NPS BOE Meeting - (5/28/2025)

001Good evening. I'd like to call the this Newington Board of Education meeting to order for May 28th, 2025. The time is 7 p.m. Please rise for the pledge if you're able. 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. Z, would you please call the role? here. John here. [Music] Amy Karate here. Sam Sharma. Here. I have Miss Carr, Mr. Sharma, and Miss Y. Thank you. Okay, it's it's fixed, Mr. Marciano. Okay, we're actually going to skip around a little bit. Um, we're going to do our appreciation for our PTO, PTA, PAC, and Newington Septto. So, if we have Do we have people online? I don't see I don't think so. But we

002do have a bunch of people in the room. So, would you like to come up and we can appreciate you? I don't think this. Okay. So, I see I see some Anna Reynolds friends. and E green. And do we have you're Anna Reynolds? You're Reynolds. Are you Are you Kellogg, too? You can be Kellogg. And that's right. I'm sorry. I'm really trying. Oh, you got your So, I'm sorry. What school are you from, Chiefy? So, these lovely ladies here are representatives from our school, PTO's, packs, everything. Um, that's how I got my start here. and I know the hard work that everybody puts in all the time for the schools and for uh the community. So, we just want to give our sincere appreciation for the work you do supporting the schools, the staff, the

003students, um the building, everything cuz there's a lot that goes on the school, but having that community and bringing it all together really really means a lot to the to the families and and everybody um at the school. So, thank you so much for all that you do and we are very appreciative of you. Guys, want to let's gather for a picture picture with Miss Craig. Get some nice artwork pages. Yeah, let's why don't you um just go in front a little bit and we can kind of like double up. Scoot just kneel down in front. Thank you. I'll be back next year. Do you want me to? Yeah, if you want to. All right. Once again, thank you to our hardworking representatives from our PTO, PTA, and Septto. We couldn't do a lot of

004things without you at our schools. Uh, it is now my pleasure to bring up um or honor and acknowledge NCTV. As many of you know, they tape or stream our board meetings weekly and or whenever they occur and they are an invaluable asset to us. So, the board of education would like to acknowledge the NCTV staff for the support provided in communicating board of education meetings and various school activities to the public. It is a pleasure to turn to channel 1416 to view programs relating to our school system. It is important for the district to provide information to the community on the accomplishments and needs in Newington. Many members of the public have commented on viewing the presentations on channel 14 and 16. It's an additional step to foster greater communication between the schools and

005the community. The board would like to make this small donation to your organization and we sincerely appreciate your support. So, our representative from NCTD could please come up. This is Camille. Thank you very much. And can you tell us your name and give us a few remarks if you'd like to? Oh, put me on the spot, why don't you? I'm Jim Clusac. I've been with NCTV since like the 90s, so it's been a while. We really appreciate the gift and um you know, we we'll be working with you in the future for sure. Much appreciated. Thank you so much for coming and we appreciate you. And Web is going to take a picture. The board you and the board chair. Thank you so much. All righty. Now, tonight we have an award that we've probably

006never given before. It's an award to an organization called Tales of Joy. And in case you haven't already guessed, it's referring to the dogs that are in the room with us tonight. Um, we are joined by uh three members of the Tales of Joy organization, and I'll have them come up if you think your doggies can handle it. I know they're very awesome dogs. So, come on up. And, uh, while they're making their way up, and I would like them to introduce themselves and their dogs in a moment. Uh but I want to tell you why. Take your time. We don't want any tales of joy to become tales of sadness. Um but tonight um we are taking the time to acknowledge the representatives here this evening. So can you make it over? Got Mila.

007My goodness. Um, as you may recall, I'm sure many of you do, that we enlisted Tales of Joy. You never know what's going to happen when you got dogs at a board meeting. I know. I used to have a Maltese. Um, they provided us unbelievable support during our time of need recently when we had in within a matter of days a student pass away and a member of our staff. the these dogs came to our rescue and it's not overstating it. They provided support to staff, students, and the community. They came over a series of several days uh because things like grief come in waves. Um and it really was amazing when I reached out to the organization. They did this all call and within a matter of hours we had folks and their well

008we had dogs and the people that bring them in. Um Yeah. Uh, and they spent time with our students, our staff, and you can imagine, and I can I can describe to you that just the way people lighted lit up when the dogs came through to comfort folks. Um, we had all kinds of counselors on hand, but the dogs were the hit. So, it's my pleasure to now introduce you to representatives, and the board of education is going to make a donation to this organization. They came out at no charge to the board, but we um wanted to express our appreciation with the donation because I read on their website that that kind of keeps them going. So, let me go one by one here. Your name and the doggy's name. I'm Christine Anderson and

009this is Millie. I'm Ellen Leonard. I actually live in town here. And this is Ruby. I'm David Wright and this is Toby. And my name is Ashley Workler and this is Milo. So that is our star a team. I don't know who would be able to take the uh donation, but again our heartfelt thanks. And if you wouldn't mind letting us take a picture now. Can you dogs pose for a few seconds? Would that be all right? I know they're actually amazingly well behaved. Uh let me get out of I'm gonna get out of harm's way here. Milo, you're awesome. Get out of the way. He's blocking the board chair in her chair. There we go. It's all right, buddy. All right. Now, that's that's a portrait. Look at that. Look at that group. Perfect.

010I have to tell a quick funny story that I'm not sure if all of our representatives knew this, but when I let Miss Tno know that the Tales of Joys were coming, I said, "And here's the list that are coming." And it was eight names. And she goes, "Wow, eight dogs are coming." I said, "No, Tara, they have to come with people, too." So, it g gave us a good laugh and a and a difficult time. So, would anyone like to make any remarks? I just want to say thank you to you for reaching out. Um, we're part of Tales of Joy and we're part of a smaller group in Tales of Joy, the animal assisted crisis response teams. So, not only are these therapy dogs, we have also gone through additional evaluation of the

011dogs and a little more chaotic um environments. And then all of us have undergone more training through FEMA and psychological first aid so that we can handle more of a crisis situation. So um currently we only have 11 um teams that are crisis response, but we're working on getting more people to do the training and come and do it. So, um, and as a result, we do this when we're called out for situations like, um, you had here in Newington, and we've done it numerous towns across the state for a variety of incredibly tragic, sad reasons, but it's nice to be able to bring a little bit of joy, a little normaly to catch people out of their cycles of grief and get the the students and the staff to then realize their emot emotions

012and be able to talk to the counselors and make connections with each other and begin to process their grief. So, thank you once again uh for what you have did for our school district uh in a very difficult time and I will be singing your praises to any of my colleagues that might need similar assistance and we are just so grateful. So, thank you. Absolutely. We all know that Ruby likes to be well photographed. This is an award-winning dog. She She's got a They all have, by the way, they all have cards. So, you know, like you all have business cards. The dogs have trading cards, bookmarks. These dogs do not mess around. So, uh once again, thank you for your contribution and we appreciate everything. Oh, look at where they're leaving their calling cards.

013Alrighty. So, we're gonna segue. Hopefully, is Miss Tno online. What was that? All right. Mr. Santoro, can you stay a little while longer? Your uh your aunt your person that nominated you is desperately trying to get here. Um, so I guess we do have um I I'll let board chair speak to a slight Wait a minute. It's a miracle. Minute. Come up here. Sarah, get my everyday. Here we go. So, right on Q, Miss Tigo, when you got to see your friends. Oh, no. So, we'd like to bring up Tom Santoro, who is our everyday hero. Come on up, Tom. And by now, you have figured out who nominated you. Uh, let me let me read what she said. Tom. And Tom, for those of you that don't know, is our manager of student information

014and data systems. And Miss Tigno is a principal of our high school, Newton High School. Tom has done everything to make our data easily accessible and relevant. Anytime he is asked a question to make our lives easier, he finds a way. Most recently, he created an MPS discipline dashboard in Power School, allowing us to see the breakdown of discipline by consequence, referral type, grade, time, location, race, etc. And the Miss Tigo, if you don't know her, does acronyms. T equals the time to listen to what is needed. O offer suggestions and M makes magic happen. Tom is the guy behind the scenes that without we would not have anything to really look at in front of the scenes. He is a pure genius with the attitude that anything is possible and is able to take

015that attitude and make things come to fruition. He understands our mission and works to create things to move us along, not put up barriers that set us back or take the easy way out and saying this can't be done. We are very lucky to have Tom on our team and he should be celebrated for all he's done, all he is doing and all he will do because the work will never end. True words were never spoken. So congratulations Mr. Santorno. I know this is a rhetorical question, but would you like to say anything? Sure. Well, I wrote that obviously. I was thinking on the way here what I could say that would be funny. And all I could think of is Tom's probably so happy his name isn't William because Tom is only three letters.

016So, I only had to think of three acronyms, two three words and not seven. Um, but truly all the words that I said were were are true. And um it's it's literally every day that we're either emailing or calling Tom. And I can probably speak for hundreds of us in the district. Uh Mr. Marciano's waving his hand over there. Um you know, administrators but also staff. Um people say it all the time. What would we do without Tom and and I truly believe that. So um thank you so much for all you do and I know it's probably awkward for him to be up here because he is behind the scenes guy, but he deserves all the recognition in the world. So thank you so much, Tom. a few words, but we'll do a picture

017with the board chair. Craig will be taking that. [Laughter] school for the end of the athletic awards. But this Thank you, Miss TGNo. Appreciate you coming out. She stops at nothing. Oh my god. Okay. So, um I'll I'll just open up to quick board comments and then we'll get to our presentation and we need to do a little So, board comments. Mr. Hollerin. Thank you everybody for waiting so patiently. So, for once, I'll try to keep it brief. Um, uh, just kind of going through the list. Um, I can relate to everybody who won an award here tonight on some level. Um, Tom, my brother, uh, works at Rocky Hill in a similar position, and they always say that he's in the hole, but everybody knows his name. He's in the closet making magic happens,

018but when you need him, he's there and things happen. Um, and it sounds like Tom does the same thing. Truly an unsung hero of what makes our school system run. H to NCTV. Um I don't think there's a representative here anymore, but um they're listening to you. They're listening. You can hear me. Um thank you for what you do. You you help us provide transparency. You show us the inner workings of what happened. You allow people who want to be informed to stay informed. Um way back when it was called the community access, I used to do the same thing when I was in high school. So, it's a lot of fun, but at the same time, you provide a really needed service, and I think that that's something that needs to be spoken to

019and recognized. Um, NCT, uh, sorry, NCTV, our PTO's, PTA's, PAX, and Zeppto, um, you do so much. Amy said that that's how she got her start. That's how I got my start. Let's hear for Ruth Chaffy, PTA. Um, but, um, they Yes, thank you. uh and with the guidance of the principles uh those are a necessary bridge between the work that we do, the work that the school does and the work that the parents do. And it is all volunteer. A lot of people join because they want to. They have no idea what they're doing. They just jump into it and they try and they figure things out. Um and I think if you have a passion for it, it is something that is very rewarding. So thank you. And lastly, Tales of Joy. Thank

020you very much for doing the work that you do. I think even in the darkest times, you show that kindness and compassion always shine through and I think that is so critically helpful when people are in a time of need. So on behalf of the board and myself, thank you so much, Miss Beatric. I'll keep it brief as well. Um, I just want to take a moment to thank our PTA, PTO, PAC, and Septto uh parents. We talk a lot about school community. um in this room and you are the engines that drive that school community. And so um schools wouldn't be able to provide the services um extras without the heavy heavy involvement of um some of our our heroes. And not all the heroes wear capes, but they certainly work the book fair

021and they work the ice cream social and they work the school dance and work harder than anybody really um knows until they get involved. And so, um, our schools would not be able to provide the activities, uh, without your your help. And it it it's a lot, and we recognize it. So, thank you. Um, knowledge is power, and there's no worst, uh, worse words you can hear in your office is that the system is down. And so, Tom, thank you for all you do to make sure that that we don't hear those words. And information is what keeps our our buildings flowing. And we couldn't do it without you. So, thank you very very much. NCTV um provides a valuable service that we don't uh think about or talk about enough. It's available to everybody

022and it is a valuable resource in our community to as Mr. Howerin said keep information flowing and it's very very important um that we continue to support every opportunity that we have to publicize and to celebrate the wonderful things our community does and NCTV is a huge part of that. Again, run by volunteers. So, thank you. and the Tales of Joy. Oh my gosh, when I heard the dogs were coming today, it's the best meeting ever. So, thank you for all that you do to support our students, our staff, and it it's a difficult thing sometimes, and we uh rely on each other to help, but there's nothing uh more loving and than a um visit from a a dog or a pet that shows unconditional love. So, thank you again for all you do.

023Miss Weaver, I will wrap up this love fest, but I don't want to wrap it up because I love giving all this love. Um, just want to Yeah. All that was said before um to Tom. Uh, I feel like we have like a lot of behind the-scenes people that literally make this engine run. When we talk about like every day here, we're saying these are the people that you don't know about maybe in the community as much. Um, and we really like to highlight that and it always shows when staff is honoring staff. Um, so we always love this kind of a word, but um, I think Mary said it best that yeah, you never want to hear those words. So um, and we don't usually hear those words, which is great and I know

024there's a million different cyber threats and all these other things in this world. So um, we need a lot more toms in this world. Um, and to NCTV, uh, I remember, um, like my days on Youth Adult Council when I was the youth part of it and it was, you know, streaming on NCTV and I'd get a call from my neighbor going, I saw you on NCTV the other night and I was like, I didn't know we had that channel. I was like, what? And so since I was 15, I've been watching NCTV. Um, so very proud supporter of that. And our PTO, PTA, PAC, Septto, all the acronyms that we need in this world. Um, I know a lot of us, we kind of, for those that don't know, we rotate and kind of

025get a schedule assigned of which ones we come to. So, we thank you for letting us in. And every time I'm like, oh my gosh, how wellrun, how amazing, um, everyone is in getting everything done. Uh, as Mary said, Scholastic will hate to see you guys coming because you guys are ready for a book fair, um, for school dances, for teacher appreciation day. You handle all of it. Um just seeing the interaction you have with our staff um and and with our principles when whenever I've joined a PTO meeting um it's just been incredible to watch um and hear about everything that's happening and how knowledgeable everyone is and really just get that boots on the ground. Um the fundraising that you do, the amounts that you're raising um amazing. Thank you so much for

026all that you do and for what you do. We always talk about the parent engagement, um the family engagement and how important that is uh in our school system and truly that's what makes it run. We really need the buyin and not only do you buy in but you con have a lot of money to buy in. Um so just thank you for what you do. It really is not going unnoticed. Uh and lastly to our our tales of joy. What a joy. I can't believe I have a dog business card now. I'm so excited. Um I I just truly and um a couple meetings ago, you know, it was just in the wake of the tragedies that we had. Um and it was one of those things where um you know, Dr. Burman let

027us know how quickly everything was deployed and um you know, you hear about, oh, I heard there was a therapy dog today, but to like see it in action, to hear the stories and the anecdotes of what happens um and what's needed, particularly when it's um you know, a succession of of tragedies um in a small community, it just means a lot. So, thank you for what you do every day, not just for us, um for what you do for everyone. And I will be contacting Ruby and my other business cards here um when needed. But thank you all. I hope you all feel appreciated. Um and please know from all of us at the board, we really do appreciate what you do every day in and out. Um hopefully this, you know, you can

028at least get a picture with a dog at the way out. Just to wrap up the comments. Yeah, thank you um to our everybody for being here. Um just a quick plug for the PTO's, any parents who are not a part of the PTO, join, go to a meeting. It doesn't cost you anything. It's really fun. You meet a lot of great people. Um and you have an opportunity to help the school. You don't have to be an Eboard member. You can just volunteer for an event or whatever. But it's a really rewarding and fun experience. and you get a little inside scoop from the principles of the school cuz they, you know, they kind of and you just it's open access right there to the principal of the school. So, I think it's a

029really great opportunity. Um, like I said, I joined when my daughter was in kindergarten and she's a freshman now. So, it's just been um it's been great all these years to to be a part of the PTO at schools and every school has them, even the high school. I'm not sure who is in it, but there is one. Um, so, um, but yes, and the dot and therapy dogs, thank you so much for everything that you've done for our community last couple weeks. Um, it was definitely, as Miss Weaver said, a really hard time for for those in the schools and, um, but the the dogs are bringing lots of joy. So, thank you for being here. All right. Yay. Love. All right. Okay. So, we just need a quick motion because we have to

030amend our agenda. And you you guys are all welcome to stay, but more than welcome to go if you don't want to listen to the next three hours of our meeting. Mr. Mariana's presentation is gonna be amazing now. No, this part. Good. Yeah. Just And our our dogs. I didn't want to. The dogs might not enjoy it. Thank you. All right. Oh, wow. That's exciting. Hi, Ruby. All right. Well, I will uh we just got to amend our motion because we have some special guests tonight. Um, so I will make a motion to amend the agenda to add Chaffy Exploring Perspectives. Second. All right, we have a motion, a second. Is there any discussion? All in favor? I. Any opposed? Motion passes. How many are here? Six zero. Okay. All righty. So, thank you very

031much. Board chair, come on up. Mr. Marciano, principal of Elizabeth. Oh my gosh. Oh, Chaffy. Ruth Chaffy. Principal of Ruth Chaffy. Ruth L. Chaffy School. I don't need this. Dr. Braum, you're going to present. I will. Yep. I'm going to boot it up, but I Excellent. Mr. Marciano is here to talk about a key component of our reading program, but I'm going to let him explain it in more detail, and he's got some exciting guests that he has brought with him. Yes, Mr. Marciano. So, thank you uh again, Jim Marciano, principal of Ruth Chaffy. Uh spent the last, it's been what, six months? Seven months. We're at seven seven months uh getting to know the Chaffi community. Very exciting place. Uh love the the families, the educators, and the students that uh occupy this community.

032And uh I've been a part of Newington now for 11 years. Um and it's been a very positive uh experience for me all around. and I appreciate you giving us time today uh to share a little bit about the work we've been doing at Ruth El Chaffy with this part of our literacy program called Exploring Perspectives. Um so I will go over kind of how we're going to um present this. I'm going to give an introduction, a brief introduction, and then um I've invited one of our third grade teachers uh Miss Aguire to showcase how that is brought to life within the classroom. And then she'll follow that up with uh she brought four of her students and those students are going to present uh the work that they accomplished as a result of uh

033the efforts within this part of the the part of the curriculum. And then I have some other samples that you can see uh that were brought in from other classrooms that I just took pictures of um as as part of the work that we've done over the time. So with that being said, just an overview of exploring perspectives if you wouldn't mind hitting that next slide. So I'm going to read to you because you probably all had a long day. Um and it's probably easier for you to just kind of zone out and listen. So engages uh exploring perspective engages critical thinking about multiple perspectives providing educators and student students with a lens uh into past and current events and helps them better understand how a fair society needs to be supported supported. It provides

034opportunities for students to ask questions, research and challenge bias. Much of the work is done through constructive conversations in which students critically read text. So that's the essential component of what we're trying to accomplish through exploring perspectives. If you hit the next slide, I can kind of give you the themes that are present which are interwoven. Oh, that is very small. So I apologize. It looked bigger on my screen and I can't see it from here, but I could I know it's there. So go back for a second. So there are four main themes that student that are interwoven into the um into the different units. We have about 10 we we do have 10 units. Um and within those 10 units uh there are themes. Uh those are located across the top or they

035call them domains, diversity, identity, fairness and action. Um and each unit capitalizes on one of those themes um at least for the first eight units. And then in nine and 10 and units nine and 10 uh those um are diversity and identity are together and fairness and action are are together. Uh you can see there's key lines of inquiry that are part of the um the curriculum which we call essential questions uh in curriculum design uh that are are the line for which um we're exploring uh and we explore this in the content of some of our units which uh Miss Aguire is going to share with you on how she uh crafted this particular unit and and outcome uh with our student representatives. you could see the focus concepts within K through two and

036then how they build in grades three through six. Uh if you can read that uh good luck. Um um but there are samples uh like uh we introduced concepts around stereotypes, concepts around bias but go much deeper in in grades three through six. Obviously what's represented in in at Ruth El Chaffy is uh uh K to four uh and preK as well. Uh so if you go to the next slide it it's much better and easier to read. Uh so the learning objectives center around participation and shared inquiry and dialogue to build awareness and then as you can see in 3 to six um they participate more deeply in reflection engagement to do critical thinking and that's what you're going to see here today. They're going to talk to you about some real important topics

037important to them not important to me or important to Miss Aguire. These are things that they selected and are uh points of pride for them. Right. Excellent. So um one of the things I I am fortunate to be uh uh what's the word? Surrounded by very talented educators. Uh Miss Aguire is one of them. And I when I think about culturally responsive pedagogy, she is a model um for that particular practice. uh she brings it into everything that she does. Um whether it's uh helping students understand how Easter is celebrated differently across religions, whether it's helping students understand how Halloween is interpreted across different people, whether it's talking about the American Sign Language um and how that's in that impact. I've had numerous opportunities to observe her and and and watch uh her bring things

038to life, concepts to life, content to life. Uh, so this is a perfect example. This quote is exactly what she does each and every day in her classroom. And I'm so excited for her to share with you how that's been um brought to life uh in this particular project that she had students do. So come on up here and join me. Miss Aguire. Hello. I'm Miss Aguire. I'm a third grade teacher at Ruth Elchafi. Um, I love it there. I also quickly want to acknowledge Mrs. Morrison and Mrs. Brooks, also educators in my classroom. They are there for the success of one child, but they contribute to the success of all of us in the classroom. So, thank you very much. Thank you for coming. Yeah, as you can see. Okay, if you can go

039to the next slide. Um so this buzzword culturally re relevant pedigogy in classroom is constantly thrown around right especially in the last few years and I guess the question was like what does that mean to you and every time I ask somebody they give me some textbook form of something this is my definition it's a complete and radical acceptance of all the parts that make up students and educators and when I say all the parts I'm looking at beyond just race, everything that makes up that person, that child, uh the the communities they're from outside of school, home, the values that they have at home, maybe they go to church, maybe they go to temple, maybe they just have a club, all of those things are part of who they are, and I find a

040way to tap into it in these different ways. The environment in the classroom, encouraging um differences, and that even though we're different, we're stronger. uh through conversation, natural conversation. We often go down rabbit holes and talk about different things, selection of academic material, um benchmark has been has been amazing with that, I do have to say. Um but even other materials that I present and also interactions with others, right? Listening to others, letting students present. I have students who randomly want to come in the morning and present with full powerpoints about things but that's okay because that is what interests them. Okay. So that's just my philosophy and how I approach it. So if you could go to the next slide. Mr. Marciano asked me how did I come up with this project. This project

041is called letter to an advocate. It's a benchmark lesson. That's why benchmarks on the top. actually the culminating lesson from unit three which is government and the people and they had to research advocates of change. A few units down there's a culminating activity for uh exploring perspective which is writing a letter and all good educators you know we prepare ahead of time and I saw this opportunity and this opportunity to then marry them and make this one big giant project. There's going to be a few tapping going on. Okay. So this is the process. This is kind of the skeleton that I use for almost all my lessons, but this is specifically to this. The first part is that we brainstorm and discuss um what were we discussing during this time? There's going to be

042a lot of clicking. Bunch of we talked about the equities, the access, constitutional rights, and social issues right now. Um almost everything is on the table to talk about. I keep in mind age appropriate and grade appropriate at all times. But we have enough on the table and they have a lot of questions where you know we talk about uh different things. So we made a giant list on the board of all these equities and constitutional rights and social issues. And then the diverse exposure, the diverse exposure was through readalouds. Um, you can through readalouds and videos. And I wanted to show I want to present to them because this is there's a biography piece to this. Different people, you know, elementary school is Martin Luther King, um, George Washington. No, I went kneede in

043acronyms. So was FDR, AOC, RBG, uh, JFK. We were kneede, right? people that they will meet um in history class in middle school and high school. Why not start planting the seeds of that? So, we watched a bunch of videos and read alouds. Every opportunity, every small little opportunity, was whether it was snack, great, it's a working snack. We're going to watch a readaloud about this person. Every little opportunity and we made a giant list. This led to student choice. Right now, the students have a bunch of people that they've learned about with all these other things that we've talked about. Which one makes connections for them? And they had to reflect and they had to have choice one, two, and three for this one. Was it one, two, three? Yeah, one, two, and three.

044Because everybody, the expectations, everybody chooses somebody different. And sometimes the choice that you want first is not the one that you get. So, you have backups. So, they got to choose. And now is uh where I developed my small reading groups. So I put all the presidents together. I put all the tech boys together. I put, you know, miscellaneous group together because there were some that didn't fit exactly in an equity or I put them together. And during these small groups, uh there's onetoone discussion with students and also peer-to-peer learning. Oh, hey, I found this. Oh, look at this. After we've done that, then it's the research with the protocols around research. The protocols around research are using books, encyclopedias, appropriate digital resources, um a little bit of sourcing and graphic organizer. And the best

045part now is they get to create their project. So after they've done all that and they've read, they get to create project. They created first part was a poster. Um slides is the most famous thing in my class right now. We do slides for fun. I love it. It's different. Oh, they discovered animations on slides, by the way, everybody. It's a big It's a big deal. But that shows how invested they are to create things, right? Things must be clear, concise, neat. Nobody wants weird colors with weird colors, right? Thank you. But most importantly, now that they've acquired all this knowledge, they need to know how to talk about it, right? Because what's the point of reading and learning and creating and presenting if you can't talk about it? So we are now going to

046present about it. Yeah. Okay. So uh so this stay up there and I will um you're going to come to me. You're going to sit there. No, I'll I'll and they can stand right here. I'll give them a seat, too. So the first person the first person that we have is this young man. Um and the tech people here will enjoy this. This is an example of me showing a person who's not we don't conventionally study in elementary school that is in the tech world and how it sparked the interest of Arian. Mr. Patel, please come up. Would you like to sit or stand? Sit. You want to sit? Okay. Remember to introduce yourself if you can go to the next slide. I know my name. Hello, my name is Arian and I picked Steve

047Jobs because I like the technology of electronics. Technology is something that makes mankind's life easier. I like electronics because you can play games, do fun educational things, and more. I chose Steve Jobs because he also made the first touchscreen phone and computer available to everybody. The technology Steve Jobs made changed mankind. Steve Jobs created a phone so everyone has access to a better way of communicating around the world. Access to technology means all people should be able to afford the internet and other devices. If people couldn't afford the technology, they would not be able to get in touch that quickly or do jobs of today. Sometimes technology is used for bad reasons. Some students use AI on cheating on school essays. A good time to use AI is when you when you get home for

048fun or to talk to Alexa to turn off your lights. My letter to Steve Jobs is asking him for help on how we can make sure people use technology in a positive way. So, if you're wondering what we're doing like this, and I encourage everybody to do this in my classroom, we are sending love and appreciation and good vibes and energy, and that just pumps in a silent way pumps up the speaker cuz it's really nerve-wracking to be up here. Thank you, Arian. Our next person, um, it's very quiet in our classroom and most would label this person, uh, as the student as a rule follower. And that's perfectly fine to follow rules, but also within that is important to advocate for yourself. So this young lady, this really quiet young lady came up to

049me and this is the second unit, right? So the third unit, so it's very early in the year and she came up to me and she said, "Can I please do this because it's important to me because of this." I said, "Okay." It also shows how wide I uh I cast the net of talking about cultural cultural representation in our classroom. Miss Khart. She chose Joseph Smith. Freedom of religion. My name is Kate Hart and I picked Joseph Smith because he has a big role in my religion. I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also known as Mormons. He was the first prophet to restore my religion. Joseph Smith stood for freedom of religion. He fought to be able to be a Mormon and live in America. In my

050perspective, freedom of religion is that everyone can believe in different religions and have different beliefs, but that they also have the right to practice their beliefs. It is okay to be different and believe in different things. In our constitution, it says we h we can have freedom of religion. The pilgrims came for freedom of religion. My letter to Joseph Smith was about how there are not a lot of Mormons on the east side of America because the Mormons move west to Salt Lake City, Utah to have freedom of religion. The rest of my letter was about how we can make a temple on the east side of the United States so that there are more members. I was so glad that she advocated for herself because I was blown away with what she wrote. Um,

051really quiet but a lot to say. I love it. Um, our next person I love, uh, that she wrote this letter to a person who is living now. And by the way, they had to write a letter about an issue they wanted to change. I don't know if I was clear about that. Um, and so maybe one day the person will read the letter. Also, this is a perfect example of looking at these really complex themes through a child's eye. So this is Brooklyn Ley, Misty Copeland, racial equity. Hi, my name is Brooklyn Ley and I picked Misty Copeland because I was interested in how Misty Copeland became a dancer and what she had to do to become a dancer as a woman of color. I also I also wanted to know about racial equity

052and why Tiana is the only black American Disney princess. Racial equity means that people should not be treated differently just because of the color of their skin. I believe children should see people that look like them and a skin color succeed. They should also see themselves in characters on TV and books. This is called representation. Misty Copeland is one of the first black American prima ballerinas to be in a nutcracker. It was very hard for Misty Copeland to become a prima ballerina. She started ballet at the age of 11. It was also hard also hard for She started ballet at the age of 11. It was also hard for her because of her race. People didn't think she was pretty. Did you know that Missy Copelan got got custom ballerina shoes to match her skin?

053Then I was thinking about Disney princesses. I noticed that there was only one Disney princess that was black American and not a lot of main characters of color. My letter to Misty Copelan was about why there was only one black American Disney princess named Tiana and Princess of the Frog. I also asked Miss Copeland to help me animate some black American Disney characters to be main characters. So definitely a very complex theme through the eyes of a child, right? Um I'm telling you, they blew me away. Now, if you think that your your children are not listening to you and you talk about politics around the house, you might be mistaken, especially at this age. Um, this next young man that's going to come and speak. Every time he speaks, I get like little goosebumps.

054I just I don't know. I don't know. I'm excited for your future, Alex. Um, but what Alex came up and the connections he made and he made these on his own and went home and came back and then quite literally blew it up with the paper and just show I was just like I was amazed. So our next speaker is Alex uh Feliciano FDR economic equity. Hi, I'm Alex and I picked President Franklin D. Roosevelt because he really helped make the United States economy become better. FDR fought for economic equality to make the economy better from the Great Depression by making the New Deal. The New Deal was when FDR put thousands of people to work in community jobs that keep the US safe. Today there is a similar problem in the economy of prices

055going really high. This issue affects people in the country because then people don't have enough money to buy things they need like clothes, food, etc. I think everybody should have access to economic equality because it can help them financially. Economic equality is making the market more balanced and stable. This means that people in financial struggle have more opportunities to get out of it. My letter to FDR was about how today's market prices are going up which is affecting the economy. A change I would like to see is our money situation getting better. I also wrote to FDR saying that if I were president, I would reduce inflation by increasing taxes on corporations and individuals making more than a million dollars a year. What I would do with all that money I would have was pay

056people more and make new structures like FER. So that's just a small sample. Um, everybody in a classroom was able to do this. Um, I think culturally relevant pedigogy uh allow students to be seen, right? I don't look like every one of my kids. My kids don't look like everyone. And if they even look like me, we probably have nothing to relate. But I try to tap in so that they're seen. so that their brains are activated because we want critical thinkers, right? Problem solvers as they grow up and not people who follow trends. And so this is the age where they third grade is when they read to learn and they're literally reading and learning. There's not much to add to that other than there's some other samples in here in terms of things

057I just added in photos. Uh this uh particular student took the approach. This is a fourth grader uh talking about physical bullying and wrote his letter to Dr. Brummit. Um, the next one I believe is a second grader who wrote to uh Mayor Trist about homelessness and seeing folks on the on the turnpike um begging for food and money um and and shared that uh her concern with that. Um our kindergarten class was upset that uh not everyone was helping clean up uh theme of fairness. Uh so they uh did a class letter uh in relation to um making that better. That one was written to me. Um and then um the second culminating activity after unit 8 was to write a poem about diversity, identity, fairness or action. And so our younger students, our

058younger grades had gotten through this activity and they' done like a class experience. So you'll see some examples from that on the next couple of slides here. So, uh, this is one of our kindergarten, uh, um, uh, classrooms, and they talked about including everyone. It's actually a big theme in their class, and they actually have this hand gesture, which I can't replicate that is quite fascinating. Um, and that they do when we talk about including everyone. Um, and then you'll see here, uh, some poems from our first grade classrooms. Uh, uh, you can see perspective, kindness, and fairness as the themes for those those as well. Uh, very exciting, um, opportunity. uh to uh bring our curriculum to life and I hope you enjoyed uh the presentation and uh that's it. If any questions I'm

059happy to answer. Thank you to our presenters, our staff and all the work that has gone into this uh the wonderful education of these and their families for bringing them down tonight. Uh, I hope you're very proud. They did amazing work. So, excellent. Do we have any comments or questions for our presenters? Miss Weaver, I know you're anxious. Okay, go. Anyone? Let's go around. Go. Yes, someone. Oh my goodness. Um, we're constantly reminded in this room about the amazing work that goes on in our schools. We are so really blessed to share that the opportunities with you. And I'm struck yet again the caring, the maturity, the kindness, but just the intelligence, the emotional intelligence that I heard from our students tonight is mindblowing. Um, you know, I'm always reminded and I think I need

060to be reminded periodically that our community and especially our school community is a tapestry. And when we think of tapestry, we think of lots of different things. We think about texture, we think about color, but we also think about fibers that bind us all together. And when we think about tapestry, we also think about historical, you know, we we can go to museums, we can see on TV beautiful examples of that. And when I hear what our students said today, it is absolutely mind-blowing. The way you tie together current events and historical perspective, but in a way that is mindful and inclusive of many, many different points of view gives me such hope. not just for our young people, but also for the um importance of the work that our teachers and our staff are

061doing throughout our district to make sure that these ideals are um not just talked about, not just um internalized, but brought back out into the community in such positive ways. So, I cannot thank you enough for um presenting to us, but also in a way that was so effective, so mature, and so special. So, thank you. just wow. We'll use that acronym a w there of wow. Um you know we often talk about on the board we have something called the portrait of the graduate and it's what we want you to go out into the world after you finish at elementary finish middle school and finish high school. Um what you want to do when you grow up and how do we want what do we want you to learn? And I think you guys

062are pretty much pretty well there and on your way for what a portrait of a graduate is. And it really is about being a critical thinker. Um, and I'm just so so impressed um with what you did. We often have students come and we've had people singing, we've had dogs now. We've had a lot of folks here. Um, and I always say, you know, I think you're primed to be at this table sooner than you think. Um, but wow, what advocates to show that you can advocate for yourself and advocate for what you believe in um, at such a young age is so incredibly inspiring. I am jealous. As I always say, I'm can I go back to like elementary school right now? I want to take your class. Um, because it's just amazing. You

063guys have so many strong beliefs and being able to not only research about them, but also articulate them in such a wellspoken way. I'm very impressed. Not as your teacher just said, not only did you learn about and research what you wanted to do, but you were able to present and talk about it and we all understood it very well. So, um, and also your slides look great. Um, but what's great is that you guys are able to to advocate for yourself. Um, I don't think I could even pick which flavor of ice cream I wanted at your age sometimes. Um, so I just want to say congratulations you all. Parents, wow, thanks for setting great examples. Um, I think it's just one of those things. I'm always impressed with the students of Newington. Um,

064but the bar just keeps getting raised every meeting we have, it seems like, uh, and the ages get younger. So, um, congratulations to everybody. I hope you all I think this will probably be on NCTV or something, but I can't wait to watch it back because, um, it's on right now. We're live right now. Yeah. Uh, but it's one of those things I'm just very very excited not only for what you're doing in your current school year, but all of the school years to come. Um, we're very proud to have you as a part of our New England school community. So, congratulations and thank you guys for showing us. Mr. Hollerin, I've always got a soft spot in my heart for Ruth Chaffy. Um, it's where my kids go and went. I was in the

065PTA. Um, but it leads me to think, why are we here? Why is the board here? Why are our principles here? for our students here. It's to educate. It's to develop. But I think if we boiled it down to its essence, it's to grow the next generation of our community. And that's what you are. Our job here is to get you involved, get you um aware, get you talking. We live in a world where we've gotten very comfortable at talking at each other. And I think what we need now is to take a step back and learn how to talk with each other. And I think come up in the curriculum committee when we talk about benchmark advance and culturally re relevant pedagogy. What's the point of all that? And it's to find that balance.

066How to be a productive member of a society, how to be um a contributing member of a community, how to work together to make things better. Um and you can't do it alone. So you have to understand how to listen, how to think, how to talk, um how to negotiate and compromise. Those are hard things to do. And learning to do it now gives me so much hope for you, the next members of our community, Harry and Brooklyn, Kate, uh Alexander. Did I get Ari and Kate? Brooklyn, Alexander. Yeah, I got them. Um you guys make me so proud and so happy. And even on long nights like this, it's a reminder of why I do it. I don't get paid. I do it cuz I want to do it. And I got involved somehow.

067And this is me doing what I can to be part of that community. And I can't wait to see what you guys do next. Uh, thank you guys so much. Um, oh, go ahead, Miss Carr. You guys did incredible and you should be so proud of yourselves for coming out here and presenting in front of a full room. That takes courage. You guys chose such different topics, different individuals, but we could all see the passion you had behind your choices and keep that passion alive as you move forward in life. Thank you parents for being such great role models to your kids um for bringing them out here. Thank you guys. Thank you to our educators for setting the bar so high and pushing the students. I just want to say that I'm so proud

068of you um you students for coming to the table when you were presenting. Each one of you made eye contact and you really I could tell that you really worked hard on Yes. eye contact. I could tell that you were working hard or you worked hard to um to practice your presentation skills. But not only that, the material that you were presenting on is very well thought out and so important. There's the four topics that were chosen tonight that you presented on are topics that I'm talking about with my classmates in grad school. um like you know racial equity and freedom of religion and economic equity because everybody is different and everybody has different perspectives even AI because believe it or not some students do cheat and that is not okay. So there's definitely a

069lot that you guys are learning at this young age in third grade that is going to be so important as you grow and and as you mature and just learn so much more because already you're top talking about topics and and things that that people a lot older are are learning too. So I just want to applaud you and Mr. Marciano and your teacher. It's just amazing work and thank you so much for for being here tonight and for sharing your work with us. It was really special. Thank you so much. Yes. Thank you. Enjoy the rest of your school year. All right, that brings us to public participation. If there is anyone in the room or online who would like to speak, thank you. I don't see anyone. Time for bed. Take a couple

070cookies. All right, I'm not seeing any public participation. So, we can move on to our consent agenda. I move to approve the consent agenda as present for the meetings uh the meeting minutes for April 23rd, 2025 and May 7th, 2025. Second. A motion and a second. Any discussion? All in favor? I I. Any opposed? Motion passes. 6. And I'll turn it over to Dr. Brummit for her superintendent of schools report. Well, all I have to say about that is exhibit A. All right. I'll add a few things to that, but um I I'll refer back to what you just saw in some of my remarks. Uh and I will try to be brief. I know the meeting has a lot to go yet. Um share this. So, as a reminder to the board, this is

071the end of the year goal review, which I choose to do in public session, at least this part of it. And after tonight, the board chair will determine how my written evaluation will be uh crafted. But once this meeting is over, I will send this PowerPoint out that can be used as a reference point. And then at our next meeting together, there'll be an executive session to share the evaluation um and talk about um you know what the board's feeling is about my performance. Um as I always remind the board, anything that's in my evaluation is FOIable. So um there's always that caution about what to put in print, but it's up to the board about how they proceed on that. and then the board would need to vote on the my contract in open

072session before July 1st. I believe the board has seen this document that this articulates our vision and mission as a district. I know that the board is wellversed on our portrait of a graduate. I want to draw your attention to what some of our focus for this year has really uh been about is engaged learning and empowering our students. Um, I think you saw some examples of that tonight already, but I want to illuminate that further in my remarks. Um, we have a district goal and our district action plan that articulates a variety of things. I'm not going to read all of my slides tonight, but provide highlights that we're very committed to having all of our students perform at high levels. Many of our students already are. We want them to keep at it.

073Some of our students are not yet there. We want to make sure they get there. So, we want to make sure that our kids have access to an educational program that they can engage with. It relates to who they are. And again, I think you saw quite a bit of that tonight. And our theory of action is around that that we've tried to create learning structures and accountability that foster equitable experiences for our students and certainly honor their racial background and again elevate all students to do their very very best. And that is the work of the Delta District educational leadership team, equity leadership team that I want to spend a little time on that of course I over I oversee the work with my team and I learned how to do uh transitions too

074on my slides. I'm so excited. I was thrilled when I looked at our action steps that we undertook uh at our central office team and proud to report we did them all. We have been engaging in learning walks at every school and working with departments as well as different teams in the district to calibrate feedback about what is high quality instruction and our high quality work in a professional learning community which is team meetings that our teachers have that have a very specific purpose. We have looked at our PLC's through our rounds visits uh as have principles. They give their teams feedback and those PLC's are used to talk about student progress and make adjustments when they need to for kids that are not quite there yet. Um we have participated instructional rounds twice a

075year. We look at teachers and what they're doing, how they're interacting with children. And uh what you saw here this evening is what you would get if you were in that classroom at Chaffy. Um and we have as I'm sure you can appreciate uh tried to elevate what you saw here today with Mate's teaching style to show that it's highly highly effective and we want to elevate folks that are doing highly effective things and um bring them to scale. We look at our leadership practices. Um, all of us in the DELT in one way, shape or another provide support to schools leaders to make sure they have what they need to do their best work. And we, just so you get a sense of what a rounds visit looks like, we go into classrooms or

076PLC's, we take notes, we come back and we discuss them. And I will acknowledge I do use an AI platform called Otter AI which grabs our comments and generates themes. Uh we used to do it the oldfashioned way with sticky notes. We kind of graduated to AI and it gives that feedback for principles so that they can talk to their staff about next level of work. And I will tell you, we did an Anna Reynolds visit last week and today I received an email from the Anna Reynolds principal outlining what he the information he took away from our rounds is that he's now sharing it out with his staff. So we that's one of our ways. We also have um case studies that we do. So if things are happening in the district that might

077be a valuable lesson for us, we discuss that in our adult group as well as sometimes with our administrative team as a learning um methodology. We also engage in learning about achievement disparities and what that means for our kids and how can we go about shrinking those disparities. And I'm pleased to report you're going to see some examples of that shrinking tonight. Um so the the data is very important to us. we look at it. Uh, as I'm sure many of you know, ESPback data is coming in now. I'm we're not we checked with the state. We're not allowed to share it yet, but as a sneak uh peak, there are some extraordinarily um promising results in there that we look forward to sharing uh when we're allowed to. Um, and during our instructional rounds

078process, we also bring along obviously the principles of the school. They often invite coaches. Sometimes teachers are involved because we think it's important for teachers to see each other in action. Um, and there's many ways that that happens, but rounds is one of them. Um, and teach schools do a modified version of rounds and they do learning walks and that's gives teachers an opportunity to share u what they're learning. And at Chaffy in particular, they're using a practice of teachers videotaping themselves and then sitting around a table and kind of providing feedback to that. So, we're looking at many different ways to give teachers critical feedback to elevate their performance. Why are we doing this? Um, we are increasingly diverse and I know you've heard me say this anytime I have a budget presentation, but

079believe it or not, these numbers are different than ones I shared with you during budget. Our special ed uh has gone up almost a half percent since the budget presentation. Um, ML is hovering right around 9 and a half%. Our free and reduced lunch rate went up about a half percent since uh the budget was presented. So those critical uh data points clearly are changing monthtomonth and it's important that we adjust to make sure we're meeting the kids needs. Our racial diversity is there. It looks a lot different. We are nearly 50% white and 50% non-white here in Newington. There's our top languages. That's also changed a little bit since I last shared that with you. Um, but you can appreciate that these children come to our classrooms every day and need different ways of

080of having the lesson presented to them in order to be successful. And if you look, what I want to draw your attention to is this is by school, the number of multilingual learners, which means kids whose primary language is not yet English. and since the school year started. So you plan your school year all ready to go and boom in walk 66 new students who require multi-ingual instruction. What I'm particularly proud of and Kristen currently oversees this uh aspect of our program. Uh she'll be sharing that next year with our um world language department. But we see our numbers of multilingual learners shrink as kids age because they're benefiting from the program and they begin to acclimate and learn the language. Um, so you can see the older they get, we have a little smaller

081percentage of children qualifying, but it's still a very pretty significant almost 10% of our population. And this is a longitudinal chart that shows you from 2011 to present, we have had increasing diversity largely in the area of our Hispanic population and tipping the scales more toward a balance of 50/50 on the white, non-white in our district. Here's what I'm very excited about. We've worked really really hard as a central office team with our various members many who are around the table tonight um to really cultivate um what's going on in classrooms and trust me when I tell you we have a long way to go but we are seeing some positives here. Uh these are SAT results for this year and Kristen Freeman may jump in here because she's much steeper into the work than

082I am uh with analyzing the data, but you can see that Newington is uh still above state and country in how we are performing on the SAT. Um you can see our English, is that English reading, writing? Is that what that stands for? Evidence based reading and writing. Evidence based reading and writing. We're at 63%. Whereas the state is at 58 and the country 56. Math we are a little less. We're still above the state and country but we'd like to get stronger there. And this is a percentage of kids who are meeting what this the national standard is for this exam. Another exciting piece here is how we've grown. Um the state is it the state or the national Kristen? Is it state that sets the benchmarks or the growth? It's the college board

083that sets the benchmark and then also does the statist statistical analysis to determine what the expected mean growth would be. So in the area of um reading and writing you can see that our students were predicted to increase by 21.2 points but they actually uh increased by 28 points. So, plus 6.8 more than what the college board would have pred predicted that we would have done. Um, in math, we also did get pretty close to the expected benchmark. We were only about 3.6 points off. And I think you'll see through the night that we are making gains in both reading and math, but math is an area that we need to continually focus on because it is state and nationally we're right in line with that. But we don't accept that and we believe we

084have more work to do there. But we are seeing growth in our kids um in as evidenced by this test and many other measures that I'll share with you. What we're one of our other areas of pride is our early college experience outcomes. I do want to thank Seth Korn. Um when he shared this data with me, he let me know that the state has taken notice of Newington and he's been called upon to speak to how he has grown this program in in the past 5 years. Um and as you'll look here, you know, we continue to increase the number of kids who are taking early college experience classes. Um even from year to year from 217 last year to 246. Uh total credits attempted um I believe that'll be earned from last year,

085but this year we're potentially having kids earn over 1,400 credits, almost 1500 credits. Last year we offered 17 ECE courses. This year we're offering 22. And when we talk to what is the return on investment for our families, you know, by paying for a much smaller fee for a course here, you're saving last year close to a million and this year over a million for your children. And then another point of pride is that we are seeing an increase in the diversity of kids taking um ECE courses. We have offered more diverse courses which I think also helps. But each of our uh students, our black, Latino, and um biracial students each went up a percentage point in their participation. And our our white students continue to participate in ECE courses at a very high

086level. See biiteracy is another point of pride for us. We have kids that come to us speaking a different language. So we want them to more or less get credit for that. But also our students who are learning a world language. So you can see the progression here. We in Newington, we started this program and was a state uh initiative that most districts have jumped on. We had only about six kids during the first year who earned the seal of literacy. And what that really means is you have to take a test that shows that you're not only proficient in English, but you're also proficient in another language. And there's a, you know, a procedure that you go through to demonstrate that. But you can see we are steadily rising. Last year was a particularly

087strong year and what's awesome is it's it's a variety of languages that our kids are demonstrating. Uh you know Spanish still is the most common one that our kids tend to be biliterate in but you can see we've got Portuguese now emerging, Chinese, Polish, Ukrainian and um this year we're still tallying. So I think that number will go up but um there's a we have again a sign significant number of kids who are seeking this credential and we can already predict based on current progress that next year's class is likely to have this many students and the class 2627 another and again this will likely go up obviously old classes will not but going forward we anticipate these numbers going up as the various test scores come back to us but I think it's This

088goes literally a seal on their diploma that shows they are considered biliterate in more than one language which is something that I think is very important. Um we also have a a test that our kids take who if they are multilingual learners and obviously the goal of that program is get them to be the proficiency level so they can exit. It's not not a program that we want kids to stay in their whole career. So uh in January 360 students took the last links test which measures their proficiency and 60 students were proficient at that time and have been exited from services and once they're exited we still monitor them but they truly are demonstrating enough capacity to go forward without having any direct ML services. There's another test too, the CAA ELP, and that

089is an English language proficiency test, but it's geared towards students who have pretty significant disabilities. And even at that, we have students who are taking that test, 11 uh qualified to take it, and two have reached proficiency. And other students within that same cohort have made significant progress. So, our English language learners are making progress. They do grow and they exit our program. Miss Freeman told me a cute story today that some kids don't want to exit our program because they like our teachers so much, but we try to catch that. Um because we don't want we want them to exit because it's what they need to do to to show that they've made the growth. Um Maver has a question. Oh, pardon me. No, I just had a comment because I know we got

090a little sneak preview on the curriculum committee um on all this stuff, but just that point on the um links one links. Yeah. That um that's still a very large percentage. every kid in the program has to take it. So, it's not just like like you could have someone here one day and they have to take it the next day. Um, so it's not expected that we would see 360 take it and like 90%. That's a fair statement. Kids come in on a rolling basis. That's how it works in public school. So, yeah, they might take it at a different without having had a lot of exposure. Is there any comment you'd make on that, Miss Freeman? Does that sound about right? No, that sounds correct. The only kind of test exemptions that we give

091for uh students who are new to the country would be with SAT or SBA and I think we give them um a large window of about 3 months but the last they they take that every year so everyone gets the test. Um this is our district benchmarking that we do three times a year and we do it in reading and math. Um and at our elementary level this is districtwide so it's all schools combined in the elementary world. Um, our goal is that we get all kids to green, which is considered that proficiency level. And, um, you can see that our gap is closing. Our our white students do fine, and they've gotten to that 80% mark. Our, um, other students, black and brown students, have closed the gap. Uh, 5% for black and 11%

092for Hispanic. So, again, we have a a large percentage of Hispanic kids in our district. And if they're not doing well, we don't do well. And this is why we want to close that gap. You can see that at Wallace. Um we wanted to extrapolate that because they had some substantial closure. In fact, all of our subgroups exceeded um the desired benchmark. Um last year there was um I'm sorry, let me look at this. The gap widened by 2% for black students and by 8% for Hispanic students. However, that's district-wide. But when you drill down at Wallace, you see the closure of the gap. And I think I do want to put a little commentary about that. What we're seeing in our rounds visits, which are a huge source of data for us, but not

093the only in schools that have embraced what you saw tonight as an example and what we see in our rounds visits. Schools that have embraced culturally responsive pedigogy are getting better results. So um or have you know been able to fine-tune it in in that way and and Wallace is a school that has done so and that is why we're seeing these results and again our goal obviously is that it goes to scale and is widespread. Um again um looking at our mathematics still an area that we need to grow and um leadership by u Michelle Kellogg has really brought the building thinking classrooms to us and we've seen some really good growth there and our um white students are just a hair under the benchmark for that but our gap for black students has

094closed by 20% and for Hispanic is closed by 12%. um at the middle level for math, we're seeing gap closures as well. And we had to come back from a year last year where the gap had widened. So we do see while the progress is not where we want it to be, we're moving in the right direction. And then just to close out, uh we have to celebrate things that don't necessarily fit into those data categories, but you know, we have three administrators this year that were honored for their stellar leadership practices. And I think that's a tribute to the work that they do. And Mr. Frey's right here around the table for his work in the HCD world. Miss Tigno who was here earlier as a leader of our high school and then Mr.

095Trillo as an assistant principal at Wallace. All stellar leaders. These are things we're incredibly proud of. Uh our schoolbased health center, the ribbon cutting was a few weeks back and I had a meeting with them today. We're continuing to chat about how to expand that. Um but right now it's a highly valued service at the high school. We are talking about this summer having a um clinic there with the schoolbased health center so kids who are having trouble getting physicals or immunizations can go there even if they're not high school students. We just talked about that possibility today. We have a and just so the board knows there's no money going into that from the district other than some structural changes we had to make. All of those services are paid for by the grant

096or by parent insurance. Similar to the Connecticut Behavioral Health. They come to our school system. They provide mental health services and it's all uh charged to the parents insurance. The Nor Easter Academy, as I mentioned earlier, we got our $100,000 grant. And that has been a amazing opportunity for kids who can't really cope with a full day of high school, but they are continuing to succeed there and get credits so they stay on track for graduation. Look at our prek folks. We continue to expand. Um, next year we had enough interest where I was able to convert an AM PM class into a full day prek class. So now we have two full day full week prek classes at uh Reynolds and one at all of our other schools. We have AM PM programs at

097every school, but at Patterson we have three. Oh, great. Patterson has two N's. um that was due to needs of some of our high need students. But I want the board to take a pat on the back for the work that's been done to grow our program of 60 students in 1920 to a projected 220 students in the upcoming school year. And uh we're also projecting just under a half million dollars in prek tuitions that helps to offset the costs. Um, I'm definitely not going to read the next few slides, but I've already gone into the del the work of our rounds visits and the the power they have. I want to stress too that principles come to meet with us here at central office three times a year. They bring in data. They tell

098us how they're making progress on their school improvement plan and and we hold them accountable because we want to see growth at their schools. Um, we also this year had opportunity though I can't quite get it in my head yet that Mr. Marciano is actually at Chaffy and no longer at green. Um we made some really good leadership moves this year and they've landed quite well where where we've changed people due to retirements or just different needs of the district. Our our placements of those leaders have paid off quite well. They're they're excelling in their new settings. Um I won't read this either, but we are continuing to gather as many grants as we can. We look at close to three million next year in grant revenues and the Wallace project is coming in under

099budget. The reimbursement rate is strong and that project thanks to Lou and his act and Jason Plum and the work they're doing there to make it all come together and our building committee and they're going to make a presentation next week, next board meeting. So you can kind of hear the the description of that. These are just some of the things that we collaborate with in the community which I think is an important part of our work. I won't um read all of this, but uh I will send the board this as well so they can pour into it. These are all the collaborations we have with community stakeholders and I think everyone knows what type of information the board gets, but I really think it's important that the board's fully informed about everything that's

100going on in the district and um these are some of the things that I get into in the broader community. Kind of a new thing for me was I'm now on the board. So I'm a board member, board of ed members. uh the Southfield Children's Center. Um Steve Woods is on that board and he had asked if um a representative from the school system could be part of that to kind of interface with and we interface with our community preks, but I just thought it was a nice opportunity to to see what's going on um on a deeper level. And I know you're probably wondering about the survey data. We uh it's coming soon. Uh maybe in time for the next board meeting. I'm not sure. We um we had to analyze what the state

101wanted from us this year and there's school climate data that they were asking about. So we weren't sure if we were going to get about our old survey or the school climate survey. But after checking with the state today, we were advised that we didn't need to do that survey till the fall. So we did send out the other survey today and it's got a very short turnaround time. So we should get some data back very soon on that. So, in the interest of time, that's my presentation about kind of a quick overview of the year. I'll turn it back over to the board chair for any questions. Okay, great. Um, yeah, so just a reminder um Dr. Burma said um before the presentation, but we will be gathering next board meeting um in executive

102session to discuss her discuss her what's the performance. I was yeah couldn't find that word um discuss her performance um and then um like last year I sorry Bernie I didn't get a chance to reach out to you but I just talked to Miss Weaver if the two of you could um work together and create a write up that again is FOIable once it's finalized. Um but for now if there are any questions for Dr. Brema on anything in here otherwise we can discuss um entirely. Go ahead Tony. I was just I'm just curious on like the math and the reading. Why isn't our benchmark 100 instead of 80? And if the reason I say that is because once you hit those things, you start to relax a little bit. I think um and if

103it's not 100, do we move it up or is it stay at 80? We absolutely want kids to get to 100. that 80 is sort of um the researchbased trend about what if your tier one curriculum is going as it should most if not all of your students should get to 80%. There's always going to be percentage of your population that may have learning challenges that in in in our country in the United States, we all all kids get tested. There's no exemption. So, everyone is tested and it is going to be kids with learning challenges or other multilingual learners who might not reach that 80% right away. The goal though is for everyone to meet and preferably exceed it. I don't know if you'd add anything to that, Miss Freeman. But yes, we absolutely

104want go kids to go above and beyond. Mr. Newton, got a question to tie with that. That's the average, the 80 you're seeing. Do we ever have anybody that excels higher? I mean, I think that's what I don't see. Sometimes I just see that 80 plateau like it's the average. But did we have 50 kids that were 90? Yeah. So, so remember that the percentage is looking at the percentage of students who met the benchmark. So, within that 80% there are students who are right at the benchmark. Within the 80% there are students that are above the benchmark. So, that percentage is about the ones at the benchmark. And we have scores. So, if you even see what Dr. Brumit um has, I can't see it from here, but that is above 80%. So in

105that cohort that is the white students for reading at Wallace they are surpassing the statistical researchbased 80% of benchmark. Okay. All right. And as I I'm so sorry as I had shared with the curriculum committee the SAT is where it's tricky because there is no percentage that says a school should get at 50%. It is uh it is a um you know a test that was created by the college board. Um it's not something that is um created in the kind of research that we use in public education. So college board lives outside of public ed education although it is a tool that is widely recognized by colleges and universities which is why public schools continue to use it. Miss Weaver. Oh, Miss Weaver, these mics. Um, question on the ECE. Um, because I know

106we that's like five more courses. Are some of them ones we were already teaching and got the ECE cross endorsement because I know that also means professional development for the teachers to get certified at Yukon. Um, and then I know there was a couple ones I think that in I don't know if it includes it. I forget the years now, but like that grow your own teacher one. Um, just uh would love for you to highlight just an example or two of those because that's a lot of money saved and a lot of cool things. You're asking specifically about the courses. Um, off the top of my head, this school year, uh, we added two new art courses that are at APCE. AP pre-calculus was new. It's okay if not now. I just I think

107it's Oh, um I'm sorry. APCE uh European history or was it Western? Yes. I western whatever. Okay. So, but next year we're adding two more. There's going to be an AP um health class. It is um health for all, but that is going to carry an ECE credit. And the second course, my gosh, I just I don't think that one No, that one's not ECE though. Is the Are we partnering with Sacred Heart to add um Yes. Thank you so much. The Black and Latino studies is going to carry a college credit um through Sacred Heart. Yes. Thank you. So, that was who because we want a lot of kids like to take that course and we we wanted to attract more kids to take it with the credit. And this doesn't reflect this really

108is Yukon data. So, it doesn't reflect all AP courses, but as you know, some do both, but um we'll make sure we have that full list. Um and I forgot to mention, excuse me, Seth was able to get a grant uh about a two-year grant of $50,000. So, that really did help us. Um and it had limitations on what you could use the money for, but it helped us buy some materials for a ECE courses. Um I don't know if we were allowed to do any training with it. had really very strict parameters but it allowed us to move forward. Um books can be expensive. Uh we were able to buy specialized cameras for the art course. So there were act um opportunities through that grant to to advance ourselves as well. And just would

109love to highlight like I don't know how we do this but where we are in the state I thought we were like number three or something. I just think it's an incredible statistic. Um I know what our current status Yeah. our current status because they reached out to us for uh pointers, but I don't I let me find out what our exact ranking is. I I think if we're we're going to include this in your performance and things, it's just one of those things I've been incredibly impressed with. I was already impressed when I was there and could go in as like a sophomore or, you know, you could get so many courses and at least when I was there, it was like your grade transferred too. Like you could come in as a 4.0

110student at Yukon and that's just I don't know. I guess we can put a price tag on it, but Well, we do a million dollar. It's just not too uh shabby. Miss Beatric, um just another question on the AP courses and the EC courses. Um are those classes full to capacity? Are there waiting lists or are there how is it shaking out? Are kids getting what they need when they need it? Yes to every single question you ask. Um, we have one course this year that was maxed out and there were students that could not participate because so many students wanted to take it. We have other courses that would be considered more of a typical class size um especially in an art class of about somewhere between 18 and 20 students. So, it really

111runs the full gamut. Thank you. You're welcome. When it comes down to it, I'll just add that if we have a course where only five students are enrolled, it usually is just impossible to run the course because there's a need for our teachers to be teaching full classes. So, it would be very, very rare that we have a very low enrollment in an ECE course. Are we in a situation where we might have to add sections to the ones that are full and fill up quick? We need to add sections to the one that has filled up quick. and there is nobody else to teach it. Yes. So, um, Louis Antonio is working with the social studies department to hopefully get somebody else certified to teach that course. Mhm. Any other questions? Okay. So, thank

112you Dr. Brummit. We will talk again. Excellent. Okay. So, um, for new business, we have healthy food certification that time of the year. I don't know if, um, I don't see Dana. Dana's not on. It is a standard protocol each year to and it's required to have to assure our uh, the state that we are complying with all components of the healthy food certification. This ensures that we get maximum reimbursement. Oh, on all of our um food related expenditures um within our program, our lunch, breakfast, and lunch program. And you know, without getting into the nitty-gritty, we have to be very careful about selling all their food during the school day. We have a culinary art program, but they can't sell food when lunch waves are happening because it is not allowed. So there is

113a flowchart in your packet that kind of illuminates um how this has to work. So we just have to adhere to this. We have to run it by the board annually for their for lack of a better word blessing because if we don't have this on record, it is not it's detrimental to the reimbursement of our lunch program revenues. So, I'd be happy to entertain any additional questions. Um, but the board has probably seen this uh numerous times and they're very particular about the words, too. One one year we didn't do the word right and it had to go right back. So, the words are right this time. Okay. So, there is a motion. All right. Read just the first motion. We want to pass those separately. Uh yeah, I think so. Right. We fasten

114motion. I would recommend that just because they're picky. Okay. All right. Pursuant to Connecticut General Statute Section 10-215F, the Newington Board of Education certifies that all food items offered for sale to students in the schools under its jurisdiction and not exempted from the Connecticut Nutrition Standards published by the Connecticut State Department of Education will comply with the Connecticut Nutrition Standards during the period of July 1st, 2025 through June 30th, 2026. This certification shall include all food offered for sale to students separately from reimburseable meals at all times and from all sources, including but not limited to school stores, vending machines, school cafeterias, culinary programs, and any fundraising activities on school premises sponsored by the school or non-school organizations and groups. Is there a second? Second. Thank you. Second by Mr. Newton. Um, is there any

115discussion? Okay. Uh, could you please do a roll call vote, please? Mary, yes. Carr, yes. Yes. Anthony, yes. Timothy Newton, yes. Amy Parad, yes. Jessica Weaver, yes. Motion passes 70. Thank you. And the second one, vote two for food and beverage exemptions. The Newington Board of Education will allow the sale to students of food items that do not meet the Connecticut nutrition standards and beverages not listed in section 10-221Q of the Connecticut Connecticut General Statutes, provided that the following conditions are met. One, the sale is in connection with an event occurring after the end of the regular school day or on the weekend. Two, the sale is at the location of the event. And three, the food and beverage items are not sold from a vending machine or school store. An event is an occurrence

116that involves more than just a regularly scheduled practice meeting or extracurricular activity. For example, soccer games, school plays, and intracolastic debates are events, but soccer practices, play rehearsals, and debate team meetings are not. The regular school day is the period from midnight before to 30 minutes after the end of the official school day. Location means where the event is being held and must be the same place as the food and beverage sales. Is there a second? Second. Thank you. Uh, we have a motion and a second. Is there any discussion? Have a vote. Mary, yes. Brittany Carr, yes. Conor, yes. Anthony Meyer, yes. Timothy Newton, yes. Amy Karate, yes. Jessica Weaver, yes. Motion pass unanimously 70. Thank you. All right. Next item is our educator and leader evaluation and support plans. Mr. Fari. All right.

117Thank you so much. Um, annually, uh, we are required to share in accordance with Connecticut Gen General general statutes, um, the update and the status on the evaluation of all certified staff. So, that includes certified leaders and certified educators, uh, folks who who lead our our district and folks in the building. Um this year we had about 365 certified staff that were evaluated and 29 certified administrators. Um in 2013 legislation came out that kind of put a lot of context and structure to the evaluation process. Um at that time um one of the more significant elements uh that lasted about a decade uh a little more than a decade was that educators and leaders were rated for their performance. Um as you may recall uh legislation changed a decade later and around 2023 and they

118um caused all boards of ed to create and adopt a system that did not or no longer had ratings. um you all adopted that last year and we are implementing it this year. So this is our first year in an evaluation system for both educators and leaders that focuses more on growth and development uh than ratings and um we have found the implementation of this new system to be highly productive. Uh it has led us to more productive um goal setting opportunities, more productive opportunities for professional learning align to an educator or a leader's goal and more productive to conversations around what is working and what might need some growth and development in classrooms and in schools. Um so we can continue to grow the performance that was shared with you earlier on on that

119screen. Um, so what this report shows is just a highlight of some of those items within the educator evaluation system and the leader evaluation system. Um, and just kind of the structure of it. So what you'll see in the educator evaluation system is that it is broken up into two cohorts. Cohort one are folks that are in um years one through four of their non-tenured career here in Newington. Um and then cohort 2 is everyone who is tenured. Um so years five and beyond for leaders uh the 10-year um time frame is two years. So cohort one is from zero to two years and then uh cohort two is from three years and beyond. Um so we we find ourselves uh in in with folks uh in working in this system uh at different levels

120in different cohorts um meaning that they are um have opportunities for growth at different levels. We obviously want to pay a little bit more attention to our folks in cohort one. Give them all the professional learning and development and feedback that they can receive early on in their career so they can become expert practitioners. um and hopefully those mentors that I shared with you last meeting uh because that helps continue to grow our profession. So this is the system that we are working in now. Um myself and Miss Telicia Foy uh run what's called the PDK committee. It is a district-wide professional development evaluation committee. PDK um that oversees the evaluation systems. Uh Miss Freeman is also on that committee. Um and we work throughout the year to take feedback in from our staff on

121how the evaluation system is working or not for them. We review and churn that data to see if there are ways that we can improve this system and we have made some uh and will be making some on our next last meeting June 6 shifts a little bit in the system minor tweaks so we can engage in continuous improvement ourselves. So that way this system is working to grow educators and leaders. That is its ultimate goal. Uh so that we can meet our district mission, vision, and goals and align the two. So um that's just a summary of this report that you have here and I'd be open to any questions that you might have. Thank you. Do we have any questions? Mr. Hollerin. Thank you very much, Mr. Cesy. Um, it says here that

122reviews of practice are non-classroom observations. Um, so I'm just curious as to to what that looks like in a little bit more detail. Thank you. I appreciate that. So there are other opportunities and ways in which teachers engage in professional responsibilities that are not necessarily always in the classroom. One thing I think you saw in an acronym uh that was in some of the other presentations would have been PLC's or professional learning communities. So when a group of grade 2 teachers at John Patterson or Ruth Chaffy Elementary School, not to be confused with the Egreen Green, um come together um you know they they come together, right? They are they are engaged in data reviews um really digging deep into the curriculum, looking at what instructional practices worked in what they just taught in what

123data showed for student performance and then what they might have to tweak or change. So those are extremely important planning meetings that then inform what teachers go and do in classrooms. So we would want to observe those, see how folks are working collaboratively together, engaged in that process, provide feedback and help them grow as a team as well as what they do as a practitioner in a classroom. Awesome. Thank you very much. Definitely. Thank you. Uh just quick question, sorry if I missed this, but on the participation, is there a reason why it's not 100% are evaluated every year or um would you mind just what which page you're on? Um three of the threeish. Yeah, I have it highlighted in mine for some reason. Is it highlight? Might be grayed out in your part.

124Yeah. So that those are not right. So the 60 out of the 365. So 365 total staff. Y out of those 60 of them were non-tenured. Oh okay. So they participated. Sorry I misread that. I was like 100% of staff getting certified. I appreciate that. And and and just to be um in alignment with what I shared earlier, those non-tenured staff, they really could also be called cohort one because that's the level in which they fall under. they have more observations, more opportunities for feedback, growth and development. Um, and so yes, the remainder of those folks are getting uh evaluated. They're just under cohort 2. And just curious because I know this is a requirement for um Okay, I was like I think I read that wrong and then was like that made sense. Um

125just in terms of how this compares to our um maybe other other staffs or like our repair professionals and those kinds of things. Uh is there a similar kind of practice? I know we're required to report this kind of stuff, but just how that looks comparatively knowing that there's integration and obviously some overlap between the two. I appreciate that. Um the jobs have a lot of similarities but also many differences uh in regards to what we need to show educators and leaders do to maintain their certification which this helps support. Um so our um para educators, our learning tutor group, um our security officers, our custodial group, they all have a a version of an evaluation. Our secretarial group um all have a version of an evaluation that we use. Um it is different. It

126doesn't align to the to the standards for teaching. Um but there are elements of that that we bring down that make sense to align to whatever working group you're in. if it you're face you know face forward with students or maybe you're a little bit behind the scenes in a kitchen uh and we have crafted those accordingly so that way every group does uh engage in a goal setting process and uh an appraisal. Yeah, looks like you did a great job explaining it. Thank you. And there's no action that we need to take on this, right? Okay. Thank you. All right. So, next is our computer purchase program report. So, this turn to split on the board is a program that's been in place for it looks like since the '9s um that the district

127created to provide our teachers with access to purchase a computer and then paying it overtime out of their paycheck. So you can see historically the level of participation and to to present um you know we have currently five people on the program. So what the ask is tonight is does the board choose to continue this program into the upcoming school year. Um, so it really is just the form there is what we'd ask teachers to to sign to signify that they're going to pay back what is afforded them throughout their year of the payroll deduction. And again, as as the years have gone along, the participation has gone gone down a little bit, but it seems to be a program that has valued the district. I don't know, Lou, if there's anything you want to

128add to that. uh over the 30 years it's in place. Uh in the early days when the old style XT computers were $4,000 or more each and teachers were making$25 $30,000 a year, the benefit of the program was really substantial because it allowed them the full year to be able to manage a purchase that was really of high interest and um you know high utilization and high skill development for the staff members. As the years have gone by, programs more affordable because technology is less expensive. Uh the good things that have happened is we have uh branched out on and some of the non-instructional or uh non-eing support staff in the schools have taken advantage of the program as well. So that's a group of staff members that didn't originally have access to this but

129now do. So, uh, it doesn't cost the board anything to do this. Um, and you know, there's a limit of $2,000 on the, uh, overall transaction. So, I'd wholeheartedly recommend continuation of it because the, you know, even if it only catches a few people each year, it could be really meaningful for their career and for us as far as the benefit that's received. Thank you. Is there do we have to vote on this or it it appears that there needs to be a motion. I don't see one on this document. Um we just Yeah, just make it up. Yeah. Move that Newington Board of Education continue the computer purchase program for the 2025 2026 school year. Second. Great. Any further discussion? All in favor? I. Awesome. Motion passes unanimously. 70. Okay. And professional learning report

130to Mr. Feresi. All right. So, this report aligns well to the last report. Um, when we think of everything Dr. Brummit shared in how we're performing as a district. What we try to do is align all of our systems and structures to continuously meet what our our mission, vision, and goals are as a district. So, we have an evaluation system that allows individuals to kind of look at those and then tailor what they need to be able to help us achieve those. So, then what we also have to do is design a professional learning system that allows them to grow within our structures and what we have in place. So that way they can engage in continuous growth and development to be the very best that they can be. Um we are a human business.

131So our our charge is to develop humans as best as possible right in in uh the craft of of teaching and leading is what we do. So you can see up front what our our vision, mission and and goals are this year, the priorities. And then behind that, you'll see um why I come to you every budget cycle and I request a significant amount of money for professional learning because we engage our staff in a boatload of it. numerous pages behind that of the professional learning that I think when you look at it either aligns directly to what teachers need to be the very best they can be as individuals because they've identified something in their evaluation system according to our educator rubric that they can grow in or aligns directly with the district mission

132and goals. So you'll see in the first number of pages those things that we do on early release Tuesdays or full day professional development days that you give us when you approve a calendar every year. Um and then behind that you'll start to see um sometimes we need expertise that's outside of the organization to come in and support us with new learning. Um, so we have folks from uh consultants come in. That is a very short list and I I say that with pride because I believe our educators and leaders are highly skilled in Newington and they can provide a lot of the professional learning that we offer. But there are times when you do need an expert or someone different to come in who's seen it and done it in a number of ways

133that can bring that learning to us. And then the last thing you'll see there are there are also times where we want to send people out to workshops because we just can't replicate that type of learning inhouse. So we might send individuals but mostly we send small groups or teams who are then required to come back and provide that learning to the rest of their staff or maybe a grade level or content area. So that way we can all learn and grow from it. in the dollars that we spend on professional learning help more than just the people who were able to get it. Um, so those are the types of things and we just literally put everything that we do because I think it's so important for you to see where our dollars go.

134Uh, and they really are to help our staff be the very best they can be. We look at it as a strong part of our retention program. Thank you. It's definitely a strong part of retention, but also just making our teachers able to teach and and you know learning. We see like Mrs. Moden's been teaching for quite some time and I'm sure she's participated in several um of you know outside conferences and and learned and brought it back and we saw just how great her teaching style is and has how it's changed. Um, but it's always great to see this list because, you know, we do talk about it. I believe we cut a little bit of the professional learning budget, but a lot of this is, like you said, the the people we already

135have employed, teaching others, and you know, we're all about learning, like continuous learning is so important in everything that everyone does, just for your whole life. It's always important to continuously learn. So, I think this is a very um great report and it's just good to see on paper the pages and pages and pages of things that are our educators are learning themselves. Thank you. Any other comments? Mr. Hollerin, I love this list. It's extensive. Um, so it really shows the work that we're going in and I don't know if there's any confidentiality or anything we have to consider. But would we be able to know the topics before the professional development day? Like because I think a lot of the perspective is like, oh, it's another half day for teachers. If we had, oh,

136but they're going for that this is the agenda ahead of time. It might give a little bit. Yeah. Right. Like next Tuesday. Yeah. And I don't know how much we can release. There might be some context to that, too. Uh, I love this list. I just wish I had it before. So, I just want if I'm hearing you correctly. So, um, uh, an early release Tuesday is coming up this coming Tuesday. And so, if the board could see like what are the offerings that staff are participating in on that Tuesday? Yes. Gotcha. from the parents perspective and I'm speaking as a parent from a parents perspective and just what I hear it's like oh every other Tuesday is a half day what are they doing what are they doing if we can give more visibility

137into the work that's being done I think it helps have a more educated conversation about why we have professional development days other than teachers are getting another half day thank you that's a great suggestion to reiterate what Sean said I think it's important that we see an agenda we don't necessarily need to know who's going to it because then you I get issues, but I mean just a simple agenda that on Tuesday they're going to be covering the following topics. I think it puts us at rest and when people ask us what are they doing, we have something we can say because we do get that question like you said. Yeah, there's definitely a lot there's probably lots and lots of things the agenda would be but maybe highlights of it because it's definitely like

138each PLC is you know Yeah, it would be. Yeah, topics for sure. A big list. But I'm sure we could. Yeah. No, great ideas. We can work on that. Definitely, Miss Weaver. I would just love to highlight um like I know we've done it in the past, but like I know Mr. Trillo and Mr. D went down to um go and present. Just would love to see like also which ones are the presenting ones or whatever. Like the amount I think obviously they're going through a lot of professional learning themselves, I think. Um, but just like the amount they're they're teaching others, right? So, in that if that's encompassed in there, um, because I know our teachers are not just teaching each other, but teaching other teachers. Um, and I think that's one great thing

139to highlight too of the, um, you know, external exposure we get for our teachers that are doing some great work. It's awesome. Sure. It is. Okay. Thank you for this. And moving right along, we've got policies. We are gonna go quick, y'all. Okay. Miss We um All right. So, um there's going to be two kind of parts of this, right? First part is ones we're bringing to you just now. Um and just full disclosure, our goal is to still get through like the 3,000. So, if you have to add a virtual special meeting, maybe just to get through all the 3,000s. um just to approve these. But we want to make sure we come to you with our policies, then come back to them. Um just making sure there's, you know, rigorous due diligence. We're

140not required to do that, but we want to make sure that's kind of the policy we keep or the process we keep. Um so just the going through the 3000s that we have here. Um and as always, my incredible policy team with Miss Carr, Miss Beatatric, and Mr. Fesey just absolutely killed it last meeting. So, um, first we'll start off with relations with vendors. And this is all under the 3000 series is the business and non-instructional series. So, it's quite a hodgepodge of different things. Um, but the first one we just had a couple edits. Is this the one that you rewrote, Miss Carr, yourself? Yep. I think that's the one you done if you want to speak to it. So again, a lot of these is just reformatting to make it clear. So this

141was titled just relations with vendors and it wasn't talking about that second paragraph that talked about endorsing. So when someone is an employee of the district and let's say for example they get an endorsement with Staples, they can't be making videos that say, "Oh, I'm a Newington Board of Ed and or Newington teacher and I use Staples." So it's that distinction. So that's why we renamed the policy to relations with vendors and endorsements with vendors and broke it as such and made it clear. Yep. Next one. It was 3313.1. No idea why, but uh local purchasing the weirdest again. So, and you'll see the yellow um parts that we we are trying to renumber in a suitable way. Um again, I think Miss Car helped rewrite this one as well. Um if you want to

142speak to he's a wordssmith I do enjoy writing. Um so again we want anyone in the public they can open a policy and understand what the point is of the policy and what we're trying to get at and not make it too wordy. So thing that we understand the responsibility is to basically ensure the educational value is maximized in relation to cost. Um local purchasing will be favored based on the following criteria. We did not change that criteria because we believe it still stands. So if you scroll down you'll see the criteria we look at. Um and I think that's it unless you have anything to add Miss Weaver. No, I think just the first sentence just FYI, it's not hit there, but we will cut that first part. It says as a public agency.

143We were like just sounded weird. Um, again, just some of the verbiage. So, nothing substantive and change, just reword smithing in the best Britney car fashion we have. All right, next one. Purchasing procedures. This one. Um, is that the next one I had? Sorry. 3320. Yep. Sorry. It's okay. There's six more to go. Don't worry. Okay. Um, we cut this first sentence because it said in making purchases, the principles of good economy shall be used. and we don't know what the definition of good economy is to folks. Um I think we all may have definitions of what's good. Uh so we felt that was quite subjective. Um so we just felt we would cut out that part of confusion. And then obviously note that it's um for purchases um it's those that are priced the

144lowest which meet the specifications required based on the variety of factors i.e. quality, economic maintenance. um those were already kind of used, but we wanted to make sure those were included as some. And then obviously we have a variety of factors already listed in the other policy. So um we struggled with that for like 30 minutes of how bad that was worded, but alas. All right, on to the next. That was the only change there. [Music] Um next one was 3326 paying for goods and services. Um, we noticed that uh it mentioned a town treasurer and we did check we don't have a town treasure. Um, not sure when we changed to finance director but we felt that was out of date. And then also just noting that um to kind of ground this policy

145using that examples um of of what this looked like. We were really trying to get and I think we even asked um Mr. Richie to say which like what is this actually talking about? is this bills to be paid from town funds and it's we were trying to find examples of what that would look like. Um because obviously all of our budget is within the town budget. Again, another 30-minute conversation of what that actually the intention and the meeting are. We do critically analyze in policy. Um so, uh we still felt that the criteria was correct. Um but just wanted to include that example of what that would look like. Um so examples include an appropriation to capital improvement. So like um example would be when um I think a couple years back we had

146you know a roof um project and the town found uh a way to pay for it more efficiently and those kinds of things. Um I think that we were trying to find those situations where it's applicable. So that was that. Next travel reimbursements. Yay. um which will now be travel reimbursement/ use of school and vehicles because there wasn't anything actually on travel reimbursements in this policy. So we added that policy uh part of the policy all under travel reimbursements was just the employee use of school and vehicles. So we thought we'd change the title and add the correct thing under the actual policy itself. Um and it is correct that those are um are in accordance with state mileage reimbursement rates. We even went and looked up the state of Connecticut reimbursement mileage rate things.

147since we know what it is. Um, and I'll negotiate it through uh local contracts if not pretty straightforward. Go to the next one and that is um the fiscal accounting and reporting. Um, we just wanted to make sure um again that just sounded better. So we would literally just put out uh in accordance with law. I literally was like what law? It doesn't have any general statute reference in this policy which usually happens. Um there is no general statute that says uh that dictates the actual reporting of that. So um and we did make sure prior to August 31 the superintendent reasoning outstanding incumbrances. We wanted to make sure that was reflective of current practice. If not we can go back and edit that but we felt that that was reflective of current practice. Um

148and we again changed may be desirable as um changes in the accounting system as needed. We didn't know would be desirable of a superintendent. That was subjective as well. So was that does that align with our current encumbrance practices? Yes. Yes. We always make sure Steve said he consulted with you. Steve said he consulted with you. So if not [Laughter] [Music] yes we thank all of our outside consultants for for some of these as well. Um the next one is 3410 which is system of accounts. Um there's no change to this except we are cutting out the if you scroll down Dr. from it. Uh this note that was added in 2012 or the policy was adopted in 2012 assuming pursuant to general statutes, but there was a note um from legal in this policy

149about Gazsby, the government accounting standards board that was issued in uh June 15th of 2010. Um we felt it wasn't necessarily relevant at this time. Um 15 years later, I think we're still following Gazsby. Um so just felt that was out of place, but other than that, it's a pretty short policy. It goes along with seed statute. And the next one for um budget and expense report, the annual financial statement. This is again required by state statute. So it's literally the state statute. Um so there was no changes to this one, but we did review it. And as always, we'll note when we reviewed it. Um all right, last two. uh 344's inventories. Um we noted the um minimal changes. We just took out the specific mentions of some school property. Um we felt that

150perhaps um the use of typewriters was not relevant at this time. Um but again this was 2001 so you know um so we just took out the reference. It's it lists a plethora of of different types of school property and we just in we put that all in under school property equipment and supplies. We felt that that was easier to uh report. And then we um just kind of reward the last sentence that said the inventory shall be made available to the board upon request. Um we just knew that it's not always probably pertinent at the time of the budget. Um we can obviously do whatever request. That was that. And then the last one was money's in school. Um, is this your words nothing too? Yeah. I'mma turn over Miss Carr. Again, we're taking

151the language that we had prior and just making more clear cut. The issue I had with it originally was we're mentioning safes. I don't want people to think there's a big safe holding a lot of money in our schools and it's a great target for us to go to. So what we're putting here is just saying that procedure should be in place including the use of night deposits or other approved secured methods to ensure all monies are appropriately safeguarded outside of regular banking hours. I can change it from good and cruded business procedures which is so vague. Yeah. Some of the legal issues we were not fans of and Britney makes it pretty and readable. Um, I also didn't like how they said demonstrate the ability of the school system employees and to just, you

152know, this not only ensures accountability and security but serves as a learning opportunity for students, you know. It needed some updating. So, yeah. So, if there's no questions, we'd love to bring that. But as always, um, oh my god, when's our next policy meeting? 9th. I have June 9th. Yep. Tonight at 7 PM. Um, but we'll bring those back for review for old business. Um, but if you have anything, let us know and we'd love to bring those back to our lastish board meeting of the school year. And next board policies uh for hopefully action. Um, there really wasn't a lot of changes. I just will highlight um some notes uh just to pick out um the relations with booster organizations we took back to update the regulation not the actual policy itself but to

153note that um and we changed some of the verbiage to talk about um like we had originally had put like umbrella policy um but we noted that the policy might change or Miss Carr pointed that out I will say um given her expertise in inference law um so that last part if you scroll all the way Again, we don't vote on regulations here at the board, but we like to make sure we present it to you everyone. So, just for transparency sake. So, it's all the way down at the bottom um after 10 it says please please refer to the business office for the current status of the booster club insurance policy coverage. Um so, we just changed that last part because we think it's important to note it that we do have insurance coverage.

154Um but that could be subject to change year to year. So, in lie of trying to update that all the time. So, that was the only change we'd had since last meeting on that. And then I'll just note two other policies I think that we um updated further um was the 3260 the sale of books, sale and disposal of books, equipment, supplies. Um Mr. Versy noted too that we should add and furniture. Um, and really the bulk of the paragraph that was added um that we all approved of was uh scroll all the way down. It's the disposal of equipment. We really the bulk of our conversation was on obsolete books and also the definition of obsolete and all these things. Um again another 30-minute conversation of these things but it is an actual process.

155All schools districts have one. Um and it doesn't mean and it's after an array of things of steps uh to donate to make sure we've donated it to parent teacher organizations, nonprofits, offer them to libraries, literally everything. And then if that's the last resort, there is a a process to do that. Though it's not saying the knowledge is obsolete, just the versions of the books. And then we noted, Mr. Versie noted that we didn't have anything on the the disposal part of the equipment and supplies and furniture. Um so we noted just the process that we use. So this is reflective of current practice. Mr. Holland. Oh, I love the fact that you put furniture in there, too. Very topical with John Wallace during a renovation. Like that was timely. Thank you. And lastly, just

156wanted to put in that new policy. Um I know um Chair Par put out just asked a question about um the elementary versus sorry, the use of cell phones and other personal electronic devices. um per our conversation. Um in the question that was asked about the use of devices um the differentiation between like middle and um middle elementary um it just felt like the wording was a little like no use is permitted and like how that would read. Um so if you scroll down to kind of after four uh this is why Miss Carr put the those those guidelines in. So after guidelines by grade level is where that comes into play. Um we just put use of devices during school hours is not permitted without staff authorization. And we know those will differentiate um

157between the grade levels and that will be expounded upon in the school handbooks. Uh, and really what we want to do is just pass this policy tonight. Um, which will then give um the clearance for our our staff to put in the regulations for each school um in their handbooks that will come out over the summer into the fall. So, they'll print them out this summer. Um, but that was the only change. I think it maybe gives more clarity, but if there's issues, we can bring it back. Okay, perfect. Great. um because we know that there are obviously exceptions to the rule and that will be up to to staff's discretion. So those were the changes. Am I missing anything else? Wonderful. All right. Great. Um so that uh make uh Do you want to

158make the motion? Do you want Sure. Okay. I'll make the motion to move the board of education to approve policies 1,211 310 to 3,300 including the new numbering system for these policies and the elimination of policy 3171-1 appendix and improve policies 5,131.81 second. Thank you. Okay, we have a motion and a second. Is there any further discussion? Call the vote, please. Yes. Brittany Carr, yes. Holler, yes. Timothy, yes. Yes. Jessica, yes. Thank you. Thank you. We'll be back. Yay. All right, that brings us back to public participation on any matter related to board responsibilities. There is no one in the room. And if there is anyone online, I don't see anyone online. So, we move to remarks by board members. Miss Weaver, just very quickly, uh, congratulations to everyone tonight. Always just great showing out.

159Um, and I just want to say a quick thank you once again to the board for listening to our last meeting, um, about Mr. Clark. Um, last Friday, we were able to celebrate him for a very long. I was there for five hours. Um, but hearing past students, current students, um, friends, alumni, like everything was incredible. And we got to unveil it. uh the prep the design of the the plaque um which luckily uh we noted in jokes that Mr. Clark is not techsavvy at all. Um Mr. Brooks noted that and he had no idea about it. I was like good thing you don't watch our board meetings. He was like what what's going on? Um but yeah and thank you Dr. B for sending in a message and um yeah it was just a

160wonderful wonderful night of celebration and I think reflects the best of our school community to hear from literally generations of students. um that have been educated and um we always say there's big shoes to fill but Mr. Triger before him was large shoes to fill. So I think Newington has a long tenure and and legacy um of making incredible music teachers. So just want to say thank you to the board um and thank you to those members of the community that made it out. Uh I know a recording will be coming soon. I'm anxiously awaiting um to hear some really incredible performances and I'll just give a shout out to some of the ones that were great to see like someone from the class of 2003 performing with the class of 2025. Um was really

161cool to just to see literally spanning generations. Um so just want to say thank you Mr. Clark and I know we'll be celebrating them and all of our fun events to come. Thank you. Okay, I'll entertain a motion to adjourn. Motion to adjurnn. Just second. All in favor? I meeting at 9:20. Thank you everyone.