10-24-22 Groton Board of Education Meeting

001604. Um, and it is my pleasure and honor to call the Groten Board of Education regular meeting to order. And our first um, agenda item is the uh, pledge of allegiance. And, um, Mr. Keller, >> our flag is um, behind us. And Mr. Keller, would you be willing to lead us? I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Ted, that's what happens when you're like in my eyesight. I will and you and you made eye contact with me. And that's it. >> That's it. Um >> so um Miss Austin I understand that there is no um visitors or delegations for tonight's meeting. Is that correct? >> I don't think we have

002anybody who said and I don't see anybody on. >> No, I'm not I'm not doing I'm not doing communications yet. I'm just asking for uh delegations or visitors or special recognition. Okay, super. Okay, so we are now on agenda item number three. Um, and this is the portion of the agenda where the board welcomes comments from citizens. Each presentation should be limited to 5 minutes or less and citizens should, if possible, submit written comments. Presentation should be related to matters pertinent to Graten and board members will only ask questions in order to clarify the speaker's presentation and cannot respond during the comments from Susan's portion of the board meeting. citizen should and we don't have a podium though I do want to let the board know is that it looks like we most likely will

003be able to be in the annex for our next meeting. Um the town council um are are already in the annex but I think that they are the quote unquote guinea pigs um and making sure that the new technology is working. Um, and it's my understanding is that um, our tech staff needs to go and be reintroduced to the new technology, but it looks pretty good for our regular board meeting, our regular board meeting to be um, at the annex. So, just because my other portion is to say step to the podium, but there is no podium. So, Miss Joan, I don't know if there's anyone online that is showing interest. >> I don't see anybody. And there is no one here. Is that correct? >> Not to my knowledge. >> Board, I am the

004board that is here. I am sorry. I'm going to put this on a on a gallery because I it allows me to see >> um who is here and who's not. >> All right. I did know that I got a correspondence that I shared with um you um to the board last week about um the electric buses and he want and I believe he wanted to speak and I kind of said for him to kind of hang out um that we we get it to it pretty early and it's about 6 around 6:05 so if I could just take a deep breath and I don't want to miss an opportunity for him to be heard. So, we're going to take a five minute deep breath. >> Nope. >> Okay. >> Just want to >> see

005see um if we have a universal power that allows this person to come in or not. Always believe in the universe. All right, I am going to move us on. Um, and it's so exciting um to have student representatives. I want to let you let everyone know that Isaiah um also reached out to me and he is in California and he thinks that that is a reason to like not come to a board meeting. I don't know where his priorities are. Um and so I am going to welcome >> Kate. I was gonna say Kate, but I was like I got scared. Zoe, but and Zoe. I I got Zoe. But um we do have two members with us today. And so board, we are actually going to hopefully have three members. Maybe they will

006split up the meetings, maybe they won't. We don't know. Um but Kate is going to speak a little bit to uh to us about the happenings. Um and that um Kate, if you would like to introduce Zoe, that would be great. Um, she happens to be sitting next to a board of ed member and if you kind of look at them, they kind of look like they belong. >> No, no, she's much more prettier. You're right, Dean. >> Um, but >> yeah, but Zoe, I would like to um welcome you um as a junior representative to the board. And so, um, welcome to your first regular board meeting as a student rep. Um, and I do know that Kate and you will have to leave right after you give the report. Um, and that is

007that is great. And Zoe, I'll look forward to kind of um finding time to spend with you and kind of talk to you about what happens at the board and ways that you may be interested in participating. Okay. Super. >> All right. So, I'm Kate Talshi. I'm a senior at Fitch High School. This is Zoe related. um she's a junior at Fitch High School and it's been super exciting that we get to be um student representatives for the board of ed. Um so some of the happenings at Fitch right now, it's a really exciting time of year. We have a bunch of events happening this week actually at Fitch. It's our spirit week. Um and so today started that off. Today was pajama day. Um which was I think tons of fun getting to see

008not only um my peers but also some of my teachers in pajamas. Um so that was a lot of fun. And then tomorrow is anything but a backpack day, which I don't know if any of you are familiar with what this is, but essentially what you do is you bring all of your school supplies in anything but a backpack. Um, so tomorrow I plan to bring a small suitcase to school and that will be my anything but a backpack. >> Hopefully with wheels. >> Yes. Yes. And bright pink with wheels. Um, so that is the plan for tomorrow. So that's super exciting this week. And then we also have the pep rally at the end of this week which um Isaiah reached out to me today and wanted me to let you know um that

009our pep rally is on Friday and Miss Scola is almost finished planning it. Um so I don't have a whole ton of details on what is going to be going on at pep rally but I know in the past it's been super exciting. So we are definitely looking forward to that. And then he also wanted me to mention um homecoming this Saturday and the homecoming football game is on Friday and we have a theme for our football game and this one is going to be pink out um in support of breast cancer awareness month. Um so we are really excited about doing that. And then two other things I wanted to bring up. Um as most of you probably know, we have a new choir and orchestra teacher in our school this year. um and

010she's been absolutely wonderful and some of the things that she's started up was um a carolling group. So um we are preparing a bunch of songs right now. I'm part of this group. We're preparing a bunch of songs right now um to hopefully be able to go and sing at like retirement homes, nursing homes um out and out and about in our community um to hopefully bring some holiday cheer into that. And then um the chamber choir, orchestra, band, concert choir, all of our musical ensembles have a concert this Wednesday night at 6:30. If y'all would like to join us, we would love to see you there. Um and then Chamber Choir is also singing the national anthem at the pep rally on Friday, which is our first big event in front of the school.

011I'm also in chamber choir, but that's our first big event in front of the school, so that is very exciting. Um >> at the auditorium. Yes, at Fitch High School. >> What time? >> 6:30. >> I think I sent it to you already. >> It went into an email today. >> So, I sent it. >> We would love to have you all there if you could make it. Um, but I believe that's just about everything I want to mention. >> Okay, I think that is about it. >> So, thank you. >> Yeah. Um, any questions for our student reps? We welcome them. And I told them a little bit about our Cape Cats convention. >> Yes. So, I want to make sure I get them that information because they actually do a special day for

012our students and the students always get so much out of that. Um, just being able to talk to other students who have the same roles and to be able to see what's happening with them and so I want to make sure that you get that information. So, I'll have Joyce send it out to you. >> Thank you. >> That's it. >> All right. >> Thank you so much. >> Oh, thank you for coming. >> Have a great night. Good night. >> Good night. Bye. Thank you. >> And Dean, thank you for sharing your family with us. That's kind of cool. [Laughter] >> But they've already graduated. >> She's a tailor. >> Yes. But I It's kind of cool to we'll be able to spend the next two years with her. So that would be nice.

013>> The last two years together sort of in that we're seeing the tunnel, you know, you won't be able to wait till your kids are gone. I'm going to miss the whole cars you wear and stuff. >> Yeah, I hear you. >> Yeah. >> So, I'm going to move us along. Um and um we have been really looking forward to this part of um our meetings where we get to see um our staff. Um, and I will actually I'm going to let Susan I'm going to let you um introduce it. >> Okay. So, I know Tom is here with us and he's going to with the virtually with the remote control be able to help us with the slides. >> I think Mark I think Mark's gonna >> Oh, Mark has it >> presented. So,

014>> okay. >> I do. Are you ready for it? >> Well, I wanted to first introduce and bring up um Peter Bass whom you all know and Jamal Davis. and maybe if you sit at the table so they can hear you really well. I know that um Peter has another important engagement to go to. So, and he actually came first in the presentation. So, that works out nicely. Um but I what I'd like to ask the board members to do that will really help us is if we let the administrators go through the presentation and at the end after we've heard the Graten Middle School presentation, we ask questions. So if you have a a really important question, just jot it down and when they finish with the presentation because oftentimes when you ask a

015question, it's there, but it's later on in the presentation. So let's get through the presentation and then ask the questions and then I'll ask the high school staff to join us as well. >> Susan, any abbreviations? Could they um name what they mean um to the public? Yes. If we have any abbreviations on the slides, we'll we'll say the whole name and we'll try to explain it as we go. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> I don't know. All right. I think we're ready, Mark. And all of you should have received a hard copy. There are lots of slides. There's a lot of information to talk about here, but the most exciting part is the so what, now what? So, what are we going to do about the data? How do we put

016this into action? >> All right, >> I think we're going to have to get the right slide up. The presentation part. Mark >> to the right for slide two. >> Can you put Oh, can you put it in the um presentation mode? >> I haven't used Google Slides. I always use PowerPoint. Let's see. Um >> Tom, do you have any recommendations here? >> Mark, if you click that view only thing kind that yellow button in the top middle. What is that? It should let you edit it. It's not. >> It says request edit access. >> Press that for me really quick. Just say send. I can probably let >> this is where it would be nice to have some background. >> Yeah. Let me share my screen. Mark, can I share my screen? >> Sure.

017Oh, there you go. >> All right. So, let me orient you to this slide. Um, be saca stands for ELA, which is the smarter >> Smarter Balance Assessment Consortium English language arts performance index for grade six. And remember B for blue and book. That's how we keep them straight. We color code them. >> When we look across uh the bottom there, the 2017, 2018, 2018, 2019, and and continue to go along, you'll see the light blue bar is Graten students and the dark blue bar is the state of Connecticut. It's important to note that this is not a cohort comparison. This is how our sixth graders did in each of these years. So the sixth graders in 1718, the sixth graders in 1819, and so on and so forth. It's also important to remember that

018in 1718 and 1819, this represented students when they attended both Cutler, former Cutler and Westside Middle School. Also, the blank space was when they attended Cutler and Westside, but we all went home in March and did not take us back that year. In 2020 2021, as we know, we came back to school in a hybrid mode. Um, and we were forced out roughly a month's worth of school days. The uh total remote and the state did not report their average for that year. And then last year 21-22 we can see uh how our graten students at GMS did in comparison to the state. You look at the the 171 1819 you can see that we were within shooting distance of the state. Um and then we went down a bit despite opening a brand new

019school and despite the pandemic, our sixth grade students in 2020 21 all things considered I feel fared fairly well. And then last year we uh edged above the state uh for our students in grade six. >> And remember this is not a percentage. The performant index is a target. >> Correct. The ideal target for all of us is 75. To reach 75 by 2030. >> Next slide, please. Move on to grade seven. The acronyms are still the same. And you can see that the the way that the data is laid out is also the same. And again, these are the seventh graders in each of the years. um close to the state in 1718, a little bit above the state in 1819, no data for 1920. No comparison data, but we went down a bit

020um from 1819, the seventh graders uh in that year, just a little bit less than seventh graders in 1819 and then up a bit last year and and ahead of state. And this is something you know as we look at six seven and eight for ELA. Uh if if you had asked us to look in our crystal ball as the pandemic began, if you had asked us how we do in language arts and compared comparison to math, we I would have predicted our language arts scores would probably dip a bit but not nearly as much as math. And I think we saw that in the national news as well today that those trends do remain consistent. Next slide, please. Same orientation, grade eight, 1718, 1819. We were a bit above the state overall in 1718.

021A little bit less than the state in 1819, 1920. We did not take the test. Took a bit of a dip in comparison to the previous two sets of data 21 and up a little bit last year and beat ahead of of the state. Now we'll move on to math. Grade six. Same orientation. Um, but now we're talking about math. And so the the green bar is our mathematical data set for Grten. And the dark blue bar continues to be the state of Connecticut. So we were a bit behind the state in 1718, roughly the same margin in 1819. Uh we took a dip in 2021 and came up a bit last year just slightly ahead of the state seven similar shape to the data close to the state. um in 1718 down bit below

022the state in 1819 took a dip actually saw with the other sets in 2020 21 came up a bit and actually a little bit above the state in grade seven for last year eight and relatively similar 171 18 were a bit further above the state uh than in all the other data sets but then you can see that they're quite similar in took a dip in 2021 and we're smack dab right at the state last 2122. Going to move on to the uh next generation science standards. That's NDSS performance index for grade 8. Grade 8 is the only year in the middle school level in which this assessment is given. You see we're very close to state in 1819 2021. uh the state cannot report their data but you can see we definitely took a

023dep here and a bit of a bounce back last year and again are very close to the state last year's data >> and we had spoken about this when Tom showed you the NGSS data um across the district and we shared that even though it's in eighth grade it's really the what they're evaluating is really all the middle years six, seven and eight. >> Correct. >> So it's really important that we do those IEDs each of the years and the same thing is true for fifth. It's really three, four and five and 11th is 9, 10, and 11. So it's comprehensive exam over three years. On this slide, you can see uh this is our our ESPback ELA for last year, the average performance index for all three grades combined in comparison to all the

024other alliance districts. See that Grouden was first amongst the alliance districts. Nice to see. Then Matt close second >> with our friends from Vernon. We're back and forth with Vernon. This slide gives us a a snapshot of last year how our students did on the performance index by race and ethnicity. But I'd like to point out to you that some of the the data sets are so small that we really need to take those into consideration. Uh this is data that uh Tom was nice enough to work on and come up with us because the data sets are so small for some of our our categories that the state doesn't recognize them as such. So, you have to take it with a bit of a grain of salt, but it does give us points to

025ponder as we move forward. Um, it's helpful for a conversation. >> So, this is all graten kids. >> All graten >> six through eight. >> And the ELA, the B for blue and book, and the green for money and math. We actually color coded them so that they would kind of make sense. and you all receive the full the full um charts and you see that American Indian Alaskan natives there's only seven children in the community and um five of native um Hawaiian and other Pacific. So that really isn't enough to really give us you know the larger the number of the population um it really gives us more valid data. Then you can see here that again this is only our eighth grade students who took the NDSS next generation science standards assessment from

026last year and now again same caution look at that number take a lead on this next portion which is where the rubber meets the road for us as we move forward. >> Thank you. Uh so you know based on the data and based on what was just shared right we definitely see um that we have had some gains in the LA and we've also had some gains in math but comparably prior to uh the pandemic u there there are some some drops that we need to consider and with that information we felt that there were three priorities that we wanted to focus on. uh the first priority was to really uh get to the point uh in terms of a system approach that we're going to use this summit of data the ESPback data uh

027in a way to inform our instruction. And so what we did this year was u really provide access to all our teachers particularly our our language arts teachers and our math teachers and our science teachers to be able to look at the data but make sure the data was accessible to them. the um the state uh through Edsite secure uh really uh offers up the opportunity to break that data down into meaningful parts and so what we were able to do is take that information and share it out uh to our staff and our staff have been able to look at that. Uh and so that's that's the first priority again review some of the data with teachers to inform instruction. The second important priority is to continue to develop a comprehensive multi-ter system of

028support which basically means that we want to be able to use assessment beyond that of this the ESBAT additional assessment sets uh formative assessments interim assessments and I'll go over each of those acronyms in a moment uh to continue to monitor our students progress. We want to make sure that uh our instruction and intervention is meeting the needs of our student. And to be able to do that, we have to have tools available uh for our staff. And so our assessments, as you can see there, focusing on sysful assessment practices because we don't want to over assess, but we do want to make sure that we assess enough to gather um you know, pertinent information. So again, we begin with the screener. Uh our screener in this case is the ESBAT. So we look at

029that data first. We use that information to determine how we need to focus instruction at the core level or the tier one. And then we use that information for placement for students in the tier two and tier three. And I'll get to that in a second. Part of that assessment piece, a very important piece is continuous progress monitoring. So what we've done over the last several years is we've been one of the first districts to really integrate the interim assessment blocks, the IABS. And these are uh formative assessments that mirror the ESPback. So students not only are getting familiar with item sets, they're also being um familiarized with working with the dashboard because the um ESPback is a web-based um platform and so it's important that the students understand how to navigate that as well.

030So the interrums allows allows us to do that and allows us to progress monitor you know are our units of study are are they um one aligning with the um ESBAT which basically is a reflection of our you know our standards. So we want to make sure of that and then the benchmark and so what we've done this year uh well last year to start we've utilized what is called lexia rapper and that is our language arts uh benchmark assessment and we've done that three times a year and the data shows that when you you know um provide a benchmark assessment three times a year then you're able to monitor growth and so we want to set you know growth targets and so we've been able to do that with the Alexia rapid for math

031we don't have something as similar to that so what we've been um focusing on this year is utilizing our unit test. And unit tests are great uh tools again um because they do operate as a summitive assessment, but you also can use them as a formative assessment. And really again, the formative assessment is really informing our instruction versus uh an end year to see if they have achieved mastery. Part of uh number two, that multi-ter system of support, we have our tiers of intervention. So I want to spend a little bit time just explaining this for those who may not be familiar uh with a multi-ter uh system of support. So at each tier, tier one, tier two and tier three, you want to have um effective instruction. In tier one, that is our high

032quality instruction. Uh for example, for ELA, we use Teachers College. Teach college has been very um successful in us uh over the years of increasing our performance on our ESPback because it lines with uh common core CPM3 is a connective math project and what we've done with that uh for those of you who've um familiar with it is we've used more application um in our math uh so now the the students can see see it in you know real life application and that has been very successful. Project Lead the Way is where we meet that that NGSS. Uh and so Project Lead the Way curriculum as well as you know STEAM curriculum really allows our students to be exposed uh to things like science, engineering, you know, technology um with our coding classes and things

033of that nature, robotics. And then the last uh one is uh my is obviously the framework in which we uh focus on to create rigor across all you know all disciplines. And so that's the middle years program and again that's actually you know six to grade 10 but within tier one we also want to make sure that while we're providing high quality instruction that we have differentiation and um scaffolding instruction. So, we want to meet the students where they are within the classroom. Um, and basically you're talking about 80% of the students that should be able to meet uh grade level expectations at the tier one. When students are not able to meet that based on the progress monitoring, based on the benchmark, then we look to provide more targeted instruction. that target instruction is

034usually for about that that 10% of students um and or 10 to 15% of the students and so there we we're really looking on for example in BLA we're saying okay at this level uh students are reading to learn so we really want to focus on vocabulary and u improve in comprehension if it's formative inform formative instruction or reading I should say or uh or literary. So, we want to focus on that in tier two. In math, we're looking more to focus on priority standards uh to support those students. So, the g again the key is to make sure that we always focusing on grade level. And then tier three is where we get more intensive. It's individualized. We use diagnostic testing uh to really determine the needs of those particular students. And we're really

035helping these students um focus on their growth targets. uh they may not um be at the um proficiency level yet, but we still want to establish goals in which we can get there. And how do we do that? By really knowing their individual needs. And so that's that tier three. And then the last of the three priorities is a collaborative approach. What we feel here is that if we can increase our our teachers collective efficacy and and it research shows that that is the one of the top effect size sizes for student improvement. So here we really want to focus on all levels. First we want to focus in the classroom. So we want to have that collaborative approach amongst the um teachers in that grade level in that discipline to collaborate and talk about

036you know how their students are performing what successes they're seeing what areas of need that we need to focus on collectively that happens at the classroom level we're able to do this because we you know with our TLI days and also in in some areas we have um time for them to collaborate and we also want to collaborate at the team across disciplines So we're able to do that uh through our common plan time against our TLI as well department and grade level uh having opportunity for us to see it um you know in a bigger picture um you know that vertical alignment as well and then building in obviously you know that school school of family so building we're setting obviously our building goals uh we have in the years uh last couple years

037really focused on SEO now we're focusing back more on the academic piece and Then that family and school engagement, we really uh believe in partnership with our families and so getting the families um able to uh understand what our objectives are is the key there. >> Sorry guys, I'm getting this filter agent has an update for you. Mark, do you have a recommendation about what I should be doing with this? because it sounds like if I don't do anything, it's going to update for me. And I don't know what that means for >> or just being able to stay online. >> A system restart may be required. Do you know anything about that, Tom? >> I would make someone else the uh >> co-host. Yeah, the host. >> Yeah, just in case because it's it's

038going to take down your video if it actually restarts the computer. >> All right. So, where are we? Looks like it just Where did it go? >> It won't take down. Mark will remain online, but the unfortunate thing is the camera will go down in the conference room. >> Lovely. >> All right. High school, you got eight minutes. >> No. So, I will entertain questions for our middle school staff, please. Me, >> Liz. >> Um, I noticed your numbers about the numbers of kids there. on uh the 2021 2022 summitive index scores by race and ethnicity and I noticed especially on the last two columns or even all the columns but you know two or more races the number that were tested was 107 white was number tested was 355 that's for um index scores

039but then I flip over to the next one for the NGSS the numbers are much lower >> that's because it's NGSS. >> Oh, >> sorry. >> No, thanks for asking the question. I'm sure someone else had the same question. >> Now that makes sense to me. This is all six, seven, and eight. And that's just ahead. >> I apologize. Thank you very much. >> Andrea, could you just run this portion of the meeting so I can figure out how to get this going? So, I don't know if anyone's got questions up there. I can't see. So I'm just I don't want us to lose >> I'll just enter this. So tell me >> So I'm just asking if there's anyone has questions. Beverly >> I will recognize Beverly. >> Beverly. >> Okay. Thank you. Um

040>> sorry about that. >> Uh no, not a problem. Um thank you Peter and Jamal um for the presentation. Um, I I do have to say that years ago we almost had the we had the same exact problems years ago that you're having now with our black and African-American students and Hispanic and Latino students not doing well at all. Um, that they really need more help. And I don't it just seems like we're not I I don't know why we still having this problem with that ethnic group that they're not progressing like they should be. And I hear what you're saying, but to to to review those data and with teachers to inform instructions. I mean, that's something we should be doing anyway. We should always be using the data to help us inform instruction.

041So, tell me how your plan that you just gave us differs from what you have been doing in the past because some of the stuff that you were talking about that you're going to do seems like things you should already be doing. So, can you tell me how your plan that you just presented is different than what you've been doing in the past? >> Absolutely. So, Bev, I know it's been some years. Um but and welcome back to the board. Too bad you're not here in person. I would love to see you again. Um but I I will tell you that over the last year, we have really focused on tier one instruction and um tier one supports and strategies specifically designed for us to get to know our students best. because only when we

042know our students best and that includes all students of all races and ethnicities, really getting to know them uh will help us to be able to instruct them. Um, it's no longer I'm going to get up in front of the classroom and I'm going to teach my lesson based upon uh some data, but no, I I need to know specifically who is in front of me, what is their background, what makes them tick, what what's happening um as much as I can know with their with their family. And we we've taken steps in this area. We've also um through our uh additionally through our DEI initiative um continue to to work in this area. I'm going to let Jamal speak a little further to this because I know he has more to say. >> No,

043no. I I think you know you kind of hit it in just kind of in a in a nutshell, right? the the argument that I would I would push forth that it where we are different from we were in the past is that personalized learning but that personalized learn learning is is beyond that of of what we've probably traditionally focus on we're taking into the cultural aspects we're trying to increase uh representation in not only uh with within our classroom but within our instruction but with also within our curriculum. Um so we are hoping okay and research has shown that when you do create a more inclusive environment for for students uh where they feel valued right so that whole student approach uh performance improves and so that's that's the commitment that our our teachers

044are are taking and and that leadership is committed to really uh focusing on what culturally responsive teaching is really about. uh and it's not it's not about necessarily a simple strategy. It's a it's about a way of being and so we really want to be committed to that. And so that's where I think we are different from the the years past. >> Okay. Um good luck with that. Um it just sounds more the same and it seems like that that's something we should have been doing throughout the years. We should always be doing that. But if you're thinking now you're going to really focus on doing that, great. Um, another question I have is um, it seems like in the scores and >> uh, >> reboot >> there's a drop. You go from sixth to

045seventh in the math and the ELA you go sixth, seventh, and in the eighth grade there's a drop. Um, do you have any ideas on why why it drops in the eighth grade? ELA. >> ELA, math. >> Yeah, ELA and the math scores from six, you know, in the grade six and seven, we we're not hitting the target, but you know, they're higher than when you get to grade eight. So, why is there a drop when we get to grade eight from six, seven, and then you go to grade eight and you see a big drop? Not a big drop, but a, you know, a drop. Are you able to show six, seven, and eight? >> We go what? This is six7.3. >> Last year we're 67, >> 67.7, grade 7, 62.4. >> Yeah. Like

046say the math for grade seven was 60 and then you go to grade eight and it's 55. Um and and grade six it was 58. So what do what do you think? Why is there a drop in the grade eight score? I know they're different students, but do you have an idea? >> There are lots of variables at play. Um, and we we certainly could dig deeper with regard to um absentee rates and number of students who um were were were present um throughout the year for instruction. uh we can take a look at how they were um the percentage of students who took the test back in in 2021 at home versus in school. I think there are lots of variables, Be and and you're right there there is a a slight slight downtick

047in that grade eight and that's something that we do need to take a closer look back look at particularly as we move forward looking at performance index data year-over-year because that does really speak to instructional trends at a particular grade level. So I agree with you. I don't have uh an answer that would say, "Aha, this is wise." But it's something that we're going to continue to look at. >> I I just have to say as a minority myself, um it's very disappointing for year after year after year to see our minority students really lagging behind. So, I really hope that we can get a grip on that and that next year on two years or before my stint on the board is over that I I could see some real progress with our minority

048students. >> I can tell you it's a priority. I would also caution that the data set that you're looking at is really uh rough data and a snapshot. So, but please do know that it is a major priority for our school, >> especially since um we want to offer the middle year program to all students. And um you know, our Afric uh black and Latino students are going to need a lot of support to to really challenge them and for them to do well in that vigorous middleear program. >> Our goal is to meet the needs of every single student. but with a particular focus on looking at those um those groups that are not that are achieving at a a levels less than than other groups. So we want we want to make sure

049that we are we are looking at not only the um the achievement gap but as as Jamal talks about frequently the opportunity gap making sure our students have uh the opportunity to succeed and that that we are meeting the specific needs of students so that they can succeed because each students needs are different than anothers. I also want to orient you Beverly that when out of the gate I said that the number of students represented in each of these categories differs. If you look at the white student population the number is 355 um so as compared to 60 in the African-American group. So just that you've got a much larger cohort that you're testing. So that does make a distance. That does make a difference statistically. I'm going to recognize Matthew and then Dean Matthew

050before you speak. There's a very good chance that um this that program that is going to be updated is going to shut our camera down. We're not going to lose anything because Phil is now the host. And but as soon as we get re rebooted, our camera will come back on. >> Just manually reboot. Now if we're on a break, >> we're not on a break, but um but when that hap, do you know how much time we'll have? Because I want to get I want us to at least get done with the middle school and then we'll take a break for the recruiting. >> Yeah. What I'll what I'll say is Mark um if it didn't happen in that if it we've been going going more than 9 minutes since that warning come up

051we're probably okay because we got a message today from it letting us know that it may or may not need you to reboot depends on where your system is. So if we haven't had to reboot yet probably know that. >> Yeah because we've been going for about 40 we've been this has been a 15 20 25 30 35 minute um presentation. So, Matthew and then Dean, >> thank you. I I'm embarrassed to say that after listening to this, I am really confused. I understand the impacts of CO on education and I'm gratified to see us clawing our way back. That's a great thing. Where I am confused is the relationship between the target index with an ideal is 75 and competency. So I'm trying to understand what does it mean in terms of grade level

052standards and and I'm scratching my head. I don't understand it. For example, if we reach the goal of 75 on this index, what does that mean in terms of the percentage of students who would be at grade level? I mean, how do we translate this data into something that >> it's quantifiable? >> I think Tom can probably help us out with this as well. >> Yeah, it is a researchbased system that the state has pursued in reporting performance index. I'll speak a little bit Tom, I'm sure, is is more more knowledgeable in this area here than I am. Um but from what I know they say that 75 is the ultimate target for students. So that what it speaks to is the amount of improvement in their achievement across the board across all levels that

053so they're achieving that 75% target we are reaching the the desired achievement levels. I I understood that but I also remember reading some of the other data sets that were shown earlier where across many many not all but many many of the data sets we were showing 25 30% in one case close to 40% of kids in a particular cohort uh at below grade level whether it was math or or ELA and I mean the ideal is that a 100% of the kids are at at grade level we may or may not ever get there. But if we get to 75% on this this index, they've had this% >> I see I see Tom is raising his hand. So I'm actually wondering if Tom can help. >> Help out, Tom. Thank you. >> Sorry, guys.

054I didn't want to just speak over everyone. Um, so there is not a perfect conversion uh from a state index score to a percentage of students who meet grade level proficiency. A a rough conversion is that a 75 index equals 70% of students at or above grade level standard. That is not a perfect there is a slight range that can actually fall within that 75% um index score, but roughly speaking, you're talking about a 70% of your students at or above grade level. So that that is the target that CSTE sets. Well, I I hope we get from where we are to 75, but at 75, we'll be at a, if I'm hearing you correctly, about 70% of grade level. And golly, that's still a long way to go to help our kids. There's no

055criticism. It's just kind of daunting. >> We have work ahead of us. >> Thank you, Matthew Dean. >> Yeah. Um, piggybacking what Beverly said with respect to the data, I I chart it or try to chart it. I'll read my own hand and writing. Uh, I understand that when you that your sixth graders, your tested sixth graders aren't automatically your tested seventh graders aren't automatically your tested eighth graders. That they are not the same groups exactly. But when I chart everything by by year and then by grade and draw diagonals to see how the hypothetical sixth graders tested when they were sixth graders then became seventh graders the next year then became eighth graders the year after that. That's an impossible. I know we have a gap year. I noticed that in some cases if

056you presume that they're the same group you see some improvement. So for example in the ELA the sixth graders in 1718 scored 165 score the number was 69.1 went up to 79 71.2 to you do see this a few times. uh you also see drops and again probably for the same reasons that have given before there's no direct explanations and we we'll blame co I think for a while but when I look at I see the same thing as they move through the grades um quite often I see the scores drop or there's a marginal improvement sometimes is a one case is a nice improvement u but uh that's that's the one thing I wanted to point out I had no real question I think has been answered at this point. U but you're I

057I found it useful to like I said to do to do this. Um the second question I had is had it have to do with uh the racial breakdown. Um and I understand I've been looking at this stuff for ages and ages and ages and I know that these categories come by state and that they are aggregates and I'm not sure whether it is outside identified and this is a small point. This this one right here is a small point or selfidentification because I I've run into, for example, people that ordinarily before they open their mouth, if you don't know who they are, you'd say, "Well, they're African-American." In fact, they're from the Dominican Republic and they identify as Hispanic. So, uh I don't know if that would change our numbers, you know, one way

058or the other. But that is something that I that I watch out for. I go by what people call themselves. Uh so the question I have is if you're going to take the data so I would look at it and say notwithstanding the difference in numbers you know the the two or more races or the white or how many black African-American etc that the sample sizes are not the same. So be careful take the scores take these numbers with a grain of salt. Leaving that aside and saying, "Well, this this shows something. This indicates there may be a problem here we should be looking at." I would not then automatically say if I have a black or Hispanic student in my class that therefore fill in the blank with respect to background and etc. I

059don't make that assumption. I could say well it is well known that historically etc etc etc. with respect to a live person in front of me, I do not make the assumption that because someone is white, therefore someone is black and therefore so I would I would look at this and say we may be having a problem, I would not be surprised. But when it comes to actual individualized instruction, I I I would hope that we are not proceeding on the basis of well, my student is black and therefore I want to know what they're doing regardless of of who they are because we all know that people come from all sorts of different backgrounds. There may be greater or lesser tendencies socioeconomically, etc. But, you know, there's so many exceptions to the so-called rules

060that I would be very careful about, you know, folk honing in too much on the actual racial background, ethnic background of the student in front of the live person. >> So, we're talking about individualized >> instruction, understanding sort of culturally where they might be coming from, but it's individualized, right? Again, when you say cultural, are you are you making an assumption that if someone's black that therefore their culture must be like fill in the blank? >> I think that I would I think that I would be like you and I would ask for their selfidentification, but that's just me who doesn't have to worry about which box. But >> people come from they come from different parts of the world. >> That's right. Yeah, that's right. >> Any other questions? >> William, >> so regardless

061of the subject, what are we doing about their test taking skills? We, you know, implementing anything that addresses test taking skills because with standardized testing, a lot of it relies on whether the students understand how to take tests, how to be comfortable, not be nervous or anxious about it. You know, having come from other school districts, you know, there was always a lot of things that took place the week before any standardized testing would take place. They would do these, you know, yoga. They would do all these things to to get them, but they also teach them that this is the trick that they're trying to get you at. >> Are we doing anything to address that? >> Yes, we are. Um, and I think this is is a very important piece of it. We've

062got to recognize that this is uh when I say this, I'm talking about the aspect of some of this is it's is it's one moment in time, right? It's um it's high stakes. And so to your point, we do have to consider uh ensuring that the students are in the best mindset to be able to perform. So we are utilizing a IABS those interim assessment blocks which are basically mirrors of the ESPback have an opportunity to get exposed not from just from the point of taking a standardized test but familiarizing. So the what's called the the Tide system which is the the testing engine that we use, you can actually pull and our our teachers do pull out examples uh from the test and they go through how do how do you navigate this particular

063item, right? What are some of the things that you need to to be familiar with? Obviously the terminology is one how how the question is being asked and also just being able to just know where the different buttons that you have to. So to your question yes they do spend time about right before testing is about a week that we give them to really do some test prep practice but this is also happening throughout the year. >> Right be sorry. Yeah, that's a a good point that um William brings up because when I used to teach GED and the students would take uh the math test, I used to tell them don't waste time on on problems that you you definitely don't know. do the ones that you know first and then go back to

064the other ones and and and that's a test taking skill for math because if you don't know 1/2 times 1/4 and you're wasting five minutes that's five minutes you could have spent on problems that you know so that's a good point that William brings up are we teaching them test taking skills um interdisciplinary. I I noticed that you mentioned that you're doing this you're doing in form instruction especially with your math, your science and your um ELA, but what about the rest of them? Are you are you doing this crosscurricular? I mean, let's face it, you know, I'm a social studies teacher forever. You know, how is social studies supporting these these um elements? how is your you know any any of the the uh specials you know what are you doing in that respect

065>> that's a good question as well so one of the things uh for the ESBAC yellow uh there is different targets and so in one target area you have informationational text so for example that's a great opportunity for our social studies to be able to have students exposed to finding key ideas um understanding key vocabulary these are all different um targets that students need to demonstrate in the ESPback. And so we've asked our our social studies teachers to take that on and practice that with the IABS as well in that particular area. We've done that with science as well. And so science and our social studies teachers have taken a role. So not only is NGS being done in the science class, but science teachers are also taking on practicing the IES. So we've we've

066created you know across so specific math IBS which really integrate nicely and correlate with what's happening in science. >> In addition we really have um professional learning based on the the latest grant that we have on reading and writing across the curriculum. So, Cornelius Miner will be here tomorrow zooming in first with ELA teachers, but then we're bringing social studies, science, the whole teams together to look at ways that they can build these units of study that would encourage them all to be working on reading and writing in the content area and more of an my project, an interdisiplinary project. Yeah, that's that's um I think that's essential that we you know we continue to support our teachers that are not directly, you know, ELA, math or science, but everybody else that, you know, it's

067not it is our all of our jobs to teach, you know, how kids how to read, how to disseminate information. And I want to say thank you for doing that because I think it's so important and to keep that message going that that's what's essential to help our kids to succeed. But thanks. >> Trying to be mindful of the fact that you're probably now very late for your your meeting. >> It's okay. >> Okay. >> Oh, sorry. >> Um but um thank you very much for the two of you for coming and sharing the data and as um and once again and I also appreciate from the board the very thoughtful questions that they had. Thank you. >> Our pleasure and thank you for the questions and the comments. Uh we definitely appreciate your feedback

068and uh it's great to see everyone here and hello to those online as well. >> Thank you. Bye guys. >> Thank you. >> Have a great evening. >> All right. So we are going to >> we are going to move to the high school. >> Oh sorry. >> Now that you were warmed up with the and this is really only one grade at the high school. This is our 11th graders get to have SAT in ELA and in math and also NGSS in science. >> PSAT, >> huh? >> We don't have the PSAT. >> No, this is really strictly the state data. PSAT we do. >> I'll talk a little bit about that at the end. >> Okay. Thanks. >> All right. So um this first slide here is showing our uh ELA English language

069arts uh SAT scores average scores from 2015 to 2022. Uh as you can see in uh 1516 we were slightly above the state uh by two points. Uh we were always staying kind of in line with the state uh six points below and in 1617 two points below and then we were two points above. So prior to COVID um those were where we were at. uh 2019 they did not take the 20 20 year they did not take the test. Uh that average score is actually for the state of Connecticut for uh the the hybrid year. Um the SAT scores for each district were not public that year. Um and then in 202122 our scores dipped to 495. So we saw a big dip there uh as as did the state. We're six points below

070the state data. Next slide. In math, um, prior to, uh, 2020, uh, again, pretty in line with the state. I think our our goal, especially with, uh, math passports and so forth, was was to get above the state and to improve uh, the number of reaching benchmarks, which we'll talk about in a little bit. But as you can see there, we were slightly below the state in 2015 16. Same thing in 1617. We're six points below, two points below. And then in 201819 we uh were two points above. So right in line with the state. Uh last year's test the scores were to 476. >> It's interesting to see though that the um SAT >> Yeah, there are different numbers. >> Different numbers for everything. >> Yeah, we don't have the same numbers on our

071graphs. Tom, do you know anything about that? We've got 49 >> and 501 >> if I believe if I remember correctly I believe we caught that the this slide and the slide before >> yeah on your papers that was the ELA scores again we >> so these are the actual scores these are the math scores on the >> here can I >> on the presentation >> a copy for everybody >> can you send that to us please >> yeah yeah we will >> yeah apologize for that error that we caught But yeah, these are the actual math scores. Um, so, uh, can go on to the next one. >> Okay. Sorry. >> We will get this the corrected one to you guys. >> I have a copy. We can just copy this one. >> Good

072l Jack. All [Applause] right. So, this is the next generation uh science standards. Uh and we just again assess our grade 11 students on the uh the science test. Um 201819 we were just less than a point above the state. Um 202021 uh we we weren't given the Connecticut score but we dipped to 51.2 2 and then a slight uh rise in 56.5 again really matching what the the state uh performed on on that test. Go to the next slide and this is us uh language arts in comparison with the other alliance districts uh with killingly slightly above us. And then same in math, we are uh second performance index for all the alliance district uh schools for math. And then this is a breakdown similar to what uh Peter and Jamal showed um with

073the different uh subgroups. Um and we can go back to that if there's questions later on. Uh but uh we want to move on to the next slide. So, uh, our action plan, um, the biggest thing that I want to stress is I feel like we had a pretty good action plan going forward before COVID. And so, a lot of what I I would like to see us do is get back to some of the good things that we were doing. Um, the first and foremost is we need to get back to celebrating growth as a school. Uh, one of our biggest goals this year when we started the year was to bring back Falcon Pride. Um, I think it was clearly lost big time over the last few years and I feel like it's

074growing. I feel like we have a lot more involvement in extracurriculars and and there's more pride in the school. Um, so with SATs, taking pride when they take the SAT where uh we want to celebrate as classes. So having each class look at their average score that they took in the fall compared to last fall. They'll look at those numbers and and look as a class what was the growth that that happened. And then as individual students, each of our English teachers and our math teachers are going over the scores with each individual student and setting goals with those students. Uh, and that's just happened because last year was the first year that we went back to taking the PSAT. So, we're finally starting to go back to tracking the data where the kids will

075actually take this test five times before they take the the real one in their junior year. >> Can I just say the format of the SAT changed on us, too. it was online and it has not been online ever before, but last year SATs and we've just found out that PSATs we can also purchase online. So, it does make sense like we've done with the ESPback that we really get them in the same format used to that same way so that they're more comfortable with that. And I know that um in the curriculum we've built in PSAT SAT type questions in our end unit assessments as well. >> Yep. And you just lean into the next bullet. >> Okay. But going back to uh pre-COVID, we we had common unit assessments and part when we

076developed those common unit assessments. Um we make sure we embedded uh SAT type questions into those those assessments that uh we expect all our students to be taking. Um we have uh common grading procedures. So during PD and especially department collaboration time, teachers getting together to make sure that they're grading things consistently and making sure that that our students are experiencing the same things in each class that they have. If they're in an algebra one class uh with with Mrs. Harvey, they're getting the same experience that uh Mrs. Kennedy's providing. Um we want to go back to addressing attendance concerns. uh attendance over the past few years has has not been good at all and we need to get back to addressing attendance uh when we see concerns. We're have having meetings with with students

077that are showing uh patterns with attendance. We uh we will go back to our appeals process for credit appeals. If if a student has more than 12 absences, they would have to uh appeal to earn that credit by um you know providing the reasons why. Um we are going back. The next one is uh Tom and Clint are are working to get all our historical data onto P school so our our teachers can actually see it. Uh in the past we've really been taking everything and making our own Excel sheets to show growth and you know not even really utilizing the ESPback scores and and having that uh align with with their SAT scores to see how how that that is. So getting those that testing data on the powers school will be will be

078a huge improvement. And then revisions to our intervention system. Uh with our we have increased tutors now. Uh we have uh set up intervention meetings where I'm working with two of our counselors. Uh Adam's going to be working with two counselors. Um and then Carme will be working with two counselors. Uh and we're you know that's our team and I'm I have A through C basically actually A through G. But those are my guys that that we're going to look at each of those individual kids if there's if they have concerns. We're going to we're going to find the interventions that each of those individual kids have. Um and then support them in different ways that we can uh by utilizing the the tutors during CTL, matching uh CTL teachers with the kids that are

079struggling in their classes, uh making calls home and so forth. And then and then really inviting them to Falcon Academy. Uh, I'm very proud. This year I feel like is the first year that we've really seen Falcon Academy start jumping with the numbers and a lot of it is thanks to Mark Romano with his work with he's done a lot with our athletics and any kid that has a DRF is required by their coach to attend Falcon Academy to get the support they need. Um, we're finding kids when we look at our when we have our meetings with our counselors. Um, we're identifying kids that would benefit from Falcon Academy and talking to the families. We can't force them to go to Falcon Academy, but with with the encouragement of uh of the families, we're

080getting more people going to Falcon Academy. Then we're growing that with the teachers that that are there to support them. We now have a section for math support, section for reading and social study support, a section for world language support so that um the kids can get the help that they need when they're going uh for for that. things that we really need. Um, this is this is a big one is creating incentive uh for a lot of our kids. Either they're going to a college that no longer requires SAT scores or they're not planning on going to college. And a lot of them, to be honest with you, did not take the the test the last couple years seriously. So, we need to build incentive as to why they're taking the test. Part of

081that's going to be with with Falcon Pride, but also part of it is we have to get creative in in, you know, rewarding the kids that reach benchmark or rewarding the kids if they show growth and rewarding the kids if they attempt the test. So, we've talked about creative ways. We haven't um decided on what we're going to do. We've talked about raffles. We've talked about potential in the past with CAT when that didn't really have any, you know, basis after after high school, we gave the incentive of getting a exam exemption. So, do we look in that route or I mean potentially we've even talked about like maybe in maybe cell phone and CTL time if they if they got to a certain level on the we have to get creative because >> but

082we have to get creative in figuring out how we can get them to do well >> um and try their very best. Uh we need to find get creative and in opportunities for department collaboration time. uh prior to COVID, we we did release on Tuesdays uh for our departments to get together and to form their data teams, uh review the unit assessment that they were going to give, um do teachertoteer PV, do a lot of those things. Now, we have to figure out where to embed that that time back in. Um so, we we we have to get a little bit more creative on how we're going to do that because we've lost a little bit of time that they used to have to ensure um these common experiences and so forth. uh for the

083universal screener for SRBI. Right now, we do have Lexia Rapid for reading, but we don't, as just like Jamal stated before, we don't really have a screener for math. Um, so what are we using for the screen? We're using the unit tests. We're using the grades. All right, we're pulling the grades to see which kids have the D's and Fs. Um, but a universal screener for both math and reading is very important and it's something that uh that we're exploring right now to see if we can find one that would fit Fitch High School. And then the last action on here that that I have is really just rep prioritizing SAT as an area of a focus. All right, these past years we have not focused on on the kids doing their, you know, doing

084the best we can as a school on SAT. Our focus has been social emotional um well-being. And I think right now that still needs to be an area of our focus. Um I think as we we build that and we build pride uh in themselves and in our school that'll that'll show an increase in our SAT scores again. But prior to uh prior to 2020 um we were focused on on improving our SAT scores and I think we were making some gains. I'd like to get back to some of the things that we were doing before that. Um, I I take a lot of pride in in, you know, in showing growth in this is I'm a numbers guy, so I like to look at at the data. Um, and it it it really it

085hurt me to see the these results. Um, but I want to get back to to where we were. I think there's one more slide. Oh, actually two more slides. Sorry. So, these are specific to math and English. Um in mathematics uh we talked about uh we do have common unit assessments that all all the uh you know data teams give uh and there is that PSAT portion. Um our teachers do set benchmarks with their students. So where they you know what's what's the goal when they take it there next time. Uh we we monitor their scores. We share the uh the data with the students. We set those goals. Um on the 8th of of November during that PD in the afternoon, uh the mathematics is going to be looking at their question item analysis

086to see what type of questions we're doing well with which questions uh as a school we don't do as well as compared to the state and so forth and and uh how how we can make adjustments to curriculum and instruction um to improve those types of questions. science department is going to analyze uh not not last year's. We're going to wait for our results from the PSAT that they took in October, but they're going to analyze the their science strand questions on the SAT. So, they're going to look specifically at their questions and do the same thing. Uh they're going to do it as data team. So, ninth grade science teachers will look at the nth grade results from the PSAT9. 10th graders will do their theirs with the PSAT 10 and so forth. Um,

087and then we we are utilizing our tutors to uh assist us with intervention courses. We do have math teachers teaching the intervention courses, but we also now have the opportunity to get tutors in there to to help out or to pull kids to to work with them. Um, and you know, just providing an opportunity for them to work with kids during CTO. uh in English. It's been an effort of Miss McKenna to uh make sure that in every single English classroom, every single uh day that they have class, there's time silent sustained reading that's going on in those classes to really boost their stamina, especially for assessments like the SAT. And I can tell you, uh I think we can tell you that it is going on. When I'm going into English classrooms, I'm seeing

088it. Um, and every English class I I go into at different times uh during during the blocks. I' I've seen that happening. Um, they are also going to commit to a question analysis. They're going to wait till the PSAT results from October come back, which should be soon. Uh, and do the same thing by de uh grade level data teams. Social studies is going to commit to uh looking at their content area questions. um they will at least have one common form of assessment uh that's going to be SAT based that they will give uh late January early February to kind of give a basis as to uh priorities leading our juniors up to their their SAT test. um and utilizing uh Stephanie Heaton is our and Alysa Mlan our reading specialists and and they

089they are amazing um educators and uh we're using them to support students and they're supported that they're helping teachers uh learn how to teach reading. Um not every English teacher uh you know has the skills uh and they're providing a lot of lot of tools for those those teachers um to improve reading at the grade level. And the high school has a group called disrupt text which really were teachers college staff developers coming in and also nua national urban league you know leaders and so they've been meeting with teachers helping the English department really hone in on some of these skills and make sure that it's very inclusive and that all of our kids sitting before us you know have access to the program. They they're they're amazing. They the they're actually working with our

090our English department again tomorrow. Uh they did some work in August and really yeah c culturally relevant. Make sure that everybody's represented in the text that they're they're reading and you know not throwing out the text that we used to use but but putting a a different spin on a lot of the text to connect it to everybody uh that's in their audience um in their classroom. And then there's uh one more slide and this speaks more to the PSAT Liz that you were talking about before uh was you know now what what goals uh can we make? Uh if you look at this data the top one is our class of 2024. These are our uh juniors this year that will be um taking the actual SAT uh in a couple months. um their

091their average score is actually nicely above uh the state 457 versus 443. Uh benchmark benchmark for mathematics means that uh those are the the percentage of kids that if they were to take a college level math course um the likelihood they they would be highly likely to get a C plus or above in that college level math course. Um, obviously 34% is not where we want to be. This is this is an area that we've back in 2016 we were hovering at 31 32%. And it was an area of charge that we wanted to to improve. Uh, and really we set the goal of 40% um for that 2019 year which we actually reached 41.2 in 2019. So we were making gains. So, I think if with a push we could, you know, it's going

092to be I'd like to drive that that number back up to around 40% reaching benchmark. In English, reading, writing, um the average score was 478 compared to the state of 457. So, we have 71% reaching benchmark um versus 59% in the state. I do want to say we we we had 187 students take the test. We have about 220 in that class. So, we did have a a decent percentage of kids that did not come in for that SA that PSAT last year. Um, this was back from last year's data. I do think that 500 is a lofty goal um for math and 520 for for English, but I think um that it's it's definitely a goal that we can strive to to achieve. Um and that would kind of get us back to where

093we were 2019 um prior to to COVID. um the class of 2025 below that we have some work to do. Um you know their average score right now when they took the test as freshmen uh these are our current sophomores. So this was last year's data in October they had an average score of 407 which is 10 points below the the state. You guys can see the numbers there. And then in English reading writing they were 423 compared to the state which is 427. So, uh, you know, our our goal is to get them to to similar, uh, standards, but it'll be more of a challenge, but they'll have an extra year without COVID and all those demands. I'm hoping to um with with our goals in mind with our our strategies to improve those

094scores >> when we get those PSAT data back for this year. It'll be interesting to lay that out on the charts so the board could see >> that's what some growth. >> That's what I, you know, back prior to to 2020, we did that. we we would keep the cohort analysis of the data um with each kid. We we would see how they grew throughout the whole time and we would look at the averages um for each uh as as as the grades went, you know, from freshman, sophomore, junior year and we could see the growth and and I can say that we usually at least got 20 25% to 30% increase each each year as they they went through. So I want to get back to that please >> as soon as possible. So,

095we don't know how many sophom um freshman last year took the test. Is that correct? >> I could look it up. I don't know why I didn't put it on there, but uh >> I it was [Applause] maybe I did add it after uh 242. I wrote it in pencil. >> That's just how big was that class? >> I think that class is was was bigger. It was like I think close to 300. So yeah, we had a lot of kids not take, you know, they did not come in last year >> uh during that October test. >> So again, a big thing like we talked about is incentive and and prioritizing and making them realize the importance of taking the test and doing well for their school uh for themselves and you know opening

096up any option for them because they you know you never know what what you're going to do just because one school may not require them as as part of it or they're not planning on on going to college. Um it's an important test and we got to make sure that they realize they give it their very best and I don't think that was really happening the last few years. >> I'm gonna recognize Liz. >> Um Matt and Ted, I'm looking at the slide before this. Let me flip there. The mathematics you said at the bottom of there it says utilizing tutors to assist in intervention support. Do not have a math specialist. >> We don't. We have uh we our vision is to have a math specialist. Uh we there was a when Russ Stewart

097retired, he didn't fill that that math teaching position. Um so we have a reading specialist for for reading. We either we have to get creative on how we're we're going to create that math specialist because right now um >> so my understanding that the the department went down in number >> with the number of teachers available and therefore there's no specialists available to teach SAT math. >> Is that >> we have a we have a math teacher teaching the SAT math but that you know it's not we don't have anyone identified as a math specialist right now. So either we got to get creative in how we figure out who's covering what and then that math specialist is teaching certain certain >> that was my other question my follow-up question is how do you see

098the utilization of a math specialist how would that help improve I think >> because I'm looking at those scores the math scores I mean >> yep it would really it right now for example in English language arts we have the reading specialist where it's not something that's supporting content is supporting uh issues with this the children's skills in a in a particular area. So we identify through the lexia rapid or other assessments that student is lacking certain skills and we're working on those skills within the intervention. What we want to do is build that more up into we have we have that in the math but we want to build it with specific math specialists where if we identify skills that the students are lacking that then go in and do some math intervention uh

099work instead of uh it's not so so much like this is what you're struggling with in your algebra class is these are some of the skills that you need to build on in order to do better in all your math classes going forward. So that's what we need to build up in terms of our math >> and I'd like to say the model that we have K is the model that I'd like to see them have where the math where the literacy specialist certainly a literacy specialist has to have a a high level education certification in the math. We've also hired very expert master teachers who get a lot of extra professional development. So they are part coach, part interventionist, part enrichment specialist. So that's the K model that I'd like to see happen at

100the high school, but I don't think that we have that same level of um I mean we could have that expertise, but right now I guess the level of expertise is in the um you know in our coordinators who are really looking at six through 12 and working with the whole staff. you know, those are probably our experts in those areas of STEM and literacy. >> I'm just trying to So, we have, you said Alyssa and Stephanie are is it Stephanie? >> Well, yeah, Stephanie is really the reading specialist. Alyssa is taking on that role because she ended up getting the degree and she's able to help more of our kids in that capacity. But Stephanie is really our reading special. Uh Alyssa is teaching a you know, she's teaching a regular schedule. Uh and

101Stephanie has you know some intervention reading reading intervention classes and so forth but she also has time available in her schedule where she can push into classes. She can you know assist uh other teachers with a certain group of students or she can pull students out to work with them um as need be. So um >> and and that's your vision to see it >> I would like to see to have one and kind of exactly what what Susan was saying with the with that coach that you know the the lead teacher but someone that's in our building every day. Um, you know, Caitlyn is amazing, but she's six through 12, plus she's teaching, so >> yeah, I understand. >> So, that's gonna be something that we'll have to talk about at budget time. >>

102That's why I brought it up. >> I appreciate that is very important for us, you know, to >> and a big, you know, we we do want to keep our, you know, our math numbers u when we decided to go away from basic, we we promised that we were going to keep those numbers low. So, you know, the the class sizes um to support the the kids that as they're they're going through a college prep course, make sure that that the teachers can can work with all the kids. So, >> y >> I'm going to recognize Dean. >> Um in no particular order, but generally speaking, this is about how we're viewing the data. Um, if the scores are reported, that would be one thing, but the scores are reported with a bar chart. And

103a couple of things, the bars are shown starting from zero and our top line is 600. I think most of us or all of us know that the SAT scored from 200 to 800. It would make the picture since the bars are intended to give a visual representation of the number that sense this is inaccurate. They should start from the 200 and show you where the 800 is. So you can to be honest it would look a little more digital than this chart does. Um so I'm disregarding the visual. I I appreciate that we do bar charts for all sorts of things. I know it wasn't intentional, but um the other thing I'd like to see is um the numbers are meaningless in and of themselves. I mean, I know what I got on my

104SAT and like just blowing me away and I don't it's all different errors and stuff, but if you've seen reports recently, you you you see scores reported back as here's your score and here's where you are and which which percentile are you in? because you can imagine kids that score 800 on on the ELA or the math portion are the exceptional kids. I don't know whether it's a typical normal curve you know the um but you know so I would like to know for example if our kids score say a combined let's say the average is a thousand what percentile does that put them in is that like in the healthy center I might look at that say ger perfect score is 1600 so a thousand my goodness that's so far short and maybe it

105is but where are they in in the curve >> they in the middle percentage is that performance index. So Tom, can you speak to how that aligns? >> But these are the scores. These have to be the scores. They're not a performance index. When I see 507, I take literally 507. >> So So there's that. I'd be more curious to see where we are in terms of the percentile. >> I think we could find that pretty >> Yeah. You know, on a Google search and that's and that's move that moves, you know, it changes every year. >> Yeah. The the third thing I wanted to point out, and it's been touched on already, but it's it it also is connected to what you said about providing incentives. At least when I took it, I made

106to be self-referential all the time. I know that's supposed. But when I took it, when my kids have taken it, other kids I know have taken it, they're collegebound. The only reason to be taking the SAT is to try to get a good score to get into a school. And so that was the incentive. Now whether that changed your performance is another matter. Changing your desire to translating your desire into actual performance we all know is is a tricky area. So but if we're trying to encourage kids to take the SAT provide incentives other than hey you got to get into a good school. Why would kids who are not going to go to college taking the SAT and therefore possibly because they have no real incentive other than it costs them money to take

107it and maybe not even then if the school pay the fee or pay out the fee they take it and frankly they would depress the overall score. All they really care about is the kids who want to go to school need to take the SAT are taking it and how did they fair for everybody else they're doing something else. I'm not interested in their SAT scores because that's very much apples and oranges. They could care less. I'm I'm making a fraudization other than personal satisfaction. Why would I bother doing that? Um and I had a fifth one. I fourth one the uncomfortable silence >> William. So really the data is it's not I'm not really concerned about the data because right now a lot of top students aren't even taking the test. Many of the

108top colleges say if you're not getting a 1500 don't even submit. You know even precoid many schools said you don't need to take the SATs. So, what I'm really worried about is what I think you're you're both worried about is is the incentive program and how to tie that into other things to make students want to take it. You know, many many kids weren't, you know, going with tutors and things like that. They weren't really taking the test. My son took it once and that was it. Um, and so it'd be interesting to find out because I I know there are many schools that do, you know, it's not required in many schools nationally, but some schools tie it into their scholarship programs and knowing what their scholarship program. So like if you're going to

109go to UVM, if you have a 1250 or above, you're going to get a $17,000 scholarship automatically. Quinnipiac has a very similar thing. And so getting that data might be very helpful for incentivizing taking the test and making it worth it. Um even partnering with our community scholarship programs that we have throughout GR and uh the New London County saying listen we really want to work on our SATs. Can we somehow tie that into these scholarships? Um, and again recognizing that your SAT score has to be based on, you know, what are the what are the local and national averages based on, you know, whatever the demographics are, socioeconomic, race, things like that. Um, but that would be I I as soon as we were I read this yesterday, the biggest thing I wrote down

110biggest challenges is incentive. you know, giving validity back to the SAT because right now the SAT is, you know, >> and the interesting thing was the state of Connecticut chose the SAT because they thought that was the incentive. That was what colleges were looking for when we're getting kids college and career ready. So, they they kind of instead of making up another test, they thought, why don't we just use the SAT? It is a common assessment, you know, at that grade level and we've got a lot of years of statistics around, you know, that assessment. So, Dean, before I recognize, I want to make sure that there's someone who hasn't spoken. Beverly or Jay? >> All right, Dean. I know the formulation of the questions on the SAT have changed over the years and at

111least again when I took it and probably remained the same for a long time. I think it's changed somewhat. Um and there were tricks. Now why would there be tricks? Why don't just if you wanted to ask me about how much algebra questions but you don't. The questions are framed differently. And again at least when I took it you got the answer wrong. This is a strategy. You got a quarter point off. I guess you couldn't guess right now the reason for the ostensible reason for the trickiness of the SAT and why SAT required more than your typical test strategy prep was because it was designed originally to make sure it's a screening device to make sure that if the kid did well enough on the SAT the their chances of success successfully completing a

112college course the whole four years was heightened. Colleges wanted to make sure that when they admitted kids that the kid would probably be able to hang in there academically. So it was a screener and there's all kinds of data. People can question it but there has been data over the years that correlate you know SAT scores with performance finishing in four years doing well getting above the average etc. That's what the SAT was for. So that's why I think of using it as an assessment test. Can I be using it as assessment is is inappropriate because it is not I don't think I've never taken yes back for example. It is not like a major league back versus a minor league yes back to the typical Sback. It's a different animal all together. At least

113it was when I took it. >> Okay. So I just want to relate it back to Graten. And so Dean I do hear your concerns in terms of is it is it the best assessment? it is the assessment that we have. And so, um, I'm I would be anxious to hear about how the high school has come together, um, to incentivize people to take the SAT, um, and to do the best that they can, um, as a way of celebrating themselves and celebrating their growth. My other caution is about tying SAT scores to scholarships is that there are people who are like me that can't take standardized testing and my standardized score put me down to a doormat level of functioning when in fact I know that I'm above a doormat. Maybe not much but

114I am above that. And so I think we have to be careful about those um correlations. But on >> can I just make one comment in regard to I think that uh one of the things you were talking about is kind of preparing to take that test. I think Matt's worked really hard before my time here and and now uh as well uh to make sure that we're incorporating SAT type questions into assessments and I think you talked about that. So, it's not just like we just take a little time to practice it, but as kids are practicing it throughout their their high school career. And I think that um our our preliminary discussions about these incentives, you know, we're thinking about, you know, those some some students are just going to say, "Okay, I'm

115going to get into a raffle and you know, that's great. That will help me, you know, but also we want to talk to students and say, you know, this is about you and how you can improve and how and showing how you've improved over your high school career." And so you start this thing all the way in the ninth grade taking that PSAT 89 and building off of that. How did you do in the 10th grade? How did you do on the PSAT in the 11th grade? And then culminizing with this test and showing improvement and that's and and talking to our students about, you know, it's about you and and your improvement and seeing how you're doing. Um so and we know that some students are going to benefit from that as well. So,

116it's something where as as Matt really said, rep prioritizing the SAT, continuing to have those those SAT questions, and even just talking to the kids about, you know, this is how you did. Some kids don't even know how they did. Um, and so to have that individual conversation and saying, "This is how you did. Okay, let's see if we can get a few coins higher here on this next test, and here's some things we're going to do to support you." Those are the conversations we're starting to have again. And I think >> Matt's done a great job in really prioritizing those conversations within the department. So, I think that's going to be a big step forward. >> I'm I'm excited to hear about that. I'm excited to hear like we're finally getting back into getting

117back into community, getting back into the schools and getting back to our kids. And Andrea, >> I did. Matt, I had a question for you. I thought that I heard you say that one of the incentives could be that you validate a test. Is that what I prefer? We uh when they they used to take the cap their sophomore year and they would get a capped exemption not which they could use the following year for their midterm test where they would >> you're not talking about validating a course. >> No, >> I'm really interested in that because I know that at the academy if you do really well in a course you're validate finals >> and I think that would be a really good incentive. >> So >> thank you. I'm just passing that on.

118That is a good idea. >> Any other questions? >> Thank you guys for coming out um and actually sort of being the guinea pigs for us um to present our the data for the schools since before. So, um I think that um I really appreciate you guys willing to kind of like stay with us until 20 of 8 um and present um to present. Yeah. Yeah, I you can take it from my salary. >> All right. Thank you very much. >> Thank you. >> So, um board, I am looking at the time though we are not um we are not to end at 8. That is not my point and nor do I want to um stop any conversation or any discussion. I am going to ask that the assistant superintendent save his um teacher

119evalu evaluation report until um next uh next meeting which would be November. Um even do that in a CO >> and we could actually do that at a CO. And then my understanding from um Susan Austin and from Andrea that if we go to new business section U number one the challenging curriculum for middle years at first reading we are going to um table that for the next is that okay did I read your language correctly? >> Um and that we do need to vote on the board of education meeting schedule. I hope people have looked at that um because I know that that might not be necessarily true where some of our subcommittees meet and so I we might need to take a look at that for maybe a special meeting. And we also

120are are going to need to be talking about a preferred class size um guidelines so that um uh Susan and her staff can put together a budget that makes sense. And I've got to communicate to the public and then we have to communicate for the public. So, two, three, and four of the new business um is going to need to be done. But let's see if we can march on. Um do I have any complaints about uh tableabling those um items? >> Um no, I don't have a complaint, but I have a suggestion. The next time that we talk about data and there's going to be a lot of conversation, you might want to think about having it at a committee or the whole meeting and not at a regular board meeting. Beverly, I absolutely

121agree with you. The reason why we did this first one is that very soon we're all of our meetings are going to be in budget stuff and we're not going to hit the data again until later like like really sort of like in the February, March of next year. So, I wanted to see if we could get as much done. I do know that this was not the most um timely time to do it. I'm just wanting to make sure that we get the data because that's what we requested as the board. planning on the um one of the November COWs to have elementary come in. Is that right, >> Dr. Elementary will be coming in to do >> All right. So, we're gonna we're going to be moving on to the business manager report.

122>> So, on um attachment number two, uh this is our object code summary through um last week, last Thursday. uh showing that we have a projected unexpended balance of 35,501. It's a similar story as we as we told last uh last uh meeting where we are over budget in our fuel uh heating fuel and our diesel and buses uh expenses uh under budget in salaries and um out of district uh special education tuition. Do I have any questions about the object code? >> I have a question. >> Absolutely, Beverly. >> Um, Ken, how do you see us with the heating and diesel oil for the year? Do do you have a projection that we're going to be over like $500,000 or anything like that? The way things are going now? Yeah, we we had locked

123in at a price uh about a month ago, which is less than what it's currently at. So, uh that's that's in this object code summary. Um I think for each of those categories, let's see. Um >> here under electric um sorry I can't I can't really see because it's underneath this. So, for diesel, uh, I anticipate we're going to be over, uh, over budget by 121,000. And for heating oil, over budget by 161,000, but that should be the extent of it because we did lock in, we're we're we're somewhat protected. As long as we don't uh use more than what was, >> but that's that's been taken account of with that 36,000. >> Correct. So, we've taken that into consideration, >> but the budget for next year, that that's a whole another story. >> Okay.

124Thank you, >> Beverly. Nice qu good question. Any other questions about the object code? If not, then would you be willing to move us to >> Yes. Uh I am looking now for attachment number three which is our uh health insurance um claims report. Uh so for the month of August, the latest report that we have, uh we are under budget uh or under uh anticipated uh claims amount by 255,000. The uh so it's it's it's typical for this plan to be under uh the anticipated number for the beginning part of the year as folks uh use their um uh their own deductible uh and then at the at the end of the year it kind of flips around. So I think we're we're we're in a um this is how how we would anticipate

125it to come out. I did look at the prior year. We're a little bit ahead of prior year. Um last year we were at 83% on a year-to- date basis. So we are uh trending a little bit better at at this point but um only time will tell. >> Questions about the insurance. All right. hearing. None. We are going to move on. Hello, Mr. Kilpatrick. >> Good evening. >> How are you? >> Terrific. You >> I am doing dandy. It's good to see your face. >> Yeah. So, uh I'm going to report on four items tonight. uh and uh the first one is that I am uh presently we're presently working with uh resource lighting and energy uh which is providing us a free audit of our HVAC and light systems uh in the district

126and we are starting with we're focusing right now on the Fitch High School vintage area and the Charles Barnum School uh because we will have an opportunity to uh submit uh uh apply for a grant for a state grant grant on uh HBAC. So, uh we're working on that, started that today and hope to have that ready for that grant submission uh later in the month. Uh the second item, um we are also meeting, we're meeting with the architects, Amy Samuelson, who is the architect for the middle schools. She is with the SLAM cooperative and she is working on the fieldhouse locker room study for Pitch High School. uh we're meeting with her uh Mark Romano and Rich Casa on Thursday morning to uh go over the latest on that. So hopefully by our next

127meeting I'll have some more updates on where we stand with that study. Uh >> do you mean that that would like include like what they're saying it's going to cost? >> Well, they've already given um >> they've already given the cost. They've given us estimates on what what the two proposals would, but we're going to meet and see if there's any any later uh information regarding those uh that study. >> Does that answer your question? >> Yeah. Uh can I just inter interject because instead of just doing in my communications is that um the the board had requested um for me to reach out to people um regarding about the specifically about the fieldhouse and the concession stand where it is in terms of the field project. Um and um I was able to meet

128with um Mayor Melendez and moderator Rusk um last week and um it is um and I and I've already talked to Susan is that we wanted to kind of get together with um John and and Juan and talk about the field study and to see what what needs to have happen with the field test. So, I think that your meeting is going to be um essential to help us >> um help the field study understand what's going on. >> Be fruitful and we'll be able to provide more information when we get together with the with the other group. >> That would be great. Thank you. >> My third item is um we did meet with the uh regarding the uh robotics team moving into Mary Morrison School. We did meet with the fire marshall, fire

129chief, uh captain from the fire department, uh some board members of the robotics club, uh and uh Sher Fus, who is now the coach. >> She's the coach now. She's she's the uh board of ed, uh representative to that group. So, we met last Friday. Um we had some disappointing news from the fire marshall. He's not going to allow that group to move in as it is now constituted. We may have to make some and we are working on looking at some other arrangements uh for uh the shop work that takes place. They they typically had a metal shop where they do a lot of metal work which includes oils and some other metal shavings, those things which uh are considered a fire hazard. So we're concerned about that. And of course, uh, they've had

130a wood shop previously. And of course, Mary Morrison School wasn't built to be that, so he's concerned about that, too. So, we're looking at some other alternatives as to where we can put those uh uh shops if it's going to be at Mary Morris. So, we're also looking at other alternatives for within the district. Yes. >> So, as soon as I have some update on that, I'll I'll uh report back to you on that. Uh and then the last item, I see there's one more on the back of my note here. Um which is a very important item because on November 8th, uh there is going to be a an election. Uh and we suspect that there will be lots of people going to the polls on that day even though it's a midterm. Um

131and uh we just spoke to our um central office uh uh committee this uh this afternoon uh and uh asked that when we're planning all of these uh uh events that'll be taking place on that day uh TLI day that uh we keep in mind that we need to leave lots of parking spaces for the public that'll be coming to of those schools and the schools that we will have voting on uh in uh this year will be Fitch High School uh Mary Morrison again uh Fames and Mystic River Schools and again here in this central office right here in this very room. So uh we're working on that. We do assist the while it's the registars's responsibility uh to uh make the polls accessible to everybody we do assist we do assist the registars

132by uh erecting some signs that they ask us to put up and and of course making uh the entire area accessible to the public to get in. So I'll be bringing that up at our next principal meeting and work with Phil and Paula around the schedule of events because November 8th is our biggest it's you know our biggest event um the both the Mar the November and the March as regional feeding days. So um we'll have to look at where everybody >> we'll have to work together to make sure that there's not a lot of crisscrossing >> to make sure that we get notices for Yeah, Paul is putting together the plan and we'll send it out. >> Yeah. Any questions for Sam? All right, we're moving on. So, um, committee reports policy. I watched

133the policy meeting twice today to make sure that we have everything in order and we're ready to go with the um the eligibility for high school athletics and for the naming of the um facilities and the English I'm sorry the enrollment in high school advanced programs and we think that we have addressed all of the concerns that the board had. So we'll see when we vote. >> Okay. All right. curriculum. >> We did not meet this past month, but we planned. We're doing a makeup meeting this Wednesday. Um didn't know that there was a um concert and so we were going to make sure that we're out by quarter 6. So we'll be meeting in Phil's office at 5 to quarter 6 so that we can be in person. Right. But we will have if

134anybody wants to, Bill, it's going to be get you to put it up on your screen there if you can if there's for a call in for anybody who wants to call in. >> Oh, I'll create a Zoom. >> Yeah, create a Zoom. >> Sure. >> Um >> All right. So, look forward to hearing lots. >> Curriculum that needs that's going to be what we're going to have to vote on. So, okay. That's been brought to us this time. That's why we're making a special making sure that we can go. >> Oh. Oh, super. So, then it will go to the committee the whole and then we can vote on it. >> Exactly. >> Perfect. Perfect. All right. Finance and facilities, Mr. J. >> Uh, yes. Good evening. So, we met on October 18th. Um

135we discussed an item we'll be um covering tonight with regard to the cost of reduced meals at three of the schools. Uh we reviewed the mentor director stipend and job description. Um we reviewed Treehouse tuition and uh the uh financial update at Treehouse. Um we reviewed the uh culinary arts architectural plan and got the timeline for that coming back. Um, we discussed the fieldhouse study, uh, field lights at Grten Middle School, and received an update on the solar panel project. Uh, I'll give you a hint. Uh, that's still in legal review. >> I thought we were done with that. >> No, >> Any day now. And communications. >> Well, we met twice this past month. on the 12th we met uh to try to welcome William to the committee uh and shared with him the

13623 topics that had been raised over the course of meetings earlier this year and we ended that meeting with that list of uh topics and asked people if they would rank order them in terms of they thought which they thought would be important both in terms of internal and external communication. We met again uh this afternoon. That was our regular special meeting of the month. And uh we had a very good discussion on the the rankings. Um, subject to our followup, it appears as if we may be focusing on several areas, updating the 2016 communication plan and coming up with some pretty clear goals and strategies and tactics. Uh second would be reassess our communication platforms, our internal platforms to harmonize the ease of accessibility for uh that all schools could use some of the

137same same applications and for the external communications to families so they'd be uh more easily be able to navigate the various websites and Facebook pages. Uh the third area we talked about outreach to the community. Uh there have no specific specific decisions but some of the areas we're looking at are uh supporting the PTO's if they want it. uh some sort of outreach in the terms of maybe forums, maybe focus groups, maybe community presence, board member community presence at ACT at board member presence at community activities and discussion of future strategies to reach the public. That's more than enough for now. Did I miss anything? >> No, you got it all. >> We did talk about the liaison group and getting that up and at them again. Yes, ma'am. town council, >> city council. >>

138And um to answer that because it's already on and I might as well answer that is actually um Juliet Parker and I are working on getting that together and coming up with this format and structure um so that we can do it. Juliet and I just have not um any you are >> well the committee brought to my attention that to tell the board you know the story of a budget process it might be good to be able to lay out some of our thinking even to that group as we start thinking about it >> and I think that we were thinking about um we were thinking about thinking um a for a quarterly leazison meeting instead of doing a monthly >> um so I think that that's what we were looking at So that

139is going in. I'm going to move us along. Negotiations. We're just waiting to hear back from the um administration union, but we have started um but we have uh come to our conclusion to that and we're just waiting for their union vote. Um Rita uh has sent me something. I will just make sure that it gets to Joan um and then Joan can um put it in the meeting u minutes about her um talking about with learn. It was actually kind of lengthy. So, I'll let her do that. Um, and I don't know when we're doing an AGSA board of ed leazison. We have not had one. >> I'll have to check with Joyce to see if she's got it on the calendar. >> Graten scholarship. >> Yep. We just met last week. Um, there

140is we're trying to decide new strategies of how to to increase our offerings this year. um the budget is is quite tight and we want to be able to and to um expand and to to include. So if anybody has any ideas about whom we can contact send letters out to I have not received the list yet of who the current donors are. Um I have asked if and Susan I'm going to ask you is there an alumni? I I I contacted the alumni person on Facebook, but I haven't re received anything back. But is there anybody else? Could you get me a name of the alumni coordinator? Maybe if there's an alumni association because um >> I'll check with the high school. >> That would be really helpful. Um because NFA does this, >>

141they blanket their all their alumni and it was like, well, I'm a Fitz alum and I never received a letter. So, you know, it's an untapped resource. But if you think of anybody, please send it to me, you know, and with an address of who, you know, we could send letters out. We're going to get the letters are going to start going out in November for to ask for donations. Julie Kaggel just ran her class reunion. um and I think it was the 50th year and they visited our schools and were so impressed as part of their celebration >> and um so that that would be a really good group and she wants to do that again. She thought that was such a great idea for them to see the school. >> How did the

142um auction do >> GF? I think it really um I don't know. >> Okay, >> that wasn't even brought up. GF that's not part of this. >> Sorry, you're right. I I spoke too soon. >> That's okay. Sorry. I'm like GF. No, that's different group. >> Okay. >> Athletic fields. >> Yes. I know I sound like a broken record that um the task force is not meeting uh until a decision is made about the Claude property. >> Um but is it not meeting tonight or tomorrow? Isn't it on park and wrecks? I believe the park and the park and wreck committee is meeting but not the athletic fields task force. >> Right. But I believe that they are getting an update of the task force. >> Well, since the task force hasn't met, I don't

143know what that update would be, but um the task force has not met. >> Okay. >> Trails. >> The trails committee met in September. Uh the cop the cop family park area. Um, Parks and Rex was uh approached by the Southeast Connecticut Foundation of the Blind who want to put in a braille trail. That is not a done deal, but if it comes to fruition, they will be looking for volunteers uh to help build the trail that may be a great activity for some of their upper class students. >> Sounds like an Eagle Scout thing. >> I was just saying both at >> library. library. A one card is underway. The ninth the ninth grade is pretty well blanketed. 10th grade there's some technical issues which they're working through. Uh 11th and 12th they hope

144by the end of the year and elementary and middle school is aspirationally maybe we can accelerate it but probably next year. >> Okay. Wow. That's actually going to happen. >> Wish me started with 11th and 12th. And then um the military children was that last >> we did that last week or last month and we'll meet in spring. >> Okay. >> All right. I'm moving us on to the action items which is the consent agenda. All matters listed under the consent agenda are considered routine and will be enacted by one motion um with points of clarification will be allowed. I will accept a motion for uh the consent agenda. >> Move the consent agenda. >> Do I have a second? Can I have um can I have second is through Matthew. Um any discussion? >>

145I just have some corrections to the minute that I'll see that great. >> Okay. >> It's just type. Thank you. >> Any other discussion hearing? None. None. All those in favor of the approval of the consent agenda, please say I. >> I. >> Oppose. Abstain. The motion has carried. Um, we would like to say uh thank you to Elizabeth Porter. Um, has >> what? >> I should say Patrick Porter. >> Patrick Porter um who has donated a Cel a Celestron Power Seeker 127 EQ telescope valued at um $250 for use by the school district. We say thank you to both Liz and Pat for that. Um I am now um William if you would be willing to read the motion for old business number one. Just the motion please. >> Discussion and possible action are

146a second reading of policy P 6145.1 eligibility to participate in intercolastic high school athletics attachment number six. >> Okay. So the motion would be to approve policy P 6145.1 eligibility to participate in intercolastic high school athletics as a second reading. Can I have a second please? >> I have a second by Liz. Discussion please. And I don't know if Susan and Andrea if you want to. And I know Beverly you're also part of the policy. Is there anything that this is the second reading >> just to say that Marano and high school people worked diligently on this and I think that the language is now where we're expected to be anything >> just that the board worked really hard with this and and Mark came to the table a few times so that we could

147really get it the way we need to get it and you heard them say tonight that that process that he's created. They're even using for all of our kids. So, really paying close attention how the children are doing before they get an F on the report card. Hold on. All right. Any other discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor of the approval of policy P6145.1 eligibility to participate in intercolastic high school activities. >> Athletics. >> Thank you. athletics. Um, please say I >> I >> oppose. >> Abstain. That motion has carried. Dean, would you please read the motion for number two? >> I move to approve policy P7551, naming facilities as a second. >> Can I have a second to that, please? >> Second. >> William has second that. Can I have discussion? >> Discussion.

148I pointed out to Andrea there was a typographical error in the back where community members under number one is is duplicated. So it says shallow point school naming community composed of community members parents board members community members see how it is. I just wanted to point that out. >> I'll get Erica to fix that. Thank you. And that's that's on the regulation and we're not looking at it. >> Well, right. But I I thank you for finding that. Sometimes you look at it till you're crosseyed and don't even see it. >> Any other discussion on that? >> Once again, I think we hit everything that everybody wanted us to. >> Awesome. All those in favor of the second reading of the policy P7551 naming of facilities. All those in favor, please say I. I. >>

149I. >> Abstain. That motion has carried. Matthew, would you please read the motion of number three? >> Thank you. I move we approve policy P6141.51 enrollment in high school advanced courses or programs as a second reading. >> Can I please have a second? >> Second. >> I have Liz a second discussion please. Again, we tried to I I think that the biggest reach that we had for this was to make sure that all children, all students at the high school in particular are encouraged to take advance courses. We want I don't I don't want to ever hear I'm Martin Luther King scholar once again say why am I the only student following this class? And and in addition to that, as you said, Kim, and it um it struck a chord with me because you

150said you can't take tests. And I remember that um I I I took a a test, a course in reading at URI many, many years ago at the graduate level. And the instructor came to me and he said, "If you take the final, you're going to get a B in this course. So, I'm going to give you research to do instead. >> You see, and that's the way we should be looking at all all students. >> And if a kid wants to take the um the advanced course, he should not or she should not be excluded by somebody else. That's where we are with this. >> I couldn't be more proud of this board for looking at a policy that could really affect change like this. I mean, I am so proud. It really causes

151me to >> Well, it's your leadership. Well, no, it's it's yours, too. It's it's a combination. >> Any further discussion? Oh, Dean. >> So, first things first. I become over time more and more confused. That may just have to do with my entry entry. So, we have policy and regulations. And for the last couple of rounds, I've heard people say, well, let's not bother with the backside regulation. That's not well. So, who does promulgate right? In other words, we approve policy and then regulation is somebody else's. >> That's my job. >> That's your job >> to put it into action. How does it look in the schools? How do we implement this thing? >> So, you write the regulating. I like to bring it together so the board has a chance an opportunity to also

152take a look at the regulations you know and if we feel that there's a problem with the process um you know I can then bring it back to the staff >> I think that we worked as hard on the regulations I think so too >> so you work on the regulations >> well they do give suggestions I mean but that's typically what used to happen in the good old days or in the olden days is that policy was set by the board. It was given then to the superintendent to work with staff to figure out how does it get implemented in the schools >> and we've just under my leadership I've actually tried to do it in tandem so that we really work with the with the staff around the policy and the regulations so

153that they have their input and I think it just makes it a little more transparent. >> I have a we'll start with a logistics question. my my notes are back on the on the regulations side, but they're tied together. So, >> um I'd rather not have be told you you I'm not sure during the meeting, of course. Oh, I'm sorry. That's on the back side, but these are questions that pertain to the policy because the regulation is meant to implement the policy. So, I've been thinking about this and the desire and I share it to um set more kids on the path that for for whatever the reason they're not on the path to taking advanced courses. They've written themselves off as I've said before. They just know that's not for me, that's for the

154other kids kind of thing. That's a phenomenon. Do we anticipate uh if the program is successful, if the approach is successful, a lot more kids taking AP and if so, are we going to increase the number of classes? Uh are we talking about filling out the classes that we have now? Depends on the current attendance level. um or are we going to say, "Well, we're pretty close to full up now and rather than add a class, what we're going to do is we're simply going to um it's going to be more competitive to get in." But the reason why I say that is when I see things like um you know your p your prior academic performance is not an exclusive u you know indicator of whether you get I'm thinking well now are if

155we're if we're going to be expanding so for example if we have x number of kids taking AP courses and we're really successful we have another 50% show up and say I want to take these AP courses as well or the IB or whatever. But we're not going to be adding. We're basically just going to be bringing in more chairs into the room or having more chairs built. I guess it depends on the room. Um I just have a um I I'd like to see what the logistics look like for this. >> So can I just add this piece? Um the board has been very interested in class size at the high school and I've been very transparent at as giving it to you like it is and we have really been under represented. We

156have very few kids taking the I AP and IB. I don't know if the COVID hit also impacted it, but we've been able with our with the plan that Fitch has put into place about encouraging kids, getting them ready, also giving support during that time to increase our numbers. So, instead of having four or five and of course now we're, you know, we've we've doubled it or we've even gone beyond that. So, there is still room to grow. And what you're doing is so then those kids aren't taking we don't have um in in 11th and 12th this is considered AP IBE they're considered the honors level honors and beyond. I mean it's honors level work. So those students are then taking these courses so you'll have fewer in the college level courses. So it's

157just a shift. right now there's room to fill them up because I'd love to see them at 20 or more. >> So the other question I have is this and that is the the regulation anyway side of it and it's also been mentioned here tonight that the problem is not a general problem or not merely a general problem of there are kids. What I'm hearing is there are certain kids that you were mostly focused on. And so when we are going to be applying resources to help kids along, will the resources be directed to the kids that we think need the help to get into the AP courses or just certain kids? Because if it's the former, then what you're really doing is is you're saying, "Well, all kids will get help regardless of their

158actual ethnicity or race." and then essentially crossing our fingers and hoping that at the end of the day we will see in the AP and other advanced courses the representation that we expect. So if our student body on the whole is X Y and Z percentage by you know pick the colors of the rainbow that's what we will see in the advanced courses is that what's going on that you hope that by helping everybody by playing resources to everybody that's how it'll turn out or are you going to be focusing resources by race and ethnicity? >> We are not focusing we are giving equal opportunity to our students. >> Yeah. That that's a that's a decades old phrase. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Yeah. I say something. >> I really think that is that has been

159um a goal of of it for a long time. Um, having been there to through 2018 and having taught AP and the IB courses, there have been students that I personally have taught that were lacking in skills but had the desire to do so. And their supports whether it doesn't matter who they were, you know, it didn't matter if they were green, purple, or orange. whatever the support was needed that was supplied by myself, by other teachers, by their guidance counselors and stuff. So, I just think this just encapsulates what has been historically happening that had maybe waned a bit um especially with the the COVID, but it's now being put into regulation. And I think that's a a good cover or not cover that's the wrong word but a good programming of how we

160are going to address you know these this disparity and helping kids realize their potential and realize that they can do this with encouragement and supports. >> It doesn't matter what you look like. It matters what you want to do. >> My question is the disparity was there. We we've mentioned CO. There's no question CO has had an effect. >> Oh yeah. >> But these disparities were there before and you're saying that we have not because otherwise it would be an indictment of our system of our district that somehow we have failed certain students based on race in recent years, not 50 years ago, 60 years ago, 100 years ago. >> And that now we're going to be doing something different. But what you're saying is, okay, CO set us back, but now we're going to

161be doing what we what we've been doing all along, what you did when you were a teacher, was which is admirable. But it isn't just co. So I I'm I'm holding judgment uh reserving judgment on this. I'm crossing my fingers and hoping that it works. >> But you also have to remember before we didn't have the MYP program, which is a rigorous program. >> I agree. You've got to start earlier. And that's exactly where I'm hoping to see the growth because and the kids getting the feeling that I can do this rigorous stuff because let's face it, the MYP is sixth grade to 10th. It's not sixth, seventh, and 8th. It's 6th through 10. AP and IB really begin for the most part in 11th and 12th. So, um, you know, I just see this

162as just formulating what we need, what we've been doing, but now we've got it in right and I think we have more, like you said, of a foundation of support starting earlier on. And we want to really continue that rigor and relevance even into the elementary so all kids have that opportunity. >> Absolutely. >> Any further discussion? hearing none. All those in favor um of approving uh the policy P6141-51 enrollment in high school advanced courses um or programs um all those in favor please say I >> I oppose abstain dean has abstained perfect that's great all right so we're moving on to motion number >> two. >> Um, and Liz, would you be willing to read >> I'm confused. >> We are We are on the meeting schedule. Yeah. >> Okay. To approve the 2023

163Board of Education meeting schedule. >> Can I have a second, please? >> Second. >> All right. Discussion. Um, I'm sure you didn't note it, but the September 25th meeting is uh Yum Kipur. Would it be possible to adjust that to the 26th? >> What's day? >> September 25th, the regular meeting. Could that be adjusted by one day? >> Yes. But we I'm also looking at your communications. We probably should do the same thing for communication. >> Might not be a bad idea. >> Yeah. >> So, the 26th then? >> Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Um I was actually going to ask about making sure that we are holding some um for the other um people who are um chairs of the committees. Um does it match up? >> Yeah. >> Okay. Any other discussion? >>

164Policy should be at 6:00 the second. Um, thank you. >> Yeah, >> Joan, are you getting these, Miss Jones? >> I I've got it, Joan. I can cross reference with you. >> Yes, I am getting it. >> Okay. Thank you, my friend. >> It also says in room five, the policy. Um, >> that should be virtual. >> Well, I don't know that we can do that for a whole another year, but virtual. Yeah, because we're kind of coming back to community. >> And I just have a question. We have a communications meeting um at 5:00 in central office room 4 and then we go to a regular meeting which only happens you know once a month or whatever but we we have to be at the town hall annex. So, I mean that's going to

165cut into our time communication. >> So, one of the things that nice pickup. So, one of the things that maybe um either Miss Joan or Joyce can do to see if we can move the communications committee over to one of the smaller um meeting rooms um at the annex. >> That would be helpful. >> Okay. So, could we um can you do that? We used to do that >> but like but not but not put it in and now does it then become a special meeting the communications backup. >> Okay. >> So what are you supposed to do? >> Okay. So the communications if you looked at the communication schedule right and right now it has it on um central office room 4. We are looking at seeing whether we can have a community room

166at the annex but we're not going to be able to know that. So when we vote, do we do we say site to be determined and >> wait but then it becomes for um FOYA it becomes then a special meeting for the rest of the time >> for another year. >> Yeah. By law at some point you're supposed to adopt your regular meeting schedule. >> This is >> the regular the regular meeting schedule. So that's the all the way on the right. >> Okay. Everything else is at our discretion as long as you provide the correct notice ahead of time. >> Okay. we're having this other meeting and you can change the regular meetings too but referring to committee meetings and cow meetings >> right >> you as long as you give the the requisite

167notice of the time and place and they'll start the meeting ahead of the time that you announced and all that you're fine >> right okay so like all right that's perfect >> question for council uh could we adopt this as presented and then once we know if we can do the annex we can amend the amend >> I think we can find out about the annex tomorrow. >> I I I think it's good. What I hear from Dean, it doesn't matter. We just have to make sure that the notice is ahead of time where we're going to be meeting. >> That's all that's really required. >> And that really what's really required is to make sure that our regular voting meeting is noted. >> That's a dual requirement. Even without that specific requirement, the council

168is the same way. Even without that requirement, still required under state law, all public bodies to announce your meeting. I forget what 24 48 hours ahead of time. It's got to be posted. Yeah. Tom Cler's got to do that and all that jazz. Okay. >> People know when and where. >> Right. >> Can can I come come back to the policy when we're done with this? >> Yes. >> Okay. >> We're back to you. >> Oh, okay. My we met under special circumstances for policy this year. This term this year because of of membership availability. We don't know who's going to be on that. >> That's right. So, I'm suggesting that we stay at 5:00 in central office room 5 as as it stands. And if because as I said, we don't know who's going

169to be on the committee and that this time and place it could be perfectly fine. >> That's right. Because um you're right because as of December, we we could have all new committees, correct? So, >> well, that could affect any of these groups, >> right? art. >> Well, >> not not the not the committee of the whole, not the regular, but we're having subcommittees because um >> we have to redo them every year. >> Yeah. >> When does that information that'll come after this has already been >> Yeah. So, I I'm not trying to make this a more difficult process than it is. It looks like it's fine the way it is. And the worst we have to do is that we just put a special on on the headline of the of the meeting.

170if you add a meeting, but if you move a meeting, we're not going to be holding it this day, but we're going to be holding it at that date. That too. >> Okay. >> All right. I feel comfortable with that. Any further discussion? >> Just not to forget about September 25th, 26. >> We I've got that. >> Okay. Just wanted to make sure. >> Yep. >> Any other discussion? All those in favor of approving the 2023 meeting schedule for the Graten Board of Education, please say I. >> Oppose. Abstain. That motion has carried. Um, math. Um, Beverly or Jay, would either one of you like to read the motion for number three? >> No, we needed to do we needed to do all three of them. >> No, we need to do all three of

171them. >> All right. >> So, I'm going to read the motion to approve the preferred um class side guidelines. Um, can I have a second, please? Second >> I William. Okay. Discussion. So this happens to be on our template. This is I believe that we put it on the template um in October so that when the superintendent went to go meet and with the st continue to meet with the staff to go over how much of the staffing that they need, the superintendent and the superintendent have an idea about what the board preferred size is. Um, and so that's what we that's what we're going to be basing our budget on. So I believe I believe that this is what this was last year. Is that correct, >> Susan? >> Yes. >> That's my question.

172Sorry. >> It's very It's what we really worked out for last year, but we're saying we want to a lot of time we spent on that. So I think it can continue. >> Do I have any other questions about that? All right. Hearing none. All those in favor of the preferred maximum class size as as detailed, please say I. >> I. >> Oppose. Abstain. That motion has carried. William, would you be willing to read the motion of number four? Motion to approve the board of education covering the cost of reduced meals for a portion of the fiscal year 23 school year. >> Can I have a second, please? >> That would be Matthew. Jay, do you want to speak to this? >> Uh, yes. So we discussed this uh at the uh finance meeting and

173so um given that there are just three schools now who are not covered by the um uh the 100% um C program. Somebody's going to have to help me with the u what C stands for >> community eligibility program. >> Right. So, um, we had discussed at finance whether or not, um, we could at least cover the cost of the reduced meals at those three schools that are not covered. So, to be clear, to to be clear, um, at the covered schools, no one's currently paying for lunch. at the three schools that are not covered by C, which would be the high school, uh, Charles Barnum, and Northeast Academy. There is obviously still free and reduced, uh, lunches being offered based on those who apply and the, uh, the guidelines. Um and so the idea

174was could we also um pay for all of those students at those three schools who are under reduced and maybe Ken can bring up um a visual to explain and maybe you can take it from here as to how he came to the numbers. >> Sure. Um so this um this schedule here >> can make it a little bit bigger. Okay. Yeah, >> perfect. >> Um, this schedule here, we uh Ernie Koshin and myself um met and updated this. We have a new number of the reduced price students for those three schools that's identified there, um 84 at the elementary, uh 90 at secondary. And what we calculated first uh was uh assuming 100% participation for the entire school year and that cost would have been $22,045 uh because of the um smart funds that

175uh the that the state of Connecticut has provided um as mentioned before all meals are currently free and so we're anticipating that that will last for 40% of the school year. We're we're currently uh anticipating that those funds will last us through the uh Christmas holiday, which is great. >> And we thought we'd have to, you know, switch it over sometime mid November. So, I'm excited to get this information out to families. I just want to be really accurate. That's why this is so important to vote on. Um and so if if we uh do the calculation just based upon 60% that brings us to the 13,276 number and then uh uh Ernie had a has a anticipated participation number whether the student is is not in for the day or whether they don't take

176the lunch or the breakfast. Um these are the participation rates that he um that he generally sees. And so we're anticipating that the actual cost if we wanted to uh uh pay for these reduced prices for the reduced price of students uh would cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $8,000 for for this year. >> And what schools would this cover? >> This would cover a high school uh Charles Barnum and Northeast >> who don't participate in the C. And the board typically has to pay for meals that haven't been paid for. And that has been at a cost um of sever tens of thousands of dollars. We luckily we haven't had to deal with that for a couple of years because um because of COVID uh the USDA has been paying for all the meals

177for the past years but that uh has ended uh currently uh being supported by the smart firms smart funds from the state. Uh but um as we mentioned before those will run out participating at the end of this calendar year. Our hope is that by parents filling out the free and reduced lunch forms that will really capture the the people who need to have this as a resource and it will also help to support us in the future. We're going after C >> so that it could be that we could become eligible as a district which would be phenomenal. >> So I'll make sure they get that message. Is there a possibility that with phones still coming in that one of these three schools might reach the threshold of BCP school >> for next year?

178>> So we're talking about the rest of this year. We're just trying to take care of this year and then hopefully the data that I collect will give us more promise in the future for the the four that we have I think are secure for the next four years. This one being included. So if if if Ernie's projection isn't correct, which is this 8,000, we we might be looking at 13,000 or somewhere somewhere in between the two. >> Yeah. Yeah. It wouldn't it wouldn't wouldn't be any more than 13, but we anticipated would be that. >> Okay. And and where would that 13,000 come from? >> So, uh we could use the our funds uh to cover that. Okay. If we need to we have some funding put aside in in the in district budget

179uh that cover would cover what Susan mentioned before um unpaid u unpaid balances but u if that wasn't sufficient we could use the >> So can I just have clarification? >> Yes. So, what I hear you saying is that there's this the these three schools have not qualified for this program where everybody gets free free and reduced rents, right? Or free lunches. These three schools have pockets of students that are paying out themselves, right? Or their families. This would take for free and reduced lunch students who have filled out the proper format forms. that would assume they're that debt, but there's still going to be a group of kids that are going to have to pay >> and they would be the students that probably are more likely to be able to pay. >> That

180was said, that's fine. What I what I'm I'm wondering is just like um no easy way to say this, you know, can how much would it cost for us to be able to assume the cost for everybody? >> 22,000, right? >> That is that the 22,000? >> No. No, that that's not the to to pay for the the full price student. Well, that hasn't been calculated here. >> Okay. >> Um we have looked at that in the past. It's it's it's a it's a very large hundreds of thousands of dollars. >> Hundreds of thousands that thank thank you. I needed that thing put in perspective not only for myself but for anybody else that's listening. That's right. >> Now if everybody fills out their form and I get to be able to reent this for

181CB. It could be that our whole district goes that way. So that would be really good news. >> That would be excellent. Yeah. Jay >> and um my understanding is that at least one of the schools was very very close to C this year. I I don't have the exact figures, but you know, so important to start that early in the year to let people know um because none of these schools um were under complete CI C until just a few years ago. >> Right. Right. Exactly. >> So, you know, it is moving in that direction for better or for worse. Um but um I mean I I think this is a um a step toward um making sure that everyone you know um who who wants to take a meal will. But keep in

182mind it's not that anybody's ever turned away. >> Right. That's exactly right. Good point. >> Yep. >> Any further discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor to approve the board of education covering the cost of reduced meals for a portion of the FY uh 23 school year. All those in favor, please say I. >> I. >> Oppose. Abstain. That motion is carried. >> Jay, do you have any communications or letters or comments? >> Um, I just wanted to say that um as usual, it was a pleasure to uh attend the um Dr. Dr. Martin Luther King scholarship awards dinner last Thursday. Um once again, uh Dr. Acriman and members of the the board of directors there um worked with the students to to help them find their voice and boy did they find their voice.

183>> Um so it's always inspiring uh to attend those. Um, and I also uh was able, unfortunately it was a a a short period of time, but I was able to drop in on the um uh Pitch Falcon Marching Band home show um this uh past uh Saturday and uh I'm always impressed with the amount of work and talent uh that goes into to those shows. And then of course uh the marching band is appearing you know at many more of those across the state. um after that and I received the same emails I believe as everyone else. >> Thank you, Jay. Beverly, >> I've received the same emails as everyone else. Thank you, >> Jean. >> Same emails and question. I don't think I answer it. My wife a couple of years ago made

184up the signs for the home show and they were stored at the school. We don't have them and the hope was that they could be reused for this year's home show and they wound up having to basically have signs reprinted up. So it's it's a rock in the shoe. My wife is she's out of town now, but she's thinking where are the signs? Why did they have to make it so either you tell me tell me what happened to the signs? Uh I know you can't right now. You may not have me doing it, but somebody somebody has misplaced those signs. So that's my com. >> Okay. Thank you, Matthew. >> I'm good. Thank you, >> Liz. >> Well, um as an alum of the Pitch High School band, I was blown away by their

185performance. It was probably one of the best at every in looking at the entire scope of the programming every other night. But I also want to give a shout out to our our middle school band. That was an impressive um national anthem. They did a beautiful job and that was that was really amazing. >> Um and also a thank you to the Navy volunteers that were there because that was in they were hysterical. I love the guys doing the dance. Um, I think my husband actually took a video of it. Embarrassed to say, but um, I just, you know, a shout out to all the band parents, the boosters who have really put this together. And, um, you know, we celebrate, we we we always get a lot of, you know, some negative comments and

186stuff, but I also want to say, you know, shout out to all those people who have given so much of their time. And um it was just absolute joy to watch that game, that um competition. I wish I knew how Fitch had scored >> um because they should have probably scored it in my opinion in the 90s. And um it's just an amazing um evolution and I'm hoping to see the strength of the music program come back to to rebuild again because last year's band was small. This year's band is again still small, but it was 10 more kids and only five seniors, whereas last year was 15 seniors and five regular kids. So, it's building. And I just want to shout out to the um the music department at Fitch High School for helping

187to start to rebuild that. Um and I received the same letters and you know, the emails from everybody else. Andrea, >> this is the first band of Gayla that I missed since I've been on the board and I apologize for that and I'm truly sorry for me. But I wanted to thank everybody for all of the kind words and and wonderful responses that we had to the Martin Luther King scholarship. it was that 16 students uh from the area high schools in Lulu County and they practiced at my house for six weeks and and I want to a shout out to Lola Colette who was also now a member and is helping with the with the speeches and they were good at my house. They were really good. But when they thought, oh, and that

188roster was in front of them and the audience was in front of them, you could see the electricity. It was like watching Elsa Lang Lancaster in one of those old movies where the electricity just flowed down. It was fabulous. So, I just want to say to Isaiah Anderson and Rian Bhau and and Aisha Hassini and Kairo Robinson, you were fabulous along with all of your your colleagues. I can't wait to see them again in January when we go to the church. Yes. >> William, do you have anything? >> Um, no. I just well I I just wanted to agree with Liz about the the music department and the marching bands as well as the the choruses, the the formal band and the orchestra. Uh really great this year. Um and it'll be really exciting to

189um see them this Wednesday. Great. >> Excited for it. So hopefully everybody can go. So, I received um many of the same emails. I was also blown away with the MLK, the sounds by the sea. Um I also along with Susan and Rita attended the Hall of Fame for the teachers hall of fame on Sunday and that was a really cool thing to kind of um watch um and to see people who I haven't seen in a couple years. That was really wonderful. Um and I did talk about meeting with Mayor Melendez and moderator Rusk. Um so we talked about the fields but we also um talked about uh meeting with Susan and John um and Sam about some safety um uh we had applied for the town um looking at their certification around the

190ARPA around safety cons um safety and um we did not make the top 20 list and so our concern was how do we how do we get back on the list um and so we're going to have a meeting about that and we will keep you posted on that. Um and just to remind people that the CAVE convention is going to happen in November. That's the 18th and 19th. It is um a chalk full of information for those who uh who want. Um please note on the different dates that are um on our things. It doesn't have our like music and other things that are happening, but it does have our um sort of businessy meetings. Um, and then do I have suggested agenda items, Jay? >> Uh, yes. So, um, given that we have

191now had the second reading of the facility naming policy, I' I'd like to, um, come back around to a suggestion that Dr. Acriman brought up uh, several years ago about naming a um, portion of a facility for uh, Dr. James Mitchell, uh, former superintendent, uh, former president of the MLK scholarship fund, current chairman of the board of L&M Hospital. Um, and it seemed to me that, um, because he had such a district-wide influence, um, that perhaps we could consider a future agenda item to name the high school library after him. Um, my understanding is that has never been named for anybody and so I'd like to put that forward as a possible future agenda item. >> Perfect. >> Thank you, Jay. >> All right. Did you have >> um an update on the I understand

192we might have an update on the mentoring program. Perhaps that could be on the next agenda and love an update on whether or not the federal grant for tutors and mentors is something that looks like Sorry, I wrote this down on the wrong sheet of paper and it's it won't work. um the next regular meeting we're going to need to vote on the adoption of curricula that is the going to be at the curriculum committee that they're forward. So I just want to make sure that that um >> our committee the whole radar >> it's going to be on the committee the whole and then it's going to be on our regular meeting. >> Right. Exactly. >> Is there something about the next meeting date? Um I I think we'll um there's a um there's

193people who are are coming back. Um I know that Jay, you stated that you were going to be out of town um on the 29th. I don't know about Rita. Rita's not here. Um but there is some there is some conversation um from that people have come to me that to move our Monday 28th meeting to the 29th um to accommodate um that. And so >> for what? >> For a regular board meeting. >> Okay. >> Um for um I think Jay and there might have been a couple of other people out of town. Maybe we just need to get maybe we just need to get attendance. >> Yeah. >> Um cleared up >> and that's >> and we're I mean like that's the goal. >> The goal is >> we'll make sure people know

194where to go. >> Okay. >> All right. >> Tell them where to go. And go ahead Andrea. Motion to adjurnn. Second. All those in favor, please say I. >> I. >> Abstain. >> Good night. >> Say what else? The other one. Not true. >> Yes. Good night, Grace.