001Hey friends. All right. Um so good evening. Today is um July 17th and it's about 6:04 or 5. Um and today is uh the committee of the whole u meeting for the Graten Board of Education. So that is the call to order. The first order of business is the review. Is Joe not going to be today? >> I was gonna say something. No, she she had a little medical thing happen. So, she's not in, but she'll get the video of this. You'll call this. >> Okay. So, so people um to to hear that um is that Joan, who is um essentially the clerk for the board, is um not with us tonight, but she will take the she'll get the recording and send off the minutes from that. All right. Okay. and however in her
002so because you always make sure I I'm I do this is um I will take a motion for acceptance of the June 12th 2003 meeting minutes. Can I have a second? I got Liz. Is there a discussion? Actually that's the first I have a second Liz. Yeah, thank you Matthew. I got a second. Any discussion on that hearing? None. All those in favor of um of the meeting minutes of June 12th um 2003, please say I. >> I oppose. Abstain. Motion has carried. Um so Joan um just for your knowledge um Bev has outed some guests. Um Jay uh Whit has uh become has gotten ill. Um and um I believe uh Dr. William Forgan is um out of the country at the present moment. Um so I just um uh wanted that to be
003in the record. Um the rest is present. Um so let me just kind of before we get into our uh agenda number three is just to kind of um walk you guys through what I what I'm hoping is going to happen tonight. Um, we have um um we have um after the hard work of Matthew and his um team um uh come up with the communication plan and so we have received this numerous times um and uh but um just a great piece of work that you guys have done um and so you'll be presenting it to the board to ask questions and get clarification so that we can vote on the communication plan next week. Um so that it could be a a thing. Um and then um I was actually thinking a discussion
004reflection um which I think would be your top 10 was actually going to go into the second meeting, but I see that it's here. George and I just was very diligent in getting a hold of me. I just wasn't there. But we will do your your a little bit reflection and then um because I um we are going to be going into executive session um for the superintendent evaluation, we it has to be a regular um board meeting. It can't be just on the committee as a whole. It can't be a working meeting. And so um we had I'm going to close out this committee as a whole. Once we hear Susan, um we will then I will then call to order a regular a special meeting regular board of ed. Um and then we
005will go um with a motion into um executive session for purposes of talking about um uh Susan's evaluation or excuse me superintendent's evaluation. So that's that's the lay of the land and that's why um we have two separate meetings of that's why you receive two separate events. Just wanted to clarify because it gets kind of confusing. I'm just trying to follow FOI laws. So without further ado, um the other thing that I asked Susan to do until we find um a uh a tier for the principal of the high school um uh I've asked that for every agenda topic or for every meeting um even if it's a little bit redundant that we kind of keep that in uh in our news specifically. My guess is as time goes things are going to move pretty
006quickly and this is just a way for the board um to stay in. Um Lita, I don't think that you have have this um >> it was sent out to the board. I just copied that one. >> What is the timeline of the um Fitch High School? >> Um if she sent it out, I have it. >> Okay. >> You have extra copies. So, just to I was able to sit with my team and and get briefed today. Um, Phil did a terrific job last week um in mystead so that I could go and enjoy the family. >> I put that in the notes. Um, and he briefed me on some of the things that they had already accomplished. We actually did call Mary Broadick um who really pulled this thing together in a heartbeat.
007I really have to commend her because she was able to put together the survey, get the focus groups organized, you know, um really put together the um you know, help with the posting of what we're looking for in, you know, a principle for our flagship pitch and um so a lot of the things that you see happening in mid July have really been accomplished. So her first gathering of the timeline um we will be doing the profile once she gathers all the information from the focus groups and one of those focus groups is going to be with the board of ed and so we had discussed two possible dates for the board. she can do July 31st and also >> Jul and July um 24th if you wanted to come to a meeting prior and
008I talked to Joyce about this and it can be considered a non-meating if it's just a focus group for you all to talk. Um she said that would be fine. We could do it right before one of your existing meetings or it could go on a non-meating day which is July 31st would be that Monday. >> We didn't want to push it >> to be on that. Yeah. >> Um couple problems with the 24th is that we do have a communications meeting before the board meeting which we could push. Uh and also >> it's it would be like 5:00 or 5:15 and that might be early for people. >> It would be at the town ends. It could be a combination Zoom in person. >> Mary said she could come in person to do the
009focus group or she could zoom. We could have it on both ways. You know, it's just what what works the best for the board. How about one of the things I can do is tomorrow Susan and I are going to be going over the agenda for next week. And if it looks like it's a rather light agenda, maybe we could try to have it um next week just so that we can get the we can get it done and we don't have to we don't have to worry about that. Um how does that feel for people, >> Kim? Maybe about 7 o'clock have it like part of our meeting. Well, >> like we do like we're doing tonight rather than try to come early. I know I can't make it on the 24th early, but
010>> Okay. But um but maybe what we could do is Susan and I could really look at our meeting and maybe we could make it at an hour regular meeting if there isn't a lot. I don't I I'm not >> I'm not thinking about what we have. Um and maybe we could just do it at seven. to your point like I would prefer it not to be um a long beforehand. It it would be harder for me though next week would be fine but it it hard it's harder for me. So let's let me work that out. If not uh maybe she could do a full remote on the 31st for 15 20 minutes just to have us uh kind of come together. Um so it's not our regular Monday meetings. It's the fifth Monday.
011Um, so I will I will see with each of the focus groups. I think she's looking at about 45 minutes and she's going to be meeting with the teachers. She's going to meet with non-certified staff, the administration. Um, and she really wants to listen and students, parents, community. So, she she will be the 25th and the 26th. She's really running through several focus groups each day. you I don't mean to interrupt, but the the email that I shared and that was sent out last week was um the focus groups was on that and it does list the time and it's a um it's a Zoom link but again it's denoted which group when we can see who's involved. >> Okay. >> So that I think those are really that in the survey we already have
012a hundred responses on the survey. I'm going to be sending out messages with my voice on our new parent square. You'll be very proud I'm trying it out and I'm going to send it to specific groups with the link so that they and encouraging people to please participate because I think that this is really one of the major facets of having paid support is to listen to our community on what they are expecting from a leader at the high school. I think that's so critical. I think it's really critical that our board is able to be part of this and have their own say because you you know from an inside and outside view exactly what we're city officials. Well, we can absolutely I'd send out my my board notes, my everybody notes um weekly
013updates and I can certainly send it out like that so that >> there is a message for them to at least do the survey Matthew because my husband pulled out the survey. >> So out there whether they're in the focus group, but they definitely everyone seems to be having >> join the community group >> and we're going to also put it on the website and we're going to get it on the Facebook page. So, the more information we can collect, I think the better idea we're going to have and what the wants. >> Kim, >> yes, >> I'm just going to um reiterate again what I said last week. if we don't have a lot of responses and and also because it's a summer having parents, you know, I really want the input of parents
014in the community, I I would wait and have a um interimm principal and make sure we make the right choice this time. That's my feeling. >> So, I just want to put it out there. It's It's tough to do a search in the in the summer >> like this for such an important position. >> Yep. >> That's a good point. And you and you um you said it very eloquently last week and this week. So I hear you. >> Thank you. >> Absolutely. Absolutely. Any other questions? So we can move on. All right. So yay. Once again um just thrilled about the work that has been done since >> I just want to know is there have have you received any afterwards? We have >> six so far. >> So far >> and it's posting
015is goes all the way till August 7th, >> right? >> There was a question raised about whether we >> are we had someone from Utah. >> Yes, it's a national search. It's a national search. >> I couldn't hear Matthew's question. So, Ma Matthew wanted to make sure that it was above um was it beyond the cave search which was another thing right I think that we had talked about and um so Utah was one of the applicants and Matthew's response was I he he thought that it was just a suburban uh suburb of Bronten so he wasn't quite sure we had met that all right if we have no further comments I am going to uh move up to plan and Matthew. >> Well, uh, at last month's, uh, communication committee meeting, we adopted a
016strategic communication plan for 23 to 24, the significance of the billboard. I'm reading this because this is for the benefit of citizens who may not be familiar with the process or what we're trying to do. For those of you who work with a bit so the plan was submitted to the full board at regular June meeting and thereafter distributed to all board members were removed prior to tonight's discussion are you hearing me as articulated in our committee statement of purpose our principal function is to strengthen positive interactive relationships with our entire community internal internal and external audiences about Brton Public Schools. To help frame tonight's discussion for the listening, viewing public, the five key elements of the strategic plan include one, a concise statement of the communication committee's vision for fostering awareness of our district's
017mission, educational opportunities, and support functions available to our students and the work being done by the board, administration, and staff to attain it goals. Two, presentation of the committee communication committee's guiding principles upon which annual communication goals will be set to support and align with the board and superintendent's goals. Three, an inventory of internal and external stakeholders that communication strategies should strive to inform in an interactive fashion that encourages stakeholder feedback. four, a directory of communication methods and tools. And five, specific communication strategies to achieve Rotten Public Schools mission and the committee's guiding principles to both enhance stakeholder engagement and improve internal and external communications. Before opening the process of board discussion, I'd like to recognize fellow committee members Elizabeth Porter and Dr. William Morgan, assistant superintendent Dr. Philaza and the district's communication specialist Rebecca
018without whom I would have suffered. Finally, a tip of the hat to former committee chair Katrina Fitzgerald who helped conceptualize and launch this effort. The floor is open for discussion. I I think what would be helpful is um just to kind of I I would prefer you not to read from the document but just to kind of talk about the plan I think would be helpful. >> Yeah. Yeah, and I agree. You know, we definitely don't want to go page by page and line by line, but I think um looking at the five strategies which begin on page 10 um are really the key elements of the plan and what we uh what we think the focus uh should be for the district. Um and these have been spoken in different different ways, but just
019to be clear, and I will read these just because it'll help sort of move the conversation more. You know, the first strategy on on page 10 talks about engaging the community and just understanding the mission of the school um and be um you know really work on being transparent and robust in both internal and external communications. Um we can um and we we'll talk about the different ways that we're going to do that. Uh strategy two, again, things that we're we're already doing, but we want to improve upon promoting the achievements and the improvements and the initiatives uh that are going on in our schools. Um and that's to families, students, staff, and the general, uh community. Uh strategy three uh talks about really allocating personnel and resources uh to do this. You know, we
020have um Rebecca, she will lead the way in many of these efforts. um and she'll be sort of the guide for our principles and our school personnel in helping uh improve the different uh aspects of this plan. Um strategy four uh talks about gathering feedback. Again, we do uh we do that, you know, at least once a year, but we we'll look at uh how we gather feedback throughout the year to improve um not only communications in within the district, but the district as a whole. Um and finally um strategy five uh talks about being you know proactively planning um you know in the for the case uh how we communicate during the during a case of emergency or crisis. Again something that we do um internally we have our school safety plan but making
021sure that the community understands that we have these plans in place. not ne necessarily sharing those plans but um assuring them of the safety of their the students and our students. So those were those were the the five key strategies that I believe will will guide the work of the district. Um we've talked about the role of the communications committee moving forward um would be to monitor this work and to help facilitate this work. >> Those were really the highlights. I think so. Yeah, the five strategies. I think really we felt like much of the work within communication would fall tactically underneath one of those strategies for the most part um and really help us engage further with our entire community uh and showcase what's happening in our schools. We talked about initiatives but the
022challenges would fall under initiatives as well. you know, positive initiatives and how we're addressing challenges, >> positive initiative. >> Yeah, the planet itself lists actions and different tactics that we will go about to to achieve the you know to move these strategies forward and obviously those will be something that we'll continue to add to and different things will come into our you know purview. But you know a lot of these we've already started obviously with our social media uh presence >> um and we'll see where you know where that takes us in the future. The parent square is another area that you know sort of coincided with the you know the start of this committee as well. So >> yeah our last communication plan was um our comprehensive communications plan was 2016. That was when
023there was an ad hoc communications committee. That's actually when I first >> joined the district um on a very small level. Um and certainly since 2015, we've had a tremendous number of shifts when it comes to communication. Um new platforms, um all sorts of new ways to communicate. Um but the ways we like to communicate have have changed drastically, particularly with CO. Um, and as we now come out of COVID, see what what's going to stick and what people want to get back to. They want to get back to in-person events and community and what does that look like? When is that appropriate? And when do we want to keep more of a digital presence? And something that I talk about a lot with principles and school staff particularly as we prepare to launch parents
024square and the website is we have a very diverse community here. We have a very diverse community ethnically, a very diverse community socioeconomically. But the one thing that most people are very sophisticated about is their media consumption and how they like to get information. Um, most people have some sort of smart device and are consuming media and information on a daily basis in very sophisticated way. Um, and that I feel like is is across the board for the most part. Um, so we definitely feel there's room and a need to elevate how we're doing things as a district to meet um, how our families want to take information. Can you recognize Rita? >> Oh, I just wanted to commend the communications committee for this. It's excellent. Um, years ago, we had a standing communications committee
025and I'm so happy to see it revived. I had one quick question. Um, are we on Twitter? >> We are not on Twitter. So, Twitter is actually one of the lead um the statistics don't really support us being on Twitter. I don't have numbers at my disposal, but in terms of um the number of people on Twitter is actually one of the lowest social media platforms, Facebook. >> Oh, no. I I'm just very happy to hear that. I just was curious. It's a yes or a no. >> So, our our Facebook launch has gone very very well. I mean, we've well beyond launch at this point. Um we've had great engagement on Facebook. People love getting glimps into our classrooms and our schools. Whenever we have a lot of pictures or videos to share, people
026love that. Um, you know, we we've talked a little bit about whether or not at some point we would want to dabble in Instagram, which is closely linked to Facebook, um, and has uh um, you know, there's a lot of synergy there. And again, with with Mark Russell and Caitlyn and all the images that we have in the district, um, that would be a logical place for us to go next if we if we chose to go deeper. But Facebook's been very successful. >> I'd add that the environment changes so rapidly in the couple of weeks since we've done this plan. We now have threads which didn't exist 45 days ago. So, you know, we know that Rebecca is going to monitor this and if it's deemed appropriate, we'll probably move there, but we're not
027in a hurry to make a mistake. >> Good. Thank you. So, I had two questions. One is um I think what's really kind of neat about the strategic plan is that it gives us um a way to kind of think about it in terms of the budget. And so, um, because I was in some of our initiatives and what have you, um, I was noting, um, that, you know, I wonder how, um, you know, and I guess this goes more towards the the two of you is how you take these like our communication specialists and how do you take, you know, any subscription that we would have to do to whatever. um how do we how do we take that um to ensure that we that that we have in our budget embedded um our
028ability to be able to to pass along that comm that communication that was like that's what hit me um and and only hit me because I read through all of your stuff and I was like okay so how are we going to do this and we sustain and how do we sustain it and so how does that get embedded into the into our budget so that um it's part of doing what we do. And then the second, and I think you alluded to it, um, Phil, is I see this as the Graten Public School District's communication plan out of the committee of the board, but what what does this mean for the board? Um, in terms of the subcommittee like how what is the role now of the subcommittee? take deep crack at it but
029I don't think I have deep that I discussed is to discuss okay we have all these possible things we can do and we only need 12 times a year and we don't have a limit of time but budget we know things are going to pop up that we can't imagine this so I prepared a form that I could show the trail And at our next meeting, I'll get this to you in the next couple days. I mean, just a simple form, six things, and say, "What are the six things that you think are easiest to be successful at?" And what do you think of the six things that are most important that we should do and see if we if we can have some A's match with some pick a couple of things that we
030can work on. And the first thing we're going to continue to address is made a referral about uh developing a document that can be used to meet a variety of needs that already one was trying to attract some of the many people who are coming to work in Brockton who actually live in Brockton settle here's an issue and so our mentioned something for the other stakeholders so I've done some research on that and share about the bill. Um, but our town and our Sydney websites have nothing about our students. The chambers of commerce have nothing about anybody. The economic development office at the town has nothing about our students. So I'm saying this document if you can actually but if you can come up with a single document that can have some multi multiple audiences
031and maybe if you need to staple a little note it's aimed at the brokers but aimed at the new potential business owners have one document that positive promotion information and I'll just add to that in that you know I don't think we're looking at this this is not a a list of tasks to the board for for the communication Um I think similar to the curriculum committee I can speak to since I'm on that as well is that the expectation will be periodically throughout the year we'll hear from principles as to how they're carrying out this plan. Um you'll we'll hear from central office we'll hear from Rebecca of course as to the different you know and then they'll be reported out to the board you know. So this is a nice document that will
032guide the communications committee in monitoring its uh outrange and efforts. >> It's efforts. Yeah. >> I even see that you could add a few questions on a climate >> survey that goes out to all families >> related specifically to this. So, that's another way to hold us account, >> right? And communications I know communications um was identified on all the building surveys as important and that has come up in the past. Um, we did our last communication survey gosh probably about two years ago, but a lot of what came out of that has been in work since then with uh the website and other things that we're working on here already. Um, this really captures both a lot of the work we want to do. again speaking to elevating and expanding communication as well as
033some of the work that's been in the works for um a little bit now but will come to fruition over the next couple of months. >> And I also want to remind people that we're talking about internal communication as well. Yeah. >> So I think it's important you know um like I mean the surveys are great way we get information from the community but they're also a great way to get information from our teachers and from our students. We reported out this year often on our our our coffee chats were another way for central office to bridge communication with buildings because that was identified a couple years ago as an area that needed to improve. Um and so we will continually try to um come up with ideas on how to include that as well
034to make uh I think to make the board as approachable as possible for teachers who who want to come in the community and just like central office you know we don't want you know we're always trying to find ideas as to how we can bridge those and you know any kind of gaps so it's for internal image >> it I mean communication is really part of everything we do it's part of every department, every there really is a layer of it, whether it's internal or external. Everything we're doing um some way I'm going to recognize Dean. Andrea. Oh, yeah. And Andrea, I'm Andrew sitting next to me. Your hand is still up, so I don't know if you have another question, but I am going to recognize. >> Can you hear me, Rita? >> Hello.
035>> Yes, I can hear you. I didn't mean to have my hand up. Sorry. >> No, that's okay. That's that's Yeah, my my front microphone. Okay. Um the only thing questions all of the time using the term stakeholder and stakeholders but I first began to see that word outside the traditional usage of some of shares of the company for example or literally a stakeholder the old fashioned word um I've seen it I've seen it used in broader and broader manner It can be abused when I think of stakeholders. It's not a business of course capitalist stakeholders who are the stakeholders of the corporation. But the kids are in the middle. Okay. Kids have families, parents, legal guardians etc. faculty is here to enable learning support stat that's that's it those are the real people involved
036when I think of the media when I think those pretty categories organizations uh other civic leaders etc I'm thinking of people who have interest curious who should be communicated to but I would not put them on the same level as say parents or students or faculty in other words. So when you use I just a question how do you use the term stakeholder when we identify stakeholders I do not want to put this all in perspective media for example or you know mayor of the town etc they do not fall on the same level as the parents and the students faculty or any staff um you should communicate out to them but I hesitate to use the term stakeholders all the same group because you can very often just sort of bloody the station there
037at some point you Everybody become a stakeholder. Everyone some interest. You'll recall when we had one of the media people here uh last month before she was very concerned respected challenging challenges library material by some small group that's running around the country trying to gank books off library school library shelves. Although I'm sure those people think of themselves as stakeholders. they have it in children's education. We wouldn't count them at I want to stick to the actual communities. >> I I think that that's that makes a lot of sense and maybe you guys can think about that. Um I just just for a point of reference I have been practicing since 198 something 194. >> Yeah. Not to offense practicing and stakeholders is a is a sort of like a a non-public general term. But
038to your point is maybe there could be some listing about what that looks like instead of just using the generalized generalized term. But for right or for wrong social service education stakeholders I do for business and we look useful terms we don't miss right. >> I think it's great. I think that's a good point. Thank you. I thought initially it was beneficiaries and then I said oh that opens up an entire I get your point there are differential levels and hopefully we hopefully we'll be rising >> and my only my last thought is um the concerning part about the fact that there's not a synergy between the um the board of ed and the town of Gotton we service the same groups people is whether if there is a communication um you know and this
039might be something to kind of start to think about in in January is is is there a um is there a communication committee on the town council where they could be meeting on a more regular basis with the members of the bank communication committee where we we could be comm we did the leazison But that's but you know and or maybe >> you know or to look at it maybe it's the communication committee kind of takes head lead on the leazison to make sure that there is some some places so maybe we don't need to add an extra meeting but we need to add a place where in a space where all of the people get together and we tend to share our stuff because I think we're we're we're very active and so the
040I think the public school tends to take lead in those leazison meetings um But is there a way to kind of be um more mindful around making sure that the stuff that's happening in in the in the public school is is given to the given to the town so that everyone can kind of boast about what's happening in the in the district and vice versa. I mean you know what's building what's not being built what's what's happening at some time >> to my knowledge the town lesson you cut the phrases my mind uh stipulating that that's correct that doesn't stop our community from figuring out whether the correct path to proceed to engage them would be to speak to the two mayors and express an interest in having them see what they might like to
041do. >> And I believe >> that's that's not discussion about we talked about legislation too. Yeah, I think yeah, I think Leah Leah's on meeting is happening in October, early September and we could do comm community, you know, um two-way communication um or three-way considering this the city of Bratton. the freeway. Um because we were also taking a look at how do we um think about legislation that's coming down the pike that's impacting the public school but also impacting super >> Yeah, absolutely. Any other questions or comments? Again, nice job. >> Well done. But I want to say personally this is really and totally respect our students really gone above and beyond and I want to say you know we start definitely give you a gold star but I just want to say that you
042are an invaluable member of this team and I I just want you to know how appreciative we are of your hard work and how how much this has really taken up a lot of your time and some of your time that's not been you know that's been on your own. So I want I want to acknowledge that make sure that we are aware that you put a lot of extra time into this thing. >> Thank you. I'm very passionate about communications and it's been it's been a collaborative effort and you know what I want to give a shout out William um Dr. Corgan had attended a cave conference uh last year I believe um and had gotten a copy of communication plan from Oxford and public schools >> and we did use that initially um
043which really became a great starter for all of us. We sort of took some of that and then really started to make it our own and craft it and figure out what what we liked. they talked about um and that that really helped inform a lot of what we put forward. So we do have a little acknowledgement to them as well. But I think in the end it really did become our own. >> It was a good model and yeah it was a good model. >> Thank you. Thank you. I was going to ask you. >> Sure. >> Anything else? >> Not on this. Does it go back to legislation? >> Legislation. >> You raised the question of legislation. Last year, uh, a couple of directors in November or December to ask what it was
044we wanted them to be in coming season and I think we were kind of catching guys because we've never been asked before, but we didn't have time to react to give them a think have an agenda for that together. you can have. So those things >> which is what we are hoping to accomplish in the leazison meeting is for us to kind of as a group kind of talk about are the people who represent the city the town and the board how do we you know what are some of the concerns or some of the issues that we have all right anything else all right I'm moving us on to Susan discussion and reflection of the 2022 2023 school year. So, as you know, um a superintendent's goals um are really based on some work
045from the Connecticut Association of Boards of Ed, Connecticut um Association of Public School Superintendent. And there really are some major categories, six categories. Number one is all about student achievement. And after a pandemic, it's first and foremost on our mind to really accelerate learning and and you know help close gaps and you know get kids in a really good place with their teaching with their learning. Um the second is leadership having a leadership having um number three is organization um and management. Four is community relations. Five I think is of utmost importance to me and it's our board of education relationships because it's our work together, our leadership together that makes things happen. And then six is personal and professional qualities. So I always like to look back at a year and look at each
046of those goals, but also think about what's our top 10 that we've done together as a board and superintendent, administration, and the team. And definitely the communication plan was in the top 10. Not Letterman's top 10, but Graten Public School's top 10. Um, and so that was one of the things that I felt like really came to fruition. It's something that's been on our mind since 2016 to kind of revise and you guys really made it happen. And I feel like with this plan, it's so comprehensive that like you're right that all those strategies, we will be able to fit all kinds of communication. the, you know, the good initiatives that are happening, but also the challenges that we face and making sure that the board knows, you know, all that is happening and so
047does our community. Um, you know, one of the top things is always about student achievement and we certainly um saw growth from, you know, our first really public um data piece and we looked at it all year long. I looked at it with the board. You asked great questions. We there was a lot of two-way communication on, you know, what to do next. And um the Connecticut State Department of Education recognized um two of our schools as schools of distinction and that was Northeast Academy and Charles Barnes. So that felt like getting back to what we've done before in the past. Um, also the board of ed worked so diligently with me um with, you know, really one of the first budgets that I kind of saw from beginning to end. You know, Mike had
048helped me with one of the first ones and we we got it going, but this one really was on the part of business manager, this admin, central office team, and our board. And I would say we we turned every page. we looked under every cover and we tried to be as efficient as we could possibly be. Um and you know we'll continue to do that. Um and and also in search of grants and and ways that we can help. I think that um Shannon has probably five six different grants that she's working on now and she's put a couple through and um you know the right to read there's a couple hundred,000 out there to help us with the science of reading and we're going for it. So just knowing that you know we're trying
049to find every possible way to help support with some of these unfunded mandates. So whenever they're going to be able to give us a grant for these things we're going to go for it. Um, I would also say that um, in that process of the budget, one of the biggest items, ticket items was negotiating that bus contract. And thanks to Sam Kilpatrick who with his building of facilities, he also has transportation under his hat and really working hard to negotiate so we wouldn't fa be faced with a million dollars out of the gate that first year to kind of streamline that increase. Um the other thing with our diversity, equity, and inclusion vision goal that the um board has taken on, one of the ways we actualized that goal was listening to our students who
050were saying that they wanted to see more diversity in those high level classes. Why don't more kids like me take these classes? And so we did an outreach and we did a policy that was revolutionary that really said if a child wanted to participate in a course, we wanted them to have that opportunity. So and we would support them in that. So I couldn't be more proud of this board and some of that work that was done. um we have had the shifting of the balance um with reading and really looking at the science of reading and um I'm really excited to share with the board some of the work that's been happening even over the summer um with book talks and with professional development and even with real realizing a scope and sequence of
051phonics K through three um that I'm very proud of um and I think will make a big even using new some new materials like University of Florida's youth live phonics program which is really wellreceived by a lot of people including many of my families who have children who are dyslexic and then of course we continue to roll through with the triemic this year and you know looking at people's health and well-being physically socially emotionally it was really important to be responsive to needs and you know really tried to give people room and and areas where they could really kind of get through some of these challenges um and help support them in that. Um I would say number eight I took as social emotional learning was a priority goal so that principles you know had
052teachers really looking at that in their classroom. They took a look at that in their building for their teachers. So really um looking at that in a comprehensive way. And then there was the mentor program. We hit our 25th year and you know with COVID and and some of those things where we didn't have people in the buildings as much we really were losing that program but I feel like it was really revived in one year and I see that we'll continue to have a revival and that's very exciting. Um and that can also fall under communications. How do we get more people involved in that? Um, and I think it's a real benefit to our students and then, you know, summer work. I'm always so surprised to see teachers come out after a very
053long difficult year and come out to support their students. They support them with summer learning, with camps, with summer school, with tutoring. um they come out to do book talks and curriculum work and um professional learning. And you would think, you know, some people say teaching is a 10-month job, but not in this district. I don't see that at all. I really see it as a fullyear job. And yes, people get some vacation time and they need that vacation time, but I do see our teachers really and our administrators really pulling together and getting some wonderful work accomplished and for the benefit of our students. So that was kind of my top 10. So I just wanted to share that with you all as I have and the community and um just reiterate that it's
054our work together that you know is causes the leadership team and helps us get things done together and you know um not just looking at accolades but questioning and asking and seeing if we can do it any better. So I appreciate that. Thank you. The bus caught up was this year. >> Yes. >> Like it feels like it was all in one year. >> A lot a lot lot happened and the buses were running very smoothly compared to the year before if you remember. >> Yeah. I I I think what I appreciate um because I think I've seen it is your top 10 is like how much has h happened in 180 days and like you don't like I think like sometimes I just feel like I'm like what's next? What's next? What's next? And
055so it's really nice to have that broad scope of all the things that have happened under your leadership. Thank you >> and yours. All of yours. Appreciate it. It's teamwork. Any other questions or comments about that? >> I would take a motion for >> second. >> All those in favor, please say I. >> I. >> All those opposed say nay. Motion is carried. We are now completed with our committee of the whole meeting. Thank you guys. >> Yes, you can take a 10-minute break. Yes. >> How about How about if we um we're going to meet again at seven? >> Yes. That's a five minutes. Thank you, Mark. That's