NPS BOE Meeting - (10/16/2024)

001a [Music] ch e e e [Music] go [Music] the [Music] can I St [Laughter] best not okay let's try this again I'd like to call call the back on business all right I'd like to call this meeting of the new inton board of education to order for Wednesday October 16th the time is 7:03 p.m. please rise for the pledge I pledge aliance to the flag the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible liberty and justice for all dad would you please call the role yeah here Anthony here here are you there yes there's just no sound we we can't hear you if you maybe turn up your mute your mic can you hear me now it's still a little bit okay first on our agenda

002is the presentation a resolution honoring school bus drivers Mr Barnes is here in the room resolution honoring new inton school bus drivers October 16th 2024 whereas Wednesday October 16th has been proclaimed as Newington school bus drivers day and whereas the Newington school bus drivers have shown dedication and conscientious performance when driving students to and from and school and to special activities and whereas the Newton school bus drivers have outstanding driving safety records and whereas the Newton School busri drivers maintain a close working relationship with the school staff and parents and whereas the Newington school bus drivers actively participate in community Affairs and show willingness to go above and beyond the work day therefore we do hereby Proclaim Wednesday October 16th 2024 as Newington school bus driver's day be it resolved that we urge all the

003citizens of our community to join with us in actively expressing our gratitude to Newington school bus drivers on this very special day be it further resolved that the Newton the secretary of the Newton board of education is directed to spread this resolution upon the minutes of this meeting and to provide a suitable copy for presentation would you like to say anything about your fantastic school bus drivers of course how could I not as representing the new Newton school bus drivers that operate here in Newington we have drivers uh that have been operating school buses for over 29 years as drivers here in Newington representing uh people of the community they live in the community they serve the community and as their supervisor it is a privilege to work with such a dedicated group of holks

004uh here in Newington that take their jobs very seriously love their students um most of them know them by name uh some of uh we hear it so often that a lot of the students have had them from kindergarten all the way up to uh graduation and this morning I received a phone call from one of my drivers that just retired this year after being here for 26 years uh and it's also boss's day or something so she called me from Florida to say good morning and she wished me happy bosses today so uh that was sort of an honor for me but also today just uh being able to share with our drivers and you know the community and see all that they do and the schools shared with our drivers today uh we

005had trays of cookies we had cards we had uh keychains attached to sign cards by students and from the school so it was a great opportunity and do know that the drivers here are very dedicated to the operation and to the the students into the school district thank you we PO for a picture better quality years or something [Music] um I believe there is at least one do we have any bus drivers online Mr solo if you want to say something you can unmute I'm sorry we can't hear you if you want to unmute you can yeah to un [Music] him all right let's um Circle back yes all right then next our next item is the I voted winners whichever so okay awesome great okay so um this year the Newton register voters held

006their first ever I voted sticker contest with students from Newton public schools and we have certificates for our three winners who are up here so the register of Voters had the honor of the following judges for the event Chief Perry from our Police Department deputy chief STM from our fire department and longtime pole workers Meg solder seeler Joan nowiki Elizabeth kria and Deanna Rey and our winners are in first place was Evony Benoy 113 at NHS second place was Coran Tate 12th grade at NHS and in third was Riley O'Neal fifth grade at Martin Kellogg so yeah we can pass around or show the the sticker so are these going to be stickers on Election Day that's what they are that's what they said oh that's so awesome in engent you will see these Stiers

007have you hold your winning stickers for in and Riley so this is what you will get when you congratulations very awesome artwork there and then we have an everyday hero and then we will Circle back for comments from the board alrighty so as the board is aware we do our everyday hero award at just about once per month and this is our first iteration this year and I'm pleased to announce our everyday hero is Allison rendez who's a school counselor at Newington High School what made her standout as she was actually nominated separately by two individuals from the high school which doesn't always happen she was nominated by assistant principal Mario ficacelli and by Marissa kusano Kappa Capello at Newton High School sorry Marissa um here's what they had to say Allison consistently goes above

008and beyond in her role as school counselor creating meaningful and Lasting connections with all students working in the same office as her it has been amazing to witness the many ways in which she supports all of her students on a daily basis however she not only supports her students but empowers them to take on leadership roles within our community for example Allison created and leads the link crew program which has had a tremendous positive impact on the freshmen and new students helping them transition smoothly into High School prior to link crew Alison would informally have students Mentor each other for both acad and social needs Alison Works endlessly to make all her students feel welcomed and supported fostering a sense of belonging with our family of Learners Allison's dedication to building a safe inclusive environment

009combined with her genuine care and compassion make her a true hero to our school Community she along with some of our students and this is comments made by Marissa she along with some of our students put together a link crew so they're both honoring her link crew involvement to help all incoming ninth graders and she also works to register our new students throughout the year she is a positive kind caring and compassionate person who will do anything to help others she is so deserving I cannot say enough great things about her the students love her and the parents love her as well it is such a pleasure working with her she makes everyone around her smile and she brings brightness to the school environment and I feel I feel we are very lucky to have

010her so without further Ado Alison rendes come on up so what you have there a little photo up going there all right let see if you'd like to say a few words sure there you go um first and foremost I feel so fortunate that I get to work with amazing Educators we have an amazing administration at new inton high school um who goes along with all the crazy ideas that myself and my co-counselor Laura charmet always have and we're always bringing different ideas um but I'm beyond grateful that I work we call our house office Dorn home because we're a very tight-knit family in that house office um but I can't do it alone and so um I also have to honor my one of my seniors Bella who brought the link crew idea to

011me I just she brought it to me it was it was actually her original idea I just jumped on the bandwagon and ran with it with her um but overall I am just beyond grateful for this this made my whole day so thank or not just my day my year so thank you very much um this was very sweet thank you well in your chair are there any coming board members who would like to make a comments on any of our Mr hollerin I always feel like it's necessary to comment for people to make the effort to do the right thing um tour bus drivers we talked about it in the last meeting having our own fleet has helped us avoid some issues other districts have had to deal with but beyond that what I

012hear and what I see when my kids get picked up from school every morning is the passion that everybody in our everybody who works on the bus maintains the bus drives the bus they genuinely care about what they do and how well they do it and I think that's something special you don't get when you subcontract out your Fleet you don't get that personal sense of attention so thank you and thank all of your staff te for the passion that they have for what they do they they care um for the I voted winners great work uh there I can't wait to wear that sticker you always hear your vote doesn't matter that's what you hear it's one vote out of a million your vote does matter everybody sitting at this table is here because

013people voted um especially in local elections and the fact that you are raising awareness and trying to make it not such a burden to do voting is a good thing that not everybody gets to do and thank you for your autistic sense of like those were great looking stickers I kind of want one how do I get one at each I don't think I can do that I can't vote for three times that would be illegal um uh that uh I I'm gonna find a way to get stickers for all of you I got to put them somewhere and the last one our everyday hero Allison um I'm gonna speak into the mic so you're gonna hear the back of my head um managing homework is hard managing social situations in Friends in school is

014harder and that is something that is not in a textbook it's not something that's easily studied it's something that you needed to be guided through it's something that you need help with but by far the hardest thing to manage is yourself so the work that you do by just connecting people it's not just tactical it is critical um being able to understand how human beings can work with human beings in difficult situations is probably the most valuable life skill you can have unfortunately the only way you get that is through experience so thank you for your support it's a tough time for a lot of people you want to go on the table I that's very slick Mr Newton feess I work every day with your school bus drivers because I see them every day

015and the work they do it is seamless people don't realize how important it is for the children to be picked up to know who your children are I've had them stop by and say have you seen so and so because you know who your kids are on your route and they're always looking for the kids if they're not where they should be and to me that's important for parents for grandparents to know that somebody there's an extra set of eyes out there watching them as far as you at the High school I subbed at the high school in 1998 to 2001 everything you can do for them helps it they they they have to know that they exist I don't you know that's going back 30 40 years it's not a New Concept but it

016was always a problem to get it to get them involved and to continue the involvement so for that I thank you the voting stickers they might be collector items you might get all so but other than that everybody's done a good job we um spend a lot of time at meetings talking about some of our unsung heroes we talk a lot about people um that our our students interact with every day in the classroom but sometimes um we don't always immediately come to mind some of the people who are just as important but interact with our kids in different ways so thank you and congratulations very very much your hard work has not gone unnoticed or unappreciated so thank you bus drivers as others around the table have mentioned of course are sometimes our first

017touch for our kids every day and definitely um the last touch as well so again thank you to your staff they are amazing um in a job that's very complex with lots and lots of moving Parts um no pun intended so thank you big thank you to them um and to our voter stickers my goodness um you hear it a lot especially now this is an election year and um a lot of uh what we talk about is how important voting is and what a privilege it is for all of us to engage and I can't stress it enough um we're constantly bombarded with all sorts of different messages that aren't always so positive and when I see the hard work and and the effort that was put into this contest it warms my heart

018but gives me such hope and encouragement for our community and the level of Engagement that we have in our community I voted in every election since I was 18 years old and that was a very very very long time ago and every single election I have voted in is important and that effort takes all of five minutes and it warms my heart when I see young people engaged and understanding how important voting is we our country couldn't exist as it does without the participation of all of our voters and so again I cannot thank you enough I cannot tell you how impressed that I am and I'm so excited to have you engaged at a young age that level of enthusiasm and that knowledge is going to spread throughout our community and our community can

019only get better and better because of it so thank you very very much well done I'll Echo what everyone said starting off with the stickers I absolutely love them I also would love one of each um we can make that happen that would be great um bus drivers I have to say my commute every day seeing all the bus drivers out they do a great job no one's speeding no one I'm concerned about I know sometimes you know we look at other districts and we're like what's going on the bus drivers are very alert they're taking care of the kids and that's so important so thank you to your staff and you do a great job with the program so thank you and I can't imagine how difficult your job is and I'm so glad

020we're here to just give thanks to you and everything you do love Fest is back um I literally call this because it's like everyone gets their flowers it's so wonderful and I think it is though a great way to highlight so many aspects of her community that are just incredible that maybe the broader Community doesn't see the day the day day so um Dean you and your team I can't thank you enough over the years we've had this day many times but um you deserve every day I mean it's one of those things because you're there every day including you know finding my cousin who got on the wrong bus the first day good job um but also I think just highlighting the amount of routes um you know we kind of had a good

021conversation last meeting but um what was it over like 900 changes you had in over the summer this isn't like a regular 9mon gig like you are doing everything over the summer we have special ed routes we have magnet school routes we have every kind of Route field trips Sports and the drain on the system already where there's a a dir and a need for bus drivers um Newington is always in a more secure place um because of you because of your staff because of the dedication and loyalty they have for Newton um so I just want to say thank you and uplift the hard work that goes into it every day it is not unnoticed I think we've had an everyday hero couple of bus drivers as everyday Heroes who have quite literally been

022there for students and some very not fun times so um I just want to say thank you um for your your work each and every day um for our school counselors in the schools thank you so much um I'm stared house office so it's like no offense um but it really does show um I think we've had conversations our student reps have brought up link crew in the past and it's really great to hear it um keep coming up and then kind of the growth of the program so not only thank you for what you do but thank you for um uplifting students and their ideas um and giving credit to them too I think that's one of the greatest things is being able to empower students to come up with the ideas and then

023watch them flourish so thank you so much for doing that and also to a colleagues that nominated I think it's one of the great things um just to see the camaraderie there um we won't hold D in house against to it's fine um and lastly to our artists thank you so much for not only contributing um to our school in terms of your incredible talent but to our community who's going to be able to see this um I just love see like the different themes like we have Connecticut Pride with the state bird and the state I loved that we had diverse pride and then we had like patriotic Pride there was just like so many incredible themes of seeing America The Melting Pot and Connecticut the state and I just love to see all

024the different themes you all highlighted that I think are really important um and echoing it how important voting it so thank you for not only giving us a great view I mean I think that's just so unique um and I always like love taking a picture with my I voted stickers since I was like three which I didn't vote in I just want to make that clear um but I just also think it's a great time to note that October 21st starts early voting so thanks for giving us the time to say that but congratulations to everybody and thank you so much for all your contributions to our MPS school and the community re large yeah I want to thank um everyone for coming out today our I voted sticker contest winners I think that's

025amazing I think it's a great um a great thing that our registrars did it just kind of you know get voting out into the community and starting at such a young age so thank you so much to to the three winners and and everyone else who participated in the contest I hope we do that every year because it is it's a pretty cool and those I voted stickers were so boring last year and every year so it'll be great if we can in new inton have wonderful colorful diverse and excellent stickers like we have here um so thank you so much for coming out and for participating and make sure your parents vote um and to our bus drivers in the resolution it said you know going above and beyond driving buses and I was

026in the high school um over the summer my daughter who has entered the high school no longer gets a bus we can talk later about that but um but she saw her bus driver and she's like it's Mr Chris and he was just they're I'm sure delivering something or doing something for the school so they're you know they don't just drive the buses and take care of the students but they are you know there and willing to help with whatever needs to be done so I'm sure that they they're all um they do go above and beyond and I've seen it so it's um we're very lucky to have our drivers who care and love Newington and Mr Barnes also steps in and helps us drive so this is for you as well um and

027if anyone is looking to be a bus driver I'm sure that uh can talk to Mr Barnes down there and he will be willing to talk to you just need a very clean driving record and and Allison um thank you so much for the work that you do we know Bella was our student rep last year and she had mentioned this this club that she thought of and um it it's definitely awesome to have and I hope you continue it in her absence next year um but yeah thank you for being there for the students and and everything that you congrats on your recognition we did have a bus driver on the line but he had trouble with his mute button so if you could let him know Mr Barnes Mr serno was on the

028line not not Jay Sno his name is Robert Sno uh if Jay S was on and couldn't unmute we would have big issues but uh if you could let him know we we acknowledge his his skills and we sorry he couldn't unmute um and thank you to all our award winners this evening our stickers we got now come up with three stickers for every board member but we'll we'll work that out and obviously Mr rendez the work that you do has clearly not gone unnoticed by your colleagues so congratulations all all right and now it is time for public participation on any matter related to board responsibilities if you're in the room you can come to the end of the table if you're on the line on Google meet you can raise your hand to

029be recognized and if any of our special guests want to leave now would be an appropriate time if you want don't want to stick around for the meeting but you are welcome too thank you all right yeah you can't leave yet I'm sorry all right moving on to our consent agenda I'd like to move to approve the peace agenda as presented for the September 25th 2024 regular meeting second thank you H is there any discussion all in favor I any opposed new business we have committee reports first up is our student Representatives Abby and Michael take it away hello thank you for having us again um let's get started with uh what's happening at newon high school um in the month of well Midway through September and October we've had uh counselors have been working

030tirelessly um to link uh to basically link with students during the school day and and are basically providing help for any students like seniors um for college uh for college applications and any extra assistance they have with colleges our preschool program at the high school had their uh first open house for families and children which is a great step for them they uh we also have field trips as well that have been going on at newa high schools and we have more upcoming field trips uh we had one field trip with the science classes that visited uh Mystic Aquarium students in my friends and peers really loved that um that field trip and were telling me all about it and I was like well I had to they like you should have you should have

031you should have been there I was like okay well I had class so you know couldn't um also as well we had a field trip to Lincoln Tech uh through our Career Services uh program which was again amazing in um we also had collegial visits where teachers got to visit other classrooms and give their colleagues um some feedback for how their teaching styles are and what they could also improve on to make new high school a greater place for Learning and we hope to see uh more uh ex more experiences and more um involvement through all our staff at newon high school as well homecoming a student's favorite time of the year this is great homecoming is set to be November 16th as well so if you have any students in the high school make

032sure you know that you you're getting their dresses their all their attire so you don't have to stress about it two weeks or one week before um spirit days have been a great turnout students are participating more and more in spirit days our last Spirit day was our pink out Spirit day which also uh we supported uh cancer um I'm blanking uh uh cancer research yes thank you our right cancer research and we just want to applaud uh all uh everyone that is also involved in the cancer research and just want to say thank you to them as well uh we also had Heavenly hats which also uh was uh which we also had people donate a dollar to uh wear hats during the school day to show their uh support to cancer cancer fighters

033who have lost um hair due to chemo or other medical conditions um and we're happy to say we we will be donating over $600 which is great for student efforts and PSATs oh no I personally don't have this problem but Abby I am so sorry tomorrow uh you will do great you know um PSATs are tomorrow for freshman sophomores and juniors as well and seniors are uh expected to stay at home and participate in senior activities such as college applications and college uh thinking and learning and the second um and have second meetings as well for with counselors as well and we also had our college fair as well which was open to Juniors and seniors and we had over we hosted sorry we hosted 117 College reps from across the country and they just

034basically talked about programs that they offer at their colleges as well which was a great turnout we saw a lot of students engaging with col College reps and they basically loved it all the free stuff that they got as well was a bonus um and finally we also have our Chris Heron assembly Chris Heron is a former NBA player who suffered with uh drug addiction and he is coming to New October 23rd to talk about how his drug addiction um was basically basically affected him and his career and how drug addiction can be prevented with students at an early age as well hi so I'm just gonna start by talking about clubs that we have at the high school and some different updates so Key Club I think I talked about it the last time

035I was here they're one of our volunteer clubs and our members have started to volunteer at the elementary schools they volunteered at the run for Reagan and at the Kanas flea market um it's a really great opportunity for our students to get involved in the local community and at the elementary schools they'll help with the PTO ice cream socials stuff like that um our student council also had its first meeting on September 26 and that's for our classroom representativ so we introduced our officers um we went over their expectations that we have for them and we discussed pep rally and homecoming ideas so voting for homecoming ended today so we're just looking through those responses to determine our theme so that's really exciting um we also have chamber Choir they're doing a dinner theater on

036the 24th of this month um it's a lasagna dinner with a performance from our chamber choir members and we have singing Waiters and there's going to be a onea play I'm going to support Michael and some of my other friends so that'll be really fun um it's sold out and that's really great because it's the club one of the club's main fundraisers to fund their trips like their trip to New York um also link crew like we talked about with Miss randz um they started visiting freshman home rooms so our link leaders visited freshman home rooms just to make a better connection with the students and get that one-on-one connection um and they received a lot of good reviews Mr pno got a lot of great emails so that was really awesome to hear um

037we also have Deca so we have our yearly leadership conference coming up and that will be next Monday and that's a really great opportunity for us to get those team building skills and we start to learn about what's expected to of us at our competition in March and we also if you follow our Instagram we've been marketing our new pink out merch which now represents men's breast cancer as well and our different sports teams and major clubs helped us they made videos in the pink out um merch and that was really great to help promote it and to help make sales because a dollar of each item sold is going to cancer awareness and cancer research and for our yearly community service projects members are making letters to the local nursing homes in order to

038share thankfulness during the Thanksgiving season and we'll also be decorating pumpkins for our yearly pumpkin decorating contest and that's always a really fun one everyone seems to really enjoy it we get a big turnout and then drama and stage crew they've also begun rehearsals and our stage crew has almost finished constructing the sets so we'll be moving on to painting soon and that will be all set for a little woman which will be held November 21st through the 23rd and sales should start soon and then our last club that we have to talk about is diversity Club so they held their second meeting this Monday and they discussed their goals for the upcoming year and any changes that we they want to see within the school and they did that while decorating cupcake so they

039got a great turnout next up we have our Sports uh so we have football golf swimming dive and volleyball we also have uh this is basically fall Sports as well uh winter sports will be starting up very soon December 2nd is when basically um physicals and any other paperwork associated with sports is due for students as well we also have girl soccer for fall we have girl soccer cheerleading cross country and field hockey all our sports are doing really well our students seem to really really enjoy sports other than complaining about um how hard they work at UH at um practices they're making really good efforts I know football is has their 4 and0 record as well which is great to hear from newon high school we our coaching St our new coaching staff as

040well is working tirelessly to make these student athletes uh better than how they they saw them uh our golf team is our D1 Falls go uh D1 fall boys golf team is 12 out of 25 and our swim and dive team is two uh two and five and they also had their car wash fundraiser which went uh really great as well and our volleyball is eight and nine and they have reported that lots of friends and family um really help support them while uring games which is uh great and again just want to give a big shout out to our coaching staff uh who create a great atmosphere uh on and off the field creating bonds and relationship that Lo that last a long time the influences that are also taught during practices and during

041um even off the field are also left like also leave also have students leave with a great understanding of the world and how to be better people than how they came into new into high school and our girls talker as well uh their stats are their 614 um and tonight actually was their senior night and we got to see we got to see many uh students and many seniors walk across the field congratulating them throughout their um High School career and we are excited for um whatever they choose to pursue and future as well which is really great our cheerleading team has been to many many local events which I do want to um praise a little bit because our cheerleading team has worked tirelessly and effortlessly to create a better bonding uh system between

042the team um on Sunday October 6 they shared out the breast cancer Fighters and their families at the ygo stadium which was great to see our cross country team also as making great strides I know I was uh leaving school and I saw cross country my f my friends from cross country running and they were they were really running their butts off so um I was I just decided to hug my horn and you know praise them because they are working very tirelessly and very hard to you know make sure they're upholding very very um high standards for the young the younger uh players as well and field hockey um also is making great efforts they K count game was October 24th uh is October 24th sorry and at Clem at CLM L Parson uh

043Recreations and all proceeds code to uh various can uh a cancer organization as well they also had a m and uh they did a mom and popcorn fundraiser to raise money for next year's activities as well and there will be running in the Hartford uh five uh 5K this Saturday so so make sure you go and you know support our not only them but also various uh sports that are also participating in the Harford Marathon as well okay so just to finish things off we have our special shouts or shout outs so diversity and Club in stuco we collaborated this month and we went to Ruth chaffy and we talked with the second third and fourth graders um that was really great we just talked to them about leadership and how important it is to

044get involved at a young age because at third graders they're starting to run for office position so that's really exciting and it was really great we got a lot of good feedback from teachers and staff so we were really excited to hear that um we also had down here uh the I voted sticker contest winners umy and kin because they were both at our school at NHS so we were really excited for them and pasot Singh he was also chosen as the superintendent student of the month and he's going to be honored October 28th we want to Cong congratulate him and a lot of our sports teams like field hockey they're going to be running in the Hartford Marathon so that's a really great way for them to get involved in the community and we're

045really excited to see them showing out um and then Caitlyn gonado she was voted player the week um we had a lot of our um NHS students and staff voting for her so that she could win so we were really excited for her um that's all we have for you guys today so if you have any questions we'd love to answer them thank you anyone questions first last I sweer no I just want to say thorough thorough thorough as always and it's only been twice um no just thank you guys so much that was very comprehensive I'm just curious to um I think like one of the things um you guys talked about a little bit um was just like I forget which club is doing it but is it with National Honors Society or

046not or who's um sending letters to the senior homes that's Deca Deca okay awesome I love to see just like that cross collaboration too so thanks Miss Miller and all of them there um and just wanted to say too um one of the questions I kind of ask around this time usually is like how do you feel about mental health and the you know resources you have and in general not necessarily you personally but how the student body feels um you know what can we do as we enter into budget season later um the things that you kind of want and need and that's more of a open rhetorical but also just if you have any comments on that um I think we have a lot of really great resources at high school and during

047our advisories we've been talking about that a lot about mental health um the ways we can handle our stress and of course our counselors they are always reaching out to us and I think that's really comforting um just to know that there are like teachers counselors a bunch of members of Staff who we feel comfortable with um I think that that mental health definitely talked about a lot at the high school at least um it's something I feel really comfortable with and I think a lot of students feel comfortable with expressing I would like to comment more on this as a senior going through college applications and um also having to deal with um having a job and um also having to do my schoolwork a lot a lot of teachers and counselors have reached

048out to me personally and also I know a few of my peers have also got some com questions and uh concerns from teachers as well and not only just teachers but also our custodians our bus drivers as well um also try to uh reach out to us uh ask us how we are doing so overall staff is really great in um supporting us and making sure we are okay and we are taking it one day at a time because that is very important um um and we are young so we should really live in the moment and try try our best to um persevere through all um all our uh difficult times um and I also know that uh just counselors are making great great efforts to try and help us with college applications um

049and also our schoolwork and homework miss rendas being one of them um a great counselor not I'm not even one of her students that she um has on her list but she makes sure that she's reaching out to me whenever she sees me in the hallway how are you doing um how your college applications going remember go take rest you need rest so um overall great staff at new high school trying to make uh make sure that we are well and uh we are surviving through this yes thank you guys Mr Hollin that's why I let Jess go first because I was going to also ask about mental health because Junior and Senior year it's getting real you got PSATs College fairs college applications homecoming uh stage Crews almost done like that takes me back

050that's a lot of work but that's a lot happening at one time and it's a lot of Firsts at one time so being able to make sure that you are centered and you are present and you are not being crushed by the weight of your own responsibility is important so thank you Jess for asking that you gave us a lot tonight uh sports are killing it fall sports like that's awesome um the making a lasagna dinner which is H that's an effort man I got pasta dinner and it was like Dollar Store pasta with a ketchup when I played sports but like to do a lasagna dinner for anything is commitment that's seven layers of food um a Deca competition as Somebody went through a Deca competition could be a lot of fun what I

051really like that I heard was the partnership between business-minded students and civic-minded students and if that could translate out to the greater World things usually happen really well when those two minds meet how to get the idea and also how to make it work um if you need any support please let us know um going through this and my ask for you is as you go through just make little notes about things that maybe just seem weird or you could use it because come the end of this year that's going to be really important is your experience and I legit saw you guys coming to the building and my energy level went up here I was like all right student Representatives it reminds me why I come here after working a full day so thank

052you guys very much Mr Newton I just want to give a shout out to the boys soccer program because they were one six and one four weeks ago and they're now five six and two and they qualify for the states so we do follow Y and I'll be at the football game tomorrow night wearing pink um yeah thank you so much for your presentation and um I'm a full-time student now and it is no joke like I can't like the the work and definitely so I'm gonna that mental health thing is very very important um but it's good to hear that you feel supported and and hopefully all your classmates do too and um it's just great to hear like our counselors that were here tonight are you know checking out on students even that

053aren't on their case load so um and there are so many resources at school and there's the behavior Connecticut Behavioral Health and um ESS and we have a lot student based Health Center so there's a lot a lot of you know a lot of support at school so um just a good reminder to take advantage of it and I know you guys are but if you see anyone else in need then remind them as well because it's super important um and yeah thank you so much for being here you're welcome to stick around but you're also welcome to go do homework in college applications and get a good night's sleep for PSATs charge your Chrome boat like I'm out thank you so much all right our next committee report is the policy committee Miss Weaver

054yeah so uh board policy met on October 9th um and we discussed a lot of new policies and really the outline of how we're going to go about this year uh in terms of what we're reviewing um and I would expect nothing less from my incredible committee we are going to review all the policies this year uh first we're going to go with legislative prioritization so any of the mandated ones and the one will'll be discussing tonight and just a reminder uh I'll REM again later but just we discuss uh we then recommend as a policy committee to the full board the full board discusses and then then at the next meeting if there's no other comments we would vote at the next meeting on those policies um the ones we're going to bring tonight

055are legal mandates changes and those kinds of things um when it comes to Title Nine um is discuss policies yeah and um and I would just like to know yeah so we're going to be um looking at a lot of different ones that uh hit the legislative agenda either in the last year um and have some some legislative mandated changes and then also um just reviewing um I think and what we'll do is in the policy manual that we have online on our school policy site uh we will be noting when it was last reviewed so that way we can get a sense some of them will need updating some of them are just perfectly fine even if they are 20 years old but that way folks can know when it was last reviewed and

056um we can get just a sense of some of them may have not May been looked up we don't know um and they might be you know from 1985 and that's okay um so we'll be kind of going around that for for the rest of the year so it's a bit of an ambitious plan but we are um Miss Cara Miss beatric and Mr fery I know are up to the test so I thank them in advance for the hours of reading there's no one better to do it than our wonderful policy committee thank you 1985 policy are there any questions or comments and we do have a later agenda item for policies good for now okay Mr hollerin curriculum thank you uh the curriculum committee met on 101 um and first and foremost I

057just want to thank Kristen Freeman for doing the heavy lifting on all of this and keeping the subcommittee informed and asking our questions sometimes we have to ask them twice um to truly understand um but we pretty much set out the agenda we want to do for the 2024 2025 school year this year um starting with uh getting feedback on the implementation of Benchmark Advance which was the um the right to read um uh the it's the reading program we chose to meet the right to me right to read legislations who are in compliance uh we want to include voices from multiple perspectives to say how that's uh going including uh the curriculum director uh literacy coaches and teachers um so we have a pretty holistic view of how that's working uh so far it

058seems pretty good um but specifically we want to know how uh Equity is built into the program to make sure that it's fair and just for every student that's important um we're going to conduct regular reviews of students uh student performance data um their primary focus on opportunity gaps um and we want to do kind of a continual analysis on any linger effect of the pandemic cohort to see how they're affecting that going forward um we will um to support the mission of uh designing opportunities that remove the predictability of achievement I love how that's written um we want a regular review uh of efforts in different programs social studies math science um to make sure that the curriculum um is Equitable um to make sure that it is not re determining success uh we're

059going to review gradu graduation requirements and exploration of alternative to requirements to make sure that's fair especially if English is a big requirement and it is not necessarily your first language but you're totally competent to perform we need to think about how fair that is to everyone um updates on grow your own program efforts um professional learning uh provided to staff and how that translates to classroom practice uh opportunities for Extended Learning including offeres and career pathway in the career Pathways program and we want to have an in-depth review of distance performance index and school performance indexes so really taking a look at curriculum and how it's supporting our mission as a school uh Kristen keep me honest did miss anything great thank you um I work for her uh our next meeting will be

060December 10th and then we'll have another one January 4th and we'll schedule the 2025 on after that excellent are there any questions for our curriculum committee or com another wonderful committee thank you so much for your work all right um next on the agenda is a discussion and possible action on the Lil Lillian Clinger Memorial Garden I will uh pick up that item on September 11th the board did hear from Susan Hario a former Patterson PTO member who discussed her rationale for wanting to name the Patterson Garden in honor of Lillian Clinger who passed away very unexpectedly in 2019 and um in honor of her and her family she's been thinking about this for quite some time and Co got in the way but long story short she's done as you know from her presentation

061few weeks ago has done some homework in the meantime she has worked with uh Mr Jacka moitz about you know what are some realistic and reasonable things that we can do I believe they met over at Patterson recently did that actually happen Mr Jacko or is that pending today so perfect um anything you want to add about today's outcomes uh I also had a meeting two weeks ago with the Fire Marshals office and they're going to give us a ated guidance as far as the boundaries of what we can and can't do in the space that way uh nobody starts off going down the wrong path and has to redo it I'm expecting that within a week or so from their office uh the group today at Patterson included Sue as well as um another

062prior president of Patterson PTA as well as the current PTA I can't remember the names but really really excited with the concept uh they recognize the realities of the boundaries that'll be placed on it and they've had some really good ideas they're very happy with trying to make it uh make it nice and make it sustainable for U this particular Endeavor so U you know we'll be meeting again in the next few months I would uh like to think that sometime before the end of the calendar year we can do the pruning and removal activities and then any replanting and development of the space would be something for the springtime so that's where we sit as of 5:30 pm this afternoon and I do appreciate um you worked with Miss lario and now the current

063and former PTO presence just so they all have Buy in because they're going to be most closely connected to it um so where that's where the board left off on the 11th I think we have received enough information unless the board has any other questions um there tonight they could consider voting on The the motion about moving forward and renaming that Garden in honor of Lillian Clinger so I'll turn it back over to the chair thank you are there any comments or questions I just think that yeah I just think that it should move forward it's you know they've got the people involved they've got their ideas I mean I'll be honest I went home that night and thought of the yellow brick road when I was talking about they do want that you know

064they want the bricks I mean I've talk to a lot of kids that my son's friends that went to that school they'll buy a brick so yeah oh miss car I was just gonna say when I attended the Patterson PTO two weeks ago everyone was very eager for it and um some people had a goodidea of getting the high school involved like the Key Club members to get them volunteering and helping out so I definitely think we should vote on it yeah sounds like it'll be a really good Community project and she touched a lot of lives in in this town so um so we yeah we have a motion our packet just to approve the name and then um and then obviously the the planning and execution will be with Mr jackamo moitz in

065the in the PTO move the Board of Education approve the creation of a memorial garden in the CR yard at John Patterson in honor of lilan Clinger second have a motion and a second any further discussion all right can we have a roll call vote please Mary be yes Britney car yes John hollerin yes Anthony yes Timothy Newton yes yes yes thank you all right now we have our presentation thank you for waiting so patiently equity and literacy in school libraries I just want to um introduce our speakers this evening um we have Nicole dagel media specialist at Martin Kellogg and Jesse doton media specialist at Patterson and just by means of background uh I put out an all call uh at the beginning of the year for both principles and this year I invited

066department leaders to speak on behalf of any of our efforts districtwide to promote Equitable practices and I neglected to mention that I believe Sarah Wayan who oversees our Li Li M specialist department is on the line to support our inperson presenters but tonight they're going to speak to what this department has done to increase opportunities for all of our students within the library media program so the floor is yours and thank you so much um nickcole and I are here um so I'm Jesse I gone okay no I'm back all right so I'm Jessie Dalton I am the library and media program leader and I am the library and media specialist at John Patterson and I have the best job in this District um as l i I like to think so um yeah yeah

067so we are here in our library Glory I've got my um everyday should be Library Day t-shirt on so we're here bringing Library joy to you guys today um we have swag I hope you guys like swag um we have bookmarks um I'm going to leave them down here you can grab them later um they are recommended titles um from our department um that are mirrors windows and SL glass doors um for our students and staffs and then I also have stickers because who doesn't love stickers right um we also have a selection of titles from our library that um highlight equity and um that's what we're gonna be talking about today so absolutely so hi I'm Nicole dagel I'm the media specialist at Martin Kellogg um so Jesse's going to be speaking about the

068the whole program I mean we will together as a team but she'll speak probably more to Elementary and then I'll speak to secondary um but we're both really glad to be here um and we have Sarah wellan online here supporting us so hello Sarah thank you for being here with us as well she helped us with the presentation okay so with further Ado um you guys will see we have a presentation I'm not going to go through and read the district's Vision because I think you guys wrote it and probably know it but I do want to share what our vision is so if you just click one one more time um it should say so this is our um K12 it should be prek K12 um because we teach prek now and it's so

069much fun they're so cute um but it's every student an informed reader critical thinker and empowered Citizen and you will see that our vision supports the district's Vision um specifically with um critical thinking and creating lifelong Lear Learners all right next slide please so if you click twice um what we wanted to do was kind of show a quick side by side um The District's mission for engaged learning um basically wants to provide students with rigorous instruction that's connected to their lived experience and if you'll click again please um the school library program does exactly that we engage students by ensuring that all students have access to diverse and relevant resources that reflect their lived experience and you'll see some of that here on the table in the books that we have um we also

070have instruction and information literacy which Fosters critical thinking and preparing students to solve problems in the real world if you click twice again in addition so not very good with a microphone it was more of a backstage person all right anyways so our school library program empowers our students and we do this through through promoting equity and making sure that providing access to resources that raise our marginalized voices reflect diverse cultures Foster and inclusive learning environment our libraries are shelter for many of our students in the district it's a place where they can go and feel safe and seen and heard um so and again our mission is to cultivate lifelong readers and critical thinkers and helping them to learn to advocate for themselves and others next slide so we have a couple quotations throughout

071the presentation um they come from books they come from people in our community they come from authors this one comes from dear reader by Tiffany Rose and we just thought what a powerful and concise way to explain what we do and we want our students to be able to say that feel that and live that yep um so the picture that you see in front of you here um says books in Portuguese just above it out of the frame books in Spanish books in Polish going down books in Vietnamese books in Ukrainian books in Hindi um Arabic and then again out of frame Russian um so we're going to talk just a little bit about what we're doing in terms of supporting cultural responsiveness and racial identity um our multilanguage books being one part of

072that if you click again so at both the high school and the middle school level um and at both middle schools we're supporting our multilingual students through developing um multilingual collections including books and some of our um languages that are most spoken by our students other than English um we're also doing the mirrors and windows for students making sure that they have what we call mirrors ways for them to see themselves in literature so that they can see themselves as readers see their cultures and then the windows where they can look into other cultur and develop a more worldwide perspective um we do monthly cultural heritage displays and we're working on improving access to ebooks and audiobooks for our students who have um learning differences or um visual impairments all right so on the elementary

073level we are also supporting um our multilingual Learners as well as um in terms of cultural responsiveness um all of our students um so if you click through all right so we also have developed um a collection of books for our multilingual students um one thing that we have done um since this is actually one of the one of the things I love most about my job is our close partnership with um Lucy Robins Wells and they have shared some of their resources with us that we've been able to push out to families and one of those fantastic resources is they purchased just a we um a database that has uh picture books for families in Native languages so that we have a a collection that we're developing but with their Lucy Robins Wells library

074card they can access these resources online and we've partnered with them to make sure that our um families in the community know about this and that they can access it um we are also providing mirrors mirrors and windows for our students um at the chiefy they have a bagels and books initiative um that um Kate Riley runs with their literacy coach that is helping teachers um learn about texts so that they can share them with their students um we have author and residence um programs here are some photos from author visits um at Patterson um the second photo I just want to um underneath that was from a grant that um was awarded to our school um a few years ago um that I wanted to just share that that was something that was very

075impactful at our school um we also have our heritage Focus morning announcements at multiple elementary schools and we're constantly making sure that our collections are developed to support our racial subgroups um so yeah on the next slide you'll see some of our newsletters just y oh yeah so these are news letters that have been pushed out at Anna Reynolds um and their focused eacy and literacy newsletters that are sent to families that are targeted um through different themes uh that has been shared out within the community all right so um moving on from cultural responsiveness we also want to speak about um academic achievement and here I love this picture this is author quame Alexander and um he talks about books being mirrors and windows just like we did um I like that he takes

076it further but they are so much more they're actual doors to a life of sustainability and success so we're going to talk briefly about how we support academic learning as well so um both at the middle school and the high school all students get a library orientation um in fifth grade and nth grade at the high school they have accessible reading materials and lib guides to help them find their way through both fiction and non-fiction um for pleasure reading and for school assignments in the middle school we have a five six and seven information literacy curriculum so all students in grades five six and seven learn about information literacy and how to find information how to know whether what they're reading online is true and then what to do with that information once they find

077it um also this year Brian Harley at the high school and I are doing an AI initiative we decided that's something we really wanted to learn about um so that we can find out how AI can and should and should not um be used during education and then we can share that information with our teachers and our students so at at the elementary level um we are working within our community to help our students build some public speaking opportunities um through our morning announcements at multiple multiple elementary schools we've got maker spaces going on um first chapter Friday uh which is a program that introduces students to diverse chapter books by just reading one chapter every Friday uh we have at Patterson we have March Madness which helps to expose students to diverse authors and

078text it is the most fun thing that we do at our school here's our an example of our bracket um we've got extension groups at all of our elementary schools focused on different topics such as cultural storytelling writing Garden study uh and if you ever happen to walk into Ruth chaffy On Any Given morning you're going to see a library full of students with their big daily Book Exchange program we all run Book Exchange different within our schools um and Ruth chaffy they have theirs one of their opportunities in the morning and it is a bustling time and I do not know how Kate Riley can do it um she's a magician and um very grateful for her um and what she's doing in that school to promote reading all right I'm keeping an eye

079on our timer that I have running here so we're going to try to wrap up but we wanted to make sure that we also um shared this quote from Dr harston libraries are great equalizers um our students who have access to the library program um that it's not dependent on any particular teacher any particular program any particular curriculum all students have access to the library and all students can benefit from what's there um part particularly because we're focusing on making sure that our collection represents all of our students so um the next slides are pretty wordy you just click to the next one we're going to skim um but I wanted to talk a little bit about how we are doing deep collection analysis um and circulation tracking so that we can figure out what

080the students are checking out what they're interested in we can look at the collection and see where the needs are and then that's where we can allocate our funds we can allocate our time and attention to meeting the needs of all of our students we've learned quite a bit um in terms of collection and Analysis about where our holes are and we have a dedicated plan to make improvements specifically um with our racial subgroups and our ml Learners um we have interest inventories as well which allows students to tell us what they're interested in it's just a real quick form um and it enhances readers invi advisory and it's also informing our collection development so there's student voice and choice in addition to the way that we're looking at um the data next slide um

081so by using this data some of our key outcomes are increased diversity in the reading materials that we're providing to students improved access to culturally relevant books as we have mentioned and we are seeing higher engagement uh particularly from Black and Hispanic students um who may not have seen themselves in the library collection in the past but who certainly are now and will continue to this is just a piece of research there's lots of research out there um but strong School library programs are proven to help close the achievement Gap particularly where um the school library programs are staffed by a full-time librarian in each school like we have here in Newton and when those Librarians are doing the kinds of things that we've been doing and we've done the research on that so that

082we can know that what we're doing will be effective all right so in terms of the impact of our cultural responsive initiatives um we've increased repres representation of D authors and perspectives as we've mentioned we have a selection of texts here which is just a very very small amount of what we've done um we've enhanced student engagement making sure that again they have mirrors windows and sliding glass doors um and that they are able to engage with these materials um we are working towards further improving language support and greater awareness of cultural heritage and diversity and we'll leave these books here um until the end of the meeting if we encourage you to come and take a look at what we have um and we'll be handing out some materials um once we finish speaking

083as well and we're just going to leave you with a final thought one more slide oh right forgot about this one so these more important one ni so here are our next steps and first turn future goals so we are going to continue to expand our diverse collections um we're enhancing data collection and Analysis for targeted interventions um we're increasing Community Partnership for literacy supports um we're developing more inclusive curriculum programming um the elementary team has already started to look at Benchmark and how we can start to incorporate that into our curriculum and how we can support our teachers and then develop our collections around that and we're providing ongoing professional develop for staff on cultural responsiveness and academic identity support and here is here is your final thought um this quote when I read

084um between the world and me um it stopped me right in my tracks and I just want to share it with you today um the pursuit of knowing was freedom to me the right to declare your own Curiosities and follow them through all manner of books I was made for the library the library was open unending free slowly I was discovering myself as a library media specialist I have I can speak to this for myself but I've seen this in my students specifically my black and brown students when they come in and they see a book that reflects them a contemporary book that reflects them when they can see a character it changes everything you have a student who maybe maybe was getting a little bit lost but when they see themselves in a book

085I know that I've captured them as a learner and we appreciate your time and your support and thank you so much for allowing us to come and present to you uh what we're all about thank you thank you so much sers and bookmarks so I'm are there any comments or questions Miss beus I cannot thank you enough this presentation spoke to me in my core I am a reader always have been and when I think about my time in school um the library was a refuge for me and I am somebody who still is is a reader I'd like to think I continue to be a lifelong learner but the opportunities to expand my brain in ways that I never even knew were possible occurred in every one of those libraries including my own Public

086Library um the opportunity to reframe things as um mirrors and windows is genius and it seems so obvious but it never would have occurred to me had you not presented that to us so I cannot thank you enough for sharing I do have a quick question um about the partnership between the School libraries and the Lucy Robbins Wells Library do we facilitate at all um making sure that each one of our students gets a library yes we do so this is honestly like I have to tell you it really our relationship with the public library is so incredibly strong it is um Bailey Francis who's the head of the children's department is like she's like a another media specialist to me she's like another team member to me we are in contact constantly um all

087of our students have the opportunity um so this year it will be grades K through two all K through 2 will go to the the library um any student that doesn't have a library card will get an application before they go to the public library uh we will be doing signups for third and fourth grade at that opportunity they probably have gone to the multiple times uh but many students in classroom teachers still want to go because who doesn't love going to the library um on the Middle School this year we have a new initiative do you want to speak to that ni yeah um actually started it last year the fifth graders have another opportunity to sign up for cards what we found out is some of them um if they sign up in

088first second grade it's expired by the time they get to the middle school so um we worked with the Librarians to do um a signup Drive um it's optional but it's with a raffle and we put a lot of information out to the parents um and we also made sure that our students um who are coming from other towns have access as well um and we negotiated with the Lucy Robins Wells Library to figure out a way to get them library cards so that they can be sure to have access to both their Hometown library and our library here we're proud of that last question I have um it has to do with actually our pre- students yeah and um you know I know when my kids were young I took them to Story Time

089twice twice a week and it was a real treat and it was a nice socialization um for them as well concerns me is people who are new to our community who maybe English is not their first language and are is there an opportunity for us to do some partnership um Outreach with them for families that are not aware that this even exists for us yes so um Lucy RWS has a um a parent a parent group for multilingua families so they have opportunities for families that um if they are ml to get together to practice their English together uh and we do through parent Square push a lot of information out that does get translated so that and that is prek at least on the elementary school it's it's all the way up so anything

090as long as we're embedding it right into parents Square it should be translated into their native language um in addition to that Tom Myer who's the uh program leader for the ml Department he also has a relationship with um Lucy well library and they do programming over the summer so um it's sort of targeted for our uh for our families that are new to the United States but it is open to All Families um not just for reading but for like fun summer things like Bachi games and you know little social get togethers um just to help um folks who are new to Newington and new to this country to just build a sense of community and maybe kids get to know one another as well so just another way that um the library um

091Partners to support the multilingual families Mr hollerin knowledge is power is probably one of the truest statements that I've ever heard and there are these places who have literal mountains of free knowledge out there called libraries um but I think the issue is the accessibility to that knowledge I truly commend your efforts for making sure that everyone sees themsel because I I believe that students read achieve and in order to get there you have to see yourself in the picture in the narrative make decisions because what it teaches you to do is to reflect on your thoughts right it makes informed critical thinking decisions um And in regards to accessibility the one thing I didn't hear and maybe our population doesn't support it do we have anything to support anybody with an imper a disability

092large print Braille anything like that we are working on it um one of the things that we've really been expanding is our audiobook collection um which is great for students with visual impairments um but it's also great for students with learning differences um so that's where we're putting our energies right now um should uh should we find that we have um Braille readers or you know things like that in our schools we absolutely will go that direction as well there are resources out there for um students with um learning differences uh that with that we could partnership with um one thing that we do have access to uh specifically because our students all have library cards they have access to hoopla they have access to living which again Sora as well with Sora is embedded

093directly into our library catalog so they will have access to Audi books um and ebooks so that again if they are visually impaired like I have a student right now who um she can see but she's practically legally blind so we do often make sure she has access to that on her Chromebook so she can see the text very large um so yeah and we're and we're working toward making sure we're expanding that Miss Weaver thank you so much uh um I'm obviously biased um because I think missel is one of the best media Specialists ever not because I had her but um no I just it's great to see the evolution you know to see uh when I was in school and then to know the impact and to hear the stories of the

094students right um not only are you collecting the data but through the antidotes that you get right you can you can really see it um so I'm so glad to hear about the engagement you know I remember like taking it's like the first time in the high school was female authors and I was like that's that's what I wanted to read like that's what I was excited about and um I think it just brings back uh some of the comments that Z Hammond made back at um at convocation about just creating a reader and you're creating that lifelong learner and just having that reflected so um accurately here is just one of the most incredible things to see um and also just to see the impact in work that you're doing like the dedication by

095our staff um so I'm so grateful for that and I just kind of wanted to maybe ask to you could come back sometime too I'd curious about the AI stuff especially like we made a policy which was very general and as we kind of and I I think uh just speaking to you know World Now versus when I was in school and versus where it will be in 10 years um and what that will look like and how we navigate and challenge that to continually meet children where they're at um which I know we are doing but as this world evolves um would love to hear more about how that data collection goes how that engagement looks and then also how to navigate that because we definitely don't have the answers so always curious from

096those on the ground what that looks like thank you yes um and I I would love to come back and talk about that I'm signed up for a 10 session Workshop um as well as a conference um the Connecticut Association of school librarians will have presentations at their conference so I'm going to learn as much as I can and then try to come back to you with it literally don't know hard more hardworking people I just love it guess life on ler right there um um I remember it must have been a couple years ago um I think miss m and you were there and Miss Freeman and you're talking about um Ela books and windows and mirrors and how important that was for our students to just in their Ela classes to see themselves

097and um and so there was a lot of effort just in the curriculum department so I'm really excited about the media efforts to expand that as well and just really focus on on because we have so many different students and so many different cultures and you know just highlighting books from each culture every month or whatever you know you're doing and and expanding The Collection um I just applaud you for that and I'm just keep hitting my mic I'm sorry um and just really being aware and and using like you were saying using the data to show like what students are interested in and and and all of that so I just think this is an excellent it was an excellent presentation thank you so much for coming and um just question we do we

098do um budget obviously for for new books periodically and I know like generally like you know one or couple schools will get or a couple levels will get a chunk um every year but um will this effort obviously it's not gonna happen overnight but will this effort require larger book budgets like what do you did you notice how grabbed her Mone are we gonna say yes please yes please um so I don't um so library books do cost different than regular trade books uh because when you purchase a library book and you'll see some of them here like for example this one eyes that kiss in the corners is a beautiful book by the way just hold on second sorry book nerd here look at these end papers they're just absolutely beautiful the way that

099this book is made it's called Library bound and it's bound so that it lasts so that more can so as many kids can get their hands on it as possible and they do cost more than a regular book that you would get Barnes & Noble or Amazon so um uh just and then and to be quite honest like we do have a few paperbacks here um but paperbacks don't really don't really last in a library that long they really don't um so I will say that yes U because we want them to last and uh when we do purchase texts we do try to make sure that we are purchasing books that you know as many kids can get their hands on as possible and long with an answer sorry and we do we do

100make very targeted and and and well-considered purchasing decisions you know so um you know I guess it's a good time to assure you that the budget money does go to books that we've thought about we are you know looking at our data looking at our kids um filling in the gaps finding things that they're going to enjoy um if we can find books that are popular books like this is a copy of diary of the wimpy kid um in Arabic or other languages we do that um but our main focus is to um to serve as many kids as we can as well as we can and our ml books do cost quite a bit Kristen's nodding her head because she knows they do tend to be a lot more expensive um because they're not

101as many in print um and because they're not often printed here in the United States as well so we want to make like they do cost a lot there's shipping involved they're hard to find so and trying to expand that collection is very very high on our top priority list so thank you you have a question oh okay are there any other questions or comments no well thank you very very well done you're good we have time for you no worries thank you so much all right we're on to our discussion of board policies awesome um just before I turn it over to Mr FY um there's just two policy sections kind of before you um but both reflecting the same um mandated change for Title Nine um nothing really changes substantially um and you

102have them all linked in uh your packet so if you have any questions um please let us know but really it's a reflection of um just some verbiage change um and focus more on not the actual policies themselves but the regulations so whenever we just so everyone knows again I'll always reemphasize this but when we're voting we're voting on the policy uh not the regulation but we include both the policy and the regulation of implementation in there to make sure that everyone knows how it's getting implemented um at a at a district level or what what that overall um regulation looks like um so the the policy itself is short when it comes to to both um uh 18112 and 514 5.5 uh and 514 5.44 they're relatively short but the regulations are quite long

103so if you see like 20 Pages yes most of that is on the regulation side um nothing changes and nothing also changes in terms of what we have been doing as a districts when it comes to our n title n District coordinators um when it comes to any of the processes we take most of this is changing um any verbiage that included um sexual harassment it's now sex based discrimination um so it's more encompassing and it also um it will then include both personnel and students um so that's why both the 4,000 series personnel and the 5,000 policy series there Mr feri did I miss things you didn't miss a thing that was fantastic um but if anyone has any questions obviously welcome them if you don't have any questions between now and you obviously

104are we're you're welcome to bring them up again we will put them on old uh business for our next um next meeting which is October 23rd next Wednesday so if you have anything in between now and then and then now between the next meeting um committee meeting sub commmittee meeting sorry sorry yes subcommittee meeting on the 23rd um we we'll again have an opportunity to bring it up there um but if there are no other questions um and everyone's good with it yes so um I didn't even touch it so according to the practices of the board we need to have two opportunities to read discuss propos proposals at two successive meetings that would be this would be the first and the next one will be the second then we would vote on it at

105the third or we could vote on it on the second okay as long as it's within the meeting thank you correct we have an opportunity to vote on it during that second meeting uh should there be no further concerns or questions that would cause the subcommittee to have to go back and revise a and as I said you're welcome to come to our October 23rd meeting um which has a lengthy agenda if anyone would like to see that as well um so yeah uh please reach out it's a big one um as we start going through all of our other policies but like I said there's really no substantive changes rather just really um cosmetic changes in in the work words used and if you have any questions about our title n processes Mr feri

106is quite well versed in that um and they have a lot to do so I just want to applaud them for how much uh that office does and how on top of it they are and that as all all right anything else moving on to an update on the athletic trainer position thank you for the opportunity um so I uh speaking of opportunities I had a a great opportunity last week to um attend a town council meeting where I was able to um request uh to the council uh to consider an athletic trainer in lie of a contracted service here with the new and two Public Schools as many of you may or may not be aware um athletic training servicing has been quite challenging uh for Connecticut high schools um throughout the state for

107for the past 3 or four years at at least um so you'll see this um in such venues like the Evening News um how difficult it is to have uh athletic training support at high schools um there are many articles uh and Papers written uh in the newspaper I'm sorry articles in the newspaper uh and from our CIA our Connecticut inter Scholastic Athletic Conference about the challenges and the shortages that Connecticut public schools are facing uh with athletic trainers to support our student athletes um so we had an opportunity to uh just provide the Town Council with an update about that um request uh an opportunity to put uh an administrative position which is called an A5 in the way the council positions um non-certified um staff for the school system um in in their

108um ad to add that to the administrative groupings um and we provided also a job description and a salary range for a posting and a potential posting draft what that would look like um the council was fabulous in their response with many good questions um and also asked for um couple enhancements uh to what I had presented and so I offered that to the town manager and Council uh two days later uh which will then be again Revisited this coming Tuesday um for potential vote um so that's kind of where we are with an update on the athletic Training Services if I were to share with you a little more background on where we are at Newton High School um currently um we are struggling to have an athletic trainer attend all events uh and

109when we do uh when it is critical we'll call it um we sometimes have to contract out per DM which can be quite costly uh to the board so we're finding that the escalation in price from year to year even just over the last three years has been upwards to close to 38% a year increase um which now puts us in a position where uh we would be at a a greater benefit to hire our own uh which would be also a 12-month employee so that would change from 25 hours a week for 10 months to full-time uh which is fabulous and for the cost differential really at the end of the day what they can provide um would be a substance savings uh to the district because it would provide us with a great

110opportunity to be preventative uh with our student athletes to help our coaches really engage our student athletes in exercises that help to prevent injuries instead of just triaging and managing injuries um it'll also help us with having someone consistent who can support our coaches who can support our athletes and who can support our families um when students do get injured through the process of ensuring that they are teamed by a physician and then their return to care is is you know available ready and secure for them to be able to do so in a really good way so um we feel like this is a magnificent opportunity um and so the council is right now um sitting with that and and hopefully we'll we'll take vote on it Tuesday night as faor just for clarity

111Sake One um once or if approved um how does that does that come out of our budget though just to be clear so yes thank you it currently resides in our budget for the contracted service um it would reside in our budget again uh for um you know a full-time employee um right now it is uh about a 7030 split I be believe between our operating budget and the other 30 that we pay through um monies received through like concession ticket sales and such um so we would uh continue to look at that model um to be able to uh manage the cost of this employee um at this time right now we are less one employee in in the Staffing realm and we would be able to kind of reallocate the resources to cover

112this initial cost up front um to acquire an athletic trainer uh so that way it would not be an overall impact on the board's budget at this time love hearing that too is there any um other districts that are kind of doing this model or have done this model in last year yes so part of the presentation uh last week was to share uh about eight um different districts and the average kind of uh expenditure to acquire uh an athletic trainer uh full-time in their District so yes there are um again the CIA back in February 20 2024 um issued a statement uh letter uh to all public schools saying that um this was a this is the direction that you should be going uh it is in the best interest of your student athletes

113and your community uh to ensure their safety and in preventative maintenance for the athletes and sorry last one does this I know we talked about it budget season last time because Athletics went way and and Mr Myers uh kind of echoed the same sentiment um we need them and EMS at football games or is it I just couldn't remember we needed like some presence or we need an athletic trainer at some of the games it's not required maybe but advised um and if we're like how that works I just remember there needed to be a lot of presence at football games and other context sport like MH so I think they serve different role you said the athletic trainer and an EMS yeah I wasn't sure if it was both or if we were paying

114for both and how that kind of worked with the contracted Services correct so the athletic trainer would be at at at all events especially major ones like like football can be higher sustaining injuries things like that um but there are other events that go on throughout the school too so we would make sure they have a walkie-talkie and they can support all the athletic events going on simultaneously when when that happens um they they're there both for our players and for the other team as well uh the visiting players so when we go somewhere when we don't have an athletic trainer on staff which is becoming more frequent right now our players aren't prepared to go and compete outside of Newington maybe taped up or in the best way possible that they need to be

115so we need to call the other district and see if they have an athletic trainer who can also service our students right now so we would want to again be able to be positioned to manage all of that inhouse um that being said to answer your question very specifically it is not like legally mandated that we have to have an athletic trainer on staff no that is not legally mandated it is highly recommended it is best practice um and that person does serve very differently than an EMS might uh an EMS would would really you know do the triage in in the moment but also take the player away if necessary where an athletic trainer can kind of intervene and also potentially manage the situation at hand without EMS having or an ambulance having to

116come and take the the player away um because they they are uh capable of and um managing just a a vast array of of injuries that could occur Miss patus um quick question I don't know if it's um for Mr paresi or for Lou does our our lack of Staffing in this way impact um any cost per insurance in other words our insurance costs to the district higher because we are a little bit lacking in that area or would they decrease once we have that full-time person athletic Insurance yeah the answer is no to that it's not sensitive to that particular Factor go ahead Mr what is what is the average salary of one of those athletic because there's other residual costs right they we'd have to get them a cart and you know it's

117not just a salary I'm just curious rough I'm not gonna quote you so I I do believe that we are positioned right now very well for the athletic trainers that have been operating in the district for many many years right um it is up until the past few years since uh the ability to acquire a even as a contracted service the ability to acquire someone who is you know on for the whole year um that has lessened over the past few years but previously we would have the same contracted employee from a contracted service who would stay with us throughout the duration of the the 10 months of school um and we always and still have the facilities for this individual to work and do their job and get around on the fields and use

118carts and things like that so equipment wise we are in good shape we have everything we need facility wise we're all set we have everything we need it really does come down to salary and benefits so we would be posting between 60 and $70,000 that would be the post um but in full transparency less benefit than everything else you're looking at about $100,000 y um just is there a shortage of athletic trainers or like are you GNA have trouble um filling the position if approved right so the interesting part is there's a shortage of athletic trainers in Connecticut schools there are athletic trainers out there um and what they are looking for is a full-time position often what you see right now with a contracted service is that they have to work the full day

119in their job and then they are contracted out to schools in the evening hours so you know even yourself or myself imagine working either 8:00 or 9:00 to 3: you know and then heading over to the high school from 3:30 all the way till 9:00 at night yep or a board meeting and and then on weekends things like that um so I think you know there's there's just a desire for a work life balance uh and and to be able to be more stable in a role and this offers that for an athletic trainer and their hours are just shifted to after school evenings more likely but but you're you said they could also do things during the day or be around for our students like the job can be more than just supporting correct

120so the benefit of having someone on staff uh is is is numerous um so number one um if they do come in later in the day maybe even early afternoon then they can stay till later at night you know when events end at nine or things like that right they still have access during that later part of the day to students in in school so that's great because they if they have to touch base with someone even if that individual is off seon but they're in Rehabilitation or something they can kind of follow up and and manage care that way as well um and we would adjust schedules throughout the week Mr Myers would work on this I don't claim to be able to do that work and um you know when for weekends and

121events like that so it would be a a an adjusted schedule uh week to week based on um sporting events and when when they're most needed um but they work work a full 40 hour week and things like that and yeah and then um with the CIA see this past summer uh just released was that coaches can um have teams come in in the summertime now this is the first year ever and so um to have someone there and an opportunity to have a a full-time athletic trainer for 12 months really is now to our benefit yeah absolutely I think that's the way to go so hopefully they prove it and it's important to have um someone there for our athletes and our students so that they can be healthy and and have that relationship

122with someone that can they can trust and work through whatever physical um injuries they're going through any other further questions or anything just want to thank Mr fesi for kind of jumping on this major issue and working with Mr Myers and then having to work with the town normally we don't have to work with the town on positions but because it's is an at position the town oversees them and that's why we have to work with Town Council so to kind of navigate all these different areas but I think it is landing well and town manager has been collaborative um so we anticipate full cooperation which we appreciate very much so thank you Mr Frey thank you an update on our strategic plan 2024 to 27 yes I wanted to make sure the board was

123aware it's in your packet so rest easy I'm not going to read 12 pages to you this evening but I wanted to remind everyone of the process that in miday I believe it was May 15th we met at the uh High School a large turnout uh was in attendance that day over 50 folks from all um facets of our community and they're listed on the last page of the document because it was important for us to have the voices of students parents community members board members uh and our in school staff from that event on uh May 15 we spent time looking at um what suggestions were made we had a protocol about that we used uh with our attendees called the AES Tob protocol and we went through um looking at our mission our

124vision the portrait of The Graduate did not change sub substant but we did make changes to our vision and our mission uh Bas on the feedback of the stakeholders in attendance that day so you'll see these revised vision and mission statements appearing on any documents in which those statements appear um we developed our three Focus areas which we did discuss with all stakeholders that day of culture responsive pedagogy discipline and social emotional learning we talked about our continuous Improvement plan revised our theory of action which is our projection about what we are doing that will lead to um the outcomes that we desire as a school district which I know the board's aware is to uh close our opportunity gap for all of our Learners and the I want to make sure the board knows

125and certainly attendees know and there was a follow-up meeting that occurred a few weeks back in September where we had about 15 folks online looking at the initial iteration of this document and then allowing them to to provide feedback and from there we took all of that plus what happened on round one and we have come up with the document that you see before you I did send this out to all folks that participated in the committee um and now the full board has this although many board members were involved in one or both of those uh feedback sessions but we really are honing and continuing to refine our efforts toward Equitable outcomes our students I think you saw that tonight in our library media specialist presentation and that certainly appears in our mission and

126vision for the district now this strategic plan will run for three years um though we found that this feedback session from our community stakeholders was so valuable we anticipate running a few of those throughout the year like maybe three times a year because I think it's a super powerful opportunity for those folks and what a parent might say what a a parent professional might say what a Community member might say just really gives us A New Perspective that we don't always have as internal folks that live education every day so they push us they they they've told us many whatever you see in here is a direct result of what our stakeholders have told us for example um I just want to draw your attention to this page we do Define terms if folks wanted

127to know what that is and we also relied heavily on what are best practices in the research for how you organize a strategic plan we referen an article in this um document from jam out of Harvard and what we've put forth in this document is a very research-based approach to how do you really structure your district and your strategic planning to gain your best results especially in line with our Equity efforts so um again we have an AIS to be approach to this and and really our stakeholders drove that you all were very impressed with or folks that were able to make it on the 15th of May with what our students had to say they weren't shy about telling you well they have some good experiences there are areas that need to be improved

128our parents tell us you know what I don't think we have enough diversity on our AP courses um we have parents that feel we need to do a little bit better job of making sure all of our kids feel comfortable um making sure that all of our staff have access to training versus just our certified staff um and and that you know we make sure that's available because folks need it in order to do this work I was so pleased to hear um our students report that even custodians and other folks they're encountering at the high school are engaging with them in ways just beyond their normal job um because it shows us that people realize that every stakeholder in our community plays a role and and what that does for our kids so we

129divided each of our Focus areas again the culture responsive pedagogy AKA academics discipline and social emotional learning and we looked at it through the structures of what of our stakeholders role the structures role the systems role the resources and culture and obviously come come budget time the resources component will be what the board would actually be um you know we we'll reference this throughout our budget process so you can see the through line I hope between what this document says and what we're asking for to support the district and then similarly this plan is also being looked at by our administrative team and from here they're extrapolating their school Improvement plans so we're not having this document that sits in a Shelf with you know every couple years we update it and that's check a

130box it really isn't like that we spent considerable time looking at this uh making sure it made sense to where we want to go and then making sure our principles look at it as they're formulating their Improvement plans and for board information every principal meets with our central office uh Equity team and presents their school Improvement plan to us and we cross check it with is it lining up to the Strategic plan and um we are in the process of doing that right now we had our first meeting on Tuesday with one principal and we have two more on Friday so we're rolling through that but again all of this is linked so so you're not going to see something that doesn't align with this because you if you have too many areas of focus

131then you're not going to get anything done and that's something that I've read about my entire career and I know my colleagues around the table feel the same way so uh fast forward to the end here so you can see that we did have a very diverse group of stakeholders um involved in this process and um we'll continue this going forward and you know thanks to the team around the table Kristen and Steve and and Lou actually was part of that as well board members around the table that were able to participate and we will do our frequent check-ins with stakeholders throughout the area toate having at least two more sessions and the online methodology does allow people to participate a little easier uh with all the work schedules we held it like the late

132afternoon um in late September so with that I will turn it back to board chair for any any questions or comments thank you and you said it but having the student voices I think was especially important and um yeah it's good we should always be asking and um because they're obviously why we're all sitting here is so that they can have the best education possible so hearing what we're doing well but also what they need or what can be approved upon is really important are there any other coms comments or questions goe Miss car I was just going to say I attended the second part in September that webinar and it was great seeing people reread it and have more to say more thoughts more questions and you know see us further work it and

133continue to improve it Miss waver just want to say thank you to all involved it's not I think we Contin say you know it's not easy work it's not overnight work it's planning you know three years obviously but um and and I appreciate you saying that there'll be more iterations because I think really that that's where the magic kind of happens is these iterative conversations um and it was just really powerful um back in May to just hear so many different stakeholders to hear those perspectives um but I think it's just also great how reflective it is to of the trends we're seeing nationally like we're not immune to a lot of um just the state of education post Co in the world that we're in um so I just want to say thank you

134too because I think um I know discipline came up and some of the Union negotiation like it was really teacher you know a lot of the things that are there are people who are dealing with these issues every day um and so having that informed and like you just said the stakeholder perspective is so crucial um this isn't any kind of admin top down or only bottom up it's really collaborative um and that hierarchy seems to disappear a little bit and I appreciate that because I think that's where um that core collaboration has made it to Be an Effective and really um targeted mission that I think we are already seeing will bear fruit but just thank you to everyone who put those hours in because it was a lot of hours I know okay

135thank you so much all right moving on to an update on John Wallace all right good evening everyone on the status of John Wallace project is finally moving along at a reasonable clip uh project meeting activi started early August uh develop the uh solicitations for the architect the construction manager and the owner's project rep you know same combination of Specialists as we had for Ana Reynolds all three of those uh processes are now complete uh and contracts have been awarded to companies this time around Prior Associates out of Farmington will be the architect uh New Field construction will again be project or construction manager as well as a Construction Services Group will be the owner of project prep so uh prior the district has had you know a number of experiences over the last 25

136years with them on different Pro projects they've done a fine job this is more or less in their wheelhouse as far as the size of the work and the U uh timing and their ability to be nimble and supportive of the time schedule we're trying to achieve as everyone's aware from the outset uh the goal is to be ready for starting construction first day school is out in June of this coming year um goal is to do two Wings simultaneously during the first summer and we get into the new year as soon as we can get done and put those classrooms back in service uh we'll then be able to add the third wing uh to the project and depending on exactly which one finishes first and timing and how we you know scaffold that

137work for efficiency purposes uh we should be essentially through with the project by May of 2026 so coming out of next school year uh they'll have some bumps and hiccups from the first day of school through middle 10 of October as the first two wings are winding up should be no problem at all for the third wing because if we can handle two wings out of service simultaneously there'll be no problem to have the third wing out at once um the schedule and the requirements right now um we have our second uh what they call AOC meeting which is architect owners and contractor's meeting which get together to you know script the work decide on the details of the spec give the architect the guidance to be able to go out and draw all the

138drawings and we have a little bit of an advantage we did invest a few bucks you know six seven years ago to get the initial design done just as a two-line concept drawing for the architect so that they have a good awareness of where we'd like to go they don't have to start from you know actually at Ground Zero here they're a a little bit ahead uh their goal will be to get through their design work as soon as possible where sometime in December we can start the state review process and that's mandatory because of the grant uh you have to go in it's at least a two meeting sequence where they will take your plans in and then go tearing them the cart and not from a construction standpoint it's from a legal compliance

139standpoint so all the regulations that are drawn up are what they're C creating citations for they're now looking to see if the wall stand up when you're actually building it they're leaving that to the architect to be able to do it so it's a different focus and to be able be in a spot where they can say you're eligible to get paid and you're eligible to let the job go out to bid uh hopefully we'll be in a spot where the bidding will start by around February 1st and that will take typically six weeks start to finish you you have uh three weeks of um putting the ad in the paper inviting contractors to come uh have to get them lined up and at the site for the walkth through uh post walkthrough there's typically

140a number of questions that are post to the architect they have to be clarified so the bid is fair for everybody uh so and then when that goes through you have another two weeks before the bids are accepted then hopefully you don't have to worry about what's called value engineering which is you have more scope that they estimate the cost for than you have Financial Resources to do it so you have to cut down the scope to match the financial resources and we had to do an extensive amount of that at rentals we did have the ability to put things back in at the end so certainly if you can keep it into the original uh project scope for the bid you're going to get a better value and less uh difficulty getting things done

141I really don't expect a lot of it because it is really a straightforward process and it's so much different than a renovate is new where um there's always unexplored uh circumstances behind the wall around the coner and you know things change and no matter how well you think you have a PL never is good enough this is much more straightforward as just an alteration uh since the way uh three wings were buil at Wallace they're just big empty spaces you have a structural uh support is beams down the middle and along the outside walls and there's nothing else so when the uh what they call called the demo phase is done they're just going in there grabbing everything taking it out and all of a sudden you just have empty space to start all over

142again you know the exterior walls will still be up we're not taking that part down but the U difficulty of getting the space ready to working is so much less than what it was at reyolds and it'll be much easier to uh plan the sequencing of the work uh because of the request that the board put forward for the project and the ability for us to get it done it just will be it'll come together so much easier than what we went through this time so uh tomorrow we have our next meeting to start going through a lot of the details uh they these AOC meetings will be weekly for the foreseeable future Till The Architects ready for uh design presentation to the uh building committee and uh we'll be off and running very soon

143any questions oh and uh thank you Mr hollerin and Mr Newton for serving on the committee representing the board all right thank you for the update and we have one more agenda item uh would someone read the motion on the screen yes uh move the Board of Education cancel the the regular meeting scheduled for Wednesday October 30th 2024 second and the reason for cancellation is so that we can honor our teacher of the year Mr helming um he's the 24 25th teacher of the year and he was a quarterfinalist in the state but unfortunately did not make it but quarterfinalist is super awesome we have another teacher of the year and quarterfinalist also m rri is here um so yes we are um going to cancel so that we can honor him um at a

144dinner so any further discussion roll call vot please Mary yes yes yes Anthony me yes yes P thank you all right uh back to public participation on any matter related to board responsibilities if you're in the room you can come to the end of the table and if you are on Google meet you can raise your hands I don't see anyone oh Miss Rodriguez there it goes um so first I just wanted to say they've left already because public participation is sorry General fi okay um so I wanted to say I had the honor of walking uh Michael around Anna Reynolds today our student representative he was lovely um he was overwhelmed by the difference that the school um in the state that it's in compared to when he attended there so that was um

145wonderful to uh walk him around today and then to hear him tonight in Abigail as well they do just such a nice job and I think they represent our student body so well um I also want to talk about our library and media specialists in The Amazing presentation that they did um and I want to remind us all that just a couple years ago we had to fill the room with people who were advocating to not get rid of a position at the elementary level that would have split our media specialists across a couple of buildings and I think you saw tonight the importance of the work that they do uh both with our students in front of us as well as our community at large when working with the Lucy Robbins Wells Library um

146many of things they were talking about uh I actually received my packet today for the three students who are not um on The Lucy Robins Wells Library roles in terms of having their own um what's the word I'm looking for thank you library card um so they do all that work for us which is a great support and help to uh the classroom teachers uh even scheduling days specifically to when we're going to go there um so that our job is is pretty easy in terms of just filling out paperwork getting the buses that kind of thing um in EN roll so um I want to say again thank you so much for the work that you do um along with your colleagues and supporting classroom teachers the students that we work with um and

147all the wonderful books uh that we have available to our students um I'm going to go one further and say that U Mrs Freeman's Department also does a great job of getting those culturally relevant and diverse books into our hands for our own personal class libraries um I think I had a lot of them that had to do with math and multilingual last year and you had found a grant and were able to not only fund it from my classroom but every classroom in my building that wanted the same books so they were in Spanish and English um our students can access them at home and they not only refer um reinforce literacy but also math skills um which was a tremendous support that we've been using this year so thank you uh so much

148for that um so I think that kind of wraps it up I just want to say a lot of thank yous about the wonderful job that people are doing and if Mrs rendes was here Ren um was here then I would say the same as well for um her being our um Local Hero so thank you so much for the work that you do in supporting education and amazing job all right thank you okay um remarks by board member Miss Weaver just like reiterating The Love Fest think M Rodriguez put it well there's just a lot of great things um and I just hope the community can know about all of these um if you're listening please know the amount that's going I'm always amazed by just how much is going on and I think

149just is reflective of a lot of the inititive so just a huge thank you to our staff our admin and um everyone in between that's in our school system um and those who are supporting our school system from the community um I think it really does a long way and I think our student reps uh did it best by showing exactly what good critical uh thinkers are good public speakers and model citizens are so just want to say thank you for everyone who's contributing um it's just one of those meetings that there's a lot of light in our district and I'm so glad we're shining a light on those who are giving it with car going off what Jess was saying I think our student reps today did an amazing job I mean as always

150giving you know an overview of what's going on and it really warmed my heart hearing about all the breast cancer and cancer awareness and fundraisers um something for us as a board to think of you know maybe next October is going to an event together to show support and you know going off the theme of knowledge is power just to share with every one um know your lemons it's a global nonprofit foundation for breast cancer awareness they have a free app that goes over 12 signs of breast cancer and um does a step by step of self-checking and a lot of insurance companies You Know cover a portion of genetic testing for breast cancer I myself went through it years ago genetic testing so something close to my heart and it's great to hear you

151know the community so involved in it go ahead Mr yep just put your mic on anybody else have to talk before I start you go ahead the floor is yours I U I actually had a couple things but it's getting late so I'm going to just take care of one thing um this has nothing those ladies did a fantastic job and I think the whole Library committee and everything is fantastic so I'm not talking from an adult point of view um and looking at I I was just reading the stakeholders things the as is different stakeholder groups both within and outside the and Newton Public School Organization are not fully aligned to the Newton public school mission for Equity some cases stakeholders actively obstruct efforts towards the mission I think that's very strong so I've

152been reading lately um this is Carol Swain she's a PhD and Christopher Shore who are phds Carol Swain is a uh she's a black female and um she's very uh her this book is called black guy for America how critical race theory is burning down the house um and uh I would just like to make reference to a couple things quick I don't want to keep people off but I think it's an excellent book I think everybody I'm going to be the lone voice I'm sure I need Forest here but um I would like to read one thing she said about uh her family she says to American children I want my great grandchildren hezekia Heavenly and Haven to grow up in a world where they are neither advantaged nor disadvantaged because of their skin

153color or socionomic status likewise Jackson Olivia and Caris white children I love and respect should bear no burden because of their race or socioeconomic status but ultim what ultimately matters should be the content of their character and I think that's what Martin Luther King said um if I may I know I'm this is painful for some people but uh I just wanted to uh read a little bit of the forward by Dr Ben Benjamin Carson I think most of us know Ben Carson he ran for president uh in 2016 he was he's a neurosurgeon he did the first uh surgery that separated two uh co- combined twins by the head um our country is fractured and in danger of coming apart this seems the misguided ideology of critical race the is corrupting our institutions dividing

154Americans by race and pitting them against one another based on that arbitrary characteristics so the American people are faced with a choice do the better angels of our nature unite and guide the country back toward the ideals of the Declaration of Independence that all people are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights or do we succumb to the forces of darkness and division which will lead to further social conflict in a nation that cannot afford to be anymore divided um I just want to just a couple more things critical race Theory does not allow this in fact uh it requires the opposite for critical race Theory the only characteristic that matters is a person's race and individuals are not individuals but members of racial groups who are only judged collectively as

155a racial group any differences between racial groups are exclusively the result of racism as opposed to any other Factor but just because there's only one just outcome does not mean that outcome that that this outcome will prevail while the premises of critical race Theory are self-evidently false both in theory and fact critical race Theory remains on the March it Advocates its Advocates are gaining strength indoctrinating our children and infiltrating institutions at an alarming rate the forces fighting for for the just outcome are on the defensive black eyy for America clearly and cogently explains how and why the Embrace of critical race Theory will bankrupt our nation both spiritually and intellectually the authors dissect the prorate intellectual framework of critical race Theory exposing it for what it is warmed over Marxism that substitutes race for class

156but otherwise Embraces the same failed ideas and assumptions of an ideology that sent 100 million people to their graves the book also explains how critical race series anti-American anti-liberal and in in the classical sense and an athema to the judeo-christian values that are the Bedrock of the American ethos while Neo Marxist in theory critical race theory is Neo Jim Crow and practice having simply swapped which race is favored and which race is disfavored um Dr Swain and Dr Shaw have done the world and Americans in particular great service uh by writing this book I look forward to people of good faith using the arguments within it to fight against the forces of Destruction and bring our country back to light I know that a uh um opinion that people don't agree with but I think

157it's a great book and we did talk about critical thinking um you know I I tread I I look at both sides and I I um I know I'm on the kind of the farest side but thank you for listening to me any other remarks by board members go ahead Miss pus um with all due respect my colleague um I want just touch on a couple of things in my time on this board I have not heard anybody discuss as part of our curriculum critical race Theory and um I'm open to be corrected if I'm mistaken about that but I with my own ears have not heard that what I have heard and I've heard it consistently in each and every meeting that I have uh attended at this board is that our data shows

158that there is an achievement Gap among our students and that achievement appap has always had the um uh undeniable fact that certain members of our school Community do not perform at the same levels that other students do and it's our moral obligation to close that Gap and when we strengthen that academic performance that not only helps our students it helps all of our communities and these are hard conversations to have and I know we've had that a lot but critical thinking is not the same as critical race Theory and I want to make that really really really clear it's an opportunity for us to empower our students to meet our students where they're at so that they're performing at their best level that's our responsibility as a district and it's our moral responsibility as as

159board members we would be remiss in our work if we didn't do that and to use the idea of something like CRT as a way to tear our school Community apart is not acceptable it's not part of the curriculum in our in our schools and so I have to respectfully disagree with this this is um you know this book they are entitled to their opinions certainly there are many many different thoughts on that but in all of my time on this board which I'll admit is less than a year but this message of equity and the power that it has to enable our students to be their best is is consistent and it's based in data there's measurable results with that um Mr howerin uh as a the chair of the C committee you're correct

160CRT does not exist anywhere in our curriculum we do however and will be looking at for the rest of the year the opportunity Gap the achievement gap which when we look at the data no matter how many ways we slice the numbers it falls into racial lines it does it's clear as day no matter how much we try to look at it from a different perspective it's black and white is why I have to continue to work at it regardless of the politics regardless of the theory some students are being underserviced in our schools that is our job as Board of Education members to make sure that we close that Gap because we are not serving every student and when I hear the words of equity actively being used to stop Equity results then I

161see more division in that than I do about saying how do we functionally make sure that every student has the same opportunity not every student's going to get the same result every student needs the same opportunity we're not doing that now that's what we need to do and when we talk about Equity we're talking about everyone now my side your side um go ahead Mr mey no I agree with what they both said 100% I'm I'm not talking about the Newton School System I'm talking about language it it the language has been seeping in from the government all the way down critical race Theory runs through all our all our institutions all saying is this is an excellent book critical thinking um I I'm not uh I'm not judging anything about our children and our

162teaching or anything like that all I'm saying is I I think um the superintendent I was in the beginning when I first sat down I was like could you could you explain Equity to me because equity and equality to me are two different things and sometimes they they kind of mesh it together um anyways and I think I've made my point uh a few times about I want the best person I don't care what color they are I don't care what they call themselves I don't care how they identify I always want the best person for the job and that's all I just bring it up it's a uh I think it's a she's a she's a fantastic author she has several books out my opinion and all I'm asking is all no I'm not

163asking anything all I'm saying is critical thinking there's a lot of there's a lot of in here um and I think CRT is in throughout all our institutions no question of a doubt and it didn't start yesterday it's been I didn't realize it until I really did some research it's been going on for decades so I appreciate what both you said and I agree with both you said I'm not I'm not making any comment on our children or or this school system some of the Lang even the language I just read there it was it was almost like attacking someone who says wait a minute I I'm not I'm not on board with this yet explain it to me better you know what I mean so language is is been so divisive lately and and

164it is it's it's like this side no it shouldn't be this side and that side it should be all of us trying to be better so anyway I agree with both you guys I'm not I'm not on I'm not opposite of you guys so thank you I'm Sorry Miss Weaver yeah I just wanted to point out I think inherently a lot of those words like saying anti-liberal anti- judeo-christian values which you could argue we have a very diverse religious background in our in our community and in our we're not we don't have a federal religion um so you know I think a lot of what that just exuded was a lot of politicized language and I think we just don't want I want to caution against politicized language um obviously we're all politicians and some

165form but I think when it comes to this board table the reason we use equity so much um is it because it's based coming from teachers right from culturally expensive pedagogy in the brain from practicians who have been working on Equity um and maybe that gets politicized into CRT and it has I think in many times I think race makes people feel uncomfortable and what I applaud this District in doing is having those like we say all the time the difficult and uncomfortable conversations but to acknowledge that there is no differ or that there isn't history in this country or that there isn't differences in cultures throughout the world um how we view gender and race and socioeconomic status to just ignore that those are inherently already built in our society does a disservice to

166our students and I think the reason why I'll just push back is that I think we all have the same vision of what we want to see we would love to not be able to see race we would love to not be able to see gender we would love to not be able to see things that are inherently part of us but the reality is the world that we have we are now just born into has had that struggle I would love to not be seen as like you know oh just because I'm a woman I couldn't lead a company or since 1974 I wouldn't have been able to open a credit card or a bank account without a male or my husband things have changed right and so to acknowledge like that is the

167history of what why there hasn't been you know know as many women in Congress as many women on boards when it comes to that the same thing goes for race and I think acknowledging that is so important why I do applaud the equity efforts it doesn't mean that we're not taking care of every single one of our white students of every single one of our Asian students of every single color or Creed and I think what's just great is like it's an add-on it's not it's not a zero some game it's not a piece of a pie we're cutting out and saying you know what we're only going to focus on black and brown students and that's no one else gets anything what we've seen through the data is that white students are actually doing

168better and their gaps are in terms of their or their leaps in terms of their Improvement scores are actually better than all of our subgroups and so no matter what something's working but I think the goal for all of us is like focus on what the data is telling us and that's what's important and why it's exhausting work because it's like you have to go to the root causes of why there's a gap something is is there when we look at the intersectionality and so it's not just race it's race is a Common Thread throughout when we look at special ed students our black students who are special ed are doing worse than our white students in special ed that intersection of race and disability why is that the case right and those are the

169questions I think our district has been grappling with for now years right and put in the added layer of how Co impacted everyone and so I think and that's just been crazy I only go on this D because for me the school district I went into was an incredible district and I am so grateful for it but to see the school district now trying to lift every single boat in this tide and literally find every single student and meet them where they're at is something I just I'm so grateful to see my cousins and the next generation of students going forward with um because I think every student is different every person is different and I think that's at the heart of the core I don't think it's a inherently it will get politicized um

170because it's more part of the public we're part of you know Government funding you know we're part of all of that but I think what's important is that um at the core of it it's just meeting every student with what they need and I'm really excited to see like what that looks like so I sorry to push back but you know I think what's important is that those are a lot of political words and we don't those don't necessarily reflect um the work of equity that's not just being done in Newington but being done in other districts to make sure every student and what I do just want to point out to is politicizing the work of our teachers like these people do so much um let's not do that thank you um respectfully we're

171not supposed to really have a back and forth so if there's um a topic maybe that you want to bring up or like you can go through the proper channels um we good with that um read the book it's covers everything that she said I'm not talking about what she's saying and it talks about intersection it talks about yeah and yeah educate yourself before you talk I mean there's a lot of education that has gone on one single book respectfully is is is one opinion um a lot of us have educated ourselves and do educate ourselves constantly and there's always things to learn so everyone is also entitled to their own opinions and and reading the materials that they are comfortable reading so um yeah I'm gonna motion to adjourn and we don't need to

172vote motion meeting 9:31 night everybody