001So, good evening everyone. Uh, this is uh Thursday, September 11th at 6:01 p.m. and I'm calling the Graten Board of Education Communications Committee. Uh, special meeting to order. Um, this meeting is all remote. um online um myself, Jay Whitoff, Adrienne Johnson, assistant superintendent, and Marie Mancini, uh board member Jen White, and communications specialist Rebecca Bias. Um the first order of business is just reviewing the meeting minutes. We don't have to vote on this, but does anyone have any um comments or concerns about the uh minutes of the last meeting? Okay. If not, we can move on. Um, Rebecca, just wondering if you wanted to give us um a brief communications update to get us started. Sorry, can you hear me now? I was muted. Um, I did just create a brief presentation for tonight. Um,
002to following along our agenda, just rehitting our goals. I kind of like to start with these and and these are what we keep top of mind. um I think through everything that we do um always looking to strengthen our communications and um with huge priority on um not only family engagement but staff engagement as well. So we've talked about these things um in our prior meetings. I know our last uh meeting as a committee was in March but um you may remember I did a lengthy presentation to the board in July to the full board. Um, so again, you know, enhancing the parent user experience, um, doing a lot of training, building our capacity with staff, leveraging our existing platforms and resources, and looking to new opportunities to strengthen and deepen um, family engagement and
003doing all of this always attached to our mission of teaching and learning and looking to support student success. um you know, highlighting the achievements of our schools, our staff, our district, our programs, and um with our new strategic plan as a district. Um you know, making sure what we're doing from a commun communications perspective is aligned to those goals and objectives. Um so what have we been doing lately? Um very busy, of course, time of year across the board for the district. Um but certainly very busy as well with communications and um that should say connecting with families and building capacity. I apologize it says Connecticut. Um but our back to school communications, you know, onboarding our existing and new families um to all of our core district platforms um being P school, Parent Square,
004School Cafe for food services, you know, introducing our new families to those, but also um families who might not be feeling totally comfortable with those platforms. Um what's new about them? you know, P school has um the app has a bit of a refreshed look this school year. We're working through some changes there. Um, of course, just all of our back to school messaging and information from bus runs to sped procedural um safeguards and things like that. And then certainly a lot of events happening and open houses, back to school nights at all of the schools um happening across the board. Um I talked about building that staff capacity. We've been doing a tremendous amount of training both in person and developing training documents um for our coaches um working with our nurses, working with
005our new teachers and our returning staff. Um, a great example I think is um I sat down with the nurses from GMS and Fitch two days before the start of school and you you may or may not be aware that um there's certain grade levels that have requirements around physicals um seventh grade and I believe 10th grade um where students have to have new physicals um per the state of Connecticut and as of the Monday of the week of back to school we had a very high volume of students who were non-compliant with this. Meaning um you know it's it's not just uh it's not just a problem that you know we don't have their physicals in the system but that means we can't have those students in seats on the first day of school
006and then that directly impacts attendance. Um so it's really a snowball effect. So sat down with them um and we worked on some messaging and getting those messages out with urgency um and saw phenomenal results um and you know again we're able to have you know kids kids in those seats in their classrooms on the first day of school whereas otherwise um they might not have been able to be there um or would be sitting in the nurse's office. Um, we have a lot of forms and updates at the start of the school year, you know, contact information update, um, Chromebook user agreements. Uh, we're doing a lot with free and reduced lunch, especially with changes with those guidelines and which schools are free, um, and reduced, which ones are not. Um, and, um, impact
007aid is just around the corner. Um, typically we launch that in the very beginning of October. Um, lot of things happening with the website. This has been a very ongoing project. There's still a lot of work that we're doing there. Um streamlining um navigation and menus, highlighting different programs um like like IB and ECE at the high school and making sure those um are getting highlighted um and showcased. Um always looking to help uh and work with attendance supporting the different tiers of intervention with um communications. We were having a lot of conversations about that just this afternoon. And then um something that we just did today um ESBAC and NGSS individual student reports. We just distributed those today via secure document delivery. You may remember that this is um how we have been distributing
008our report cards with great success over the past year. Um and we saw um the state is phasing out um sending paper copies to the schools. They did still send us paper copies this year, but given our pivot and shift with success to this secure document delivery. Um last year we thought it was um good to keep that going. Parents are starting to get used to seeing these reports and things that way. Um so we did push uh you know chose to pivot and and make that um adjustment earlier um than the state's full phase out which a lot of school districts are doing. Um and um you know not only uh does it help with resources and time of having to you know stuff envelopes but certainly um saves on paper costs um when
009we're sending out thousands of reports and um uh saves on postage. So, um there's definitely some cost benefits there as well. But, um within 45 minutes of those reports going out today, we already had over 50% of parents viewing them. Um and a huge percentage of parents viewing them via text. Um so, the data is out there that that's how parents like to look at things. They have their phones in their hand. Text is very, very successful. So, we continue to look at ways that we can be um sharing um information about their students academic progress in that way. Um but we did also make sure that the school um parents were told that if they did want a hard copy um that the schools will have those and they can get a hard copy
010this year from their school. I know the next item on the agenda is um family and community engagement. Um was there anything you wanted to before we we move on to the next item? I wanted to pause here. Does anybody have any questions for Rebecca or Amarie at this point? Uh Adrian. Yeah, I am um I'm wondering if we're doing anything um to reach out with engagement in the communities directly um especially in the areas um that maybe don't have transportation to get to Fitch. Um I know there's been some talk in the past about maybe doing um you know some things at community rooms in um in some of those areas and mostly towards the western side of town. And I'm wondering if if we've got any um any plans to do that. And
011and specifically, I think it would be nice um to catch um parents with with much younger kids so we can try to get that engagement started, you know, at an early time in in their education. >> We did do a back to school event at Brford Manor. Um so we were present at that. Um, you know, the schools all are very heavily focused on their back to school nights and open houses. Um, so we have not planned any events right now because we certainly want parents um, if they can get somewhere to get to those at their children's schools. Um, and it is a challenge to get parents to attend those things in person sometimes. Um, but we are looking and we do have on the next slide some of the other um events that
012we're looking at having um across the community or our schools. >> When you say um community rooms, what types of locations um are you thinking about? >> Well, I mean, I'm mostly thinking about um ways to get to the parents that don't show up for the open houses. um which I mean I know they're generally well attended to um but I know less and less as you get to middle school and high school. So yeah, so do you do you know um how many parents attended open houses at different schools as far as percentages and how you know how we might make it better where we need to or have any ideas on how to make that better? >> Yeah, I don't have um I don't have specific data on that. I myself attended the
013Fitch open house. Um and you know certainly the attendance was was low at that. Um and in fact um Amory and I were discussing that and looking at some some ideas and you know this very much ties into um this next item and slide on our agenda about Dr. Karen map and um some of the mindsets around um around these topics. Um but we do think we maybe need to sort of pivot how how we are doing these things because you're right we do see a tremendous drop off particularly at the middle and high school levels um with parents coming out to some of these things. Now, I know one of the conversations I had with a teacher at back to school night at the high school, they did indicate though that they tend to
014see better attendance and have started seeing better attendance at the parent teacher conferences um which they've started doing at the high school level um in recent years. So, I think that's that's interesting. Um and we don't have a firm handle on, you know, why um why parents haven't come out to um some of the events. Um but it's something we're absolutely talking about and looking to see how we can shift that. Yeah, I think um you know for this year I don't know if it's possible just to do some um teacher surveys or something maybe afterwards so we can get some real numbers um and be able to um measure it maybe in the future, you know, for future comparison. >> All right. Um Ken Hi. Regarding the open house at Fitch, do you think
015um it was too early? Like the kids like were probably literally in school like 5 days and maybe parents didn't realize it was happening. I was because I I mean granted my kids not in school anymore but I remember that place being full and I thought like open house was a little bit later so I wasn't sure if >> and probably takes up a lot of resources and time but maybe have like another one like in January, February after the holidays at the start of the new year. It's just an idea. um because sometimes some kids switches classes and stuff um during um that time frame. So um just because of the low attendance and maybe um frequency and maybe we'll get more a thought. It's something to think about. Um >> yeah, I think
016that um that's an interesting idea. I think generally what we um they do try to do conferences again like when the students switch classes and I think we need to make a distinction between like an open house and a conference. Uh uh I have seen open houses take place anywhere from sometimes before school even starts you know with the concept of open house being uh that idea of establishing relationships between the with the families and the uh and the teachers um to you know anywhere in anywhere sometime in in that early month of uh September. So >> okay >> uh you know it could really happen any time. Um but you know I certainly understand that feedback of you know it being earlier than people expect depending upon historically you know when you do it
017here um in Groten um you know I think some of it is about communication and and uh and and you know I I did see some communication go out you know I don't always been um absorb you know I get I get everybody's parents square messages so yeah >> you may not absorb you know uh which one's coming in for Fitch versus this elementary school or that elementary school. But, you know, I did see quite a a bit of communications coming through about the various open houses. Um I I can't you know I can't say with confidence how many messages I saw come through with uh you know about Fitch but you know maybe related to communication or um just >> sometimes it's related to you know the age level of the kids and and
018and parents saying well you know my child is a is a high school student and I'm going to start to give them that independence that that I don't I you know for whatever reason parents um say well maybe I'll I'll back off a little bit and you know so it's a variety of things but um let's face case it we all know that um all of our students regardless of the age level they do still need um our support and our and our teachers still need uh the support of our our our families at the high school level. So we have to continue to message that. >> Yeah. No. Yeah. because I know um the reason why I was just concerned was because I know last year I think they didn't have any and then
019that was when um a couple of the board members um were pushing for it and so now we had it and then like for attendance but like I said in years past like I thought it was heavily in you know like there were people in there. So, um, anyway, that's a little disappointing, but hey, we're trying and that's all we can do. >> Um, >> definitely definitely we have to work that we have to work back up and I know that the high school is trying. We're going to continue to to increase >> sometimes, you know, like I said, we've we've been actively discussing discussing this. The very next morning I was in chatting with Amber about it. Um, and you know, it might be it might be a slight format change. It might be,
020you know, it we don't entirely know. It could be a variety of reasons such as the ones Amarie gave. It could be transportation challenges. It might not be. Um, I do know two weeks prior to the, you know, full school openhouse, there was a freshman only open house for parents. So, was it was it too soon? because certainly the freshman being new to the school um would be probably your most captive audience for that event. So um that was very very close together. So you know it there could be a multitude of reasons but I do think we agree that um you know maybe some shifts too in the the style of the events or things like that that those might be some things to look at. >> Yeah. No, that's that's fine. At least
021we can't be held like, "Oh, you didn't even bother having one for the high school." You know what? We We had it and it's now on you. We can only do so much. Um so, but I did um Did you have a presentation regarding community engagement? because I did have some ideas regarding community engagement, but would love to definitely hear from both of you if you had a presentation or if you were going to just share some of your ideas. >> Oh, we have some additional things that Rebecca is going to talk about as well. >> Oh, perfect. >> Yeah. So, >> no, it's great great dialogue. So, I did share and and I think this may have come up at one of our early meetings together um with this new committee. So we um
022Dr. Karen M is very well known for her focus on family engagement um and this dual capacity framework which I'll show you on the next slide um with again the the focus really being on the partnership creating the trust um respecting um the parents but even more so approaching things where we want to be providing a lot of value and assets to parents um and and things that they will perceive as valuable um versus approaching things from the perspective of where they're lacking or where they have a deficit on um certain things. Um we also want all of our events to always again going back to what I said earlier about all of our efforts really being linked to supporting student success is we want all of our events really to be connected to learning,
023connecting to how families can be supporting their student outcomes. Um but um highlighting this from a very positive here are things that you can do um ways you can incorporate things um in into what you're doing with your child and showing um real examples of of that work and um I'll go on Amory is there anything you want to add here before I I know you have a lot more experience with um Dr. Karen M. >> Yeah I was really fortunate a couple years ago I attended a weeklong institute at Harvard Dr. Dr. Karen Map is uh she works there and she runs this weeklong institute um and I learned a lot from attending this institute um you know helped you obviously develop this slide but the importance of really linking the family events to
024learning and this has um I think helped us in uh Grten to develop some ideas for this year around uh family engagement but also community engagement and some of the ideas that um I talked with the superintendent Austin about for this year. But you can go ahead and and I don't want to steal your thunder. I can have you go ahead and introduce some of the ideas and I can um I can kind of respond and add on as uh as we move forward. >> Yeah. So again, we talked about how we're um applying this mindset of this dual capacity framework um across different initiatives. Um literacy is certainly a big focus area. Um, and I think that that ties in very well um to what we were just discussing about events and ways we're
025approaching things there. >> If I can speak to this and I I can't remember if you we have some more details on the slide coming up, but I can just kind of add a little bit about this. We have some events coming up uh around literacy specifically. Um in our open house we have and our open houses at the elementary school we have letters going out to our families at the K5 level that um reach out to our parents and just kind of say hey here that's how you can um support our students at the elementary level at home uh reading along with your child and then when our parents come to the open house they can visit um these tables with that are uh staffed by our literacy specialists they can get some additional
026detail if they have questions you know I got your letter about um reading to my child at home. I had some questions about, you know, these these instructions or even if they didn't have questions, you know, they just kind of wanted to stop by these tables. Um I know last year or we all know that we implemented our first year of um oh my gosh, why did how am I blanking on the um on the literacy program, but our first year of our literacy program, >> Witten wisdom. Thank you. First year of Witt and Wisdom. um and they can learn a little bit more about Witten Wisdom and some of the things that our teachers are doing in the classroom and they can um again get a little bit more information on Witten Wisdom and
027and how to support their child at home. Um we will also have literacy nights very specific at the K5 level um at our um and again at some of our elementary schools where they where families can get um more like uh details about strategies to use at home with their child. And so we're really excited about some of the things that we're doing around literacy to support their child um again, you know, around the our wit and wisdom program and and um the science of reading. So um happy with um you know, what we're doing to enhance that work. Uh in terms of attendance, you know, we're going to be sending a lot of communication out this year in terms of supporting um you know, that idea of we want you in school every day.
028School is better with you in it. And then also just um you know if your child is struggling with maybe mental health issues or just engagement in school, how can we um help you as a a parent or a caregiver to you know really encourage your child to be at school every day? Sometimes too as a as a parent or a caregiver, you you don't have an awareness of um how many days your child has been out or just the impact of missing what what missing one day of school or two days of of school per month or or per quarter, what that overall impact is. So, we'll be doing a lot of education around that. >> Rebecca, would you like me to continue? >> Um yeah. Well, I just want to chime in too
029with the literacy. Um Sarah Beth and I were chatting yesterday about um you know the letters going home and and um another example is with engaging the parents um you know before they get to the events but is um doing some videos. You know we talking about different fluency examples and how you uh read um you know read a book and you first read it this way and then you keep incorporating. So, you know, sometimes we send home letters and things that, you know, include this education speak or um we're explaining things to parents, but being mindful of um sometimes it's more helpful for folks to see a video. So, we want um you know, we talked about recording a video of some of our literacy specialists showing examples of exactly what we're talking about
030when we're talking about re uh retelling or reading um a passage a certain way and and how it can change and evolve. So again, approaching all of this from a very partnership standpoint um and providing things that parents will view as assets um and helpful and not saying you're not doing this with your child, but encouraging them and being supportive and and helpful. >> Right? In terms of the next thing, you know, that's here on the list, um, school and community events. You know, one thing I recently went back and I watched the presentation that I made to the community of the whole um, and one of the pieces of feedback that um, I noticed that was given after I presented that plan was about the need or the desire for more community events. And
031so I started to talk to Superintendent Austin about what we can do to, you know, really increase this. Last year we did focus groups, we conducted focus groups with um students and you know in classrooms at the middle and high school level. We went to PTO meetings. Um but you know I felt like we could really kind of increase um those efforts this year. And so um this year I you know and we also went to some staff meetings but this year um she and I are going to make sure that once a month we rotate and we're going to go to um make sure that we're going to staff meetings. we were we're going to hit every building. As a part of this, we'll um we'll have an kind of a give an update
032of what's going on in the building. I mean in uh in the district and then at the end they'll have a opportunity to ask us questions about any topic that they want to you know could be about the update that we provide could be about you know maybe they have questions regarding professional learning or you know other things. So um you know we'll welcome that. That's something I did in my former district and it really generated some really great conversations. So, I'll look forward to those. I'm actually going to introduce that tomorrow when we have the princ uh actually not tomorrow, Tuesday when we have the principles in for their September meeting. Another thing that um uh Superintendent Austin and I talked about was the idea of community forums. Um that came out loud and
033clear in that um community of the whole meeting last June. And so I asked her about this. I said, "Tell me more about these community forums that um that was brought up." It was something that um we did something similar in in my former place of work where the superintendent and I would have uh once a quarter we would um you know go to a place like a common place like the town hall or we would designate you know some other place and say uh we would call them actually superintendent um I think we called them superintendent forums. Um and we would have you know like light refreshments. Uh we would very similar to what we did at staff meetings. we would have a a topic, maybe we would give an update or a specific
034topic that we were focusing on. Um maybe it would be, you know, something that that was um relevant at the time. Maybe we were talking about cell phones or AI, whatever it was that was kind of relevant to what was happening. And then um the community members that were present had an open kind of open opportunity to ask us about whatever they wanted to talk about. Um and you know depending upon the uh people who were present you know could be the that open forum could go for an hour. Sometimes it was only 15 minutes long but um it was a great opportunity for us to meet you know families um in the district. Um sometimes they were just members of the community that wanted to participate. But you know we always felt like we
035met a lot of u people during that time and we had a lot of good conversations. And then the last thing, you know, I'm going to really kind of turn this over to Rebecca because this is something she initiated last year. Um, and so I don't want to steal her thunder, but I know that, um, you know, this was a great opportunity that, um, that she kind of initiated and, um, it was really successful. Rebecca, do you want to talk about theformational webinars? >> Yeah. So that was something we had um tried out um last last spring at the high school um around um it was focused on IB um but we had um great turnout. So to your to your point earlier and questions about you know folks can't always get to things in
036person for a variety of reasons. they might be at work um but they might be on their lunch break um or they can't uh they don't have transportation um and there still is great interest in in attending um theseformational type of things um digitally um like we're doing tonight. So um we did have a very successful um we did two sessions. We did a lunch and learn um and we did an evening session. We had approximately 100 parents sign up for um those webinars and keep in mind that one parent might have signed up but also have their student as well as uh co-parent on the webinar with them. So those were really well attended. So we want to look at opportunities like that as well. Um and again like I said we did we
037did two two different sessions, one at lunchtime, one at evening time. um because you know we certainly have uh a community um where people may be working different shifts. Um so it's important to offer up those those other times. I know. Um, we did not do a large kindergarten event last year, but in Jan late January 2024, we had a kindergarten night um that was heavily focused on a lot of the state changes that were happening with the kindergarten age and talking about the opportunities for transition kindergarten and kindergarten. That event we had um, you know, 120 130 parents out. that was at Fames River Magnet School was where we hosted it. Um so we we absolutely have the opportunity to have these um events with great turnouts either digitally or in person. I think
038it's a matter of finding the right topics, the right locations, and the things that are truly going to be a draw for parents that they feel um again are going to provide some value to them, are something they want to learn about and hear about, are important to them, um are important for their where their child is in their um in their path. Um we do also partner with a lot of other community organizations like Children's for a Scratton. Last year they had a number of events. Um those were primarily always held over at Themes River um magnet school I believe on a variety of different topics. Um not necessarily related to education but Graten Public Schools being a strong partner with um Children's First Graten. Um a lot of our um early childhood staff
039were always at those events as well. Um I don't know if they're planning to do those events throughout the school year again. Um but I hope that they will and we'll certainly look to be a part of them again. So should be a lot you know with the start of the school year um coming up and certainly I think we hear that there's more interest in seeing us out there in the community more. So that's something we're looking to find those right opportunities and ways to do that. Adrien, I see that you have >> recognize Adrian. I recognize Adrian. >> Yeah. Um I think that's a great idea talking about the community forums um and webinars. Um one thing um that might be worth thinking about with that is sometimes we have regulation changes um
040you know at at different age levels or different different school levels. Um, so I'm wondering if this might also be used um like ahead of a time when we know that we're going to have to make some changes or make some regulation. And I'm specifically thinking of like AI. Um, but this could also be for phones or social media um just to get stakeholder input kind of ahead of time. um you know when you know because I know the board is going to be talking about AI from um a policy um side but but we have some policies where regulations just change. So kind of in in in both of those type of um things to you know like I said for stakeholder input. >> Yeah. So, one of the things that the high school
041did this year, they u they made changes to their school-based um cell phone policy and before school started, they had some sessions. I believe like it was u maybe one in person and then also one online. They they I think they did a like a hybrid model. uh but I know they had more than one session um that I believe a lot of people participated in and uh they felt like they got a lot of important input from from people that you know in in their in the high school community. So I I agree with you Adrianne that is a great way um to collect you know to collect input or feedback from you know people in the community so to speak. So I think that you know we should leverage these >> and if
042I can just tag on to that before um we move on I I agree and I think what's really important about that is I know that after they did have those um focus groups is that they did take some of that feedback and they made adjustments to what they had initially proposed as um what they were planning to do. And I think that's um really valuable and important and I think that speaks volumes to um the people who came out but also the people who maybe didn't get to make it to that one. It shows that their input is being heard um and it's being incorporated into the decision-making process. And I think that will only help in the future more people come out because again they'll feel like their their voice was heard and
043it and there was some value to it. Yeah, I think um you know speaking about that one in particular um we ended up in a really good place because I've heard from multiple people that the cell phone policy at Fitch is appreciated by both students and staff. Um so I think we ended up with a you know a really good balanced approach on that. Um so so just just something for thought for you know for future topics that might come up. And then um the other thing, I know we kind of went by this a little bit, but attendance um and I don't know if this is going to be family engagement or not, but have we talked about um like rewards for attendance or is does that happen already? >> Um you know, versus
044um you know, just telling people to come to school, but maybe some kind of age appropriate reward system for attendance. Maybe in upper grades it would be a point on the test or something like that. >> Yeah, >> but that type of thing. or lower grades, maybe it's an actual physical reward. >> We aren't giving um we aren't associating like uh points, academic points uh tests or things like that. But like for example at um Charles Barnum right now um the new principal is has implemented a um 30-day a um 30-day challenge for the beginning of school in which I believe there's some kind of award for Rebecca. Do you want to jump in and help me here? you have something going on with the 30-day attendance challenge. >> Yeah. Um it's it's if it's
045super cute because the um you know Charles Barnum's logo is the bee and so she's doing this whole bee in the hive. Be e in the hive playing off the bee. But yeah, I'm looking up right now. I cannot remember what the reward is, but I think it's like a there's individual rewards and a class reward and they're looking to have I believe over 95 or 96% attendance every day. and she's doing a great job promoting that on um Parents Square. Um they also recently launched a um Charles Barnum Facebook page. Um so if you are on Facebook, you can look for that. It's um Charles Barnum Discovery Magnet School. Um there were some comments um in the um parent square post about some parents saying that their students were really excited about um about
046this challenge and start and feeling really excited about coming to school. Um so it seems like that's definitely working. Um I'm not sure yet. I haven't heard of the other schools yet um adopting something similar. They very well may be and I just have not um heard it yet. But um I know I'll be attending a lot of the school's attendance meetings. I had gone to a few last spring um to talk to them about um some different aspects of um communications and engagement around attendance. Um so that's continuing. But I think um I you know I'm hoping that the the Barnum um idea will continue to be successful and that that can maybe be um a little bit of a model for us. >> Yeah. And we and we have our first district attendance
047meeting that uh next week and so same thing I'll be promoting that model and I have a feeling there'll be a lot of sharing of of some of their strategies and ideas. >> Right. So, I'll recognize Jen. >> Hi. Um, thanks for the um information on the um the webinar. Um, is it possible? I mean, I feel like we record everything. Um, like you do like webinars that are like pre-recorded and then people can just log in and like check their different topics. So, I know you mentioned for the IB you did two sessions. I wasn't sure if one of them was recorded so that parents who maybe have been busy both times that day can go back and do something because I feel like it's more of an on demand thing and then they
048can just sort of go at their own pace. But that seemed like a good way to reach out. But um when I went to the cave um you know um training last November um I heard um I think she was the superintendent or this assistant superintendent in New London talk about their community engagement and Amarie I think you worked with either one or both of them where they started off small and then as other parents started talking about um it's just a meeting at a central place and then it got bigger and bigger and then like community organizations started joining and then parents started coming and it became more of a it's almost like a social event and an engaging event. So maybe it's held at the school, not quite um school directed of like,
049hey, here's some policy changes, but more of like just getting them engaged um with faculty, administration, whomever. And then um I wasn't sure, Amarie, if you had talked to maybe your former colleagues. I think they were your former colleagues. >> Yes, both of them are my former colleagues. I'm not sure exactly what you're um talking about because I don't I didn't attend that session, but I'm happy to reach out to both Cynthia and Jen and get more information on that. >> Yeah, because I it sounded very successful because they mentioned it in one of the things they were hosting. And so I thought maybe if we could leverage off of some of those ideas. Um, like I said, it's more of just like getting the parents in there and then creating that community so that
050um it's almost like, "Yep, I'm a Falcon or whatever like the mascot is in whatever school." And then um I feel like that helps because then now like they feel like you know who they are as parents and it's not as easy to like either skip class or you know um they're more engaged so they're more likely to send our kids off to school. It's yeah, it's more of a social way of getting to parents and it just really caught my eye and I I always wanted to like reach out to them more and um just attend maybe one of their events and maybe I maybe if you can find out like when they have one so that maybe if like a couple board members would like to attend I know I'd be willing to
051see want to see how that how it's working and stuff and if it's something that we can copy um because >> very very easy to do. >> I can I can speak to a little bit of that um as well and I'm sure there's some more insight we can we can gather. Um but a team of us did go over to New London um I think it was last spring. Um so they have a whole welcome center. I believe it's still open. Um it's over in Shaw's Cove. Um so they have a whole New London. It was funded through a grant. Um I think probably like a five-year grant. Um and they have a whole Yeah, it's a welcome center. It's a school district welcome center. Um and um the registration is out of that
052office, but they also have several other staff who are there for a variety of purposes, but they have a large um they have a large open space there. um a large community room at that welcome center and that's where they're hosting some of their events. They tend to provide um food at a lot of the events. That certainly can be a huge draw. Um I know there's some grants and funding that can allow for that and others that don't. Um I know some of their events were very like play-based events like water and um other act hands-on activity things geared towards the students. Um and I think some were other informational um sessions but the majority of of the non-school specific because certainly a lot of our schools have their own um events throughout the
053year um are held at that welcome center in that large community space that they have there. >> Great. Thank you. Yeah, it was really interesting going over and and getting a tour of that space and I mean the we went with our grants coordinator, our registration team um because we wanted to really get a sense of um and I know our grants coordinator has I think you know kept kept her eyes and ears open for for grants that might allow us to do something um similar or at least pieces of it in the future. >> Yeah. you know, like I said, like they presented on it and it was so interesting to me and it's like, yeah, I want to um learn more about it just because if you and from their presentation, if you
054think about New London um maybe demographics of the parents can't always like non-traditional 9 to5 jobs and here they are coming to these events, right? And so if we're trying here in Grten, let's say we're targeting um like some area um within our community and we're thinking like, oh, maybe the parents are working second or third shift that maybe we can leverage some of their ideas. Um so it's just something that I want to bring up. I don't know if they're going to present again this November. If they are, I'm probably going to attend their session again so I can better pay attention. But thank you. >> Yeah. And um so I just want to mention so it's 6:45 I believe that uh um if I understood correctly, Adrian has to leave at 7. I
055have to leave at 7. Um, and so I just want to make it clear for anybody that watches this in the future that all of these uh uh PowerPoint presentations uh as it was for the last meeting are attached to the minutes which can be found um on the website um under the uh committee u minutes link um at gratenchools.org. So, if anybody's interested in looking through uh this in more detail, um I think the next item uh Jen was yours. You wanted to ask a question about the website. >> Yes. So, I know um Rebecca, like a lot of um has been updated in the website. Are there um other capabilities that we're still planning? Um because although we've made tremendous progress, sometimes I go to other district sites and um I feel like
056they're a little bit more agile. So I wasn't sure what you had planned um for our GPS website. >> Yes, absolutely. So I I won't read through this and this is nearly identical to what I had last time on the website because it's all very much still ongoing. Yes, we um are completely um essentially revising all of our navigations um aligning. We had recently made some significant changes to the menus and things on the district site and streamlining that and now we're trying to carry that through to all of the schools using um similar language. I was just working on Fitch yesterday and and revising a lot of their menu items. Um still very much working on some new videos, just some uh videos and photo content. Just much much cleaner, simpler ways of finding
057things. Um, I think this is very much going to be ongoing and yes, still still a huge work in progress. >> Is this something when you're >> Oh, go on Jay. >> Um, when you're talking about the site isn't as agile. Um, obviously this is also going to depend on our service provider. Um, I don't know who's hosting this site uh versus other districts, but um, Rebecca, correct me if I'm wrong, but um, we're going to be limited by the capabilities of the vendor we're currently using to some extent, right? >> Yeah, we're with Final Site currently and um, I believe we have a contract with them for a couple of more years. Um, but in my opinion, I think it's I think there's just some some layout things that things are not quite as
058easy to find as we'd like them to be. And I think with some tweaks and changes, we can we can help that along. Um, I think our our goals are for parent square has become very much for a lot of our daytoday communications needs and um, but we really I think want our websites to showcase um, news items um, and really showcase the culture of our district and um, what's happening at our our schools and um, with our academic programs and all of our different offerings like career pathways and our magnet themes. So, um not necessarily the websites changing as frequently because we have a really great system in place for like daytoday urgent communication needs. Um but wanting that again to really showcase our district and our schools and our culture and all of
059our academic offerings. Um but want things to be simpler and easier to find on it. And I think we can we can work within um what we have currently to do that. >> Yeah, that's what I Yeah, Jay, that's what I when when I mean agile, it's sort of like within two or three clicks like I can find what I'm looking for or things like that. Um and have more of a like 20 25 feel, you know? Sometimes when I go in I feel like okay, maybe like a decade old old feel. you know, just it's there I it's hard to describe, but like when I go in to other sites, um like I said, it's it's functional. It works and you know, we're using a different venue um method to communicate now to parents.
060But if I'm moving in to Grten and I want to learn about the school district, obviously you're going to go there and you want it first impressions, right? um like wow look it they have a IB program or oh look magnet schools what is a magnet school I don't really know what that is and then you know they can sort of like it just highlights and quick and fast um um things like that but um I don't know and maybe I'm I know Dr. Kennedy has interns who sometimes work on, you know, our computers. But I don't know, um, you know, maybe this upcoming year we get interns who are like going into that profession of like like marketing and websites and they could do like a website design for us. I'm not really sure
061if that's the right way to um you know try to update it a little bit. So, it's just a thought on my side. Um like I said, it's functional. It works. It's just that I have to do like multiple clicks sometimes before I can find what I'm looking for. And yeah, so >> I think we can all agree. I I think we can all agree that it's light years ahead of >> what it was there when we first came on. It's been a tremendous which is not to say not to say we can't have continuous improvement, but uh everyone who's associated with this has done a fantastic job to to drag us into the next century because the prior site, you know, definitely had existed for a long time. Um and um and this this
062was really a breath of fresh air, but you always have to keep keep improving. >> Yes. So >> yeah. No, like like I said, it it's better than what we had, but there's still Yeah. >> Thank you. >> The next item. Sure. Thank you, Jen. >> Um the next item is the communications plan review. And uh the the reasons that this is on here um I just wonder if there's any appetite for the um the board members to uh undergo another review. Um there was a communications plan first about maybe six or eight years ago. It was reviewed and and overhauled I believe two years ago. And so just wondering if uh we're at the point where we want to sort of re-review it and see if there's anything. and and Rebecca and Anarie um
063may have suggestions as well of of things they'd like to incorporate. So, and I see that Rebecca as always is ready with uh a presentation. >> Um some more just sorry to disappoint some imagery too. Um but yeah, so we did we did um because I knew tight time was tight. Um we did, you're correct, two years ago um have the the comm the committee's uh ad hoc committee at that time really um took on revising the communications plan and established it as a five-year plan. Um I highlighted the strategies specifically in the plan. Um like I said, it was intended to be a five-year plan, so we're we're really only a couple of years into it. Um and um you know as as we work yeartoear like I mentioned in the goals earlier um
064the first slide you know we certainly adjust our goals year to year and what we're working on and um you know we have the new strategic plan for the district currently. So certainly adjusting um like our tactics and our actions and our and our goals around what's happening currently and where do we want to focus our our efforts and resources um and based on the current needs and and align to the big picture across the district. Um, so I I wasn't sure entirely what you had in mind for this agenda item, but I did want to highlight the plan and highlight, you know, the where we are in terms of the the life of the plan and the development of the plan. Yeah, I had been comparing it against um you know some other representative
065um plans of other districts and just wondered if anyone you know um wanted to sort of re revisit it at all. Um again uh it's it's a fantastic uh plan. It was a major overhaul over the uh the previously existing one. um but just in in the idea of continuous improvement and um so I I just thought I'd plant the seed if members want to review it um I can send out copies of it again um to review and if um anybody has an appetite for um you know revising or expanding it you know that's something we can work on. Uh Jen Um Rebecca Emory, um what's your opinion of the plan? Does it fit with what um administration is thinking? Because there's in my mind no need to revise the plan if it's within
066the scope of what you're envisioning. Um, but if there's things that you feel like are grossly misplaced and should be addressed, then yeah, definitely we could do that. But if if it's still like within the intent, um, I'm okay not reviewing it or making major updates at least. >> You know, I think the plan I don't think there's anything grossly missing. Um, I think it's a framework. I think it it does allow for us to be fluid, um, and adjust based on, like I said, adjust our goals year to year, um, based on what we feel are the needs and the priorities and aligning with what else is going on in the the district and the world. Um from a communications perspective um this is this is really the the board's communication committee's plan that
067you know that the committee at that time developed um and intended to have that five-year longevity to it. So I do still feel that's that's there but I don't think that prohibits us from make you know from again having goals and implementing tactics and and and strategies that we need to at the time. I think it's it's really a framework and it's fluid enough for us to adjust as needed without having to necessarily rewrite a whole plan. But it is the committee's it is the committee's plan. >> Yeah. I certainly wasn't suggesting any wholesale uh changes. I had just noticed um you know in reviewing other plans um there might be ways we could um bump this up a little bit but we definitely don't want to micromanage um you know our goal as a
068board is to provide broad policy and then uh the implementation is obviously up to administration. So, I'm not looking to micromanage um by tweaking the plan um in that direction at all. Um but um just thought I'd bring it up um since it's been a couple of years. So, um other than that, I just want to thank you Rebecca and Amarie. Um excellent presentation. Um a lot of good ideas. Um and I look forward to um reviewing the the PowerPoints. Um, and does anyone uh have any other comments before we adjourn? >> Jay, I would just say if there's something that did stand out to you in in another plan that you may have seen, um, certainly love to love to see it. So, >> please, please, >> okay, >> please. Um, you know, I
069I'm always looking looking around and, you know, various districts across the state, across the country. um you know have have different ideas and we can always learn from those and incorporate you know ideas are good. >> All right. >> Yeah. The the only >> Thank you very much. >> Yeah. Can I just add one thing really quickly? >> Um one thing I know we had talked about in the spring but it was um board access to parent square um the um you know kind of the the schoolwide email blasts. And I I know that um I know that we have some parents where like a limited amount of stuff comes to the board, but has there been any more discussion among the administration um about that? >> So in other words, um individual board members
070opting in to receive the schoolwide messages >> from from the schools themselves. Andrew, >> yeah. Is that something that could be done with our accounts? Uh uh Rebecca technically >> um yes. >> Can you make us sort of a part and and yeah, is there the ability to to on a granular level to just uh make us members of of all of them and then receive like the schoolwide communications? >> There's there's a few options for that. I, you know, would want to caution you about wanting to get everything because it's a lot. Emry and I get everything. >> I think members would members would have to opt in. We wouldn't just >> turn everybody on. >> So, I think if you're if you're talking like are you thinking more like you want every weekly
071update or just large school announcements? Are you more interested in getting uh making sure you know about events so that you can attend those? I'm just trying to gauge so I can figure out the best option for you. >> And I do and I do recall talking about this in the spring. So I I apologize that it we need >> Yeah. My my own would be my own idea would be um you know that that board members can opt opt in or to and then they could filter as they wanted. um if they didn't want to get everything, you can set up I believe you can set up filters in Parent Square to to reduce it and maybe they could maybe you could work with them on that. Um but my idea was that board
072members would get the schoolwide um the schoolwide messaging and obviously not like classroom, you know, down to that detail, but anything that goes out to the school. So, and specifically so board members could know um school events like some evening events that are kind of public that board members might might want to you know I mean um maybe maybe some board members want to go to a um you know the Christmas um you know band and chorus um concerts and things like that and so so that kind of thing but also just so we kind of know what's going on on the ground so we get you get a feel because a lot of our board members don't have children in in the schools anymore. So they can get kind of a feel of what's
073going on daytoday in the schools without you know without that kind of um you know detailed view um that you might get out of the classroom. >> Jay, do you have any thoughts on how you would want to put this out to the board members in terms of opting in and seeing who who's who's interested in opting into this and at what level? Well, I mean, I you know, I I I suppose we might want to to bring uh Bev into it, but you know, I would just, you know, say an email with a um you know, an invitation um for those that, you know, want to opt in. Um all board members are are currently on Parent Square at the district level, right, for large >> Yes. um announcements. >> Yes. >> And so
074maybe just allow us to know what are the sort of >> granular levels that are available if that makes sense, you know. Um because I'm just not I'm personally not familiar with the internal architecture of that, >> right? Um yeah. So let me there's there's a there's a few ways um you know we can we can add you as a group at the uh as um so we have you know staff parents and at Fitch students and then we have guests and a lot of um folks who are not necessarily a staff at a particular building or in the system as a guest. Um so that's one option. Um, but then the caveat is that it's the sender has does have to remember when they send a message that they that they add the the
075guests to it. But that can be helpful because in most cases it's the principal sending those schoolwide messages so they can um help, you know, make sure they're adding you to the things that would be of interest. And that's why I'm sort of asking what what types of things would be of interest most um because I don't I don't believe we can add you in as a a staff per se which then you would get everything at the school not I mean not class specific messaging but um you would get anything that all staff get that you wouldn't and that you would would be overwhelming I think >> and you can't filter that Okay. >> I I don't need to get the um the lunch menus every day or anything like that, but >> yeah,
076>> the the the large events is what I'd be interested in. And I assume, you know, a lot of uh board members would be interested in. >> Yeah. So I think our probably best solution is to create the board group at each school and then ask the principles to be looping you in on some of the larger updates and about um some you know showcasing some things that students are doing or key events so that you guys are in in the know on those things and invited. >> I think that would be >> and we want them to know that we're all interested. >> Yeah. Yeah. And thank you Adrian for for really championing this uh this idea. Um, one thing, um, I I do have some concerns about it being, um, like opt-in for
077board members just because, um, sometimes I'll get emails or calls from parents, um, because as schoolwide, email may have gone out and I would hate to be left off things and sometimes, you know, as the board, we're, you know, especially if you're not in school, you you can feel like you're the last to know on on certain things. Um, so that's why I I would be more interested if we could just be at kind of the parent level. Um, so you know, but parent for the schoolwide stuff and not the um, you know, and not the um, you know, obviously the classroom level. Unfortunately, we can't we can't add you in and on and on on the same sort of level the parents get added in because they get added in as um they're added
078in be through their attachment to a student. >> All right. Well, maybe it's something um you and I can talk about. Um yeah, you know, maybe I can come in sometime and I can sit down with you. >> Um you know, if that sounds all right, uh with you guys, then we can kind of give the board some options. >> Yeah, I think that I do think the group the group thing would work and then the board members should still have um the option of um customizing their notification preferences like any user can. Um, so I can I can prepare some things around that and and I think we can figure it out. I mean, we can figure it out together. I can share some information. We can figure it out. >> All right. Thank
079you. >> All right. Well, thank you very much. And since we have uh uh reach the end of the agenda, um unless there's any objection, uh we're we're adjourned. Thank you everyone. >> Thank you. Good night. >> Thanks everyone.