Avon Board of Education Meeting - 11/19/19

001[Music] like to call girl oh I mean call to order the special meeting of the Avon Board of Education will get started discussing the budget for 2020 to 2021 and I will move it over to dr. carnival look thank you play-doh text technically this is a budget workshop and make you all known by now that when we're in workshop mode I have a hard time being on this side of the table so that we can have a conversation so that our setup is kind of odd must this was important meeting right after but usually we changed the way the room is set up so that said don't mind me but you know that I would probably get up and come to the other side okay so I have the blueprint up just because one I

002have it tied to what we'll talk about tonight because starting to talk about our priorities for next year but the main purpose for tonight is number one is the initial meeting so we start talking about where we start on the budget and so to be clear about where we start we don't engage in a full-blown rollover meaning let's take the just take the numbers and push them forward because in doing that we would stray from the strategy of our zero budgeting mechanism really going through the lines thank you and making sure that everything that we use last year we still need to repurchase again and so forth so some of them though of course we know and we have to move forward things i contractual obligations what I call the non-negotiables of the budget that

003we that we know we've already put into place so if you look first let me start with the process price let's look very similar last year if you go to our first page I won't belabor the point but the budget process is early here and so we start early as an administrative team the first thing that we did look very similar to the way we changed it last year the first year that I went through the budget with you so we asked every building administrator and I'll say department head meaning everyone isn't its building administrator so dr. Merriman for example from the special and angle and the student services angle Vox dr. Wojtek from the technology area we asked everyone who is an administrator in the district to start with look at your budget from

004last year think about what we utilized in every line and work with people in your buildings teachers case managers custodians to say what do we need moving forward what are our priorities this year these are our goals as a district what are the priorities for this budget they have those conversations in the building thanks to ms Michoud and the financial offices we didn't even better job this year of putting in much of what we could for them at central office instead of leaving the school secretaries and the administrators to put in a lot of the numbers that we already had ourselves and could push in for them so we did some of the legwork to make it easier on the building administrators and they have their meetings and they turned in their initial numbers the

005building administrators be and the stress the central office team have had several conversations since and you'll see some of that reflected in these initial numbers even because I really tried to communicate that we're not talking about a wish list we're talking about a budget and talking about needs we're talking about how does the resources that we have whether it's people or books or programs or money how does that speak to what our priorities are and so you'll see some of what I'll speak about tonight it doesn't necessarily have dollar amounts attached to it at least not yet and sometimes it may not because they're not necessarily additions there I'd say declarations about how we utilize our resources and so we had to have a lot of conversations again in that way I'm going to take

006you to the back page and start there just so you can see some of where we began there are some people in the audience right there first of all if you look at the top on the 2021 pulling rate budget summary you see nearly a 7% increase already take a deep breath we know that doesn't work we know we're not going to come back and a month from now and still have it be a 7% increase but we left it so that you can see where we truly began right now then a couple of reasons for that one note what I already said we have put in go to the bottom and look at this preliminary bunch of drivers so we have a 2.4 million dollar increase in salaries those are contractual obligations number one

007but number two they reflect an increase in staffing 1 because of enrollment that we have already managed in the year that we're living in but now we had to push forward and 2 for our Student Services Department and our students with special needs population this isn't a secret photos magazines pointed out against tonight or as a reminder than anything else after we adopted the budget for the year that we're living in we added for certified staff members into it to account for the changes in enrollment and needs primarily in the elementary schools so you see that reflected as you push that salary number forward we have pretty I'm sorry just for quick yep 20 he's got me on time 1920 he added for a year we're living in right now then we're not originally yeah

008we're not originally budgeted for we did budget knowing the enrollment was off and we had that's on top of we had two positions built in one kindergarten split one kindergarten that we split initially even knowing more students for a role than we had at the time but as you know they just kept coming after the budget was adopted so on top of that one we've put another four staff members a certified SAP we've also currently have five pair of professionals that need to be some have been added and already some we just have not finished the process with but the numbers are reflected in here they're very well maybe as six that we are discussing that number is in here to be safe so at this increase in salaries includes the four additional that were

009not budgeted from last year correct so the 2.4 million is 2.4 million more than was budgeted for for salaries the current Vista it's a total though so some of it is increased right from from our current employees and then there are four certified staff members added in there yes and six additional non-certified that's all my questions I went back there cold last year's budget what we budget for salaries is 2.4 million less than what we courtesy than what you're presenting thank you so we're trying to be proactive again in making sure that from a procedural standpoint people are registering for kindergarten but a lot there's a lot of variables and we've talked about that before registering for school in general because it wasn't only kindergarten a lot of it has to do with when homes

010are selling and who buys the homes unfortunately we can't control it all back a lot of them were in the summer a lot of them were at the beginning of the school year and the other thing that I point out is that it's not only about numbers it's about means and there are superintendents all over the United States some forgetting some version of what I'm saying right now whether it's night or another night depends on where you live the needs of our students are changing continually changing and we are seeing more and more students with more intense needs to give their younger grades and so some of it is about the number of students that are coming the rest is about what they are presenting us with that we need to respond to and very

011often times we don't know that until they're here so that could be because they're enrolling in pre-k kindergarten or because they're transferring in from elsewhere in there so I just want to point out that yes the salaries are moving target to some degree but we've instituted some procedures last year and right now moving forward to do a better job of a colony for whom we know we may need to look at additional staffing for grade levels and students so the benefits line we're down to bottom and the drivers the benefits line is an increase and this is some of this as news that Heather and I actually just received Thursday so there's good news there's really good news and then there's really bad news that's the short version yes the really good news is from

012a claims perspective we're doing well so our our health insurance dental costs are flat so yay great we shouldn't have an increase the bad news is that that is being eaten up and you see the increase because the way the premiums have been calculated over the years by our former broker are not necessarily ace we're at accurate rejection he's moving forward they hadn't been projecting forward enough so as you know the town moved away from using Milliman as a broker a contract was entered into with locked in as our insurance broker and as a part of that a entire analysis is done so to do the projections for the coming years not just the one you're in but for the coming years and so what was explained to Heather and I and medic at that

013meeting Thursday was that we need to phase in a plan of additional contributions to premiums over the next three years four years four years so even though it would have been fantastic and could have left this at zero we're not going to be able to make up the one point that area one point two million dollars in insurance premiums that we have been advised to put aside because again remember it's self insurance so it is going into our town coffers so to speak but it's to cover the premiums and the claims it's just for clarity before yeah and we'll talk more about this and other night besides tonight but I just wanted you to see why that number is higher so this is a service that we share we're with the town right now you're

014gonna be getting the same news on their side today or whatever they have tonight but blending the cat out of the bag guys surprise but we are now aware of this so this 1.2 million shortfall is that an annual short no it's over it's it's right now with a forecast us to be over time that if we have been making changes all along you might have seen a zero tonight we always put something additional just in case to cover ourselves anyway but you might have seen a zero but because we've been advised that the premiums haven't kept up we need to determine what that looks like moving forward right now it looks like is it's for the money in does it mean in the future it might impact our negotiations with with employees yes that's

015a possibility that's not what we're going to talk about tonight those numbers haven't been released I can't speak to that with certainty what I can tell you is we need to increase the amount we are putting in to are just 3:41 is what's going to mediate that yeah this year yep partially you can you can have it does the two point those are the one point two million whatever is over the next four five years so we're gonna see this number go up for the next couple of years yes until we meet that shortfall yes [Music] get into it I'm sure they'd be more than happy to provide you there's actually determined Memphis excellent I look forward and I'm sure that's going to be another conversation as we move forward tonight it's want you to

016understand why the numbers up it's not at all claims it's about freedom so understanding that the premium projection has changed pose negotiations with our contracts in the next four to five years manias contracts will come up that number could be altered based upon an employee contribution okay I'm just I'm just trying to understand what it would never be this number no no no no no no no no I'm just trying to understand what are the factors they go in to determine this number because my assumptions gonna be this number is going to fluctuate year-to-year yes based upon our objections and what elements do we control in terms of altering that number it's more in education trolls is the Board of Education versus the employee shared that that's it that's all you can determine the actual

017premium it's out here the cost of the plant that is what we'll talk about right and that is this does this include the employee contribution no you know that's only the employer okay this is our partner okay Joe in French I'm wrong here maybe something on is that so I'm saying three or four years this is this number isn't getting put off on the employees no could never be no but I mean everybody's into something we would anticipate yeah yes at least but here's the other piece we have to be cognizant of right so to put to put it out here now again being the bearer of bad news this increase is based on the claims haven't been good so this is to Romania has they happened they have the good we've been those from

018actuarial standpoint what they projected is where we've landed so they would have told us we would have been safe if we did not increase our Insurance contribution but for the new actuarial analysis that was done that our premium as a whole should be higher not based on large claims just that our premium should be higher so if next year we have a we have a not as good year from a claim standpoint you're gonna see us try and make up for premium plus a different actuarial analysis related to the claim so it could be even higher than this yeah just to clarify so we are self-insured so which we should administrative fees since we're not buying premium is we're not ensuring ourselves so insurance goes a premium so this isn't our fees assuming this is

019stop-loss rate and week I know what maybe this isn't the time where you're prepared for all that but what she's saying is the fact the stop-loss was phrased we talked about that they're saying that actually based upon claims that we have been excessively optimistic claims the only premium to come into a self-funded discussion is stop walking correct there's no premium for the underlying claims of our solidarity so I'm assuming this is just stop loss for you know really different stop there's a meme equivalent is is a piece of this and is completely separate and yes we do have a stop loss pretty we do and it isn't it totally separate account correct as well this is that where we do have premiums that we issue per single ee1 and we're family we do have a

020cost of a plan so sometimes they're called premium equivalents I believe premiums but we have to somehow get a number that looks like a premium so we can do our contribution strategy draft that actually we're real determined cost of the insurance plan they all different here for us even though even though we're self insure correctness but that's what they call ya so how much can we see how much detail can we see that who's the mass work the actuarial determined yeah those factors but I have no problem emailing I would love to save myself actually we don't have that yet so again however we're here we just got this news we're having a finance meeting I want to bring it up we're talking what's but more about this was the last question is is this

021a set number because it sounds like we haven't seen actually our tables is this a set number non-negotiable there's this Kim number cannot change for this coming year well I think that we are in a discussion next two weeks but if this is the best projection that's the best yes thank you I appreciate it because they don't set the number until December so there's a these are projections this is based on certain set of assumptions we change the set of assumptions you get a different number by the way have been raised and I see some proper people fried follow the recommendation that is fiscally irresponsible not responsible being thank you I had one one special sorry that's fine so we keep saying we when we use then who's in charge this is not us alone

022this is a hawk sama tone this is us and the tent we get together we pick the company me go through all this so this is a team project and just to read we can fund that and we make the determinations about it's not the board of that we didn't go in and say oh yes no but we have the rules to follow so to speak about how to fund it properly and how to split it between the town and the board most of which is based on use and number a number of folks that aren't sure okay utilities see increase there those are our projections based on use transportation increase in our busing contract yes oh I'm sorry okay buzzing contract back to contracted services sorry okay contracted services remember and we'll do this

023again when we're in the next budget meeting but a lot of things fall into this category mostly its services reckon related to students so for example yeah I could need an outside evaluation performed as the case manager special ed director of a student that goes into contracted services could need nursing services outside of the ones we provide for a student those are being contracted services this is a it's a line that there's a lot in the 21 that was that we're talking about here and the 10 again tonight's not the dig in line by line these are the projections but could we expect to see more detail on other things Lisa yes some of the other illnesses so what we're talking about tonight and I think you are heroin I started a big picture there's

024no one some of the obligations we have role moving them forward one and to some of the projections and three how do we align our resources to what it is we're trying to do as a district next piece I want to talk about which i think is actually most important piece tonight this is just I wanted you to see the starting point for us because the starting point for us is it great so we talked about starting at nearly a seven percent increased its last year's budget based on the need the current needs of the district that are mostly non-negotiable we're talking about the stuff that we currently have working with students and the projected staff that we need to work with students and the programs that we are in place that's what the 7%

025increase reflects this is this is not adding anything else in so we've been working a bit behind the scenes already but try to for efficiencies in those lines because clearly there are other things that that we need to keep moving forward so how much of it is reallocation versus add-on and that that's the point we're starting with so tuition those of her close for primarily for our students who are out placed some of that is magnet tuition that we project over we are not paying trying to mountain magnet tuition right now that's without a lot kids come back to district we've have those conversations already break those numbers up this is our projection primarily relate that place so note that the number that I'm talking about down below is what matches the middle number I

026told you we started at 7% we've already gone through as we come here tonight and made some reductions where we could knowing that we've already purchased X where I can purchase it again like next year we've going back for the principal so I went back over their own budgets they did tremendous amount of work people in their buildings and then with us and so as you sit here tonight we are at a five point five seven percent increase over last year is that going to work for us moving forward no I think we all know the answer to that is most likely not so we're going to have decisions to make a long way but we are still working hard at what that looks like and how we reallocate some of the resources we have

027already so this story isn't over but I need you to know where we are because we're taking a hard look at we would talk about getting in and you can see why that said we can go back to these numbers when I come back to what I think is most important when we're talking about the budget it's tied back what we are talking about and we need into the priorities that we're setting for 21 and really beyond because you know we're looking at a three year plan fight plan is five year plans based on starting an 18 so we broke this out like we did last year into the focus areas for our goals this is not an exhaustive list of the things that we are doing but these are highlights that as we come

028tonight we see as the non-negotiables moving forward for us to be able to keep making improvements of progress and being innovated so let me just to kind of take you down the list I know you can read so I will just add some information so the first one we're talking about under student learning a library media specialist as we have increased the number of students in our elementary schools and also increased what it looks like for them to utilize the library for the maker spaces for enrichment programming which also services as we were talking about at our last meeting pieces that was written for all the students are talented gifted students who are doing some of the work through the maker spaces and some of the programs that we invest in and our libraries this

029is a focus to have another person that we can split between ruin Brook and Pine Grove from a contractual standpoint we need another person there to do it because the groups of students are too large now particularly in certain sections kay and one because of the increase in students so we have large numbers of students going through the library media center and for the record publicly I think we have to make sure everyone understands the redefined version of the library this isn't the library that I went to as a student many of you probably went to a student where he just went checked out my book and I had me quiet and I left where he sat down and I read or maybe I got tossed off out of the library our library Media Center's

030our learning spaces for our students they go they they're there they're part of their regular scheduled rotation this is where they do research even our youngest students is where they do research is really an enrichment this is where they learn how to use additional pieces of technology so they have to go through the spaces as a part of their schedule they need supervision and instruction as part of their schedule our library media specialists are instructing these students when they are in these spaces so if we don't have enough people we can't provide the proper instruction or supervision so that is number one at the high school you know that we have a personal finance course as a graduation requirement the state had said years ago that would be a graduation requirement the state has gone

031back and forth lots of times on what they consider graduation of requirements at this point luckily for us that was the one we moved ahead with I think we will see that come back around it to the best interest students regardless it's still going here but to be able to run that successfully and also be able to have the number of math courses that we need to run here at the high school we're looking for a person who we can split between business and math as you know we've there are some courses that we have not allowed to run staffing we've made it work for students by not by rotating the courses that were offered so for example if I was a freshman who wanted to take the class that was already full and we

032couldn't open up another section because we had no more teachers stege it that I could told this the freshman I couldn't take the class we made sure the juniors and seniors who had never taken the class to the class the most part that has worked but it doesn't allow enough of the opportunities good students moving forward and when we start talking about business education that's another example where I would say this isn't they're going through and they're learning how to type in 2019 this is considered part of the Career and Technical Education path which is part of what we're required to do with the state it's not about vocational training it's about ensuring that we give kids students 21st century skills some of which the technology areas include business skills so ideally this is a

033person who has certified math and can teach business also would you think we can find that person English language arts so this is not necessarily a dollar amount attached to this right now but this is a priority because we are we have been looking entirely Preqin 12 at what our vision for reading language arts is and whether or not we needed to make changes there programmatically at this point I think we know we need to make changes there programmatically to keep up with 21st 22nd 2nd century I think dr. Boyd would say she is here with me but I don't have something to bring you tonight to say this is how we're going to spend the money or it's this amount of money because that's where we're still working making sure that we've done our

034homework and our research about how to move forward do I expect that that's going to be an exorbitant amount of money or several additional staff members no I put it here because I want it to be clear that you will see most likely some foreign exchanges that might have dollar amounts attached to them as we move forward they don't necessarily mean they're additions so a good example is we spent a lot of money if you remember in the last two years of the budget increasing our classroom libraries from K through 6 so we have that money from English language arts in our line right now well we need to buy all of those books again No so we've reduced some of those lines right now again we'll talk two numbers one I can bring that

035with the other pieces but we know we're gonna have to reallocate some of that money that we don't need to do those libraries again too perhaps for example some training and professional development we decided to go for a different method of teaching English language arts so I bring it up so that you know you see it enrichment and talented and gifted and I put those together because again I think we have to be clear from our common understanding and messaging standpoint that we are talking in many ways about the same thing here in Avon when we're talking about enrichment whether or not we have instituted it entirely across the district at this point that's a different conversation but many years ago we talked about this and the retreat that we had to develop our goals

036we've talked about this and some of our curriculum professional practices committees we made a decision in Avon to go with what the newest model for talented and gifted education is was then and still is now the Renzulli model of enrichment is that so we ventured down a path maybe five years ago sometimes it feels like dog ears sorry before my time that's what I do know of instituting enrichment for all and the enrichment cluster idea and starting to change some of our spaces of just maker spaces and some of the programming we then hired as you know an enrichment coach that works between central office and schools we still have work to do in moving forward from an enrichment for all stand point meaning every student deserves to have enrichment differentiated to his or her

037level and being more clear about when we're doing it for all students including those that we have identified as talents and gifted because I think we we do a lot of that but we don't necessarily communicate about what that looks like as well as we could and that's some of the conversation we've already had to when you see here the OLS eighty member we spoke about this at the board retreat that is a standardized test too that has been around for a long time that most school districts including Avon used as the baseline for determining identification of a Towson gifted student one of the things we talked about our board retreat was whether or not we wanted to make a decision to reevaluate our identification process and instead of limiting which students took the test

038based on what other criteria they may or may not meet should we do what some other districts do and test every one of our students in a particular grade level and as I mentioned to you at that board retreat that will say again as a refresher in and for the audience that we're in now generally speaking you do that sometime around third grade the test is a norm-referenced test you can buy it from the company for different grade levels if you have student who is a kindergartner that you had you had an idea might qualify as a talented and gifted student it happens sometimes you could buy this test one test one students and make that determination that said if I said to the retreat I would never make the recommendation that we tested all

039kindergarten students and neither would the testing company or general best practice because students generally speaking will do better on it after they've had some experience at school so you do it still when they're young enough that you can provide the interventions but you've given them enough time to have a baseline at school so what we are proposing part of my pacing and processing is that we would moving forward and up to all of our third graders that would be clear again for the audience that were right now because we spoke up this once already we would do that so that we level the playing field and identifying the students that is an unusual there are many districts that do it we are making the recommendation you'd see that here tonight by having this conversation because

040that does have a price tag associated with it it's approximately ten dollars per student per test so we have a budgetary implication there so based on if we're looking at this your second graders for example I think over the last you look out for a number first versus right - yes so I didn't have tolerance any of this but you get the idea yes yes sir yes why third well did an analysis people with head election or criminal activity and part of it builds up because they're frustrated they're predictor was how they're doing in third grade and that was their best for different in which case I would say third range maybe what they're doing okay that's interesting I haven't read the research what I would say to you though is remember something we're not

041at a curriculum professional practices committee meeting I appreciate you right now is I am basing that on a third grade administration is that set in stone no what I'm telling you is that we do want to recommend that we are testing all of the students at in elementary school I will tell you that a vast majority of districts do it either in third or fourth grade ten boxes yes that's it really not just because the numbers are going to fluctuate every year how many students are if we're not doing a formalized program gives it a talent if why bother you can test it well first of all we have a requirement and we are doing formalized program but it's a better definition of programming as far as people we need to talk about so by

042law and everyone you have do it you do have to have to have a process for identification and you have to identify and notify students that's all the law requires you to do I mean students scuse me parents students if they're a cannibal that's it so everyone needs that Center because they have to I would say there are a lot of districts out there that don't have a formalized gifted talented program and it's something over the years that depending on rewear went by the wayside a lot a lot of times due to financial issues but also because the methodology for what to implement when students were identified has changed over the years what is seen as the best practice so what rewind back to talking about the Renzulli model which is a well known national

043model of UConn is enrichment for all so for example I think I told you this and I think some of you may have been in the same predict situation once in particular during the time that that I went through school and that many of you went through school if you are identified as talented and gifted you left your classroom at least some alone at the time you usually got pulled out of something else I think I missed a whole lot of our class which didn't really matter to me because I'm a terrible artist and they weren't gonna get me in better but they pulled you out of somewhere else that you belong and sent you to this room you and whoever else you know the three or four other students in your grade that were

044identified as gifted and talented and you worked on whatever you worked on with with a pullout sort of teacher usually a special education teacher who have certification that work is an accountant not always you don't don't really have to do that so depends it depended I should say the models that the model that we are implementing not fully and those are some of the conversations we've got already that we need to move forward about and that's just because we're still somewhat in not infancy but in I'd say middle aged years of implementing the enrichment for all across the board because we only started a few years ago so I bring up again tonight because one this is an example of where we will put some additional funds into the budget because I wanted to make

045sure we want to make sure from conversations that we've had and with our community and our teachers that we have a method for properly identifying the students that doesn't disqualify anyone for example because they didn't do well on some other tests because a talented and gifted measurement is primarily about what a student has the potential to do which is what this old SAP measures so yes we've designed the budget we've talked to you about the possibility of doing that the retreat I just wanted to put it out here publicly that's only a piece of this though so we need to put that into the budget and we need to continue funding the enrichment for all program that we already have which includes many things that are geared for talented and gifted students and an example

046of that like we talked about is math counts stock market game that we play some of the coding exercises that that we do in primarily in our library and media specialists but what I want to be clear about is though we're identifying talented and gifted students and working with them in in these ways what we have not done and I would not want to see us do and I think we all agree with this it's being exclusionary about it in the sense that this is where we talk about enrichment for all so if you've been identified it sounds in gifted and we develop a plan for you with your teachers and our enrichment coach for example from central office that this is some of what we need to do for you to propel you forward

047you're a student a I'm sure you are a student who would have probably done very well at math counts Hey so that's what we're that's what we're doing for you it shouldn't mean that if Bridget who's not been identified as talented and gifted can't participate in math counts if she wants to do with her and her parents well we have no staff that is trained specifically and give them tile to provide the supports to the teachers to make sure that those gift intestines or the beads are rent so we have our original coach which is not certified and gifted and talented correct she is not okay the primary place this falls under from a district perspective is the office of student services part of I think what's happened with our discussions around identify identification is

048we've had a number of different people come in both of those roles come through this office and so as we've had many conversations here at public and you've asked me a number of times to get a handle on what was going on and we were versus we're not doing that has been very difficult in some regards because we have not had some stationery people luckily we've had the principal's that we were able to go back to a rely on for what some of this hasn't looked like over time but you point Jeff so when I talk about congenial finally enrichment that also somewhere this looks like continued professional development on what to do with our students that need enrichment not just continued professional development for students who need remediation I think we've already done a

049good job of that in the way that we've implemented our our tiered intervention system but we do still have more work to do and that's the reason for one that does the board approved I think this is the first budget that I was here for that you put together just prior to my time putting this original coach in and though she's not certified in talented I mean you know special education she has a background in enrichment and working students and korkut anything else and teachers that look that way so some of it may be about utilizing that position differently and we're having some of those conversations now not for tonight but there's a some different moving pieces here but from the funding angle one the recommendation is to do the testing and two it's to

050continue funding what we're already funding and continuing for some other opportunities for students we need so can i clarify the specifics of what you said so I think so we've been searching for a specific program for those who are identified by that task so that's a legal status that group is named and specifically for the talented so it sounds like the future plan is once you're identified you develop a plan specific to that student with the enrichment specialist and the teachers so each of those students will have that interventions well I think the proposed specific plan because I know we've been searching for a specific plan for for many years in silence so to where I will say is to some degree that happens already it's not it's formalized I think as we as we

051would want to see it and so yes we need to firm up what it looks like to provide the enrichment for our students who are identified routine if I were to say give me an enrichment students you stay there you go who's never identified and I'd go to their folder I can pull out so so I would disagree because to say you're pulling we're wordsmithing though we collect data about our students through various measures students have act that parent yeah teachers have access to that data oftentimes they are part of who helps us to input it we have now as a result of our conversations and trying to get better at this process ensured that teachers could not only see the scores and so forth of students if they have the talented and gifted identification

052it's it's in PowerSchool now in a visible space that any of their teachers can see it that had not been the case so you're talking about the plan I'm getting there I'm getting there so this is the part where I'm saying do we do we do it consistently have I found that over these years and that's what I'm saying the answer is no it is for some that we have for example moving ahead in your math course and we've had those kinds of conversations and the plan primarily for you because most of where you are talented and gifted is in math I know this is not true necessarily necessarily but but we've had those conversations with you and with your parent yes I to be clear I don't want what I don't want my principals

053to leave with tonight or any of the teachers our staff they're here to leave and say oh my god no six you go to the budget meeting tonight and say that we're about to have an IEP for every student who's labeled as Townsend gifted that is not what I'm saying that is not the requirement that would be difficult to manage it's not nest but I'll plan yes we know what we're doing yeah we know what we're doing because that they that they know what we're doing they know we all of us I'm talking collectively parents and the school and the teachers yes because the other piece of that is if we are going to change the programming at all for that student for example you are going to leave sixth grade and you're gonna go

054to seventh grade math we have to make sure our parents are on board with that some are not regardless of whether or not the student has qualified to do that or if we are going to say you know we want to give you this additional time to work on coding you might have the time of the day that we might be able to make that work right away for you is when you're normally in string lessons that's not ideal sometimes that might be what happened we would need to have a conversation those are the kind of things that we already do but I don't think that we do them with fidelity wide-scale that's what we're talking about moving forward changing this is a special education notation right yes to the talented is know that I'm

055really great under that well I guess I wonder what we say why the student wouldn't have an individualized education plan it's not a special education designation by law I'm saying when I say it falls under those services I'm saying generally speaking in a school district that is the portion of the district that manages the overarching approach so the challenge that we have faced is that we haven't found the happy medium between of pull ups and identifying the student but as tool Acushla say like an actual folder like a sit-down meeting where you say oh this is supposed to be a math camp or you know that what we're trying to kind of find it yes we're trying to find a tangible way to have these conversations to put things into place that were clear about

056why they are in place it's not just that you are going to do this extra thing your parents need to be notified your teachers need to be notified we need to have some conversations about what it looks like for you to get the enrichment that you need and then we're before you run for the plan do we do that already yes do we do it in a wide-scale way that we would want to be able to pull it out no there are people that I think would say yes that you know I've had those kind of conversations and I understand why they're doing what they're doing in the school district for my daughter and my son yes you would find that would you find it wide-scale no you definitely find a parent raises their hand

057and says wait a minute I think I got a notification that my student was talented Gibson I'm not sure what that means or what they're doing about it publicly from the curriculum meeting so I agree with your assessment of the situation we had some once before republic yeah that they were exactly of it was at this point I don't think it's I would settle for just consistency and transparency in the process and distribution of the information in a reliable format it could be well short of an IEP and still get that job done that's where we are we're talking about how do we write suits that could still be done short of an IEP in it yes less burdensome in just getting it done and getting done consistently would be an improvement over where you

058are saying exactly what what I'm saying I realize that and testing all the students to make sure we're properly identifying them and giving them the opportunity to be identified is what I'm talking about tonight just a typo around it so my understanding is not agree we are committing or you're proposing that we commit once the students identified that we provide a plan the words we're using for that student every every time whether or not the plan gets followed depends on the parents decisions of childís whatever that may be but we are committing to offer a plan for that for each of those students worth I don't think this is the meeting to commit to that from a technical standpoint for proposing to write and so I am that's that's what I am talking about I

059am making assumptions that this is the way we will move forward based on the budget we will have these conversations again as will be together again and it's curriculum professional practices committee maybe need to move things to forward to the board if they need approval for example and I am saying to you though from a budgetary standpoint this is how I envision us moving forward and we are talking the same language and that's it dad's of that that's an enhancement to will be current have or it's not a consistent approach right consistency would go a long way towards making a lot of people happy right usually you always say we're going to do and we say we're going on here let's do this five point five seven number no so let's be clear again these

060are the priorities if we need to make additions to the budget we're gonna have to have that conversation if we're going to reallocate and this is where Steve behind the scenes we're still doing that to bring that forward you the next workshop we're gonna reallocate some of the funds we're already using on Em's to spend on why that's our preference so that we don't get any higher this number so these are the numbers without any additions in them but I I'm already clear about that because you see how far above where we're going to need the land we are and the tremendous amount of work that that we still have to do we've already come from seven percent to five point five seven you see how hard we worked already it's millions of dollars that

061that we've reduced before we came here tonight but I just want you to know that because there's not a lot of room for adding a lot of things oh yes yes movies sorry I just Bonnie sides of the time because we have starts board meeting and I want to tell you two more things so go ahead do you have anything in PowerSchool or any software package that will currently do a rough first cut for this kind of thing or is this still where everybody needs to sit down and say I've got X number of students and they have to manuscript it out are you talking about talisman Gibson yeah do you mean from the plan standpoint yeah no but not in PowerSchool but in how we use our our Google Docs suite yes and I

062know I don't never mind I'm not gonna get to that we do have so we have the mechanisms in place technologically already yes our schools just power house yeah the power house no I'm saying power school is a clearinghouse for data primarily so no they couldn't do a plan of it but you can't so that's why it does the 504 is the power school you can connect them through the IEP in five they're not truly completely in there here but it's black and there's a link yeah so I think to use those answer though there is a mechanism if you were connecting it to the IP systems which we don't permit we know we do our I Peas are connected to the power school so all I know is when I go in as my

063own in my own district which is not Eva I go into PowerSchool bottom left corner I can demo every IEP and 504 yeah for every student Michael I'm saying we can do that and I think two uses questions could we use that same process for a well we could so and then so I want to clear my eye I understand you're asking me my answer is not exactly what's already there because we wouldn't want to put them in my system but if there was another plug-in that could be leveraged possibly so that's a conversation for another time but not the way it currently exists no not currently possible depending on what it looked like how large it was the azov plugin yes - but yes we could talk about yes yes yeah down to the

064bottom so works with a graduate you saw we've started out already I want to put it in because I want everyone to understand yes there we there will be costs associated with carrying out this process it's it's necessary that's where we are and the work number one we're pushing our plan forward and number two when we come toward the end of the road we are going to want to be able to publicize where we are with this portrait of the graduate and how are we moving forward there will be some amount of money in that some of these again remember I said there they may be Net Zero but I think it's important we're talking about budget and resources to bring them up to you anyway so down below electronic communications we're still looking to

065streamline our website we've been spending a lot of time and energy on that inherited us moving that over and we've been working with it ever since we are looking at possibilities for mobile apps and to get further into the century that we live in with some of the way that we communicate with with parents for example I'm not saying that that will be an issue but maybe a change in the way we utilize our technology phones some of the for example for some updates to school messenger text messaging sent out to parents mobile apps for Avon public schools that sort of thing I'm not seeing this as a huge expenditure just maybe a most likely reallocation of somewhere you have our technology lines we're going to continue our annual acquisition of Chromebooks it's the least

066that we are going to continue with under our systems that would be the same dollar amount we would just be moving it forward and under talent management this is something right now that is not costing us anything at present but we have a membership the apparently new teach CT to engage in some longer range talent management and recruitment and particularly of minority and underrepresented faculty and staff members which is a statewide initiative also so again it's not false associated presently with that I think is important to talk about because it was those schools forward someday there might be a cost any questions have any questions about any of that quick question yeah so the only staff edition I've seen that light so far as approximately one point said when we plus the four that were

067not originally in the initial budget do you anticipate additional staff beyond the almost six do I think it's possible in the footage I don't resent to us and I don't anticipate it right now but we are as I mentioned looking very carefully at the way that we have our scheduling part in some of our buildings all of our buildings and the support services that we're providing to students to ensure that we're giving them what they need and if that means that we are going to need to add additional personnel in after the fact I will be still bringing that forward I want to make sure we have a very as accurate of a projection as we can particularly from student services that's that's where I'm it's not that I've not don't want to answer the

068question it's I don't know right now until a few more things are done before going to land exactly what we are I just like my concern would be because I've seen it previous superintendents staff had it well after the budget process and all of a sudden we presented a budget to the town the town votes and then all of a sudden well now we have all these extra students and the seats and we have to now spend in the higher five additional teachers special it separately cuz I understand the legal stuff I would appreciate if we could get as honest as projection as a choose projection as possible understanding that you know what all of a sudden 300 families move into town but we managed what we managed but no but you that's the reason

069I brought you only when I brought you because at present what we were looking at is okay there are some bubbles of student you know years of students where we might have move staff to account for that but right now right now the answer's no as you know if you're trying to keep a budget number down and reasonable adding faculty and staff then it's not the way to do that so we're trying to meet our needs and being cognizant of that at the same time we might need to do some reality and you know folks that we have I just would rather proceed forward with a budget that's realistic even if that's so we know that number is going to be a scary number we'd rather put it rather not force and then that is

070the budget we brought last year we just ended up even past that we gotta find Sam thank you okay I want to thank you all them and I'm gonna ask for a motion to adjourn this special meeting budget workshop used to move around a second second second by Jackie all in favor okay so we'll take a five-minute break and return it's 7:10 to begin our regular budget meetings I'd like to call to order the meeting of the monthly meeting of Avon Board of Education if everyone will please stand with me to do 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 to have a nice large audience I always

071like to start our meetings by reading the mission statements so in my case what we're all doing here together and what our purpose Julie is our mission is to inspire at each student of joy and passion for learning and a commitment to excellence personal integrity and social responsibility so we like to start with our Avon achievers I'm going to invite forward Jason into médicos that I represent the board and if mr. Duffy would like to come forward please it present their eight wonders all right I am here to present the amount achievers our four ladies in our kitchen who do a tremendous job every single day serving cooking and taking care of the students as they come through for their lunches they're an integral part of our team I had the opportunity to serve Thanksgiving

072lunch just last week and realize just how much it took to stand there and take individual orders for two hours on your feet it's really can be a tough job especially on Thanksgiving and they didn't warn me they said we're not wearing their hair nets tonight you might I do want to congratulate them for the great job they do every single day converge [Applause] that they're also educators every day the students can all forget their food and there's a sign out in front saying how many calories are healthy choices and a little bit to educate the students about what they're eating so additional educators in our school as well before you sit down completely I want to thank you as well on behalf of the board very proud of the fact that we cook our

073food for our students and I know that was a learning curve for everybody to jump in but you've embraced it and you appreciate they put your love into it so that when our kids aren't with us we know that you're taking care of them so thank you very much [Applause] Thank You mr. Duffy now I think we have a really great segue here talking about stop hunger we have our first lego league robotics team that's going to present for us and so if you are willing to stay and watch the skit I think you might enjoy it yourselves so I'd like to welcome you for [Music] Errol's fine TV [Music] good evening thank you for having our team the Avon lemon Ahead's here tonight to share our presentation this is our first year competing in

074the FIRST LEGO League robotics team and we are very excited to compete this Saturday November 23rd at Shelton high school the FIRST LEGO League program has three elements a robot over a robotic component where we designed a robot and have to complete as many missions as possible in two and a half minutes an innovation research project where our team has had to pick a war world or community problem to study and try to improve we study hunger and you will hear our presentation shortly finally we have to compete it in a teamwork insta challenge that day and where we demonstrate the six core values of FIRST LEGO League robotics we can share those with you all so let's introduce ourselves and let them get started hi I'm Lauren Tipton I'm in sixth grade on the

075green team at CBS I'm Rohan Ganesh in sixth grade in Green Team and TBS hi I'm Sammy Jo on the movies hi I'm the v-notch of them I'm in fifth grade on the red team we are the Avon Lemonheads and we are a group of fit the sixth graders we are very excited to be here in our first year competing in FIRST LEGO League we focused on hunger for our innovation project and we look forward to sharing some research and propose some of our solutions future was a remain expert that we met with and there are food bank reserves Hall Hartford and Harlan County's future staff with generous to meet with us and brainstorm about Avon issues give it giving us an awesome tour and when we vet met back with them on November 13

076to present some of her findings we learned that one in seven kids in Hartford County face hunger 7% of Avon residents and 12% of Connecticut residents lack of consistent access to enough food we learned how hunger can be invisible and a struggle that families may try to face alone we are here to help educate and share some ideas that we have to support our neighbors and friends in face food insecurity in addition food chair has generously given us permission to use a portion of their $1,000 to spend the word in our community using social media first up we are going to educate you about meal connects now connect is a feeding America app that food banks and stores across America used to efficiently you may communicate with Donner's manage pickups and help connect with agencies

077to get food quickly to the people who need it hi I'm a big why employee I have ten boxes of apples and I can't sell them time to donate them to people in need let me get out my handy iPad now I will enter into a meal command they ready how many location got it hi I'm a few dollars here Dean I just got a notification from the Oakland at Mayo Clinic says that 10 boxes of apples Big Y I'm ready for pickup let me go pick it up yes big wife thank you for your donations hi I'm a future employee thank you for picking this up at big wife for us I will make sure that this gets to one of the future mobile trucks I'm busy stocking up fresh vegetables and fruits on

078to our multiple drugs hi I'm the food chair mobile driver hello this is my first time visiting a future mobile truck how does this work how often does the truck come here and how much food can I take we visit our friends at Avon twice per month but visit our friends in a farmington valley every week we have you can take there's no limit you can take as much as you like like like and thanks for visiting and see you again really soon one way to educate about being here is by thinking of these paths do connect posters around your community hopefully at libraries senior centers apartment complexes our schools post offices in more locations we can help form our community about the services available to help we also encourage volunteers we are too young

079but our siblings and family members who are 12 and up can all help us sister teens 12 and up can hope for food and make a huge difference in their community adults can do pickups and with some brief training deliver food in a safe and healthy condition to be prepared for sorting packaging and eventually delivery to agencies and people to use log on to future org to find out more about volunteer opportunities next we asked the second food expert the lunch ladies who prepare our healthy and tasty meals every day even Peter written survey and they reported back useful information on hunger and food waste in our name of an Avon schools after lunch shift and the cafeteria staff has to throw away the money in hot meals our entrees of the day daily this

080range from 10 to 25 males for a bond school time 5 schools the grand total is over 100 eaten meals uneaten meals on average thrown away every school day just in a run alone across America schools waste an estimated 5 million dollars a day in uneaten food we also did some data collection on the habits of her classmates salary counted have to completely full trays of food just dumped into garbage cans at the end of each friendship elementary students dumped on average five trays to per lunch up to about 22 trays for lunch trip to middle schoolers on average 75 to 100 trees are dumped right into that garbage can every day by Avon students we have come up with a few cost-effective ideas on half of how we can make a real difference at

081our schools in Avon we propose as sharing his carrying table right near the garbage can so you can put any fruit vegetables or bread or drink there for any students to take students can grab one of these brown bags on the table and pack up an apple or a cereal to enjoy it as an after-school snack or dinner at home the backs are even decorated by our classmates and student council or the community service club some of our veggies come in little containers by simply adding lids near the garbage near the bags they can even enjoy that corn salad or grapes at home another idea is to always have a garbage can designated for Krampus kids passionate about saving the earth oh man the campus they could take turns reminding everyone to throw this roots

082and vegetables into the compost camp instead of a regular camp food waste our decomposes in landfills odyssic greenhouse gases we can be reducing greenhouse gases every day improving better soil and growing better food for hungry people a final idea solves those 100 unused hot meals that are thrown away each day in Avon schools alone our school PTO organizations can buy containers to package up the leftover entrees and refrigerate until the end of the school day or maybe the students can bring a reusable container at home that is labeled with in and they can be responsible for washing in between uses when we met with Food Share the managers actually shared a grant possibility with us and that Avon schools could apply for and receive funds for the reusable containers Food Share also told us that

083other schools are I wrap these meals in plastic wrap and do provide them to the kids in need our school our schools can learn from these schools and help our friends that may not have dinner otherwise any students who receive free and reduced lunch could take one of these to go meals at the end of the day and bring it home for dinner that night the staff who helped distribute the weekend backpack programs do give to the organization know who could benefit from having a to-go meal to have for dinner or a snack we will we are meeting with the Avon school administration and nutrition staff today to discuss our findings and how some of our ideas and solutions can help reduce food waste and help feed hungry it's in our Avon school as a

084team we're just starting to fight hunger one poster one volunteer you want lunch to at time join us by donating food Maya and money time to your local food bank and make your community healthier and happier all thanks to you also as part of the Robotics Competition we give other teams tokens and since we're the Avon women heads we have one intense [Applause] drapes that comes to one of our zoning to be televised as well thank you so much what I'm especially proud of though is that not only did you do your research you also provided solutions so thank you for using your creativity and for giving us something to truly think about and we'll utilize that relation again [Applause] Saturday yeah so basically out of us Lauren said there's um the part of initiative

085is there's 50 missions and you have to program the robot to do some of the missions and we have built some contraptions and attachments that allow the robot to do some of the missions so we have we have like some like components of the robot which like which helps the robot complete each mission for example we put this like common or about yeah so we put it on so there's this mission called a swing so we have to rotate this and and we just like to push up the swing so and so and so like the swing just like falls off and then we get like points according to the top and then so whoever gets like most points like 20 addition you gets to go to the next room awesome in the competition we

086have five rounds on we have Rohan Chow said we have attachments to complete each mission on there are 14 missions in the competition we can choose which one to do each round and if our highest our highest point value in in total for all the five rounds so if we got 100 in the second round but 200 in the fifth round they would the judges would take our fifth round score and so based on that we would move up or not we all enjoy math and science and we've really enjoy stem so we've joined this robotics team to help increase that knowledge [Applause] this is the time of our meeting where we acknowledge how many of you have come to truly show your support of our able achievers and our Lego robotics team if that

087was the main reason for your visit with us we are perfectly comfortable with you dismissing yourselves we won't take it personally so you can do that now you are always welcome to stay juice you know good luck to you we're been rooting you on now moving to approval of some minutes Board of Education regular monthly minutes October 15 I have a motion to approve four more Jackie moves we have a second second second by Laura all in favor aye aye any post sentence member oh you're gonna have same taste of senior paying for education special meeting October 28 2019 you have a motion to approve well okay Jason we'll move ahead second second by Jackie all in favor okay any opposed abstentions that one passes it is now a communication from the public anyone who

088is here with us this evening that would like to speak in his Lewis hi my name is dr. Catherine Lewis and I'm arrested a couple of concerns about the minutes from last time and to also raise some new concerns I'm glad these minutes are recorded as I said last time I was here primarily in my capacity as an effective expert witness not as a parent and I was voicing concern related to the safety of your school and that's not reflected in your minutes so I want to make sure we're crystal clear about that and I'm going to go over why that is I I am concerned about some of the material and your curriculum not being approved and since the time I came to testify before you last time there's been additional malfeasance I'm grateful

089to the superintendent for being extremely receptive to my concerns and let me articulate specifically of which of what I speak I'll preface this by saying I'm an independent voter and some of you are sitting on the board due in part to activism in 2015 of which I was part when I found at a court that schools school social workers were cut from the curriculum from the school and I was very active I'm a national news I was concerned after the curriculum committee when it was imparted to me that my concern was labeled and partisan concern and specifically my husband's name was drawn into that by a member of your board which I find foreign so I assure you today I sit here as a nonpartisan out of concern for children and no matter what you

090do to me I will continue there's nothing that will silence me in that regard so let's go to where we are so in September I went to the curriculum committee because I became aware who booked being taught that was about date rape and the author the articulated point of the book it's a me-too narrative was to make people reacts perience complex post-traumatic stress disorder I think that's probably not a good idea and I say that as I said last time as a psychiatrist I testify frequently about rape trauma syndrome and I'm considered a national and international expert I've been grant funded I went over that I'm happy to provide my CV so I thought maybe the curriculum committee would do something about that didn't the book was taught the book wasn't approved and it doesn't

091it was grandfathered quote on both but it appears no per on your curriculum which violates your policy of posting curriculum in a timely manner so I sent the superintendent the curriculum it occurs to no mare neither does thug that hate you give it appears no pair on your curriculum which was last POTUS posted in 2018 so it appears no pair it's almost like this controversial material was willfully concealed but it doesn't stop there so I raised concerns about my understanding is the superintendent did visit the school to speak to students directly about the book and I very much appreciate that um they went ahead and I had talked to you last time about showing the r-rated not the Kite Runner One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is r-rated and it was shown last year I

092don't have much of an opinion on that but you went up at the school when I felt and showed speak which depicts a date rape it showed that movie with no parental approval after I voiced that concern that's jaw-dropping it's a corrent it's unbelievable i sat in this room and told you I feel the pulse of schools i assess schools for risk and threat that's what i do i told you that on a tuesday after i left a young woman presented a quarter a million dollar proposal to you about how to make doors lock so she doesn't get shot you don't connect that as a feeling I'm sitting up on safety and within two weeks you have a potential threat at a rally I don't know how more to impart to you there's a difficulty

093with the climate of your school I cannot say it more clearly than that so you show this movie with no parental permission and it doesn't stop there they also show Mean Girls which is just a waste of time in an English class it's bizarre that's a pg-13 no parental approval waste of time don't care much about it and it doesn't stop there I then my child is targeted and marked exempt for the consent form that's neither here nor there but it doesn't stop there I then get this form which I marked on the date I received it which is the consent form for things that have already occurred if you don't have a problem with that I don't know how to help you if I'm at Shipman and Goodman and I found out and I've

094worked with Shipman I do education law you are asking for permission for things that have already occurred I don't even know try to unpack that for you and there's no appreciation of wrongfulness for this behavior none I came to you out of respect in the curriculum for me I was trying to help you and the only thing that happened was my husband was disparage by child was targeted and I was ignored I don't know what else to say so to correct these meeting this minutes further I think I've made it pretty clear that my concern is exposing children to inappropriate I don't believe in book banning I have no problem with people watching these movies after school I don't care I think there needs to be communication knowledge it is not okay if these minutes

095say I said that you showed the Kite Runner that movie was never shown in the school and I did not allege that it's my belief that it might have been suggested for ninth grade honors English that may or may not be correct that's not my major problem you certainly had kids read speak and they're certainly in the ten if the intent to have them read that hate you give and to show that movie which is a 2018 movies so I don't know how that would already be approved I'm a little baffled and so I just remain gravely concerned at what appears to be also the use of young adult fiction for teachers that might not be in a able to engage our learners but you say are so gifted is the position for example that's

096showing wall-e the movie wall-e wall-e g-rated movie is superior to learning throughout that's what was explained to me by English are we thinking that showing YouTube videos of animated code the tell-tale heart is what you'd want these Skipton students that Avon to do I emailed the superintendent and again I'm grateful to her it speaks for itself and I never come to meetings to shoot my mouth off unless I have the data this is really a problem that you are that that this is being done that people think it's okay my my other student came home today with an assignment argue for or against build that wall and they were instructed proof that President Trump isn't xenophobic I that's a whole separate issue but I would encourage people to teach people how to think to have

097them espouse an idea and then have them tweak the opposite opinion and defend it right I mean we don't want to have propaganda in our classroom making students feel unsafe I have my children in their time here have been asked to their parents vote for it's bizarre it's not acceptable I think date rape is unquestionably important topic when I but is it an important topic for English is it a mandatory topic when I base that with the English teacher and I said why isn't that in this in health the response was the health teachers don't know what they're doing something is up in your school there's a reason you've had five principles there's something going on there there's a reason this happens right and I'm just asking for this to be addressed because as I

098said that apparently the minutes missed I'm not some disgruntled parent I'm an expert witness who's called in to assess schools for my living and the climate of schools and I'm here to tell you that when I'm here on a Tuesday somebody proposes locks so that they don't get shot and then you have whatever it was with the pep rally there's something up people and why do you need to try to have some political agenda in an English class by all means if students want it by all means allow them to do it so whatever movies you want at night do whatever you want students can read whatever they want I'm not about book banning but mandating books for feet with a banner not workable young adult fiction this is like mandating judy blume for middle

099school boys like why would you do that it's on my concern though on its face and I'd ask the board to look at it how and why are you asking me to give consent for something that already occurred half and and the superintendent notes I have the paper trail to establish exactly what occurred here and I know from systems that when behavior like this occurs you got a big problem thank you for your time I wish you the best yes to the chair i dr. Lewis I actually always want to speak to some of what you spoke about tonight in my update so wait-- if you could if you can wait with us until I get to there sure she ate it that as I said earlier I can't thank you enough for your time

100and I can assure you again this isn't partisan I want everybody to succeed you haven't seen you at school board meetings I've been very grateful for my children's education what's going on at least in the 11th grade curriculum is unlike anything I've ever seen today thanks thank you doctor there was another parent mr. Joe escape your name again no problem Daniel Joe a parent - yes - a nice thanks for for everything you guys do I know there's a lot and it's very healthy topic I feel kind of bad for sending but I'm back on behalf of a band program I'm with a favorite participated by music education and I was looking through I always fought with you guys even I can't attend I follow the agendas and I know that we're about it budget

101season I believe and I've been working closely the volunteer with mr. Culberson with the Bama gram and you know he's a fabulous director great attitude I'm not even sure if he knows I'm here tonight so I'm really PA here on the behalf of parents we had a parent meeting last night and we're just concerned about mr. Culberson so I just want to just share a few things with you and just give me some some food for thought they've had been very proactive with mr. Culberson over the last two years as you know he wanted to start a marching band and and we were able to fundraise about thirteen thousand dollars to provide instruments to do that and with that money mr. Kaul bertson's taking a group that sat in the stands two seasons ago and

102then playing the star-spangled banner' on the field last year - now they get halftime show it to two games this year and actually marched on the 50-yard line of the field which was a big deal and that's him pun intended he's a one-man band making that happen and about 210 kids between seventh through twelfth grades so there's a lot of parents that are helping him with that what's our concern our concern is really about the students and with your permission yeah that's exactly one handouts at boosting this passive around but it's just something for you to have there's some data there that and I pulled together by looking on the web just to do some analysis to share and I laughter you can't act out speak to a little bit but we believe our students

103are really missing something but a director as you guys know the middle school director of jobbers cut out at belief three school years ago and we are one of our students missing they're missing a lot of individual and small-group instruction our kids we have less than us kids turning out for some of the regional items regional areas where they can excel and show off their talents but you need instruction for that the biggest thing is they're missing access to mr. culbertson's if you know his schedule one day he's here at my high school when he's here at the high school his office is dark in the middle school on the other days of the middle school his office is dark here so he's not accessible before and after school but to a lot of kids

104and they're not accessible to that help we believe is a fan group that there would be more public performances which is you know and in the arts public performance is how you express in how you learn and the big thing is in with our kids in high school we've seen a decline in the offering of extra classes for kids that want to take things like theory and different items and now that the charts hologram you can see on the left side I took some of the are are real a car Valley Schools and looked at how many what their student body is and I ended know you guys have a lot of data so this is not proved out that it's from the website so of each school together but that's seven through 12 student

105body and how many I believe from the researchers on the band staff and you can see Yvonne is the only one in this grouping that has one director for 7 to 12 grade and that's one for approximately a student body of 1500 kids 7 through 12 and I know mr. Koch Woodsen's personally teaching 210 kids 74 it seems like that's a lot of kids to do and we're offering to give him the help but again I know it's time for you guys to make the difficult decision just as a note you can see that many parking our friendly neighbors have won what's called the name 2019 best communities for music education award other schools not on this list because I didn't feel they were comparable to us or Bristol Canton Bloomfield 710 Torrington West Hartford

106who's missing a month and our product just this way to good that our choir program our Orchestra programs our programs were too good not to be on that was so why I'm here I'm here basically to share with you some thoughts as you're going through this process I looked at the budget for last time will find 58 million dollar budget can we not find space I appreciate how difficult the job is to do but anything that you guys can do to help I think it's going to help our kids because if mr. Culberson has to teach over to our kids that's about 15% of our 7 through 12 kids we're happy to help us a group faintness going to continues for him we know we have your support but we're just asking you to go

107through the process if there's anything with excetera greatly appreciated thank you so much for your service to the time Thank You mr. Joe I'll speak about it when I get to life please afford it we could state your name hi my name is Jim Walsh Avon resident my wife and I have three children live in town we've been here for ten years with a sixth grader and a fourth grader and a pre-k and we couldn't be happier with the school since the reason we chose the community which remain very happy with what's going on my topic is a little bit back to the first speaker and that my sixth grader is coming I'm talking about a session they do every day where they watch the news and although I trust wholeheartedly that every teacher in

108this community is going to present facts in a way to give the kids an opportunity to think critically I don't believe in our nation today there's a media outlet out there that allows for that type of presentation of fact and the critical thinking that comes after that but rather flashy headlines and dramatization to draw an audience and I just don't I guess I don't understand where the media fits in our current education system where they're just talking it's it's really a bunch of clashing pictures and bunch of putting facts and it's not really a deep thoughtful process that goes that they go through a night when they'd be those that type of content and the concern I have regardless of what news outlet we use to present these facts to the kids they're not actually

109facts they're they're slanted in some way because of some political agenda that every media outlet has and again it doesn't matter your political affiliation that's the unfortunate reality of our media today and I don't know what the process was to introduce this into the curriculum but it's there now and my understanding is a lot of fifth and sixth grade are doing this on a daily basis and I guess I I would I'd love to test the value of what it's presenting to our children today thank you as well anyone else in the thank you very much for attending in for commenting they appreciate your feedback moving along to items of information proposals our student representatives mr. Kuo [Music] the volleyball team is competing for finals tomorrow our students have really going above and beyond with

110our fundraiser switched out it's not more about so to continue off the point about quarter one recently and as you'll are aware after quarter one has ended there were half days at Avon High School where parents were invited for parent-teacher conferences and at these parent-teacher conferences various organizations such as five for the kids and the Avon high school student government have organized fundraisers for various causes for instance the Avon high school student a turkey trot where donations would go towards providing very easy canned goods towards the turkey trot in addition there has also been a donation where you can donate money and that would go towards teachers shaping their views which I find personally pretty interesting yeah in addition by for the kids is also hosting a faculty versus student basketball game upcoming it's not

111my rank which is run a beard if you give money then you can vote on which way you want to shave it I have been asked not to donate money time of year especially to collect food and they know we're working closely with local charities so thank you for that participation on the students part as well now moving on to the financial report note not much to report as you know our typical trends over the first couple months of the year are pretty slow going after they get all of the initial purchase orders in but here's the highlights the unencumbered balance fell nine hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars of change or one point six six percent from the month prior most notable items making that occur were changes in the 405 object cones which are

112property services and other purchase services the change mostly represented the maintenance actual payments the payouts from the POS that were already issued as well as the first and second month's final tuition and transportation payments students that are helpless thank you were there any questions thank you very much committee and liaison reports curriculum and professional practices Jackie yes we had a great meeting one of the most important things that we were able to accomplish but I'm Curtis what he feels about is we have gotten the IDS created their feed supports and some mental health outreach numbers are on them and mr. Renwick does length up to let me borrow his so I could show you guys what so every high school student now has one of these it's my understanding I don't have been middle school

113students method was a test the high school high school so that was a great accomplishment I'm really really proud of our committee I'm really appreciative of the support of the high school and showing George and I think it's mental health matters which is a community group and we look forward to really kind of reaching out beyond beyond that so that was exciting we talked about the course enrollments the 2017-2018 the enrollment compared to where shared 70 or 80 classes are being taken this year and last year we discussed the summary of that a ths course enrollments and we shared that reflective data and we talked about the new add/drop period and how that sort of impact students I don't really think we know yet I could I think we'll have to kind of see what

114that looks like as we get further down the road we discuss the course proposal recommendations which I believe project will discuss further any business yeah the enrichment update I not gonna touch on I think we talked about that during the budget presentation if what I didn't say is we're going to consider that you have upcoming meeting and it looks like we're really considering that so that's exciting I do want to speak to this idea about parental consent we did not discuss that at our last meeting but I am concerned about it and I would like to make sure that we do address it in our next meeting and make sure that we can understand what that process is who it applies to you know I mean I think actually in this meetings I've talked a

115lot about process and systems and this is obviously one that we need to really look at and highlight it and we kind of get a hold up so I look forward to addressing that and I forgot to look up from the next meeting is surely I don't know if you know offhand but I think it's uh January it's January so I don't have service but I can I think it's in January so I cannot be everybody thank you quickly but I believe I can add at the end I just don't know service in your code can't you sure okay so let's move on to finance AJ the only thing to report from our finance meeting is the budget transfer so it's going to discuss later tonight and our next meeting is Tuesday December 10th at

1166 p.m. very much so we recently started negotiations in service workers excessive overtime Thank You policy Lawrence so policies around me November however we do [Music] regarding the policy we talk about our last baby shouldn't do that now you want to make a motion to add LOC six one two one two the calendar okay if I have a second David second all in favor aye any post attentions can add it to the consent calendar February 3rd take that's 5:30 okay is mr. Rickman side be around here somewhere forget that okay we're back to the fortune perfect I did somebody had that it will talk about to the chair if I may for clarity of the minutes and for the record policy 6121 is non-discrimination in instructional materials right now liaison reports board rep to curriculum

117professional development counsel that would be me I had the privilege of attending again it's a full day of instruction for staff covering all different grade levels and our focus was on the blueprint for excellence which we before use the work that we've been doing as a board to move the district in the forward progressive motion so we'll let the staff weight in on pieces of that so we're all on the same page with what our direction is we had a guest speaker come to discuss with us the portrait of the graduate so that even at the pre-k level we're already having the foresight of where we're taking them so that was good conversation and nicely I think everyone parents and board member hopefully has received a letter from dr. carnival and that lays out the

118process by which they're gathering what our concept of the porch of the Graduate would be what are the pieces that we think are crucial and may have the opportunity to participate in that of the thought exchange and the way you can access that is in the letter that dr. Carnival is sent out but you can enter in your thought as to what you think should be included then you can read other people's thoughts in the same session and you can go on as long as you wish you can stop you can go back at another day if you have more thoughts but I think this process will hopefully get a good community-wide perspective of what we here believe our students should have before graduation and it was very good work and we made in January

119that correct so we'll continue on this trajectory but it was a good day next would be board representative to Avon Board of Finance David okay their meeting was last night I was called away to a work emergency which is just as well their primary agenda item was discussion for the next budget year 2020 21 and up until tonight we did not have any numbers in any public documents to talk about any preliminary numbers and we are most of the town budget and so any discussion was really involve us but there wasn't anything I could have shared with them at that point anyway so anyway I'll work through the chair to make sure that we come up with the message that is acceptable to everyone in terms over there they're gonna want to know something heads

120up for what next year's going to look like fortunately tonight's meeting gets us on a start towards that and we'll work out that message together because I belong to something thank you appreciate that all right thank you David Avon town council Jason so the final meeting of the track and field building committee took place on public walks or show penetration is the committee of during this time [Music] at that point on a cobra journey for just a few punch list is a hemisphere but as I understand for town [Music] so then the town council members some discussion about just proper use enforcement you're going they're in school day outside the school day things happen on the field at night on the field one of the items I brought up was outside of school there's also

121an officer act by recognizing somebody's doing something could it be done that but I think we're in good shape to coordinate all that or well possible for that the town council also approved a 52,000 by our supplemental appropriation for upgrades over a fisherman softball thing so that's a positive thing for us it's a nice trip stop what we have [Music] Aysen great thank you your board represented to Capital Region Education Council Jackie that means tomorrow oh I don't conflict it's an open education that anybody else who would like to sit in otherwise I will be forward in the minutes to get and to Bridget and yeah and if anything nearly off p.m. first or anything really impactful and if there's some big alignment all right thank you very much so moving on to the chairs

122reports I would like to just take this opportunity to acknowledge our Veterans Day ceremonies I would call them or assemblies I really felt privileged to be able to participate the entire day again so I went to each of the schools differents assemblies and it's just so nice to see the students engaged and they really do pay attention and they really are participating fully and learning about the sacrifices that these veterans made for our country for them to be here today and I really like it seems to me that all of the schools have spoken to each other ahead of time because there's no duplication at all even though songs that are sung so everybody does something unique so it's interesting to the veterans as well is there with us all throughout the day too and

123it's such a nice group of men and women that come each year so it was an honor to be a part of that and so I'm proud of us for having school that day because I think it makes more of an impact on the students to participate in why they have that day and why it's special versus being at home maybe just playing video games so that was good to be a part of again I attended the turf ribbon-cutting ceremony along with a few other board members that were there that was nice to finally acknowledge that the project is pretty much complete at this point looks beautiful and so moving forward I'm excited for what that means for our school community our families in the community couldn't get better as far as location just walk

124out from school and be able to go attend a game and I know it's been pulling people in that have perhaps once been a part of our community and they're revisiting us in order to be engaged in this moment I also just wanted to remind you all that once a month doctor credible and I have the privilege of meeting with the parents and leadership group those are primarily women we do have a couple men that join us from time to time that are in the board leadership roles on their PT notes and so it's a group think opportunity for them to kind of pick dr. cranum Ella's brain have her directly answer questions or concerns that might be important out in the community and so that's something that I'm really proud of us participating in

125school spirit has been on the tips of everybody's lips at this point we'd like to really bring it together as a bond as a community so I just wanted to remind you that every month I think that's it for me and I will move it on to the superintendent support thank you but first just in the in the hiring report on your attention to the we replaced our safety it's pretty specialist then we put those at the front desk with the middle school and he began us since our last board VA see we've hired some additional care educators if you were here finance committee meeting tonight an explanation about why that is some additional needs and changes that we wanted to address at Pine River morning Brooke we also say goodbye to a paraprofessional who

126was a great part of our staff food we had already gone forward Kelsey cowling and gotten a teaching certification so she's already heard who by for me but Pope meeting I'll say it again and also I'm in cold Milson one of our special education teachers who need to move on and we have that position posted that said person I just want to quickly do this because the person who's not here because she was on the previous board agenda but it had just happens if she wasn't at the meeting our new assistant principal from Avon middle school miss Christina Wallace is in the audience just wanted her to at least be able to introduce herself to the board because I don't think that you have met Marcia as a whole thank you Christina welcome very excited

127for Kristina's start and things to go back to normal as normal as things ever are at a middle school you work at a middle school wherever out where it's a triple sculpted you know John was speaking that means thank you for staying out we're really happy with us they roll my report I'll just say quickly is where it's a few students difference I will say too we spoke with previous board meeting about keeping track of students who left us potentially for private schools for example I mentioned to the board with those withdrawal reports from Avon High School I have continued anything that we have seen finding the contact information if those folks actually just got a few more of those not because they just withdrew but I was catching up this boy for providing me

128with them so I continue to make those phone calls they don't always get through to the folks that I have some more on my calendar actually for tomorrow to speak to I just wanted as a way to follow up to tell you that I have continuing to do what I've mentioned I would do in a previous board meeting and touching base to find out almost an exit interview through any of our parents or guardians who have moved their students from the district now to another state for example that's fairly obvious why that is but to a different school of choice a strategic plan update we talked tonight about what we already spoke about at the board retreat so I'll keep this briefly as you know we just recently met to go back to these goals

129Ken and had a great conversation I appreciate that all of you were there and present and helping us to move this work forward our administrative team and our faculty and staff has been hard at work on this plan behind the scenes also talk about it tonight also we have continued our work as a administrative team calibrating our own practice around our definition of rigorous teaching and learning and particularly relating that to our statewide teacher evaluation rubric and our practices here in Avon we had another session together the week before last and we'll spend another few hours together doing that in December so it's obviously part of our strategic plan and I spoke at length about pieces tonight in the finance meeting so it won't be late at that point but we are at this point

130few updates I wanted to share since we're here at the last meeting first first I'll thank dr. Lewis for speaking at length to me more than once including at the meeting obviously on another occasion I wanted to address some of what was brought previously and also brought up publicly tonight because I have only had that conversation offline outside of a board meeting including with mr. ankle it's a high school doctor nestled rousseff and in some cases depending on the situation with our human resources director is traumatic so I'll start by saying you know that I walk a fine line in some of these regards because if we're talking something that's related to a personnel issue that can be tied directly back to person I'm going to avoid speaking about that to the extent that I

131can but I still thought it was important to bring back some information related to the concerns that were shared with us first of all in regards to the curriculum the curriculum that we have posted online is our approved curriculum it is not all posted on the public part of the website there are quote there are pieces that are still the internal version that are not updated from the website migration that is still a piece that that we are working on I am now aware of that as you know unfortunately sometimes I'm still digging out trying to get up to speed on where we are with certain things and unfortunately sometimes it's a it's an issue and sometimes unfortunates a major issue brought to our attention that makes us look back at something in particular I

132will say and I also said Sandra mr. anklets who like me is still settling in feels like a long time for me on most days I think mr. anklets at me depending on the day I ask you the policies the procedures we are continually having to revisit unfortunately sometimes when it's brought to us so dr. Bruce sack and I have spoken about this and we to fold down some of what we have put up and and be more current and in some of the placement because we have made additions and correction summer Corrections to the curriculum that exists so that's in by way of an update I didn't bring every piece of that as evidence with you tonight I just want you to know I'm aware of that partially how I don't know where that

133some of these conversations primarily in the last couple of weeks when the two of us were second I look back at some of what was there also insofar as so for I'll use this is an example because it was brought up here at the previous meeting when they're talking about the books that we utilize in English language arts at the high school there are books listed in the curriculum that may be taught they are not an all-inclusive list they ought to be an all-inclusive list of what is potentially used we have that conversation actually initially after dr. Lewis spoke at public comment in the curriculum professional practices committee and the shoot and as Leia asked me to look into what some of the concerns were event it has been some cases difficult to untangle because

134it definitely was referenced here this evening also there are a number of books that are still being taught that were as the term is used grandfathered at some point along the way before the current policy is for approval through the curriculum professional development council and that I had to sometimes my job is so detected and thinking through minutes and so on to to try to find some of that dr. Russa very helpful in finding that all of that said what does that mean all that means is that moving forward we number one need to revisit the curriculum as a whole that's posted and ensure that is the most current one two that the list we've already gone through it for accuracy the lists that we maintain that has had board approval versus what this grandfathered

135we need to make sure that it's online in public and a piece of what people have access to and also that our teachers are sending home as necessary with the unit's any potential controversial material that aside for a moment when he just finished it's a piece of it so we are you need to work on some of the posting of the curriculum that's already underway number one number two we need to ensure that we have the exhaustive list of and this is just one example the texts that may be plot we are also looking at the texts that are taught as a whole we've begun that process again that is not something easy that gets done overnight as I'm sure you might be aware but we have had some conversations between a successful office already

136as a matter of fact just had some of these conversations both this morning and this afternoon with mr. Rangel it's yesterday last week we have begun that process of revisiting this at the level mostly here at the high school because that's primary area of our focus and some concerns right now that aside there was an issue with policy regarding consent so I want to address this twofold number one in our curriculum and professional practices committee meeting we had a conversation related to consent around books and when I went back to the policy mr. Engel it's also looked at the policy as usual we have a policy that refers to it it asks for parents to be notified to be notified in a timely fashion and so forth certainly not for them to be notified after

137the fact like you learned happens here tonight I'm going to test that that that is an issue for us that that did happen we are aware of that yeah I thank dr. Lewis I actually spoke with another parent about the same mr. Rehnquist is aware of that has already begun to rectify that situation when I would say by way of explanation not excuse is that the form that had been used here for quite some time say since 2011 was not necessarily what it ought to ever have been and so it just in agreement with the most current policies what I should say so unfortunately sometimes and this is where you know I left this is my job as a whole to ensure that our policies are followed we have a number of policies sometimes they

138are put out at various stages and not necessarily as you know always communicated throughout the years and revisited and this is an example of that mr. rank awaits and I and dr. sacra visit at the policy related to notification of parents what that looks like it is already well down the path of being corrected at high school just spoke actually at the end of today with mr. wrinkle it's about the same what they will be doing they do forward which is in line with the board policy is to notify parents first of all they have to go for the principal that's part of the policy when they're going to show an r-rated movie for example in approval internally first and they are going to do it unit by unit so that as we're moving forward

139it makes sense it's in a timely fashion between the pins and there's an explanation about why we are showing X film because it is directly related to X piece of literature and/or the thematic study that we are doing so that is how they are moving forward high school if I said something wrong your head no but I believe that I still do that I am I have all of that correct at this point so I think I can say about that right now except that it did not happen the way that we would have liked it to but I think frankly that in some ways it has not happened the way that their policy for some time from a blanket standpoint that doesn't mean everyone was ever following the policy but the goal is everyone

140follows it the same way on the same amount of fidelity that's not what I saw as a result of this and I'm grateful his right words for helping us to fix that here at high school I'll stop the right time so the policy is the one that we just added the non-discrimination and that is not in regards to you also said in regards to materials so we have another policy relating the controversial issues I action that one does not relate to this the six one one two does not relate to this no but it is this the policy that we discussed with the last board meeting and that we are proving tonight we went through already the policy committee is related to non-discrimination in the instructional programming and teaching and in the resources so also

141does though speak to as a blanket statement part of what we heard his concerns tonight related to whether or not the way something is presented is in a discriminatory way but the controversial issues policy speaks a little bit more to this than the non-discrimination does and I actually have that in my folder for the next time we're at the policy committee meeting as a result of these conversations for us to revisit should you anticipate that you'll take that forward that you said it's done antiquated at this point the actual consent form will that go through policy or that construed so that would be a regulation of how we implement it so I will bring it through the policy committee so that it's clear and it's a part of as you know I like to even

142even though we don't technically approve the regulations because they're how we implement policy I like to bring them through the policy committee meeting a children's a board so that we're all on the same page and they're all kept in the same spot and right now that only the educated version does that only talk about books and not film the antiquated version talks about film not books books yes why don't I we did have some conversation about boxes myself put that aside for a moment I think that from the bigger systems perspective we need to finish our work at looking at what texts were utilizing in our in our mainstream English classes first before we even have a conversation about what notification for others would look like because I think that would be the right way

143to go just nicest man update at the next meeting on this particular yeah and we may come to very welcome through curriculum professional practice sisters because that's where our conversation actually started but I just because at the boarding last time we heard some concerns I wanted to bring back probably some of what has happened between there are other things that happen in between but I don't want to speak to all of them because of what they entail so my question I've raised before and I think is actually something dr. Liu's different to a meeting and it is regarding implementation so maybe a little bit beyond our scope however when a parent has I dented they will not consent I would like to see especially now that the teacher is being asked to work with though

144the administration I would like to see an appropriate lesson developed alternative lesson that doesn't isolate the student from the classroom I think there's been a history of alright everyone's gonna be able to watch this movie but Johnny you have to have the library and read this and I think that sends the wrong message and that teachers in xn sport I think teachers may need supports in terms of making sure that they have those alternative lesson plans available ahead of time so when the teacher makes that instructional decision okay I'm gonna show this movie or maybe not they have something in place that will still meet the same learning objective I just would ask that there is that support different teachers Thank You mr. Fleishman and I think we all agree as I know I do

145and I say that team as a whole would I think that part of the underlying the conversation that we're having is what are the materials as a whole so that the amount of alternatives that are necessary are fewer in other words that that what we are talking about in our in our core courses not our electives not our because we have to think about what's developmentally appropriate and we also have to think about the difference between what we know we can teach to the vast majority of our students differentiated as necessary for students with special needs at at either end of the continuum but I guess I'll just say duly noted but I think our conversation primarily at present is let's look at the basics of what we are teaching and the materials that we

146are using and ensure that they are promoting what we have in our curriculum because we actually do have a very robust curriculum that in our English language arts department particularly at the high school we've done a great job with that I think it's just revisiting to your point how it how its implemented and so that's by way of the blanket update regarding that I would also oh I wanted to speak I almost actually interjected on minutes because I knew there had been a question on the minutes specific to we had a discussion on the minutes issues Fleischman and I and actually Judy had asked me to revisit the meeting minutes with Shirley because she and I had the conversation and thought we both heard the same thing which was related to the kite brother and

147whether or not it was dr. Lewis had ways to concern about the field being shown or the book gave news Shirley and I actually listened to that section of minutes in number of times and although I will say from my conversation with dr. Lewis either before and/or after that meeting that I know that that hurt tecna's not to talk about the Kite Runner is being shown as a phone it was the way it was portrayed in the minutes when you listen to the minutes because of the question that mr. Putnam Lowery asked of Miss Lewis when she responded the minutes the minutes in other words in that regard and what speaking to the other issue that Bret up but in that regard the minutes actually are correct it just was the way the line of

148questioning went and the way the answer was so I didn't interrupt because I knew we would approve them as that portion being correct I just wanted clarified for that reason I will also say I'm sorry that mr. Joby's gone that we had some conversation already regarding the budget related to music and the position and also some of the items that are being asked for I did not speak to you tonight about that in part because we are looking at the wind staffing is right now and whether or not there are any changes that we could make in we've been collecting quite a bit of data about what students are engaging in what programs how many play strings how many are downed and so forth and so we are looking closely at that so that concern

149is not unheard by us we are trying to determine something different to do with the staffing that we have right now or we need to look at a different position but you heard me say earlier tonight or it'd be very hard not to add any positions and that we don't determine are absolutely necessary in this year because of the increase that we're talking about and also he's I think the other gentleman that's focused one also but the record I think you all know that we've got the name Shirley and I will follow up about the concerns that were raised related to the listen I feel like there were other things I'm supposed to tell you about there now there now go for mine yes mention about a problem miss Crowley and was like there was

150no threat I don't know anything about this or figures has spoken to you I would ask generic over an apple pie question of if you have this under control [Music] the generic answer is it what was mentioned is what I did notify you in the very general sense of at the time which is around the time that we were last here speaking that there was nothing as dr. Lewis alluded to also there was not actually a threat but there was something that we needed to look into here in the high school that came from something that resembled a whole lot of a game of telephone but regardless it was it was brought up yes now is that resolved yet or is that still in process it is it is resolved and I wouldn't share any

151other details because of the student confidentiality piece of it but it as a result um so just be quickly to under new business if it's appropriate for me to do now we started the graduation date he's putting it out there I know we've spoken about it fast the legislation changed as you know and we are now able to set a graduation date ahead of time which I think most part we're pretty excited about actually and hope and not very hopeful that it doesn't turn into a 15 snow snow day here but if it did we can always revisit our decision if we needed to we are recommending and strengthless and I work closely on this and he's spoken with folks here at high school also as with everything else there's a lot of angles to

152consider including potential Union issues with our certified or not certified staff and what the date workdays might look like when you get up to there who may still be teaching students who may not had those discussions and ensured we could reconcile all that as you know but we now need to go off-site we cannot put staging on the turf field that was part of the conversations that we've had as that to put in so we are recommending you go back to the Polo Club do to do anything about that it was like you know that that is the plan we did look into other venues based on the money that that summer charge and the distance from here we determined that it was better to stay at the Polo Grounds I think it was nice

153that we were able to stay almost in town if we had to leave high school I think we'll do it even better the show we did last year because although we hard to talk based on what a great job they did here at high school but we are recommending that we set a graduation date of Wednesday June 17th 2020 currently the last day on our calendar and you have a calendar in front of you is the previous Friday so that would build us in three weather days and we got very lucky last year and we actually own a half of the other days but what I will say is we had a conversation about not going too far ahead over the last day the schedule because having graduation two or three days for example after

154the last day of school is not a good idea we have staffing concerns and so on so I wouldn't want to go too far out from what we have as the current last day we also chose this day after checking to ensure that we could book this at the Polo Grounds so we know the date will work there we know the day it will work here yes just get your parking cuts in here you don't need your gown here hi I don't have to do okay I'm family you can ask question that's a good Segway Italy I'm just curious dentists for instance we have five snow days the actual last days creating logistical problems with that I think it's a great idea to set the making that's for all the reasons yes a very real

155serious [Music] do you let me make sure I understand your question if school no and that's what we had to ensure but as I said working close to his records making sure that exams and so on one of the reasons that the state is allowing this to happen that frankly I agree with as a superintendent is because very often if we'd move too far into June with a graduation date we lose some of our students at graduation some of them have already have to leave if they're going to the middle military and they've missed graduation some of them leave even for orientation at colleges and universities and we've seen some of them this graduation for the same reason if we get too far into the month of June so having it here still being mid-june

156is a plus for our students who are lending us and we've had a discussion I think more than once as a group of superintendents in the state that by the time you are in 12th grade and you are we had two or three days of graduating it's the end of the year that's not dramatically changing or your life to be in school two or three days longer most likely we have taught you what we are going to teach you by that point if you have taken easy focus we're already there ready to go Project Graduation we have had a conversation about mr. ankle it says still so working with them there were already some logistical issues with them utilizing the middle school to do project graduation so it was already being considered the not to

157utilize the middle school any longer what I will say is depending on how this really lands that would solidify that the middle school may not be able to be utilized for example because let's say for argument's sake that the last day of school turns out to be June 18th the day after graduation we're not having Project Graduation all night the night before and then able to open up school rules for June 18 so you know full disclosure that may very well mean that it is moved somewhere else by setting the date you don't have the answer to that right now though and if school is the last day if the last day school is the 18th after graduation we would have to move the project graduation off-site completely correct another question about that okay thank

158you all right so now we'll move to the consent calendar do I have a motion to approve we'll move in Houston is that a second sorry David seconds all in favor aye any opposed extensions I do want to acknowledge a donation that was made to Pine girls from the PTO of the makerspace and a two thousand dollar donation is quite impressive and I've seen pictures of this piece and it's astoundingly inspiring and so if we're really fortunate to have had a PTO work so hard to bring that to our students so I just wanted to acknowledge that without just simply voting on it and now we can move to new business Avon High School course proposal recommendations dr. Savage okay we have two different sets of course proposals the vs. on page 36 a year

159board packet one of the new proposals is a civil rights movement course for social studies this will be elective of one semester force and what we're trying to do with this is again build that elective in grades 10 through 12 for our social studies it also will provide that focus on the african-american struggle for equity which also meets some of the new state legislation requiring all Connecticut schools to include African American Studies in the curriculum so this is a start in that area in world language we're looking to add a Spanish six non college-level course the students have requested this they did request last year to have just a standard Spanish six course and our feeling was by the time you got to Spanish six you know probably should be moving toward the ACC e

160or AP courses and what we found out was that very few students actually moved on up into the ECE or honors course even the encouragement and support so currently we have 29 students that are interested in this course for 2021 that are in Spanish five and then the next selective is a percussion ensemble this is from the music department this is also a year-long course like the world language course and this will be for percussionist to have experience with concert and marching percussion instrument also in support of the marching bands so we have a number of students that sign up to be percussionist but there are only so many percussion parts so everybody is rotating out for a few pieces so this would allow students to have a ensemble specific to them but then they

161would also play in the concert bands in addition to that the next set of courses are on page 47 of pure-pep first three courses are for English 12 three additional ECE classes so this is just additional choice for students obviously we don't run every one of these courses every year or every semester we rotate them through and it's really based on such an interest based on what they sign up for we also want to round out two full years of ECE choice with three we can't get the four quarter four semesters in and this year we had students that wanted to take the ECE course but the requirement is a year of English 12th grade English so they moved to the 12th grade honors courses for this year so again just a moral choice for

162our students and that the next course is an ECE American Studies course this is an introduced summer interdisciplinary course that's code taught by an English and social studies teacher and built on the 11th grade studies both in American literature in u.s. history this course used to be a heavy emphasis in at the I'm sorry that's the next course my course is up here this course here we'll look at the American aesthetics and sensibilities how they change over time again an elective the next elective is a pece European history we're currently running 80 European history this will just add the ECE component and will not change any of the content of the course but will provide you the opportunity to take the AP exam take the course or ECE credit or in many cases we have

163students that do both the next course is the ECE human rights course this course is an extension for students that want to further explore global human rights issues after taking human rights in a modern 10 3 of course I just started mentioning a second ago we used to have the human rights as part of the kind of capstone experience at Party school so this will bring that option back for students also as an elective and social studies is currently our only core content department it doesn't have any ECE offerings and students have asked why so we're trying to respond to their wishes the theater has two course proposals one is for improvisation for the real world this is a new course the students now are exposed to theater classes down in the middle school as

164part of their new a rotation we started about a few years ago so if you want to start opening up a pathway when they come to the high school so that would further expand our options for students and then the last chorus intro to theater is just a change it's currently running as a full year course but we have a number of students that can't take the course because it doesn't fit into the schedule so we'd like to change that to a semester course and then they can pair it up with some of the other theater options to you on in those theatre courses or saying we do these all these come through this repeat the curriculum and professional practices getting all of my equity P and they were recommended by us but I do

165think it's important that we share these with the larger board but they were passed through our 21st we are gonna say PTC prior to this cookies right and we're acting on them tonight yes so that they can go into the course of studies so are there any questions regarding the courses generally I just want to understand all the EC English classes you said it's determined which ones are taught based on roughly enrollment so how many in total do we are we gonna have after these are at and usually we run three different courses in a semester so students are gonna have a choice of how many different ones to begin with and then when you are down to three by enrollment so today we have certainly one you know do you know how many we

166have in total now Kelly Foster yeah PC English we have six sections and then we're having nights running and running right now we have six sections running right now but it's to rotate the course is through J because when we keep running the same courses we have students that are juniors and seniors that we give the options of taking ECG courses so it limits those options so they may go all into the course of studies and one you know 70 students that role for and another 110 enrolled for we just wouldn't run the one through ten and students would pick a different selection so one thing just to be clear and I don't know if this is necessarily what you're asking but generally speaking what we need to do is have a course of studies

167that shows any course that has has been proved that may run but it doesn't mean we could have let's say for argument's sake we have ten ECE English classes that we haven't proved we've never run ahead at the same time right I understand that so my question is more so we have nine or ten EC English classes that students have the opportunity to enroll in and you know we have ten in each of them some ones that determine what times are taught each year the Department will look at the numbers and say okay what is it running with the teachers and this has happened you know currently but some of the courses the ECE courses in the English department that the enrollments not quite there so they'll talk to kids about other choices to take

168when we just don't run the course for that semester because the enrollment doesn't support it we don't run the course whether it's an ECE or any other course since we only have so many English teachers and sections so we do it within that a lot so as we all know the reports been very mindful about apne sitting classes I may already know the answer to this but I just want to ask about you said social studies doesn't currently have an ECE class okay but it has an AP / ECE or no no the proposal is to add the ECE European history to that ap or that's correct event and then the ECE Human Rights there's no pay peak flavor of that what's the is that out there is what's the rationale for that is one

169of the concerns I as you know that we have is ensure we take you have enough aid to go through this has been an interest area of students that human rights and the department did you know in survey students as to what their interests were in and this was one of those areas of interest that they would like to pursue further past the tenth grade required I don't this your son offered as an AP yeah there's no evening passport isn't often correct any other questions hey Houston moves do I have a second second by Jason all in favor and with my horses through any opposed extension ease passes unanimously thank you I think I would just like to add committee also moved some books forward for public review which are down at central office so

170I just want to announce that thank you for that reminder those courses for future other courses under current courses thank you for mentioning it this is important in a conversation that we were having my next mission statement of district was I can you do me a favor and change this we have one page at a time to start with the first page not get up and speak to that first I would just like to go back because I remember the other things by way of updates at the previous board meeting when we discussed preschool tuition one of you had asked and then we had a conversation about it as a whole if we had a comparison for our tuition to some of the private tuition around us so I have that just wanted to share

171so thank you this was shot and pulled some of these out for us so we have one two three we have three local that have full day and I'm only going to compare that because as you know ours is only full day at this point so it's not useful to talk about what half-day tuitions would be somewhere else so three programs that offer full day for three and or four-year-olds three hundred and forty-eight dollars and twenty-five cents a week is one three hundred and twenty-two dollars a week is another and two hundred and twenty dollars a week is third actually there's a fourth also sorry half two hundred and sixty dollars a week and as a reminder ours is one hundred and forty two dollars and seventy two cents a week so next closest to

172ours would be two hundred and eighteen week so you don't hope you stack up programming that we're offering for one race okay any question about that okay so stand up a moment again and we spoke about this already many ways during the Finance Committee meeting because I already can't do a budget [Music] coming years I'm screening and I know and for the record board members are very familiar with what's in front of us and we spent a lot of time working on this together just four months but again finalized that about two weeks ago but as you know I had asked that we bring it back to the court again for it to be readapted because we did adopt we adopted our mission statement last year and a strategic plan a blueprint for excellence that

173we were looking only one year ahead as I was still transitioning with you and the district and spent quite a bit of time 20 Jack over where we are and data and collecting information from all stakeholders as you know continuing to do with the stock exchange with quarterly graduate but all of that said I want it to be very clear what we are engaging in together as a board and a district so that we can continue to move the district forward knowing that community are committed to the same goals the mission if you could start up the time it for me it is exactly the same as what we read opted last year with the exception of the bottom piece of it of arrows sorry we added in this last section so that every Avon

174public school student is consistently challenged and empowered - and the reason we added that in is because we had many conversations about a mission statement and a statement of beliefs being being great because they will drive our work but at the end of the day we have to all recognize that the reason that we do our work is for the benefit of students and we wanted to directly tie this mission back to what if we follow this mission and truly believe this and show that in our actions what will we graduate students who are able to do [Music] collaboratively been critically critically assault challenge Apollo's advancing fools be self-directed so regulated and resilient as they live learn earn and navigate their own path with a success as you know a lot of this language is

175inherent in other pieces of the blueprint also so they're tied together between mission beliefs and here so this is the new section to the mission statement it's pointing it out again so that remember the changes that we made any questions about that piece of it you know I showed the draft of this that our complication this year and we had so I've seen this there and also a follow-up meetings in the buildings that still continue but also because some pieces of the work to ensure that we had this process with the board and continued that feedback loop and whatever changes need to be made as part of those discussions so we have four focus areas student learning personal growth relationships communications partnerships this focus area 3 and systems is focus area for we spent a

176lot of time at our retreat talking primarily about focus area 1 and then focus area 2 as I said when we were together doing the last pieces in this work and the poor those are the most important places for us to have that conversation because we're a school district this is what we're in the business of to student learning and also developing relationships with our students our community to each other and website after tonight I will point out that you see the dates are changed to be what we discussed to take us through 2023 which is really piece going backwards to where we started this work in 2018 if we had turned it into a five-year plan which by doing this work we have because we have changed some of our focus areas and goals

177so just point out some of what I think is the key language and focus areas and the goals we are talking under student learning about having multiple student pathways that challenge our students we are looking closely and goal one at building the instructional capacity of all who work in the district so that we can challenge students with rigorous work and also to provide feedback to continued growth because that is how we we grow is through the continual cycle of feedback we are looking very closely collecting analyzing and interpreting the data and the evidence at all levels of the organization because many times I think of what we know we have seen happiness we collect a lot of data and sometimes we may not use the lot of data that we collect we are looking very

178closely at over the next year plus at the assessments that we are utilizing this is what we spoke about a quarter tree is an example of what we would be doing here in assessment inventory are we measuring what we want to measure are we collecting the data that we want to collect and are reacting on that data to further grow our curriculum and instruction of student learning that's the most basic piece of what is in full to under focus area to personal growth and relationships and we have spent a lot of time the past year working on looking at our systems and pull around social-emotional learning for students but also developing positive relationships between faculty staff and students vice versa and our relationships with the community you know you've heard me say before and I

179would say again in in many ways I put my point out publicly I think that all of our work this is the foundation for because how do we how do we reach students and to be able to help them to grow and to learn we ensure that we have a positive learning environment and every way that that means from physical safety to emotional safety one of two we do the same with our faculty and staff and individuals who provide the instruction for our students so it works diligently we'll continue to do so forth with these goals to develop relational capacity student leadership skills and also to give students the opportunities to require apply that knowledge so part of what we have to do is as part of the learning process get its students the opportunity

180to practice those skills collaboration and communication critical thinking create creating things being creative in their pathways whether in the school buildings through internships and a lot having and border ups with us and like I will say that as an update related to this we are about to have a follow up being with our district-wide Committee related to social emotional learning and personal personal growth going specifically to review the draft of the standards that we have put together related to social emotional learning resiliency collaboration and pieces we just discussed how we will then integrate them into the curriculum in one hand on the other hand look at the curriculums we have in place and make sure that they are reflective of the same values and systems standpoint under communication and partnerships you've seen one major piece

181of this goal in the letter that I sent out to the entire community and to the school district it's collecting information about our portrait of the graduate work that sounds like a catch phrase you see them look on many school district websites and see it a vision of graduated of course an undergraduate shiny leaflets that you might see put out that's great at some point we too will publish a leaflet if you will that summarizes who the Avon Public Schools graduate is it should be that's not the point of this the point of it isn't to publish a fancy leaflet it is to continue to guide this work from pre k12 at every level so that we all have a common understanding of what we aren't here to do and seeking the input from the

182community board faculty/staff is a way to do that to make sure that we stay current in what the skills and the knowledge that our students need to have this so this is help this document be living and breathing that we are ensuring we all have a common understanding of where we are headed respected for people because we have this little tiny pre-k and kindergarten errs that come in and what we do with them but someday sooner than later they will walk out the other side with the diploma in their hand what does the journey look like as a boy and that's what we're looking to capture in our portrait of graduate work which is one of our main goals on their communication and partnerships also I will mention our college and university partnerships is a

183piece here because you know we have one with the University of Connecticut already which is how we are able to do our ECE our early college experience courses and also we are working as we've mentioned in CPP pretty nutrition practices committee working on a partnership for the early development say this for instance goal with Tunxis led to something we talked about earlier EDA tonight around Career and Technical Education under systems is where we spent last time by the time we got to the retreat because we spent a lot of time talking about what's important as I already said the teaching and theory number one as you know you've been very engaged in looking at a five year of technology digital learning plan part of what that process on full of last year was actually to

184finish this as a five-year plan and to finish our Portugal graduate you have to know where you're going to know what digital tools you need to incorporate and what literacy looks like a digital standpoint so we are working back to where this end we are talking about how to better use our Chromebooks our one-to-one who spent a lot of money with the years of that but you know we have to integrate continue to integrate that into our teaching and learning of our students we are also looking for example here and how we utilize our virtual high school experience where students can take courses online that's one piece that's a round part of this goal around the digital learning plan a long-range talent management plan the professional learning strategy number one we've already put into place

185our yep we call it short we hate acronyms so professional development education value should be the excuse me late which is a another side to our current curriculum and professional development committee this is something that we have enacted after a lot of conversation with our faculty and staff about needs that we have and ensuring that they are part of the process for developing plans related to what they need for personal growth in so far as meeting our goals and that has already begun we are making good progress there but that's a on the ground piece of just particular goal professional learning and it's talent management plan for example you've heard me speak earlier tonight the finance meeting about our CTTT VCT better go home and get some more sleep tonight or teach CT online presence

186so that we can continue to recruit staff including minority and underrepresented staff in the district so you're working closely with its crackdown some of those clowns outs it's everyone in it statewide and that is a goal that we will see you all in the next two or three years and of course number three we continue the district policies procedures some of which we obviously talked about tonight an example of how we're putting that goal into action one piece of work that we have already done we have created a drive that is shared amongst all of us as administrators of every current policy that we have why is that important because when you click online and you are taken to the cave website there's a lag sometimes you pass the policy we submit it to cave

187we sometimes have to wait it's come down and then we go up and in between what happens I have something to implement usually immediately in the district 1 - what we have now set up for ourselves in this easier to search then that platform is so that's just an example of an on-the-ground way we're trying meet this goal I think you also know that another piece is to continually revisit our policies to ensure that they are broad-brush policies because they need to be able to apply to such from the law changes and also that when the law changes we revisit them they make the necessary changes I've been working very closely with the policy committee to be able to do that someday we're gonna catch up honestly teaching and learning to me the most important

188thing that we do I try to live as a superintendent I try to live there all of the time I think if you look at this strategic plan you can probably make a guess of where I often live regardless of where I want to live I often live in goal number three because to be able to enact all of these wonderful ideas and innovations that we are talking about I have to continually revisit the systems the processes and the procedures that are in place and how we utilize our resources so if you look at even the way that I did this budget meeting with you tonight sorry [Music] was there we don't need that to add insurance I've never make that money anyway it are our budget meeting tonight you can see why I approach

189that the way that I do because we're talking about the deployment of district resources that's all of our district resources it's not just where we can pinpoint the dollars and cents what are we doing to ensure that we can live by these four areas and the police inherently school administrators have done a tremendous job in helping to collect what we needed to put this together and to continue to roll it out it spent countless hours with me and also set builders office administrators and on their role making sure that district as just a blanket statement I'll say for us all to remember but the district plan needs to be broad enough as this is to incorporate all of the individual goals school goals that need to go into it so we don't write goals that

190are what I often refer to as on the dance floor we write goals that are on the belt we don't write goals that are under the microscope for the district the microscope we write them from scientists want to be before they were looking into the microphone so I think that we have done a great job and I'm grateful to you board members for working as much as you have with me and us to make sure that we could articulate this important work and I'll stop there and say I know we've talked about this a lot already prior to this meeting because we were in a different problems we know we did that saying what questions do you have still or other things that you think that I need to address maybe even that we did

191in a previous meeting I didn't say here that you think the benefit of the public it's run on a small scale just just so what struck me and that we have technology experts here can speak to this more but the technology plan that digital learning plan 5 years the current pace of technological change that seems like it may be too wide a window just an observation yeah the pace that things will be happening in five years we can't even have it's absolutely right I think what we have to be thinking about the only thing they're so thick should piece to think about particularly related to the acquisition of our technology because we need to be forward-thinking and if if the Chromebook is about to become out-of-date we have to start thinking about five years from

192now that we're not going to use Chromebooks anymore we should stop entering into these leases right so I hear what you're saying you're absolutely right I think we do still have to start projecting long range though from a budgetary if nothing else perspective so that we we have a sense of where we're headed thank you Jack I guess I say thank you and it's great to hear the collaboration that happened district-wide I think that it's very reassuring for parents and students and hopefully staff that this is a collaborative kind of document and I've got a Word document I think for myself what I'm going to look to do over the next the next year is this kind of unfolds is to really understand how it does meet the student in real life because I think

193sometimes we get so much data and it's a layperson I the data is I know how valuable it is to what you do I think it's very important for me to understand how this impacts children where they live and I look forward to kind of touching on that throughout the year just unfolds and we go through it thank you el finito those lemon heads I could I could have used one frame up Thank You Jackie and I think that that comes through us providing some real-life examples and updates of where we are in the work here publicly and also it's over other meetings so thank you Plus was I would like you to yes I'd like you to make a motion to approve the plan that we have put together so that we concede move

194the organization forward second all in favor aye well that was you second right thank you I think this really does summarize so many of the conversations that we've had together and I appreciate how eloquently you've managed to display this for public consumption so that thank you I should unless you just mentioned this on the same note this is for public consumption because even though there's a lot here it's two pages and if you truly expect to be able to live by this as a school district and have people that need to understand where you're headed you don't want a 60 page document as a strategic plan do I have documents that look more like that and have more clear outline steps yes you are principals yes who are teachers yes but this is the public

195document because it is the overarching view of everyone should understand that it works there and everyone who is a part of this community should understand when school district is headed and this was generated for that to be clear so thank you for bringing that up thank you so we already had the benefit of hearing your input regarding the graduation date for 2020 was there any more questions or commentary on that are we ready to move on June 17th being our date okay yes there's somebody you know he's foremost I have a second second second by Jackie all in favor pose attention it's passes unanimously thank you take medication from board members I have one item every so often I hear from parents and students and one issue that was brought up was regarding the high

196school policy regarding personal electronic devices it seems as if some of the students were using their personal electronic devices in conjunction with phone apps to track their assignments and due dates and things of that sort and so when the new phone policy started and all the phones started getting corralled into phone jet in classes the students haven't figured out a way to work around that just yet because they only have a few minutes between classes and that's not enough time to put there something that seems with electronic tracking device when they get out of high school the minute they do that when they have off to college they're going to be using something like this the way all the rest of us use it the world to track our calendars and our assignments and things

197they do so I told these people that my role on the board is enough to get them what they want simply simply that the policy is in place and politically probably not going to intervene be here to review it or look at it or anything sorry but I was going to point out some of the irony here at the bottom of page 73 we talked about students being consistently challenged and empowered to and the last items to be self-directed self-regulate it's been resilient as they live learn and navigate their own pathway to success well the way to do that once they got in school is this because we're all doing and I counted ten of these on the tops of the table right here I probably didn't get them all so anyway I realized the

198policy in place also solves the problem in that we don't have students facebooking their way through class when you shouldn't be sort and the way that's been folded the real world is a little bit different if my boss caught me facebooking all day at work it would be what we call a career short a moment we don't have those options with students so there you go regardless so I realize that there's two sides to the issue and that a challenge to review this in the future but the there'll be a time when we have to revisit the policy because the nature of these electronic device is always changing so that's all I have for now may I through the chair because I think it's important to to respond to that thank you for bringing up

199mr. Cavanaugh because that's a reasonable concern I would think that our students may not will say is this though and I'm glad that mr. anklets happen to be here tonight to hear it and hear you say this we did not enact a policy as a as a board or as a district that they could not have the phones with them we were comfortable actually in doing that as an example of sometimes it goes against what we're trying to do to enact a policy because what we have been doing is looking at the way they are used at the school asking that and this has come out of the high school as a recommendation asking that they not be out when students are supposed to be doing something else so they're supposed to be learning they're

200suppose to be engaged in something they're not distracted by the technology and so the phone jail idea for example is a way to for anybody who doesn't know what we're talking about is they have some of the doors on that were purchased that they could put them in they can also just put them away you know necessarily have to it in these slots it's about keeping them on task so what I would say is that what we expect is that our teachers have the discretion to do what they need to do in classroom in other words if I am a teacher and I don't want you to have your cell phone with you at all times while we're trying to engage in this lesson I might also though very well say you know what we're

201about to give you the assignment don't you want to put it in your technology go ahead get it out do that I don't think that's beyond the possibilities happening probably happens in some places I'm going to assume that the high school already so I say this thinking bringing it up I just wanted to reiterate that we are managing that the use of technology at the high school in an attempt to do what makes sense right I think the practice will mature over time and we'll find a way to accommodate that that special case thank you so we did have a pretty thorough research my business right the issue is to enact actually a policy around this issue which is a national conversation right now right now around the use of personal phones what this is

202blackberry thank you it was kind of like Mary so this is how you need a on [Music] strange things non-students foreign nationals in our database in the second comment I still remain very interested in having enrichment and I appreciate the education suite you can maximize everything for everybody all the once on everything mathematically possible it would be awfully nice since you were going to raise it with the curriculum committee last time in response to my question at the time if we could have a report by the next appointment as to what we're going to do in terms of enrichment for special and whatever so they have some kind of reports of you know some were going and [Music] pushing me faster than we want to go but my to my conversation with last time at

203the meeting I thought it was appropriate to raise this issue yeah probably because I assume I think yeah thanks to follow up so I was there at that curriculum and this committee and I want to thank the chair and the administrators for including this topic on the on the agenda so we spend a good amount of time talking about it so I think I'm just following up on your what you're saying so what we heard at 6 o'clock is about meeting is that we have a proposal where if someone's identified then we will set up a meeting with teachers parents administrators the enrichment coordinator and come up with a plan for that student that's I think the goal I happen to be blessed to live in a neighborhood with a few very thoughtful educators who

204have tremendous insights about education so I happen to speak to one of these great resources who brought up to my attention this math quest program that was hard with us so our administrators looked into that and that was one option that we talked about I think specifically to that one we thought it wasn't the right fit for a bond for a couple of reasons that you brought up correct but I think currently so much I think able to use to this point can we maybe by next meeting think about the specifics of what we do with that plan right because it seems pretty open-ended so if we say okay we'll have a plan for that student was identified well what that looks like could be pretty wide open right pretty open-ended so maybe if we

205look at other towns that provide something that's effective that works maybe like math question for like something else you can already be a leg up on saying okay here are some opportunities that we can implement for these students versus start from scratch what do we do now where the plans that they a little bit I would say yes and it's not intended to tell the superintendent how to do it I say come up with a proposal so I want to make sure that I've said we aren't yet doing this with fidelity or coming out with a plan and I'm not forever but I'd like to have a plan to implement the plan I want to be able to say that and I'm not saying just to simply got a face from somewhere else because I

206know we got a very innovative thoughtful leaders in our in our schools so we can and I always advocate for us moving ahead of everyone else to if we can so so you want an old version one looks like yes so I don't want to be the dead horse in that given what what time it is and what we still have left to do I think all safer time being is that we talked about that at great length at curricula professional practices we talked about it again in our board retreat I spoke to it again tonight at the Finance Committee meeting and so piecing piecing all those together into into a few statements I just want to be clear because now we're in we're in another meeting for the record to show really more than

207anything else because some of the conversations we've already had outside of this forum but in other forms number one I did not bring a actual proposal tonight because as I mentioned earlier that wouldn't be this would be the place for it because we started a conversation of the curricular professional practices committee and what we talked about was was bringing it back there I spoke about it tonight and regards to the budget because knowing some of what I know we will recommend already as a result of these conversations I know it's a budgetary impact so specifically to speak to the identification process and if nothing else so if you were to ask me right now Bridget Ellison one one sentence what your plan for talented gifted is my plan right now would be that we properly

208identify and and then notify probably identify the students give them give them all an opportunity to be properly identified and notify their parents and their and their teachers of the same right now at its base level that is where we are because as you heard me say earlier I think we have a process a foundation that needs to be revisited so that's of a long number two I hear they're just throwing it for the back on your I am concerned because are in the process of for me now right next year do we need more things time you need more things because we don't get it into next year's budget I understand Iraq right so to go back to what we talked about if Riggleman professional practices and again tonight we have first of all

209we already hired an enrichment coach so from a person standpoint I have that person in place how the person is utilized we need to be reworked a bit that's part of the conversation we're having so that we can make that work better - one - we have much of what we have so tier two point five ten or or Houston about a planet for a student to be clear what we talked about already was much of what we are already doing it won't do exactly what we will continue to do it's how we communicate it and ensure that it is what's being the needs so I would say that that is something open-ended but can I guess it to that point because we're talking about differentiating for students at that end of the continuum and

210it will look different if that isn't that isn't going to be an exact if for some students it's going to be we talked about this earlier there and they're incredibly gifted and talented in math in particular we are going to work with students about what that looks like some will be both English language arts and now what does that look like some of Av just language arts or the sciences or what have you and I think that we have to have the flexibility to develop experiences and plans and pass forward that's when we come back to the pathways here for individual students and you know the difference here that we're talking about in a scale is generally speaking covered between three and four percent of our students that would be identified as talented gifted at

211any given moment that could be 90 students across the entire district the highest I've seen I think is 128 students so it's doable to talk about it in terms of what are we doing for these three third graders these five sixth graders it's it is a problem of scale so I'm not disagreeing with you about plans for moving forward I'm saying that right now budgetarily my recommendation is on the identification process and to look back at how we utilize the funds we already have in our enrichment lines and for our they're designated in some ways for other pieces so for example math counts are makerspaces I'm missing one of them but she's listening to Jeff some of those other programs that we'd that we spoke about that we are going to need to continue and

212to firm up what that matching of students needs to those things are because we don't want to just throw it out of dr. dark for it hey we've got all of these things we can't offer you we need to be more purposeful which i think is what you're asking me to and you will definitely hear more about that I want to do it to the through the right channels and come back around mr. but it's our role as Queen to warn to admonish to encourage any step for that's what we're doing but another question I would I would ask which is actually a relatively straightforward question but it's not to the public can you advise as the status of Chinese so we did not speak about that tonight in the budget expert for example I

213just want to be clear about that we have you put together the numbers so that we can look project forward what it looks like students moving forward we as you know entered into a memorandum of understanding with our teachers union in the previous year to be able to keep the program going where we hire a an individual who is from outside of our teachers union that we secured through the Confucius Institute which is what we have been doing for years but we needed to formalize the agreement we do not currently have another agreement with our Education Association for the upcoming year that does not mean I not have money we've begun the conversations about it we also wanted to look at the numbers so that we of students who are currently taking the courses so

214that we would have a good sense of from a staffing perspective what that would look like so we're in the process of that right now and I think by the time we are at our next budget meeting we need to have that conversation again these salary through the Confucius Institute if I remember correctly budgetary standpoint somewhere around thirty thirty one thousand three hundred thirty five forty yes per teacher we would only need one next year it was additional no one total so we're gonna cut the Chinese programs again I just wanna be clear on that you know yes well right within folk will have this conversation right my student entered this program got was told was going to get Chinese K through twelve it was eliminated fourth grade went to fifth grade we were told

215all he'll get in sixth grade and now he's not going to get it in sixth grade correct because we had three teachers than two teachers and that one teacher and the rationale last year was we got rid of two teachers because Confucius could not come up with - thank you and because maybe invested a lot of time and effort into the Chinese program but what we've done is we've continued to cut back so I question we spent all this money over all these years on this Chinese program to only cut it you talk about students enrolling but we have cut the main source of students enrolling into that and I question how we've spent the overall money and our commitment to providing that experience to our students but I'd be more than happy to talk

216about one get to the budget you know so to be clear that's why I what I said we have to have this conversation at another time so that we can make a determination whether or not we would request more than the one the one would keep it the way we had projected it forward to we would need more than one teacher from them currently I'm not certain to be able to get that additional teacher actually almost lost one in the last few weeks it has been incredibly difficult as we talked about last year I think it's only gotten more so for the Confucius Institute to recruit individuals to come to the United States to work with them to do this program so again I think as a budget conversation check to your point and our

217priorities we will be having a conversation exactly the same as we had last year are we going to look at making this a a full-time position in Avon public schools and taking that into our budget from that standpoint of more than likely again for ahead of ourselves but I won't respond because we're talking about tonight a $90,000 a year for one person salary we have to make that determination if that's what we want to do and find the person which still might pose a challenge to find someone certified or we got to continue down the path we've already started and I think we have to have that conversation determine what the priority is let's do a larger issue what does life look like after my supplier Superman and I'm going to have to run programs

218away like running and it would be great if they could supply that number of teachers but we've gone from three to two hospital one and at that point they're basically telling us that we're on our own so do the knowledge that move forward in that would be a discussion we're sorry I want to make sure my sector doctor sir just wanna clarify better the point we're making under standard perspective and as far as to be the dead horse I don't necessarily think that stuff yeah well I think it's not the same Horseman taking that next step forward logical step forward and the urgency I have is we know that limb for this would be the curriculum committee and that is meeting February so by then this networks would probably be out of the barn so

219we have to move now the stealing the time this horse comes out from a budgetary perspective yes I understand so thank you thank you I have three things really quick Congress a neighbor at Bentley I think number one I just wanted to say the vast array of things we've spoken about dieters I think goes to the others everybody challenges is it all have to come together it's just different things to the table we really were Board of Education think about soup tonight so with that in mind two things I wanted to bring up there at the end of it took out of this week I don't think we should walk away from here forgetting about the presentation of the FIRST LEGO League is they they brought up some good points that I think look at

220that much food it again in comes no garbage school or wasted we should take a look at that's number one anyways my last point with me we spent a lot of time to eye on different issues talking about the policy you actually pretty much ended better on your presentation as far as I'm concerned our job is at borders the set policy policies need to be followed if they're not being followed by you sir if we as a board don't like the way things are going we should send in policies so I do you think we should keep that in mind as we work going forward there are ways to accomplish our goals using policy and that really I think we should focus on that and rely and do to make sure our policies are being

221implemented which everything ever time makes you think you're doing with Jack making sure the policy to be followed by many problems but policies really resolve yeah lies in my mind no more games thank you I guess that say we're good oh yes so can I oppose a brief question so as the as the board has already discussed prior about gifted programs etc and there they've cited uh you guys have cited programs such as math counts which are targeted towards the Middle's however towards the high school and abet for instance for calculus in my calculus class about a third of the class is actually not seeing this and Calculus BC is a class designed to be at the end of your math program at the high school so as such after these students have taken the

222calculus class they really don't have anything passed we have some classes such as ap statistics and any of many of these students have already taken that there's also half a half semester or half your classes such as EC discrete math which many people will complete and have this meant or half a year so along with focus area three outlined under the blueprints for excellence goal two says that there the board will seek to establish formal partnership to the post-secondary institutions and as you mentioned on that includes Tunxis which you cited for jobs training vocational training etc so my question is will this be extended to dual enrollment for like say map or like language arts so that's a good question and some of that to a point so the Tunxis program right now has a

223math component and it's not vocational so it want to be clear and I think I spoke to something more to that the finance we need before you were here when we're talking in the current version of Career and Technical Education it's the big umbrella of skills related to 24 first century skills and jobs and so forth that usually is intertwined with some portion of college whether that is a is it 4000 degree or it is a doctoral degree so that partnership with Texas is it's more like what you're talking about 1/2 hour partnership with UConn for all intents purposes those ECE courses are dual enrollment because what you aren't getting our credits hits on the University of Connecticut earliest are we looking for others yes to answer your question in the short version and I

224brought up the ECE Street Map could have mentioned this under my update but I did not the we had a conversation and our curriculum professional practices committee related to an ECE course that would have been good I should say would be we move it forward the second half of the year after this to coincide with discrete map so we have had a conversation about there being a hole there and I'm glad you brought that up tonight because I think we need to revisit it to potentially I'd love it thank you and I did think at some point we had some collaboration how they're sort of classically to take that's a Texas so my second point has to do kind of following up on Jason said is it's also our role to help with a vision

225not just a policy so our that vision has to reflect what our constituents value and what we think we represent for them and it still ties into our mission so I think for our students to have that personal integrity and social responsibility and two of the members of the public spoke today about this I think they have to to move beyond sort of a narrow lens if you get all your information from a narrow lens or from one perspective you can have a narrow mindset so this also incorporates the climate that remember the public spoke about and I think it's especially timely because we're hanging and heading into a potentially very heated political season with a campaign coming up and all the things that come along with that so as far as as what we

226can do on the board what the administrators can do to help us get at some of those challenges that we're facing why the climate is the way it is and maybe even the new sources that our students are exposed to what are some steps we can take before we weren't huge yeah like you just want to speak to the idea of climate and I I'd respect it's very much the public that come to speak here and I think that all of these opinions have to be taken wait seriously and because they're thoughtfully but I have I two women left I remember in the public my child attends Jeremiah the students attended here and found the climate to be welcoming politically expressive on each of my children have been wrong with totally different views so I'm

227very appreciative of what they've been exposed to I appreciate that the teachers are walking a very very fragile line and I feel for them every day but I really don't want to leave this meeting thinking that well we really have I can say for myself I'm very grateful to the climate that busy the school and that they are working very very hard to be as fair and as amenable to all kinds of learning styles as they can and I I don't personally know that we can discuss staffing the question at 9:30 but I'd like to put it in our in our minds somehow on our agenda because I it's not just that ik total it's not this is not the first I've heard of it years before I was on the board before I was

228coming to this I heard there are but I think we should have an inclusive environment that doesn't alienate anybody any other comments Jason all right excellent okay so we move to communications from the public if anyone who remains with us would like to speak Carol come forward to say your full name for the record please Carol students and I was just wanting to clarify something a little bit for the record with my one of the co presidents for the High School PTO with respect to project Brad I think it's great that we set a date and people are already working very hard for something that happens in in June and I want to say like maybe four years ago five years ago when my current junior was in the middle school and middle school lost

229power and they had to go for an extra day after graduation and project rad was still at the middle school and they had a lot of volunteers and the building was like ready to go and spotless by five or six in the morning after the party so just that might create some of you guys who are here on the board and I don't know if that's going to be an issue this year and I know our committee is working very hard and talking to the servlets about some side options but under the high school is one of the strong leading contenders for having the party and I think there has to be some some open minds and flexibility that the committee would be able to pull off even if kids are coming to Rosen thank

230you Thank You Carol anyone else thank mr. pepper but he said and I want to say that I certainly am not alone there are a number of people who got those concerns you sit in a very powerful position miss Leah and if he were called when you were elected that was essentially a vote of no-confidence in this board and so I would strongly encourage you to consider your constituents I have been very mindful of not escalating but there are a number of people with substantial issues it is not okay you complain about technology with our students and they glare of CNN and dumb down your classroom why why are we doing that why are we having intelligent humans which our teachers are teaching our students why why are we politicizing everything why does the student

231have to be in a textbook with roots meat was profanity why this is a dream have to be shown in an English class to the spouse for me to movement it's not okay and doctor you alerted earlier the right to privacy is incredibly important it was first written about in 1890 by Brandeis and he articulated at it as the right to be left alone this is the foundation for the right to abortion and also for birth control people have the right even minor children to old beliefs religious beliefs and who they are they have the right to come to school and not be told as a child was told last year that's a quite attitude this is a pattern of behavior your teachers are outstanding let's empower them to teach their subject I don't need

232people to tell my children how to vote how to worship how who to have sex with I don't care teach your topic teach it well you're gifted but I absolutely challenge you and what do you ask for a solution issue I have one how about an open 365 degree evaluation where every child in your school is asked open-ended questions about their experience with discrimination and harassment and every single parent is also asked to anonymously now to the superintendent I'd say I would never approve that if I were you because I have been an administrator too but I will throw down and say the day you give that out and you get no response that you sit sir and say oh our job is to write policy you don't even enforce the policies you've written holy

233Toledo you're writing more policies you can't even follow the policy as you've written my goodness that's all I have to say but thank you mr. freaka and I am here to tell you when I came to speak out at the sport people were like your kids will be retaliated against aren't you afraid I absolutely and I'm not afraid because my mother was in World War two she was in the resistance of the north of France this is small potatoes to me but people are afraid they are afraid you sit in very powerful positions and it was supposed to know confidence before you're elected it takes a lot to get there but for you to say I love the people at the school I love them my children learn a ton it's a wonderful school there

234isn't violence there's nothing like that I hear that but that people are coming to school and being shown CNA and the enforced watch movie with date rape drug use being told being forced to repost with profanity it's odd and the point made earlier absolutely when you walk out down there shaming there's bullying there's shunning absolutely that happens absolutely and so the thing is if you're going to then if you're going to present material that's so provocative do it on the side have it as an opt-in have your main street have it for the gifted and talented have it third whether but your mainstream curriculum should not have 400 profane words and 500 pages that's odd it's unnecessary that's what I have to say thank you thank you dr. Lewis anyone else right we are okay

235I'm going to inflate in dr. kaar novella Ishod and mr. medic I will ask the audience excuse yourselves that we'll take a five-minute rest to allow the cameraman to break down as well do I have a second on that all right David seconds all in favor hi [Music]