001October 14th, 2025. And I'd appreciate you turn off your cell phones as this meeting is being recorded. Um, Ellen, can you please do our roll call? >> Yes. Thank you. Good evening, everyone. Miss Kellen Carson >> here. >> Mr. Kerry, >> present. >> Mrs. D Roberts >> here. >> Ms. Hernandez Williams. >> Mr. Riley >> here. >> Miss Walters >> present. >> Mr. Winer >> here. Vice Chair Mr. Lacavoli >> here. >> Chairperson Mrs. Granado present. And Weathersfield High School student representative Miss Anushka Gandhi >> here. All present. Thank you. And can we have Brooke Nets come on up here and lead us? And she's from Emerson Williams School. Lead us in our pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it
002stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Thank you, Brooke. All right, so tonight we start one of my favorites, student and staff recognition. And we have Emerson Williams School here for the Let Grow Experience. Can't wait. I'm so glad we're doing this. Okay, beautiful. Okay, good evening everybody. My name is Nila Takur and I'm principal at Emerson Williams Elementary School and I am joined here this evening by a student, a parent and a teacher from Emerson Williams. I have second grade student Brooke Nets who's going to come up and speak in a minute and her mom Liz Nets and we have sixth grade teacher Christina Carman. So, thank you for inviting us here this evening to speak. We're going to chat for a couple of minutes uh with you
003all about something very special that we have going on at Emerson Williams, which is called the Let Grow Experience. And as far as I know, we're the only school in Weathersfield currently doing this particular project at our school. So, I wanted to make sure that you all know uh what it is about, and it's something we're very, very proud of. So, as I'm sure all of you know, two summers ago, um we held a communitywide book club read on this book, The Anxious Generation. And the subtitle for The Anxious Generation is How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness. and it's a pretty uh bold subtitle to the book and I'm hoping that you have had a chance to read this book and if you haven't um I hope that
004you can make time to read it. It's it's a really important book for um anybody who works with children and the subtitle is pretty bold and I think if you were to pull my 75 staff members at Emerson Williams they would all say they agree with this subtitle. um that since roughly 2010 um the the brains of our children have been rewired in not a good way and they are struggling and it's apparent at home and it's also apparent at school. The good news though is that this book um proposes a lot of possible remedies to solve that and the let experience is just one of those possible solutions. Um, and we do believe that working together with teachers and parents and children, we can form a community to fix the rewiring that has happened
005in our children's brains. And specifically, what we're referring to is that um, too many of our children, even at the elementary school level, have a real lack of protection and safety online. Um, specifically with things like social media, online search engines, and online gaming, they spend so much of their time in front of screens not really being monitored by an adult and that is harming them. It is causing them mental illness. And it's a really blunt way to put it, but that is what we are seeing. And while they're not being protected online, the flip is also reversed is that they're being somewhat overprotected in the real world. So things have gotten reversed. And what the LetGrow experience does is it provides an opportunity for schools to work in partnership with parents to try to
006reverse that as much as possible. And it doesn't really work if it's one amazing parent working with her one amazing daughter. It really needs to be more of a community effort. And so at Emerson Williams, we have gotten many parents involved in this movement and many children involved. And if we work together as a community, um we can reverse some of the damage that has done and start moving in a better trajectory. So the um main idea is that we have to give our children more independence at an earlier age in the real world. And by giving our kids more independence, that builds their confidence and it builds our confidence in them. And if they fail or if they make a mistake in the real world, that's a good thing. That's not a bad thing.
007It's a really good thing. They will learn from those mistakes. They will learn from those failures in the real world. And they'll understand what problem solving is all about. If you make a mistake, your brain is is is spinning. It's working. It's trying to figure out how next time you won't make that same mistake again. And we need to give children more of those experiences. So, the mission of Let Grow is to make it easy, normal, and legal to give kids the independence they need to grow into capable, confident, and happy adults. I'm not going to read all of my screens to you because I have a bunch of them. I just want to read this one because it really makes clear what our mission is. Um, both this we are in currently in year
008two of the Let Grow Experience at Emerson Williams. And so both this school year and last year, we are proudly partnering with Emerson Williams families to engage our students in the LetGrow experience. The LCRO experience is a very simple, life-changing homework assignment. Go home and do something new on your own. Climb a tree, make a meal, run an errand. The choices for our children are endless and the impact is immediate. Our students are amazing. They are capable of doing great things, hard things. Our job as the adults who love them is to drastically decrease their screen time and allow our children to fly. And some people may have mixed opinions about this and they might think this is just something the parents have to do. Like what does this have to do with school and
009the school system? Parents can and should just be simply doing this on their own. But what we believe at Emerson Williams is that we are working in partnership with our parents. So this is something we are promoting. We are sending out monthly themes to the families. We are talking about in our we are talking about it in our morning circles. Um I'm putting out pictures and communications like sharing ideas of what children like Brooke are doing with their mom's support and mom and dad's support and encouragement to to spread some of those ideas because some parents they just don't know. And it is super easy to hand your child your cell phone or their cell phone or um a gaming system. Um they can they can be safe in quotes in their bedroom of their
010house and just kind of on screen time for hours and hours and hours. But we want to reverse that. We want to flip that. Even just last week, I was dealing with a situation at school where we had a third grade student who was up into this was fourth grade student up until 3:00 in the morning in his bedroom on his video games. And the result for that child in school the next day was awful. Um, but because the kids have the phones in their pockets and they have the gaming systems in their bedrooms, these things are happening and they're happening every day in so many of our households right here in Weathersfield. So, we want to partner with parents to try to change that. So, um, the slides, which I'm not going to read
011to you, I'm just kind of kind of go through them really quickly, um, break up our students from kindergarten to grade six and just have an example of what some of the great things are that our kids are doing when we let them have more independence in the real world. So, in kindergarten, um, I don't know if that is going to pop up. Maybe it's Let's see if I can uh, let's see. This is Freddy. Let's see if that works. Okay, there's Freddy. He's a He's a kindergarten guy. And to be honest, he was one of our four-year-olds. He was one of the four-year-olds who was accepted into kindergarten last year. And he is learning how to stand on a step stool and cut a cut a cucumber at age four. And four-year-olds can do
012that with a little bit of guidance and support and direction from their parents. Here's another video of Freddy, our four-year-old. Come on. Okay. Freddy's at the grocery store and he's the one in charge of scanning the items at the self uh checkout. Kids can do that. There was one day that I was in the grocery store last year and I passed one of my students. He was a third grader and I passed him in the aisle and he was all by himself in the aisle with his shopping cart and I said, "Hey buddy, what are you doing? Where's mom? Where's dad?" And he said, "Miss Takur, I'm doing the Let Grow project." And his mom was five aisles down. She was getting her items and she sent him on a mission to pick up another
013three items and then meet up with her. Um, but that's an example of what our parents are doing to help support um, our mission here with the Let Grow. Okay, this was another kindergartener. She's making salad for her family and she does need to stand on a chair. She wouldn't reach that counter otherwise. Um, she's certainly being supervised by her parents so that she doesn't fall, but she's the one in charge of making the entire salad for the family dinner. Um, Brooke was in grade one, so I'm going to have her and and mom, they're going to do the the grade one slides for us. You can press this button here, Liz or Brooke, to advance the slides. Okay. >> We just wanted to echo what Mor is saying about how impactful it can be
014to do this type of a life um life-changing homework assignment. >> That's I could speak to this one. This is um Felix and Elliot. And Felix is only in first grade in this picture, and they live several miles away from Emerson Williams, but their mom and dad let them walk to school. >> Yeah. >> And they're not walking with a parent. They're walking on their own. We do have a crossing guard at the intersection of Wells and Ridge Road, and they know exactly what they need to do when they get to the crossing guard. Um, but they're allowed to do that themselves. >> Press the arrow, sweetie. Go ahead. Go right ahead, honey. >> That's broken. What are you doing in this picture? >> This is me. >> Um, >> do you remember what we
015did? We did it again for this year. >> I was making the Halloween Halloween route. >> So, we gave her a map of Weathersfield and she actually picked the streets that we went trick-or-treating on instead of us just saying this is the street we're trick-or-treating on. And then she'd pick if we're going left or right. And we did it again this year with a yellow highlighter. And it it was a good memory last year. So some of these are fun to redo again. How about this? What's this that you created? >> This is me um drawing a grocery list. So instead of my husband going to the store with her and his list being written, you know, on his phone or something like that, she actually made the list before they went in the car
016and then she carried it around in the store and checked things off as they went. >> Go ahead. What are you doing here? >> This is me at my friend's house um making sour dough. So, um, sometimes I am limited in my cooking skills, so I'm having her let it grow elsewhere where she's learning some cooking skills and some neighborhood friends for playdates, using some sharp things to scour the dough. >> This is me watering my plants. >> Is that your chore? >> Yes. >> What day of the week do you do it? >> Um, do you remember? >> Good job. So, every Wednesday, Brooke is um in charge of watering our plants. How about this picture? >> This is me decorating with my grandma on the Christmas tree. >> Do they live with us?
017>> No. >> Did you have a hard time decorating two trees that year? >> No. >> How about this one? >> This is me and my sister baking cookies. >> You like to speak to this one cuz it wasn't just her learning to bake. She actually like coordinated the whole weekend at my mom's for their sleepover being like the event planner. They wore matching outfits, what movie they watched together and kind of designed the whole little weekend. Gives them some empowering, you know, thoughts. Do you know Kingston? >> Oh, I can come to these now. Thank you so much, Brooke and [Applause] superstar with the Let Grow Project. This is uh Kingston. He is um doing some shopping around the holiday times um to uh buy toys for children in need and his mom put
018him in charge of picking out a few gifts that he thought would be appropriate. >> Grade two. Leo is in charge of a lot of uh household chores um around his house. He's a huge help to his family. vacuuming, watering the plants, mopping. His his little sister is in the background watching what a great big brother he is. And that's a great experience for his little one, two-year-old sister. Grade three, we have Julia. And in this photograph, she is helping her family put together an entire greenhouse. This is a photo of Julia learning how to fish. She did not like fishing, but she loved the worms. Here's Julia working on her rock climbing skills. Here's Julia going camping with her family and and she was in charge of setting up the tent and setting up
019all the equipment. Grade four, Elliot is making dinner for her family. Beef and broccoli looks delicious. And you know, it's it can be risky sometimes putting kids in front of a hot stove, but that doesn't mean we can't do it. It just means we have to teach them the safety of what does that mean when you are given a responsibility of cooking in front of a very hot stove. And we just have to teach them how to do it. And our kids are able to do these things rather than her sitting in her bedroom on her cell phone on social media while mom's cooking dinner. She's doing this. And the learning is so much more meaningful. Grade five, we have Connley. Look at that. Is that Connley in the back right there? We got you.
020We got you. Mom sends me all your pictures. That's Connley. He's flipping the burgers. Flipping the cheeseburgers. >> Yep. Kids can go near grills. It's okay. We don't have to keep kids 50 feet away from a grill. They can be right at the grill. We just have to teach them how to do it. Grade six kiddos baking cookies all by thems Oh, sorry. This is Christina. Christina is gonna come up and do grade six. >> Sure, I can do grade six. >> Thank you. >> Oh, sure. I'm Christina Carmen, language arts at Emerson. Um, every month I group my students flexibly and they brainstorm depending on what the theme is for the month and they come up with lists of ideas that that they might want to try and then they have the whole month
021to work on it. And at the end of the month, they write me a paragraph and they say what they did, what was hard about it because we talked about they're not always going to be successful. They might try baking a cake and it might not work. What can they do next time? And then they say what they learned. So it's important what they did, what was hard, and what they learned. And they love getting together at the beginning of the month to really brainstorm and share ideas. Oh, I hadn't thought of that. Oh, I already do that. And we talk about how the this ex this idea needs to be a partnership between the school but really between their their family and them because what works for one family may not work for another
022family. If your family lives on a very busy road, your parents may not be comfortable with you crossing the street, but if you live on a culde-sac, maybe you've been crossing the street to get to your neighbor's house since you were five. So, we talked about different expectations and talking with families. Um, I have a really great one that was from last year. I had a student who told me that and he even included seeds that every year he likes to plant a garden with his neighbor who's a retired veteran and he he put his favorite seeds on here because he said it was really great and how the neighbor ended up they made a relationship and the neighbor ended up giving him a cherry tree and he's hopeful that he gets some fruit from
023it. But for this year so far in September, my students after brainstorming and working for the month, they many of them made dinner for their family for the first time. They're in charge of breakfast. They're helping out their younger siblings. I had a student learn how to use a drill to help fix the washing machine. All under parent supervision, but things they wouldn't have done before. Um, so it becomes a writing activity, an activity for them to share their writing skills, their critical thinking skills, their problem solving skills, and then we I make a large poster that hangs outside my classroom so that all the classes, all the students, all the teachers who walk by my room get to see what did we do in September. So September this year was thinking outside of our
024comfort zone. October is spreading our wings, building on what we did in September. So hopefully I'll have something exciting to share next month as well. Do you want to show some of those? >> Sure. So, this picture, two of these students, um, were making cookies for a neighbor. One of our months was doing something to help somebody else. So, um, you know, partnering up, learning how to bake and making it for somebody else. That's Emily and Sophia. Let's see. Um, Kie also made cookies. That was, I believe, December. A lot of people made baked goods to for other people. The idea was to make something and give it to somebody else. Find a way to be of service. Um, let's see. Here we have Shane. Also, he surprised his grandparents. He was very excited about
025making this homemade cheesecake. You can see the ingredients he had to assemble all together. This required looking up a recipe, figuring out how to make a cheesecake. If you've ever made a cheesecake before, they're tricky getting it so it doesn't crack. It took some trial and error for him. He was very excited about this. Um, Oliver put together a wooden musical instrument that he brought to school in a in a big plexiglass case that was so unbelievably intricate that took him a whole month to put it together, but he was so proud of this. Um, this is Haley working with a sewing machine, creating um, I believe she made a purse and I had another student who made a stuffed animal. being able to use a sewing machine, being able to trial and error. This
026this was the excitement here. Um, this student was very excited to decorate his bedroom. We talked about taking agency over our own space, finding a way to be independent, decorate your room. That that really allows you to grow. This student was very creative and loved to draw pictures, always drawing. And so he he created a mural in his bedroom. I said he was very creative. He also made some sock animals. Um, again, being able to shine in this way helped him feel success that he might not have felt in other ways. I think that's it for those. But also finding ways for students to help their neighbors. In November, we did a lot about helping others. We had students raking leaves, shoveling yards, doing things outside of their comfort zone. Um, you know, it was
027really great great opportunity for the students. Thank you, Christie. >> Thank you. >> So, we are just really proud of our students and our families and what they've been able to come up with um through the Let Grow experience. And if you have any questions, we're happy to take questions. Anyone with questions, Jim? >> Uh thank you so much for the program. I I kind of have two uh questions. Um one of them is do you get ideas solely from the brainstorming? And this may be a question for um for Jeff. Um is are there any plans to expand this program to other elementary schools? Thank you. >> So the um the LetGrow experience is an actual organization. So I I attended two really brief online training sessions and as a result of attending those
028training sessions, I received a curriculum and that curriculum comes with um a lot of materials. So those materials, I'm able to blast those out to parents to get them started with the thinking of these are some things you might want to do for this month. Like each month has a theme. Um, and so we provide that to parents as a starting point, but then our wonderful teachers work with the students to branch off of that. Like these are some examples of things that you can be doing, but what else can we brainstorm together? So there are some materials that go along with it and it's completely free. Thank you. >> Yeah, >> at this point, Mr. Riley, we don't have a plan in place to grow this, let it grow across, but is going to
029present this at the next month's elementary school principal meeting and have discussion amongst her colleagues. >> All right, great. >> Anyone else? Marjorie, >> I just want to say how wonderful it is to see this happening at Emerson Williams. I know other schools are doing different things in other ways, but um Thanks to Generation um also has materials on their website about things you you know parents can do. And I think a lot of people think that book is just about anti-screen, anti-screen, but a huge amount of that book is recognizing that we we don't let our kids do things. >> We don't let our kids do things. And that is why they have anxiety because they don't have confidence. And it's not just about the screens. I mean, the screens take up a lot
030of time. We think, "Oh, we don't want to bother them. They're watching TV or they're playing video games." They need to be able to do stuff. And there's I just read a um a thing where it says age appropriate chores and like chores on the first grade or second grade part of the chart. I know so many people who don't let their 17-year-olds do those chores because they don't want to bother them or they don't think they can do it or they don't want to make they, you know, they go to college, they don't know how to wash clothes, they don't know how to do, you know, put food in the microwave. Like it's just about this kind of like, oh, I don't know if they can do it right. It's okay if they can't
031do it right. That's the message. It's like they need to learn problem solving. It's okay if they make a mess. >> So, this slide deck that you see was blasted out to parents multiple times at Emerson Williams just to share the ideas out. You know, these are things that that students in these grade levels are capable of doing and you might want to try them with your children. >> Yeah. And spread the word. >> Spread the word. Exactly. >> The more they do these things, the more like, what else can I do? What else can I do? >> Yes. >> Thank you so much, >> Annice. Um, excuse me. And I was just going to say I could listen to this for hours. Um it'd be great if you if there was a way to
032collect the experiences maybe month by month and publish them in some way. I I would love to read that like at the end of the year and just find out all of the amazing things that um students found out they were capable of doing. >> And that is what I do. I have parents and that's uh Liz Nets was amazing. I have parents who every month they send me just a few sentences. I asked them to a few sentences and a photograph of just a document all of the great things that they're doing with their children so then we could share those ideas. >> I'd love to see that though. That's great. >> Anyone else? I I want to say thank you too. And also I was thinking of it through the eyes of a
033parent or grandparents. Um, and no one can say we didn't know. After this anxious generation book, we have the knowledge of what's going on with these students, these children, and even younger children. Um, so parents can do something about this. We panic all the time, >> but now we can do something. I hope parents are listening and grandparents are listening and getting out there and doing these things. Great. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thanks, Nila. Yeah. [Applause] Thank you. >> Thank you guys. Appreciate it. >> Thank you very much. Brooke, you did a great job. >> I'll just wait for you to put this up. Okay. Next on tonight's agenda is approval of the minutes of our regular board of ed meeting on September 23rd, 2025. May I have a motion to approve the
034minutes? So moved. >> Thank you. A second. >> Second. >> Thanks. Any discussion? >> Yes, madam chairperson on page six >> in the middle of the paragraph that starts with Mrs. Granado commented. It's very confusing because it says Carolyn Fazina reported on after school enrichment. It makes it sound like Carolyn Visina is talking in this paragraph at our meeting. >> You see it, Ellen? >> Yeah, I see it. >> It just It's very confusing. It makes it sound like Caroline's at our meeting talking at that point. Maybe Miss Granado reported that Carolyn Vazina reported some kind of >> Okay. >> wording that makes it so that we know it's a secondhand report coming out of Miss Granado's mouth, not from Caroline Vina. >> Chuck, you're making a friendly amendment. >> Yep. >> I'll say Mrs.
035Granado mentioned Caroline Fisina reported. That sounds good. Does that sound good? >> Okay. Any other discussion? All right, with that amended piece in there, um, let's have a vote. All in favor? I >> I opposed. Any abstensions? Those minutes are approved. Um, and is there anyone wishing to come on up to the podium and state your name and address for public comment? May I remind you that public comments are limited to five minutes. And another reminder that the board will not respond to your comments after you've spoken. So, thank you on that. Anyone? Thank you. Hi, I'm uh Megan Glennowski. I live at 24 Morrison Avenue and I just wanted to uh talk for a minute about the positive impact that Dr. Huber, our new principal, has had on Charles Wright. So, I wanted to
036thank um the interview committee and the board for um just a a great choice. Um the other day he posted online that he had limbo walking in to the to the uh to the school. So, he's just brought like a fun and positive vibe. Um so much positive communication. He sends out like celebrations and this is what we're learning today on Parent Square almost daily. Um he knew that we had had a rough last year. So he texted me like one week in to check on each of my children by name. Um every week every classroom gets a Friday phone call and my daughter who hasn't gotten one yet told me that's the best part. She's so excited. She say excited for her classmates. She's excited for her chance. She's very excited about that. Um
037he listens non-judgmentally and responds thoughtfully. Um the he's moved the vibe away from compliance to learning. The morning meetings include SEAL lessons. He comes in and shares his own things. He talked they were talking about, you know, dealing with um stressors and he talked about somebody cutting him off and he had to take a few deep breaths and my daughter reported this to me. Um you know, there was a an issue in sixth grade recess and he emailed all the parents to ask them, you know, to address things as a team. Um he's getting parents involved. There's a breakfast coming up. There was a fitness night we went to. um just all the like the positive celebrations and communication are are very much appreciated and so I wanted to celebrate Dr. Huber. Thank you. >>
038Great. Oh, thank you. [Music] >> Anyone else for comments? Okay. So, Mr. Whidby, you have some comments tonight. >> Yes. Um I have uh two reports and discussion items. one, I'm sharing uh reference item two, which is just the uh updated subcommittee and uh dates to remember for the board. And the second thing that I'm sharing with the board of ed is the annual class size report. Uh just want to take you through some highlights. It's a pretty uh you know, it's a pretty extensive report for the board. Uh, and this is a report that you get annually and I was very impressed with this report. You you get this every year and um really it's it's a nice job by the the staff and the principles and everybody who's involved in kind of putting
039this together. But I want to just walk you through some of maybe the highlights of the report. The report is directly um aligned to our October one report that we have to report. We have to send that into the state department of education. So it tells the state how many kids we have officially for this year. And we may have more or less like in December, but this is the amount that is reported to the state. And it connects us with like our funding and and uh other various items. So it's kind of like the official number. The October one number is the official enrollment number despite the fact that it'll go up and down. So, our total enrollment for October 1 is 3,383 students. Our elementary enrollment is students this year. Our middle school
040has 535 students and our high school has,22 students. Our transition academy has 12 students. And that that's our total enrollment for this year. Our class size averages at K6, it's 16.73 students per class. That's down from 17.38 uh students last year. So, as you can see, we keep this range over a 10-year span. This is the lowest class size range um that we've had in 10 years. Now, it's important there's little bubbles and blips in there. There's a couple of sections that are a little bit larger than we're comfortable with, but by and large it's a overall small class size. Middle school class size is 21.19. In the high school, it's 20.2. Just some update on the changes. It's a net gain of one additional section this year over last year across the whole district.
041Some notable shifts. Web added a section of kindergarten. We had We were really nervous. Kindergarten sizes were creeping up into the mid20s at at Web and we ended up adding a third section. Um Hammer reduced one section in grade three and Highest adjusted grade five and six sections a little bit. Um just a little bit of historical context. Again, this, you know, the board's looking at longitudinal data from 2015 through 2025. So, we look at the trends and the we can anticipate future needs as the kids kind of grow up through the system. Um, again, this data will help inform our staffing, our facilities planning, and our instructional equity. It's just some strategic implications. This report supports ongoing work towards a formal class-size guideline moving forward. Uh, and this is part of the board of
042ed strategic plan. It's a strategic action and it's strategic action 3.1 as a matter of fact. Um, so I would hope to propose to the policy committee maybe by spring of 2026, Madame Chair, a potential um, class- size guidelines. um idea for the board's consideration. Um again, this helps us maintain manageable class size and it fosters personalization for instruction. It also shows us opportunities to increase intervention support and improve student support while reducing burdens on classroom teachers for delivering key academic skills to struggling learners. And that's something that I'm noticing a lot as I'm doing my entry planning is there is a heavy burden on classroom teachers um across the district. Something that I've seen through my initial observations. So some next steps. This data is great data to inform like I said budget planning,
043staffing allocations, facilities discussions, something that we should keep our eyes on closely uh multiple times through throughout the year. Um, and again, I'm I'm going to pull together a study group to kind of help put together a a potential um a draft policy for the board's consideration and deliberation moving forward. So, I'll pause for any questions, Madam Chair, at this time. >> I just have a question on you mentioned guidelines for class sizes. That's not a policy, correct? But this will be something that we can utilize as class sizes get go up or whatever they do. >> Correct. It'll give you some flexibility, but it'll let you kind of put a stick in the in the sand and say, "This is kind of what we feel is a little too much, a little too little.
044This is times when we might want to think about um providing alternative supports, but it doesn't kind of force you into a corner on class sizes." So, it gives you like a range of uh ways of looking at it with guidelines versus like hard set policy. >> Yeah, we have been looking for something like this. Good. Excellent. Anybody? >> I just have a brief comment. Um I know the teachers up here uh really like the idea of a policy concerning guidelines for class sizes. That's something that Janice and Bobby have mentioned and Christina, who's not here tonight. Um so the the teachers on the board definitely appreciate that and that's something that's been on their mind. Um and you're right, for the most part the these are good trends. I like the fact that the
045average class size is going down. I like the fact that um we have fewer classes with 15 or fewer students. Uh fewer we have more classes with 15 or fewer students than we have had in the past. More classes with 16 to 20. Um but there is slight room for improvement and I'm glad that you're taking the initiative to notice these things and um formulate a plan to try to reduce some of these blips like you just mentioned. Um like I'm noticing we have more classes with 26 or more students and there there's a there's a couple aberrations here in Hamner Charles Wright Web where there's average class sizes of 26 23 25. Um I know that those numbers are creeping up to the size that teachers may not be able to manage as well
046as possible but it's good that we know where we're at and come budget season and come policy committee season um we can hope to address those things. So, thank you. >> Um, anyone else? >> I I appreciate um you're thinking about the teachers and when I see like 26 and grade four, um I remember as a fourth grade teacher, you have more um students with IEPs at that level by then. And so you're juggling um well, you're differentiating your instruction and hopefully you've developed a repertoire of what you do with those different IEPs, but it's still um it can be a lot an awful lot because you're not I don't know if people everybody understands that um it's more than having 26 students. that's having maybe five, six or seven with each with their own
047individual IEP and um it it can get tough. >> It's got to be tough. Yeah. >> Anyone else? Liz, >> hey. Um I'm allowed to ask questions during this discussion part, right? Okay. Um just a a question on when we like if you look at French three I think level one we've got one class of three kids one class of two um will the playbook or or guidance um also address how we how we handle that it just >> a story for it but >> but when I was a master scheduler of a high school of 1100 kids my most nervous day was when I had to meet with the superintendent in the summertime to defend my master schedule and because she was a master scheduler at a large high school also and um and
048you know we look forward to having those conversations because you know it's an opportunity for the schools to redeploy teacher FTE towards areas where more student needs you know those certainly uh you know could be an area where you compose those into two I I'll tell tell you when I I was master scheduling for Windham High School with,00 kids the two hardest classes for me to schedule were band and French 4. I it was just they it was the kids >> the kids wanted French 4, AP physics band. There was like this line of courses >> and it was hard to get the kids into all of them. So sometimes you kind of have to >> put them in different places so that more kids could get them for their graduation requirements. >> It's it's
049very difficult. >> It's doable, but it is a definitely a difficult task. And that's why you'll see sometimes some of those completer courses do have small numbers in them. But when we can, we do want to try to merge those classes of threes into classes of sixes. >> Thank you. because that frees the teacher up to teach another class. Maybe 15 other kids could get into it. >> Sure. Thank you. >> I promise we'll be looking at that >> to conclude. >> Thank you. Yeah. >> Yeah. I would also like to point out that for the Silus Middle School grades seven and eight class size ranges for the average class size of 21.19 that may be skewed a little by these electives. I don't know if you included these crazy numbers of band eight, band
050seven, chorus eight, like are those in the average of the silos middle school average? >> You know, Matt, I'm not certain. I think the answer is yes, but I'd like to be able to follow back up and provide the the board with uh clarification on that. I think the answer is yes, but I I I don't know that for a fact. So, let me get back to you on that. >> All right. because I don't necessarily think that's a fair representation of the average class size at the middle school if you're going to include those outliers. >> I think it says that they're separated actually because they're combined. Seventh and eighth grade do combined electives. >> Yeah. So it says table four mentions that under that. >> Okay. Yeah, you're right. Thank you. >> Okay,
051Jim. >> I just wanted to comment. I think we're fortunate at least that over the past uh decade that the that the amount of students is, you know, pretty standard. It's not moving in in big ways. So, that's a good thing. >> Yeah. I'd like to also point out like uh it's funny just being a parent for this long and I remember when web was dwindling and the numbers there were dwindling and they were losing you know teachers had to get moved out to other schools and it was tough for for web and then Handmer was bursting and now it's like the opposite you know and you just realize that um there's lots of bursts and you know bubbles and then there's like so it might be you know hopefully when we do go to
052four elementary schools it might you know be a better way to manage these numbers and when you have less bubbles. >> Okay. Well, thank you. Thank you very much. >> I I can't tell you how impressed I was with the staff and the principles for helping put this report together. Really excellent job. I'd never have gotten a report like this before as a superintendent. It was really an impressive report. Yeah. >> Thank you administrators out there. Thank you. Um All right. tonight. So, we have no action items tonight. Um and we just did our district report um on class size. Thank you. So, meetings held. So, um the CRE meeting which I attended on 917 um CRE council is the capital region education council which Weathersfield is a member along with 35 other surrounding towns.
053the councils responsible for the regional magnet schools and project choice. They have also organized and are working our Hartford head start. There was a presentation to the council on the staff retention report and a report of community partners for CRE. Also, a treasures report on the finance and audit committee and the head start budget was approved for the next five years. Um Dr. Florio praised a smooth opening to the new school year and thanked leadership for their contributions. He thanked Mason Thr for overseeing transportation and a smooth start as CRE transports over 9,100 students daily along 700 bus routes. Dr. Floral briefly spoke about the back to school events of fall staff, thanking his team and for making sure both events were very successful. Dr. Douglas, who is the superintendent of CRE, spoke about her
054visits to the school on the first day, and the slogan for this school year is defying gravity. I have to think about that one a little bit, but it's that's their their goal. Um, one of the most important pieces of this meeting is we um had a deliberated action to choose a new executive director. So the motion was the correct council appointed Desi Nay Smith as executive director of the Capitol Region Education Council effective February 1st, 2026 and the vote was passed unanimously. Um congratulations to Dr. Florio for his years of success with CRE. And then on July 24th, 2025, all um approvals were received by a email vote from the CRE council in reference to an application for a construction grant for renovations of a CRE Early Learning Center um in Windsor, the Roger
055Wit School. And also there was another approval for renovation of the CRE Greater Harford Academy of the Arts. Um I so enjoy working for CRE and working on their board there. they um are very efficient and I also learn a lot about all the other communities around us. So, thank you on that. Okay. Also, community and public relations committee Marjorie. >> Yes. So, we met um on September 24th and was our first meeting of the year school year and we wanted to kind of just talk about and refocus on our um our general communications plan that we created last year that kind of gives us the goals and things we want to improve on. Um, and we discussed this with with Mr. Wibby and we discussed like how to pursue the continuation of our board
056of ed newsletter and maybe merge it with his reports to the board that are pretty substantial and um so we're going to be working on that um and hopefully coming out with something soon and um working together. Uh Mr. would be talked about like the the district's already in motion with at using with social media more um there is Instagram page as well for the district which didn't exist before and so that's really good to to just to promote what's happening and and more and more people not only in the district but also in the town and residents who don't have kids in in the school system anymore can see what's going on and it's not so separated, right? They can see what's happening in the schools. Um, and we also talked about um more
057communication between the board and the town council and maybe having someone from the board do a monthly report to the town council at a town council meeting. Um, and um and and I had previously been doing where I sent them kind of information once in a while, but maybe something more formal and more cons consistent to the town council. We're all busy. We can't always know or watch these meetings. So, a report um once a month might be nice to for the town council to see what else is going on in the schools. Um and then we talked about going forward with a school renovation, how um it would be important for us to have a central place to have information about it and uh have one of maybe on our district website have one
058page dedicated to all the things that are happening with school construction. Honestly, right now it's just, you know, they're they're going out for an RFP for an architect and they're doing this, this, and that, but um just starting to to start to put out um documents or one, you know, a couple, you know, basically one page where people can see the links, see see what's happening, see the agenda, see the meeting minutes. Um and so when you say when people say, "I'm not sure what's going on, but you know, you can point to that web page and say, oh, it's up there, it's on there." Um, and we talked about a couple different examples from other towns that have done that, including Madison, um, Cheshire, South Windsor. They had very good web pages, um, dedicated
059to their 10, I mean, South Windsor had a 10-year long renovation project, and they had an excellent web page that kind of just talked about the history of the schools, why they needed a renovation, um, and all the different things that happened along the way and that, you know. So, um, well, that's to be, um, worked on as well. And that was it. >> Okay. Thank you. Um, human resources and personnel met, but Christina is not with us here tonight and she'll we'll save that for our next meeting. Um, meeting schedule. Craig has a meeting on um 10:15, student program and services on 10:21 and finance and operations before our next board meeting on 10:28. Okay. So, is there anyone wishing to make a public comment? Come on up to the podium and state your
060name and address. And may I remind you that there's a fiveinut limit. Okay. Well, we'll move on to board comments. Anyone with a board comment this evening, Janice? Um, yes. I attended the Charles Wright PTO meeting on September 24th, their first for the year. Um, they reported on all the activities beginning for fundraising and for just for fun. Um, and the sixth grade committee is up and running planning all of the fundraisers to support all the special activities and events that they traditionally have for the sixth graders throughout the year and especially toward the end. Um, for example, right now they're conducting a Lyman um, pie sale until Monday the 20th. Um, the Charles Wright uh, back to school family picnic, excuse me, was a success. It was a free event featuring two bounce houses
061and ice cream. There was food for um the collection. They were collecting food that went to Moren Duffy, their social worker, for their weekend backpack program, which if you don't know about it, it's a pretty amazing program. A lot of work that they do there. Um parents are really appreciating the Friday phone calls just as um they were commenting about Charles Wright rather um was Emerson Williams or Charles Wright. >> Emerson. >> Yes. Okay. Um and calls that teachers are making to communicate uh positive news about students. They really appreciate it. Um as we heard and on October 24th, the PTO will have its annual boo bash. Um it's 10 the charge is $10 a car. you drive through and get candy and it sounds like a lot of fun. >> It does. >> And
062their next meeting is um October 22nd, so a week from uh Wednesday. >> Thank you. Anyone else with closing comments? Marjorie, >> I attended the October WSBC meeting and um it there's a lot to talk about, but one of the things that they're doing this year, uh is have somebody speak at the beginning of the meeting that's someone from the the district. So, the first speaker they had this year, this month was Mike Barabal from who's the head of security in the district to just talk about what he does, the issues of security, and then they had um questions in advance that he could answer that. So, that was very informative. And then, you know, part of this is when they hear this information, they go back to their PTOs and and tell everyone else
063what they heard. So, um, coming up, I believe in November meeting is the athletic director from the high school is going to speak. Um, and in addition to Mr. Wibby who gives his report as well. Um, one of the things they also did was promote walk by walk to school walk and roll I think to school uh um day this this past October. Um, I forget I think it was the second week Wednesday in October. Um some of the schools like delayed it because it was raining, but um it's always a great event to get kids out and walking together on the on the sidewalks. Um and they also just did um the movie on the on the cove, which was a a big event that just happened. I could not attend, so I didn't
064uh didn't get to see it, but I know they had good weather. Um, and I just want to report on we did do we a lot some of us attended the trivia night for the Weathersfield Education Foundation and um the our board of ed table did not win. We kind of I think we came in last or second to last but um the millennials beat everybody. Um but it was a great event. There was a couple two or three tables of teachers from the district um and having a great time. A SDMS teacher table, a Highest teacher table. They were It was fun. There's music, um, a lot of good trivia, and so I hope they raised a lot of money. Um, and I thank the education foundation for for really, you know, putting that
065on and bring some people together. >> Okay. Anyone else with a closing comment? Well, um, >> Liz, go ahead. >> Just to, um, so Web has had a they've had two PTO meetings so far this year, one on September 10th and one on October 8th. And just something to share as I am wrapping up my term on the board shortly. Um the it seems like Web and I believe other schools as well are interested in hearing more about how the redistricting might happen. Um now that the referendum has passed, I I do think it's on uh the minds of of quite a few parents. Um I would imagine that it'll probably get get brought up. So just to share that. Um and then also um some guidance around say using web as an example it's
066going to be changing from an elementary school to essentially a middle school and how do the PTO's dissolve their PTO you know it is an entity you know with their budgets um the the bank accounts and things like that so I know the schools will be looking for some guidance on that >> important thank you but they have time >> we do have time >> yes we do thank you anyone else. All right. Well, I wanted to comment on the Weatherfield Education Foundation. We have a meeting tomorrow night and I'll hear the results of how much money they raised. But I have to tell you, it was really a lot of fun. The winning team was the Mighty Millennials. And other teams such as the Brainy Bunch. Um they showed great brains and energy in
067their quest to win. It was a fun-filled evening um for a great cause because we'll be funding grants for our school classrooms. Um, but I wanted to make an important message to all voters. We start early voting here in Connecticut in one week, Tuesday, October 20th. The town hall chamber is the one and only place for early voting. But on election day, November 4th, voters will be heading to their district's voting place. So, thank you for doing your part in keeping our democracy strong and vibrant by voting. Thank you. So, um, Anushka, our Weatherspil High School representative, tell us everything that's going on in our flagship school. So, good evening everyone. Here's a quick update on what's been happening these past few weeks at the high school. As I brought up a few weeks ago,
068the high school had their first spirit day since 3 years, which got the whole school incredibly excited. Students got to throw pie into teachers faces, including principal O' Connor. There was a very competitive musical chairs event, but sadly the teachers won the tug-of-war against the students. I played in this event. Um, on the athletic side, last week, Mr. Scanland and Mrs. Budet, I'm sorry, brought a few students to the Aquaturf to accept the Michael's Cup Sportsmanship Award for the work being done at the high school regarding athletic leadership. Additionally, senior soccer player Bella Dphanie was voted CT Insiders Girls Athlete of the Week. And on the topic of soccer, both the boys and girls team won their senior nights and had packed crowds for both games. Finally, student athletes Maddie Wetgy and Lauraai Fzini Kendrick
069were interviewed by members of the CIA week uh last week to highlight their fundraising efforts of raising money for Parkinson's disease. That's what's been going on at the high school. >> Wow. Great. Thank you. Any questions? Put her on the spot. Okay. Thank you very much. Is there any unfinished business? You're all set. All right. So, tonight I make a motion for an executive session for the purpose of our superintendence evaluation process. >> Can I have a second? >> Second. All right. All in favor? >> I opposed. Any abstensions? Okay, we're all set. So, thank you all for coming and good night.