001okay we're live thanks Dan uh good excuse me good evening everyone it's February 24th 20125 it's 7:02 in the evening uh this is a regular meeting of the Western Connecticut Board of Education uh the first item on our agenda um is a call to order we have a quorum uh and the second is Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all item number three are our student Representatives hi everyone um unfortun J could not join us today because she's um still out on break looking at some schools so it's just going to be me today um so we have a couple updates uh for you guys uh first
002we're going to start off with um some athletic wins that we've been having it's been a great past couple weeks for um Western Athletics uh our boys basketball team had a really big win over massic the other day which brought them to the semi-finals um one highlight uh one Junior Colin Kyle made a halfcourt winning shot which got the team featured on on both ESPN and House of highlights Instagram page which has over 52 million followers and it's brought a lot of great attention to the basketball team and to Western Athletics as a whole um Additionally the track teams had a lot of excess this week with the boys 4X 800 relay taking second at the state op Open Championship um and that's bringing them to Nationals so it's pretty cool um and the girls
0034x400 relay also play six which is going to bring them to New England so good luck to both of those teams um we also had our Super Bowl food drive before break uh we actually had a much bigger turnout than we expected and we were able to donate over 800 pounds of food to the person personto person organization uh we had a representative from personto person speaking at our pep rally the other day which I'm going to move on to next uh we she yeah she spoke to the student body and that's kind where everyone brought all the food that they that we collected together and it was really amazing to see that all like in one place um the students really enjoyed the pep rally uh we had a students versus teachers basketball game
004which people really liked we had a freshman who made a half court shot at the end and everyone was kind of just going crazy for that he I don't know probably made his whole year mean like people were losing it um we also had our town talent show our first ever talent show on the Friday before break uh this was entirely student ran and organized and kind of wanted to give a special shout out to our senior class president cat day she really took the lead on that um found all of our participants and really just yeah she really organized that whole thing we enforced a no phone policy um students were told to leave all of their belongings in their classrooms before we they headed to the talent show and surprisingly this was uh
005upheld very well I didn't see a single phone out the entire time and it was a we it was really helped give a lot of respect to the performers and um you know made it made it feel a lot more supportive and encouraging for them um one highlight from the talent show we had one of our very own seniors Clara chees she's a juliard pre-ol student um and the 2020 National young Arts violin winner and she performed an entirely memorized like 10minute piece on the violin it was pretty insane um but yeah overall we received a lot of positive feedback from the student body and it was a really great way to kick off February break um that's it for updates uh we look forward to this upcoming week and getting back in school and
006updating you guys soon so yeah thanks do you mind if I ask you a question question Emily how do how do how do your fellow students feel about the celf phone ban during the day um I feel like well I don't know in my classes specifically it doesn't really seem to be a problem I think it depends on the teacher cuz some teachers enforce it more than others um but the teachers that do enforce it no one has ever really trying to like sneak in their phones or anything like that no one's ever arguing back but I think most kids don't have a problem with it I mean I'm a senior so I think you might have to ask a freshman or sophomore about that because I think it the consensus seems to be a
007little bit different depending on the age group but you know as for what I've seen it hasn't been that much of a problem well great well thank you anybody else have questions or comments for Emily Emily thanks a lot Emily nice job I'm gonna just add we had some wrestlers go to the state tournament too oh sorry I forgot it was a late development in the weekend so it didn't make my week ahead so that's not on you Emily wow right thank you for having me no thank you uh so item number four is the approval of the minutes uh the first are the meeting minutes from the January 16th 2025 uh Weston Board of Education special meeting that was one of our workshops are there any uh changes to the minutes if not may
008I have a motion to approve so moved is there a second I I all those in favor say I I opposed uh the next item 4B is whoops is an approval of the minutes from the January 21st 2025 Western Board of Education executive session any changes or a motion to approve speak okay is there a second you have to talk you know you know is there a okay there we go all those in favor I I I'm gonna say I was not present thank you David uh forc is approval of the minutes from the January 21st uh Western Board of Education meeting are there any changes to the minutes motion to approve so moved is there second second thank you all those in favor say I I I I the next is D the approval
009of the minutes from every time Jody changes I have to go right back and resc scroll approval of the minutes meeting minutes from the January 23rd 2025 Weston Board of Education special meeting it's our second public form uh any changes to these may have a motion to approve so moved is there a second second all those in favor I uh e is approval of the minutes in the January we've had a lot of meetings approval approval of the minutes meeting minutes in the January 27th 2025 Western Board of Education special meeting and that was a workshop as well any changes to those may I have a motion to approve so moved is there a second second and lastly f is approval of the meeting minutes from the January 28th 2025 Western Board of Education special
010meeting uh the approval and the adoption of the fiscal year 2026 recommended operating and capital budgets May any changes to those if not may have a motion to approve moved second second all those in favor I I we'll move on to public comment and uh we read a a statement ahe of public comment at every meeting the board welcomes the opportunity to hear from members of the public about matters concerning Western Public Schools public comment is an important chance for the board to receive input and feedback from our school Community we listen attentive attentively uh to all comments shared while we value and pay close attention to public comment it is our practice to not respond substantially or sometimes not at all during public comment there are several reasons for this first engaging in a
011discussion on non-agenda items could violate the board's obligation to comply with the Freedom of Information Act second the board or the administration may not be prepared to discuss certain matters raised in the first instance by a public comment and third the board develops its meeting agendas carefully to ensure the board addresses matters that are pressing or relevant at the time of the meeting we encourage members of the public with specific questions concerns complaints about our schools to reach out directly to the superintendent you may also email the board at our email address Board of Education westonps.org additional details and public comment at board meetings can be found on the school website as well as our bylaws uh Jody I do not have any members of the public um as attendees right now so we do
012not have any public comment great move on um let's move on to Old business uh the first item on Old business uh is an update on the uh superintendent search um and uh Julie do you want to lead this discussion with our Consultants sure thanks Steve um so as as the board knows and as the public is aware uh we have contracted with Consultants from school leadership LLC and those Consultants are joining us this evening we have Dr Martin Brooks uh and Miss Reena beer uh here with us and um they put out a survey that many many respondents uh participated in prior to the February break we had respondents from the community uh students uh staff as well as um families and we also had a number of focus groups uh as well as
013a public forum on Thursday February 13th so our Consultants have compiled all of that information and um and created what they're calling a candidate profile which they're here this evening uh to reveal to us and for the board to uh discuss and ask questions of uh and so Marty Reena I would uh turn it over to you thanks so much Julie so I'm going to share my screen we put together a brief PowerPoint and it really is just a consider it a highlight reel there are far more details which are contained in the specification development report which following the meeting and the approval of the specification s uh we'll provide to the district so that can also be posted uh for the public to see under the superintendent search tab um so let me go
014ahead and try to share my screen and as I'm doing that um for those of you who haven't met uh Marty and myself Marty do you want to just introduce yourself hi everybody I'm Marty Brooks um I know many of you I think actually all all of you uh through my work in the Tri State Consortium and prior to that I was a superintendent of schools on Long Island for 16 years Reena do you want to say a couple words about you yeah I'm trying to click and talk at the same time which is uh right I know the feeling you're just everybody could you see that okay um so my name is Reena beer and and um a former School Board president for a school board in Westchester County I've also served on Regional
015School boards Encompass encompassing three and five counties in New York state respectively and it's been wonderful um to get to know all of you and to uh spend the time that we did in Weston to speak with members of the community so I want to thank the board and Julie for setting up the meeting meetings and most especially to the community for their participation in these meetings and participation in uh our the survey so here's some information about the participants in the survey so as you could see we had 102 participants and a very robust response um it's a very engaged Community we had 437 survey responses and you can see from this um you could see from this list I'm not going to read through it uh precisely who participated in those focus groups
016and forums so we asked each group the same questions in pretty much uh the same order and they focused on three essential things the qualities that and experiences that are most important for the next superintendent the strengths of the district in other words what would draw excellent candidates to apply so for example we're going to be contacting individuals who are probably very happy in their districts who've been very successful in their districts and when we're speaking about Weston it's important for us to get a sense of what are the key straints of the district why would somebody want to leave where they are and come to dis come to West um and the third question um has to do with the major challenges for a new superintendent now I want to be clear that it's
017not intended to do a deep dive as to what some challenges might be the question is really intended to inform uh but the interviews and our screening of candidates and to speak to them about some of the issues that they may be facing so our process is really forward-looking in terms of what can we do to bring the the next leader uh to Weston Public Schools um Marty do you want to speak about the survey results yeah so it may be a little hard to re read this um but there were uh five different um background character characteristics we asked about um and the one that came out the highest was a leader in impr improving and already high performing um dis District um prior experience as a superintendent of schools was important having taught
018was important being a school leader was important as as well so um that just gave us a sense of what people think the most critical background ex experience is then we asked the series of questions about different um different kinds of experiences that they think the new superintendent should have and I think four of them stood out um the first is curriculum and instructional knowledge and lead and Leadership including current research and best practice just about 60% said that a second was knowledge of budgeting finance and facility planning that was about 47% next was short and long range strategic planning was about 42% and the fourth one was collaborative and successful at building highly productive teams that was about 40% um so those are all key things that um people indicated it's important for us
019to look look for um in terms of breaking this down the numbers in the uh the right hand column add up to more than 437 because some people uh identified twice uh so they were heads of the ptas and parents um but we had a total of 4 437 312 of whom are residents with kids currently in in school that was the biggest group um member of the district faculty we had 70 of those and we had residents without CH children 53 of those and going to the first question that we asked the key strengths of the district um you will see these are again just highlights there were many key strengths of the districts that District that were mentioned and those are contained in the report these are the ones that seem to be
020mentioned the most frequently the first you'll see is a small District but the schools located on one campus that really is a unique feature of Weston with a personalized approach to education and a private school field we heard that phrase personalized approach to education mentioned many many times about among members of the community the other thing that we heard highly mention mentioned frequently was that it's a very engaged and supportive Community um and you can see the other ones here dedicated caring and well-educated teachers and staff um wonderful students High performing students we greatly enjoyed one of our focus groups was with a group of high school students and we really enjoyed our time with them they clearly feel as if they're very happy here they have found their place here they feel as if
021they belong here and that was all very good to hear and then the last one is that it's just an amazing place for somebody with a bold Vision that because of the size of the district somebody can really have an impact um especially with with all the schools located on one campus they could really bring something to the district these are a list of challenges that we heard um some of them I know the board and everyone has heard frequently they've been discussed at a lot of your meetings and that is the Aging infrastructure and Facilities maintenance and Improvement that's needed in the buildings that was something that we heard many times the lack of a commercial tax base one of the phrases that we heard is Weston is a wonderful community the school is
022the community there really is nothing else in Weston people have said to us despite the wonderful Deli lunch that we able but that we were were was ordered for us that there really is no commercial tax base which places much more of a burden on the town's residents so budget development was listed as a concern and financial Acuity was one of the things that was listed as a skill for the next Super intendent and you could see some of the other things that are mentioned here on this list now based on all of our based on on all of the feedback that we received from the community from the survey from the focus groups and forums we developed six specifications which will be used in the advertising of the position and also in screening candidates
023and in assessing candidates once the board starts to interview individuals Marty do you want to speak about these sure so I I just want to start by saying it's important to keep in mind that we ask people to look look ahead not back and um these six specs are not they weren't put to together because people feel that the the system currently lacks this in fact we heard a lot of uh we heard enormous appreciation for Lisa and the 40 years that she has put put in in there um this is about what happens next this is about um what happen starting July 1st 2025 so um these are these specs attempt to capture the spirit of what people shared shared with us including the B the Board of Ed first thing we heard is
024a bold Innovative and Visionary educator with deep expertise in curriculum instruction and social emotional development and how they combin to enhance student performance second is a passionate and inspirational advocate for Weston Public Schools commitment to success for all students and teaching Excellence who actively engages students and teachers in upholding high standards and expectations third was an enthusiastic and ethical leader who cultivates trust mentors and develop staff strengthens board governance and unites the school Community around a shared Vision that supports the district's mission next was a transparent and proactive Communicator who listens actively engages and connects with stakeholders seeks parent staff and student voice Embraces collaboration and explains decisions clearly through multiple platforms the fifth is a Strate a strategic leader with expertise in school Finance who ensures fiscal soundness and is skillful in working collaboratively
025with school and town boards in developing School budgets maximizing resources deploying staff and engaging the community in Long Range planning for the use and Improvement of fac facilities and last was a visible and accessible leader who is excited about becoming a member of the Western Community and who Embraces challenges as opportunities to elevate a high achieving District to even greater success so those are the six areas that um came through loud and clear um the these are the specs once the board adopts them that we will use in advertising and recruiting for this job um when we contact people as Reena said before we're going to be contacting uh people who may not be thinking about leaving where they currently are and we're going to be talking to them about both what the advantages of
026coming to Weston are and what the challenges are and it's always important to talk about the challenges because the the really topnotch superintendant embrace them they get excited about the kinds of issues that exist in a system um because it's important work for them to do so this gives you a sense of what we'll be talking with them about and our next steps we're hoping to have the official search launch um tomorrow um or at the latest Wednesday and what that means is that letters will go out to various organ superintendence organizations the job will be posted uh online so that individuals can apply the application process as many of you know takes place online we've also been actively recruiting individuals uh even before we came to the even before tonight's meeting we've just been
027placing informational phone call seeing if uh there was interest so and we're out the Outreach Target organizations are the letters that go out to various organizations and they're also posting on various organizations websites for example the American Association of school ad administrators New York State Council of school superintendents Connecticut Association of public school superintendents and uh edweek um has a national reach so this will be a a search that is National in scope and not just limited to the metropolitan area and let me close by just going over some dates uh to keep in mind the search will launch hopefully tomorrow the deadline for applying will be March 24th and um during that week hopefully on March 27th 26th perhaps somewhere around there Rea and I will ask to meet with the board and present
028a slate of candidates for the board to meet with we will present the paperwork of everybody who applied um it's up to the board to decide who you wish to meet with we will re recommend people who we think meet the specs best um generally it's in the area of five to seven or so CA candidates and we are hoping that you will be able to do that during the week of March 31st um once the semifinalist have been in interviewed uh it is likely the board will want to invite two or three candidates back for a second meeting we're hoping that occurs during the week of April 7th and then the schools are closed the next week I think the April 14th week is when schools are closed um and during that week we're
029hoping that uh during the week of April 7th after meeting candidates a second time the board will settle on somebody to offer the position to and during the week that school is closed um the background checks can occur references can be called the criminal and financial background check can be done um and the beginning of working on a contract can occur and um optimistically we're hoping that the board will be able to appoint the new superintendent uh the week of April 21st any thoughts questions com comments C can I ask a question on the survey um just in terms of the response do you view that as a you know a good response from a community the size of Weston very good okay it's important to yes to get as much Community involvement as we
030can yeah are there other comments or questions from the board no um we have two motions in there relating to this Steve we do don't wait one second I promise I didn't move the screen this time no I I notic I have them Steve if you want no no but first read Marty thanks a lot for uh you know for all of this we we're doing this very quickly uh as you pointed out to us um and I think I think the response in the community which is why I asked the question um I think surprised a lot of us uh at how many people how many people responded which shows the importance of the decision we're about to make um and thanks for the session we had uh you know a week or so
031ago um I thought it was quite informative and for those of us that attend these meetings there were I I think almost all new faces of the you know 12 or 14 people that were in there they're not the normal people who attend uh who attend our meeting so that to me was also a good indication of the interest the community has in this [Music] position so the um first motion is uh David you want to read the motion I mean I see it but you can read it sure move that the Western Board of Education adopt the six specifications contained in the specification development report as presented by school leadership LLC Sharon would you like to uh second that sure I second okay uh uh all those in favor please say I I I
032opposed uh the second David move at the Western Board of Education authorized School leadership LLC to arrange for publication of position advertisements as presented Sharon I second and all those in favor I I great well thank you looking forward to uh will you send us a copy of the first first uh ad that you that you run so we keep it there we go absolutely absolutely okay well thanks a lot thanks for thanks for attending our meeting thank you okay thank you all good night everybody have a good night let's move on to new business Lisa um actually it's under oh I'm sorry business but that that's fine because this is probably a long uh agenda item so it's this um time of year where we go through and give you sort of a a
033midyear snapshot it's the first checkpoint of where we are at a district just for our viewing audience to review the process so we have um we actually present our district Improvement plan in October we do um a check-in um in February we do um a wrap up in June unfortunately we don't have all of the scores in June and so we actually begin um September uh of uh 2025 with sort of um putting it all and and tying the bow on it um the closure when we have the uh the final scores with the asach and stuff so tonight is really um a midyear snapshot before we begin um you could just give me a second I um would like to share with something that went out to the community and it also went out
034to you um to the board uh right before the break and that is it's something um worth mentioning uh Harvard and Stanford have been working together on a joint project to measure the um effects of the academic recovery uh postco and I sent this actually out in our February update to the community they created an education recovery scorecard you know there been a lot of talk about what was the effects of the of the covid years on the cohort of students that um experienced that and one of the conclusions that was drawn was that um us students are a half a grade if not more behind in math and reading and the achievement Gap uh has widened across the country one thing that we should be very proud of in Weston was that this uh
035project also recognized there were approximately 100 school districts that have performed above pre pandemic levels and I'm so proud to report that Western Public Schools was one of uh four districts in Connecticut along with Wilton our neighbor next door as recognized as having achieved um uh above uh prepandemic um levels of performance and reading and math that uh is due to the commitment of the staff every day to really work hard through the pandemic with the support of the parents when I think back of what we as a community and what this country went through to continue to provide quality education to use our arpa money in the best way possible for intervention and everything else that that we should really um take a moment and be proud of of that academic uh progress in
036our community now as I said this is really the first uh checkpoint and there are some um positive uh progress points and also some areas uh in which we like to focus this process that I outlined that we do with our Improvement plan makes us accountable to the work and you know there's a certain level of Courage that comes when a district as the um the Consultants to hire the new superintendent said this is a high achieving district and yet how do you um raise that level of performance and that's what what they're clearly looking for for us to continue that work and and it takes courage to put out there that we are going to look at this data we are going to look at it as a district we are going to look
037at it in subgroups we are going to look at it um in specific grade levels or a course that we may be concerned about because that's the personalization of the approach that we take in Weston to figure out how we can move each child forward I talked a lot about that um through the budget process how can we Empower them to grow to achieve success so um this will take us about 20 minutes minutes to go through um the entire team will contribute I I would ask you to please hold questions um to the end um and again these are uh the academic pieces about formative um assessments testing next slide please all of this is posted on the Weston website if you go under District information we encourage you to look at the district
038Improvement plan there's also one for each School next slide we have six areas of focus that we will uh take us through next slide and there are three questions that we are kind of looking at uh overarching questions how far have we progressed towards our spring 2025 goals what key data points are um informing us to help us understand our progress and also to then guide our Focus moving forward you know a lot about it is is about what growth we've achieved and how we can leverage that um in the next uh several months uh before the end of the school year at this point I'd like to talk it over uh turn it over to Dr Tina hle who will take us through specifically the um academic progress in the area of math language
039arts and science Tina great thanks Lisa good evening everyone um so as Lisa mentioned you can go to the next slide Dan the first section of our midyear snapshot is probably our Mo most in-depth analysis as we review our district goals in the areas of math literacy and science so for those of you that might be new to our conversation about how we create our district goals we look at benchmark assessments three times a year to support our predictions on state mandated assessments um here I've highlighted the district level uh goals that are organized into two categories achievement goals and growth goals the achievement goals are are highlighted in yellow and the growth goals are highlighted in green um you'll see that our school goals are um also organized in a similar fashion if you
040go to the website and look at the school Improvement plans as well for the purposes of this evening we are really focusing and zooming in on our district goals um in addition over the past few years we've included a growth goal focusing in our subgroup population which is within our with our students with disabilities which is located in the green area which is noted uh in the last bullet of our growth goal so in the areas of mathematics our goal is to ensure that all students deepen their conceptual understanding of math and see themselves as capable mathematicians our district achievement and growth goals are grounded in our uh nwaa nwaa map assessments and the we've used this assessment historically um as a prediction tool for smarter balance balanced and sat the smarter balanced and sat
041goals are not highlighted because as Lisa mentioned earlier um we do not have that data until um the summertime and we we report out on that on those goals in September um so overall um we have currently 88% of our students in grades K through two that have met on grade level expectations based on the NWA assessment so you can see that we've already exceeded um our end ofe goal for grades K through two um hang on one second Dan sorry just slide back and then um within our ninth grade uh group our goal was that 79% of our ninth graders um met the NWA assessment in the spring and we are currently at 76% of ninth graders meeting that winter assessment um I just wanted to also uh give some reflection on the 80%
042and the 71% for the growth goals we're currently at 68% of all all students in grades 1 through nine that have met their growth targets for the end of the year and um we are at uh 62% for students with disabilities um growth to growth goals at the end of the year uh for grades 1 through n so we look at our district goals and then of course we unpack that a little bit further and so Dan's going to move us to the next slide where we unpack each individual grade level a little bit more explicitly so we can talk about more strategies and look at our action steps and see how those um connect to those goals over time so overall um our our targets when we look at achievement and growth are inclusive
043of all students so this slide encapsulates um all students which includes our students with disabilities as well as our multilingual Learners um and we look at last year's achievement when we when we look at Trend data and we develop our goals for the following year um you'll notice that some grades um use assessments like wa or curriculum based assessments um these tools are intended to help us make stronger PR predictions or correlations to assessments um within the district so that we can be more accountable for um the state assessments such as smart AB balanced ngss or sat um you'll see that um our early elementary students are demonstrating really strong growth where we have 96% of our kindergarteners meeting grade level expectations in the winter and 89% in grade one uh grades one and five
044as a reminder they're in their first year of their new new Core math program which is illustrative math and we've been working hard to ensure grade level pacing and our grade level standards are being taught in a problem-based and student- centered way with our staff and um within grades three and four we've really been remapping um some of our priority standards to ensure while we're waiting for that transition for next school year to implement our new Core math program we're ensuring that all teachers are meeting those grade level standards and we've seen a lot of great growth from fall to winter as well you can move on to the next slide um in middle school and um at the high school level we've shown some really study improvement with grade eight achievement moving from 77%
045to 84% grade six is in their second year of the illustrative math implementation and grade seven and eight are in their first year um something that we made an adjustment to um this year which is a little different than what we've done in last year in grade nine we looked at our fall data and we noticed that we were pretty close to our endof year Target uh in the fall we had 76% of our grade n students already meeting um the um the achievement level uh based on the NWA score and so we unpacked that a little bit further our goal was 79% for the end of the year we decided to drill into that data a little bit further further and we decided to make an adjustment and really um zoom in on our
046Algebra 1 cohort um so while this is not a specific goal uh we wanted to show that we really do strategically look at our data and make adjustments um so we can hone in on specific areas and Target um growth and achievement over time and so uh we wanted to call out some of that data from fall to winter specifically with our ninth grade algebra 1 students and we're looking at um individualizing student goal setting and unpacking that curriculum with our teachers a little bit further so we can um look at how that might be an area Focus from uh now until the end of the year you can move on to the next slide Dan where now we're going to zoom in on the uh subgroup data specifically as I mentioned with our students
047with disabilities and I'm going to have Tracy chime in on some of the work that we've been doing in that area thanks Tina good evening everybody as you know we developed subgroup goals a few years ago as part of our district and school Improvement plans and we're looking very specifically here at the performance of our students with disabilities across the district um you might remember from previous meetings that when we're looking at data for our subgroups we are looking specifically at individual growth targets and the percentage of students who have met um their individual growth Targets in a particular area in this case we're talking about the area of math um Tina just explained why there's the algebra 1 breakdown on this slide so I won't reiterate that our district goal was designed for grades
0481 through nine um so when we get to the end of the year that's how we'll how we will present the data um but you can see we're at 64% right now um in grades 1 through eight and the goal for grades 1 through n uh for the year is 71% so we are uh moving toward that and actually the algebra 1 data or the grade n data as outlined in the school Improvement plan was 50% so we actually meant that Target for that particular grade level but again that grade will be absorbed um in 1 through nine when we talk at the end of the year and I can turn it back over to Tina to talk about language arts before we do thanks Tracy um we just wanted to zoom in a little
049bit on some of our action steps within our within our district and school Improvement plans and how um this data translate into some action steps relative to Dan if you can move on to the next slide some of our key action steps and high leverage strategies that we believe are helping us return um some of our data results uh both both for um all students as well as students with with disabilities and so I'm not going to read each bullet here um but you can see there's a a trend around um providing ongoing parent informational sessions to strengthen that schoolto home Partnerships we've been going through over the last couple years since I've arrived a transition to new core resources throughout the district and so um it is important that we as leaders and as
050teachers and coaches we are regularly providing updates and strategies for parents we've gotten a lot of great feedback on those parent information informational sessions and evening events and we are trying to gather some of that data from our surveys to help us make adjustments to the way that we deliver those informational sessions as well we know that sometimes parent always parents always can't come on campus to the session so we're looking um to record some of our sessions post them online and even provide um uh virtual sessions as well throughout the district so we're going to continue that throughout the school year um we're also going to continue providing ongoing support to our teachers when it comes to those new resources throughout the school year and next year as well this is always an ongoing
051process because there's always something new to learn and and be at the Forefront of of evidence-based research and strategies uh for all students in the district and as many of you have heard we are always continuing um uh supporting and integrating the building thinking classroom strategies in our math classroom specifically um we've even started having conversations Around furniture and flexible Furniture in classrooms that really support a building thinking classroom environment so moving into the second domain of that first section as I mentioned this is probably the most uh in-depth analysis of our school Improvement plan this this first section which has so much uh robust information in it we move on to ELA um our literacy goal is to ensure all students reach grade level proficiency by grade three and continue developing critical thinking and
052writing skills through high school so here again our goals are organized similarly as we do in math with categories in achievement and growth for literacy however it's important to note that we use two different assessments many of you have been um on the journey with us as we transition to a new core resource for literacy part of that transition included a new assessment tool as well as part of a um the requirement by the state so we have transition to Dibbles 8 uh using the mclass platform and that assessment is in grades K through three that is new this year third grade um joined that K2 um implementation so we're going to report out in a minute on that um but it's important to know that Dibbles 8 is a foundational literacy um assessment it
053really measures achievement and growth in early foundational skills versus when we transition to the upper grades with NWA it focuses more on an in-depth assessment on comprehension so it's just important to know that some of these assessments um do measure very different things and so you'll see some of the differences around the data that we've seen here so um as we break down the individual grade levels um actually we could go back one second so overall when we're looking at our district data we had 85% our goal was 85% of students in grades K through3 by the end of the year we are at 88% currently in the winter in grades K through three for nwea if we look at grades 3 through eight I know that's not highlighted right now because that's based on
054Smart Balance but we use NWA as a predictor we currently have 72% of our students in grades three through eight in the winter meeting or achieving their uh grade level targets um and then in ninth grade we have 85% of our students um meeting the NWA um grade level uh goals uh at 60 first percentile so we're going to unpack that a little bit further especially with our students with disabilities as well as our growth goals on the next slide while we switching slides Chad just texted me I guess he landed he he needs to be admitted as a panelist I think he's listening so if someone could admit him then he can participate thanks Peter I think Jody can can add him in I've actually been trying to he seems to keep declining I'm
055I'm trying to text him but I'll work on it on my end all right so getting back to um literacy we've unpacked the early uh grade levels for you kindergarten through third grade um you can see that 87% of our kindergarteners and 93% of our first graders are already meeting grade level benchmarks based on the Dibbles 8 assessment in the winter remember this is the first year of administering uh the Dibbles 8 assessment electronically for grade three so we added that in this year and we've seen some great growth grow from fall to winter as well for grade three um moving into um the upper grades this is where we transition to using the NWA assessment again really really an in-depth assessment on comprehension and we look at the 61st percentile uh when we look
056at grade level standards and grade level achievement something to note um which gets a little tricky right this work is very complex and um sometimes is very difficult to explain when you think of the bell curve um if a student is in the 50th percentile they're on grade level but when we write our goals we look at those students that are at the 61st percentile we do that because the nationally Norm data provided by NWA uses that number as a predictive tool for State assessments like smarter balanced and sat so um I think it's important to note that um we've kind of moved that needle up even though the 50th percentile is technically on grade level achievement so even still look at that this great growth that we've had and a great achievement for um
057our students in grades 4 through n we do recognize that we want to zoom in in the Middle grades a little bit more as we move into the second half of the Year winter is always um sometimes a reflection tool for curriculum and making adjustments to curriculum I'll even zoom in on grade five grade five right now is in their first year of literacy adoption for the curriculum and um after reflection they recognized that some of their pacing was off and they want to really zoom in on some of the instructional strategies around the new cor program and so that's an area of focus that the curriculum and instruction leaders are going to be um working on as they move into the second half of the year um and so again we're going to move
058into the subgroup data and Tracy's going to talk a little bit around Literacy for that Tracy so again we are looking at the percentage of students who have met their individual growth targets you'll notice that this slide is broken up into two grade level bands um because the first grade level band is around the dibles assessment and um four through nine is around nwea you'll notice that the district goal is that 50% of our students with disabilities will meet their individual growth Targets on the nwaa which you can see we've met in that second row at this point in the school year um and obviously some very positive data for K through three on the dibles with 80% of students with disabilities meeting their growth Target on that assessment at this point in the school
059year uh tnl turn it back over to you thanks so um as we discussed with math we really want to talk about some of the action steps what are we doing with this data now that we have it um how are we making some adjustments to our practices or our our structures in the schools so we again have been um increasing that partnership between school to home and providing more American reading company training and support sessions for parents and what they can do at home to support um uh that love of reading and build some of the strategies uh that we use in the classroom also in home we've been working a lot with our curriculum and instruction leaders and our teachers and our interventionist around um our systems and structures to support interventions we
060want to continue working on that um at the high school level we've been expanding on authentic writing experiences through contests literary magazines and even student newspapers so we've provided some areas of focus there as well and last within this area um we want to focus on science um so our goal for science is to ensure highquality inquiry based science instruction aligned to the Next Generation science standards so this is a little different than Ela and math as you um may know science is a little bit more unique than reading and math because not every year um do we give a standardized assessment um at the state level we do it every every so uh few years and so there are no um growth targets when we look at um these goals we really look at
061um basically achievement and um so it's a little bit more challenging when we look at um specific predictability assessments to help us um determine where we are relative to some of those State assessments um so today we're going to focus a little bit on um how we have developed and implemented you can go to the next slide Dan um and evaluated our mid-unit and core course specific assessments we are really looking at adjusting curriculum and instructional practices in science and so um we've also been really focusing on integrating non-fiction articles to increase literacy across the content area specifically in science and so you might be wondering well how do we do that how do we measure student progress related to these action steps in science if we don't have the same metrics and it's a
062little bit more there's a gap in between some of those grades so with planning um we have a formative assessment tool we've talked a little bit about it in the years's past but we've uh provided a little more structure um over the last couple years we use a tool called inner orbit and so the next couple slides we just want to show you some quick snapshots of what we use or how we use this tool with our with our staff um you can go to the next slide um in uh the Next Generation science standards there's three layers of Standards the first layer we're giving you a snapshot here these are cross cutting Concepts um and we use these assessments with our secondary science teachers in grades 6 through eight within biology chemistry environmental science
063and even physics and it helps give us the teachers and the students a deeper understanding of how all of these layers of Standards work together and so we identify specific standards uh specific Assessments in the fall in the winter and in the spring and we analyze the data based on individual standards what's a little more difficult is that not every standard is assessed every time that you give an assessment so you'll can you can see here not every standard is mapped on a onetoone correspondence but where there are where there is clear mapping we can measure growth over time so you could see that um the colorcoded area the colorcoded key shows that we want all students to be in the yellow or the green and in this particular domain all of our students at
064the high school based on these two assessments um not only are in the green or the yellow but they've also grown in those areas so that's something that's very exciting and we continue analyze those individual standards um across the school year as we identify more assessments to use in this area um the next layer are the disciplinary core ideas um and this shows some more formative assessment data for our middle schoolers and the assessments that we chose in the fall and then again in the winter students on average were demonstrating Proficiency in all areas from the fall to winter um when we uh assess in the spring we're going to call back up that energy standard and we're going to measure that one again to look for growth and or progress um in that one
065domain and then last are our science and engineering practices um and this captures that last final layer of these standards and these practices are the ones that scientists use in everyday life and so we have a lot to celebrate in all of these content areas that we reviewed this evening because you can see that we've got a a lot of um yellow and green across the individual standards and across most areas we have improved students have improved um within those different domains and within those different standards um so the beauty of having quality formative assessments such as NWA dibl a in in and inner orbit is that we can make adjustments refine our practices and seek to use the information to be very proactive versus reactive in our approaches um and so that kind of
066gives a c encapsulating snapshot of some of our assessment data remember we don't just want to focus on assessments but we also want to zoom in on some of the qualitative aspects as well section two I'm going to transition now to uh District culture and climate um so beyond academics um as you know many of you that have been involved in um our subgroup uh committee work in in the curriculum area we also are fostering um you know more opportunities to build School climate between students Educators and families where they feel very supported and connected to our school and district and so these are some of the overarching key initiatives that we've been working on since the beginning of the year we've administered a new a climate survey uh called Panorama and we've uh explained
067and kind of demonstrated uh explained some of that data in our subgroup um committee work and we've also provided some professional learning opportunities on social media and the impact of social media to our our parents our families and our students uh we had our guest speaker come um max dosel back in November and we've also implemented restorative practices training um for all schools where uh we not only provided um some background information on some of the new school law but also how do we build and strengthen relationships through a restorative approach um and so these are some o District overviews uh strategies that we've done since the beginning of the year and our principles have done even more work beyond that and I want to give them some time to highlight some of their work
068as well so we're going to start with Laura and Patty if you don't mind um going to the next slide and kind of zooming in on some of the work that you've been working on thanks Tina so at herot we continue to focus on attendance and uh this year we really took a deep dive into the data and decided to shift our Focus from uh attendance to more of a focus on tardies uh we really want to make sure that our students are on time ready to start the school day our teachers frequently tell us how important is it is that students are there for the beginning of the day sets the tone for the day it's when a lot of that relationship building um it begins for the day and students sense of belonging
069and when students come in late and they miss that morning meeting and the unpacking and the setting up success for the day it really does have an impact um so that's a little bit more of a focus is this year and I've been sending out a lot of communication and information around that to families we also have been talking a lot about the new climate survey and the design and some ways that we can help our families and our staff understand when we go into the spring Administration um you know it's a little bit of a different design from the last one we used so we felt that that was really important and have some specific action steps around that to help us um we also of course want to keep well we did have
070um a very positive response to the survey we also have some defined action steps for how we can increase that even more looking in the spring because that feedback from our families and our staff is so critical and of course as Tina mentioned there is a continued um focus on creating a sense of student belonging and those adult adult connections and relationships and today was a perfect example our faculty was involved in an afternoon of restorative practices training which was um very valuable and teachers walked away with some strategies they can use tomorrow in the classroom so we were really excited about that and continuing a lot of that work throughout the spring and I'll turn over to Patty now great thank you thank you Laura um so um one of the focus areas that
071we're or one an area that we're focusing on actually I should say at whis is is helping us to continue to build that positive School climate and that sense of belonging um really making sure that we have opportunities for all students to be uh engaged and feel that they that they're a part of our school so one of the things that we really look to do it um and some of this came out of our survey results that we got and um from both the the parents and from the students is we're looking at increasing some enrichment opportunities for our students um we're we started a literary magazine we're um expanding some different um book club options this year as well as um doing some coding clubs so really trying to tackle and um provide
072lots of different areas for students to be involved and really feel that they belong in our school and we're doing the same also for our parents and our families as well so that making sure that there's opportunities for them to come in and to feel that they have a sense of belonging in our school um we've uh recently now that shelle rinus is back from her maternity leave we really opening up our our library our lrc a little bit more for parents to come in and help in a more traditional way of the library as well as other ways um and helping in our maker Tech and our maker play area so we've um brainstormed some some areas for parents to be actively more actively involved in our school as well um additionally um we
073were so happy last year to have our school our book vending machine and we we focus a lot on kindness and this year we've shifted a little bit we're talking a little bit more about the eye in Pride which is integrity and so our bookmark this year is I SPI the eye in Pride um which is um so students are being caught um showing Integrity they are getting that coin to get a book from the vending machine um and then we've talked about obviously a lot of Integrity that topic of integrity at our um different um School assemblies and um lastly uh last week the week before we went on vacation um a big thank you to the PTO um for bringing us this amazing uh program called grit ninja which really um that we
074the students heard about um their these two Ninjas came and that they competed on American Ninja Warrior and their experiences and how they really talked about um sometimes failure and having to set plans and how you grow incrementally and really it reinforced our um our desire for kids to really have that growth mindset and to build that resiliency and that you may not know something yet but you if you just keep working towards it um you will get there and so that was a wonderful program um and our teachers were also involved today in the restorative practice Workshop in the morning which was wonderful get more strategies to really help build that that really strong connected um positive community so that's what's happening at whis and I'll turn it over to Dan thank you very
075much Patty um good evening everyone it's a pleasure to be here and talk about some of the work that uh is taking place at the middle school um I think probably the biggest uh uh change to our culture and climate year was the successful implementation of our Yonder pouches to support the the distraction free learning environment um it really has been a game Cher um obviously it's not always perfect um we we do um yand pouch checks and inspections uh from time to time um and uh we'll continue to do that because sometimes uh students do need reminders but again I think I've said this already uh to some of you on this on this call uh the the positive feedback not just from teachers but also from parents um has just been amazing uh
076it's been it's it's been a game Cher for us I think one of the other uh new initiatives this year that's really been a positive is uh the introduction of the peer leader program that is uh a group of students who really support connections among students and among grade levels not only are these students who have helped out at our back to schoool night and who will help with our upcoming um you know spring transition from fifth grade to sixth grade they've also been doing some hype videos on our morning show uh which is again one of those touchstones for the school climate and culture at the middle school um I'm proud of the work that our staff is doing with the um the clubs the activities the advisories uh we really try to create
077something for everyone at the middle school um and we continuously look at our offerings in terms of the co-curricular activities uh and make adjustments but um you know from our short worth production this year to um the Robotics and the mock trial um everything um that I've seen with our our science clubs with the um the green initiatives and the Hydroponics Garden there's just a lot going on and it's opportunities first and foremost for for students to make connections not just with each other but also with um a caring adult so that's a quick highlight from the middle school and I'll turn it over to Megan for the high school thanks Dan um so if you remember back in the fall uh we had a hate-based uh vandalism um incident involving a swasa um carved
078on a locker in one of our team rooms um so it's always great when something really great can come out of something so horrible and we listened to our students back then and we were able to implement um an assembly taking a stance against anti-Semitism um which was really primarily organized run um by our Jewish student union and we're eternally grateful for the work that they did and the partnership with community members um Rabbi fredman and the ADL came and participated in that assembly I think that's a really great example of the power of student voice and trusting kids to make um pretty incredible adult decisions around some you know horrible incidents that can happen unfortunately um so that was a really positive thing again that came out of just the work that we've been
079doing in elevating student voice um another fun example of um that student voice for a couple of years now this started my first year with our school climate committee where students had said they really wanted to find a way to Showcase and highlight the talent of so many of our students and find a way also for our musical to um show all of the kids in the school either you know a couple of scenes or Acts or whatever or um you know an element of the musical to all kids and so Emily talked about Cat Day who's our uh senior class president and she really took the Reigns this year which was pretty amazing she um held auditions with teacher support there to support her she held auditions for our performers she um was she
080was sick the day of the talent show which we've just felt so horribly for her because she wrote a script for the entire talent show she was prepared to MC it um and it was just so amazing and Emily spoke to just the um support that the audience gave the Clapping to the the music that some of the kids were singing and it was just the the happiest time teachers came up to me afterwards and they said could we do that again and I said before June I don't I don't know if I can handle another one but we're definitely looking at doing a second inaugural because it really inspired a lot of our kids um to take a risk and we spoke to the students as Emily said again um the students in the
081audience about that respect and keeping the phones in the classroom because it takes a lot of courage to stand up in front of your peers um and share your talent whatever that Talent may be and it was just a really great showcase not only of the talented kids who are up on stage but our students in the audience and the respect that they gave um so a lot of this is also coming from um some of the work that we've been doing this year through our um School partnership program with the organization challenge success out of Stanford University you've heard me speak to it before um Brandon Wy our school coach came to the curriculum subcommittee meeting before break he was actually with us today in person uh he ran a teaching for engagement workshop
082with our high school staff and then we also broke up into action groups um we're trying to get off of the focus groups but just because we want to take some actions around certain key elements one of the topics was for us sa have today cell phones and kind of you know how we want to tackle that and then from there we want to really take that work and that feedback from teachers to our Student Government group we want to take it back to our ch challenge success team which is a small group of teachers students and parents so we have all stakeholders represented in that small group um and he's going to also be offering a virtual workshop for families we find that we get better attendance um from families when we can offer
083some of this programming virtually um so we are bringing back the well-balanced student Workshop which we did in person um at the beginning of last year and we had really great reviews and we think that the topic is still Timely uh very relevant and we think that um we'll get some great turnout in a in a virtual format um and ideally record that as well so uh families could access it that way so um we're really focused on this idea of the well-balanced student really diving into um helping students um Foster a sense of belonging in their school day being highly engaged in their classroom and then just that overall uh sense of again student well-being so um on that note I'm going to turn it over to Dan DeVito for information literacy thanks Megan
084so uh our overarching vision is to prepare our students to navigate the digital world responsibly while thriving in a globally connected Community for our younger students this approach ensures that our technology enhanced learning not only meets academic standards but also instills the values of responsible digital citizenship for our middle school students we've already kicked off digital citizenship learning in grade six with plans in grades seven and eight by the end of February meanwhile our library media specialist is actively advancing our Tech integration by exploring AI best practices through workshops and collaboration with staff and our high school efforts continue to focus on integrating isty standards into both assessments and classroom activities recently we've seen increased collaboration through targeted support in Health and Social Studies helping students refine important skills like Source evaluation and digital creation
085this makes sure that our students are not just consumers of Technology but are well equipped to innovate and lead in the digital age and with that I'd like to turn it over to Julie gavone who will be discussing Human Resources thanks Dan um so our goal in Human Resources uh mirrors very closely the district culture and climate goal and as you know it is to create and sustain a climate in which all members of our staff feel connected and supported as vital members of The Learning Community we really value the notion that a healthy and um respected staff uh give give more to our students every day so one of the major initiatives um as part of this goal this year for me has been to promote uh and Implement a series of opportunities to
086engage staff in their own personal Wellness um and that I've approached this in a number of ways we've been able to partner with uh Prudential Pathways to offer some Financial Wellness learning sessions um we had a very well attended session in November that was titled the road map to retirement uh and just recently we had one at the end of January um regarding investing for a solid financial future these workshops have been virtual um and have been held after school hours which allows for the participation of Staff members from various areas within the district we've also been exploring Partnerships around promotion of Staff members physical wellness in October as you know we partnered with the Weston Pharmacy to conduct a flu shot clinic it was the first time that we had one in District in
087a number of years and over 20% of our staff participated in that clinic which was awesome um in December we were very excited to welcome um some technicians from Spa flow to offer chair massages to our staff members uh just prior to the December break and that was um a very well received initiative we had over 40% participation of our staff um and in addition I want to highlight that coming up in March we have a professional development day on March 21st and it is being designed as a um conference style day where uh certified staff members will have opportunities to make choices about their learning and as part of those choices we are offering opportunities to participate in Wellness sessions during that day in addition to professional learning and notably I would like to
088highlight that we are partnering with our friends at the Weston Police Department to be able to offer um some learning around self-defense in addition to these activities I have been um putting out a monthly newsletter that is human resources focused uh to help our staff understand the benefits that we offer to them and to take best advantage of those benefits um to offer strategies and resources and promote productivity and wellness as well as to build connections amongst our staff we note often that we are a small District um located in a small stretch of Weston but notably there are many staff members who do not know each other across buildings or across departments so I've been working each month to highlight certain departments so that we can really kind of bring ourselves closer together um
089and I just like to note that the February edition of that newsletter is coming out tomorrow in addition to the personal Wellness opportunities a major action step within human resources and also within the office of teaching and learning this year has been our new evaluation plan for educators and leaders um we authorized a pilot plan for this school year and so as a result of that new plan we have been focused on providing training and support uh for the implementation of that plan as well as uh creating a system to gather feedback from our teachers from our leaders and from their evaluators regarding whether this plan is the kind of plan that we want to continue to use so notably we provided um Tina and I worked together to provide an orientation to all staff
090uh in August and September uh we have offered feedback opportunities for all evaluees both through surveys and focus groups in October following the goal setting period and also we're doing so in February um around the time of midye and uh we also took feedback from the evaluators themselves within the November leadership team meeting how is the plan working for you as an evaluator I would like to highlight that under the direction of Dr hanle our cils and administrators participated in a two-part workshop on um really focused on providing high quality feedback that took place in December and January and that collaboration of coming together our evaluators our administrator evaluators as well as our instructional coaches really coming together and looking at what does high quality feedback look like um I think was so important and
091critical for this work and just to remind you this is a pilot plan which we authorized for this year only and we will need to reauthorize prior to next school year and that's why it's so critical that we have been collecting feedback from all of our stakeholders in addition to the implementation of the new evaluation plan for certified staff I've also met with evaluators of our non-certified staff to talk about um recommended revisions for the evaluation process for those staff members so those meetings took place in October and January and we're continuing to refine what that process looks like for staff members including our administrative assistants par Educators uh it technicians uh custodial staff Etc and finally I just like to highlight that um one of the major action steps was a review of certain
092critical policies related to uh Personnel so the policy Committee of the board reviewed drafts of the Section 504 and non-discrimination policies for personnel at their December meeting I do expect that first reads will come to the full board this spring and in addition just in the recent February policy committee meeting I think we had a really productive initial conversation uh regarding the revision of our current civility policy and the drafting of an employee conduct policy which we do not currently have so it's been a a busy fall and I'm really pleased with where we are and I look forward to being able to update you in June and with that I have the great pleasure of introducing our new director of Safety and Security who's joining us this evening Mr Jim wizy Jim good evening
093thank you Julie as I begin my uh fourth week here as the new director uh with Weston I remain focused on assessing and evaluating our Safety and Security procedures to ensure the highest level of safety for our students and staff um to strengthen our partnership between the school district and the police department I've met with the police chief multiple times to discuss collaborative efforts and emergency respon response strategies this past week uh myself and Dan had successfully tested our emergency buttons and fobs in coordination with the police department and the emergency communications center additionally I had the opportunity to attend a Safety and Security subcommittee meeting thank you to Mr Guido for the invitation looking ahead we're planning a community meet and greet in March which will provide an opportunity for the public to engage
094uh with with me and learn more about our ongoing safety initiatives and I look forward to continuing this critical work and fostering a safe and secure environment for the entire School Community toss it to Lisa thanks Jim and we're at the end with the future planning section six um as we all know that uh we've been working on determining a plan for addressing the infrastructure and collaboration with the town um the Colliers uh group that we have been collaborating with um gave us projections of infrastructure project costs just kind of taking the data from as far back as 2017 and putting it in present and current uh dollars there is an um engineer structural structural study RFP process that we would like to complete this uh spring um Phil will talk about that a little
095bit um when he um speaks to uh Finance uh and operations and this the status of that as you know we need to um have a structural engineer evaluate um the viability of what we can actually uh the work that that we can do and that they can put their seal on at the middle school and finally we are in the midst of a capital budget uh prioritization when we met with the board of Selectmen they asked us to prioritize the of the capital projects um on that budget for the next several years um we all were aware that sometimes the timeline of when we get um quotes and information doesn't correspond to our budget timeline so tomorrow actually tomorrow evening we will be um meeting Mr Cross Mr D Mastro uh Mr Eis and
096I with the board of selectman to go over um uh some of those um areas that they that they wanted Revisited in the the capital plan and how we would prioritize that and make necessary um adjustments um as is our fiduciary responsibility is to the town and finally last slide I always like to end with pictures all right it's um it's all about uh what we do with the children on the campus it's you know I I see the pictures and I see a picture of the bus driver and I think of all the training that they go through and that they have gone through all semester you know they come over and they meet practically every other month and do training um the cafeteria staff the uh security Specialists the um maintenance Crew That's
097constantly uh making sure between the Heat and the cold and the indoor air quality and fixing and and repair um our campus is a very busy Place uh we work really hard to make sure that it is an inviting place in that the students and staff are comfortable and I think that um we are on a good trajectory clearly there's work that we have to uh look at in the upcoming spring um and what we need to focus on but this uh provides us a clear pathway moving forward thank you is there any anyone have any questions um we would be happy to answer any specifics comments feedback I know sometimes we've taken your feedback to present it in a way that is what I would call userfriendly um you know sometimes it gets very
098uh Technical and and the the late person that isn't familiar with some of the tests and and the things that we use between the dibles and all of that um I'm very conscious of the uh listening audience or you know it's recorded So if anyone would like to share something or um question oh sorry um Tina just really quickly um as I look at the goals here and sort of you know the um the achievement goals um for those for those students who aren't hitting the goals at at at what point so are the majority of them getting inter getting some sort of intervention and sort of when when does intervention become a consideration I assume intervention doesn't happen after let's say you know they have a they have a one-time score let's say um
099but maybe it's sort of trending over time how do you guys deter so who's getting intervention how do you guys determine when students get intervention yeah great question um so that's why these assessments um are multifaceted right we use them for a variety of reasons Dibbles 8 and NWA for example are two of those assessments that we use to support our decision-making process in the multi-tiered system of support which is what you're referencing multi-tiered system of support means um if we have students that are not meeting um not meet or approaching uh grade level standard then how do we respond um quickly so that we don't lose time so we can close that Gap um immediately so that's why three times a year uh we have those Universal screening benchmarks depending on uh the level
100of achievement that a student performs on any one of those time frames fall winter spring um the small group teams that are already established in the schools uh will meet with the teachers we'll meet with the interventionists um unpack that data even more specifically maybe even conduct a different assessment it's kind of like going to the doctor when you go to the doctor and you have a screening they do your eyes they do your ears they do your height they do your weight and depending on where you fall within that Continuum they determine whether or not you need to go to a specialist and when you go to that specialist sometimes there's an add an additional assessment that they use to really diagnostically determine what specific areas that you need to grow um or respond
101with if you need glasses or if you need uh to go on a weight management plan I don't know I'm just making it up for that part um but academically um academically uh we those small groups look at other additional diagnostic ass assessments to unpack specific skills and then we create individual plans and then we um start to look at instruction um in small group during noncore instructional blocks of time so they never miss grade level instruction it's always an alternate time in small groups and then we uh instruct with uh focused on specific skills um and then we measure progress with alternate assessments and frankly I just had a conversation today ironically with um the curriculum instruction leader at whs um and we had uh six students that were um we say exited we
102they were exited out of Intervention which means we close the gap and they go back into um just receiving core instruction with no pullout services so there it's fluid it's not so black or white the goal is that we respond when there's a red flag or there's a need based on those instructional metrics and and then hopefully we close the gap and then they don't need that additional support anymore but the point is it's not just sort of one point let's say you know they you know they they they have their assessment let's say they come in a little bit under um that doesn't necessarily trigger an intervention you're looking at it holistically and sort of over time seeing how they're trending and seeing sort of the full picture of where they are and then
103you're making determination as to whether or not they need you know additional or you know additional help in one era or the other is that is that how the right way to think about that yeah I would say though that the importance of a universal screener and the quality of a universal screener is to just do that it's to Red Flag just to then have further conversations in small groups to diagnose further so you're right it's not one metric but the first metric does help us kind of red flag and and have further conversations and make um a determination whether or not we need to diagnose further and then make the decisions from there we do look at classroom performance we look at additional diagnostic assessments and then we the adults determine whether or not
104is it really just some instruction in the classroom or do we need to come up with a more specific personalized plan for th for those for a student or a group of students okay perfect thanks and that happens just so just to close that out it happens in math and literacy those are the two areas that we provide intervention to can I ask in the future in addition to the statistics the 70% the 60% what the base number is that we're working off of in other words it's 100 students 50 students whatever the number is um that well like uh are you talking about for example how many students like we looked at Algebra 1 today are you talking about there's 70 students in that program is that what what you're asking for yeah yeah
105yeah I mean we have that information it's just to me 80% of what with algebra one 70 students out of 172 in ninth grade are in algebra one right yeah that kind of thing yeah I I I understand what you're saying I have a quick little question here um overall the numbers look great there are a couple of areas of concern and I you know Michael just brought up you know at what point in time do you address it but so just so everyone understands myself included um I see it as if our you know if our goal is 85% and in the fall uh it was at you know 68% and right now it's at 75% we've seen growth and we're we're hoping that by the end of the year we're going to have
106achieved the 85% goal my question is when we see some of the numbers and I think that this was specific with science so it may be more test related when the number goes from 68% in the fall to 63% in the winter how is it we're seeing a a sliding back um on those numbers can you explain that please yeah that that's always an interesting and question because that's where curriculum adjustments really come into play because you haven't taught all all the curriculum yet but yet the expectation when you're looking at grade level assessments is that depending on the assessment you're given um it doesn't always completely correlate to your own internal paac and guide in curriculum so for example grade five literacy that's a perfect example of um we the teachers spent a little
107too long on their first unit that they were learning because this is a new curriculum for them it was a science specific unit but grounded in literacy practices and they spent a little too much time focusing on the science content and not focusing on the literacy content so as a result they had to um make adjustments and they are behind in their informational literacy text which is what NWA tests on okay so we saw a dip in achievement around that one indicator informational literacy because the teachers haven't haven't had enough time to teach into that unit yet okay so so Lessons Learned by the end of the year though we get the good thing is that the midpoint helps us make some of those adjustments that's why the midpoint is so important right um it
108would be worse if we weren't proactive and were reactive and only did a fall in a spring now because of that midpoint we get to make adjustments have conversations around curriculum unpack some of those standards and and decide whether or not we need to um pause and do more in-depth conversations and learn and lessons for specific standards versus others based on the achievement of our students in front of us okay you know I think I think one of our challenges is in the district is again it's creating how do you say an urgency around the work and this is often true dur you know top-notch districts but one of the things that we're talking about today at at a district level um was and um thank you um Tracy um Edwards for bringing it is
109is when you look at the growth projections and you say well okay 50% you know 51% of the sixth graders in ela 51% met their growth Target um to me that's concerning like how close are they to meeting it that's 51% half of them met their target and so when you look at um the level we always talk about personalization and Wern who are the children that didn't meet it how much that did they not meet it by who are these children in front of us and how can we move that 51% up up to like 60% should be meeting it that's where we really need to get in the weeds with this data you know it it's because yeah you look and you say gee they went from 76 to 73 achievement and 51%
110of them met their growth projections how many students is that at 51 how many students are in the sixth grade who are the students who are the ones of the custom kids that are almost there what can we do to push them forward you know I mean that's the really the next level of work that we need to continue um focusing on in the upcoming months and year just so long as that's that's all I wanted to do is get a better understanding of it and know that that is exactly what you're doing which is focusing on ensuring that those kids get the help that they need the intervention or whatever necessary tools to make sure that you know at the end of the year they end where they're meant to be right where we
111need them to be to be the high performing district and the other piece too I want to add is that we are also ensuring that students at that are that are maintaining their academic achievement as well right we we don't want to create a gap either so it's this delicate um you know balance and insurance that you know teachers are looking at all students it's not just the students in intervention or needing uh intervention support it's looking at all kids and differentiate differentiating in the classroom within a specific spefic unit as well as if they're if they have high performing students in the classroom how are we how are they enhancing and enriching the experience for them as well it's complex for sure exactly and to Michael's point I mean we don't have 50% of
112the kids in intervention so what do we doing we have to work better in the classroom and pushing it forward and I don't want anyone also on this call to think that you know and I'm I'm looking at Laura Laura has amazing amazing scores and when when you trans like that Michael into like how do you identify these kids and when do you get them support yes there're screeners and this and that but there is also a caring element of these teachers that meet day in and day out they meet with their teams they meet um with the with the uh grade level they meet with those Sals and talk about these kids on a weekly basis Laura maybe paint a little bit of that picture because I've seen it it's very powerful stuff yeah
113thank you Lisa for bringing that up it is a a a recurring Pro proc so while we have defined times of the year when we take deep dives into the schoolwide data fall winter spring um there are periods of time between that when we're putting students on plans when we're updating plans and and Lisa is right those are happening every week the teachers are are meeting with the Sills they're coming to see me they're talking to Allison Brett our assistant director who is heavily involved and we're constantly having conversations and updating and looking across multiple points of data and making those little adjustments weekly sometimes daily to really keep moving that needle forward and the teach you know this this is where those you know the teachers know their students so well and in their
114classrooms and they're you know constantly advocating and working with those children on an individual basis you know I was asking the question um exactly Laura I was asking the question more from also the standpoint of just as I think about students let's say who may struggle of of course making sure that we identify them immediately and address sort of any supplemental you know needs um for their educational experience rather than you know in time for them not to fall further and further behind and all a sudden you've opened up a massive Gap because some of these you know some you know math for example you know a lot of it builds on itself over time and so if you're missing basic concepts then that's going to make you know Concepts later on just just very
115you know intractable for some of these children so I just want to make sure that yes we're identifying them as early as possible and then we're of course not necessarily overtaxing the resources but making sure that we're giving them the help they need as quickly as we can so yeah your spot on Michael and that's why you know right from kindergarten you know that that we're so proud of that 96% in math in kindergarten because we don't wait you know we the teachers start working with the students immediately and we you know pick up some students for intervention in September depending on what we see and and what we believe they need and we don't wait and the teachers are on it day one and you know when you look at when you look at
116that algebra one and Megan I'm GNA ask you speak to speak to that you know we're talking about the the hurlbut but when you look at why did we zero in on algebra one why we also made a curricular course change to get at Algebra 1 to how to get those skills up Megan do you want to speak to that new course sure um so we introduced the algebra for next year we introduced the new course of Algebra 1 linear equ linear equations um we really want to hone in on that aspect of Algebra 1 because Michael to your point um we really recognize that the strong Foundation of Algebra 1 you without that strong Foundation it rears its ugly head right later on whether it's an 2 or pre-calculus and taking that feedback from
117teachers um and I really give a ton of credit to the math department and to Riley as the Cil um to really be creative and really focusing on the needs of students to really determine you know who are the students that would really benefit from spending more time with those with the linear equation component and wait for the quadratics component you know which comes in the whole I hope I'm saying this right the ENT ire course of algebra one right is a combination of linear equations and quadratics and so separating that out and saying some kids do need more time with kind of the the linear equation piece and so we are trying to be creative and inventive to give them those foundational skills and to Steve to Steve's question you know Steve when you
118said can you can we have some real numbers so in that algebra one right 70 students 30 of those students are the um students with with um disabilities so if 52% of them or what's that my M's not that good 17 you know students met their growth Target what about the other 15 right we know who they are what are we doing about them and so that's the level that we're getting into and by doing that you know it it keeps pushing pushing that fly well pushing things forward can I ask two questions they're going to be polar opposite to each other so in terms of when a child is perceived to need some form of intervention is that voluntary on the part of the child or in discuss with the parent and can they
119refuse they can parents can refuse support it's called passive consent um we we always notify and communicate on a regular basis around identification entry and exit and in which areas but yes a parent can and have refused in my experience they've refused um support then the second question is when you have a student who is a high achiever what do we do to incentivize them yeah so I mentioned that before right in the classroom teachers are very skilled uh around differentiation and we have support from our cils to help teachers think of alternate activities Project based learning tasks that frankly are good for all students that we've been integrating into the curriculum but I would say that we also use our library media specialist to support some of the um enrichment activities to extend some
120of the curriculum for students that um have a passion project or they have another interest that they can really see how that content in that grade level expands beyond the classroom walls and maybe in a specific career path or with a with a a project per se great well thank you yep I just wanted to add to around multi-tiered system of support and intervention I just want to make sure that we never forget some of the um social emotional and uh academic the nonacademic components that we weave into some of our decision-making Laura mentioned attendance um at the high school we do look at you know disciplinary factors and consistency and tardies and a whole bunch of other indicators that may be creating a roadblock for students to for Student Success so um it's a
121three-dimensional design when we look at um achievement and growth and it's not just some of these metrics that we're giving you here today um but it does include some of those qualitative pieces that are not really uh coming from curriculum based assessments or standardized assessments as well perfect anybody else yeah I have yeah um so I've been through this so many times at this point I don't have a lot of questions so for the rest of my colleagues here this guy that usually talks a lot doesn't have a lot to add to this particular area but I would say and I see that Sharon I see you Sharon um I would say those three things I do have one first um comment which is really it's in the spring time I kind of go back
122to this meeting and I ask for how we did right because I think we were we kind of re review these things is it late spring that we do that yeah we do it in June okay so my other question is where are we at today compared to where you ex expected us to be like are you seeing the Improvement that you would expect to see because when I first looked at some of the data it wasn't over to me I wasn't overwhelmed with wow we're doing great but I wasn't underwhelmed with that we weren't making progress so where do you see us today compared to last year and where do you think we're going to be in June so that I can come back to this meeting and say well back in uh February
123you said this so where where do you see us trending so there's pockets of success right and I think we've talked and highlighted some of those already in some areas we've met our goals for the spring already um when we compare some of our last year's data uh the achievement and growth again we've got some areas that we've already um exceeded our achievement and growth targets for certain Pockets pockets of grade levels and content areas um Lisa zoomed in on one area that we know we want to focus in on which is Middle School illiteracy um you know our achievement levels and our growth area uh in grades four through nine if you look at that one slide that's one area that to Michael's point and everyone else's point that we need to really dive
124a little deeper into the data and individualize it a little bit more specifically um because that was lower than where we were from last year not not statistically significant like more than 5% but we sh we were expecting to be higher in that area now at this point we've done a lot of curriculum work over the summer um we started uh we were on a good trajectory in the beginning of this school year uh we had some Personnel changes that we are adjusting in March and so we we know that that will help support some of this work moving forward um but if I were to say um in one area that we really want to zoom in on for the second half of the Year academically it'd be literacy in grades four four through
125eight both achievement and growth so would you if you were to say where we were trending today are you overall are you happy with the way as a general are you happy with where we're we're likely to end in June I know this kind of like more of the the Phil type of talk right sounds more like budgeting numbers like we're trending and stuff like that but do you think that we're moving in the right direction and in June we're going to be in a good place or do you think we still have another you know 12 months of work to do I mean it's hard to say I I would assume I I predict that we're going to be we're going to meet the majority of our goals like we did last year there's
126always one one or two grade levels that we miss it by one percentage point that happened last year um I would predict that it's going to probably happen again this year um I think one area that we really want to um we hope that the numbers will go up is around growth in our subgroup area as well as just overall growth targets from Fall to Spring yeah I would agree with that we need to get those growth targets up um you know I'm pretty hard on us I guess sometimes but um that's the reality you know if you're going to um push it's also really hard when you get great scores to be wow look at this great jump we're so excited it's it's a slow and steady progress and I that's why I started
127quite frankly with the um the scorecard um uh postco because that's huge that is huge we are on the right trajectory are we you know going up as quick as I'd like well no um but then again I would love to to you know I'd love to have growth of like 80% is that realistic at this point no but we're making steady progress um you know and I'm I'm cautiously optimistic that we'll continue to make steady progress but this is really hard work and it's really hard when you get a new math program and you get a new literacy program and you're talking about five pillars of of literacy and moving away way from the the other way that that we used to teach it and we're slowly seeing results and getting better readers by
128doing that that approach you know with the foundations and the the um multisensory um help me out here the phonics and the you know the oral fluency and all of those components you know it's not going to happen overnight but we are on a really strong trajectory agreed one more comment and and I should say one one more question two more brief comments um first question Lisa um the achievement and the growth numbers so is it right to think of this as the greater the number of the higher the achievement levels the harder it is to get those growth numbers higher because now obviously you're at a much higher level so to grow from exactly exactly okay okay so so so the grth growth numbers of course we want up but we really want the
129achievement numbers right I mean that's the primary concern here right I mean the achievement numbers um the growth just happens to be yes for for let's say again as you go down the Continuum of scores um those that are scoring you know um um lower of course you want to see those growth num numbers obviously go up but that growth the success of that growth will dissipate as the as the achievement numbers increase right I would I would imagine um okay um two two quick comments then just on um to David's Point as to how we tracked last year maybe in in the in the deck for June can you just throw in the appendix what we did last year maybe so that we can all look at it it could be unified and then
130secondly um I know we've done this in past decks you you guys used to put in tabular form the science um achie the science achievements here it used to be um used to basically have tables and and say okay I know what you mean can we maybe either go back to that and we don't have to go back to those tables but go back to a tabular form or at least space this out such that you can just read across otherwise trying to have to follow um yeah I looked at those yeah there's different visuals we can pull that for the spring for for inner orbit it's just a different platform it's not so easy to pull some of the data because it's really grounded in instruction but I can I can pull that visual
131differently next time for sure okay yep um because for example I noticed I mean this was in astounding number right in the in DCI I guess which is a slide 18 disciplinary core ideas yep y we went from 63% to 100% in motion and stability yep so that seems to be I think um something we want to underscore and it may get lost in sort of how we read the two chart the two uh um uh charts here or I should say the two tables here sure no no problem okay thanks yep who else suggestions yeah I I have four points but most of them covered first I like that we started with a Harvard Stanford uh report because if you dig into that it ties together something that actually Tina talked about right and
132it's we you could Bas it upon 50 50th percentile which is gray level we base it upon 61st percentile well I don't know what that means one grade ahead or more if you look at our number in math as a district I think this is K29 we actually operate at two and a half years ahead of the national average and you know what school it's interesting at Stanford you know what school district we run head-to-head with Palo Alta unified right and that's pretty bright kids in Palo Alta right so we're doing pretty good in math I you can't go four grade levels ahead because they do be out a freshman in college if you're a ninth grader right but we're doing pretty good um and you did Cover the sixth and seventh reading because that's
133stumbling a little bit I think that that was all addressed then I have two other comments one is for Jim who I've not met but I read his CV as part of the uh hiring process and you're meeting with the public in March and if I understand your background you sort of wrote the manual on Fairfield County uh school safety and it'd be nice I want to attend that to sort of say here's the manual sort of here's my my assessment how we're doing according to the manual that'd be really reassuring for the parents and then I have actually I don't think an answerable question for Tracy on school climate but I'll ask it anyway do you think some of the national division this is starting to creep into Weston where we were a little
134bit Above The Fray for many years but now we're sort of in the fry or do you think that our students are are responsible and mature and understand how they fit in nationally and in as a community right because I get a sense that we're sort of losing our grip a little bit but I don't want to put up a red flag on that so I don't know how you address that or maybe that's just to be addressed at the end of the year that final assessment so I think that's a loaded question um and I will do my best to answer it as I Ken um in one of our budget conversations there was a discussion I think Chad asked a question about um anxiety and mental health challenges and kind of what I
135thought was attributing to that um I think there's a lot of factors that impact our kids especially at the high school level and I think the um tenor and climate of the world around them absolutely plays a role in their stress level and the stress level of their families and how they're able to um respond and be resilient to the challenges that they're facing on a day-to-day basis I think that's something that we've experienced um more markedly since the start of covid and I think there's just been a variety of factors that have contributed to it since so I think we have a lot of resilient thoughtful engaged students and I think we're living in very complex times and that plays a role in how every single one of us engages in our days including
136our students so I don't know if that answers your question but it was an attempt I appreciate the attempt thank you I I think it just needs we got to keep our puls on it maybe that's where I was taking our our discussion anybody else great that was thanks Tina and everyone else that was really uh that was really comprehensive yes Steve can I jump in the question actually sure of course yeah uh two things one is uh I want to call out a couple things that people have been mentioning about these sort of enrichment opportunities and I know the irony of having just come through budget season and ask about this uh expanding but in one of the parent forums about what the parents were interested in looking for in the you know the
137next superintendent position something that came up with some of these things these enrichment things robotics the other ones that were mentioned even tonight on the call in terms of enrichment is the book club Etc a lot of these qualitative things uh you know if we can have an eye to is there ways to expand those because there's no reason we couldn't have two if one was good or three if two were good Etc and if it often comes down to a function of cost then perhaps we can think creatively like are those opportunities for the PTO to get involved or otherwise but I just want to call out that some of the most exciting things that seem to be percolating were these sort of enrichment kind of offerings for our kids so just flacking that
138no no no real question there but just a comment and then the second one I I I swear I know you all will not believe me on this but I was not going to bring this up we not for Dan Do's tremendous great news about how positive the removal of H cell phones as a momentary distraction in class has been at the middle school and that just brings me back to the question about the plan for the high school especially given that that conversation has been started with a challenge success program recently so if if you're prepared to give any kind of update about the high school plan I'd love to hear it now as part of the Improvement plan given that that has that that is part of the discussion tonight regarding the middle
139school if that's premature then I can look forward to that in the future and and we can you know rain check it to that point so I can speak to the high school um cell phones were one of the six focus groups or action groups today um we got some great feedback from teachers you know at the high school level we also think it's only fair that we get some feedback from kids um and from parents so I think that there is a lot of research and data out there about the negative impacts of cell phone use and we also know that um students can do a lot of what they do on their cell phones on their personal laptops in our bring your own device culture at the high school so I think we
140want to be really um mindful in the work that we're doing and so the what what we did today was each of those action groups created a proposal so we now have 12 proposals coming to our school leadership team which is our program Council and then it's also they're also going to go to our challenge success team and it will also go to Student Government to have those conversations around various topics from academic Integrity homework grading and assessment and so some of those are more long-term and really looking at what are some things we want to Pilot you know beginning in April and what are some things we really want to look at for more long-term planning and then what are some things that we might pilot and then adopt um in September so I
141think that we're really mindful of student use at the high school where I think we have a handle for the most part in on our instructional spaces I think what teachers are noticing what we're noticing is that one of the examples today um that was given by a staff member was walking into school kids are really enjoying the lobby space and the benches and the chairs and the seating that we have there and so many students are on their individual personal cell phone device so just looking at the impact that it's having on kids socially which is what the research tells us right and then what are the moves that we can make to help remedy that um kind of across the board the high school so that I said I just said a lot
142and kind of said nothing too because I don't know that we're ready to to commit to a decision but um we're just trying to be really thoughtful and mindful and take into consideration um all of the stakeholders as well great that sounds like a that sounds like a thorough process you mentioned a couple things in terms of feedback from parent groups from teachers and of course from the students as well well are we leveraging other sort of uh input in terms of decision- making meaning those are definitely three stakeholder groups but there's probably I'm guessing now pretty significant case studies of different districts that have uh you know done the various versions of how this looks and done it successfully so uh are we getting either data examples uh A playbook of sorts from other
143places for these various versions of how this could how we could change you know thing I I want to um I'm sorry Megan one thing I I just want to mention is is that Megan meets with all the durade principles I meet with all the dur superintendents I met with them today and these are the kinds of topics that come up you know like like Wilton High School is cell phone free um and Kevin Smith has talked about how great it is at lunch that you see um he's like I see sophomore boys talking to each other at a table so we we do have access to that but I think what what um and that's really great because it's a similar demographic than um that that what we had they were very interested in
144um you know I was so proud to be able to say oh Western Middle School Mr do it's gone really well and and they ask a lot of specific questions the devil is always in the detail so I'm you know I'm confident that that that is also happening at these meetings I I don't want to speak to for Megan but you meet once a month as well don't you and we actually have a weekly standing call with the durg high school principal um and cell phones are often the topic of conversation and we know that Wilton has implemented um the Yonder pouches at the high school um I do know that Westport was scheduling a visit with Wilton so that's something I can see us you know working we've been invited right but working with
145that group that is really passionate at the high school and I also think it's important to have kids part of that process and doing that visit as well and maybe there's an opportunity to for kids to talk to kids right in these other districts that are implementing those things and really understanding the other thing that kids will say is yeah they might complain for a couple weeks but they can really adapt to anything right they can kind of get used to anything but I think having them be a part of that process and the partnership with other districts who are doing this as well so okay great thank you so um Megan I'm sure I'm sure I'm not the only person interested in this although I'm most often the most vocal given that we're at
146in the you know beginning or middle of this process how can people be involved and be updated in terms of what uh you know what decisions or what ideas uh what different versions are being you know tested or put forward so one of the tools that I use to communicate is the week ahead I think that before I'm putting anything in the week ahead about piloting I'm imagining that that's going to come to one of our subcommittees I would imagine um and our we have a challenge success team we have four parents so we have a meeting on Friday so in that challenge success team we have four parents three students and four teachers we have a meeting this Friday we're also going to be reviewing the proposals um and and I think some more
147work is going to come out of that and so you know potentially putting those names of the parents out there that if there are families and parents that want to either get involved or give feedback the purpose of the parents on the committee is to be really an effective liaison to the community as well and to help ensure that um parent voice family voice you know when we decided to um implement it at the middle school after we kind of went through a bunch of things we sent out a letter um that's and usually in something like this after you've done your due diligence people then are told and as in any time when someone is told there will be people that will be happy and there will be people that won't be happy but
148as long as the process has been inclusive you know it's not going to be a vote okay we're all going to vote vote no you know but there a decision is made and and principal the school communicate it sure understood so my uh my two cents on that would simply be that given that process that you've described there's enough data out there and enough different school districts trying this even beyond the dur if you look at what has happened even in massive districts like New York and California when they've tried it or having or this or that so it's probably worth um you know digging into the most successful versions of this and if if in fact it is uh Yoder bags if it's Banning them from campus Etc if it's following the sort of
149Jonathan hate model of the the book that you provided us so conly this fall Lisa about you know at a certain age anyway uh I would suggest broadening the stakeholder group to including as much as we can data case studies examples I think that could help us make an even better decision but thank you so much Chad I also just want to add that when we had when we did those action groups today it was grounded in the research so there were articles attached to those discussions to help inform the decisions or the proposals um that were being made right well I really appreciate it oh sorry go ahead Lisa I was just gonna say we have electronic files of so much research and data and um some of you have actually sent things or
150other people in the community have sent things and um we read through it all and look very careful um carefully at it it's important yeah well great well thank you it's an important issue so appreciate it I'll I'll uh that's all my questions good should we move on to new business yes please um thank you uh new business so grants gifts and requests I'm going to ask Laura kades to take it away because there is a approval of a donation from the uh HSB it goes along the theme of climate yes thank you Lisa so our uh PTO U came up with this idea it's a very general offer to systematize um our signage in the hallways as you know if you've been to hurlbut we have these very long hallways and we've always had
151um homemade teacher signs outside of the classroom doors which are lovely and very personalized but they're near impossible to keep up on they're very labor intensive to make and when staff um changes it's it's been very hard to keep up on so the PTO generously offered to fund um signs that would be consistent in the hallways and give a nice uniform look and would also increase visibility for visitors so it would make getting around the building a little bit easier um they brought samples and they really are quite um beautiful to look at and would be a nice add to our hallways and really be functional so even in terms of just security and really having some visible signs that are easier to read and very easy to update and keep on top of when
152staff changes so I believe that that has to be approved the amount correct yes David you want to read the motion David if you have in front of you yeah I do uh let's see here that's the um yep move to the Western Board of Education approved the donation from the hpto in amount to $4,000 is there a second all second all those in favor I I uh item 7B 7B is an approval of an overnight field trip um at the high school level and I'm going to ask um Megan Keta to talk us through this um proposed field trip Megan thank you Lisa so we offer a course at the high school uh called Facing History um so it is taught every other year and our teacher of Facing History this year is Jennifer
153and she is um looking to run a field trip to Washington DC for students in the Facing History Class it the class focuses on identity and when I say identity it's really our own personal identity um and how that influences our perspectives and then looking at multiple perspectives through the lens of historical events and that some of the many of the historical events might be controversial and with a core focus on the Holocaust as part of the students learning and understanding in this course so she is proposing a field trip um that would leave Thursday April 3rd and return on Sunday April 6th overnight in Washington DC uh one of the um visits will be to the United States Holocaust Museum and Memorial they're also doing a very cool Moonlight trolley tour that night um
154also visiting the national africanamerican history and culture center and then they have some time at the National Mall and then returning home I think that Jennifer really um Wanted students to have an experience in the Holocaust Museum and that National African-American history um and culture center to really further their ability um to see multiple perspectives in the history of the United States and the administrator that will be going uh Dr pro thank you this also ties correct me if I'm wrong um Dr hle with um an award that Miss Klein got from the Weston Education Foundation is that correct Tina yes this is um based on her experience um when she also went to a um Israel and Poland and she presented this to we um and wanting this opportunity to be a pay forward
155trip for students to see the benefits of how um what she has learned and those experiences so um didn't she went an award though and they were she was granted funding to be able to do that if I recall to go on her trip yes I don't remember the exact yes exactly yeah she she she won an award so that's wonder that was last spring right so it's kind of nice to see the alignment over time you know to to make that so we do need an approval for this right David you w to take this yep move to the Western Board of Education approved the overnight field trip to Washington DC has presented there a second I second all those in favor I I uh move on to you um yes we're going to
156move on Oh but before we do Megan aren't you in the um we have our music trip going this week correct our Performing Arts trip and I believe you're the administrator that's going on that trip when do you leave I am we are we leave on Thursday and we return on Monday for five days of music and performances at Disney and both Miss cavone and I have G on that trip that's um that's uh quite an experience taking um that happens every four years is that right it's yeah that's correct yeah um just realized that and she's good at be Choir in high school oh that's great take that trip so now we're doing the discussion and approval of a cons the consent agenda Miss cavone if you could take us through that please please
157sure thanks Lisa um it's been a a busy month in HR we have a number of new hires um as well as some internal transfers um and we have also uh started to see notices of retirements coming in and so a notable item on the consent agenda that I would just like to highlight is Mr Do's notice of his retirement from the Weston Public Schools um and if you'll indulge me for just a moment uh Dan do came to Weston in 2008 when he was appointed to serve as assistant principal of Weston High School and after seven years in that role he transitioned to the middle school where he has proudly served as principal for the past 10 years in the letter announcing his retirement Mr do wrote I want to express my sincere gratitude
158to the Weston public schools for the opportunity to learn grow and serve the students and families of this incredible Community I have deeply valued the work we've done together and I am proud of the dedication and collaboration that Define our schools it has been an honor to work alongside such talented Educators and to contribute to a district that prioritizes Student Success and well-being there are many in this community who would say the same about Mr do that he consistently embodies the collaborative spirit that is so critical to achieving student growth and success Dan on behalf of the western Public Schools I would like to thank you for your outstanding service to our district and I would like to wish you a well-deserved retirement and I I have to second that because I remember when um
159when uh we hired you and you came on board as as the assistant principal and I was the principal of what in high school so yeah well you have a few more meetings Dan so you know you're not going away you do have a few more meetings but I also want to say Dan thank you when I first moved here you were my son's uh middle school principle so that was eight and a half years ago and um I have to tell you from the very first time I met you I said to myself that's a really special person because uh it's it's not easy let's face it Middle School is um one of the toughest places in a in a developing child's life as as somebody once put it it's when you are caught
160running in in the in the phase in which neither of your feet are on the ground that's pretty much middle school so you are most off balance in middle school and it takes a really special person to um deal with kids in that state and get them to the point where their foot is back on the ground and that's exactly when they move into high school so it's it's been wonderful to have you there to guide those children through those really um challenging developmental years and I appreciate all that you've done so thank you yeah Dan I would say the same I think uh before I was on the board we had to interact due to little issue with my now 16-year-old Steve's like I want to know about that but um yeah you're just
161you're very you're very calming and like Sharon said you probably got one of the hardest jobs the district as far as the age group because they're just it's such an awkward age right um I think Peter your daughter is in that age group right she's in the Middle School yeah I was G to say despite uh all the chall at the middle school across the board uh thank you David yeah4 mention young lady that wants to course now is really having a hoot so I think that's the testimonial to Dan and his and the teachers that that one could break out and just really really Thrive um did you have a second comment David did I interrupt you or should I just finish I was gonna make a comment about the middle school when he
162comes back in 20 years and doesn't look any different but I'll keep that for later and I that's cool because my second my second Legacy of Mr joke is that is sta produced Ed specs looking forward and the role of the board and the administration and the new leadership for next year in town of Weston is to to what extent can we adopt the head specs right that's going to be the challenge so hopefully we could leverage that work that he produced and uh you know add high value to that building I'll jump in two and just say Dan it's just such a pleasure of always getting to be the beneficiary of your positivity in these meetings in committee meetings all over the place I could not be more of a fan of just how
163you go about your everyday business and thank you so much for your service to the community terrific well not terrific actually but congratulations um uh this requires a uh this requires a vote yes please David yep so this is the motion to accept the consent agenda first right yes yeah move at the Western Board of Education accept the consent agenda as presented second Sharon second yeah favor I I post Lisa District updates um I think uh the superintendent has said enough about any updates so I will defer my time to Human Resources I also believe that I have presented all that I need to this evening thank you you can keep it going Tracy you like I have one just brief update but I'll be quick um this week I'll be sending out a communication
164to District families about our next PPS meeting um during the meeting we're actually going to mix it up a little bit and talk about growth mindset which Patty had mentioned in her um social emotional presentation um and how to support a growth mindset in your children and at home the meeting will be on Monday March 10th at 8:30 a.m. it will be virtual um and I hope to see many families there thanks Phil unfortunately I do have several updates um so the good news um is that for the period ending January 31st um we're seeing some positive results uh the month over month change is a positive approximately $49,000 which is reduced our deficit projected deficit for the end of the year to $44,000 um contributing to that were salaries FMLA savings and turnover savings
165and unfill position reduction in Le projected legal fees for the spread PPS Department um other services I think it's important to highlight this um we have for this for as of January pretty much a combination of students transitioning back to district and a shipped from tuition from tuition to settlement settlement agreements so what that means is that our projection for expenditures for those two lines have been reduced um by approximately 289,000 so those are all positive things so I want to shout out to PPS department for their hard work and um and how they serve the students the big concern that we have um going forward for the for the remainder of the year has to do with electricity in our meeting on Friday we spoke about the increase in the delivery charge um we
166have a fixed Supply charge with constellation and the delivery charge which is the charge to transmit power over the lines um from aour has increased significantly what we've seen year of year is approximately 100 $153,000 increase in those charges which translate to about a 65% increase So based on those numbers and how we're trended we have increased the projected expenditure for the remain of the Year by approximately $257,000 um other than that internal services are turned in at for dental claims are trending as planned we may be a little bit um below um where we have been um for the past year or so but I think overall where things are looking good question for Phil uh this requires a a vote David you want to take it again yep uh moved at the Western
167Board of Education approved the January 2025 Financial update as presented there a second I'll second all those in favor I I post um move on to the technology lease sure um so this is the third lease that we have had um and as you as just going back to fiscal year 2223 when the board um agreed to establish a funding source um for technology uh so this is year three so we did Issue an RFP back in back in late January we had responses from several vendors our several companies um with the lowest one being from Coen Bank out of Florida com at approximately 4.14% so the range of um rates were from 4% to 10% based on those rates um we we have we're proposing are recommending that we award this current year's lease
168to coent bank are there questions for Phil we reviewed this in the finance committee and my only real quick question I know this has come up year-over-year is are we actually looking at the math to do the financing the leasing is still working out the way you expected it to with interest rates going up every year I'm not opposed process but okay so it is okay I have the language if you'd like yes please move at the Weston Board of Education approve the technology lease as presented there a second second all those in favor I I I uh the next is is a review and approval of the western Middle School renovation status evaluation bid before we move on to that this one there a quick reminder on the lease that this needs final approval
169from the board of Selectmen because this is a multi-year agreement uh next item up so a few weeks ago we discussed issu issuing an RFP to ascertain if the medle school will qualify for renov his new status based on the criteria on form scg uh 3520 among the criteria is a sign written statement by a structural engineer that a structural Integrity off the building has not been compromised and that up completion the renovated facility will have a useful life for continued occupany continued occupancy comparable to that of a new building which is greater than 50 years um we had one one company responding to our RFB that company was slammed at our meeting on February at EC meeting February 14 um callers pretty much gave their recommendation and they're supported awarding the contract uh to
170to slam the contract or this proposal has two phases the preliminary phase is just a walkthrough phase where slam and conduction slam really will do a site assessment um about a 2d assessment of all the VIS able components and based on their knowledge and experience will pretty much give us a recommendation as to whether or not they'll be able to certify that it's build buildin will that'll be able to certify all those items on the checklist if they're able to certify that then they'll move to phase two and phase two is pretty much a complete assessment um a compr comprehensive renovation assessment which is based in form 3520 phase one will come in at approximately at $75,000 and phase two assuming that they're able to to sign up on all those item will be $40,000
171so a two questions the fir the firm is or is not the same firm that does demographics it's a former firm that did it demographics so they're not in the demograph we're not hiring this same individuals to do so it's it's coincidence by name correct it is the same company um so slam did our projections prior to this year our current demographer has has moved on are we still with them okay and then the second thing is and this is a board discussion I think everyone is aware what the board of Finance uh has determined uh as it relates to uh the amount of uh long-term debt that the town can uh take on um and they have explicitly uh said that they didn't believe the town could afford um a renovation a full renovation
172of the middle school and recommended that uh we follow the colar long-term uh Capital plan over the next 10 years so I guess the question Phil uh is is this necessary at this point I I I think St it's I think I think I may I disagree with you slightly on um on the board of finance and how they present it I think they pretty much use two criterias right um our original plan of building a new Middle School of $110,000 and then also the colar m multi-year plan across the district I think what theyve definitely said that they based on their their models and their policies we cannot afford a new Middle School at $110,000 but I think they've outlined other possible Alternatives um you know which would be above just putting a a
173Band-Aid um onto the building um so you know we can there's an option to do the the Band-Aid option and there's an option to do something between the Band-Aid options so to speak or just to maintain the facilities as is and do some level of renovation So based on that right I think it's important that we still do do that because if it is determined that the structural Integrity is not they can't sign off on the structural integrity and everything else on that form then it's it's a mute point at that point you know we will probably need to go back um to the board of finance and and and tell them what those results are yeah but maybe I don't know Peter Phil the the first phase for $7,500 what what triggers the second
174phase um phase two really is going to be us so they're going to give us their report and to es to whether or not they can sign off if it if it is determined that they can sign off we have to make a we have to make a determination as to whether or not we want them to continue on the full assessment okay we got clarification sorry go David so are we are we being asked to sign 40,000 or 40,00 47,500 because the motion reach 40,000 that's correct so should I'm sorry there should be two motions there should be a motion for 7500 the total cost is 47,500 which there are two motions one would be to approve the 7500 first and then the second one says if the phase one preliminary assessment supports a
175renovate as new then you would go ahead to approve the 40,000 I broke them down two for you so that then brings up another question which is approve the 7500 to tonight or not but Pro 7500 tonight when to see what the report is before we commit ourselves to the follow on $40,000 I think we are making a mistake again the the board of Finance I think has clearly spoken oh first of all let's just quickly review history border selectman killed the $110 million project two days after the board of ed last year approved it and at the time I asked how much we wound up paying and I've forgotten their name at this point but who did we hire that helped us write the whole packet for the state that never went any place
176what was that company tecton tecton tecton round number purposes I think it wound up between 70 and 80,000 of which we wound up with a big fat book that at the that last June we did nothing with I asked the question can we reuse this next June and the response was yeah we should so you know not a complete loss of investment here we are next June the Project's dead again and it was revived potentially for June of 26 the board of Finance has all but said it's dead we're not going to spend $110 million so I think that any work that any money we spend that is invol that is for the benefit of renovating as new the middle school is money we are taking directly out of salaries and other things that directly
177educate our kids and I can't imagine any way that we can support spending 7,500 or $4,000 right now the board of Finance has to give us an allowance we continue to test drive and get insurance quotes for our car we are not going to be able to finance so I'm I'm a proponent of we have to do something at middle school but we are spending taxpayer money on something that is clearly dead actually David agree sorry I'm gonna respectfully just agree I we I think that right now as it stands um you know the the 110,000 or 110 million is that aspect is dead they've told us we cannot afford it 100% right so they have given us money that we can use um so the question is do we try to finagle some sort
178of a new structure with this lower amount or are we going to renovate as new and if we're going to renovate as new which is I think where we're leaning what we're going to have to do with the current middle school if we're going to do that then we need to do uh what Phil is proposing we need to find out whether or not it's even feasible for us to renovate as new for the Middle School we're not renovating as new if you look back at the history the renovate as new is dead we cannot afford it we've received proposals well renov is new it depends on what we're doing if we're if we're when we're Renova as new we do something with the existing structure but what we need to do is we need
179to find out whether or not it's even feasible to do something with the existing structure and so I think that that is where Phil correct me if I'm wrong but that is where this study comes in to say to us you know guys you're barking at the wrong tree the structure is beyond uh repair or they're saying we can we can certify that this structure does qualify for a um renovator's new am I incorrect in that assumption is that or is that what this does that's incorrect looked at C no no she's actually correct um just to clarify the build as a new project for $110 million was pretty much killed by the um by the town um over the past several weeks during their um debt capacity committee the the board of Finance has
180out outlined several different scenarios that outline the tax the tax the tax base I'm sorry the tax that will be assessed on homeowners at the col escalated um project cost and what that tax assessment would also be and various levels and if you look at that there's not a lot of difference between only spending on maintaining our facility or spend a little bit more and finance that over X number of years so before we do anything else right we we we need to we need to know for certain can this facility even qualify for renovator's new new status whether a decision is move move forward or not to to do to renovate or or to build new we just need to know once and for all where we are there's there's another important piece here
181that um I I want to mention because this came out of a walkthr that I went on with Mike delmastro looking at that middle school and whether I'm looking at it that the data that they give us in this report okay you renovate renovate is new it's also data on the structural condition of the school when they walked the building with us and I believe Dan you were there they were very concerned about any kind of agac upgrade which we know we will have to do and being able to do it with the ceilings and the space and the design of the building and how it would be done effectively when we took them and we showed them how we have science classes they're not in science labs and I would hope that any kind
182of Band-Aid approach you know would correct that do something about the deficiency in the science labs they were looking at you know cursory looks at the plumbing and again the building the the the rooms that are currently used and all of that so I would respectfully suggest that the information that we are going to get from a structural engineer would be would be looking at you know basic elements of meeting code and how if if you're not going to do a big renovate is new for however many millions we at least have to have more of an understanding of how we can even renovate that school with HVAC and heating and labs and things like that and that is all part of it because Dan you were on that walkthrough with me correct Mr joke
183when they walked through and they looked and they were saying they were pointing out things like look at the egress year we don't know about the egress year this ESS is concerning in the inner Courtyards looking at the egress going out by the pool from the the oldest Wing in the building they were concerned about that so there was there's things I think that we're going to find out that would behoove us because when we're looking at capital projects and what to do next and how to do it this also provides us with important information on the how so there's information that this will come back to us with with respect to the foundation right the structure of the building structure exactly [Music] um I assume then if we do something smaller let's say a
184let's say we do some sort of renovation I think this is I mean and and maybe this is a difference between what what David's saying what Sharon's saying there's a renovate is new where you where you're undergoing a large construction project and then there's renovate is new where it's much smaller in scope Phil if you do something much much smaller in scope does that qu can that be deemed renovate as new and eligible for a reimbursement and maybe I'm confusing the terms but is there any eligibility for for reimbursement here Steve unlikely so even even if we're considering seeking some kind of reimbursement yeah first step is that someone has to sign off that the building itself has to qualify from that and it's right to that step one someone has to say hey I
185can put my seal of approval on this but in the broadly speaking we can take a portion because we did the window project at the high school I think back in 1997 and there were some other other projects that was done that that qualify for some level of reimbursement so there's different things that can be done that will be that will qualify as what we have to look at we can't we can't count on that no no no no I'm I'm I'm just saying back I'm saying what happened in the past that's what we're gonna do sorry Steve got the governor has already announced in his budget that he wants to cut back on school reimbursements for construction I don't know how much what qualifies for it I I just think you know maybe maybe
186maybe it does maybe it doesn't I don't think we can assume that it does I totally agree I mean the KY the KY kers study is basically a Band-Aid study across all the buildings doesn't do any it just keeps them operating doesn't improve them doesn't re so I I personally would like to know which is why I asked that question earlier about splitting the 7500 and the 40,000 of if we say okay done you know Bo of Finance we we we you know we understand where you are and then we start spending money patching up the middle school you know and they open the we may not be able to patch up the middle school that's the issue may be throwing even more money that after you know good money after bad money that's the
187rug Colliers did the list but they didn't apply the screwdriver and they said you have to have a structural engineer even to certify that you can start screwing bolts and putting a new age back so we're like that's the next step if they C if they don't certify at all we're in a jam if they say you can do HVAC and those things the structure can support the work that's a repair job if they go you can do more than that and maybe put in a science Wing or do some of the things that David has talked about some flexibility you can do that and then we can decide on that gradient right on that Spectrum how far do we get the renovat it's new if we get that far but this study is we
188don't know if you can even put a screwdriver to it that's the jam R uh my second point is we actually anticipated this for this year's budget and I think Phil can confirm that we actually have capital budget monies allocated to such work I forgot the wording used it's like 11 months ago right uh Structural Engineering architectural studies Civil Engineering but we actually allocated Capital Monies to exactly this type of work so I think in in parament that we've used before we're sort of spending the taxpayer money on the right thing that we got taxpayer for money for last last spring so I don't think that's an issue the money's there to spend and this is the right thing to spend it on uh in a two-step process if we get to the you can
189actually do more than you thought our walkthrough says you can do a sledgehammer don't worry about screwdrivers then we go to what can we do we take X and we look inside the walls to see what's possible so that that's sort of the logic of what's happening here I guess the question The Logical next question is do we have to do this now right or or do we I mean we do want to have another conversation with kers you know we talked about that and say okay we thought we were going to do this but now we now we're g to do something different word is this what we're talking about tonight fit into that puzzle or can that puzzle piece be done couple three months from now now that we know that the town
190the board of Finance has recommended that we not go forward and and the town only has a bonding capacity of I can't remember the exact number and the timing of it in certain ways I I I I hate to be accused of kicking the can down the road but I think on this expenditure it would seem to me but only my opinion we don't have to do it today well you don't um but you are kicking the can down the road unless we get answers on the building no upfront that all we're talking about is getting the work scheduled and so if we meet with Colliers and get further information you're probably looking at doing this in the fall which maybe that's fine um I don't want to be can down the road so I
191will take back I mean we don't meet in the summer it's going to have to get approved so it won't get done and then you're right in the middle of budget season and I I guess I I would advocate for doing it so you at least have some answers you know like some answers building what if there's something that in this building that isn't right that's the IM that's the imminent that's the imminent risk like the worst case scenario I don't want to I don't want to scare the parents but let's say there's something significantly wrong right that col isn't the expert to say it but these guys go you have a real problem here then you have to address it with immediacy right so then that changes the whole discussion how to address something
192that's immediately an imminent but is that the 7500 or the 47,500 well you don't know that's the that's the that's 4,000 so just to CL Y what the $7,500 is the 7500 is pretty much going to be what Lisa did with Colliers but now it's going to be with Structural Engineers where they're going to they're going to walk the facility and it's pretty much going to be based on everything that's Vis visible no one is digging in in the foundation anything like that it's pretty much a walkthr to say hey based on what we've seen we're willing to do a comprehensive study and we will be able to at the end of this sign off on this project if we have them do the walkth through and they say yes we can do that and
193we decide that we want to pause and we want to have further discussions then let's do that we're talking about $7,500 here right guys and that we have to think about the timeline the submission date for the grand application is June any June if we do not do this now we continue to wait we're going to be in summer break we won't reconvene this discussion but we're not we're not submitting a grand no no no right so any June what what I'm saying is any June so the longer we take to start to start any process the further longer we're going to be so if we do nothing right now and let's say we continue to talk with Colliers we don't meet in the summer the next so we won't start this process again until
194fiscal next fiscal year which means that our first discussion on this will probably be in around September but Phil so it's I guess the only thing the only thing that I'm saying that I'm saying is we've been deferring and deferring the last conversation we said we need to at least know if Will qualify for renovator's new status I'm but we're not doing that right we don't have enough money to do that well I think we need to know at least something about more from an engineer point of view about the building so I would advocate for at least doing the first phase well this shifted this shifted Steve from actually having to do this to see if it can qualify for the reim for renovate as new for the reimbursement to now um looking at
195this you know the structural Integrity let's say of the building in terms of what we can do you know um given given the amount of money that we have available which is a lot less than than the 110 that we had so um how long does this F Phil Lisa I don't know Phil how long does this process take so if we said okay hit go tonight on this how long how long will it take for them to come back with the preliminary assessment do we then have time to to discuss that and then of course the comprehensive assessment how how long do these things take Phil I I I have no idea no that's okay um the plan timeline is that they will be on site for two days and then they'll they'll draft
196the report um so BAS on this and to get on your schedule I think we're hoping to be able to report back to the board sometime in April if I'm not not mistaken 21st board meeting hopefully let's say if we shoot for that and and then you say let's say whatever they say then you you reach a decision about do you go into the next phase or not well that's well I I don't want to I mean I'm perfectly fine spending $7,500 I think the problem with the 78500 is it's really not going to provide us if this conversation seems to to Michael's point which is basically what Steve was saying as well we've moved this conversation renovate is new is just not in our cards I think we have to agree between it's not
197in our cards it's not in our cards because we don't have the budget and it's not in our cards because to See's point I read the articles as well L man is is is tightening up the strings we're not we're not going to qualify for renovate as new we're not going to likely qualify for any reimbursement so if the conversation has now moved which is what Peter sort of implied that the building is not potentially structurally sound and we need to hire somebody the 7500 is not going to give us any data the 7500 is going to Simply say okay we now know what we're going to look for now we need 40,000 so to approve 7500 tonight we are essentially ALS approving the 40,000 because we're going to have another meeting after they do
198the $7,500 of work and we're going to be told as a board yeah they want to move forward with a 40,000 so the two things go together you can break them into two votes you can break them into two meetings you can do whatever you want but if you approve the 7500 you're approving the 40,000 therefore we're approving $47,500 whether in two votes or one vote my concern is the same we should delay this until we have certainty from the board of Finance about what our allowance is that's my feeling we we won't we won't have that we they gave us they gave us guidance already as to what they thought it would be but we don't have that until the town votes on it that's that's when we find out for sure how much
199we've got but they they gave us what they could tolerate there's a gross number that they say the town can afford between the board of educ in the town we're going to have to tell them what we want knowing that we can't exceed you well exactly and and how are you going to know what is the most important need if you don't have someone look at it structurally no you have to look at it structurally that's what's confusing to me we we don't want to do it because we can't do renovate is new but at some point then it comes back to well where's your Capital plan where's your design what do what do people you know what do you say we will we will eventually do exactly what we're talking about tonight I mean
200that that's it I mean the building needs attention we've already we we've already determined that we are going to spend $47,000 at some point and the question is do we spend it tonight and start the ball rolling on what ever the renovation is going to be at the middle school and other schools for that matter yeah or do we say no but then what do we do so we're gonna have to we're gonna have to do some sort we have to do something with these buildings and to be honest with you every time we kick the can down the road it gets more expensive and and I think go ahead this board has taken an inordinate amount of criticism from a very small group of individuals in town that that we wasting money that we
201should shut buildings now I'd love for them to come forward with their fiscal plan uh but you know it's easy to hide behind a computer and post on Facebook this board has made at least the determination okay we've we've we're going to stop right here and we're going to stop this postpone postpone postpone and it's always been the case that the board of Finance has to tell the town we gave the board of Finance what we would like to do they came back and said no we don't have enough money for that I I don't believe we should be criticized for that although there's a Cadre in this town that seems to go out of their way to do that um we just said this is what needs to be done now we know we
202can can't afford it what are we going to do next ultimately we're going to spend this money because you're going to have to look at the middle school no question about it so I will resend what I said before and I will pick up on Phil's earlier comments that we either going to spend it today or we're gonna spend it six months from now but one way or another we will spend money on a structural study of that school I agree and I think again I think that the longer I mean look we we we had years ago we've we have spent a lot of money on studies there's no there's no denying that a lot of money no I'll stop you right there I am that's another thing I'm not apologetic about one iota
203we have spent money on studies it's been money well spent it's gotten us to the point where we know we have to do something you may not like the outcome of it you may not like the cost of it but it you do you just don't take a million and say I'm just without any planning for it no without a doubt we we but we've done a lot of planning my point is at this stage we've done a lot of planning one thing we have found out is that by waiting the cost does nothing but go up right I don't and by the way it's going higher so why wait any longer these buildings aren't getting younger the infrastructure still needs to be addressed prices are going to do nothing but go up we all
204have agreed that something has to be done with this with the Middle School in particular but also with hurlbut we need to find out what we can do with the middle school and start moving forward in my opinion I just think that it's we we're in agreement something needs to happen I'm not quite sure why we want to put the breakes on it at this stage I just want the board of Finance has come out and said to us here's the here's here's your guidelines that you can work in so now that we know what budget is let's make it happen I I want just four weeks what I because the board of Finance is having two meetings before we meet again and I think that this board definitely agrees we have to do something
205in the middle school there's no question about that I think we disagree on when to spend the money and I think that's just you know as as individuals how we solve problems we solve problems slightly differently I would like us not to vote on it tonight I would like for this to be Revisited in four weeks our next meeting after the board of Finance has had their public meetings there is still some question about are we going to do 20 years of debt or 30 years of debt um I think the number was around 60 or 70 million uh was roughly the dollar amount the town could afford so my feeling is we wait four weeks we find out from the board of finance a more specific range that we're going to be allocated and
206maybe it's $55 million maybe it's 60 million we go to cers and we say to cers we now have a budget it's $60 million we have to spread that across four buildings we have to uh 10 years or potentially 20 years or in some ways 30 years but 10 years now that you know that we have 50 million or 60 million to spend what do we focus on at the middle school and what studies do we need I just think four weeks A lot's going to change in the next four weeks with the board of Finance meetings with the public and I think that they're going to commit to a 20e uh uh uh loan or borrower 30 year I I just think I think we should just give it four weeks all right what
207we're not gonna we should just bring this to a vote um unless anyone disagrees just just to point out four weeks would take us past the March meeting so then we would be looking at April first all right so so hold on hold on two seconds so I'm I'm not quite sure David I mean based upon the last Board of Finance meeting whether they whether they do it for 20 years or 30 years the amount didn't seem to be changing am I am I incorrect in that no the the the the amount and this is where I'm going to get dangerous so I'll just say maybe I'll just defer I'll set up and I'll defer to the the finance people in the room but basically I believe the board of Finance all the the basics
208are to maintain our AAA rating and the debt that we can take over 30 years looks better than 20 years so I think that what they're wrestling with is do you want to do what I think is unusual borrow for 30 years when it's typically 20 and I think that's part of what they're wrestling with themselves internally they sub committees and that they're soliciting feedback from the community on but I believe that's really what what they're working on do you want to take do you want to do something to maintain our AAA rating of 30 years or do you want to stick to 20 years and by the way it's not we're not the board of Finance but if you borrow for 30 years and you've got systems have a 20-year life right you're going
209to be paying in years 21 to 30 that but that's not the but that's not the that's not the gting issue here it's not really our problem it's just you know it's not their problem either you know they they have they have to come forward with any bonding uh regardless of you know regardless of the of the duration of it at some point but and how they finance it realistically is going to be up to them but again that's not going to change the number that they're giving us no it's not going to change the number at all it's just going to change the tax burden correct so but we know pretty much what our number is we we what the board of finances hold us they think the town can handle to maintain but
210but they what they haven't done and the shortcoming in the study is if we told them we needed I'm making the number up $25 million today I don't know if they thought out whether we're going to be doing it over a 10-year period or say the building right today need needs a big number and the town's going to all of a sudden have some large number on their balance sheet you know you know as debt I think that they would love it if we spread it out as much as we possibly could but if we're gonna do a big chunk of the middle school you know maybe we take if they're giving us $70 million let's say they're giving us $70 million as for the school district if we can take you know 50 million
211for the middle school and in two years 20 million for hurlbut you know how are we can spread it out I think that they would love that that gets back to ultimately we're going to be spending the money that we're talking about tonight yeah four weeks from now it's not going to change anything we know the gross numbers the gross number that the town can afford right um anyway we we should just take a vote on this wait before I just want to point out two just want to clarify two things one which is most important we're not saying that there's any structural issues with the middle school right so that's I that's one to point that out because we we've talked a lot about structural integrity and stuff like that so we're not saying
212that um so I just want to say that just for um just for the public in terms of funding um last fiscal year $96,000 was approved um for all kind of um anything Consulting relating to the meddle school so then why is it Phil if we approved $96,000 why do we need to approve this amount tonight because we we we've been having these kind of conversations okay so this is just to this this money is already set aside this is just to specifically allocate $47,500 of the $96,000 that were already allocated for this correct that is correct how much of the 96,000 has been uh encumbered or spent so far so far we we we have spent zero doar so we can afford it right now we we we can afford it at some point
213we may make a decision to allocate it's like get the coupon let's go shopping joking we we can have other conversations with with um with with with Slam in terms of the $40,000 and also incorpora in all the work that has been done by tecton to see where we ultimately um end up at the end of the day right we can we can tell slam tomorrow we're committed to $7,500 and we don't know if and when we can commit traditional 40,000 traditional $40,000 what we get for $75,000 is a lot of answers regardless of however it is that it plays out it's it's it's perfectly fine but if if we do approve it tonight it would be nice for you to give us an INT report after they do the walkthrough $7,500 walkth through definitely
214okay right I think that's on the EOC agenda for April okay work coming right so I'll read the motion move that the Western Board of Education approved the phase one preliminary assessment of the western Middle School uh it's two motions in the amount of $7,500 is there a second I'll second all those in favor I I opposed okay so that's one uh whoops is there where's oh where's it's right under it's right underneath Blends in that's what threw me off as well it's where yeah it's right under line underneath it I don't want to start clicking around because I don't want to throw you you want me to read yeah would you read it yeah if the phase one so the motion is if the phase one preliminary assessment supports a renovated new status of
215the Weston Middle School the Weston Board of Education approves a comprehensive renovation assessment in the amount of $40,000 second okay all those in favor I I opposed well thank you very much uh shall we move on to committee updates please Communications committee I assume didn't uh meet nothing to communicate on that category C least is not here no he's not here CES uh we're doing negotiations with the teachers and stuff nothing interesting to Weston okay curriculum uh we had a good meeting this past month we went through um it was a student basically that it was the uh the executive summary of this student well-being a challenge success right um Tina and it was really interesting and I highly recommend if uh everyone has a chance to go on to board book or go to
216take a look at the agenda and look at the attachment it kind of it's It's a survey results initial survey results of um from uh that were from challenge success which is you know how your students feel in the school their connections to the teachers um it was really interesting and I think it was a good survey EOC I think we've uh We've covered it we're good Finance I think we've done that uh the only Mike demastro wasn't uh there at our most recent meeting he was on vacation Poli Sharon uh we went through the civility policy and also the employee um what's the word I'm thinking of right now policy and we basically we're not we're not quite ready for a first read on either of them um and we also touched on um
217touched on hold on I have it right here the Title Nine um and what we're going to be doing with the new Administration how we're going to end up reverting back to the uh 2020 policy um from the 2024 regulations as they being repealed so I think that that's pretty much Michael am I missing anything there no no covered it yeah um Michael Safety and Security that was a good meeting uh sure yeah we um couple things we um we discussed obviously the the swatting incident that happened at the end of January so Captain Joe melli was there to walk us through sort of you know the response um we talked about the roll out of the quick links uh which is ongoing um which is great you know across the district and then of
218course we introduced our new director security who's also here tonight Jim wilcy um and we announced the let's see the two upcoming fors for parents to interact to meet Jim and Pur and interact with them they're scheduled for Thursday March 13th from 7 8:30 p.m. at Weston Middle School the library and then on Wednesday March 26th from was it 9:30 to 11 in the whis cafeteria so we're piggybacking off of the PTO meeting there we Sharon is anything going on um you know what I actually was not able to attend the most recent we meeting but Tina were you able to attend maybe you can give us update y uh Patty and I were there um they approved uh supporting a Grade Three uh field trip to enrich the science curriculum um that was proposed
219from our Cil there and um they are also talking about fundraising events that they're coordinating for March and the fall of next year yes I'm sorry May in the fall of next year um so so uh that's kind of it for the evening I just uh just remember uh Saturday is speakup at the uh don't smile Phil Saturday is speak up at the uh at the library at 10:30 in the morning I believe the time is what is speak up uh refresh my memory sorry no you don't know what speakup is I don't people come and speak up about different um concerns and give feedback they ask questions of you know every every board and commission uh in town in the police department oh so are all the chairs there I'm assuming you're going to
220be there then yes I will I believe it's sponsored by the League of Women Voters is that correct oh that's great yeah okay um 10:30 Saturday morning Weston Library can I have a motion to adjourn so moved okay second I'll second all those in favor I thank you thank you thanks