001The pledge of allegiance. >> I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands nationy and justice for all. Okay. The first sorry item on the agenda is school facilities campus revitalization. The word here is discussion. It should read reminder. Um we are having a tri board meeting on June 17th at 6 pm virtually. an agenda will be coming um out before then. Any questions about that? >> Okay. >> Who's the agenda? >> Um uh the first select woman uh called the meeting. So, she's going to circulate uh an agenda to the board of finance chair and the and me and we'll look at it. Okay. Um new business. uh the [clears throat] retirement incentive program otherwise known as E-RIP. Uh we had an executive session
002discussion to understand it went over the financial pieces and the FTE implications. Um are there any comments? Okay, then we will proceed with the E-RIP program. Thank you. That leads us to year and review part one. Is that Dr. your handle. >> Yes. So, um tonight that's okay. For our year in review part one, we are going to hear from um Dan Devito and Tina Hankle, Julie Deloney, and Jim Wilsy. Uh they will be presenting on the progress and growth towards the information literacy and technology, our human resources and safety and security. And so, I will t turn it over Great. Good evening everyone. Um Dan is going to kick us off with the first section of our district improvement plan. Those of you that were not with us last year, we um there are
003many sections in our district improvement plan and so we want to make sure that there's enough time to have conversation and discussion at the end. We have broken up a few sections over the course of a couple meetings. Um this meeting is focusing on the first um few sections around information literacy and technology and our goals related to those um action steps and and um individual goals followed by Dr. Gavone who will lead us through the human resources goals followed by uh director Wilty who will uh finish up this evening with safety and security. June 15th, we will continue with part two, which will focus on academic goals and academic growth and achievement along with our school climate uh panorama survey um indicators and school climate goals that um um Dr. Edwards will lead us
004through. And then finally, as many of you that been have been here in the past, the third portion and final portion is completed in September when we have the publicly released standardized assessment metrics with smarter balanced next generation science standards as well as SAT. So Dan is going to kick us off. >> All right. Uh good evening everyone. There we go. Uh I'm proud to share the significant strides we've made within the information literacy and technology section of our district improvement plan. Our goal this year has been to empower our students as responsible digital citizens in a global future ready environment because technology is involving at a break neck pace. We wanted at least 80% of our staff members who engaged in our AI training to walk away with a measurable increase in confidence and
005understanding. Throughout this past school year, we hosted 12 targeted professional learning sessions. Of the 120 participants who provided feedback, nearly 86 reported a substantial increase in their comfort level and understanding of how generative AI can be intentionally and applied safely in education. What this feedback indicates to us is that we are making meaningful progress in building grassroots staff capacity. We aren't just introducing technology for technologies sake. We're successfully equipping our educators to use AI responsibly and effectively. To build a trusted framework, we established a crossf functional AI advisory committee this year and last year. We knew this couldn't be just a top- down directive. So, we brought together a diverse group of voices, teachers, administrators, our technical staff, and crucially, student representatives. Throughout the year, this team worked regularly behind the scenes. They established our
006official AI policies and guardrails, vetted safe instructional tools, and carefully designed the professional learning sessions that yielded such great feedback. They are the engine ensuring our approach to AI is ethical, practical, and highly supported across the entire district. As we move to our next layer of implementation, the focus shifts to how we translated the committee's vision directly into our schools. To build leadership capacity from within, our library media staff and designated staff completed the Panorama AI literacy certification course. Our certified staff and teachers turned around and facilitated school-based professional learning. Our March PD day was an exceptional professional development event and targeted training. Teachers chose from specialized sessions like AI informed assessment design, partnering with AI to level up writing, reimagining ELA, and language specific roundts. We also dove into studentf facing applications like using
007AI to enhance personal interest projects and tackle critical topics like academic integrity. The impact of these efforts is profound. We fundamentally expanded our staff's capacity and instructional readiness to integrate AI thoughtfully, ethically, and purposefully into teaching and learning experiences. Looking ahead, we're already actively exploring expanded AI literacy coursework at the high school. Ultimately, all of this adult learning serves one purpose, enriching the student experience. This final slide highlights how we are aligning our day-to-day curriculum with national standards to build true digital literacy. If you walk into our schools today, you'll see a beautifully balanced approach in our innovation labs. Students are engaging in unplugged engineering and design challenges alongside technology integrated experiences like coding, 3D design, and stopotion film production. We've expanded our fourth grade curriculum to focus deeply on digital wellness. And we brought
008immersive learning to life via virtual reality headsets. We also built communitywide awareness through dedicated celebration weeks, digital citizenship week in October, computer science week in December, and digital wellness week this past May. Systemically, we updated our district digital charter, and we refined the Wesson public schools computer science plan to align directly with the state's latest AI guidance. The overall impact is that we've expanded authentic opportunities for students and staff to engage with computational thinking and creativity while strongly aligning our curriculum with future ready expectations. While we celebrate these successes, we still have more to do. As we look to the future, our next steps are clear. We will continue to explicitly integrate AI literacy across grade levels and content areas, develop clearer K12 expectations, and continue to evaluate instructional AI tools for strict privacy and
009impact. We will also continue to gather ongoing feedback from our staff, students, and families to guide our future decisions. Wesson will continue to approach AI integration thoughtfully and responsibly, ensuring that innovation always supports strong instruction, ethical decision-making, and future ready learning experiences for all students. And now I'd like to pass it to Dr. Gavone. This goes to the next slide. Any questions? >> I have a question. >> Go for it. Uh, two parts. Part one is, can you give examples of how the staff uses these tools to enhance instruction? >> Okay. >> It could be anywhere between K and 12. >> Okay. And then could you give examples where the students use these tools instructive uh constructively to demonstrate innovation and competency? >> Sure. >> I can help you with number two. I can't help
010you with number one. >> Okay. >> Do you want to start Tina? >> Absolutely. Um I think to start we we are always learning on how to enhance and utilize some of these instructional software tools to be more efficient and um enhance some of our creativity creativity when it comes to lesson planning, lesson design, and different types of performance tasks for students. Um, I've seen teachers um lean into some of the Canva tools that are available um through Canva, which is a a a software tool that is through Google in a safe environment. Um they use those to either design different projects uh different opportunities for kids to choose different projects um whether it be newsletters or um newspaper articles. Um that way students can kind of explain their display their creativity through through some
011of those performance tasks at the end of a unit of study for example. Um we've also um utilized some of our um AI tools that are wrapped around some of our instructional software to give more explicit feedback whether it be through different writing prompts or um different iterations of their writing responses. We've been really exploring how to better use those tools at the secondary level in English specifically and in social studies as well. Um I've also technology-wise we also use those VR headsets. I had my own experience when we had the um Anne Frank exhibit when the middle school students were exploring where Anne Frank lived through the VR webinar VR field trip. Forget the right language. Um, but it was quite um interesting to see the kids and and their responses when they had
012the VR headsets on to explore what Anne Frank's living quarters were um when they were doing the one school, one book. Um, so that was an extra way to enhance some of the experiences and the and the curriculum through some of the instructional technology equipment that we've brought in over the years. That was a couple examples. Yeah, >> I would just add that uh when they had a project challenge here, >> it was remarkable. >> Yeah, absolutely. Can you talk a little bit about >> y can you explain how the district kind of plan as well as potential. >> Sure. So, one of the things and we can both kind of tackle this from an AI perspective. We've been uh on a very slow and steady pace and we've tried to learn from the mistakes
013of other school districts to be honest with you. A lot some school districts went like the absolutely not pencil and paper moving forward and then other districts were like let's buy the best thing that's out there and let's integrate it. and now they're kind of having buyer remorse. So I I can give you an example like from a student AI use perspective, only the high school students have access to AI tools, right? And and we're building a foundation at the younger grades for them to truly understand what AI is and how its impact is. And that's why, you know, we're moving slowly to make sure we inter implement it properly while at the same time trying to make sure it's not the wild west cuz AI right now is the wild west. So we've been
014working with staff members to make sure from the simplest thing and something that I always kind of scream from the mountain tops, student privacy, right? We asked do not use chat GPT you know you can use Gemini because Gemini complies and working with them on an individual basis and then slowly trickling other things like besides Gemini notebook LM and then other products that teachers use such as Brisk and Class Companion some people are using magic school or school AI and we're kind of helping them understand the proper use of it how you should be using it as a teacher and how if you're having the students use it how are you setting up like a gem for instance at the high school, some of the teachers are creating gems. And for those who don't know
015what a gem is, it's a a self-contained uh section of Gemini where you can upload units of study, you can upload chapters, you can put in uh articles, and then the teach and then the students can help use that as a study guide beyond what they already have, but they're taking the baby steps. And that's what the professional development is for is to make sure that they're understanding how to use it. And then with each professional development, they're asking, "All right, can I get a little bit more? Can I get a little bit more?" So, as much as we've had this AI committee for a while now, we're still taking it as slow as possible because we don't want to give into the pressure that AI is out there because we we want to make
016sure we're implementing it properly. Does that make sense? >> It does. Sure. >> They have elevated our game. Let's just start >> and and I'm also going to say [laughter] they're not completely for AI as well. So we have the I'm going to call it the sensing viewpoints where we have them like why are we doing this? Like what's AI? Like the AI is going to be the end of it all. And so we need those uh viewpoints to help make sure that we're taking everything into consideration and they really do bring it in from a student perspective where as much as we can think about it from a teacher perspective and an administrator perspective, they're very unique in the ideas and concepts that they bring to the table. And then when we've met with
017these products to demo them, they ask incredible questions that I'm kind of blown away from when they ask them like, "Wow, that's a really really thoughtful question. something I wouldn't have thought of. So that viewpoint's been very beneficial. >> I think too, one of the things that I took away when we had the student representatives on our advisory committee, they've used all these tools alongside um the teachers and their peers in the classrooms and they're they're critically analyzing whether or not the tool is helpful or harmful to their to be a thought partner in whatever task they're doing. And the students have said that when they complete a task and they go back and and put a prompt into an AI tool to give it additional feedback and give it um suggestions for revision, they
018question it and they are making decisions on whether or not they're going to use the information that's there. That's what we want them to do. Um, and so the more opportunities we get them to think critically and analyze and evaluate what the response is that a tool is giving them, that's the whole idea of some of the coursework and the um conversations that our teachers are having with kids to evaluate the bias, the misconceptions that the information is being returned back to the student based on the prompt that they're entering into the tool. So that has been quite eye openening because we thought that sometimes the students were just taking the information as it was given to them and that wasn't the case. So they've been helping us really evaluate these tools on the quality
019and whether or not they're really going to be useful within their given scenarios and the courses that they're doing and whether or not we want to pursue a certain a certain platform or a certain tool. And if we really want to invest um our our time and energy for professional development or for resources in these tools and that's kind of what why we took a pause. Yeah. >> That we decided as you know if you're on the curriculum committee when we updated on the AI advisory um progress we've made so far. We've actually paused um our decision around not purchasing a tool at the moment because we still feel like we are evaluating, gathering feedback and making decisions on whether or not it's even necessary because some of the tools that we already have access
020through through Google in a secure environment, they seem to be enough. Yeah, >> I'm glad you brought up the curriculum committee because uh you had mentioned this in our last meeting that we're going to take a lot deeper dive into exactly what Dan's presentation covered. That's why I asked my two-part question. >> Um it's mostly on part two. How did the kids take most advantage and productive advantage of these tools without overdependence? So, I like that. My my my creative thought here would be in ninth grade English, you have half an hour. You have a pencil and paper versus AI and you ask them a very specific English literature question and you just see which comes up with the better writing and the better creative thinking, right? And you have like a little thought experiment
021there. And I bet the kids who with their pencil and paper probably enjoy it more and it's probably more in depth. But that'd be a really interesting exercise and we can talk about that in curriculum. Yeah, and the academic year in review put a little plug in there which is on Wednesday from 3:00 to 5:00 here. Um that will be an opportunity to dive dive a little deeper into some of the more explicit examples that way teachers are using our instructional software tools AI specifically what are those student products that are being generated um throughout the curriculum units and we'll see some artifacts um at that committee as well so we can go a little deeper into some of that. One of the things I can say about the students is that they're they're more
022critical, and this is anecdotally, just personally, they're much more critical of AI than I thought it would be. I thought they would be, and they're they're looking at it, and not only that, they understand the concepts of like hallucinations. So, they know, as Tina mentioned before, an output doesn't necessarily mean it's it's correct. And so, they have to they understand already the prompts and what you have to do. So it's been a good kind of cyclical conversation with them where maybe my assumptions on how how they would react were was completely wrong and that in turn changed our whole ideas of moving forward with do we purchase a product or do we put a pause on it? >> Oh yeah, us will be Absolutely. >> Yes. >> Absolutely. >> Good evening everyone. Um the 2526
023district improvement plan articulates a broad school climate goal which was to foster an environment where students, staff, and families are safe, welcomed, and supported. Tonight, I'd like to take a few moments to provide an update on this goal as it relates specifically to staff. Student and parent climate data will be reviewed in the part two update at the next meeting. This year, we established two climate targets for staff tied to the Panorama survey that was previously referenced. The first was to increase the favorable teacher ratings of school climate from 47% to 51% and to increase the favorable staff ratings of school climate from 58% to 62%. These targets were intentionally designed as growth targets. Climate indicators can tend to move slowly or I should say gradually over time. So, we were looking for evidence of
024meaningful positive movement within the one-year survey cycle from spring of 2025 until the present. I'm pleased to report that the data from the spring 2026 administration of the Panorama survey suggests that both targets were not only met but exceeded within our teacher group. The share of favorable responses relating to overall school school climate was 62% which represents a 15 point increase from the spring 2025 data. Within the staff responses which include school-based non-certified staff, the share of favorable responses relating to overall school climate was 64%, a six-point increase from last spring. The teacher group results are especially meaningful because they are based on 168 responses which represent roughly 78% of teachers across the district. This response rate gives us the confidence that the data accurately reflects teacher perceptions across the population. The staff survey had
02517 responses across the district, which is roughly a 17% response rate. Because of this small sample size, we are interpreting those results uh more cautiously than we are the teacher group results. A 17% response rate does not provide the same level of confidence. However, um we are interpreting those staff results alongside the teacher group because uh those two data points taken together tend to identify themes and trends. So, I'd like to highlight some specific data points that are particularly compelling to us in consideration of the overall goal. Um though we are taking caution around the support staff data um it is presented here again alongside the teacher data because both groups identified similar trends in these areas. One of the most encouraging findings was the overall assessment of working environment. 60% of participating teachers and
02688% of participating staff responded that their work environment is quite or extremely positive. These findings are notable not only because of the high degree of favorability, but also because of the significant growth since last spring, which you can see indicated on the right side of the chart. What was especially encouraging is that the free response comments from our staff largely reinforced the quantitative trends. Just um by way of example, one teacher respondent said, "I feel that overall the climate of our school has greatly improved. I feel that administrators from the central office to our building administration have been extremely supportive and positive." Another teacher remarked, "I have felt supported and believe that all staff feeling that way can create a positive environment for everyone in school and those positive vibes will trickle down to the
027kids. Another notable finding was the response regarding future improvement. 56% of teachers and 59% of staff responded that they were quite or extremely optimistic about future improvement in their schools. These responses, particularly from teachers, also show notable growth from last spring. And this is especially significant given the leadership transitions at the intermediate school, middle school, and central office during the past year. Despite those significant transitions, staff perceptions suggest a sense of continuity, support, and confidence in the direction the district is taking. One key aspect of workplace culture and climate is the degree to which employees feel that they have a voice. Studies of school climate and organizational effectiveness consistently show that employees sense of voice is an important driver of engagement, trust, and retention. One of the action steps linked to the district's staff climate
028goal was to increase opportunities for staff feedback. For this reason, we paid particular attention to two related survey items. Leaders responsiveness to feedback and staff input in decision-making. We saw a meaningful improvement in perceptions of leaders responsiveness to feedback. 60% of teachers and 63% of staff indicated that leaders are quite or extremely responsive to their feedback. These results demonstrate meaningful growth from spring 2025 and reflect our leaders efforts to create opportunities for soliciting feedback from teachers and staff. At the same time, the survey results clearly mark a distinction between the staff's perception of leaders responsiveness to feedback and their own ability to influence decision-making. Favorable ratings regarding staff input in decision-making remain somewhat low. 33% for teachers and 35% for staff. While improvement is evident over spring 2025, this is an area for continued growth.
029These two data points taken together illustrate that staff feel increasingly informed and heard, but they continue to see greater influence in decision-making. As one respondent noted, I think the feedback loop between teachers and leaders needs to be strengthened. I believe the intent is there, but it's not consistent. This comment captures the broader pattern reflected in the data. Staff increasingly perceive leaders as responsive and approachable while continuing to express a desire for greater involvement in decisions that affect their work. The panorama results suggest meaningful improvement in staff perceptions of workplace climate. While it is difficult to isolate the impact of any one initiative, the data may reflect the cumulative effect of district and school-based actions undertaken this year. For the second year in a row, the district placed intentional emphasis on staff wellness, realized through a
030variety of initiatives, including our first ever employee wellness fair, which was held this past March. Overwhelmingly, staff who attended found it to be informative and restorative, and the virtual reality headsets featured prominently in that activity. Opportunities for teacher feedback and input in decision-making continued through the efforts of various committees and working groups such as our professional development and evaluation committee, our active school climate committees and the AI advisory committee that Dan and Tina spoke about just moments ago. And new opportunities arose with the addition of, among other groups, the K5 progress report committee, the culture and heritage working group, and the high school's restorative practices committee. Building and district leaders continued to model restorative practices through the use of circles, team building activities, and collaborative meeting structures designed to strengthen relationships and foster a sense
031of belonging. and a renewed commitment to training for support staff created opportunities for collaboration within departments across the district. Overall, the district views the survey results as evidence of meaningful progress in the realm of staff climate. The data suggests improving perceptions of school climate, increasing perceptions of leaders communication and responsiveness and early signs that efforts to strengthen staff voice and feedback systems may be having a positive impact. At the same time, the survey provides clear direction for our future work. staff continue to express a desire for greater influence in decision-making and the response rates indicate the district must take steps to increase engagement of support staff in our feedback processes. If you have any questions, I'd be happy to take them. Um, your last comment touches on what I was wondering this whole time is
032the staff participation rate. Um, and so I was wondering, do you have um the participation rates of teachers and staff from last year? Was that an increase? Was it is it Well, I'm I'm I'm curious to know for teachers, too. Was there an increase in participation this year versus last year? But also for staff, is it usually that low? Is this an outlier year? What do you think contributed to it? So, I don't have the exact rates in front of me, but I do I can tell you that the response rates do mirror somewhat what we saw last year, particularly for the staff group, that that being a relatively low response rate. Um, I would say there are probably a number of factors that contribute to that. Um, most notably, probably a resource access piece.
033Um, do our support staff have the time to complete the survey? Do they have the access to the online platform to complete the survey on a device that is reliable? Right? Um and even are they aware that their perceptions are what we're seeking when we're asking for feedback. Um because the survey is titled staff feedback. Sometimes people think because we are a teacherheavy um staff that we are only looking for teacher feedback. and um staff members may not be aware that their feedback is what we're seeking. So, we um we definitely have some work to do in communicating with our staff in providing the time and the opportunity to respond to the survey and also to think about what other structures exist for eliciting feedback from the staff beyond just the panorama survey. Um just
034a just a thought given that you said those are some constraints in my in one of my previous organizations where we filled out surveys annually cuz I can understand that their their time and capacity to fill out an online survey just might not be part of their regular duty. You know it just they might not be in front of a computer but in my previous in one of my previous jobs they used to incentivize us to fill it out. So either like coffee and donut, come in coffee and donuts and do the survey while you're sitting here or it if we had like a staff meeting, it was okay 10 minutes before the staff meeting starts, everyone's going to fill out the survey. Um I don't know if you've already tried to implement something like
035that, but they would just make ways for us to prioritize it. >> That's a good suggestion. I think creating the time And just to answer your question about the counts, um we were at 157 responses for teachers and staff last year. We're at 185 this year. So it's slightly more. Um but we do try to provide time allocated time at an afterchool faculty meeting. Um we do provide reminders frequently. Uh we have given some time during like an early dismissal day for professional development where we had um woven in some like about 30 minutes within that day for some opportunities um for teachers and staff to complete it if they hadn't yet. Um, but I like the idea of the incentives. Food is always definitely sometimes works. It works, but so is looking for ways
036to in >> Well, for us it was it was a lame thing like if we get I mean it was like if we get x% of staff participation in the survey, we're going to like bring lunch in on Friday or you know it was just I don't know something like that. So, not necessarily that you have to do that, but they [cough] they provided some kind of universal motivating >> emphasis on the importance of filling out the survey and that this feedback is actually really useful to like provide direction and structure for everyone going forward. >> Yeah, just to add one more piece, we had Panorama come and actually do a professional development session for our staff in the March day. Um and from that outcome actually was some conversation around how do we actually
037utilize the data and so before that last um March administration we did provide um some bullet points on how we've made adjustments based on the feedback from the last year survey to give some um clarity for our staff around the value and the purpose of completing the survey. So we feel that that also helps kind of give some validation around why these why the survey is important and how do we use it. So we our principles did um provide some of that feedback to our staff based on that professional development session because some of our staff that were in there didn't actually realize that we made adjustments from last year based on some of the feedback responses that we got from a year ago. So that too is also helpful to validate and provide more
038context around why we're giving you the time to do it because we value your response and we value your input. So um we want to keep doing that as well and Julie's very good at incentives. People [clears throat] like her incentives. little gray bar in the middle that response. It doesn't count towards the favor. It counts towards the information. [snorts] >> I have two uh do we pick the questions or do we have any influence on the questions? >> So um the way that the survey is designed is in topics. So a topic is school climate, school safety, school belonging for example. that's a topic and then within the topic there are explicit um questions that are designed specifically for that specific topic. Um you can design your own questions. Um however if you start
039manipulating the survey questions and the topics off of uh the way that Panorama is designed, you start manipulating and changing the reporting features. So, we wanted to try to stay true to some of the ways that the questions are designed explicitly within those topics for at least a year. So, now we're at the one-year mark. And we have a committee that actually Tracy has been leading as well to analyze the questions and to determine are there questions that are more helpful to what our goals and our action steps are versus others. And we've actually made adjustments from last spring to this spring um based on the number of topics that we've asked families, students, and staff members based on some of the questions that are within those topics so that we can really dive a
040little deeper into what is the data telling us and how is it being most helpful to our goals and our action steps. >> Okay. So then my quick follow-up question is so once you have the data and you have areas that you might want to focus on or look deeper into >> to Erica's point neutral answers right and a neutral answer leans towards a negative response but certainly doesn't a neutral answer I don't say negative or neutral neutral >> it's not classified as a positive >> right so when you have which we have a fair amount of neutral when or how does the district then sort of get deeper into it. Maybe is it on a one-on-one perspective? Is it on a per school? Like how do you take this relatively broad data and then
041sort of peel back the layers? >> Yeah, it's a really good question and we ask ourselves that all the time because that gray box aggravates us. Um only because it's neutral. it's not really giving us any good information like is it a positive or is a negative that is designed intentionally and we've asked that question about um the psychometricians or the way that the survey um designers build that question any of the questions and they that is intentional because [clears throat] >> a response a resp a person responding on a question needs to have the ability to say I don't have an opinion either So what we do is when we look at those questions, we bring those back to um our school level school climate committees. We start unpacking those questions more deeply. And
042then we may have focus groups with groups of students or staff members or parents that are specifically aligned to a question that we want to ask more follow-up questions around like why why are you why do you think that there's more of a gray area on that question around optimism and how can we change our action steps between now and the next time that we administer the survey so that the the responses can be either positive or negative and come out of the neutral zone. >> You know, in our conversations, we recognize that we wanted to rewrite some of the questions because we don't we don't thank you, Deb. we don't like the way that they're worded or we feel like um when parents or students or staff members are reading them, the question is
043not really clear, we will lose the ability to compare from spring to spring and we will be setting a new baseline. And so what's our comfort level with that given the fact that we're trying to to monitor and track our progress and growth. But we do recognize that there is a desire there to reshape some of the questions, add some questions, take some questions that don't make sense out and reduce all the redundancy in it. >> But as a district, we do look at those gray areas and try and dig deeper outside of the panoramas survey is what it sounds like. >> Yes. And I would add that our principles have their uh building level data as well. And so there may be some nuance specific to a particular building location that principles with their
044leadership teams and with their school climate committees will also be digging into. So the the gray that you may see is reflective of the whole response group, but there may be some slight differences from building to building um that our building leaders will also be digging into. >> Great. Sorry, I just want to add in terms of the gray because I was a parent who so I can't speak to the staff and the teachers, but I was a parent who filled out the survey and unfortunately most of my responses were in the gray. And that wasn't because I felt neutral. It was because I truly did not feel like I had the information >> to answer the question. And I just I like I was upset actually that I couldn't provide useful information in the
045survey cuz I'm always the type of person who want who values surveys and wants to give the feedback. So like to the extent you are looking for feedback on some of those gray >> I would love to be able to weigh in or provide feedback because I really would like it to be a more productive survey >> at least for parents in grades K to2 because that was those were the questions I was answering. >> That's really valuable. Thank you. We would we will tack you for that information. Okay. Okay. So I am going to then introduce our director of safety and security Jim Wilsy. [clears throat] >> Okay. Good evening. This update is focused on section four of the district improvement plan, safety and security. [laughter] The DIP goal is to maintain an environment
046where safety and security are foundational, ensuring that every student and staff member can thrive in the classroom and throughout campus. This is how I view the work of safety and security of our safety and security department. Safety is not separate from teaching and learning. It supports teaching and learning. When students, staff, and families feel safe, the district is better positioned to focus on instruction, student support, and school culture. The performance target in the DIP is that by June 2026, 95% of families will report they feel their ch children are safe at school as measured by the Panorama family survey. The spring 25 baseline was 91. This year's work was organized around four core areas: prevention, preparedness, response, and accountability. Those areas guided our training, physical security improvements, emergency communication planning, compliance work, and coordination with
047public safety partners. The key point is that this work was not a series of disconnected projects. It was aligned to the DIP and focused on building a more consistent, prepared, and sustainable district-wide safety model. Oh, that's hard to see. Okay, this slide shows the major evidence indicators and accomplishments from the year. First, in the area of training and readiness, security personnel completed the National Association of School Resource Officers School Security Officer Course. We partnered with Connecticut Interlock Risk Management Agency, otherwise known as Kerma, for deescalation training. And we continued working with Weston EMS on medical preparedness. We partnered with the district nurse district nursing supervisor to improve access to AEDs, bleeding control equipment, and exterior fields at exterior fields and updated expired medical kits throughout the district. These are practical readiness steps that matter during
048real emergencies. A key priority for next year is that all security personnel will be state certified security officers for the 2627 school year. School security staffing models can vary by district. However, after consulting with Kerma during my review of state requirements, the guidance was that having our team state certified is a strong be best practice. For that reason, Weston's move towards full state certification combined with school specific training is an important step towards consistency, professionalism, and accountability. Second, in building safety, we continue strengthening the physical security of our schools through access control improvements, alert beacons in high occupancy areas, upgraded security desk camera monitoring, advanced environmental sensors, video analytics, enabled cameras, and the ability to push critical emergency communication announcements to video display monitors throughout the schools. Together with these improvements, they enhance visibility, alerting,
049situational awareness, and response capability. These improvements strengthen daily visibility, alerting, and response capability throughout the entire district. Third, and probably the most significant long-term project is the radio infrastructure project. This is not just a radio replacement project that I picked up when I got here. The objective for me is to build a more unified emergency communication platform. The new radio infrastructure is being designed to support a broader security ecosystem that connects radio communication, access control alerts, camera notification, alert activations and other security related platforms under a signal signal single operational umbrella. The reason this is integral to a best-in-class security posture is simple. During an incident, time and information matter. The faster accurate information gets to security personnel and authorized responders, the faster we can assess the situation, coordinate the response, and reduce confusion. The
050goal is to increase efficiency, improve situational awareness, reduce manual communication steps, and shorten response time by allowing critical alerts and information to reach the right people more quickly. This position this positions Weston as a forward-leaning district in school safety. We are not buying equipment. We are designing a layered integrated safety model that connects people, technology, procedures, and public safety coordination. And finally, we also standardized the district emergency procedure summary. That work updated and streamlined response language across the district and aligned our procedures with national best practices. The purpose was to give our staff clearer, more consistent emergency guidance regardless of which school they work in. The overall takeaway from this slide is that safety and security made progress across training, physical security, emergency communications, compliance, and coordination. All tied directly back to the district improvement
051plan action steps, compliance, sustainability, and the next steps. Looking ahead, the main focus is moving from individual improvements to a more fully integrated, measurable, and sustainable safety model. The major projects and priorities for this summer and the 202627 school year include continuing the radio infrastructure project with focus on coverage, reliability, interoperability, and integration with other security platforms. Continuing to build out the district's integrated safety ecosystem, connecting trained personnel, radios, access controls, cameras, alertists, visitor management, signage, and response protocols. ensuring that all security personnel are state certified security officers and continuing to build on that with school specific training, deescalation, emergency response reviews, and medical readiness. Maintaining compliance with current Connecticut statutes, state mandates, district policies, emergency planning expectations, required drills, and safety, school safety guidance. Continue coordination with Weston Police, EMS, fire marshal, dispatch, public
052works, town leadership, deeus, and Connecticut center for school safety. Forward focus is sustainability. The district has made several important improvements. The next step is making sure those improvements operate together, are supported by training, are aligned with policy and legal expectation, and are regularly evaluated. The takeaway is that safety and security are made measurable prog has made measurable progress toward the district improvement goal this year while also building the framework for more integrated, professional, compliant, and responsive safety program moving forward into 26 and 27. That's all I got. >> Questions? >> Any questions? >> Yeah, I have a question. Thank you, Jim. Uh, you know, once in a while I get an email, right? I think it's from Andrew. Fire drill at Whis, fire drill at the middle school. Is there a drill that you would
053like to conduct that isn't overly disruptive, but would sort of stress this system >> so a few insiders would know it's happening, but the system would sort of get stressed a little bit to see if some of this integration works in real time. >> We're limited from the state level. The crisis drills are mandated by the state on what we can and can't do. Um, beginning July 1st, we will have to notify, well, the staff of the school has to notify parents a week before the crisis drill. That's all coming down from Hartford. Um, we can't use real actors. Nothing can be a surprise anymore uh for the mental health and well-being of the students and the staff. So years ago, we used to be able to do surprise drills. That has that's no longer
054the practice at the state level. They're going to be mandating. We already notify about 3 days ahead of time when we have a lockdown drill, but there are different levels of lockdown. There's secure at school, uh shelter in place, and lockdown is the one that creates the most anxiety when we use the alertest beacons and the alarm goes off in the school. Um people have become accustomed, children, faculty have come accustomed to fire drills. We've they still do fire drills. Um those are surprise. But when it comes to crisis drills in my purview under my umbrella, the staff has to they have to be notified a week ahead of time and that's mandated by the state. So we're pretty limited on what we can and can't do. >> I have a couple of questions. Um,
055so there's no question since you've come to the district, you've moved us in a very professional way towards better communication, better technology. I don't have any questions about that, but that might be also because being on the security committee, I get to hear from you on a more consistent basis. Can you just tell us a little bit more about readiness? So you you talked a little about readiness relative to like the fire drills, which I did as a kid. The we got the email today. I think you're referring to Peter from Andrew about the the lockdown or the whatever at WHIS. What have we done uh from a readiness perspective over the past, let's say, 12 months? >> Sure. So, when I got here, I I saw that each school was kind of doing their
056own thing when it comes to emergency drills. There was a lot of different versions of our emergency summary procedures, which I like to refer to as emergency operation plan. Basically, it's it's what to do in an emergency. We have an all hazards plan that's mandated by the state that we turn in um every year. that's about 400 pages long. Um, but the emergency operations procedure that we just redid this year. I took all the different versions and kind of put it all under one umbrella and and didn't use cop language, kind of broke it down and understood that the teacher's job is to teach and not to be, you know, EMS or a first responder. So, if you break it if and what we did was we came up with several different versions. Um, I
057empowered the faculty and the the admin at each school to help me with this because they know better than I do as far as what would be receptive for their staff to understand. Um, and we just finalized that and it kind of what it does is it enhances the response by having an understanding what they're looking at on the piece of paper. The emergency operation procedure. It's very easy to read. It's colorcoded what to do. My next step is um to have cards made up like little credit cards that fit in the ID badges hold badge holders so they don't have to go find a red folder at the doorway or look on Google Drive. They'll have it right in front of them every day with their ID card. They can see what what does
058what does it hold? What is a secure school? What is a shelter in place? It's right there in front of them. through that training. It's it you're training them without them knowing that they're getting trained because they're holding that every day. Um and along with that, we work with the SRO's and uh my security staff help um at the end of every crisis drill. The principles are very good with if you have any questions, come see us at the main office if there's any questions on any of what what took place. Um, from my perspective, I'll just tell you from an outside outsider coming in, everybody is doing a great job. They take it serious. No one's blowing the drills off. Um, they're they and that's really it's 5 10 minutes out of their day.
059I understand it's frustrating sometimes, but the faculty are taking it very serious and that's what we like to see. I think one key component of that, Jim, relative to David's question regarding preparedness is the communication that you have with administrators and even the faculty and staff when you go present at their faculty meetings or meet with them in their schools and that communication creates knowing and understanding which automatically translates into preparedness and that's really important as you know or else you wouldn't have asked the question. You want to reduce the anxiety and the unknown, >> right? >> And that comes with communication. >> I just had one quick maybe last question. State certification for security officers. Can you talk a little bit about that? Is that new? Is that ownorous? Is it reasonable? >> It's
060a gray area. Um, and by that I mean the state mandates a security guard to have state certification, which is an 8-hour course about criminal justice, search and seizure laws, um, use of force, but the state has not yet. And I I after speaking to a lot of of my colleagues and um, representatives at Kerma, I think it and I'm very involved with the Center for School Safety. I think we're gonna see it coming. That's why I'm trying to get ahead of it. They haven't really broken it down for the school safety specifically. That's why every district is at this point, some are, some aren't. So, we're trying to get ahead of it. And it mitigates liability from Kerma standpoint um by just having a baseline certification for school safety officers, school, I'm sorry, school
061security officers. The Nazro class was very um it was very school specific. So we started there last year and that goes through everything that the state certification goes through. But it takes it a step further and talks about the frontal lobe of middle school kids and and how to talk to K through five. it it just it enhances their background of professional development and better equips them to do their job when they're at the schools. >> I think it's also that all these all these trainings, the elements and the topics and the criteria that are being discussed. So while it's foundational knowledge coming back into district, your work with security guards relative to the school setting um and how you flex and manipulate that information so that it's relevant for their daily role is really
062critical. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. [snorts] That concludes part one of our district improvement update until June 15th. Stay tuned. Um the next item on the agenda is first reads of a [clears throat] variety of uh policies. Um I don't know um if anybody wanted to introduce that or should I open it up to questions? What do you think Erica? Um maybe just go section by section here. >> Okay. Um so first I'd just like to say we recognized today that policy 5131.91 yeah needs to be moved down to number three because there were some updates on that policy. >> [snorts] >> So, just want to make sure that everybody knows that we are moving the bullet for policy 5131.91 hazing initiation down under number three. Okay. So, there were no changes on um the
063vandalism. I'm sorry. There was a change on the vandalism. Hold on. Let me get my bearings here. Maybe the regulation didn't change. >> The regulation did not change. That's correct. The pol the policy changed, but the regulation did not change. >> All right. >> Okay. All right. >> Yep. Um, I don't know if anyone had a chance to get through some or all of these, but are there any questions now? And if not, we need to um kind of try to make up on homework and um send them to uh Erica as soon as possible. Um I just had a couple. Sure. Sorry. Um, under uh page 34, it's uh I think this is FMLA leaves. Um, it just says an employee must must notify the human resources department. That's great, but like must I
064mean what happens if they don't? >> It's just a question. >> We generally reach out to them. Okay. Um, so attendance is monitored routinely and if there are indicators that someone has consecutive days of absence and that they may need or be eligible for leave under FMLA, we would reach out to the employee. But generally, they do also reach out to us or to their building administrator who points us in the right who points them in the right direction. Okay. All right. Just anytime you see must, you got to go. All right. Then what happens if not? Um and then another quick question is um on page 54, promotion, acceleration, and retention. Um I kind of get where this is going. Uh but uh there's a sentence that says consideration will be given to a
065student's grades, attendance, and performance on testing. Um I just wonder um the tie to attendance and moving forward or up or whatever. It's just a question. >> Okay. >> To just maybe look at >> to think about that. >> Yeah. >> Um and the same thing there's another uh end of paragraph where it says students who have mastered the appropriate academic and social skills will be promoted. So, does that mean kids who misbehave aren't? I just I just wonder about some of the language. Seems a bit old-fashioned. >> Thank you. Um, should I keep going? >> Anybody else want Okay. um on page 59 and this is a regulation so I should just stay out of it but talking about student driving and parking um in the day of ebikes they're not mentioned here so
066I'm just wondering if you wanted to add something about ebikes um all right dress and grooming these are fun policies >> page 75 five, sorry. Um, you have a bunch of, um, I guess new language in red and then you f follow it with, you know, the you kind of try to repeat it, but it's not parallel. >> Okay? >> You know, what you mentioned above isn't on the list below. So, I just that might just be a format thing. >> I'm trying to outdo Nicole. Oh, she's got a list. [laughter] >> Um, and then students under uh freedom of speech page 82. Uh, I I understand this is printed material on campus, etc., etc. It says material published, posted, or otherwise distributed shall bear the names of at least two students. I just go,
067why? Why two? >> Why two? Why? I just not sure. Um Okay. And then um page 94, comprehensive school counseling program guidance services. It says specific goals of the school counseling program are help students in developing a knowledge of self including family relationships and the understanding of others. And then number two, assist students with emotional growth including family relationships. I'm just trying to figure out why are you emphasizing family relationships? >> Thank you. I don't know. >> Okay. It's new. It may have come from somewhere. >> Yeah. >> But are we trying to make a point? Are we trying to get permission? Or, you know, some people might read this as intrusive. >> Yeah. >> I I it wasn't intentional. >> Yeah. And then um throughout I I think the term restorative justice is around
068[snorts] >> and I didn't see it mentioned in the comprehensive guidance program. >> Okay. And I don't know if maybe it's somewhere else, maybe it doesn't belong there, but I if counselors have a role in that, I wonder what it might be. Okay. And then my last question everybody will be glad to know is um homebound instruction. You mentioned a lot of reasons uh why homebound instruction and I'm just wondering if there were the unfortunate situation of needing to expel a student or even suspend a student. Is homebound tutoring ever offered or are we mandated to give it? >> And those are all my questions. Do you want to respond to that one? >> Yeah, that one I can um >> Oh, good. answer right now. There's I don't know the policy number off the
069top of my head, but there is a policy around student discipline suspension and expulsion and it talks about our educational requirements when students are um in that situation. So, it's a separate policy. >> Okay. as is the restor I mean I'll give some thought about the guidance services but the restorative practices is also addressed really thoroughly in the school climate policy and there's lots of people who have responsibility around school climate not just school counselor >> but um fair enough okay all right those are my only questions so thank you welcome thank you >> to piggy back off Deb >> just a question why does the dress a grooming policy only apply to students and not everybody in the district. It doesn't have to be answered. It's just something to consider. This particular pol policies
070under the student um [clears throat] series, student series, but it's a duly noted for the personnel series which is number 4,000. All right. And again, this was um a lot to read and so if if people do have questions, you know, please get them in as soon as possible. I want to thank the committee and um the staff for working so diligently the whole year on getting through a lot of um updating policies that desperately needed them. So, thank you. I made the edits on the preschool policy, just so you know. You're welcome. All right. Um, old business. These are the second read. And, um, if there aren't any questions or comments that are um, new or something that has come up, uh, for you to think about, um, this might be an opportunity for
071us to approve these. Move that the Western Board of Education accept the policy and or regulation updates as presented. >> Thank you, Lisa. All in favor? Any opposed? Okay, that's great. All right. All right. So, that puts Phil on the spot. >> [laughter] >> Okay, now that we've gotten it together, um starting with the financial report through April, um this has been a rather challenging year as you may recall. Um we have had everything that could break has broken and we've had to to fix many many items this year. Um to that end early this year we had to implement a soft freeze. Um based on that soft freeze we are at a point where we can comfortably say that we will end the year with a balanced budget. So for the period end in
072April, we're projecting to have balance budget or slight surplus of approximately $19,000. Just a two main highlights. Um June this year, the district will be in session uh for Junth. Um so there'll be additional salaries that will need to be paid out for our 10-month employees approximately $19,000 which is included in the forecast. Also um at the Repson field, the town side project is continuing. Um the extension that runs parallel to the field um at Revson will need to have a sidewalk just because of the proximity I'm sorry we need to have a fence uh because of the proximity to the sidewalk that was not included in the estimates for the grant and we will need to have that cost of approximately $10,000. So all in all those are our updates. We're pretty much in
073a good place as we continue to look forward to the end of the year. I have a quick question, Phil. Two actually on both of the two items. Explain to a lay person what what the significance of Junth being a holiday and us going over that. How does that res how and why does that result in an additional cost? Looks like Julie, you were kind of preparing for this question. >> You don't want to answer. [clears throat] >> Go for it. By contract, Junth is a paid holiday for our 10-month non-certified staff if school is still in session when June 19th arrives. So, typically, we would already be out of school and that would not be a paid holiday for that 10-month group. But because we're continuing through June 25th, that is a paid holiday
074for the 10-month non-certified staff. >> So, we should keep that in mind when we're working on our calendar next year. Um, my other question is, have we Do we go to the town and ask them for special appropriation or money for the fence? Because it's a town's project. The sidewalk is a town project, right? >> The sidewalk is um a town project. Yes. And as you always say, right pocket, left pocket. So because we have money within our operating budget to cover this um the plan as it stands right now is not to seek a special appropriation because the only thing the special appropriation will do will take from the unassigned fund balance to put the money back in the unassigned fund balance at the end of the year should there be a surplus. >>
075Okay. So you don't anticipate a situation where we don't do some project or do something because we have spent the $10,200 on something else. >> No. This year we have had to do a lot of that. >> A lot of somethings. >> A lot of something. >> Okay. So, it's another 10,200. >> So, I think we're okay. >> Okay. Thanks. >> I have a question about something else. The uh construction project on school road in 57. >> Mhm. >> We had been for seen as being disruptive. Is there any additional cost to the district for traffic control, inconvenience, any of that? because it's a that's a mess, right? I mean, I drove there today, waited 10 minutes for the light. >> This is, as David mentioned, this is a town's project, so we're not involved
076with any of that. So, no additional cost uh directly, financial cost to the district. So, that will all be under town. And I'm sorry that you were delayed slightly today. Phil, I notice you have more items to go through and the motion is sort of all-incclusive. So, do you want to >> Yeah, just take us through the rest. >> Sure. Uh, other item is tuition for fiscal 27, we are recommending for the fiscal 27, the tuition for preschool being $9,277. Um, the last time that we made a durwide adjustment was back in 2025. for this year. This is a rather significant increase. We have made some changes to the preschool program for the coming year. We will monitor that for fiscal 27 and depending on how how that how that goes, we may make recommendation
077for increase in tuition rates. Also for fiscal 27 are both the tuition rates for non-resident and also the rental fees for uh facilities. We're recommending that that be aligned to the budget at a 3.0% increase. policy >> and then expects do you want to pause or want to continue? >> Are there um are there questions about any of the tuition rates? >> Um just some feedback that I in in all of my [clears throat] messaging, personal life, whatever. I just continue to hear. I mean, obviously I'm a parent of somebody in the LC, but I just it is just so there's such a strong reputation in the community for it. So, thank you for expanding it and I hope you continue to get really positive feedback as well because everyone talking with each other and
078encouraging toddler, parents, everyone is saying you have to sign up for the lottery. Good point. Yeah. And that was uh you expanded that for next year, right? By a section and that's already full. >> Yes. >> Okay. And we still have more demand. >> Correct. >> All right. Good problem to have. Yeah. Great. Um okay. I think if there are any more questions about tuition rates, can we move or facility rental fees? The last item is the EDS specs for the um Hess HVAC project. our project that um we've been talking about for several years. So, we're almost at the finish line. Uh one aspect for grant application in addition to the various motion that needs to be passed by the board of selectment and also a positive referendum vote for funding is requirement by
079the OGA for an ED specification. So similar to similar to the specs that were developed for the middle school which is more in depth. Um this one is a little bit lighter um because it's primarily focused just on the HVAC system for the north house. So we worked with Collier. So as you recall back in October uh Landmark uh we engaged with Landmark to do their assessment. They presented a system that twofold a dedicated outdoor air system and a VRF system variable refrigerant system. Um, one of those system the VRF will control our supplemental heating and the DOA will ensure that proper outdoor air is pretty much introduced into each classroom or to each space. So based on that um the aspects was developed based on those recommendations. So, this just requires uh based on
080OJ requires a formal vote by the board to be included in in the application. >> Yeah. And that's why I'm looking at the draft motion and trying to add the specific name in it if that's okay. >> Yes. >> Will that do it? All right. So, David, do you mind reading the >> Yeah. And a quick question, Phil. Um, >> of course. I'm so sorry. So this is the project that's finally moving forward for like the third time. But just to confirm, the reason we're going through the adsps and the reimbursement is because if I remember correctly, the town decided to sort of fund this with an expectation some money is coming back. Is is that sort of this this is moving forward, but it's it's this glacial speed. >> It is. Um right now
081there are two there's one major step that's left. Um so the board of finance during the past um budget cycle funded it in two two separate ways partially from unassigned fund balance and secondly there's going to be a bond issuance. The piece that's pending right now is a bond issuance and I believe that will happen later this month or early in in July. So there is tied into that is that there's the reimbursement. The plan is once because you have to the referendum has to fund or the town has to fund the project in full. So the goal is that once we get that reimbursement for this system, we'll then the hope is that we'll we'll be able to use that fund to offset future projects. >> Like a roof. >> Yeah. And um when
082do we think the thermostat's actually going to be turned on? Is this a summer of 26 or summer of 27? So, we expect to start the project, assuming that the timeline holds. I'll keep looking on the timeline that I have. Um, to start a project in summer of 27 to have the thermostat ready to turn on late September, early October at the latest >> Of the same year. Perfect. Okay. So, your kids will be called. All right. uh move that the financial report rate increases and HVAC ed specs for the Hurlbut Elementary School Northhouse HVAC project were presented for review. There being no corrections or changes, the documents were approved. >> That's it. Is there a second? >> All in favor? That passed unanimously. Thank you. Um, where are we now? All right. Um, that
083just brings us to the upcoming meeting schedule. June 15th will be our last um regular meet board meeting of this year. Uh, and then followed by the tri board meeting which we already reminded you about. uh June 17th 6 pm Zoom. Um just FYI at that tri board meeting uh callers will also attend. Um is there a motion to adjourn? C >> can I just make a final comment? >> Oh, of course. Yeah. I'm so sorry. This isn't a typical meeting, but because we don't have the administrators or parents sitting in, but I mean, we've had a pretty what we would call hallison days here at our school district. I mean, we had tennis, lacrosse at the state championship level. Uh, the company won a hallow award. Kids are going to uh uh Odyssey the
084mine, mock trial. What else? robotics, Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts participated in Memorial Day. That's pretty crazy stuff. I mean, for a little district, I mean, I I'm giving somebody an applause for that because I mean, you're going to look back going, "This is like the peak right here. We're doing really well." Just want to add that. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. And there's also an award ceremony coming up at the high school and uh so some of that those kids will see the culmination of all their work. And also Tina needs to remind us once again of the curriculum demonstration uh at the end of the year on Wednesday afternoon. So more good stuff to come. It's not over. All right. >> Wait. And if we're going to do plugs for Weston Public Schools. >>
085Yes. Keep going. We have to plug my son who for Western public schools who was nominated. You have to vote tonight or tomorrow. Tuesday the voting ends. Go to our Instagram page, the Western Athletics Instagram page. My son was nominated for Oh, I don't know. I'm not on Instagram. He was not uh hold on. Let me get the right name. Oh, I don't know. go to the Western High School Athletics Instagram page and and uh >> No, it was his his pitch, his like change up or something like that. I'm going to go >> I hope he's not watching you. >> No, I'm in all kinds of trouble for like [laughter] I'm having stage fright. >> Okay. All right. But Peter, you bring up a great point. It's been a great year. Um so congratulations
086early on for um everyone's hard work to make that happen and the kids and the parents for being so outstanding and involved. So appreciate it all. All right. So with that, is there a motion to adjourn? >> Thank you. All in favor? >> Okay, we're adjourned. Thank you everyone. >> Thank you.