also modified our contracts so we work very closely with Corporation Council to make sure that everything that needs to be in place is there we've also closely monitor our transportation um our special education Transportation so we've developed expectations for students that need to be on transportation and we closely monitor that obviously we have a numerous no cost contracts which I'll be getting into in just a moment in the people Services updates um we also look closely at our Ida Grant and we really truly this school year have implemented very closely needs-based funding um and
033we did a close Department audit prior to writing our current Grant and we'll be doing that as we move forward and we also partnered with the state and we use Paras sharp uh which is a free PD uh for our par Educators which was provided to us by Connecticut State Department of Education moving on to pupil Services which is the other portion of our department there's quite a few initiatives um and some that were covered in uh previous month by Dr Johnson and by assistant superintendent GOI however there's some more that we also have in our department um we currently oversee mtss bullying we also have several no cost mental health Partnerships CMHA we also uh super supervised Desa um which is an seal assessment which monitors students and their social emotional strengths cjr uh
034which are clinicians in six of our schools the district crisis team Falls underneath people's Services the no cost contract for kingberg and also the Sandy Hook promise no cost contract to to start with mtss um obviously we have a goal in waterburry where we have school based teams which really set the um approach where every building will ensure a positive safe Equitable learning environment for students um and it really was referred to this evening where um we're looking at how we can have schoolwide behavioral matrixes as a tier one approach um and looking then at tier 2 supports and putting interventions in place for students and then for really small groups of students that might need tier three approaches we're putting those structured plans in place for students as well looking at cjr the schools
035that we support are listed there through clinicians and obviously the benefit of those clinicians are removing the barriers of having students to have to go off site so we're actually providing mental health supports directly into our schools CMHA is another obviously no cost contract that board of ed was fortunate to approve for us we have school-based um programs as well as bounceback for our K to 5 and um we also have um Partnerships in our 6 through 12 schools and we've also discussed smart recovery which are students that can self-report that they have substance abuse um problems and they need support and therapy for that we also have Sandy Hook promise which is say something Anonymous Reporting System um and students are able to report at any time that they themselves or someone else is
036struggling um and they're able to also report a possible threat at any time and trust me it happens anytime and we're able to respond to that as a school-based team and report back um and also communicate with waterburry Police Department if need be for a wellness check this past year the Board of Education was fortunate enough to approve kingberg which is an additional Mental Health Partnership and the schools that are fortunate enough to have those Partnerships and schools are listed there for the board to see uh currently we have three clinicians which cover um schools we have a supervisor as well and also a community health um partnership and health worker that supports and this is no cost to our schools as you can see some of the data is listed there for you for
037Desa um currently this is an assessment that our teachers in grades K through 8 are um providing to their students it's a very short assessment that they're as answering questions for their students and then um the students that have a certain t score which is a score that's looked at and analyzed are then put into a small group to receive intervention um after a certain amount of time those students are then progress monitored to see if those interv ventions are working um students at the high school level actually complete an assessment on their their own so they actually self-report um and they receive small groups as well and they actually then complete additional assessments to see if those small groups are working pupil Services also um responds to District level crises um which may be
038unfortunately staff members or students um that pass away um and this school year we have responded to two that have happened um and we immediately contact the principal to ask them if they would like the district crisis team to come um and the principles will let us know um how if they would like the crisis team to report um where they would like to report and how much support they would like to be on property um and we're very respectful of everything that happens and often times the school counselors and the social workers assigned to the school are very appreciative of the district crisis team and that's it for my presentation and welcome any questions or comments do anyone have any questions commissioner Sano adoro thank you madam president good evening Wendy um thank you
039for this you know how this special program programs means to to me especially but um I have a few questions there was something that I kind of touched base a little bit with um Dr Schwarz um but you might be able to kind of help me understand a little bit um kids I don't know how often um I know you have like a care team or crisis team in the school but when it comes to a kid maybe having um maybe needing deescalation or maybe needing outside like if they have to call 411 or whatever get them to a hospital for whatever reason they may need to um seek outside help in that instance where they may have to go to the hospital they always go supervised with an adult from the school right what
040happens after that like I want what's the follow through or the followup after they get discharged and I know between hipop but I'm not sure where's that connection so that when that student gets discharged from the hospital that the school has a a plan or something in place to assist that student you know what I mean I don't know what the Yeah the transition and what how how that I don't know if you're able to answer that so obviously the district has safety protocols that uh director um Mr Barry has put in place part of that is um the school can call 211 however 2 I said 211 one um will not report to schools without parent permission if the student is a minor um to complete an assessment um if the student is in
041crisis if the parent does provide permission um and the parent is not able to come to property then a member of the school Personnel usually an administrator will go with the student and oftentimes the parent will meet um the parent um will meet us um either at the hospital but hopefully the parent provides us permission to go to wellmore to the 24-hour um urgent care because now as part of their programming were allowed to transport via ambulance and that is part of our safety um plan um part of that if parents give us permission um and sign a third party release we are able to utilize their transition care plan to then put supports and services in place here um we do need per to speak to any clinician or care provider um it all
042is driven if a student is a minor by parent permission however thank you I I think that's very important and I think that's a critical piece because you know and I hope that some parents kind of take advantage and it's not that we're trying to be you know too much involved or trying to be nosy but we're want to better support that student so when they do come to school that we have a plan on how to maybe prevent that from happening again or if it's going to happen again you know what I mean so I like that my other question um or comments as far as the Special Ed I know that when my son was in school one of the challenges that I faced was um not knowing certain things as the older
043that he got I had to kind of like do my own research or do my own stuff to Lo so for example I didn't know I had to go to a probation you know to a court and meet to do Guardianship and conservatorship and I had to do it before he turned 18 I had no idea but I did my own research I have always like advocated and and was always hoping that any student who comes to school and as soon as they have that diagnosis that they should have a packet of resources or things you know special ated Barbers special dentists you know like it it's so much more you know whether they may need a neurologist or a naturopathic doctor but it's more than that is you know home supports I love that
044you they you're able to do the able net and try to get them services at home but there's also other services at home that they can receive so I just hate to have parents maybe feel a little lost like I was and not understanding and I had a good support system where I met the right parents and so forth um so I encourage schools to really you know I know they have um the governance councils and some have pto's but I know at one point a school had or maybe Maggie you might acceptto a special ed PTO um but I remember when my son went to buckel preschool they had like a support group and I know there was funds and it stopped but it was so beneficial because it was like how did you
045teach your son to go to the bathroom how do you potty train him as parents I think we need each other's support and someone gave you little suggestions but I think and that I don't think that costs anything obviously that would be an after school thing but I I hope that there's some more parental information websites webinars resource and I know that there is here and there but just so that families are not trying to figure things out on their own but thank you so much for this and I applaud you and all the staff that you mentioned it really means a lot to me so thank you so much for that clarification thank you madam president any other questions commissioner O'Brien hey Wendy um out of curiosity do we have a lot of children
046medically on homebound we currently have students that are on medical homebound if you would like the exact number I can get that back to you thank you yep any other questions thank you Wendy thank you update on exposion Academy's Lisa good evening mayor president Hernandez vice president Brown secretary Sano adorno Commissioners student representatives and sorts thank you for having me this evening to talk and give you an update on the expulsion Academy here in Waterbury So currently we are housed at the state Treet program which is at 38 Church Street there is a 40 students enrolled as of yesterday at the program 16 of which are middle school and now 17 of middle school and 23 of high school there are currently nine expulsions pending or in process over the next two weeks scheduled um
047and currently our daily average attendance is at 70% so students enrolled the expulsion Academy arrive around at 4:00 with Durham Transportation there is one boss two vans that bring students in and out um we are currently staffed with a social worker behavioral counselors PA professionals a special education teacher and certified Ela and Math teachers the schedule is set up that it is a black schedule for for all students so our Ela staff come in first work with the students and then transition to the math component students do have access to both direct instruction and imagine learning platforms as well as social work time during the inperson seat time we have a fantastic secretary who makes phone calls at 4:30 every evening for any student who is not on site with us so she's making connections
048with families and it's actually very cute to watch the responses to some of them when they're like all right we'll get there and so we do see some kids show up a few minutes late because of those calls um our administrative administrators are meeting with students weekly relevant to their expulsions in the order of which they are coming to an end we have made contact with every student and most families at this point but now we are starting through that ILP process and breaking down what students we do have ongoing correspondents for our middle schools and high schools as we establish those Transitions and we just added to the program and ESL elll teacher the exciting Parts we've been in session for six weeks and we've had zero discipline referrals or instances um with students
049on site 12 of our high school students have completed imagin learning courses over the last six weeks working towards their graduation requirements both in credit retrieval and initial credit standings there are currently five students enrolled in 12th grade all remain in good academic standing and are on track to graduate this June we have one student returning to District um March 17th and then we have four planned for April four for May two for June and there'll be 10 planned over the summer so we'll make those plans in June for those students so they can start their following school year at their respective schools so over the past six weeks the expulsion programs had the opportunity to work with our community providers um the health department has been on site both our full-time nurse and then
050people from the actual Health Department themselves presenting to students on substance misuse and abuse as well as vaping um we've had our CIT youth staff on site to present to the students and juvenile probation has supported us through this transition and making sure kids are actually attending school so they have sent probation officers over to the program periodically Tuesday Wednesday and Thursday evenings to check in with kids and then if those students aren't present working with our staff on sites make sure those students are engaged and re-engaging them to come back to school state treat does have access to the kingberg family center it is on site with us during the day and so they've are willing to work with our students in the evenings um virtually so we have handed out referrals for families
051to access um supports and services in the community as well as virtual onsite if necessary and then our health department and our support staff in the building are working collectively to schedule ongoing um providers and resources to the kids on site so coming up we do have um pal coming in to talk about our summer youth employment we have smile Builders coming on site and then well more and the UCC will come and meet with the kids as well as um the YMCA and project longevity are currently scheduled so we're bringing as many people in one night a week breaking into really small clusters with the kids giving them opportunities to have some individual time with real people in the community that might be change agents for them um I think the most exciting part
052of doing this presentation for me really was being able to get the kids feedback um and so I'm going to actually let you meet three of the kids and see if this works oh [Music] okay good teachers we got great staff I like the school hours because I could be productive during the day by doing my Ingenuity work and recovering credits yeah hi my name is Lucas I've been at the exposive program for the last six weeks and it's helped me it gives me time in the morning to fully wake up and prepare myself for school it's helped me to start doing my Ingenuity and earn my credits uh Miss Assan helped me give my Mastery based and it's just a lot better for my mental uh gives me time to to think in the
053morning so hi my name is Cole I'm here attending the um exposure program here at St Street I've been attending here for about six weeks now um I kind of like it here you know I'm getting my credits I'm getting what I need to do so I could go back to my public school and I'm like the staff here you know Miss Crystal and um yeah that's pretty much about it I have commissioner orsel I don't have a question but I just want to congratulate you on the success of this program and everybody had their doubts at the beginning I think but I just uh I know it's with you and your staff uh I really appreciate what you're doing thank you thank you we could have done it without you guys honestly and the
054support and the confidence in us giving us a chance to do it I mean Darren was one of our biggest fans in trying get this up off the ground with me making sure it happened Wendy I mean everybody really worked collectively so we appreciate that thank you any other questions vice president Brown hi Lisa thank you for all your hard work and and getting getting this program off the ground I just had a question since the students are coming at all different grade levels and different places when you say that they're you know so they're in the class for math yep so is it all differentiated learning does each student have like like its own care I mean uh program of studies so right now currently with the 40 students we have we have two
055Middle School classrooms that are self-contained and two High School classrooms that are self-contained every classroom is Paras supported so even our regular traditional regular classroom has a par in it that stays with those kids through the evening um and then we have a special education teacher that pushes in and a regular ed teacher so the curriculum is Blended we're very fortunate enough to have district teachers who are coming in with curriculum for both Ela and math so they're very familiar with what's going on and so aren't losing the grounds they would have necessarily um by just being in a different setting so these teachers are bringing their academic work from their traditional middle schools and high schools that they're working with and bringing them in and differentiating them for the kids based on their needs
056great Lisa can you also talk about the ilps Y work absolutely so the state requires us to have have individualized learning plans for each student we're expected to meet with them regularly on students um in those ilps address things like attendance Behavior academic growth and resources in the community like what their next steps are so kids set their own goals and then we look at where they came from where they're going what the next steps could be and so when we are transitioning kids back through these ilps we're not forcing them back to specific situations until they are confident they can do it they have to leave on the last day of their expulsion but we're giving opportunities so examples of this would be a child who maybe has an ie maybe isn't ready to
057necessarily transition back to a comprehensive middle school so we may offer them a blended opportunity with Stage Street or Enlightenment and the comprehensive school or a step down like kids who are IEP kids who have a lot of supports and needs who expulsions are ending and maybe it's a transition year for them so it's an eighth grade year and they're going to end their expulsion in May so instead of sending them necessarily back to their District school for four weeks if they don't want to if they want to great we will support that and figure out a way to do it um but in one Cas case we're offering the student to stay at State Street with us he has a full IEP his family's very excited about it he'll transition with us have the
058opportunity to participate in graduation at his district school and then start his Comprehensive High School in the fall so we're trying to make it as successful for kids so that they feel that what they did was clearly not correct but that they have the opportunity to kind of start fresh with no judgment and an opportunity to be successful and those ilps give us that data to support that thank you you're welcome commissioner sanoo thank you easy question oh never either easy I am not a morning person I have never been a morning person clearly these students are not morning people I get it I get it 100% what tools or skills can you or or are you sort of trying to teach them that guess what you got to eventually go back to your regular
059like what you know what I mean it's not for everybody right so I think you know some of our older kids we talked to them about transition services like employment accessing the YMCA keeping healthy schedules during the day you know some of our friends talk about sleeping in in the morning and that's great I will tell you those three friends who are on um the video have a competition going on right now over how many hours of Imagine Learning they can do during the day prior to coming to school wow and so it was like a standing joke two weeks ago with like they were all toggling about 20 hours in the morning and so one kid was a few minutes late for school um got there like 4:15 he goes Miss look at my
060Imagine Learning I was still logged in at 4:05 and I was like me checking I was like you are look at that you know he's like I was going to win him I'm not I'm not going to let him Ln and I was like all right right so I think they are productive I think you know cjr has been great because they're working some of their programming around our kids in the morning um Jim at the Y has been really good about getting our kids access to the YMCA if they want to come into the Y and act you know work out in the morning so I don't think that the community has failed the kids in that sense I think we're still trying our best to keep them on a schedule but I think
061it's it's going to be a step you know yeah good and tell them Kudos they're they're hilarious but I'm I'm really proud of the yeah absolutely I couple of questions for you absolutely okay what is the length of expulsion at that the kids right now or late of exposion could be up to 180 calendar days so school days okay so a whole year whole year okay so we have had families who have requested early readmission one of which we recently granted he'll go back for the start of the fourth marking period um he has a student who's been in good standing and and you know I think learned his lesson um the receiving school is very receptive to working with him the team over at Kennedy has been great about kind of facilitating what that
062would look like for him the family has been very good in advocating for him um and so I think you know we're going to give it a trial by trial situation and transitioning kids back oh he always keeps me going so um maximum students that you can have at the school I think it will depend on Staffing I think currently the ratio of two core teachers per chunk of black time and then support staff with 40ish students is a good number I think after 50 or 60 we probably would have to look for additional Staffing but I hope we never get that high in this point you know okay um do the kids know the timeline for them to return to their regular school and what they need to accomplish to be able to get
063there yes so those ilps are discussed with them pretty regularly um the kids who are closer to the end of their expulsion we definitely have more thorough conversations with other kids we kind of set goals with and talk to them and remind them you know here's what your transcript looks like here's what your attendance used to look like here's what we need it to look like by the next end of the next marking period here's our expectations you know behaviorally I will say behaviorally they've risen to the occasion um they're actually smiling if that makes sense like they come in they're happy they're engaged there are moments that they are not happy but 99% of the time they are kind of enjoying they joke around with the staff um they get into the classroom they're
064eager to work I mean so I think at this point you know they are prepared and understand what the expectations are timeline included thank you any other questions okay I'll Milan hello speaking to the mic right hello a little louder yeah um so you mentioned that the students are doing that are kind of on par with what they'd be doing to like get back onto the regular program so as a student myself I'm wondering since school starts at 400 p.m. like when the school actually school day actually ends so the school day goes from 4:00 to 7:30 4: to 7: and so when they come in students don't transition so those transition periods are removed from the day and the teachers move in and the way the schedule is set up that it's pretty seamless
065so there's a social work block academic blocks and Ela and math and then there's the expectation of the the home the work at home which is probably where Milan may be interested in is that because that doesn't add up to her day so how do the students how do right so gotcha so so you got to talk a little bit about that so students do have access to their ongo Google classrooms that they're expected to so we do take attendance on Mondays and Fridays for students who work um virtually and so they're expected to work on the Imagine Learning platform as well as the Google Classroom there is St staff on Mondays and Fridays were available um we have a school counselor on Mondays and Fridays as well as our Imagine Learning coordinator is there
066so they provide both support for students on the days that they are not in person okay also one like kind of random comment yeah still a question do you guys provide like lunch in regular like regular schools so there is a grab and go dinner the kids will never describe it as dinner but it is a grab and go meal that they have that is available to them and I've noticed most sta most most staff are carrying extra bags of snacks throughout the evening so everybody is well fed okay thank you that was an important question yeah Brian hi Lisa I just it's not a question I just want to congratulate you because I've known you for a long time and every time you touch something it works mostly for our kids and I just
067want to thank you and I'm really glad to see the program is now working thank you sure thank you and I want to thank you as well Lisa but you know it was uh it was quite the effort to get it off the ground I know Wendy you did a lot of work behind the scenes Jan um you know these Ingenuity courses just didn't create themselves so the academic office really had to work hard to make sure that we had those that were ready for the school system um it was also obviously nothing gets done without the Chief Financial Officer who also worked really hard making sure that we had the finances ready for this Nick Alini working on all the logistics of the transportation and so it it really was like you started from
068scratch and Tred to recreate like what does a school really need to to actually start and start successfully it was a good exercise of reminding us how many of these um these items are just already ingrained in school and they're already kind of they come and go on a daily basis and so it was a team effort I just want to thank everybody's support the board support and of course all of those extra additional staff that spend all day with our students and then spend night with our students um but means something that they already are familiar with our systems and I I can't thank the staff enough that that show up every night on behalf of our kids thank you thank you does she have staff here I think I teach you okay discussion
069Roberto Clemente International dual language school expansion Mr obini thank you yeah Mr aini why don't you come up uh to the to the podium and I know um this is a a conversation that we've been excited to have with the board uh because uh you know there this has been talked about for such a long long time and so um I know uh for those board members who have been here for a long time we' been here for a while knew there was an original plan and uh today is an alteration to that and I I don't know if the the mayor wants to add anything into this but uh we are really excited to be here today uh the president and I have had several conversations as well about uh where we're going from
070here and uh we know there will be many many future conversations with the building committee specifically but tonight we just wanted to kick things off with everyone involved thank you um yeah as you all may recall th well first off this school is a has been a great experiment it's worked really well and we are committed to making sure that it continues to work and that we add the extra grades you may recall that about just about a year ago this time there was a proposal that came through but it was a rebuild of the entire thing and it the package cost $81 million and based on the nature of it it was unlikely we would get the full typical reimbursement so it was unaffordable there was no way this city was going to do
071that so we said no um but we didn't give up on the idea of doing the school and you know I had the thought of why don't we just add on to the building we have and that was Impractical but these guys came up with the idea of why don't we utilize what we already own which is the convent building there and I think this is a great compromise um and I think this will get us where we need to be with what we have at a price that is Affordable and still serves the needs of uh fully serves the needs of all of our students I also want to put on your radar while we're talking about this facility that as you all know one of the great needs in this district is to
072have a more comprehensive Early Childhood prek Program we're lacking there sorely um and so at some point uh not necessarily as part of this but in conjunction with it somehow would be to explore acquiring the rest of that campus we own the school and the convent the church is willing to sell the church building and the rectory building and you know I really do want to get to the point where I own more churches than the Archbishop of hars so we're going to get there but um so at some point I'd like to explore that and I think we we we think that would be a great place to do a districtwide uh prek Early Childhood because we need that kind of thing there so I just want to put that on your radar going
073forward so with that I I know Nick's going to explain this but I think it's a great compromise and I think it's going to work out really well thank you right good evening mayor perar rusi president Hernandez vice president Brown secretary Sano adorno Board of Education commissioners Board of Education student representative Milan good to see you again interim superintendent Dr Schwarz thank you very much um so uh the mayor explained it in totality um when we wanted to try to do this with kind of an add-on it was you know in the $82 million range um and um maybe uh four weeks ago or so um Mike kopka the school inspector and I met with frier the architect company um Fri architecture who was you're very familiar with them because they did all of our
074um auditoriums and we walked the convent and um we wanted them to do an analysis of this building to see what we could do with it of course um they wanted to do a bit more and we wanted to walk into this project we want to make sure it fits first that would be the first step do a test fit which is what you have in front of you this evening is the basement the first floor and the second floor we we we told uh frier what we wanted what we planed to house there what would be ideal what was there for the plans that were developed a year ago can at work we didn't want to spend a lot of money and we didn't so we went into this with very little investment and
075with very little excavation very little add-on and when I say small I mean a hallway on three floors the building is very narrow so we couldn't get the classrooms inside each floor with hallways so by adding a hallway on the out side of the building and when you look at your plans it's on the right hand side of your diagrams that's the hallway we're able to capture everything that was planned originally with an add-on or a new building we have um five classrooms we have a library we have a very large cafeteria that will hold four class rooms which puts the gymnasium back into play in entirety for the school that could be used for all recreational activities indoor outdoor a conference room a nurses Suite breakout rooms offices um uh a music room an
076art room um we'll be able to provide all five electives for the uh for the students computer science music art library media and gym um we end up putting back some square footage back in the main building because we're going to put the cafeteria in the kitchen here the cafeteria becomes usable space in in the main building so K through six would be high prek through six would be housed in the main building grade seven and 8 here and uh these are very um uh unresearched numbers but it would probably come in at a quarter of the price of what we were planning to do um with the earlier plan in in this plan when I say about a quarter of the price in this plan includes two elevators one for this building one for
077the main building air conditioning in this building um when we did the during in our Esser funds we put four brand new boilers in the main building and we had them purposely sized that we there was going to be an expansion so we do believe we can bring the heat from the other four boilers already there into this building so uh this would have a new roof new windows new floors there's also uh an allowance in here for uh Furniture fixtures and equipment there's allowance in here for Paving there is an allowance in here for landscaping there's an allowance in here for an enclosed hallway from this building to the k6 building the one that's in operation now so the students wouldn't have to walk Outdoors um there are two two new two new steer
078Wells because they're not Cod the um the tread is not large enough so we have to put two new steer wells in so this would be a there's a a water sprink sprinkler system in here so there's safety features in here new doors so this is almost a refurbished building for not a lot of construction but yes uh there is an asbestos contingency in here allowance is it enough I don't know uh that would be the not the next phase the next phase would say would be is it structurally sound that would be the next phase can it can it hold everything we want it to hold if that is a go then maybe the next one would be a design with with your actual costs more researched costs done by mechanical engineer electrical engineer
079and we have allowances in there for all of these costs we just don't know if there are enough any questions commissioner Orel thank you Nick it's exciting that's a quarter of the price because that other was ridiculous a couple of questions um what would the reimbursement rate be if we do the refurbishing from the state uh I'm hoping that it's still the 79 21% I'm I'm hoping it's that this becomes a priority Grant application so this has to be put in by June 30th okay so we kind of have to hustle a little bit I did check with frier do they believe they can have this ready for an application by June 30th and they said yes and my dealings with frier are an excellent company so whatever they say I really believe them and
080what is the conict going to be used for I'm sorry what is the convent going to be used for this this is the convent that is okay okay okay the the rectory is the building that is on the property that we don't own don't own but this is the rectory that we would uh renovate okay okay okay but the mayor's working on it conf any other questions vice president Brown vice president Brown thank you uh Nick this is very exciting and I remember sitting at a meeting a year ago uh with the proposal for a brand new school and when we saw the price we were like oh boy so this is a really good compromise in the the convent do they still have is the chapel still there it it is and what would
081that be used for that would be the art room oh it's a beautiful it has some beautiful Windows of I beautiful stained glass windows that that is the art room the music room down in the basement perfect yeah yeah okay and if I'm looking at the diagram uh where is where would the elevator be in the convent on the where the parking lot is on the side if you look if you look at the basement plan the basement sheet okay you'll see it over to the right over to the right yeah okay nice okay Bott okay I get it okay thank you now uh this is a very interesting building the the ceiling on the second floor so picture your second floor of your home the ceiling is made of concrete here so if it
082is sound if it is something that we can use for storage we would design the elevator to go to the if you will the attic become it becomes a a full storage area up there okay um commissioner Arin one and then commissioner arand too you m just a quick question for the cafeteria is the order oh excuse me the gym is going to be in the cafeteria as well so the gym is used as the cafeteria right now so only half of it is usable with the cafeteria in the other part so by doing this that that's why one of the reasons why when they designed when they when I asked them to put in the hallway they only put it on the first floor and the second floor I asked them to you're doing
083all that just put it in the basement as well it expanded that cafeteria to 1620 Square fet which we can hold 100 students in there now so we could have two grade levels it puts the gym back into play as a gym and an auditorium because there is a stage in there as well okay and then just one more question just um have there been any or problems with like flooding when it rains it it no it is very dry in there the only reason why I asked CU I was actually there last night and you know the rain we got last night but the water was actually I don't know if you received any complaints this morning but I know the water was like up to the front of the school last night so
084I'm just just curious yeah we have not seen any of that there okay thank you commissioner Arlin yes just a just one question so the so the CAF so there'll be two cafeterias no so we'll take the cafeteria out of the gym okay so we could put that online uh back online as a full gym right now half of it's used as a as a cafeteria for the students yes but there's a kitchen next to it that can be repurposed for something else that the school may need because the kitchen will be in the in this building here okay and then um how long was the Covenant building vacant for uh a while or it's been the school Clos yeah yeah okay okay yeah this this is quite a number of years okay but it's
085incredibly great shape other than some vandalism incredibly uh sound is the uh ASB bestus issue alarming or no it would be it would be addressed and removed uh the nice thing about about it there is nobody in this building it wouldn't be like trying to do it with staff and and students in the building so it would be done per code per standards uh and removed as well as the lead uh encapsulated awesome thank you thank you sir are there any other questions Nick I don't remember hearing a cost so far so it it's very rough uh yeah Madam president because there nothing has really been analyzed uh is the water line large enough is the sewer line large enough is is there a large amount of asbest can the four boilers take care of
086this building all things that we don't know but they put in an allowance right now 16 million okay instead of 82 that's less than our Shear would have been so that that's and and like I said it includes a little bit of all of this Landscaping uh uh Paving new roof new air conditioner two elevators uh and and we can do we can make this as large or as small as as desired um and just meet the needs but this this seems like a great opportunity an option I mean this is what was this was designed to do is find out is it an option or not an option at this point it's an option uh maybe take it to the next level any other questions thank you thank you request approval of the state
087and federally funded Grant contract with the Department of economics and community's development for the Earth every child art experience Grant awarded to Kennedy High School ban Jan and Mr Johnston you want to read it or me good evening again Kennedy High School respectfully requests approval of a contract in the acceptance of ount of $2,500 from the every child art experience Grant the grant funding will be used by the Kennedy High School band to partially fund the transportation cost to attend and perform at the national Jazz competition in Philadelphia in the Oxford jazz festival nice any questions a question vice president Brown good evening principal Johnston how are you very good uh are these Invitation Only or or is this open to everyone the competitions the competitions uh no I believe these are open competitions so
088you would seek to attend the competition and that's how that's how you'd get there good I hope we continue our record we did very well in the National yes uh so that's great congratulations the band is outstanding Mr draic is doing a fantastic job the kids are extremely committed uh they were practicing till I left the building this afternoon that's great thank you any other questions thank you thank you thanks Rob number seven request approval to apply for the Connecticut State Department of Education Career and Technical supplemental enhancement Grant Dan the education department respectfully requests permission to apply for the Career and Technical education secondary supplemental enhancement Grant eligible districts May apply for up to $50,000 no matching funds are required the project budget would result in approximately $232 of excess costs above the $50,000
089Grant request those excess costs will be paid from an another Grant source that is managed by the Career and Technical education department any questions thank you thank you number eight request approval of a professional service agreement with Outdoor Classroom LLC for day trip programming field trip to Camp Washington I don't oh Darren Dr Schwarz back okay well I don't have the backup for this so um I'm not sure J going to Camp Jan did you see this I know it has to be approved uh tonight but I do you have anything Carrie has the background thanks oh that's right I'm sorry thank you hey thank you very much so uh kri and I did talk about that it's been a long week so um this was something that was previously approved by the board uh
090a few months ago but it had to be uh moved today because it was uh it was a change in uh was a date Carrie I so the field trip was previously approved by the board of education but because it was approved with a different date we had to move it on to today for approval and so that was that was the major change no no change in cost no change in anything other than dates excuse me have to vote on it and you'd be voting on it for next time uh anyway so I can make sure we get that more information to you but uh the last time K and I spoke this was previously approved and that's why we need to come back and get another approval from you because what you proved
091last time the dayses have changed um and so when I come back next week or next two weeks from now we'll make sure that we have all that information for you commissioner lorya arand what if if if I may uh what what changed date time I can get that information you're not going to vote on it tonight so we'll make sure we have that all for you I'll just spell it out uh next time I know that this was uh this was put on but it it's really going to be voted on two weeks from now okay any other questions all right number nine request approval of an agreement with Cooperative Educational Services for special education services Miss Johns good evening again uh the special education department requests the approval of the agreement between the
092City of Waterbury and um Cooperative Education Services CES for short which is an outof District special ucation placement uh the original contract was presented uh at the Board of Education workshop on June 6th uh 2024 it was voted and approved um at the Board of Education um Regular meeting on June 17th the board of aldman voted and approved the original draft contract on June 24th 2024 uh the contract however could not be fully executed because we um had to make some changes and we wanted to make sure sure that we brought the new draft and that is available to you in board backup this evening um and therefore a new executive summary is submitted for your approval and consideration uh this evening at workshop and then we'll be obviously um considered for voting at the
093next um meeting on the 20th uh the agreement shall commence on uh July 1st um so obviously um students and will terminate on June 30th of 2027 the cost is list there which is $764,900 uh for a three-year term um and the purpose of services are for students placed to receive special education services and this is um for um paid through General funds any questions I have one what type of services are under this graph so these are students that receive special education services in an out placement this is a state approved private special education facility okay thank you any other questions thank you Wy thank you January 2025 monthly expenditure report dorine good evening mayor perusi president Hernandez vice president Brown secretary Sano adoro honorable um Board of Ed Commissioners student representative and instrum
094superintendent Dr Schwarz um this is the monthly expenditure update for the seventh month of the fiscal year this is through January um and as I've said in in previous meetings um we're pretty on track um basically with like the salary accounts looking that will end in a surplus based on attrition vacancies you'll see that there are some counts that are going in the red but there other accounts that are Surplus um our biggest area is purchase services that you'll see is showing the large deficit but overall um the budget should remain in a positive note um you'll see the areas that were um Surplus in in the purchase Services line is really uh Transportation there are most variable accounts for regular Ed and special ed along with um add of District placements outside tuition um
095and purchase services for special education um and you'll see that we're just going to keep on track this is $18.4 million budget um however you'll see on the last page um how we had to offset it through some of the alliance money um to balance off um and you'll see that that will fully be spent at the 57.7 million um that really should be in the 158 above but we use the increase the ECS increase that goes to Alliance um and we use every bit of that uh to balance off um but overall we're projecting at this point to even out or to have somewhat of a of a smaller Surplus any questions on the budget okay any questions all right thank you very much you're welcome committee on building and school facilities use of
096school facilities by school organizations and or city departments Mr Alini good evening once again with the approval of the committee on school facilities and grounds the superintendent of schools recommends approval of the use of school facilities at no charge by the following 26 School organizations Andor City departments any questions use of school facilities by outside organizations and or waiver requests with the approv approval of the committee on school facilities and grounds the superintendent of schools recommends approval of the use of school facilities by 13 groups and organizations subject to fees and insurance as required or those requesting waivers any questions thank you Mr Alini thank you oh did you have a question interim superintendence update thank you uh good evening mayor perusi president Hernandez uh vice president Brown secretary Sano ordoro our Board of Ed
097Commissioners and of course our amazing student representative good evening everyone I have a few uh remarks tonight I want to start off by uh thanking uh those that contributed to the United Way this year uh the United Way uh founded a find it- iny heart campaign contest focused on schools in the area and it was sponsored by the Waterberry Connecticut Teachers Federal Credit Union and I believe the uh Waterberry Teachers Association as well School staff and faculty who pledged $1 per week or more to the United Way of Greater Waterberry were able to receive prizes thanks to the credit union in the WTA um and congratulations to the following winners K andne centuro from Waterberry Career Academy she was a teacher who won a $250 gift card Kennedy High School was recognized for their highest
098percentage of participation in the the district at Chase Elementary School was uh recognized as pledging the most contributions uh as you all know we are a a a great group of philanthropic uh uh Educators and we really appreciate appreciate the partnership with the United Way also uh what's been happening over the last few weeks and I think a few of you have been able to to join uh some amazing schools in read Across America and really appreciate uh going and celebrating Dr Seuss's birthday across the district and you see some pictures here from Maloney interd District magic M magnet school and Washington Elementary School and uh as of today right off the press there as Roberto Clemente International dual language school and I believe both the president was there today and the mayor I know
099myself I know attorney Britain you were there reading and uh I believe vice president Brown you were there I'm not sure if anybody else was able to make it but it was a uh an amazing uh event and we look forward to more in the next few weeks I've also had the pleasure of uh uh going to schools across the district actually finished today all schools and mayor pusi and president Hernandez were able to join me on many of the visits I know that it was a lot of time but I really appreciate you both making the time to find a way uh to get to the schools I know the students and the families really appreciated you being there um and we were just able to to meet so many amazing students with cabinet
100just want to highlight one young lady in the top left there uh from Enlightenment school who is just was just a pleasure to absolutely meet and she has a she's working at mask uh she's doing an internship she just uh finished manufacturing and she was really pushing to get into carpentry sooner than later and so she wants to do that but ultimate goal is to be a school social worker back here on the Waterberry Public Schools so uh those most of the types of students were meeting across the district and I was really really happy that more than 90% of the students that were winning the awards are also choosing to stay here in Waterberry public schools in those transition years many going to the Career Academy many choosing Early College High School or the
101sore program uh many choosing the academic Academy so not leaving us and staying here uh with us in the in the district which is really made me happy to hear and if they weren't going to uh if they were thinking about leaving us uh I made my best pitch to St I also want to point out that we had some amazing adult education students visit the state capital and we're able to speak with our state representative Ron napy Jr and state representative uh J Rees they were able to tour the capital ask questions learn how their voice can play a role in government you could see the big group that were able to go down to the adult uh from adult education to learn more about their opportunities to play a role in government uh
102so that was that was amazing to see and some additional information I'm so glad I put the slide on because now I can answer your question uh that you asked earlier uh commissioner iseland is uh just to go back to the earlier item it was a uh a field trip that would cost $ 5,18 from Wallace Middle School it was originally uh voted uh and approved by this board in October and it was also approved by the board of alderman in October it's for the students to go visit the Long Island marshes uh after those approvals then the company asked us for a mutual uh indemnification clause in the contract which made us work with the attorneys which made us have to come back here today to talk about it which means it will have
103to go to you in two weeks from now and then uh it also pushed off the field trip um but it also uh has to go to the border of alderman again because of that Mutual indemnification Clause that was a better answer than my first answer point that out uh March 5th the State Board of Ed awarded uh that was yesterday I awarded uh willby high school with their fifth year in the commissioner Network I was able to go up there with uh Dr Baker and a few others to uh make our pitch for why willby needs their fifth year uh in the commissioner's Network and we were approved that yesterday uh we um and uh we appreciate the collaborator support from the Connecticut State Department of Ed and the turnaround office for this for
104this funding and this and this collaboration uh I also want to let the board know that I've been um digging into my former Roots at Yukon to see if they can um start an 092 program at Yukon Waterberry and so uh they're able to do it if we get enough interest if student if uh teachers are interested in going into the 092 that's the administrative track um typically we we they go to the same the same programs I know how um how how difficult the Yukon program is but how rewarding it is and I know many of the uh the cabinet members have gone through the Yukon or ukap programs uh and speak highly of it and so we have seen tremendous interest and hopefully we can see this come to fruition so that our
105teachers don't have to travel so far they can have something in their back uh in in in their in their neighborhood to be able to go and receive that and earn that 092 I also want to say happy soci School social workers week it's to this week is school social workers week and so I want to thank all the social workers in the district for everything they do for our students on a daily basis um robotics competition this Saturday at willby uh willby High School festivities kick off around 10:00 a.m. I think uh some of us have an opportunity to speak to the and it's h it's it's packed I'm telling you you go to have you ever been to a basketball game in Wilby you've seen The Stance full you will see that and
106more this weekend if you're able to to be able to get over there for 10 10:30 is is really the start but it's going to be an amazing uh weekend so looking forward to seeing all of our schools there and and putting their best foot forward with their robots um on Monday March 10th Career Academy is hosting the uh the Statewide Educators writing uh Educators Rising pre-conference uh convening for all the student student cabinets officers in Educators Rising across the state and our teacher leaders are going to be there at water beer Career Academy in the morning um and hopefully I can recruit some some future teachers uh from from from that educator risings uh uh meeting at Career Academy on Monday whams is putting on the play Harry Potter and the cursed child on
107March 21st 22nd 23rd I believe Dr stus has emailed the board uh about that but I also want to put it out there that uh for any of the schools to continue to uh communicate all of the amazing events that are happening out there because sometimes we find out about events even the superintendent after they've happened and we don't want that to occur if we can make it I know a lot of the board members if they can make it they will go so you already have four tickets good um phenomenal they are they are amazing and we have amazing students who do uh great things across the district and and hopefully they continue to communicate uh uh uh the the Great things that are happening across the schools and I uh I want to
108do a few more here uh I I want to let you know that the superintend the interm super attendant student advisory uh group that I've been meeting with throughout the year a great group of about 30 to 40 uh Juniors and seniors across the district are now working on a public service announcement they're going to collaborate on a PSA before they leave us in June uh and they're collaborating with Works uh the local Department that worked with the health department on their PSI actually and we're uh a great teacher he was actually here earlier Williams uh teacher Justin amenta and they're going to work together on creating it and they're breaking out into groups and who's the writing team who's the acting team um and then who's the production team and they're going to put
109a PSA together about mental health and the things that uh students need to know about uh mental health in our district and they have to keep it we learned from works you have to keep it to 60 Words which is going to be interesting to do wow uh I want to uh give a happy Board of Education uh recognition month I wanted to say that to the board of education we will be celebrating uh at the next meeting and so festivities will start at 4:45 p.m. at their next Board of Ed meeting I'm sure you'll you'll get that information but I wanted to give you a heads up in case you're a planner uh like me and the last uh the last piece I wanted to put out there uh for our uh for my
110report was just a shout out to a parent actually uh Miss uh lorett Barnes she called central office uh to brag about the wend cross staff and I I'm putting it in here because we don't get many calls that brag about we usually get the calls it's like hey can you help us out or can you fix something but I think it's important for us to recognize the the the positives as well miss Loretta Barnes and I asked her can I say this at the board and she goes I'd be mad if you didn't um she wanted to thank wend cross staff because uh her child uh uh was uh unfortunately injured and um in a in a in a serious situation and she was extreme extremely grateful she just had to call and tell
111us that uh the the the staff at wend Cross consistently called her messaged her sent messages home to the child while she was recovering uh constantly checking up not just on uh her daughter but the family uh their mental wellbe beinging and then uh just the dedication to keep the academics going even when she was recovering she just really appreciated the personal touch that the window cross staff had and in her words was way more than ever expected and I wanted to thank the parent for making those calls and making that call to us and I I know wend cross appreciates it and that concludes my report oh good wow session yeah I'm sorry may I just mention the cave day on the hill is next week uh March 12th and it begins at 9:00
112it'll be in the Armory which is adjacent to the lob office so you go in the same driveway and be glad to carpool so let's let's talk thank you vice president Brown commissioner Serano D could you bring us into an executive session sure Madam president I mov to convenience executive session for discussion concerning the appointment employment performance evaluation health or dismissal of a public officer or employee second I'm sorry we we're now in oh do I need you it's just you just you no she don't report today next time excited about this the students she reports next week we're now in an executive session where we going were you looking yeah I tell you that all right let's go [Music] e e e