Board of Education Meeting - November 25, 2025

001and welcome to tonight's board of ed meeting. Today is Tuesday, November 25th, 2025 and it's the week of Thanksgiving as such a great holiday. [snorts] I would appreciate that you turn off your cell phones as this meeting is being recorded and Ellen's not here to do the roll call, so we're going to do it on our own. Marjorie >> here. Go ahead. Just go right down. Just >> here. Matt Lacavolei here. >> Bobby Granado here. >> Oh, Janice Roberts here. >> Gabby Debbacco here. >> Mindy Gold here. >> I'm Amanda Drew and I'm here. >> Thank you. Okay. And now we're going to have the Silus Middle School. Anybody who's here from Silus Middle School, students, teachers, and admin, could you please stand and do the pledge of allegiance with us? I pledge algiance to

002the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Okay, thank you. And for our student staff recognition, we have Silus Dean coming up for our family and consumer science. Come on up. Good evening. So nice to see all of you again and welcome to our new members. I'm Terry Yesco. I'm the principal at Silus Dean. Um tonight we're so excited to recognize the creativity, collaboration, and culinary culinary talent happening right here at SDMS. Our family consumer science teacher, Mrs. Analise Hurbot, continues to bring hands-on real world learning to her uh classroom. And this fall, our eighth graders took it to a whole new level. During the first quarter, students participated in their very own cupcake wars

003where they designed in teams and they baked and decorated and presented cupcakes that were not only delicious, but beautifully themed, thoughtfully executed, and creatively marketed. and we have samples. [laughter] Uh, this experience pushed students to practice problem solving, teamwork, time management, and a bit of artistic flare, all wrapped up into one sweet challenge that showcased our vision vision of the graduate attributes. Although, I'm a little interested in learning a little bit more about how the judges were selected, particularly how our director of security, Mike Barabbolt, ended up on the panel. But I do want to share that after speaking with Mr. bearable about his judging experience. He absolutely raved about the effort, passion, and quality he saw across all the eighth grade classes. He was genuinely impressed with the final products and noted it was

004really difficult to choose a winner. So, without further ado, I'm going to turn it over to Mrs. Hurlbut and some of our eighth graders to tell you a little bit more about this activity. All right. So, these lovely ladies that are here were some of the people that really did exemplified um collaboration and working together and doing a really good job with practicing uh their piping skills and learning how to make cupcakes and coming up with a business plan. Um they really did such an amazing job and they put so much effort into it. Um so they do have three different types of cupcakes for you guys to sample that they made. Right. You guys want to tell them what kind of cupcakes? Okay, these ones are called the Citrus Dream. They're a vanilla cupcake

005topped with a silky smooth orange buttercream frosting. Um, these ones are called the Raspberry Bloom. They're chocolate cupcake topped with a homemade raspberry buttercream frosting. Uh, these ones are chocolate marshmallow swirl cupcakes. These are a picked chocolate vanilla cupcake filled with fluffy marshmallow cream and topped with a silky descent um chocolate buttercream. And then Shay here has an example of one of the food trucks that um one of the groups made had was part of their business plan. Had the name of their business, their slogan, their menu, the design to try to get people to come to their truck if they were to actually make it like a real business out in the real world. Um so they got to put their skills to work. Would [laughter] anybody like a sample? >> Of course. [applause]

006>> We can both [laughter] smell good. Come on. And I'd like to thank the family and consumer science department at the middle school because during the superintendent entry visit you visit over at the middle school, you guys provided and the kids made uh wonderful treats for all the kids and parents and uh staff who came in for interviews that day. So thank you so much. >> So did you [laughter] get the chocolate in school? >> Thank you so much. >> Really? You don't have to >> boil tonight. >> I was [laughter] not expecting the first time ever one >> just did it for this project. >> That's cool. >> Yeah. >> Don't worry. >> Thank you so much. >> Do any of you make cupcakes regularly or you just did [laughter] it for the for

007the cupcake wars? >> Do you make do you guys make cupcakes normally or you just do? >> This is delicious. This [laughter] looks amazing. Thank you. I'm not going to take two. I'm going to take one. >> No, we can save one for my husband. >> You know what? I just My husband. >> Thank you very much. What is the flavor again of this one? >> I'll try one of those, too. >> Oh, raspberry. Oh my gosh. Amazing. I love you and decorated. >> Thank you for coming tonight. >> Yes. Can I have another one? One for each. >> I can take the frosting right off with this. Right. [laughter] Thanks so much. Thank you. I'm all set. There we go. I got the tooth. I'm okay. Yeah. [laughter] >> What's that? >> Wow. >>

008Good job. >> Change your mind. >> You know what? [laughter] >> I can't touch it. And and cupcake war people. >> Yeah, please. >> Who was the winner? >> Yeah. Who won? >> And Sophie. >> Congratulations. >> Winning. >> So, was this the winning cupcake here? The chocolate with pink? >> No, they were pumpkin ones, >> but we ate a ton of time. >> They were all gone. They Yeah, they all they all got eight. They all got eight. [laughter] >> But guys, we want to take your picture. So, turn around with your cupcakes. >> Oh, we're like chewing our [laughter] stand up. >> They did not have enough lighting. [laughter] >> Beautiful. Awesome. Great. Thank you so much. Okay, before you go, anybody have any questions for our cupcake war people? [laughter] >> I

009just want to say these are seriously delicious. Fantastic. Fantastic. >> And great for the first meeting for our new members. >> What a special treat. [laughter] >> You guys can come every other Tuesday. We'll be >> They're absolutely delicious. How did you guys come up with your flavor concepts? [laughter] >> Looked at what you had. Resourceful. I love it. This is great. Great guys, thank you very much for sharing delicious work. [applause] >> We should have those every week. >> Yeah, [laughter] >> don't move. >> That's great ideas. [laughter] >> Okay. Next on tonight's agenda is the approval of the minutes for our regular board of ed meeting on November 11th, 2025. May I have a motion to approve those minutes? Anyone? >> Motion. >> Okay. A second. >> Second. Okay. Discussion. Any discussion on

010these minutes? We're all set. Okay. So, let's have a vote. All in favor? I opposed. Any abstensions? Those minutes are approved. And we had another meeting also on November 20th, 2025. May I have a motion to approve the minutes of that special board of ed meeting? >> Motion. >> Second. >> A second. Thank you. Um, any discussion on this? Okay, we'll vote. All in favor? >> I opposed. >> Any abstensions? Those minutes are approved. Okay. Is there anyone wishing to make a public comment? Come on up to the podium and state your name and address. And may I remind you that you have a fiveinut limit. Also to tell you that the board will not respond to your comments when you're at the podium. Thank you. Anyone? Okay, we'll move on. So, Mr. Wibby, you

011have some communications for us? >> Yes, Madam Chair. I'm going to uh look to call from reference two from the board packet uh the superintendent'sformational update just uh we're director Kazaka and I are ex very excited one month earlier than the prior year uh he's gotten together the uh the budget development process preliminary work so we're we're really excited to start to share that with the board of ed and um I'm really really uh thrilled with with Matt's work as we're working through the uh the first runs of the of the budget process as we look down through our talent management and human capital. So I just want to call to attention something that really is going on good across the state of Connecticut uh because there's such a paraprofessional shortage in Connecticut. The state

012general assembly has funded what's called a para educator subsidy program for paraprofessionals across the state and Weathersfield Public Schools has received a one-time payment of $19,635. Now, this subsidy goes to pay the employees share of the health insurance. So, it's like relief to our employees. It's basically the state uh the state's uh way of supporting school districts. We I I'll be the first one to grouse about unfunded mandates coming from Hartford, but this is an example where the state legislature is trying to help us out um in talent shortages uh across the state. So, this is a nice thing that uh we're the recipients of. I'm going to move down to student services. Just wanted to bring to the board's attention. School nurses have been provided with what's called trauma kit backpacks to help them

013respond quickly and effectively during emergencies. Emergencies in a serious injury situation where there may be severe bleeding, broken bones, or breathing difficulties. Every minute counts for the nurse's response uh team. And this is um something in inside the kit has tourniquets, bandages, pressure bandages, splints that can help stabilize students or staff. So, this is the first time um that they kind of have these trauma kits that are in a backpack. They're easy to grab and go, so if there's some sort of an emergency throughout the buildings, the nurses can can have everything in in uh one spot to grab. Um, just want to uh bring to our attention we're the recipients of a $250,000 grant for our parents connecting parents program. Uh, again, this was a grant that came from the general assembly. Um, our

014local senator, Senator Fonah, was uh, a champion for Weathersfield to receive this grant. And uh again, this is to support our our parents uh you know, here in Weathersfield Public Schools. Taking a look at food services, we kind of continue to monitor this as we've come off of the universal lunch year-over-year cumulative comparisons through October. We see we're down um quite a few meals from last year. District breakfasts are down about 280 meals per day. District lunches are down about 440 meals per day. However, the district alle cart, so this is where the kids get drinks and snacks. These sales are up uh substantially um up 38,000 in gross sales. So, just something to keep an eye on as we've had kind of some substantial changes. I'll try to keep reporting this to you guys

015throughout the year. [snorts] Taking a look at the teaching and learning office, Weathersfield Public Schools November 4th full day professional development offered rich and purposeful learning experiences that were aligned to district priorities for certified staff and non-certified staff. We had and on the the the fourth we had 38 on-site professional learning sessions. We had four off-site conferences, workshops, and networking meetings for our staff. We had 24 Weathersfield public school uh teacher facilitators who were leading PD for their pairs and about 300 certified staff and 100 non-certified staff participated in uh in this. The major themes for the day were datadriven practices to uh guide the use of assessment strategies, interventions and frameworks to meet the needs of diverse learners, enhancing core curriculum and strengthening vertical and horizontal alignment. Um and those are those are kind

016of some of the bigger highlights from the um the superintendence report. Madam Chair, >> thank you. Now, can you you can take questions from us. Anybody have a question? >> No. Okay. I do. The trauma kits are in every school. >> Every school nurse's office has one of those backpack trauma kits. >> Okay. I would have assumed it, but I just wanted to know for sure. Thank you. Okay. Great. Okay. So, we'll move on. Tonight, we have two action items. And Gabby, would you please read the recommended motion for our 6A? >> What page is that? >> I actually I have it right here. Do I? >> 28. No, I don't have it right here. >> Reference three. So it looks like this. Gabby, >> I got it right here. Is that hers? Yeah, that's

017the right one. >> It is the right one. >> Oh, okay. >> Glad I could help. >> Apologies. You can tell this is my first time. >> All right. So, our recommended motion is that the Weatherfield Board of Education approve the regular meeting calendar for the 2026 to 2027 school year. >> Okay. Can I have a second? Second. >> Okay. And any discussion? This is a revised. >> So, the motion was made. Um, that was 6B, but we can do 6A after that cuz she did it for the 26 27. >> Okay. All right. >> Oh, did I skip one? >> Yeah, I was like, >> yes. Yes, I fine. We can do that one first. >> No problem. As long as we know. >> Okay. All right. So, that was motion 6B, right? Just

018so Right. Okay. Just so we have it all. We're all set. No problem. Um, any discussion on this? >> So, >> I think we've studied this enough. >> Yes, I do. Okay. So, let's take a vote on it. All in favor? >> I I >> So, hold on. >> Okay. Is this the one where we're choosing which option? >> Yes. >> Okay. So, can you please explain to those who are not or new what what option we're choosing um what the rationale was and stuff like that. So, because >> Go ahead. >> I don't I don't want to vote on something I'm not >> No, that's fine. >> Sure. >> So, I'm going to bring and this is in the board's packet. This was a reference item from a September board of ed meeting, but

019we put it back in tonight's packet again for your reference. Uh we made a presentation back in September that um that just showed the uh number, you know, the the types of meetings, the number of meetings um that the the board was currently h having. And we compared Weathersfield Board of Ed to Rocky Hill board, Newington board, South Windsor board, Southernington board, and just showed the volume of meetings. We also talked about um you know the the the rationale around having the proposal tonight is to have a workshop night on the the second Tuesday and a board business night on the fourth Tuesday and prior to the workshop will be the committees. So, the committees will actually be held on that same evening as the um the workshop night, the second one, and then the

020the fourth Tuesday would be the board business night when you're voting on um you know, business. >> The option B. So, we're not going to do option A. We we're doing option B. >> Option B would be the one where it would be split between workshop and non-workshop. Auction A was the one where um it would eliminate the committees and all the committee work would just be done in a committee of the whole. Correct. >> And what is the what is the reason for not doing that versus doing the workshop and then and then the meeting? >> Answer that. >> First of all, we dis we discussed how many times we're out at meetings and it's just become overdone, >> right? No, no, no. I'm I'm okay with I'm okay with like split like doing

021like one general meeting, you know, but why why is it the committee meetings and then a meeting versus the entire board being involved in all of the committee decisions and just making it just a giant workshop. >> One of the strengths of that model is that you're many board members have expertise in certain areas. So it allows board members to um kind of realize their expertise on a particular committee meeting but then right after the committee you come back to the full board and report out what happened um at the committee. So it it kind of opens up more immediate transparency of what happened at that committee meeting that evening to the full board and then the full board has an opportunity to have discussion about what happened in the committee cuz the board will

022be split up amongst various committees. So it lets all nine of you have an opportunity to have some public discourse that night around what went on in those committees. So, it just it's a little bit of a measure of transparency for the public and it's an opportunity for all nine board members to have some say and input on all of the committees. >> So, when we have this committee, will we be like meeting in like different areas of the Stillman building and then we'll all be coming back or >> we're trying we're trying to stay here. This is where we want to stay because we have those dates. >> Okay. So we'll be here and we would start out here just as we are right now and then go off into our committee meetings which

023can be held in the town hall and then return back here at the end. >> Okay. To discuss >> that that discussion that will allow us to actually vote because then you can't technically vote in workshops. >> So that allows us to come back and >> Okay. >> You could put something up for a first read. >> Yep. Like technically you could put something you could move something for a first read from a committee >> that night at the workshop and then it could be prepared. It's might maybe not always advisable but then it could be prepared for this the fourth Tuesday for a second read and a full board vote on a particular policy. >> Okay. And Amanda, I I uh was remiss. I did not mention that we will continue to hold the

024finance subcommittee meeting as we've always done traditionally on the fourth Tuesday before the uh the board meeting. And so that would be the same because >> that was my favorite committee. >> The finance committee does meet every single month uh which is um different from many of the other committees. The other committees are on a threemonth rotating basis. Okay. Any other questions? I >> I was just going to Yeah. No, I was just going to say I appreciate the questions, Amanda, but and I I appreciate the the foresight to take the initiative to implement this, Jeff. Um when we started looking through how many times we met throughout the year, whether it was for board meetings, committee meetings, PTO meetings, budget workshops, expuls expulsion hearings, contract stuff, it just started adding up and adding up.

025I think this it allows us to accomplish the same things that we were getting done in slightly fewer meetings. >> I like the idea that we all come together after each of our own committee meetings and talked about what we just discussed in committee. Um and I didn't I Amanda, I didn't really have a strong opinion on either option A or B. I I didn't really insert my thoughts when it came to that. I was good with either one. Um I kind of deferred to Jeff on that. So, but I I appreciate this idea. Look looking around at the other board of eds in Connecticut, I I was surprised we by far met the most prior to doing this. And this just makes things more efficient. The we won the blue ribbon for the most

026board of ed >> meetings. Yeah. Yeah. >> South Windsor was the the ones we looked at had the least board meetings. They have 10 regular board meetings versus we had 22. So we had about twice as many as South Windsor. >> Um >> and the state only requires once every 6 months for us to have a meeting. That sounds about right. >> That's crazy. We never get anything done. [laughter] >> Okay. >> And one more. And if for whatever reason we decide we don't like this format, if we can change it, right? >> Yep. >> Okay. So it's the board's prerogative to change this um you know you usually run it through a whole cycle so you can kind of see how each committee hits for the cycle each month but it is up to

027you know the board has the prerogative to change it any every year if you'd like. So you could change it mid year if you wanted to. Also >> would we also have the ability to call a special meeting of a subcommittee outside of the schedule? >> Always. >> Yeah. >> Yep. You always do. You just uh you have to announce a special meeting, but you could you could have special committee meetings, you could have special board meetings, [clears throat] you could have special workshop meetings. All just have to be announced within the statutoal statutoily u mandated requirements, but you can still do that. >> And any other questions, Jim? >> Uh I just had a comment. I mean, for for myself, this is going to be very helpful, you know, if we have a first

028reading and a second reading. Uh, in the past, I've felt that there's been significant policy changes that I didn't know about until the Friday before or the the day of the meeting. So, this will be uh much appreciated. Thank you. >> Anyone else? Okay, we'll take a vote. So, all in favor? >> I >> opposed. Any abstensions? That motion passes. And Mindy, can you read your motion? >> Yes. [cough] Moved that the Weathersfield Board of Education approved the revisions made to the 2025 2026 regular meeting calendar of the board of education. >> Okay. Can I have a second? Second. >> All right. Let's have some discussion. This is our revised calendar. You want to make a a point on how it's revised? It was the the difference between this is we're going to stick with

029the regular scheduled meetings through December and we would roll into this new fangled uh process in J come January would be when we start the new um the new calendar. So the month of December we would still remain with uh what we had booked. >> Okay. Any other discussion on this calendar? Okay, let's have a vote. All in favor? I opposed. Any abstensions? That motion passes. Okay, tonight we have three schools school improvement plans to hear up here, some presentations, and I understand elementary is first. [cough] In the past, my previous [clears throat] district, we went and I had heard, "Well, elementary gets to go first." So, I said, "All right, well, why don't we let high school go first this year?" And they got mad at me. [laughter] We're going to stay the course

030and let elementary go first. We appreciate the elementary team and and our supervisors uh who are supporting them as well this evening >> in this town >> and our elementary team worked in in what a word I like to throw around a lot with great coherence. They worked together to craft their school continuous improvement plans to match the board approved district continuous improvement plan and they coherently worked together as a as a elementary team. So, I was really proud uh of them rolling up this their sleeves and and um doing this work together. Uh really really uh really did a great job on this. So, I'm going to looks like I'm throwing it to Nila to get us rolling. >> Good evening everybody. Hey, my name is Nila Takor and I'm principal at Emerson Williams

031Elementary School. Welcome to our new board of ed members. It's great to have you on the board. Um, as Mr. Wibby just mentioned, um, all five of our schools at the elementary level really work together to put together this comprehensive school improvement plan. So, while each of our plans, which you have in your packets, vary slightly in each of the sections, our overall main goals are the same. So, we are pre presenting um together this evening. Let's see. There we go. Um I'd like to start by introducing our elementary school leadership team. Um our lead our leadership team at the elementary level meets together um twice a month. and meeting together twice a month is so important because it helps to keep us all on the same page uh regarding curriculum instruction, social emotional learning.

032It's an opportunity for us to ask questions of one another, learn from one another, and just be as consistent as we possibly can across the district. Um definitely we all of our schools have different nuances and different cultures and communities, but um there's so much that we celebrate that's the same across all five of our schools. Um so we have a couple of our members who are not with us this evening. Um Patrick is the principal of Hanmer and Chris is the principal of Highest. Uh, but we do have here this evening Ken Craig, principal of Web, Dave Huber, principal of Charles Wright, we have Don Campbell, who was our instructional supervisor for K through6 curriculum, and Liz Fredus, who is our instructional supervisor for K6 special education. So, when we have our meetings twice

033a month, um, Dawn and Liz are very important parts of our meetings that we have twice a month. Here we go with that. Sounds good to me. I am Don Cample. Good evening. I am the instructional supervisor for Ksix curriculum in Weathersfield. Our school improvement plans are always intentionally built with an eye toward the vision of a graduate competencies to ensure that every initiative we pursue directly supports the skills and mindsets that our students need for success. At the center of this work is goal one, student achievement, highquality instruction for all students. And every strategy from data-driven decision-making to tier one instructional improvement to professional development is designed to help ensure that students become effective communicators, critical thinkers, collaborators, and problem solvers. Our plans are not just documents. They are road maps that bring our

034vision of a graduate to life in every classroom every day. We're going to share with you each of those goals. Hello everybody. Ken Craig, principal Web Elementary School. Good evening. I'm going to talk about student achievement goal one and for 1.1 implementing the vision of the graduate. As you know, our elementary programming is a prek through six program. So you'll see that the steps that we are taking really represent the developmentally appropriate strategy across all those grades. So I'm going to start with play-based learning. We're really um in the middle stages of our play-based learning journey. Um, and we're undertaking a lot of work in preK and kindergarten to ensure that our kids have purposeful play in their day. And we've undertaken looks at our schedule. We're working closely with uh one of the leaders

035in the entire state for play-based learning, Karen Gray. And all of our kindergarten teachers are going through professional development and getting feedback around purposeful play. And we're putting together units that align with our curriculum so students have that opportunity every day. We also are looking very closely at the ways that we analyze data. We have many data points to analyze. Um, and in years past the struggle has been how do we look at those to really make an improvement for student outcomes and student achievement. So this year we've looked closely at the systems and at each school we have data systems, student work teams, and at the district level a district-wide data team where we're looking very closely at the student data. We're looking very closely at student work. And then we're planning retaches to

036ensure that the kids are all getting the curriculum and getting the very best of the curriculum. Um so those those data teams or student work teams as we call it at the school level are are happening at every school with fidelity and using a unified protocol as well. And we're also continuing to pro provide professional learning around highquality instructional strategies. Uh last year we presented to you a new um teacher support and evaluation plan where we focused on single point competencies and action research model. We're aligning that plan with our professional development to ensure that we're giving instructional strategies. We're putting those in the hands of teachers with a focus on 3B and 3C which is feedback for learning and active engagement for learning. Those are the highest leverage points for instructional strategies. So our

037professional development is focused on those strategies as well. Thank you, Mr. Huer. Dr. Huber, >> good morning everybody. Happy Thanksgiving. It's great to see you tonight. I'm going to talk about goal one, two, which is developing systems to uh to support student success. What we've done is all of our administrative team have collaboratively crafted our plans for our own personal uh improvement so that we're all focusing on the same areas of growing our team. So if we as a team are learning together, then we know that all of our staff and all of our kids in our community is going to rise at the same time. So the structures that we're putting in place are consistent. So wherever your kids happen to go to school, we want to make sure that we're going to give

038them the same opportunity and experience. Uh one of the steps we're taking is we're going to be making peer visits and collaborative visits to each other's schools to see how we're using the different systems and structures. We want some opportunity to to learn together and grow together. and we want some chances to try some things to see if we can find more effective or efficient ways to engage in our improvement. Um, we have an ongoing data review discussions that are taking place not only between our elementary principles but members of our curriculum and our special education team. In my opinion, this is one of the highest leveraged things that we're doing because we're not consolidating regular ed, special education, elementary, middle. We've had walkthroughs where Drs. Latin joins our elementary teams. So, as a district

039leadership team, we're focusing on our Weathersfield kids and what we can do to give them better outcomes. Um, in my 20some years, this is one of the most collaborative teams that I've been a part of and exciting because we're putting our kids first and we're learning together. Uh, and the last thing is we're reviewing all of our data through multiple lenses. You know, we can look at a data point and say, hey, that's 70% of our kids are doing something great, but we also have to look and say that means that there's 30% who aren't there yet. And within that 30% there's different subgroups of kids. There may be our high need students. There may be our free and reduced lunch students. They may be our our regular ed. We don't know. But we want

040to continue to look through all of the different lenses to make sure that we we know where our gaps are and the steps we can do to continually close them. So that is our goal 1.2. Okay. for our strategic action 1.3. It is still focused on student achievement and one of the areas that's consistent across all five of our elementary schools is a heavy focus on analyzing the student absences. Um we know that we can only help our students to achieve if they are coming to school regularly and um we are working so hard as an elementary team to get our kids to want to come to school. Um, all of our teams have comprehensive attendance teams that meet either once a month or twice a month. And those teams are composed of the principal,

041the school social worker, the psychologist, and classroom teachers. And during those attendance team meetings, we are looking at our students who have high numbers of absences, tardies, and early dismissals from school. And what we're really trying to do, and I know they're doing this at the middle school and the high school as well, is really understand the stories behind each of those situations. Um, we all have our attendance secretaries or attendance clerks are part of our attendance teams as well. Uh, because sometimes they're the ones on the front line who are really hearing the stories when they come in through a phone call or an email or a parent walking into the office. Um, and really there's so many different prongs to attacking student absences, but one of the biggest ones is just getting our

042students to really want to come to school. And so our teams are working so hard to make schools engaging and to make sure that our students all feel connected to their peers and to the adults in the building. The other thing we are working on um across all five of our schools is making improvements to our SRBI system which is also some kind sometimes called MTSS. There's a lot of acronyms in education but basically those are the systems whereby we are screening students and flagging students both for academic reasons, attendance reasons and behavioral reasons. Um and we are working um at the tier one level classroom level to try to put supports into place to help those students and to catch them before the gap gets too big. But we also have tier 2 interventions

043and tier three interventions. [snorts] And part of what we are benefiting so much from in terms of working together as a team is sharing ideas across schools. There may be something that's happening at Charles Wright that we just haven't thought of yet at Emerson. And so rather than reinventing the wheel of interventions um just learning and sharing from one another and um both with student absences and SRBI that is something that we've been working on for several years. Uh but what Ken Craig mentioned a little bit earlier is something that's new to us um that we have now that we have a new superintendent in our district is this whole notion of a district-wide data team. So our whole admin um council meets together twice a month. once a month is just for our routine

044admin team meeting, but the second meeting of every month is a district-wide data team. And I think everybody um on the admin team is really enjoying this because it's an opportunity to um really roll up our sleeves and look closely at some data and get curious about it. Sometimes we get so busy in the nitty-gritty aspects of our job throughout the day. We are very very busy at the school level that having this opportunity to go to the Stillman conference room and look at the data and really digest it and try to understand it and then brainstorm action steps. Um I think our admin team is finding that incredibly helpful and I think we're all enjoying that very much. So that brings us to goal 14, which is developing systems of continuous improvement to achieve

045high-quality instruction for all students. Um, I want to recognize the essential work of our school-based teams as we continue building systems of continuous improvement. That is something that I think we were slowly building and now we are more on an accelerated track of finding these systems and having them become a more coherent practice across all of our schools. Um, our teams will be coming together with purpose and clarity, sharing leadership team outcomes, examining data collaboratively determining next steps. These conversations will bring forward during we will bring forward during our monthly meetings to the whole team so that we can all be on the same page. It's an opportunity as Nila shared for us to learn with and from one another um and ensure in order to ensure coherent practices in all of our schools. Our

046school teams will be investing in the growth of teacher leaders, providing ongoing professional development that will strengthen our shared capacity for monitoring data effectively and responding with timely targeted instruction. This commitment is building a culture where leadership is distributed. We're talking about not just our leadership, but the leadership of the teachers in our buildings and empowering them to have these conversations on a regular basis to look at data through the lenses that we're asking ourselves and them to look at it through. Our hope is through this professional development that those some of those teacher leaders will be elevated and take the lead in a lot of that work going forward. Importantly, our schools are engaging in job embedded professional learning grounded in the science of reading. To take a little bit of a sidebar, um

047we are sharing resources, strategies, and classroom practices that elevate tier one instruction in every K6 classroom. Our work this year is shifting our literacy professional learning from simply our K3 where we were really digging in hard um to to expand that through our fourth through 6th and through 8th grade going forward. So we have some plans going forward to bring the science of reading thoroughly through our entire curriculum. This work is more than a set of action steps. It is a demonstration of our dedication to ensuring that every student receives the highquality instruction that they deserve. Our school-based teams are leading this charge and their efforts are make are going to be making a lasting difference. All right, we're going to shift gears to goal number two, civic and family engagement. And I come to

048you tonight wearing one of the most important hats in my life, which is principal of Weathersfield kids. Right? And I say one of the most because the most important hat I wear is dad of Weathersfield kids. And I wanted to speak about that because um the reason that we have a family here is because of the engagement of this community, with our schools, with each other. And I got to experience that as an Emerson parent and and I get to experience it as a principal at WEB. And I'm very proud of that. So, here are some ways that that we make sure that we continue to strengthen those connections. Uh, first off, we have all elementary schools implementing a bike a safe bike program in grade 4. Now, this has been tremendous. We've taught kids

049in grade four how to ride bikes at school. Uh, students that never had access to going out and riding bikes. Um, and something I've noticed at WEB, and I'm sure other schools might see the same thing, is our bike racks are full during school day. Now, we have a lot of kids biking to school each and every day. And I think that's, you know, many things that we've done uh work on and you'll hear about them a little bit later in the presentation. But I also think having bikes be a essential part of our program in grade 4 helped that as well. Uh we also have the all kids bike initiative that's grant funded where students learn how to uh the younger students learn balance bikes. Uh we have the diverse opportunities for parents to

050be involved and engaged in their child's learning. And the reason that that's a little bit more open-ended is because as Miss Takor said, every school has its own life, its own community, its own culture. Um, and so schools are free to to open up those opportunities in different ways. Um, at Web School, we have coffee and conversations where parents come in. And I know every school has other ways, breasts and evenings and international nights. There's so many ways that we do it uh at each school, but each school has a very, very vibrant opportunities uh throughout the school year for this. And then all elementary schools support families who need financial support. Uh we work very very closely not only with our community resources. I want to give a shout out to Kim Bobin who's

051um essential for our work in this regards. Uh but with our school social workers as well to ensure that our families in need know that they have uh someone there, a trusted person in their school or trusted people in their school who will get them what they need um whenever they need it. And that's very important to us. That's a very important part of a thriving school community where all members of your community, all parents, all families feel like they have their trusted adult just as the kids have their trusted adults. Moving on to goal three, which is management, operations, and finance. Um what we wanted to do is we want to take a look at some of our structures just to make sure that as an elementary team we are uh collaborating and participating

052in ongoing discussions using our student achievement data to provide feedback on class size. Uh superintendent Whibby identified that we may need to think about some structure for class size guidelines in order to make sure that all kids have equal access to learning. Uh we also want to do this through a lens of equity. So giving kids in schools what they need with urgency. So depending on our student achievement data, we may need to reallocate or consider resources to schools that may have different needs or grades or pockets of students. The other thing is we're going to continue in engagement with um conversations with the superintendent um updating a prioritized capital investment list to make sure we're supporting teaching and learning. We know all of our schools are at different stages of potential renovations and with

053redistricting. So we want to make sure that everyone doesn't need the same. What resources do we need right now to continue to support teaching and learning? >> Doc, I'll interrupt there. Uh the all of the all the school principles provided uh let's go back that to that slide. I always like to have something checked off before it's even due. And um all elementary school principles as well as all principles have provided uh capital improvement priority lists. Um, and we had that that tonight ready for uh for the board's review at the um at the finance committee. So, I really want to applaud uh the the principles and uh the IT folks and the security folks rolled up their sleeves um and the facilities folks uh rolled up their sleeves and they put together uh um

054a great capital priority list for the for the first time. So, that's one that it's done. So we our uh school improvement plans are about 22 to 25 pages. So this was the shortened version of uh what we have going on at all five of our schools and we are happy to take any questions you might have. Um Janice just starting with um comment just at the level of collaboration and how unified it is and coming from the district improvement plan is a big help and I know as a a teacher um I was on a very collaborative team and it just does so much for your practice and for your feelings of safety and security to be able to work together and be be out there and honest about what you have and you

055know what somebody else might have an an idea um and then you share that and use that um so I think that that is really amazing and just how comprehensive this is it just covers everything you didn't leave a stone unturned um I did notice in a couple of them reading of them um in the action plans the e department was included in action plans so is that across the board and it was just only uh completed in a couple of the schools schools, but is that more of across the board where the e department is included in the action plans? um as far as having their input um because they um work with nearly a third of our students. I know that across all five of our schools, especially with regards to SRBI and

056MTSS, when we have students who are struggling and we're considering whether or not special education is the correct route for us to go with them, we always involve our English language department every step of the way in that process. Um because whether or not our students have that second language as a home language language or their background language is so important to understanding how they're doing in school. So our English language department is very important to that process. We we have to include them every step of the way. >> Yeah. I was noticing in the uh comparison of the percentage of students who are in EL compared to special ed that in many cases they're pretty much neck and neck. So we would hope to see them mentioned the same same way that we would

057be mentioning and thinking about special ed and I assume that you were I just you know only saw it in a couple of places and I just wanted to be sure about that. >> Great question. >> Okay. Okay. Any other questions Marjorie? >> I just have a few comments and then one question. So I love three phrases. I loved um need to know these stories because when it comes to attendance because we are so focused on data and numbers and percentages and and there's always a story. There's always a story and like why you're late, why you couldn't make the bus, why your mom couldn't, you know, uh why you're sick, you know, um and um and there needs to be like just an understanding of that. And I think that's a great way to

058put it, like just understand their story so we can help people. um and we have resources or we know people who can help them if um if they if they can get them right. And then I love the other one was um growing teacher leaders. That's a great phrase and I think that's just so important to just give and empower our teachers to become you know go into leadership roles or feel like they have um >> they're they're given the freedom to to become leaders in their you know whether it's elementary, high school or middle school. And then my last favorite phrase was bike rack [laughter] because I uh been such a big proponent for years of my kids biking and walking to school and I live very close to a school so it was

059easy. Um but just the freedom and the independence that kids get when they can actually bike to school. It's an unbelievable like great transition for them. And this bike program is just so so successful. And I know it's been it's transitioning to exactly how we do it because there is like kind of they're surprised by some some people are surprised by how many kids don't know how to bike by a certain age and but they want to bike and when they get that chance and that freedom of being on a black top and not going to fall or you know or someone will help them if they fall >> it's it's such a confidence builder and I think that's really where we're having problems as a society is kids don't they have anxiety because they

060don't have enough confidence and just these things will help them just this little thing that we think as adults, oh, everyone biked when we were kids. It's just not that way anymore. And like making them take a risk with when in a safe place will really really help them. And I think this is I'm just so excited by this bike program. >> We had 34 of our fourth graders who had no idea how to ride a bike at Emerson Williams. That's that's a lot. >> A lot. >> And by the end of 3 days, they were all riding, >> right? >> Wow. And I'm thinking like how many kids might get a bike for Christmas this year or like you know for their birthday because now they're like I can ride a bike and their

061parents are like yeah you can ride a bike and you know and the helmet stuff and all that and that's just it's been phenomenal. And then I was just going to ask I noticed that um there was an a reference to a steam room or steam program at web and at Hammer. I don't know if there's other ones in other schools. So I didn't know what that's what what's happening there. Um maybe you could just >> Yes. So we we know that 21st century skills are are critical for students. Um and so we do we have a steam focus and we try to infuse steam activities whether it's robotics kits that we purchased through grants. Uh we infuse those into the curriculum wherever we can. Um we did have a a STEM room at one

062point that has gone away because of lack of of room as we're adding classrooms. As everyone knows, it's well known in the community. Web school is running out of space and adding classrooms. We did have a maker space um that we were very fond of, but we're as we add classes, we had to take that away. Um but we still have those activities infused mostly in our library media classroom. Um so that those are introduced there. Um but we do we do try to focus on those 21st century skills because we we know that those are the skills as we're preparing kids for careers that might not exist today. We know that those the five Cs as they call them critical thinking, communication, all the uh five C's, uh collaboration, um those things are are

063the things that are going to really hold our students together to be successful in 50 years, right? Um in this unknown world. So STEM is very important for us and I and I think I can speak for the other schools in saying that that we infuse that into our curriculum wherever possible >> and play-based learning is a great opportunity for that, too. So we're looking at that. >> Oh, great. >> All right. >> Thank you. >> Anyone else? Amanda, >> um I just wanted to say um thank you so much for I I know you had a large focus in regards to kindergarten to third grade in regards to the curriculum, but now that you've moved it up into, you know, fourth, fifth, and sixth grade, um I think it's it's fantastic and I'm so

064excited. I'm so excited for those kids. Um I do have one question that I was noticing. Um I don't want to be a Debbie Downer or anything, but um so with the chronic absenteeism, I've I wanted to know what kind of um challenges, trends that you've begun to notice because with each of the schools, there's either been a minus or there's been a plus from, you know, from last year versus this year. So, what are you guys noticing um that's been working that hasn't been working? Um just because the only way that these kids are going to learn is if they're actually in the in the room. So, you know, what can we do? Um what are you guys doing to try to get that number even lower than even though technically I think it's

065I think we are under the state average for all the all the elementary schools I I believe. So >> the main the main thing is communicating expectations as you had just done really well you know for forever we said come to school come to school and then for 2 years we started to say stay home if you're not feeling perfect stay home and so there's a paradigm shift and now we're back to saying no come to school come to school so the paradigm shift we confused our families and so now we kind of have to double down with the messaging even more than we did pre- pandemic to to re reinforce that we need them in in school. And what you're you're correct, we're significantly below the state average in Weathersfield. We're still higher than

066we want to be. We want to see ourselves settle down from that 7% rate down towards a 5% rate, which is a reasonable amount. A 5% daily rate is a reasonable amount. So, um, purposeful communication strategies we've I found and we've found, um, to be the most successful, uh, partnership activities with the families. Um, when I say purposeful, we have it set up so when kids hit certain thresholds, they're getting emails, letters, phone calls, meetings are set up. So there's a lot of proactive work with um with our families um you know because in particular for the little ones it's more about you know the communicating with the families. High school is a whole different animal. Um you know when I was a high school administrator a lot of times I would call and say

067oh you know Johnny's not in school today. And the parent would say what and uh so that that's a whole different you know uh issue. So, communication with the families is is probably the number one um you know factor for for improving uh you know our rates and that's that's what we're focusing on. As a matter of fact, the the district data team that we um you know we talked about we tackled um student attendance uh chronic absenteeism attendance. Um, and and I think the more we hone the data, in a previous district, we actually saw that like 13 of our families accounted for like I don't know, it was like 60% of our chronic absenteeism and and um >> yeah, that's what I wanted to know if it was if it was like a

068if they're finding that it's a set people or you know if like I remember with with Charles Wright it would be um number of families were actually going back to their country for a and that would so I didn't know if you had noticed are there any like patterns or anything like that that's you know going through going through the schools. >> So a couple of the trends that we've talked about is we do have Weathersfield has many families that do do that that do go to their home country for you know 3 weeks when they hit that they are automatically chronically absent for the entire year. There's nothing we can't intervene our way out of that. Um, we also have some students who are medically fragile or have 504 or IEPs that excuse them

069for attendance. And so in those cases, we can provide the support and intervention, but in there's not much that we can do about that. One of the uh items that superintendent mentioned that came out of our district data team is our first line defense are our attendance secretaries and working with them partnering with like Kim Bobin with some strategies to connect with families so that we can understand the kids and families name strength need and story and then how can we partner because when our kids are missing when our kids aren't there we miss them and that's the message that we want to send not why aren't you here today um so I think that out of the district data team came a really effective strategy on how we can give our staff professional learning

070to better engage and identify, hey, if this family needs some support, we have a social worker that can maybe provide some outreach that we didn't think of before. Most the most important data that we'll hopefully be able to provide for next year is we look at our students who are chronically absent and we look how many of those kids are actually receiving tier three tier 2 intervention. how many kids are not making benchmarks on state assessments and they usually you usually there's a a high correlational rate north of you know positive point you know.5 it usually has a big correlation and that's a that's a powerful message to families saying you know the attendance is is clearly it's affecting um you know how well the kids are are learning I >> I would also say

071that um my son was just absent 4 days in a row last week and it really stressed me out and he's a senior in high school and we got that letter or that email that was like, you know, it's scary getting that email and it it it stressed me out. And so I wonder like you you email you're supposed to email the the attendance person every day to explain why your child is out and I wonder if I should tell like a longer story. Like I felt like I so my husband sent the email and I don't know what [laughter] he said in the email but I was like maybe we should explain like he's like yeah we really tried everything and we went to the urgent care and he's just not feeling well and

072then I you know it just you realize when you're when you're at 4 days you do as a parent you get stressed out and you don't know like should I send him back he's missing his homework. So there's there's like just that kind of also that middle part where it's like you can't help being absent but it stresses you out if you get that letter you get that notice. Um, but I guess if you know as a parent or are told by administrators if you explain your story in that email, you know, it'll, you know, maybe more than staying home sick, you know, um, maybe a little bit more than that or if there's other there's no more background to it. We want to hear it. We want to know what's going on, you know.

073And the flip side is I got a wonderful email from um, a middle school parent. Um, principal also noted all the kids who had perfect attendance through the first trimester and we also sent nice letters home to the families who had perfect attendance and we'll do that throughout the year cuz uh, you know, we want to celebrate the the good things as well connected to to attendance. It's hard to get up and go to work or go to school in January when it's 4° out and the wind is blowing and you know, we want to have that a little bit of extra incentive for kids uh you know or you know, anybody to to get up and come into school on those tough days uh you know, when uh your breath is freezing to your

074[laughter] you know, to your face, you know, as you're waiting for the bus, some of these poor guys. So, >> okay. Anyone else with comments? Jim? Yeah, I just had a few comments. Um, one thing that came through um, loud and clear was collaborative. And I'm really happy to see that because I know when we're sitting up here in the past, we said, "Wow, there's a great idea in this school." And it's just fabulous to, you know, to see it being spread to all the rest of the schools. Uh, and as far as student absences, um, you know, I've I've witnessed, um, you know, calls at at Emerson Williams where they've called up someone and said, "Hi, this is Emerson Williams. You know, it's 9:30. We noticed that so and so wasn't in our school."

075And it was more of, you know, a helpful thing like, you know, what what can we do to, you know, to help you to get your kid into school? So, um, you know, I think that's, um, a really good strategy and and again, I've witnessed it firsthand. Mindy, >> I just wanted to say I I agree with Jim that um just the idea of collaboration really resonated and I think the idea that that's really what creates equity across the district is so important and the idea that no matter where you live, you're going to an elementary school with high standards, high level of support, um and that there's just a shared sense of equity for all Weathersfield students is really exciting to see and I love on just the absences thing that you know the

076comment around like we miss you. I think that's a really positive way to frame it. Um cuz there will always be you know an illness or or need um but but that's a really nice way to to frame it. And I think just another you know the time that you guys are dedicating to reflection and taking time away from the busyiness. I won't say chaos, but I'll say busyiness of a school day to um do self-reflection and to plan and be so collaborative is really really um inspiring to see too. So, thank you. >> Yeah. >> Um so, thank thank you all for your presentation tonight and thank you for the work that you do in our schools. I heard a lot of good things while you were speaking tonight and uh I'm very happy

077about that. One of the things that I heard from district parents throughout the past couple years was they said there's not enough consistency between the elementary schools, but it looks like with this new district-wide data team, you guys are chipping away at that and trying to create some more coherence amongst what's going on in the elementary school. So, that's awesome. Um, I saw something about outside funding getting money from the Keen Foundation for bikes. I believe that was on that slide, which is really good. I know the teachers up here like that they mentioned they have an eye on class sizes which is something that we we appreciate. Um the capital improvement list which also I think you mentioned was new this year. That's awesome because we just asked our talent to build new schools

078and we need to show them that we are currently caring for the ones that we're using and we are going to do that going forward. And um I I heard two things that were mentioned that factor into one of my favorite ratings in terms of school districts across the state and that's the accountability index. I I heard that you guys care about um providing for all of the students and I know that here in Weathersfield we do need to close the gap between high needs and non- high need students. Um we do get dinged on that in terms of our accountability index rating but it's good that you guys are focusing on that as well as chronic absenteeism which is also a factor in that. But it looks like you guys you guys know what

079you have to do and and you guys seem like you have a good plan and we appreciate your work on all these all this stuff. Thank you. >> Anyone else? Well, this was a wonderful presentation. Thank you. And I do have to say it was I've seen a lot of these and this was so focused. I loved reading it because it was I'm not going to say it was simple. It's just more focused and seems to be easier to comprehend the whole thing. And then I do have an ironic thought that's going around in my head for quite a while now. And do you know that the childhood people spend in the 50s, 60s, and 70s is what we need now to get our kids into the 21st century. Isn't that ironic? Um, so we

080need them playing, we need them on their bikes, and we need them in school. and then we get them that 21st century curriculum along with their 21st century buildings. So, thank you all for everything you do. Thank you. [applause] >> I'll call Principal Yusco to come up with her team. Now you're shorter than me. [laughter] >> This can't be your kryptonite Superman. We we nominated him last year. He was our IT Superman. So that's why I have to say this can't be his kryptonite. Um, so as we begin the middle school portion of tonight's presentation, I'd like to share how our work at SDMS has evolved into a more focused and intentional approach. This year, we launched our main goal setting initiative with goals that are measurable, actionable, nurturing, and elevating because as Lions, it's

081the main thing we do. >> Oh, always good. I got [laughter] it. Got to throw every one out there every now and then. Uh the main framework is helping us strengthen alignment across academics, behavior, leadership and equity. It ensures our staff are moving forward with shared priorities, working cohesively rather than in parallel. I want to thank our leadership team and all of our staff for helping shape our school improvement plan and for committing to this high level of work every day. Our four pillars reflect the essential drivers for our growth for our stu for our students and our school community. This framework is guiding our decision-making, our professional learning, and the way we design meaningful learning experiences for students. So to walk us through pillar number one, I will now turn it over to Dr.

082Sllayton. >> Good evening. I'm Christina Sllayton. I'm the instructional supervisor for secondary curriculum and I'm happy to talk about the first pillar. A major focus of our work at Silastine this year is ensuring that all students have purposeful and rigorous learning experiences or tasks that require rigorous thinking to support deep learning growth and achievement. This focus is evident in part through our capstone pilot. So this year students will engage in tasks that deepen their their competencies as communicators, collaborators, and problem solvers. They'll then reflect on their growth in these vision of the graduate competencies in a pilot capstone experience in each grade, seventh grade and eighth grade. Additionally, across all content areas, teachers will work in collaborative teams to design, refine, and implement rigorous learning tasks that require strategic and extended thinking. In math, for

083example, teachers are adopting strategies to build thinking classrooms and engage students in rich, agile mind tasks that build conceptual understanding, application, and problem solving skills. Finally, we'll measure the impact of our tasks on student learning. Collaborative teacher teams will review a range of student work and assessment evidence using a standard protocol, the see it, name it, do it protocol, to evaluate all students progress toward rigorous goals, including grade level standards and our vision of the graduate competencies and to support all students in meeting these goals. And I'd like to turn it over to Kayla Evans to talk about our next pillar. Good evening. I'm Kayla Evans. I'm the supervisor of um student services. Don't mind my voice. I'm losing it, so I apologize. Um pillar 2 focuses on strengthening and refining multi-tered systems of support

084for all students in academics, behavior, and attendance. Teams will hold weekly MTSS meetings and use the district data protocol to look at student work behavior, attendance data, and more to identify the successes students have and also identify the areas of need and develop intervention plans as needed. Through the MTSS process, teacher teams will work collaboratively with support staff, our school counselors, psychologists, and social workers to implement tiered attendance interventions in hopes to decrease the chronic absentee rate from silus 12.6% last year to prepandemic rates of less than 5%. Support staff will work closely with students and families to identify the root cause of school avoidance. They will develop interventions based on the identified reasons and connect families with outside resources if needed. Support staff will also work with teacher teams to implement tier 1 behavior

085interventions and data collections in hopes to reduce the number of office referrals through the MTSS process. Support staff will identify students in need of small groupoup or one-on-one counseling. By the end of the school year, all social workers and psychologists at Silstein Middle School will be trained in DBT, dialectical behavior training. This will equip staff with tools to teach emotional regulation, resilience, and emotional um and relationship building. Academically, students receiving tier 2 support in math or reading intervention will set personal academic goals with their interventionists and work alongside their teachers to track their prog progress. The STMS math interventionists will receive training in the Bridges math curriculum. It's an an inquiry based and student- centered math program. It will be rolled out for students at the middle school for tier three. It is currently being

086used at the elementary school for tier 2. So, we are hoping it will create that systematic coherence. Special education teachers are um attending a monthly educator academy. It's workshops that provide PD and progress monitoring and reading intervention. Not only will this support our special education students, but also support our students with targeted interventions and progress monitoring tools in our co-taught classes. And now, Scott Voyine. >> Good evening. Scott Voyine, assistant principal at Silus. Our third pillar within the main framework focuses on strengthening both our instructional decision-making along with our commitment to whole child development. This pillar is rooted in consistent use of data, intentional monitoring of student progress, and ensuring all students, especially our high needs learners, are supported through timely, accurate, and meaningful information about their progress across English, language arts, math, and science.

087Teachers will administer three interm assessment blocks each year. These assessments align with the Smarter Balance and NGSS assessments, help us identify learning gaps, analyze trends using the see it, name it, do it data analysis protocol, and make targeted instructional adjustments so that students receive support when they need it. We do this in conjunction with reviewing student work to identify trends, retach specific skills, and plan targeted instruction groups. Our unifi unified arts teachers also play a key a key role. Unified arts teachers participate in data team discussions and intentionally reinforce skill gaps. This creates systemwide alignment so students are practicing essential skills across multiple contexts, not just in their core classes. Our PE team also administers the Connecticut State Fitness test components twice a year, giving students structured opportunities to goal set, monitor progress, and reflect

088on their own wellness. >> So excited about that, Mr. Boise. Thank you for >> So am I. as a former PA PE teacher. >> Appreciate your district leadership on that. Thank you. >> Thank you. We continue to strengthen student goal setting by embedding student goal setting across the school year through capstone which we discussed in our PE classes, academic classes, and targeted support areas. This builds student ownership, reflection as well as motivation. A major part of this pillar is equity focused. We regularly disagregate data looking at student performance, attendance, behavior data to understand how high need subgroups are performing. [snorts] Teams then develop targeted action steps such as tailored interventions, changes in instructional materials, reteing or reallocation of support staff as needed to close gaps, and ensure that every student has equitable access to rigorous

089and meaningful learning. I'm going to turn it back over to Miss Yosco. >> So, pillar four within the main framework centers on strengthening our leadership systems, our teaming structures, and the collaborative culture that drives our day-to-day work at SDMS. This pillar is really about the adults. How we organize ourselves, how we communicate, and how we support one another so that every student experiences a consistent and highquality school day while also capturing all the positives that we see in the building each and every day. This year, I went outside the box and we expanded our teams to intentionally include unified arts, world language, and special education. These teams do also include our interventionists and our ML teachers, but they are spread over all of our six teams, right? So, they aren't just solely pinned to one.

090[snorts] By broadening representation, our decision-m is more well-rounded and our planning reflects the needs of all students, not just those in the content areas. Additionally, we are extremely grateful for Mr. Wibby who gave us the additional special education team leader position we have been asking for for many many years even prior to my principal ship. [snorts] This position has added a muchneeded voice to our leadership team and in moving us forward in meeting all students needs. We also created a predictable rhythm for collaboration. Interdisciplinary teams, content teams and MTSS teams all meet on a structured 4-day cycle. This ensures we are regularly reviewing student performance, upcoming assignments, and instructional needs in real time. It keeps teams aligned and prevents information from living in silos. A major focus of this pillar and something I'm really proud

091of is our leadership team book study on successful middle school teaming. This book is referencing what high-erforming middle schools do well. strong interdisciplinary teams, shared responsibility for students, and collaborative structures that make the work feel coherent and manageable. The book study has already helped our leadership team establish clearer processes, streamline communication, and create more consistency across all our departments. It's giving us common language and a more unified vision for what great teaming should look like at SDMS. We are focusing on celebrating what makes us special and capturing the communities we are building on each team. We are harnessing the positivity and growth we are seeing. So, as Mr. Wy already mentioned for just the first quarter alone, I sent home three sets of congratulations and great job letters to 245 students who achieved high honors,

092111 general honor role students, and 236 letters for perfect attendance for quarter 1. And with our Crimson team on grade seven coming in with 62% of the team with perfect attendance, we've paired our learning from our book study with instructional rounds and peer visits. These allow staff to learn from one another, observe effective practices, and identify buildingwide problems of practice that inform professional development. It's not evaluative. It's truly about adult learning and collaborative improvement. And finally, a key part of this pillar is our commitment to consistent data use. Whether it's an MTSS meeting, a team meeting, or a content team discussion, we use the see it, name it, do it protocols. This ensures that our conversations are structured, student centered, and end with actionable uh next steps. Together, these efforts strengthen our adult culture, which

093in turn strengthen the student experience. Pillar 4 is really about creating those conditions that allow that strong instruction and student support to take root. Our framework reflects where we are and where we're headed. Each pillar strengthens the other, and together we create a clear roadmap for highquality instruction, meaningful collaboration, and equitable student support. We're proud of the progress already underway, and we're committed to sustaining this momentum throughout the year. We are building systems that not only improve academic outcomes, but strengthen relationships, expand student voice, provide leadership uh opportunities to our staff, and create a culture where all students can thrive. >> Thank you. >> Anyone with question that [applause] >> Amanda? >> So, um I just wanted to say just a couple of things. Um, number one, I love the fact that you guys are

094bringing the capstone down to the middle school. >> Um, it's amazing. And if none of you have ever been on a capstone um, panel, you should definitely do it. Um, because it's amazing. Um, it's I I I just think that the kids are just going to love it. Um, I also like the fact that you're aligning with the high school in regards to all aspects, even including attendance. Um, and I also, um, I was waiting for you to to say the the letter because I I'm the rep for the middle school, so I already heard about this last year. >> Little >> I had a little Yeah. And I knew coming, [laughter] >> but um I I just I think that the changes that are happening in the middle school um are being seen and

095felt and just the fact that you were able to send out over 200 letters just for like high honors or like for actually coming into the classroom um is just amazing and you should really be proud of yourself. It's it's been a road, you know, um with the middle school, you know, even through co um and and it's really appreciated and so really like thank you and thank you for all of our, you know, children cuz middle school is tough. It is [laughter] a tough tough school. So, we appreciate you. So, thank you. >> Yeah. >> Uh I want to thank the middle school team uh along with Tara for coming and presenting tonight. And uh just a couple thoughts under um the themes of collaboration, unity, and equity. You all touched on again more

096elements of the accountability index tonight. On those slides, I I heard PE assessments, attention to high needs, behavior, attendance, and uh in multiple instances a focus on math. Um it's no secret that kids across the district and the state and the country uh they can get a little bit little bit better at math. I work in higher ed. I see it there as well. Um, but I'm just glad that you're focusing on the right things and that you have a good plan and that you have a good strategy and you have a good team. Thank you for coming tonight, >> Dennis. Um, yes and thank you. Um, again, the collaboration is really um, appreciated and just, you know, how you just really work really hard to take good care of the students um, at that

097age. I know back in the dark ages when I was in middle school it was called junior high and we it was like well you either do it or you don't and too bad for you. So um I'm I'm just always impressed by that. Um and also I know that we had reviewed the agile mind math program last year and um I am really looking forward as things go on to hear how that's working out. Um, and I mean any early returns on that at all? >> Um, I was actually in a math classroom today watching uh some agile use and I was talking to some students. I said, "Well, what are your thoughts on it?" You know, and they said, "Well, we really like the animations and I was in that classroom right near

098the end of the day and those kids were having such math discourse in there and really working together. It was really amazing to see." And it was an eighth grade uh pre-alggebra classroom. So, it was really, really great. Right. >> There's nothing more fun than watching kids argue about math, [laughter] not whether or not they're going to do it. It's like arguing about like what the answers are and being passionate about it. It's such a great >> That's great. >> Yeah. >> Mindy, I don't know if I've ever heard math discourse before. That's a new phrase for me, but I love that. Um I copied um Marjgery by jotting down some phrases I really liked um including emotional resilience. I think that's such a huge part of especially middle school years, but I think just

099for all children um that emotional resilience is what is going to get them through life. And so I love that that is um really um focused on and I think you know even at the elementary school level you know we heard about whole child development um which I love and the idea that you know so much is focused on equitable access. you know, obviously it's in a different context where all kids are at least coming into one school, but um just any sense of, you know, equity across the district, I think is really important to be seeing. So, thank you. Hey, >> I was just going to make a point about um how bringing in the uh unified arts and world language and PE into these teams because it's so important and you mentioned like

100strengthening relationships at this age and you see at the high school as well like there's some kids who like they go to school because of Yeah. or they go to school because of wood shop or whatever classes that we offered or culinary and then like and that relationship with that teacher can make the world of difference and then also insight cuz they might be talking to that teacher but they don't talk to the other teachers right and so um and I I was just running a class about mentorship and um one of the questions was it was a higher ed thing and um you know name a mentor in your life and the stories were amazing and they come from all walks of life but a lot of times they are a teacher from a

101like a like, you know, a a unified art teacher, you know, or a world linked witch teacher or something like that. So, it's great that they're being br brought in as part of the team to also collaborate and, you know, be there to talk about these kids. >> I just wanted to um say I appreciate the um you know, the policies being aligned with the high school. Uh I know attendance uh was mentioned in Capstone, so thank you for for doing that. Uh I also wanted to mention the expanding coverage to additional teams. Um that's a move that's inclusive. So that's also appreciated. And and one final comment. Um what I'm very encouraged by tonight is the courage that everyone is is taking to step out of the box, make a leap forward, and do

102something different. And it's not always going to work 100% of the time, but I think this is what we're looking for is is change and to move forward. So really, thank you very very much for all that you're doing. >> Thanks, Jim. That was great. >> Anyone else? I just want to thank you also. This is a lot of work and I know it is. And actually, I'm in awe of you working with this age group, too. It's just a very challenging age group and I'm most thrilled about Capstone that is you know watching it in the high school and to think it's coming down I think is wonderful for our system. So thank you sir. >> Thank you. >> All set. Thank you. [applause] >> Principal Okconor and her team will be joining us

103now. Whoops. Good evening everyone. How are you? >> So, I knew we were last, so we decided to um do a little different. I did not bring food and I did not get [laughter] that memo. So, I feel like I was at a disadvantage. So, thank you very much. I did I should know as a teacher you bring food, right? Like you bring food. Um, so how we structured our um our presentation this year is a little bit different. Jim, my clicker is not working, but it's okay. It's okay. For those [snorts] of you who are new, this will be a new slide for you. For those of you who have been on the board, you have seen this before. This really encapsulates our vision of Weathersfield High School and how we do our work.

104We want it to be integrated. We take our pillars of empathy, equity, and achievement very seriously, but we know that we can't have one without the other. So, we've always really tried to make sure that all of this work is paired together. So, we never lose sight of the students who might need more support, but we also want to hold everyone to high standards because we believe that all students can achieve to high levels. They just need something different or might be interested in different things. So, a thing that sets us apart at the high school is that we have a 100 different staff members and 13 different departments. So those roads to get there looks a little different for everyone. So tonight, how we decided to structure um our presentation is our slides are

105really just our goals. You've all seen our school improvement plan. You will see that is very much aligned with the wonderful work that is going on K8, but we really wanted to bring to life what does this look like at our school. So for every single one of our departments, we have a little example of what this goal actually looks like in real time with the department that each of these wonderful administrators lead to give you an example and to also make sure you're paying attention because we're third, not first. [laughter] So we wanted to make sure that we were just bringing it a little bit more to life for you and giving you those real world examples of what your teachers and your students are doing every day here at Weathersfield High School. >>

106Next year, maybe high school can go first. >> I don't know. You gave them the choice. Okay, [laughter] no worries. We're going to start first with Mrs. Jennifer Kumnik, who is our new math department head, who is going to talk about this um first goal with which most of our academic departments are focusing on this year. Hi everybody. Uh I'm Jennifer Kumnik and I am the new math department head. I just want to say watching kids argue about math is one of my most favorite things to do. [clears throat] So anytime you ever want to see that, I am still teaching two classes. Come on in. You can you watch. >> I like it when they start jumping up and down. They're so agitated. [laughter] >> Sometimes it gets really animated and and I'm into

107it. Um so in the math department, we have three priority teams. We're working with algebra 1, geometry, and pre-calculus um to align experiences of higher order tasks across those classrooms. Um specifically, the algebra 1 team has been working to implement agile. I um Dr. and stole my thunder a little bit about Agile Mind earlier. Um, but Agile Mind is a really great curriculum resource. I know some of you know about it and some of you are new to hearing it. Um, it's researchbased. It really aligns problem solving with conceptual understanding and so that's huge for our students. >> And what we appreciate that we're hearing it from the middle school up to the high school because that will add a lot of value to the student experience. for sure. Um, addition in addition to agile

108mind, the high school teams are implementing building thinking classrooms instructional strategies. So, if you're not familiar with that, um, when you walk into my classroom, my algebra 1 class, you will see um, me do a little bit of a launch. So, students come up to the board, we talk about a little bit of an experience or maybe a story that has something to do with the math that they're learning that day. Um, and then I put them into randomized groups of three. So this is aligned with that strategy. Randomized groups of three. Um and then they work at our vertical non-permanent surfaces. So our whiteboards and they collaborate to solve problems um aligning to that experience or that um story that we talked about. After that they will fill out a notetaker like a note

109catcher for themselves but it's really their own it's notes to their future self. So, it's really something that they work they work together with maybe their partners or they'll sit down and be like, "Oh, I really need to remember that when I graph a line, I have to start with the y intercept." That kind of thing. And so, whatever it is they need to remember, they do a couple of problems to make themselves some notes and then they um write their notes down, whatever it is they need to remember. After that, they're going to um apply what they're thinking by with some practice. So um because building thinking classrooms require students to communicate and work collaboratively to solve problems and agile mind provides us some scenarios with that require reasoning and developing um an approach

110and making and justifying conclusions. Students really are getting that uh DK 3 and four according to HS's rigor matrix across all of our classrooms. >> Good evening everyone. I'm Tyler Webb, assistant principal at Weatherfield High School. Um, as a former social studies teacher, I can't I can't say that there's anything better than kids arguing about social studies. So, sorry, [laughter] Matt. >> You're wrong. >> So, um, I want to talk to you about u the departments that I supervise. I want to namely just talk about the social studies department. I also have the opportunity to to supervise the CTE, um, family consumer science, and the business department. So, um I enjoy the time in the in the family consumer assignments because generally I get to eat. Um but also the time that I get in

111the CTE classes and the business classes cuz I because I get to see students really doing those real world tasks, finding out about what their path is and who they want to be and where they want to go. Um in regards to social studies, I want to talk about um that last part of our the the smart goal and that is communicating learning. uh this year the social studies department took on uh the task at the onset of the year to figure out and create a 912 continuum of where they think and want students by the end of that grade level to be in terms of where they and how they can write. So there are two collaborative teams that I'm working with closely this year. Our 9th grade international studies team and our 10th

112grade US history team. And both have created their goal centered on improving communication through writing. And so how that looks and what that looks like is that our collaborative teams have created assignments ultimately learning tasks centered on argumentative persuasive writing. Um in this in this work together they end up charging the students with analyzing documents, taking taking view of different perspectives, identifying important information, crafting an argument, putting it onto paper, having conversations collaboratively with with students like peer review um and then at the end collecting it. And the nice thing now that we have within our schedule is we do have collaborative time. So last is this the second year or third year? Third. Third. Yeah. This is the third year where um each department has a common planning time. So we have the entirety

113of period 8 where the social studies department can meet. They meet 3 days out of the four. They work with their collaborative team. And the expectation is and what what they'll be doing in the coming weeks because I just was in the classes watching these students prepare their essays. They're going to sit down with those essays. They're going to, as teachers review, analyze the student work, figuring out where students really need, you know, extra attention and growth and and instruction. And moving forward, they will have then another assessment um summit of assessment which is will be a writing performance task and use that data that they have from the first to know how to instruct and how to get these kids to again by the end of their ninth grade year, their 10th grade year

114and the and the and the writing assignments are extend themselves out each year. So that by the time we hope by the time any student who graduates Weathersfield High School, they have written some form of a research paper, especially for all students who are involved in in AP courses, which is actually a really big number in terms of our our population of students. Um, so that's what I have for social studies and it's really a great um opportunity to work with the folks in that department and and as they work with working with kids to get them to become better communicators. I'm going to now introduce Dr. Sllayton >> and I can share an example of what this work looks like in our humanities classes. So this um example that I'm sharing is from an

115English class that I visited just at the end of last week. Students were working on writing an original narrative, a memoir piece, which is a rigorous task in and of itself, right? It demonstrates extended thinking and extended writing task. But on the day that I visited, students were also evaluating three sets of feedback that they had received on their own writing. So they had feedback from peers, they had feedback from the teacher, and they had feedback from generative AI from Gemini. And they were asked to analyze and assess each set of feedback and think about what were the strengths of each set of feedback, what were the weaknesses, where did they complement each other, where did they contradict each other? And ultimately they had to use that analysis to make some really critical decisions about

116what feedback they were going to address in their next round of of revisions, how they were going to address that, and importantly also what feedback they were not going to address, what feedback they were going to ignore and why. So, it was a great example of critical thinking, of strategic thinking as students were were reflecting really critically on this these specific sets of feedback on feedback in general from different sources and thinking about how to use all of that to improve their writing and their learning. And now I'll turn it over to Kimberly Troy who will talk about some of her department's work in science this year. Good evening everybody. Congratulations to your new positions. I'm Kimberly Troy. I'm the new department head for science. Super excited about this new role. Um we in science

117this year focused on data and how to use data to inform our assessment and our instruction. That's really our overall goal as a department. We have three priority teams this year. one freshman team integrated science, a sophomore team of biology, and a junior team centered around chemistry. [snorts] So, the department level focus for this year really came out of last year's action research on cognitive engagement. Um, out of that research came a reflective measuring tool that we've been using as a department since last year that's really been pivotal to the work that we've been working on this year. So, as we consider the learning gaps and what we are asking students to do, know, and think about, one of the instructional strategies that we've implemented this year, implemented this year that I'm super proud of,

118having been a former research scientist myself, having done cancer research um for about 5 years prior to becoming a teacher, we know the power that research and learning by doing has for kids. So, one of the instructional strategies that we've implemented this year is the use of lab notebooks across grade levels. Seeing these lab notebooks come to life in the classroom has just been super powerful for me. Um, to see it come to life as kids have been so great learning the power of communication through writing and sharing information. We're seeing students collaborate, infer from others. We're seeing students take the lead to coach and teach others. And students are highlighting their work. They're color coding. They're drawing diagrams and really engaging in peer reviews of each other's lab notebooks. It's been really super great.

119Teachers across grade levels are using lab practicals to assess student understanding. And we'll compare this data to our interim assessment baseline data which is our IEVs. So we have three of those planned for each of our groups, freshman, sophomore, and juniors. and we're looking towards [snorts] developing those skills around our NGSS, not only our content skills, but also our science and engineering practices. So, we're hoping to see a correlation between these data sets and our lab practical data and also to build a data system for teachers to use as a reference as we obviously inform our data and our instruction and how to support each other in the practices that really address all of our students needs. So we're learning to obviously address that gap [snorts] ultimately to increase the number of students achieving benchmark

120on NGSS which is scheduled for March of 2026. So thank you. Hi everyone. I'm Stephanie Hassler. I'm one of the assistant principles over at Weathersfield High School. Um it's not really on my slide, but everybody else has talked about who they evaluate. So, I'm going to let you know as well. So, I co-evaluate math and science with Kimberly and Jen through the midyear. I evaluate PE, music, and art at the high school. I also help organize our MTSS system here at the high school. Um, so I'm going to talk to you a little bit about what we've done throughout the beginning of the year for our MTSS system. Um, so we've known at the high school that our MTSS system has been an area of growth for the last couple of years. Um, so this

121summer we spent a lot of time looking into MTSS systems at the high school and supports that we could put into place to help our specific students because we know that elementary supports can sometimes look different than high school supports. [snorts] Um so our purpose uh we established our purpose at the beginning of the year and we wanted to ensure that all students who need support receive appropriate support and we wanted to create a proactive datadriven structure for academic behavioral and attend attendance intervention which is not any different than what you've heard from elementary and middle school earlier today. Um we went through our definition of MTSS. It's the exact same as elementary and middle school define tier 1, tier 2, and tier three support. And at the beginning of the year, our MTSS school

122team convened to establish our parameters and criteria for identifying students in need of support. That included a schoolwide data analysis to form an initial list of students requiring intervention. Um the list we received from last year wasn't fully complete and we just wanted to make sure that every student who needed support received that support especially early on. Some of the data sources that we used included their academic performance, that was their ESPback, NGSS, grades, STAR, PSAT, different measures from different departments, their attendance data from the previous school year, any behavioral indicators, and teacher feedback. So, we actually have a form at the high school that teachers can complete and um I don't want to say nominate, but like bring forward a name for an MTSS discussion. We have um relevant educators and specialists at each

123of our meetings. Um so those meet members are mainly this team right here plus our reading specialist Joanna Fitzgerald, specific school counselors for each student invited by student so that we can make sure we have the most um the most specific member of the team there when we're talking about the student. our ML teacher, our school social worker, our town prevention coordinator, all invited based off of who the student is that we're talking about. In semester 2, Steph McKenna will join us as the department head for English and our new math interventionist/coach will join us as well to help provide additional support. Um at the end of quarter 1, we conducted a full schoolwide data review, looking to see if there were any students who needed additional support um that were not flagged earlier in

124the year, confirm that the students who were flagged um were either improving or needed to continue to be on our radar and adjust our interventions. This is a work in progress. So, we're constantly working with teachers, student support staff, and families to monitor and adjust our system and supports. Just today, we had our MTSS meeting, and we revised our MTSS form. So, we found that the form that was made over the summer isn't best suiting the need of the needs of our students. Sorry. Um, I think Kayla got me sick. [laughter] >> Much time together. >> Too much time together. That's cuz we were in like two hours of MTSS meetings today. Um, so we are Yeah, plus everybody else. So we are working to make sure that our communication is more consistent. Um, we

125have a new MTSS form that went out today. After our meetings, now school counselors email all of the teachers of the students that we talked about to give them a summary of our meeting and tell them about what interventions we want to be putting into place. Um, and we are going to continue doing frequent school data reviews um, to ensure that there's equity and access for all of the students here at Weathersfield High School. So, I'm really excited to be part of that team. And if you have any questions, you guys can ask Siobhan about it. No, I'm joking. [laughter] >> Happy to answer any questions. We still have more slides, though. >> I have a quick question. Yeah. >> Uh, about how many students are in the MTSS system and how does a student

126make its way into that system? >> Yeah, that's a great question. So right now we have about 50 students who are flagged as people uh students that we should be watching at different various levels. So we have students that have individual meetings every six to eight weeks. We have some students that are just flagged as watching and we are making sure that their grades are good and that their attendance is good. We have um students who have rolled over. Did somebody say something? Sorry. Students who have rolled over from previous school years. Um and then what's the second half of your question? How does a student make its way into the MTSS system? >> Yeah. So, at the beginning of the school year, we set different parameters and all of these lovely educators here with

127me did a huge data review where we said if a student has X score on their middle school ASPback, we're going to make that one trigger. If they have X score on their NGSS, that's going to be another trigger. If they were retained, that was going to be another trigger. and students who had two or more triggers were brought forward to the team to determine if we needed to have individualized meetings or if we needed to watch those students. At the midyear, we pulled um the quarter 1 student failures list and we colorcoded every student who was on there based off of what kind of support they need they have received and if they didn't have any color, we talked as the MTSS team to determine if those students needed individual meetings or if they

128just needed like watching and support from their school counselor. We also did the same with the chronic absenteeism list. Um and then we also looked at um the number of students who needed support by class period. So um Jen is actually pushing into one of our algebra 2 classes because we determined that there was a large number of students who needed support in that class. So she pushed in to provide more widespread support rather than pulling out a bunch of students for support. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. Thank you so much. And I'm going to introduce Kayla Evans. Janice has a question. >> No, that's okay. Well, that No, you can finish. No, that's [laughter] okay. >> I am back to talk about attendance again. So, this time I'm going to talk about what this

129looks like at the high school. Um, to give you some data, last year, students with high needs at the high school, the rate was 9.8%. Um, it was the lowest it's been in four years. For all students, the rate was 5.8%. Pre- pandemic was 4.8%. Um over the summer the secondary team came together with the middle school. It consisted of administrators, social workers, school counselors, um special ed teachers, and we created a tiered process to target school chronic absenteeism at the secondary level. At the high school, it looks a tiny bit different because we do have school counselors that take on that tier one support. So if a student flags, they will get um attendance records from the secretary. They will reach out to families. They'll try and build that relationship with families and the

130students to stop the absenteeism. But sometimes that doesn't work. So when that doesn't work, they move to our tier 2. That is when our social worker from the wellness center gets involved. At this point, they administer a survey, the SRA survey to really dive into what is causing that student to not come to school. It's given to the student and also the parent and then interventions are developed based on the results of that assessment. Here at tier 2, there is um an increased amount of parent communication, team meetings, um there's more outreach and connecting with outside providers. At tier two, you might also see our support staff going on home visits if a student is consistently not coming to school. Sometimes that doesn't work. So then if they move to tier three, this year we

131allocated two of our resources. Our school um psychologist and a special ed teacher are assigned one period a day to focus just on this. They have a study skills period. So if the student is in school, the student comes to their study skills period, gets the social emotional support, counseling, and academic support. And they create a plan with that student on how we're going to approach the day. Some days are great for students and they can get through their whole day, whereas others they need a little bit of extra support. That period is used for that, but it's also used for contacting parents, contacting outside supports, going on home visits, and analyzing data. Um there's also a component of parent coaching that comes into this. Our school psychologist has taken a a big interest in

132chronic absenteeism. She has visited other schools to see what we can implement here in Weathersfield. And she has gained this broad knowledge on how to coach parents when they're really struggling with how to get my kid to school and what could we can say and do to support the family and also the student. The CA team continuously monitors and changes the interventions based on the student. Um they hold monthly attendance team meetings with everybody involved in the tiers to see if anything needs to change. We um we will create a space where students feel connected. Oftent times we find that students don't have that person or that space where they feel connected and we aim to create that for them if they are school avoidant. We will provide families with resources and support if that's

133what they need. We are aiming to reduce the numbers of students referred to special education solely based on school avoidance. And we will reduce the number of high school students who are chronically absent to hopefully less than 5%. So the last thing that we're going to talk about is really our goal is our school counseling department and then also our career counselor. So, our school counselors are a huge asset to a high school building. From being a former alternative education teacher myself, I know that the biggest thing that I need to know about a student is what comes next? What is coming next after high school? What's their plan? A large number of our disconnected students who are either chronically absent or maybe have low grades generally, they really struggle answering that question. Their answer

134is, I don't know. That is something that we can really program for and we need to have appropriate supports and all of my school counselors really need to make it a point to getting to know our students in 9th and 10th grade to figure out what their initial plan is and then have a system that allows us to track that. Um, one of the things I'm really really proud of in all of our departments at the high school is how open people have been to examining what can we do better, always looking to improve. And one of the things that the school counseling department identified is that our old Navian system that has been in place since I believe 2007 really wasn't meeting the needs of our current learners. And so they investigated over the

135past year and a half to look at a new system called Maya Learning. And this Maya learning system is more integrated with current technology. It directly connects to a lot more career um in inventory information um and real world data. For example, if a student is interested in being um an electrical engineer, they can do research within this Maya platform on what are the skills that I need to be an electrical engineer. Where are the jobs geographically? So maybe they really feel like they want to move to Florida like my lovely children who I miss very much. Um but is that going to be a viable career in that area? What are what is what is that going to pay me? And they also have budget calculators directly in the program that teach students how

136to plan backwards for whatever they are thinking about doing. So this new system that we are now learning and hopefully implementing within the year's end really gives students a lot more tools at their fingertips. And what we also love about this program is it has a direct link to parents. And so parents will have a login to be able to see the Maya Learning platform, see what their students are exploring, see what they're setting as their goals. And Naviance did not allow that parent functionality. And we all know that students in high school and probably in elementary middle school too go don't go home and say, "I didn't learn anything today. I don't know what I did today." Okay. Um that gets worse when we get to the high school environment, right? Because you want

137to know what's going on with your students, especially as we're looking at post-secondary planning. So that parent piece is a huge piece that we need to improve upon. So, we are launching the Maya learning program, but we're also doing that in conjunction with a very comprehensive 9 to12 scope and sequence for developmental guidance to ensure that our counselors have structures to get to know their 9th graders very well and set those initial goals, knowing that a 14-year-old might not know exactly what they want to do later, but at least what is the plan? Because what we don't want students to do is close doors to opportunities. Because if you decide very early, I don't want to go to college. I don't like school. You might change your mind when you're 17, 18 years old. And

138we don't want you to have closed doors. And so we really need to be engaged with them in a personal level and help them through that journey and coach them up rather than letting them settle and and be confused until junior year when some sometimes your your um course selection is already predetermined what you can and cannot access later. That's that's really what I don't want as the leader of the high school and that's not what our guidance um system wants either. So that we're also doing in conjunction with our career counselor. So as we get better data from the Maya learning program, we also know what are the interests that our our whole school is having so we can ensure that our work with Mark Danaher allows us to expand those internship opportunities into

139the fields that are really of interest. And so he's really been working hard doing our internship program, but we know that we can serve more students. And so that's one of our goals as well is to increase our students really engaging in those internship opportunities, the lunch and learns that he offers, etc. because we want them to dabble while they're in high school so they can figure out what might I want to do and what might I not want to do because that's almost more important, right? You want to be able to eliminate those things. And so this work we really feel will really drive our next level work within school counseling but also in our parent connection piece. >> So that's our presentation. Any questions? Thank you. [applause] Thank you so much. >> Any

140questions or comments, Amanda? >> So, first I just wanted to say in regards to um the student not knowing what they wanted to do. That actually happened with with me, my oldest in 9th grade. She said she was never going to school. She didn't want to do it. Nothing. She wanted to like finish. Um but now she's being going to be enrolled in a program to get her master's degree. So it it's amazing what the four years will do. Um I also want to say I really like the idea of the ability of the teachers to come together in a block so that they can discuss and collaborate themselves and try to figure out what's what's working and what's equitable for the for the entire you know district and the schools. Um I also liked

141that almost every single um division talked about peer review. the students were actually reviewing themselves. It's a giant skill that these kids are going to need not only for college but for beyond um and in whatever work that they're going to be doing. And I I really appreciate that you're you're um you know keying that in. Um and then I in regards to the MTSS, I like that you are bringing up the kids that need to be brought up, but you're also cuz I'm high school student. I know that you're also um bringing up those that excel. The number of AP and other college courses that you offer now is astounding. Um and you should be commended for that. The children are taking the that um and and they appreciate it. The parents appreciate it.

142I don't appreciate paying for the AP test, but I I >> Yeah. [laughter] Right. So, but I I appreciate the fact that, you know, they're they're even given those type of options for those type of classes. Um, and then just my last one, I think social studies is the best. So, thank [laughter] you. >> Cuz you're right. Okay, Janice, we were talking >> um I was saying thinking about how as having been on the uh student programming committee for four years and um how I really see the richness of the courses that are offered and also how you really work at um making those courses accessible. um increasing equity across the board by making them accessible to um as many students as possible. Um and then this whole idea of really trying to make sure

143that they are prepared for whatever it is they decide at 7 16 17 18 that they really want to do that they are haven't a door hasn't been closed. Um, and I know that even with your more technical classes like construction and um, uh, trying to think of another one, >> engineering, >> huh, what >> architectural engineering, >> right? That you're still, you know, we're hanging on to that um, K to8 liberal arts so that they are leaving with a strong background in the writing and the reading and the thinking. more than anything, the thinking and the ability to find the answers. Um, so I'm I've just been so impressed all four years and tonight just kind of tops it off. >> Thank you. I have a great team. >> We do. >> Thank you

144all for coming tonight and and uh sharing your presentation with us. The work that you're doing in the high school is much appreciated. Um, there's really not much that I can say that I haven't already said about our elementary uh school presentation and the middle school presentation, but you guys are hitting on on a lot of things that go into the accountability index, which is a measure of the whole student. It's not just testing uh test, test, test. I mean, you talked on rigor, attendance, AP courses, identifying learning gaps, postsecary readiness. Um, all of that does wonders for our students whether or not they're going to go to college. You know what I mean? and that's much appreciated. So, thank you for coming tonight. >> Absolutely. >> Anyone else? I thank you for coming. And

145I just want to mention um when we had the career advisory board and we were um working with the strategic plan, my favorite line was take the walls down. And that's what you're doing. You're bringing people in and the students are going out for internships. I'm thrilled. I'd love to look at this. May my learning if you if I could come in and take a look at what these students are doing. >> Absolutely. As soon as the guidance department feels they're up to speed, they can show you. But they're learning right now, but absolutely around January, February time frame would be great. >> Okay, great. This was wonderful. >> Jim, >> I know you missed me this time. >> Sorry. [laughter] I I just wanted to say thank you all for for coming and I

146wanted to mention I I love the emphasis on um you know reading and writing and comprehension because I think uh too much these days folks they don't understand and they can't write anything. So there's another uh shout out to science. Uh I also wanted to say the um you know the career advisory board and Mark Danaher just you know a tremendous job. I mean it's great to educate folks but they need to go somewhere after they get you know get out of the uh you know get out of the high school. So you know I think the the stuff that you're you're doing is great and I much appreciate it. And I also wanted to say I think this is the first time I've seen all three groups uh present here and it's just great.

147I mean it's it's a lot for my small brain to take in but it's much appreciated that you all stayed through all these presentations. So thank you for that. >> Anyone else? All right. Thank you again. Thank you very much. >> Thank you. [applause] Okay. So, we're going to move on. All right. So, we have meetings held and um I have the first one here and the CRE council meeting and CRE council met on Wednesday, November 19th, 2025. The CRE council is the capital region education council of which Weathersfield is a member along with 35 other surrounding towns. the council's responsible for the regional magnet schools and project choice. They've also organized and run the Harford Head Start program. [snorts] The meeting began with Dr. Sasha Douglas, the superintendent of Craig schools, speaking on the

148activities and focuses in all their schools. She spoke to the increase in the use of data to support students postcoid and the need to share data to further support them. The deliberated action that followed was on the Wulkit school alteration alternations and we voted unanimously. It's going to sound like our building committee. Have the council authorized CRE to apply to the commission of administrative services for CRE head start at Roger Wilt School to authorize the establishment of a school building committee to authorize the preparation of schematic drawings and to approve the revision for the EDS specs. Oh, wait a minute. And last to approve the local funding authorization for Roger Wilcott with a contingency fund. Sounds familiar. The council also approved revised policies from the policy committee. Legislative updates were on the special session the

149legislation is legislators are in now. More info to come as questions are asked about federal monies. And finally, the meeting concluded with a finance report and a question presented to all council members on how the federal grant monies possible cuts can be handled. Many comments included harm to school programs and how they could be dealt with. There's more to come concerning the special assembly session. All CRE info can be found on their website. Thank you. And then we had a special meeting of the board of ed on 112025 and that was for a confidential student matter and finance and operations was cancelled tonight. Okay. meetings scheduled human resources and personnel committee on 120125, student program and services on 120225 and facilities and maintenance on 120325. Okay. If there's anyone who would like to make a

150public comment, come on up to the podium and state your name and address. And may I remind you, you have five minutes. Okay. Are there any board comments, Matt? >> Thank you, Bobby. Uh, so I got to attend the boys soccer state championship game. They lost. It was in penalty kicks. Very disappointing, but it's quite an achievement to get that far. Uh, another one of our teams did get into the state tournament and did not come in second place. They came in first place. The Weathersfield High School girls swim and dive team won the state championships. Um, which is really incredible. Yeah, I think that was the first time that they ever did that. I remember when I was in high school, that program was tremendous. I think they won the CCC West like every

151year, but they never won a state championship. But that team finally did that. So, a big congratulations to them. Hopefully, they'll be able to come before us one of these nights at one of these meetings and we can meet these swimmers and divers. >> Tried to have them tonight, but tonight was their banquet. >> Okay. Okay. That's that's where they should be. Um, and myself, Marjorie, Bobby, and Janice attended the alumni art exhibit at the high school, which was really good. I always enjoy going to the art exhibits, and now I'm again going to look forward to the AP art exhibit that we always try to go to, and the district-wide one at the Keeny Cultural Center. Um, the stuff that our students are producing in terms of art is incredible. Um, and I always

152enjoy those. So, that's all I got. Anyone else for comments at the end? Marjorie. Uh, I too went to the soccer game and it was literally one of the most intense, suspenseful soccer games I've ever been to. And I think that helped the cold cuz it was freezing. And I remember when it went into overtime, I was like, "Oh my gosh, these poor kids." But it was like everyone stuck around. It was amazing. It was a huge crowd, so much support. I mean, we had the benefit of being like five minutes away because it was in Hartford at Dylan Stadium. But, um, congratulations to the boys soccer for doing such a tremendous job. and um you know just amazing amazing game and then also amazing I my daughter was on the swim team a few

153years ago and I'm just so proud of the swim and dive team and all their success this year. It's been a tremendous year. Um, I also want to shout out to our missing um, student representative Anushka Gandhi because um, she's out sick today, but she and a bunch of other students put on the turkey bowl, which was an old tradition that hasn't been around in a while. and just some really seeing really great leadership by the senior class this year and putting on things um and bringing back things that you know just you know showing some leadership and organization you know and um and the the pictures that came out from Mrs. Campbell is Mrs. Campbell do the pictures. Fierce fierce pictures of these these uh flag football flag football games. And I was unfortunately

154could not go to the game, but it looked like a great time and a great just a great way to um senior class to get together and also show like leadership to the underassman as well. Maybe they'll keep that tradition going from here on out. Um and I also just want to um discuss how like in the past we did a newsletter last year. We started doing a newsletter last year for the board of education and tomorrow I think is going to be like another version of that because we just started using the more application s'more app and with Kristen's help so much help um she put together with myself um just some snippets of what's been happening this fall with a beautiful message from our board of ed share um and so that'll be

155the first version on this new app and from here going here you know forward we'll try to do more information and news on the board of ed but for now it's just our first version this this fall. So looking forward to that going out to parents tomorrow. >> Assistant Superintendent Miller is an expert at the S'more app. So you might [laughter] [clears throat] >> anyone else for closing comments? Anyone? >> Um just a couple of things. Um I know that I went with Bobby and to see um this high school play um She Kills Monsters and it was wonderful. The students, you could tell that they were really enjoying doing it and the acting was wonderful. The story was really thoughtful. Um and uh I came away with a lot to think about. It was

156really really wonderful. Um, and just seeing how engaged the students were in doing it, um, was was really something to see. Also, >> they're so talented. >> They they really are. And then just a shout out to the Charles Wright PTO. Um, they had a meeting on um the 19th, last week, and um, they were talking about their winter raffle fundraiser that they'll be having in uh, concert with their winter concert raffle. um is that they start selling the tickets for the baskets uh the gift baskets on December 1st and they draw a winner on December 11th. Um they will start their holiday shop um where they will sell items for Christmas presents and their um um what do they call them? I'm sorry. The um their hawks will the hawk helpers. They'll have 15

157hawk helpers um helping the younger children pick out presents. Um they will have a paint night to raise money on January 16th. Um they are even already thinking about their uh uh school trip to or their evening trip to the yard goats game on May 12th. They're getting that organized. So they have a lot going on. Um, and just lastly, I enjoyed so much listening to all of these um, school improvement reports, and we've always had the benefit of hearing them in our committee, and it's nice to just do it once for all of us. Um but one thing um we've been talking over the past couple of years with the um e department and they have we've asked them to give us their dream program and with with the idea that we just want

158to have an idea of what what they would like what what it should look like. Um never with the idea that we could actually do all of that. But one of the most basic things that they have asked us for is for a seat at the table for representation. Um so wherever and whenever discussions and decisions involving EL students are taking place they would really like to be always remembered and to have a seat at the table for that. Um so just a shout out to that. >> Thank you. Thank you. Well, I would like to report first on Keen for Kids um because she said Judy Keen and her organization are so important to our schools. So, we met for a virtual meeting on Thursday, November 13th. This is Keen for kids. Caroline Pazina

159gave the count for our afterchool enrichment programs in all the elementary schools. There are 914 enrollments. It's like a wow. Uh hands-on learning is in full swing for our K through six students. The topics taught are forces, states of matter, soil, dirt, and worms, their favorite, and engineering. Each elementary school will be putting on a musical performance with the assistance from the Harford stage. And stay tuned for more information on times and dates for these wonderful performances. Also, there's a new afterchool program for our Silusene Middle School students, and it's proving to be a huge success. It's open to all middle school students from 2:35 to 4:35. PAL and school teachers assist in the activities for the students and a late bus is provided by the Keen Foundation and scholarships are offered also for all

160students in these programs. So our students find the enrichment programs exciting and fun. But listen to the benefits of these programs. They create a sense of belonging, improves social and emotional skills, builds social and life skills, strengthens lifetime learning, and makes learning more fun, builds confidence, improve school attendance. Students explore diverse interest. And these programs provide a safe and supervised time for students. The Keen Foundation has had a very successful Cove Carnival, which is their big money event. And please support the Luminires, their holiday fundraiser. It's a great way to support this organization. And please check their website for more information, but thank you always, Judy Keane. And then just a closing remark on Thanksgiving. I don't know how other people feel. It is my favorite holiday. And as we approach this season of gratitude,

161I'd like to take a moment to express my heartfelt wishes to everyone at home, in this chamber, and that this day is for a wonderful Thanksgiving. As a town and as a board of ed, we have and will continue to create a nurturing environment where our children can thrive. That I am most grateful for. And take some time this holiday to come together to share a meal and appreciate the joys of family and friends. and also remember those in our community who may need a little extra support during our holidays. Happy Thanksgiving everyone. Thank you. Okay, I can't adjourn this meeting. [laughter] So at this time when would you like me to read? Okay, I move to enter. Okay. I move to enter into executive session for the purpose of discussing and improving the recommendation

162of the superintendent regarding the hiring of the director of teaching, learning, and curriculum and to invite into the session superintendent superintendent WHBY and the candidates and assistant superintendent Miller. We got it. Okay. Thank you everyone and good night. Bye.