Avon Board of Education Meeting - 03/25/25

001[Music] all right thank you for bearing with me Amma stickler for a 7 o'clock start time so I'd like to call to order the monthly meeting of the Avon Board of Education on March 25th 2025 at 7 p.m. um we'll start with a roll call so for those of you who might be new to joining this um know who's sitting here at the table I am Deb bro I'm the chair we also have Dr th Singh our vice chair president Deb thank you Jeff fman our secretary president thank you Lynn Catz present thank you Deb Sarah Heath here thank you Nicole Russo present thank you Suzanne zakaris present thank you Chris Campbell here thank you and raes cipil president thank you and our administrators we have Dr car Muller superintendent thank you Mr janini assistant

002superintendent here thank you Mr medic assistant superintendent president thank you m Russo our business manager president thank you and miss sardinis our executive assistant to the superintendent and board clerk all right so we have the honor of having students with us this evening um I guess we can start with the Pledge of Allegiance and then we'll move so we can show them to you so you can see and then let you guys will perform for us okay so please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all mission statement right now oh first let me do the mission statement so we stay consistent and then we'll

003have um we're just impr sorry I'm staying the agenda it's all good it's all good so I always think it's important to read this at every meeting it just reminds us all of the work that we do together our mission is to inspire in each student a joy and passion for Learning and a commitment to Excellence personal integrity and social responsibility and now so thank you I'm going to introduce Avon High School's camarada singers who are here tonight with us thank you Mr Bru to do the national [Applause] anthem oh say can you see by the dawn early light what so proudly we H at the Twilight last gleaming who brought stripes and bright stars through the par fight or the r parts we watch were so gently streaming and the rock is red glare

004the bombs Bur in in air gave prove through the night that our flag was still there oh say does that star spangle yet wave or the land of the free and the home of the [Applause] we'll just stay where we are oh okay all right thank you thanks for coming thank you thank you again Mr Bru and Avon High camarada singers and for anyone who may not know uh the month of March is Board app Board of Education appreciation month and as we were talking about a little bit earlier before the meeting started with some folks out here in the audience um you don't often get uh praise and accolades the job is a is a tough one and one that you volunteer your time to do so we do try to um at least

005give you a sense of our appreciation through our students which is what you're all really here for on the the Board of Ed meeting in March so thank you for coming that's why we know we are not fortunate enough to have them sing the national anthem at every single board meeting that would be fantastic but they do have other things to do um especially the high school students but we also have another performance for you here we have our Avon Middle School students here to do a little excerpt from their play which was fantastic last weekend the production was something rotten Junior and I will turn it over to you thank you Miss mad Bo um speaking of appreciation thank you I actually right after their performance we like fought through with so much sickness

006um and it was kind of funny get a number called the black death and they all CAU the black death but after three soldout performances dragging through I like ran up to them with slips for tonight because they were so awesome that I really really wanted to share and showcase their to really hard work with you guys um because of all you've done through your Avenues of Education Administration to support theater in Avon and especially at the middle school um I my workday doesn't start during the musical season until the the actual my workday doesn't start until the musical season begins and then um I have the best time ever partially because of all the reasons you'd expect the community is awesome um I get to know the kids super well but also because as

007a teacher you try so hard to teach the skills and disposition the portrait of The Graduate and then when you're directing a school play you really see them come to life so just things like it's impossible to take a script and then put it on a stage and bring it to life if you don't have the ability to think critically and creatively and then also communicate through a variety of mediums um these actors specifically that are you're about to watch are awesome they uh read the script and they had really good ideas about who their character was and how they should communicate that through verbal and non-verbal movement and that's also been true with our stage managers who let our tech crew through lighting design and set design and I was actually able because of

008the awesome interest in Theater Arts now that it's a full-time pH um was able to create a student board of directors so a lot of directive work actually started in the fall with a select group of seventh and eighth grade students and they went through the scetch with me we sat down and we blocked it out and over the production concept I want to pause for a moment and add in something that there's something important in what you said obviously you aren't here as a part of the hiring process when we hire faculty and staff you're more involved with the administrators but um this young woman who is in front of you who when she came to interview with me I thought they brought me one of the students and said my goodness we are

009getting old when they when they come and that's what we think um is the result of as as Miss Moren bile said the addition of Theater Arts at the middle school you might remember that in the budget um a couple of years ago we added that position in because we wanted to grow Theater Arts um from younger grades up through the high school as a better feeder program for high school because we do have so many talented and interested young people who wanted to participate so I think that's an important thing to say because they this is exactly when you get to see the fruit of your labors um come to fruition and with that I'll turn it back to you so that you can show us what you've been doing with this new theater

010program full-time at AMS thank you and I do you know from the numbers that I've seen I do think that our involvement with the Middle School Musical has increased quite a bit in proportion to the ability for students to actually take theater um during the school day so I I really do thank you um so that's a c of my appreciation uh this is from scene two of something roton Jor and specifically for some context we're in the Renaissance and we have Nick and Nick is in charge of a really struggling troop of actors um he also has to support his wifey and his younger brother who and our show is really funny his younger brother is much Nigel and he's feels a lot of pressure about this and unfortunately we have the great William

011Shakespeare who is just always one step ahead of Nick and um because of that we're going to see how he feels about Shakespeare [Applause] [Music] man I hate Shakespeare that's right I said it I hate Shakespeare I just don't get it how a medoc from suddenly the brightest in England's Crown shakeseare play the boy but great shakeseare the story [Music] and that all their are [Music] getting I that he would go away [Music] [Applause] [Music] insiration Lighty captures my soul wow you sound just like him really thanks because everyone thinks he the greatest writer has ever [Music] known and that's another thing I hate about Shakespeare is all the twit W hate about Shakespeare and how they CED on about his great accomplish and once they done their cing there's a Shakespeare walks in it's

012shakeseare [Music] I'm really getting sick of it and oh oh oh I hate Shak I think Shak Makar the way he F humility when all he does is gloat the way he wears that silly frilly make a list I give it to the every little thing about [Music] [Applause] [Laughter] [Applause] just before everybody leaves I know how special it is to be able to perform even one more time because once you wrap you feel like it's all done so this was really I know important to you guys and so special for us to witness I love to see the joy in everybody and how much you are getting out of this program so I'm just thrilled so thank you for sharing your children with us this was wonderful do you want anything else thank you

013yes a couple more things Sor just no no just want to on on behalf of all of us in the schools our students our families our faculty our administrators our staff and really the communic the community as a whole just want to again thank thank you and recognize you for your incredible service really and dedication and to remind everyone as I said earlier that you volunteer countless hours to ensure that all of our students have access to the highest quality education some of the examples of which you can see tonight more you'll see in your baskets you make the decisions that shape the future of our schools support our teachers and create opportunities for all Learners to thrive and I know that you do this work not for this recognition on this one night or

014any other time but because you really have a deep commitment to public service and for the well-being of our community so we appreciate you these are small ways to say thank you but there some more pretty exciting ways that we say thank you so if you first of all thank you to Christine who helped put these together and to all of the administrators uh secretaries out in the schools and the teachers who worked with students because everything that's in your basket came from students with the exception of the basket and these that you know we have to get you some sort of Swag came from us but just want to show you a couple of the highlights in here because the kids are pretty excited about these so you have a little succulent they made

015they made these at the middle school for you in the bag I don't want to mess up the bag but I'm going to mess up your bag then um so there there's a card which tells you what it is but just want to show off these are really exciting where is the high school made these two things there is a magnet in your bag again that they made in our pottery class they're all different and look at this beautiful bookmark that they made in technology in Mr D's class and I said he should sell these one of the students you'll see who made them for you you might recognize the name Lucas yuby he's been here with us before um I said he should get a a career selling these on Etsy these are pretty

016good I don't know that people would want them that say Avon board of education but he could put something else on them for sure and then of course a usual um bunch of cards from our elementary students that are written to you and to thank you I know you'll appreciate going through those at some point later on so thank you again we appreciate all that you do and I'm very glad that we got all the help that we did out from the schools because that's what matters I know that's what you would like to see tonight between the students coming out for the performances and their token if you will thank you thank you this this really is very special none of us really I think March just kind of happens and they're like oh

017right that's that's tonight so we really appreciate the effort that everybody puts into having the students participate because that's what it's all about as far as I'm concerned so whenever we have the students come to our meetings and we get to witness what's going on in their development and how they're enjoying their education here that's what this is all about so thank you for taking the time to even talk to them about what we do cuz that's kind of fun too and you go in and you read the teachers always want to ask them what do you know about the board of educ and they actually have good an so it's fantastic that you make us a part of your buildings too so we appreciate that and I'll try not to cry but this is

018just very touching so thank you very much guys I'll move it out of the way you're trusting me with a succulent I'll do my best they are hard to K I hope so yeah I'm pretty good at that it is possible from experience it's possible all right I will give them a lot of love and attention but so if there is anyone remaining that came for this part we're not offended if you want to excuse yourself at all for the regular portion of the meeting um we will move on now to the order of the business um do I have a motion to approve the minutes from the Board of Education monthly meeting from February 25th 2025 oh thank you Lynn I have a second have a second thank you Chris all in favor I

019passes unanimously with nine thank you any communication from the public there is a signup sheet to the side okay no all set All Right Moving On We're thrilled to have both of our students with us tonight Maddie performed for us too so thank you for doing that so I will throw over to the student reps to give their updates in terms of AHS we have SATs tomorrow which that's exciting then [Music] um um this Friday we have a pep rally for the Unified sports which is also more exciting than the SATs um for both the middle school and the High School Spring sport Sports have started I know the boys lacrosse team actually had their first scrimmage today I think and April 4th the fourth quarter is beginning and our prom date is officially set

020for March 17th and then in terms of AMS we saw something rotten junor was a really big success for them and on March 1 on March 1st the robotics team competed at a state championship in planville sorry that you have to take the SAT Madison I already got through that one but um so for RVs we have after school enrichment starting and this also applies to the other schools so this includes karate knitting chest Etc which sounds really exciting um the University of Hartford percussion team actually came to perform at RBS which I heard was really um fun to watch um uh RBS and PTO Viera had a fundraiser as well um and there is an educator that is going to be nominated to be recognized at the upcoming yard goats game and they're still

021kind of deciding who it's going to be at RBS for pgs we have a very successful acts of kindness fundraiser where um basically students in different classes were competing by doing as many acts of kindness as they could which included like making bags for the homeless and painting kindness rocks um there was this fun little bedtime stories with the principles on March 20th through Zoom at TBS we have something very exciting is that they're soon to present their own musical um Beauty and the Beast JR um starting March 28th through the weekend um they also have some after school enrichment such as football cating and illusion games um they're starting their yearbook cover contest um in the past month there was a read Across America spirit week that was starting on March 3rd um and

022there was also a home room door decorating contest thank you ladies and Madison if you need to excuse yourself to prepare for tomorrow we're not offended okay all right now our financial report with m Russo starts on page 12 good evening everyone we um the report I'm presenting is for the month ending February 28 2025 we ended the um month with a $2.4 uh million remaining balance or 3.48% of our budget unencumbered versus last year this time of $3.2 million or 4.85% the major driver of that um if you were to look at the financial summary report is our function codes 300 and 400 that's where our operating services like HVAC and um repairs and maintenance are as well as in 300 is our substitutes and our evaluation so that's our uh contracted Services line

023we saw those have additional expenses this year versus last year overall we saw some changes in salaries due to teacher leaves our teacher sub instruction line uh again had a deficit due to some long-term leaves that we have um offsets in Savings in the salary line so the budget transfer 20253 that's presented in the consent agenda we'll move those funds to match the savings from the leaves with the up substitute coverage uh in non-certified salaries uh we continue to see leaves in our custodian maintainers in our administrative assistance currently we have an open position for um our library media assistant and we had some FMLA that caused a little bit of variance in line as we had some coverage for that position par Educators teaching assistants and interventionist um we continue as I'm sure the

024administrators uh will point out to you we still have some openings for some of those positions uh we try hard to fill them but we are recognizing Savings in those lines for any unfilled days so budget 2025 as said 030 uses some of the savings from all of those lines to offset the deficit areas that we have in other expenses um we continue to see those rising cost in electricity uh as we talked about at length I think last uh board meeting with our representative um we're using savings and some of the other utility and operational lines to offset that and you'll see in the budget that we uh approved and we'll look again at this evening utilities is one of our drivers for next year in HVAC repairs um we continue to track those

025expenditures as we've talked about uh and I'll I have started to move a little bit of the offset for that and we'll continue to move that as we get into our May June we'll use the savings from all the rest of the lines in the budget to offset that but we are tracking that and tuition um adult education our Cooperative with Farmington came through the bill was a little bit higher than we had budgeted we had we have that reflected in next year's budget already but that that line and the magnet school tuition line from CRA those final invoices were just higher than budget it we used Savings in the other tuition line that had some leftover funds in it to cover that and you'll see all those items on budget transfer 20 25029 in

026special education contracted Services particularly evaluation continue to be a driver um of a deficit although many of those costs are for student needs that changed uh so we're using contracted services to address the needs rather than tuition that was budgeted so you'll see on that same budget transfer 20250 229 a transfer out of tuition to contracted Services evaluations to cover those cost we also have um an increase in a projected increase in in the month of March we had an additional transportation reest for a wheelchair vehicle that we were finally able to um secure Transportation needed a some additional resources than uh we were able to uh execute until March uh with getting too specific with it um so that is going to cause a deficit so I went ahead and put the transfer on

02720250 z30 knowing that expenditure was coming up and again that's just moving funds from a transportation regular line to um the wheelchair line and we already had savings there to cover that um one thing I want to highlight um and we did this time last year as well is the nutrition services uh this is the time of year where we're really monitoring those unpaid meal balances as we're you know going to the fourth quarter um as the time of this report our un um unpaid balances were $225 59 we ask families that may be in need that that are having trouble paying those balances to reach out to the business office or to reach out to nutrition services we have been regularly calling those families in addition to emailing them um and just today uh

028letters went in the mail or they got individual emails with their um invoices attached uh my school bucks is how we use to pay online uh you're also welcome to send in a check to the school to central office drop it off to the business office um if you find yourself in need of financial assistance we ask you to fill out a free and reduced lunch application that's the mechanism for to be able to address that um if you're already directly certified through husky or through Medicaid we'll already have that information um but if you're receiving the invoice that means we don't have that um otherwise that would already been taken care of and also that gives you the ability if you fill out that application you are approved uh to share that information your

029status your free and reduced status if you fill out the addendum to with Athletics with other programs throughout the school district field trips we're able to take that information consideration and it might be helpful to some families um so I just ask you to continue to reach out to look online all the resources are on there um the letter that we sent from um the director of nutrition services from my office also listed resources the food pantry um and many other resources in town um our homeless a on Dr Fox uh was listed on there in case the family is in additional need as well as um to reach out to the counseling teams at all the schools but the reason I bring it up in the finance just to wrap it up is that

030the the district will be um responsible for those balances they're not paid by June 30th all right Lynn just I don't remember the figure from last year but do you feel that this is typical or are families struggling more than usual do you think um it's it's been steady throughout the year right around we started out of the gate around $20,000 um my Department that's been calling has been in contact with a lot of the families and they have been making payments as they could uh what we're running into is some families just don't have the ability and they may they may not qualify or they haven't chosen to fill out the paperwork um so we're hoping the applications that we're sending with them along with the letters we'll we'll spur that for them to

031do that I don't think it's atypical um but truthfully some people just aren't choosing to pay and I I think we all need to understand that the tax payers of Avon are paying so they're they're still paying um they're just paying indirectly Jeff um to to piggy back off Lynn I thought Lyn was going to completely take my question um I know we started with a balance that we weren't expected because all of a sudden we transitioned back to pay from free what has been the increase in that balance since that transfer so how much of this 22,000 is new versus how much is old in terms of just people not realizing we have to clear zero this is all this fiscal year this is okay this is all new it's all new yeah every

032so um we have to clear the balance of zero last year uh the state allowed us because we had a positive fund balance to use that positive fund balance within nutrition services to cover the debt um because we had a raise prices this year and some other means we currently don't qualif for that exemption we're hoping at the end of the school year they maybe Weaver that because we we still are operating in a positive um in a positive place I can't count on that so I need to make sure we have these funds set aside and that you're all aware of that so the 22000 is just from this year and we believe this is not the oh I didn't realize we had to pay for lunch anymore at this point no okay um

033any family that's had a balanced o between 50 over $50 is getting a phone call email or letter and regularly getting phone calls emails and letters I have a person in my department just doing this thank you I'm just curious if if there's any families that maybe don't know how to do it like the paperwork have we ever offered like Social Work services to help with that yes thank you Suzanne but yes we we do and and actually there are some families that don't have printers anymore it's more common that than one would think um so that's why this particular um communication that we're sending out that were actually sending salale mail I was trying to save the district some money and not add to our deficit by spending 65 cents an envelope sending or

034more um this round though we've gotten to a place where the phone calls for some families just aren't reaching them or we're not able to communicate that with them we're sending a paper copy of the free and reduced application so that if they were having that that difficult um we have that and or if we communicate with them personally we would mail it to them which we have done as well okay any other questions all right thank you Susan thank you it's a complicated topic so it's hard all right next we'll move on to our committees and Lea on reports curriculum for professional practices [Applause] Lynn so our last meeting was uh March 4th and you can read all about it in the minutes it was a great meeting we had an opportunity to really

035hear a lot about and ask a zillion questions about uh our proposed new K3 or possibly K4 literacy program it's exciting we're going to hear more about that tonight and our next meeting is not until June 3D thank you finance that would be me thank you to miss Russo for giving us that update our next meeting will be April 8th negotiations Suzanne uh there's no new information no meeting scheduled thank you policy theage yep our next meeting is May 6th all right thank you Le is on report from Capital Region education Council Chris yes we met on the 19th we meet again next month on the 19th um I was also able to start um reading um applic applications for scholarships uh and it's amazing these these kids go through a lot uh but they

036achieve much um so that's been awesome we're happy to have you representing us on that board so thank you Chris all right as far as the chair's report I just once again want to say thank you for the time and the effort that you've put into recognizing us but I also want to say how thrilling it's been to witness the portrait of The Graduate work that's been happening um I've been able to attend all three schools so far along with a few of our um fellow board members too we have seen prek interact with one another and how they're learning all of these um attributes right at the beginning to get them ready to travel all the way to senior year that's where it all starts that's thrilling to just see how independent they really

037are and how functional um they are as Learners uh we also witnessed a an art class here at the high school which was amazing um it's just incorporated into the lesson plan so when we got to walk around and see the work that they were doing um with painting which is phenomenal just I'm so impressed um they really are incorporating all of these skills into how they work with one another give feedback to one another and receive feedback which is a skill as well um and then today we had the honor of going to the middle school and witnessing um the students collaborating to help in the effort of defining what we should be doing to help them achieve these portrait of The Graduate standards so it was really amazing to be a part of

038so thank you to miss Wallace Mr Sturm and um do we have Miss Dr Locker back there thank you to the three of you um I know that we're also going to Pine grve soon and I'm guessing Thompson Brook at some point so we're looking forward to it so you're doing an amazing job and it's just great to witness it again that's the best part of what we do up here so following that I'll throw it to Dr carola for the superintendent report thank you Mr medic hiring report good evening uh in your packet for the hiring report for March uh we continue to fill numerous non-certified positions uh many of of these positions were filled at the start of the Year and have since come open due to uh employees making decisions to uh

039separate from employment with us so we've worked to fill those positions uh in addition we did have two resignations this month uh par educator pre uh pre- par educator and also a special education teacher uh we do have that position filled for the remainder of this year and I believe Dr Carol may talk more about that her budget update and that's the hiring report for March thank you on the enrollment report the thing that we are looking at most right now is um our kindergarten projections we are right now at 172 um registered or in the process of registering for the coming school year um which is actually just about the same number as what we have currently enrolled in kindergarten so we do expect to see more um students come in because very often

040they're not registered until the summer including you know there's a spring housing market cycle also that usually will happen with um folks selling and new families moving in and also just parents who may not um realize have seen or or know that we are already registering for kindergarten sometimes they don't come until August but we'll also talk more about that a little bit when we get to the budget piece of it too this is what we would expect to see though and I think our efforts to survey families at at home about what students they still have at home and so forth have been helpful to us and making these projections um some of the extra steps we've put in over the past couple of years um move on to the Strategic Plan update um

041we have a couple of things to share with you tonight um related to the Strategic plan one is the Thompson Brook selfstudy um update we've been talking about this with you for at least two years um and no action needed just wanted to kind of bring you back into the folds of what that is looking like right now at Thompson Brook um I know that uh Mel as we call her but uh Miss Morgan hostler is here tonight to assist I think we have a few slides Christine right and Mr janini will start for us and then we're going to talk a little bit again about the portrait of The Graduate all right well I'll go ahead and get started um as Christine bring those up uh so last year we began uh sharing some

042information about Thompson Brook School um embarking on a quest I would Define it as to fine-tune their practices so looking at some of the things that were working and some changes that uh they might make over um you know a couple year period to enhance the experience so tonight uh we are sharing an update on that process including some of the changes that students and families and staff uh will experience in the fall than go to the next slide Christine sure I'll take the click want me to grab oh it's only do one at a time yeah all right we'll be working on our clicker uh s yeah so um as you uh have heard us say in the past there's many there's two main drivers for the work that we do here in the

043district and that's our blueprint for excellence um and our portrait of The Graduate and as Dr Cardinal MOA mentioned you'll be hearing a little bit more about the portrait of The Graduate uh in just a few moments uh and while all of the work of the self-study really connects in in many different ways to the blueprint and the portrait of The Graduate just wanted to point out a couple of the primary drivers that you see under Focus area 2 um so often we share updates connected to focus area one which is primarily academics um but when we think about the self-study work it really speaks to the experience of like the whole child during those two years at Thompson Brook and so I won't read everything there but just when we think about a safe

044and Equitable Learning Community um maximizing relational capacity between students but also um as you'll hear Miss Hustler mentioned trying to strengthen the uh collaboration and and time that staff uh spends together planning and preparing for their students um and then really just maximizing the resources that we have here in District always looking to fine-tune um what we have and how to uh get the greatest return on that investment when we think about meeting our students needs so the the Ste the self-study committee was really tasked with creating uh a set of recommendations for the Thompson Brook and the central office administrative team to consider uh in terms of some changes that could take place there and so while there were many things they were looking at uh the big pieces were really enhancing that student

045experience 56 we know that uh for our students here in Avon they get really comfortable in their elementary schools over a five or six year period and then all of a sudden they're in a new place uh lots of changes uh and so how can we really make sure that that transition is smooth and it kind of feels like home for the students even though they're in a new place uh we wanted to really strengthen that sense of community you'll hear Miss Hostetler speak about like bringing together the class of for the first time uh we think that's a strength and an opportunity when we bring them together from the year uh sending elementary schools and then also to explore some different Staffing models um and some schedule improvements that we could really look out

046look at to maximize uh all of those things that we were trying to accomplish through uh the self- study so a little bit of background um really since opening its doors in in 2002 Thompson Brook School has kind of work to find its fit uh it it finds itself in this unique gray area between in elementary school we have fifth graders who in many districts are in an elementary school um in sixth grade where again in many districts they find themselves in a middle school and so how do you bring those two worlds together um and also really ensure that we're building that bridge and and one of the interesting pieces of the work that the committee did beginning last year and continuing this year so often we we spoke about building a a bridge

047um and how they they felt like they were a bridge School a bridge school and um I think it might have been Mr Sturm at one point who was like why don't we just Embrace being a bridge School let's this is a strength and it's an opportunity for us it is what Thompson Brook does um to to Really fill in that time between elementary school and middle school and and make it a just right fit so beginning last year uh we kicked off this two-year Journey uh and the the big part initially was to develop some kind of a a Northstar statement and really uh that was important to the group because what they were looking to do was to develop something that they can fall back on you have a copy of that in

048front of you um this evening and one of the AHA moments for the group last year was realizing that sometime in the past when they had kind of gone back and forth between different models and tried different things it didn't necessarily have that piece that always uh became the deciding factor and so this became a big part of the work last year for the committee realizing that in the future not all things will be perfect they'll need something to refer back to when they're trying when they get stuck and they need to make those big decisions and so what you see in that statement is designed to do just that uh they also started to do some work studying current trends so looking at what's happening in in you know Upper Elementary education what do

049some of our neighbors do uh in you know fifth and sixth grade for their students uh and then start to determine some some moves or some tweaks um that could really hold on to the uniqueness of Thompson Brook we know a lot of great things happen there um but how can we build upon that work and really strengthen that Bond um that students and Staff feel during that time and again make it Fe fit really nicely in our K12 uh curriculum and so this is just a list of the committee members and there's been some fluidity I guess you could say over the past couple of years so even though you see certain staff members and administrators there uh there's been opportunities over the two years where there were whole staff meetings and opportunities for

050everybody to come and share ideas uh and so while again there was lots of involvement these staff members here were uh kind of the core group uh I do want to point out I I don't think we could have found um or or found ourselves more fortunate to have such two great administrative teams to kind of start the work and Mr Sturm um and Miss Salvatore who who really launched this with us last year and then as you know uh went off to Roaring Brook at the end of last year and picking up the torch were Miss Hostetler and Miss Barnett uh and again just really paired nicely with the work that got started and the work that got t uh continued this year so we thank all four of them for their leadership uh

051in these efforts so without further Ado I'm going to turn it over to miss Hostetler who's going to talk about what happened once the committee kind of knew where they wanted to go um what what was the real work that was going to take place uh this year to make those decisions and make those recommendations to our leadership team about some of those changes that staff and uh students and families will experience in the fall thank you should I stand I'm not sure yeah I'll Stand um yeah I I'm just so excited to be able to share with you what we've been doing I also want to wish you a very happy board appreciation month um we very much appreciate the work you do it's uh it can be invisible and thankless at times and

052um and you are appreciated so thank you uh but I I feel very fortunate that I was able to grab the Baton I love the uniqueness of a fifth and sixth grade school it's What drew me to this position in the first place and then you know thankful that I followed in such awesome footsteps and then was able to work with such an amazing assistant principal too so none of this would have been possible without the groundwork that was laid and again Julia and I were just able to like grab a baton and run with it and it's been nothing short of fun honestly a lot of really hard work by the people who who are meeting with us on their own time um but we're having a really good time too and I think

053it's because everyone really believes in what we're doing the uh the North Star statement that you have in front of you is is rather lengthy and so what I wanted to do was just I I wanted to boil it all down so that this would be really simple to understand um and this is what I extracted from the North Star as being what's particularly important in grounding us throughout the entire process whenever we we were at a point where we needed to make a decision we were at a crossroad of some kind this always brought us back to our why what it was we were charged with doing and what we what the change we set out to make um the experience at Thompson Brook really does serve as a bridge it took me about

054half a year to realize that TBS can stand for the bridge school like it's just so fun um and so now we have like all kinds of bridges on our chart paper and posters and Graphics um but it really is true like a lot of districts have a 58 school or you know a k6 model this is unique and it's and it's awesome we're middle level learners but we're not quite in middle school yet and so how is it that we can rather than having a fifth grade that looks like a fourth grade and a sixth grade that looks like a seventh grade how can we really capitalize on the fact that this is a unique experience we want to make sure we're Guided by staff who understand the developmental needs of these middle level

055Learners they understand how to nurture social and academic needs and in fact this has been the focus of a lot of our professional development in the building this year our ultimate goal is that our students you know they're not fully cooked yet but they're going to leave Thompson Brook that much closer to having the skills that they need the confidence the character they need to continue on a AMS and AHS and on into Life Next slide thank you so we um there were lots and lots of things we wanted to tackle but again we needed to make sure that we decided to do what was true truly actionable so the way we broke it down was like basically into two buckets we were going to look at this bridge and think about can we change

056the model here so that we don't have two schools operating Under One Roof really a fourth grade and a seventh grade and then how can we build Upon Our positive climate what is our identity what do we value how can we unify our our own selves and then teach embed own what we do and celebrate what we do so two buckets and it actually lended itself nicely to creating from our self-study team two subcommittees so that's what we did next slide Christine thank you so the group that was charged with looking at the model um started to meet and really Workshop this and they decided on two priorities um before they could move forward we are going to make sure that the student experience at TBS is a true progression and then secondly we have

057intentional time built into the schedule for Teacher collaboration but we also know that we could be improving upon it teachers really needed um they need this time because this in fact really enhances the student experience the more opportunities teachers have to come together and um and be consistent in their practices and share um their models and share their lessons and plan for student interventions and Student Success the more engagement for students goes up the more behaviors go down I mean it's just a win-win it's more efficient problem solving lots of really um uh positive outcomes to making sure that that time for teachers is really intentional and embedded in their schedules so this is where we landed and this is highlighted you can't really see it on the slide here's grade five and six right

058here but the student experience at Thompson Brook next year will be a true progression in fourth grade coming from Roaring Brook and Pine grve kids have one teacher plus all of their unified Arts teachers well in fifth grade they'll have two kids will get to move a little more they'll get to kind of get their toes wet what it's really like in sixth grade they'll have three teachers and then off in seventh grade four or more again always with their UA of course as well but it gives them it's almost like Steps we go from one to two to three and off to four and we were able to make this work on our schedule and then the next thing of course is that we wanted to make sure we had embedded intentional time for

059Teacher collaboration so we worked a schedule where now our teachers prep period the time they have off right to do their lesson plans and take care of all of those things that teachers need to do those prep periods will now very intentionally line up with other teachers who share the same students but those prep periods will also line up multiple times a week with teachers who share content so our Math teachers can meet with other Math teachers in fact in our sixth grade all of the teachers who teach that content will be available at the same time during the day for intentional collaboration and we're also going to make sure that those special education case managers are also available during those times so again I put at the bottom of that slide just you know

060collaboration means improved instruction and intervention consistency personalized student support increased engagement stronger family connections and communication and just efficiency in problem solving it's like a win-win mission accomplished and we're just so excited about it we talked to the faculty I think it was last week um you know I ended with like any questions concerns this is the time door is closed what do you know and and everyone is just I'd say a little like okay who am I teaching with maybe next year but really really jazzed about the model um next slide Christine thank you and so now that we've we've got the model clear and the schedule works and we're we're ready to go in that regard now the other uh subcommittee that I spoke of the one who is going to be looking

061at okay what's going to unite us what brings us together what is our identity what do we value what's Thompson Brook all about we're calling it like what's the TBS way they will now be workshopping going into next week and they're going to be looking at okay how can we align practices across grades to make sure that the student experience for every single fifth grader is the same and how can we make sure that everyone in our building has a shared understanding of what we value and what our expectations are how are we holding one another accountable um we're going to look at how we can make sure that our core values are truly aligned with those in the of the portrait of a graduate and we're going to Define what use those to to

062Define what unites Us and how we will be guided and then of course think about our schoolwide celebrations and our schoolwide traditions and making sure that we use that opportunity to embed all of this work into those things so this is ongoing work we won't be done after this year we're definitely planning to do a lot of sort of progress monitoring assessing how things are going next year the team will continue to convene um we'll continue to get the feedback of our staff and our students and our families and meet going into next year um to of course refine and tweak as we need to and and that in a nutshell there's a whole lot of work going on but in a nutshell that's kind of where we are the State of the State and

063I'm happy to take any of your questions if you have them you look yeah you move forward yep it sounds wonderful and exciting I what how is it different from the way things are now in ter terms of number of teachers and schedule so what what you described I I should know but I don't know what the what it is now versus what that's okay yeah so in fifth grade right now teacher uh students have one teacher it's in a we're in a self-contained model they do visit their unified arts classes but otherwise they just have that one teacher and then the sixth grade upstairs runs like the middle school where the teachers are teamed and now students are traveling between three or four teachers I love it I love the change I think that's

064really exciting you kind of glossed over the schedule I can't even imagine the nightmare putting the schedule together I am I right I yes it's okay it's it's the foundation from which everything else runs it's the engine and you know we we had a moment we were pulling out our hair we were in that community room at Thompson Brook and the moment when we sort of put the last piece in and it actually worked like everything that we said we wanted worked like the room erupted in cheers the custodian came in to check in on the room like you guys okay in there it's really exciting yeah I can't wait to see it in motion yeah thank you awesome go ahead Nicole now this sounds really good and I like the progression let the kids

065get used to switching teachers what two sub what subjects will the two fifth grade teachers be teaching great question so we're it's looking like they will of course they'll have the collaborative time but it's it's looking very much like it's going to be an Ela in social studies right Reading Writing a little bit of social studies and math and science um but I also think there are certain units that could be a little perhaps heavy and perhaps you know the math and science teacher might do some of the social studies it's really we're we're still kind of working that out but generally Ela and math are the two big nuggets yeah okay okay anyone go ahead remash I have two questions actually um so the first one is right you talked about the progression and

066the collaboration right so and this is an exercise which is going on for years and years right so and also looked into the the 2024 25 actions versus the ongoing thing now just curious like how you are preparing the students especially the special needs students because when the transition from the elementary school from fourth grade to the fifth grade most of the fifth grade is more of a learning between the two schools or two teachers or two administrators or par professionals whatever it is right and then the transition from the sixth grade to the seventh grade is again the same thing so how are we ensuring there's a seamless progression of the special needs students right from elementary school from the fourth grade until 7th grade right so so how are we ensuring that the

067the the progression and the collaboration is always happening with those students well that's first question okay yeah but I can I can ask uh later the second question after you answer okay sure the I the the the transition believe it or not is happening already where our teachers are meeting with both the AMS teachers also the Roaring Brook and Pine grve teachers um to share information to share strategies to share best practices um you know we have we hold transition activities at the school so the students will visit our school they'll come in the summertime for popsicles with the principal they'll come back in the in late August and learn how to uh you know find their locker and where their room is the thing that um will be very important to us is that

068the two teachers in fifth grade who are in essence partnering you know in a tandem model that they're geographically right right near one another okay uh right and and so we actually um had two fifth grade teams this year who were by the end of the by the end of um this last well actually the second half of the Year kind of piloting the model so they um we had a couple of maternity leaves so it was a a perfect opportunity for our long-term sub to just teach the ELA and the our teacher to teach the math and the students kind of traveled back and forth between the classrooms it was um it was a great opportunity to get their feedback so that we can anticipate the kinds of things that kids will need since

069they'll be moving a little more I mean moving around a building isn't new for students right they've been doing it to go to you know Wellness class or art class um but this is why that that collaboration of the teachers is so important you know you have two teachers who can really be working together to um you know cast a net and and ensure that the students who need the extra support have two teachers that are lock step and implementing any strategies with Fidelity so I think I think you answered partially my second question I think I was talking about like is there a pilot for the 20 I mean for the 20 24 25 actions as well as the ongoing work right so how we are preparing the students not just the special needs

070I'm talking the typical kids right how are we preparing the student experience is indeed a good experience right from day one of fifth grade getting into the th Thomson Brook itself right so and not waiting until the end of the fifth grade that the student experience is is not up to the Mark or whatever it is so what are the checks and balances we are doing it right at the day one uh of the of the school year itself so do we uh are we piloting with any particular students with respect to what is the progression or the collaboration we wanted to attain uh by the end of the school year during the beginning of the school year or any other uh yeah it's it's really important to start the school year like that so

071part of what the the second subcommittee will be workshopping next week is exactly this consistent practices ac across the school communication to all the students about uh you know where we go for what and how we walk down the hall what are our expectations um you know how we're going to talk about how we explicitly teach those things model those things embed those things live those things in everything we do so again it kind of comes back to the adults you know set creating the conditions and the circumstances for the students to be successful I could never stand here and guarantee that there won't be bumps in the road for kids right but we're going to do our very best to make sure that we're prepared to catch them when they fall and help them

072learn from their mistakes and write the ship um and I think making sure that we're prepared when we open school with all of this here's what we value here's how we do it here and we're going to help you get there yeah it's all in the learning process thank you I mean personally I think my kids have went gone through the TBS right I think TBS is really indeed the bridge school right so obviously uh I think that's a important grade right like in terms of the transitioning from the elementary school to T my favorite Middle School yeah thank you thank you can I just add ad Mel too I think you you made mention of this but one of the things that they're looking to do is break down the team uh purple team

073orange team blue team and and really Galvanize that they're the class of 2037 or something next year I don't know3 next it is um um my that that I think that speaks to what you were asking rsh which is that they still feel a a strong sense of that community and we know that one of the things that's hard for our students as they leave Roaring Brook Pine Grove in fourth grade they've been so connected to that and now they're a purple team or an orange team member on a fifth grade and we really want them to feel like for the first time they're the class of blank um and how does the staff shepher them through that year of really you know galvanizing them together as one unit Sarah I think this is great

074and I love that it seem well the enthusiasm you're showing seems representative of the teaching teams and you know everyone's kind of enthusiasm behind it I just had a quick question about um has there been is there teacher input on what areas of focus they want to teach you know if if it's or it's kind of being assigned I'm just curious I know there's overlap but the the I I mean the first thing I have to do as the administrator is make sure like all of the certifications match what we need to do and all of that but I did when when we met with the faculty to kind of share this um I asked for their feedback I told them that it was for my eyes only and I said listen I can't this

075isn't a request you're making and I can't make any guarantees but I also know that I'm going to get the best work out of you and therefore our kids will if you are tapping into your passion so what is it in the you know Pie in the Sky you could do whatever you were qualified to do at this school what would that be like I want to hear it and um we I got some very very honest responses and some that were uh frankly surprising in a really good way where people were looking for a little reset a little refresh and so um I'm I'm I've got the draft of How It's all playing out and um and it's looking really good like I think a lot of people are going to be very very

076pleased with what their teaching assignment is next year and the teachers with whom they'll be collaborating is that kind of reassessed each year or it's sort of a multi-year I mean I think it all depends like on enrollment and what the needs of the building are and all of that but um yeah it's not etched in stone make sure you at this desk with like like all these moving yes Post-it notes exact yes yes thanks any other questions thank you thank you so much for your passion I'm thrilled that you've made this progress because we've been witnessing it all along to get an update with you so happy is so great to see that you're leading that ship so we're rooting for you and we hope it all goes really well thank my pleasure thank

077you for coming and explaining it to us too thank you thank you again and thank you Julia also and moving on this is just we've talked a lot about portrait of The Graduate over the years um it's been an ongoing project so to speak in the school district to try to continue to Define um who we want our students to be when they graduate the skills and the dispositions that we are looking to help cultivate and so we've pushed further along in that work this year clearly again as Deb mentioned coming out to see um some of that work on the ground in the schools um that we're hopeful still we've got a couple more visits but I'll talk about that later um we can get you too but we wanted to bring you up

078to speed again with where we are in the work because we are right at the cusp of um further Communications and rebranding and and so on the graphics that you know if you were with us today said who's seen this graphic before this is great um and it's in here so I'm going to turn that to you Mr janini because you've done a ton of work for us thank you to pick that up where we had previously left off all right well um I think that was a great introduction and as um Miss sh mentioned you've had an opportunity to see some of the work taking place at the school level which is where the rubber hits the road per se um and this really tonight is just a a balcony view from what you'd

079see if you were looking out over the district uh with the portrait of The Graduate so I'm just going to start quickly you know all of you are aware of the portrait of the graduate but for anyone who um might be joining us this this evening who's not familiar uh we just thought we' we'd start really quickly with what is a portrait of The Graduate and so uh kind of simplified here it it's what students should know and be able to do upon graduation and that's something that each district defined uh so sometimes we talk about State uh mandates and standards and regulations but this is really something homegrown uh where a district gets together and defines that uh as what's really truly important to them once you have a portrait of The Graduate it

080really becomes a driver as we mentioned a little while ago for all big decisions things that are happening of course at the district and school level but even right down to what a teacher might be deciding to do and focus on in uh their classroom so from the start and and and it was it was a big start uh it may be slightly interrupted by covid uh I know that become a little was cliche but U it's the truth uh so first developed during the 2020 2021 school year by a pretty large Committee of over 50 staff members community members uh teachers School leaders um our our portion of the graduate landed on three skills and and two dispositions um which are really defined and measured by a set of and characteristics habits uh qualities

081that we would hope our students leave us with upon graduation if you don't mind Jess just add in because I know this was prior to your time at central office with us too you might all remember as some of you as board members but also as uh parents and community members the other way that feedback was solicited from the entire Community was a thought exchange something went out to everyone to be able to participate and to talk about what they thought was most important for students to know and be able to do and there were thousands of responses for that that and that data was coded and taken in as we then put the committee together and that's so important because one of the things that a portra of The Graduate does is we know

082um we we uh have had experts come in and speak to us about what the workforce is looking for right when organizations are out there hiring the employees of the future why are these skills and dispositions so important well it you know as we've referenced with our staff many times the jobs that some of our students will have someday don't even necessarily exist at this moment um I think it was just a couple of years ago that the uh graduating class when they were kindergarteners the iPhone didn't exist so when you think about over what we all know as adults goes by really quickly your time in school you can imagine that some of the things we're preparing our students for um we we really can't even dream up yet um but if they leave

083us with these skills and dispositions we believe we're setting them up for success in in the future so there are three skills and and two dispositions and in case you're wondering what's the difference between a skill and a disposition uh I would say it's it's a little bit of a gray area um but when we think about a skill as something you can learn to be able to do um and and a disposition as a mindset a habit right something that you might Trend towards um that's really how you would see the difference between a skill and a disposition uh and so you can see our three there uh communication and expression collaboration and critical and creative thinking and there is a copy for you um tonight of the skills and the dispositions with those

084indicators there uh for you to look over uh what you see on that slide if you could just go back one moment um Christian thank you um so the the main graphic is is pictured there um and this is something that um will be really become something you'll see a lot more around the District um The Hope is in the fall to have that circular graphic present in our hallways and in our classrooms so that we can begin to build from preschool um that sense in our students of what it would uh be like to to Really um embody an Avon learner and someday be a graduate we don't put too much pressure on them in kindergarten but just to start to build that sense of what this is all about and those icons you

085see there uh the kind of the speech bubbles from a text and the handshake um and and the light bulb the reason those icons became important is because we want to start to embed those in documents so you may see a report come home or um something coming out from the school with those uh with that branding yeah found on it so these are our two dispositions of cultural culturally competent and independent and adaptable and again you see the globe there and the puzzle piece as the two icon those are found in the main graphic there you can kind of see them embossed in the background um but then we can also pull them out as needed where we want to highlight those skills and dispositions and all things that you would find throughout our

086district so this began in 2020 and 2021 with that large group but kind of where are we now um and so over the past three years uh there's been quite a bit of effort on behalf of our leadership team and our staff to really work to embed this uh we really want it to permeate into all things um that we are doing here uh as a district so it's not necessarily a standalone item but it again it permeates all of our teaching and learning practices our social emotional learning practices school events open houses that you would really see a lot of reference to the portrait of The Graduate throughout the those experiences so that's included a lot of different things but just some highlights there revising some of our goals to really speak to the

087the P for short portra of The Graduate um it's been the focus of our instructional rounds this year so as each School developed an inquiry question and went out to really explore classroom practices um all five schools landed on something directly connected to a p skill or disposition which was pretty cool because it really comes from the staff it's not given to them it's really a Grassroots effort to develop those questions um our tal plan that you approved uh last year really had a paid a lot of homage to um the EV uh to the P including things we'd be looking for in the classroom uh we've done a lot of professional development and really just a lot of tweaking uh here in District all things PG so these next couple slides and again I

088won't read through all this it's just it's a lot of um text but as we spoke of earlier everything we do um really uh is uh in an effort to achieve those goals that are we have in our blueprint for excellence and now that driver of the portrait of the graduate but they're not in competition um the they two really do speak to each other in fact if you were to crosswalk them you would see a lot of connection between what's in our blueprint for excellence and what you see in the portrait of The Graduate and in a perfect world The Blueprint is really supporting our efforts as a district to ensure that when our students gradu uate someday all of the pieces that we have here in District have actually helped to support that

089work um just recently at one of our leadership meetings um even some members of our operations team were thinking about how the work that they do from buildings and grounds and nutrition services and and all of their efforts in the business office and Human Resources um really work to achieve that dream for our students and just a couple additional examples there of of you know revising curriculum revising assessments um and really just looking to enhance all aspects of what we do we've said several times that the the portrait of The Graduate is a lens we want our teachers to look through so of course we do critical and creative thinking activities of course there's been opportunities for communication and expression but how can a teacher look through that lens to enhance what they already have

090in their classroom uh and so next up and why this is so timely for for you this evening is um as we've rebranded and and and uh you know had that new graphic created for us uh there's going to be a lot more air time for the portrait of The Graduate so you're going to begin seeing it in in all things Avon Public uh public schools and so we just wanted to take this opportunity again to kind of give you that District view of the work to match with what you've been seeing in our schools uh and so that'll mean a lot of different things um including when you uh do provide feedback for us as a district how are we doing with really embracing those skills and disposition uh here in Avon that's it

091any questions we're happy to answer them anybody go ahead Lyn I love the icons I love it I love the The Branding um and I think where you're going next with this helping parents understand what these terms mean I think it's so critical because they can reinforce the same dispositions at home I mean if you know as a parent or grandparent you know well at school you have to be collab well here too you know so I think that there's so much um possibility for making parents having parents be partners in this congratulations it's great anyone go ahead raes I'm just curious I I think I I love this and the The Branding here right but just curious right is this branding is tied to Awards recognitions and opportunities for students like that that's a

092great question it's one of the pieces that we've talked to as a leadership team is that we currently do different things in our buildings to recognize students and that's a goal for us in the coming years is how do we tie these specific skills and dispositions into the way that we do recognize students across our school Community yep thank you nice anyone else thank you all right thank you tremendous progress and we appreciate seeing it in action too it feels like yesterday we were presenting the culmination of the committee's work for the board to approve the skills and the disposition so a lot has transpired since then so thank you moving on just some other General updates as we mentioned we've had the portrait of The Graduate visits uh we got to see the great

093art class at Avon High School where they were using a portion of the portrait of The Graduate rubric as you heard earlier to give feedback to others and as well as to reflect on their own um artwork and their progress um at RBS we got to see prek as you heard and the focus there was on uh Independence and adaptability because we watched um non-structured play which is very important in the early Elementary years particularly in uh pree 3 4K and even a little bit into one sometimes even moving forward beyond that um but I think we also got to see even besides what uh Mr Sturm and Miss Salvatore spoke about at the beginning which was Independence and adaptability quite a bit we certainly saw the students uh exhibiting their skills in collaboration communication

094and expression also as they went through the centers so that was a great visit thank you again and thank you to the um prek teachers there was a lot of Us coming through in in rooms with uh little ones at stations uh just today we were at the middle school and we were with the principal's advisory Council including uh Miss Wallace and Mr Suma and a number of other uh faculty and staff members um and board members that were there today got to experience going through the activities with the students as as group members onlookers I think mostly because we were trying to let the students do the work but that was also a great day um as we left there today one of the reflections was and and um Miss Wallace and us I

095were talking about this earlier it's so um great to see that when you Empower students as we said they solve their own problems um and we watched a lot of that happen today as they went through um the skills and the dispositions and talked about what they thought those things looked like in practice and how we could do better and more as both students and um faculty and staff to further those um types of skills in students so it was a very interesting day thank you again and uh next week I believe it's the 4th we right we will be at pgs for morning meeting that be another interesting day we're looking forward to it second excuse me second and uh the 11th at Thompson Brook and we're going to get to see I think

096a Rocko's rally mix it up day right yeah so there's two more opportunities I know it's incredibly difficult because of course you have lives and jobs and children and so forth to do during the day if you're able to make the last two or one of the last two um we' be happy to have you so I'll send out another invite for those and again just want to thank all of the teachers um and administrators for helping us to do that I think it's very important that you get to see um some of the work on the ground we can bring things here to you at a meeting and you can see things on paper but there's nothing like coming and being able to interact and see some of it in person so thank you

097again um similarly and we talked uh justess mentioned instructional rounds which you know has been one of the um cornerstones of our work over the past year plus um as you know I'm I'm involved in a Statewide uh group called the superintendent Network um which was formed many years ago before my time as a superintendent um in a partnership with Harvard University and um what we do with each other as superintendents throughout the state is visit each other's school districts and matter of fact we were in we were in Bristol uh just last year I think and we do instructional rounds with the faculty and administrators that work in the schools and they come to us with an inquiry question like we've developed here at each of our schools or or problem of practice depends

098on the nomenclature where you are what they call it um and we help them to collect data and to make recommendations for what the next steps would be to get them to wherever it is they are looking to go in the schools that we visit and we are hosting them here for the first time ever in Avon um the superintendent network is coming to to visit Avon Middle School on April 1st so we are looking forward to that um no pressure it's going to be it's going to bepr it's not an April foo's joke um we don't know how many um this is a tough time of year for for superintendents we' you know and and School administrators and and faculty and staff in general this actually is a lot busier of a time of

099year than it is even when we open up schools this is a a sometimes what we refer to kind of as a Grind from March until the end of June between the work that we're trying to do to close out the school years budget season so forth so for those reasons this is sometimes a tough time of year for the superintendents to make it so we could have as many as 20 superintendents that come um that's how many are in my cohort just under 20 because they divide us into two um and maybe as few as 10 but even 10 is a lot to come through so we will work as a leadership team here to to decide how many of us I've clearly I'm there and the administrators in the building are there U

100Mr janini miss Mr medic Miss Russo is there Christine has been making a lot of things happen behind the scenes but we will bring in some other members of the leadership team and the folks at AMS depending on how many people come from the NW work so we're get back to you on that but we're looking forward to that visit and the middle school all schools have embraced doing the instructional rounds and really made great progress I think you've seen and heard a lot about that already so I won't be labor it tonight but the Middle School um has just again tweaked their inquiry question with after a lot of um discussions amongst the faculty and the staff there so they were a a ripe place to come so to speak to choose to come

101with the network because we're going to give a test run on their new inquiry based question and collect some data related to it and if you're wondering if you can't sleep tonight unless I tell you what it is it is related to student engagement and what does it look like when students are truly engaged in the work and what strategies might teachers employ to further that engagement the curriculum the instruction the assessments all of it kind of taking all of that in so that's what we'll be collecting data on and thank you again um s Suma Miss Wallace for your work to help us get ready just want to say congratulations again for the play from AMS and you saw them tonight they really were fantastic um want to thank the high school and say

102congratulations to all the students getting their Capstone presentations done as a huge undertaking at the high school a lot of time and effort and um faculty members coming to grading uh presentations as some of you as parents at the table have done that or just did that I read through a lot of the um presentations they they share them with me in a link so that I can't see it's hard to see a lot of them because they all take place at the same time but I've had a great time going through and reading what the students have put together really a lot of variety and um certainly showing that they have learned um many of the skills if not all the skills and dispositions related to the portrait of The Graduate and also shout

103out to Avon High School related to that they added in kind of a pilot this year what it might look like to have some of the rubric and Grading focused on what you see in the portrait of The Graduate rubric too so that's a nice catapult forward as we keep moving this um finally I guess I'll say um we had an excellent day of professional learning um last Friday and I want to as always thank teaching and learning Department especially want to thank um Elizabeth Ferry who of course I always do this right when the person couldn't be here with us tonight but somebody else tell her um Elizabeth spent tremendous amount of time um cataloging and analyzing data and putting things together for us as she always does but this was kind of above

104and beyond we had 30 uh teacher Choice sessions so 30 different sessions that teachers could sign up for across the district that's a lot of moving parts and a lot of presentations to set up people to get scheduled um we and and most of them were led by our own faculty and staff so the majority of those sessions are teachers sign up to go to our and our teachers ran um we did partner with some outside providers for example we had Farmington Valley Health District come in and do another uh youth mental health PD which we've done with them several times already that's difficult sometimes logistically because it requires two different sessions but we're working through that in the second piece um and we also had signac come uh from insurance company and they offered

105two health and wellness classes um and the Connecticut education Association also the ca came and offered a wellness course that was focused on higher order thinking questions with faculty and we even had uh professional learning right down to um our facilities maintenance staff there were some pieces done there and with our administrative assistance in the offices we had some training updates related to furpa and security so all around it was a great day and I would be remiss if I didn't personally thank him again though they're not here um Mr Abrams and Mr peligrino uh went out on a little bit of a limb after some conversations uh with us about wanting to do some professional learning related to anti-Semitism um for faculty members in the district there had been um that's something that we

106took away from many of our climate surveys uh both on student experience side and on teachers um telling us they might need to know more about what that actually looked like when you know when it was in practice um and we've done sessions here uh previously with other organizations from the outside to related to different pieces of um what we'll call the isms um as Mr Abrams said in that professional learning we've worked with farming din area uh Valley Muslims um from Farmington Center thank you also to do professional learning in um some pieces related to anti- uh Muslim um sentiment so forth but this one Stu as you know is an expert in in the field and has been doing professional development in other states um as of late and he is retiring at

107the end of the year I think that's where he's going to turn his efforts to so I say he went out on a limb because they piloted something here for us um with a group of Faculty that signed up to see what that might look like if we were not bringing in people from the outside so one more way that we were use utilizing our own folks um and I got to see them and they did a really nice job with it so I just wanted to make sure that I publicly thanked them for putting that together for us and and we didn't have to pay the money for it that some other school districts pay because they were our our resident experts so thank you again I'm good that was fantastic thank you it's

108a lot going on you guys are doing a great job um so now we move on to the consent calendar I just want to make the comment um we talked about the transfers but for the donations we want to acknowledge how incredibly generous um these donations have been the booster club has has donated a lot of money to different sports teams through their efforts we have a a parent at the middle school who has through her job brought in money for video production equipment and we also have an Alum who donated two french horns to Thompson Brook that's amazing and I just want to put a plug for Ben Angus he's a fabulous singer as well so I didn't know he played the French horn so that's fabulous so it's just nice to see that

109our own students that have graduated still think of us and want to give back I think that's a test even before the port of The Graduate that we did it with them so that's really nice to see so um barring anyone wanting to change or pull off something from the consent calendar do I have a motion to approve it so moves Jeff do I have a second thank you Suzanne all in favor passes unanimously with nine thank you all right old business this is exciting um Dr caral is going to bring our budget down a little bit gu it's exciting so as we went through the budget process uh this year we talked continually about uh looking for additional ways to bring uh the overall increase down as you know that uh has been difficult

110um in recent years especially with the rising costs of pretty much everything the same things that we're facing as uh individuals and families at home the school district is seeing and the town is seeing and a much larger scale um so if you go to slide two for me no don't get nervous I'm not going to take you through the entire budget again it's really just one piece that we have tweaked and I know this is a little bit uh I guess I'd use the word unorthodox because what typically happens as you know is uh we meet a plethora of times and do a lot have a lot of discussions about the budget go through line by line and we turn it over to the town uh we must turn it over to the town

111uh by the end of January or at minimum I think it was by February 2nd this year first Friday of February basically which is usually sometime around the 1 to the which means you have to approve it at your January meeting and you did um and that's usually the end of it until we get to what we would call the other side and go through the workshops and the hearings um on the town side but we had been talking on our side about what continuing to look if we could find any other ways to further reduce before it even went there um and you might remember that one of the things I kept saying was there might be one more Elementary position that we may May um not need as we move forward but I

112didn't know that yet until we got further along in the kindergarten registration um and so we are further along in the kindergarten registration as I mentioned tonight and so we feel more confident um with removing one more Elementary position from the budget now does that mean there is a person losing their job no because as as you know we were working to reallocate staff as other positions opened up and so we've we've really already done that before we're even here tonight everybody and I I shared that with you as a board anyway I think you've seen that many thanks again to the to the um faculty out there that uh raised their hand and volunteered to do different things next year um so that we were able to make this uh budget work with the

113least amount of disruption really although in the end even though we we were talking about three positions moving around um it really resulted in a number of people moving from place to place to make it work um so with this reduction and on the ground what this looks like is as a first grade teacher at hind Grove it's a first grade quote position that's a that's the moving Target here if you will because we need one less section of grade one next year we already knew that coming into the budget process but what we didn't know at the time was would we be able to move that um would we need to move that position down to kind Garten because of the number of registrations and so rather than worry about getting through the entire

114budget process and then having to add in a teacher as you know we we kept it this way until we felt more confident in the number we do now um we know that we would have to have a lot more kindergarten students register I mean could it happen yes anything anything could happen you know I try not to say Never Say Never um but it would have to be a lot more than we have seen register between now and the beginning of the school year to need to maintain that position and there isn't a person in it right now the way we have our scheduling done for next year so being more confident in that um we thought it was prudent to bring it back to you to have the conversation tonight rather than wait

115till until we are at the public hearing um Susan has talked to Tom Daio on the town side I've talked to Brandon Robertson on the town side so they are aware that we had been looking at this and trying to figure out how to make it work we did um just within the last week or so really down to the financial piece being certain about it um they have put out their documents already to print so when we get to the hearing you're not going to see this reflected on on the town side we'll have to speak to it um but I thought it would be better to bring it let you know it tonight um see what your thoughts are um again back to the unorth Ox piece of this I I feel like

116if you are in agreement you should probably take action on the budget again even though that's not the norm because this is not the number that we put to the other side um meaning sometimes what happens as you know is if we're asked to further cut it on the town side you will have as a board at the workshop have to take that action possibly anyway but it but there have been times we have not had a Forum of board members able to attend some of those sessions so in advance and not waiting to put this in front of you when we were on the town side I thought number one best to bring it tonight and two if you think that you ought to take action so that it's already a known um fact

117that the budget is at this lesser number because as you can see um can you go to yep thank you one more go to five for me please this is where you see where we highlighted it you can see the change there in the it was um one elementary teacher and it is now two elementary teachers thank you for continuing to do the work I'm always a proponent of us bringing forward the budget that we truly are asking for so I think it's important that we're all aware of this change does anybody have any questions or comments go ahead Nicole um I'm with the kindergarten enrollment have we been looking at Pine grve and Roaring Brook how that's split up so we know that yes we have the correct amount yep there are times when

118I think you know this but for everyone's knowledge um we've had to sort of redistrict if you will we've had to take a couple of streets back from one side of town or the other to to try to equalize things between Pine grve and Roaring Brook um we have not had to do that in the last couple of years but there's there still are some there still are some variations there but yes we're keeping an eye on it the exact numbers for example right now it's 78 at rowing Brook and 94 at Pine grve registered for the coming year as I said this is pretty consistent with with what we've seen go ahead Len a little confused so I know the documents are already in stone so to speak but if we act on this

119tonight and we move forward with this new number that's what people will be voting for that's what people will be discussing the new number yes we'll have to bring it to them but it should be well well the board of so what'll happen if you're member at the board of Finance Workshop is generally before they start having the discussion and I talked to Mr Dasio about this tonight the town already has a a few changes themselves a few reductions because the grand list is now finalized it was not finalized prior to their documents being put together and the Town Council adopting the budget so we'll probably start the meeting with the town making those reductions and then having our number after tonight if you approve it they'll have that number as well so before the

120board of Finance really starts the work I think they'll go ahead and make these reductions so they start at a lower number before they have a conversation that's at least what we discussed today so the answer to the question is yes yes yeah they'll be working with this number for Board of Ed it's just that the numbers as they have gone through the Town Council right now have to be the ones that move forward at least at the start of thing they have not seen this you are seeing this first so they're not going to change all of their documents right now to get until we are all together it will be in time though to do the letter that goes home to all the residents we will be in time for that oh that's

121good it's always good to come with a lower number so I think Nicole has a question I'm just trying to follow this because I think once I thought I understood how the budget seeson goes now we're we're we're changing this up um because I thought in the past when you would find Cuts Like You Would reallocate it because that was the number that was voted on so at the referendum what will be the number should we be looking to change our dates in the future if this is what's going to happen where we're voting to like months later we're very early in terms of other districts and having to prepare our budget for them that's why January is really hard to get an accurate you know number from but that is just how it is

122it doesn't mean work can't continue to happen until the referendum number has been chosen remember the board of Finance sets the referendum number so we're bringing forward this updated version with a lower request but that's what they're considering when they decide on what the town will vote on so that doesn't change it's just we're presenting them with a lower increase than what we originally thought we needed but it's still the same process go ahead remash so what is the date the board of finances set as a cut off date to make any changes it's after our three we have a workshop with all three boards meet together well we have a presentation first of the budget so Bridget will give our presentation typically Dan has done the presentation for the Town Council then Houston might

123speak to the combined budget as Board of Finance chair then there's another meeting of the workshop where it's all three boards get to have a conversation um with it's technically the board of finances meeting but it's done in public again so that people can witness that work then the number is set for referendum so there is a list of dates in terms of what we have to expect for our own calendars that's already set as far as what dates they are I don't have them in front of me I don't know if you know Susan no I mean the the board of VI unless the town changes their processes we have to to answer Nicole's question more directly we have to approve our budget our original budget and hand it off to the town by

124that first J um Friday in January in February there's no changing that unless they Chang I think the charter or the whole process because the Town Council has their workshop generally that first the following Saturday where they then vote at their March meeting they did vote on March 6th to adopt the budget at the council so that gives them enough time um the board of Finance received the budget and had the opportunity last night to review it so they do have it in their hands um ahead of time before that hearing because I know was that was some of the feedback last year they didn't have it far enough in advance before the public hearing not this they have the old yes they have the old one um but as I said regularly the town

125not us we we usually do everything possible to have that January number be set in stone um but the town regularly makes changes at that board of Finance Workshop because the dates are so early they never have the final Grand list they just it's impossible it's it's not due it's the the information is not available they often don't have the final Insurance numbers either no we we actually technically still don't have final numbers we won't have those until probably June um but we have a good enough estimate to to move forward with on both sides so in terms of the dates we have to go with what we have um I just think as British said it's just putting us in a better position we can go into the budget hearing presenting the lower number

126knowing that and we'll make reference that it's not necessarily in the town's information but Tom can speak to that in terms of what the impact is I do have the dates April 7th is the hearing where it's presented to the whole town and feedback can be provided April 9th is the tri board meeting May 5th is the final budget meeting where the number is set and then referendum is on May 14th so in reality no we didn't have to bring this tonight or or or have you take any action if if we just continue the process as normal um and I had figured this out before we got there in April we would have just brought it up in April when the before the number was set but knowing that we've worked this hard to

127to bring this number down as much as possible and this is this you know we're at with this we're at 78.8 positions you know it's we we've reduced as you can see like you know almost three4 of of a million dollars which was you all know not an easy feat this year so the last thing that you know I thought we would want to happen was to get there and then say Oh by the way we actually don't need you know something that's in there to be more transparent we know that right now I wanted to bring it right now to you but as I kept saying we went through the process I didn't feel comfortable enough making the recommendation to two months ago until we pushed forward because most of the kindergarten registrations are

128done between you know end of January and February so at that point we had no idea what kindergarten would look like really besides checking in with the local daycares looking at our own prek and just forecasting forward that's what we do every year but at this point it it feels more um comfortable to do this and and again I just think it's more um transparent of us to bring this forward in this way instead of waiting until we're there and then you know for example some this they if they say you know we'd like you to cut another we'd like you to cut x amount of dollars we'd raise our hand and say okay well you know we we have this teacher position well if we already knew that we probably should have talked about

129it before we got there what reason we have to not I I I was just saying I know it's unorthodox because it's just not the norm necessarily that we have come back again to take action as a board unless we've been told to cut the budget and so we're not in a place tonight where we've been told by the um Town Council the board of Finance or or a referendum uh result that it should be cut but nonetheless if we had this information two months ago that would have been the number we brought you anyway m I agree anyone else all right then I will make the motion to approve the new number 4.31 budget for the Board of Ed do I have a second devb it's actually 4.29 the net number is 4.31 so

130if we do the whole dollar amount the 72 million Christine please correct that 4.29 in the minutes thank you do I have a second second I'll take the was that or Sarah the yeah who was it Sarah sorry all in favor I any opposed any abstentions okay one abstention yes okay now new business can I just say I would like to just say that I appreciate you bringing it down I am abstaining as I abstained from the first vote and it had nothing to do with your work on it but I still do think that even after you know I'm grateful that our represent came and spoke with us but I still do think that the state needs to relook at the funding that that Avon get so there is no reflection on what I

131think Dr carola or Mrs Russo has done with our budget I'm still going to continue to keep my abstaining vote okay moving on discussion and possible action on Elementary literacy program for K4 begins on page 30 I don't know Jess Jess you want to take this yep uh um well as uh to steal a line from Dr Carol I'm not going to take you through the whole presentation so not to worry uh we did have a very comprehensive meeting with the curriculum and professional practices subcommittee uh about a month ago uh and uh it was an opportunity to walk the group through um we were joined by some curriculum Specialists um our director of curriculum instruction and assessment Jody gransky um some of our elementary principles uh joed us as well that evening so we

132can kind of walk through the process that you're very familiar with uh this all really kicked off for us back in December of 2023 uh and really has spaned a tremendous amount of work and time over the last couple of years uh just always it's great to take an opportunity to thank those individuals who were part of our district literacy leadership team dllt for short uh I I want to point uh these individuals out because as you know we were launching a new mathematics program this fall uh at the elementary level and these individuals in addition to that joined us for several meetings uh primarily after you know school hours uh some during the day as well uh to do this work and that included for some of our classroom teachers while they were learning

133the new math curriculum also um trying out some of the new reading materials uh in their classrooms as as well so I want to thank them for that because that was uh quite a bit of work for them to take on so you're familiar with um the process that team that we formed really was um tasked with selecting uh a state approved program and while it it met the state's requirements we still wanted to make sure that it honored our vision for ELA instruction here in the district uh we talked earlier about the skills and dispositions within our portrait The Graduate uh we wanted to make sure that our students were still thinking critically it was still challenging we still embraced Equity um and that we really maximize the efficiency of our Ela block here

134in Avon just a quick piece on that when I say maximize uh that time uh one of the things that a program does is it's a scripted piece right you know that you're going to do a certain amount of work in a certain amount of time what was important to us was that we found something that fit within that block and still left enough time during Ela for our teachers to have that autonomy to be differentiating instruction bringing in authentic text working in small groups and uh we believe this program accomplished and checked all of those boxes for us here in Avon and so our recommendation is for the um savis company's my view uh literacy program it is a complete program that will cover all aspects of the science of reading so you remember

135that's a lot of the piece that was driving this work to ensure that we had a program in place to support our curriculum that hit all five areas uh what's included in your packet this evening is a recommendation for that program to be K4 uh we spoke about that at cppp at length the reason the group felt very strongly to make that recommendation um it really ties into some of the conversation we had this evening about the Thompson Brook self study uh we do not feel it's in our students best interest to transition within in uh you know a primary reading program for one year at the elementary level um knowing that they would then make that transition to Thompson Brooks School where our current Ela curriculum would carry them from fifth grade all the

136way through graduation so we felt like one transition was good multiple transitions during that short period of time was not our students um best interest we also talk a lot about collaboration vertical alignment and we felt like just based on the structure of those schools recommending this program be part of what all students in kindergarten through fourth grade experience was in their best interest and so upon your approval there's quite a bit of work to do as you can imagine it feels like wash rinse repeat a little bit for what we went through last spring with mathematics um but just uh this next slide highlights a few of uh those things that we'll be doing this spring in terms of professional development for staff um curriculum writing training um and really thinking about what it'll

137be like to implement this program in the upcoming school year and so that's that's really ex again I promise I wouldn't go through the whole thing again um but those are just some quick highlights to the work leading to the adop of this new program I'm happy to answer any questions you might have pending your approval all right we did have a very rich discussion at that meeting thank you and I appreciate more board members showing up than are on the committee in order to witness that conversation as well if there any other questions you're good okay Lynn would you like to make the motion just want to remind anybody listening we did have a lot of questions it's not like we're not interested we really did and we we were we felt very favorable

138so I guess I would make a motion to um as of tomorrow is that how it would work once the 30 days the uh today's 29 days so tomorrow is 30 days and so pending uh the completion tomorrow at 4:00 of the uh public review period Then This would become we can just say pending the end of the 30-day rev 30-day public review um to I'd like to make a motion to approve the k for literacy program as presented thank you to have a second Ramesh all in favor I passes unanimously thank you and thank you again that was a lot of work with us over the almost two years at this point that culminated in that last committee meeting so thank you very much yes all right next discussion and possible action regarding the

139procurement card program or pcard District Credit Card we discussed this at l in our finance committee meeting as well but Susan if you wouldn't mind just giving a synopsis for people who missed absolutely um the whole presentation in your packet uh so I won't read you every slide but I'll give you a brief overview um what is a PE card a PE card is like a credit card um but with a lot of internal controls um it's it's a card that will allow card holders to make um transactions online just like a credit card but it will allow us to set limits on the card set limits on what you buy how much you buy per day who buys it and it'll give us flexibility with some vendors that we're continuing to see a growing

140number of that do not accept purchase orders or do not accept um checks even uh only venmo or which will'll never do uh or credit cards Say Never Susan never why I'm here EXC I'll do Apple pay first um so we're what I've I've investigated this um this is a program that I'd like to recommend other peers are using it in um the the state um as well as I've had experience at my old District of using an actual credit card that can be linked to a person's act you know their personal credit history and that's something that I would never entertain and had not brought up to to bring to the district but we are seeing more and more need for this um what it allow us to do is our district purchasing agent

141there'll be a card in the business office and that'll let her make the purchases with approved vendors um that don't accept purchase orders don't accept checks also we're seeing a lot of need in our athletic department oddly enough Athletics that's where you know you wouldn't think you need it uh but the rowing the crew team the rowing Association as well as all the track and field the indoor track the outdoor track um all their fees are now online only so I've had Mr Fusco have to pay on his credit card um I've had Mr philon I tend to pick up every thing for the district that we have to buy on my personal credit card because it's my department so I can at least get paid back rather quickly um but we want to stop

142having that happen uh what I want to ensure the um the board is that these internal controls um there'll still be purchase order required every purchase will still be approved this is not a cart blanch uh to just take a credit card and go I will not have a personal credit card the superintendent will not have a personal credit card touch whatever this no she she won't even allow me to bring it near her if we did it um what'll happen is my purchasing um secret my personing specialist um Miss sumeer will have that card we'll have it locked up in a secure file she'll have that to make those approved purchases that are already have a purchase or our attach them gone through the whole process Athletics will have the same Mr fron and

143M sler will we go through all the processes I I've already been reviewing other District across the country have user manuals go along with it they have card holders sign off on agreement on what you can and cannot do with the card we'll put that in place if we're approved this is all pending approval as well what I'm asking the board to do is approve us applying for the card it takes a board resolution as well as three years of audited financials um and a lot of information from us because they are not um requiring that personal information that other places do they're they're doing it on our our credit the fact that our town is you know AAA Bond certified we good Financial standing they're reviewing that as the approval process which is what

144we want we want it to be uh the board of EDS card not the Susan Russo card um which is the other option out there which some districts do and we would never so we do have other cards that we use we have a Big Y card we have a shop R card similar process you just can only get things at those particular Stores um so the next steps would would be um the finance committee already reviewed this and moved it on to the full board I thank them for that I asked the board to vote on a resolution which will allow me to apply for the um card uh and then we would submit the application wait for the approval and we'll work with um some of my peers that run the program in

145the state of Illinois they created this it's part of our um Association of school business officials that's who the programs link through uh it's a a group of business officials throughout the country actually intern as well and uh then we'll look to implement that in uh next school year with maybe a pilot if we get all the information in time for sports season the end of sports season I'll work with Mr Finland to maybe do a little test run thank you good suzan I for I'm just thinking with the amount of money that we must spend on these kinds of things is there any kind of reward system that they have they do have a little bit of discount we will get a little little bit of um of cash back so to speak it's

146very minimal but there's something like that unfortunately all the rewards programs are real credit cards I'll call them uh that we would have to apply individually for she wants travel oh I understand that's why I volunteer it's a good question anybody else just same thing I was in the same meeting and and we grilled you with questions so thank you dumb question that I assume is the answer is not an issue there's no conflict with the town's spending policies with this like there's nothing that particularly prohibits us from the town side of it no no they actually the town actually pays some of their vendors via AC which I actually hesitate on a little bit I'm a little less comfortable with that I'd rather have a a card that I could charge back okay if

147there's an issue so I think it protects us a little bit more another good question anybody else all right as the chair of the finance committee I will move to approve the application of okay you want me to read this whole okay we're ready guys that's okay all right this is the resolution authoriz authorizing issuance or individual procur of individual procurement cards sorry the type is small okay whereas the Avon Board of Education for the town of Avon Connecticut has the authority to enter into an agreement with the Bank of Montreal for purchasing cards and any other whereas statements the board wishes to add are acceptable but not required now therefore be it resolved by the Avon board of education for the town of Avon Connecticut that the chairperson is authorized to enter into an

148agreement with the Bank of Montreal to S secure procurement cards for each authorized employee of the municipality under such terms and conditions as approved by the board the board authorizes the board's business manager to execute Ute a PE card program agreement on its behalf the resolution do I have to read that part no didn't think so okay do I have a second second second by Jeff all in favor passes unanimously with nine thank you all right now thank you to Christine for providing the upcoming list of board meeting dates it's amazing how quickly they sneak up on you but it's good to prepare and know what to expect in the fall so hopefully everyone's had an opportunity to look them over is there anything glaring that anybody noticed as far as a night that wouldn't

149work for them yes we noted that it was St Patrick's Day thank you chrisy you know of course my my people are happy about that um but the real reason we we kept the meeting this um Year too in on the next march date like we are here tonight because this is the fourth um we are looking at different spacing between uh policy and finance at certain points of the year to make sure that we can get things done effectively so that was why we we made that change to a couple of months but the numbers the dates are accurate ACC they just have the not at the bottom if you just pointing out why sometimes we you know we look at different dates because over the years we have figured out that this this

150is why it's great to have it in advance because we can put it in our calendar and we already expect it um and any you know that okay I'll put that in my calendar so I know all right anyone else otherwise okay do I have a motion to approve the 2025 2026 Avon Board of Education monthly meeting dates as presented so moved thank you Jeff do I have a second thank you Suzanne all in favor I passes unanimously with nine any Communications from the public [Applause] all right any communication from Board of Education members seeing none do I have a motion to adjourn motion to adjourn thank you Chris do I have a second oh thank you Sarah all in favor I passes unanimously as 901 thank you very much thank you [Music]