001to the flag of the United States of America and to the for it stands one nation God indivisible with liy and justice for all good job thank you okay thank you okay tonight Mr EMT do we have student and staff recognition we do uh this evening Mrs Granado thank you good evening everyone if I could please have our student and staff leaders from web Elementary School please come up to the podium for a presentation on kids empowering [Music] kids I do that's right here too this down for okay you ready good evening it's nice to be here again I'm Annie I'm the curriculum specialist at web and I've brought with me Nicholas Safina and Karina peshi and Matthew kman and we have also brought our new library and media specialist Miss leani Arno and we'd
002like to introduce her tonight and tell you a little bit about her and then tell you a little bit about one of the things that we have started together at the nut make book clubs are you ready go ahead [Music] Nick we'd like to start by telling you about our new library media specialist Miss Arno before joining us at web um Elementary Miss Arno worked in Willington as the Middle School library media specialist she came to web in late October when Mrs Murphy retired just like a classroom teacher each librarian puts his or her her own special touches on the library they each have a vision and Miss Arno is working hard to make her vision come to life she has incorporated some maker space activities into her lessons rearranged the book stacks and is
003implementing lessons on digital citizenship she is also working to update the non-fiction collection and labeling the different sections and genres for quick identification Miss Arno loves how much the kids at web love to read she loves helping them find a great book reading aloud and just being a part of the school community now we'd like to tell you about something new this year at web that Miss Arno and Miss C started nutmeg book clubs Nutmeg books are chosen each year in Connecticut to encourage kids to read high quality literature also known as really good books the nut make books are chosen from books published in The Last 5 Years and have four categories Elementary for grades 2 and three into intermediate for grade 4 to six middle school middle school for grade seven and 8
004and high school for grades 9 to 12 each category has 10 fiction books in December Miss and Miss Arnold had each of the fourth fifth and sixth grade classes come to the library for what they called nutbag book testing they took turns talking about each of the 10 intermediate Nutmeg books they told us about the Char and what the story was about then everyone got to a vault with a Google form to pick our our top choices everyone voted and the top two choices were scrp scratch and lightered my life as a cat SCP scratch is about a girl named Claire who's being haunted by a real ghost while she's helping her dad with his ghost tour business she knows she needs to investigate in her investigation she learns a lot about Chicago's history and
005a little boy who is early similar to The Ghost Boy on the ghost tour bus lard my life is a cat is about an Alien named Leonard who is supposed to be visiting Earth as a human park ranger but ends up on Earth as a cat instead he is taken in by a girl named Olive but he only has 30 days to get back to his meeting point to get home again he grows to love all and has decided whether to stay with her on Earth as a cat or go home to his Alien Planet a two book club were open to any fourth fifth or sixth graders to join every person in the book club got their own copy of the book Mrs Arnell leads a squish club on Tuesday mornings and Mrs Co
006leads the L of My Life as a cat Club on Wednesday mornings during book clubs we talk about the characters the plot of the story the problems of the story and we make predictions about what we think will happen based on evidence from the book we usually read a chapter aloud together and the rest we are our own thank you does anyone have any questions for us anyone with questions or comments first of all I'd like to say what a terrific job all three of you just did it is so hard to get up in front of people and speak and you were reading something that was very well written you knew what you were saying and your presence was very impressive so congratulate you what I would love to know is what are your
007favorite what is your favorite book or one of your favorite books um well for the book club I'm meting Leonard My Life as a [Music] cat My Life as a cat I'm also reading it must be a good book I should probably check it out it is a good book thank you so much anyone else yeah hi so miss AR now welcome to the district it's obvious that the students have been connecting with you and that you're making web and the you know the space that they are going to um their own so welcome and I hope that we can be here to support you as well nice job guys thank you and um Miss AR new welcome to web welcome to Weathersfield and in my mind all elementary school should have a media center
008right smack in the middle of it and that's where the world revolves right around that Media Center so thank you for working with these young students already thank you thank you uh I just want to say how much I appreciate the student leadership we talk about you know kids empowering kids and this is one example of many that I've seen at Webb Elementary School from a student Le Veterans Day ceremony uh to students being involved in the presentation of the DARE graduation so I am very appreciative of the work that you're doing over at web Elementary School and very proud and I just want to say to our staff members um thank you for the wonderful work you do it is very very reflective of the quality of our students thank you thank you thank
009you we appreciate your support okay thank you we'll wait for it to go up [Music] check things okay next on tonight's agenda is the approval of the minutes for a regular Board of Ed meeting on January 9th 2024 are there any corrections you want you want to make the motion first oh may I have a motion to approve the minutes I do corrections first so moved okay a second second all in favor I opposed any AB itions great those minutes are improved now is there anyone in the audience who would like to come up to the podium for a public comment and you state your name and address and may I remind you that you have a f minute limit okay no takers Mr EMT you have some communication to share I do thank you
010Mrs Granado good evening again everyone I just want to remind the community that we've got a very special event coming up on February 2nd 2024 from 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. over at the community center uh the Weathersfield Police Athletic League will have its Community kickoff this has been a uh long process in terms of getting this um program up and running this is the uh grandchild of Chief Medina uh we are very very happy to be partners in this process so again uh this event takes place at febru on February 2nd uh from 5: to 8:00 p.m. uh there will be food at 600 p.m. it includes a video game trailer food music games giveaways and more um we've sent this information out via parent Square once we'll be sending it out twice more
011uh before this event so certainly looking forward to that also want to make mention of the fact that the Weathersfield Chamber of Commerce will be holding its annual stateof the town breakfast uh invited guest speakers include Ken ler uh mayor Fred Presley Town manager rapael Medina Chief of Police Joya Zach Economic Development Improvement commission and Michael EMT superintendent of schools this will be taking place on Wednesday January 31st at 7:45 a.m. that's registration and it will take place I believe it begins at uh 9:00 a.m. so uh actually uh breakfast is at 8: so get there early and get a good seat so again Wednesday the 31st of January 2024 it's over at the Keeny Center uh a couple of other items this evening everyone uh we continue to monitor the ESS data the latest
012information from the Central Connecticut health district that we got this week is the numbers are starting to come down which is certainly good news um you know again we continue to see illness here and there nothing is really concentrated at this point in time um but the numbers are starting to come down and what's been interesting is looking at the attendance for students across the district um we are currently um in January compared to last year in Jan uary we're about a half a percent better as a whole in the month of December we were actually 3% better in terms of overall attendance um compared to last year so um our trajectory looks good what typically happens is January is the peak and things start to get better and we see the attendance numbers rise
013even further as we get into the spring so uh things are looking good there do want to remind everyone with regard uh to the uh building work that we're doing we have a uh meeting schedule for the 29th of January we're going out to visit um South wsor Public Schools we'll start off with a meeting with Dr Kate Carter superintendent U talk about her process and then we will go over and be visiting Pleasant Valley Elementary School so uh the ad hoc committees got a lot of work on their hands and I know uh there was a meeting last week and there was more uh work done around the um planning for the project so uh much to be done there and then finally last but not least uh with regard to snow days just
014to let everyone know um we are monitoring the weather this evening I've already had requests from students I do have a c of students do reach out via email asking so there is no decision that's made tonight at this point in time as we're at the board meeting but I am certainly monitoring the weather uh tomorrow morning as are all of my fellow uh superintendants um I think you know one of the things I just want to make sure everybody's aware of when I make a decision around a snow today it is a decision that is rooted in the safety of our students and our staff um and I know every time I make that decision no matter what decision I make somebody doesn't like it so um right now at this point in time
015uh tomorrow we are a go but uh Please be aware that uh if things change you will hear from me tomorrow at 5:45 a.m. not too early not too late and uh with that that's Communications this evening okay thank you all right we have one action item this evening on policies Matthew would you please read the motion yes Bobby so the policy and planning committee met uh we've been having our regular meetings I like that we've been doing that once a month regularly um I move that the RFI Board of Education approved the recommended policy updates these policies come from the 5000 series having to do with students and they pertain to high school graduation requirements uh policy to improve completion rates of the FAFSA and suicide prevention and intervention we had I I'll second
016it okay is there any discussion I think everyone this is the second reading okay um all in favor say I I I opposed any abstentions the motion passes thank you Matt all right tonight we have um an important presentation on Equity strategy jeese can we come on up Sally thank [Music] you [Music] okay sorry so good evening everyone um I'm Sally dooi and I want to first of all introduce the team that's here today um before we get started so um Pamela Jones Doris duin we're back and we're glad um Shahara Banks Mar has Kayla Cruz so I'm incredibly excited to be here uh this evening and with uh my fellow friends behind me uh to talk about some of the work we're doing here in Wethersfield around our third priority of equity um and
017really uh our title is that intentional practices uh moving our work forward and how it weaves into everything we do it is not something that's a standalone um so as a reminder we all know that our three priorities of equity empathy and achievement are the core focus of our district um and really this they they breed to they uh they braid together they weave together um but we find that they're really important so we've separated them as three separate priorities but know that everything overlaps um as we do this work so uh just a reminder about priority 3 uh where we're really working on deliberately identifying inequities in our policies and our practices that impact our community and really thinking thoughtfully and intentionally about how we can change structures to provide more Equitable outcomes uh
018for all um inclusive of race and then our theory of action which is our belief statement of uh what we do and how to make a positive impact so we are fully committed to continuous learning um here in Weathersfield I really growing our individual uh because our work around Equity starts with self and reflecting about our self our Collective social Consciousness and really doing that work together to identify uh structures and equities and our practices and our policies um we're then working together to really holistically close uh the achievement Gap the opportunity Gap the Readiness Gap while empowering all students to demonstrate growth and success and you'll hear today a little bit about our work with parents and the part of uh of that work also so that's our theory of action so so I
019wanted to really uh leave you with this quote and this graphic I one of those different Graphics that get at the idea of equity um and equality um the idea of equality is kind of the same right everything get everybody gets the same as demonstrated by the three boxes but Equity we um we don't manufacture uh pieces and widgets right we're in the human business and we have to really look at our data and look at our students our staff our community and recognize that we everybody's different and different uh people and different approaches uh have strengths um but we also have different supports for our students our staff and our our community um as demonstrated by those boxes in order to be able to look over that fence we all have different strengths and
020we all need different types of supports it's identified by those boxes so our F our work is really on Equity to provide an opportunity that everybody has that opportunity uh for engaging in high quality learning uh Equitable outcomes and so really that opportunity and Readiness Gap so this graphic is really kind of a a overview of some of our Equity strategies here in Weathersfield um I'm going to do a quick overview because I really want to turn it over to the people that are um uh doing a lot of the work um so I want to kind of go through a few of the areas um right in the middle we have our district Equity team so it has been placed for several years our district Equity team is is made up of uh all
021district administrators and representatives from every building we come together monthly for shared professional learning action planning um and then those representatives from each School bring that back to their school-based Equity team so every school has a school-based equity team um many times it involves additional staff members they plan professional development have courageous conversations and work on that Equity work specifically in their building and then that work comes back as District Equity team I and every school has some great successes to share about the work they've been doing through that model I'm kind of going up to the right um as you know we're part of the correct teacher and Residency program this is our third year of supporting uh diverse Educators and supporting um The Residency program um that they complete that Residency program and
022um remain in our classrooms I'm going up to the top um our workaround social justice uh Coalition that started four years ago now um P Maduras were actually founding members in the social justice Coalition um we have a firm belief that it's not just public education it's a CommunityWide uh event around making sure our uh town is inclusive we hear different perspectives and we talk about different social justice um issues um learn together um grow together um again to implement positive change in weather's field we have a focus and goals around recruiting and hiring and retaining diverse Educators um you will hear some of the presentation today tie back to that work um but we are currently working on a written plan for that um but that has been a commitment in our district Improvement
023plan for several years we do a lot of work around analyzing data what is the story we learn from our data what can we learn from that how can we set goals um using our data appropriately um kind of moving over to the left far left in the purple um we've had a commitment of increasing diverse texts languages and voices in our curriculum um both in text sets but also in our written curriculum work and that lens of cultural responsiveness within our curriculum work continues um courageous conversations has also been a really important tool for our district um through our administrators and our district Equity team we use the courageous conversation Compass to uh reflect and navigate conversations as we're talking about different social justice issues um and how the impact of race um is
024integrated into the work we do as public education um so this is an important tool that we think over the next few years will also be used with our students um it's really a powerful tool to help guide conversations um that's really I won't take away the but they're going to share later uh but it's been I think really positive so I'm going to that's a really quick overview you'll see the end of the slide some references to some of the points in our district Improvement plan specifically around Equity goals um I'm not going to bore you with that because they have a really exciting presentation um but tonight we're going to focus really on uh staff and parent bipo Affinity groups um and the community Fair um I think that it has been really
025important work it has been um I think incredibly impactful for our staff our students um I really appreciate Pam and Dorth for really leading that work um and I think you're going to hear a lot about it tonight and um uh just I think it's just amazing work so I'm super proud of it so with that I'm going to turn it over to Pam Andor and the rest of the team thank you uh thank you for for having us here we were invited to come and and speak to you so um we just want to share a little bit information about our bipac Affinity groups why we even started them um and then we have some members of the groups here who would like to speak to you about how it has impact these groups
026have impacted them so I just want to give you a quick history the staff by Pac affinity group was started when Doris and I were approached about what it feels like to be one of a few staff of color here in Weathersfield and so we felt comfortable enough to have a really op honest open h honest uh courageous conversation about how it feels to just be one of a few at the time when we had this conversation Doris and I with one other person in town were the only three black teachers in the whole District so we had that conversation and out of that came a bigger conversation about how we could work together to make the staff all feel comfortable all staff so we had uh sat together with Administration Human Resources we had
027Consultants from Circ and we did a lot of work about on how to make a bipo affinity group and so they're bir this idea and so bipac meaning black indigenous and people of color so let me just give you a little definition of affinity groups are spaces where people of similar backgrounds can feel a sense of belonging and inquire the strength and encouraged to participate in a larger community so we started this group in September of 2021 and we started by let me hold on see what we have here okay wait let me go back because I want you to see the goal of affinity groups so the goal of our affinity group is to connect support Empower discuss and collaboratively improve improve Equity Recruitment and Retention of staff when we got together at our
028first meeting we decided that we wanted to take this mission statement and kind of break it down into bit-sized pieces so connect support and Empower is what we focused on for our entire first year because although we work the same district we rarely saw each other like I would see doors during convocation give her a big hug take a picture and then I wouldn't see her anymore for the rest of the year so it was important for us in our first meeting to say you know why don't we all just connect with each other so we meet once a month and that first year we met once a month we still do and we just spent time connecting with and learning who we were and learning some of the the situations in the different schools
029and realizing that they're all the same and um we really spent time empowering and encouraging each other it was awesome so um we have here so someone who is a part of that very first year and who is still a member of the group and she came to talk to you about what she her take away from being in this group is so I'd like to invite Mariam back over to the podium come on over Mariam and she well you're okay okay hi good evening everyone my name is Mariam has and I am a member of bipack affinity group and I joined this group because I want to be surrounded by people is they have the same interested and in equity and as um americ immigrant uh I appreciate having a support system U where
030I can feel seen and heard and also um I can feel um be be part of this group The they help me to become more more comfortable as speaking in the public especially when I'm in the classroom because I'm substitute teacher in a high CR and also if we are going to conference or something they're going to help me and I feel um because of this group I I understand um everybody can hear me and respect me as other people and um every month when we have a meeting as Pam said we always um encourage each other if any problem we have or how can we can help each other or other student in all classroom or in the school thank you so much for having this opportunity thanks and I just like to say
031that these monthly meetings are on our own time and they're after school so after a hard day of teaching it's so important to teachers that you know we have to wait for the last Elementary School to get out and we meet cuz it's that important um and it gets me emotional um I know people said you know when you leave this Equity work is going to go away and I'm like no this can't happen and so Weathersfield was not going to let that happen and it's a priority and I just want to state that right now um the work that we did the first year second year and what we're doing whether field is following that commitment and I'm we're telling people they're not just checking boxes we're doing the work and we're all growing
032individually and so you can see what comes out at some of those monthly meetings what we do is also encourage each other to speak so we have different topics so at the beginning Pam and I did a lot of the planning and a lot of the speaking and a lot of the topics um and then we wanted each person to Branch out and so Miriam was able to present to us about her home country and what was going on and how she felt um and we just honored that and then we had another member speak about what it's like in her Latino Heritage she's from Puerto Rico so it's important for us to pass that along to them and so we're real proud that they're here tonight um the staff so you can see what's
033happening um so we go to uh we had a end of the year party We Gather for Christmas and we have or holiday holiday party um and as we said just support each other each other so we just wanted to bring you some pictures we could not bring them all this is from the bipac event um that we had the second year the first year thank you weid you uh supported us um with the consultant as we were forming this group um and we wanted him to come speak to the group the bipot group the first year and he did and it was just relieving and that was another way for them to see that the district was serious and that we Pam and I also had support um and so that we had Malik
034in the earlier picture with Sarah and so he said to us you can do what you want the next year he said I can tell I know your teachers you're going to want to do more and we all said yeah we do and so uh we were talking and then I think Pam you spearheaded this um and we decided to come up with the bipac event and so we had that last year at the at Pitkin and I believe it was a success we still hear about it heard about it last night at Arison Williams we invited the police chief um we had vendor tables we just got our brand new sign that you can see up there so that we were able to to have that there and uh it was a good time
035have by all and the community felt good um so we were pretty proud of that second event uh bipac event and we're going to have another one and we'll let you tell them and then we want to continue to grow so we had opportunities thanks you uh Sally um to go to conferences and we went to one called igniting the change and so um you'll see pictures so once again we just didn't want Pam and I to go so as we were working we asked them would you like to go and they came so these are pictures ofe of us presenting at conferences and then presenting in the classroom or after school um we also in our meetings found out we were mentally tired a lot was going on um and Pam and I were
036talking we go back we don't share information unless they tell us it's okay to share it um it's confidential and um we decided and we were talking to the teachers they were just they just were tired and so we said we needed a retreat and so we had a retreat in the district and we had admin there and they came and talked to us thank you very much uh they will never forget it we had activities we talked about mental health and and taking care of yourself and uh it it gave them the strength and the courage and to go forth and to continue and to keep that hope and to keep going forward and so these are some of the pictures that you see from there um um and oh yeah this here let
037me just say this really quickly we teach Four Agreements and courageous conversations and so our teachers in the bipac if they didn't get it at school they got it in our meetings we are also doing that with our parents and I'm going to let them speak to you this is this year we had a welcome back activity and these are pictures from our welcome back uh reception that we had at Stillman so we just wanted to pop them in couple new employees in there you want to say anything about that you good okay all right and now our parent affinity group our third year we talked about it thank you some of our supporters um we posted this picture CU we it's our first year we didn't know if they were going to feel comfortable
038or willing to come and talk to you but we talked to them and we they felt comfortable so we have some Representatives tonight to talk to you about our new your new bipac affinity group for parents and who's first up hi everyone my name is Kayla Cruz and I'm not a parent um but my Mom Nancy valz um encouraged me to go to these parent Affinity groups I graduated from weatheru high school in 2019 and um I shared my stories with her of different microaggressions I experienced throughout my time in Thea field public school system and she felt that my voice needed to be heard and um thank you Miss Duggins and Miss um Jones for doing this because I've seen such empowering conversations going on and such a supportive environment for the parents um
039it's a safe space for them to express their concerns freely without being judged and then they learn tools to kind of Empower and advocate for their child in different settings and I think this is something that's long overdue that something that needed to be done years ago and I'm glad that it's happening now but but it still needs to continue to happen and more work needs to be done and thank you guys for your time hi um I am a parent of two kids and one goes to Charles wri and the other one is out um is pleased out um and I'm a parent and I um one was going to s um solest mow and I am a numb Li of Pep and um being a part of the infinity group just let um
040just for me let us to speak our truths and in different um stages of where we are in our lives um and then um being a leader and an advocate for my kids and for kids in general it's just it's good because it's for me having two kids on three but two that's in the school system having being a um an advocate um I love it and I love being around kids um my closing I just wanted to say um I love I love it and I love being around kids and the school system is good because without the school system the educational system would go down the drain but I love it this this is my first time so I'm just I'm just loving it um and um and just the racist the racism
041barrier and the happening in the school system in the society oh just I just love it thank you thank you she oh Pam's telling me to say any questions if you have any questions you don't have them now you can reach us at ddin Wethersfield and Pam Jones at wetherfield anybody have any questions you know I do and this is a question I've been wanting to ask for a long time can someone explain or either give the board maybe give the board some um information on what a courageous conversation is um you know we hear about it a lot but we don't I've never seen it I don't I saw it looked like a board that you had with the four uh rectangles in it okay all right if someone could explain it to us
042come well courageous conversation conversation courageous conversation is when when you having a group of people around and they having a conversation they go through their belief system and they thinking about things and they the feeling and the action it's just like when you have an a conversation with the superintendent and you um y having that you're going to the um the compass and y y y the belief system that you have youall have the same belief system and if you if you are on that same belief system you're going into the thinking and after you go into the thinking you're going into your feelings and after the feelings you're going into the action that's what it is yeah she just described to you the courageous conversation Compass which we use as a tool when we
043have those conversations right so we talk about what a courageous conversation is not it is not flaming it is not cancellation culture it is about understanding the other person and their perspective and their view so this is a tool that we've been learning so that you can enter the conversation say like T for me for tonight I entered from emotional feeling and it was a good feeling I was really proud and then I moved along to believing like who could have imagined that this would have taken place and to thinking like what else can we do who can we connect to and your idea is that you move around that Compass when you're having a difficult conversation and it comes with four agreements that you post so if I'm having a conversation and I know
044and I want to feel certain way we all know that we're going to agree to four different things in that conversation so we feel more comfortable having that conversation so we won't be labeled um with names and and guilt um and I've seen it work I I Tau we've taught it to the parents um I learned it uh we taught it at Weathersfield High School the goal is we're going to silus Dean um and uh it really helps I we watch the parents navigate it and you know and we will talk about people say I get stuck in that feeling I see now how important it is for me to move around right so that's that's kind of what it is and I was thinking if the board wants to know we can make arrangements
045with you to walk you through it so the entire town the goal is that we all can do this so if I have to have a conversation with you I know you understand how we have that conversation and I don't have to feel defensive well thank you and we'll take you up on that invitation thank you you're welcome so I want to thank everyone for coming Miss D Miss Jones I had the opportunity to hear you talk about the bipack uh Family Outreach at Charles right PTO and that's why I definitely asked for you guys to come I think it's a great opportunity that you're giving our families and I appreciate everything you guys do for the district thank you thank you for that we appreciate it and uh we are going to we go
046we didn't say that but we go to PTO meetings as well so that we can make connections there and you know we're always trying to make those connections so we appreciate that Matthew I just want to thank you all for coming tonight as well and uh sharing your work and sharing your stories um it's sometimes easy to share your work but it's not always easy to share your stories and uh that's much appreciated and I I really like the fact that I attended a school system and I'm currently working in a school system that has a group like yours so thank you all for coming this is tremendous that was great Liz hi I would I would like to congratulate you on your graduation from the Yukon pep program that's that's really wonderful I'm very
047happy for you and I love um the role modeling that you're doing for everyone you know you can just feel this great energy coming from all of you it seems like there's such happiness and commitment to you know sharing things that you're learning to improve to take action to accept everyone you know I've had the pleasure of knowing Mariam and her very impressive daughter and you know when we think about role modeling um I just loved hearing your presentation I'm looking forward to hearing more about it and thank you for what you're doing thank you just want to say one thing thank you for your time after school because as a teacher who does that as a teacher who's done courageous conversation it's incredible work but it's also emotional and in the after School commitment
048that you have it's just it's just incredible so thank you and we're here if you need us all right thank you um and also I hope that uh we see you again we all have a lot to learn Beyond cage courageous conversations and um it's always good to check in okay so thank you very very much you were enlightening thank you [Music] do I think we might need it we might need it one more I think we might need it yeah hold on so we have another presentation tonight on the results of the Weathersfield youth voices count [Music] survey are you going to use this yeah okay yep thanks Jim they're going to keep it I don't think I don't think he has the I he has the slid dialed up oh do I have
049to do anything on here you have the slides show [Music] there okay on way communication on your no with Jim just that was always wanted to we don't we have that next week this is canceling this we [Music] had this is meting oh yeah's you have the wrong agenda look at my meeting schedule where's mine you see mine okay the right it's weird weird cuz this is still not the same as mine mine three different sorry about that thank you I appreciate [Music] it there's three different ones okay okay good evening Board of Education members and superintendent my name is Erica teair and I'm the assistant director of social Youth and Senior Services for the town of Weathersfield also liaison to our drug-free communities Grant which we have a coalition um we hope which stands
050for Weathersfield helping others through prevention and education I'm also joined here tonight by Bonnie Smith our youth voices count survey consultant we come before you tonight to share the results and key findings from the confidential youth voices count survey that was administered online this past November to all 7th through 12th graders that attend cestine middle school and weather seial high school by conducting this survey social and use Services was looking to solicit student input and perspective regarding substance use and atrisk behavior FES the data will be used to best guide future planning provide prevention programs and promote overall Community awareness we appreciate you allowing us to come here tonight and share this important data I'll will now turn it over to Bonnie Smith and we have a presentation that will be up on the screen
051thanks Erica hi everybody thank you for having me tonight um I've been before this board of education many times with survey data I'm going back to 2016 but it is unique for me because I'm a Weathersfield resident and a mom of three kids in the district so while I do this in many districts in the school it's a whole different thing coming to Weathersfield so Erica mentioned that the survey occurred November 2023 um again that was grades six or 7 through 12 tonight I'm going to walk you through some key findings both some good news and just areas we might focus in on there's a huge survey report and when I say huge I really mean huge it's over Bing um a lot of material tonight you won't necessarily um that's from that report you
052won't necessarily see I'd like to point out in that report in the spirit of understanding Health disparities and Equity we do in-depth analysis on statistical differences between groups of students so we do analysis by um those based on biological sex gender identity sexual identity and race ethnicity to highlight any groups without identifying any individuals who may be having more areas with increased risk factors the response rate this year was good about 83% overall uh last time we surveyed it was 88% still all really good anytime I see over 80% I'm thrilled this is how we broke out the demographic groups in the analysis of the report um based on Student Response I'm just sharing this so you know um where you see sort of that each color that's where the groups are small enough that
053we have to call them an aggregate group for the purpose of analysis so we don't inadvertently identify an individual this is the breakout of gender identity overall we had 4.1% of Youth describe themselves as transgender non-binary or unsure this is down from the last time we asked this question I wanted to note where it was 6% this is the first time we asked about sexual identity and I do like to highlight when I talk about these demographic questions there is not a single question in the survey that's required for a student to answer so students can skip questions throughout the survey if they're uncomfortable with something it's absolutely fine and if there's an issue in the survey that's brought up emotionally for them they're directed with instructions both before the survey with a video and
054at the end of the survey informing them who they should contact in their school and then after hours contacting 211 or the suicide hotline um um should have said that before but thought about it here sexual identity we had this year almost 14% of Youth describe themselves as gay lesbian bisexual pansexual or describing themselves in another way uh this slides about gaming assets and consequences in the past year the box at the top is there because those are three new questions in the survey and the one I'm going to focus in on is having a hard time stopping um this one this is this funny thing that happens with PowerPoint sometimes the bottom dark blue is Middle School the middle one is high school and then the top blue is overall I'm just going to
055point out that the middle school kids are having a more of a hard time stopping gaming than uh those in the high school and that in general 60 or SE 58% of kids feel more connected with others because of Gaming but then conversely we have about 177% who got into a verbal or physical fight because of gaming looking at social media um then we also have a parallel question now of having a hard time stopping scrolling checking or refreshing and we have about 32% of middle school and 35% of high school students saying that that's true for them in the past year um and then that connected with others 62% um about feel more connected with others because of social media and about 177% overall got into a fight physical or verbal because of social
056media so there's ups and downs to all of these activities is my point uh looking at bullying and perception and frequency um I wonder do we have the PDF do we [Music] know sorry this sometimes for it happens in weather's field and that's why I always send you the PDF I can talk about it while we look at it but I just don't want to keep going on not having a great label for you um so there's been an increase in reported bullying in their lifetime for youth in this survey the last time we surveyed lifetime bullying was reported it 43% said yes I've been bullied in my lifetime this time we have 51% um we also saw an increase for the frequency of bullying so in 2021 we had about 8% of kids saying
057that they were bullied almost every day this time we're seeing um 1.6% which is the equivalent of 22 students in the sample so while 1.8% is low 22 kids that are feeling like they're bullied almost every day are kids were going to worry about certainly um let's see the types of buling the first is name calling second is rumors and third is exclusion just to give you a sense of that um physical bullying reported physical bullying has gone down though since our last survey so there's kind of been a shift in the types of bullying occurring looking at the places students report being bullied the first is in the classroom second is the hallways and the other choices are things like bathroom gym lunch walk walking to school bus online which comes in about fifth
058of all the choices and then after school looking at emotional health this is where we have some good news and I'm going to dig into this if our slides are working properly uh we have about 24% of Youth reporting almost always or always feeling anxious in the past year that doesn't sound amazing but it's better than it was most reductions we are seeing is actually at the middle school and I do know as a town resident there's a tremendous number of programs occurring there related to uh mental health sources of stress for kids all the sources this year were reported less than what we saw in 2021 so that was good news and the number one source for both middle and high school was academics which did not surprise me because it's always that way
059in every Community we serve in uh the Second Source we typically see is is uh post High School planning particularly for high school students of course and then schedule that's a bigger one other areas in the presentation um which don't come up as high but that we watch are stresses around home family life and then Financial Security the lowest one is social media as a source of stress that's interesting that's surprising the next one I'm going to talk about is a little harder to articulate entirely verbally to you but I'll do my best so uh we measure things like thoughts of self harm in the past year acting on that self harm physical abuse by an intimate partner being sad or hopeless two or more weeks in a row which I call the depression indicator
060or considered suicide in the past year so all of these have gone down since 2021 which is great news when I'm looking at thoughts of self harm we have about 133% of you saying that they've had that in the past year and about 88.4% uh reporting acting on that self harm we have 2.4% of Youth overall reporting being in part of a intimate relationship that involved physical violence and then about 14% reporting depression in the past year and not clinical depression but depression in the sense of the survey and then 8. 8% report considering suicide in the past year which represents 111 youth when we do the math so again everything is looking better than it has but I'm always worried about these kids reporting what they're seeing here um I had some slides to
061show you the changes they might be coming it's okay if they're not um around those mental health indicators to show you the percent change so you get a sense of the proportion of that between um the middle and high school students and we can go back to that if if we're moving along that way but in the meantime I'll keep talking Bonnie yeah I know that um in your presentation we do see the like the upcoming slides on these maybe we could show that to go along with what you're referring to because the slides are they're so helpful yeah thank you thank you that's okay there's something about Weathersfield syst system and my system that doesn't match but that's why I do the PDFs that's better that's that looks good yeah I'm going to skip
062to where we were CU you know you have this in your packet too so um thank you Liz this was the emotional health indicator slide that this is um on the left showing grades 9 through 12 the changes since 2019 to 2023 the right is the middle school so we do see um some nice reductions for all grade levels across all indicators but in particular we saw some pretty strong reductions at the middle school level I do want to note that our depression indicator changed from 2019 to 2023 it used to be have you ever felt this way being sad or hopeless we changed it to past year to get better refinement of the data so this is the percent change or Improvement that we saw for um in the blue middle school and in
063the green high school for each of those three emotional health indicators we're talking about so this is showing a negative because um we're showing a change an improvement if you will there's less of it uh so it just gives you a sense of where the middle school and high schools fall proportionately and uh that Middle School anxiety really improved a lot um that was a 24% change or reduction since uh 2021 and considered suicide um also saw all across the board that bleue for the middle school high school too but the Middle School stood out to me and then Comfort seeking help when I've presented these data in the past the board of education has been particularly interested in school staff and so we did a little bit more analysis on that this time we
064still see that overall about 68% of youth feel comfortable approaching a parent or Guardian for help when they need report about 61% say yes friends are a source of comfort and are of getting help coaches are around 18% and having just another trusted adult that's not a parent is about 42% of par of Youth reporting that but digging into Comfort seeking help from school staff um we compared weather's field to all the other districts in our survey we did not do it by District reference group because at this time in the past year we didn't have enough group D we Group D Group D to match um so we did our entire sample minus Weathersfield and compared Weathersfield to see the percentage of Youth at the middle school and high school level and then combin
065that said yes we're comfortable seeking help from school staff and indeed weather's field favored better than the entire sample um for our past year which includes probably around 15,000 youth in that sample so I just wanted to share that I thought that was good [Music] news um perception of having a trusted adult and feelings of safety so this is agree and disagree I'll just point out uh feeling safe in my community 72 I'm sorry 92% of Youth agreed overall about 85% feel safe at school um with the Middle School feeling a bit safer than those in the high school at 89.6% compared to 81.5% and then knowing how to get help if you need it in the sense of emotional help not academic help um overall we have about 87% and that's a new question
066this year so I can't tell you how that's changed looking at substance use I'll move quickly because I know that we don't have tons of time the number one substance used in youth's lifetime is alcohol and that's more than just a sip not for religious activities so we're we're factoring in um that in the equation number two is vaping nicotine products with almost 6% of Youth overall having tried them in their lifetime and marijuana comes in uh next with about 5.4% having tried marijuana or THC products in their lifetime past month use which is a real gold standard in the work that we do um we see a little bit different where marijuana is the number one substance used in the past month or 30 days at about uh almost 4% for high school or
067overall to 2.6% followed by alcohol then uh we look at The Vaping of nicotine products this is the trend data for each of these substances and everything's looking very good um there's definitely been a decline since we started surveying in 2016 you know it went up for some as you can see by the line graph particularly around vaping between 16 between 2016 to 2019 um but since then for the most part we've seen reductions and the biggest reductions we've seen have been around alcohol or we would phrase it in this case is underage drinking which is one of the priority substances for the drug-free communities grant that Erica and the we hope Coalition have been working on I just like to point out where substances are accessed on the left and used the theme here
068is really home and with friends overall um this is consistent with what we see in other communities certainly but I always like to highlight as um Community leaders and and parents that the number one source of alcohol um is home with parents' permission and at home without parents permission and then most often used with parents present or at a friend's home essentially and uh that trend is essentially true for most of the substances in terms of use um and then friends and peers use of substance at school this includes school events and it's the analysis is done on students who report using substances uh overall we can see that the most commonly reported substance used at school is at the high school level and that's vaping nicotine at 3.5% and then um marijuana use which
069could be certainly through a vape edible or other means is around 2.2 for the high school I'm not going to read this to you but I do like to point out that we do analysis by um grouping all the students in the survey who've ever used any substance in their lifetime and measuring if there's a statistical significant statistically significant difference amongst that group amongst youth who had never used and then we look at it across every indicator in the report and so this is just some of them but essentially the take-home message is why do we care about youth substance use well it's highly correlated not necessarily causational but correlated with mental health family connection to school violence Etc um we do measure lifetime substance use of sort of some of the Lesser used substances
070and what I always like to point out amidst the ongoing concern about uh the opioid epidemic in our country is that opioid issues are not typically youth issues certainly not typically youth issues in school and we found that 2% of students overall had ever used heroin or feny or essentially um non Street or Street opioids and that equates to three youth in the entire School population of grade 7 through 12 um I'll run through sexual behaviors quickly this is asked only of high school students and if a student reports that they had never had uh sexual intercourse or oral sex then there's a skip pattern they're not asked any more questions related to sexual behaviors um you can see here about 11% of Youth reported yes having had sexual intercourse in their life time and
071about 2 12.6% report having had oral sex this year we did ask middle school students if they'd ever talked to their parents about essentially safer sex however students were not asked about their sexual behaviors at the middle school level just had you had a conversation in your family um G generally about 66% of middle school students said they had not compared to the 52% at the high school level who had had that conversation with their family um there's that 14% of most at the middle school that were not sure if they'd had the conversation and then there's a solid almost 21% who were clear that they had so um the high school certainly there's more conversations or more understanding of those conversations um going on uh this question is about use of protection to prot
072protect against STI or sexually transmitted infections and pregnancy prevention I'm going to point out here the Never So if you have had sexual intercourse or oral sex do you how frequently do you use protection and we're seeing about 31 to 32% saying never so it's a smaller group of kids who are engaged in sexual behaviors but it's a pretty high percentage of Youth who are not necessarily taking measures for safety and the barriers to those the number one is fear that parents will find out and that's pretty equal for males and females um embarrassed to buy comes next and then cost which is more of a concern for males than females um and looking at the other end of the graph um planning ahead and I don't want to sort of stands out for males
073and the reason we share these data with you I mean they're your data you can do whatever you want is just to highlight areas you know in terms of practice that can you know improve Communications even outside the school district we know that we gather these data as a partnership um it supports grants in the community and grants in the schools um but issues identified are not school issues they're Community issues and family issues toxic stress um this is in the past year if you directly seen heard or been a victim of violence in your neighborhood community or school overall we're seeing 8% having experienced discrimination about 177% having had a problem with housing is about 2% and then concern that your family doesn't have enough food or food would run out is about 3
074or 3.6% and then lastly we're called youth voices count for a reason we ask kids questions we would like them to get their answers back to them and we get about 44% of students who are have some level of interest in seeing the data um so thank you for your patience I'm sorry we had some tech issues um thank you thank you any questions we have any I do this data is so important and I I also love the fact that you had um kind of I feel like the the middle school students were protected from the questions around the sexual activity which I think is so appropriate um nationally I feel like these percentages are so much worse and I'm Wonder wondering what some of the reasons might be I'm I'm surprised at the
075lower percentages that we're seeing I have never looked at data you know in this regard comparing weather's field but just in the climate and that could be I'm just influenced by what I'm hearing nationally but it's just a little surprising to me were you surprised at all I mean what you're seeing I'm not surprised but I understand what you're saying I I live and breed in this daily and we tend to find that for our survey and other similar surveys that are provided to Connecticut youth where I most mesh dayto day um that those surveys see rates similar in similar districts um that you see here when you look at the Connecticut school health survey data the Statewide survey the rates for substance use are much higher and my colleagues and I we don't really
076know why that is because um the survey tools are very similar the methodology is similar the analysis is also similar but for some reason when we Implement these Community specific surveys we see lower rates than the Connecticut school health survey but we see in Weathersfield is consistent with other districts okay similar districts thank you thank you m anyone else well I I thank you because I I find it so fascinating these are you know young students we've had who've come through and they're going through all the the human issues that we've all face but worse now um and I am so thrilled that we get this information on them and then we have the ability to say yes we need to work we need to get interventions even our Wellness Center for these students to
077be able to go there um to maybe stop something before it gets to a a a greater degree so I thank you for this information I find it um so valuable for all of us well thanks for the opportunity to collect the data cuz I I know that it takes time and effort for the schools yeah just to to that point Bonnie thank you very much um for your efforts um in this endeavor and again thanks to the board for supporting this um we definitely use this data for the development of Grants I know um you know both of our Mental Health Grants that we were able to get through the state we utilized youth voices count data from two years ago so it's critically important and I think you know looking at the trends
078and seeing that anxiety mental health what I wonder from this data is has what we've put in place in our schools with the grants a direct result of this you know data showing some level of improvement so again to our friends at the Town Erica thank you very much um appreciate the partnership so thank you Board of aded members anyone else okay thank you very much thank you very much thank you say that's the right one okay okay it's the most recent one so he signed off this check okay we'll continue here with meetings held of which we have a lot of them here community and Public Relations Committee margerie did you speak to that over overview um this past community relations meeting we had um guest speakers which were Jeff telkki and Shane tank
079uh Shane Santos who are um work in Our IT department and um I know Shane is like the Web Master and U they both um handle most of the communications when it comes to the you know whether it's social media or the website so they went over what the website involves um it was pretty in informational as far as how um how many pages there's over 250 Pages just within the the district website alone and it of course encompasses each school um and the information for each school and then you know a million other things and um and just other statistics like how um this is kind of an outlier but December alone there's 30,000 views on the website um but usually it's about 10,000 to 12,000 a month um and then there's just various
080contributors throughout the district that have to um who have the information the content information that are able to make the changes add the information and also that you know if there's any information or something that you find that you can't access or you think would be better you know better for the website there's a little Link at the bottom of the website uh web page that says website feedback form and they would appreciate it and they they always like to have feedback on what they could can do better or add cont content they can add um and we went over you know um the different social media uh uses and how the you know the high school has a tremendous amount when it comes to Instagram YouTube and Facebook to get information out about whether
081it's Athletics or um you know other information about the school um they have the um Blue Eagle News which is the news program that the students put on and they have their own um YouTube account which is always fascinating and great and they do amazing Productions there um and then some of the elementary schools do as well um and so we were just Gathering that kind of information and uh look forward to maybe using more of it in the future okay thank you um then we had a board of education Town Council Joint Communications committee Chuck can you speak to that yes that's our opportunity to sit down with the town side there's a two two council members and the town manager meets with myself Bobby and Mr EMT and we discuss the upcoming budget
082and we discussed the town is forming a building committee to oversee the HVAC system upgrades at the middle school right and it'll be for other projects as they come up good thank you so our student program and services committee um was cancelled so we're going to get um twin variety next week I gather yes um C Council now I'm um on the C Council and we met on Wednesday Janu Ary 17th the C council is the capital region education Council of which weatherfield is a member along with 35 other surrounding towns the council is responsible for the regional magnet schools and project choice and they've also organized in our running the head Harford Head Start program the meeting started with welcoming comments to the new CCT counselors because after Municipal elections there's often change in
083our Council representatives from the 35 towns sounds the council also heard from executive director Greg Florio he focused on the legislative session that is about to begin and how CK is always working for funding from the state for the C magnet schools the goal is to have the state paying for magnet school tuition and not the participating towns Dr floyo has often mentioned his frustration that c and its 35 member towns can have a strained relationship because for the Magnus School tuition cost to town budgets there will be a legislative cab c breakfast on February 15th at the legislative office building and all are invited this is a time to speak to our Representatives on the many issues facing school systems in Connecticut and I'm also a member of the C's Early Childhood committee on
084January 10th through Zoom meeting we had a presentation on CK's work on the Harford head St Start program and we also had an opportunity not on the zoom meeting but actually to go to the opening of the new Head Start building the vacant Swift Factory building in Harford was recently renovated into an early childhood facility the building is beautifully renovated with large open spaces and Florida ceiling Windows to create a stunning Early Childhood learning environment and all info that I say on um our board meeting here can be found on the corck website so thank you um also I'm going to continue with our weather so Public School ad hoc building subcommittee on Thursday January 18th the ad hoc building subcommittee met in the lower level Stillman this subcommittee was formed to start the process
085of getting input from the community for our elementary school building project after the the failed referendum we were told loud and clear that our Town's people did not have enough info on the details of the original building project and that citizens wanted more opportunities to have input into the next plan this meeting's objective was to highlight two to three plans from five plans that have been discussed in committee and to discuss as a group ways to get more people involved and better ways to communicate the three plans are seen as the beginning of important getting important input as we begin this long process again moving forward facilities and communication committees will be working to send out a survey to get more people involved and more ideas on the table for this incredibly important project okay
086then we had the special Board of Education meeting on January 19th and this was a meeting concerning a student matter now on to Human Resources committee and that is Christina so I want to report we had a meeting last night the district is in a good place with um feeling absences I do want to publicly thank the teachers that are stepping into to uh teacha six class um and we're also brainstorming ways to appreciate the staff members across the district so I think that's a another important Focus I want to bring up okay thank you and our finance and operations committee which we just held Matthew yep so the finance committee met prior to this meeting um I'm going to take a page out of Mayor Ken lesser's book and touch on three major points
087three major takeaways from that meeting um one of them is sobering and uh doesn't make any of us happy and it has to do with excess cost reimbursement from the state which we were told is going to be 88% and it's looking very possible like it's only going to be 70% um what this does for our budget is it causes a $400,000 flip presently we're at a $50,000 Surplus if we only get 70% of excess cost reimbursement from the state we will end up cently with a $350,000 deficit reason to reach out to your legislators um second we're in budget season we are planning budget workshops um they are open to the public they're going to be on Saturdays the first one we intend to hold on Saturday February 3rd in the Stillman building 9:00
088a.m. and and the second one plans to be held the very next Saturday Saturday February 10th um the third topic I'm going to touch on has to do with the upcoming budget um we had some preliminary discussions tonight very preliminary about some of the things that we want to do some of the things that we have to do um but it's looking like we're going to be asking the Town Council for some money go figure um hopefully we can come to an agreement on the dollar amount they will allocate to us this year um although we are friends up here with the council majority tough conversations are going to be had and tough decisions are going to have to be made um I don't look forward to it I would much rather hear presentations uh
089from web students about book clubs but this is part of the board ofed process and we're going to get to work on the budget thank you Matt perfectly set on the end there so we have meeting scheduled we have a facilities and maintenance committee on January 24th at 6:00 and these are all at Stillman student program and services committee the first one is on January 29th at 6 and the next one is on January 30th at 6 in the Stillman building policy and planning committee on February 5th at 6:00 and weatherfield early childhood collaborative wh will be on February 12th at 4:30 so is there any anyone wishing to make a public comment come on up to the podium and state your name and address and may I remind you public comments are limited to
090five [Music] minutes okay do I have any board comments this evening Janice um I just want to mention that tomorrow night at 7 o'clock is Charles Wright's um first PTO meeting of the year um they have reported to the board of ed that um January they are concentrating on their student assessment midyear assessments um they're testing students to see where they are to analyze their data and make necessary changes for the students continued growth um the teachers have had um two professional development after school after noons one was on January 9th where they uh focused on students centered discipline and today where they uh focused on the question of what does our January assessment data tell us um and their focus is on grade level action plans and midar reviews their social awareness Focus for
091this month is awareness of self and others thank you anyone else for board comment Jim uh yes I attended the uh wfi high school PTO meeting on January 17th uh they're finalizing planning for the 8th grade family night which was January 18th uh safe grad payments were due January 19th there was a discussion on a presentation by Kristen on the Capstone project uh that is ongoing for all Juniors um that was reinstated after I believe a Hiatus uh from covid uh and this project supports the Strategic plan and was also recommended by uh inas report and that's all I have thank you thank you any other board members Liz am I allowed to ask Jim a question during this time with the Capstone presentations is the high school still looking for people to assist with
092um being presented to and um evaluating they were looking for the public to get involved is that still ongoing do you know I I that was not mentioned uh at the meeting specifically Sally we're gonna have that right we're going to have yes as far as I know agenda next I oh I'm sorry I believe in the Friday report um they were asking for more uh Board of Ed members to volunteer okay yeah excited about that okay any other board members John so unfortunately I was uh due to another committee I was unable to attend the Hanner PTO but uh I did through a proxy uh send them my notes and then got notes in return um so I'll just say a couple things that uh from the Hamner side um there's a bunch of
093exciting things going on um they're getting ready obviously for the Nemo play which my daughter Claire is extremely happy to be a part of um they're also looking at a sixth grade play with a Greek theme and they're looking to see if they can set that up soon um our chair Bobby Grado as well as May Ken Lessard was there exciting the kids about the kid uh kid chair and kid mayor essay submission contest uh which is really exciting um a lot of upcoming events uh there is a trivia night I guess at arloom this Thursday um they're going to have a yard goats game which we all look forward to going to on April 26th and they're getting ready to do hamers Got Talent again it's a TBD date but when they do have
094a date I encourage everybody to go it is super fun thank you great thank you Christina so I got the opportunity to organize and attend sdms uh first spingo night on Friday the students running it were so funny they were doing jokes and calling out numbers and we had about 35 families there um it was it was a great event and all the funds are going to their civic project which is to make goodie bags for the homeless population so they're super excited about that it was fun got to serve a lot of pizza he thank you everyone for going to those meetings and being there Matt I have something um so it's fitting uh that what I'm going to say was preceded by some of the presentations that we had tonight so we had
095representatives from erson Williams and we also had a presentation that had uh that touched on sexual identification or sexual orientation of our students um so I just want to read a it's a very positive text this is from my wife I hope she isn't mine she said I just had a consultation with a parent of two middle school students they go to sity middle school she said they moved to Weathersfield several years ago and both their children are non-binary and they had the most welcoming experience at Emerson Williams so I had shared that with a bunch of you up here already but I just wanted everybody to hear that it's good to know that everybody in Anderson Williams in middle school and WPS is being trated time great thank you anyone else sure um so
096for web I'm looking forward to going to my first PTO meeting at web as a board event member I was a member many years ago my kids went through um they're looking forward to their bingo event this Friday and we had the pleasure of seeing their presentation with the nut book club um which I'm still blown away I think it was so fantastic how the kids read and and presented themselves um it's such a young age too um they also um are they have kicked off I believe it's the susal that they're getting ready for um like the other schools are doing as well and um they have also I believe they have Penny Wars kicking off fairly soon too yes yep okay thank you get everyone okay but we need to know what like
097is like at the high school [Music] Mary um today was the last day of midterms for whhs and the second semester starts tomorrow this year whhs juniors are completing Capstone projects and the proposals were submitted on January 8th it's great way for students to apply their learning last Thursday whs hosted our annual e8th grade night where eighth grade students and their families visited for an informational meeting tours and to explore the sports and clubs Fair boys basketball won their last two games against tand and Hill and girls basketball won their last two games against planville in sports and medical Sciences Academy Boys Hockey is also having a good season and won last Saturday against East Catholic and on Saturday our dance team won first First Place Palm third place Jazz and overall highest score at
098their competition and spring sports are making preparations with informational meetings and crafting practices and we're looking forward to a new season and semester thank you thank you all right is there any unfinished business tonight okay so at this time I'd like to make a motion to move to Executive session for the purpose of discussing attorney client Communications is there a second second okay all in favor I I opposed any extensions okay that concludes the public part of our board meeting thank you all for coming and for watching the board