BOE Meeting (April 3 2025)

001We have emerged from executive session and the regular board meeting is now back in order. Um, has everybody had a chance to renew the agenda? Um, I'd like to propose a motion to revise the agenda to add an item under review and discuss um Wilton um school blocking projects. Is there a motion? Thank you, Lori. Is there a second? Thank you, Patrick. All in favor? I motion carries unanimously. We'll make that um 3D comments from the public. The board has set aside time at the beginning and end of regular meetings for public comments for members of the public to share their views on matters involving the Wilton public schools and to help inform the board's decisions on such matters. Two minutes will be allotted to each speaker and a maximum of 15 minutes to any

002one subject. For the record, please also give your name and address. The board considers the views of citizens in its deliberations and welcomes and appreciates public comment. The board listens to public comment thoughtfully and with interest. The board, however, generally does not respond to public comment during board meetings by offering commentary or answering questions. The board also invites commentators and the public to contact the board or the superintendent directly with any specific questions or comments. The board through the chair and the superintendent may respond to questions and comments offer during public comment or share directly and in responding may also direct members of the public to the appropriate staff for response. Are there any comments from the public? none in the room and none online. Um consent agenda. The consent agenda um consists of minutes

003from the special meeting of February 27th and also personal personnel changes. There any um questions on the consent agenda? Is there a motion to approve the consent agenda? Thank you, Nicola. Is there a second? Thank you, Pam. All in favor? I motion carries unanimously. Um board reports and recognition. Just real quickly on my end, I would just like to um thank Dr. Smith and this board for all their hard work. Uh this week on April 1st, the board of finance unanimously approved our budget as proposed to them at 4% increase. So, I just would like to again extend my um congratulations to everybody around this table and um look forward to seeing lots of faces at the annual town meeting on Tuesday, May 6th, I believe, where um the um resolutions, including our budget, will

004go to the town for a vote. [Applause] Great. Well, thank you. Nice to see everybody. Uh today is the first day of the fourth quarter, so buckle up because it'll be over before you know it. Couple of updates. On Tuesday, April 1st, uh Junior Achievement of Greater Fairfield County hosted their annual stock market competition at Fairfield University. Um so there were schools from around Fairfield County that attended including Richfield, Norwalk, Shelton Stratford, and Danbury. uh within high school students, Kieran Lennan, Ryan Doyle Ward placed first with a total portfolio of over a million dollars and an ROI of 12%. So congratulations if anyone needs a money manager in high school that sure like so they get a place um to birth to go to nationals which will take place in Atlanta on from June 8th

005to the 12th. Um we had um others um some of our high school students um Gabel Sheron and Daisy Beach were selected to perform in the honor choir at the 2025 ACBA national conference held in Dallas back on March 22nd. More than 5,000 students in middle high schools throughout the US auditioned this prestigious ACBA National Honor Choir will um perform at the H Meerson Symphony Center. Considered one of the world's best concert halls and well known for its exceptional acoustics. Um this is a premier gathering of coral professionals from legends in the field to emerging professionals. The conference attracts vocalists, educators, conductors, composers and so congratulations three for exceptional opportunity. Um and last but not last u Dr. Falcon and her staff last night held their third annual World Culture Night and can I just

006say bravo that was amazing. This is um like a true community event. So um parents and families you know kind of representing you know cultures from all across the globe you know came and shared some information about the cultures and um all kinds of different food and pastries and it was just it was a wonderful wonderful gather. of our students staff perform. So I really hats off to you and to to your staff for putting that together. I look forward to the format. It gets better every year. Great. That's all I have. Um financial report. Yeah, L is not here. She's taking her class. So um you have the the financial report that um I don't know if we talked about this here or not, but the state legislature um had proposed adding $4 million

007to this year's access cost. Um we've got signed off on that. So that's really good news for us that you know if it all comes through um that should be an additional plus or minus $200,000 that will come to the local public schools to help offset the excess cost. So um because of um the the reductions uh and the shortfall last year um the the reimbursement rate for us was um just below 60%. And with this money actually pushed us just above 70%. So definitely a move in the right direction. Um so we're really happy about that. Um the we had talked about pushing the van. It's out here sitting in the parking lot and we're just finalizing the driver. Um Ly had to chase down and just, you know, make sure that we have

008the the right kind of lensure for that vehicle. And so, you know, we're a week, if not a couple weeks away from getting that thing, you know, up and running. the lease for trans the lease for community steps has been executed and we're just waiting for the owner of that facility to finalize their um interior umations and then so um hopefully next time a paper done for you um if you kind of go through the financial report you know we're about where we expected to be at this time of year um we're continuing to launch electricity um let them know that you know they verify that um we are receiving a discounted rate we also get rebates because of the solar panels on so you know that just make sure that you know so I

009anticipate that you know we'll finish the year you know as expected and22 budget and happy to take any questions to actually um so yeah great news that state legislator came came up with some more money that will do we expect that to come in and ultimately hit this year's budget for fiscal and did they say anything about next year or no what do we have in the budget for next year I have to go back in Look, you know, we anticipated that we were going to be sitting around that 60% number, right? And so the the governor's proposal um added I'm not sure I think the numbers um but it was, you know, wasn't going to hit till the second year, the binding of fiscal 27. And so, you know, the um the legislature kind

010of put together, you know, their own proposals. So, you know, all of that is being negotiated now and I don't know that we'll we'll probably I don't know that we'll know what that's gonna look like. We definitely did plan for next year on the lower end that it seems like that's still a good number to I don't anticipate it going lower. You know, I think this should be used to anyone, but you know, the the threat, you know, to the state budget is of course what happens. Yeah. And so, you know, we're told that, you know, the idea is protected, but we just have to continue to watch and see the electricity because we've been using more of it. I don't think so. I think it's the delivery charges. You know, we're actually using less

011electricity. Um and we we had dialed back our HVAC systems you know through co we were running them at 100% fresh air and we were doing that through the early part of this year and then you know we set them back to um traditional levels and so you know those are some of the largest consumers of electricity here in the district compliance wise did we get hit with the is it called the community challenge or whatever my assumption is I I haven't looked at the bill by you yes or I would assume that's in the bill because that I think those cost spread across all all users. Yeah. Any other questions for Kevin on this? Yes, sir. I was just one more on the private tuition. I was trying. [Applause] Yeah. So private tuition that's

012the line where you know we pay for students who we right I was just trying to we're half a million [Music] uh 940 just trying to track that. Yeah. So that that's the that's the excess cost. Okay. Yeah. and we budget assuming the reimbursement. So the 200 grand that we'll get now if if and when we get hit. Yeah. So I don't assume that 41 will be you know 10 um will be north of a million. I know that Mary made an adjustment for that number. So I'd have to go back and look at the previous months to just see. They didn't they adjust conservatively. So you know this point till the money's in the bank. Okay. When it comes in it would go towards up under review or discuss is Brooklyn Public Schools professional

013learning up. Chris, we want to welcome um Tree and Harry back. It's been a while and our principles and their Good evening everyone. Um, it goes without saying that in order to continuously improve, we need to provide time for teachers to engage in professional learning, especially when that learning can be applied flexibly and based on specific needs of specific groups. Um, Karen and I are going to talk to you about how we've used our half days and full days uh for professional learning over the course of this year. Um, we're going to focus primarily at the district level. So, at the district level, we initiated a multi-year plan to study, refine, and systematize how we design tasks used in our classrooms. In math, that work was centered in first grade. We use the early release

014days for the math coach to work directly with first grade teachers to study the use of non-curricular tasks, also known as math for fun, evaluate the tasks using a recipe, and use the same approach to help teachers design and select curricular tasks later in the year. The work continued throughout the year, and our plan is to grow the task design work to grade two next year. We the district has also adopted a new data warehouse uh called panorama. The move to panorama has allowed us to more flexibly capture a range of student data including academic climate behavior and absences. Staff were trained on the pan panorama platform throughout the fall during early release professional days and some at points during the full u professional learning days. His time's also helped us comply with state mandates.

015Um, without the time provided here to focus on the learning needed to make the cosmic shift between balanced literacy and structured literacy, teachers wouldn't have the support or the learning they need to effectively implement the new programmatic resources with integrity. Our teachers have engaged in platform training. They've unpacked units. They've reinvisioned the assessment of literacy acquisition. They've studied learning progressions and they've learned to fost foster cognitive and social engagement over basic compliance or behavioral engagement. Additionally, we trained all K3 teachers in administering the Dibbles assessment for foundational skills and we learned how to integrate those um associated lessons into our third grade all block to counter some unfinished learning in grade three. Beyond state mandates, curriculum is always evolving. The half days have allowed staff to unpack new social studies standards in some grades, grades

016four, six, seven, and eight. And they've allowed extensive time to digest new programmatic resources with their coaches in others, grades 1 through three specifically. This work will impact additional cohorts of teachers next year. And the time also allowed coaches to facilitate lesson studies and debrief lab sites and and learning walks with both teachers and their administrators so we could all learn how students are responding to the new curriculum. At Midbrook, teachers were able to study culturally responsive instructional methods as well as consider how building thinking classrooms, an instructional method with which our math colleagues have had great success, applies to the humanities. This learning helps teachers refine their instruction and plan for the inclusion of the new social studies standards as units are revised this summer. This year was the last year of our three-year

017illustrative math roll out in the elementary schools. Kindergarten and grade 5 teachers worked with their math coaches to unpack units of instruction, plan for lesson implementation, learn about, try out, and refine mathematical language routines embedded in the program. Coaches also work with teachers who are already using IM to help refine their implementation. We piloted a new digital platform for IM through Imagine Learning, formerly known as Learn Zillian. This platform features a better organization of materials, more format and assessment opportunities, and additional built-in practice. Um, IM also released the newest version of its program known as IM 360 because we intend to use the new version of IM. We made the IM360 available to kindergarten and grade five teachers and grade six decide uh was we gave them a chance to pilot the IM3 version on

018the IEL platform. This movement teachers needed time for platform training to learn how to access and use the materials and the training took place during the early release days in the fall. Our continuing shift towards alignment with the next generation science standards, practices, and crosscutting concepts requires adapting our curricular materials and professional learning in these new units of instruction in grades six, 7, and 8. Um, as well as the use of a new formative assessment tool in grades 6 through 8. So, responsive teaching continues to be a big thing. We started that with our accelerated learning framework after the pandemic but responsive teaching in math, science, ELA and social studies to support and grow student achievement and ensure that our students have success have access to grade level and course level content involves working within

019and across buildings to continuously improve instruction. The early release time helped to facilitate this work. We've also found that the instructional tools associated with building thinking classrooms um framework is an efficient and desirable way to address the goals articulated in the accelerated learning framework. Coaches in each of the buildings are working with the math teachers to implement the tools in their classrooms. We've aligned building thinking classrooms tools with task design and we've worked to design both curricular and non-curricular tasks in math. There's a wide range of implementation from building to building and across content areas. These early release dates have provided essential time for teachers and coaches in collaborative teams to refine the building thinking classrooms implementation in math classrooms. And that building thinking classroom work will find additional traction in more classrooms in the

020school year to come as humanities teachers embed the work in units and modules to facilitate knowledge acquisition and meaning making. Additionally, teachers um will study other instructional methods like total participation techniques, discussion protocols, and station rotations. As you can see, having the early release time and the full days for professional learning has enabled us to roll out district priorities around task design and responsive instruction and support teachers in the implementation and refinement of new programs and curriculum. Um the buildings I think are now going to share more specific details about the work that took place within each of the buildings. first start in the middle. So at Wilton High School, we value and support the professional development time allotted to us by the district. We thank you. Our model is a little bit different in

021that basically the planning of the high school takes place with our instructional leaders and our administrative team. So we pride ourselves on the quality of the work. Um I do want to take this opportunity to commend our IELS. They do a lot of work that is very close to the departments and content area based which I know that our teachers really appreciate and um we have appreciated the shortened days as well. Dr. Smith, thank you for making some adjustments to the calendar. You listen to some of the some of the teachers and they appreciate that. Uh some of the value is the vertical alignment between the courses but also with our upstanding feeder school and our feeder school. So we appreciate that. uh the opportunity just to share best practices that teachers don't always have

022and we've had more time to do that now and at the high school IET time is often you know kind of tight so this has taken some pressure off of the IET time which has been good so um Brian and I are just going to share a couple specific examples about valuable professional learning that took place in some of the departments uh we are going to begin with the music department because they had an outstanding choir concert last night so we're going to we're going to start and talk a little about that. So, uh, for example, the music staff has gotten together to review repertoire selections and ensure inclusion of diverse voices and very good representation of all the members of our school community in the curriculum and in their performances. And they also each

023year go down to Western Connecticut State University and they gain valuable PD down there. They love going offsite at times and they bring that back and that really pays dividends for our students cuz you know how outstanding our our music program is, right? in world languages. Some of the things that they've been working on and note the alignment with district initiatives here. Um they've been working on the task design protocol and reviewing curriculum and course overviews to check alignment again between the courses. So it's valuable time to accomplish that. And they also set a core competency goal this year around balance healthy human beings. So the vision of a learner um specifically around study skills and world languages, social emotional learning and the value of student feedback. So, um, two examples of what world languages

024has done. And then finally, in the LLC, our LMS's we've tried across the district to reimagine our LLC's. And so, our library media specialists have spent four days going down and working in the reimagining the LLC in the age of AI workshops led led by none other than our our friend professional Fran Compar. So, you get a sense of the value of the work uh for the teachers. which ultimately really helps our students. And Brian is going to talk some specific about math and English and Okay, Ryan. Thank you very much. So, English jumped into um work that both Trudy and Karen talked about with task design. So, um some of their PD uh time was spent on taking a look at what that might entail. We have some protocols and some recipes that go

025into it. not to get uh too bogged down with jargon, but getting um some shared uh assignments and and doing some of that task design work. Um another time the English department uh paid attention to those growth measures that we look at standardized tests and came up with some uh plans and strategies for how they were going to sharpen kids skills this year before our SAT that we just had um last week. And uh they also spent some time during professional learning time this year uh coming up with some common summitive and some common formative assessments. So time that uh was well spent to make sure that they're aligned by courses. Um so there's horizontal alignment but also some vertical alignment to make sure that we're following our progressions that we like to have with

026our standards and our skills and building. math um did something very similar um uh to what was mentioned with the building classroom. So I would just say that's been our north star this year. Um we've paid a lot of attention during um all of our PD time in math to um um anything that is building thinking classrooms related. Um we've got a a lot of work that's been going on uh both with inviting some um experts in from the outside and then observing um our own teachers. We'd like to expand the observations of our colleagues next year. That has proved to be useful. But we've also had our math teachers our math teachers met by course. So we had our geometry uh teachers meeting. We had our meeting together. We had our um algebra 2

027teachers meeting together. and they were focused on separate things based on what they needed. So, um, Victoria McVy, one of our instructional coaches, and Trudy, um, conducted some empathy interviews. So, you may have heard of the design thinking process, but asking the participants in activities what their experiences have been like. We we did that with our students in some of the classes. And so, our teachers had a chance to go through the data that was collected about their experiences in class. So that um it was it was a formalized PE on um responsive classroom practices, right? Teachers were able to take a look at what the students said to Trudy and Victoria in their interviews and then um contemplate some different strategies that they'd like to implement to um make that learning just a little

028bit more effective. So that was uh time well spent. Uh the algebra 2 teachers spent a lot of time uh this year working on scaffolding which is a key component to the building thinking classrooms model. Uh so um you know a little bit of mixture of differentiation and scaffolding but more more focus on what building thinking classroom says about scaffolding. And um there was also some time for the math department earlier in the year to pay attention to um alternate means of assessment and how there can be some creative ways to do assessment um rather than just um the quizzes and the tests that they might think traditionally. And then our school counselors um they went in a slightly different path. Um maybe like our music teachers did something a little bit different, but our

029school counselors um went on a visit. Most of them went on a visit to Yukon stores and um Wers counselors went to Yukon Stanford and they engaged in counselor days there where they were able to see what it's like these days to be a student at either of those universities and um to get an insidider um understanding of you know the different learning communities that are at the schools. Um uh I'm just going to put this on here and make sure I'm not missing some of it. what the residential life train changes have been like, anything that relates to admissions, whether it's from high school or transfer admissions. So, they kind of got like the the whole counselor experience at both of the Yukon schools, and that transfers out to other schools and universities. So,

030it's not um just that they learned uh things that only pertain to Yukon. So, that's valuable. and our counselors are always personalizing their interactions with our students that are departing uh to go into postsecary world. So that's that's those three departments in a very very small job. Cool thing to do. So can I just ask a process question and maybe then everybody can kind of answer the question as they go. So you have the district kind of priorities for professional development and then you have building level priorities for professional development and it seems that kind of each core is in the high school different disciplines kind of orientated in a different way. So is there like a platform for approval like prior to where the plans that the departments bring to you ahead of time

031or how does that you know schedule get um set and understood? So we the district has of course a professional learning calendar and you know that gets aligned that ultimately comes to us in the buildings and what we did this year was we created our own document to kind of follow up on that and we had the calendar and the needs on there and so we work we work individually with departments so we all oversee departments of different administrators we have conversations around um the PD and the value of it and again you know impacting student learning learning the whole child school climate some of those the the the through through lines um so we work directly with the IELS and those departments then we also have the overview to make sure the through line

032is there through what we're doing you know really across the school and you know we have a bigger document here that we won't get in but those are just snippets of it so when we looked at it we thought okay is this aligned and you can see I mean you hear conversations around task design supporting all students alignment of curricula um high expectations around student performance. So, you know, we we just make sure and we meet every 3 weeks as a as a leadership administrative team and I always put the next specific PD on there in advance so that we're talking about, you know, what we're doing. Um is it still aligned with the Northstar? And again, I want to commend our IELS. I think it's been a it's been a good decision to say,

033you know, the research that would suggest that let's let the people closest to the classroom and the departments kind of determine what we need to do can be helpful. So, we've got the definitely the district vision, but high school teachers, you will find they're very they're content area oriented. So, we need to make sure that there's alignment in what we're doing. So, that's our that's our process. Thank you. Thank you. Good question. And for us, I could say what he said on a simplistic level, but also we li we rely very heavily on coordinators, the coach, and some of our teacher leaders. A little bit different in terms of a a department versus the middle school model, but the same sort of idea, sort of that responsive teaching model, but from a teaching point of

034view. Make sense? Yes. So, I'm I appreciate having just a couple of minutes to just talk about the importance of the dedicated professional learning time that that we value and and really feel is essential to move forward to not only support the teacher growth but also support student learning and student achievement. So, in reviewing the professional uh learning calendar, I want to a little bit like what Brian just did. I want to express our appreciation for our coordinators, for our coach, and our teacher leaders for creating magic. Uh and they really are certainly be commended for the efforts. Um so, while we truly appreciate the dedicated days in our calendar, we we really need it for a number of reasons. Um you heard a couple of times already about the vertical alignment. It's important to

035have that consistency within the building uh across grade levels but then also for us um across buildings and for us having not only a feeder school but a receiving school. So we really have it at both ends in terms of that vertical alignment. Certainly very critical in maintaining a coherence of our curriculum and the instructional practices. Uh it's essential for our staff to be able to meet with Cider Mill and Wilton High School periodically and having this time sheltered when all the buildings are available at the same time. It's really the only time we're going to be able to do that. So it's important to recognize that as well. Um also with that opportunity for cross-depal professional learning, uh the day also allows valuable cross-d departmental collaboration as well. uh really furthering and supporting our

036goal of improving student uh outcomes through shared knowledge through expertise. And by sheltering this time, we can ensure that the profession of learning ensures that it's focused, it's purposeful, it's ultimately benefiting both teacher development and student performance, student learning. And frankly, this is our our time that we do our professional learning throughout the school year. And without this, we wouldn't have that opportunity to do our professional learning uh during the school year. It's meaningful. It's structured um way to do it during the school year. And if we wanted to improve student learning and improve teacher growth as well, this would be time where it happens. Uh so it's important to shelter that time the way we do it. Uh please keep in mind even with the half days that we have in the in the

037calendar, it's still hard to do it. It's still hard to fit it all in. Uh even as we were talking about my preparation for these comments, there were folks saying, "Hey, if you get more full days, that'd be good, too." I recognize that. But um the other thing it does by having the the half days built in, it also preserves our Wednesday meetings as well to then be able to be dedicated to the IET work, to staff meetings, to departmental departmental meetings as well. And then um finally, and that's an important piece to this, it keeps the staff in the classroom during the school day. Uh and continuing these half-day sessions ensures that they have the time needed to engage in the impactful professional learning without sacrificing the time of the students being out of

038the classroom. Um and that's really what's best for student learning. Thank you. Can I ask a question about um because you you just have the math coach at Middle E coach down. Is someone is Karen picking up additional duties from there is no Karen's playing the role of Superwoman right now because she's holded so many directions at the same time and um managing it quite well. take this opportunity to say it publicly and say uh what great effort she has done to try to keep her hand and foot and everything and then uh leaning a little bit more again on some of our teacher leaders and of course to uh carry that way as well. It's not easy. And um just kind of coming off of like Bob, what would you say like the north

039star has been of your kind of professional development in your building this year? As North Star analogy, I liked it. I'm asking what they're asking. What does north star? Um I don't know. I guess I'm not ready to answer that cuz I I think if I were to break it out by different disciplines, it might be a different answer for that. Um, you know, when when I step back from the oh, I have the right answer for you right now. The the biggest thing is student achievement and performance is is what we're we're certainly aiming for. But then how do we do that? And the how do we do that? We've done a lot of work at the building thinking classrooms. It's expanded beyond just our math and science folks. now expanding into our humanities,

040expanding into the Strive classes, etc. So, that's that's been the the big noise that's happened fairly regularly in anything and everything we've done. Um, I have about eight pages of notes here of the different professional learning opportunities that we had by discipline on the outside. She started asking questions about, well, what about the mental health group? What about the music? I if you want I can speak to it but um it's it is a little bit different depending upon who you talk about you know you get in the secondary level you have a little more specialized work based on department so it is it's hard to say that there is necessarily any just one more star it's it's really somewhat it's a constellation it's a constellation That's nice. Thank you guys. Thank you. Can you

041just speak of how it's organized? I have a hard time wrapping my head around how you get do that day or do that afternoon. Can you just speak to what that looks like? Sure. I you know uh Bob talked about it a little bit in terms of you think about all the disciplines and all the departments that are running different things on these days and we've created a document that's an in-house document that specifically talks about what each department is doing. I mean, if I look up September 11th, for example, the intervention folks are working specifically on our panorama training. Um, the LLC folks were working on executive function intervention. Um, the art folks are working on a FAPA website rollout. Um, we had executive function across for for math and for science, social studies,

042sped and ELA. Um, music had FAPA curriculum. You get the idea, right? I don't know if you want me to keep going with that, but it's creating this document and saying, "All right, for September 11th, what's happening for uh the next date, what's happening?" Sometimes there are full districtwide uh professional learning and other times there are specific to the building. What's your question? Yeah. All right. Um so, well, I'll start off with processes. So, a few years ago, I stole something. You probably can't see it, but there's pocket charts. Those of you who work with young children know what pocket charts are. And uh we basically use different colors to organize our early release days, our um leadership meetings, our Wednesday meetings, our full days so that we can kind of see the just kind

043of of like what's going on and kind of map it all out without it. Um we've done digital versions. This has actually worked out the best. And I credit my friend Kathy here. She helped me get my uh kind of all over her brain into a nice systematic process. So, um I know we use something similar, but you know, there's so many different structures that we use that need to be connected. Um our mor is the accelerated learning framework, right? And so, but kind of encompassed by our SEAL kind of well-being of our of our children. And basically we use our kind of weekly coach coordinator meetings and our bi-weekly leadership meetings where all of our team leaders and our IIL's our instructional leaders meet and we kind of use that chart to kind of

044map it all out, right? Um how do we connect our learning walks to our Wednesday meetings? How do we connect our coaching cycles to to our work? And we, you know, it's it's complicated, right? It has to be cohesive and it's even more complicated at the elementary because we don't really have department per se. Um, we really in the last few years since we started staggering the implementation of different curricular areas. In some ways, it has fragmented the whole school learning. Um obviously our SEAL work is and vision of the graduate and there are components of um themes topics that can be whole school but a lot of the work we're doing because it's so specific to the curriculum that we're rolling out is differentiated by grade level. So I'll just use this year as

045an example. We have um our third grade is obviously working on the ELA um roll out. Fifth grade is working on math. This is our last full year um implementation. Our first grade, fourth grade was working on social studies. Um we have lots of assessments that go along with each of those. Um but overall all of our academic areas are tied together by focusing on responsive lesson planning and really digging into what a unit roll out looks like. And the coaching work really supports all of that by um getting in and working with our IETS. We actually plan every we've committed to using about 15 minutes at every one of our bi-weekly um leadership meetings to really look at our IET agendas to make sure that there are threads of that work happening consistently um

046in each of our different IET meetings. Um without the full days and the early release days, I'm really not sure how we would accomplish this. I have just one of you guys um mentioned the um trying to minimize teacher pull out and I I will say that with the addition of these early release days we have been able to minimize the amount of missed time that our teachers have. Um, we used to, I would say there would be, depending on what was going on, but five to six days where teachers would miss FaceTime with students, which now that I think about it, actually kind of mirrors the amount of early release days that we have. So, I hadn't really thought about that till you said that, but um, if you kind of look, I bet

047you could track that. And I think that's an important piece to to remember. Um, obviously, we've got the vision of the learner that's happening full school. Um we're doing all our ruler work, SRBI work where we implement the the DESA which is a um social emotional um assessment DBT and all that work goes on um districtwide districtwide schoolwide. Um and then we have our world language has been working a lot with their new curriculum. So they have dedicated time. There's been a consultant that's come in a few times there. our special areas obviously are going through the curriculum review cycle and they also work in their IETS and they have the opportunity to visit um outside schools as well. AI has been a little bit of a threat kind of going throughout the whole school

048so that's been nice. Um yeah, happy to answer any questions. There's obviously a lot more specifics but do you have any grade currently that isn't actually piling new grade? You know, and that's a that's a really important question and a really important answer. And here's something that you know, we lose sight of it because it's just part of what we do. But we have been implementing new curriculum, I want to say, for almost all the years I've been here. And that's a lift. And you know, Karen, you know, said it, you'll probably hear Kathy if you say it. This shift from balanced literacy to structured literacy is monumental. And so the amount of time the amount of learning just in this one area um is very very significant. So but after this year IM will

049have been fully will be fully implemented in um but then we have new yes I know that something will take it'll be fully implemented K8 and algebra 1 at the middle school. So K8 and algebra one at the middle school and then are you I know that um you mentioned IM 360 is that happening at the center level as well or is that just in the middle? It's not a big shift. It's just an updated um there there's some improvements um which have been great but it's just you know frequently um providers writers update their program. It's just keeping current just the program. That's a lot. I didn't even tell you half. I think it's important to understand, especially, you know, when you're doing you have like these whole building initiatives, but you also have

050different grades making different shifts at different times and then it moves up a level. So what impacts what happens in one year that impacts the next year and the the um the steps that it takes and the moving pieces that it takes and you know certainly the recognition at the end of the day pos organizing but the recognition that you see at the end of the day with like with the math program and just the um the achievement that has come out of it. Okay, ready? So, in an effort not to repeat, I will say when we approach professional learning at least at Miller Driscoll, we look first at what we have to do or need to do, right? Then what else we want to do and then how much time we have to do

051it and then how much support we have um to do it. And I think the support piece, I'm just going to underscore that is so incredibly important because we know these, you know, any oneshot professional learning opportunity is not going to be effective. So it is making these crazy charts and being able to cycle through and take advantage of all of the different types of time that we have and all of the different types of support so that if we provide some professional learning that then we are able to help teachers implement it in the classroom and support them as they go. So I do think that's something that I know it happens at all the schools but it's incredibly important in the planning part. Um when we go through at Miller Driscoll we also

052look at what we can do as a whole staff and then we look at how we divide things. So similar to you know what Jen said. So this year we're working on community wellness and belonging as a whole staff through our collaborative commitments for um students for um families and then for our you know our own staff. We then divide things by grade level and each year grade level or departments have a particular area of focus. So this year a couple examples. So preschool is working on the CT docs assessment which is a you know documentation and observation system that they're doing as well as executive functioning via play. Um kindergarten is doing the new IM like Trudy said and then also always play workshop. First grade is doing building thinking classrooms and has now

053launched um Yale. Um they started it just last week. Second grade has been doing EL the whole year and then um social emotional learning platform started in K and moved up through second. So everyday speech they're doing special ed is probably the trickiest because special ed and related services need to understand both what's happening in the regular ed classroom but then they also have to further you know further refined aircraft. Um so they've done a lot of EI training and I am training and they got trained in DBT by Tommy Leonard who's amazing and I don't know wish she could deliver all of our PD jewelry on steal. She is great. Amazing. Great. Yeah. And then our interventionists are making um again connections to the regular ed curriculum and with families so that the work

054they do, you know, goes back into the classroom at home and the specials are doing the same thing, connecting to the curriculum. Um other than that, some other things I think that have been mentioned, but I think they bear repeating. There are all these other things that you have to train your staff on like a new teacher evaluation plan. um continuing work on community wellness and belonging what used to be called DEI. some things around allies training we've done um implicit bias training we've done there's professional learning around EOPS right we did that yesterday dibbles I mean there are just all of these other things that then you have to also do to make sure that you keep the school running um we're super thankful for the supports we have so we're thankful for the

055people who come in by professional learning we're especially thankful for our coaches because that's where again we cycle through all that support I'm incredibly thankful for my administrative team who jumps right in and also delivers professional development. Um, and thank you for the time cuz I agree without the full days and the half days um you know we use faculty meeting time and I time but having those bigger and longer um chunks of time are great um to be able to [Music] to be my question to the whole panel that this is the first year that we've really kind of changed the calendar a little bit. Well, we added that for early um and so but to some extent I presume and maybe I shouldn't presume but the work that's being done still the same

056amount of work that was done previously or are you able to you know with this kind of take on more and just you know or how would you assess kind of running it this way versus the formal I think it's it's um reasonable to say and these guys can comment on it um time is our most precious and most scarce resource. And it is not um a a misstatement to say even today we don't have enough time to do all the things that we need to do and want to do and have to do in a way that we would choose to do them. And so the the four early release days have definitely had a material impact in helping move our professional learning agenda. Um, but you need to add about 400 in order

057for us to get there. And I think, you know, just to draw a comparison, um, you know, not so much in the news today, but, you know, years ago, um, Finland was held up as like this is, if you want to be a a worldown best education system, do what Finland was doing. And so, lots of us in this country and other countries kind of study what Finland was doing. And one of the um chief differences was the amount of time that that nation and a few others feed to professional learning. Yeah. Right. We as a nation, we only value what happens between the bells, right? The kids in front of us and we don't value the extra professional learning time and so we have to carve it out of that between the bell or

058adjacent to the bell time. And so you to me that's the answer. Can I just I just I know that we've we've gotten some letters from parents about the the half days being challenging and I I personally think that the the half and the half days for professional development is critical like I I wish we had had more of that when I was teaching but I just wonder if there's any way for us to be strategic about providing solutions either through continuing ed for parents and whether that's like maybe we combine the high school and middle school staff and we take the middle school building and we make that available for classes or camps or something to happen during that time and then potentially provide transportation with the bus systems for for kids to go

059home after if they do need to stay uh and can't arrange for that type of transportation cuz once a month to try to get child care can be challenging for a family. Sure. Yeah. I mean it would take some time some planning and some vision around what we're trying to do. I think we'd also have to do a needs assessment too like you know just kind of who would take advantage of something like that. But that's how they talk about it. that and that's you know we're going to get into the calendar conversation in just a second you know that is that's taught you know whether we have the additional days or not you know those early release days um you know for for some you know particularly for you know two parent working families

060those are really hard and you know so I think that's why we try to be really thoughtful and judicious about how we um deploy those and when and you know I'll I'll talk about more that agenda item but you know there's a there's always competing factors as you know um I I do want to put just some summary comments on you know some of what they share today and it's really around the why of the time and so you know let me just start with this um there are lots of districts you know in Connecticut and around who like to claim that they have the best of the finest staff the best of the finest teachers and I would just say let's look at a body of comparable objectives measures. And so for us here

061in the state earlier this year, we were one of three districts in Connecticut who were among a hundred that are outperforming their precoid achievement levels. Um and the other two districts who are included in that group um when it comes to absolute achievement can't they can't. Um we know because we've talked about at length the performance of our kids at the high school, at middle school. um Cutter Mill as a um school of distinction. I have a very very tolerable state in English, in math, in science. Um it's, you know, I used to not enjoy opening my email, but this year has been a very different experience. In the last couple of weeks, I've walked into my office and fired up my email and I learned that um we have the second lowest chronic absenteeism

062rate in the state. we have the second lowest rate of restraint seclusion reports in the city. So there's a pattern there and you know the pattern is a as a board you provide incredible resources and you know we do an outstanding job hiring new staff. Um we have an exceptional group of veteran staff and we provide a lot of training and support and is not an amazing place to work. expectations are really high and it's hard, right? We all have children and we know what we want for our kids and our teachers know what we want cuz they want it too. And so, you know, I I I I say that um in service to the calendar conversation, but also in recognition of the complexity of the work and the outcomes we get as a

063result. So they don't waste time getting every minute we can get and we are having um observable measurable material benefit as a result of that time that's that's given to professional learning but don't take my word for it right it's objective and measurable and you know we're we are who we are and getting better and we're getting better getting I quick I can't remember if I think it was when they were rolling out the reading program and when the first kind of roll out and training session that happened with the staff the staff feedback was that it just wasn't as impactful I think as they wanted it to be has subsequent PD time been used to continue that training and if so what's the feedback then from the staff relative to the initial set of

064feedback we got Is it improving? Are they having a better experience? Have we been able to address any of that? Do they feel better about where they're at now relative to where they thought they'd be after that first one? I think the um the experience was different depending on um who was providing the professional development. So I think the professional development provided by better lessons at Cider Mill um was there was there was a different response to that than the professional development pro provided by better lessons at Miller Driscoll. Um I would say that we have prepared um based on that professional development changed how we're doing it. So we're utilizing our coaches and we're just providing that professional development in a different way. Um it's interesting though because we joined a bunch of us

065from Miller Driscoll um and Jen wanted to come and hasn't been able to come but we join this affinity group through the state department of education um and in listening to other people who are implementing EL and have used the same you know group to provide that PD they have found similar things it's dependent upon the presenter um they have found that the coaching that um the people provide to the coaches has better than the whole group instruction. So, we just changed our whole plan at Miller Driscoll. After we tried multiple times and with care and support, you know, tried to meet with them, tried to plan differently, um, and still didn't get the result that we wanted, we we changed our plan and and kind of put it over onto the coaches and then

066figured out ways to support the coaches so the coaches could support um, second grade. And then we used all that we learned when we launched this with second grade to change very very significantly how we launched it with first grade and first grade is in a totally different place with the launch. So we took what we learned and used it to to do things differently when we launched with first grade and I think it's made a huge difference. Agreed. And and second grade is now in a better place too than it was I guess in the fall come to where they are now than the I mean I do think and it was both I mean at both schools this happened but at both schools it was the coaches and the teachers were learning right

067and the administrators and the coordinator right were all learning the program together and the teachers you know they have been used to having coaches who are experts and who are probably like 27 steps ahead of them. In this case, it was like the coaches were learning at the same time. So, that was a that was kind of a difficult dynamic. So, we changed and we made a colorful chart, a nice color coding chart and figure out ways to get the teachers a couple of, you know, a couple of weeks ahead of the teachers. So, what did the what did the coaches need to do that? And then how did the coaches then bring that learning to the to the teachers? So, so we made changes, but the launch of first grade um was great. And

068I got to share with kindergarten yesterday that we're going to be in full implementation starting in the fall. And the best news that I was able to share with them is that the first knowledge block module in kindergarten is all about what Kevin play. So, and I feel like that's news at this table. So, that's great. Yeah, that full implementation starting with kindergarten in the in the fall. We finish our 412 curriculum review on Wednesday and there'll be an ELA update shortly thereafter. Yes, I will be. So, maybe maybe I will be like that's okay. Yeah. When you're um planning your professional development, I think this is more elementary school based. You plan for a certain amount of time. Is that the time you're getting? Are there kind of roadblocks or things going on at

069the school which you're getting going at the time you're anticipating? There's kids coming back to school because they I don't know there was no one meeting them on the bus. So is there anything that prevents you getting going and making the most of that half day of time all the time after those things? Yeah. Only mine when I first had them. I mean there was there was a winter storm that tried to foil our PD plans when you know we working. Yes, giving the kids a day off. Yeah, that was a good decision though. You didn't have much. I credit for like if this happens, you should think about this. Probably had a color coded chart for that. So, anything else on it was wanted you to hear and hopefully I'm super doing it. Yeah.

070And I think, you know, it's it's important to connect that to the calendar. I think the tricky part is the day. It's the actual Wednesday. That's a tricky day for me. Of course, it is to do this. Probably the Friday or Monday would be sort of better, but not a lot better. But the idea of it definitely we should have probably more shot for that. But not by anyone. Can I can I just comment on Wednesday? Well, that's we're I've got that on my calendar. So, I don't know why. Yeah, we got it. We'll get there. [Applause] Any other questions before we move on to the next item? So, um, Maria in vacancy update. Great. Uh, thank you for having me to present on our vacancies at this point in the season. All of this

071conversation about professional learning is actually a great segue into hiring because one of the most common themes that we hear as we hire new staff, whether they're brand new teachers or veteran teachers, is that they're really looking to come to a place where they can grow professionally and where their desire to grow is supported in really tangible ways. And so they're always very excited to hear about the things that are happening, um the opportunities that they will have, particularly if they're coming from other districts that don't necessarily have the resources or don't have the priority placed on professional learning. And so I just want to reiterate the importance of it even as we look to attract new staff when it is a buyer market for new staff. I will say that every year and I'm

072sure that that will continue to be the case. Hiring season is off to quite a start. We are further along with more vacancies than we have ever been before. So, we have more vacancies than we've ever had before. And we are further along in our hiring and posting process than we've ever been before. We currently have 16 open positions plus one more that was announced today. We just got a retirement announcement. So, that will be posted tomorrow. And of those, five are retirements, six are resignations, some of which are people who were on leave of absence for the year, whether it was for child rearing leave or um you know, different personal pursuits or someone living outside of the country and not returning. Uh we have um one leave of absence announced for next year

073because teachers contractually have the opportunity to take a year-long leave of absence at their tenure. that's just provision within their contract that men take advantage of at different points in their lives. And then one is additional FTE. So I like to share that because I think it provides a context for why we have the the vacancies and the openings. Two of the positions are positions that um were open this year after the school year started and we had resignations. We did not fill as full-time positions. We filled in other ways either through additional FTE or long-term subs or things like that. So again, I think that that's important to note. Um, we have a very detailed tracking mechanism in the HR office to track uh when postings open, when they close, where we are in

074the process. We want to be sure that uh postings and uh openings don't get sale because people tend to lose interest or they lose interest in us as a district. If they feel like, hey, I applied for that position six weeks ago, I never heard back. I'm going to move on. So we really try to ensure that um you know it's a 5 to 6 week post to hire process which is often um very ambitious and you know I think the administrators here will attest to the fact that sometimes we can be a little bit of a pain in the neck calling to check in on how the interview process is going and where we are whether we have our committees together but um we all work really collaboratively and it is a laborintensive process.

075Uh there are always two two interviews at the building level plus the third interview at central office and that ensures that we're fi finding the right fit because we want to ensure that it's a long-term relationship when we bring people on board. We just recently attended the Yukon uh job fair at the NEAK School of Education. Jory and Trudy joined me along with Adam Mcast from Miller Driscoll and we met about a hundred candidates uh across subject area special education, elementary, social studies. Uh a number of those candidates engaged in short interviews that day on site with the administrators. We followed up with them the very next day with an email uh let them know how to apply. A number of them have already applied to positions and as I said a number of the

076positions that um I just mentioned are already in the interview process, the demonstration lesson process. We hired one uh conducting reference checks. So, it's great to be where we are so early in the season. And I think it's really important because again, we are like many other districts that are looking for teachers. And unfortunately, when we go to Yukon, I always think this is kind of a good measure of what the the pool looks like. There are fewer and fewer candidates. Unfortunately, they're always very high quality candidates, which is why we invest the time to go up to Yukon annually. But um it just highlights the importance of making those connections, continuing with the relationship, having things in our district that make us attractive and set us apart from other districts. The professional learning is

077a big one. The tuition reimbursement is another one that people are really looking for and is appealing to them. the salaries, the benefits, and again, I think just the personal connections that we make because every year teachers will say, "I just really liked the way that I felt when I came to the building, when I was with the interview committee, when I was talking to the administrator." And that's not something that you can break. You know, people know it's authentic. People are happy here, and we really develop a community. So, uh, it's an exciting time. It's busy. As the year starts to wind down for most people in schools, it really winds up in human resources because we're trying to fill out these positions and this will continue to be busy throughout the summer, I'm

078sure. So, happy to take any questions. The the pool is getting smaller. Is that because less people are? Well, there are fewer people going into the field. It's a national trend, unfortunately. Yes. How far out do we actively recruit? Do we only recruit when we have open positions or when you guys go up to meet candidates at Yukon? Are you thinking about staffing needs next year and kind of we're really working for immediate positions? um we have the ability when we go to Yukon to um indicate what all of our open positions are as well as our anticipated positions. So we just try to project based on what we're seeing. For example, at FTE at the high school, if we see that FTE is increasing or we have one FTE driven increase at Cider Mill

079for next year. Those are the kinds of things that um either we know for sure are going to be open positions or that we're anticipating. So we try to get a jump on those. But we also want to be really authentic in our recruitment. So we don't want to waste the time of the candidates or our staff in having those interviews if we don't really have a sense that we're going to have something open. With that said, when we're at Yukon, we do try to, you know, we make connections with candidates. Even if we don't have open positions, if we meet a great candidate, we will collect the resume. We'll follow up with that candidate. I personally have had that experience when I was in the buildings. You know, I I can think of a

080particularly particular teacher that I met at a job fair. We didn't have the open position and now that's Adam Chopus leading up our STEM program at uh at Middle Brook. So, um and I'm sure we have a number of those kinds of examples across the district where we just need great candidates and uh we may not have the opening right at that time, but we try to develop those relationships and stay in touch. Yeah. We try to shamelessly say we do we do any of yeah you got to get in some way shape or form you got to try to prove that people who have come to us from other districts have also brought their friends along and you know and we're okay with that you know their districts may not be [Music] okay how

081our open opening amount, you know, in in line with what others other districts when you talk to the other impossible to know it's early. Yeah. And I think just as you know, it's also a question of scale. You know, I mean, it's a year ago a place like Waterberry had something like 200 million to fathom. So, you know, you're following headlines, right? I mean, we're, you know, pretty close to concluding this budget season. There are places around us that are having very different budget experiences. And so there are like a colleague, you know, from here in the state call me um trying to place some of her, you know, best teachers because she thought she was going to lose them as a result of the budget. So So that's a that's also a dynamic that's

082in play right now. Does anyone ever get offered a job and turn us down? And if so, for what reason? um rarely because you know when they get to because there are so many steps in the process, there are opportunities for the candidates. They're vetting us just as much as we're vetting them and we recognize that. But the final step in the process is the interview at the superintendent's office and our administrators in preparing the candidates for that final interview. We'll say first of all, it's a real interview. It's not just pro- fora. You're not just going in to say hello and sign paperwork. the superintendent will often said spend you know 45 minutes to an hour with each candidate um and uh you know if you're presented with an offer will you accept it

083and so we try to get that sense before the person comes into central office. Um occasionally when we have people who want to think about it or decide that they're going to go elsewhere it's driven by um geography. you know, they want to be closer to home or it's really expensive to live here and they live, you know, 45 minutes to an hour away. Um, those kinds of things. But it's really rare that we lose a candidate to a local school district. And the bulk of retirements usually come in when? Usually they come in later. So, I'm grateful that this year we've had so many announcements early and each person that has come in has said, "I really want to give the district time." So, typically they will come in closer to June, sometimes over

084the summer, but it doesn't mean that we won't get some this summer, but I think with so many now, I it it signals to me that we're likely to just get fewer later on. We shall see. You can hold me that in September. prediction. That's right. Do you go anywhere else besides stores? They're really the the the job fairs have dwindled over the years. I think it's just a function of technology and people being able to do the websites and check those schools out. Yeah. Yeah. We there used to be um a job fair locally in Fairfield and that just wasn't well attended. I mean there have been a few CES which is our local res um we have one and they're just they weren't well attended so they completely changed that way except for

085sewers. Yeah that's the big one that we Yeah. We in Colia a couple earlier in my tenure here like those were the big three was Columbia um the county job we got. Yeah. And what we I attended one at Columbia years ago and what we found was that um many of those teachers were looking for urban settings. I mean, first you have the certification issue. They're not certified in Connecticut generally. Many of them were looking for very different kinds of experiences and were looking to stay more in city. Are we reciprocal? We're not reciprocal. No, but the state has made it easier to get, you know, Yes. Yes. Any other questions from Ry? Good luck. Thanks. Yeah, we're excited. It's moving along. So earlier in the evening we amended the agenda to add a third

086item under um bonding projects. And so um with budget season comes um I guess you can call it bonding season. Um so um I just you know earlier a couple of weeks ago we um took a vote and um had consensus around what the um TAP had suggested for um school building priorities and I just wanted to sit back at the table cuz the board of selectman has been meeting and in addition to approving budget resolutions for the board of selectman and board of education um earlier this week the board of finance also set um the mill rate which um debt service less into the mill rate. So the mill was at I believe at 1.92. Um so ear I believe it was yesterday um the board of selectment approved several bonding projects and those

087bonding projects um that were approved related to us, excuse me, my older age. Um the district roof replacements, the high school library at $2 million, the cider mill chilled water replacement equipment and piping at about 1 5 million. Um, school drainage sidewalks and paving for about 725. Um, Middlebrook exhaust fan replacement for $373. Um, and then Middlebrook gym HVAC for 250,000. Um they then um tabled um discussion and voting for the um recommended proposal of about $1 million to do certain types of flooring, tidying up, tile, and lighting replacement um throughout several of the buildings as a part of um larger um replacement projects relating to most of um the schools. So, um it appears that that will be discussed and voted on on um the 7th. Um the reasoning for this was um told

088that they wanted to obtain prior um have more of an understanding of prior approval on this from bond counsel. Um it's my understanding that bond council had already been um um consulted and um had given approval for um these types of bonding projects not only for this year but in previous years. So, um we'll be looking to see what how that process unfolds. Um I think that these are really important projects for our buildings and for our schools and um the priority of you know our schools and how our schools are situated in our in our town and making sure that our buildings reflect the the actual um learning that goes on in them is important for our staff and our students and our families. Um, so I just wanted to um give everybody an

089update on that process and also kind of think about what our criteria and process moving forward given the breadth and the scope of work that needs to go on in our buildings. Let's just go back to the letter that you sent to your colleagues about the flooring and the scope of the job being contained with so that the bonding would contain all yes elements instead of just leaving the flooring out or Yeah, it's a good question. I don't I didn't I didn't attend and I didn't watch the meeting and so I had questions about what led to um the the tableling but um as I moved to all of you and to the selectment yesterday I participated in the call with Robinson and Cole a week ago Wednesday and David Panica who's served as you

090know broadcast for town had affirmed that um flooring ceiling tiles you know you know given a couple of you know kind of low threshold conditions were, you know, permissible for bonding and that comported with, you know, all of the conversations I've had to date with superintendents in the region about how, you know, those respected municipalities engage in, you know, bundling on packages and and so that, you know, I think there a couple of questions came up for me. I think number one, just need to better understand, you know, what what transpired and why and what, you know, the board of selectment may be contemplating. Um, I I don't know and I don't want to prejudge that. Um, I will say that, you know, if this doesn't come through, it's an incredible lost opportunity. We're tearing

091apart the Peterson wing so we can put in all of the piping for the new chiller. Uh, it's going to be pretty close to a gut job. So, you know, from my view, from my best understanding of what is, you know, legally acceptable, this should be a no-brainer. And if we can do it, if the money can be, you know, borrowed and bonded, then we should be able at the end of the summer deliver a close to kind of, you know, refurbished Peterson and then we can turn our attention to the rest of the building and, you know, the other $100 million worth of stuff that's got to get done, you know, just in the district. So, I think that's kind of the first thing. Um you know the other um just a question that

092I have you know the bathroom there was a proposal uh that was you know I think discussed at TAP presented you know to bundle both the Merwin Meadows bathroom so you know the the uh residence here and the high school fieldhouse and you know the decision there was to then to pay cash rather than to bond it again I don't want to judge the decision but it it feels like we're missing an opportunity community because we have other projects that you know are not permissible to be bonded. They're, you know, smaller in scope and um, you know, we we got to get that done, too. So, you know, my my worry here is that we're we just haven't um collectively moved to a point in time where we have a clear strategy and plan to

093address all of these needs. I feel like we're still talking about, you know, how to locate them and, you know, and I don't want to be in a um situation where we're, you know, we're competing for dollars with the town because there's so much that needs to be done. Um but I I do think as a minimum expectation we should be able to um have a process that makes sense that accommodates all of the many needs over what period of years and it should be well understood and there should be clarity about what can be borrowed and what should be cash and you know again not wanting to to judge what transpired. I was at their the the first part of the meeting Monday and uh I I was just surprised at some of the

094questions because I feel like some of those questions were actually answered. So, you know, we we do need to I but would be my recommendation that this board um you know, proactively um engage with the board of select human finance, you know, or or some subset just to to really um come up with some guiding um principles about how we're going to move this forward. Um the worst thing that can happen is we use another and that's you know that's not good for you know anybody. I do think that trying to find the the bright spots. I I think it's there was a lot of consensus at least in the T Snap group that the schools were a big priority. Uh there's a big long list, but the good news is that people recognize the

095immediiacy of what needs to be done in the schools, which was good. Yeah. Um take a little win when we can. Yeah, I think that you know the slight uncertainty I think you know look at that but the lack of clarity is yeah makes it difficult for that group to function. So, I think given the breadth of work that needs to be done within our buildings and and the scope of the work and and the amount of time that it'll take to push projects forward, I think um you know, Kevin's suggestion that we have a joint meeting where we all sit around the table and um kind of talk about a process and kind have a firm understanding of um where um projects live in bonding and where they live in other ES and how

096we appropriately um scale and prepare and time things out. So, we're not to the point where we're wondering if um you know, a demolition for one project in a building is not going to then provide for the ability to replace what come what gets demoed with something new as opposed to having them to rebuild with, you know, put back what's old. So, um, and to being able to, um, move those projects forward would be, uh, would be welcome. So, how do we do that? On the 11th, Ruth and I have a standing lunch date with uh, Tony M. I think that would be a good opportunity. We'll put that on the agenda and just try to, you know, just try to see what we can get together. Um, you know, I don't know that everyone's

097going to be looking towards the town meeting at this point, which is just about we should probably look at after that. Uh and um I do plan on being at the next um board of selectment meeting where they take up the remaining um bonding u proposal of the $1 million for the schools just to ensure if there's any questions or um things that need to be clarified or understood. Is that the seventh? That's Monday. Monday. Mhm. [Music] Any other um questions or points about very frustrating it's a challenge right not to renovate themselves. I agree. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. No, and I think at this point in time, we've been, you know, we have the needs assessment. We've been talking about this for a while. So, to um make sure that there's a

098pathway in place where we don't lose any more time. Well, we've just kicked it down the road for too many years and now we just have to we have to do it. Period. And do it right. That is the key. Yes. Yes. is is if it's being demolished to be part of the project, is it even feasible to put it back together again afterwards without the need for? Well, I was, you know, that I was doing worst case planning, that's in part what you paid me for. And so I was trying to imagine welcoming kids back to school next year when we've got, you know, brand new piping and old lighting and ceiling tiles and, you know, dirty flooring because the old pipes leaked all over and they existed. So I mean, yeah. And again,

099I I don't know what the conversation was or, you know, it could be a good reason. Maybe they want to triple the amount. So I don't really know I'll certain. Yep. So, but but I I think that you know just that they can if you know what was presented is is accurate in Good Morning Wilson that there's still a question about the permissibility. Um I'm I'd like to know specifically what those questions are and you know kind of what what hesitations and just as a matter of course um as the town approves bonding those all get reviewed by bond council and and so I'm just um have some questions move towards answers And next uh oh such a happy special high school class of 2025 graduation date. Yay. Dr. O'Donnell, what day do you want

100to graduate? Saturday, June 14th. Dr. Smith, we have a motion, please, to set June. I move to set June 14th for the graduating graduation of the class of 2025. Is there a second? I'll second both of you. Be second. All in favor? Motion carries unanimously. So, um, parents and families and students, mark your calendars. Uh, Saturday the 14th. May it be sunny and lovely. Yes. Yeah. Last year the the walking the graduating seniors through Middlebrook and Sireville was a big hit. has a chance to do that this year. There's already conversations. We have our first graduation meeting next week. So, that will be on the agenda. Okay. And the little kids, everybody will graduating kids and teachers teachers. Um, next up, a WPS 2526 uh district calendar modifications. Great. So um you you know heard

101you know a pretty lengthy discussion about the importance of the the time that we have. The real focus here and the question that's emerged that you there there are other questions about calendar the driving question this year really had to do with the additional um early release Wednesdays um which I'm going to turn to Dr. the falcon and she can tell us why Wednesdays are the day and not Mondays or Fridays or Tuesdays or Thursdays. Um but there were some so we you know we um we we received some feedback from a few had some conversations with our PTA presidents. Um I convened a small committee of teachers to come in and give me some feedback. And so kind of through all those conversations, you know, there were some smaller kinds of questions that uh

102came up. One being, you know, can we, you know, always align our April break with all the other districts? Um, and the answer is sometimes it may, but not always. Um, and so, you know, this year we're out of sync with a lot of districts. Um, there are always districts who are out of sync. Um, but we'll, you know, I think, um, I spoke to, uh, Judy May CDs. They publish a regional calendar that both schools that you know receive kids from a bunch of districts. So, we'll try to keep an eye on that. You know, in past years, we have published our calendar, you know, ahead of just about everybody. And so, we've set our dates um sooner. And I would just say for the record, like nobody ever calls me to say, "Hey,

103you know, when are you doing yours?" And so, you know, as much as I want to accommodate, it's primarily a staff request. You know, we do our best. Um, and so we'll push back the timing of, you know, presentation subsequent calendars. Um, but I just, you know, nobody should have any illusions that it's always going to work out everywhere, you know, because it just never does for all kinds of different reasons. Um, so, so that was one. Um, the, you know, some of the other questions that, you know, came up that we were able to accommodate, as you'll see in this calendar, you know, this was a specific request from some of the high school staff. Um, they had expressed some concern on our high school testing days when in the fall and kids take

104the PSAT. In the spring, they take the SAT. um that after that testing period when we release that back to class they get to just gonzo and you know really not in the you know best shape for prime learning. So the recommendation um was could we you know turn those into u professional learning days and send the kids home afterwards. So that's in the calendar. Um you'll see that change. Um and then you know the last one really was around just the um you know perceived and actual disruption um of the month of October. And so this came from both immigrants and staff that you know when you're trying to establish routines and you know get into the flow of school um between the holidays and uh Columbus Day and you know then some early

105review days it just felt really disjointed. Um so we've made some changes and so you'll see kind of through September October there. Um and then you know the final question that you know we started with was you know why not Monday, Tuesday, Thursday or Friday for you say why does it have to be Wednesday? So Dr. Fner why Wednesday? Well I know it feels like they're half days really if it's not on a Wednesday and we can align it with our faculty meeting time at least in our schools. I know that will get the benefit from it. Um, we really only have an hour and a half. Like, I know that that sounds kind of crazy, but when it's on a Wednesday, we get 2 and 1 half hours of solid time. And to do

106this heavy lifting that we're doing, we need that time. I know most of our training, you can't do it in less than 2 hours. Um, so I would push to keep it on Wednesdays. And I will tell you there's nothing worse as a teacher before vacation on Friday afternoon and you're trying to ask them to do professional learning. So just as a So the Wednesday permits it to be a 2 and 1/2 hour block 3 through 12. Okay. Yeah. It's the time but it's still because why are faculty meetings on Wednesdays? um that is a um contractual obligation we have and so you know if that's something we we wanted to change we could talk about you have to think about whether I think that's a good idea or not but you know that's that's

107why it's not we don't have discretion just to pick out and those meetings on that's something that has to be bargained so that's really why Wednesday is Wednesday um and the chunk of time it it's also the reason why we're we use early release and not arrival because we want the we want the for as many as we can you know provide it to we we want the elongated amount of time. So uh let me just you might have both counts here. So you can see the whole calendar. So are not doing there's not one on October 10th move it to October 22nd. So that's to accommodate the high schooling day. November there is no early release day just happened that's the election day full um PD day um December um 10 that's kind of

108remained January 14th um that has remained um the we we kept the day in February so one of the things that I was you know initially thinking was like wouldn't it be great if we could even remove a few of these days and just add another full day uh professional learning day but the net effect of that is it adds 188th day to our teachers contract and so that we have to pay for it and so that's just it's not so in order to get the time we have to keep the early use these days we did take one out of the early part of the year and move it to May so you see the May 6th day there um and I even there's some questions about that so you know I'm going to

109hold on that calendar now you I may come back around after some more conversation and say we're going to shake That's it. Um, you know, again, I think thinking about all of these, you know, some of the other features in the calendar, um, when the for the years that Miller disco was being constructed in order to give the u the construction companies much time, we actually shifted our school start to after Labor Day. And I mean, people thought that was glorious. I kind of thought that was glorious. Summer felt like summer. And then in one of those years, I'm going to say maybe 2018 and 11 snow days. It was like, hey, what are you doing on June 30th going to school? So, you know, that was a problem. Not just because everyone is toast,

110you know, in the second half of June, but families make plans. So, we had all kinds of kids who were going off to camp and doing these other things. And, you know, they had this dual obligation of also being required to school. So um we keep the the start of the school year you know at the end of August and you know again through experience I've you know really developed a very belief that um you know once you get you know past you know mid June that the quality of the time school just goes away. So, it's it's really not worth pushing the end of the school year, you know, farm in June. Um, so, you know, it's it's better to try to farm. So, that that's why we have those pieces. Um, you know,

111the other things are are pretty, you know, kind of static. The February break is the February break. The December break is the December break. Um, I don't think there's anything else that I'm missing. So, I I'll take if you have questions, I'll take those. Otherwise, I would ask for a motion to um adopt a 256 calendar. Just to um recap, this amended calendar has two less one less. One less one less. So now we're at seven. Correct. The um a couple questions. one the the half days for I just remind me the rationale why we have four half days or shortened days for conferences for K8 and why can't we condense those into you know that's something we've we've looked at again and we haven't made a formal study I have you know in fairness

112I I've been thinking about parent engagement and how do we engage parents differently in conversations um about their kids progress and performance. And so um I don't have a a good answer, but we have had this is the time we've had and we use and it's you know the time that we need in order for all of our teachers to to spend time with all of the families, you know, particularly at um Insider Mill so they can have, you know, 15 to 20 minute conversations. Um we I think at one point when I first got here there was actually a fifth day that we removed because the you know consensus that we didn't consolidate I did ask um you know Peg um when I was writing you know I was interested in trying to engage

113in a conversation you know just preliminarily about you know some of these days and you know some just the the quick feedback was um at least and if I'm miscing you say so but the teachers that you know she spoke to seem to you know appreciate these conference days and I do not want to take them out of the calendar without having something else. You can't ask teachers, you know, we can't just remove them and demand that teachers, you know, meet with parents, you know, prior to the start and day at the end of the day, you know, that's it. We have to, you know, bargain at that point. Um, so that's my long way of saying, you know, this is why they're there. But I think to answer your question, it is something to

114for the board to think about whether we want to ask him having to engage in maybe a more formal study about, you know, teacher needs and parent needs and how we look at those things. Yeah, you don't even need to ask. It's been on my priority to-do list for you about it. It's been, you know, it's not repeat goals. This is one of those areas I just have not been able to get to. But it's it's important and you know again if not other districts just do what we do or do they have night ones do and how does that work? I think you'd have to look across districts. You know when I was in Bethl uh at the middle school you know we had I think two or three days but they were uh

115conferences took place you know kind of all day long you know in through the early evening hours. Um, some other districts have fall conferences and spring conferences. You know, we don't really have don't have spring conferences. So, I I think it depends. I'd be curious to know how many how many conferences are happening through Zoom versus in person and whether that provides efficiency. I mean, just way more common now. So, yeah, I think it it does. And, you know, I'd have to rely on the principles at this point. At least in some cases, you know, parents are given the option, right? Yeah. Yeah. And then December 23rd and then the last three days of the year that are all early release days. Are those P days or No. No. Uh those are just end of

116year record keeping closing out school year time for teachers. Okay. And the 23rd is No, that's just an early release day. Okay. For everybody leading into the holiday. Yeah. And then the second cuz I know that this year the first was a Wednesday. So the kids came back to school for like a truncated week the first week of Jan. We're off the second. Is that just because we don't think people will come back for one day? The Us function of trying to stretch out the break. We had an opportunity because you know we're not going super late into June. Um it's a shorter week. Yeah. this, you know, the you'll see over time that December break depending on where Christmas falls. That breaks longer and some years get this one. I think we have come

117into the this current year and then the next year. This past year was longer on the other end. Yeah. Where we, you know, we ended on a Friday and the holidays wasn't until Wednesday or Thursday. Yeah. There's no answer. Curious. I can't imagine that many people would come if there were way come back for a Friday. No. Any other question? Any other questions on the calendar? Um, is there a motion to approve the revised proposed calendar for the 2526 school year? Thank you. P second. Thank you, Heather. All in favor? I I any motion carries [Music] unanimously. Right. And then this um the last action under here is just a approval for science 26. And so they asked for so that way they have the opportunity. [Music] So this is as you know a well

118established um have science that is a transformative time when uh this comes to you because it's your obligation as a board to improve international trips. highly supportive and great. It's a great question on the Costa Rica trip and is there a motion to approve the Costa Rica trip from June 24th, 2026 to July 2nd, 2026? Is there a second? Thank you, Lori. All in favor? Motion carries unanimously. Happy Costa Rica planning. Um any comments from the public? Um hearing none, just future business meeting on Monday the 7th and our next meet regular meeting is April 17th and then the annual town meeting will be a regular meeting on May 1st and then the annual town meeting on May 6th. That meeting adjourned 8:45. [Music]