January 20, 2022 Board of Education Special Meeting - Part 2

001moving now into discussion items uh the first discussion item is regarding new courses at greenwich high school this is the first read dr calaberla thank you so much i have two program administrators at the high school that are going to present two new courses lucia recco and john deluca hello can you hear me yes great good evening i'm lucia recco the bella house administrator and social studies program administrator i'm very excited to present the new state mandated course african-american black and puerto rican latino studies the course provides an opportunity for students to learn about the accomplishments challenges intersections and perspectives of african american black and puerto rican latino people in the united states by taking this course students will strengthen their own sense of identity and deepen their understanding of historic and contemporary tensions around

002race and difference ultimately this course will allow students to become more engaged and informed citizens which is in line with the mission and vision of the greenwich public schools as outlined in the vision of the graduate the state education resource center of connecticut sir has written a detailed curriculum guide as the state wishes for the student experience in the course to be consistent across districts districts are expected to follow this guide with fidelity circ has included lesson plans and links to materials and resources for each day of the course in the first semester students will study the african american in black history the second semester will focus on puerto rican and latino history i have linked the curriculum guide in the course proposal if you would like to read more specifically what the course entails

003it is a year-long social studies elective which will include an honors option and it it is open to juniors and seniors at ghs students will learn about the course in course selection meetings with their counselors which will begin after the february vacation and the social studies and english departments will also promote the course in their 10th and 11th grade classes please let me know if you have any questions okay seeing none let's have john nice try dr carabella hold on a second i was trying i was trying to move it along yeah yeah you see we're behind there's nothing we could do about that okay miss hirsch well you answered one of my questions with which was did we take the cirque uh curriculum and make any revisions to it so thank you for that

004um the other question i always say is you know i know you probably will not have any idea uh until this is uh discussed with students but how many sections of this do you uh expect to possibly have um and uh you know what happens if we kind of go over that i'm hoping we fill at least two sections so that would be roughly 50 students that would sign up for the course if you know if there were more that than that that signed up that that really doesn't what what would happen is this course is essentially going to pull from other courses because 95 of our students at ghs take social studies for four years so essentially we're going to be drawing from electives that the kids would would already be taking okay thank

005you mrs kowalski so i'm having quite a night tonight because i left my glasses at home until my daughter came and my notes that i had taken on this particular thing so i'm going to have to wing it um so just i'm sorry i'm i didn't quite hear you so the um we've adopted the entire course the full curriculum that circus provided that gave us the hyperlink the answer to that was yes yes why did we do that because we were required why are we required i mean it's it seems to be very prescriptive i mean the state came down with like a day-to-day almost class by class designation of exactly what we should be teaching and my concern with this particular class is if you read it in detail it talks about um you

006should go to the links but um it talks about basically in broad brush strokes everything that we've said we're not teaching here which is critical race theory so i'm very concerned that we've won not taken a pen to this particular curriculum why we have to take it at directly from the state on this because we've stood here and we've heard administrators say over and over again we're not teaching critical race theory well that's exactly what this class teaches this is required by the state karen and we have to follow what the state uh directs us to adopt it's the same thing as adopting the 25 credits that are required now for graduation we have to offer it it does not mean that students have to take it it is an offering it is a uh

007an elective course and we have to follow the requirements that the state has given us yeah i i find it i just i find i'm it's better that it's an elective class but when you talk about this um and the specific things that it teaches um you know one of the particular things and again i wish i had had my notes in front of me because i wrote down and went through this but it specifically talks about um it relates columbus in 1492 to the current police brutality against latinos that's making a priest you know that's making a very bold statement right there and it also talks about the systemic racism and it doesn't even ask the question is there systemic racism it just assumes that there is and i just find this class to

008be completely out of line with what the greenwich public schools should how it should be teaching it should be having these discussions rather than presupposing that these things are actually happening it also takes a very hard line in policing in general and i would find in fact we have a police officer standing in the back of our room here if he found out and if he had taken a look at what they're teaching and how it's being done i think he'd take offense to it as well so i just i find this i just find this it's completely irresponsible and not something that should be happening in granite so the good thing karen is that the state is open to feedback from all people from parents from students and from educators so that is something

009that we will be able to make sure that we put out so that teachers parents and students can make comments about it over the next year so i think that the feedback will be very valuable to the state department of education and we will be able to combine comply with what they have asked us to do so as soon as we get that information as to where you we can give feedback we will make sure that everybody has access to that sounds good sorry can we mr kelly are we good no that's fine all i'd like to say is i'd actually like to audit this class so that i can actually provide feedback i will carve out time out of my day to go to this class so i can provide adequate feedback to the

010state awesome good good mr kelly my question is this i understand that it's a requirement by the state to offer is it this class we're required to offer or is it a class that addresses african-american black latino and puerto rican studies right now it is this class that is correct is this class you say right now what does that mean well depending on what feedback we get from uh the state and from the teachers parents and students they may make a different uh outcome but we don't know that yet so and at this point uh we are required by the state to adopt this this class yes and if kids don't want to take it that's okay but we have to offer it so michael joseph yeah so so by this class just to clarify

011we mean this the scope and sequence that the states developed right that day by day scope and sequence right the um which surprised me um you know you read through that i mean in in four months time you know you're going from ancient african kingdoms to with the present day with you know an african-american history and then you switch to latino it's um um it doesn't it doesn't surprise me because if you read through the document you see that it was drafted by a committee of over 100 people so it's very much a mile wide and an inch deep the um is there are there is there any other example of the state mandating this kind of lock step day by day curriculum do we have any other example of that in school or is

012this is this a new state state state invention that i really would have to look into i'm not sure i don't know if dr jones knows but i am i am just looking at at what changes have been made since the new commissioner came on board and the new uh director of academics so i'm not really sure i would have to get back to you on that because because obviously we all know anyone who's taught knows that any kind of quick i mean it's unrealistic you can't plan out a whole term day by day you know before every student you know classes change things happen so so so this kind of mandate obviously is is silly from the start but um i do appreciate that it's it's an elective i and it's an and it's

013an important topic the um this kind of um uh drilled down the specificity on the day just just boggles my mind right i look at it i personally look at it as more as a guide but as we work through it depending on how many students uh choose to participate i think that we will learn a lot about it about what is appropriate and what is meaningful and what maybe we don't need to address as much so i think it will be a learning experience for all of us and i'm excited that one of the board members wants to audit the course i think that's great and i think that we can get a lot of feedback and it will help us to move forward with what we want and what we think is important

014for our greenwich community and students to do something cattle maybe just a fun thought for us is if the state can require us to teach a class that is maybe uh intellectually lacking or perhaps even misleading to students maybe we should consider having a critical thinking class or something to uh encourage them to take if they're uh if they're taking this elective because they can't force us not to teach something at least yet uh and critical thinking might be a helpful way to offset some of the stuff these classes are obviously overly politicized and tend to have uh social agendas associated with them that aren't academic or related to what schools should be teaching so just something for us to consider as a way to counteract a heavy hand from the state here okay thank

015you anything else part of me yes let's go to the next class thank you thank you lucy thank you good evening everyone can you hear me all right yeah you can go ahead john okay hello i'm john deluca i'm the science administrator at the high school um we are also proposing a new course honors anatomy and physiology a thorough understanding of human body systems is a critical requisite for students considering careers in biomedical sciences biotechnology and pharmaceuticals prior to 2019 ghs students gain this valuable learning in ap biology however in 2019 the college board made its second critical revision to the ap biology curriculum in the last decade essentially removing all anatomy and physiology from the course while there's an online on level human biology course offered at the high school there is no honors

016level equivalent consequently with the exception of one unit during freshman honors biology ghs students currently have no opportunities to study human biology at the honors level the proposed course would fill this significant gap in our course offerings we are proposing a one semester honors anatomy and physiology course taught in the fall students taking this course will also have the opportunity to take honors biochemistry a one semester course that will be taught in the adjacent spring semester honors anatomy physiology will not serve as a prerequisite for the honors biochem currently there are three full year honor science options for students at ghs in their juniors junior and senior years honors anatomy and physiology would provide a fourth honors science course option for students who may be less advanced in math or who aren't interested in taking

017ap level courses furthermore there is currently no appropriate class for students enrolled in ap biology to drop into if they find the course too demanding typically a handful of students enrolled in ap biology end up dropping the course within a week or so because of the intense workload honors anatomy and physiology would provide an appropriate course for students to move into there are essential aspects of the honors anatomy physiology course that align with our vision of the graduate these connections have been carefully planned by our teachers who design the course i would like to highlight one of these is just an example of the unique opportunity that this course will offer students students in the class will compete complete a disease diary assignment completed for each of the units in the course the expected student

018outcome of the work is for students who apply and integrate basic anatomy and physiology knowledge to clinical applications accessing reliable references and communicating and written form the information effectively to peers peer review will be a critical component of these assignments thank you very much i'm happy to answer any questions that you have ms hirsch um thank you i think this is a class that a lot of students are really going to be interested in as i'm sure there are a lot of students who are you know interested in going forward in a medical career but um my quick question to you is i know this is uh noted as an honors course will it be offered at all as a non-honors i know you said that there are three full-year honors science courses that are

019being offered but um i didn't know if this was something you were considering a non-honors option for as well we currently have a non-honors version of this class already in our um our uh course selection so thank you i must have missed that when i read the uh the course guide so never mind then thank you sure okay did you have a question with tony okay real fast so then we should do a good just so i fully understand it so right now if ap via biology was considered too challenging where do they they drop now just to general bio and then practically yeah so i mean there are courses that they would drop into that really don't quite align with ap biology things like honors marine biology would be a good example honors environmental

020science uh this would be a much better fit got it okay makes sense uh maybe i'll on this course thanks so much do you have a question could i just make a comment i think this is a really fantastic idea and i just wanted to commend uh whoever came up with it i think it's i like the responsiveness of recognizing that just because the ap test changed doesn't mean that the you know knowledge worthy of pursuing change and wanted to commend the uh you know everyone involved for coming up with us it's very cool thank you science department i have to say they're very good one quick question one um we obviously have to get this on the next agenda uh to vote on these two courses because the course of study guide goes i

021mean kids are starting to choose their classes for next year right correct correct okay so we should we'll move this one quickly so do you just um into questions so do you put it in the course the study guide for pre-selection if prior to a board vote or how do you know what's the mechanics of helping you guys out with that we put in the course of study guide with fingers crossed yep and if it's not approved then we will cross it out right sounds good okay thank you very much it sounds like you're probably staying with us mr deluca well i'm sorry you're not next though uh first up is mr d'amico for the k through eight stem report thank you good evening everyone dr keller billow and i are pleased to bring our

022collective academic teams to you this evening not only to showcase their outstanding efforts but the efforts of our wonderfully talented greenwich educators in the area of stem leading off our presentation tonight is our director uh k-8 science coordinator uh mrs tara fogle so mrs fogel thank you mr d'amico good evening as mr amico said my name is tara fogle and i'm the proud program coordinator for k science i'm fortunate enough to start us off tonight on behalf of my fellow coordinators in k-8 math 912 math and science while there is a lot of detailed information in the written report regarding both math and science we would like to remind our board and listeners this evening that we have covered ke math presentations in previous board meetings mr mike reed presented his big ideas update on

023wednesday november 17th and the accompanying report and corresponding slides from this presentation are available on board docs with a packed agenda this evening i'll be intentional with our time together this year i have presented on curriculum shifts advanced programming in grades three to five and ngss achievement in grades five and eight tonight i will talk to you all about four strategic levers for the ongoing evolution of the k science program let's get started our four areas for work in the coming years are as followed we will work to improve ngss scores for students testing in grades five and eight we will continue to focus on curriculum implementation with fidelity across our 11 elementary and three middle schools we will revisit the structure of advanced science programming in grades three to five health and at the

024middle school to ensure it meets the needs of our students and community stakeholders and we will maintain a dedication to innovation in curriculum and implementation for strong and sustained student outcomes now a bit more about ngss achievement i am confident that we can see continued success and improvement on our ngss assessments in the coming years as we transition away from the current covid limiting factors first the grade five assessments our planning includes improving educator science content knowledge starting with the grade 5 classroom teachers to build efficacy around disciplinary core ideas we will follow this with strategic use of the interim assessment items and specialized supports in our schools where students have been historically disadvantaged supports in these buildings include modeled lessons by myself our education consultants and identified high performing teachers i have already begun

025this work with an increased availability and access to myself as a coordinator at common planning time during program meetings after school and teacher choice program days looking forward to the grade 8 ngss test i continue to work closely with the middle school science team across eastern central and western middle schools i will provide specific training using our digital platforms based on teacher requests and curriculum needs i will also work with the middle school team to utilize the interim assessment items to continue to prepare our students not only for the content and skills presented on the ngss test but also comfortability with the user platform and the cognitive load it requires for navigation the second level lever for change is adherence to the curriculum and implementation thereof i use a collaborative approach to this by working

026with building administrators as we visit k5 classrooms during stem blocks and plan for teacher needs during curriculum program meetings at elementary schools in particular we will implement pacing check-ins and structure the use of interim assessments throughout the year to gauge student growth at each grade level in grades three to five at the middle level i continue to work with my learning facilitators from each building to support curriculum implementation on a monthly basis now for our third and likely most anticipated lever for change it's the restructuring of our advanced science programming here we will start this with identifying students in grades three to five for alp science instruction within the stem block this change means that students will not be placed into science enrichment within grades 3 to 5 solely based on math scores as they

027currently are we are excited about this evolution of the program as we know that some students can show a propensity for science outside of math or reading achievement at the middle level we are returning to homogeneous classes and we are removing independent the independent projects we're scaffolding an advanced curriculum in grades six through eight and providing multiple on-ramps to advanced science during each grade level as well as between sixth seventh and 8th grades now let me explain how the on level curriculum will differ from our advanced course the plan for next year is to separate these two class levels and in grade 6 we will include advanced resources and enrichments and enrichment in the units of instruction students in advanced classes will master the same performance expectations as their grade level counterparts with the addition

028of more rigorous text and readability length and content the use of more complex data sets on our chuva platform and along with these content advancements comes the assessment criteria on rubrics that assess students abilities in the eight science and engineering practices we will assess these at the grade level performance bands above that of six eight in addition to this advanced curriculum advanced students will engage in one intensive unit of instruction in school with their advanced counter reports in their classroom which we will refer to as a seminar this unit will be project based involve large opportunities for student exploration and choice and includes content from the performance expectations currently in the on level grade 8 curriculum but more about that in a bit let's move on to grade 7. this is similar to grade six

029in addition to the advanced curriculum advanced students will engage in two more intensive seminars these again involve larger large opportunities for student exploration and choice and more of our performance expectations currently in the grade 8 curriculum which is an excellent segue with up to two years of advancement under their belts eighth grade advanced science students will engage in a predominantly high school level science experience the course no longer mirrors that of their on-level grade eight counterparts students now will complete four units of instruction though only two of which will cover the remaining grade 8 performance expectations in preparation of the 6 through 8 ngss exam the other two units will look specifically at targeting performance expectations from high school science standards the creation of these units will be completed in concert with guidance and support

030from mr john deluca our 912 program administrator as together he and i look to target performance expectations that may not be covered in general course offerings at greenwich high school or tracks that students currently fall into this interdisciplinary design of advanced science in grade 8 allows for students to have their needs met with an alternative experience from their own level counterparts the curriculum will expand content knowledge and increase ability in the eight science and engineering practices all of which will be assessed using grade level end bands from the 912 standards the design of the 6-8 advanced curriculum allows for multiple on-ramps where students who develop a curiosity of the natural world or propensity for engineering throughout middle school are able to move up and into advanced coursework during grades 7 or 8. the final and

031ongoing lever for strategic change is that of philosophy i'm dedicated to staying abreast of evolving trends in science education i remain connected to the broader education science education community and continue to engage in personal learning in that arena i bring my knowledge and expertise to the role of coordinator and promote the district goals of continued excellence in science education in the coming years as science comes back into focus on our broader curriculum management plan we will improve student experience with more opportunities for hands-on inquiry place-based learning and field experiences outside of our classroom as a board you can expect to see a shift in the way we prioritize spending and science to align with this philosophy over the coming years and in support of this i am also dedicated to providing our k-8 teachers with

032meaningful and actionable professional learning my goal is to keep teachers current give them space to take take risks and try new things all while maintaining a steadfast dedication to strong student outcomes we know that that starts at k5 which covers it for me for now next up i'm going to introduce dr shanta smith who is excited to share about innovations just like the ones i mentioned currently happening at our steam magnet school hamilton avenue we have forged a strong partnership in the past few months since my hiring and i am excited to announce that i have already begun work to help out students there we've scheduled two teacher trainings with her staff as well as parent outreach sessions around their steam symposium the work does not end there and i'll let dr smith explain more

033take it away dr smith thank you for allowing me this time to provide a brief update on the hard work of our dynamic hamilton avenue scholars our exceptional educators and our super supportive hamilton avenue school families the question that you see on the slide really exemplifies part of our goal at hamilton avenue school next slide please during the fall of 2021 we focus on implementing big ideas and math in the winter of 2022 we're implementing the steam challenge symposium launch events for students staff and families our first event for families is on january 27th in the spring of 2022 we will host our first annual steam challenge symposium the date is june 3rd for the steam challenge symposium hamilton avenue scholars will complete a problem-based learning activity by selecting a topic of interest within a

034specific steam framework scholars will complete challenges research reflect create design and share and present their discoveries at the symposium using a display method of their choice next slide please so far this year we've accomplished many of the goals that we set last year we planned our first steam challenge symposium we hosted our first hamilton avenue school family academy we launched our first hamilton avenue school teachers institute with training from abbott we also hosted covet-friendly celebration of the arts outdoors and virtually and the teachers are engaging in a peer review cycle of big ideas math implementation with our consultant dr todd white so moving forward we will continue to communicate and celebrate our successes through creative marketing of our magnet school theme to our stakeholders we will also tailor our professional learning needs to meet the

035needs of the adult learners at hamilton avenue school the coordinators have been great with facilitating that thus far we will also maintain our current partnerships and we're hoping to expand and diversify our community-based partnerships to enhance our magnet school theme and finally our dedicated steam units of instruction for k to five we look forward to working with ms fogle and mr reed to help us with this particular initiative thank you for your time john you're up next you're on mute can you hear me now yes we can thank you john so i'm going to present uh the stem report for 912 greenwich high school offers a comprehensive and diverse science program that pushes students to succeed in the core courses of biology chemistry and physics as well as a diverse array of elective courses that

036rival small colleges over the past few years our department has worked hard to align with the connecticut next generation science standards in our classes students engage deeply in the content they are taught how to pose scientific questions design investigations and communicate their findings effectively our goal is to inspire and challenge students so they will become scientifically literate and engaged in review of the 2020 academic year one way to understand students success is to review the standardized tests in science this was the connecticut ngss assessment given in 5th 8th and 11th grade in may of 2021 ghs students took the connecticut assessment for just the second time the first one being spring of 2019 82 of the juniors met or exceeded expectations on the 2021 ngss assessment this is the exact percentage of students that met

037or exceeded expectations on the 2019 ngss assessment because district by district scores were unavailable this year it wasn't uh possible to compare our results against comparative districts however it's important to note that in 2019 the 82 value was the fifth highest in the state for high schools some reasons for our success continues to be the the ghs science staff implementing the aligned curriculum that we have our freshman and sophomore courses of biology and chemistry are aligned to ngss students have choice how to explore science their junior year these junior year courses of physics marine biology and environmental sciences are all aligned with ngss assessment in their own unique way we believe there really is a benefit here in allowing students this choice credit has to be given to the science staff for their creativity and

038deep content knowledge to develop these courses so that they maintain their core content yet delivered authentic connections between the standards and the content professional development and shared planning time continue to be key factors here in providing teachers the necessary time to collaborate and learn from each other grants high school is also fortunate that because the curricula have been vertically aligned district wide high school students have had the longest exposure to ngss based curriculum another mechanism to measure success in science at ghs is by looking at our ap scores here historical context is very important all ap science courses were on a positive trajectory prior to 2020 in fact all ap science courses except ap physics 1 had reached 5 year highs in physics had actually achieved that the year prior in reviewing our student performances

039last couple of years we do feel the pandemic has played a role why well this may be because of fewer labs and hands-on activities as well as the changes in the testing practices that the college board has adopted to increase their levels of security for the online tests we're hoping that as we re return to normalcy our ap scores will follow suit of course the pandemic also brought positive change to ghs into the science department one positive outcome of the pandemic has been increased use of online resources of note is the explore learning platform which provides our students with online lab investigations that challenge them to think critically this platform happens to align very well with ngss as well teachers are continuing to use online resources at a much higher rate and through professional development

040and collaborative meetings our staff continues to share and explore with each other ultimately however online resources cannot replace hands-on hands-on classroom labs and activities it's wonderful to see that students in our classrooms are once again engaged in labs and investigations at the frequency that they were pre-pandemic our goal in the ghs science department in the upcoming year is to continue to monitor the implementation of our curriculum as well as to review the curricula and electives outside of the ngss sequence of classes one final note in the success of ghs is our science research program grants high school continues to hold one of the most successful high school research programs in the country 2021 was no exception students from greenwich high school were awarded over 150 thousand dollars in scholarships and prizes for their accomplishments while

041the successes for greenwich high school were far-reaching here are some of the highlights four of our students were selected amongst 300 scholars in the 2021 regeneron science talent search the nation's most prestigious science competition amazingly two of the four that were select two of these four were selected as finalists each earning an additional twenty five thousand dollars it's important to note that no other high school in the country be it public private or specialized in science had two finalists amongst the 40 most talented science students nationally the two students were featured on npr nbc nightly news and forbes magazine in fact one of these finalists began his ghs journey in the esl program which speaks volumes about the opportunities that ghs offers to all students who wish to affect positive change this alone would be

042an incredible year for ghs research however there are more accolades to share at the 2021 connecticut junior science and humanities symposium three of the five connecticut students invited to compete at the national level were from greenwich high school days later at the 2021 connecticut science and engineering fair fourteen greenwich high school students were invited as finalists to compete for top prizes and awards our students essentially swept all the top awards as you can imagine there are plenty more accolades to share about our science research program we simply don't have the time luckily they have been those details have been provided in the report i think now it's my pleasure to introduce andrew byrne good evening chair stow board of education members and dr jones my name is andrew byrne and it is my pleasure to

043report out on the ghs math and computer science departments during this pivotal year the department has been working diligently to understand the impact of the pandemic on our students and to support them with the acquisition of skills and concepts and to continue to develop our students as problem solvers and critical thinkers to that end we have dedicated professional learning time to reviewing pre-assessment data and conducting course pacing audits to ensure that we are delivering an accessible and robust learning experience to all our students next slide please building off the success of the k-8 adoption of big ideas the ghs math department is looking forward to refreshing its algebra 1 geometry and algebra 2 resources a greenwich high school math textbook committee has been formed with representatives from the board of ed district and building building

044administrators parents special education ell literacy educators students and members of our own department the committee began working in november and looks forward to sharing the results with the board in the coming months this has been a very inclusive and transparent process a running summary of the committee's work can be located by visiting the website that's posted on this slide the department is grateful to the board dr jones and dr carabrello for supporting the work of the grand high school math department and we look forward to sharing our research with the board later this school year thank you any questions i think so let us sit down i think we could bounce all over the place i don't know if we had to do it by elementary or high school just have at it any questions

045no okay michael joseph well so first of all thank you they um i mean i i think the enthusiasm that that all of you uh bring the presentation was was really was really clear and and i appreciate it i think it is um what is this my fourth meeting third meeting i don't know it seems like 20. they um but it's but it is the first meeting where we're really talking um able to really talk about teaching and learning you know on the snowfall of us we had to deal with a budget but it's refreshing and it's important and i think that's that's that's that's that's great um it is um um i think as we get into talking more about the strategic plan and role of stretch goals and smart goals and things like

046that um i i am hopeful that these presentations in the future just what you heard from from ptac earlier will be grounded a little more in student performance data and how we're seeing uh benchmark growth and all students grow i understand right now we're in a transition so i don't expect that now but but but i i'm hopeful that we'll see that paradigm shift the other the other paradigm shift that that that um was alluded to um but i i and and i know it's in the back of people's heads but i think it's important to to highlight you know we we a few times you heard the phrase on-ramps used the um and i think that's that that's critically important when we're talking about um different levels um and different courses you know we're

047talking you know just as much as the conversation is about the enrichment that's happening for an advanced students and how we're pushing them ahead they we need to be talking about how in those other classes we're bridging the gap like the um where is it so for example in those two sixth grade science sections they um where is it that though those those those gaps can be um accelerated for both students so more of those students can be in the other section of seventh grade they um i i think we need to try as much as we can to move away from um a paradigm of sorting students i'm not saying we are that's the i'm not saying you're presenting that the more we can think about bridging those gaps and making sure the other

048thing i worry about is making sure that all courses have those rich have enrichment and have those rich inquiry-based problem-based experiences i worry when i hear about all these exciting experiences at the advanced level or not at other levels we just want to make sure that we're not falling into a trap there i don't think we are the um but that's that's that's my one concern as we as as we talk about these things uh moving forward i think i can just comment back on that for a moment and say thank you to mr mercanti anthony and the idea of on-ramps and allowing students to um meet their ex their potential growth at any level within middle school is so important for us and i think that's really strongly aligned with dr jones's philosophy and

049as a new coordinator and discussing these plans with her for advanced science shifts i think that it became immediately clear that that's an important shift that we want to ensure that students are able to find success in their class and then should they grow in a placement that they're in that we give them that opportunity to grow and that we provide teachers with the uh know-how of how to how to figure out if that student is ready to move forward and and how what are those look for and how are we going to move that student forward so i'm glad to hear that our philosophies are aligning there ms hirsch well first of all i just wanted to uh uh you know say follow with uh what mr mercanti had said uh doctor sorry my

050bad um i should just go back to just calling you mike but anyway i did ask to have that effect anyway but um i was going to say anyway you know your enthusiasm and your focus and dedication on on our students um really comes through in the when you're giving these presentations um but i also wanted to agree with dr mike um in saying that i'm hoping that the next time we see this we get to see some more uh data to sort of see where the growth is i know that we are in our third arguably not really third year uh for the ngss uh type of you know aligned curriculum at the middle schools and i'm really sort of hoping to see where we where we really are with that um the first

051year we were interrupted with covet and it's it's been a weird two years since um but i wanted to ask one more quick question about the differences between on level and advanced science is this what you are looking forward to doing for next year and beyond i know we were going to revamp the advanced curriculum because it says right now just for instance 6a it mirrors the six grade six curriculum with advanced resources enrichment which is kind of what it was when my children were in middle school it was just the same curriculum but deeper so i didn't know if this is what we're looking to do now or this is what we're looking to to do in the future if for next year or we're reworking something going forward this is for next year

052and after conversations with teachers with students with parents and hearing that advanced science meant deeper or faster or longer what we wanted to ensure that we do is we tease out exactly what activities are different in the advanced curriculum so there'll be different overviews there'll be different guides for parents to view online there'll be specific places within each performance expectation that students are mastering where there is documents or assignments or readings or activities that on level students do and then an advanced version for students who are in the advanced sections do separately so there will be a delineated tasks for that level so just to confirm it will be the exact same curriculum between 6 and 6a 77a but the advanced class is just going to go deeper with additional performance tasks i get away

053from saying the exact same curriculum because you're you're covering the same performance expectations yes we've mapped out those pes there's x amount in each grade level and we keep the same amount in sixth and seventh grade for the advanced course but they are engaging in different learning activities to meet their advanced learner needs what we also are doing are adding some of those eighth grade performance expectations that they will not be getting because that eighth grade advanced course is using some of the high school performance expectations we'll be teasing those out and using them in these seminar activities to ensure that by the end of eighth grade all students still experience all middle school performance expectations and our advanced learners in eighth grade get this robust high school s experience i would love to have

054a further discussion not this evening and maybe i'll make an appointment to come in because this is exactly the way we had advanced science before coven and it was exactly what for years the board of ed was saying we wanted we didn't want we wanted it to have its own curriculum and i understand going back to this for next year may be the appropriate manner while we are building another curriculum but i just love to see what just sit down with you just to hear about what in reality that the main differences are because i i feel i'm afraid we may be going back to exactly what we had before which was what the board had asked repeatedly not to have yeah we can definitely follow up with more yeah and it may just be

055that i'm reading this incorrectly and that may be the case but i i just i'm hoping to uh to get a little more information yeah can i add to that i'm gonna call on myself here um because karen you hit on something there um it's funny because what i can tell you right now in the middle school and thankfully you recognize that and you took the board feedback on this loud and clear is that the advanced pathway is not being received well it's just extra homework that um the children are doing on their own um at night and um while i really enjoy my daughter's project i don't think it's probably the appropriate way for them to be learning so i'm happy that we're delineating again and we're going to have 6 and 6a separate

056and i like that we're coming up with the seminar concept having said that i agree i want to make sure that um we're not just going back we're this is the right interim step i guess but i'd like to know what the long-term goal is because i don't want it to go back to it's better than it is this year it sounds like we go back to the pre-covet scenario but um you're right the prior i guess we're now going back three years that also didn't seem to be uh perfectly what the board was looking at um and i realize these things repeat itself and that's kind of why i'm gonna go to it sort of leads to my next question which i find ironic is that we're looking at science in the grades three

057to five now being separate again from math and reading and it being it's something you know it's that you can matriculate into that on its own which i'm really happy to see but it's also just funny because as i look at my freshman in high school that's exactly what it was like when she was there my middle school kid it was different and now for my fourth grader it's different yet again so i i we're trying different things um but let's sort of learn from maybe the fact that this is we're basically going back to where we were six years ago i actually think if i look at just my personal experience it was the best of those because it you're right it was you can be really advanced in science but perhaps not as

058advanced in math and reading and they don't all need to be connected so i'm excited about that change but maybe we should also and i see bonnie on here um if she could add a little bit about specifically what's happening there maybe a little bit more about how we're testing to get into that program and just um how it's going to be unique again i'm not sure if bonnie's elevated to a speaker right now but i can share about the testing protocols the testing to enter into the help science for grade 3 will be the nwea science test and the cogat composite meaning there's a verbal and quantitative factor there so those two are three assessments will be used for placement and then it's going to somehow be separate from the stem block that we've

059now created for alp or can you explain that to me a little bit correct so the science portion of the stem block within the alp classroom will be the last 30 minutes so students who are on level so for science will return back to their on level classroom homeroom and students who are helped for science but not for math will then trickle into the elf classroom it is an extra transition and we understand that and we have determined as a team that it's worthwhile for our students who have a propensity towards science or the natural world or curiosity about engineering be in a class with their like-minded peers for that time i understood i think i think i see bonnie elevated now isn't she yes i'm elevated now yeah bonnie so can you tell me

060is this piece are we basically going back to where we were sort of six years ago uh similar to where we were before the adoption of ngss with the exception of at that point in time we were in richmond only with this new one we will be replacement of their science so the science teacher will be teaching all of the science curriculum and not just enrichment and then it won't be an ad additional got it understood okay that's a that's a good change thank you do you have any other questions about the placement processes or did derek i didn't hear what tara said because i was transitioning no i think i'm good there but stay on in case there are other questions because their hands going up so yes miss downey sorry um hi and

061just this wasn't necessary for bonnie i may be more for tara um at one point in the presentation i was just maybe i misunderstood it it talked about movement you know kids advancing um kind of the pathways going from advanced from sixth to seventh or seventh eighth but did you make reference to that there's movement within a school year am i did i hear it right or i'm just trying to understand how that would work if so yeah we never want to prevent a student from being placed into a class where their needs are being met so with principal school counselor teacher parent conversation within a meeting of all stakeholders a student can be moved into an advanced course should they need to should that need to happen okay great thank you um that's i

062think it's great um and just to john deluca i think it's fabulous that 82 of the kids met the ngss standard what was our goal by the way like we say was 82 but what was our target number when when we had that dude do we know my target was to to do better than the previous year so i suppose we didn't quite get there but uh given the year that we had last year uh i was pretty happy to be no it's a it's an excellent number i just didn't know what i wanted to say like if our goal was only whatever 70 or what it so so next year we'll have 83 you know i we we really haven't it we've it's it's been a moving target because the first year was 2019

063it was canceled in 2020 and so we're still trying to get a handle on um where we are with this and that'll probably take a year or two more of data before we can start setting some goals like that great thank you ms kowalski so with the 82 percent on the ngss standard was that just for high school that was our high school number yes so do we have a comparable number four k through eight we do have a number for uh six to eight so the eighth grade test and then k to five which would be the fifth grade test for 2019 in grade eight it was 68 percent and then in 2020 it was 63 percent and sorry 2021 and then in 2019 for k5 it was 75 and for 21 it was

06467 so based upon those numbers you said you hope to see improvement do you have a goal that's set on where you'd like to see those numbers after this year we need more information about the ngss tests and norms around that test before i can feel confident to set a numerical goal we did see minor backslides from 2019 to 2021 but as mr deluca described this is only two years of testing data we don't have a strong enough trend where i feel comfortable putting a number out right now but i'd be happy to follow up in more conversations and more research across future or aligned districts and looking at similar tests in other states before coming up with that goal does the state of connecticut have a particular standard and where do we rank with

065respect to other school districts so unfortunately for this year the 2021 they did not give us a data set where we could rank across other districts based on that those coveted restrictions of the testing so we don't have that for our most recent data set i also just want to remind you that when we presented the assessment report it was very clear guidance from the state that we should not be putting up comparable uh data sets given the fact that we had kids testing in various settings so although there is data uh available to us i wouldn't categorize it as the cleanest of data and as tara referenced three years makes a trend and we are very much looking forward to having our kids go through the assessment process this year and analyzing what what

066i view as much more clean data and to dr mercanti's point i'm really looking forward to our retreat because the strategic plan desperately needs to have through lines back to each individual school's school improvement plan where we do set academic smart goals in both areas and in fact in all three areas of what we test so very important conversation coming up in february for us i had a a couple of questions regarding the report that was sent there's a comment in here that says quarter one observations have shown that some students are grappling with cognitive and executive functioning demands of project-based learning this school year there's a consensus that these initial challenges are in part attributed to gaps in student and social emotional maturity and it goes on what do you mean by that as

067we transition in out of our coveted uh constraints of last year and we have these students who are sort of in this coveted bubble our current sixth graders we are noticing that project-based learning which is the curriculum approach we have at the middle school level to achieve all of our performance expectation does require a heavy cognitive load for our students to be able to navigate between content skill and process or the lens in which we're asking them to think and that was just noted by my teachers and in my own classroom visits that the project-based learning and how it may have been more successful pre-covered they're just anecdotally noting that that's what's happening with the students in their classrooms right now so what's being done to address it we're looking closely at the curriculum each

068time and the first thing we did was increase a bit of flexibility within our pacing and allow our teachers a little bit of extra time to go back and look at those science and engineering practices and instruct our students explicitly within grade six some of my sixth grade teachers have been asking whether or not it is appropriate for them to start off with a launch unit that goes over a brief overview as you know we have 11 elementary schools that funnel into three middle schools and each student well my goal over the next few years is to ensure that we're aligned in our curriculum is implemented with fidelity that's one of my strategic levels for change but at this point we do have a myriad of skills entering our sixth grade classrooms so i'm allowing

069my teachers the flexibility to meet their students needs where they are right now another question from the report says specialized supports for schools with historically disadvantaged students and it gives a one two and three can you just provide some additional color on what you mean by uh providing specialized supports and what's and and does that mean disadvantaged students across all the schools that are being identified are they being identified or is it specifically targeting schools um on within gps well i won't call out any schools on a name by name basis i will say that we have schools with higher populations of students who are historically disadvantaged either socioeconomically or racially and what i'm doing at schools that have those high populations is i'm working with teachers in grade level planning sessions i'm working with

070administrators on walkthroughs and i'm developing plans for program meetings to help with teacher content efficacy as well as learning and teaching strategies for them within the ngss is that because they have lower scores yes are you taking a break here because i had a question okay um just real fast i just wanted to say um i don't want to leave math off because we're focused on science i think it's maybe because we all math has like a more established um order so it's probably at least for me it's easier to follow um but i'm really excited to see especially in eighth grade how we're pushing our science students to start going into the high school material because to me that's what we've been doing in math for a while and i think it's um really

071valuable and we see the results as the kids come through the high school so i'm really excited that you sort of to me maybe it's the wrong analogy but you're bringing that sort of that same concept into science um feel free to comment but i said i want to ask one math question just so we don't leave the math people hanging um and that is something i actually think mentioned in public comment earlier tonight is that i do recall we used to have this goal i think the person said 75 i actually remember being 80 of kids reaching algebra 1 by 8th grade is that something we're still tracking to or do we have a different goal within the math um just to sort of use the same concepts that we were talking about in

072science you know we haven't lost sight of that goal in fact we have met we have conversations quite often mr reed and i on attaining that goal and for all things considered with the new adoption of the big ideas platform we feel very encouraged and i'll let mike speak to this in more detail that we will exceed that goal this year so um is the question what is the percentage of students that we have in algebra or what is the percentage that are going to meet with success in algebra i i guess i'd like the answer to both and then what the goal is if it's still 75 is it 80 i can't recall yeah so um the actual goal itself i believe is is to have 75 or more um i don't know the

073exact number off the top of my head but i do know it is above 75 um looking at our link it scores that are coming through um um you know not completely finished with the window yet for form b all of our scores are actually trending quite nicely based on the limited data set that i have the window closes on january 28th so we don't have all of the data in just quite yet but if i when i look at it um comprehensively from two through eight because that's where we're giving those assessments um you know um pretty much every grade level is above i'm sorry every grade level is above 50 um with the content at this point so um i i feel like you know my hypothesis was that it would take a

074couple of years to see the the um the benefits of our new program and the continuity of it but um i i feel like um you know these scores are actually trending higher than i than i would have supposed um so i'm actually pretty happy about that um so we do have more than 75 of our kids in algebra um and um how they're performing to date um i'll actually have a better idea of that because they'll be um giving their midterms at the end of next week in in preparation to get ready for high school placement and things like that so um i'll have a better idea of actually how we're doing in that regard after those midterms are finished up before february break got it that's great thank you um sorry another question

075coming miss hirsch uh as a follow-up to ms stowe since we focused so much on science i had a quick question for mr burn um well first of all i would also just like to state that i'm so glad that all the hard work that went into picking big ideas math and the reason that we uh the committee selected it and the board approved it um it is showing back uh in positive work for our students it's really because it was such a great program and i'm so thrilled to hear that the students are receiving it well and actually doing so well which takes me to my next question so if our students really are going to be able to meet and exceed the goal of how many students we're having in algebra i know

076we're looking at some new textbooks for the high school but this is a question for mr burns so we find that a lot of students now uh at our middle school are advancing beyond the middle school levels even double jump or triple jump in math and coming into the high school triple jumped um and i was just sort of wondering what we're looking at um for goals or or going forward you know about adding some higher level math uh either within our programs or exterior i don't know if you're still looking at those options for those students who are coming in triple jumped um you know a lot of them will take ap bc calc in in [Music] you know junior year or or even earlier for some of them but um you know so

077i'm just uh curious to to see what we're what we're going to be doing for those kids or if we've thought about really where we're going to go with that thank you miss hersh for that question you know certainly we're very excited by the work that the middle school is doing right now to encourage students to follow their passion and to really develop as mathematicians and this is a really great problem for us to have we we are fortunate at the high school as you just alluded to to have a bc uh calculus program that's that's um far superior to anyone around us um and in addition to that we do have a quite a few students who will then go into advanced calculus uh which is an offering which we've been able to have

078roughly two sections for the last number of years and our students are excited to be able to to ceiling out there there are a handful students just like you alluded to though who may be ready for more and right now we've been able to meet their needs through independent studies at the generosity of our st of our teachers um generally speaking the kids are interested in things like linear algebra or multivariable calculus or differential equations and so they've really taken the ball uh there to decide which direction they want to go in but eventually your point's a good one we will need to make some decisions as a school and as a district about what other electives we want to offer beyond advanced calc i know you may may be aware from previous presentations that

079i've done our computer science program is also blossoming and a lot of these students will also find interest in some of our ap offerings in the computer science field so right now that need is being met through independent study and computer science but you're exactly right we will need to be strategic about some additional offerings in the future that's fantastic and and i'm hoping that i see at least some some line of that in in our course catalog coming up because i know like i said there are a lot of students uh coming into our schools with with higher level math and if we can direct them to some some additional computer courses or some of these other independent study options i think it's going to be really fantastic and gives us time to to

080build something out on our own if if and when we need it which may be sooner than later hopefully any other questions team yep mr kettle two comments um one is a sort of a side note but if you offer linear algebra is a fantastic of course it'd be great if you offered that it was a i was a math major um in college uh just given that these are stem reports i just i don't want to beat a dead horse with this but there's a lot of words and not a lot of numbers uh in the report and i think the challenge uh everyone involved in drafting these should challenge themselves to um make them very crisp in terms of here are the objectives here's where we're tracking here's where we're not here's what

081we're going to report on next time and it should be numbers heavy especially in a stem report i would just encourage everyone to challenge themselves to how can how can you make it so that uh there's um uh v that it's a very objective document that comes through yeah i think that would be quite helpful particularly in this area and obviously we all had questions about where we're headed for improvement and of such look the numbers are as they are and we need to figure out a path to make sure that we're hitting our targets and i don't want to hide it behind words i just want the numbers yup sir go ahead michael joseph so they um while i'm piling while we're piling on here the related i think we not related to stem

082but related to academic achievement i do think we have to have um the same kind of awareness around literacy um [Music] we know from the achievement data that we saw a few months ago you know we've got three quarters um of our third fourth fifth graders at um uh proficiency you know in our title night in our you know title one schools it's it's uh fifty percent um these are literacy concerns that are only going to continue to bubble up the um and i think it's something as a system we have to address quickly there is um a growing national movement around around literacy and early elementary literacy that i know many of us are aware of that's a real concern particularly around the units of study curriculum that we use here in greenwich that

083we really need to look at and talk about ed reports call the program [Music] highly problematic in a number of in a number of areas i only bring it up because i was reading the magnet brochure um this week you know for my own son applying for magnet new lebanon which is obviously one of our you know um title schools the new lebanon was touting the the curriculum um as one of the reasons to go to new lebanon and that's i find that i find that concerning they um particularly given all the criticism that that curriculum has gotten over the last few years so just as much as we're focused on stem particularly in the early literacy the numbers and the curriculum needs uh needs something we need to look at quickly yes so um

084i i can't remember when we see um ela but obviously um we don't have to have john and his team address that that's a different area but it does remind me um and i maybe i'll bring it back to policy i agree with you cody that um you know in a stem report you should see numbers but i'm i remember the fact that our policy committee i think it even predates you christina it was i remember a lot of work by barbara and gaetan who worked specifically on how they wanted these reports delivered so just as an aside i think the administration happens to be following that guidance um so as a result if we want changes i think that we're going to refer that back to the policy committee to implement those changes if

085you if the changes on how we want the style all the reports that we're seeing here as it relates to i don't think subject matter okay well i didn't even realize that so there you go anyway um unless we have any other questions i think we can let these guys get ready for uh teaching our kids tomorrow thank you very much um thanks so much for staying with us um with that let's go to 7d policy oh do you have a question no okay policy governance committee policy first read ms downey good night you know like we're moving on okay um i'm not making motion right i'm just going to present um so basically in front of you is policy i revised policy which came about um through some requests from some board members to

086look at meeting uh timing and conduct primarily relating to reducing the amount of time for each speaker and putting in there what is our normal practice of limiting it to one hour at the beginning of the meeting and then continuing it at the end of the meeting the intention was to clean up and streamline it was not to stifle discussion um it was actually to help enhance having more speakers in our limited time frame um i know ms kowalski has a few thoughts on this because she was one of the proponents of discussing it but um yeah i think it's been misconstrued at least in the public comment this evening in terms of what the intention was ms kowalski i hand it to you sure so i realized that we have two people in the

087audience and i assume that there are more on still online many we've gone from like 1 70 to 23. so we're losing we're gonna watch it on videotape all right so i'll make this good so certainly i have read all of the emails that have come in and listened to all of the speakers this evening that had concerns with respect to stifling speech first of all i would never want to stifle anyone's speech and had this was never an intention of what was discussed in the policy committee regarding this in fact the thought process was often times we end up here as a board getting public comment for an hour and then having uh community members who are still on the list that have to wait until the end of our meetings and as we

088can as i'm talking to an empty audience i can see that oftentimes that people don't often those people that don't get to talk at the beginning wait till the end or then in fact don't even talk and no one is even listening other than us and we're the ones that need to hear it um but the community itself is not hearing what they have to say and oftentimes they can't wait out the long hours of the meeting and that's understandable so the whole thought process behind this was actually being able to increase the number of people that could speak in an hour and not have people wait until the end of our meeting because it is our business meeting we do need to have conduct our business and i get it and if we had

089public comment we it could probably go on for hours so at some point there has to be a reasonable cut off so when i was doing the math i was looking at it as well we're allowing 30 people to talk as opposed to 20 people to talk in an hour and that increases 10 people more that get to talk now understandable today we did not even have a full hour's worth of comment so that wouldn't happen every time but i do appreciate the fact that people have something to say and that we they should be heard i also see a com maybe a conflation of issues here which is the fact that there is a desire by the community to get an immediate response back to their comments to make sure that they are being

090heard and getting feedback right away and i do see the importance of that but that's a separate issue i get that too and maybe that's something this board should look at in things going forward as to how we want to address public comment in a way that the community feels that we're listening we're hearing them we're trying to work through these issues better as opposed to eight nine people with tony dr jones sitting here staring at them and not responding i can realize the frustration in that process yeah and following up on that i mean the the problem with having a dialogue during a meeting first of all it's then people say you're picking and choosing you're talking this one the other and then our meeting runs that much longer right which counteracts the whole

091point of having a one-hour public session um so while we acknowledge people's frustration again they always have the opportunity to email the board as we all know and they get responses to their emails so there is a dialogue in on an email sent um but what it was discussed it does make it to to me it it agree it makes a lot of sense to get more people in earlier um i do appreciate two minutes as a tough limit yeah we probably have you know yeah if you listen to it you know the third minute adding a lot i know karen's going to say a lot about it but we're also not saying it's limited to agenda items or non-agenda items you get your two minutes regardless right we're not putting any constraints on what

092they talk about absolutely so you know i i don't see how that really stifles free speech i would i'll say look it doesn't there's no there's nothing in the policy that says that you have to talk about an agenda item that specifically is not in there and again i know that there are probably strong opinions across the board and that's great that's what we're here for and that's what we're about to talk about but i do want to make clear and i'll say it again the intent was not to limit speech the intent was to make sure we could have more speakers and more voices heard within the hour of public comment as opposed to those having to wait until the wee hours of the morning at sometimes so that their voice could be heard

093in a public setting with no people in a room and we did think it was worthy of a board discussion which is why that was the other reason um while the one member of the committee wasn't there and we we weren't sure how she was going to vote but we said this is a first read and it's a board discussion and that's why it was appropriate to bring it so many hands okay i have to admit i saw mr kelly's first then i think it was mr kittle then it was miss costume well you can go first of course if you like i was just going right well no i was just going to say as a member of the committee sorry i wasn't there for the meeting that's why i had my hand up

094so i wasn't getting into that discussion but i i can i can wait it's fine no go ahead she's a member of the committee you're gonna have to let her go first mr kelly again absolutely always i'll let karen go first no i just i was not able to attend the meeting it's the only one i've actually missed and i am vehemently uh opposed to limiting to cutting down the speech and and i only say this in the fact that i'm probably out of all the members sitting at the table one of the uh one of the people who has spent the most time sitting on the side of that podium and speaking to the board um i know how incredibly difficult it is to make a coherent encouraging argument or discussion points on agenda

095and oftentimes non-agenda items within a three-minute time limit especially when you have speakers who are nervous up there it takes some time and especially if you have people that come up and address more than one topic um to me we have one opportunity a month to hear from individuals in the community um and it's exceptionally important that we allow that that opportunity um i do appreciate that we wanted to add in something that has always been part of our it was in our i believe it was in our older policy and somehow got removed uh and then you're adding it back what it has been on and i went and looked through old all of our my old agendas sitting at home from well before i was ever on this board from 2016 2015 2014

096it always stated that we took an hour of public commentary prior to the meeting and then would refer the rest of the end in the amount of time that i've spent in this room well it's usually multiple different schools but often you rarely get more than an hour of public speakers um unless it's a hot button issue and and i am thrilled that we have so many members of our community that want to come and speak and and be heard um and to me i feel like cutting down that time when most people really make an effort to stay within their time limit it's very hard for me to to uh to support that um that's just my 10 cent opinion and i'm only one of eight here but it's never and i understand it

097was not about limiting free speech it was about making sure individuals had more opportunity to be heard um but it's not often that we have more than it you know recently we have but it's not always often that we have more than an hour and it's just so hard to get everything done in a short window of time that's all mr kelly thank you well i will say karen i was always amazed watching you jam so many words into three minutes i was always amazed with all you did that so that was really cool but uh i will not throw my colleagues under the school bus here because basically i was privy to those discussions uh over the years or maybe over the months whatever it was about how we could better get more speakers

098to say their opinion now from our perspective more is better but for people it's human nature if you take something away from them you have to give them something and what we did here and i take responsibility as other board members do is that we took something from them looking at it from our perspective saying hey we'll hear more opinions we'll be able to hear more from our community but we never gave them anything so human nature is like hey wait a minute you took something or are trying to take something from us so uh so i do believe that uh our intentions i will share those who had spoke to this point i will share in that decision making where we misread our actions so i don't think our actions are correct because i

099can't think of anything we could give back right now unless i love that town hall concept i really do dig that i think that'd be kind of fun so is it is it possible to actually have an additional gathering by choice so board members some won't care that for that atmosphere i happen to like that sort of atmosphere so is it by choice can we arrange something like that so we can have a group of people that can throw questions at us we can fire things back at them i would like to look at something like that if that's possible so we've done town halls for various topics right we did it for many times for back to school for clovid and then we have done it for security concerns yeah we've done it it's

100usually topic specific but um yeah it's certainly something we've done miss costume so um i as a former broadcast professional we deal in milliseconds and you can cut 30 seconds off of your remarks if you just don't thank everybody repeatedly or say happy new year and all of that like that's just you know you could make it 2 30 and and just cut out all of the extraneous pleasantries but that aside you know the rtm does allow for limiting commentary in its body if they have a very full agenda there can be a motion to limit um comments um to two minutes and that is not debatable within the body but you do need to vote on whether you are going to limit the commentary and try to fit more people in so that's what

101one body in town does um however i i would say i would not be in favor of shortening our public comment limits uh mr kittle um yeah i don't know exactly i feel about this but some thoughts i wanted to share uh one is joe to your point of if we have the room to give something back one thing we might want to consider is i think all of us budget an hour in our minds regardless of how many speakers there are or at least i do with my limited experience here um and uh perhaps a give back is if there are less than 20 speakers you could say hey you actually can have a we'll fill up the block you know within reason maybe cap it at five minutes but if 10 people sign

102up then you know everybody gets their five minutes you're actually getting more time in certain situations and we only utilize the two minutes if it's allowing extra people to speak um and then maybe you could even you know i don't know they can always put things in writing to us before the meeting but uh that was one thing i was thinking about as a give back um after hearing karen um speak about her experience talking up there i found that kind of convincing of just cutting it back further when people take time out of their day to come here um so i don't know kind of mixed on this but if the uh i like the idea of allowing more people to speak because it's terrible when we have people you know it's like two

103people left and they have to sit through all the painful everything else just to say two minutes so i don't know maybe the other option would be to have a little bit of flexibility on our end that if you know there's 40 people that want to speak cut it down but if there's um 21 we just let that last person we go a little bit over the schedule or whatever i don't know so i'm undecided i just wanted to share those thoughts yeah that's good um mr sorry michael doctor michael joseph that's all right i wanted to start um i i agree with cody but first i wanted to start by thanking him and wishing him a happy new year the uh you didn't you weren't listening to laura look i i understand uh i

104underst i appreciate what the the the thinking of the policy committee here the um and their approach in trying to actually try to make the um um meeting more participatory by allowing more space um i'm i'm i i i'm not sure that um um it's it's the best move right now i do think though if we want to talk about ways to make the meeting um more productive and more efficient and more engaging and all those things they um i do have um i do think there were three a few things to think about and one was what cody just said the um in the policy itself instead of having this hard and fast hour it might be worth considering giving the chair a little bit of leeway here for example you've got 22 people

105signed up do we really need to wait until three hours later for those last two people or can the chair have that kind of discretion or similarly but if there's 47 signed up similarly the chair maybe doesn't want to have that descript you know the chair discretion the other way but i i wonder if giving that kind of flexibility in the policy might might be appropriate because yeah most of the time we don't fill the whole hour but if we do that flexibility might be helpful so that's one the first point the second point the um which i'm unclear of because i was talking to dr jones at one point and she felt it was at least our procedure and i understand that there was definitely a there's a philosophy at the very least of

106not responding to comment um and i get that we want to get um we want to we want to we're here to absorb we're here to listen i think in this day and age i'm not sure that that philosophy serves us well anymore as well certainly if there's misinformation said out there i think it's incumbent upon us at the public meeting at the end of public comment not back and forth but at the end of that period to correct it immediately because we've always have people particularly zoom tuning in for the first time um and they hear things and they hear something out there they take it oh i don't know that that's terrible we need to correct that immediately i think but at the same time i think you know it's incumbent upon us

107to acknowledge concerns and when we can comment you know which we all ended up doing around the the lunch thing anyway um i think that's an important aspect of the meeting that we probably need to account for the um i think too often in the past in past years when you've had an angry crowd here talking about whatever it was and then we've moved on to our agenda and haven't said anything at all it gives the impression of gaslighting and i don't think that serves as well in all honesty so so i think that's something else to think about in our approach there and then finally just real quick because i've given people this pitch before you're over two minutes i'm sorry happy new year my third point the uh my final point the uh

108i've given this pitch before the idea of flipping aspects of the meeting the curriculum is a perfect example of that instead of having um our administrators at ten i timed it it was at 10 15 at night giving that presentation they could easily have recorded that sent it to us ahead of time the whole community would have then been able to see it in a much more effective and efficient way because nobody was here when they were talking they um and then our board meeting time could have been spent actually talking about it the um and being more productive and efficient so i think all these things might be oh there are ways to make these means more efficient i think so mr hirsch i just wanted to acknowledge the two comments that were made

109um one in again having spent a lot of time here uh in prior years and i'm sure uh our one attendee can say the same um our chair has always had the flexibility if we've looked you know we do the math when we see the number of people signed up uh and if there is one or two there if there are one or two other individuals waiting to speak the chair has always uh had the opportunity to make the motion to extend the time for public comment and we've often done that uh many years in the past we've had some seriously heavy agenda items uh that we need to get through which is oftentimes i think why in the past year so we haven't been doing that um but you know that has something the

110chair has always had the privilege of doing uh and the same with the chairs always had the privilege if we have a heavy agenda item a heavy agenda with a lot of um deep discussion topics to then at that particular meeting and that is even in the policy now to limit the speech from three minutes to two minutes uh if need be um so that flexibility has always been there um and i know from years past and even from tonight when things are addressed you know oftentimes the superintendent or members of the board will ask questions or address statements made or when it is uh when individuals are speaking specifically on agenda items we will bring that up in our discussion um and i personally i really value having the opportunity to hear from the

111community via email um phone calls hearing from them in a public forum such as this as well especially when we're uh having discussions and making some decisions because it's important that we represent all different uh viewpoints so i love that opportunity great can i just add one thing oh sorry i was gonna give my two sons look ahead miss clausten are we allowed to go out of order in other words this conversation might have been very helpful like at the beginning of the meeting so we can move agenda items if it's not a special meeting um i think this was listed as a special meet what are we are we back on a regular calendar this is business so then we could have you can make a motion to move agenda items around um i

112think that this was put here because we had to move the we usually put policy discussion and actions that go together but because we had to have andy come tonight we moved some things around yeah and this would have been useful for the public to hear definitely other than brian brian is the public he can share it widely um tweet about it so exactly and by the way i mean we are in the world of like what is it 140 40 characters or less and tick-tock videos are 30 seconds but um i can i just i think it's great that you guys put this policy change forward and that's what the public comment was focused on because if you hadn't the public comment would have been focused on title ix and we'd still uh still

113be in it right now to be honest with you if title nine was on the agenda they third time it's been on the agenda so you know people saying no public come and it was here three times so just my two cents on this um and this was something that you're right joe um i know i was talking about in the policy committee years ago um i think that there were some emails today and then from the public that felt that this was a reflection of this particular group and i can assure you that this is this is i mean i hate to say it but this is a pretty light group in the now five years i've been on the board there was school start time that people are going to forget about um

114special education um the advanced learning program give me something else i ferb um racial balance racial balance yeah that's verb yeah so um redistricting let's go back through all of the years that uh believe me we have a lot of an engaged community and i think that's awesome um so the real goal here i know um and i was even i was an advocate for but i love all this this this discussion is i saw this as an opportunity to give more people a chance to speak um especially because when we do have like a 40 speaker list which we have had and i've had working parents reach out to me sort of saying i really really wanted to talk tonight but i just couldn't hang on until 11 o'clock because i had to get

115up in the morning and go to work and um and i get that and um for some reason i don't require as much sleep but i i think that that was the goal here was to try to actually hear from more people ahead of our agenda so that we could be informed when dealing with the topics and it was actually meant to be more engaging more transparent more communication so it's ironic that um it was taken any other way but it was actually meant to be a really really positive thing um but that's that's okay um that's why it's good it's a first read and then we're having this conversation we can continue i also like your idea of having some flexibility the only thing i worry about with that is that if i ever

116made a call to go from three minutes to two minutes for some people that are more scripted like i'm as you can see i'm very off the cuff person so that would be okay for me but there are some people i think i would actually think that you can't tell people they have three minutes and they show up and they've got two you know you could give it to say you got two and you get five that's a different problem you know when do we know how many speakers there are not until noon of that day so can we tell them at noon that day hey there's a big roster so i guess dude could it could i'll give it to you karen would you be able to at that point i i have had

117to it has happened before where they cut the time down and i've had to sit in the audience and cut stuff and pull stuff out and yes it's often the thank yous uh and whatever else but being said we also have to remember the fact that prior to code we didn't have public you know online sign up people would show up at the meeting and they had to sign up when they got here to speak we may be very well when kovitz done going back to that or having the opportunity to have people tune in via this you know zoom but come here to speak to us because it's really a much better opportunity for us to have somebody face to face to hear from them instead of hearing from from zoom so for those

118of you who are new to this you used to have to i mean i remember rushing here because you wanted to be one of the first speakers to sign up on a topic and you'd be like running through the door to like sign up and there was a line of people out the door waiting to sign up it always was you signed up for agenda non-agenda it was all but you had to be here to have that um opportunity so we are in a different mode now with with having zoom but oh yes we had people stay here until one in the morning when meetings used to go to one in the morning waiting to speak we're tracking there okay go ahead i think i actually think we should go back you know that that

119timely cut off isn't you know it does restrict speech if somebody forgot to sign up at noon by noon on the day of then all of a sudden they're out of luck so i welcome the opportunity when we can just have the sign up sheet and i do remember those days right outside the door and we grab it and they had to in fact i think i remember you had to put your name and what you're going to talk about um and your address and your address or email whatever so i think you know i welcome that back as as well again i think this is a really healthy discussion and i think it's a healthy discussion in a way that we're trying to figure out the best way to [Music] give the community all

120the opportunity in the world to come and talk to us as well as trying to figure out a way the best way to respond and be responsive and make it and understand that we are hearing them um as opposed to us just saying that that they're actually feeling that as well so i just i want to continue the discussion i do think you know we can take this back to policy committee and kind of take everybody's thoughts i'm not sure where we'd land at this point but i might have to watch the video myself on all of this but i know you did so but i do think we need to come up with something um well obviously it's clearly not this it's got to be a variation of it and a working pro and

121i think it's just a work in progress agreed so with that we'll bring it back to policy and then we'll have this come back to us when policy has a good solution um so with that i am putting on the next action item on the table it's uh thank you um making a motion to approve the 2022-2023 board of education meeting calendar do i have a second okay thank you mr we are ready um well dr jones let me turn over to dr jones and she could tell you what what she changed um there were there were two requests um from the last meeting one was to add a meeting in october so that is uh reflected in here um there was a request to perhaps look at march or april april but when i

122went back through my notes there was not necessarily a consensus and when we had our executive meeting we did discuss we can always add a meeting but it's difficult it's not difficult we could do it now but we would rather add than be cancelling the meeting because of the budget calendars that fall during that same time because all of you have a lot of meetings during march april so i guess my question was more less about amending the dates as far as amending the topics if that's something how that works if that's something we can do or not do or what is that that's done in policy they come up with a plan but you should always yeah provide feedback on how when do you work do that we we set the agend the calendar

123agenda usually in the spring oh no no no no the opposite not amending the dates i mean amending the topics that are right the topics like the policy committee with the ch with the chair or the i think policy i i and dr jones put the cat takes her calendar dates and adds the topics to it and i think we vote on it in june so it's usually done in like april may so you have time so if we wanted to add an agenda item so for example they um we talked at the executive session last time about having an executive session um later you know next month so they have to bring the high school leadership back about to follow up on the um the lockdown incident the um how would we go about

124adding that to this agenda plan for example well you can we can talk about you would talk about that in no this is the long term calendar like 2012 we're gonna get to that in like five minutes hopefully um so me i i think this is a good addition um i think that it was wise not to put anything in there yet for the spring because the spring always gets so loaded up with budget uh meetings with the bt and the rtm but we could always of course add so um let's take this to a vote unless i see any other discussion okay all in favor of the 2022-2023 board of ed meeting calendar that passes 8-0 thank you very much i'm now going to put on the table um approving the financial and staffing

125report can i have a second thank you miss downey okay and mr o'keefe hi everybody uh so as of december 31st our operating plan uh actuals are at 70.2 million dollars it's 40.8 percent detainment of our full-year budget of 171.9 uh that compares to 42 attainment in the prior year period so we're a little bit uh better than the attainment uh last year but some of that is explainable with transportation expense um on a year-to-year basis uh we're up 1.6 million or 2.4 percent uh drivers of the year-to-year growth salaries are up eight hundred thousand dollars or about one point four percent supplies are up one point four million or seventy six uh nine 79 and that's again as i mentioned last couple of months the uh the year-to-year impact of the reduced level of

126spending in the first half of last year which was the result of that pre-spent activity that occurred at year end in in full year 20. and then services overall are down 700 000 and that's driven by late transportation billings so that should self-correct um you know in the next couple of months uh on capital uh overall our capital available balances uh 27.2 million dollars as of january 4th which is down about 200k from the november financial report of that 27.2 balance uh 12.1 of it is from older projects so prior to full year 22 and is down about a half a million since the november report and uh from last september we're down about 16 million dollars or about 57 so we're really making progress as as is our goal to really knock out the

127older projects in a quicker pace uh also in the in the overall balance is two and a half million from building committee projects so there's four projects new lab glenville mesa and hamilton avenue and they're all multi-year projects but they're all pretty much they're all finished we're just waiting to close them out uh with the audit from the state so once we do that uh we'll be able to take that off the available balance food services uh it's kind of a repeat um still early to say where we're gonna be but we are uh we will under run our our cash sales budget there's no doubt about that and we will significantly uh overrun our um our state reimbursements the state reimbursements are coming in very strong um so it's it's it's i think we're

128going to exceed uh state reimbursements by a really significant amount on expenses uh we're expecting that will under run budget uh by a small amount in salaries and in food cost um and uh and as far as unbudgeted transportation costs we will recover that from grants um so and uh and that's it for the report miss quality so sean sorry for the probably naive question but what are the old product projects in the capital that haven't gotten done like what are we waiting and what's the like why are they taking so long uh they're you know like windows projects which take time um they're typically multi-year projects that uh you know we can only work on the in during the summers so there are projects that are not major projects that are multi-year in nature

129so that's the general reason for things not to be completed also one other reason is that there could be uh a bundled set of projects and which you know some of these projects can be completed but we cannot close them out until we finish the other bundle projects within that bundle so that is a a reason for it as well those are the two major reasons so then the question is have we paid on this or is this money that's sitting in an account uh let's say that again oh have we right so for example when we say when you say for example we're currently at 27.2 million which is a drawdown have we already paid so is that 27 million sitting in a bank account that gps runs or have we already paid the

130contractor that money and we're waiting for him to complete the project that 27 million is totally free and clear has not been encumbered or spent so this is are we making interest on that money and what's happening to that interest and and if we're not spending it why aren't we investing it and make turning it into something until we're paying out on it i mean i just think that that's a logical way to handle it but i i don't know where the money sits i have that's really a town question they handle the uh it sits with the town we're just remember we're like an a division of the town so we don't run our own finances it's not like we're investing our money so the town is the town is the bt depends on

131where um you know there could be could be you know low interest bonds uh you know low risk activity uh that they'll probably be making a a nominal amount of money on so i'll direct that question to dan ozimer since he's the new chair of the bet and say what's happening to it because i'm just curious that would be the right channel anything else here okay seeing none um the motion on the table was approving the financial report for the period ended december 31 2021 all in favor that passes okay thank you we are now on to and michael joseph you're up agenda planning so i had a cup thank you happy new year they um so i thank you so um i had three free thoughts on possible agenda topics so one as you

132as i already mentioned on the previous issue um i'll bring back an executive function to hear executive session to talk about um to hear from the high school leadership on um changes they made to their procedures they was something we said we we we hoped to do um probably would have to be executive yes the other suggestion um i had was um if we could consider um given the hopeful the hope for strategic plan guideline consider the um june retreat um the board discussion scheduled for the june business meeting um right now board goals are scheduled for the june business meeting if we could move that to the june retreat in the hopes that then we act upon them at the june business meeting if that makes sense so we have a discussion of board

133goals at the june retreat and then action on at the june business meeting right now i think right now we don't talk about it till the june business meeting so on june 2nd info current board goals and self-evaluation and then on june 16th it's the action yes would be my figure that's that's how it's laid out publication okay actually i don't see the action i see the info just the opposite right i mean instead of the info you move that to the retreat you move that to june 2nd we didn't do the goals this year that's a good point [Music] because the board was changing so that's not even happening you're saying so the board goals that are on for june 2nd for info we would keep but then just add the action item is

134that what you're saying mike except we don't have any board goals you say look at what goes for next year no he's got it for next year it's in there for june 2nd yeah that's that was current but we should do it for future we should take it as a okay to pivot to making the retreat for future goals got it good idea okay uh dude you said three that was number two right oh okay um [Music] what am i missing i thought there was something else no i only have two things written down for me oh okay fine got it okay um and then i think if i'm correct off on february 3rd we could remove the cardinal stadium safety road and specs because it looks like we are good there okay anything else

135yep okay one do we have this course study guide that was presented tonight do we have that on for an action item oh it's on for february 24th okay it is on february 24th the other thing that i would suggest is i am going to be presumptuous that the mask mandate mask executive order will be lifted and we should put that on the calendar to deal with that as soon as possible so why not go ahead and put that on for february 24th because that wouldn't be within a week if it went off on the 15th so we'd have to call a special meeting we would have to okay yes and it's right in the middle of occasion good point but yeah we'll see i mean she's saying she's we're hearing that they're going to

136not wait until the 15th they're going to make some sort of decision earlier but who knows yeah the superintendents in the state have requested that okay all right i just want to be ready agreed all right seeing nothing else can i get a motion miss costing do i have a second okay all right well now we'll give it to mr kittle and is that okay with you mr kelly we'll give it to you back next time okay all in favor 8-0 we are only an hour behind my schedule thank you so much have a good night