6-26-23 Groton Board of Education Meeting

001All right, I would like to start the Graten Board of Education meeting. Good evening. My name is Kim Shepardson Watson and I'm serving as the chairperson. And today is June 26 and by my clock it is 6:04. Um, and it is my honor to start our meeting which will be first started off with the pledge of allegiance. And um, Sam, would you be willing to lead me in the pledge of allegiance? Thank you, sir. >> I aliance 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. >> Good evening, Miss Joan. >> Try this trick. AM, could you unmute? >> Somebody has to unmute. >> We are unmuted. We are muted. >> We're muted. We're muted. >>

002Kim, come on. You're rich. >> Can you hear me now, Miss Joan? >> Yes, I can. Thank you. >> Beverly, can you hear? Yes, I can now. >> Okay, thank you for alerting us. Uh, so good evening. Um, so we're still going on. We have done the pledge of allegiance. Um, and thank you for your patience. Um, and also my hat goes off to our tech crew of Caitlyn and um, Mark, thank you so very much for the work behind the scenes um, to take care of this and uh, Clint, you as well. Um, our first order of business would be um, comments from citizens. And Miss Joan, do you know of anyone that's online that is interested in speaking? >> I have not heard. >> There is no one here in the building. Is

003there anyone online that wish to address the board? Hearing none, we will move on. We do not have student representative reports. Um and as we get down to um number item six. Um I am going to ask that we um just change the schedule just a tad. Um uh Ken Knight is um actually it's his birthday today >> and um I believe that his family would love for him to get us home as soon as possible and we would love to have that happen. Um and all that I ask um and Ken, I also believe that this is your last regular board of ed meeting with us. Um and so I personally would just love to say thank you very much for your service to the district to the service to me personally um and

004your shining smile and light and making numbers understandable is um wonderful and um Khan College uh has gotten someone really well and they are very lucky to have you in their service. >> Thank you very much and it's been an honor to work with everyone. through all this. I love explaining or trying to explain some things that that sometimes are difficult to understand. Sometimes I feel like I'm doing a good job, sometimes I don't. But I appreciate those very kind words. >> Thank you. >> To turn up your mic. [Laughter] >> We're all >> one small voice for >> is this up now. All right. Thank you. >> What he said. >> Um, but the one thing Dina, I know that you had a question or were you just waving? >> I was I had

005sent It's sometimes the case that my daughter's not here because on Monday nights she has fire training, EMS training, that kind of thing. But >> I just reminded her that, you know, we have a she says, "Oh, is that tonight? I don't think I can make it." So, it's just flat out I think she's she missed it. >> That's fine. >> And maybe because school's over and she wasn't thinking. Yeah, she has a lot on her plate. >> Yes, and I appreciate her um her um expertise as a student on on our board and and we'll look forward to seeing her next time she can make it. Um but Ken um to if I can be so bold to the rest of the um board is I would like to have Ken speak to one

006of our um I think it's number under new business. It is number two um C2 which is the um out of district tuitions. if you along with Jay could speak to that so that when we so that you can leave and um uh we can then have um uh that you can leave and we can have discussion and Jay I I feel confident that you also um along with your staff I mean your committee um Dean and Bev would be able to speak to this as well. Is that correct? Uh yes, we spoke about it at finance and we also spoke at it about it at the last CO. >> So it has been thoroughly addressed. >> Okay. Thank you. So Ken, you're on. >> So do you want me to start with the uh

007tuition or do you want me to start with the object code? Uh >> since it's your birthday and it's your last meeting, it's your birthday. You can um you can do whatever however you would like to see fit. Let's start with the object code summary which is attachment number three. Okay. So, uh this this is a big one because this is uh we're nearing the end of the year. Uh we've got uh four days left in this year >> and uh we are trying to wrap everything up. We had our final uh uh payroll uh last Friday and our final um AP check run um also last week on Wednesday. Uh so we're we're we're wrapping everything up. Um as you can tell from the uh attachment number three, it's it's coming down to zero.

008Uh there were no additional funds left over. We we we spent it. Um we really kind of went over uh in a big way under energy, uh electricity, um our natural gas, uh diesel costs, uh were way up higher. We had anticipated them to be higher, but they went higher than what we anticipated. The rates uh went went quite high. >> Um and our usage didn't go down. So So that resulted in an increased cost. Uh transportation is also up significantly, but we've talked about that over the past uh year where we added two buses at the beginning of the year. So we did anticipate some of that. Um this is being offset by um reductions uh in in salaries. Um and those are uh uh u replacements at at lower costs than we anticipated

009uh especially under the teachers uh as well as a reduction in the health insurance cost as uh we've had some very good experience and we'll see that on the next uh on the next exhibit. Um and then there was also um uh some uh out of district tuition expense for special education placements was also down. Um, so, uh, all of that resulted in, uh, in us coming right on right on budget >> and it was masterful the way he's worked us through this year. I just want to commend Ken. He's been my right and left arm. I'm really going to miss him. Um, but it was really tricky at the end when we had all these escalating costs and, you know, we budget a year and a half prior or two years prior. So, we

010really hit us like a ton of bricks, but we really were fortunate that there were other things that were underfunded and I had held off the principles and spending all of their umud, >> you know, site budgets. So, we had done a few things that we were able to conscientiously work together very at the very end. Remember seeing those $32,000 couple months in a row there at the end? Well, it kind of all of a sudden when the escalating costs came in, but thank you so much for all your hard work and and keeping me always informed. >> And I and I will say that looking forward to next year, these uh these energy costs, they're they're not going to be going uh down, they're they're going up. Uh so it's something that we need

011to continue to keep an eye on. Uh, unfortunately, we when we set the budget for FY24, we used what we thought was going to happen in 23. Well, 23 came in much higher. So, it's something we have to continue to look at and and be mindful of. And it's a concern. >> We was just going to say that at one time we actually had a full week for February vacation because of the energy costs were so high. And maybe we'll have to think about bringing something like that back because we close the schools. And so I mean there have we'll have to find cost savings someplace >> and I think our bigger newer schools take a lot more energy even though we've shut down some of the older ones, >> you know. So >> thank

012you Ken. Yeah, that was going to be my part of my question which is to what extent uh is our 24 budget going to uh hold not just in fuel I guess but in any other items I guess fuel is the big driver but um I this distance in June it's hard to remember what the basis for the last budget was and was it adjusted for our experience is our experience in June now much different than it was in February when we can already see some changes is um yeah, I'd dread to see next year's because we may not have these wonderful offsets, >> right? >> Um I had another question. I can't think of it, but I'll pass. Thanks. >> Maybe that's something that um the finance and facilities probably in September, October should

013really take a look at the budget and take a look at what that looks like. >> Well, at least we'll know. might not be able to do anything about it, right? We'll know. >> But that will then help us make a decision about the next budget time, but also is there places as we talked about um cost savings um for this coming budget? >> I just remember the my followup which was this. What happens? So here we we're coming in at zero or practically zero. I haven't done all the arithmetic. I'll just believe you on that one. What happens if we were to say be in the red by any significant amount so that we needed money from outside our budget to cover an expense? Where does that come from? What's the mechanism for that?

014>> Yeah, I would presume we would ask the town for um >> I don't know whether that's ever happened. Does the town say, "Okay, fine." Or does the town grumble and talk about >> I think when Mike first came here, there was something that happened. >> Yeah, we had to go to the town council. So, it's it's the same process. We actually have to go to the town council talk about what our request why why our request is. If I can remember right, it was because we um did not budget enough for the health insurance corridor. Is that >> is that um correct way? >> Yeah. >> Um and we were out what 1.4 million or something and um we went to the town we went to the town council that had to go to

015the RTM >> and Mike had just gotten there. >> Yes. >> Yeah. So, it was a surprise >> and I've seen in other communities I've heard that superintendents recently have because of what we're faced with have had to go and I'm fortunate that I have Ken and we've watched it very closely because that would not be something I'd want to do. >> Right. >> But other than that, it's fairly a routine process. >> I don't want it to happen, but it can happen and that's okay. All right. Once again, I I I guess um if I could request um from the finance and facilities is that you guys can think about putting that on your October, September, October with possibly looking at um what other areas might we be able to do that. Bev, >>

016thank you, Kim. Um Ken, first of all, I'd like to um say good luck to you on your new job at K College. It's been a pleasure serving with you on the finance committee. Um, every time I asked you a question, I always felt that you were giving me an honest answer and I truly truly appreciate that. >> And you made serving on the finance committee fun, too. You and Sam and Dean and Jay. Uh, it's been a good time on the finance committee. >> Yeah. >> I do have a question to ask you though. Do you think um we're going to see the same savings in on the teacher account and the special ed tuition account next year as we see this year? >> Um not not necessarily. So um we anticipate a certain

017amount of turnover with retirements and replacements at lower costs, but that it doesn't always happen in the same way. this particular year, we did have some um some some terminations that that resulted in some savings that won't necessarily happen again. Uh and in the special education tuition, it really just uh depends on the number of uh students that come through. Um it's it's it's really hard to predict. Uh we were lucky this year that that there was some uh savings in that in that line. We do try to hire um younger less experienced teachers and then we we do a lot of training ourselves but there are some areas like chemistry and physics which I've just had to recently hire for that that might not be possible but whenever possible we do try to do

018that Beverly so we can see some cost you know savings >> when um >> thank you >> can for function Um number one 1220 that's where um it was unfavorable other special education I guess it was offset by the special education but what what what is other special educa what what falls into that >> so so and and and the reason that looks like that is um uh other special education is where our tutor costs are are captured >> and So, um we've uh we've utilized more tutors uh uh in this year than we have in past. Uh but it was offset by uh um not using as many um paras that do come out on that next line, the special education line >> and and next year we will not be using any of

019the um federal grants anymore. That that's all done with right from the pandemic. >> No. So the the ARPser uh grant has one more year to go. It goes through September 30 of 2024. So, we still have a full year left of that >> in this funding there. So, >> that's great. >> But we're watching that one closely, too. Just letting you know. >> Any other questions on the object code? >> Hearing none, let's move on to the insurance. >> So, that's the next attachment number four. Uh, so we were lucky. We actually got the um the claims through uh May. Usually, there's a month lag. Uh but we're able to get the they happen to have that one uh ready and we we um uh were able to send that through. Uh and so

020the last one we looked at was March of uh 23. And uh at that point we were we were riding at about 120% of uh of of anticipated claims uh for February and March. Uh but if you'll notice, April and May, they're they're they're down significantly to um just just about at what we anticipated for for those months. Uh slightly over 102% and 105%. Uh so on a year-to- date basis, we're at 93 and a half% of our anticipated. Uh we anticipate June to come in uh similar to to April and May. And so we're we're anticipating that we will be be below what our anticipated um uh claims were for the year. So that that puts us in a a good position from our health insurance reserve perspective. >> Cool. >> Thank you. Any

021other How much I mean how how much is that? About a million? >> No, no, a little. So through um through May it's uh we're below expected by 725,000. you know, we were probably looking at something like in the $600,000 range. >> Oh, that's all. >> But it's that's that's a significant amount of money, >> right? >> Any other questions on the health? >> All right. So, I guess we'll look at um attachment number nine, which is the uh the tuitions. And we did talk about this uh I think briefly at uh the last uh CO uh but uh this sheet uh you'll you'll see the first uh column is uh la this year's or last year's 2023's approved tuition rates and then the the um column on the right is what we're proposing for

0222024. Uh the general education uh tuition rates are based upon the uh net cost per student. uh we we apply a factor of 85% to the net cost in an an attempt to try to uh come up with a figure that an additional student would cost the district because it wouldn't be uh all of that cost. It would only be you know you're not going to add a whole new teacher uh for for every additional student. Uh so uh that uh that cost under proposed is at 85% of uh our net cost per student. Uh then below uh special education costs, these are program costs. Um we added in uh a cost for the resource room uh which is um uh another special education program um that um that we did have an incident this

023past year where uh we did have a placement where we needed to to charge that. So that's why we added in that rate. Uh and then for the additional services, we're we're basing our um additional services off of Laurens's uh hourly rate schedule, which they published uh they publish annually. >> We have go ahead. >> William, >> thank you. The uh proposed rate for high school actually is lower than it was last year. Yeah. So, so the net cost per student which is calculated uh we we we do what's called the the EFS report education financial systems report uh annually and it takes all the costs and everything is allocated by school. Uh so it happened to be it looks like that the high school actually went down uh year-over-year the costs. >> Okay, thanks

024for the explanation. >> And Ken, where do those funds come in? because I know we do have two students, high school students who are in the international balarat program who attend Fitch High School. Where does that check go? Does it go into the board account or does it go into town account? >> So, uh technically the the the board receives the funds, but then we we forward those funds to the town. Uh so that's part of when we do the budget. Um I don't know if you recall, there's a revenue page and there's a there's a small um what's called other revenue and that's where those uh those costs. So we account for it there. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> I'll recognize Rita and then I'm going to go to Jay. >> Um can for

025the special education program cost. So if a child came into our district with multiple disabilities program does that ever happen? I mean, you know, that >> so uh sometimes uh uh children are are placed within our program, whether it's through a foster uh situation or those some sort of a >> where the nexus is a town outside of Graten. That's when uh we would have to have a rate in order to to charge that that nexus town. >> Thank you, >> Jay. >> Yes. I just want to echo a bit of what Beverly said and I want to uh thank Ken. It's been a pleasure uh working with you uh these past few years and it's going to take uh quite a bit to get somebody up to speed, but thank you very much and

026best of luck at Connecticut College. >> Great. Thank you. >> Any other questions on the tuition rate? If not, we will just move on knowing that this will be a business item um for us later on. And Ken, go enjoy your family. >> Thank you. Thank you so much. >> I'm glad that we could do this for you. >> Bye. >> Happy birthday. >> Enjoy. >> Many more have another trip around the >> All right. So, we're going to jump back up to the superintendent and I believe that um uh Dr. Dr. Piaza, our assistant superintendent, is on vacation this week. >> He is. He is. But I do see Lauren Cassini um who is on our student data manager and she's going to help me with um we actually got the data from the

027high school regarding college career for um seniors. And she had put together a nice pie chart so you could look at it visually. And then I have some backup information and as does she on where they ended up going. So, and I'll make sure you get that list. >> Oh, thank you. >> Yeah, I know you've been asking for this. I wanted to find out too, Rita. >> So, I'll let you Lauren take it from here. >> Should I share my screen with the >> with the um attachments or is that >> Yes, you can share your screen. >> Share my screen. Okay. Yeah, >> let me just pull it up real quick. >> Hold on. Just get in there. >> Okay. Can you guys see that? Okay. >> Yes. Yes. >> Okay. Just checking.

028So, this is really a breakdown based on the survey that was done um at Fitch High School of our graduating class of the students that completed the survey. Um this is really a breakdown of where our graduates are going, where they're heading off to. So, you could see that 50% of them are heading to a four-year college. And then really there's just chunks two-year college. Um about 18% are heading to a two-year college. And then you can see over on the side the breakdown for who's taking a year off, who's still undecided, uh military apprenticeships, which would fall into that um students who are working with EB as an example. Um and then those who are going right to employment. Okay. So, I don't know if you would like additional information for this or Susan,

029I heard you said you had other information on your end. >> Yep. And do you remember the number of students who took the survey because this was not 100% of the senior class. >> I think it was 91 students had completed the survey. >> Oh, okay. >> There was maybe there were maybe, you know, 30 to 40 kids that did not complete it. >> Okay. But I do have that breakdown um by you know gender by ethnicity if you would like that information otherwise I can I can provide it to you in a document whatever I >> I think both. So I think we would love to have a document but I would love to hear about what the breakdown is. >> Okay. All right. So, um, looking at male versus female, um, the majority

030of our the majority of our students are doing a two to fouryear school. Um, for females, 49 students are heading off to a four-year school where 15 females are heading to a two-year school. Um, and then there's just smatterings of females who are um, going right into employment. six students to be exact. Um, two students are actually two females are taking on an apprenticeship, two are heading to the military, and then six are undecided for females. Of the male population, um, 20 students are going to a two-year school, 47 males are going to a four-year school, nine are going right to employment. Um, seven of our male students are taking on apprenticeships, five are going into the military, and then 10 are undecided. Um, in terms of ethnicity, the group, the largest group going to

031a 4-year college, um, I'm sorry, our racial, ethnic, ethnic groups, um, our white students, um, 62 students are heading to a four-year school. um which is the greatest number uh the greatest number within that that particular um heading in that direction that four-year school where the lowest is the uh Pacific Islanders where only one student uh Pacific Island student is heading to a four-year school. Um, in terms of going right to employment, we have 11 11 students in the in the white group that are going to straight to employment where we have uh the next closest number. Um, I apologize would be our Hispanic population. Okay. Um, again, this is all relative because dependent on how many, you know, a larger percentage of the white population did complete the survey versus other um groups. Uh,

032so I can get to like actual percentages within each group if you'd like. I'm happy to do that as well. I can get that to you um through a document later. Um, our Hispanic population, five of them are going into the military and four are doing an apprenticeship. Same with our um our our black population, black and brown students, four doing an apprentichip, one is heading to the military. Um, our Asian population, 17 of them were um decided to go to a four-year school and four of them to a two-year school. Um, and that's really all we have on our Asian population. Um, and our uh, American Indian population, a few of them, we had three students who said they were going to a four-year school, one going to a two-year school, three that were

033undecided, and one going into the military. I think the percent would help because when it breaks down, we're basically a district that has about 51% students of color and then, you know, 49% students who are white. So to see how that plays out amongst the different groups, we can certainly get that for you. >> That would be great. And I think that Go ahead, Dean. >> No, I didn't mean to interrupt you. Go ahead. >> No, go ahead. I was going to say you'd have to make a couple of adjustments. >> Yeah. >> Because if you haven't surveyed everybody, I mean there's a few that haven't, but there's a there's a good chunk it sounds like that have did not respond. You'd have to first sort of align the response. >> Yeah. >> With, you

034know, with the actual demographics and then align those percentages. And at that point, are you >> do you have real information? Can you draw real inferences or are you speculating too much by taking the sample? This is a statistical thing. Taking the sample and extrapolating, would the answers be the same if you surveyed everybody? >> So, the state actually does a pretty thorough job with that because they actually go to the colleges and universities to find out who actually does attend and then do they continue to attend? Do they the ones who say four years are they there for the four years? The ones who say two years are they did there two years or do they continue on? So the we do get that data from um Connecticut State Department of Ed, but that's

035in the future. So that's another interesting way to look at that data. One of the things um why we had the state department down to speak with us is they had no way to track military ormies working with DoD. So we really brought a whole team together with the with the Navy and the Master Chief Olan and you know a whole committee. So we do have some um an avenue to collect this data better so that we can actually see what's happening for our kids who are going into the military or you know not being accounted for in the in the way that the state department gets the information in a clearing house. If >> I could ask a followup so the state is tracking or trying to track the kids that go to college

036etc. I think a pretty useful measurement a metric would be how many kids start the four-year program and actually finish right in four years and I realize that four years is rather an some anacronistic number from the middle ages. Why college is four years? I don't know why, but it is. >> There is I'm always curious to know when kids start college, other than changing majors, how many don't finish in the four years? How many take say maybe six years to finish because >> they're really kind of drowning? >> Maybe college wasn't for them, but they're giving it literally the old college trying, but it's taking them a hell of a lot longer to finish. Y >> in which case, that's something we would need to know at the >> at the uh at the

037secondary school level. are we this is an indication of the preparation of the students >> when we send them off to college >> and sometimes cost may be a factor and a lot of our um local community colleges are at no cost to our students and so that is a really wonderful vehicle to get started and then possibly continue. So, you know, I would want to find out um I'm hoping that we can interview our our um just graduated group and maybe even invite them back, you know, to talk to us in a focus group because there's so much information they can give to us that would help us to understand better. >> I'm going to recognize um Matthew and then Bev. >> Thank you. Uh, Miss Cassini, I have some problem with the numbers,

038but not with not with your processing of them, but we have an an N of I'm told 216 in our class of 2023. 191 students finished the survey. Uh, that's about 14% 14 little over 14%. We have uh 2% undecided. I'm um not quite sure how much. So that's about one6th of our student population are not included with these numbers. And I don't know what the solution is, but I I think we have to be very careful about drawing conclusions about uh the entirety of our cohort when we're missing a six of the population. I I wish I had a solution to offer you. I don't. But we just do need to be mindful about that. >> I think you're speaking to Dean's point. >> I'm speaking to Dean's point. Yeah. >> Bev, thank you,

039Matthew. >> Thank you, Kim. Um, can you give me the ratio breakdown of the four-year college students? >> I can't by number. Um, I I need to do the percentage, but I can give you the numbers. >> Okay. >> Would you like those right now? >> Yes, if you don't mind. >> Okay. For the fouryear So of the students that participated in the survey and that is an important point to note. So I'm just working with the the data that was given um understanding that it is not a reflection of the entire population and we are working with the state like Susan had mentioned um to try to get a better sampling of that and then be able to compare what we have to them to see how how closely they're aligned and what the

040missing pieces are. Um, so of our black and brown population, nine students are going to a four-year school, 62 white students are going, 17 Asian students, one Pacific Islander, 16 Hispanic, one Native America, uh, I'm sorry, American Indian or Native Alaskan, I'm sorry, three of those um from that group. And then there is another category which was listed as other um and there are four of of those students >> and I think >> the students put their name on the survey. >> Um let me go back. Uh their student ID >> their student ID >> I don't believe your name. No, their name is not on it. Sorry. >> But the ID numbers are on it. >> Yes. >> Okay. >> I think we can get a better handle on it, Beverly, if we look

041at the percentage of the students who took it to who took it and who are in those different disagregated >> domains. But it's also >> Can you say that again, Susan, please? So in other words, I think if we look at the percent of the students who took it and out of those different categories, we'll have a better understanding of what that means rather than just the raw number. Now, when students are undecided, does that mean that they applied for a college but they don't know if they're going to go? or they didn't apply to a college or they didn't do anything and they just don't know what they're doing. >> Yeah, it was not um specified. A year off is simply they don't know what they're doing. They're taking a year off to decide

042where undecided is really um it could be any any of the above what you just mentioned. >> They just don't have a a plan at this point. They're not sure exactly what they want to do. And what kind of guidance do we give the undecided students? Well, so I know at the high school, and I'm not sure if Ted is on to to speak more to this, but I do know that the guidance counselors work with individual students, particularly those 11th and 12th graders through the Navian system um to help them plan for and they meet with them throughout the their 11th and 12th grade year um to look at their interests even dating back to, you know, when they're freshman begin with interest surveys. um things to that nature and then trying to fine-tune

043it and is this is this a direction you're looking to go if it if it is these are the steps that we need to take. >> Yeah. >> One last question. Um nine black students going to college. Is that normal for Fitch High School or is that a low number for this year or is that about the average number every year? I'm a little concerned about these numbers in the fact that it just doesn't seem that this is the whole population and that we're looking at number versus percentage. And I'm wondering if we could have a better sense of this. Um because I if if this raw information that we're getting is what it is, we we have a lot of work to do. So, Bev, I I don't know. I I'm not reading I'm

044not trying to read your mind. Um, but I'm I'm kind of concerned about what this data is presenting to us. Um, and I'm also um not quite sure if this is um I don't know what the word I'm looking for, but is in the most exact form that we need to be able to sort of support this. And so um that so Bev, I'm really sorry if I cut you off and please feel free to continue, but that that's my worry about this conversation. One second. So Bev once again I apologize if I don't hear back I will do Liz and then Rita. >> I think what Beverly wants and I I would like to see this too is how does this compare to the last 5 10 years? I want to see if we

045are has has the populations the different populations um have they increased their um abilities? I want to know if we are addressing inequity and if we are then why aren't the have these numbers actually gone up or are they turning around and going down and if it's going down then why and I think we really need to but we can't do anything we you know the numbers are are fine I I I'm having a difficult time with these numbers and there's also a little place there next to um year off and undecided that doesn't have anything identified died and so um and it's not enough kids. It really isn't. Um so we need to know and I know that you can't get that. I'm not saying anything to you. I'm saying that you know this

046these this is in my opinion flawed data. >> Well, I don't know if it's flawed data. It's just not complete. And then it leads us to um ask a whole bunch of questions. And Lauren, I know that um you're plotting your way around with um the board of ed. Um but I think one of the things that I really appreciate about this group of people is that we're just looking at one, how are we doing and how are we doing not in terms of um at the moment, but how are we doing in terms of historical data and also how are we doing with all the different sort of how we doing with people who are black? how we doing with people who are um brown um Pacific um islander um Native American. And so

047those are just that's just data that's just really important for the board. But Lauren, once again, thank you so much um for um kind of putting um together this and actually pointing out um that that this is not necessarily a complete um outlook for us. Um, but I just, um, in terms of having this conversation, I don't want us to keep on going round and round. Um, and maybe and maybe Susan and Lauren can kind of think about how to present this again um, in a way that kind of that has more meat to it, which is one of the things that we should be very proud of is that we are a board that likes to have a lot of information. >> Kim, may I offer I'm sorry, readers. Oh, I I would just

048prefer not to have this pie chart, but to actually have like, you know, four-year college, two-year college, and have it written because when you look at the the military 3.7% and then you look at the green, that's 4.7, you know, it's just it's just confusing. And the little boxes, it's kind of hard to really they don't look quite right to me, the graph. But again, Dean pointed out that you look at it kind of this way. So that maybe maybe >> maybe it looks better when we tilt it. So, but um I would love to know from the year before and the year before that if there are fewer students going to four-year college, two-year colleges. And also, I was surprised at see that fewer students were going to the military this year, which was

049a real surprise to me when I w I was very nosy and I asked students, a lot of them when they were graduating, what they were doing the next year. And usually you have even the ones when um the principal asks them to stand up that are going to the military. Sometimes we usually have 20 and and I noticed that there were maybe six or seven I and >> so can I tell you the Navy is having hard time the military service in having with enlisted. They're not enlisting. >> We just all I want to keep us um I want to keep us. >> So anyway, I would like it not in a pie chart in the future. >> Okay, >> Matthew. >> And maybe last year's information would >> Yes. Got it. Matthew, >>

050my concern about the classifications that we've heard is that they've been on gender and racial lines. And I'm not denigrating the importance of these, but if we have a category X which has 10 people in it going to college and seven of them, even though they're minorities, come from very wealthy families, uh we're not looking at the socioeconomic filter. So I would love to see and and again there there's no nothing negative whatsoever. You you you only can work with what you've got. But if we could look at the percentage of socioeconomic status by whether it's free lunch or whatever other imperfect metric we have and compare that to the enrollment of that class. Then we'll have a sense of uh how we're doing if we're >> Perfect point, Matthew. Perfect point, >> Lauren. Once

051again, thank you, Dean. >> Kim, I did have something to point out. It's not major. However, I added up the numbers that you gave us under four-year college >> and I add up I get 112 >> when there are 96 reported. So maybe I got the numbers wrong. I added them twice. So I added the numbers that I have correctly. >> These two >> Oh, I know that's that's fine. I I added them up by by racial group. >> Oh, we'll take a closer look at that. >> So >> yeah, and I'll I'll go back to the high school just to make sure the data is accurate. Yeah. >> All right. So, just to leave you with um a little thought and you'll get a whole comprehensive list. We've got kids going to American University,

052Belmont, Bentley, Boston, Brown, Bryant, Central, Eastern, Southern, all of our Connecticut State Universities. We have um as many as 16 going to University of Connecticut. Um we have one going to Yale. And um I don't see Harvard but I see Hofra. Um we also have um Emanuel Endicott um Hofra um Ithaca. So quite a variety of schools all across the country. Keen State um un um Naval Academy and Coast Guard Academy. Um so I look forward to giving you this comprehensive list. Um, but I would say Three Rivers Community College 31. So, there is incentive for that. So, I'm proud of that, too. So, just to let you know a few, but we'll we'll work together. Um, and we'll work with the high school to see if they can glean some light on this and

053with the counselors. Um, because we can only do it by survey to get the kids information. Yeah. >> Sometimes the data is kind of flawed going out the gate. That's why we have to look at the like the um state department of education that really validates the data to see where do they actually go and do they stay. >> I appreciate the stab at it. >> We haven't had it in a while. >> I know. I appreciate that, Lauren. Thank you very much. >> Thank you, Lauren. >> Let's move on to the technology update. Good evening everyone. How are you? Good. >> You? >> I'm Clint Kennedy. I'm the director of technology. I'm going to run you through a short list of some of the projects that we have completed over the course of this

054school year to get you an update as well as some of the plans for the summer so that we can launch uh in the fall in a better way. As most of you know, if not all of you, summer is a very important time for the tech department. All year is important, but especially summer, uh, while students are on summer break and teachers as well, we have an opportunity to go in, refurbish, reset, update, make sure things are set and ready to go for the next year. So, I'm going to do kind of a lightning round. Please stop me if you have questions or comments or what have you. So, thank you. Uh, first and foremost, uh, we've started our our our typical round of security updates. Uh, the big one, as many of you

055are aware, are the, uh, infrastructure changes that we're making. If you recall my three layer cake around cameras and security equipment and so forth that I'm working with maintenance department, we have officially launched the upgrade in our first two layers, both the network infrastructure so that we can pull this all together into a secure account for the superintendent, for the director of maintenance, for the police department, so forth. And we've started uh the purchasing of cameras which will go in over the summer so that we're ready for the fall. So that program, that project is underway. I will keep you a breast of that, but we are we're headed in the right direction. Uh, and I'm hoping to have that fully implemented by day one of school in the fall. Uh, security related, we are

056going through all of our system upgrades and checks. Uh, we've met with our cyber insurance company to make sure we're adhering to all of their suggestions and so forth with the policy. And as you may recall, we are implementing two-factor authentication. We have rolled that out across all certified staff over this last year. If you're not familiar with two-factor authentication, when you get a six-digit, eight-digit code on your cell phone as a text message as you try to log into an account, that's an example of two-factor authentication. Uh the good news is with our efforts and the efforts across the country with public schools doing this work, uh the uh the the premiums for cyber insurance have actually leveled off and gone down somewhat. The number I hate to say this publicly because I don't

057want to jinx us uh but the actual number of attacks over this past 12-month period has decreased as our cyber insurance providers have required two-factor authentication across public school districts. So us along with the other 168 public school districts have been busy doing this. Um and I think it's making a difference. Nothing is 100%. We have to always be vigilant but I think it's been helpful and we're going to continue that practice. Uh so that is um that's security uh devices update quickly. We spent a lot of time at the end of the school year uh checking in, fixing, repairing, cleaning, and inventorying all student uh Chromebooks age grade grades 5 through 11. We wanted to make sure that we were not taking those back, that they had fully functioning devices so that they can

058participate in many of these summer learning activities that were planned. Uh that has been done. They have those those Chromebooks. We're going to make some changes and updates over the summer and we'll be reissuing some of those new ones uh starting at the beginning of school year, new student orientation and so forth. Some of those coming back from the seniors that we'll repair and fix and then put back out into the uh into the ecosystem. Um another big project as far as devices go, uh we did receive funding through the federal program. So, we're going to be rewiring about twothirds of the wiring that goes to our wireless access points. Much like that, uh, over 98% of the data that flows through our network in Grten Public Schools is actually Wi-Fi wireless data. Very few

059things are actually plugged into the network. So, we feel it's important to continue to look at that and upgrade and so forth. And that has been a bottleneck. So, we're going to be doing that um over the summer. Uh, two quick related notes, too. We just finished year one of leasing all teacher and administrator laptops. It went very well. I'm really happy that you provided that opportunity to do that. We were able to get all like forlike one models because we're leasing with a warranty on that and that went really well this year and this was the first year that we had 100% of classrooms with a new modern Prometheian board. So we just finished year one of that along with training and so forth. We will continue to do have professional development opportunities around

060that on how we use those for good instruction uh for new teachers that are coming in refreshers for others and taking that use of that uh somewhat deeper uh on the communications front. Two major things to to make you aware of. You've heard of Parent Square. Parent Square is a new communications product that many districts uh around the country are starting to use. It's starting to build uh kind of critical mass. We ran a fullear pilot with Parents Square at Fames River this year. Uh and we did surveying of it with parents and teachers and so forth and was overwhelmingly uh supported as a better way to communicate. Uh so that will be rolled out across the entire district starting in 23 24. One of the highlights is we now have the ability to text

061message parents and unique subsets of parents and so forth. And if you get the text message and you read it, you don't get a phone call. and an email and everything else. >> Yeah, that's a it does email and all that stuff, too. Uh, but that's on a standard alert. Obviously, we still have the ability in an emergency situation to blast information, voice, text, email, and so forth. So, but we're really trying to refine our ability to communicate so that we're not shouting at people all the time and overcommunicating and it becomes noise. We want to make sure that we can get the signal in time to the right people. Uh, in a way, parent square is also wonderful too. It has a great dashboard that allows us to refine from what we're sending across

062the whole district down to an individual parent so that we can actually monitor how we're communicating and then make have a conversation and make decisions. Are we overcommunicating? Are we undercommunicating? How could we be better in doing that? So, very excited about that. Also, in communications, we are updating the websites. There's a refresh over the summer and we should be launching those middle of August. We're really taking the approach where the websites need to be modern, clean, uh have the information that the public wants to see. This is a public facing face of Grten public schools. could be parents who are shopping for school districts or coming into the community and need information all the way through Parent Square which really is an internal focused communication tool specifically between classroom teacher and parents within our

063individual schools within the district overall around professional development opportunities and so forth. So, we're trying to balance those two, improve both, but really focus on the target audiences for each one of those. Um, last but not least, uh, one of the things that I'm really excited about is we just implemented learn platform. It's basically a way, it does three things for us. It provides us real-time data analytics around how we're using software and web- based uh, applications. Uh the state of Connecticut has been using this primarily as a way for us to be able to vet uh a lot of these products from a student data privacy perspective based on a lot of the the um legislations that's happened at the the at the state level over the last three years. data privacy has really

064been focused upon which I think is a good thing but it also makes it somewhat harder to get the right tool digital tools in the right hand of students without an efficient process to make sure that these tools have been vetted and are appropriate for students uh and so forth. So now that we're using this we can see in real time how we're using these different tools. Are we using the ones that have been vetted? Are there's ones coming through that have not been vetted and so forth? How we are licensing these products so we can more be more efficient. So the number of licenses we're purchasing matches more closely with the actual number of licenses that are being used uh over the course of of time, but also a new process that we're streamlining

065for teachers to be able to ask for and have a review process around new tools that come in. We get a lot of requests from certain tools and and and that's wonderful and I'm happy and we would encourage that with educators making some of these decisions or pushing this forward, but there needs to be a vetting process around curriculum. There needs to be a vetting process around student data privacy. There needs to be a budget consideration for that. And then there needs to be an IT perspective of how can we efficiently make this available safely to teachers and students. That is a lot of stuff to use the technical term. I want to help shrink that. Do it appropriately, but shrink the time that we can make those decisions and make sure we're hitting all

066those points so that we can get these tools when appropriate in the hands of of teachers and students. So, I'm excited about that going in. Um, and it will help us with budget time, too, because we finally have one single uh list of truth, if you will, of all of our licensing, multi-year contracts, single-year contracts, number of license, and so forth. We have all that information, but we're finally have the opportunity to bring it together into one list that's easy to manage and will help you all make decisions and for us to manage that over time. So, I'm really excited about that. Um, >> how many learn districts are part of that now? >> Uh, so the state of Connecticut has that learn platform overall, but it's really just a library. They obviously don't know

067what we're purchasing and so forth. Uh I think probably about 40 45% of districts are using this because they see it as a useful tool that pays for itself and then some because of the ability to manage these tools. >> It's already helped me make a few decisions. >> Yes, it it certainly has. And again, student data privacy is obviously a very important thing that we do and and vetting those tools. This tool helps make that possible. >> Thank you. >> I have one quick question. this parent square, does that take away all the multiple different ways that like each classroom teacher has to to be talking to their students? So like a parent who might have three or four kids in the district and three or four different teachers has three or four different

068communication tools. One of the downsides for having a beta test this year was Fames River parents did have could potentially have multiple streams of communication if they also had a child at Gro Middle School or Fitch High School and so forth and and I know that was a concern and we tried to mitigate that as best we could. I was really excited we had the opportunity to dive deep. The principal at Thes River was great. The some of the instruction instructional technology coaches were great. we really dove deep and learned a bunch of lessons on how to implement that and grow across the district. So with that caveat that you brought up, I think it was well worth doing that. And yes, that's a very long way of saying we're we're standardizing on a single

069platform K to2. >> Yeah, it really takes school messenger to a different level of communication, but all the classroom dojoos and reminds and all those other things that we had to get during COVID can all go away. >> Yay. and cost less money because we're not paying for because we're just doing the one thing. >> Any other questions? Dean? >> Uh, you mentioned insurance, just a small matter. So, if we have a successful attack, >> I know it's hard to quantify the because this district is not really a a business, so to speak, and it is and it isn't. Uh, but let's just say that uh we're being held for ransom, even though we can't quantify a a day of the system being down in the school system. Was that worth? Suppose we're we're being

070asked for X dollars in ransom. Does our insurance cover that or are we on our own there? >> As purely a hypothetical has hasn't happened, we would through the the cyber insurance coverage would provide us access to experts to to look at the entire situation, understand the potential outage time, data loss, etc. and then help guide and make a decision on whether a ransom should be paid or not. And again, I'm speaking hypothetically and not my personal opinion, just what's happened out there. I have my own thoughts about whether a ransom should be paid or not, but that's a a case-byase basis. Um, so they would help do that and and if a if purely hypothetically a ransom were to be paid, and I'm not saying we would, uh, that is something that would be

071covered by those that insurance. >> Okay. Just curious. And sadly that does happen quite a bit even to schools. >> Any other questions? >> Thank you very much. >> Thank you for the opportunity. >> All right. We're gonna Yes. Thank you, Clint. >> Go ahead. >> Next. >> Okay, Lauren, we're up with um our alliance update. I just wanted to set the stage while you get ready to pull up the presentation. Um, so I'll get started on our alliance friends. So, as you know, being an alliance district, even though we're one of the last ones in and one of the top performers, we do get a lot of attention by being an alliance district. We um have a a partner at the State Department, um, Greg Dresco, and he has come to Grten probably four

072or five times so far this year. He's coming back in July. We keep track because there have been dollars attached to this beyond the $25 million that we can ascertain and continue to receive. But we do get um a couple hundred,000 each year. We don't know about next year. It's still not determined yet. But with that, we keep an all what we call an alliance tracker and it tracks the data. We set goals. It track and we really wanted you to see how comprehensive this was. So when we put together the this plan to showcase this, I wanted you to be aware of the what we're held accountable for with the funds and being an alliance partner. So we look at four main topics. Talent, academics, culture and climate and operations. We call it taco.

073So with the talent, we're looking at professional learning. We're looking at at academics with student learning, culture and climate, a sense of belonging and operations systems to support schools. And we're going to kind of take you through the slideshow to really um showcase what some of these goals are, what each category means, and what are some of the specific priorities in the grant. So when the state of Connecticut comes, we look at the beginning of the year, the middle of the year, and then the end of the year and how things how our data looks. and he really takes us through the site um which we go to all the time at the state of Connecticut and looks at plethora of data that really help us to know how are we doing and that's what

074the board wants to know and then I'm able to bring it back and share with the board the how are we doing and we tend to look at a lot of the academics but we also look at all the other ingredients that go that are collected data wise from attendance to suspensions and expulsions and um the classes that kids are taking. So, they really do a deep dive and it's with the support from the state department of ed that we're able to do this and get the support for it. So, as I just kind of um gave the prelude um I think that um you'll be able to take us through a little bit with Lauren with the talent and um some of the um the focus this year. I see in talent, one of

075the biggest focus has been the science of reading and to really have expertise in this area and bring staff together um with our coaches and our administrators and under really my my leadership and the assistant superintendent. We've both been really teaming on this work and I feel like we're getting to a good place with that. There's more work this summer and I'm excited to see the roll out of the phonics with the University of Florida model. So, do you want to take it on? Sure. So, as Susan had said, there's really four domains that um the state looks closely at um in terms of accountability for our district as an alliance district. And the first is talent which is a focus on um on the professionals and professional de professional development, professional learning. Um how

076are we increasing the expertise of the staff in our buildings? Um and so one of the major focuses has really been on the recruitment um developing retaining um highqualified and diverse staff. Um and some of our key points for this year through the the alliance is as Susan had said the curricular revisions uh grounded in evidence-based practices. So really looking at the science of reading and having our experts in that area helped build and shift our curriculum uh to meet those needs. the embedded coaching that happens at each of the schools um right within the classroom to make sure those practices are um where they need to be and are are um implemented the way they should be. Another area is our teacher and residence program and then our team mentoring. Um, so the teacher

077and residence is really about building our um our staff looking to recruit. Um, and the team is once we've pulled them on supporting them through their beginning years. Um and so as Susan had said really just quick synopsis of of all of this is that we have revised successfully revised the K2 core program um including interventions and over the summer they're going to finish the work with um phonics to K3. Um, we have hired now four of our teacher and residents and we're looking to bring on three more additional teacher and residents next year and we're in a continual process of checking uh certifications, making sure renewals are in place for team mentoring and encouraging new enrollment including um uh paper readers, paper reviewers, the team program. And so this is just sort of an

078overview of the work that happens within the talent when we um present to Greg Dresco who is our alliance liaison from the state. This is what he's specifically looking at. So it's broken into three uh priorities that we have focused on for the year. The first one being that embedding embedded coaching um using the literacy and math specialists and then also using them in the SRBI or intervention process. And so we are required to look at what what is our priority, where are we at and are we likely to achieve the goal we create. And so in terms of where we are at with our curriculum and coaching and um building our program, we've had the sciences of expert uh the science of reading experts helping uh alongside with the literacy coaches which I know

079they presented to you back in I believe May um the new curriculum for the K3 phonics and um and embedding not only that but using those universal screeners to identify students who may be in need of interventions. And so when you look at the the outcome, where are we at, you see likely to achieve under implementation status. And so based on this priority and where we were we are at, we have to set goals for ourselves. So based on the goals we have set, we do not have that information yet. This information will come from um our summit of assessments. So ESPback uh SAT. So we're still looking to gather all of that. It's not finalized and open to the public yet, but based on the work we've done, we are likely to achieve our

080goal. Um, again, priority two looks specifically at recruiting a diversified staff. We're doing this. We put a lot of time and energy into the grown your own program, which is our teacher and residents um and and um scholarships for pair professionals to become certified teachers. And we are in the second year of this. And as I had mentioned, there are four teacher and residents who are now fully employed um and are receiving that that um mentor programming through team and next year we're taking on three additional. So we actually have uh achieved our goal for this priority and so next year we'll look to add on to that goal. Um and the last one is to attract, retain and bolster the performance of staff with additional mentors and paper reviewers. And so, uh, GPS, um,

081continually works through a cycle of looking at the certifications, the renewals, encouraging new enrollment, um, for mentorships and paper reviewers. And so, we have achieved that as well. >> So, um, that we have a question from one of the board members, Lauren. >> Hi. Yes. Um just for the general public, could you please explain the teacher in residency program that we have implementmented last year and also what team mentoring means because you know we it's good for people to understand what you know you what we're talking about. So I don't know if Susan wants to do it or it's hard to do it from the screen. >> Yeah. Well, the teacher and residency program is a program supported by the Connecticut State Department of Education and it was brought to us a few years ago

082to help us get more teachers, you know, in our schools that represent our community. So, to get more people of color, more people with diversity backgrounds and um as Lauren said, the first year we had two and then we had another two and then this year we have three. and they all have had a year where they spent with a mentor teacher and some really highly qualified master teachers here in Grten so that they were prepared then to have their own classroom and you know it's a promise where if there is a position available they are able to take on that position only if there is one and we've fortunately had some shifts and movement with retirement so we've been able to place all four and we're looking forward to having another three. >> But

083in terms of how you become a teacher and residence, that's what I think it's important for the public to understand. >> So, it's really a program that's vetted through the state department and um they have to have certain qualifications and um they then are presented to the districts and then we do a interview process to see who we're going to be hiring. So, um, you know, we're really pretty fortunate to have the people that have come to us and will be with us, >> but there is a cost to the district as well as the state picks up some, >> right? It's it's a split cost um for the internship. I don't have the dollar amount, but it is we used to have interns all the time from the colleges and that kind of went

084away unfortunately. It was a great way to really train new teachers. It was gave them much more than just their college experience. So, we're really happy to have this. And then the team mentors, whenever you have a new teacher, brand new to a district, brand new to teaching, they go through a series of about three to four years of um studies where they really are doing performance tasks throughout the year, whether it's around planning their lessons or delivering their lessons or how they're assessing students. and with their mentor teacher who's right by their side, usually typically next door in the classroom or right down the hall, they really get a lot of um support and support in their classroom. They get to watch and observe other master teachers in the school. So, we really do

085support them so that they will become a master teacher as well in the future. And they have to pass all these qualifications through the state in order to be able to be certified. I would recognize Bev and then Liz. I just there was one question on the last line on the second page underneath talent where it says monitor certification renewal for team mentoring and then encourage new enrollment. I thought every new teacher had to be enrolled. >> I think we're talking about the mentor teachers encouraging our mentor teachers and then they're teachers who do read all the papers that the teachers have submitted. And so we have a really wonderful group of teachers who really enjoy that work and um the state actually pays them to do that work. >> Right. And you know maybe

086we could just put the mentor. >> Yeah, we'll add that. >> So Beth >> Susan um what qualifications do you need to be a teacher and resident? Do you already have to have a college degree and uh and what other qual is that? So, and what qualifications do you have to have? And um the goal, my second question is um priority 1.2 is to recruit a diversified staff. Out of the seven um teachers and residents, what what's the diversity breakdown for those seven teachers? Um I think that I don't have it off the top of my head as you know specifically but I think out of the seven um the majority of them five maybe are teachers of color and two others may not be. So the majority absolutely are teachers of color. um sometimes

087when they cast the net sometimes they think they need to cast it a little wider but it is they actually have their undergraduate and they're working on a master's degree. So very typical of what we used to see at um Sacred Heart and Southern and Yukon where you know you had teachers who were going through a master's program and then they were interning while interning in a school and and really getting that really hands-on experience in the classroom where a lot of our good teaching learning happens. Of course >> Liz. >> Yeah. I wanted to know if this is primarily an elementary school. Um, >> yes. >> All right. I I kind of thought so. Is there any way of expanding this to high school? >> We've asked the state if they can contemplate middle

088school and high school because we see a need in the secondary as well, but in our in our district, we definitely needed to bolster the elementary. It's not where the middle school and high school happens to be at this point. >> Thank you, Lord. Let's move on. >> So, the way Lauren broke this out very nicely is she's got like the first page is really the summary of it and the second page gives you really the indepth look of what were those priorities that we set and where are we likely to achieve so we can just give the overview of this and see if people have questions Lauren for the academics. >> Okay. So again for the AC for the talent it's really about developing our professionals or the academic is looking at our curriculum

089and developing our curriculum and and how we're going to instruct students accordingly. Um and so really the focus and the priorities here as you're aware was the phonics piece um embedding the science of reading K3 and developing our teachers to be able to in instruct in that in the area of expertise um including in that is the tiered process for uh interventions. So that's your SRBI K12 uh curricular writing um to support language learners. So students who may speak more than one language or who come in not speaking English and then uh professional learning to support culturally responsive teaching. So the work that has happened there around and I'm sure you're familiar with the names they uh Sonia Cherry Paul Cornelius Minor having them come in um and coach teachers and and build the curriculum

090to do all of the things that we we would want from our curriculum to engage our students and to give them the very best instruction. >> And it includes the instruction and the assessments. I see that we've written down dibbles. We've actually had a an opportunity to pilot several recommended um tools that the state has put out there. And so we're looking at the adoption of Dibbles 8, but we may be looking at a version that is um more done digitally, but you still listen to children read and you you keep track of what's happening with their reading. >> Yes. So it's electronic dibbles. It's called the MC class. >> Um so we're looking to pilot that as well. Um and so again on these these are all based on the the goals are based

091on our summit of assessments which we don't have that information complete yet and open for the public. Um but we we are likely to achieve um as as our status. >> Yep. >> Do you have any questions about >> anybody with questions on the academics? Susan, just once again quickly, when is when do you expect the data? >> So, we've actually been seeing some of the data, but it's not been made public yet. So, we're able to take a look at what's been coming in, but as soon as it's made public, I will get it to the board. >> I think we have it on the like September, October, October. >> I know, but I feel like the data came back to us sooner this year, so you might even get it sooner. So, I

092don't know. They're getting better and better with this data. >> So, if we can move through culture and operations, that would be great. >> Yeah, they are anticipating um August, I believe. Yeah. >> Really? Wow. >> P publicizing it. >> Oh, that'd be fun for you, Lauren. >> Putting all that together. >> She'll get some. >> So, in ter >> Oh, I'm sorry. >> Go ahead. >> I said we team on those things. She won't have to do it alone. We'll work with her. >> In terms of the culture and climate, if you remember, that's really like the feeling within the building. Um, making sure students feel welcome, safe, um, supported in the building and their families as well. So, it's a community feel to our buildings. >> Um, and really our a large part

093of our focus has been on the engagement piece and the attendance piece. Um, so spending time surveying families on issues that are of interest to them or that they may need support with. Uh, school and district data teams, identifying students who are at risk for being chronically absent. Um, we know how that impacts our um, our students. Um, expanding the work of the safe school climate committee to provide uh, positive intera interventions um, and supports for families. and then the PPS staff assisting families with interventions and supports to overcome barriers. So um really there have been a lot of great gains. All schools meet regularly to look at various data points around attendance um chronic students who may be considered chronically absent and then providing them with the supports they potentially could need. We follow

094not just the district policy but most of the schools are are above and beyond in what they are doing to monitor this absenteeism and offer supports that families are in need of and just trying to figure out what those supports may be. Um they're personalized um for individual families many times. We've also increased our community coordinators, the hours that they have where they're really a liaison for family engagement, bringing them uh developing school events to bring families in, make them feel part of the building. We also had a gentleman by the name of Scott Driscoll who came into the district um to deliver messages about social media because we know particularly it's, you know, younger and younger every every year, but particularly uh you know, or intermediate grades and above. Um and then some of

095the groups that we are partnered with. Um that sort of summarizes where we are at with that. The work that has happened and we have through this work achieved we do know we have achieved our goal. We have begun to lower our chronic absenteeism um you know post pandemic. And so we're going to continue with those efforts and keep building on them to make sure that we eventually get those numbers down where we really want them. In terms of attendance, >> the state says 5% and everybody in the state is way far away from that. So we has we have a ways to go with that. This is a number you want to see decrease. >> Bev question. >> Thank you. >> Absolutely question. >> Um on priority 3.3 it says provide survey to parents.

096Did you get a um can we get a see the results of that survey? You most certainly will. We gave it towards the late spring, so I haven't even really delved in to look at the data, but we will be doing that this summer and bringing it to you. >> Okay. Thank you, Susan. >> Uhhuh. >> And you may have said it, I'm having a hard time hearing uh uh with regard 3.1, it says achieved. If if you've already said this, I apologize for asking again. How do we comp I mean where are we in terms of metrics in terms of attendance problems? Where are we compared to where were we? Can you give us some color on that? >> So we we've looked at our attendance according to this state data that's just kind

097of filtering in but has not been validated yet. So just looking as a precursor to the data that's starting to roll in, our numbers look better. That means they're decreasing. >> So that's what we want to see is the growth. And sometimes the growth is the decline in chronic absenteeism. >> so, so maybe one of the things that we should be thinking about tonight hearing this is just kind of briefly have us go over what these what the taco stands for, but knowing that we need to go back to it that we need to have the data that goes along with it because how do we know? And once again, as always, we like to kind of see where we've been to where we where we are now, >> right? You'll be seeing that. So,

098if we could just kind of like just once again kind of sum up that because this doesn't um without having data which we don't have yet um and um is just to kind of go through this and then >> we'll >> I'm kind of prepping you that this is coming. >> Great. >> Yeah. >> I'm just laying the land. >> Yeah. Laying laying the field here. >> Any other questions about culture and climate? >> If not, let's move on to operations. Okay. So, in terms of operations, if you remember, that's really operations really talks about like the systems, right? So, um all the systems that make our school, our school or district really work and run. Um and so based on that, we're always looking, we're researching and evaluating the efficiency of um the the

099systems that are in place um the current systems and looking to always improve those, make potential improvements. So some of the work that has happened this year or has started this year was um identifying a tracking system uh to manage all the various data points um and and how to do that what the best route would be. um integrating technology for differentiation at the tier one level specifically to support special populations such as our English learners and then funding after school literacy and math clubs and tutoring. Um and so really we go through a technology audit every year. Um we track the usage of the instructional tools that are currently available to us and their effectiveness. So we compare such as Lexia, Dreambox and then we compare we cross reference those with um some of

100our other information like our uh summit of assessments to see are we you know what is the relationship between the amount of time used on Dreambox and the um the gains that we're making in our assessments. Um we are still researching an a district data dashboard. We did not want to jump into this um particularly because there were you know a lot of changes that took place this year. Um there are a few that are on the table but we have not committed to anything at this point um because we want to make sure it's really it it's worth what what we would be um using it for. Um and then the afterchool programs are have a steam focus uh with focuses on attendance at the middle and high school. Really finding engaging activities after

101school. Um at the elementary school they have tutoring as an example in the different areas, reading, math. Um they have after school activities, intramurals. So more or less that's that's the summary of it. And again, we're we're at a likely to achieve status because we don't have that that data available wholly yet. >> And we've really committed to all those things in the summertime as well. So, um, we can get you that information. I was really excited to see the number of students that are getting tutoring this summer, for instance, in both reading and math. >> Great. >> Those will be numbers that I'm hoping that we'll get with the data as well. >> Yep, we can do that. So I I just on looking over underneath operations >> if if you could when you

102rewrite this where it says um differentiation at tier one including special populations. I just sort of don't like the way that's phrased if you could maybe just put some of the populations that you're talking about. It just and also the second to the last line and it's repeated on the next page too. each school has has after school tutor. It's just not worded correctly. Is it tutors or one? Is it one for each school? Is it more than one? What are they who are they tutoring? And so I just think that it needs to be um when you rewrite this, we could think about some of those things. That's all. >> So Lauren, thank you so much for spending your evening. I'm sure this was your desire to spend a um uh Monday evening with

103the board. Um and we look forward to um our continued work with you specifically as you get more data and you can actually help us make sense of this stuff. Um, but what I do appreciate and I'm I'm sorry guys that this was kind of a little bit tedious that it's kind of nice to be able to kind of have the background because when we get the when we get the data we can meld um Lauren is not going to have to spend so much time kind of like like orienting ourselves to everything because we have at least had that um hit um hit once. So once again, Lauren, thank you so much um for your time and for your talent and looking forward to hearing what the data has to say for this. >>

104Thank you, Lauren. Appreciate it. If we don't have anything more, let us move on to um director of building and grounds and let's see if we can get this party going. >> There you go, Sam. Well, you're on. >> Good evening. >> I didn't even miss you. I mean, like, I I always miss you, Sam, but like I'm actually going to call on you. >> I knew you wouldn't forgive me. Um, so I I have a bunch of stuff here to report on tonight. Uh, at about 5:00 this morning, uh, SEI Corporation showed up to begin the sewer repair at Fitch High School. So, we've started that project. uh that section of the building is closed down for about a week here. Uh and uh hopefully that's all it takes. Uh but we'll know better

105tomorrow after they do another assessment after having done a couple of days work on that. Um we've also uh in the meantime selected a contractor. Uh we went out to bid and selected a contractor for the Northeast Academy drainage project and we're just awaiting them uh to present their schedule to us. So they'll be coming shortly for the Northeast Academy uh drainage project. Uh in the meantime uh again this morning uh our air duct cleaning company came and began uh the cleaning of the air ducts at Northeast Academy. They recommended about every four or five years. So uh we're back at Northeast Academy doing that this year. We'll move on to uh Kathern Kaskki School next and then on to the high school before the summer's over with the air duct cleaning project. Um, fortunately

106we uh we signed a contract uh just the other day uh regarding uh LED lighting uh upgrades at Fitch High School. Uh it was an expensive project, but um it's expected to pay it back pay itself back within five years. Uh and uh if you've seen the electric rates recently, I think it may actually pay off even sooner than that if uh we're we're fortunate. uh Grten Middle School Field Light uh project. Uh we got zoning board of appeals approval. The light poles are a little taller than um would be allowed in that zone. However, the zoning board of appeals did allow that. So, we got that and a site plan has been submitted to the town and so we'll be attending the meeting once we're notified uh of when that meeting will be, which

107will be coming up shortly. So that again continues to move along as expected. Uh the solar project at the Graten Middle School and Mystic River Magnet Schools uh we got Eversource approval for interconnection. Uh the permit application has been submitted to the town and so again we're awaiting the town approval on that so that we can move forward with that. Uh if you'll allow me, I al also like to report on some food service stuff that's happening in case you haven't already been there. Uh Eastern Point Beach uh concession is an operate full operation. Uh th this weekend turned out pretty good. It Sunday, I guess it wasn't so hot uh earlier in the day, but when the sun came out, uh uh the sales went up pretty quickly. So uh with the heat and

108humidity in the afternoon, we did okay. So that project's going on. We have three full-time employees that would normally be on unemployment or finding something else to do during the summer uh that will be working there and up to five student uh college students. I think there's one high school kid and a few uh college students that are come back to work again this year at the concession stand. So again, it's a a great opportunity for us to uh keep kids uh busy and and and give them some some uh real life experience in in working in the food business. Um you'll see later on on your agenda, I think there's um a donation was made by the city of Graten uh for garden fresh bags. Now, these are um uh all local uh products

109that will be put in the bags and and distributed uh at parks and recck sites at uh Brford Manor and also at a couple of the Navy sites. So, Ernie and Bill from from that department along with some of the food service workers will be handing them out. And uh we've also hired three high school students to actually build the bags or to pack the bags. So that project will be continuing on. So >> any questions for Sam? So you're really not busy at all. >> I think we still have time to do a couple more things. So >> Okay, sir. >> Liz Sam, um the charging stations. >> There was one more thing I'll add after after Liz's question. >> Are we still are they still operable 247? because I thought I remember it

110was we had said something that they could be turned off during you know when people weren't there like on weekends and now that school is done I was thinking you know are we you know this has been something that people have asked me about >> and I don't have an answer for them. So could you tell us a little bit more about what's going >> Well, we're still trying to determine how we can set a meter on this so that we determine how much electricity is being used. uh in the department we talked about we we checked it out. We can actually we could turn them off outside of school hours presently by flipping the switch. Um but we thought it best that we get find out how much it's actually costing us so that

111we can report that to you and then we can make a an informed decision as to whether to turn them off outside of school hours. Um there there seems to be no reason why we can't do that. uh there's no indication from the state that we have to provide that electricity to uh to those uh cars that are using it presently, those neighbors that are using it presently. >> And the principles report that oftent times community members are parking their car at night and leaving them there all day. >> Yeah. >> So they're taking up a parking space as well as charging overnight. So, um, you know, that is something that we should see how that is costing us, what that is costing us. >> I wonder if the town is doing because here the

112charging facilities and also at the library, they're never turned off. So, I'm just curious what the town is. >> You know, >> we could check with John Bird to see what they know. >> Yeah. >> Um, Liz and then Dean. No, I'm just saying that I I think that um you know, if that's that's impacting our budget, even if it's a hundred bucks, it's a hundred bucks. I still think it's you know, something that we really need to because we had talked about it a while ago and that's why I'm kind of wondering what the status was. >> And my guess is people are just not thinking about the what that means for the Graten School District in terms of charging and parking their car there. Like they're just not having a thought. Dean. >>

113Yeah, actually I was on the council that said, "Yeah, let's put a charging station here at the library in a third location and there was a question then about metering and charging and um Mark Offinger at the time I think gave us the answer." Well, there's an expense in actually figuring all this out. This is essentially a pilot because at that time who was driving electric vehicles, right? Who would drive up and charge? >> We're way past that was a million years ago. We're way past the pilot stage. So I think all our stations ought to be obviously there's some some kind of an exemption of some sort. I think we're way past the point where we're trying to encourage people to buy electric cars. They're deciding that on their own and they're glinging off

114us is what they're doing. >> I I believe some of the town cars are electric and that's why they wanted them here. >> There are there are that >> there were then but >> well they are now. >> Yeah. >> And >> we don't have that though. I just wanted to add what are the implications for uh if there's a property damage on those cars. >> I don't think we've even thought about that. >> That's true. >> The insurance. >> Yeah, >> I'll look into it. >> Thank you. Actually, that's not a bad thing. And I I don't know if you have to report out at just giving it to Susan um and she can throw it in one of the board notes that we're going to get over the summer or whenever we find

115out in terms of That's a good question, Andrea. um what what are we doing about metered and to Dean's point um you know should should the town be investing in that in that and also our concern about having people be there on our property um and charging overnight and then leaving them there taking away space. >> Okay. And the last thing that I um neglected to report on is the uh pavilion that we will be uh erecting at Graten Middle School. Um I am working with the engineers now to re-engineer the uh concrete uh for that structure for that structure. So um we're working on that presently. I hope to have an answer for that and then go out to bid shortly so that we can get the concrete done and then uh we plan

116on uh doing the project uh in in the early fall assembling that with my staff. >> Super. Bev. Um, Sam, I'd like to go back to the charging stations. Does the town charged on the residents to use their charging stations? >> I don't believe so. >> Okay. I would just caution the board not to I mean, the people that are probably using the charging stations are taxpayers. So, you don't want to nickel and dime the taxpayers when they are supporting our budget. So be very careful about nickel and diamond or it's going to cost maybe a $100. These are the same people that support our budget to pay taxes in the town of Graten. So be very careful with this train of thought. >> I agree Beverly. >> So we're saying that it's essentially costless

117to us and it's more damage to us politically or otherwise. You don't gall foolish and what's I don't know the saying. I forget. >> I get that. But we're not giving away gasoline and diesel either. >> I mean, why are we making an exception with those stations? I wasn't comfortable at the time, but hey, there was just three. It was a pilot. Who was going to show up? You know, it was going to be hence teeth for somebody driving around with electric car. Now, they're all over creation. And I get what you're saying, but I don't see that I don't think that we should be licensing basically giving people a license to come up and basically fill up for free at the town's expense, the expense of all the other taxpayers. I don't know how

118much it is. I don't know how much it is. If it's a little, then I don't really care. You're right. I don't want to make a mom out of a molehill. But if it's costing us a lot of money, if we're basically giving away electricity for nothing with increasing rates, I mean, we ought to know one way or the other. >> I think that's what we need to know. Yeah. Point of point point of interest is that it's always the same cars there all the time, too. It's it looks like it's a neighbor. >> I mean, you can't takes hours to to charge. So, >> they're there for a long They'll they'll park them overnight or whatever. So, it isn't like there are multiple cars using it. It's pretty much the same cars using it

119all the time, but >> they must walk. >> We're working on getting the metering taken care of and uh once we can do that, then we can determine how much it costs. Matthew >> Sam, I read that I'm not sure it was Stanford, but somewhere in that part of the state that there was a private vendor who uh offered to uh put in meters so that people could uh pay a fee to be metered. And uh I'm not sure if that's something that is is feasible for us to take a look at. I'm not sure if it's something that could be turned off during school hours so that employees could benefit from it. >> I don't want to be directive. It's just a kind of a question. >> I think that we need to find

120out what the town is planning or is doing with the charging and I then we think we need to make our decision post that. I did talk to public works about metering when we first started talking about this subject and they didn't do it because it wasn't cost-effective to put a meter on there versus what they were actually what it was costing them in the electricity. >> So maybe we could base what their output is um what they if they've collected information or data around that >> or can or can they without a meter? >> I don't know. I it it seems to me uh that the units that are both the middle school is different. There there aren't cars up there like all hours of the night, but Mystic River and Things River, they

121are there 24/7. There are cars there and they're roughly the same cars. Couple of different cars, but they're there all the time. So maybe we can have a conversation with the um the town and maybe we can have some something that kind of goes out to ask them not to be in our parking lot during the school hours. I mean, whatever we find out. I mean, but let's get more information. And to Bev's point, we need to be careful about where we kind of take this and how it's perceived if it isn't that costly. If we have no further comments. Oh, wait. Did you have one more item that you wanted to >> uh that was the pavilion that we're going to >> that's pavilion. Okay. Um anything else hearing? None. Let us move on.

122Committee reports policy. Okay. We have three um actually two policies coming to you tonight. Library um library selection matters and um promotion and and graduation. Okay. Curriculum is not meeting um until September. >> All right. >> Thank you. Finance and facilities. >> Uh we met on June the 6th. Uh we discussed an electric bus pilot going on in Griswald, the STA. Um we discussed the uh Fitch High School LED uh lighting project uh which would be financed through the electric bill as we understand it. And as as Sam mentioned uh paid off in about 5 years. We discussed field use and overuse and the associated maintenance costs with that and we re we reviewed the out of district uh tuition rates that we also discussed at the last CO. >> Any questions for finance and

123facilities >> communications? Um, this evening, just before this meeting, the communications uh committee approved a draft Graten Public Schools strategic communication plan. Uh, we just made a couple of last minute uh changes. So, we're going to get the proof read uh printed out to you very soon and hope that it would be on the agenda for board discussion at our next cow. I'd like to personally add I think I'm speaking for the three of us members on the committee. Our thanks to Rebecca Beas whose work was really critical to getting this done. And not to forget Phil Piaza as well. >> Yeah, I believe that that is one of our items for discussion on the committee of the whole already. >> So, we'll we'll get that out to you. What was distributed this week is

124substantively the same, though there are a few changes and we'll get that out to you as soon as Rebecca can get uh the changes in and that works. >> All right. Thank you. Negotiations, we are still in the negotiation process with the pairs and we have another um meeting um this coming Thursday. learn. Um Luren always has a breakfast meeting and it was so nice because our superintendent um came and she heard the um state of the agency reports about each of the schools learn schools um do a report. So it was lovely having Susan there. It's been a long time since one came. So I think Dr. Geneer came once. Um also then we went into our regular meeting at 9:00 and um Sarah Moon who is married to one of our wonderful graten

125teachers Ben Moon um she does a lot with the state and learn um so she talked about their relationship with the special ed education their contract and all learn does with the state and then um let's see oh yeah learn is buying And I think Waterford just approved it at their RTM meeting. They're going to expand us um build a new school if we get the funding from the state and they were able to buy the property on Daniel's Avenue in Waterford which was the old southwest school and for a dollar but then it's going to cost a million dollars to just knock down the building that's there before they could start to build. So, it's an expense, but it's it's something um very well needed and they need to have um additional special ed

126and Ocean Avenue Learning C Center. That building will the renovations will be completed in August and then in September we'll invite the community that wonderful synagogue community to come also and the neighbors to have an open house there. It's really beautiful. Um, we also then went into an executive session and we gave the executive director, Kate Ericson, um, a salary increase of 2.75% for her outstanding job performance and extended her contract again um, for another year for the three-year contract. And then I'm also going to be serving on the negotiations committee with for the teachers starting this summer. That's about it. certainly know how to have fun. All right. Um so I think we I've already reported on the town council um the leazison our next meeting I think is in October I think. Um

127ASA is also in October >> October. Um athletic fields has there been oh graten scholarship >> doesn't meet till the fall. Okay. Uh fields Jay >> uh no meetings. Okay. >> Trails. >> Matthew was in Boston with his grandson and missed the meeting. >> Oh, >> library. That was a good >> library. Um the library board met last week. Um we have two student uh members of our board, non- voting members, one from Fitch and one from the Marine Magnet School. Both members of the Falcon Robotics who are busy busy busy this summer uh doing great stuff and recruiting new members. So that was really nice to hear. Uh there have been some glitches with the one card system marrying two different software systems, but uh Jennifer the librarian was terrific uh saying that she

128couldn't be happier with the help of Clint and her team. They're actually writing the code >> to to make this work. So they were very pleased and >> sorry we're behind schedule, but we're going to get there. >> All right. Um a permanent school bu building committee I don't think has met. Um and the state council. >> No, we meet twice a year and we met in May. >> Okay. >> All right. So action items. The consent agenda which is all matters listed under the consent agenda are considered to be routine and will be enacted by one motion um with points of clarification will be allowed. I will uh take a motion for the consent agenda. >> So moved, Liz. >> Can I have a second? >> I'll second that. >> That was Rita. Um

129any um any discussion hearing? None. All those in favor of the consent agenda, please say I. >> I. >> Oppose. Abstain. That motion has carried. Um the board would love to thank the city of Grten um who donated the $3,600 to the Graten Public Schools food service department um garden fresh bags program. and then to Pamela Gordon um who has donated um $825 um to be used to support the More Than Words program. Um we are now moving on to old business which is um Liz, would you please be willing to read the motion for number one, please? >> Certainly. To approve policy P 6163.1, library material selection as a second reading. >> Can I get a second to that, please? Second >> Matthew seconds it. Can I have discussion? >> I have J. >>

130I think was first. >> You were first. >> I'm I don't know whether I'm first or not. >> Okay, we saw you first. Um, so I know that the board we're always told that the board does not write or approve regulation, but I do have a question about the regulation. I just wonder if it was overlooked when it was written, but I I thought we were going to restrict that anyone bringing a request to remove had to be a citizen of brought to avoid these groups across the country that are just mass petitioning districts. Uh but when I look at the um uh when I look at the procedure for challenged materials, it says the following procedures will be followed when a citizen challenges the appropriateness. I wonder if it needs to say Graten citizen.

131>> I think it even goes so far to say that it needs to be a parent of a student who goes to Graten, but I will look at that. Thank you for bringing that to my attention, Jay. Yeah, I don't >> because I think it went even as far as to say it really needed to be someone who is a parent or guardian of a child in the Graten public schools. And >> this brings up kind of a this brings up kind of a general question and I'm embarrassed that I don't know the answer to this, but when we always say that we're we're approving the policy, >> but we present and publish the regulation, it almost probably seems to the general public as though we have vetted and approved the regulation. So when the

132regulation changes, do we publish that change somewhere? It it depends on the policy. Sometimes policies and regulations are kind of put together through CAE for us to take a look at. Sometimes there's already a procedure in place, you know, based on another policy. So, it just gets tweaked. But you're right, it is kind of the marching orders of how the district staff then actually, you know, puts the policy into action. But I tend to say that it's a good thing for the board to see just like you're doing right now Jay bringing something to our attention and that's happened before where it's brought to the attention and I just go back to the staff who's really putting it in place to make sure that that's what they meant meant and intended >> and maybe we

133can put that on the agenda for some discussion >> or maybe she can just throw it in say that she just um talked about it and it was not correction or it was policy >> and And then you can put it on policy, >> right? And I >> And then I >> I'm sorry. >> I was just going to uh mention, of course, this also the regulation allows then an appeals process through uh the board or a subcommittee. Um and then it puts a five-year uh uh limit so it can't just come back again and again and again from the same person, which I think is a smart move. So um but I was just curious you know if if administration decided to change the flow of this regulation you know how how that process

134works. Um you know because you know right now this is this is published in in the official record as though this is the way it's going to be. Um and uh I'm not aware of how we've in the past then changed regulations down the road. I mean because this references for example specific materials and processes for dealing with selection and challenges. >> So maybe we need to get some more legal um or some advice through CABE too about how to how to do that. Jay, that's a good point. All right. Thank you. >> Um I I'm going to recognize Dean and then you Beverly. No, >> I'll yield to Beverly first. It's fine. >> Oh, you're Dean has yielded to you, Bev. >> Thank you. I just have a quick question. It's not so much

135about this policy though, but it it is about policy. um when we have new policies, how does the staff know that we have um a new policy or change an existing policy? And also, how do parents know? Do we notify parents? They look on the website that we have a new policy. So, with all policy, we send it out to our entire staff. I typically will work with the principal so that they're very much aware of the policy and the nature behind it so that they can work. This one really was um worked on by our library media specialists. So they're a very important group um of staff that probably will meet on this to discuss it if they have any questions. So we publish the new policy on the website as soon as it

136gets passed. Um we there are many many policies that go through. So to you know alert parents of every single new policy. They certainly have the um ability to go on and look for policies. And I find that parents typically look for policy if they're faced with the situation that they need the policy on or if if it's something that they're in a situation where we need to share the policy with them. So whether they request it or we want to share it with them otherwise it's really there and available and constantly being updated and revised as new policy comes in. >> And if I if I >> Okay. So we don't put it in a newsletter that goes out. The schools have newsletters. >> Yeah, the schools do have newsletters and I've been sending

137a quarterly publication out for our parents. Um, so you know, I I'll have to ask the principles if they put policy in newsletters. I don't recall seeing that, but I can ask them. >> If if I could add just one thing to that, and that is at our last policy uh meeting on the 20th of June, we had a rich conversation about how teachers are trained in in the new policy. And um we we may want we may want to look at that again. and that um is available. We we always video our our meeting. So if anybody wants to watch that, why you would I have no idea if you wanted to. That rich conversation is on there. And the other thing I wanted to address just for a moment is if you I

138know the question about whether you have you are a resident or of Graten or whether you have a child enrolled in the schools came up with J and if you look on the request for it's page 505 the request for consideration reconsideration of library materials and there uh the first thing is that you must be a resident of Rotten and the second thing is if you're not a resident you do not have a student currently enrolled in Grant Public Schools, the challenge will not be reviewed. >> So, where are you on page 305? >> 505. >> Oh, 505. Okay. >> But that's there. >> Okay. I knew I had read it somewhere. >> Dean, >> so I voted against this the last time. I'm going to do so again. And here's my concern. What's in

139school libraries has been kicked around for decades, if not a century. I remember when I was a kid, there were publications, there were books that were considered controversial. There's always no shortage of people who think that somebody else's book is controversial. I'm a book person. I have thousands of my own. My father was in publishing. I am not one of those people. This has come up if I can provide some context because in very recent years people have found materials in their kids' school libraries that are at least by oldfashioned standards rather objectionable. Uh primarily it has to do with sexual matters. Sometimes it has to do with what people consider to be distortions of history. Um, I actually, and I can't remember where I found this, I actually was able to find a copy

140of Minecom, the book that everybody was talking about in history, and I thought, well, I should read it to find out what the clown had to say. Um, minimally enlightening, but I could say yes, I I read the stupid thing, but it was available. Um, I did not expect to find Hustler magazine and the library and never and I didn't. Um so there are controversies controversies that are that have arisen relatively recently. I have no doubt that there is a group or there were small groups of people who are um being gadflies troublemakers uh flat-earthers. I really could care less. That however is just the cover. There is, I think, and I haven't looked at our libraries, but I did see one book in the high school library that I know has um uh at

141least part of it. There's an image of Felatio. So, um you would not have found that in my library, but hey, I come from another time, I suppose. Um there has been in other schools anyway, much more objectionable material found. Uh that is the real genesis. Uh, and I know that for one reason or another, our institutions like the American Library Association and its affiliates, uh, people who are following those guidelines, um, are circling the wagons, making sure that there's a response to keep the troublemakers out of the libraries, to make sure the kids get access to, uh, what are considered heterodox materials, um, etc., etc., etc., all good cover. The fact remains that there are materials. I don't know whether they're in our libraries, but there are materials. They have been found in other

142school districts that are frankly objectionable. Maybe not everybody finds them objectionable. I'd rather not have elementary school kids find certain books in their library and it is not a banning of books to say it belongs in the high school library as opposed to the elementary school library, etc., etc. There's a lot of hyperbolic language that's being used on more than one side. not very enlightening. More heat than light. Uh but I see when I saw this policy come through, I know we had an existing policy. It's been modified. I'm thinking this is an effort to choke that off because the barbarians are seen as at the gate. I remember the uh the woman that was here, forgive me if I don't remember her name, but she was the librarian. I'm going to call her a

143librarian. I know there's another word for it these days, at the middle school, and she seemed very emotionally shaken up by it. I'm sort of curious to know uh if our district has had people challenge books, what those challenges were, what the materials uh were challenged, who was doing the challenging. Um so I don't think that this is this is not in a vacuum. Um it may be in a vacuum now, maybe a hypothetical for graten now. Maybe there's nothing truly objectionable on our shelves, but I think we can agree that there are materials that are objectionable. We'd rather not have the kids exposed to certain topics while they're in school at tender young ages, etc., etc. That's a judgment call. Again, when I was in school, Huckleberry Finn was on the uh was on

144the chopping block because every other page had uh had a had a racial slur on it. So, um but I'm I'm going to vote no against this thing because I see this as a reaction to what is a legitimate concern on the part on the part of people as they discover what's in their kids' libraries. And frankly, if there's something objectionable in our libraries, I want the ability for at least the parents uh to be able to make a, you know, a reasonable challenge. Um because what's going to happen is if the parents can't trust us, they're going to pull their kids out. They're going to pull their kids out. And homeschooling used to be quite a fringe thing. It's less and less. I know of people who've moved from other countries to this country

145because the same thing is happening a lot of other countries, but this country at least allows homeschooling. >> He's got it right. >> Sorry, I I'm I'm I'm allow I want you to have your free >> I'm I'm I'm over I'm sorry. I didn't mean to rant, but I mean that's kind of the context. It's why I'm going to vote against this thing because if it's nothing else, it's a it's a gesture to say there's something else going on here. >> Okay. Thank you. Thank you for your voice. I I just wanted to uh to assure Dean that I respect your your point of view, but I I also want to assure everyone that the that the library decisions are based on the thinking of the the the school librarians Bill of Rights, the Freedom

146of of of to read statement, the American Association of School Librarians, and State Department of Education. And furthermore, there is a a legitimate process for legitimately objecting to material and having your voice heard. >> So, those things are >> I'm going to recognize Jay. >> Yes. Um, so I I um I do realize now looking at the last page that uh uh Dr. Acriman as usual is correct that uh the uh wording is there. I just wonder if it shouldn't be reflected in in the regulation so that you don't get someone who's uh objecting to the form not following uh the regulation. Um and uh I also note that this then can come to the board, you know, as an appeal. Um, and so I see this as being a full uh process um allow

147the board to to fully uh discuss any any appeals that come about. The dean said I'd be very interested to know how many of these we've had. So I don't know if um perhaps Susan could have someone come up with a report um h how many um removal requests we've had and uh how they've turned out. Also, as a side note, uh Susan mentioned uh the policy online. Uh it's so much better than the old paper books. You just put the keyword in >> and you can search our policies in an instant and see everything uh that that uh >> it's highlighted. >> And I'd like to add Jay, one of the questions was how do our families know? I think Beverly you had asked. We also publish a handbook at the elementary, middle school,

148and high school. And all of the major policies that affect students in school are listed there in and the policies referred to, but it's kind of given like a paragraph version that's very easy to understand the essence of it, but then the it refers to the actual policy. So, we have all of that language in our handbooks and it's reviewed with our kids, especially the older kids. It's reviewed probably in the classroom for elementary in elementary language for kids to understand kind of what are our rules in schools and for the middle school and high school it's more clearly laid out. So thank you Beverly for that question but it just joged my mind when Jay was talking about it that we do have handbooks that do specify policy. Any further question hearing? None. All

149those in favor to approve the policy P6163.1 library material selection, please say I. >> I. >> Oppose. Abstain. This motion has carried. Dean, would you please read number two, please? Try to make feel better. All right. Uh, I move to approve policy P5123, promotion, retention, graduation as a second reading. >> Can I have a second to that, please? >> I'll second it. That's Rita. Discussion. >> Um, I have a discussion. And that is if you will look on the first page of policy in the second paragraph you'll see that prior to the end of the school year any deviation from progress in mentioned in the first paragraph will be agreed upon by the teacher parent and principal and that is for all grades. But then if you turn the page and you go to the

150um again the regulation which really isn't our our um area but if you look at it at the first the elementary um pardon me school says the teacher and the principal only. >> If you go to the middle school it's the the parent and the teacher and the administrator. Yeah, we do need to add parent in there. That just must have been it. This was the old policy. So, when we reviewed, >> this is the one I got, >> but this is the old regulation. So, it just wasn't updated with the policy. >> I see. And there's also a spelling error somewhere. >> And I think it may have been on the other one. >> It's regarding regarding. So, I'll I'll give you that. Thank you. Do we just have some um omitted >> omitted

151and um misspelling? Any other discussion, Liz? I still I understand the curriculum committee is is going to be discussing about increasing the social studies credit and I understand there's a lot of ramifications but I still would like to know if we decide as a the curriculum committee to support increasing that number of credits what would be the process do we have to then go and open this policy up again is that what happens >> yep just for the Y >> okay which is not a not a bad thing to grow and to to expand that's the whole reason why the revision needs to have happened any further discussion hearing none all those in favor of the motion to approve um the motion to approve the policy P5123 promotion retention graduation please say I I >>

152oppose Abstain. Motion has carried. Rita, could you please read number under new business number C1? >> Yes. Thank you. >> The motion is to approve policy P6146.1 examination grading as a first reading. Can I have a second? >> I've got Matthew. All right. Can we have discussion? >> The only the only thing is that we we really um struggled with the uh >> language >> the last the wording of the last paragraph. Yeah. >> And if it weren't for Denise Dittle, I think we'd still be there. >> She was very helpful. >> Yes. Do do um do people since we don't have people who might be watching this um can you just do a quick um a a quick um overview about what this examination and grading means? >> I'm going to ask Susan to

153do that. >> Right. So really in this policy we were looking at um performance and instruction and how the process works for evaluating a student's performance. there were certain things really in the old policy that no longer occur like they had um they weren't considering the next generation science. So everything in green you can see was added to the policy um including the students in 11th grade taking SAT as required by the state board of ed. So really the reason that we came back to this policy was that we had older assessments in here and we needed to update it. But when we got into the policy um you see the red line under statewide and districtwide assessments um we the language was really um impacting us because it really was talking about um requirements

154of state and federal law regarding provisions for special education. So that's why Denise was very helpful um you know and and those provisions related to services to students with disability so that the board directs the director of special education or designate in accordance with the state and federal law to develop procedures that indicate how district staff shall determine whether a student with a disability who is eligible for special education and related services under IDA shall participate in alternative assessment. So we have something called an alternative assessment that the state provides, but it really is a a student who is really impacted and cannot take the normal state assessments. So there's a whole procedure that the state provides for us, you know, in determining eligibility for this alternative assessment. So that's why it was complicated and

155we kept rolling around with the other written language and it wasn't making sense. >> I think Rita has a question. >> Oh, Rita, I'm sorry. I do have a question. I'm I'm thinking more of a child and and the parents and to leave it up to one person. The board directs the director of special education in accordance with, you know, to make this decision. Um I feel that it should go up to and continue on to the superintendent, not just be one one person or that person's designate. Oh, but that's just to to develop procedures that would indicate, >> right? >> But it's just developing procedures >> and they're based on federal and state laws. So, we don't get to select the procedures out of out of out of our own, you know, accord. They

156really are specified in the state on who is able to be eligible for this alternative assessment. But but you're making a decision that maybe a parent would want that child to have an alternative assessment. So it's you're you're like hindering them in a way, >> but they they would have to meet the requirements by the state. So the child would have to meet the requirements in order to take this assessment >> that it can't be just a parent wish. It can't be my wish. It can't even be the the director of special ed's wish. It would have to really follow these procedures that the state has outlined. >> Rita, could you um put your your thinking into writing it to us? >> It's just that I want, you know, sometimes, you know, a ch a

157child and a parent of a child that has special needs, they're they're thwarted. They have a hard time, you know, and lots of times they'll take an adv advocate with them to a PPT meeting. I just want to make sure that it's not that that our parents feel that they can, you know, that they're not going to be I know when when our oldest child was um in first and second grade and kindergarten for that matter, I knew that he had a fine motor problem and um the school kept saying, "No, no, no, he'll outgrow it. He'll outgrow it." And I said, "No, he's not going to grow it. This has been the case since he was young." So, we took him to Easter Seals and had the assessment done. And then right after that

158they said, "Oh, yes, of course." But, you know, I just want to make sure that that a parent of a special education child, >> you know, can get the testing they need. >> And and this is just the first reading. So, if you could get to me, >> yeah, >> something that you would like us to put on. >> Well, I'm not. >> So, I just want to make sure you understand this isn't about other assessments. This is just for the statemandated once a year test. So in other words, instead of taking an ESPback test, if a child has significant special needs, they would take what they call this alternative assessment. >> And sometimes they're read to them and all different. >> Right. >> But this is just Okay. >> These are just procedures then,

159right? >> No, this is a policy. >> No, but it is speaking to the procedures. Okay. >> Right. Right. >> Procedures on how students are eligible for that. >> Yes. So I I hear Andrea requesting from Rita that if you would like to kind of um like just send jot some notes down to Andrea then during their policy committee they can they can um take a look at what your concern is. Is there any other concerns? >> I don't think so. And it may well be that that uh just another reading will answer those questions for you. >> And we can have Denise come too to listen. We can ask Denise to come too. >> Yes. >> I'm glad you asked the question, Rita. I'm looking forward to seeing your reasoning so we can consider

160it. >> That what I I >> I'm looking forward to seeing your reasoning so we can consider it. >> Okay. Okay. Hearing no further discussion. All those in favor to approve the policy P6146 um.1 examination um as a first reading please say I >> oppose >> abstain right now >> Rita is abstaining the motion has passed >> courteously >> all right um Matthew would you please be uh willing to be the motion for number C2. >> I move that we approve the outofd district tuition rates from for the 2023 2024 school year as presented. >> Thank you. Can I have a second to that? >> Second, Liz. >> All right. So, um any further discussion? We've had a couple committee the whole it has been vetted through the finance and facilities and it was also

161presented to us through our business manager. Is there further questions about this? No. Hearing none. All those in favor to approve the out of district Whoa. Let me try that sentence one more time. >> Out of all those in favor to approve the outofd district tuition rates for the 2023 2024 school year, please say I. >> I. >> Oppose. >> I >> oppose. Abstain. That motion is carried. Thank you guys. Um, Matthew, do you have uh letters of communication? >> No, I'm good. >> Andrea, >> I do. First of all, I wanted to just um recognize Sana Ponucci and Rob Penucci who worked on as teachers in the school where I was principal and they retired. But the ones that um really amazed me were Lisa Na Nabok, who I knew as Lisa Block in

162the eighth grade. I never realized it was Lisa and Celeste Duffy who um was Celestei when I had her in the eighth grade as well. And then I had I received today from Jason Farardi. I don't know if you remember Jason. I had him in the eighth grade. But at any rate, he's a screenwriter now. His latest work was Chapel White. uh Chapel White, which um um was on um you had to to go into um I I don't even know what to call it, but you had to get it on your your computer. But the ones that came before that were um bringing down the house in 17 again. And Jason was a just a fabulous student in 8th grade. a lot of fire in his um personality. But he sent me um a

163video that his that his wife did of them going with a group and I don't know what the humanitarian group was but it but but they took air conditioning and computers to a school in the Philippines and to watch Jason and his wife and the other individuals be welcomed by the children and to be brought into their culture and then to see the joy on Jason and his community's face. I It was just the most joyful thing I've ever seen. So, I want um the schools, Graten Public Schools, to know what a wonderful they job they did in uh just the idea of humanitarianism in in bringing up our students. >> It's nice to hear about um the the his for us to hear from you the historical knowledge of of how some of the

164students that have been educated in Goten Public Schools. It's nice to know. Thank you. >> You're welcome. Thank you. >> Bev, do you have anything? >> Jay, >> I have no communications, but I did have the pleasure of attending uh the uh Junth celebration at Graten Town Hall last week. >> Cool. >> The first one, I believe. Liz uh went to the retirement uh ceremony which was really good. A lot of fun with Sana and Rob and all kinds of people there that I I saw and it was really special. Um I just think we need to look at as a board, as a district, why all teachers aren't there. I remember when I retired, there were like 10 teachers that retired and only two of us showed up. >> And I would like to

165know, you know, like I remember years ago in 2000 when I first joined staffs. Now they used to have a dinner >> and people were able and it was at Fitch um at that time of course Fitch was at the biggest cafeteria and there was dining room and you know white linen tablecloths and it was it was a nice dinner and you know it's like people are here for 30 years or more. I wasn't I was in different other places but and what do we give them for that recognition? And I understand there's a b budgetary amount to that, but what other profession do we get where somebody is gives their life for 30 years and they get really nothing? And I think that's really sad because we're not validating their achievement. Let's face it,

166to be a teacher is hard. It's not easy. And I just think we need to lead that charge and and really acknowledge the hard work in a more appropriate way. I thought this year's was a much better ceremony. Don't let me go that more people came out. That was the really good news. >> Yeah. But I just think it was still like >> Thank you. >> I've written it down. >> Thank you. And I you do know that um each of the schools school communities do offer a nice retirement dinner for everybody and that other people are invited. >> So I can make sure that next year that when we get them they kind of come in bits and pieces but I get them put on my calendar so if I can go and this

167year they kind of conflicted with several other meetings that I had with you all. So I think if we can get them ahead of time and you know about them because that's where you do see that kind of festivity um and the nice dinner and it's done by the colleagues and they get a nice gift. >> But I I'll make sure you all get that invitation too. >> So maybe that needs to be um u maybe that's just a conversation that we have with the teachers union about whether they would like to see that done differently as well. >> Yeah. >> Dean went to the graduation. >> Oh, yeah. >> I know a lot of us did. And I shook I don't know how many hands just like last year and I still didn't get

168co. >> Yay. >> All right. I washed mine after a lot. >> Yes. Um, I attended both the middle school graduation with Matthew and the high school graduation and it was a wonderful celebration both of them and it was so great to see the community, the parents and you know and the students cheering each other on. Um, I really enjoyed the speakers at graduation also. But I have a suggestion for um, next year. um it would be to invite a former Fitch student back to speak at graduation. We used to have a keynote speaker, someone from the community, sometimes it was, you know, actually Richard Blumenthal or, you know, one of our state senators would come and speak. They've sort of done away with that. But I really feel that if we could invite back

169one of our students that whether they had military success or you know went on to higher education whatever it is you know I think that would be wonderful for the students to see. >> I have to say Rita when I was a principal at Fitch uh middle we brought a a senior back to and that was so successful. >> Oh that would be wonderful for the middle school. >> Yes. Great idea. Great idea. And I also would like to mention that our the high school principal is retiring for those in the community that doesn't that don't know. >> He didn't retire. >> He did retire. >> I mean I mean he's not retiring. He's relocating. >> Yeah. But I meant I didn't mean retiring. It was just we were talking about that. Sorry. No, he's

170just moving on to a different district. and we'll be doing a search for a not only a business manager but a high school principal. >> It's going to be a busy summer. >> It'll be a busy summer. Yeah. >> Um Bev, in case you were do you have any um thing that you would like to add? >> No, no, thank you. >> All right. Um and um I I attended the high school graduation. Um and um if if the students and the students speeches that we heard, if they are what we are producing, the world is going to be okay. They were very inspiring um and very moving. >> Um just really very moving. Um and so just to take a look at our um calendar um we um I'm hoping um not hoping July

17110th which would be our first committee the whole um I got I got you be in one second um we're going to have a remote meeting for the board's uh self um and I do apologize I heard back from one person that I think I didn't send everything over into word document so I am going to do my letter once again and this time make it correct. So I will do that. Um July 17th is our one and only committee of the whole followed on the 24th by a regular meeting. Bev >> thank you Kim. Absolutely. Did have one communications about um how to get more teachers involved with the PTO's >> and um I'll leave that to you Susan. I I think I'll share that with our new communications committee. They're so talented with

172their draft plan, but you're right. I would love to see even more. We don't have a PTO at the high school. I know that parents get very busy and so do kids. And we basically have booster clubs, so in the sports and clubs, but I would love to see we have a very very active PTO with Graten Middle School. So maybe some of those parents who are moving on to the high school might be able to start that. But I agree. I think the more the marrier. >> Um, do we have agenda topics that we would like to add? >> I think I'm also going to make sure that you guys we have you guys had the current um, newest improved template. Um, it's been tweaked again so that you guys kind of know what's

173going to be happening throughout >> the ended June June 20th or something. >> So, just make sure that you have that. >> My standing data request. >> Uhhuh. a standing data request. >> Yeah. Yeah. It's it's it's it's happening. It's happening. >> I love it. >> All right. We got to get the data first before we can >> get the data. >> We got to get the data. >> All right. Motion to adjurnn. Can I have a second? >> All right. All those in favor? I >> oppose abstain. Thank you guys. >> Thank you. Good night.