001and our chief financial operations officer uh Phil Cross to take us to the next step. I think this morning we're going to be starting with insurance. >> Good morning everybody. Welcome Chuck. It's nice to see you again. Um work with you again. Um last night was really great. We were able to work through several of uh the responses to the board of ed questions. This morning we are going to start um with Phil and um an opportunity for board members to ask questions around uh health insurance and upon the conclusion of that we will continue with our responses um to questions submitted by the board of education. Again, after today's meeting, we intend to post all the responses that have present have been presented thus far um to the board of education um over the
002course of the last uh segment of budget meetings and workshops. So, at this time, I'll turn it over to uh Mr. Cross. >> Thank you, Erica. Um so, this morning, we're we're joined by Chuck. I'm not going to pronounce your last name, Chuck. I'm get it wrong. We're joined from Chuck. Chuck from Brown and Brown who is our one of our health insurance consultant. Um Chuck is going to be guiding our discussions surrounding health insurance and um just giving us a quick overview and also we'll be here to answer questions. So with that, take it away, Chuck. >> Hey, Phil. Thank you. >> Wait, can I I'm sorry. I just want to interrupt. Um just let us know if you'd rather have questions at the end of your presentation or interrupt you and and make
003it different. So if you could just give us what you'd like. Yeah, I'm happy to to answer questions as we go. So, if if anybody's got anything along the way, shout out. I'm happy to to just answer in the moment. That's fine. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Uh so, as I would assume everyone on the call here knows, uh Weston Public Schools made a move last year to the state partnership plan. Uh this was a return to the partnership plan after having been in there several years in the past. Uh so we've been serving as broker for Weston since I think around 2020 give or take. Uh and so when we came in you guys were already in partnership worked in our capacity as consultant in that role. Uh as you were negotiating with all
004of your unions in 20 in the fall of 2022 heading into 23. Uh we were looking for ways to save money on the budget as always and the in the process of negotiations agreed with all of the unions to exit the state partnership and return back to high deductible health plans. When once that move was agreed upon then we did an RFP uh for all the carriers in the marketplace. Uh so in the spring of 23 we had brought out the three finalists. They all presented their best and final numbers and we ended up getting a very aggressive offer from Sigma. So, uh, the district moved to Sigma under high deductible health plans starting July 1st, 2023. As part of that arrangement for the 2324 year, we also had a not to exceed rate cap
005for 7124. Uh so we pretty much knew what our costs were going to be for two years which is very difficult in this day and age in the health insurance space. So when we were midway through last year uh it became apparent that staying with Sigma was going to be pretty difficult. Uh claims were exceeding premiums by quite a large margin and Sigma was looking for an increase in the high 20s low30s range. Uh I had a lot of conversations with Phil during that time. Obviously that's not sustainable for a budget and so we had a lot of back and forth and talked about the other options. Uh at the end of the day when your claims are running that poorly. We could do a bid, we could look at the market, but there's no
006magic bullet. Premiums need to go up to offset that re-enter the state partnership plan. Uh the way the partnership plan works, it doesn't matter how good or bad your claims are running. They set their rates based on the county you're in, and that's the only factor. So when we compared the numbers last year remaining with Sigma or any other traditional carrier like I said was going to be in the mid to high 20s maybe after a RFP process that would drive down the cost a little bit whereas moving to the state was effectively around closer to like a 20% increase for Weston. So that was the decision that was made. All the necessary meetings were had with unions to get them back on board. At the end of the day, people generally aren't ever going
007to be concerned about moving to the partnership plan from a benefit standpoint because it's a very rich plan design. Uh it's a 1990s era co-pay plan. Everything is either $15 or $0 co-pay. Uh and it's a very rich plan for members. Probably 20% of the groups I represent here in the state are in the partnership plan uh because the dollars and cents made sense for them. uh in a lot of other places with plan designs and how claims are running, we're able to keep costs below that threshold of the partnership plan. But it's always a good metric to compare to because it's always a worst case scenario for anybody of how's the partnership rates because we could go there at any time because the way that the state statute is written that governs partnership. If
008any whole town or any whole board wants to enter, they have to take you regardless of how bad your claims experience may be. You're they're required by law to let you in. So, we're here. We're in partnership joined for 7125. >> Can I ask a quick question, Chuck? Sorry. How long does our claims history stick with us? Uh, so at any given time, right, if we were to market elsewhere, carriers are going to put the most weight on your most recent 12 months. >> Okay. >> They'll look back historically, but it's they really care what the last year looks like. >> Okay. All right. So, sorry, didn't want to keep >> No, that's Yep. That's that's fine. Um, so we're with we're with the state since 7125. uh the in general when you enter the
009state you're essentially committing to 3 years. It's not a hard commitment. You would be allowed to leave after one year or after two years, but they impose exit penalties if you do. So, by and large, once you enter the state, you're probably committing to at least three years. With the state, there's pros and cons, right? The pro is, hey, we were running poorly last year. That doesn't matter to us, right? We're going to get the rate however the state runs. So, that's a pro. Uh con is you don't have as much control. Uh when we're in a direct carrier relationship in a traditional arrangement, we get to dictate plan designs. We get to negotiate with our unions. We can negotiate with the carrier on renewals. Uh there there's a lot of more levers we can
010pull with the state. It's take it or leave it, right? This is their plan design. This is their rate. You're kind of at their mercy. So, uh, reached out to Phil back in the fall, uh, because we had just gotten word on the state's initial projection for the coming year. So, the state, one thing the state has improved since the first time Weston was with them was is around timing of their renewals and more transparency. So the first time around that we were in the state here, state used to give estimates throughout the fall and and early spring uh but then they wouldn't lock in the rate till mid to late April which obviously is too late for all the types of entities that are in the partnership plan. Uh so they they learned that
011lesson because in 22 is when they really had an issue. They had been advertising an an expected increase of 8%. So all the groups were budgeting eight and in many cases groups even budgeted a little less than eight knowing that historically the state would come in lower than they were saying. Fast forward to April 20th of that year, they release a 10 and a half% increase. Everybody's up in arms because that doesn't meet anybody's budget needs. So we actually had a mass exodus from the state that year. we had about eight groups that left not even counting Weston uh in different ways and shapes. So, uh now we're in the state. They're more transparent. Uh they so last November they came out and said there's some challenges uh we're facing financially and as such we're
012projecting to have our largest increase ever and they gave the range of 12 to 15%. It's a big number on a big number, a big part of your budget, but it is warranted. And I got a couple of pieces of data here to show you where the states coming from um on this projection and why they're at where they're at. While you're pulling while you're pulling that up, is this um is this rate increase um basically county by county, not county by county, but region by region or >> you're right, it's county by county. Um at the end of the day, the rates get set by county. Right. So that's a change the state made around five, six years ago uh when they first created this 2.0 0 version of their plan which started in
0132014. They just posted one rate on their website, right? Single two person family, active retirey rates. No matter where you were in the state, everybody got the same rate. Very quickly, their overall makeup of the plan from an eligibility standpoint, they had about 75% of all bodies in the partnership plan from Fairfield County. the cost of goods and services in Fairfield County is higher than it is anywhere else in the state. So after a couple years of the state taking a beating from having so many Fairfield groups, that's when they enacted the county rate system. So now if you went on the partnership plan website and looked at all the rates, completely different rates for each of the eight counties, your Lichfield counties, your Windham counties are going to be a little bit lower. your
014Fairfield County, your Middle Sex County are going to be higher. That's just where doctors charge more for services. So, what we're looking at here is the state plans claims experience over the last 12 months. This is the most recent data available uh through September. The data through December will generally come out around March time frame. So the simplest thing to look at here is the far right column which is premium verse expense. So for every dollar the state collects in premium from all the partnership groups how much are they paying out in claims and administrative charges over the last 12 months. That number has been 103%. Over every dollar they get they pay out a$13 in claims and fees. This is not the worst the state has ever been. They were at 108% a couple
015of years ago. Um, part of what allows the state to operate in this way, and again, this is something they've become more transparent about in in recent years. Our company was actually one of the first that really started digging into the state's data and saying, "Hey, you know, we look at what you're collecting in premium and we look at what you're paying out in claims and expenses and you're operating at a loss. How is that working? Because that's not generally how businesses or insurance plans operate." And at initially they were like, "No, no, don't worry about it. Uh you're you're reading the data wrong." And after several years of us pressing on them, they've finally now come out and said, you know what, we're not we're not obligated to operate in the black. The way
016the statute is written for the partnership plan, we ultimately take all the dollars from partnership, combine them with the dollars from the state employees health insurance fund, and as long as that's healthy, we're okay. So in practice, the state's been borrowing against state employee fund, which includes money from us, the taxpayers, to offset the partnership plan losses. Not great for taxpayers of Connecticut, pretty effective for groups in the partnership plan because you kind of get to take advantage of that below market rate. Uh on a positive note, you can see the last three months have been better. This is since July when the state took an 11% increase and again that varied by county but by and large it was an average 11% increase last year. So you start collecting uh 11% more premium and
017that's going to help your loss ratio. So hoping the state has turn the corner and things will improve. Um but pure performance and comparison to loss ratio is one aspect that's leading to the larger than normal increase from the state this year. The other is the money they have in the bank. Now did you guys see did do you see the different report up here now? >> Okay. >> Yes. So, so this is taken from the uh fiscal year report that state released for their year ending June 30th 25. And it's right on the state partnerships website. You guys can read through all the various interesting points about the plan if you want. But this box over here, fiscal year year-end balance, in the past, you can see their balances. They first year after the
018plan went to the 2.0, I know they had about $300,000 in the bank, 8 million in the bank, 2 million did get up into the 30 million in 2122. That's largely because of COVID. COVID happened. People stopped going to the doctor. State was able to bank a bunch of money. that money kept at a large amount here because in 21 the state had additional COVID relief money and they took $40 million and put it into the coffers of the partnership plan. They would have been at a negative here if not for the additional infusion of $40 million. operating at a after operating at a loss last year. They finished fiscal year 25 at negative $18 million. That is one of the major reasons why the state is looking at this big of an increase this
019year. >> So the last and got to fill in this gap. Yes, Michael. >> Chuck, just a quick question. First of all, glad you're here. You've asked answered already a ton of my questions. So the context was awesome. Thank you for that. um when you're looking so so what's partly driving this let's call it 12 to 15% range right this increase is yes it's partly sort of what's going on in terms of outlays versus premiums collected and then the other part of this of course is the the the fiscal sort of balance here that you're showing here this table and I guess the state the state needing to for lack of a better phrase you refill the kitty here, right? And and and correct what's happened. Um, in the past, and I don't know if
020you have this information readily available as I think through this, in the past, you know, typically we've we've been given rates and the, you know, initial rates and the ultimate rate has come in lower. Okay. Somewhat. Um, do you anticipate that this year? Because at this point, I think this is one of the biggest risks I think to our budget. I'm sure we're not alone, right, in the state. >> Yep. >> Um, it keeps me up at night. This this sort of line item, not only for this year, but going forward. And so, I guess I have I have I have two questions. The first is backwardlooking versus today. When you look backwards and you say, "Okay, um, over the past couple of years, the initial rate has been X and the actual rate has
021come in at Y." Okay. Do you I I assume that the Y has been lower for most of the time. I know that you mentioned like 2020 where it was actually higher. So, >> point taken. um do you anticipate that that will happen this year or is that is that less likely because of the fiscal sort of stance of the of the state currently? Um and then secondly sort of when you're looking at that in prior years maybe d diving into this a bit deeper prior years in which the state has run a deficit here um have you noticed that it's actually less likely to come in lower the actual rate to come in lower than the initial rate that's been given. So I guess let's start there. >> Yeah. Um, so I do I
022think one positive is I think the state really learned their lesson from that 2022 situation where they were telling eight and it came out at 10 and a half and less right after that happened. >> I think they realized internally, all right, we've got to be more on point with the numbers we're giving. So, I do think uh they've they're probably uh inclined to start a little bit higher, a little more conservative, and then finish. The other positive is they've improved their timing. So, rather than April 20th, for the last two years, they've actually released their final rates the first week of March. >> Yeah. >> Still still a little challenging for the the budget cycle of boards, uh but better than six weeks later than that. Uh so the the final answer to the
023question is I don't know yet. We won't know for sure until the first week of March. We will have a better idea about 5 days from now. Uh because next Tuesday the state is having their next quarterly meeting where they're going to give an update on their projection. So we'll see if they're still at that 12 to 15 range come next Tuesday morning. Uh my guess is they stay right about the same. uh we know they've got the $18 million gap they had to make up for. We know they were running behind the eightball on claims versus premium last year. And then the third factor that they've cited when they've been talking about everything over the last couple months is health insurance industry trend, which is something we've been speaking to our clients about for
024years and years and years. >> This is my next question, Chuck. >> Yeah, correct. And the state for forever had been saying, "Oh, our trend is about four or 5%." And every year we would question that and say, "That's not that's not the truth." When we see any other claims data from all of the other carriers and all the other plans we deal with, it's 8ish% on medical and 12 13% on pharmacy. That's what industry trend has been for many, many years now. on the last call that the state had in November and they've closed all their calls over the last year or two now with hey here's a look at our claims here's an explanation they have someone from the comprollers's office on there going through what we're seeing and what our trends are
025and they said you know we've been looking at our claims and and the medical train is is consistently at 8%. I'm like yeah that's what it is. Uh so they've now come around to that and they're actually including that number in their future projections rather than their fictional four or five which was leading to lower than market renewals which was leading to them running at 103%. So for all of those reasons I think the number they gave in November they firmly believe is very close to the number they're going to settle at this year. So I I I don't think we're going to be in a situation where miraculously in March they come out and say, "Hey, great. We're at a nine." >> Articulate that number again. You gave a range, but you referred to
026a number. So you're referring to because just to level set everyone who's who's going to watch this too. I mean, we have budgeted, and Phil, you can keep me honest here. We've budgeted 12 and a half percent or so of an increase in our budget for this line item. The state is giving us a range of as Chuck I think you just mentioned 12 to 15%. Our risk is the difference between let's say worst case scenario 15% or 12 and a half which is the 2 and a.5%. So for this year, that's our risk going forward. Of course, and this is of course unfortunate, and we're trying to do everything we can to to mitigate this, but unfortunately, there is some crowding out that happens here in the budget by having a line item like
027this go up double digits every year and us trying to ensure that the budget is somewhat fiscally responsible, right? while of course investing in the schools and making sure we have good student outcomes etc. So it's a it's it's very challenging going forward and then I'll I'll I'll stop talking after this question but um so so for this year um if you can if you could be a little bit more specific on that 12 to 15% do you anticipate 15% and then my my my second part to this is going forward in terms of the trend again I'm not going to hold you to this number but it sounds like the numbers that we should be baking in or considering when we're running a multi-year years, you know, you know, budgetary analysis, those are higher
028than what we had experienced in the past. Um, what do you anticipate? Again, I'm not going to hold you to the numbers, but do you think this 12 to 15%, again, you know, for the next couple of years, we're in the state plan now for a year or we will be for a year. Do you think the next couple of years it will maintain around 12 to 15%? Do you think it will come down at all? I'm curious about your trend and how about the trend and how you are um advising other municipalities, other school districts in terms of how to think about this going the rate of increase going forward. >> Yep. Uh, as far as where I would peg you today for where you're going to end up for 7126, it probably is
029closer to the 15. Uh, purely because you're in Fairfield County and the state's going to put certain counties on higher end of the spectrum and Fairfield's going to be on the highest end of that spectrum. So, as we sit here today, states probably thinking more like 15 for Fairfield. Again, next Tuesday we'll have a better idea. Maybe they maybe they shift that down a little bit. Uh, as far as future industry trend, I have no reason to believe anything's going to get better. You know, there's there's always uh a a tugofwar. Certain drugs go off patent and generics become available and there's money to be saved. Humumera is one of the most expensive drugs out there. There is now a bio similar that a lot of people are being moved to and that's saving plans
030hundreds of thousands of dollars. But every day there's new drugs that come out in the market and treat diseases that if you had this disease 10 years ago, it was a death sentence. Now there's a drug you take and you are cured. But that drug costs a million dollars or $2 million. And though not a ton of people are taking them, there's enough around the country that add up and drive up the cost of claims around the industry. So, I'd say the, you know, 10 11% as kind of a blend between the 8 medical and the 1314 pharmacy. I I'd say 1011 is is kind of what we need to anticipate uh going forward. I I Michael, you and I could probably talk at two in the morning because I also stay up at night
031worrying about this because I represent, you know, 30 or 40 or 50 different towns and schools around the state and everyone's getting crushed this year. I've got groups facing renewals in the 30s, 40s, right? I I I can't even I don't even I can't even count on one hand how many are plus 20, right? It's a brutal year. And I, you know, I get it. So, this is I'm I'm I'm presenting at a lot of meetings just like this. Uh because it's the industry is is rough. >> Last last point for me. Um, just for context for everyone that's on on this call and everyone that will listen in, you know, last year we were presented with quite a large increase as Chuck had mentioned at the beginning of the call in um, uh, if
032we had stayed with the high deductible health plan and we had an escape hatch last year in terms of moving to the state partnership. There is no such escape hatch this year as I understand it. And so my my last question is just to Phil. Phil Phil, can can you just articulate for for everyone on the call here for people that that may listen in what the risk to the budget is here if the number actually came in at 15%. because this is going to have a material impact on what the budget will be this year and what the potential increase um may be uh to you know to the the the the fiscal year 27 budget. >> Sure. So, as um Chuck mentioned, we initially started out with um a 12.5 Well, I'll try
033to mention this. I we budgeted at 12.5%. Um you know after the first call we were I guess I was somewhat hopeful that the state that the the trend experience claims experience will trend downwards. In addition to that the state any savings that the state state was anticipating will take effect if this actual final number should come in in that 15% range. I think we're looking at an additional range between $2 to $300,000 um for that spread. Thanks. Thanks, Phil. >> Um I I just have a question. Um you're quoting 12 and a half% in a couple of our places, at least in the presentation. I think it was quoted at 13%. So again, I'm not sure how much of a difference there is or um it was a rounding um exercise. I'm not sure.
034>> Um but at this point, every half a percent makes a difference. So, um, >> and I and I understand that we're committed to the state plan. I understand the high cost of health care just because and I understand run rates can be or claim rates can be bad or or more positive depending on the year. Um, and what I'm sensing is there's no there's no time where you could say, you know, it's better to self-fund the group versus be on the state plan. Is that is that a moving target or is it something that we should consider every um I know we're we're committed for three years. We're also in a contract. Um but you know what's the thinking beside be behind self-funding versus going to the state plan and are we hampered by
035being a relatively small pool? >> Yep. You you're you're hitting all the exact correct points there, Deborah. Uh so we have lots of groups that are self-funded. We've actually got in this particularly challenging renewal year, we've got a couple of groups in Fairfield County particularly who are looking at pretty sizable increases who were trying to help make that switch from fully insured to self-funded because when you're a self-funded plan versus fully insured, just on average year-over-year, you're going to be about seven or eight% less expensive. Uh so it's definitely the right move for a lot of groups long term. What you just said about size is exactly right. You guys have about 350 on the plan. So, you are big enough to be self-funded, but you're on the lower end of that, right? 300's kind
036of the cut off. Anything below that, by and large, don't promote self-unding because there's too much volatility from year to year. Uh when you guys get to around your size, it is an option. uh you would need to do exactly what you did in 22. Move away from the state plan, negotiate different plan designs, get into that arrangement, and rather than doing that on a fully insured platform where you're paying the carrier extra dollars in the form of fat and margin because they're the ones bearing the risk, so they charge you more for that. Uh you're the ones paying your own claims. You cut out all that margin. In exchange for cutting out that margin, you're bearing the risk, right? You could have a year where claims run really bad and now we're a million
037dollars over what we thought our spend was going to be for the year. Conversely, you're going to have good years where instead of writing that check to the carrier and they're keeping all the extra dollars, you keep those extra dollars locally. U I do think that is a concept that should be explored. um call it, you know, a year and a half, two years from now when we're at the point of potentially being able to leave the state. >> Bill, have we ever been self-insured in the past? >> Yeah, we we were self-insured, I think, prior to 2019. >> Okay. And we moved away from that because >> um I think in the 2019 renewal the stop gap insurance came in significantly higher um because we were trending high claims at that point because of
038the the stop gap the stop-loss insurance was so high the decision was made then to go to the state partnership plan >> and can you describe with the stop-loss insurance how that how that works? I'm gonna fumble with it somewhat, so I'm gonna ask Chuck to help me with this one. >> Yeah, sure. Yeah. So, uh, stop loss insurance is limits you put to protect that risk, right? So, fully insured, you have zero risk. You've agreed to a rate with a carrier. You pay them that rate every month. They pay all your claims. Whether you run spectacularly good or spectacularly bad, you have no risk. You know, going in the year what your cost is. Self-funded, you're paying your own claims. There could be good years, there could be bad years. Like I mentioned before,
039there are million-dollar drugs now. There are people who develop hemophilia and they're going to be an ongoing $1.5 million claimant for the next several years. You can't sustain that kind of volatility. So groups that are, you know, under 5,000 lives or so, anybody who's on the smaller end of the spectrum of being self-unded buys stop-loss insurance. There's two different types of stop-loss insurance. One is individual stop-loss. Every group again that's under thousands of lives. Every group that's got uh self-unding is going to have individual stop-loss insurance because that capture liability on each individual person on your plan. For a group your size, we'd probably be looking at $150,000 or $175,000 as your threshold. So if it was 150,000 for every single person on your plan, you're on the hook from dollar0 to dollar 150,000, then
040your liability stops and you're protected. So if they're a million-doll claimant, you pay $150,000, insurance carrier picks up the other 850,000 >> just for that individual >> for each individual on the plan, right? And for a group your size over the course of a year, you'd probably see five or six such people. >> You're going to have years where you might only have two or three. You're going to have years where you have eight or nine. Uh but in any given year, that's probably about what we're looking at. >> Okay. >> The other type of stop-loss is aggregate stop-loss insurance. That's what you buy on the plan as a whole. So if we said, hey, our claims liability for the year is $10 million. We buy aggregate stop-loss of 120% is common. That would say,
041all right, we're expecting 10 million. The max we could pay is 12 million. >> If we just had the worst year ever, once in a hundred year pandemic, and we had 15 million in claims, we're done at 12. That cost is cheap in in the grand scheme of things. That's like n ahead per month. Whereas your individual stop loss, you're paying depending on how your group's running, $200, $250 per person per month for that coverage. So relatively the aggregate is dirt cheap because almost no one ever hits it. >> It's hard if underwriters have enough claim data on a group that's large enough, it's hard for them to miss by 20%. >> Right? >> So maybe once out of every 20 years somebody will hit an aggregate stop-loss number. Uh whereas individual stop-loss, like I
042said, you're going to have six, seven people hit it every year. So if you do selfunding you have to have individual. The aggregate about half the groups I have have it half don't. >> So they have it in addition to individual or they have it in place. >> Oh yeah you have to have individual. You would never want to have a self-unded plan without that protection. The aggreate like I said it's how comfortable you are. >> Okay. Can I ask >> and I don't I don't mind to I don't mean to get bogged down in the different types of plans because we are where we are this year but I am trying to get at Michael's point like what's the new normal and um so plan design would become you know important and we have
043some some time to to think about it and and all of that. Um, so I didn't mean to take us down the hypothetical road, but I'm just trying to figure out rather than avoiding Michael trying to avoid um, you know, if the state plan continues to go south, rates are ridiculous. Um, we don't particularly want to live in that world. And so we need to think about what perhaps other structures would be. And that's as far as I meant to take it. So sorry about that. But it it sounds as if and I mean I agree with Michael's point and and Debb you too, but it sounds as if right now the budget that we have in front of us is not accurate if it because it doesn't reflect the 15% increase right now. So
044it sounds as if we need to actually maybe revise the budget that we're working on um to reflect 15%. Well, just remember also though 15 is rate to rate yeartoyear. It's not totally reflective of what necessarily what your bottom line spend is. I believe based on timing all of your union contracts are up again this year to be renegotiated for 71. >> That happened last year, Chuck. >> Oh. Oh. Oh. So, okay. Oh, I don't have new contracts then. Um, >> that's correct. Yes. >> Okay. So if you if you have any cost share changes negotiated in there, right? I don't know if between this year's rates that are agreed upon to next year's cost share that you know even if your rate goes up 15, but if you have the employees picking up a
045half point more in cost share or something along those lines, your budget rate increase wouldn't be the full 15. Employees would be bearing some of that. >> Okay. Since I wasn't a part of the negotiation committee, I'm not sure exactly where we came out on that. Do we have anything like that in the contracts? >> We do. We do have an uh we have a 1% increase for WA and I think we have a half a percent um for the WTA. Um we will be starting negotiation with ASME um some if in early spring. >> Okay. That'll help offset then. >> Yeah. And that's you know a half a half doesn't mean right half to the whole like a half is a half point going from 18 to 18 and a half which is a
046bigger chunk. So you shouldn't even if the state comes out at 15 you shouldn't realize 15 increase to your bottom line because employees are going to eat up more of that. But but great question Sharon and one that we have to address. It gets at um Michael's question about how much risk is in this budget. Um and we you know we'll have that discussion along with you know a larger discussion. Um okay. Are there um Chuck did you want to follow up with anything that you have you wanted to say but haven't had a chance that we should know? >> No I think I touched on pretty much everything. Like I said, the the next step is we see what the state comes out with for their update next Tuesday. I'll be in touch with
047Phil shortly thereafter that. Um and then that'll be the last word we get from them until first week of March when they set the final number. >> Okay. Well, it's good that at least another call is coming up and maybe we'll get a little bit more crystal ball. I mean, if I if I'm a, you know, if I'm glass half full, like I said, those last three months on the claim report have a better loss ratio than the previous ones. So, >> finger crossed, maybe they shave a point off next week. We'll see. >> Okay. All right. Good. Are there other questions from uh board members about insurance? Um, it is, you know, I don't know what is it, 45% or so of our increase year-over-year total budget. Um so yeah so it's really important
048that this is a place to try to understand and see how much control or lack of control um we have and and what our parameters that we're working within. Um okay are there any other questions? All right this is incredibly important topic and information and um Chuck thank you for being our consultant and um being Phil's new best friend. So, thank you. >> Thank you, Jack. >> You're welcome. Goodbye, everybody. >> Thank you. Okay, I'll turn it back to uh Superintendent 40. Where where where do we go next? >> Thank you. Um we are headed right back into our responses to board member questions and I'm going to turn it over to Tina who's going to resume where she left off last night. >> Great. Good morning, everyone. It's like we we never left. Um,
049so I'm going to just continue and refer back to where we ended last night, which was around testing. Um, Julie um has we have a couple slides that we just put together so we could transfer some of the visual charts that we were talking about. We landed yesterday talking about um purchase services under the testing and evaluation section which is on page 163 of the budget uh book. Um, we talked a little bit about licensing and what that structure looks like when we are looking at the different types of assessments that are uh testing and assessments that are supported in our general ed and special education um areas here. I just wanted to final uh finalize the question regarding uh testing time and the amount of time that we um schedule the assessments throughout the
050year and whether or not the uh value of the instructional uh assessments and the data um is worth implementing. So Deb asked that question and so I just want to finish that up. Um, Julie, if you go to the next slide, that's that's where we're where we're looking. Um, so I just wanted to clarify again for those of you that weren't with us last night, um, in the curriculum and instruction line, these individual assessments that, um, are outlined, um, are really different types of assessments that we use for various screening purposes. So, for example, NWA is our screening assessment that we implement uh three times a year across the district, kindergarten through specific courses at the high school, specifically algebra 1 and English 9. Um, and it's also the data that we use when we
051are determining students that are in need of intervention support through our MTSS um system and structure. Another assessment within here is the literacy assessment which is the dibbles 8 assessment. That one I mentioned last night was a mandate is a mandated assessment for universal screening for reading in grades K through three. Um that has is results in probably a little bit of that increase from 23 24 to 24 25 because we did not use that assessment um in all those grades back then. We do use that now. It is mandated that we use that assessment in kindergarten through third grade. Um, and then some of the other assessments that are listed here, the OLSAT, the Nagliary, those are uh universal screening that we use for grades two and five when we're identifying students within our
052gifted and talented program that we are required to identify even though we're not required to provide a service, but we do in Weston in grades 3 through 8. And then finally, the biiteracy assessment refers to the loss links assessment, which is what we use for our screening tool to uh determine students that are identified for multilingual learners and um the programming that they may need. So Deb, you asked the question specifically about the value of these assessments and whether or not we um feel that the schedule that we create that we use um these assessments for is valuable and it's worth our instructional uh the instructional time lost in order to implement them. So it's a great question and we ask this question of ourselves every year. It's what we call weeding the garden, right?
053We want to make sure that we're not testing just to test. We want to make sure that the quality of assessments are are standardized of high of direct correlation with our standards and the data that we're getting is giving us information to make really sound instructional decisions. Um so every year and sometimes multiple times within a year um we assess the schedule, we assess the value of the testing time um to ensure that um we are gathering adequate information that directly supports um our structures like MTSS multi-tered system of support. We'll talk a little bit more about that next. Um and also while balancing some of the mandates when it comes to meeting um a reading universal screener that is mandated for us to implement K through three three times a year um while also
054making sure that if we can make adjustments to our testing schedule or the implementation of certain assessments and balance um the information that we want to gather to look at growth over time um it is worth adjusting where we can. So for example um we used to test all students in grade nine when I first started here three times a year in math and reading. Um we have since shifted away from that model and are only testing students in specific courses algebra 1 and English 9 at the high school. uh we have found that because when they get when students get to the high school, it's not by grade any longer. It's about uh their schedules are determined based on the courses that they take. So in order to use that data more intentionally, more
055specifically um within our um our certain classes and relying on the standards that the data is giving us, that is a shift that we've made since I started. um budgetary reasons. I will tell you that um the platform and the way that the licensing uh with the companies go it they don't care how many times you administer um the assessments whether it's one two or three times a year. There are guidelines but um from a financial or budgetary standpoint when you purchase a license um how you use that license is the district's discretion. So it will not help us uh reduce any funding other than reducing the number of licenses that we purchase. So just want to give some context and color to um the way in which that we budget. These are all based
056on the number of students that we need to administer an assessment to within their K through 9 or K through algebra or English uh trajectory. questions on that uh question. Okay, I can't see everybody, so I guess that's a good time to move on to the next question. Yes. Yes. Good. Okay. So, the next question came uh there's a series of questions that Deb, Sharon, and Nicole asked about um staffing as it relates to in quotes academic support. Um and if we could describe the impact or the outcomes that we in Weston are utilizing, the individual roles um that we identify in math and ELA around academic support. What does the data show? Um how do we make determinations on the need for staffing? Um what do those roles mean? Uh how do they support
057general education for students and how does that weave or interact with special education roles such as PAR educators? Within this portion of the conversation, there was a question from Nicole that also talked about structured study. Um and so I will be able to answer that here. Um and kind of elaborate a little bit on um the change in the model in which uh Tracy mentioned last night a little bit about how we are um redeploying some of the support structures um away from the way in which we've identified structured study within one uh to support um the structured study component of social emotional learning that supports MTSS in our district. um and how we've shifted away or how we are proposing to shift away for next year. So that leads us to the um the
058next section which is on academic support. So it's important that we pause here and really understand when we talk about academic support roles um that are held by general education, they are roles that are woven within our multi-tiered system of support, right? and multi-tered system of support. I would also add that this is probably um another uh characteristic I might or quality I might describe our framework around MTSS is multi-layered, right? So the framework or the structure of a multi-tered system of support is is always geared to strengthen tier one instruction. Right? So there's tier one which is hopefully more than 80% of our population and then we go to tier two which is 10 to 15% of our population and tier three which is 1 to 3% of our population. So as you can
059visualize those tiers um get smaller as they go up in a triangle or a pyramid way. So tier one instruction and the delivery of tier 2 and tier three interventions in literacy and math. Um we utilize those common assessments and the common screening um assessments that I talked about previously to help us identify who needs additional support in our in our framework. Right? When students receive intervention in math, literacy and social emotional learning, um those are determined based on our screening assessments. And then once they receive intervention, they start um provi receiving more accelerated or customized intervention programs based on their goals that are aligned to standards and based on their specific needs. So there's a lot of um additional assessments, there's additional curriculum resources, there's an additional structure around data decisionm and data analysis.
060And that is all we've been with woven within our district's multi-tered system of support model or framework. I want to make sure that we're clear that MTSS is a structure. It's a system on how we are responding to the needs of the students based on the resources whether that be staffing whether that be curriculum resources that we have in order to meet the the needs of the students. So instruction intervention data and social emotional learning integration really is um a framework that looks at the whole child and really determines the level of the whole child's success as they move from kindergarten all the way to high school. So it's a holistic framework. It is required um that every district has a framework um and that we have a system in place that provides supports to
061students that's in a proactive and a systematic way. The components of an MTSS framework and a system as I mentioned before it's not just academic. I want to make sure we're clear that it includes reading, math, and social, emotional, and behavioral support. So, we look at academic uh we look at attendance data. it relates to that um that indicator from our next generation accountability system around chronic absenteeism. We look at tardies. Um so there there's a whole additional layer beyond the academic support piece. So in Weston since I arrived here um our MTSS framework has been enhanced. We've we've improved upon it since I started over the past uh four or five years. And we've really ensured that our systems and structures support all learners in a very proactive, preventative, and a strength-based framework. And
062we want to make sure that it connects very deeply to the general education core, the core curriculum and the um instructional lessons that all of our staff support um in the classrooms not only for uh reading and math but also our social emotional lessons that are um our social workers, our counselors support um the curriculum in that way as well. So, we look at evidence-based interventions and we look at data to help us um move within that system of support throughout the year and um and on a regular basis, right? And a lot of this, as you'll see, is very individualized because we're a small district. So, um the needs of these students that are needing additional intervention are always very goal oriented, goal driven based on what explicitly they need and how we can
063respond to those needs. So, the staffing roles within the MTSS academic support framework as the as Deb and Sharon and Nicole asked about um are primarily general education because they serve students based on need demonstrated through data and not eligibility status. So, um it's important to know that this system is a support system. It's not a label. It's fluid. students can move in and out of different tiers throughout the course of a of a year. Um, and if they need to remain in intervention for more than a year, that's that's okay, too. Um, it the variance comes with intensity and sometimes depending on the goals, they may shift interventions uh throughout the year as well. >> Tina, Tina, sorry, just a just a quick question. Sorry to interrupt you. I apologize. >> Yeah, go ahead.
064um just because it's because it's so personalized and individualized this sort of framework and what you're trying to do here and look I you know I I support it obviously >> um do you have and because data is a is a vital part of this do you have data in terms of you know as you're judging the success of this sort of framework do you have data and I asked this question I've asked this a couple times in the past so forgive me but um as you f because you have data and it's individualized and you're you can follow students from year to year, right? Um how do you judge success let's say do you judge success of this program this approach by the number of students who had started an intervention and then sort
065of exited intervention no longer needed it. Um, and then how do you judge a success on the social, emotional, behavioral support? So, those are my two questions there. >> Yeah, great questions. Uh, that is part of Deb's and Sharon's uh question regarding like the metric that we're using to show that our interventionists, for example, are are um making an impact. So, I do have a slide. Um, I just want to make sure that everybody understands the different roles and the staffing in order to support a robust and comprehensive MTSS framework before I go into the chart. Um, so I just want to before I answer your question and Deb's question and Sharon's question a little more specifically, I just want to be very clear um that as we think about um the different roles that
066support an MTSS framework um we have um interventionists. You'll see that in the budget. We also uh because they support the academic component, the reading and the math. We also know that because I outlined that social emotional learning and behavior as part of this, there are some overlaps between um special education or pupil personnel departments and those that we deploy for support on the MTSS side. So the social workers, our psych psychologists and counselors, and even if you were with us with the board last year, even our curriculum and instruction leaders support our our staffing positions that support this robust MTSS framework because they support tier one, right? So I just want to be clear MTSS is a framework and we have various roles that to support this structure and this system in order to
067see the return on investment or the impact on student outcomes that Michael you're asking about specifically. So um last night you can actually put up the um the next slide if you want uh Julie just to talk about the different positions that I'm talking about here um within the MTSS framework. So last night we talked about um also how structured study is going to be woven into the MTSS framework at the high school. Um it's designed to provide targeted short-term support for students that need help with executive functioning such as uh uh specific executive functioning skills, organization, time management, task initiation, cognitive flexibility. And the model for next year that we're proposing is that um as Tracy mentioned that the individual position that we have right now that supports structured study curriculum will be woven
068into what the um counseling uh department can support um for next year. This year structured study serves 38 students within semester 1 and 34 students in semester 2 across an 8-day rotation. Um, these numbers reflect a point in time um, and not a fixed case load. I want to remind everyone that MTSS, while we'd like to have like exact numbers all the time, it it is fluid, right? Every time that we implement a universal screener like NWA, um, we could have students we could have we could see students moving in and out of different um, tiers of support, for example, for math and reading. So the chart that I'm showing you now reflects the staffing component of uh the academic side of the MTSS kind of framework in reading and math specifically. Um and we
069used to have as I just mentioned an individual staffing position that was for the structured study at the high school. we have dissolved that position and rolled the support um through the counseling department at the high school within an 8-day rotation to support um the fluidity of those students that are needing support for structured study. So that is a reduction overall. I know Deb you mentioned you had a number of a 10.8 I think it was or 10.3. Um, this is the outline of the individual staffing roles within our MTSS framework for math and reading. And then at the high school specifically, as I described, we do have a point, this is what Peter asked about last night. Um, we do have a 0.5 MTSS support specialist that helps with the overseeing, the management of
070the reading lab, um, excuse me, the literacy lab, the math lab, and those students that are currently in structured uh, structured support and organize and coordinates the data teams. Um, helps support the implementation of testing. She also has met um individually one-on-one with students if there's some uh questions re uh regarding um attendance and um and help support deploy some of our resources for individual needs. So that is the goal and the purpose of that support specialist at the high school level. Again, that individual position, the person right now supports the MTSS system and structure and implementing a robust and coherent system at the high school. um and also teaches science halftime as well. Um so moving into the data component, I did also look at the effectiveness of our program. Look at the number
071of students that we serve within the MTSS framework and that's the second chart. If you want to flip to the next one, Julie. So this chart represents a district-wide snapshot from the fall of this year. Okay. So, and these are just a snapshot of the percentage of students after the universal screening that we completed on NWA in reading and math. And it shows how students are currently accessing the MTSS supports that we've structured in the district. It also looks at the students that may be monitored in the classroom in small groups, whether that be social emotional learning or MLL language support. It may also be small group support in reading or math um in the tier one classroom. That's what monitoring means. And it also means that you've got students that um doesn't reflect necessarily
072the students that may already be in the system. um and receiving intervention. So, this is just a a a snapshot to say literacy across K through five. We have 22% of our population that's currently receiving intervention um through our literacy interventionist or through our literacy lab um K through 5 22% and 26% at the secondary level. and in math 11% it's a little less K through five and 23% of the population six through 12 um social emotional learning is a little is a little more challenging uh to quantify um and a lot of that is lessons uh that are being delivered through either counseling or social workers um versus being you know having small groupoup instruction based on the executive functioning or the social emotional behavior in the in the classrooms. We are looking to
073improve on that aspect of our MTSS system. How are we gathering the data um around social, emotional and behavioral um small groups across the district? Um >> hey Tina I I I have I have to jump in a sec but um so on this on this slide here with um showing you sort of the population that that's being served I mean that population this is a snapshot right that you can provide every year and that population changes right so >> so the population changes what what I would what and and this is maybe and maybe you guys do this maybe this is asking too much. But what I envision is, you know, you're you're tracking a student from first grade to 12th and there's, you know, again, we could do this a number of ways,
074but there's a line graph and it's like, okay, this is sort of what's happening in terms of student performance. This is when they had intervention. Oops, they're out of intervention now. Oh, they're back in intervention. And so you're tracking progress and you're connecting it to in some way I know this is imperfect and I haven't really thought about it but you're tracking in some way to how you know how impactful or um successful let's say this framework is for the students as they go through the school system. Is that sort of are you doing that with students below the surface here? >> Yes. So if you go to the next slide I'll jump ahead. So it is hard Michael to your point right because we >> intervention is a service and the goal is to
075be proactive so that students don't need intervention what the everything they should get is in the classroom >> right right >> high quality intervention um is provided through differentiation support some scaffolding that is why the curriculum instruction leaders really help elevate the practice and the curriculum and the implementation of that curriculum in the tier one core instructional block, right? So, if we need additional, if a student needs more intensive support, let's just stick with math and reading for example, how do we determine or how do we track that is your question. So, if you look at this chart, this is a snapshot from last year. Our universal screening assessment is NWA for math and reading. It is our indicator, not our only indicator but is one of our strongest indicator in determining um needs for
076students um in tier 2 and tier three more intensive support for math and reading. If a student is below that really thick line that I put there, that is how we determine if a if we need to respond, what does the student need specifically? Unpacking that is a lot harder than just on a chart here. Okay? So, I won't go into the nitty-gritty of that, but the goal is, let's say, in the fall, if you look, we have about 13% of our population in grades kindergarten through 9 last year that needed more intensive support in math. That's the top block. The goal over time is to move the 13% and reduce that number. That is the ultimate goal. Move that percentage o over that thick line threshold. Right. So if you look from fall to
077spring in math last year, did we do that? We did. We had 3% in the fall in that 20th percentile or below. And we moved them without getting into the nitty-gritty of who those kids are and what the goals are and how we did it through progress monitoring and through the intervention supports that it went down. So ultimately this is how we track and look at our own. It's all also how we determine the number of staffing that we need to support those students and the percentage of students that we need to support. You can see that we need more support in reading because we're we need to um reading is in is a little different, right? Reading has many layers attached to it. Um and although we have a um smaller percentage of student
078a small percentage of students below the 40th percentile, their needs vary great more greatly and um more intensely. So you will see this is how we look at our fall to spring kind of growth when it comes to our metric around intervention and support. We want students that are below the 40th percentile throughout the year to reduce from the fall to the spring. That's the ultimate goal. or we want kids to move across the bands. >> Yes, somebody >> me. I'm sorry, Tina, if you don't mind. Michael, I think your question really points at listen, our budget includes these support people. Are we looking at data to determine that their work is yielding results and you're referencing what's called progress monitoring and we do that in various levels. Tina is showing you at a very
079high district level how we progress monitor to make sure that the interventions we're providing to our students is working and we are moving kids in their growth in development in reading and math. There is other levels of progress monitoring. You referenced one where we look at a kid's trajectory from kindergarten to 12th grade, right? Individualized. Then there's also daytoday and weekly progress monitoring. So if a child's working on let's just say first sound fluency in first in first grade that we're tracking their monitoring and tracking their progress over time on that skill every every two weeks. So there are multiple levels of progress monitoring happen at the district, the school and the individual student level to ensure that the value we place in this budget on the people who provide these interventions are yielding the
080outcomes for kids that we need. >> No, no, no. And that's great. And I didn't mean to suggest that you guys weren't doing that. I was just again, it's a cur it's a it's a consistent curiosity of mine, Tina, >> in terms of how we're doing this. And and I'll take it a step further and then I'll I'll I'll turn off my mic which is to say that when you overlay that then and you say okay this is the effectiveness sort of of the MTSS framework we can also then say okay if the effectiveness is let's say stalling going down or improving are we adequately staffed given the population to continue to be as effective as as possible. And so that's sort of the next layer of analysis I think that we're talking about here
081as well is yes, okay, it's it's effective today. Um, and as we track progress here over the years, >> um, that effectiveness may sort of fluctuate and then we have to look at whether or not we're, you know, are we overstaffed, are we understaffed? And so that's sort of what I'm trying the pieces I'm trying to put together over a longer term, but this is helpful. And thank you. >> Yep. >> Yes. Thank you. Thank you, Erica, for helping clarify. Also, I think the multi-layered component of this work is is very um nuanced and every year, Michael, we re re-evaluate and revisit because the students change over time and our numbers change. Um, and we look at scheduling. We look at the individual goals that students are in need of receiving support and intervention when
082we determine the number of staffing in order to support those groups of students. I think that's always we um a conversation and an analysis that we do over the course of the year. And it's also why it's in so so important. This is why I put this question after the testing one because it's also important why we have quality assessments and helping us make those decisions and the data that we're gathering when we're analyzing that information. Are we getting enough information to adequately determine how we're going to respond to the needs of the students that are in front of us at that point in time in that given year? >> Uh Tina, I have a question. Um yes ma'am. the percentages say below the 20th percentile or the 20 21 to 40% or any of
083them um does do those include special education students or not? So they do in this case they do um because this is the a district snapshot for all students across um the district. Um and in some cases when we think about an MTSS structure specifically um we know that that holistic approach includes the social emotional and the behavior component. So we are looking at all students when we're looking at the improvements and the way that we're we're deploying our staff throughout the year. we can break it up further. Um, and that's usually what we do when we look at our district snapshot in our in our um fall, winter, and spring kind of uh report out to the board when we break it up by by subgroup >> and we look at achievement. >> Okay.
084So, so just one final question. I'm sorry. Um, this is probably too much in the weeds, but if I were a student identified uh for for special education services, I qualify there. um where would I receive and you know one of my difficulties you know ends up being um demonstrated in math um low performance um what support do I get is it the math interventionist or does it happen within the special education department or both >> those goals are identified when the students IEP and are part of a special education case load so the special education department supports um the students that have specific IEPs and the goals that they're set forth in that in their plan. We model a very similar approach with intervention with our interventionists as well. Um, as Erica mentioned, we
085the data helps us determine the goals that the student needs and then we create a schedule based on how much support we determine that student needs. And then our interventionists create a schedule of support outside the classroom and the number of times that we can see and and respond with our intervention curriculum that we provide for individual students that are not identified in special education. Does that answer the question? Yes. Okay. >> Did I ask a question? >> Yes, sir. >> Thank you very much. That that uh makes sense now and you've answered my question. U excellent. Uh then I have a follow-up question. It's actually a little bit about where Mike was going, but it's on science. U why don't we do this using the NGSS scores? because you do the NWA for math
086and reading for science. But I know you only really have two grades to really look at intervention fifth and eighth, but it seems like you could also create a use of MTSS for intervention and science, right? So that'd be kind of, you know, I don't want to keep hiring people, but it seems like if this is a functional and uh productive exercise, why don't we do the same thing for science, right? You don't necessarily have to use the science teacher in high school to run it, but maybe they could. I mean, it's two grades leading to fifth and eighth grade, but it'd be kind of a it would sort of complete the program, right? Because we do have a metric that test scores and and you did a great presentation earlier on how we do
087NGSS and there's always, you know, room for improvement, right? And if you got big bold vertical line in the middle, maybe you need to to see why some young younger learners, fifth graders or a little older middle schoolers are struggling a little bit with science. Maybe it's also an MTSS. >> I'll respond to that question in a in a layered approach. So, um I love that idea. Um and while some you know logistically here's how that would go. If we wanted to include science uh support within this structure um it would it would mean that in order to com add a layer of MTSS that included science, we would need to add a universal screener. So we would need to add another assessment to identify those students to be proactive because using the NGSS is
088is not enough. Um we would need uh to identify intervention programs that align to specific goals which um I can tell you full disclosure um even math is a area that struggles with identifying quality intervention programs. I've never seen in my experience so far, I've never seen an intervention program for science. Um, and the way that the uh MTSS is structured, it's focused on reading and math. And here's why. Because there is a direct correlation between performance in reading with science. So, if we can focus on the reading aspect for individual students and what their needs are, it typically um actually it's almost a direct one-on-one correlation. It returns um and reflects in their in their science scores. And I would also add and put a plug in for our curriculum and instruction leaders which
089is the next question which is why um the tier one support of MTSS and our curriculum and instruction leaders are so critical to the role of tier 1 classroom instruction support and helping build their capacity and ensuring that our curriculum is evidence-based, researchbased and um in and is of high quality. Excellent. You actually answered Michael Mike Rio's question where a metric where I would make the case that uh cap capability math also would reflect in science too. But that's just me the engineer. Um you have a metric if you do well in your MTSS for the early learners in math and reading it may reflect a little better capture more competency in science. Mhm. >> But I mean, yeah, you have it built in like but but but it doesn't perfectly solve that problem, right?
090So it's sort of like all it does is maybe shift your little bold vertical line a little bit to the left if it was science, right? So it's kind of a nice combination. You do math and reading, you have these resources, then you follow it on and maybe there's a little latency of a year or two, right, with how you doing in science. But >> yeah, and I I would add as you know um we in in science specifically around NGSS, we have a goal in our district improvement plan and our school plans um where even though science is not explicitly within our MTSS system or structure for intervention support. Um we do have instructional software that we have been piloting and have adopted since last year called inner orbit. um because there are different
091standards related to science specifically even though it overlaps with reading. um that is an instructional software platform that we adopted three years ago which helps us simulate um similar aspects of MTSS which is progress monitoring looking at formative assessment tools and we use it also to kind of do our own almost like our own internal universal screener um but it's through the curriculum it's through classroom instruction it's not separate Hope that answers your question, Peter. Um, okay. Any other questions on this one? because that is uh kind of I hope I did a thorough job on the academic support MTSS the roles within that before we move into the CIL question that Deb asked which I think ties a little ties nicely into this conversation around tier one support and the allocation of staffing for
092our curriculum and instruction leaders which also ties into MTSS and how do we support uh curriculum how do we support our teachers and how do we support our students students um throughout the district. >> Uh yeah, would you mind just going back to the previous slide? >> Sure. >> And I appreciate these visuals, so thank you. >> Um okay, so I'm curious. Multilingual learner MTSS support area. What does that mean? >> Right. So if we complete our last links assessment is our screener to identify students in um that are in need of multilingual support right linguistic acquisition acquisition um if they've entered into the district. So we have um staff that support students in small groups uh throughout their their K12 trajectory so that they can build um their English language acquisition so that they
093can be um they can access the general education curriculum um more uh more easily. >> Is different from an L teacher? >> No, it's the same. So, English language learner, the state has now changed that to multilingual learner. It's one and the same. I'm sorry. >> Sorry. But they they require a teacher to teach them how to speak English. Is that different from this MTS? >> No, it's part of it. So, um the MLL teacher, the EL teacher is the individual who supports those students in small groups in our district. >> Okay. So, um Okay. So those pe those when so this row of multilingual learner they're not necessarily being supported by in you know in our budget they're not they're not being supported by the schoolwide support staff specifically they're they actually being supported
094by their separate L teacher or multilingual learner teacher who's teaching them how to learn English. >> It depends. It's not an easy black or white answer because you can have you can have students based on not only the assessment that we've determined that they're ML MLL but if there's a classroom teacher who sees that they need math support it's not just >> right right but they all within a different row but this single learner row is there is not on the load of these special or schoolwide support teachers within within in this row. Like if they're being supported by a schoolwide support teacher, they're going to fall within a different row of this chart. >> They could fall within two, >> right? Okay. >> Yes. >> And then monitoring only. What does that mean? Because
095you're saying within the tier one classroom, does that mean classroom observation? >> Um, so we'll get into this a little bit with this curriculum and instruction leaders. Um, but if a student it was in MTSS or in intervention and we are looking to gradually move them out and move them back into the classroom without additional intensive support, we have groups of students that an interventionist and or a curriculum and instruction leader could um provide monitoring support in small group in the classroom to ensure that they remain in that classroom and not come back to intervention. So it's part of the system to ensure that before we release them without having um that additional oversight management support and small group instruction that we do so without uh without completely just all hands off. >> Right. Okay.
096>> That's what that is. >> Okay. And I know it might differ from student to student, but like generally how frequently is a pro is an professional monitoring these students. >> Oh. Um, so it depends on the tier, right? If it's tier 2, um, it's bi-weekly. If it's tier three, it's weekly. Um, and if it's in the classroom, um, depending on the unit and the lesson that they're on and the activities that they're on, they're regularly gra, uh, gathering, um, gathering data in the classroom through, it could be curriculum based assessments, it could be an exit ticket at the end of the lesson. So, we have uh data that's embedded within our curriculum that on a daily basis, we're looking at all students at that point and whether or not they've mastered the standards from
097that lesson before, you know, in order to help build those small groups on a daily basis. Does that answer the question? >> Sort of. I think what I'm really trying to understand is I understand multi-tiered support services. I always support them. Um, but I'm just really trying to understand like what does each schoolwide support specialist educator do in the district and with each school and like what is their case load? Um, how frequently are they seeing these students that you have on this chart? >> Um, >> okay. >> Is it push? Is it pull out? Is it in group? really like what >> yep >> their schedule kind of looking at like and I think also >> it might be this is a helpful chart to understand who is being served in one semester but
098obviously as you said it's fluid so it actually might be helpful to see this for multiple semesters to just really get a handle on what is each person you know how is each person really filling their day and their schedule. Yeah, the it's a harder it's a harder more layered response, right? But if a group is in intervention, those range between three to five students in a group depending on their goal. So if a student is in a group, they should be working on the same goal, right? You an interventionist is needs to be focused. They're using a program that's very explicit to the goal that they're on. So it definitely depends on the goals that the individual students are in need of. If it's and that's usually three three times a week, three to
099four times a week, right? If they're in tier three, it's even more inter uh intensive and the group size gets even lower. Could be one to three, right? It's even smaller and even more intense because not only does the group size go down, but the number of times that they're pulled out of class for in not out of class, but the number of times that the interventionist is pulling a group is typically four to five times. So, daily potentially. >> Okay. >> Yes. >> Okay. So, it might be a similar case load to a related service provider in special education. >> Okay. >> Is I'm just kind of what I'm Okay. in terms of frequency with which they're seeing these students. >> Yes, tier 2 intervention um the goal is minimum three times a week.
100Um typically it's three to four if we can schedule them in because we don't want them to go to tier three, right? But if it's tier three, in order to see the return on investment and the results on the intervention programs that we're using, we reduce the the size of the group and we increase the intensity. So, it's four to five uh times um a week, which is basically daily. >> Um that's tier three. >> Yes, ma'am. >> Okay. Um, >> and just to um give everyone some context too, when we make this section public, I also linked in the MTSS overview that we did for the board of education subcommittee um that you can reference that gives some more visuals around that that structure just so you have something to reference. I mean, I
101don't want to go through that one again. That was a whole hour presentation, but I put it in there as reference and we can always come back to it if you're looking at it and you still have some further questions or if you want me to bring some additional data. I have no problem doing that. >> Okay, thank you. That was that was my question. >> Great. Okay. Um so if we shift to the next slide, Deb had a question about the curriculum and instruction leaders um and how we decide how we allocate um the FTE, the full-time equivalency to that role and how do we assess their impact on instructional practice. So, um, for those of you that might not know, a curriculum and instruction leader, a CIL, um, we strategically, or since I
102have gotten here, this position has been in existence. And, um, over the last few years, we have really been strategically allocating that FTE on an instructional demand. If you recall when I first started here, we were in the middle of uh researching and adopting uh core new core curriculum. Reading was the focus and the priority at that time. And since then, we've been slowly um implementing K3 reading. We've also been updating um our math K through 12 um core resource throughout the district. And so um that allocation of our C cil specifically I know I gave examples for math and and reading but we look at the impact of the instructional demands whether that be new curriculum uh new resources that we're implementing whether it's intervention support um and also um the number of teachers
103that they support in a given school or across a given department. Um, we also look at the complexity of the curriculum implementation, right? So, these positions are instructional coaches. They help write curriculum. They help train our staff. Um, they um monitor and support and oversee a lot of the data analysis on our universal screeners. They help um implement our district priorities and our school priorities. And so those assignments since I have been here range from 0.4 of an FTE um they've even ranged to full-time. Last year we um last year we had full-time CILS in place. Um this year uh we have reduced the CIL position uh to range from point 4 to8 throughout the district. Um and these positions provide instructional leadership across all content areas and while still balancing the re reality that
104we understand that this these structures to support the academic implementation to support classroom teachers come at a cost. So when I look at the evaluation on how much we want to allocate to a curriculum and instruction leader, um this is the chart that we always go back to and reference. Um, you can see that depending on the number of teachers that the CIL would support and whether or not they're housed in one building and whether or not they support multiple content areas is also something that we look at when we balance how much we want to allocate to this uh to this position. Um I will say that in uh our district here um there is no additional instructional leadership role from me that and into the classroom other than them. They are they are
105the individual role. They are the resource. I call them the velcro between um district level implementation and classroom support. They are critical in translating our curriculum invest investments into highquality tier one instruction. If we focus and ensure that our tier one instruction is um at its at its best, then the percentage of students in tier one and the percentage of students needing intervention um increases in tier one and decreases in tier 2 and tier three. So that's why these all these questions kind of all relate to each other. So they really help strengthen our tier one framework, our tier one support um uh for all teachers across all the content areas. I will put my pitch in here that if I had my way and we didn't have to worry about, you know, the dollars
106and I would ask for full-time CILs in every in every content area per school. I have said that since I came here. So, I'm going to be fully transparent again, uh, since we have some new board members. So, I'm just going to rinse and repeat that. Um, they support teachers in implementing our curriculum with fidelity. As I said, they strengthen the instructional practice. They provide professional development. They analyze data and understand our assessments uh to a deeper extent than than most others in the district. So, they help us with that analysis. Um they also because I just mentioned last year we had a few positions in the core areas in the uh literacy areas, the math and um the um it was really math and uh language arts literacy that were full-time. Uh we've shifted
107back down to 0.8. That's the max that they uh currently are allocating their time for curriculum and and leadership support. Um they either provide small groupoup instruction on top of their curriculum and instruction leader job description or they teach a class. So at the secondary level um you'll see the 6 through 6 through 12 uh CILS along with the K through 12 CILS they um take on classroom instruction responsibilities also this year um at the K5 level those uh CILs take on small group interventions or they pull small groups and support tier one instruction in a small group capacity. Um so this is the first part of the question regarding um um how we allocate the amount or the percentage of a CIL uh position um in the district. Um the impact of the CILs
108that uh we we look at a variety of different metrics when we look at the impact. Um as I said before their impact is return resulting in our student achievement. uh that's they're directly related to the impact on reading, math and science. Um standardized metrics also are universal screening metrics. Um and they directly correlate to student outcomes related to student performance. They provide coaching cycles for classroom teachers. Um, as I mentioned, they help lead with the summer curriculum academy groups that I oversee, but they help support individual groups in ensuring that we maximize our time and we get a lot of our curriculum updates and our tasks done. They plan and deliver professional development for um us throughout the district, whether that be on a PD day, whether that be during grade level team meetings.
109Um they help with the analysis of performance data and how to translate that data into actionable um plans for classroom instruction with differentiation for our teachers as well as for intervention support analysis when it comes to looking at our uh intervention support within our MTSS uh system. Um, and so in short, our CILs are really that instructional bridge between curriculum adoption and student learning. Um, they really work to strengthen tier one instruction, support an effective MTSS implementation. They oversee, as I said, our data analysis and ensure that the district investments that we've made in all different content areas um in curriculum and in professional learning result in consistent highquality teaching and learning because they provide that regular ongoing embedded support um throughout the day and throughout the year. So the request this year is to
110maintain the model. Last year we adjusted the model as I said we used to have uh last year um in 25 uh we used to have our core content areas were full-time CILS we adjusted that model last year which is this year um to8 um across the district and in in some cases 6 and point4 which was maintained and we're asking that we maintain the same model uh this year as well. We don't want to reduce the support for the classroom instruction or reduce the support for professional development or reduce the support for um tier one support. Um so um that is what has been allocated in the budget uh for now for next year for the fiscal year 27. >> Tina um I was I think David and I we were both on the
111board when we implemented the CIL program. >> Okay. Um, and I'm a fan. I'm a huge fan. And I was sad that we had to reduce um, last year. I'm concerned. And my concern is, you know, any program that you put into place, you have to give it time to see results, right? And I think that we have seen results from the CIL program to be perfectly honest with you. And that um, is in the form of our tests and our rankings, etc. My concern is we've cut back this year um and now we're cutting back further and I just think we need to keep a really close eye on um on whether or not that's going to have an effect on our on our student results. So just raising the flag of awareness here.
112If that is the case, then we need to make sure that we reverse course and get back to full-time CILS, especially in the core areas in particular. Yeah, thank you Sharon because um that was the conversation last year when we went to this model, right? Um while we've seen growth that while we've seen growth, we also just want to be mindful that we want to maintain at least, you know, we do have some we do have some areas to grow still. We're not uh I still see a gap, you know, that we'd like to be able to grow even further in our student outcomes. And while we've seen an overall improvement on our next generation accountability system, there are areas of growth. We talked about that at our last full board member uh full full
113board meeting. Um and so to your point, um I am curious to see if we need to flex and we need to uh revert back to more of the uh whole um full-time FTE support model for CILS in the core areas especially um based on this year's results. Yeah, just keep an eye on it as the year is going along though because I don't want to wait until the damage is completely done to try to reverse the damage. I would rather we, you know, we've got high performing schools. We've got a blue ribbon school. We've, you know, been ranked very highly. The high school's been ranked very highly and I just don't want to have to find us taking a step back in order to take our step, you know, to regain our position. So,
114just keep a close eye on it as best you can. Obviously, test results only come out once a year. Um, but if you could just make sure that you're monitoring that closely. Um, >> yeah. Oh, for sure. And, um, I will say the monitoring comes with some of the assessment data that we talked about today. Excuse me. But what I meant is, um, the model, this is the model and it's the model that we're requesting to maintain at minimum for next school year. So, um, >> okay. I think we need to to your point I think we need to continuously reflect on where we want to invest our and focus our time and our resources to ensure that we maintain and even grow further in our um academic achievement and the work that we've done
115so far when it comes to curriculum design and curriculum implementation. Okay, >> Tina. Uh, just to Sharon's point, we are the two people that were on the board when we moved Sills from 0.5, if I remember correctly, to full-time. Now they're 0.8, but they were 0.8 in our current budget. Right. >> They are. This is the model right now. This year is the first year. >> Okay. >> That we've adopted this model of 0.8. >> Right. So, but this we are currently operating under this model. >> Yes, sir. >> Okay. And just for uh for clarity, I think Tina I may have my timing wrong. I believe you're you're one of uh you've kind of pushed to move the sales from truly part-time, right? They were 0.5. >> Yes. When I got here. >> Okay.
116So when I just want to clarify, you know, budgets are tight. Our first and primary focus is obviously outcome of the students. We haven't gone back to where we were. Matter of fact, we haven't even gone 50% back to where we were. We this year we're operating under a small change. Next year we're likely to operate under that small change. Uh I just wanted to just kind of clarify for the rest of the board and the community. It's we were at half at.5. We went to 1.0. We're operating under 08 this year. We're going to operate under one uh 0.8 next year. And we'll look and as I always say, we'll look at the data. >> Yes, I agree. I would just like to clarify um when we talk about the flexibility or the the
117adjustments to the CIL positions from 0.5 when I first started here in 22 to full-time and then back to point8. Um the only those are the only the core areas are the ones that we're talking about in the K through 12 in the specialist areas. Those have always been maintained in the models that are currently in existence. >> Okay. And I'm sorry I did have one other question which you might not be prepared to answer related to this. It was easy to understand back a couple of years ago when we went from 0.5 to 1.0 I know the cost because you had to backfill for that time that the teacher wasn't going to be in front of the students. Um, do you have an an idea number-wise with 0.8 eight. I presume that they're essentially
118of the v whatever you call them sections they would be teaching they're they're not they're one they're using one block two of their time to teach 08 sill >> if a if a secondary teacher you're asking about the 6 through 12 because that's that's where this model can actually work in if they're 0.8 eight, they teach one class and then they support classroom instruction and everything else we talked about um in two schools in that one content area. You can see social studies though teaches two classes and then provides academic support and teaching support um across two schools. it it's a you know I'm going to just speak and advocate for the individuals that take on these roles. It is hard to maximize the support of classroom and teaching instruction and the role the true
119role and the essence of what a curriculum instruction leader um were trying to do and also balance the expectations in Weston to teach and prepare and deliver instruction. they are working under these individuals are working under two job descriptions. It's very hard. >> Okay. But for clarity for the community essentially uh for each point two you can roughly say 02 reflects classroom time. >> Yes sir that is correct. >> Yeah thank you. >> Um Tina I had just a couple of questions. Um uh first of all, thank you for um pointing out the timeline and the FTE associated in the last few years with Sills. Um going back to the um academic support MTSS chart where you showed 9.8 FTE. You don't I don't need to see it, but what I'm asking is are some
120of these sills included in that 9.8 FTE? Correct. So, yes. So, you might >> That's all I need to know. >> Yes. >> Well, obviously I'd like to know a lot more, but I'm also looking at the time. Um, and my last question regarding Sills and thank you for the very thorough explanation um in in their areas of support and they're also kind of leadership so that we're at the forefront of implementation um with quality. Um have we um asked the teachers directly in terms of another metric in terms of um how they feel about the support they receive? How you know what do they see the differences in their practice being? Um do we have any and I guess what I'm asking is there any teacher input? Um because obviously they're the the most
121directly affected. What's what's their take? And I not asking for it right now, but I'm just asking um if it's been collected, if there's a way to collect it, if it's even worth collecting. >> Um >> it is definitely worth collecting and we do collect it. One of the um you know, we're always looking at how do we measure our effectiveness too because it's an indirect effectiveness, right? Even as administrators. So qualitative data such as surveying the people that we work with around their experience has been a component of what we as a CIL department and a group that we've um integrated within our practice. Um and so we we do that on a yearly basis. Um and we can most certainly um capture some of those if you're looking to see some of those
122quotes. >> Yeah. maybe in a committee meeting or a board meeting uh down the road that that absolutely helpful to get some teacher feedback as well. >> Great suggestion. I'm going to add that. >> Okay. Um so the next se so that completes that section. Um actually I'm sorry we're moving on to enrollment classroom sections and teameing. Actually that does shift into a different section. Um, Erica, do you want me to just move right into the next portion? >> Okay. Um, just can I take a step back? Um, >> yeah. maybe if you um if you don't mind um taking the the slide away for a second and I'm just looking at our time and and I know that we have scheduled longer for this workshop and that's absolutely fine but I'm also doing sort
123of a check-in with attention spans and schedules and other obligations. So I'm kind of getting trying to get a sense um maybe Erica from you in terms of staff your staff um is this a good break or should we is are you ready to continue and then board members are we able to continue and maintain a forum? >> Um thank you Deb. I apprec appreciate that consideration. Um I think I think we are okay to continue continue um team >> um like yeah um we're heading into the enrollment classroom sections and in teameing we do have some additional visuals for the board that will help moving move the questions along um a little bit um and the questions are a little bit more straightforward um relative to classroom enrollment sections and the reduction of that
124and what it translates into in terms of teameing model. So maybe we can spend another half hour um working through some of those section and enrollment questions. >> Sure. >> Okay. And board members um does that sound okay with you? >> All right. All right. Let's let's aim for another half hour and then if we need to take another check time check we will. All right. So thank you. >> Great. So the next series of questions uh Jen and I, Jen, Demo and I are going to take. Um the questions are related to the fifth grade model of instruction, the instructional model that we provide in Weston. So David, you asked about like how does that impact um uh how does the enrollment impact the teameing model, right? How does the sections impact the grade
125five teaming model? if we reduce sections, uh what does that mean uh for enrollment? And then Sharon, you asked a very similar question around um what happens if we go from the eight sections to the to seven sections um and what does that mean for the fifth grade um current instructional model. So just to give you some context, I went back and I was curious to find out when did we transition from a traditional environment where one teacher teaches all content areas to a teameing model which is very important to recognize that when in education when we talk about teameing teaming models come in different forms right we'll talk about the middle school teameming model which is one instructional model and then we'll talk right now about the fifth grade teameing model which is a
126two teacher team model and we transitioned to give you some context in Weston during the 201819 school year into the two-teer teaming diad model. Um, and this is where we've organized two teachers into a team whereby one teacher teaches math and science instructional blocks. The other teaches the reading and writing blocks and both teachers teach social studies to their own classes. And at that time back in 2018-19 if you remember um the state had just implemented and adopted the new standardized test in science known as NGSS. Um it was the first year that we implemented or were expected to administer that test. And at that time, the reason for that shift was that the grade 5 teachers were implementing a new curriculum as a result of that new test. Um, and we wanted to ensure
127that the science instruction was being scheduled into the daily schedule and taught consistently. And I know that because I went back into the notes on the board of ed curriculum subcommittee and and read through what what the message was. So um the original intent was to while the original intent was to ensure that the teachers had sufficient time to plan and effectively implement the science curriculum um so that they were preparing students let's say for this NGSS test at the end of the year um the achievement across other content areas seemed to be directly impacted. So I went back and looked at some achievement data because I figured you know I was curious. So I think I I think I made a slide uh a little chart. I just was curious to see um so
128when when we shifted from 18 to 19 into this two team DIAD model, what did our student achievement look like? So even though it was for specifically for science reasons to ensure that we could implement the curriculum with some fidelity and consistency, we seem to have um got some additional benefits from changing that instructional model. So which was a great thing. So we um we have since maintained that model even through COVID and we know we had a hiccup with COVID and we re we're rebuilding some of our um academic outcomes but we can see that we've really maintained some of that high levels of performance and achievement over uh the last my goodness many years since 201819. And we also know that through research, if you actually if you look it up, there are
129a lot of benefits to having a teening model, especially as students uh get older and into the upper elementary grades. Um when they have fewer teachers that teach fewer content areas, um those teachers are able to develop a deeper level of expertise, they plan more effectively, they deliver stronger instruction in those subjects. Um the school benefits um when teachers are matched within their strongest subject areas particularly in the math and science area um because they um tend to gravitate and they have more comfortability in certain uh subject areas and so again um they're able to deliver higher quality instruction. Um a lot of times uh we see that there becomes you know a stronger relationships that are developed when students um have multiple teachers. Uh they get to uh improve and have multiple um relationships
130not just with one teacher but across multiple teachers and that helps you know have more opportunities to build um uh a sense of belonging with not just one teacher but multiple teachers. Excuse me. Um, we see that as students get older, there's smoother transitions because we're rotating among smaller sets of teachers and help students prepare for some of that middle grade or middle school environment. Sorry. Um, and so with that also comes some trade-offs. We do know that um there comes a financial responsibility if we want to maintain this model because in order to have a DIAD model you have to maintain um a an even number of teachers so that there's a team um and it also makes sure that when it comes to scheduling you need to make sure for it to be
131effective you need to make sure that the schedule allows for times for them to have common planning Tina, I'm going to jump in a little bit here for you. >> Be great. Thank you. >> Okay, so a few things. Uh Sharon, I wanted to address your question about those odd numbers. So, are there ways that we could make this work? Certainly, we could have um one class be self-contained. We could have a group do a three-teer model. And I have reservations about both of those things because we really believe in the two-teer team. We think it's very strong model. It's been very successful. Um the teachers have opportunities to plan with each other um to do some things across grade levels, do some transitioning. Uh they can support kids with SEAL needs across those different
132kinds of things. They have different personalities as teachers and they support those students in those different ways as they're growing and changing. Fifth grade is one of those times when students are starting um to become middle schoolers and they're supporting them in that. So I think that is also very helpful. the students like having a little bit more of that freedom and opportunity to become more independent. Um, so they are also managing those transitions. So that executive functioning skill of going from one class to another, taking your things, making sure you have everything, that's something we have to develop and explicitly teach. And we have the opportunity to do that when we have that two-teer team. In my opinion, when you add a third teacher to that, if you try to use those odd numbers,
133you have multiple transitions. You lose a little bit more instructional time. And I think to me it feels too much for students of this age to be able to do that. And I don't want to lose that instructional time uh for students as we are making sure we get into that reading, that writing, that math, that science. That was our intention. Um in addition, if we do um a self-contained classroom, we take away the experience of all those other things that I just said were things that are really positive for our students. Um so, could we manage with odd numbers if we had to? Sure, we could do that, but I don't think the experience would be the western experience we want to give to our students. Um, in addition, um, we talked about a
134team of eight or a team of six, and I think when you look at those numbers, if we went to six, we would definitely start increasing those classroom sizes outside of the guidelines that the board of education has put in to place. Listen, I know we've had parent comments. There's been lots of conversations about the board that we really value making sure that we stay within those guidelines because we've seen the positive impact of that personalization. Um, so for all of those reasons, I feel very strongly that I would like to support this teaming model and I would like to stay with those two teacher teams. Thanks, Jen. Sorry, y'all. Um, appreciate you jumping in. Um, David, this also this this uh visual I just want to clarify it also answers Sharon and David's questions
135about grade 5 specifically, but then it also answers one of David's questions regarding um modeling one less section across K5. Um, so the green ban looks at option one with the number of sections and how many students and how many open seats it would um allow. And then you go to option two, which is a different variety of sections. And I know um Jen was just referencing the seven section model at grade five. But then going to section the yellow portion, which is option two there. Um if you veered away and said, okay, let's keep the teeing model at fifth grade, but then what do the different sections look like in K4? Um yeah, I would just like to shout out to, you know, the intermediate school. I think I think we all can agree
136that our current models and instructional models have really returned a really great uh return on investment. We've had a lot of accolades at the intermediate school, whether it be that they were just named one of the four public schools in the state recognized as a Connecticut blue ribbon school. And I will say that correlating some of that uh outcomes or the performance since 2018 and 19 when we transitioned to this model can't ignore that we've had three consecutive years of being recognized at the intermediate school as a um school of distinction. So, um, just some pieces of information, food for thought and, um, just kind of piggyback on what, uh, Jen was just talking about and and what we would like to support is maintaining that team model at the fifth grade level and, um,
137ensuring that we also look at the number of students that are in those sections too, so that we can individualize and support the students as needed. Tina, uh I just don't have hand in the board book. So which So right now we're operating with option one uh eight sections for grade five. Is that right? And the ask for next year is the same. >> Yes. >> And the uh open seat that is based on next year's medium projections. >> Yes. All of our, just to give everyone context, all of our scenarios are based on medium projections. >> Okay. What is the projection based on low? And if you don't have it right now, you know, I don't mean to. So, if you can again, I don't want to put you on the spot. >> Yeah,
138we did not make a chart for the low. I know that if I look in the budget, >> we do we do have supplemental charts that we will attach a link into our public responses where you'll be able to take a look at it by high, medium, low enrollment. We just wanted to summarize it here using medium projection to demon for the purposes of demonstrating and explaining. But for the public, David, and if you wanted to delve in a little bit further, um there will be additional charts using the high, medium, and low projection uh through the same model. >> Yeah. And >> and just could I just add that um our current enrollment in grade four would actually be 146, which is a little higher than the number that is on here. It's four
139students more. We currently have se seated in fourth grade at this time. Actually, Jen, that was going Thank you. Because for my purposes, I was going to say my next one I was going to say was if I simply took the fourth grade, which is it's not 137, it's 142. You said, >> sorry, our current fourth grade is 146. >> 14. Okay. Versus the one So the 137 uh that's what's projected for next year on on the medium. That is correct. >> Okay. >> If I could add just for some color, the enroll the low enrollment projections for K5 generally are only reflect a change of of one student. So there's not a really significant difference. K5 between the low and medium projections. >> David, just if you're looking back at the chart, the current
140grade three is 135. if that helps. >> Yeah, I think Yeah, I think and what Julie just said. So essentially that it's if we took grade So yeah, we took >> so we're gonna have the next two years we're going to have small classes. Grade three and grade four are small right now, smaller than the current grade five. So rolling forward we're going to continue to bump up against this in grade five. >> Right. Okay. And so when we so we don't ex we don't expect when this model is shown and and I think for the I think why not show it with the small for all K5 but I think the focus for my purposes anyway it's grade five and the teaming model. Um so if the the low and low projection is not
141going to change the 142 number significantly at at eight sections in order to keep the diad we have 50 open seats or 17.8 kids per class. If you went to seven sections you broke the diad. Now >> can I can I just ask a question? Um so I really believe in the team model. I think teacher expertise is really important. We're looking at that model of odd number of classes and we don't want to bring in the singleton model. Isn't it possible for to keep that teaming model and having team teachers teach an example um if I I'm looking at it like if there were two singletons being expertise in both if if it were so the third and fourth grade model. So, you had a team that could teach two singleton classes that although
142it might um have the teachers have a broader range of expertise, it could um work with the students. >> I'm not sure I understand. >> Yeah, I I do. I've been in a system where we did that where let's say you have odd numbers in a grade level, you team up the odd number out across grade levels. I will say that we did it for one year and we dissolved that model uh because the amount of prep and the amount of the quality of instruction with across learning multiple content areas, multiple grade levels was not effective. Um we could talk about it. Uh I I wouldn't recommend it. So Tina just to put in more layman's terms maybe for Sharon and my benefit and I probably for the benefit of the community. So with seven
143you we're not talking about breaking the diad in so far as there would be some group of students that would only have one teacher. What we're breaking is the even number of fifth grade teachers. So what we're what we're talking about is taking a fourth grade teacher or even potentially a third grade teacher and we're asking them to teach to two different grade levels. Is that what happens when you have an odd number >> and you also have yes except that in that model I gave you I provided you we were diads in multiple grade levels that was the only way that it works. So hold on. If we instead of taking so for example, instead of if we have eight um teachers in fifth grade, that means we have four groups, right? So instead
144of doing four groups, if we broke it down to three groups and had one of the groups have a teacher who's a science, a teacher who's reading, and a teacher who is doing social studies, say for example. And Jennifer, I think that your point was the class change would decrease the amount of instructional time available by one class change period. Correct. >> Yeah. So, you know, we don't operate like the middle school with periods and we're switching every 42 minutes, things look very different. And so, that scheduling shift and and even where our specials fall and and all of that that that elementary model is very different. So, that that alignment where we could kind of share teachers in that way would be would be very challenging. um we do not currently team in fourth
145grade or third grade. So we would not have the opportunity with our current model to be able to share teachers across grade levels. I also have some reservations about that because um the content of third four just developmentally what it looks like understanding all of that being part of that team uh would be would be a lot they're not just teaching one content area remember is even in that diad model they're teaching three different content areas and an elementary person in a single classroom is teaching reading writing math science and social studies that's a big responsibility a lot to know a lot to differentiate for so if I am now asking that instructor to go between grade levels and take on all of those things and understand them. Well, I am asking a lot of
146that instructor more so than I'm probably asking of any other instructor across the district. So, I would have reservations about that. >> Sure. Sure. Sure. I'm not suggesting that. What I'm suggesting is if we had seven fifth grade teachers and we had them in their two of them were in the diads and the other one would be in a triad. Right? So we have a teacher who a fifth grade teacher who' be teaching that group of fifth grade students perhaps instead of doing I mean making a little bit more of a middle schoolesque environment and that they're teaching social studies right or you know they each have their classroom but they change going math reading social studies that's that's what I'm suggesting is that something that you think would have a negative impact on the
147students. Um, so I actually have experience with this for my own personal children. They were in a space in fifth grade where they ended up having this odd man out and had to do a triad. Um, and they did choose to do that. Um, I found it extremely challenging as a parent. I found it extreme being in contact with all three of those teachers. I think it's very important for parents to have that close relationship with all teachers and be able to have that conversation back and forth. So doing conferences and being able to te talk to each of them and have that access was more challenging for me as a parent. In addition, I found it very challenging for two of my children um to manage between those three classes. Another one of my
148children was in that triad and they were okay, but they had very strong executive functioning skills. So I would be um a little nervous for our students who are building those executive functioning skills and I do think this is an important time for us to be doing that. So, I do think the transition between three teachers has a few pitfalls that just raise a few red flags for me. Is it doable? Could we figure it out? Could we manage it? Of course, we could. We can always figure those things out. It would not be my first choice. >> Gotcha. Gotcha. That's >> I also think we want to think about equitable experiences for all of our fifth grade students. Um and I think it's pretty clear based on you know what uh principal do is
149sharing and what Tina is sharing and just from your general questions that we place a high value on this DIAD model. It's yielding great academic outcomes. It's clear and coherent. Um we've matched educators in content areas with their expertise. Um and it's yielding great outcomes. So just to disrupt that um and not offer the same academic experience to all kids in that grade level um I would I would think would be detrimental. >> Can I uh so I think for my purposes I don't think breaking the diet I don't think option two or seven sections is it's not I'm appreciate that you put it on here. So if we focus on keeping the diad, keeping an even number of teachers at the fifth grade, and I agree with everything that Erica, you said, Jennifer, you've
150said, um, both the students benefit from having teachers who are subject matter experts and aren't moving back and forth and teachers benefit from from that. My my couple other questions are do we what is the uh student toteer ratio roughly in sixth grade per class? And again I didn't ask this question ahead of time. So I'm per if you want to defer to a a future that's fine and I will I'm kind of getting I see Deb's thinking that's the right way to go. So let's just if we can get that question answered for next time, but I'll I'll give you some clarity why I'm asking that and that can be also uh answered next time. I'm not looking to break the system and I have two children, one finishing completion of fifth grade at
151WHIS who's benefited, right? So I you're not going to find probably bigger champion of WIS than I. I love everything about that school, the age, the building. But that said, uh my question is going to be I look at the class sizes and we're we it's sacra to go into lower grades and change class sizes. Small size is Weston. Individual uh education is Weston. But when I look at the fifth graders and I see for example 17.8 8 uh kids in a classroom and 50 open seats with medium enrollment. And medium enrollment has historically always been wrong. The kids that are going into fifth grade, uh I don't have the number from this year, but is it roughly 22 kids in a classroom or are >> 20? >> Yeah, it's it's because of like the
152inventors and innovators. In sixth grade, you have about 60 kids, 80 per team, four major classes, 20 per class. It's >> Jason, >> can you Jason? Is that imp is >> we have Yeah, we have 172 students in um sixth grade currently and there's eight sections. So it comes out to about 21.5. >> Okay. And so the reason I'm asking is because I understand transition years are important. Transition years are hard. uh middle school is hard to begin with just as you know a child's body is developing and stuff like that. So I would like to know again what um the class size is for sixth grade uh projected to be next year maybe the past couple of years because it would help inform whether or not 23.7 with two open seats when medium enrollment
153is rarely accurate uh really puts it it would we be at 23.7 7 kids and I understand 23.7 means right it basically means there will be some number of classes with 22 kids and some number actually it'll be some yeah some number of classes with 22 kids and some number of classes with 23 kids right that's just how it breaks out >> I believe it's some with 23 and some with 24 >> yeah it's between yeah David it would be some with 23 some with 24 I do think and um and maybe you want to refine the numbers that were in the budget book but some of the class size projections information I think are in the budget book for next year. >> Yeah, page 78. >> Page 78, David, if you want to look
154at I mean again >> I think it's 159 is the projected number for sixth grade. >> And just a reminder that the current fourth grade class at WHIS has 146 kids. So when you're looking at this chart, the median projection is 142. If every single fourth grade student stays at WISH next year and goes into fifth grade, there's 146 students in fifth grade next year. >> And I think I also I mean we can look at it, but I also thought I heard Julie say the difference at the elementary level projections between high I'm not I'm sorry low and medium is not that big to begin with. grade five. The low projection for grade five for 26 27 is 141 students. >> All right. So it's 141. Okay. So we're really we're really looking Yeah.
155Our our decision if if you want to call it that. Our our examination is between eight and six. I think we've agreed that seven is just for all sorts of crazy reasons not it. um and there then there becomes a class- size issue. So keep that in your mind. Um you know there are always tradeoffs and benefits and all of that and looking at our our bottom line but also maintaining the um the excellence that Weston is known for and not threatening it. Um so I think we understand the issue involved in grade five. It basically is uh eight or six. Um and so board members can mold that over. We absolutely have heard the recommendations from the educators. Um, and we now know that the difference between a different enrollment projection is only one
156student. We also know reality on the ground has more students. Doesn't mean that some of them aren't going to trans or, you know, move out of town. I I get that. Um, I do think moving forward though when we get into smaller total classes enrollment to Sharon's point that that might be an even better time to look at 8 versus six. It may be coming. I'm just not sure that this is the year. >> Thank you for summing that up, Deb. >> All right. Um, any more? I'm also looking at the time. I'm sorry. Um, just because if there's more material to get through. Um, so where do we go next? Unless there are more questions. I I don't mean to cut people off, but it seems like we have kind of thoroughly um examined
157the the grade five situation. >> Yes. If there are no more questions, we have one additional question that's very um >> somewhat related for grade six through eight with the teeming model. And if we can get through that question, then I think we can pause there and resume at the next meeting. >> So I'll start this question. David, you were asking specifically about the as you just did right now uh the teameing model in the middle school and what would it look like or what would require if we reduced by two sections. So I'll just start with some overview pieces and then you know Jason please chime in and take over see how far I can get through without coughing. So, while you have your teameing instructional design hat on, we're going to shift from
158a teameing model like in fifth grade with two teachers to the middle school teaming structure, which is where you have a team of four core teachers. They teach ELA, math, science, and social studies. And they share the same group of students within their schedule. So, a middle school teaming model also has a lot of benefits. Based on the research, you're creating a smaller learning community within a bigger middle school which improves adultto student connection and consistency. I think there is some I don't know the research the name of the guy but they I do know that there the number of developmental stages of a middle schooler from 6 to 8 is the same number of stages from birth to three. Sit on that one for a minute. Right. So when kids get to middle school,
159a lot of these systems and structures developmentally for social emotional learning really weighs even heavier than maybe some other um areas other uh other grades and having uh three middle schoolers go through um I would concur. So so the benefits of the teaming structure at the middle school um we know that it supports uh collaborative teaming environments too. Um it's designed to create a shared responsibility among the team of teachers. They help to coordinate interventions. They align expectations. Um and as Jen mentioned, even in the DIAD model in fifth grade, it helps the parents um be more connected with a team of teachers um that are more consolidated and focused so that they they kind of all the teachers kind of rally around those their students in a more collaborative supportive way. So it also
160allows for some interdisciplinary work that we might want to do around curriculum enhancement and enrichment. Um and um we know that uh we know that also it allows us to have um more opportunities for the team to coordinate around single groups of students depending that as I mentioned before whether it's intervention or enrichment um that would be um beneficial to a smaller group of students rather than trying to coordinate for the entire school. Um so when you get to scheduling though right there's always a trade-off a give to get. So some of the limitations with the teaming model um is that it becomes very complicated. Um and when it comes to some of the special area teachers whether world language and um elective types c of t types of courses it does pose sometimes um
161structural scheduling components if you start breaking up the teams. So the middle school specifically is built on this teaming model and the sections function with rotating student cohorts. So for next year, the enrollment projections show that the cleanest option in order to maintain this model is eight sections per grade, which is 24 total um um and eight sections per grade and seven and eight across all for seven and eight. Six sections in grade two, which is 22 total. So a reduction of only two sections overall would actually create a like a rethinking of the structure of the teaming model. um you could look at different grade levels, but then if you start restructuring the grade levels, you're starting to get into how our support specialists fit into those schedules as well. So sometimes if you
162want to shift the structure just looking at the core content areas, you tend to potentially increase the number of support you need in the special areas in order to ensure that as Erica mentioned, ensure that students have access and equitable access to other programming beyond the core areas. So that's what our overview shows uh that we requested 24 total core subject areas and and I believe it's reflected on page 78 in the budget book. Um and uh the structure is organized by grade u around those cohorts as I as I mentioned and therefore the budget request for the 2627 school year is based again on those medium enrollment projections which would require approximately eight cohorts per grade. And if we reduced it by two sections, 22 core subject classroom uh teachers, that means a reconfiguration
163of the teameing uh within a within a grading model into that triad model that you're talking about before, which then breaks the structure and the and the whole um benefits of the teaming model in that building and potentially the scheduling um implications that result in it as well. Jason, do you want to add anything to this piece of the puzzle? >> Yeah, the only thing I would say and I thank you for all that. I agree with everything that you said in terms of why the the teaming model as it exists is um is important and why, you know, I strongly support it. Um the other thing that it allows us to continue with is is this workshop class. So teachers each have four sections um of an academic subject that they teach. workshop is
164their like their fifth class. Um, currently it's it's really it's a it's it's a combination of enrichment. Um, and sometimes in it's also sometimes used for things that they don't necessarily have the time to cover in the regular curriculum like as they're going through the curriculum. So, um, it's also used for extra help, but we have some ideas um, and how we want to use it even more robustly going forward. um including and we started some executive functioning um classes this year using that block um which we want to expand. Um we also have some um seal work that we want to continue to do. You know the uh the uh culture uh at the middle school and the community that we're trying to create um and enhance this could be a real opportunity for
165us to use that workshop block for that as well. So, I don't know if we went to 22 sections. I don't know what it it would become a scheduling thing. I don't know what that would do to that particular block and how that would work. I would also uh like to reiterate something that was said about the elementary school. If the idea is that um teaching multiple subjects at the fifth grade level, the content becomes more and more sophisticated. Um if we went to some sort of a triad model in sixth grade, the teachers would have to teach more than one subject. So it becomes more and more uh content heavy and sophisticated to do that. So that's something that would make it a little trickier. Right now they're really content specialists along with um
166you know working interdisciplinary and and really being experts in kids this age. So that would be my add-on. >> Thank you Jason. any other So, that was kind of our summary regarding the middle school um teaming structure and the implications about reducing sections. It's it's a lot more complicated than just uh reducing the numbers. Hey, any questions? All right. Um All right. Thank you. Um and uh Jason, just picking up on the academic workshop. Um that seems like um there's a lot of um potential there. And I'm glad to hear that. um you know looking at the the content of of um and trying to um perhaps u make that a little bit more structured in some areas. So thank you for that thought. >> Yeah. >> Um and I think I understand you know
167you either have a whole team or you don't have a whole team and it has to come in in clumps of four. Am I right there? Okay. >> Pretty much. Yeah. Yeah. >> Okay. I'm just trying to like follow it all. Um okay so um if there are no more questions around u middle school teameing and resulting class sizes um I'm not sure what was remaining for today if anything there are two more questions in this enrollment classroom section >> space um so if if everybody's good we can continue if not this would be a good place to pause and we can resume responding to questions at the next meeting. >> Okay. Um I'm all right, but I'm looking at board members whether um more of you need to peel off or not. >> I
168I just need to I just need to log on and and see what's going on with work and if if I do have a conflict, I'll jump off, but if I don't, I'm happy to stay. >> Okay. >> Yeah, I can stay. I have a hard stop at 12, but is that >> Okay. All right. Well, why don't we plunge ahead and um yeah, let's let's just do this. Uh we've got to come to um you know, the harder discussion in terms of um you know, the whole the whole package. So, let's get through some of the details. Thank you. >> Great. All right. So, David asked another question at the high school level now. Um he was asking about minimum enrollment and whether or not um is there a minimum enrollment required for electives?
169um and what that is to ensure we're getting an academic return on investment. So I'll have I'll start and of course you know uh Megan and Julie you're welcome to chime in of course afterwards. So um as you all know at the high school level there's elective offerings and we're we review those elective offerings annually. um those elective offerings if you're on the curriculum subcommittee. Uh we review those and and um go through them every year to look at student interest and try uh to ensure that we provide a robust program at the high school and we we look at enrollment as an important consideration across everything that we do. You can you could see that with all of our responses. Um there is a board policy that defines 15 as a minimum class size
170with flexibility when the nature of the subject is specialized such as advanced offerings or when the subject requires high levels of adult supervision. Right? So last night um for example last night talk Tracy talked about the pathways program. Okay. Um decisions to offer modify or pause a course are based on multiple factors. So as I mentioned we look at student interest uh need sometimes you know when when a state requires a certain course like personal finance like that take is taken into consideration as well alignment to graduation requirements as well because they do have to have a certain number of uh elective uh courses um staffing capacity. So, you know, how are we aligning and connecting what we currently have for resources in order to implement that new elective um department programming? We look at
171post-secary expectations and of course fiscal impact. So, our primary focus is ensuring that all students have access to the courses they need to meet graduation requirements. that's always you know a primary focus and at the forefront particularly in courses um where the uh credits are required in specific areas right um in these cases enrollment thresholds are applied with flexibility in some instances courses may be offered on a rotating or every other basis right so we don't want to dissolve the position the the course so maybe we offer it one year and then the next year we don't and then the next year we offer it again Um and that's helps support sustainable enrollment while also maintaining a high quality and rigorous programming offering um at the high school. Um student course selection data and interest
172trends are always reviewed on a yearly basis. The counseling department helps support that work. Um and that's part of how we look at scheduling and programming planning um throughout the yearly process of the program of studies and looking at the courses that we offer. And that's done. and the CILs help support that work in con in partnership and conjunction with our administrators at the high school. Um, and we're always looking to expand and strengthen our elective offerings. Um, while also weaving in the data that we gather and, uh, in conjunctions with the decisions that we make that best serve students and ensure that we are fiscally responsible while also making sure that the programming that we offer, that kids are interested in taking, and it's aligned to their career and college uh, pathways beyond Weston.
173Um, so Megan, I don't or Julie, I don't know if you guys wanted to add in anything around that question around minimum enrollment for electives. >> Sure. I'll just add that um our course selection process starts the end of January and continues through the spring and we are always analyzing student wants and student needs. So, in our program of studies, you'll see um I think Tina mentioned it. We have classes that we have said, "Okay, based on enrollment, we're going to offer access to this class every other year." So, we have classes such as AP Chemistry, um, AP Musicics theory where you may see that there's lower enrollment, but we also believe that those are really crucial classes as students begin to plan for their post-secary experiences and to make them really healthy, viable candidates
174to the institutions that they're applying to. Um, additionally, we have consistently the last couple of years, we have had more interest in classes than we have had sections to run. So, we're also very mindful of the age and grade of the students who have interests. So, there may be courses for example like a creative writing where we have number we have more students that are interested in taking the class than we have sections. So in that case we prioritize our upper level students who have a limited time to have that experience knowing that sometimes our 9th and tth grade students will have more time to have that access to that class. So we are trying our best um and as you know the the enrollment of the high school is not clearly indicative of the
175number of sections we need. It certainly is in certain grade level courses um like an English, like a science, a biology or chemistry, but as students age into high school, they often we have eight periods in a day. Students often want to fill those eight periods. They have a wide of wide array of interests. And we do want to treat 9th and 10th grade as those survey opportunities where they can take a multitude of electives and then they're honing their interests and skills. um because some are also trying to figure out what they want to major in, you know, and what school that they might want to apply to upon their exit from Weston High School. So, it it's sometimes we have numbers to help us predict um and we are we are always having
176to make those hard decisions. I can tell you we had more students last year who were interested in taking classes in the arts than we had classes to provide for them. So, it it is um there's a lot of decision-making and a lot of conversations and often a lot of conversations with students and families that have to come as a result of um some of the constraints in our scheduling. >> Thanks, Megan. David, I know you were the one that started this question. I just want to make sure that um it it fulfilled your um the response fulfilled your your question. And is does anyone else have any follow-up questions? It it did. Thank you. It's sort of my go-to question every year because it's it's a check and balance for us. Um I don't
177have any other questions on this topic. >> You know, and I I agree it's a check and balance for us. I have to say that there are times where I take a look and I see some of the other some other high schools and some of their offerings and I'm jealous. I'm jealous that we can't we just don't have the population to offer some of those classes, too. So, you know, the small class size, as much as, you know, we're kind of like trying to be fiscally responsible, it's it it hurts. Um, I think that when we're trying to give our students the depth and breadth of the education that we want to give them to make sure that they are highly competitive students, you know, in the university setting that we have to make
178some of these smaller classes available to them, especially some of our um top performing students. So, it's actually all students, but those top performing kind of really, you know, Yeah. Anyway, So I do have a follow-up question. So I I heard two divergent stories here. One is we don't offer AP chemistry every year because only three or four kids really like elements and molecules. So therefore, why are we throwing an expensive teacher at a few kids? So that's our fiscally responsible let's just get six, nine or 12 kids because it's a less cost per kid for that teacher class that diverges with AP psychology or the arts where 80 kids want to take that we have two teachers. We're busting at the seams, right? I mean that meets the metric of really low cost per
179kid educational offerings. So maybe I suggest we consider start going back to what I think Lisa Lu's kids had the benefit of having night school. If you have night school, right, you can offer AP chemistry every year. It's not a scheduling complex and the three, four, five, six ambitious kids can do what they need to do that year. But you can also offer more sections of AP psychology, the fine arts, and I forget where the other big popular class was, maybe government. So, uh, it seems to me that solves most problems in not starving kids that are ambitious of their class that year, satisfying really curious kids that want to take some interesting classes, and not disrupting 7:30 to 3:30 scheduling. That's just my input for consideration. >> David, I appreciate that perspective. I I
180don't know that the Peter >> Peter Peter, I always do that. I am really sorry. I don't know why. Um >> but it's all right. And actually to go back to something David said, I actually was there when Tina was hired and we did the SIL program, but it's okay. I'm sort of invisible in the back now. It seems that that's where I've faded out to. >> I said that. I said that, Peter, not David. I said that. Sorry about that. Sorry. You're right. My bad. >> You were here with us the whole time. >> But I'm I'm gonna ask a question, Megan, before you get into it. Lisa, your children benefited from this night school. Is that correct? >> So, it was a a very competitive class. Um, and it was it was uh
181around the teacher had uh after my youngest took him retired, but he was a class and it was very competitive to get into. Um, the students it was a a pretty competitive uh process. It was a social studies class. um and they took it in the evenings >> and um so it was offered to uh because it wasn't offered during the day or because they didn't have enough space in the regular classes in the regular AP classes during the day that this retired teacher came back and taught it in the evening. Is that how it was structured? >> I just knew it as a very special class to get into. Um students had to have uh certain requirements to be able to get into it. Um, and for my my kids, uh, they really really
182wanted to take the class. >> And, um, do you know if it was just a one year that this occurred or was it multiple years? Is this a >> No, it was one. It was one year. >> Okay. >> One year. >> And because there's Peter, I understand. And trust me, in a world of kaleidoscope, what can we grab and what can we keep? That's great, but we're that's adding cost in right now if we start, you know, opening up the schools at night and having a class at night and things like that, too. So, I'm I'm hesitant to to add to the budget for night classes. Um, I hear you. And as far as offering um, you know, students classes that they want to get into and not having to wait another year to
183take AP chemistry, but at the same time, >> we just have to balance at this stage. Lisa, you were saying, >> yeah, have we considered, you know, Zoom classes? Right now we we have um students have the ability to take uh college classes um computer classes um learning at their own pace um and completing them and sometimes you can offer class periods where student 20 students are in a classroom supervised by um a pedagogue to support their learning. but they're taking different um subject areas in that one class. Do we do we offer that? So, Lisa, I really appreciate everybody's thinking. Um I I think we're all on the same page. Um I can give the example of our jazz ensemble as a class that occurs um at night. It is 02 of a teacher's
184um teaching, you know, full-time equivalency. And that is really because students may also be taking other classes during the day and truly can't fit it right in order to um really have a really amazing jazz ensemble. And so that is something that has kind of been built into the architecture of Weston High School. Um the online courses, Lisa, that you're talking about, we've partnered over the years with Apex. Apex has now um been bought by a larger company, Edenum. And so this year, we're really embedding some of those courses and giving students some access. Um our goal, and I'm partnering with Dr. Henle on this, is to really look at how we can provide access. You know, sometimes students have free periods in the day or they have free time opposite health or PE or
185their labs or those moments in the day that students may be able to take an elective course that they may not have access to. To Sharon's point, like we have stu I know in area high schools, my stu my one of my children is actually benefiting from a business program in an area high school that we just don't have the capacity um to start here yet. um I say yet um because it's a hope and a dream but that's where we may be able to we have some students who are about to engage in an accounting class online you know and so depending on um what our capacity is and what our budget is for that online environment for students um and how we're determining um who needs um and who maybe wants access to
186some of those. So that's something that's an on uh going conversation at the high school. Yeah, if I could just add one more piece here because we too and Peter, you're always thinking outside the box and I appreciate that. We are always thinking outside the box too to meet the needs of the of our students. Uh because at many times like Megan said, it's individualized. We do have a policy, it's policy 6146.2 for students to earn credit for online courses. um they need to be pre-approved and we are open to that dialogue and that discussion when it comes uh ahead uh in front of us and our director of school counseling who helps support this work as well as well as our um college and career counselor. we are in uh ongoing conversations around what
187are the opportunities, how does it connect to graduation requirements and how does it um support um the students uh credit and transcript in order to get them approved. So, I want to make sure for those that are listening if that's um an an area that they're interested in, they make sure they read that policy because there's some pre-work that goes into that before we move and go down that road. And just my final thought in terms because we highlighted AP chemistry specifically that really is a result of the requests that students are making and the students when they get to 11th and 12th grade they have um a number of AP courses in each content area that they can choose from. So we're basing it not on availability and the constraints of the schedule when
188we say we're going to offer a class like that every year. We're basing that on the number of requests like historically evaluating that year-over-year. >> Yeah, I I think that's um you know a mark of being efficient um and working with a small environment um because and it does take some student planning you know just looking ahead um AP CM I'll take it as a junior or a senior um so I think that's a great way of being efficient and still maintaining program. um Lisa's ideas and Peter's ideas about sort of going outside the lines I think is great and I think um just like uh Jason indicated that he's looking at the um academic workshop at the middle school level you know seeing what other um aspects of of students um interest and support
189needed I I'm trying to suggest that I think at the high school such as Wilton because we are small that we absolutely need to start being a little bit and I think maybe it's good for all learners no matter the size of the high school to be a little bit more creative um with not only online but perhaps more internships um more um uh independent studies um smaller groups um you know that don't meet at you know get beyond the everyday inside the school um classroom idea I think you know we have a great environment to be creative. Um, not this year, not right now. Uh, but I just think for future planning, let's look at, you know, different structures for offering high school programs. Um, and Megan, you know, you mentioned a pathway through
190business. I mean, whatever it is. and Peter's always doing the um this the STEM um interests, you know, like how can we augment the tremendous teachers we have and the personal environment and be creative within that, you know, kind of try to take advantage in a way of our of our size. Uh if we talk about personaliz personalization on the social emotional level and the academic progress level, maybe we could think about it in terms of the learning spaces as well. So, okay. So, where are we with questions? Sorry, >> more and I'm giving it back to Erica. That con unless anyone has any questions on on David's David's question. Um, we had one more here and Erica was going to take the lead on that. >> Yes, this is the last question of this
191section. So, we will be completing an entire section uh before moving on at our next meeting. David, you asked where does declining enrollment show up in the budget and what you mean by that is the private sector. When there is less demand for something, you generally see a scale back in resources providing the services. So, um I think I shared in the board of education presentation on the enrollment slide that small enrollment decline such as the net loss of 34 students for next year across preK12 does not automatically result in um staffing or classroom section reductions. Um, sometimes unlike the private sector where you could have a decreased demand that leads to immediate reductions in production and staffing, school districts operate with fixed costs and ongoing service obligations that are not always reduced by minor
192short-term enrollment changes like 34 students. Um so even with a modest decline um you know we've been we remain legally obligated to provide instruction uh special education services related services and tiered support as Tina alluded to today for all students and we know that enrollment is fluid throughout the year and so students may leave and students may come in and the students who come in may have significantly ly higher academic, behavioral or specialized needs than those who move out and that could increase the cost despite a lower overall overenrollment. So, as a result, um staffing and spending decisions don't always align directly with enrollment totals or headcount. I know we heard from Tracy last night and she talked about the shift in trends and the increase of the number of special education students that we're
193seeing in district. Um and so that's a factor to consider. So one other thing I just sort of wanted to expose here was in addition most of um employee costs for us are governed by collective bargaining agreements with salaries and benefits and you know working conditions that are negotiated over for multi multiple years. um some private sector um corporations and employers have um more flexibility in the way they compensate or bonus people. Um and it's just difficult for us to adjust staffing or compensation in response to these small enrollment shifts. Um and we're really our goal is to maintain stable staffing to meet contractual legal and educational obligations. happy to entertain any additional questions specific to that. Um I think and I I um asked Phil about this um last night um because we've we've
194heard the concern that hey when our enrollment was X we had 100 teachers and now our um enrollment is less than X and we still have 100 staff I'm I'm sorry staff members. Um I think it might be important if we could get it on one place to show that that yes, you know, maybe the total number of FTE across the whole district is steady, but within that there have been changes because of a um expansion for instance of special education staff in order to try to maintain as many students in district as possible. Um there have been the implementation of the sills over the last few years. Uh classroom teachers have um declined uh based on enrollment. So there have been ups and downs um in the different categories and and some additions. So,
195I just think it's it's kind of important to try to understand those changes over time. Um, that just 10 years ago our enrollment was whatever and look, it's 10 years later, we have fewer kids, but our FTE looks about the same. So, that's kind of a legitimate concern. But then when you think, oh yes, that that was in the day before we had security officers or that was in the day before we had more in-house programming for special needs or that those were the days before we had the Sills. Um, so I just think we need to kind of try to um capture that and I think Phil said there there are slides or charts that might be able to kind of put that picture together as well. So Erica, that would be my only
196suggestion to augment um what you just said. Um so uh and then you know let's um we have five minutes left. Uh the question came up early and will probably continue to come up early. um is okay. You have a smaller student body and you still have a lot of what seems to whatever the writer might be thinking about a lot of administrators. So the question is kind of like do we have the right number of administrators um have we how do we look at that and um you know how do we deal with that? So, if you can't do it right now, that's okay. But I I do think that's kind of an annual question. Um, in every single district, uh, just because I've had that experience, it's always you must have, you know,
197administrators that, you know, you don't need because your enrollment just went down. So, I understand the question. Um, and I'm looking for, you know, let's provide a robust, um, answer. >> Yes. If not today then then you know shortly down the road. >> Yes, I think some of those questions are included in our next section which is the staffing and Deb I think you and other board members had submitted questions around you know the number of administrators and you know the implications for reducing that um and what that means. So we can certainly explore those um responses further at the next meeting. >> Okay, that's perfect. Um all right so then we have gone through the questions scheduled for today. Um thank you again um Erica and all the principles and the entire staff. Um
198this takes a tremendous amount of work to uh compile and um and organize and make it comprehensible to people outside of the field without the technical knowledge um and stay on topic and uh but yet you know answer completely as well. So thank you all very much and I honestly forget when our next meeting is but I'm sure Jody will let us know. And so do I have a a motion to adjurnn? >> So moved. >> All right. Everybody wants to adjourn. All right. All in favor? All right. Thank you all.