BOE Meeting (9 June 2022)

001attributed countless hours supporting the work of the school and our school parent partnerships they've coordinated programs and raised funds to very generously support our teachers support our students and support so many really cool programs that we run through the district when we were meeting yesterday michelle so i'm going to remember this right asked me to shout out our teachers our middle brook teachers in particular who came forward with so many really great grant proposals and so it's just another indication of this tremendous partnership but we want to thank all of you so i got out my calculator as i was looking at the gifts and grants and it appears that you know collectively this year our ptas have contributed over seventy four thousand dollars to our students to our teachers [Applause] oh there's the baby

002[Music] how you doing we're gonna say you're doing great congratulations that's so cute so just on a personal note that's been a long-standing practice and i have really benefited personally from the conversation the input the feedback the exchange we have i think it's a professional comfortable relationship that we have and i know for a fact this district has benefited from from that conversation and i look forward to it continuing so on behalf of our board of education our entire staff i want to offer a very heartfelt thanks and we have a small token that we're going to offer you tonight so why don't you just come on up um [Applause] karen [Applause] michelle we'll deliver flowers we'll get them to you all right so let's just have another round of our uh foundation so they

003may be online but you should know we have many partners including and beyond our pta the wilton education foundation represented by the officers jim kinion and jen carvajal who co-lead that organization they also work tirelessly to support our schools and advance our strategic objectives through targeted donations in service to our major initiatives so this year wef has contributed generously to supporting our professional learning efforts particularly around our implementation of portrait of the graduate and they've supported the continued development of our library learning commons wef contributed this year 49 000 to our library learning commons spaces to create innovation spaces to develop a state-of-the-art podcasting station upstairs at the high school to introduce 3d printers here at the high school and also at our lower schools they purchased equipment to support the robotics and 3d engineering

004programs that we have taking place in our schools they've also [Music] supported the equipment around circuitry and all kinds of art and craft supplies to help promote creativity and innovation when kids come into our maker spaces so we want to say a very big thank you to the world education foundation someone appears we will thank them again just you know moving down the list here we are also um generously supported by um all kinds of booster clubs there's a fair number of booster clubs that support our athletics we also have a music booster club and a theater booster club and those folks too just commit countless hours and all kinds of funds to support our creative arts programs and our athletics so we want to say thank you to those folks are you are you

005also representing the boosters today um great so we didn't know who was coming so we have these fun little thank yous so on behalf of all of us this [Music] [Applause] we wanted to also take a minute and say thank you to all of our building substitutes um there's not as many as we need um but you know they're steadfast and they show up when we need them and honestly um if you take them in and think back about the year we've had we literally could not have run school at moments this year without our substitute teachers so to that group of people we also want to offer and extend a heartfelt thank you and please come back because we need you so a round of applause [Applause] so i'm excited this year one of

006our long-standing practices has been to take one of the last board meetings of the year and to ceremonially present yearbooks as just one of the other kind of closing activities we have and so um i it's my understanding is the high school yearbook inbound it is okay um so i'm not sure kind of who's going to do what but why don't we start with the high school and we can present the high school yearbook and then we'll move on to middlebrook and then cider mill and did you guys tell me you have a yearbook all right so there's a first a first new here so please yeah i do okay so we have our outstanding class of 2022 um 2122 behind the scenes i have the chance to peruse it a little bit today and

007uh it's an outstanding depiction of all the things going on at the high school well some of the things that go on in high school you can never quite capture all of it and uh we're going to be very proud of it and i'm honored to present this to debbie lowe our florida vet chair debbie this is a gift from us to the board of education we hope that you cherish it thanks for all your support [Applause] i promise not to look at it during the meeting as tempted as i might be thank you thank we're doing a little differently with students this is marine hi so do you want to introduce yourself and tell us about your yearbook part of um yearbook club and so i think from september to about february or march

008we have been maybe the yearbook we've been taking photos and we've been just every monday or every other monday we've been coming and making sure the yearbook looks good making sure everything went well so this is the class of 2021 2022 and yeah thank you terrific [Applause] doctor representative secretary mill good evening everyone this year book is probably the best one i've ever seen there's a picture of me and actually halfway decent in it so it's a fantastic airboat but stay safe stay positive stay strong i think it's a fantastic message a big thank you to um mickey giuliani and carolyn dean for all their hard work and the support and publication of the yearbook so i'll come over and present this to you debbie [Applause] thanks jeremy so we have a first of its

009kind miller driscoll a yearbook that um is just printing kathy's lap guess what we have a yearbook who knew um so they made this yearbook just special just for you so this is our logistical yearbook and it has a beautiful rainbow on the front because we love rainbows and unicorns and lollipops and things like that but here we go [Applause] so jim you got here just in time right so we were just presenting the pta presidents and we just a minute presented wef but now you're here um we won't retrace those steps but um since you're president you just walked in the door i want to take another opportunity on behalf of our board and our entire school community to say thank you for your tremendous contributions for your financial contributions for your work toward

010contributing to the development of our portion of the graduate it means a lot so thank you [Applause] thank you very much we're happy to do it um so we have a salute to excellence tonight um and joining the many unsung heroes here in our district are our custodial and our maintenance staff there aren't even words i think that could adequately describe how much these folks mean to us and how vital they are to our operation so we have jose figaro who is our facilities director here jose would you mind standing um maddie corcoran who is our plant manager here at the high school guillermo ramirez is here and ramon come on stand up so ramon is part of our maintenance crew so representing themselves representing all of our custodial staff take a minute take a

011bow we want to say thank you for making our school [Applause] so guillermo tried to retire on us and i just begged him not i said you can't leave this man is here all day every day seven days a week morning noon and night there is no job that's too big for him he is out mowing the grass that's not his to mow pruning the bushes that aren't his to prune painting where we need paint and every other thing in between and honest to god he is at some point going to go ahead and retire and i don't know what we're going to do without you yeah so thank you gee thank you all right so we're on to our retiree recognition um why don't we start with um okay no crying too late already

012crying all right here we go ellen ready all right ellen murphy is a dedicated teacher who has spent the last 17 years working and supporting students who are learning english here in wilton during that time ellen has worked in every single building for many and for many years was the lone ell teacher in the district more recently we've been fortunate to have ellen in our building for the majority of her time with this dedicated time i have come to know ellen quite well i've learned she is the person who values her family and is incredibly proud of her twins look at they came tonight isn't that so sweet i've also learned that when times get tough she gets even tougher she is a fighter i don't know if you know this about ellen but she

013is very entertaining so when we were quarantined during the first part of covid ellen very quickly learned how to zoom into the homes of her students and to keep them engaged she dressed up in amazing costumes i only wish i had a screen or had prepared some things for the screen up here where i could show you the examples of the character she portrayed many from the disney movies because her students love those it was incredible that is just one small example of the connection she's made with her students and families right now you could say the name of pretty much any student who is years beyond miller driscoll and ellen can tell you all about them what they liked what they didn't like what motivated them the names of their sisters their brothers probably

014their cousins the list goes on and on she is a wealth of knowledge okay so for ellen i chose this book home is in between by matali perkins this is the story of a young girl shanti who moves to america from india it tells about the joys and challenges of living between two very different cultures it reminds me of the work ellen does with her students and families every day on a final note just like ellen has stayed in touch with her students and families over the years i hope she will do the same with all of us congratulations [Applause] me 17 years ago i didn't know if i was going to get a chance to say that yeah fascinated me and hired me a wonderful thing good choice good choice all right okay karen

015farber is our other retiree at miller driscoll karen has been a valuable member of the preschool team for over 25 years supporting students in whatever ways are needed she works closely with her preschool colleagues to design programs to meet the diverse needs of the students in the program in additionally she in addition she works closely with parents of our littles to be sure they also know how to best support their child as they navigate their unique needs an email from a parent recently commented on how wonderfully their child is doing years after having karen and here's what it said our son is doing really great all that hard work and that critical foundation you did has really been paying off he is curious kind full of joy sort of a math whiz and just a

016blast to be around i know your new crop of soldiers is very lucky to have you just wanted to quickly check in and let you know what a big impact you made on our son and i am so grateful for that in addition to her work as a speech pathologist karen is also a fierce advocate for the work we have done in the area of diversity and inclusion she has been a wonderful sounding board and is always ready and willing to offer her opinion and ideas for that reason we are dedicating this book change things by amanda gorman to our school library in karen's name karen shared this book with me and i'm excited it will now have her name on it when it is shared with others congratulations [Applause] all right so we are

017excited to celebrate chris zwang dr falcone wrote a a nice write up here which i'll read chris has been part of our wilton public school family for 30 years so yes i was just two when she started cider mill school is so thankful that chris has chosen cider mill as her home for the past 13 years every day she works closely with special education teachers classroom teachers and other fantastic paraprofessionals above all chris is passionate about forming connections with each and every student she works with many of the students that chris work with have significant disabilities her creative mind flexible thinking and compassion help each and every one of her students succeed she has also served as a mentor for the other paraprofessionals and teachers that she works with in the classroom we are grateful

018for all she has shared with so many of our students and families we will miss chris's bright smile and humor in the halls of cider mill we are excited to donate a copy of the big umbrella written by june and juniper bates to our cider mill library this book highlights the themes and importance of kindness and empathy we believe it is a perfect book to celebrate chris zwang's own character thank you chris for so many dedicated years you have shared empathy and kindness with our students and staff you will be missed [Applause] good evening i get to to do this three times so bear with me for just a sec and the first person i'm going to speak about is kathy weidner uh kathy has been a dedicated professional and a paraprofessional in the wilton

019school system for 20 years 19 of them at the brook at middlebrook school where she says she has quote made connections to the talented staff who've helped foster growth to our wonderful students end quote she admires the leadership put forth at middlebrook where everyone is respected and valued the book that's been selected to place in our library honoring kathy is bud not buddy by christopher todd curtis a little bit about kathy she grew up in massachusetts where she spent her summers and weekends in new hampshire on lake winnipesaukee she attended boston university where she met her husband of 43 years am i right on the fact so far okay good they have two children matt and caitlyn who went through the wilton public schools and she graduated and they graduated from wilton high school in

0202000 and 2003 respectively her son married his college sweetheart they have two children hazel who's nine and wes who's seven who live by nearby in darien while her daughter lives in new york city gives you a little idea what you're going to be doing what what kathy will be doing very soon her plans for retirement also include improving her piano skills becoming fluent speaking french lowing her golf handicap and improving her tennis serve and also her finesse of pickleball uh short of all that to spend time with family travel more volunteer and be active so i'm honored to say that this book will be in the llc in honor of you so congratulations [Applause] she said she likes that book so that's good to hear the next person i'd love to honor now is susan

021kelly who's a music and chorus teacher at middlebrook susan kelly joined the wilton public schools in 2012 as a choral and general music teacher at middlebrook school during her tenure she's enjoyed teaching general music excuse me vocal and co-teaching the sixth seventh and eighth grade choruses before coming to wilton she taught in the brewster new york uh system for six years uh chorus and strings is that right so far so good okay pardon and in cold springs for two years uh k-12 general music chorus 6-8 and choir for high school in addition susan has enjoyed 11 years with the wilton singers she's taught private voice and piano lessons for many years and has been a clinician for several honor choral ensembles and has adjudicated many regional and state vocal auditions the book that's been selected

022to place in our library honoring susan is change sings by amanda gorman [Applause] um janet gave me that book for christmas this year and i shared it with all my classes just really digest what this book is all about um and so when the question came up i just said it's either going to be beatles or change saints susan will be uh joining her husband in retirement in their home in keene new hampshire where she will enjoy the beautiful outdoors their lake cabin and much time with their grandson desmond congratulations we're going to miss you oh enjoy being missed bye carol festo carol is a grade 8 science teacher at middlebrook she joined the wilton public schools in and that was to com complete her student teaching experience and was then hired the next year

023as a middlebrook science teacher she's been instrumental in supporting both staff through their work on the sunshine committee and she has organized and celebrated countless events in our building in the classroom or as a team leader she connects wonderfully with students supporting their every need and establishing an environment that promotes care and understanding the book that's been selected to place in our library arming carol is the horse encyclopedia by dorling kindersley do you know it okay just a little hint to one of her other loves um this is not such a subtle hint of an important hobby of carols carol will be missed as she moves on to retirement to enjoy her love of travel and all things equine we wish you all the best with frank congratulations [Applause] you're welcome so would you please

024stand i want us all to see this evening we honor sue mangan for her exemplary service to our school and students as a parent ptsa member ptsa president and most importantly as our long-term counseling assistant in our school counseling department in her role in school counseling sue has been a mother a mentor and a very trusted adult to all of our students especially our juniors and seniors as they navigate the college process she has proven to be a rudder of stability in what can be a turbulent seize of the college process sue is revered by our students to the extent that she received not one but two standing ovations recently at this year's academic awards ceremony two of our student leaders also provided personal sentimental testimony about the positive impact sue has had on them

025and their peers over the years sue has often told me and this is true that she has the best job in the school working directly with these students so she's shaking her head so in reality these students have benefited so much from your love your guidance and they have had the best friend mentor and mother in you in honor of you we are dedicating this book until we meet again by renee collins to our library learning comments you're welcome uh fortunately sue still has a home in wilton for now and she's going to spend her time between wilton and the cape and also with her lovely family wilton high school graduates by the way and her grandchildren who she's been pining to see more often so sue you haven't even left and we miss you

026so much already thank you so much we're counting on it uh dan murray i think is not here but i'm honored to say a few words about dan murray so dan murray has been our go-to person in tech support at wilton high school for the past 24 years we've all appreciated and benefited from dan's tech expertise and his responsiveness to all of our tech needs the school would not be up and running as smoothly as it is all the time without dan trust me dan has always sought to prioritize our students and ensure that instruction continues very well at our high school while doing so he has always been service oriented and he wanted to ensure that our technology was working before he moved on to his next ticket they got a lot of tickets

027and tech support in the schools in case you didn't know that when asked dan's colleagues described him as a great friendly guy competent witty and we all enjoy beginning our morning with dan and often very very responsive they also noted that he consistently goes above and beyond expectations and he is a hard worker dan is literally the first person reporting to the school to ensure that our technology our offices and our classrooms are ready to welcome students to a vibrant learning environment dan we thank you for your 24 years of dedicated service in your honor we are dedicating the book tubes a journey to the center of the internet to the wilton high school library learning commons that's for dan murray and dan is is threatening to leave the area and move down south which

028i think he's going to do but uh we'll miss him and in the 24 years he's made a major impact on our students and our programs and our courses in our school so thank you dan murray before we allow you to leave um i just wanted to speak a couple of minutes on behalf of the board of education first of all it's impossible to have a quality school district without active and involved and of parents and community members so we really do value the ptas the wilton education foundation and the booster clubs we also don't often enough realize that we really don't work with certain pieces of the puzzle and those are our substitutes and our maintenance and custodial crew and this last couple of years has shown us that more than ever so thank

029you to our substitutes and our custodial maintenance staff you have really weathered literally several storms of all different kinds so thanks for helping us get through this hard time and then last it's always bittersweet when i listen to the accolades that the retirees so well deserved wilton has built its excellence also on the legacy of its phenomenal staff and to watch all of you walk out of the door is bittersweet to say the least we know and we wish you good things but you will be sorely missed and we appreciate and love and will miss your commitment and your dedication and your daily presence so know you're going to live on in lots of different ways through your colleagues and the memories of your kids or your students and the appreciation of our whole staff

030and district so thank you all so so you are you will not be rude if you need to leave it's fine now we're going to proceed into regular board of ed business so you're welcome to stay but we also understand you might have better things to do on a beautiful summer night there's a concert and there's a concert i didn't realize that okay um superintendents report great thank you um so want to continue that uh congratulations here our boys varsity lacrosse team had a significant win last night in the semifinals of the class m so they're moving on sunday to play uh notre dame west haven i think in the class m final so we want to congratulate our boys lacrosse team so that game is going to take place at i think 12 30

031here at sacred heart university if people are interested we also want to congratulate high school student avni gupta who's been recognized as a scholar in this year's national cyber scholarship program which is sponsored by the national cyber scholarship foundation and cyber foundations academy avni participated in a multi-week online training program and competed against more than 45 000 other students from across the country and of that number she was among the 1100 or so who were recognized as scholars so we want to congratulate avni we also want to recognize our fantastic video production programs across the district recently the area 9 cable councilmen to review submissions and grant awards they annually recognize schools for their outstanding productions this year wilton public schools earned 10 awards between cider mill and our high school and our cider mill

032team won the coveted genre picky award for their elementary production so we want to congratulate them and then just as a just as a closing comment here you all know this has been an incredibly challenging and rewarding year our staff members and families have demonstrated incredible resilience over the course of this year despite all of the challenges we've addressed our priorities and we've been able to move the needle on student achievement as you will see again in jory and bob's presentations even in the face of challenges beyond our control we committed to academic recovery and we have evidence that our plans are working and so i want to say thank you again to all of our education community members and i'm looking forward to graduation which is a week from saturday and we're going to

033have beautiful weather and so we'll be on the field at one o'clock so thank you thank you oh thank you great um committee reports did teaching and learning meet uh i paul um the business operations committee met this morning um and it was a you know a sort of a preparing looking ahead for next year's budget process and members agreed including some of the board of finance members who are on our committee that we'd all like and appreciate it if it would be smaller or not smaller smoother and more collaborative uh next year and to that end agreed on some ways to perhaps chunk the budget presentation so there's more information on different items in the budget and sort of do a deeper dive and then there was coordination of some calendar dates to make

034it more convenient for board of finance members so anyway all all things you know sort of positive going forward in terms of process and agreement on some timelines and some areas to look more closely into and i know the policy committee met but i think we're going to be talking about what you did soon enough okay um what's next now promised it's the last covet update the last regularly occurring standing coveted update and then we can take it off the agenda i hope yes all right so uh seriously just um very briefly um this is the last one that we'll have as a standing agenda item and cross your fingers that we won't need to have it as routinely as we've had over the last i don't know 28 months or so so in very

035short the good news continues so we can as you know we monitor uh covert activity daily as we reported at the last board meeting our numbers then were half what they were the week before and our numbers this week are half what they were the last time i reported to you so we continued the very positive trend down we had just three cases reported today for yesterday and i think about a dozen on monday so we are looking forward to that continued trend fairfield county is back in the medium risk level and i suspect as the dph numbers catch up here in wilton will transition back to medium risk or low risk again very shortly so we're moving right along in the right direction thanks our next item we heard two schools at the prior

036meeting and now we're going to finish the school action plan updates and some map and psat data so we're all all concentrated on the secondary level tonight did somebody put up the slideshow yeah all right so while they're doing that so we're back here again with more slides and more data so i just wanted to give you a little bit of a preview that might make the information a little bit more digestible for you so again this isn't much different than what we saw with the elementary most of our students demonstrated a greater than greater than a year's worth of academic growth although you notice that it's not uniform across grade level subject areas or sub groups in some cases the rate of growth appears to have been slower in the second half of the

037school year not as much as we saw in the elementary and i think there are a number of reasons for that which i've already discussed at the last meeting however student dysregulation and behavior seems to have been quite a significant factor at the high school level during the second half of the school year okay at the middle school level we have either achieved our goal of 80 percent at benchmark or come very close so not only have many of our students recovered from unfinished learning we are now seeing more of them reach benchmark than we saw prevent pandemic at the high school level we see some promising results for certain subject areas and cohorts of students but some lingering concerns for other subject areas and groups as we review this data i will try to

038share our best thinking around which cohorts and instructional domains we need to focus on next year so all of that said i'm overall i'm still very encouraged by the amount of growth our students made this year and confident that we can that we can continue to build on that growth our teachers and students have been working very hard to recover from unfinished learning and our accelerated learning framework has been an effective approach to supporting their efforts so let's get right into the data i can get this thing to work am i doing this wrong [Music] okay next one just advance it manually so just advance it manually please next one okay so we'll start with ela in sixth grade so what you'll notice here is that the spring 2021 it's this cohort to spring 2022

039was a 10-point increase in the number of students meeting benchmark that's very significant certainly the fall to spring was more modest but there was still growth since this you know the test gets harder across the uh fall winter and spring unfortunately we really didn't get more students to benchmark all right so math i think your friend speaks for itself spring to spring and fall to spring was a very good growth significant numbers of children meeting benchmark in seventh grade you'll go to spring to spring and fall to spring good growth and we met our goal eighty percent there was a winter dip but they recovered nicely from it [Music] very proud of this result spring to spring and fall to spring excellent growth i'd also like to call your attention to the stats and probability

040you notice last year they were at 47 of our students meeting benchmark we're now at and i know there were some concerns about the province that the way the teachers approached probability and statistics this year they used a combination of both synchronous and asynchronous work to address those standards but it seems to have worked well i would point out there was no grading for any of the asynchronous work this was a necessity because of the issue of instructional time which we've discussed at length next slide this is eighth grade again spring to spring very nice growth they did show some growth fall to winter but they kind of slid back from winter to spring i know in discussing this with central office staff as well as the eighth grade teachers they feel the kids were

041a little checked out at the end of the year when they took the test a little bit of senioritis it's their theory not sure if i buy it but again spring to spring very impressive growth spring to spring very good growth getting closer to goal very close to goal fall to spring was more modest i would point out though in the operations and algebraic thinking we went from 62 to 72 to 79 fall to spring certainly eighth grade emphasizes algebraic thinking that's what the curriculum is about and so obviously the teachers did quite well with that and again i'm very pleased that they're close to goal one so this is our special education information i think you'll notice good growth in ela and you'll see good growth in math except in eighth grade i don't

042know if you recall but in prior years in the special ed realm we very often saw no change from year to year and from trimester to trimester so um these aren't the numbers we would like to see but they are vastly better than what we've seen in prior years and i again would attribute that to the work our general ed teachers are doing to make sure that all students needs are met in the general ed classroom debbie in case you're interested sixth grade had 52 students grade 7 had 61 and grade 8 had 49. that represents 18 19 and 17 respectively that was going to be my question you're welcome those are rather high numbers numbers it was 61 students which is 19 of the grade so you know seventh grade really has made amazing

043growth given that almost 20 of their kids are identified okay next slide all right so again this is this very confusing data here i'm going to tell you that it's a mixed bag in ela you'll notice in sixth more students were identified as below benchmark in the spring less students in seventh grade but more students in eighth grade we were about even in special ed in sixth grade increase in seventh grade but a decrease in eighth grade the news in math was much better we saw either a decrease across the board or state or a leveling so a decrease in the general ed in sixth seventh and eighth we saw a decrease in high needs students in seventh grade and pretty much stayed the same in um sixth and eighth it's important to remember with

044the special ed numbers that those are fluid so we're not talking about a matched cohort kids enter and exit special ed so it's hard to make comparisons next slide so this is the really really nice story if i could just get up here because it'll be easier i'm going to go backwards so if you look at the current eighth grade they're at last year they were at 66 and in fifth grade they were at 72. so you'll notice that three pandemic we're so again we've exceeded the number 68 77 so we have recovered in um it's 83. but again i'm very very could you go to the next one okay so i'm going to do the same thing i think it's a little bit more impressive 79-68-59 79 53 61 71 58 71 so again

045this group has at least recovered okay so those cohorts that that's important information okay so and this is just another way of looking at it so each student has a growth target based upon their map you'll notice the percentages of students who actually met their growth target the column all the way on the right is the percentage of growth target that's the one that we really look at because if on average students are achieving 60 if their cgp is 60 or better they're growing more than a year's worth so you'll notice that we exceeded that in seventh grade and we were very close close in sixth and eighth average growth is fifty percent we are going to need to shore up sixth and eighth grade specifically in the area of ela we need to be

046more attentive to pacing to make sure we're getting through all of the units i think it was understandable this year that the teachers had struggles getting through all of the units given the level of learning loss that the students are demonstrating we believe that the launch unit needs to be emphasized more reading habits and routines need to be established firmly before we continue with the rest of the units and we're going to continue to use the iabs as unit assessments next slide well i can say it's a beautiful i know that's a geeky daily thing thing to say but that's beautiful growth in math which was our focus at middlebrook okay next slide here in special ed you'll notice in seventh and eighth grade they exceeded their growth that we would expect particularly in eighth

047grade i'm not quite sure what was going on in sixth grade i don't know the group that well but that's an area we're going to need to focus on a little bit more and again seventh and eighth in math we were on target with growth sixth it's about average growth you know i should note that in prior years we often saw less than fifty percent growth in this area of special ed so overall these are significant improvements from prior years and again it's it's that teamwork between the general ed teachers and the special ed teachers they've really done a a wonderful job this year next one i want to modulate your expectations here these are predictions um we're hoping that we come close to them but certainly those are very very encouraging given prior years

048i'm not sure we're going to get quite to those levels but i think we'll come close next slide okay this is math again significant improvement over prior years we are oddly enough able to see some of the sba results right now they're not completely in but they seem to be on target for achieving those okay let's move on to the high school so grade 10 is definitely a bright spot there um ninth grade always seems to be a tough transition but i'm fairly optimistic that we will be able to get more of those students many more of those students to benchmark by 11th grade and that's historically what we've been able to do our english teachers grow kids really well across their time of the high school so i'm cautiously optimistic that that will improve

04911th grade the one thing i would like to point out is that that is what we're comparing is the psat in the spring 21 and fall 21 to the actual sat in spring 22. because that's what they take in the spring they take the actual accountability test that's a longer test it covers more content this particular cohort also has 23 of their students identified for special education which is a very high number it's a cohort that we've had our eyes on for many many years um and they have struggled both academically and behaviorally we're not used to anything below 90 in erb at the high school level but it's close but it is a particularly challenging cohort and a cohort that i think was disproportionately impacted by the by the pandemic next slide so again

05010th grade is a bit of a bright spot here same comments applied in ninth grade it was a tough transition but i'm optimistic that they will improve and the same comments about 11th grade except i would point out that from fall of 2021 to spring 2022 there was a 10-point difference generally speaking historically we have seen no change from fall to spring so i really want to commend the math department for the really hard work that they did in addressing the the needs of this group that particular group i would point out was also in algebra in ninth grade when we shut down and i think that had a lasting impact upon their their achievement okay nice growth in 9th and 10th for our students in special education 11th grade made a regression but again

051i think this is a group that was disproportionately impact impacted by the um pandemic so in math 10th grade nice growth 11th grade some growth it's important to say unfortunately in ninth grade there was a regression and again i don't know much about this particular group of kids but in terms of high school math and this applies to middlebrook as well andrea has been very generous in funding a special professional learning opportunity for our math teachers at the secondary level um that is going to involve some learning cycles with an outside agency known as better lessons they're going to be working with our teachers for all students but with a particular focus on our students who struggle in math i'm very excited about that professional learning opportunity they've already begun doing some of the work

052and i've been able to sit in on some of the meetings with our coaches and our teachers and it's been going really well and i think it will make a huge difference with our our struggling students thank you andrea for funding that so that's my presentation do you have any questions questions comments there's a lot of information to digest in terms of the prediction yes um while some of the news seemed really good in math but and the ela was like okay but not stellar given what we're sometimes used to but it's the predictions ela is still way up yes in math so why you know i don't know okay um it's really hard i have preliminary results but we haven't finished the testing sure my sense is that we have enough to say that

053the results are pretty in the ballpark math seems to be right on target ela seems to be a bit lower not significantly but a bit lower than what the predictions were yeah yeah i know i just wanted to know comparatively why you know there's been all this growth in math yeah and like in general a little bit less although positive in ell so why is ela why are ela scores predicted to be so high so much higher than the math ones all right i don't have a good answer for that okay all right well again a lot of information to digest but thank you sure when are the sba scores officially coming out usually the beginning of july of july okay i think that's when we got them last year they were early yeah so

054we were surprised this year because they've been as chuck mentioned you know in the past we'd get kind of a batch drop but they've been we've been receiving scores as testing has been completed oh really so okay yeah so we're thinking we'll probably have a complete set okay i know the state does something with validating the results before they make them official but the fact that we can see them leads me to believe that they're pretty accurate okay if you're going to do this year again what would you say we needed to do more of and what would you say would you need to do lesser i would have liked to have anticipated that the second half of the year we needed to be a little bit more nimble around absences of stafford students and

055been a little bit more creative in thinking about that i think that really took us a lot by surprise we were making such nice progress in the fall and it kind of i feel like it kind of the rug got pulled out from under us the second half of the year this kind of work requires an awful lot of focus on the part of teachers and administrators in terms of supporting it and i think everybody just got pulled offline i do think the acceleration framework it's just good teaching and i think teachers are now beginning to recognize that it's not just a pandemic way of approaching things it's a way of approaching struggling learners so i think we've begun discussing it um we've begun discussing i think what we need to do and again for

056me it's continuity of instruction that's what we need to make sure happens because i think if we can ensure that we will see continued growth that's what we're thinking about i don't know that we've come to a conclusion no we definitely haven't i think it just you know reminds everybody here and watching and listening um in the 11th hour the state legislature banned dual teaching and they snuck that right around to sb2 the mental health bill and we don't know what that means yet but you know we have relied in grades three through 12 on the opportunity to have kids you know remote in the classrooms when they've been home you know either quarantining or recovering from covid and so i think potentially we could have another barrier to trying to promote continuity of instruction

057that's completely outside of our control but chuck is right we've started to talk about it our we're going to have a plan in place as we start school again should you know the predictions realize and we do see a wave of covet but i think you're right it's you know protecting instructional time maintaining continuity those are going to be the two orders of the day for the whole year you know covert or not it sure does is there anything we can do to it's actually a lack of teaching we can still do remote learning we just can't ask classroom teachers to do both at the same time how can we do what we've been doing though like when our kids are in there but they can't really interact and ask questions but they can watch

058fortunately that isn't how it played out the teachers have a very hard time leaving kids remote and not interacting with them yeah is there a way for us to turn them off we need to have the law defined for us just so we know what what that actually means um and i think once we have that information you know then we can make some decisions some recommendations we can plan better okay are all the strategies used at the high school this year including horizon are they going to be continued next year the horizon testing had some glitches this year i've been pricing out going back to the psat and it's like four times the amount of money it gets very complicated so what we did this year the year before we used horizons it was

059fine this year we decided to deliver it through powerschool and that's what caused all the glitches if powerschool is telling me it won't happen again i'm not convinced i would much rather just go directly to the horizon supporter because we've never had a problem with fact it might cost a little bit more but it certainly isn't going to cost me as much as it would be back to the psat so i'm thinking we're going to continue with it but we have some things we need to work out before we make a final decision chuck did you have a reason for going through powerschool so it makes it a little bit easier to deliver the test to the students it was a little cheaper and we can automatically upload the data to our data warehouse okay

060to me that's not worth the difficulties that we had with the kids um so i'm feeling i would i'm pushing everybody to just go directly to the horizons portal and we'll just have to batch load the data okay a little bit of an extra step but doesn't say who gets stuck with the extra work i'm sorry you get stuck with the extra work then matthew sorry yeah okay and it's a little bit more work for the kids you know it's very easy to go into schoology and just take the test so they're gonna have to log on we have to make sure they have their logging credentials so it's a little bit of an extra step but i think they get frustrated when the test doesn't work right and when they don't get results so

061is there any any evidence that the changed math sequence at middlebrook is paying off or is it too early to tell it's difficult to sort out everything but i from my perspective those results at middlebrook are a validation of the changes that we made the consistent growth all the way through i think speaks volumes about the layered changes we've made and you can see like i said in some at least in some grade levels we're seeing levels of achievement that we didn't see pre-pandemic any other questions comments if we um go through the data again and have some we can email them to you ruth i'm sorry is that ruth i'm just a little concerned um [Music] in our english achievement especially since it is double blocked so i just that just that just caught

062me by surprise a bit so um i'd like to at some point in time maybe have a little bit more insight or dive a little bit into that a bit sure maybe we could have karen come and talk a little bit about her observations okay anything else all right what's the next part of the presentation all right george's app it's gonna meet you i'll give you a brief update on the strategic plan okay so do you have my slideshow on there too yeah action plan this year so slide two gives you just a quick reminder of what our strategic objectives are where this year and it's really talking about nurturing that collective culture of care for student success using the acceleration framework for using assessment to plan instruction that's responsive to both academic and social

063emotional needs and then engaging our parents guardians families and community as partners in meeting the needs of students both emotionally and academically slide three just gives you the quick reminder of what our essential question is and just to be clear that's the essential question that really guides our work specifically to nurture that culture of care and collective responsibility to our middlebrook family to maximize student growth and achievement our action plan captured areas we wanted to focus on for improvement and our instruction was increasingly on target and as a result the outcomes are stronger a great example of that was on display just this week when key figures came together in our building from our pta wilton youth council the district level we met to discuss the positive and ongoing support for uh our children's well-being

064and that of course is not limited to just this year it's just the continuation of that work slide four we created a sel support teams that met monthly we provided needs-based support for teachers and staff we even had a dbt remember that's dialectical behavior therapy therapy professional development and strategy discussions led by the spectacular tanya leonard and if you know tom you know that's an accurate statement and we identified parent help support and suggestions and started crafting plans for roll out next year as i just mentioned with covid all students were impacted all adults were impacted we've heard it countless times and it's worth noting that students now are not the students that we typically see in a middle school why should we their school experience has not been the same and we're recognizing that

065teaching the we're not just teaching the grade in front of us for example this year's 12 year old is different than past years 12 years old can you can you agree with that statement you can you can connect with that one but recognizing that we're not a therapy institution or a public school we capture those needs early connect folks to the proper support that they need students who needed it were supported by the strategies created through the sel teams to improve student learning and students who didn't need that level support demonstrated greater agency and improved their efficacy and ownership of their learning we see the results in students seeking out trusted adults we see the results in the scores that were just shared we also see engaged and focused students deepening their critical thinking skills

066and communication skills to be clear this is not a one-size-fits-all approach uh responsive teaching and collaborating and studying the results is the way we went about that teachers adjusted their approach based on what students showed them and then all of our meetings and professional learning across the year were dedicated to the efforts to refine that learning slide five we saw results through our responsive teaching prioritizing concepts and skills you see the example of the blueprint for unfringed learning at the bottom that i know you've seen before but it's really an example of how teachers used assessment data to identify skills to reteach to practice or what students were ready to learn really normalizing this through supporting students through structures and routines so after each map administration teams looked at the instructional approaches and the effectiveness

067of those approaches we examined what worked what instructional actions were identified that brought about successes and what barriers got in the way of student growth and achievement teachers created student-centered action plans to individualize their feedback and their instruction and as the accelerated framework notes constant and ongoing formative assessment to drive instruction uh prioritizing essential concepts and skills to create deep learning experiences uh slide six lucille keeping in mind that the interim assessment blocks were just another checkpoint along the way that demonstrate what students were learning teachers used the iebs within their efforts of data cycles for student success for example teachers could use this information to drive instruction to pause units to address unfinished learning where they recognized areas that required further development rits were examining data and student performance in the classroom and then

068adjusted instruction etc slide seven some of the results certainly are intangible but some of them are right in our face you see a few examples of the grade eight research books there the breadth and depth of what students are doing was really fascinating uh we see results of those outcomes specifically the conversations the planning the deep thinking about how do we know it's working you happy you proud of me using that term uh but the obvious we've seen and heard about the assessment results there are so many examples of improved practice and relationship building that occurred i wish i could share them one i'll highlight here and nicola i'll use you as an example here because you and i observed this together we were blessed to take part recently in a wonderful experience with our

069eighth grade teachers and students and we were able to see firsthand the incredible critical and responsive thinking skills our students have developed and are developing uh leading to action research uh seeing students making their thinking visible not only by describing what they were thinking and learned but also by sharing the journey of that learning and i i personally i would say i was just amazed by what we saw i think in our quick minute or so afterward you would you would agree with me but very impressive bunch thank you but you'll be happy to know this is uh very much in line with our collective work on the portrait of the graduate and and certainly worth celebrating the the work that's happening here but the concepts they're looking at the deeper understanding what the students

070bring to it are just just so invigorating and exciting and you know i wouldn't be me if i wasn't quoting somebody but i'm struck by the line from louis armstrong's what a wonderful world they're so much smarter than i'll ever be um slide eight it's i'm down to my last two slides here so uh real quick well not specifically in our strategic objectives part of our action plan including our work on culturally responsive instruction uh our work on uh cultural response instruction revolved around professional development opportunities as well as diversifying our collection to ensure that our students see themselves represented in what they read and what they discuss and we provided parent forums on and book talks on diversity equity and inclusion and then finally our last slide highlights the family school partnership our partnership

071with our families is tremendous and we're certainly something that we're very proud of and highlighted by our regular communication and working closely with our pta and looking at you michelle to family formalize some of the parent engagement opportunities uh in fairness this should not be seen as something new but it's certainly something that's ongoing but certainly renewed with uh renewed vigor just creating opportunities for parent staff communication through regular back and forth whether that's team websites and work on let grow our team email blasts and team web pages schoology to provide just important information for parents wellness tips whether it be about fundraisers and events and deadlines that sort of thing but uh in conjunction with the wilton youth council laurie ellis from our building tara peterson from the high school as well as bill

072gerundo co-led a parent talk in person dana graber's raising humans in a digital world that happened on may 5th and the discussion centered on helping parents and guardians explore the really incredibly important and overwhelming issue of managing technology with their children and their teens and it included the concept of helping kids build a healthier relationship with technology so thank you i hope that wasn't too quick but thanks for the opportunity to share this information i'm happy to answer questions if you have any thank you questions comments uh joy what do you hear from teachers in terms of biggest challenges this year and in terms of instruction so i'm i'm struck by uh a memory from the fall uh working with a teacher who was in tears and worried that the goals we were setting were

073too high we're going to be too much based on the courthouse she had in front of her and yet that's a group that made the the greatest uh growth and show the greatest accomplishment throughout the year and so there's a it's a it's a bookend approach that just uh kind of captures the the stress and the lift for folks along the way but it didn't stop them from their resolve it didn't stop them from their effort didn't stop them from making sure that they were working tirelessly with the kids and for the kids and um it just was a i guess a great example of it it paid off you know it's not without a cost they certainly um were burning at the both ends of the candle in the middle it's uh i can't

074say enough good things about the efforts of the of the staff the the fact that they uh recognized that some of the goals were lofty but at the same time were didn't stop them from trying and you know as trucks shared in those results i think it shows okay great thank you we talked a lot about continuing the accelerated framework moving forward just because it's been a great way of teaching and learning and whatnot do you guys worry about i worry about burnout from our teachers because it was kind of a heavy lift this year i'm hoping that it gets easier and easier because it's not something new that they've had to learn but your teacher is worried that moving forward that this is still going to be something we're asking part of any conversations

075about that specifically i think it's probably fair to think that that might be a worry or a something to think about but i i think we also have to juxtapose that against uh a certain level of normalcy that i think we're feeling is coming back and you know kind of joked about the 12 year old not being the same 12 year old that there's a little more of of the next year's 12 year old maybe looking a little more like a typical 12 year old so there's a lot of variables to play to try to answer that but um you know i think that one of the things that we do well is we we look out for our staff and we make sure that they are okay and constant check-ins and uh periodically just

076saying really are you okay and how's it going and show me that you're okay so we have some really incredible people working here yeah so i'm pretty proud to be sitting here as if i'm somehow to take the auto accolades it's not fair for me to take it but they're pretty remarkable thank you um anything else before we move on all right i guess that leaves the high school so at the high school lucille it's coming so we have we have four goals in our strategic improvement plan one is around mathematics and supporting our teachers specifically in preparation for the connecticut s.a.t the second one mirrors that but it's in the humanities english and social studies the third one is all about nurturing positive connections with our parents and our students and our families and

077community organizations and then we did take a dive into culturally responsive teaching and a couple areas that i'll address a little bit later so brian is going to talk about the first two goals and i'll address the second tools brian thanks for being here thanks for the invite everybody nice to talk to you and nice to speak to you about uh some of the successes that we had accomplishing our strategic improvement uh efforts this year so lucille i'm ready for the next slide so the way that i would describe some of this information that's in text on this slide is to say that with math we spend time coming up with a plan figuring out how to focus our lens actually doing the work and then spending time with some individualization and that's represented uh

078with with the separate items up here so the first thing that we did was we made use of the data team training that the math department received by representative and then shared with the rest of the the department data team training fits nicely into the iet model it's not exactly the same thing but it was very nice for our math department to be able to use their knowledge of data team work during our iet time and i think that in many ways their readiness to accept the challenge of looking at the data sets a very nice model for other departments to follow in the coming years so that was figuring out what our plan would be taking a look at what type of data we wanted to study by using our horizon results and our

079psat results from the fall and that includes some of our interim horizon testing that we did which was not tied specifically to our psat days there was just other times where we collected data by using horizon testing elements we were able to figure out exactly where the students in specific cohorts were struggling in terms of what content strands so it allowed us to be very specific with what we felt we wanted to focus on both from a strand perspective and an individual student perspective and a teacher perspective and the teachers readily took a look at all of that information both together collaboratively and then individually in their iets another thing then that we did was we made a very critical and and strong use of our instructional coaches really can't say enough about dr mendelsohn

080and michelle maher and the efforts that they put forward to helping our math teachers sift through all of the data that we we had a chance to look through and then use and then not only did they help the math teachers with that but then they also helped our math teachers develop assignments that would focus in the work that the students would do to improve so really help them figure out what adult actions they would take in order to get growth for the students and then you know we have our table up here which is repeated information from what dr smith presented earlier in the presentation but you know we did see some excellent growth especially in 10th grade and our challenge with the benchmark number of 56 for our 11th graders was something that

081was known to us all year but the 10 percent growth was not what we wanted as the ultimate outcome but still tremendous growth and then lastly all of our math teachers worked together and followed some of our our teacher leaders and uh trained each other a lot of times on their own time in the different applications like desmos and delta math and using the ixl platform to supplement what they were doing in the classroom so that students had extra work that was individualized to their needs so that's the second slide and what we did with math seal and ready for slide three thank you very much and i can say uh as slide three is coming up and we talk about what we did with our ebrw and our english and social studies the way

082that i would describe it is that data team training that the math department had already was something that we accelerated and put into place but it didn't happen as quickly with english and social studies but we were also doing it on the fly kind of building the plane as we were flying so to speak but what we did was we again we relied heavily on our instructional coaches to collaborate with our english and social studies teachers uh to take a look at the data that we had available from our testing that was also disaggregated by the content strands just like we did with math the english and social studies departments needed a little bit more time to take a look at that information because i don't think that they had looked at the strand data

083as much as the math department had in previous years so there was a little bit of a learning curve there and just like the instructional coaches helped our math department they also worked with our english and social studies department to then tailor what we were learning by looking at the data and make new assessments that the students would do a lot of common formative assessments that they would use with the students to sharpen skills that we were finding needed some bolstering and another thing that i would say ties into the accelerated framework and certainly is a part of scaffolding processes that we adopted at the beginning of the year and continued throughout was to focus on taking a look at what data we were finding being responsive to it responsive teaching and then adding on

084a layer especially in the springtime with paying attention to the metacognition that we're asking students to participate in in english classes and social studies or in essence we did give a great amount of attention in the spring with our instructional coaches working with our teachers to incorporate ways for our students to pay attention to how they've been thinking and how they've been performing in their classes so those were success is for our achievements for what we set out to do at the beginning of the year with our strategic improvement plan and now we'll hand it back over to dr o'donnell next slide was here so we had trouble actually tearing this down to two slides because we've got so many great partnerships with community organizations and with parents so a couple of the highlights here

085uh our parent leaders who organize the parent panel for the rising ninth-grade parents and to get them oriented to the high school has been a good model and i think it's been very very helpful to the parents just get oriented the culture of the high school and ultimately to support their children in our school lorienne is still here i i want to commend her the partnership we've had with her as a ptsa president and also i would point out that sue has been in all of our weekly meetings for over a month now so we've got a good transition and succession plan um thank you for all that you've done but we really do engage with the ptsa as a sounding board there's an open flow of ideas we speak our truth freely and i

086often go to lorienne and to sue and even to the group at large and say this is something we're considering what do you think what are the blind spots give us some feedback warmer cold and it's just been a great partnership and very helpful kim and i met just recently uh two weeks ago i want to say wilton youth council and we delved into the survey data of substance abuse and then did some collaborative pre-planning around what do we need for our parents so that they can work and support our students around issues around substance abuse vaping for example a lot of that data by the way won't get into it now it was pretty positive on some of the student behaviors which was encouraging actually um collaboration further with the wilton youth youth council

087on the anti-vaping campaign and then this is something that our school counselors and pam scott under her leadership we're very proud of the moving up parent presentation insights to support parents regarding social emotional component of students transitioning to high school and that is one of the challenges we know i think we have a you know a social emotional challenge and our crisis on our hands but our wilton high school mental health team and our school counselors are really working certainly to try to at least keep up with that and ultimately ideally to get ahead of a little bit but we're honestly we're treading water a little bit but we're doing our best so next slide let's go this next one is uh go back one yeah this next one i'll let you read it a

088little bit as i talk but i have the privilege of working with our art teachers and one thing about them when you do your mid-year and end-of-year goal meetings they always come in with exemplars and so susannah estes came in and talked about this program marketing the town of wilton uh to various constituents and if you had a chance to see these five logos around exploration discovery dining shopping and living in wilton they're just really really cool in their student design so we're hoping to see those um you know tout the wonderful town in which we work and live right um this is just an example of leveraging you know social media the instagram accounts malcolm and kevin are very proud of this and just a good way to communicate with students and families this

089next one as you know there's always something going on our school somebody alluded to it there's an acapella concert going on right now so this place never sleeps and that fat exhibit that we had so many people viewed it and witnessed it and it's such a successful program so it's just a shining shining star in in wilton high school and in our town and then athletics if any of you were at the athletics banquet it just was really powerful to see all these community organizations and all the booster clubs presenting awards to um mainly our seniors but some underclassmen for their remarkable really remarkable achievements in athletics so we have a number of other examples but we did pair it down to two slides here so lucille final slide we did work on talking to

090chuck about the sip early on we wanted to explore with the term we were using culturally responsive teaching i think we even went further than that we did a lot of professional learning in this area so we did some great work with craic at the beginning of the year and throughout the year with our you know our dei group we had a voluntary group of teachers that explored further how to be an anti-racist and they just finished that book last week and hope to apply much of what they learned in their experiences here at the high school this is something we're very proud of we took the initiative to line up a course with pablo wolfe who was a dc educator and leader who's a very powerful thinker around dei and you know we learned

091a lot and there were teachers who had the opportunity then to employ specific strategies in the classroom that we learned with and from pablo so that was a great experience and then finally i you know give credit again to craic and some of the work that um you know dr smith and dr smith and michael gordon organized and led but we learned about culturally relevant pedagogy cultural competency in classroom the power of our words the power of our actions and uh currently working next year on widening our cultural lens we've already charted the course in dei for next year we had our last meeting last week and i think we've got a good preliminary plan right now to try to you know bring it further to scale and get all of our our educators on

092board so um that's a very brief summary of what we did with our fourth goal and that's our presentation this evening thank you questions comments well you know jen you asked the question about the accelerated learning framework and you know we're not afraid of it we think it was very very helpful to frame it out for teachers in terms of the priority areas and that's something already like we've already charted part of the vision for next year we're going to work with one of our consultants next tuesday and we have dr chuck smith we think that was really helpful so next year framing it out you know portrait of the graduate as the overall umbrella framework and vision and then further work about the um the accelerated learning framework and i think specifically the the

093design of you know really targeted instructional tasks for our students and for our teachers so those are a couple areas that are i think are clear focus areas for us what do you hear the most i'm same question i asked joy what do you hear the most from teachers around the instructional challenges and perhaps victories this year well you know i would say i'll let brian weigh it as well you know it's um i don't want to say so much that it's been you know learning gas but i think to i think to motivate students over the course of a year when i think there is some general fatigue from the two and a third years of what we've experienced has been a has been a real challenge for us um the other thing is

094and and um just you know keeping teachers frankly you know in the chairs and in the classroom and in fairness to them we've said that if you're not feeling well you know stay home but i think we're all hoping that we're going to have a better more consistent year next year with with you know really good teacher attendance and teachers ready every single day to teach our students i think that's i think that's been a factor having said that you know our teachers have worked our whole staff have worked so hard have been so dedicated and so caring that i think you know the term perseverance doesn't even describe what they've done this year so we're really really proud of the staff and and their accomplishments and they care so much about kids and i

095would just briefly say again the mental health staff to work and collaborate support students support families and work with students out in the regular classrooms has been i think just critical and a real challenge for us i would echo the first uh statements and and i would say that um i think the teachers would describe that they noticed the waves the wave of excitement when everybody came back in the fall and then the fatigue that set in and then the concern about where the stamina went uh when it came to just the energy level and following through with work i think those were the big things that i heard in talking with teachers they're concerned about how they could help improve that and then i would say that um you know some some excitement definitely

096has been building around how we use the portrait of the graduate and i think that the teachers are excited to jump into next year and figure out how they can continue to tailor what they're doing with that and i think the challenge will be how do we balance those two worlds of growth with our standardized scores and then paying attention to our portrait of the graduate work i don't think that they're dichotomous i think that they overlap and i think that the trick will be to just figure out how that um how to make that apparent and clear but there's excitement for the portrait of the graduate work that's to come so the the fatigue start sort of in december when did the fatigue sort of hit and then was it was it that they

097checked out or they just couldn't muster the year i heard a lot of teachers say that the excitement lasted for about a month or two and the whole thing of coming back just coming back and being excited to see each other in in the in the you know back to normal ways as much as they were but yeah just you know being out for a year and a half and then having just a different experience and then coming back to an accelerated framework where we were we were being sensitive but pushing i think that a lot of teachers described that that coexistence how do we pay attention to their needs and how do we make sure that we are teaching teaching and and bringing them back to where we want them to be if we

098could just get rid of the pandemic altogether uh so that that duality was very interesting yeah i'm sure but late fall i would say is when i started hearing it from teachers yeah okay and maybe that was just because of the weather too yeah so thanks for the insights thank you other questions comments all right thank you so um next is the special education industry summary so i prepared a significant pile of numbers for you data that describes who are our children with disabilities and how are they distributed across that kind of neurodiverse population so you'll see you have the numbers of students with disabilities across all the disability categories in idea the bulk of our students continue to be in the category of learning disabilities learning disabilities dyslexia and other health impairment although we're

099seeing some increases in in the emotional disability categories as you would expect given what we've all talked about over the past year you see the preschool referrals and the referrals that all the schools our initial referrals are up as you would imagine um [Music] one of the things we're watching carefully if you recall we were looking at those referrals at miller driscoll and seeing whether or not some of our new work in ela and our assessment work was going to help us identify youngsters with early reading difficulties sooner we're seeing a bump up at miller driscoll so we're going to watch those numbers carefully over the next couple of years we're not sure if it's also pandemic related so we're we're watching carefully but our hope will be that those early identifications will bear fruit

100to get students to grade level reading expectations by grade three and we won't see a co-occurring bump at grade three like we have in the past so that's something we're watching and we'll be monitoring over the next few years our referral rates at middlebrook and wilton high school are higher than typical and that is all in that social emotional behavioral realm for the most part we're seeing higher rates of referral around those issues at the middle and high school level um are out placements are these referrals they become special ed students these are all most students who get referred to special education most of them qualify yeah okay the level of data gathering that happens pre-referral is so significant that it's not okay um it's not as frequent that you see a student who's referred

101who doesn't end up needing some level of service um our numbers of outplacements remain stable these numbers are not indicative they're not all the same kids so we have kids who go and come back and others go so we have it's it's a round robin kind of thing not a lot but we do see kids come back frequently particularly with genesis we see kids come back but we also have other students who need a higher level of care and then we can provide even with genesis and they will need to be placed so those numbers remain stable overall but they shift and move um you see the enrollment for genesis and community steps genesis is growing and continues to grow and continues to meet the needs of a wide variety of students community steps is

102also in growth if you remember when we initiated community steps community steps is our program for students with disabilities transitioning 18 to 22. and we built that program around a very small cohort of students because we knew we have more coming and those students are starting to enter and we'll be growing genesis or growing community steps over the next few years you'll see the numbers as they move through from middlebrook on up we have large numbers coming up into the high school next year and they'll move through the process uh and then i gave you some um of students who've been returned to general education we have 20 students who have been dismissed from special education no longer requiring service our graduates both in special education in 504 what are they up to they're going

103primarily to four-year colleges some to two-year colleges some will be joining us at community steps and some will be joining the military so you see those numbers distributed but all of our students with disabilities have very well mapped out transition plans for what happens and what they want to happen after high school that work begins by the way at middlebrook so we begin big t i call it big t transition big t transition begins at a child's uh seventh or eighth grade ppt so we start talking about that early on um there was a question about para ftes over time so i gave you five years of data in terms of paraprofessional ftes at each of the buildings you'll see that we have seen overall reductions across the board in para ftes you see it

104sometimes you see a reduction in one school level with an increase in another that's because resources follow students and so when student when a group moves up some of their personal care assistance and resources move with them you also see that in the budget process with fte around related services speech and language ot and such those services move with our students and then this is the annual performance report we received this this is a state and federal report based on the state's goals and the federal government's goals for students with disabilities this is two years ago so this data is from the 2021 school year so this data is inclusive of the pandemic the initial shutdown year and you'll see that we continue to meet the targets the one place i will draw your attention

105to where we didn't meet the targets that year was at the preschool level three of the six goals we did not meet our preschoolers were out of school and as you can imagine doing online learning we tried we really did they worked hard to do it but it did not result in as much in some of those areas these are outlier scores the preschool is usually far exceeding the federal targets um and so you'll see a return to more normalized data next year when we get the annual performance report and then i gave you um trend data over time uh in our in the disability categories that we most prevalently see so you'll see the information on growth in terms of these disability categories autism emotional disabilities intellectual disabilities learning disabilities etc and you'll see

106the trend data over time and that's and then the last pages are comparative data with our dirt so you'll see that we have we are on the higher end for an overall prevalence rate in the dirt meaning we have a higher percentage of students with disabilities um as a function of the whole student body than some of our other durg districts and that's primarily in those areas of learning disability which is kind of unexplained under achievement in primarily reading a math and then attention deficit disorder and emotional disturbance which are two categories that tend to focus in on that social and emotional behavioral side so those are areas we're watching and monitoring at this point you know i have to say i'm incredibly proud of the department i think they have done over the past

107couple of years extraordinary work with our children and our families and continue to strive to help our students reach some very high standards and in terms of our partnership with general education you know the the population of students here in wilton and really across the state um the state now has a 15 prevalence rate of children with disabilities in the state of connecticut 15 of students across the state are identified so the population of students overall is becoming more neurodiverse so the idea of a general education teacher is almost a misnomer teachers all teachers need to have be well-versed in addressing the needs of a neuro-diverse population and so that is the work moving forward the work that chuck is doing and we're doing with responsive teaching and the work we're doing with math collaboratively

108i think is built to do that to help strengthen all of our teaching um to meet the needs of a more diverse neurodiverse population so i'm happy to answer any questions you have i could go on for days talking about how proud i am of some of the accomplishments of our kids they have they are leaders they are out there doing extraordinary things the testing doesn't always show you who they are um and so i'm incredibly proud of the work that the kids are doing the teachers are doing with them in support so i'm happy to sing their praises if you let me great questions comments i was looking at the comparative data and um i would just make one suggestion easton reading and and joe barlow tend to be just single or double schools

109they're not k-12 so right i try to ignore that for me um it just puts it in a better perspective when you do k-12 but but um you're right we're a little higher but not when you say the state is 15. yeah we're not an outlier at the state level right but within the dirt we have a a slightly higher prevalence rate remembering that in because our districts are relatively small one student can represent a two percent bond right so you have to be careful with those numbers but we are slightly higher yeah yeah and in terms of how do you feel about the um the test score data i'm never thrilled with the test core data i think we do you see it's improving do you see things are making a difference in growth

110and i think we're making some changes in how we do business that are helping result in that growth um both in terms of where the students are are receiving their primary instruction um we've had a lot of pull-out special education classes okay where kids were not really receiving the full breadth of the curriculum and yet they were tested on the full breadth of the curriculum so in we've had to make over time over the past five years we've made incremental changes in where the students are receiving their instruction along with professional learning for teachers both special ed and general ed teachers to make sure they have the skill set to teach in more neurodiverse population and so i think we're going to begin to see over time you'll see the difference between for example middle

111brook and the high school our high school most of our high school kids are in general ed classes but they were coming out of special ed classes in middlebrook so they were already behind the eight ball coming into high school so we we've made some adjustments um to to thinking about what our default menu is about where children with disabilities receive their instruction and then how that support comes into them so we're making some changes that i think we'll see um slow but steady progress okay um and in the academic areas um you know and yet again a single test given on a single day for a child with a disability is not always the best measure of overall so we like to look at multiple data points not just their map score or just

112their psat but also how they're performing day-to-day in class how they're using that information in functional ways throughout their um their transition planning processes for what they're approaching for are we preparing them well for what they want post post high school right right and the graduation um information is very impressive and our kids do well coming back they come back and tell us that they're well prepared for college they do well okay so are the tests appropriate for them enough in fairness yes it's not inappropriate to take the test i just think we have to recognize that um there are other things that can get in the way yeah on test day absolutely that have nothing to do with their academic skills right and so so on any given day it could all blow up

113on any given day something else can be a barrier to achievement that has nothing to do you know often you'll hear teachers say but look at all of this data that shows that this child has this skill has mastered this this standard and yet on test day nothing happens they don't show it in the same way that they show it day-to-day in class so um it does it's not always the best sole data point it's not the best measure of the of the student often i would think sometimes other barriers get in the way yeah and they're more specific to their disability right andre you mentioned little brook and how some of those students were pulled out more than we would ideally like them and there's a plan in place or you guys were talking

114about a plan any class and when you'd like to implement that oh no it's it's on the road to implementation we're seeing far fewer students being fully pulled out and that is diminishing over time so we started that it's just slow but sure in terms of moving forward so when was the magic number 80 what was it are we when do we hit that number 80 of this oh we'll be there next year we'll be there i mean time with non-disabled peers that's right yeah okay all right well there's a lot of good data to go through as well so um any other questions or comments for now um i just it's late so i don't want to get into a huge conversation but i do think um and don't everybody shoot me for talking

115about test scores again but as we look to the future and the predictions we're also going to be seeing comparison data with our other towns and i know that you have visited some districts and you took a look at some of what you called test prep is there anything you can talk about you know just the approaches that you've seen in other towns to you know sort of driving driving that test practice thing yeah are there any significant differences or um i think you know part of it is cultural in some of those other communities okay where there's an expectation around performance on the sba and the cmt prior to that and so i think um there are rote ways to get there and that's you know i don't know that we could say we

116we observed that but we certainly had conversations about that um and i think that's that was i shared with you previously that was a marked difference in how we approach um our work here yeah i just and again not for tonight but i do think like how we embed stuff and how we emphasize stuff that may or may not always be on the test and and all of that i just think it would be helpful as we um you know rather than just look at the raw numbers also put some context that's my suggestion you know it's not to veer away from our challenges and what we ought to be improving on but we also need to realize that sometimes every district puts an emphasis on a slightly different syllable and you know it may

117yield different results in different arenas some of which are measured and some of which aren't all right other questions or comments all right um and we have we're continuing to educate here so is there another report in our life um earlier today yeah i think one of the probably strongest symbols at this time of the year that we are recovering to pre-pandemic life is a there's a continuing ed report so we're looking forward to hearing your top five okay um but i would also say um continuing at his back and dolores can tell you and you probably heard and remember a year ago um when we were in the shutdown continuing it really suffered yes and so i've been happy to talk to dolores this year and i will just say she just does her

118job she goes and she runs her programs they are as robust as they've ever been and she just does her job and so on behalf of all of us at one state thank you thank you for doing your job well i will begin by thanking you really for all of your support over the years especially during covert years which were really tough uh tough on the staff and you know the department as a whole as you know but i will say this year we really experienced considerable momentum you know right out of the gate in the fall we had a huge demand in chess programs for young students k through 5 and the arts programs which was sort of a surprise so we doubled down on those programs uh biggest challenge was in the hiring

119process we always experienced great enrollment in sports programs and so you know we really doubled registrations especially in tennis we rolled out a middle brook tennis program which i'm very happy to report we offer a cider mill program we offer a high school club program but we haven't offered a um a middle school program so out there in the fall we had 34 middlebrook uh kids out there beautiful beautiful program we have great tennis pros uh moving on and keeping that momentum you know through the summer we brought back camp invention that's run by brian ennis and other wilton high school wilton public school teachers we brought back be a good sport program with saljima we have other programs also we changed our driver's education program to the richfield driving school and there is such

120a difference between a driver's ed program that is remote and one that is in person because if you were to go out into the parking lot on tuesday you saw a wilton high school student changing a tire it was fabulous fabulous anyway so uh moving on i guess really adult education we are really still rebuilding that footprint of adult education it has not all come back uh throughout the covered years and now we have a huge indoor and outdoor tennis program we have a huge pickleball program that we offer outside and actually we started in march this year inside at middlebrook school we increase the participation in pickleball from 18 to 60 participants we would really like to build a community program that's what we've been working on so those programs we saw huge huge

121enrollment and tennis throughout covet knitting throughout covid was huge you know there are some funny stories with the covid you know zoom classes once we offered a sock knitting program on zoom that was a total disaster but in hindsight it was quite funny the participants didn't mind they just really wanted to see each other and be together and even you know knit in the privacy of their own homes and eventually we all did get together and uh meet to knit and it's been a you know a really great program and that has expanded as well uh the top five programs okay so we'll start with the number one program i usually save that for last but i'll i'll just go with the top the top program indoor and outdoor tennis we offer indoor tennis in

122new york at vista and in connecticut at four seasons and outside we have tennis coaches that coach the high school teams pickleball is the number two program i have your paddle in the car whenever you're ready okay and we do that uh at middlebrook uh school the courts are beautiful the number three program is knitting number four are all of the art classes all of the art classes have been restored i'm really happy about that the uh the art classes for adult education people came back because in areas of adults education to be together and to create so uh anyway we rebuilt the pottery program the kiln needed to be restored even though it was fairly new and and we have a new instructor there and we've offered saturday programs and continuous wednesday programs in

123hand building and pottery on the wheel and another program that we brought back and expanded was the gardening program people wanted to get out there and garden and at the last gardening class people brought in bulbs and plants to share with other people and it's really a nice experience and so anyway we are back in action and trying to develop more programs and you know evaluating things so anyway thank you for your support over the years really thank you do you have any questions no that's just happy news yeah fun news too thank you not sure about those socks but uh deb i thought you were going to ask me about the bridge program yeah well one day i will we hope to see you back thank you thank you thank you okay so moving

124on to possible action items the diversity equity and inclusion policy we've had two board of education reads and reviews on that [Music] time for questions and comments etc the policy committee met made some word adjustments so i'm going to turn it over to kevin and the policy committee to point out any last minute uh things we should know yeah we uh met earlier uh this week and we reviewed uh some of the conversation from the previous two board meetings as well as the feedback uh from one community member and you know i would say um you know that individual had you know read the policy very carefully and made some you know some suggestions for some minor word changes and so i wrote those to you when we updated the policy after our policy committee

125meeting and so we included a change in the definition of diversity so you'll note we've listed um essentially the the title ix categories um so we added home language to that list that was a good strong recommendation we also made a change under family and community engagement the second bullet it originally would encourage all families and student partners to participate in important school conversations as the committee discussed we added the word support also so it wasn't just encouragement but it was more active on the part of the district in terms of how we might support families and so there was some good conversation about what that would look like when we get to the point of um developing an action plan i think there was another change that was very minor i'm just trying to

126flag it here um [Music] under governance we wanted to qualify that we were going to use both quantitative and qualitative data and we added a data component under the teaching learning um area and where it's the book the third bulletin where it says evaluate uh curricula and we also then set these qualitative and quantitative data to identify and eliminate any biases that's right questions comments is there a motion to approve the good job all right so is there a motion to approve the diversity equity and inclusion policy as presented most recently i some is there a second a second okay any further discussion all in favor raise your hand say aye any opposition okay all right policy is approved thank you thank you policy committee oh board meeting calendar for next year um and again

127these are best thinking to date it could absolutely change depending on a variety of factors but as of now are there any questions or comments are we okay with approving it we did go over with the business operations committee at least the budget workshop dates the times they may have a preference for a different time but that no one um at least on that little committee had any objection to the dates yeah so okay so is there a motion to approve so moved second thank you all in favor okay great all right june 23rd [Music] at this point in time dr smith is not recommending any agenda items so unless there's some something happens between now and then or if there's a board member all right i don't see any tears over that so we'll

128just let that stand there comments from the public anything online okay thank you all right then this meeting is a journey thank you everyone have a wonderful summer unless you want one i'm skipping the country well i do i would like a governance [Music] until that's right you get one jen will see it because her kid will get one so i'll share it with pam and ruth oh so this is my red head yeah but the seniors aren't here good night good night good night thank you for the seniors in here [Music] um