February 18, 2021 Special Board of Education Meeting - Budget Workshop

001record to the cloud all right go ahead sir good evening everyone welcome to this special meeting of the board of education it is thursday february 18 2021 it is 6 p.m we are holding this meeting in accordance of the governor's executive order ms yusko will you please lead us in the pledge absolutely i pledge allegiance to the flag the united states of america and to the republic justice thank you michesko thank you everyone for coming tonight this is our second workshop of three and we have some good presentations tonight and then hopefully by the end of next workshop next week we'll have a consensus on the number that mr emmett can present to us at the following board meeting and then we'll pass that budget on to the town council so i will turn this

002meeting over to mr emmett thank you uh mr kerry good evening everyone uh on this snowy evening uh and i can say at this point i'm no decision has been made about the status for tomorrow just to let all parents in the group know not yet um we have a presentation we'd like to provide you tonight that provides some additional rationale for uh the budget requests uh that we have in the proposed 2021-2022 budget so um again it's it's a sizable presentation uh but it's one we'd like you to uh just take a look at uh to be able to digest so sally if you can share your screen perfect thank you thank you so we're focused this evening on student success and how our proposed budget reflects the wps priorities so start off with

003our stakeholder core values again this is the work that the board has done and put into place our focus is being inclusive a commitment to lifelong learning we utilize knowledge and skills beyond the walls of the school in spite of there being a pandemic and we really seek to personalize learning and we encompass this with focusing on our students looking for our students to be curious emotionally intelligent independent our educators to be innovative tenacious and catalysts our family partners to be connected collaborative and constructive and our boe and community partners to be engaged mentoring and resourceful so tonight's presentation is really going to focus primarily on student achievement we spend our last budget meeting really talking about the numbers and those really small numbers and spreadsheets that matt put together with for us but today

004we really want to talk about uh what's most important front to center to all the decisions we make which are students i mean the largest school within our strategic plan is our student achievement so today's presentation is going to weave through some different topics that are priorities uh given where we are through this pandemic where we're looking ahead for next year i mean how the the work we're doing and the priorities um really highlight the student achievement goal um just as a reminder uh our second goal is around civic and family engagement that is also just as important but as we're coming through the current state that we never predicted um that student achievement goal is really i think on the front and center of all of our minds um and our community members and

005we want to make sure that we're thoughtful in that process and share some of our thinking with you today and our third goal uh which is really the purpose of one of today's meetings is about management operations and finances and to continually evaluate those ongoing expenses uh relative to their ability to promote student achievement and that's really what tonight's um presentation will be about around highlighting a few of those topics mr amit ah thank you yeah one of the things that i mentioned at last week's budget workshop was weathersfield's participation in craic's teacher in residence program it is clear that this district needs to make a commitment to teacher diversity and making sure that we are broadening our teachers of color and i am certainly proposing that we participate in this crack um partnership um

006it is a financial commitment and it is a commitment uh that i think is going to pay huge dividends for the wethersfield public schools again this is a push that's at the state level and it's at local district level as well the cost to this to bring in one teacher in residence is approximately 65 000 as you saw in last week's uh budget workshop we had put in uh a request for seventy thousand dollars for an extended uh summer school program coming out of the pandemic uh my suggestion here would be that we utilize the esser funds for the summer school program and we apply the 65 thousand dollars toward the teacher in residence program there are multiple districts in the greater hartford area that are already participating in this particular program and uh the

007interest is growing exponentially so again we think this is a strong investment in our teaching future and what is best for our kids again i want to just reiterate the wps current district priorities and what we're focused on in this pandemic and as we start to move forward out of it we hope uh that is supporting the health and safety of our students staff in the community continuing to build strong relationships with students and families getting to know each learner and focus on formative assessment and the focus on assessment is going to become more prevalent as we see more kids come back into in-person learning and then obviously number four providing equitable learning opportunities for all students i think you can say very clearly that this pandemic has laid bare some of the inequities in

008the educational system across this country yeah so i want to build upon that last um sentence about continue with the focus on equity and addressing the needs of the whole child weather school has always been a district that very much valued the whole child not only academics but the arts extracurricular athletics and i can go down the list so i really want to talk for a few minutes about our current challenge and the learning interruption so we are you know and i think weathersfield the state uh the nation is really grappling with where we're at and where we'll where would we go what's what does research tell us of what's the best strategies so one of the things i want to talk about today is that um you know i don't consider it a learning

009loss i think this is a way to leverage different learning and maybe the silver lining that our students our staff our parents and well it's been incredibly difficult we've all had different ways of learning and learning ways that really weren't typical so i think we've had a little bit of interrupted learning um where it might look different but um i want to highlight the idea of how do we really define learning and how do we measure if students are learning and we really want to use that analogy of a photo album i mean you've heard me talk about this before and i think this is very true so while our standardized assessment district assessments show up a decrease in some of our students that are performing at that benchmark area our national research of a

010lot of our different testing software companies also show diff the same trends particularly more of a drop in math than in language arts and reading but we also want to be careful that we don't um tip the pendulum back to focusing just on literacy and math or those tested areas if we think back to about 10 years ago when our federal government had no child left behind and that 100 of our students would be on grade level in those areas and schools across our nation stop teaching the arts stop teaching uh music stop teaching the areas that really engaged and we're passionate for our students are passionate about and focus just on those uh core tested areas we found it didn't work so i just want us to be aware of the definition uh as

011we're talking about student learning uh now and moving forward that we've had a change in learning but what our assessments are measuring are really a narrow slice of that pie if i take a piece of one slice of the pie for dinner um that's really what our assessments are measuring around math and literacy but we also want to be able to think about social emotional intelligence digital literacy our students and staff are excelling in digital leaders literacy beyond anything we could have imagined um you know physical health mental health i know in my own family my teenagers spend a lot more time on their physical health they have the time it's something for them to be engaged in and they're excited about that um the arts athletics and relationship building and the art of be

012able to do that through zooms and meetings in different ways in today's society i also want to recognize that learning at home happens board games conversations different activities at home and also we see you know passion projects and students having more time to explore things that are passionate to them through also clubs and extracurricular so you know i think we have a lot to be thankful for because i think uh in weathersfield we do value the whole child and are working hard to continue to provide as many of those engaging and learning opportunities for our students so with that said what does it look like um you know our elementary schools are phasing back in and what does it look like and really the more i do reading the more we have conversations really it's

013going back to the work we did before the pandemic and actually i was looking at one of our presentations from two years ago and those core research-based strategies are still relevant to today so how are we going to help our students as a return back into the classroom and while they're online or possibly in the remote model we're going to continue to work on our fidelity of our workshop instruction and most importantly our small group instruction our students have always had varied learning experiences and varied background knowledge and that continues now during this time so really targeting that instruction as mr emmett said using formative assessment more and more software companies are coming out with excellent assessment tools to help teachers um bobby i remember you and i talking maybe five years ago but we

014wish they would have more of this and you know we're at that time where uh technology can help us but it never replaces the power of a teacher in a classroom so we have really seen and leveraged technology assessments and tools to engage learning but also to supplement the the art of teaching by our teachers continue with a focus on differentiation and really a focus on growth for our students it's not about defining them by their grade or their standards but to move them along the continuum just like we wouldn't define ourselves based upon our age or our scale but really more about you know what we've grown and that growth mindset and how we can grow and monitor our growth and articulate our growth um culturally responsive pedagogy continues to be a priority um

015within the district to meet the needs of our diverse students our data in weathersfield across the state the nation shows that our students of color are less likely to be engaged and have high academic success um than our white students so culturally responsive pedagogy and improving the achievement of our high needs students um so today in our presentation i'll hear about the two administrators both through special education and curriculum um we'll all be working to support all of these areas to help improve student achievement and one of the other themes is equity you know equity is that some students really need more supports and it's not all the same and so how do we improve tier 1 instruction for all students and we're all providing some students with some additional support and so this is

016not new this is the work we have engaged with for several years we'll continue research will tells us that these are still high leverage practices so it's not that we're doing something different but going back to the fidelity and supporting these what will be new is we'll start to embark on a multi-year commitment for universal design for learning which is um a process to help ensure that all students are accessing uh learning and displaying their growth in in different ways um and so that is something that we will eventually be sharing and getting some teachers trained in but really how are we working with our students it's not drastically different so i think what is uh slightly different it's not new social emotional learning uh priority has always been one of our priorities but the

017the importance and the urgency of social emotional learning is so very different for for all of us this is an incredibly stressful time and we've heard it through our student focus groups we've heard it from staff from parents social emotional learning has to be a huge priority as we move forward um and you know we're not going back to normal we're going back to you know returning to buildings into education will be forever changed as our students as all of us all of us have been impacted by this pendant coupled with a strong explicit social-emotional curriculum is a school-wide approach on restorative practices and trauma sensitive practices um restorative practices will be training that we talked about embarking on this year um and then the pandemic hit and slowed us down and changed our focus

018so it's really important that we dedicate more time and need more resources supporting social emotional learning so if you're bear with me um and i want to show you a four minute video that really does a great job describing the why and the what and i think it's worth your time um it is you know kind of a cartoon style but it really does an amazing job and i think that while people say this is important we want to make sure that we dedicate our time and our resources to supporting this so i'm to turn this on and if all works well it'll play for children learning is a social and interactive process that takes place with teachers other students and parents our emotions and relationships affect how and what we learn students are far

019better prepared to succeed in school and in life if they have learned social and emotional competencies in addition to academic skills we know that when kids have strong social emotional learning skills that they are better able to achieve academically better able to work with others on a team to collaborate to manage conflict manage stress to achieve goals they have better life outcomes so it's critically important that we take this seriously if we want to educate the whole child social emotional learning is basically the focus on social emotional skills how to interact with others how to understand yourself how to be able to behave in a way that you're supposed to in the right settings we think about self-awareness we're thinking about how do i know and understand myself my emotions my thoughts my cultural identity

020what are the ways in which i feel about a certain situation why might i feel that way how do i understand myself and how i fit into my family and my community and the broader world we want to give kids opportunities to really think about their own experiences their own emotions and how they are dealing with those things self-awareness is really being in touch with oneself i think as a parent the best thing you can do is to be honest about how you're feeling because kids look at look at us as we're invincible you know we're perfect and we're not and so i think having honest conversations about your struggles whether it's at work or you know a goal that you're trying to achieve and the challenges that you're having and achieving those goals kind

021of brings your situation down to their level so they know they're not alone and that it's normal to kind of feel these different things one of the things that we work on when we talk about self-awareness is helping students understand emotions so teaching the vocabulary for emotions teaching students to think about what different emotions feel like and being able to name that for themselves is an important part as teachers and adults we need to go to the next level and that goes all the way to junior high in high school there's things called emotion wheels where you have all sorts of words that even as adults we can look at and say oh yeah that's a great word for that emotion so really being able to help them identify their emotions is huge and give

022them vocabulary that's challenging them secondly then what do they do with those emotions what gets you nervous or when do you feel stressed out or when do you feel angry well i feel angry when johnny takes my truck what do you do about it then but in high school the same type of thing applies if i see my friend stephanie talking to lisa or sitting with her at lunch what do i feel i feel jealous inside and then asking myself is that really a big problem is that a small problem in a classroom we can model that for kids so as a teacher i can say i'm really feeling disappointed today fill in the blank and maybe i'll even take some deep breaths or gosh everyone's really loud today we couldn't go outside for recess

023i'm feeling frustrated i need to take some deep breaths so modeling that for kids is really important also teaching kids this idea that through hard work that they're able to be more successful teaching a growth mindset as opposed to focusing on your smart but rather focusing more on effort helps kids to understand better who they are self-awareness is is something that is constantly growing and we want to be able to give kids tools and messaging around how to be thinking about their emotions and their understanding of who they are so um i wanted to bring this back to well what does social emotional learning have to do with uh our budget that we're here to discuss and really um the you know total sum of this complex ecosystem called letters film public schools of all

024our employees our resources our time our goals and our priorities really um all tied together for our vision of the graduate so weathersfield high school has been working with the middle school on a vision of graduate that they're working to finish up and you know our students uh have the skills the content skills but also the social emotional learning skills are essential for graduation for them to be a communicator for them to be displayed citizenship and those civic responsibilities uh collaborator and problem solving social emotional learning is critical for success uh as john carr cazar famously said in one of our meetings recently you know i've never known anybody for to get uh fired based upon their reading goal or their math goal or their science school or their grade um it's something based upon

025their social emotional learning and their interactions with um peers and the skills that they have so john would you mind talking uh briefly about the castle framework is john on there yep i'm on let me get uh unmuted and uh uh so first of all sally uh thank you you stole my uh stick but i'll still fit it in there i should have heard what you're gonna say um and so first of all a good good evening ladies and gentlemen members of the board i do want to thank you for your considerations for some of our new positions as well as the rest of the budget because i really i realize uh how much time you put in for this including uh 6 30 at a thursday night um and so maybe i'll start off

026on all uh um you know sally shared a little so maybe i'll go a little more into that story and uh i really tell her that i i do have a wide range of friends and probably like many of you uh some of them that are very successful um both personally and professionally and some that i might not consider successful um either or personally or professionally but you know my friends are my friends and uh you know although math reading science social studies are very important i can state that really all of them their success or lack of success are not due to these subjects for most them i would say their success or lack of success are the results of one of these standards in the second inner circle here and i'm going to

027go over them little because uh first self-awareness really the ability to understand your own emotions thoughts and values and how they influence behavior you know across contexts second self-management the ability to manage your emotions thoughts and behaviors effectively and i will say this i have had some friends um that have lost their job frequently due to this deficit and you know when i ask them hey what happened that job it's you know yeah or my boss or you know this person or that person but really it's their own ability to manage themselves next responsible decision making the ability to make caring and constructive choices about your own personal behavior and your social interactions relationship skills the ability to establish and maintain healthy and supportive relationships so i'm proud to say that i've had the same

028partner hard to believe but since 1976 and please know and do the math um but i do have some friends and i hate to say but they've been on their third and fourth marriage and last social awareness the ability to understand sort of the perspectives of and empathize with others including those from diverse backgrounds cultures and contexts how do we treat others and you know as i said i don't think i you know have any friends that have lost a job due to math or science social studies or science but really because of their sel skills and it really is so important that we make sure that our students um you know our children learn and practice these skills you know we always i mean i'll go with reading you know we go through the

029whole steps you know cat okay c-a-t and if they don't learn it what do we do we re-teach it we have to do the same with social emotional learning if a child doesn't get it we have to re teach it if they go up and second tier we have to then find a way to reteach it in different manners with different people and more frequently and so just the importance of social emotional learning thank you john um so based upon community feedback and again research and where we are as we are going through this pandemic extended learning opportunities during summer uh will is also a priority um within our budget and expanding general education opportunities um yes why for our students that um you know qualify will continue but we want to be able to

030provide some additional uh general ed opportunities um like we did last year but expand from those and uh change them based upon where we are this year and what we've learned uh so we are looking to provide uh in-person credit recovery opportunities at weathersfield high school for students that had failed classes or need to gain some credit back um so provide that opportunity this summer and then also providing incoming grades k through eight um incoming kindergarten readiness courses um engaging opportunities of literacy in stem um really with a focus on reducing that learning loss from summer learning loss research tells us that not just this summer but any summer if we're not engaged in learning ongoing uh you know there is a potential for learning loss um to boost our skills to keep them fresh

031and boost student skills um integrate social emotional learning competencies collaboration building friendships how do you you know the skills that john's just talking about um and provide an opportunity to uh prior to the invite for students that need additional support that may be in our srbi process or have identified that need some additional support so as we're looking at uh providing summer learning opportunities there's a few things that we're also considering how do we partner with community organizations to extend learning opportunities how do we uh i reached out to park and rack the king foundation but to continue to partner with organizations that also be offering summer learning programs and to share and to network those opportunities because regardless of where our students are learning with or who or from summer learning is important whether

032it's with the public schools with families ongoing their own passion projects or within community organizations um one of the barriers we're trying to work through is how many staff would be willing to teach summer courses you know both staff and students um some talk about burnout or just it's really been a long haul on screen so we are looking for some creative ways to engage teachers and staff with some flexibilities and ways to provide as find as many staff as possible to teach summer courses um and then also we're talking about remote learning flexibilities for staff and student versus in-person learning and contact racing there are some districts that are doing all remote learning because of the contact tracing um and some per people in person so how do we find that um balance so

033summer school is a priority within our budget to again extend learning uh throughout the summer so one of the administrative positions in the budget is for a seven through 12 um instructional supervisor for curriculum um so this is related to goal one action one about continuously restructuring instruction provide students with a continuum of increasingly challenging opportunities um so i was joking with john enlist today that gold one has the largest number of goals but i think i have the smallest department of one person and curriculum and achievement is really um well it's a responsibility of all of our staff our teachers our administrators um having an additional administrator to help support especially the secondary level so um next week at the board of education you'll have a presentation from the high school regarding the ask

034so i'm kind of previewing that a little bit but they nest has a five-year curriculum calendar review cycle um we have not met that review cycle and um you know through for through different reasons but um an additional administrator would support those new recommendations of revising curriculum focusing on professional development strategies as in our strategic plan and also ensuring we're using those research-based strategies again are also the district priorities um so a couple more points related to this position uh several years ago we had a instructional supervisor for literacy and one for math that was then turned into stem those positions were lost through the budget so this would actually replace one of the two lost instructional supervisor positions again with a focus on achievement um which is incredibly always been incredibly important but even

035more so as we come through this pandemic currently the middle school and high school do not have any uh coaching positions like the elementary schools do there used to be a position in the middle school but to decrease class size that position that person now teaches classes so this instructional leader would have a strong background in curriculum and really focus on innovative teaching and learning practices to improve student achievement their praying prime goal would be to coach and mentors teacher leaders uh with uh you know effect of improving achievement for our students they would be working closely with building administration myself technology department and would have a lot of background in our state assessments our standards and research-based practices so i'm not going to read all these bullets for you but um some of you

036might say well what would that person do um and that person you know many of our more fluent districts have a instructional person in every content area one for physical education health one for math one for science in many cases math has a you know an elementary person and a secondary person there are very few districts that have um a the number of ministers we have here in weathersfield and i think we do amazing things with a very small number but we ultimately want to be able to support our students and our staff um and have people with different expertise to come to the table to help that collaborative process so i'm definitely a focus on improving curriculum instruction and again i'll let you read through those bullets and assist in curriculum writing there's a

037large portion of the responsibilities around assessment and data and analyzing assessments working with teachers to look at formative assessments how do we help with how do we help support teachers to look at their math assessments and look at some of the different ways to group students to best meet their needs and also look to implement a strategic plan both through the district view the school plan and individual teacher learning profiles they would also be doing in-service for staff parents and administrators and other responsibilities related to staff evaluations feedback budget you know and other things related to curriculum so that's a little bit about uh the position and some of the responsibilities so so why why is it important to have an additional curriculum administrator um so really we want to make sure that all students

038have access to a high quality curriculum and have an entry point one of the things we've looked at recently is our attendance data for roughly the months of november and december and we find a higher rate of attendance with our students of special education 504 students and students that are free and reduced and some of our different race and ethnic groups also have some higher attendance rates so really this tells us a trend because if they're not in school they're not engaged and they're not learning and succeeding at high levels and we want to make sure that we provide opportunities to be able to reach all our students so an instructional supervisor really would be working closely with teachers to help differentiate to help meet the varied needs within their classrooms to ensure that our

039special education students our 504 students our free reduced students and any students that aren't engaged in the learning process that we find an entry point and ways to support them through instruction and assessment and to engage them into that learning process so that we have greater success for all our students the next few slides um highlight some of the data from our s back and i'm not going to go through each one i'm sure we'll share this slide with you later but you know we've seen overall um at the secondary level um fairly i think that we are going to achieve fairly well but we haven't continued to see that growth over time and so we're not seeing a continued growth in our scores over the years and so when we look at our data

040um also at our high needs group and our not high needs group we find that our students that are not high needs so they are general education students they're not special ed english language learners 504 students or students that receive free and reduced meals they perform at a pretty high level but are these students that are in the high needs group there's a large gap in through that performance and so our work around curriculum instruction and working with teachers and research-based strategies will help to engage those students that need some additional support um so that's some uh you know we see some similar trends in math data at the middle school and we also seen some similar trait uh trends in our sat data at the high school um one of the things that many

041board members ask for when we do our presentation is also our dirt ranking out of the 24 towns where do we rank um so for our um s back this this particular data set looks at grades three through eight um we're you know well below middle in our student achievement data and at the high school level with our sats again we'd like to see it even greater but we have some high standards and high high scores we'd like to see some increases in those scores and also some increases in our standings in within our dirk for our sats so those are some of the reasons uh why we are bringing forward and supporting uh the addition of a um 7 through 12 instructional supervisor to support uh students particularly our high needs students to be

042able to access a high quality education at both middle school and weathersfield high school john yeah so um i'll um follow up with sally that uh you know the special services department's vision is every child every day and i hope people are sick of me saying it because if they're sick of me saying it they know it and our number one goal is to develop high quality inclusive practices and uh this is aligned with many of the goals including goal one because uh you know i do have to point out and so important to remember that students in special ed are first and foremost general education students but i also want to point out goal one and action five incorporate educational equity practices into policies procedures and classroom practices to ensure that all students receive

043what they need to succeed the additional supervisor will bring us closer to the goal of developing high quality inclusive practices and then decrease the achievement gap um i will state that i cringe when i see the data that sally shared and when i see that data because it really does point out the achievement gap and how big it is and so with this if you want to go to the next slide sally okay and so uh some of the rationale be behind uh the uh proposal is um first of all to look at um because we really have in the past four years um identified developed and expanded specialized programs in the district and liz will talk about this in more depth in a minute and i really i have to uh i don't know

044how to do enough shout outs to uh liz i mean she is such an amazing um addition to the district and the work just alone in the specialized programs has been amazing um second an increase in both the count and prevalence of students with disabilities in the district and i have a little graph that i'll share in a second but then just the changes in special ed mandates and procedures which really has led to an increase of mediations intensified legal ramifications and an increase of high profile cases uh requiring really additional supervision and i will say this and uh mr emmett i think you'll agree with me uh that the job has changed so much in the last 10 years since mr emmett sat in this seat um even even in the past four years

045since i first started indeed we've had yeah but we've had the addition of dyslexia classification more liberal independent education evaluation guidelines um changes of mandatory services to the age of 22. i love that we learned of that i think it was on graduation day i learned of that that was for that year and two years if people don't realize this we'll even have a brand new platform and outline of our ieps so our actual our iep is going to change in two years and then also uh just the collaboration with school teams to provide high quality inclusive practices um and liz i don't know if you want to share i know you're telling me a little bit even today um sharing some stories can you uh share a little about uh absolutely and john and

046i were you know as we often do with our offices just across the hall from one another talk about our daily practice um and just the amazing work of our teachers right especially in the special services department um and we talked about the challenges of the position as john had just mentioned but also the importance and assurance that our teachers are provided with the coaching and support that they needed um i had just such such a wonderful interaction with one of our teachers this morning and a really deep conversation around actually deepening comprehension um and the strategies that she would apply to um her her practice um and really honing in on her explicit instruction and it's these really valuable conversations that um really improve our outcomes of our students and to dilute that with

047some of the things that john had just mentioned would we would see that in our students progress and we would see that in our students outcomes so just assuring that that our teachers have that support and that they're provided with the resources that they need to serve our student population and so thank you liz and last uh to decrease the achievement gap i know i talked about that but i hate that our numbers are here compared to general ed and we got to get that closer um and so with this i'll just have a slide on next slide for both our con and prevalence of students has increased i sent some of this information to the board but you can see the increase from 13.3 percent to um jeff thank you the other day it's

048now at 15.44 and just our count has gone up also um and then next slide i'll have liz talk about the uh specialized programs sure and just reflective of that previous data point you know though it's those type of numbers that tell us where we need to really focus our um support um and and one of the areas that weathersfield chose to um focus on over the past several years is the support of our students and our specialized programs and those classrooms pre-k through of course pre-k through post-graduation but more particular to our pre-k through eighth grade students and program services here in weathersfield um i was i was looking at this data and reflecting when i when i first started just a little over two years ago and our preschool has already had an

049increase of 50 percent um in just over two years and our you know program in general at webb elementary um our aba program has increased from a one classroom program to a two classroom program and it just it brings me such a joy to to know that we are committed as a district and as a community to support all of our learners um and to support those learners that need very unique instruction and very unique needs um and you know are supported through our behavior analytic processes that are supported through our trauma-informed practices and and are really very unique evidence-based research practices and it's through this commitment that we're able to provide services to these students um in a very exceptional way um the dedication of our teachers um to the improvement of their practices

050to serve our students is just tremendous um the these groups of teachers you know come in every day especially through the pandemic um unwilling to take no for an answer um and to ensure that our students are provided um what they need so it's just been a tremendous growth for the department over the past several years to see these programs established and really take flight we have expanded our program at the middle school level as well through our human race relations class and classroom and class servicing a unique group of students around not only behavioral and social emotional support but through trauma-informed practices and through discussion and through listening to our teachers and our parents and our student needs um restructuring the middle school special education department to focus on different student needs um and

051with that came the development of what i would say is probably um the most um what should i say reflective of an inclusive of an inclusive practice setting but that's really the support of our students in our more intensive resource classroom and those students together have a unique group of needs but through the support we are able to provide high quality programming right here at um stylesteen middle school so that's just some of the trends that we've seen in our specialized programming yeah and just if you could stay on this slide because um i know liz talked about the dedication first of all all the staff in our department are amazing people and the work they do with our children is just outstanding but i do have to point out um for this staff and

052especially the pandemic i mean i know it's a scary time but i love this when we went to um the staff members of these programs and we said hey we really like to bring you know these students because they really have the highest needs back four days um the one thing i heard more more often than others was what about the fifth day i mean and honestly these are students that some of them have the most difficulty wearing our mask some of them you know i know if charles brown was here um you know he might uh not think highly of this but it's impossible to keep six feet distance i mean forget about keeping one foot distance and these staff are in there every day and i i do have to say and uh

053liz you should get a commission on these uh programs because uh you know i mean well really i do john as part of this community i do right yeah yeah but the amount of money that saved both um you know bringing back students and um cost prevention from sending them out because if john john if i could interject there i want to make sure that we quantify this piece because this i think is what is critically important and you know let's think back the board charged us with developing some in-house programming and in-house servicing is as an effort to reduce costs for out-of-district placements and we know every year i say it that special education is always the wild card so i'm looking at this graph and i see a total of 47 students that

054potentially would have gone out of district for for out of district programming matt from your perspective what's how do we quantify this in terms of savings and cost avoidance sure so in the friday update to the board of ed we did quantify aba and strive and we looked at the 27 students in aba the four inch drive and obviously we're getting the benefit of these students remaining in district they're learning as part of the community they're not being outplaced to another facility or another town beyond that we're looking at a conservative estimate of an annual savings of a million and a half dollars per year so rather than presenting a 2.7 increase we would be here talking about a 5 increase so not only are these students remaining in weatherfield but it's a huge financial

055benefit to the town and again with with this program i i would remind the board that originally there was a request for an additional um special education supervisor to help administer these programs as we talked last week you know liz and john specifically lives with regard to aba with her strong behavioral background really is an integral part in supporting the work that goes on at web elementary school uh john with his background in psychology is critically uh important to the strive and the sdms programs but the reality is we still have hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of ppts that we have to get done we have students that receive special ed services that attend uh magnet schools there's responsibility there as well as the lea so it is obviously a uh a process here that

056we need to undertake to get these programs administered and again i think further rationalization and justification for why we need this additional position so thank you john back to you and i'll just add that because really number one thing for an additional position we need to close the achievement gap i mean that's it and i think you know these programs are unbelievable and they really it's keeping our students with us but we need to close that achievement gap um and so if we go on to the next slide um and i'll be i don't know i can't see bobby somewhere there um bobby i know you asked sort of about duties and instead of going i was going to ask trent for um the duties of special ed supervisor but i thought i would just

057um with some help from uh kristen underhill and liz um we sort of redid my organizational chart just because there's a lot of duties that come through this office that probably people do not even know and i'm not going to go through them all um you know but things like uh the title ix coordinator and uh title for ada coordinator mckinney vento coordinator um you know the idea grant which oh i think i got to start working on that was we gotta start working on that um but then uh state reports the ed-166 the echo was the early childhood um we're just at our door today with uh where the six students and so we had to jump on that there's just so many duties that this office covers and i do have to say

058this office we have an amazing office staff here too because without roe uh pat and nadine we could not do it um but sort of we coordinate all this through this office so before we go on to our uh next part of our presentation and john liz thank you for that part i might want to just open it up for conversation uh and questions and then we're going to move on to tools for effective instruction a little bit from our i.t department any questions um we've done a lot of talking uh to you so i want to engage you into some questions you might have slide before that's john on the left and liz on the right yes correct and we're trying to add a second person to the right uh yes okay and you

059know i can't say exactly how we would split it up but i think especially liz's background with aba i would want her more involved with that um you know and i mike uh mr amit said this but i think it's sort of the yin yin yang uh but also getting somebody then who can get him more to the resource support in the buildings to really look at that data around closing the achievement gap great question chuck any other questions bobby i have a question on strive is strive the program that's at hamner and it was for we decided these were children who had experienced trauma am i right well can i it's based on uh trauma-based practices but it really is for students that are having some sort of social emotional behavioral difficulties so i

060mean and i'll say this bobby and you probably know this too even though we may not know if a child has um trauma in their life a lot of times they present with behaviors that look like there could be trauma and so it really is based on those practices but you can't say definitely that every child there has you know been involved in some sort of traumatic experience i just wanted to relate it to the times we're going through that when we have the schools with all the students back in them and you know they're misbehaving or whatever they're acting out we don't know why they have been to a very traumatic time and i was just wondering if that i know it takes a long time to get children into these classes um but

061that should be something that we're aware of yeah and first of all bobby and i hate to predict this i mean first of all i can't wait till the day that all our children are back in our schools together but it's going to be a difficult time these are some children that have not had to share play spaces um you know work um you know amongst a class be in the um lunch hall with all the other students making noise and so absolutely all our students have been through some traumatic experiences with the pandemic we all have been and so we we expect an increase of the behavioral issues and that's really why the push for um you know the sel on all tiers and this the strike program is really that upper tier three

062um around social emotional learning yeah and i'd also like to interject too just you know with regard to these positions from the director of special services to instructional supervisor for special education you know it is also a support to the um the building principle and you know i certainly need to give a shout out to um to ken craig over at web to patrick cohn over at hammer into rosalind bannon over at um at the middle school and actually high school administration as well you know we have our our als program and our adp program at the high school specialized programs to support kids you know these particular positions also support the building principle and allow the building principle the the freedom to be able to run the building on a day-by-day basis um obviously

063these programs can create their own level of complexity and having this support from the central office level to support calls from staff from uh behavior specialists to uh para educators uh to teachers as well as our principals and our regular ed staff as well critically important because remember with these programs we always want to try and focus on as much inclusive practice as we possibly can so these positions are really wide ranging in terms of their benefit yeah and mike if i could just add because i think the principles really have added the culture so these are no longer those children these are our children these are no longer special ed students they're web students or hamner students or silent steen students and that is such an important distinction to make to make you know

064them feel part of the building and really that's what a high quality inclusive environment is these are our children to piggyback off bobby i thought that was a great question bobby talking about the challenges when these students come back so do you envision having a second special ed supervisor as a another like tool in the toolbox to help teachers and principals with even the regular ed students that are having a hard time transitioning back from this pandemic as it's another another tool that we're going to have readily available to help us absolutely and i'll even um well i can't remember if it's our third or fourth goal is i think it's fourth um even though srbi really is a general ed mandate our goal um in special services to improve that's our srbi because we

065know that it's part of us and so yes we're always involved in all aspects from tier one all the way and i always say through tier three and into the special ed tier one tier two tier three and so yeah it's a resource um you know we're involved in a lot chuck if i may i have a couple quick questions yes sir thank you mr chairman so first off great presentation so far appreciate the hard work that you guys put into it and the passion with which you do your job so my two questions and there's there's somewhat especially the first one general in terms of the summer learning program maybe this is for michael are you envisioning this as a one-year kind of response to the pandemic in a one-year uh budget event or

066are you anticipating this as an ongoing uh additional summer offering uh and before you answer that my second question might be easier sally you referenced the administrators per our other towns and that we may have fewer and i think you guys have given us the data before i'm sure you have can you give it to us again in terms of the number of administrators in weathersfield comparative to other towns so those are my two questions the summer learning and the number of administrators right two questions first and foremost the question number two with regard to comparison of administrators i went into ed site today that will be in the friday update tomorrow so i've taken all of durgd and i've broken it down by school level and district level administrators and i've also included a

067column for enrollment so that you can compare uh districts because some districts you know for example east granby is 836 students at the low end and on the upper end you've got southington with six thousand three hundred thirty six so kenny i'm working on that all that information i just pulled that up today um with regard to the to the summer school programming you know right now uh as of today we just got the needs assessment from the state for the esser money uh you know the ester money does have some flexibility in terms of how long we can take to spend it i would certainly look at this being longer range as opposed to a one and done clearly from our perspective the extended school year program for our students with special needs that

068is etched that is something we are legally mandated to provide that won't change um what we'll obviously look to do is we'll look at our mitigating factors that you know we may find like sally mentioned are we going to have the requisite number of staff members we need to run these programs how are we going to blend uh in person versus virtual that's going to be another factor and then again we're looking for participation now what our data tells us from last summer sally developed the class program which was the regular ed summer enrichment program the numbers were quite impressive we actually had to go out and bring in additional teachers to support that so seeing that you know what the numbers look like after the first year if something that's successful again for our

069high school students if we're finding the credit recovery is successful and we can do it in-house we'll certainly look to do that past we've tried to run it and we don't get a huge number so we'll look and see again if it is well subscribed i certainly look to continue it on for the future got it thank you you're welcome uh chuck i have a question as well please yes john no sorry i had to get to mute that's all right uh thank you for the presentation very informative and uh great um segway into a lot of questions for the future uh my question is have you ever looked at this is to john and liz the opportunity to put a special ed instructor on each team at the middle school has that come across

070in any of the conversations with the faculty members or the teachers within the building and the administration because uh you know with with regards to the pandemic and the kids coming back to school but the needs of our students uh with our enrollment figures and uh cases that we have for children needing additional support has that conversation come to the table so yes uh we have talked about that i mean because i'll say it would make things a lot easier than trying to cross teams and work with two teams um but right now you know honestly it's more of a budgetary and especially two years ago and last year um we really did a look at special ed caseloads um you know needs everything else and um actually i think i presented to the board

071i can't remember um but really looking at the highest need at that point with the high school was the highest need and that's why we did a move last year over to one of the high school positions and second on the needs was high crest just with their high number of um you know higher number of students within high crest and higher number of special ed students and so uh you know those looked at like our number one and number two priorities um for staffing one thing that makes it tough at the elementary level you know looking at two teachers to cover six great well sorry seventh grades with uh kindergarten is very difficult to split up um you know most districts they have the k to five and the middle school six to eight

072so we have considered it but really with the priorities of needs and districts we couldn't do it john right right john what i'm trying to get at is what we've discussed is nothing new for years a lot of these proposals have been in our budgets and they've just kind of fallen back because of uh commit uh you know reductions in the force and trying to be fiscally responsible but at the need of what we are going to go down the road in the future this is going to be a problem and uh if you look back at the list of reductions in our budget over the last five years a lot of these positions were in our proposed budgets but they had to be removed so um i you know i applaud you for moving

073forward to get a toolbox and what you can put in it and make it happen and being creative with your staff but there's going to come a time where we're going to have to you know get in there and you know look at it in a different direction but thank you thank you elaine you have a question yeah but i don't know how to get in there but anyway i wanted to know the cost of this you know me chuck i don't know how to run this thing but i want to know where can you hear me yeah i can hear you it's in the budget mad i'm macking i don't have it up matt do you have it up yeah i think we're at we're at step three of the wasa contract for next

074year about 126 k for each okay i said 130 in my mind but thank you no problem good question and i apologize board members i only see four people at a time i don't even see anybody yeah and i see the presentation mr michaels i think you had a question yes thank you mr chairman uh just two questions one for sally on the curriculum side of it is there sort of a could you just briefly tell us a difference between a curriculum supervisor specialist coordinator and that sort of tier and if that's something that we also should be looking at and then my other question is from michael and if you had any more information on the scope slash use of the teacher in residence and where you're looking to put them yeah lou that's

075a great question um every district has a little bit of a different naming system um within our administrator contract um you know we've typically had a director of curriculum um before i was assistant superintendent i was a director of curriculum and then underneath that would be an instructional supervisor um like john is a director and an instructional supervisor some districts are coordinators some you know they have a lot of different names um but that would be essentially a curriculum person that would serve underneath my my role as assistant superintendent regardless of what you want to call it but in our district we call them instructional supervisors and then lead your your uh question regarding the teacher residency program right now at this point in time crack and is with along with the state is focusing

076on an elementary certificate so we would be limited in terms of having teachers in residence at the elementary level um it is an 18-month commitment and for the resident it is intensive coursework along with side by side with a certified teacher mentor in the district so we would need to identify teacher mentors in the district at the bare minimum they must be team mentor trained then they need to make a commitment for additional training and then this individual would be in the classroom as a teacher in residence for the entire school year um so it is a large commitment um obviously you know we're looking at within for some of our uh employees like our tutors or our para educators that may not be certified but have a bachelor's degree and might be interested in

077taking that next step um you know i have to say the state of connecticut with their certification process and those of you who are teachers understand uh it is a cumbersome process and uh this program which was started by crack a couple years ago was really designed to break down some of the barriers to allow quality candidates to be able to get certified so and again for us looking at it from a perspective of being able to increase the number of teachers of color as our students become more diverse we certainly think it's a win-win thank you any other board members just speak out yes mr granada comment it's interesting we're talking about correct week and we're talking about um two supervisor positions crack is actually looking for um supervisors of diversity equity and inclusion

078per school system that goes along with having a you know a student teacher who is in this diversity idea um actually that's where the whole state is going is this idea of diversity equity inclusion so as we're talking about trying to get new people in we're kind of already falling behind because they're adding new people um and i said this last year i'm always so sad that the the school system is the system that's cut all the time people are looking for money to cut they cut the school system and now we are starting not just to be behind but we're also starting not to be with the others to begin with and that's a shame thank you any other board members had a question for um john would that uh new position uh for

079special education uh report to you and i also just wanted to make a comment that uh i'm appreciative of the uh the four days um in school that uh that certainly benefits uh my son so thank you so um first of all yeah the position would fall under uh under me and um second thank you i mean and i'll say this and uh i don't know how our parents are doing it i mean really it is so hard to you know educate a child at home so i i do thank you as long as well as all our other parents because luckily mine are well 25 26 and 29 so i don't have to worry about their education but my heart goes out to all the parents out there thank you all right anyone else

080and i figured out how i can see more people it's amazing i see most of you now yeah no i slated over okay but anyone else before we move on excellent sally floor's yours hey thank you mr carrie i'm actually going to turn over to sarah harris instruction supervisor for technology to talk about effective uh tools for effective instruction thank you mrs desolee and good evening everyone um as we reflect on all of the fantastic things that are already happening in our district that we've heard about this evening and look ahead to the goals that we've set forth earlier in our discussion the next part of our conversation will continue to be grounded in the strategic plan next slide please so specifically we'll be looking really at goal one action one um and as we

081think about how we continue to infuse authentic learning approaches and curriculum and reflect on the niask report and our focus on really ensuring that we have robust curriculum and strong evidence-based instructional practices we have to make sure that we have the appropriate tools to support our teachers in that work and of course if we look at our tools for teaching now the tools in a teacher's toolbox today in 2021 look vastly different than they did five years ago and if we look at our toolbox today in 2021 our tools look phenomenally different than they did really even in february of 2020. the reality is our work and the way that we deliver instruction in our classrooms has changed drastically over the last year to meet the challenges of the pandemic but as we look ahead

082we know that we will continue to use the practices that we have learned throughout this past year and that the tools many of the tools that we have started using over the last year will continue to uh follow our uh work as we move back into classrooms next slide please oh there we go sorry can you go back there go back perfect thank you sorry took a second to load there so as we think about the uh the software applications that we have in classrooms um we how do we decide what software applications we use right we know that there are many out there particularly now um if you are an educator you know that you are receiving uh at one point i think i was receiving you know 15 20 emails a day from

083different companies saying you know here's a new great software so how do we decide which tools we want to use in our classrooms so we look at a number of factors the first thing we look at is the usage data so i like to look at that i like to call that the what right the the what's being used uh the quantitative data and if you could click once for me sally thank you here's an example of that we have a platform called screencastify and screencastify is a tool for instructional delivery it allows our teachers to create instructional videos for students we have teachers using it with our remote learners we have teachers using it with our in-person learners and this is this is an example of the kind of usage statistics that we get

084we can see that 7157 videos were created by our weathersfield teachers on screencastify in the year 2020. that's pretty incredible and if you look at you know we had some teachers a small number of teachers using it in 2019 you can really see how just how significant that is so that's an example of the usage data we have another really interesting example would be a screencastify provides a list of our top users and so our number one user in the district is a high school teacher our number two user in the district is a first grade teacher and i find that data absolutely fascinating because it really speaks to the breadth of the tool right screencastify is a tool for effective instruction that is being used effectively at our high school level and is being

085used with our youngest learners as well one click please sally uh yeah along with the what uh we always we want to look at the how right we know we have lots of tools but how are they being used and for that we really focus on collaboration with teachers so in my position i do a lot of talking with teachers we gathered survey data from teachers in june of 2020 asking what are you using and how are you using it and how is it changing your instruction and our teachers really can provide some of that expert information on what's working for their students in their classrooms in their content areas and then finally the why why are we using the tools we're using we like to use data-driven evidence-based reviews an organization called ed reports

086is a good example they take all sorts of educational technology they look at the tools in terms of the content area standards and they really provide us with an objective lens to help us make those decisions as we're working with teachers on what technology is not only going to be best for instructional delivery but certainly best for students and aligned with our standards next slide please so as we think about our software um you've likely noticed that it is a significant piece of the uh instructional technology budget in weathersfield and i like to think of our software as being really falling into three different categories the first being in software for instructional delivery next slide please so our instructional delivery software would be those tools that we use for delivery of content those could be

087recording instructional videos it could be supporting engagement when we're trying to do live instruction with in-person learners and learners at home it could be providing those ongoing opportunities for quick check-ins with students informative assessment to gather data on students and a couple of examples of those would be edpuzzle and screencastify and paradex all of which allow our teachers to deliver instruction and engage learners both in the classroom and at home and here's an example of one of those tools so we have something called pair deck and as you can see in the 2021 school year 2452 of our 3 600 students have used pear deck that is a very high number and that does reflect again that this is a tool being used not just at the middle school not just at the one of

088the elementary schools not just at the high school but across our district we also have tools that are specifically related to particular content areas right we know that teaching math is different than teaching social studies is different than teaching art and pe particularly when it comes to teaching students who are learning from their living rooms at the same time we're teaching students who are learning in our physical school buildings next slide please and so we have a wide variety of applications specifically focused on providing content specific instructions some examples of that might be science labs right it is very hard in the current environment to provide a true science lab experience for students in our classrooms so providing virtual science labs providing digital resources for our physical education classes and some of our fitness work

089with our secondary students providing music composition software so that our students who aren't able to play instruments in the classroom or sing aloud are able to transition to a different area of focus that is still aligned with our music standards providing math type that's compatible with google for education right so that our students can provide answers and show their work on math assignments providing a graphing calculator which is really an equity issue right making sure that every one of our kids can access a graphing calculator in at the high school on their chromebooks whether or not they personally own a you know ti 84 graphing calculator and then that last bucket if you will of instructional learning software is the classroom management and safety piece particularly now when our students are learning from home ensuring

090that they are as safe as we possibly can on district devices is incredibly important so this really comes down to one one big tool that we're currently using in our second grade through 12th grade classrooms and this is called go guardian goguardian is a tool that supports teachers in classroom management and provides a resource for teachers to communicate one-on-one or as an announcement to the whole class and it also provides a behind-the-scenes monitoring system that provides me and the principals in each building with alerts about concerning or explicit activity on chromebooks it also provides thank you sally some really nice data that gives us an idea of how our devices are being used so you can see i took this data today you can see uh the top websites that are being visited by our

091students and you can see that they really do align with the resources we would expect being used in classrooms thank you sally and then the other side right so we have we have the the instructional software and applications and of course none of that matters or works without a robust hardware and network infrastructure so we talked last budget workshop about the fact that we have more devices in the hands of students and teachers than we ever have before and as we look toward the future while we have a pretty good numbers and fairly low um damage rates we recognize that ongoing repair will be a reality of the world in which we're living so making sure that we have the funds um to provide continued equitable access to all of our students and all of

092our teachers so they have the devices they need to learn and the devices they need to provide instruction our classroom technology uh while robust is is constantly aging as the years go on our smart boards at the elementary level will need to be replaced um and we also need to continue to update and replace our projectors across the district to ensure that all of our projectors are providing nice bright images for our teachers those are just two examples of some of those classroom technology pieces that that will need to continuously be repaired and replaced and we need to make a priority to ensure that we continue to provide the teachers with the tools they need and then last and certainly not least as this really is is the center of it all our wps network

093so mr deregan and the it team work incredibly hard to ensure that we have a robust network um we we know that we are living in any creating in an increasingly compel complex world in particular when we talk about network safety um it is getting more and more complex every day um and so ensuring that we have funds to provide the infrastructure we need to keep our students and our staff safe and also ensuring that we have uh the software that we need to ensure that all of our devices across the district are safe for the users and so as we wrap up our conversation today we wanted to return to something that i've shared with the board before so this this is something that i i feel very strongly about and i know that

094in the work that liz and i are doing with the sights team which we've talked about before this really sits at the center of it it's not about the technology right the technology is an incredibly powerful vehicle the technology right now especially is a vehicle like no other that is allowing us to access and provide equitable access to all of our students but it's really about the instruction and so as we look toward the future and everything we've shared with you this evening the right tools in the right hands with the right support can be incredibly powerful and so we'll leave you with this quote that it's about the pedagogy it's not about the technology and as we wrap up today we'd like you to continue with that idea in mind it's about student success

095and it's about providing teachers and students and administrators and all of the staff in our community with the tools they need to support our students thank you thank you any board members with questions comments that was awesome yes awesome job great job bringing our technology budget to life i do have a question do you see the need for like go guardian next year is that going to like if we're back in school is that still going to be used i see mr clark with his head shaking his head so i'll take him at his word but yeah that's a great oh yeah that's that's a great question um and and i would say absolutely so first of all you know i can tell you i used goguardian as a classroom teacher uh several years ago

096before it had all the capabilities that it has now um and i found with one-to-one technology in my seventh and eighth grade classroom it to be an incredibly powerful classroom management tool when we look at it now it really has gone beyond that it's become a communication tool it's become a tool for us to better understand how our students are using the technology in the classroom and help them better understand how they're using the technology so it kind of releases the teacher if you will from that responsibility of constantly circling right constantly circling to make sure you see what's on every kid's screen and instead allows us to have that data if we need it but really be able to to just teach and just instruct our students um so absolutely i i would say

097that from a safety and security perspective along with a classroom management perspective it will continue to be a valuable tool for us in classrooms excellent thank you yeah absolutely good comment and a question chuck if it's okay go ahead mr lesser thank you thank you mr chairman uh sarah first of all great presentation and thank you for all the work that you and jeff and your teams are doing it's nothing short of amazing and like i've said before if this pandemic happened 10 or 15 years ago i don't know how we would have any remote learning i wouldn't know what kind of schooling we would have so awesome just just amazing my question revolves around the future and the question is what's next meaning technology changes so rapidly and just briefly can you tell us

098what you're working on in terms of in the next year or two that may be something that our we don't have now that would be valuable for our teachers and staff uh the latest and greatest in technology that you think might benefit us that might be an upcoming uh need or budget item uh that you see as as a near future if you do if anything yeah sure i mean that's a great question and i think that we are constantly as you said technology changes fast uh so we're constantly reviewing and revising our technology plan um and actually liz freidus and i are working uh closely on a project we've shared with the board our along with some uh national organizations who are mentoring us on a project focused on really uh reviewing and revising

099our technology plan so that it is looking towards the future i would say that as we look to integrate the universal design for learning in our classrooms which really focuses on inclusive practices um and equitable access i think we're going to want to make sure that our technology matches that so that we have the appropriate tools in all of our classrooms to support all of our diverse learners and tools meaning hardware but tools also meaning some of those universal applications that can allow students to have accessibility tools embedded right into the chromebook right so that students have the tools they need without needing something extra um you know documented specifically for them it's just part of what we're offering we're offering an accessible and equitable experience for all of our kids so i would say

100that would be a piece we would also like to constantly working with our teachers to determine what are the appropriate tools for our teachers and as we look ahead making sure that our teachers have the tools that are the best tools for them whether that be a chromebook or whether that be some other kind of tool but making sure that our teachers have the appropriate tools so that they can continue to provide uh excellent instruction in the classroom but also if we're in situations where we're providing remote instruction again they have the optimal tools to provide that remote instruction and sarah if i could just add on not only from the perspective of in the classroom but the behind the scenes work and i know you know jim i could see you shaking your head

101through the course of this pandemic you know i learned all about threat vectors i never knew what a threat vector was but i heard all about them and you know one of the things that we saw with this pandemic is districts and and municipalities became more and more focused on utilizing uh computer networks hackers uh it became very sophisticated at being able to completely lock down districts or completely lock out municipalities or gain access to uh personal data so you know i think one of the things moving forward that may be a budgetary item down the road is staying one step ahead of these hackers and you know jim i know you've talked about it before on average how many threats does our firewall um end up intercepting on a daily basis all right so

102here we go we intercept 5 digital hacks a day okay it is it it is an amazing number um but getting back for a minute about uh the expansion of our computer network which is the core of it uh we always have to make sure that we are one uh one step ahead of the game uh as we are moving forward also one of the biggest things of course all of our devices generally now when students hands are wireless so we have to make sure that the network the wireless network is always being upgraded and set for the next wireless standards as we purchase new devices these devices are coming with the newest wireless standards so we have to make sure that we're always on top of our game keeping our network one step ahead

103of the devices coming in that is always a budgetary number that is in our budget and that is always a consideration but getting back to cyber security you know and it is interesting you know we hear about chromebooks and laptops and ipads um you know and uh student use of them and we hear about the computer network and what what is all of that but in a nutshell there were so many other subsystems and i touched on this a little bit uh at our last meeting but i did want to talk just a little bit more about it and these are all the background items that plug into our computer network that help run the district every single day and this is what the wpsit team works on every single day and some of them

104i'll give you a short list of them of course the wireless and wired networks are fiber optic networks that connect all of our buildings together our firewalls that keep us safe from cyber security threats our vpn connections that allow people to connect in from home to our network securely uh again cyber security we're also starting to roll out a cyber security training program where we're gonna start to train all of our staff on cyber security don't click this link be careful where you click watch your email stuff like that is very important now um at any minute we we risk the chance um of being a part of a ransomware attack so we're making sure that we always have our eye on the game every minute of every day we also have a very sophisticated

105network monitoring system that we monitor the network every day so you know these are just a small segment of all the things in the background that the wpsit department does every single day um and and i'm so proud to say they do it so well thank you jim and sarah appreciate it yes thank you any other board members yes miss evans sorry i forgot mew um no i just wanted to say thank you for the um comments and the presentation um all of them tonight were great you know as a parent i saw i see how much they're using these devices and how they're getting so good at it but i honestly never ever thought about what's going on behind the scenes i mean everything from picking them up has been amazing if you've had

106a problem you guys are on it but i didn't even consider that because i'm old and i can barely turn on my own laptop but um i appreciate all that information and sarah i appreciate your vision on kind of where the district needs to go because i think the pandemic kind of shined a light on um the the importance of technology and how to keep up on it because it's changing so much so thank you so much for um you know both the presentations i appreciate it thank you any other board members i'll scroll through my other screen seeing none all right michael matt you have anything else for us tonight uh nothing else to see anything from my end uh mr carey excellent all right we'll move on to the phones is there anyone

107on the phone i don't have anyone in the queue tonight mr carrick nope any of the that's all the councilman i guess none of them want to talk anyone all right so board members we have one more workshop next week so the hope uh from talking to mr michaels and i is if there's any more questions let's get them into mr kazakh or mr emmett so we can have them answered at the workshop and then we'll come with a number if you're good with 2-7 if you wherever we're at and hopefully we can have a consensus at the end of that meeting and then mr emmett will present his budget to us at the following board meeting but we have a lot to digest after tonight's excellent presentations and it kind of takes the budget

108and puts it into perspective of where the money's going and how it's being used to increase student achievement in our district so i thought it was excellent thank you thank you everyone thank you all right do we have a motion to adjourn so moved thank you a second thank you mr evans all in favor say aye aye aye opposed abstentions motion carriers thank you everyone good night everyone good night everyone and be safe be warm