5-13-25 Groton Board of Education Policy Committee Meeting

001Good evening everybody. It's 6:02 p.m. on May 13, 2025 and I'm going to call the regular uh May meeting of the Graten Board of Education Policy Committee to order. Uh, present are members Andrea Akaman, Ian Thomas, Superintendent Austin, our great wizard of numbers and statistics Lauren Cassini, our IT guru Clint uh, Kennedy, and myself, Matt Scholman. Uh, our first order of business is a review of the minutes of the meeting of April 8th. Ian and Andrea, have you had a chance to look at the minutes? Have you any questions, changes? No, I have not. I'm sorry. Okay. I've I've reviewed them and I have no uh no additions, no objections. Okay. Would somebody like to make a motion to approve the minutes? So moved. Moved by Thomas. Second. Since Andrea hadn't had a chance to

002read them, I'll second it. U is there any further discussion before we take a vote on the minutes? Hearing none. All those in favor, please say I. I. That's that's affirmative. I do you want to abain, Andrea? Yes. Okay. So, it is two two in affirmative, none opposed, one abstain. And that was Dr. Akerman. Okay. before we start our old business. Uh um I forgot the old that's last week's. Before we start the business, I'd like to shift I promise the meeting will not go over two hours. If it looks like we're going over an hour somewhere we get to a break about that time, I'm going to give a fivem minute recess so people can get a glass of water or whatever fruit juice they want. Uh, we're going to start now with the

003why I've got the April 8th all that. We're going to start now with the first order of new business which is discussion of the policy P 5112.2 admission requirements. I'm going to turn it over to Susan who may let Miss Cassini say something. Yes, I might. So um we actually have been reviewing these policies pretty regularly and um Lauren with all the different hats she wears she works very closely with the enrollment and she actually oversees um the registar and that front office it's you know meeting people as does Rebecca Bus help out with lottery and family engagement so the whole team works together and when we find little glitches in our system that need a little correcting to make sure it's crystal clear to our families what are the documents we need and what

004are the things that they have to bring to us. You know, they're kind of staying ahead of the game. So, I'll turn it over to you, Lauren, and saying, you know, in looking at what are some of the different things that we've seen that need a little corrective action. Okay. Would you like me to share my screen or does everyone have their copies in front of them? Why don't you put it on the screen for the benefit of anybody who might want to uh watch this online? Absolutely. Just get to this. There we go. Can you guys see that? Okay. Yeah. Okay. So, really they're just minor changes to this policy that need to be made and it's more um as a response to some things that have come up that um just need to

005be tightened up. Uh the overall policy looks good. It's strong. It's um families understand what the expectations are. So I am going to scroll down. If you look at the documents for proof of residency, there's a column A and column B. It's on page two of four. Um and you'll notice that the the changes are in green. Really, it's just a matter of adding the language current before uh residential, rental, or lease or current before mortgage statement because what's happening is we're getting old statements that don't validate or prove that a residence is currently um happening with these families. So, just putting that language in there, it helps them to know exactly what to bring when they come. It's posted on our website. We include it um right on the application when they're registering for

006schools or they have a change of address. So again, it's just it prevents like having for families to do an extra step if they bring in any residential um agreement or mortgage statement versus one that's current so to date. The other change is adding the within 180 days to the escrow because at that point by the time you know there's a resident uh residential purchase or escrow within 180 days of that you typically have your first mortgage statement or what what have you. Um, so we thought that that might help um keep the language consistent and again going back to that whole current idea, right? Making sure that it's as up to-date as possible. And the last change in column A is for home offer letter. You see it used to be called the letter

007of intent. That's just a change that came through Beacon Points. They're not referring to them as letter of intents anymore. They're referring them to home offer letters. So, we want our language to align with what would be um produced or given to the families so that they know exactly what it is we're we're expecting from them um as a military family who may not have the other items from column A and that's those are the only changes on this policy. Can I offer a couple of uh observations? Yeah. Okay. on number uh column A the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, notorized residency affidavit star because the star appears on the next page. I would offer for your consideration having notorized residency affidavit space bracket star C next page bracket so that there's no confusion about

008the person needing to look at at the instructions on the following page. I'm just wondering. Um, yeah, that we can do that. I mean, that that's I'm I'm thinking about in terms of like so because we copy and paste it onto our application as well. Um, just so family knows exactly which documents to bring. We don't necessarily copy and paste the whole policy. So, I was worried that that could be confusing. Um, but this is for this would be for a policy statement, not for the application form. Yeah. Yep. No, which is why I think that would be okay. So, you're you'd like the the star C next page in parenthesis in brackets brackets parentheses whatever ellipses whatever you want. C next page and then on the next page if the student's family member is

009living with another family in Graten Colon you have number one very very clear but the next one the person completing this affidavit must provide isn't that shouldn't that be number two um I don't know if that would be a number two because it's like and it's an additional it's not another step it's more the respons responsibility of the person who's completing the affidavit if wanted to change that. I almost feel like it would need to be like one a and then a uh one. Do you know what I mean? So instead of it being like a number two, if it's if that's what you want, that's fine with me. In which case, we should take away the colon and just make the sentence continue. In graten, the comma, the person they are living with must

010complete because the colon indicates there's going to be a series of events. a series of categories. Andrea, am I channeling you correctly? I'm sorry. I was I was drifting in in space. Well, I because I don't think I'm looking at what you're talking about on the next page. We I apologize. Here we we moved to this page. There you go. Okay. Where are we? So, right here up at the top. See, it says if the family is living with another family, we have a colon. followed by number one. And the following paragraph starting the person completing the affidavit seems related to me to the colon. So it could be handled one of two ways. Either make the number one just part of the of the of a of this make the whole thing and number

011one part of the introductory. Lauren, can you point to the to the colon? I don't see it. Where am I? right here. Oh, all right. The student nothing. The students family is living with another family in Groten. Person they are living with must complete should be the family they are living with. Yeah. Uh, I think it should just just be a comma. Yeah. Because if if the if the student that's an introductory adverbial clause, so get rid of the number one and make that one complete sentence. I think so. Un unless the the second paragraph beginning the person completing is in fact part of the asterisk. If it's not, if it's discreet, then uh we should make the top one single sentence. One, the person they are living with must complete the notorized residency affidavit.

012Two, the person completing the app, it's like step two and I well, I could be talked into either way. Susan, do you have a preference on this? No. Okay. I kind of agree. Why don't you figure it out and choose the way you want? But it can't be both. You if we have a colon, then we have a series of things. If we don't have a then we take the number one out. You I don't care. The colon, you do the one and then like Matthew had said, then the person who's completing it, number two, and then that would be a b that they bring the photo ID. They could do it either way. I think why don't you do it the way you're you want to do it. and then send it to me

013and I'll get it right back to you. Okay. Yeah, that sounds perfect. Yep. But so adding the language, so I'll make those uh quick adjustments there and adding the language with the current uh to the residential that that's okay with you and they'll change the language of home offer letter from letter of intent to prior to the book. One last thing under on page two it says intra district magnet student a magnet school that serves only students who reside within the boundaries. That's not true. We have tuition students just those aren't those aren't intra district magnet students though. Tuition students are different. And this is hold on wait hold. So which one are you looking at? Intra district. Intra intra district. So those are students who live within our boundaries. Okay. Okay, got it. My

014bad. No, no, that's okay. I know it's a lot to to sort out. Okay. And then the second policy. So, if you're all set with that, would you like me to move on to the next pol like policy? How do you want Sure. Unless you'd like to Are there any regulations that go with with this one? No. Okay. What's the committee's pleasure? Do you want to do listen to the second one or vote on the first one first? Andre and Ian, what's your pleasure? Well, it makes sense to me that what she's got here and it makes sense to Susan. And how about everybody else? So, unless Ian, unless you have an objection, I'll ask for a vote on P51122. Yeah, I have no objection. Okay. So, is there any further discussion on P5112.2? Hearing

015none, I'll ask all those in favor of passing policy 5112.2, admission requirements for grten residents, for first reading to the uh regular meeting of the board of education. Please indicate by saying I I I I. So we're three to zero to zero and that is passed to go to the full board of education. Thank you number one, Lauren. Let's rock on. Thank you. Okay. So, the second one, P5118, it it deals with our students who are non-resident attendants. Non-residentident attendants. Um, and so again, this is just cleaning up language. This one really has been more of a concern of us lately. What we've run into in the last several months um is really significant increase of students exiting um Gren Public Schools but remaining within the schools and the district paying for these students until

016the end of the year based on the current policy which states that any child um that uh exits the school after January 1st of that year can remain um per s superintendent's request. And so we've looked at this language some and we feel that it it would be in our best interest as a district to maybe revise the length of time we're going to allow that. Um so I'm going to scroll down to that specific area where we've made those changes. And this is specific to students non-resident attendance without tuition. Right? So these are our again our kids who maybe move to New London or Ledger but want to continue or finish out the year in GR. So the language we change is in number two and we've added um that we've taken out that

017January 1st language and in place of it during or after spring break. So anyone who moves out of our district during or after spring break um we will allow to stay. So anyone before that needs to then move on to their new district. And this is this is common practice in all the surrounding districts. I mean, we they don't even necessarily uh allow kids to stay even at this time of year, right? I would say it's very generous even with the April break. No one else did the half year and that can be very pricey for a district, especially if you have an outplaced child or a child who has significant needs. So, um I would say even Ledger, they might allow allow them to finish if they leave in May for one month, but

018we've always been super generous and this still I think gets the kid gets the student till the end of the year if they're moving during April break. Yeah. And it is I mean this this can this can be a a burden to our district. I mean, these are students that, you know, we're paying for and in some cases there may be some some high price payments happening with if they receive services of any kind. Um, so it really is in our interest to update it to to match the surrounding districts. Um, the next one, number three, a family residing outside of the district that has plan firm plans to move into the district. Initially it was the during the current school year and that is really wide open. Um and so we want to put

019a limit on that and we want to say if you have plans to move into the district firm plans within 30 days of registration um as evidenced by a contract to buy. So we haven't moved yet but we're moving into the district within 30 days. Um you can begin the year then. That makes sense. A lot of sense. Okay, good. All right. And so, yeah, I'd say this all seems fair and transparent. Matthew, did you have a question? I have a couple of questions, but I want to be sure Ian and Andrea have a chance first. No, I'm done. Yeah, I'm I'm good as well. It seems like it it just cleans up some ambiguity and uh narrows some windows, but defines them clearly. So, uh, I'm very good with the intent. I have a

020couple of questions on language. Under non-resident attendance without tuition, the last word is conditions. The following conditions. I don't see these as conditions. I see these as circumstances. What do you think? I think that I have no issue with that. Okay. Would you like that changed? I think so. Because a condition a condition is if you do this, this will happen. If you do that, that will happen. We're setting up strictctures and we're not setting up strictctures. We're just defining the reality under which they're going to function. I'm in support of that suggestion. Thank you. The on on uh both two and three a family moves from the district. Um yeah, that one's that one's absolutely fine. The the next one I'm thinking about a way I think I find the sentence a bit cumbersome

021so I'll offer you another sentence for number three. Uh is it number two? Okay. Number two. A family moves from the district during or after spring recess in April of the school year. And if parents so requi however if parents so request a children may complete the current school year from the district during or after spring break. I don't know if we should do April because you know what if we change that? What if it happens in March or even May? Spring. Yeah, spring. Spring baking May. Yeah. I mean, you know what I mean. What if we change the dates? Just spring recess. Oh, okay. Take the April out. I think I don't know what everybody else thinks. I think that's prudent, Andrea, because if you know, some year they decide they want to go

022back to what we used to call winter break. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And then we'll change it to winter recess, I guess. We we did have two two one winter uh break and and then a spring break. I just think we break it in into a period after the word school year and make a capital however just simplify the however. You're not supposed to begin a sentence with however. Yeah, that's what I thought. I was thinking the same thing. Me too. Welcome. Welcome. So, just leave it the way it is. Semicolon, however, comma. Okay. For number two. For number two. Yeah. Do we even need So, I know now that you've brought it up, I'm I'm rethinking this myself. Do we need it to to read? Because up in the top at the very beginning, it

023says upon written parental request, right? So in sentence two it says of the school year. However, if parents so request a child may complete the school year. This actually should say with superintendent approval a child may see. And where are we again? I'm sorry. So we're right here on number two. Okay. Okay. Okay, we're on this sentence. And and if you look, a family moves from the district during or after the spring recess in April. Oh, we're getting rid of that. After the spring recess of the school year, it says, however, if a parent so requests, a child may complete the current school year. This is a bit redundant. It's not harmful, but it is redundant because we're not going to have a third grader make a request to the superintendent. It's going to be

024the parent or guardian that makes the request. Well, but we could say instead of if parents so request, I'm actually thinking what needs to really be here is upon superintendent approval a child. That's that's above that's above the word for the for the circumstances may be allowed by the superintendent may be allowed. That requires the superintendent's approval. Right. But it says may up there and I'm just wondering does it make sense to have it put upon, right? So you might be accepted or you might be approved, right? It's not it's upon approval or no, just leave it as is. Am I reading into this too much now? I I trust I'll trust you and Susan to choose the language that satisfies you. Subject to the agreement of my colleagues. Okay, Lauren, if you do that,

025Lauren, if you do that, then you would have to put it for one, two, three, four, five, six. You're right. So, I think it says it in the first statement pretty clearly. It does. Yeah. Okay. All right. So, let's leave that. So, let's not leave it. I'm I'm just looking at grammar. Put a period after a school year. Mhm. Uh take of the h however. Yeah. Start with with if parents. So uh request or is that request? Yeah. Request comma however comma and and put the yeah put the the uh insert the uh however there. That's where it belongs. But Ania that takes away the superintendent's authority to say no because we a matter of policy that just making the request guarantees that action to happen. Right. Um upon parent request with superintendent approval a

026child make. That's fine. Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead again. just send it to me and I'll stick the however wherever it belongs if it belongs at all. Okay. Okay. Sounds good. The last thing I have is I Matthew, can I just say something else? Oh, please. Please. I'm sorry. Maybe in that sentence too and in every those every one of those sentence you might want to put uh what superintendent um um if superintendent allows the student to do that. You know you could word it whatever way because now it seems like if parents so request a child may complete the school year but that's not so it the superintendent has to approve it. Yeah. You know what I mean? But the way the sentence reads, it mean it reads like if the parents make the request

027then it then they could complete the school year. So I think Lauren was right by adding um you um with superintendent approval or with the approval of the superintendent. So let me let me uh offer another language because the the one through six are all subsets of the sentence above with a colon. So whatever stricture we want should be in the sentence above with a colon. Non-resident students may be allowed, with the superintendent's approval, comma, to attend district schools without tuition under one of the following circumstances. Y then that really connects it. I like that. Anything more? No. Thank you, Matthew, for allowing me to speak. Thank you. Always on page two, evidence of residency. My reading of that is it seemed quite redundant to the residency requirements of the uh of the other document

0285112. So this is a little different though. Um the difference here has to do with these are students that potentially do not live within the district. Um and we're determining that they don't live in the district. Like maybe they're not forthright with information. Um that would never happen. So that's that's what this particular paragraph really kind of addresses. Um, but as we were going through, we found that the language was it it wasn't clear. Like from a family's perspective, I it needed to be cleaned up just a little bit so that it made sense to anyone who is reading this. You don't see it redundant. I don't see it redundant. Right. So, this is basically saying we're not sure you're you're truly a resident of Graten. we need additional documentation or we need you to

029prove that. Um, so where the other one is really about registering students and how we register students, this piece here is really about students who are already currently within our district, but we have some questions about, you know, the accuracy of of the residents. It's almost like it's like that complaint that we got about the basketball player where he had some questions about the residency of the student, right? And we're we're on evidence of residency, right? Right. Yes. Can you see that on my screen? I just want to make sure. Yes. Yep. Okay. Y can you make it a little bigger? Yeah. Let me see. If not, okay. No, I I can hold on. Okay, that's okay. There we go. Oh, wow. All right. Thank you. I'm just going to pull it up so you

030can see it better. Okay. How's that? That sounds fine. Okay. And so again, there's no real change to the content here other than Okay. Anybody have any more comments? Nope. I'm still reading. Oh, take your time. Take your time. Yeah, I'll just say I I think this just helps uh you know, tighten up the language and clean up any ambiguities that may have been perceived in the past. So, I have no objection. I'm in support of the uh changes as I stand. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Looks good. Thank you, Lauren. Thank you. So, it looks like I'm just going to make some quick adjustments on the on page one of this page to include with the superintendent approval. Um, and then on Right, that's it for that. And then just that tightened language there. Yeah. and

031send it to me again because I'm looking at the word why here and I'm questioning about you, you know, explaining why. I think it should be explaining that, but I really I I really want to look at it just to perfect it. Okay, I won't change any of the meaning. Sounds good. Thank you. Okay, don't go away yet, Lauren. We job's not done, so the paper's signed. So, uh, if there's no more discussion, I'll, uh, ask all those in favor of adopting P5118, non-resident attendance, for, uh, approval to the full board of education for first reading. All those in favor, please indicate by saying I. I. I. We have passed this three to zero to zero. I thank you. And I just note for the record uh that Bev joined because if you were here

032at the beginning, I missed it. So, no, I wasn't. Okay. So, here's here's the plan. If you guys are in accord uh I know we need to take up evaluation athletic coaches. Uh that that that's still on. Uh Susan, yes, I see Mark Romano is with us. Oh, hi Mark. Thank you. So I want to it's it's now 6:30. I want to limit discussion on AI to a maximum of an hour so that we definitely have time to get to Mark and I think that's okay. Can we do Mark right now so he doesn't have to stay? I know he probably has a very busy afternoon because I think there's just one if that's what I was going to say. Why is Mark sticking around through AI? That's not not I'm fine with switching up.

033Would somebody like to make a motion to uh suspend the order and move up uh old business uh item A for discussion in U now just so moved so moved Thomas second okay is there any discussion hearing none I'll ask for a vote to suspend the order all those in favor of suspending the order say I I uh all those opposed. No. So the orders change three to O to O. Lauren, you're welcome to stay. Oh, she's left. Okay. I was going to talk, but I guess she had other fish from He did. I I apologize for interrupting. I just wanted to make sure that Mark felt comfortable staying after his conversation to talk AI as well. I'm more than happy to engage with him. So yeah, no problem. Yeah, Mark, I I didn't mean

034that you shouldn't stay. I just meant that you could split if you wanted. No, thanks. We get we actually got a lacrosse game going, so that works for me. Okay. Well, welcome Mark and thank you very much for coming back. Uh could we put up the document? Uh hang on. This is P4115.3 evaluation. I know I just Matthew's husband has his organization and he is disorganized. Did Mark come back with anything that the committee asked him to come back with? Well, that's what I we we have a uh a revised version of it. Okay. Uh if we could put it up on the screen, that would be a place point of departure. Does that answer your question, Beth? if if I didn't see it. So when I when you put it up, I'll take a

035look at it. Okay. Do do you have that Kate or Susan? Um is is Kate there? Yep. Um I have the one you sent me was the the one I sent you now was the one I did this afternoon on AI. Yeah, that's the only one I have. That's the only one you have, Mark. You don't have the policy, do you? Um, is that the one I most recently sent you, right? Yes. 4115.3. Yeah. See, if you could email it to Kate, she'll be able to put it up. And I think that should be the routine next time. Does um Joyce send you the agendas with all the attachments each week? you and Mark. I don't believe so. I'll ask her to do that so that you always have it. I usually remind her, but

036I'll just have her do it as a routine. If you want to give me a minute, I can locate mine and send it to her. And if you don't have it, Mark. Yeah, I'm trying to find it. So, if you have it on hand, it might be quicker. Okay. Give me a minute and I will Thank you. There it is. Yep, I got it. I converted it to Word, too, so that we can edit live. Okay. Thank you, Ian. I appreciate it. Thank you, welcome. So Mark, the it's up to Susan, but Susan, it's up for you to take the ball or ask Mark to explain what he's done. Yeah, I'll go in and and um shift the baton to Mark to explain. Okay, Mark, I'd like you to go over everything as if we

037didn't have the last meeting because if somebody's watching this who didn't watch the last meeting, they'll be able to have the full context. All right, one second here. So basically the talks in here this is just the policy and you know the evaluation of coaches which is done by the athletic director or uh whoever the coach's immediate supervisor would be uh could be the principal or or whoever it may be but it just talks about the purpose of it what the evaluations the purpose of the evaluation um I don't if you can scroll down a little bit on that you recommendations moving forward basically specific to the um the coach, you know, after being evaluated by the athletic director. Um there's also some I also have some stuff I'd like to input into it as

038well as part of the process like kind of defines what an athletic coach is uh clearly laid out and how they're evaluated. um which I don't know if it's in that part. Uh part of the process would be the coach would do the self-evaluation of themselves and then go over that with the you know administrator or athletic director who who would be doing the evaluation um just like what we do with teachers. Yep. And administrator when we do evaluations and this should be done um on an annual basis normally after the season has been completed. Um, also, you know, coaches are evaluated any point in time during different athletic contests, whether it's by the athletic director, other administration. Um, so, you know, I want to mention that as well. They're probably critiqued more so than

039anyone. You know, there's always that uh Monday morning quarterback where everybody thinks they know better and can do better. Um, those types of things. But you know the the overall evaluation of a coach um like I said is done annually uh done within 90 days of the completion of the season. Um and then recommendations are made from that point whether you know uh whether it's a support plan which would be outlined by you know the person doing the evaluation you know areas of improvement um as well as you know whether they're going to continue um as a athletic coach or not that would be up to part of that evaluation process um like I said or an improvement plan we want to continue having them as an athletic coach but there are some areas of

040improvement. That's also part of the evaluation process. Or if there would be, you know, termination of the coach, um, which again would have to be done within that 90-day period and, you know, having a having that discussion that one-on-one discussion with them about the process. So that that's kind of where we're at. And um what is the appeals process if the coach is not happy with it? So a coach um basically there would be a appeal and a hearing and this is something that you know would be part of like our regulations I think you know there would have to be you know a um there's you know if the coach served in the same capacity for three or more years so going into their fourth year they would they would be considered uh coaching

041tenure and then they would have the right to for a due process hearing um which they would have to put in writing to to the athletic director and superintendent. Questions from Ian or Andrea or Bev? I I don't think so. Is that standard practice? Yes. Yep. It's actually uh it's been in play basically since 2015. Yeah, I'm satisfied with this. Um, I think, you know, good minor adjustments were made and and seems to cover the basics and like Mark said, a lot of the details um would be covered in regulations. I look forward to getting a chance to see those when they're ready. Yeah. Are are you planning to look over the regulations tonight, Susan, and and Mark, or we're going to come back for that? It's not We don't have any authority over it.

042It's just been the superintendent's given us the privilege of commenting on it, and she sometimes even thinks we have something useful to say. So, Mark, I think the best thing to do is to pull the regulations together so you and I can look at it and then I can share it with the board. Sure. Just for them to see. You know, it's kind of interesting. That's sometimes where we'll put the documents that the self-evaluation what that looks like just like I when we did our new evaluation plan for teaching I sent it out to the board so you could see the whole package of what the expectation is and um and it really does mirror what we're doing currently with the teachers although the teachers plan is a little more because it's a fullear plan.

043There's a intro, a beginning, and a midyear and an end year. And yeah, and part of the regulations too will outline like the the specific of what an athletic coach is and and about the employment and evaluation. It'll be more specific in there and it defines things that so it does make things clearer for you. Yep. Yeah. So I think once that's shared with you, you it'll even give you a clear understanding of exactly the evaluation process and how they're viewed and things like that, the hearing process, so on so forth. Okay. Uh are we going to give everybody all the time they need if there are any more comments, observations? No, I just want to say thank you thank Mark for the efforts and everyone on this and I think we got a good

044foundation here to build on. Yeah. And again, just send it to me for comma commas as it were. Yeah. And and it may be perfectly fine. I But I did see one place where there was there needed to be an extra comma, but I'll I'll The English teacher always the English I know. You know, once you're off the board, we can hire you as our chief grimarian. maybe department of grammar. Anyway, uh I do that for free. I know. I know. So, all those who are in favor of passing um P 4115.3 evaluation of athletic coaches as submitted for transmission to the full board of education for first reading. Please indicate by saying I. I. I'm sorry. We did have the first reading. And we were going to I think this is the second reading.

045This is the second reading. So I amend that. Uh Joan, it's it's transmitting P4115.3 evaluation athletic codes for a second reading. All those in favor indicate by saying I. I I I just have a question. I know that I've had uh and maybe this isn't relevant here, but I know that I've had several conversations uh with another board member about, you know, the intent of of um why why a child participates in sports to begin with and and it isn't just to win, you know, it's to build character. And you know, Mark, how do you how do you account for that? You know, like what if you got this guy that's just get in there, you know, win win and and forget about, you know, you know, the kid that really doesn't play well, but

046just I mean, doesn't play like the star, but you know, has given it his all, you know, like how do you how do you look at the the the coach in terms of that? How how would I? Well, I think number one, I mean, high school sports are are not all obviously about winning to begin with. I mean, you know, we're here we're here just like, you know, an extension of the classroom and an educationbased athletic program, you know, focusing on academics, the character of the students, the academic piece to it. Um, you know, and challen challenging them and developing them through adversity and and and other, you know, and teamwork and things like that. So, you know, I think I have not really truthfully encountered so far, I guess I could say, a coach

047that's all about winning. I think they they understand the development. I mean, you know, you have, uh, teams that are, you know, young, uh, senior heavy, you know, all over all across the board. And I think it's, you know, making a connection with each individual kid, um, working with them, improving their skills, not only as a student athlete, um, but, you know, as a member of the team, whatever team that may be. So, you know, I I think I would have a problem with a coach who, you know, was all about winning because it's unrealistic. I mean, you know, there's some sports you're going to, you know, you're gonna have good season and not so good seasons, but, you know, I'm looking for development. I'm looking for, uh, consistency. I'm looking for uh making our

048athletes into better student athletes. Like that that's what it's about, you know, and hopefully giving them the skills after high school to go on and and use some of the skills that they learned within that sport to be successful in in their life, whatever that may be, whether it's, you know, a trade, a uh a business job, college, whatever it may be. So that's what that's what I'm looking for. Okay. So, someone So, when you get somebody who's like not doing that, h how do you how do you deal with that individual? It's it's you know, like I said previously, like I'm in constant communication with these coaches on a daily basis and and we have honest conversations about where we're at. you know, whether it's each team, you know, we talk after the games,

049you know, every coach sends me an update so I know where we're at, who they're working with. Um, you know, how how we're developing kids. Um, you know, like I said, both as students and as athletes. um you know and and if if we did have a coach who was like that I think having that again being having that honest conversation you know being realistic like if we are having success and we are winning that's great because you know we've also been on the other side of it as well when we're struggling at times and you know I'm looking for development improvement throughout the course of the season you know it's not necessarily about you know this game or that game it's about you know the process and what that looks like and and and

050That's what it's about, holding kids accountable, um, you know, and developing good student athletes. That's what that's what I'm looking for. Okay. So, so you do have those conversations about with the coaches about building character. That's all I 100%. Yep. And actually I uh I just made a connection not to get off topic but you know with uh we had our military game last week and I'm actually working on something speaking of character and leadership um with the National Guard about you know bringing our kids there. They would you know bring them through a course on leadership and and kind of have lunch with them and talk to them about you know what that looks like. And so you know we're we're developing more than just winning winning teams you know that which is again

051unrealistic. We're trying to develop these students and the student athletes and and you know all the fundamentals and things that go along with sports. Okay. Thank you. I see I recognize Ian. I'd like to recognize Ian. Thank you. Um yeah, I just wanted to Mark to to build on what you were saying. I appreciate all that. And I think in other previous conversations about this, you mentioned there'sn't like a student athlete handbook. Is that is that a that's a thing? Yes, definitely. It's online um on our website and on Grant Middle School website. And a lot of these concepts and practices, the more holistic approach to developing character, is that addressed in the handbook in various sections? Yes. Yes, it is. Yep. Okay. Actual code of conduct that the students will sign, right? Okay. Yeah.

052Oh, sorry. Go ahead. No, it's very, you know, it reminds me the teachers also have a professional code of conduct and um, you know, and students have a student code of conduct. Yeah, but that's not holding a coach responsible. No, I'll be I I'll be quiet. But they have a professional code of conduct. Okay. Right. I guess so, so my question would be uh you know is there something that's parallel um for coaches or uh is is something about the coaching the coach's responsibility mentioned in the student handbook? Uh no no the student handbook's specifically made for the students but I do have an athletic coaching handbook which uh I you know we have available through our coaches uh especially when we re when we hire them they get this it outlines everything our policies

053our um you know the code of conduct for coaches um you know all all different things all different aspects so and there's parallel language you know as far as like what you know about character development all that stuff. Yeah, correct. That's parallel stuff in the coach's handbook as well. Yes. Yep. All right. Perfect. Yeah. Yeah. So, I I feel like I'm I'm I'm satisfied with my concerns along those lines and I I wanted to thank Andrea for bringing that up. And Beverly, yeah. Mark, um how do you um encourage a coach like a football coach that has a lot of kids that play? How do you encourage them to try to play everybody on that team? And so students aren't just sitting on the bench all year long, maybe for two or three years, not

054playing, but just sitting on the bench. How do you encourage them to make sure everybody gets a chance to play? You know, honestly, I think that's where um we have different levels of every sports program. You know, you have your freshman, JV, and varsity. So, I I think that's where the opportunities come into play. you know, at the varsity level, it's a little bit different than say a freshman or a JV level where, you know, the freshman level is much about in, you know, at sometimes introduction to the sport. Um, developing, you know, the basic concepts or skills for that sport. And then as you progress, you know, the JV program, you know, we're getting a little bit closer, maybe you're not ready there, but that's where kids are kind of fine-tuning their skills and

055hopefully preparing themselves to make that jump to the varsity level. So, you know, I think Like I said, there's, you know, there's different levels, and I think each kid kind of fits into that level, whether they're a JV kid, a varsity kid, or or in some cases a freshman athlete. So, how does the middle school how does the middle school program weave into the high school program as far they have both inter murals and intracolastic? How does that work as far as playtime? Well, at the at the middle school level, you know, it's it's more, you know, those kids are playing. Um, you know, our our middle school coaches and high school coaches are in communication about, you know, the development of these kids. They work together at certain skills that, you know, the high

056school coach is looking for from the middle school coach and sometime and a lot of times even youth coaches within our community. So it's that constant communication I think at all different levels in the development of those kids and you know trying to get them obviously prepared for the varsity level. So you know we have a lot of sports where kids are just learning this sport. So that's what that freshman or JV levels for and then you know as coaches were developing those skills you know the goal is for them to be varsity players at the end. And you know, there's certain situations for every kid, you know, maybe, you know, maybe they're a sub, maybe they're uh, you know, whatever it may be. So, you know, it's a development process. So, are you saying

057on each level each student gets to play a fair amount of time? That's what I'm Yeah, I I think that, you know, it depends upon the coach and what, you know, the competitiveness of of that program as well and where they see individual kids fit. I mean, you know, high school sports, high school sports aren't about, you know, necessarily everybody getting the same and fair amount of playing time. You know, we're also looking at, you know, the the amount of work that the kids are putting in, how hard they're working in practice, the development that they're making. Some kids are developing faster than others, you know, where they fit in with the program. So, like I said, it's it varies. Um, I would say from uh kid to kid. Mark, may I come in? Come

058in. I think what I'm hearing uh everybody saying is we and these are my words. I'm not speaking for them. It's just what I'm hearing. We're not trying to get into the operational aspect of micromanaging your program. I think what we're talking about is a policy of participation. And um maybe this is something we can that that is may not be related to the evaluation of coaches but I think it's something we might want to discuss at some point with you. Is there a certain threshold whether it's 5% 10% 30% it would vary from sport to sort. Is there a a a a threshold of participation that every graten student could expect that if he or she works hard they will be able to play irrespective a certain amount irrespective of their capacity or agility.

059Uh but I don't think that has to do with the evaluation. So I'll put that in the parking lot. But I would like to comment because the question that you asked Andrea is one that I asked Mr. Romano in an April 5th letter and I'll just read one sentence. The question I think I was getting at at that point is quote, "What is the measure of success for any coach?" And Mark very graciously wrote me a a uh a long letter which included a vision statement, a mission statement, and a philosophy statement. Now, where that goes, I'm not sure. Whether that goes in the uh coach's handbook, whether that goes as a introduction to the policy statement, I'm not clear on. But I want to congratulate Mark for what he he did. I just want

060to be sure that all the coaches have the benefit at the time of their employee and every year seeing what he did. Mark, can you some feedback? Sure. So, I actually updated what I sent you as well. So, and when I send you the regulations, I because I weaved in um after talking with Susan a little bit, you know, our values of the school and RISE. So, I kind of weave those into the mission statement as well. And I'll share that with you uh with the regulations. But yeah, no, every year we review this. We have a coaches meeting for every season, fall, winter, and spring. And these are the topics that we go over. Part of it is the mission, you know, our mission statement, what we can expect um you know, what we're

061looking to accomplish um in our values as coaches. So some guidance from from my chair and also get Susan's input on whether uh we would be trespassing into operations if we were to view the vision and mission statement as policy as as a policy thing that directs our coaches on what the district's expectations are. Uh I I have no quarrel with what what Mark's doing. I I just not sure it and it may already be doing it and I'm just ignorant of the coach's handbook. But what to what be what I've heard everybody say is we do have expectations beyond the athleticism and they there's some place that they should be expressed. Right. Right. Well, I would say that the next step is Mark and I will review the regulations and the vision statements and

062we can certainly pass them out to the board and we can actually talk about it in a board note. Well, I I would like a committee I would like our committee to have an opportunity to visit with you on the regulations before it goes to the board because okay, every once in a while you've said to us, well, that's not a bad idea. So, I know I do want to have that input. Matthew, can you send us that letter that you're referring to? Yes, I I I I did send it to everybody. Uh I sent it on March 4th, I'm sorry, April 5th, rather, to Mark with copies to Andrea, Ian, Bev, and Susan. All right. His email to me [Music] on April 4th, I'm sorry, Friday, April 4th. That same evening, he wrote back

063to me with copies to Susan, Andrea, and Ian and Bev. Yeah. So, if you don't if you can't find them, I will be able to get copies to you. I do I do recall that exchange and I did I did review it at the time, and I appreciate your efforts, both Matthew and Mark, on that. Uh, I did find the communications enlightening and insightful. I remember those. Yep. Thank you. I gota tell you, Mark, I was really impressed with what you gave me and the fact that you've gone beyond that. Uh, kudos to you. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. And if you said it again, I have no idea what what happened. I don't know. Okay, we'll take care of that. Andrea, don't you Are we ready for a vote on this? Yeah. Don't you

064think? Ian, anything more or should we take a vote on? No, I'm good. Let's proceed. Yeah. Okay. So, um, right. We voted on moving it. We moved in the agenda. So, now we're voting on Yeah. Uh we're asking for all those in favor of sending policy, not because right now it says policy and and regulations. We're deleting the word regulations, just policy on to the U full board, policy P4115.3 evaluation of athletic coaches onto the full board for a second reading. All those in fo in favor, please say I. I I So that passes three to zero to zero. Susan, uh would the regulations be an agenda item for our June meeting or do you need more time? Um Mark, maybe you and I will figure out a time when I'm coming over to the

065high school anyway and we can sit down and even go over it with Matt, too. Yep. So we'll look at our calendars and if I can get it in, you know, before then I can certainly bring it to you guys. Okay, that sounds wonderful. Mark, have a wonderful evening. Yeah, thank you. We got to get out to this lacrosse game. Well, thanks for moving me up on agenda. Thank you. Appreciate it. Have a good night. Good night. And I need to mark a note to get B41. No, not the not the thing to get the email exchange to Mark. email exchange with Mark to Andrea. Thank you. Thank you. Did AI re write the next policy on AI? Um, you'll have to ask. You'll have to ask. In a way, it did and I'll get

066to that in a minute. It is now 7:04. Would you like to keep going or would you like a five minute break because some people I want to keep going. Me too. I haven't had dinner. I'm fine. I'm fine. We'll just keep rolling. Yeah. Uh Kate, could you put up the document? Let me tell you a little bit about the background of this document that you're going to see. Um and Clint, you just pop in whenever you want. Clint and I and Jod Goler. Jody is the policy person at CABE met uh last month to try to discuss the framework around which a policy could be clothed. Uh there are to my knowledge only two AI policies in the state. There may be more but I'm not aware of them. One is Weston and the

067other one is H. The Connecticut technical education and career system has a student use of artificial intelligence technology policies. Uh I did include these to you in a packet, a background packet that I sent out last week. Uh their comments were not incorporated into what you'll see tonight. So the what you see in green except for the word and challenges which I inserted is what Clint and Ann Marie put together as a first pass well before Clint and Jod and I got together based on what Clint Jod and I did to the best of my capacity. I put together and everything that's in red represents u the first paragraph in red that says uh the policy establishes guidelines uh that I added to the statement of needs and purposes um and it is redundant between

068the two paragraphs in green and the red in uh in in the f first paragraph below. I did not want to massage what Clint and Marie did on my own. I wanted us to have the all three paragraphs for us to work on as a group. Then what I did to answer your question, Susan, after working at putting together a policy for two weeks, my wife said this about artificial intelligence. Why don't you use artificial intelligence? So I did. I went used four different platforms. And I share this with Clint. I used four different AI platforms and asked them I finally found a query asked them to help me formulate a policy for appropriate student use of technology for a K12 institution etc etc and I got four different versions and then I spent time

069using it the way I hope our students will use AI not as a solution but as part of a process of educating themselves and I put together all the rest of the red based on the assemblage of those four platforms. So yes, I used artificial intelligence and it's a lot smarter than I. Matthew, I think in your first paragraph you have leaning on the third sentence. I think it should be learning the which par the green or the the the green right there. Right. That's a typo. That's a typo on my part. That's a typo. It should be learning. Thank you. I missed that. Uh, you do not want to hire me to be your secretary. So, Ma Matthew, I apologize for diving in, but h how do we want to structure this conversation? Would

070is it your preference that that the committee review kind of this document that you've put together or or or something else? Because I I Well, okay. what I had in mind. Uh, I thought I'd communicated it, but sometimes I don't do as well as I hope. I would like us to to define what things are important that would be in a policy. And and those the ones that I'm recommending are the the uh starting on page two. Can you go up to page two, Kate? So, we start out with a mandated policy review, ensuring information accuracy and reliability. How do we want what do we want our policy to consist of? If we're successful tonight at a at a at a reasonably deep dive on categories we want to develop, then the language that we

071use under them will be a lot easier to deal with. So, I would like to get our our skeleton or to use grammatical terms, I'd like to take the sentence apart and find out where the prepositional phrases are that that we need to hang the sentence together. Am I making any sense to you guys? Ian, please. I didn't get that, but in the conversation to follow, I'm sure it will come up. Ian. Um I'm I'm just kind of taking this all in for the moment. Um so I mean I I I kind of get the general gist of what you're saying, but um just kind of why don't we just take a look at the policy and just read it over not to go to to massage it for grammar or anything. Just just say,

072do we think we need a mandated policy review as a very first pass of reading it once? Is there anything in there that is really bizarre and needs to come out? Something that needs to be added? Let's just see if we can put the close on this policy one piece at a time and then later. This can take us a couple of months because we've got a lot of other things to do besides AI. It's going to take us a couple of months. My goal is to have it to the uh board for first reading around September, October, November. It's a lot of work. Then the next one is ensuring information accuracy and reliability. Does that does that seem an important thing to the to the committee members? I think in this day and age

073is probably more relevant than any other day and age in history. Yeah. So that's what I'd like us to do today. This is our get acquainted. This is our get acquainted visit with a very rough first draft. Very very rough first draft. Well, I guess I guess you know overall like we should just discuss intent, you know, as far as like um you know, what are we hoping to accomplish with this? I mean, it seems like this is written as a way of like we're assuming AI is going to be incorporated and used by students and staff alike. Um Okay. Well, that is, you know, and that's a big jump in itself right there. That is what we started on the first page. If we can go back up to the top. Okay. Was the

074statement of need and purpose. I'm not satisfied with either the green or the red. Quite honestly, it's just a point of departure. This looks like the cave policy in green. Is that the cade policy in green? No, this is that's anmarie and Clint if I understand correctly. And and you are actually both correct if I may. It is Ann Marie and Clint's work which was highly influenced with the permission of Cabe to use as guidance as a first cut. Okay. And when I spoke to Jody today, he told me that based on our meeting, he's going to revise it to to flesh it out in the in the strategy that that I put out to you. So, they are revising that now as a function of our our work together. He's going to be inviting

075you to join Cabe any time now on policy. Well, he has spoken to me and Clint about possibly collaborating with them. Yes. Oh, nice. On an article. Yes. Oh, fantastic. Yes. Anyway, so you're you're absolutely right, Ian. Uh we need a statement of needs and purposes. And so if you'd like to take a look at that and I'm open if if you if if we individually want to take a crack at our different visions of what a statement of needs and maybe we separate them a statement of need and a statement of purpose. No, I don't care. Whatever the group wants. uh maybe we want to each work and do our best and then bring them together and sit down around a table and have a live meeting and and and thrash it out. So

076the other thing that came in our packet was the regulations on this and it seems to have a lot of overlapping language with the policy that I'm seeing in front of me on the screen. Um the initial thing that we did with with um in our meeting the the art that paper the the first draft of what I did was called elements of and because it was AI that did it AI threw in both policy issues and regulation issues. I've tried to take the regul regulation issues out of this, but if it that I've been not been successful, uh then identify what we've got in here that's regulations and we'll take them out. You are in charge of operations. I'm not trying in any way to No, I'm not suggesting that. It just I do

077see some commonalities in these documents that I have in front of me with what you put together. Well, there are some there are some and that's that's what we need to work out. No, you know, and to be fair though, I mean, with policy and regulation, they dovetail. They do interlock. So, to have some overlap or some echoes, you know, in the language, I don't think is necessarily harmful. Yeah. Just like what when it comes to like, you know, how they're going to be implemented and how they're referred to, I think that's where it gets technical. But overall, I think it's fine to have some parallel structure there. So maybe we have we have about 45 minutes left to my drop deadad time unless you all leave earlier. Um should we just take a look

078through this and just I can listen to your comments on section by section and take notes and you can take notes and then we'll take it up again for a a portion of the next meeting and we'll just work our way through it slowly. I want to do it right the first time. Well, I Matthew, I think the statement of need and purpose I I think that's fine in my opinion. Yeah, I do too. Um, I'm not satisfied with it. And what about you, Ian? What do you think about the three paragraphs, the two in green and the one in red? Now, this is kind of like where my own inner commodence starts to come out. Um I'm not uh not a huge fan of the AI alto together. So I'm kind of struggling with

079this and to just on a foundational level. Um but I understand it is a thing that's everywhere now. So it's it's something we have to manage. Um so I'm just trying to you know regulate my own internal biases. I'll tell you as soon as we get this one done I'm going to bring up some other still three to five years out. Lint's gonna smile. We're gonna have to deal with quantum computing, but not not this year. Well, what don't about it, Matthew, about the the green? Is it you have a problem with the two green sentences? The two greens are the paragraphs that uh that were based on Cab that were put together by Anarie and Clint. Yeah. And red was one that I had done. They are redundant. They need to be tightened up.

080If you want Clint and Ian and anybody else to have a go at massaging them, I I can do the same. I'm not trying to dodge the work. Uh see if we can come up with a better statement of need and purpose. I'm all for it. Maybe that's an assignment we want to assign ourselves for the next meeting is everybody comes back with a statement of need and purpose or not. What? Didn't Clinton and Amarie write these two paragraphs? They they Clint, you explain. Sure. So, again, Bev, we uh we lifted heavily from relying on the CABE uh foundational policy, which those two which those two green paragraphs are very similar to. uh Ann Marie and I sat down and made modifications that we deemed appropriate and I also ran it by many of our

081instructional technology coaches that are often teachers uh from elementary through high school levels. So, but what we know what we know from our what we know from our conversations with uh Jody is this was written the green was or the cade piece was written in 2023 and in terms of a technologies evolution that's like looking at a document from 1924. It it needs to be updated. So, how do you want to proceed? Do you want to take apart this one piece and look at it or do you just want to glance at the entire document? How I want to guide the group but I don't want to direct the group. Well, well maybe a 20,000 foot approach for this opening session like where maybe just read through it and kind of you know share the

082intent and like what the intended outcome would be with some of these policies you know like what are we trying to address in each section. Okay. What do you think, Glenn? First for me. Do you mind if I take a minute or two just to kind of share my guidance around that 20,000 foot view because I think that is smart, Ian? Oh, no objection. Great. So, I'd love to hear what you have to say, Clint. Great. I I will try to be brief and and I'd much prefer a dialogue than a than a than a lecture, but this is changing so quickly and and I am not an expert and I question anyone who says they are an AI expert or in this particular case a generative AI because we can start peeling back the

083terms as I did with the board last month and so forth. Um but this is changing extremely quickly. Uh so that is a that is challenge number one. Uh challenge number two is part of this overall document and a lot of what we're talking about and discussing is certainly policy, it's certainly regulations, it's certainly curriculum, it's certainly instruction, it's certainly professional development and and so forth. So piecing those things out and in may or may not be a fool's errand and and may been something that we don't want to take too much time doing right now. But again, I these are things that I think we should be considering and discussing because that is very much changing the nature of those pieces. Um, I guess where my mind goes next too is one of the

084critical pieces of this and I'm happy that Matthew included it is a regular review of this. Um, many of our policies as this committee knows very well have not been looked at 5 10 15 years and often time there is absolutely no reason to. And that's great because of the nature with which this is changing and changing so quickly. I think it it's critical that we do have a commitment to or I would recommend a commitment to this being looked at and modified at a at a semester at a yearly at a regular basis just because of the rate with which things are changing. And and I guess the final piece I would say before I I would want to comment on some of these individual things. One of the biggest issues that we have

085right now is permission. It's teachers are looking for permission on how they can and should be using many of these tools with students and they're looking for that permission because they they don't want to run a foul of any rules. So, I think we need to at least have an agreed upon set of rules or norms or policies so that they can get that permission that they seek. And I also see students and parents doing the same thing. Many of the conversations that I've had with our students um run the gamut of uh yeah, I use it and it is what it is and I don't admit to using it all the way through. I don't use it just because I do not want to be labeled with, you know, a cheating label or something

086similar to that. And then of course there's different versions of that throughout the the spectrum of that. Um and and and I've had the same conversations with parents who are trying to help their their child write college applications or or uh um apply for a job or a scholarship or something like that. There's a lot of unknown out there and helping people with permission uh and making this part of our regular practice so they know the rules of the road would be the takeaway that I would want for a first cut for this knowing full well that this is going to continue to change and we're going to have to continue to look at this regularly over time. So, I'll pause there for a second. Thank you for letting me at least make that statement.

087So, um, Matthew, would you, since you've been kind of deeply, uh, steeped in this, would you feel comfortable kind of just, you know, doing like a brief summary of each little section of like what what it's Sure. attempting to accomplish? Sure. If that's if that's the way you go, if that's the way you go, I'm fine fine with that. Yeah. Andrea, this is this may be new to you. What would you like to do? I I'd like to hear what you what Matthew just said. Um and you know again here we're looking at uh ethical behavior and you know you know we have to just accept the fact that there's this wonderful broad way of a new way of learning and and uh you know like to put limitations on it. Of course, you know,

088the bottom line is hey, do your own thinking. use it to to uh expand your thinking to the the student, you know, not to just copy down, you know, some some ideas and and get an A, you know, you really use it to I mean, can you imagine the the u the doors that this is going to open things that kids never even thought of before? Just, you know, so I want to hear what you have to say because that's what I had to say. Well, I'll be glad to share what I put together, but I'm not taking ownership of it. I had a little help. Okay. So, the first thing I had going down to the next Well, we we I know we need to work on needs and purposes, but I think is

089there agreement that that's something we need to do. Do we need to discuss that anymore or can we go on? I would be happy to volunteer to take a shot at combining these three paragraphs, Matthew, to help upgrade them based on your feedback and keeping the intent of it. Okay. If with your permission. With my permission. And Jody is Jody has volunteered his time. We're not paying him. I mean, volunteered his time to help in this process because he sees graten as a beacon for other schools. And I would volunteer to rely heavily on Jody to be part of that collaborative effort. Yeah, I'd be damn fool not to. Okay, so page two. Uh, Caitlyn, thank you. Okay, here's the mandated policy. Uh, I wrote down every two years. If you ask me why I

090said two years instead of 18 months or 12 months or 30 months, I would just say, "What me worry?" I don't know. It's it's a point of departure that may be something we will leave in as two years from now and then in six months when we finish this or five months when we finish this we may have learned something new that requires it to be every 12 months or every 36 months every 24 hours. I have a feeling this is going to take off way way way beyond two years. Well, this is but this is to review our policy area every year. My my guess my personal guess is to roll this out from the time we decide to roll it out with all of the professional development we're going to do across all

091the disciplines that we teach. I think it's only reasonable to think that it's going to be three or four years before everybody's on board and everybody's comfortable with it. It's going to be tougher than witten wisdom for sure. Anyway, any comments on the mand the need for a mandate cycle? Shall I go on? No. No, I'm in full agreement of that for all the reasons stated. Okay. So, there is no hierarchy. I mean, the the the way paper requires me to put things in an order and you think of an order. This is not an this is not an ordinal listing of things. Okay? This is not one, two, three. We can move these pieces around. accuracy of information and reliability of information. Well, holy potato pancakes. AI sweeps up statements of Senator Calhoun justifying

092slavery as Godmandated and that'll be in the database and and that may come up when somebody does a search and it will be accurate to the extent that it reflects what Senator Calhoun says. But God help the student who takes that as the gospel. So we really need to ensure not only that the information is accurate but that the student understands the context in which the statement is accurate. But just because it's accurate doesn't mean it's true. This is this is critical thinking. This we this is going to be really help us teach critical thinking because if we don't we're in trouble. source validation. By that I mean there are lot lots of vendors, some free, some not free. And we really need to monitor and we may end up with a standing technology committee

093in three or four years, God knows, but we need to monitor which what we're going to allow into our system. The same way we monitor we don't let pornography into our system. We have to monitor that evil players and there will be some don't get into our system. critical evaluation skills. We're going to have our teachers, we're going to have to train our teachers how to use AI so they can teach the kids how to use AI. The feedback loop where we get all of our stakeholders to give us feedback on how they're doing while they're using this. The tool selection, I don't know what the vetting process is, but Clint's going to figure that out. If not tonight, soon. It's in the works. Pardon? It's in the works. In the works. Bias mitigation. We're

094going to first of all have to define what we mean by bias. This is something I don't want to take too much time, but if I may, Mr. Schulman, the the bias mitigation in these different foundational models is a huge topic right now just because of the political associations in the domestic foundational models as well as open- source models coming from other countries around the world. Some that may or may not be seen as friendly or not with our country etc etc. So there are this is a very hot topic especially when you start talking about other models being built on these foundational models and carrying those biases through that. Uh especially since some of these companies don't even know how and why their models are acting as if they are. I just leave that

095there. I'm sorry to just drop that and run. But that is a this is a very big piece and we could spend days if not weeks or months unpacking this bias mitigation and I value it greatly. I just don't know if I could tell you exactly how or when we're going to be able to do that. Yeah, I don't know. Let's just pick on bias mitigation because it's complex. We could end up with two pages on bias mitigation alone. And when you have a policy that ends up 18 or you know 16 or 18 pages, it becomes dysfunctional as a policy. So we first have to master what we're doing and then we have to contract it. There's a cobalistic term for that that I'll spare you, you know. Okay. Any more questions about accuracy

096and reliability? Are there any aspects of either of those words that you think we should be considering beyond the few that I wrote here? No, I think we're off to a good foundation here. Um uh one it seems like we do have these big categories and and in there is going to be as far as like bias mitigation and and and uh source validation. One of my concerns you know as a teacher would be um I guess vetting of of of sources you know uh typically in the past you know you've had you have bibliographies you have work cited pages and attributions within the text. But if someone's using AI as a research tool, how is that AI content that they're going to pull information from attributed to the sources? You know, to to hearken

097back to to Matthew's um example of Calhoun, right? Was that Matthew that said Calhoun? Yeah, I did. Yeah. Um, you know, even if like how do how do we know how do we how is a student or a teacher uh able to trace back to to validate that the source, you know, who actually did the original work that is being pulled from and cited by the AI? You've just helped us tremendously because I understood validation or I understand validation to be different from attribution. And the fact of the matter is we need both of them. So we may need to add attribution as another uh thing. Attribution would say I used AI and its source was I like perplexity because perplexity gives me the sources for each knowledge knowledge or value claim it makes. It

098gives a source that I can look at. And we have to teach our students that they have to go beyond what it gives us to look at the sources so they can make judgments about about whether the information is u appropriate but attribution certainly needs to be added to our list. What do you think Clint? I can live with that for now. Okay. Okay. Any any other comments because because that helped very much. Ian, thank you. Well, that's all I got for now, but I'm glad to help. Andrea, shall I go on to the next one? Yes. To enhance acquisition, to enhance knowledge acquisition and critical thinking. The district will one, two, three, four, four things. We need foundational AI literacy education. What might that look like? It might look like in a classroom, I'll

099pick my areas of expertise, social studies or something, dividing our 20 kids into five groups of four and having them choose a topic of social studies and then have each of the four students in that group work independently to find out about that topic through AI and then they compare their notes so they can see what a great range of distribution is. And then the teacher can go in and talk about attribution, validation, critical thinking. So we have a we have an exercise at the very beginning of the of the year. That's just one example of a way of looking at literacy education and that's definitely in the lesson plan phase which is even a step away from regulations. So that's really where the teacher, you know, needs to plan those lessons. And certainly we

100can provide professional learning around that. And that's also operational. And that and that that ranges when making sure that that each discipline figures out how it's going to align, right? Uh its curriculum curricular goals and intended learning outcomes. And it may be a different platform for mathematics than it would be for social studies. Exactly. If I may make make a suggestion, um I I almost would change this large chunk with its four bullets to be more of focused on the first bullet which then discusses exactly that um you know with some type of language that talks about the unique differences around curriculum instruction and assessment within the the domains that we're talking about, you know, science, math, social studies, etc., etc. when we start getting into personalized learning and I I I struggle with differential

101learning styles because I don't I think there's not real empirical evidence that says that there are learning styles for people. We could put a pin in that and talk about that some other day. But some of these other pieces I think are to Susan's point a bit far a field and are moving into in you know curriculum instruction assessment teaching and learning right um frame that I'm sorry let me just ask Clint one question then it's going to be Ian Stern how would you frame that in terms of a of a subtitle um this students this this foundation thing as I conceive so I I I I would turn this entire section into the first bullet. That's what I would do. And I would leave the remaining three bullets, you know, and maybe expand again

102and make it general across all of our domains, but then leave the rest of these three to, you know, curriculum instruction that we're doing, not as a policy or regulation. But that's just my first take on this. So, if we move ahead in that direction, I wanted to work offline with you on that because happy that. But I'm not sure how to if if this committee is comfortable with that, of course. Yeah, Ian, I I don't want to keep you, Kim. I appreciate it. Um, yeah, I just wanted to kind of build on that. I think there is I I agree that there's a lot here that kind of overlaps into regulation as far as the technicality goes. But again, I think we can kind of split the middle and maybe just have some language

103in the policy that kind of indicates these are areas of concern and interest that we look to the regulations to to guide more specifically. And then to that end uh hearing Clint and Susan talk about you know and I'm a firm believer in this as well that uh you know the teachers should lead the way on the technicalities like on the ground like you know getting educated on what's what what how the tool can be used how to validate the tool how to you know source attributions but also how it applies to their particular subject matter. So maybe there might be an opportunity for like creating a digital literacy committee of teachers that would also have like a little subcommittees inside that for each like major subject category. Uh, so whatever commonalities of of AI

104that, you know, transcend subject matter, they could all kind of, you know, have consensus and work together on, but then when they need to break off and deal with the particulars, you know, they're they're all kind of in the same room and in the same conversation. Um, I I think there's, if I may comment, I think there's real value in that, Ian. Um there's a struggle in the community around whether we should be teaching AI literacy or whether we should be using AI building AI skills in in service of literacy within English and science and math and social studies and and and the like. So it it's it's somewhat of a word play or a word game, but it does words matter and it reinforces what our ultimate goal is. you know, are we trying

105to create a group that's, you know, literate in AI or using these tools and these, you know, playing it like an instrument in service of our learning goals? Well, I kind of see it as a both and situation. Honestly, I can't argue with that. Yeah. Yeah. Because I I think both are necessary and uh will be needed um moving into this brave new world that we are are inexurably entwined already. Yeah, the genie is out of the bottle. Whether we like it or not, I agree. Yeah. And I'm speaking as a child in the 80s and 90s who grew up on the Terminator and T2. So, I got my biases. Talk about biases. You and I are there together. Yeah. So if you think about curriculum development, at least in the classes I took on

106curriculum development, it said you start out with what your intended learning outcomes are and you build backwards to say how you construct something to go from where you are to where you want to be. And that's that was the frame of reference that I had in putting in these various categories. Remember there's no or order to this at this point. And some of what we're just talking about we we will be coming back to in about two minutes when we get to professional education development strategies. Oh Kate, I think that was your prompt. Thank you. Okay. So developmentally based acceptable and unacceptable use of AI. In the draft that I had sent out to you under the title of elements of this one paragraph was followed by the division into lower primary, upper primary, middle,

107and high. And it went into what acceptable and unacceptable uses were. And you can see that's all been deleted because that will go to regulations. We're now just talking about the need for developmentally based acceptable and unacceptable use of AI. If you happen to agree that we need to do that feedback. Um yeah, if I could just jump in, I say um yeah, I think we we do need to address every aspect that that that develops with these things. Um so I mean I think it's a good approach, but as as we move forward, if we find stuff that's too granular, I think we just kind of, you know, cut that out, put it in a spare document and hand it off to the regulation group. Yeah. The big topic around this is the conversation

108really is about cognitive offload. Um, and the example of a calculator comes comes up often in these conversations around what we should be explicitly teaching in skills and what can be offloaded and what's appropriate to offload. Um, and I'm not pretending to even a little bit to be the expert in what we can and cannot offload or what we should be offloading, but that is really where the larger conversation is happening now. Um, and I would assume that would be part of the work that a group doing regulations would be discussing, but certainly teaching and learning conversations that Ann Marie's leading ongoing would include exactly that across all domains or at least that's what I would assume. Susan. Yeah. I I really feel like um that we should take a closer look at this and

109make sure that we have policy and policy, regulations and regulations and then the teaching tools separated out that the challenge is that there as I've said about a lot of things there there are things that are discreetly policy and discreetly operations and there are things that are both both and that's a gray area that we're just going to it's a dynamic tension that we're going to wrestle with and try to come up with what works for Grten and u and I think this section sorry to continue to jump in here but I think this section really grasps that because it's not telling us what is acceptable what's unacceptable and so forth I think Ian said that I think Susan's alluding to that you know this is appropriate and important for policy to dictate that these

110conversations and these decisions are being made but not for policy to dictate it so I I I I like this section doing that and and much too I would probably do the same thing with professional development in the next section where because we know this is changing this is a large shift and it touches across all that we do and it's new and it's happening quickly. I think professional learning opportunities are are are even more critical than ever in this particular area. And this is gonna be a big challenge, Susan, because I don't know that we have the u human capacity. We don't think we have the intellectual infrastructure yet of of people out there who can come in and talk about uh AI. I'm sure there are some, but it's not like getting somebody

111to come in and talk about math curriculum. We have lots of people who are trained in that. It's a new domain. But I think there's a lot of people who are really getting very involved now. I mean, even Dr. Kennedy has taught us a few good lessons and the staff. So, I think there will be even more people out there that can help us navigate this. Well, we're going to need somebody who is skilled not in AI and in math to help our math faculty use AI. And it may not be the same person as the person who is skilled in AI and has strong uh in the sciences or strong in language arts. So, I don't know. I mean, that's really something that we can um work with our organizations to figure out. We're

112all connected very deeply um you know with different organizations that will help us facilitate that. But I don't think that's something that needs to cross over in policy. That's an operational thing. Would you be gracious enough, Susan, to get in touch with CAPS and see if they can Yeah. Beyond Weston and this Connecticut uh technology thing if they're they're aware of any other school districts in Connecticut that are that are either have or are working on this so we can not reinvent the wheel. Sure. Yep. Great. I can even do my CCL, Leaders of Mathematics, the group that I'm very connected to as well. be wonderful. So Ian, if I tell me if I'm wrong, but I I think you might be the person who would be most apt to have a crack at looking

113at what I did under the professional education development strategies and reworking it. Not I mean to have your own crack at it and and see what your experience can bring to the table. Um well uh yeah I wouldn't mind doing that. Um at the I mean where I teach we don't have these tools. Um but I am aware of them and and kind of looking at from a teacher point of view I can anticipate like I think I could kind of anticipate you know what some issues might be in the classroom. But, you know, I would I would actually I think this might be an opportunity for, you know, the board and the staff to kind of have like some cooperative efforts. Um, you know, uh, are you asking me to go through this now

114live or not take it and and kind of like send back with notes? Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I'll be glad to like kind of go through this and take notes on it, but I would also like really just I would love to get some feedback from the on the ground teachers in the district who actually would have to face the imminent reality of handling this stuff or even have had to handle it already. It's a great suggestion. We could put together a workg groupoup plan so this I do believe we need to bring the teachers involved in this too. Yep. And Amarai just to jump right in here. Amarie and I have been discussing this and we have preliminary plans on mapping out how we are going to leverage professional development days, TLI days, uh administrative

115council days and others to be as inclusive as possible and really hitting this hard as a priority next year for professional development activities. Um I have been leading informal teams to date for about the last year year and a half uh around this and we have some wonderful staff that have kind of taken the reigns and and have jumped in and are looking for others to connect to as they educate themselves and use these. We have others that have not touched any of this for reasons that I mentioned before about permission and many in between. the variance that I'm seeing anecdotally across just the professionals in graten which I think is a fair representation of the larger teaching community um is very wide and and we need to have some guaranteed assured experiences but also

116give people permission to dive deeper into how this is impacting their particular domain and then bring that back as you mentioned before Matthew in more of a looped fashion so people are engaged people are having conversations I've tried to be that central repository to link them um and continue to do that through Ann Marie and that is the plan for next year as well and weaving the board of education as part of those conversations next year I think makes perfect sense. So, let me ask what I'm hearing us say. I'm processing what I'm hearing and I'm wondering what you think of the following. Ian would or somebody else, someone amongst us would massage this professional development piece. We'd look at it together and then we would ask Susan whether it's the curriculum not not our

117curriculum committee the curriculum would you have a group of faculty that looks at curriculum whether it's with them or maybe ask the the principles to choose two faculty members from each of their schools that's too many that would be 14 people that's not a small working group one person from each of the schools who would be willing to review our draft policy statement regarding professional development and see what they think of it and then say we're working on it. We just want to get some feedback. That doesn't mean you can't set up your working group, but uh we I'm looking for help for us for the policy as opposed to the implementation. Um Matthew, if I could jump in real quick on that. Absolutely. Well, I I would be glad to kind of do what

118I could do on my own, but um you know, if there's going to be a group of teachers looking at this and kind of putting bringing their input in, I mean, I I would be totally uh fine and on board with like sitting in with them and maybe interacting directly because we could do a lot more in a lot shorter time as far as like trying to get some some collaborative ideas out there. I'd love to hear kind of just like their comments, you know, organically um as we work through. We need to give them something that they can react to. That was the purpose of this tonight, to give you something to react to so we could move forward. I think going to the teachers just to have a brainstorming session when they haven't

119thought about it and have no frame of reference, we use up a lot of time and probably go in a lot of directions. Well, I think what you have here is a lot to think about that they can go through. I think what you produced so far is Yeah, I agree. If you're That's fine with me. I did my best, but uh I know my limitations. I have a couple more comments. I'm trying to be careful of your stated 8:00 goal, too, Matthew. So, I'm trying to be considerate as far as what I bring up and so forth. As far as the next section, the administrative efficiencies through AI goes. I think it's a critical piece to include in a policy. So, I'm super happy that you put it in there. I know you have

120some examples specifically in here, but I would I would have this as a main component of the of the policy uh where that's a regular re uh you know evaluation review process to look at those efficiencies matching the tools with what can be accomplished. And then maybe these examples or a to-do list if you will almost of options gets prioritized outside of the policy in some frame of reference because yes this is we're now moving into kind of an agentic AI world and that's a whole another can of worms that we can get into at some point um which will be very important but it's it's it goes from generative AI which is kind of a chatbased world to actual agents working for you and that is really what this next efficiency round of of

121LLM powered features are going to be about. That's a big deal and that is way beyond the scope of tonight and this policy. Yeah. Okay. So, we've we've talked tonight for just an introduction to the PD. Uh any more comments on the administration efficiencies? Are there any other bullets that we ought to at least be articulating? Because we only have one we only have one more after this. The uh page three has one, two, three, four bullets and there are three more bullets on administrative efficiency. So, seven bullets. Uh again, just a quick skim. I'm I'm thinking like this is a good foundation, a good start point to look at ways that could be implemented in administration and areas of concern you may want to consider um you know, as far as policy guidance goes.

122But then in the process of developing that, I also see a natural organic process of of of pulling stuff out that's too granular and setting it aside and handing it off to a regulation team. One of the intended outcomes or hope not intended hopeful outcomes for me Susan is that if you look at the administration efficiencies that whoever uh I don't know who's doing tracking attendance, but you could speak to that individual and say, you know, we're looking at AI. Have you ever thought that AI could be helped for you in tracking attendance or scheduling optimization, you know, for for classroom scheduling? Or uh certainly Lauren would be somebody who would be wanting to look at that as far as analytics. Uh Rebecca would might want to look at something in communication. So if these

123c if these categories are useful, this gives you the power, Susan. If we if we buy into that, that's an if. Right. If we think it does, if you now have the power to go to your subordinates and say, "This is the direction we're really thinking of going. We have not made any decisions. Give us your input now so we don't screw up." No, you're right. I would like their um you know, feedback on that. Yeah. That's why it's going to take us three, four months on this, guys. It's not going to happen overnight. Okay. The last thing on our agenda, the last one or 753 is supplemental policy elements, ethical use and data privacy, equity and accessibility, stakeholder engagement, an ethical oversight committee. You call it a working group, call it a committee. It

124does not have to be a board committee. It could be something that we say there's a need for an ethical oversight committee. And in your regulations, you may choose or not to say we will have a working group of three people, one from each of the three levels, who will be available to look at any questions of ethics as they show up. The last one be transparency requirements, and I'll shut up and ask Ian to pop in. Um, thank you. Uh, yeah, no, definitely. Again, uh, similar to the administrative stuff you did, Matthew, you know, this this looks like a great foundational document and thing to build off of and and and parse out to regulation as needed. Uh I'm I'm glad you put in the ethical oversight committee idea and um I would just

125suggest yeah that we and you kind of hinted at it having like sort of integrated group uh with administration, teachers and maybe some board representation there as well that could you know be working in concert to deal with on the ground you know emergent uh situations. We will have to go up to a 23 member board though to cover all the terms. So I I I do not disagree with anything that's been said on this section. My only suggestion on this, maybe I would take out stakeholder engagement and maybe transparency requirements and make those a graten unique committees or boards, what have you. But with the lift that these are going to require and the fact that I think they're very important, I'd almost love to see us working with CABE to almost start with

126a state by body for some of these because I think an ethical use and data privacy working group committee and so forth at the state of Connecticut level that is representative of and includes members of teachers and parents and others from our community could be a good way to start with this one because I think there's not a huge amount of expertise in this to get started, but two just the amount of work and thoughtfulness and so forth that's going to need to go in this. So, if we have the ear of CABE, which I think we do, and we want to make a recommendation like that, and that could be an action items that come out of some of that work, I value these things. I just don't know if an individual school district

127has the capacity to take all of this important work on tomorrow. Okay. So, one, give me a second, Ian. Um, Cabe is uh Jody is also chair of a state education committee on on electronic technology. So, he has he has the ear of SED as well, which is helpful. Um, before I turn the last word over to Ian, I would like to invite everybody who's online tonight to look this over and write down whatever notes you have. Try to take some notes and send them to me and I will compile them so that I will try to compile them faithfully and share them with you all as we move ahead. Ian, you're up. Uh yes, thank you. Um no, I just want to I thank Clint for his comments there and I'm glad to know

128that uh there's maybe some movement and interest on a state level that that may be a more efficient approach and um you know as far as like a lot of these things are going to be universal concerns across all the districts in the state. Um so yeah, I would be in support of of uh moving that direction as well. Would you guys have any difficulty with uh Clint and I having another meeting with uh Jody? I I went ahead on my own. I went ahead on my own, but I would like I would like your endorsement of this process. By all means. Yes, absolutely. And I'll check with CAPS to see if I can get anything from them as well. Yep. I'm fine with it. Okay. Obviously, I'll let you know what we're doing. And

129uh Clint, I would like to chat with you tomorrow to see if we can set up a appointment with you and I had a few questions that h happy to do it and I this is a huge growth area in our collective work together and uh could even be a cave presentation at the Mystic Marriott or something like that. So it sure could. There's a lot of options. They're collecting those, you know. Well, the Jod already put in a uh I can't think of the name of the woman who's organizing it, but he said he's already sent in uh a presentation by the three of us at at CABE as a possibility. And if if that happens, I would be uh I may may not be on the board at that point, but I would

130really like it if we do that at CABE to have Ian and Andrea be there with us. Susan if she wants. Okay. Sure. Why not? If we get selected, I volunteer to pay for my own housing that night. So, yes, no problem. Okay. I think you have one very nearby. It is nice having it that this close. Is there anything else we need to do tonight to to close? Oh, job well done. You guys have really thought through. Thank you, Matthew. Okay. Thank you. Good leadership, Matthew. Thank One last thing is we're scheduled to meet on Mon on Tuesday, June 10th, and I believe that that Joyce called me up. I believe she said it was the eighth grade promotion that night. It that is true. So, I would I would like to make another

131date in um in June if you Andrea and Ian would email me with your nonavailabilities. Give me the freedom to choose, but tell me when you're not available for a Tuesday. I I'll do it. Yeah. Or just send me an email. Sure. Is there anything else before we adjourn? Beverly, anything else? You've been kind of silent. No, I got it. I've been listening in. What about Andrea? I'm gonna come to Andrea. I want to give Beverly one more shot. Well, she's probably fixing dinner. Okay, Andrea, we're up for you. Okay. Okay. Motion to adjurnn. We are at 8:00 on the dot 8. Hallelujah.