001good evening everyone um it is Thursday March 20th and I'm calling to order the uh special meeting of the Gren Board of Education uh Communications committee at pm and um the first order business um is to discuss uh the topic of budget Communications I I thought we might start um with um Rebecca uh discussing um how we did this last year and any ideas she might have and then open it up to board members to uh for their thoughts sure hi everyone um so historically uh in terms of budget Communications we always have the uh Budget on the website as well as the superintendent presentation um which is updated now to reflect that that is the board's budget um last year Susan had an opportunity to join um the program welcome to gron through gmtv
002um and she and I were just discussing that earlier today um to explore doing that again where she uh explained some aspects of the the budget and reviewed that we are very active on uh now parents Square previously School messenger with sending out notifications to parents regarding when um the Town Council or RTM meetings are we were very active with that last year particularly with um everything that was going on with the budget last year and the RTM uh reinstating the cuts that the Town Council had cut um so we do uh very actively share that information with the community we have to be um careful about the tone of those Communications because because we can notify and inform and keep things very factual about what the budget um reflects um and what is in
003the budget and the opportunity to speak but we we cannot say the opportuni speak in favor or against the budget so we have to be neutral um from a political standpoint in terms of any uh per persuasion uh one way or another um on the the the individual's comments on the budget um so but like I said we would certainly U be sending things out I know there's a little bit of concern about the timing of next Wednesday's meeting given that that is parent teacher conferences across um the district but hopefully um some parents might be out going to a parent teacher conference and be able to stop in afterwards um and certainly the parent teacher conferences span a couple of days and a few hours so um hopefully that won't deter too many folks
004um who would want to come out in um support of the budget we um have not done printed materials across the community in the past but we could certainly explore that um I know there is the presentation and we could potentially um take some key you know nuggets that we think might be most impactful to members of the community and highlight those on a onepage flyer or um sort of summarize um some key points on on a one pager that we could send out we could certainly send that out digitally um as well as make that available at the meetings or um have that at the schools for parent teacher conferences but again as long as we keep those those things factual uh so that's really a brief synopsis of of what we've done in
005terms of communicating again those meetings opportunities to speak um on behalf of the students or the parents about the budget um and open to you know how how if you're in favor of additional Communications around the budget and pushing out more information we can we can absolutely do that okay thank you very much um I I do remember now um Susan doing that program and uh we also have I know Joe delac Cruz does a program on cable um I don't know if you know that might be another venue um you know where Susan um or maybe Susan and Bev could um uh basically State our case um and I I shared with Bev I'm a little uncomfortable with this um small number of board members um discussing such an important topic that's why um
006you know I am um more supportive of communication being something that's done in a c so we can get the feedback from all uh board members but I did tell her that we would we'd go ahead with tonight's meeting to get things started um but I think you know all board members may have ideas um and um uh you know I really would rather open it up uh to all of them I do realize time is of the essence with the public hearing next week but this will be a process that will be going on for a few months um so I'm hope we get that yeah I hope we can get that on a c um I agree I think we need to get those talking points out there um and um so I'd
007be interested to see if anybody else on the committee has any uh anything they'd like to add Adrien yeah um yeah I mean from my end um last year talking to a few people um one thing that that it seems like might be effective is to break down the the budget increase and in a couple of points um clearly show where the increas is um so because it you know I know for my own you know from my own dealing with the budget there's like a million aspects to what the increase was but it would be great to have um a couple of bullet points and then a percentage or number next to them and say that you know that because I think um in general the budget is so big and so complicated that
008it's hard for people to understand and and my guess is that most people aren't going to really want to spend hours figuring it out so um however we communicate this out I think the communication um needs to be accurate and and a little bit concise as far as um as far as what the the increases are um you know and what we're trying maybe some of the goals right next to those increases what we're trying to do with the budget so I don't know how anybody else feels about that but um yeah I think it's important that we um tell the district story of what the budget is like you said what the increases are what that relates to in terms of goals and for our students um both in the academic um as well
009as maybe extracurricular realm and things like tutors and um the fundamentals that are that are um students need and that we're not losing any programs with this budget um that we're keeping you know things consistent and fulfilling our obligations to our our students yeah I me Jay maybe you would know this but I mean are there if if our budget were to get cut significantly I mean have we talked about what would be cut I guess I mean I don't remember that from the meeting so I guess that would come down the line but yeah I don't really recall us um sort of coming up with a a backup plan um the um you know once the the town bodies have have determined uh what the increase will be um uh you know then then
010there may be some some um discussion there I I'm against um I know there's been a tendency in the past to um you know uh Trot out some of the Draconian uh things that could happen um and I I really uh don't support um doing anything like that um but I think we just need to State our case that this budget you know supports our students and lay out uh as you mentioned um Adrian what is really driving it um and of course we all know um inflation is affecting everything um and things like electricity uh I think everyone can relate to that and and the additional fees that have been placed on electric bills um that the general assembly still uh I believe is grappling with so yeah those those message points I think
011to um to get out there uh you know in in support of our budget are going to be critical yeah and the I I actually just um I went on the um Ed site uh today and the state they they finally put up the numbers for the um for the state so we kind of know where our budget is in relation to the state and um it's we're basically still 10% or at least through 24 we were still still 10% below the state average um so I think we are pretty effective you know we're doing a as far as the quality of Education that we're giving for the amount of um you know the funds that it's taking us I think we're doing a a really good job so maybe pointing out some of the
012positives of that um you know to let people know that these you know we have some increases but um everyone has increases right that that would be a good point um Rebecca to add um to um you know to the list um about how um even with this increase um you know how it how how it um works out Statewide in comparison uh Jen did you have anything I'm I'm in agreement with like the one pager at a district level and like have like some of our fact um like basically a marketing brochure right and but then also show the budget to show hey this is where we were last year um this is where we are this year it's a 6 point I can't remember where we landed 6.8 I think um increase um
013um five you know just very high level um 5% related to salaries benefits um and then you might want to lump in the benefits together to just show that as like maybe a 10% increase I don't have the um budget book in front of me and then like our supplies that's really gas and then Transportation the big Heavy Hitters because everything else that we added as a board um oh and you can spike out some of the Investments that were making in our elementary schools um not necessarily the dollar amounts but saying hey we're investing in x amount of tutors a nurse in Gren middle school for um whatever it may be just like maybe like six or seven bullet points underneath reflecting why there's an increase and then like everything that we've accomplished um
014like within the past year and what we're projecting to accomplish like a very very very tailored marketing not a finance type of document so that when you do hand it out to the parents at those parent teacher conference they can understand and um maybe you even um they can understand and see like oh yes um we as a board are investing in our students and then maybe we list out if we can't obviously make it to this meeting coming up whenever they're having their next meeting saying next meeting is blah if you're interested in voicing your support or you can also say um here's like a a QR code where you can make send comments into and then we compile it for them and then just hand it in um obviously for capturing um name
015address and then whatever comments maybe um limit it to like I don't know 2,000 character I don't know what's enough I don't you know what I mean so um I feel like that's a way um that we can leverage um support because um having a hard copy having like a little QR code um people are always on their phone they can scan the QR code put their name their address and then voice support for it we consolidate it and we give it to the town um we didn't influence them in any way I think I think that was one of the criterias that Rebecca had mentioned that we can't say either support or decline it's just here's an opportunity um to voice your opinion um that's sort of what I was thinking like in this
016short method and how quick we can get it um out to the parents so um that's all okay thank you Jen um I think that's a good idea um to you know to pull the parents uh and um and citizens of the town it's not just the parents it's everybody all of all the stakeholders yes because we could put it on our website and we can ask the town to put it on their website because they put a copy of our budget book onto their website oh I'm sorry I don't have my um video on sorry um yeah no so that we can also have it um you know put that QR code I um just because mail is old um like um obviously regular postal mail is not going to cut it email that's
017sort of like not how people communicate nowadays so um definitely things that will be easy um and something that we can capture um we can also do a share we could have two QR codes right we could have um one to collect data and then one to for that for that little onepage flyer um I don't know um and Marie when Beverly and I visited um the high school that day they showed us a video of some of the high school students I don't know if we have a QR code you know it's more like touchy feely like hey um this is who our gron students were cuz I felt like that was the just and I think you guys use it um for eth grade to ninth grade transition for the middle school so
018we can have things like that um and then put them all together um we obviously always send out like the Fitch Falcon stuff like on a Friday um at least I used to get them on Fridays so just thinking quick and fast here right thanks all right yeah thank you and uh I know amemory you had something you wanted to add forgot to go off mute there for a second um yeah I think um everyone's ideas are really great some of the things that um in my background and an experience in terms of um just letting people know what is in the budget some of the things that we um that I've included in the past have been um a comparison of budget in the area so Rebecca I don't know if there are districts
019in the area that have already presented their budget uh usually there are um and so to that that comparison or even looking at Statewide um what people are coming in at at for increases um I always find that's helpful um in pairing that with the uh what Adrien said with the um the averages I you know the per pupil averages I think that is usually powerful and then I think the drivers uh obviously are are really really important for people you know helping people understand what the what the increases are attributed to and then usually forming some kind of story around story or theme around those drivers so um you know obviously investing in our students is a big piece of that this year um and so really talking about what the student needs are
020and why we have those needs and I think generally the more simple that we can get the better um because you want the ultimate goal is is you want people to understand and support but I know that um you know uh you'll be able to you and Susan and I'm certainly willing to a willing and able to help with all of that okay thank you very much I can't seem to raise my hand I don't know if anybody else has their hand raised but if if not I'm raising my hand yeah all right back to you Rebecca thank you um I first of all I love Jen's QR code ideas I'm kind of ashamed I didn't think of it myself because I'm a big fan of QR code and we use them a ton on
021different things um so we could absolutely um create you know a very fillable form um that it would direct people to to voice their their thoughts on the budget um like you were suggesting and um I was looking um earlier today at the um the budget presentation and I was seeing those charts regarding comparisons to um area districts I know we're the only districts below us are um North Stonington and lard um and there's a whole slooh who are you know have a higher P pole expenditure um above us so um I think those like you were saying those facts and details um are easy for people to understand and really see where we are and what we're not what we're what we're doing and asking for is um is uh not exuberant by any
022means and to Adrian your point about you know our students are getting a very high quality education and enriching experience um at a at a very um solid investment for our community and um very much you know I'm not exactly sure what words I want to use right now but you know L lagging behind uh or or are you know kind of lower than than the other communities so I think we can highlight those things I'm I know some of the schools have um most of the schools have video displays as well um so I'm thinking it would be great uh and I think we could get this done um to do a handout and have the QR code and some of these details but almost uh like to try to do even a quick
023little um very infographic icon um like little you know two-minute video that maybe just shows some highlights that perhaps we could play on some of the screens and monitors and also put on the website um and perhaps even social media I don't again I want to just make sure we we're well with any parameters um but again as long as we keep it factual I think we'll be fine um but I think um a visual piece like that that just plays and that people can see and and maybe has some photos bringing in that human element of of who our students are um and showing them or or little video clips of them in the background um would be would be a nice ad as well okay yeah I think that would be great if
024that that obviously putting a video together is a lot of work so uh so you you would be the one right I would be the one I could tell well we we have you know we have some great tools and resources so um I would definitely start with the flyer but I think I think we could probably get something together yeah tomorrow Monday Tuesday have it ready for for Wednesday so all right yeah and again this this will be a process this will be an ongoing process that kicks off with the public hearing but then you know we'll go to the council and then the RTM so um you know we want to make sure that people have the the opportunity to uh um um you know follow that whole process you know will they
025accept comments if if we were the ones who received the comments um and then we forward them on to uh the town or the RTM will they is that acceptable um in terms of a public hearing I don't think that if you submit comments that necessarily they would be read but um uh I I seem to think that uh in the past there have been requests to put them in the minutes um but I don't know honestly whether that's um appropriate with a public hearing because a public hearing is a is a legally noticed you know meeting um and I believe this particular one is the only one that's required by law I mean we have ours you know but this one I believe the town is required by law to have it so there
026there could be certain um guidelines that they they'd have to follow with regard to that obviously the best impact is having someone you know in the room or on Zoom uh participating in in the meeting that night um and um you know so if we can get get some voices out there we do also for those who can't make it we have always included in the communications how folks can submit comment or um link to for example the RTM members page so that uh folks can write to them have their email addresses those sorts of things uh if they can't make it in person do want to submit something um we've always included that in the communications as well okay are there any more comments on budget Communications um if not we'll move to um
027the um report from Rebecca on what she's been doing since our last meeting any updates I'm gonna share my screen here try to I have a presentation for you and I'm not doesn't oh wait okay great just move this over here oops there we go um so I did just put together a little presentation to share with you so um recent projects that I wanted to highlight and these were all things that were listed last time we met as upcoming projects um and these have all either happened or are um still in the process of happening so we did get out um a school matters District new newsletter which hopefully you all saw Susan did talk about the budget um in that um we've been doing a lot around attendance Communications and I'll talk a
028little bit more about that um report card distribution which I'm going to feature for you and is something um we talked about last time um the Strategic plan survey had gone out and that um feedback and uh the Strategic plan as well in development we're working on um you know sort of I'm specifically focused on the overall design of that piece um we've been doing a tremendous amount around career Pathways program of studies opportunities at Fitch high school we uh completely took uh revamped the Fitch high school program of studies and put it into a digital format um actually a couple of different formats um on the website um really made it very or a little more interactive for both students and parents um and also had a flip book verion so really trying to
029meet our families and our students where they are and providing multiple options for them to consume information in the ways that is um most useful and and helpful for them um we have just um produced um several career Pathways banners um for Fitch High School really branding that program and um they're having uh at gron middle school tomorrow morning a wonderful um career event from uh about 8:15 to 10:15 in the morning where the eighth graders will be um talking with different companies and representatives and um um they have these banners for that event and we are very deep in K registration for next school year and our spring magnet lottery so that's all chugging along um and going well and then the budget which um you know we're we're doing different things for um
030but what I wanted to really highlight because I know it was a topic of conversation last time was parents square and specifically um the report card distribution and also just um some slightly deeper metrics on our parents um I think you Adrien had asked if we knew um how many of our parents were really using it and on it um so here's just um the district snapshot of where we are currently in terms of you know the number of students staff teachers and parents you can see at the bottom here um and this this te this 18 number down here that says non- contactable that tends to always hover around 16 to 18 but it's a fluid 16 to 18 because um you know people's phone numbers changes their emails change contact information changes um
031but the the wonderful thing is that we can see that and um see where there's maybe a failure and follow up with that family to make sure we have their um correct information so we do have and and I want to highlight this here because I'm going to get into this a little more um detailed we have um 4,961 unique parents in the district obviously we have a lot of parents who have multiple children in the district but that is the number of um unique parents that we have and our total number of unique students 4,000 21 currently as of today um so this chart is showing you the percentage of students who have at least one parent who is registered on parent Square um now keep in mind that um whether a parent is
032registered or not they are receiving Communications from us but registering allows them to engage more deeply with us filling out forms messaging their child's teacher using some of the additional tools and features so we have 96 um .8% of our students have at least one parent who is registered with parent Square um the number is not showing with the red but I believe it's 123 students do not have either parent registered um on parent square but again they are receiving um those Communications that we push out they're just not engaging um totally and and we certainly want to push to get 100% % engagement and then this just shows you a glimpse of the unique parents um so again we have 4,961 unique parents in the district of those unique parents 3,6 um 31 are
033registered and um 1,330 are not what does that mean they're they're um you know unregistered but they're parents so that just means they've never gone in and activated their parents Square account um so again they can't um when we send out a form they need to log in to be able to fill out that form um or they need to um if they want to send a message to their child's teacher they need to they need to have activated their account um and we regularly are pushing out activation emails to any um unregistered parents so that we can say to them know you're not activated Go activate your account and you can use these other features that are part of parent Square um yeah Amar so just so I'm understanding correctly the the chart because
034we have so many parents that I think the percentage you had was 96 almost 97% is this possible that um maybe I am uh the parent in the household that was like um says steps up and says okay I'll receive all the notification but my spouse doesn't necessarily need to absolutely okay absolutely and that's why I do think um oops that's why I do think this this is really the more telling um chart is that out of all of our students 3,894 have at least one parent who is registered um so yeah we certainly have a lot of military family somebody who is on deployment who you know they they may have never registered or just one parent household um we certainly have some households where two parents or more are registered so it just
035varies but I think this is is truly the more important number to focus on is that um out of our 4,021 students this many have at least one parent who is able to engage via parents sare does that make sense Adrian yep yep and and that I think um what anarie was saying it um also makes sense because I think I would have been one of those parents in the uh the red piece of pie there um for about half of last year where my where my wife did a lot of it and I and I uh she just told me about it so yeah and and keep you know keep in mind we have um you know we're we're a very transient District we have a lot of kids coming and going so again
036we are consistently pushing out very regularly those act what we call the activation email it's just a note saying know gron public school is is on is on parent Square activate your account and basically they just have to click on a link and they type in their email address um or phone number it has to be the email address or phone number that we have on file um which again is a nice U security measure so um not just anyone can go in and sign up and um it could also be we bring into parents Square um any individual who is marked in the Cy as having custody of the child or living with the child um so this sometimes in this red could be a grandparent who lives with the child um and is
037part of this 4,961 number and just doesn't doesn't really have a need to you know um engage or interact but that's that's who we import into parents so um you know there could be aunts and uncles who live with a child but you know they they don't necessarily want um to be receiving information and then um this is um the district level we actually can look at this for all of the school levels um but this again just is a slightly deeper look at some of the engagement tools that we use um but you can see what I really want to call out here is the um direct messaging and so that that's um the number of direct messages so those are messages that um you know parents are sending directly to a teacher to
038an administrator to a coach um so 1,20 1,00 I'm sorry 100,000 24,32 direct messages um and and about 14,000 threads or strings of messages um so I think that's pretty telling and impressive to see that that many people are using that feature and um I can you know I have an eighth grader in the district and I message with his teachers or the administrator um quite often um so that was what I really wanted to to point out there um but you can see um just some of the others we're not using polls um those are just one question polls um we haven't really been using that um and payment items we're not using but I'm going to mention that later um so what I really want to get to and I think you're going
039to hopefully be excited or as excited as I was um last time we talked about we were getting ready to send out report cards we were really disappointed um in some of the report card views looking back at last year um the 2324 Elementary School trimester 1 report card views um well well under 50% and we talked about how you know teachers are putting a lot of effort into especially at the elementary level the report cards they add a lot of comments and context and so this is what those parent views looked like um last year T1 and you can see what we jumped to this year T1 sending them out parent Square um and the percentage um the the percentage of the views is and I did add in the percentage increase over last
040year so really um a significant jump love seeing you know CB up at 95% all of the others hovering right around 90% which is um still fantastic obviously we'd like to get to 100% um and we had great parent feedback about how easy it was to look at the report card when they came out um this way so we were thrilled with these results we're actually getting ready to um send the t2 report cards um out on Monday for elementary schools yes Jen you had a question yes um when you're counting the views um so let's just say I'm forgetful and I log in five times does it only count the first time I log in uh yes so and I should have not I should have noted that so the parent views um in
041this um on this chart is showing you um the number of students who had at least one parent view the report card so for CK for example 315 students had at least one parent view the report card okay yeah know that's that's good I wasn't sure how it was being tallied so y yep it's Unique it's um unique um it's it's yeah it's um it's the number of um it's the number of students whose report card was viewed by at least one VI okay perfect thank you yeah this is um this is fantastic so yeah discouraged because um I know how much work it is for teachers to put together report cards um in and um I'm sure that the you know in addition to the parents um being informed the teachers are probably very
042happy that that all of that work is is going to something um you know just in the in kind of that extra you know three days a year Well three times a year when they have to spend a few nights um or mornings whenever doing report cards um so that that's fantastic um I I I am wondering um for non-english speakers and we probably talked about this um but is um is it um translated to you know Spanish or whatever other languages we have you know yeah so um Mystic River actually um did have about 20 report cards um that went out in Spanish and um so they specifically are doing that for their um Spanish-speaking families um they weren't doing that at the other schools and I'm I'm not sure why um but it's
043something I as I was putting this together because um The Mystic River report cards went out in two batches the English batch and the Spanish batch so when I pulled this together this afternoon I looked at that again and I I want to ask Angela Wheeler about that because um I know we do have some non-english-speaking families at the other schools so I want to see how we can carry that over um to the other schools yeah so parent Square doesn't offer like um where you could just click on which language you can read or they they do for the text that we put into the post or sort of the hey check out your child's report card is here but the report cards are um coming through as a PDF um that we create
044um and ex um it's like through the report Creator in power school um so the actual PDF document of the report card that's being sent is something we do so we need to make that change oh all right and do do we know which parents um may not or may have English as a second language or or not speak English at all we we have a pretty good idea of that so we could figure that out yes all right all right great um and then um now that we're down to just a few dozen um students per school um is it possible to figure out other ways um outside of parent Square to get um to get report cards to them yes so the really nice um feature that this um secure document tool has
045is the schools and and um they were provided with these instructions they can go in and they can print the report cards for any families who did not View them um and it will only print those that were not viewed and they can send those home with those children all right all right yeah that's fantastic this is um this is uh this is great news I'm really glad you brought this to us yeah um I did have one um assistant principal tell me um she specifically said before the report cards went out that the teachers put more effort into the comments because they felt more confident that the report cards were going to be viewed knowing that they were going out this way yeah yeah that's great that's great but wait there's more um so
046here's I just want to add real quick um I I just wanted to uh say I agree with Adrian this is fantastic um you know such a turnaround uh compared to um the results the last time so great work on everybody's part who had something to do with bringing those numbers up thank you um so this is GMS um which they oh I apologize it says T1 here um because I I copied and pasted it really should be S1 because GMS and Fitch only do report cards twice a year um so this was their S1 report card that went out uh I can't remember the date but um January I think late January um so again last year they were at 213 views um and they uh got up to 667 views now um the
047secondary report cards do look a little different um in terms of um there aren't um there's some um shortened comments that say um are provided um but there's not the depth of comments that sometimes you get at the elementary schools um and a lot of it is very similar to um you know what we see if you're an Engaged parent in par school and you're you're able to track and see your child's grades really in real time um and then then the report card just kind of calls that together for you um but it's still nice to see that they uh even though the information is not that much different than what you're seeing in power school on a regular basis if you're tracking that it is still nice to see that I think just
048the ease of what um of how they go out via parent Square does still make it very easy for the parent to click on and take a quick peek um and we do highlight that it has you know the attendance information um and summarizes um those sorts of things for the parents so hopefully they are finding them um useful and sometimes they have a need for the report cards for uh you know different camps or scholarships or things like that even at the middle school level so I'm still and and I mean a 213% increase there so very happy with that and then this was Fitch I don't know what even to say about this but it's again again this should be S1 not T1 um so we went from six to 544 so we
049were really really excited about that um and it's great to see um more parents engaging there yeah Jen so I was a parent in that grade that only had six I can probably tell you I was not one of the six because what happens I think at the high school level is in um when you're looking at I think it was power school at the time even if you don't see the report card you see their great at the end of the semester so to defend the poor parents of the prior period but good great job on getting like 500 what was it 544 parents to look at the report cards so good jobs yeah yeah when I calculated this a 9,000 per increase I I felt a little silly writing this one there but
050I was like well I can't leave them out Adrien oh yeah I was just going to ask um and and um here again I'm going to admit that um you know I'm guilty of this because um I don't know that I look at the both my children are in high school now and I don't know that I look at um a parent Square to find their report cards now that I have power school and I can kind of keep track of things pretty well and I feel like I communicate with my kids so so but it might be nice to um uh see that is there a way to link um so I was just I was just looking at power school and you know if you you know click down in quarter one or
051quarter two or semester one is there a way to link um like a little line in power school to say you know the report cards are out click here to read on parent square or something like that just to tell people that they're that they're might be um a way to have a little bit more detail or a little bit more dialogue from the um you know from the teacher yeah I'll have to check with Angela Wheeler on that um our power school administrator to see if we can do that it's important to note and we included this in our Communications that report cards are still available in power school um unfortunately the power school app is just not very user friendly um and it doesn't make it easy for parents to see them in
052there they've really as an organization done themselves a huge disservice by that from a business St point because um folks like us are going to other platforms be for these needs because they haven't um made their platform user friendly or or helping us deliver information to the parents so um I will ask if there's a way to to link that because they are um easily um stored in parents s and able to be viewed under alerts but they are still in power school as well all right thanks oh Amry did were you I had my hand up but I think you know everyone people said what I was going to say I think a big thing with parents um that are at the high school level is they have that access to to power school
053I know I'm guilty of that myself that um I'm looking pretty semi-regularly at my um High School senior's report not report card but grades on on power school and so when the report card comes out I don't really feel like there's any new information for me so so um maybe that's what we're experiencing as well yeah I was not part of the six either last year and um I um but and I did question it even myself um this year as I was looking at the report cards and saying well they really don't offer much um but when I looked at it and this is what we'll continue to emphasize um it does give a really nice snapshot and synops of where your kid is um across all the classes across attendance it shows you
054your you know maybe their S1 um exam score and so we'll keep emphasizing that to hopefully keep this number up and again it's so easy just to click on it um and I was just thinking Adrien about you know what you said about power school too um if if folks don't log into it fre quently and it's the report cards aren't very easily available in the the app you have to go to a web browser so then you have to go on you know your desktop and now you have to log in and if you have the app like me you just have it you don't ever log in you're always logged in and people don't remember what their password so you know it's just not they they hopefully they'll make some improvements there in
055the future um oh it's not even on power scho sorry I didn't mean to but but it's not even on Power School on your phone no oh yeah I I was just looking through the app and I couldn't find it and I I can't say that I've ever been on it except for maybe once to set it up on a computer so I imag parents are probably like that nope and we ask we ask over and over again and nope you have to to be able to look at it on your phone you would have to go to Google go to powerschool.com you know or Safari log in and look at it that way so um but that all being said we did make sure in our Communications that we let parents know it's in
056parent Square now with this easy one click but you still can find the report card in power school um so we did still have some folks who looked at it in power school so here I um show you the total number of report cards delivered via parent Square which is the number of students um and then the number who viewed it in parent Square the number who viewed it in power school and then we looked at again unique views so we we looked at both of those pools of students and we removed any duplicates so that bumped those percentages of people who uh of students who had at least one parent look at their report card a little bit um because you know the combined unique views you know picked up a few so this
057is just showing you um that any other questions on report cards like I said we'll have um T2 Elementary are going out next week so we'll be doing the very same thing um and hopefully see wonderful results again and then as to for uh Gren middle and fit will go out at the end of the year um something else we enabled in parent Square um to help with parent engagement is we um we were using or are using a a attendance notification Alert in parents square that goes out to parents saying um you know your child is absent has been marked absent from school today um and we enabled something called parent notes which now allows parents to respond to those attendance notifications and um you know I right back and say um hello my
058son was absent today because he was sick um and send that back and that goes back to the attendance clerks at um the schools so um it's intended to support you know again make it easy for parents to reply um they don't need to worry about um sending a note back with their child um if it's below nine absences so it helps with the parent engagement and that compliance piece for um under the nine absences and the notification goes back to our attendance clerks with the students name the student ID number the parents information it's very secure and includes a lot of detail for them um and then um you know once somebody does have 10 absences um there are different documentation requirements so they can certainly still respond to that but then they still
059do have to send something back with their student um or potentially provide other documentation so we're doing a lot of work around attendance and trying to remind parents um a try not to be absent from school um for different reasons um we had produced these postcards for all of the schools that say school is better with you um that they um are using both for positive shoutouts or to mail home and say hey we miss you for um maybe kids who have become chronically absent um uh but just also trying to to again make it easier for parents to just comply with what they need to do um and stay engaged with uh their child's education um so we did look at that and that you know complies with u what we uh have to
060do with attendance and the documentation we need to receive so that's been happening and um I think it was a GMS last week who reported they feel that it it's going well and um that they are seeing an increase in parents who are complying and sending in the notes then sort of our road map um moving forward I mean obviously parent square is going really well for us um on a couple of different fronts they're working on some other attendance Communications products um to really track and analyze um attendance Trends and um communicate and engage with parents um and students to hopefully get those kids back into school if they're um absent so they're they're piloting this program and um we're hoping that we might be able to Pilot it with them um in the
061coming months they're currently piloting it mostly on the west coast um but will be evolving here so we'll be having some conversations and looking at um that product and see what it might be able to do for us as an add-on um we have been exploring something called parent Square pay um which again is a built-in um payment platform uh for when parents need to um make payments for you know different different things library books um field trips other other um programs potentially that has been very successful um for a lot of districts um that they piloted that with and um we're also looking at something called Community groups which allows for folks who are um not uh who don't fall into those categories of parents or lives with um a child um who are
062automatically brought into parent Square um it would allow us to um allow community members to opt into specific messaging um so for example we might create a group around athletics events um um for people who want to hear about um you know when the games are because they like to come out to the games or maybe the Arts events um or it might be an opportunity for us to stay in touch with alumni who are no longer part of our system so looking at that and then looking at expanding our use of forms which um has been successful in the um implementations we've used that on to date um right now we have our intent to return forms out um to our elementary and um Early Childhood families and that's a form that asks them
063if they are planning to return to the school district next year um and helps us make um enrollment projections and then secure document delivery that is um the feature that we're using for report cards and we're looking at perhaps using that for um attendance letters that need to go home when a child is chronically absent um and it offers um you know we can we can see um with these tools we can see if an email was opened we can see if it was clicked on so um you know sometimes we put things out in the mail and and while it might come back with a Return to Sender beyond that we don't know did it end up in the garbage can was it actually red um so there's a lot of nice um features
064Beyond just saying well it went out um like we can really see how our parents are engaging back and um if our messaging is is getting to them and so that's helpful and then um moving away from that I highlighted earlier the career Pathways I know um superintendent Austin and Ben Moon presented about career Pathways last week um I mentioned um at the start uh we've been doing a lot of work around that um to highlight that program we again revamped the program of studies previously and and it still exists in this format but it's an 80 something page Google doc so trying to scroll through an 80 page Google doc on a phone um is really challenging and then if you want to go back to something so again we've we've put the program
065of studies into um uh this digital format on the website where you can click on say um The English Department and you can see all of the different classes and we're going to be um enhancing that even further so that users can go on and they can um look at the program of studies and sort by say I'm a freshman and I'm interested in higher level classes um so they'll be able to sort you know AP classes IB classes um CP classes honors um and really um be able to dive in um and customize their experience a little bit more and then I mentioned the banners and the different materials that we've been producing um and we also did um a parent IB webinar session um when the school was in the program of studies
066and we had about um we had about 80 parents sign up for that session um there was a lunchtime session and an evening session that um Christopher Mor from um the high school did and I supported him with um you know getting the those invitations out and the parents rsvpd and um so that went very well um so we again getting in front of um the parents at the secondary level about all of the different curricular options and opportunities available to their students and trying to really meet our parents and our students where they where they are um in terms of how um they like to receive information how they digest information um and and not just taking a one- siiz fits-all approach so that they can um you know everybody everybody takes things in
067differently so providing a lot of different options for folks and this is just a picture um of those banners I mentioned that we um set up in the office yesterday and had in the hallway and um will be over at GMS for their event tomorrow so it focuses um there's a a single banner that highlights all of our different clusters and Pathways at fit and then there's a banner for each um each cluster so that's what I picked to highlight for you tonight but happy to answer any questions or if I didn't bring up something you're curious about happy to talk to you about that great work Rebecca um thank you very much I'm I'm glad to see that we're continuing to expand the um the uses of uh parent Square um and um like
068you said you know actually track whether these communications are even being um received so uh I can see a lot of hard work went into that so thank you very much yeah I I I really appreciate this update too and um and I I know it has been a lot of work and and a big transition for everybody the last couple of years with this so this this is fantastic though it's great to have this this uh this update uh Jen did you have anything no just concur with what both you and Adrien had mentioned all right thank you I'm really excited um uh parent Square actually has asked me and um one of the representatives from their um company to uh potentially present at the cab conference in November which is at the Mystic
069Marriot about school Communications um so I just heard from them this afternoon that they um sent in the proposal to cab um for us to do that presentation and we'll see if we um if that proposal is accepted but that would be um super exciting to shine a spotlight on um you know what gron Public Schools is doing to engage parents in um and and students in you know their child's education so stay tuned so Rebecca I I I was wondering if you could share um this presentation um um with the entire board like I said um I I hate for all this good news to sort of get lost in this committee um you know I I'd like the entire board to be aware because everyone on the board has a stake in Communications
070and so I I think it would be great if you could send this whole uh presentation sure yeah Happ bring dat and they can see the the great work that's being done all right so unless there's anything else I'll um entertain a motion to adjourn well make a motion to adjourn all right all in favor I I I all right again thank have a great night thanks everyone night