Board of Education Meeting: May 6th, 2025

001Good evening and welcome to the May 6, 2025 meeting of the Spack New School District Board of Education. Please rise and recite the pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Okay. Item 2.01 is comments from the public on consent agenda items. Do we have any public comment on consent agenda items only? Board discussion discussed questions. Okay. I'll entertain the motion to accept the consent agenda as written. So move a second. All in favor. So, that was quick. Agenda, there's uh three fantastic hires that just happened uh without us even knowing about it, but it's now officially happened. Uh one is a brand new elementary teacher for

002us, uh Mr. Susa. Do you want to introduce him? Sure. Um, so we are very fortunate to um, be hiring Marissa Miley who's been our red sub all year. Um, she, just so you know, like the process wasn't a gimmick. We screened over 50 applicants and, uh, interviewed many and did a demo round. I think by the time the rounds were over, there were six rounds to this interview. But Marissa has always kind of had a year-long interview at Hagen and has done a phenomenal job. She's always someone who's willing to chip in, has a great approach with with children, um, and is really a team player, and someone we're super excited to make a permanent part of our faculty. So, congratulations, Marissa. [Applause] Hi. I just want to say thank you so much for

003this opportunity. I am so excited and I'm really grateful to continue to be a part of the Hagen family. A brand new science teacher, Mr. Lewis, you want to introduce? So, uh, we are welcoming James Boyd right back here. Um, so he's going to be teaching a number of different science courses at the high school. Uh, some electives. Um he's biocertified and the out of the entire interview process the most special thing we recognized at least for me I was an English teacher uh James his joy for science just pops and stands out and makes you so enthusiastic about the subject um and it's so natural and that is what really set him apart from the plethora of candidates that we had and we are so excited to have him aboard. So, congratulations, James. Yeah,

004and thank you so much. I'm also so uh thankful for this opportunity and I'm really looking forward to working with such a wonderful group of people in such a fantastic uh district. So, thank you and look forward to everything. [Applause] Should I sit down? No. And there's one more that we're extremely thrilled and happy about this. Would you mind? So before you speak, um it's been fantastic working with you here. Um this is now your sixth year. Um and the fact that we can continue with him at the high school when he started just awesome thing. He's been amazing from the start and really glad that he was interested in the position six years under his belt in the building and now taking over. Thank you. [Applause] Um I just want to say I humbly

005accept the position the uh responsibilities that come with that. I want to thank the board. I really appreciate the support. Thank you Dr. Fuelelli. Thank you district office staff everyone that I work with and daily. Thank you to my faculty and staff and of course my wonderful wife and daughter Darren Andrea. Um I thought a lot about what brought me here today and you know obviously hard work. I feel like I've I've always had a good work ethic, but I feel the most important thing for even some of the new teachers here to remember is I think if you really care about what you do and you find purpose in your life and you put your all into uh caring about every little thing that that is your purpose, good things come and um you

006garner respect and um and I just I'm really humbled to be here. Um, I'm currently reading this book right here, Reasons not to worry. Uh, because I can worry a lot and uh to an extreme. So, um, I thought a lot over the weekend about this this whole night and one thing stood out uh that they use the Stoics Marcus Aurelius and he talks a lot about the u the analogies of the sea and that you can't control the ocean. You can't control the weather and the waves and the grain and but you can control a captain the ship and steering the boat and I will always uh look to my moral compass and make the decisions that I feel are best for my faculty, staff, the students most importantly and which I think I

007have done up to this moment and that's what's led me here. Um I have had wonderful relationships with people outside of even Spack and uh I came here with some administration experience from Lockingers and I have great uh relationships there still to this day and it is but nothing but a pleasure being here. I've learned so much and I am excited to continue on this journey uh with all of you here today. So thank you again for your support and I'm looking forward to uh the future here. [Applause] Congratulations. Appreciate all this. Um, this is a runoff vote for one seat to fill the vacancy with the term beginning April 23rd, 2025 and ending June 30th, 2026 on the board of cooperative educational services. The trustees are board of education of each component school district

008by resolution will cast one vote for this one vacancy. So, we have two candidates, both whom have written us very nice letters. I think they're both wonderful candidates. It's Mark Playchower from Minebeck and Bryce Holland from Gypsy. Um, so I guess there's multiple ways we can do this and we already voted for Bryce in the last election. Um, I don't know if anybody has changed their mind on that or we're going to uh stick with that, but discussion and you just want to stick with it. I'm happy with sticking with it as well. Okay. So, uh with that back will cast his vote the dry from get force. And that brings us in short. Do I have a motion to uh vote for Bryce Holland for the Bose seat seat? So move all in favor.

009And that would bring us to 5.01 principal reports. Oh my apologies. They'll be reporting soon. Yeah. Okay. 6.01 01 then is uh public hearing on the 2025 2026 school district budget. Do I have a motion to open the budget hearing on the 2025 2026 school district budget? Have a second. All in [Music] favor zero. Do you have any community input regarding the budget? Okay. So that I'll ask for a motion to close the public hearing on the 2025 2026 school district budget. Do I have a second? Second. All in favor? I pass zero. Okay. That brings us to 7.01. All principles on this generation presentation. start us off. Yep. All right. Uh, good evening everyone. I just want to start off by commenting Mr. Lewis, what you didn't see from up here is he was

010getting his suit pulled the whole time he was speaking and he didn't uh he didn't break his speech at all. So, that was impressive. Um uh so we're here to uh to speak from all four buildings on our work with the anxious generation. Eric, I'm going to hold for a second. Uh our guests are welcome to go. I think they're they want to go, but they don't want to be I was waiting for you to do that. I was going to be the one. They have dinner plans and we do not want to get in the way of congratulations. You can go this way. We're not live. Thank you. Congratulations. All right. You got a good one on. Thank you. Thank you. Take good care of you. No offense. All taken. Same as too much.

011All right. Um so we're going to start off with our elementary presentation. A lot a lot of has gone into this and we've kind of um spoken about it throughout the year. Um, but we're we're kind of to the conclusion of our our planning stage if if you will for a lot of the big things that we're looking to shift um at the elementary level. And we we kind of went back and forth tonight about the best way to begin the presentation. Um, and the way we're going to start it off is we are going to uh show a clip from uh Dr. height who um as I think most people here know is the author of the anxious generation. Um he's one of the mo the most soughta speakers around the world right now

012and um he he recently created a video that was uh specifically for schools and for parents. Um and really it'll set up our presentation well um because he kind of paints the picture of the problem and he talks a lot about uh the statistics and specifically the part of the video that we want to show um is he he talks about the physical harms um and also the mental harms. So we'll show that uh that first part of this video and then really our presentation um is going to be about kind of this back and kill uh plan for the solution. [Music] So Hi, my name is Jonathan height. I'm the author of The Anxious Generation. The great rewiring of childhood is causing an epidemic of mental illness. I get invited to speak at schools

013or parents groups all the time and I can't always make it. So, I made this video for you to show in a group of parents or group of teachers to help you understand what's happening and to see that there's so much we can do to fix this problem. I'm going to be talking today a lot about collective action because the solutions to this problem are actually fairly simple. Although the work is hard, if we do it together, we can get it done pretty quickly, too. So, I want to start this talk uh with two statistics that are really haunting me. One is 50%. That's the percentage of American teens who say that they are online almost constantly. That doesn't mean they're literally looking at their phone 16 hours that a day. That would be impossible.

014But it means that the phone is always in their hand and they're always checking it and there's always drama going on and even when they're in class or even when they're at the dinner table or when you think they're talking to you, they're never fully present. They're always thinking in part about what's going on on their phone. So that's 50%. Here's the other statistic which I just learned a week ago. 40%. That's the percentage of American 2year-olds who have their own iPad. It's just become normal to give toddlers an iPad, which makes them quiet, keeps them entertained, but as we'll see, it probably is going to be bad for their development. Those two statistics together show us that our kids, or at least half of them, now have a phonebased childhood. The rest of this

015talk is about what this phone based childhood is doing to kids and what we can do to roll it back. So to begin thinking about this, I'd like you to imagine tree roots. Think about the way that the roots of a tree grow out into the world. And where they go is is decided by what they encounter. So, in this photograph, you can see a a tree whose roots are going out over some tiles, and wherever water is available, that's where they grow and go down into. Here's an image of a tree that grew up behind a Civil War era tombstone, and the tree ended up growing around the tombstone. And I'd like to suggest that in many ways, our children's minds have now grown around their smartphones. It's clearly the case that all of

016us in using our phones so much, all of us are finding that our bodies are changing. Doctors are finding more cases of neck problems, wrist problems, pinky problems, and this is probably especially an issue if you're young and your bones are growing around the phone as you're holding it. Um, one place where we know that children's brains are growing around their phones is their eyeballs. There's been a a substantial increase in myopia, nearsightedness around the world. And it appears to be because our kids are spending so much time indoors looking at a screen, close up, blue light. And if we would just give them an hour or two a day of time outside, long vision, sunlight, we cure it. Another example of how this phone based childhood is changing bodies is obesity. Obesity rates are

017increasing and they seem to be linked to the big increase in screen time that our kids are now having. In fact, one study found that for every additional hour of social media time, there was a 62% increase in the likelihood of that child developing an eating disorder in subsequent years. So, in a metaphorical sense and almost in a real sense, our kids' brains are growing around their phones. Here's a photo of an actual Gen Z brain. Okay, it's not an actual photograph. I asked the the AI to make it for me. But this is kind of what I think is happening. The anxious generation tells the story of the great rewiring of childhood, which is a tragedy in two acts. In act one, we lose the playbased childhood kind of gradually between around 1990 and

0182010. In act two, the phone based childhood comes storming in very, very quickly, very suddenly between 2010 and 2015. I can summarize the whole book in a single sentence. We have overprotected our children in the real world and we have underprotected them online. In the rest of my talk, I'm going to cover six topics that show what has happened since the great rewiring and then two sections on how we get out of it with collective action. I've already talked about a few of the physical harms. Now, let's talk about mental illness. I first got into this topic because I'm a college professor. I teach students at New York University Stern School of Business. I've been a professor since 1995. I I thought I knew college students, but the students who began arriving around 2014 were

019different. A lot of us noticed this. The students coming in then were a lot more anxious. They were more fragile, more easily harmed or offended. something was different about them. Our intuition was backed up by research a couple years later. This graph shows the percentage of students with various disabilities. In 2012, all the students were millennials and those were the rates. But then Gen Z begins to arrive. Those born 1996 and later. And look what happens. The growth is especially in psychological and psychiatric disorders. In this graph, you can see how various psychiatric disorders have increased since 2010. In all the slides I'm going to show, there's really no trend before 2010. And then you'll see I've highlighted with a kind of a pink box the period from 2010 to 2015 when everything changes. So

020in this slide, you can see that anxiety and depression have always been the the most common reasons why college students come into the mental health center. But you can also see that the levels begin rising in the early 2010s, soon after 2010, and that now almost a quarter of our college students have an anxiety disorder. When we break up these data by generation, what we see is that it only really hit the youngest people. Older people didn't all become depressed in the 2010s and 2020s. It was something that hit Gen Z and a little bit the later millennials. The millennial generation is born between 1981 and 1995. And whenever we look at anxiety and depression, we always find a sex difference. Teenage girls have higher rates of internalizing disorders, uh, anxiety and depression primarily. And

021whatever it is that happened in the early 2010s, it hits girls harder than boys. As you can see in this graph, rates of depression rise very sharply in the early 2010s for girls. There's a real elbow, kind of a hockey stick shape. Boys are up a lot, too. I don't want to make it sound like this is only hitting girls, but boys start at a lower level. So the increase among boys is not quite as dramatic among girls. Around a quarter to a third are having anxiety issues or depression. And we can also see in this graph that CO was really just a blip. Yes, it made things worse, but the rise was baked in. The rise was happening rapidly since around 2012. This was not caused by co. Now some people say, "Oh, come

022on. This is all self-report data. Gen Z is just more comfortable talking about mental illness, and that's good. That would be healthy. But if that were the case, then we would not see the same pattern, the same sudden increases in behavior that was not self-reported. But we do. This graph plots the number out of 100,000 American teens ages 10 to 14 who visited emergency rooms for self harm, mostly cutting and sometimes overdosing on their psychiatric medications. As you can see, no trend for 2010. And then the rate just explodes, at least for girls. And tragically, we find the same basic pattern when we look at suicide, especially when we look at 10 to 14 year olds. What we see is that the rate is way up for both girls and for boys. And this really

023begins in the early 2010s. In fact, there was a 67% increase just from 2012 to 2013. So, this trend shows up in behavior. It's not limited to what teens are saying about themselves. And it's not just us. This is what really shocked me. This is what made me change my research. I was all set to write a book on what social media is doing to democracy. I was going to uh just talk about what it's doing to teens in America in the first chapter. But as I was writing that chapter and I collected all the data from all these other countries, I realized, wait a second, this isn't just an American thing. something is happening to kids around the world, at least around the developed world where we have good data. We find the same

024sorts of patterns in the UK, in Canada, Australia, New Zealand. This graph shows the astonishing rise in self harm rates for British kids, British girls in particular, deduced not from self-report, but from doctor's records. We see the same thing, a sharp sudden upturn. So, that's what's happening to rates of mental illness in many countries around the world. Now, why is this happening? So, we have a global mystery. Since the early 2010s, young people across the developed world are becoming more anxious, depressed, and lonely, more likely to harm and kill themselves, less educated, less able to focus, hence functionally less intelligent. Why is this happening? There's only one theory on the table and no one's even proposed an alternative theory that can explain why it happened internationally and that theory is the great rewiring theory which

025is uh that we lost the play-based childhood gradually and then we gave our kids a phone-based childhood rather suddenly. You can see the loss of the play-based childhood with this simple demonstration. If you're doing this in a large group, I hope you'll Okay. Um, so regardless of, you know, what what news outlet you you watch or listen to or what podcasts you tune into, um, he was everywhere last last spring and really kind of captivated much of the world, um, including many of us here. So, um, so our work this year, so Dr. Height talks a lot about collective action and those are the four groups, uh, that he he speaks about. Uh so schools, parents, tech companies, and and government. Um and you know, obviously there are there are um several of those up

026there that are outside of our control and uh others that are that are very much within it and we can impact. So um our our conversation tonight will mostly be about um the work in schools and also some of the work that we are uh really partnering with um the parents in backing on. All right. So at at both Hagen and Nassau we formed committees. Um there was a um a lot of interest. We have 12 members on the Hagen committee and 12 members on the Nassau committee. uh we really tried to get people uh that have uh varying levels of of experience um in not not just in school but in in life. So we have multiple ages, multiple generations. We have uh someone who's 24 and and is Gen Z um and then

027and then other people who are over 30 years of experience. And um our fir our very first meeting the question that we asked was uh so we've we've all read and and heard about the statistics but let's say the book wasn't written and let's say we didn't know those statistics. What what does it look and feel like at our school? In other words, what does a kindergartner um look like, sound like? um how do they interact with us now compared to years ago? And we kind of created this list with the hope that okay, if this the the perceived problem, how do how do we go about kind of attacking that? And the list that we came up with um were decreases in impulse control, uh problem solving skills. Uh the next one was a

028big one. I I hear that one a lot uh from parents as well. Um how to play or occupy time. In other words, kids don't know how to be bored anymore. And that turns into uh actually that last one, a decrease in creativity, uh struggles with conflict resolution, um both fine motor and uh gross motor skills and curiosity. And the next step was was creating our goals. So a a lot of the book kind of focuses on two main things. uh one being the smartphone and what you can do in schools with the smartphone. Um and we can talk about um kind of our school rule at the elementary level. We felt that wasn't our focal point. Um not a not a it's more than in the past. Um have um smartphones, but our school

029rule of off and away in their book bag or in their cubby or in their locker like at Nassau um pretty much solves that. We don't have kids with phones at lunch. We don't have kids bringing phones outside to recess. Um, so within the school day, we felt like that really should be our focus because that's not the major contributor to some of the things we're seeing. Um, so we kind of focused on these goals. How do we improve mental health? How do we increase student achievement? And how do we increase the probability that students will enter discover mode, which has a definition on the next slide. Essentially, you have two modes that your brain can operate. Discover mode is kind of that optimal state for going out and exploring and curiosity and engagement in

030the world around you. Um they're usually open-minded, curious. They like to explore new adventures. They take on new challenges. It it really is risky play uh taking risk and doing things that are may be outside of your comfort zone. What we have seen and what the book has uh evidenced to us is a lot of kids and a lot of us get into defense mode where we're constantly fearing what the possible threats are around us. So therefore, we don't do something that might be a little more risky. I told the committee and told uh the parent committee this story. Uh I live in a culde-sac kind of neighborhood off of Basser Road and me and my two daughters were they were riding their bikes. The younger one wanted to continue. The older one did not.

031And I was at this crossroads. Who do I make upset? Um, so the older one told me, "I'll just ride home by myself." Now, it wasn't that far, but it was far enough where I I wouldn't be able to see her, and if I continued on the path, I was just going to go with the the three-year-old. Um, so I said, "Okay, after reading this book, I was like, you know what? I'm going to give it a try. Go." And the whole time I'm with the younger one, I'm petrified that if something happens, my wife is gonna kill me. Um, so, you know, like that defense mode, even though I allowed that to happen, and when I got home, she was nicely drawing chalk on the our driveway, it it it still was a fear.

032Um, because we live in a world where those big headlines and those tragic stories do impact us because they're in the they're in our face all day. Um, so, you know, we automatically go to that. that's that's kind of our uh you know um inst instinct if you will to survive. So um we wanted to increase the probability of discover mode within reason at school. So we we focused on those goals. So again we felt the smartphone thing was not really something we were going to focus on. We were just going to continue our rule. Um it's off and away during the school day. Um and we feel that has worked for us. We have seen outside phone issues come in sometimes more than we probably need to but it wasn't during the school day

033that was the problem. So that was a distraction from the learning. However, our focus then shifted to well the alternative to that is an increase in free play. Um and then the whole chapter that he has on what schools should do really focuses on how do we make recess more uh more frequent? How do we make it better? because the the studies are pretty evident that it leads to social emotional development, creativity. It's a stress relief and an emotional regulation tactic that when kids come in from releasing that sort of physical energy, they're more ready to learn. Um, and it's going to help them deal with conflict resolution, build relationships and pure bond. So, that's really where our focus lie um with the committee. All right. So, as you you can imagine with the with

034a committee of 12. Um, so so we we read particular chapters in the book and uh one of the final chapters is is a list of suggestions uh research base that Dr. Height lays out. Uh but we we decided to go farther than that. Um and with the with the 12 committee members, we we took all of his suggested um interventions and we also allowed people to bring our own thoughts and our own ideas that were particular uh to our community and we had a uh a very a very large uh list. Uh some some of them were more uh we talked a lot about the two words that our discussions kind of centered around um were impact and feasibility and you know some things are high impact but very low feasibility and vice versa.

035So um you know we obviously wanted uh the interventions to be high in both. Um and so we wound up in a place where we we we did wind up going with three of uh Dr. Height's suggestions. Um and we'll start off with the first one um which is more recess time. So I think before we kind of um you know talk to you about the plan I think it's important to kind of understand what currently happens. So, you know, at Nassau, we have about an hour uh for lunch and recess and depending on uh what the weather is and depending on uh what's being cooked for lunch and depending on how quick people are moving on a given day. It's really possible that on on some days that a student might get um 15

036minutes of recess and it's also possible that they get 20 25 minutes depending on all of those variables. Um, no one on the committee was satisfied uh with that. However, um we we we we are not blind to all of the obstacles that are that are in the way and um you know at the end of the day you know students students are there. Um, one of the reasons obviously is to learn academics and you know that is a big part of our day. And so we talked about um how do we do both and then it kind of shifted towards um you know different ways that that we could do that but but the biggest the most important part of it and this happened at both Hagen and Nassau um it was unanimous that

037we wanted more and that we wanted to do more than just encourage. So the work that we currently are doing right now with our committee is kind of mapping out at each building which may be slightly different how many more minutes of recess and how we are going to do that at each building but there will be more recess at both buildings. Another um unanimous um decision from the committee was to install some sort of play club. He talks a lot about this in the book and the chapter. Um it's connected to the Let Grow project that he helped found. Um essentially it's opening up the playground either before or after school. We're kind of leaning after um based on you know equity and giving kids an opportunity to be be there and play. Um

038and it's very much an opportunity for families or sorry kids to enjoy the playground in an increased role. Um increased time overtime. So, no screens, no structured sports, just imagination, fun, go. Um, we we kind of tilted our recess rodeo this way this year. Uh, usually I think I spoke to this at at the board meeting, but it's good to repeat like usually recess rodeo was direct explicit instruction on recess games that can be played by the adult leaving about 3 minutes to play. and we decided that's not we're reading this book and we're doing this. Let's flip it. And we said, we're going to post the rules. Go. And it was phenomenal. The kids had a blast. It was the adults were told, you're lifeguards. You only come in if needed. Um, and that

039kind of gave them the autonomy to to figure things out, and they had to dabble in three different areas. So, this play club will kind of function that way. Parents would have to sign up. um they would agree to certain a certain pledge that they know their kids's going to maybe have some conflict or some some resolution skills like they're going to have to navigate this on their own. They're not going to be completely unsupervised. Um but the supervision will be much more like lifeguard. Um we're only going to step in if if there's a dangerous situation there. So um it would be an opt-in after school program, but something that again the logistics of which we need to kind of function through. uh if all 368 students at Hagen want to join, we can't

040do that all at one time. Um but how do we make that equitable and how we make it um you know work for everyone? So that's what we're working to learn. Yeah, just to just to add uh with this section a couple things. Um so as Mr. Suza said it will be open to to all students. But but the other thing which goes against a lot of uh what traditional uh schools do is uh throughout the book um Dr. Height's very emphatic about multiple ages playing together. And we we we we have a habit of um you know all all first graders eat lunch together. All second graders go to recess together. They see each other in the hallway and at assemblies. arrival and dismissal. They really are not having unstructured moments together at all

041at elementary school, at least K2. And so, uh, by design, this play club will have kindergarteners, first graders, and second graders invited and playing together. Um, and I would say also that was a that's something that we are working towards with recess as well to try to set up those extra times to have multiple grade levels interacting together. And then the last thing is the light grow project. So it's it's kind of um an optin curriculum based project where it gives kids task or goals to achieve at home with their families. um and it encourages it encourage those kids to do it on their own and they're structured and leveled towards obviously age but also comfortability with the family. So essentially it would be once a quarter they'd get assignment sheet sent home with all

042listed a bunch of different options of things that they can do that is going to increase their independence, increase their responsibility. Uh, it could be cooking dinner tonight, could be picking out their own snack for school tomorrow, it could be riding their bike to the town store and picking up milk. Um, those type of things that would obviously be scaffolded to age appropriate level and also comfortability level would give them the confidence because independence is something that they struggle with, but also would help build their capacity to do it the more action and more um, practice that they get. So, it gives families that almost that permission to do something a little more hands-off. Um, and it gives those kids something to look forward to to say, "Hey, uh, you know, let's connect. I have

043a Let Go project where I have to meet someone at a park and play." Boom. That that's a great connecting factor. I know, uh, Mr. Lynch's son at Red Hook, um, they do this and he asked Mr. Lynch to go to the movies with a friend by themselves. So, those are and he's in fifth grade. So that that kind of age appropriate. So those things we would scaffold and send home to families. And again, it's optin. We're not trying to preach from a pulpit. We're trying to give you opportunities that are going to help build their resilience. Um because they're going to have to face these problem- solving scenarios on their own eventually. And we can get we can kind of scaffold them to set them up for success. Um so those are our three

044big ones that we're going to focus on and shifts in school. And we did connect with the PTA um and and we have some slides on their role and what they've suggested as shifts with parents too. Just wanted to uh show a quick clip of of the grow project in the words of a of a child which which is I can imagine um Mr. Dusi talked about my fifth grader. He had a teacher who was kind of piloting this. Um, he he could totally be in this in this video and would agree with a lot of [Music] it. Independence is the key to developing happy, welladjusted children and it's one of those things that's a conversation. Do you like doing things on your own? Yeah. And what does independent learning mean? All by yourself. How

045does doing something fun you feel? I feel awesome. It's like big, nervous, strong, proud. Are you ready? Yes. Why do you think it's so hard for parents to let kids do things on their own? Because they think that they don't have the capability to do the things that they can. This is a story I love. All I can do. And it isn't just me. It's her and that will leave you. We'll be good to be independent. It's hard for parents to let go. It's an opportunity for the kids to learn new things. They grow up. It's scary for parents. Doesn't mean to think outside of box. I think Let Grow has been very pivotal in helping kids develop self-esteem at our school. So tell me what you did for the Let Grow project. Our grow

046projects focus on being candid. I did my all by myself. For the net grow project, I made walking my sister home by myself. And what were you? I like to help because it makes me feel like I'm bad. I did a lemonade stand. How much did you make? $50. I made eggs for my family. What kind of eggs? Scramble. And I learned how to use the stove. And I did it for myself. For my school project, I tried to pick up a grasshopper because I've been scared of my whole life and I just wanted to take a swish. I made that. I set up a tent. I went grocery shopping alone. Would you say that you're still afraid of us? Yeah. What's nice about this is that it's tangible to them. I want to try

047to invent something. Everything starts with their ownership, their interest, their development, and then it grows from there. I turned the bushes. I opened a coconut. Leave a poll. It name is Independence. It's something you should know. And once you have a taste of it, you'll want more. And then you'll grow. According to my notes, you'll come wash your mom's car. How'd that go? Yes. It was way too cold outside to wash the outside, so I ended up doing the inside. So, just in case the plan A fails, you always want a backup plan. Independence can be tricky in lots of different ways, but you have to keep on pushing through. It's sort of like a maze. Are you going to get it right the first time? No. No. But does that mean we give up?

048No. No. Would you say you're resilient? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. By opening those conversations about independence, children can dream bigger. I see things on the other side of our fence, of my street, our town. I need to know what happens there. I want to look around. All right. Uh so we're going to shift to the uh the next part, which was us partnering with our PTA and our and our parents. So, uh we we sent out a um a message to all parents inviting uh people to be a part of the a parent anxious generation committee and we've had three three meetings and we have about I would say 25 to 30 regulars uh which is a really large group. There's a there's a ton of passion centered around this and we as actually asked

049the group to read chapter 12 which is what what can parents do and so this slide shows what what Dr. Height has in the book but um what was pretty neat is our spack and kill parent group kind of put together a a spack and kill version of that um and I'll just go through it uh quickly. Uh so the first one is unsupervised free play with kids of mixed ages which we also talked about in school. Um they have already organized uh several events for uh people in the people and and kids and parents to to get together in the in the community. Um you know the next one is um funny but maybe a bit a bit sad. um you know, normalizing unsupervised play in the community. And there were many stories uh

050from people that sat in our our groups that talked about, hey, if I if I let my kid go down my street, someone's calling the police on me because because it's not normalized. And so we talked about kind of really just communicating with with the neighborhood that um to kind of talk about kind of the shifts that are that are happening. Uh we talked about different ways that the school and the parent group can can connect community members. Um there were a there were there was a bunch of passion in different areas. So we actually and we have a large enough group to to um to kind of attack different areas. So uh part of our work will be forming subcommittees. And then the last part um is really the education piece. um you know,

051people aren't going to make any type of of changes or shifts if if they don't understand the purpose and and what they can do about it. And really the uh that committee the the expertise that showed up to that meeting was really incredible. Um we have several parents who have volunteered to do different presentations including things as simple as, hey, how do we put restrictions on our kids' phones? So if you want to have a phone for a middle schooler, how how can we control it? um appropriately so that they can they can use it appropriately. And then the last thing that I'll just I'll just close with is you know this is not uh this is not a spack and kill thing and we view that as a a really good thing. There there

052is a an international kind of movement uh towards this and one of the creators of the let grow project uh with Dr. height is a um he's an evolutionary psychologist out of Boston College. His name is Peter Gray. Uh he he wrote a a book that um is often referenced called Free to Learn. Um and they're actually just as an example of one of the things that we're going to try to connect with through this community on May 17th. Um the exact thing that we are doing here, he is trying to do internationally with parents from different groups. So my hope is our hope is that we can have our spack and kill group uh participate in this and similar things questions. We can have the secondary go question at the end specific. Well just

053one quick question. I mean, so this is all still in the planning stage, right? You mentioned that at the outset. Has have you experimented with any of this? I you mentioned put in the the rodeo, the bike rodeo, but any any other sporadic, you know, experimentation? Um, not not particularly with the three goals that we are are focusing on besides the recess rodeo where we kind of get a little more hands-off. Um I I would say it it's definitely structuring its way towards a shift next year. But um just that one day, just that one morning, we felt there was a difference, you know, in the kids energy and the kids excitement and the fact that they didn't just get two minutes to play the game, they got 15. So um have the kids cognitive?

054No, I I don't I don't I don't think so. I would have heard that. Um but uh I think they enjoyed the recess rodeo product the way we did it this past year. just because they just like going out and playing, you know. So, and teachers do like at both schools do kind of naturally lend itself either on like a fun Friday or a great week to do extra recess. So, they they kind of have that built in in a lot of classrooms and this would just be officialized. Are you next? I am next. Uh, good evening everybody. And um um I'm I don't have slides. Just going to kind of go over things that we've done. Uh a lot of what I'm going to speak to tonight I've spoken to at other times during

055the during the uh during the school year. um you know on a middle school level um social emotional learning which is kind of what the anxious generation covers in a lot of ways is something that has been uh pretty much my main focus uh since 2018 that's when New York State uh introduced the social emotional learning benchmarks and really from there we had started on middle school level to you know look at ways to develop those because we saw how important it was. I think a lot of what uh uh what the principles of the elementary schools talked about and what the data that uh John hate has seen, you know, comes up in middle school. That's when everything starts to come. Yeah. That's when the cell phones, the old cell phones. That's when a

056lot of um uh changes are going on and I think a lot of behaviors that um uh that begin to show themselves later on really start to show in middle school. So I think middle school for for many middle school educators has been a place where this has been evident for a while. Uh the pandemic only um kind of made that even more evident. Uh and we saw that too. But we had seen that you know we we we've been looking at this work since 2018. Um, so I'm just going to go over there's there's uh probably about 15 different things that we that you know are part of what we do to work um at improving mental health, at increasing student achievement and at like I said keeping kids in discovery mode uh and

057keeping them out of defense mode. You know, a middle school is like the golden opportunity to do those things. And uh I feel very proud of Todd Middle School. I think that our middle school um really has a culture of choice where people can do different things, they can try different things, they can be who they want to be vital. Um and and it's a safe school and it's safe. Um you know, anybody who's been through middle school, anytime you ask somebody, oh, you're an educator, you're a principal. Oh, middle school. everybody has that same reaction cuz everybody goes back to their own experiences in middle school. So, um uh but I I I have to say um that you know my experiences in many different districts and schools um I feel very proud the

058work we do. Uh and I feel proud and when I say the work we do the we is is the is the staff, students, parents, everybody involved. Um, so cell phones, which is a big part of the anxious generation's data and book, as you guys know, um, I have been attempting to eliminate cell phones from the middle school for a number of years. Um, we have done a really, uh, a nice job along the way. The students have, um, continued, um, to, uh, respond in good ways. Um, you know, I think uh uh if the governor's new um mandate stands for us, uh the shift isn't that far because what we're doing is pretty is is pretty close to uh to to being uh somewhere else. You know, they keep them on them. We try

059to get them off them. Basically, that's the difference, but we really don't see them during the school day. Uh and it's amazing because they know they can use them from 227 to 235. And it's just it's like watching it's it's incredible. They just all of a sudden like everyone has a phone. It's amazing. I mean it it really is my ring. It's my son FaceTime. Um so but he well he is student teaching. So it's about that. Anyway, uh so anyway, so cell phones have been an important piece of what we've been doing. uh we can continue to do that work, but I think we are ahead of the game and any kind of cell phone mandate that does come down the way, uh I don't really see it being that big of a a

060a hiccup here because we are we are already well down that road. Um recess was a big piece of of what they spoke about and we have a u robust recess here. Uh so recess is like vital to middle school. I know because we haven't had it for the last two days uh because it's rain. So, I'm well aware of how much middle school students need recess and uh they have choice, you know, um like last year we were talking about different ways cuz there's some students who don't want to stay go outside, some students who do and we kind of looked at I I I floated some ideas and parents let me know what they thought of some of those ideas and um but we ended up leaving choice, right? So after they eat,

061they can go to the library. They can go outside the recess. They can stay in the cafeteria. They can go that's when they see counselors. That's when they go see their favorite teacher. That's when they go and just do different things. And I think choice is a big piece. You know, it's not necessarily mentioned um uh in the anxious generation, but I think choice and autonomy and what you want to do and feeling like you do different things. Another thing about our school district is that we have just a variety of different students. We are so diverse. Um, and and I don't just mean like racially, I mean just everything, all kinds of interests and who they are and you know, in middle school it's a very interesting because you get to see it all.

062You know, the comic book kids, the it's just there's just all different kinds of students and everybody, you know, finds their way. And for a middle school, you know, I we really kids are really great at respecting each other. Um, so getting back to recess. So recess is an important piece. Uh, the positivity project has been uh I think a really a vital piece of uh of students allowing students giving students permission to learn about what it means, what positive attributes are. You know, it's easy. you can look at all the stats about what's wrong. Uh sometimes it's hard for people to articulate what's right and what it looks like and how that happens. And positivity project is a is a for me I think it's a it's a great way of um of attacking

063those things in a way that is it just the daily you know it happens every day and the um the students respond. They don't know they're responding because it's kind of like, you know, it's kind of like uh, you know, pebbles in a or rocks in in in water, you know, they get worn down. And that's what the P2 does. It's just every day. It's like it's like a tide coming in and out of them, you know. And um, we did a uh I'm going to share this at a later board meeting, probably not until next school year, but we did a we did a survey of the students. We did a survey of the staff on positivity project uh over the last month and a half. And um first question was to students remember

064this is 10 to 14 year olds um we asked them uh uh do you think learning do you think what we learned in the positivity project is is important and worthwhile and we had we had we had three degrees of agreeing and three degrees of disagreeing. So right but no one can be neutral and 90% of the students were on the agree that they think positivity project is a work problem which you know if I had a number of 70 I would go wow 90%. So just to give you a piece of that. So uh it's just really important. We we have things connected to positivity project. We do positive we do positivity P2 slips which have been great. We've had over at this point now probably over 1,200 of them that have been filled

065out by teachers. Uh and we students get uh get a prize and book bag and a staff member gets a parking spot near near the building. Um we also you know I was just looking at it. We have a sitebased team. Today we were discussing the positive we discussing P2 the the teacher survey and uh when students have discipline issues that they you know lunch they might have lunch attention we have them fill out a posit a P2 reflection uh we had um you know there's 122 in all over the school year and those kids so in other words when they're when something happens we're asking them hey look at look at your P2 traits talk about what you know now those things wouldn't have happened in the in the degree they are without without

066the positivity function. Um AVID is another important thing. You know, we've talked about AVID um at at board meetings before. Um the we're exposing kids to uh trips to colleges. They go they they they speak at assemblies. Um we just had uh the high schools go on a canoe trip. Um it's just a way to really expand what what students can do. um give them a piece of of what their future will look like. Um and it's just a great program. Uh music, the music program I've talked about here is tremendous. Um I don't know if there's a lot of data about it, but um I know that students involved in music, students involved in sports, students involved in after school activities are uh it is tremendous help to them in practically any way you

067can think of. I mean a million of them. And uh and even though those are organized sports, um as any coach will tell you, there's a lot of disorganization in between the organization, that is all really important stuff. Anybody who's been anybody who was an athlete knows what they're talking about. You know, I wrestled and played high and played football in high school. And um you know, those memories of of of those times is real important. uh and it did a lot for me of learning um how to interact with people and and um just a lot of great things that you know that that I think the answers generation thinks uh we need to bring back more uh I mentioned clubs and activities you know and I've had you know I do uh uh

068board meetings on those I don't I can't compare us to numbers I don't know what other schools look like but I I will tell you that if you look at the percentage of students who stay after school here involved in something and compared other schools. I think those numbers are through the roof here at Todd. You know, at 400 students, we have anywhere from 150 to probably 275 kids staying here every day. Um, you know, and even though Fridays are supposed to be like, you know, they, you know, they stick around. Uh so and a very an important piece of after school which kind of really uh gives credence to what uh the answers generation is saying is is the so from at 3:00 after school officially ends but the buses don't pick the students

069up till 3:45. So that 45 minutes is a real uh interesting time because that's when the students really have uh time to be with their friends and it's unstructured. I mean, we're supervising them, but you know, last Friday they were h we were having fun in here cuz it happened to be all sixth graders because of the eighth grade trip. So, it was 13 sixth graders, but they were having such they were having fun. I mean, and they were having fun throwing somebody's shoe around. I mean, that was their idea of what it and they were like this was like I mean, you would have thought that I like, you know, gave them like the greatest treat or something. They're like, "This has been so much fun." I told them, "Don't tell Mr. Cormier. I

070let you do this." Um but it but really you saw them they were just lit up and a lot of and even though you know supervising uh because you know we we supervise them uh could be sometimes a challenge but they but it's an important time they a lot of them are they staying after school and getting extra help? Yeah. But are they staying because they want those 45 minutes with their friends? Is that what they're really staying for? Yes. Just and we know that and we don't make it a point of All right. Just keep staying. You're good. Uh we have um our counseling department is really you know we have a you know we we've gotten a full-time social worker overall last year and it's been a great addition. So our counselors do

071an excellent job. You know Dr. Molford and I were speaking to a couple of them today. Uh you know it's huge. Uh you know uh in middle school there's just there's so much to process. Everything is extremely big. no matter what it is, it's very big in the kids' minds. And you know, we have the bandwidth to help them. And I think that's a really important piece. Um, and we also we give them strategies, the council's given strategies that they can use that the the students uh know each other, they help each other. Um, and we see that every day in the, you know, because the other big unstructured time is during uh lunch and um, again, it's I think the students do a great job. there's a lot of um just just a lot

072of interaction um between them because it's really because I know because they don't see each other that much outside of school and this is time when they can all get together um you know there's the and at middle school there's also a balance because you know that you know talking about like free time and things like that then on the other side you know the reason why everybody got very you know tight was because you know things would happen sometimes that was not Okay, you know there's bullying uh there was all kinds of things that would happen. So finding the balance because at the same time so we have to so it's we really need to have we have to teach explicitly teach how to interact in health and that's what you do and then

073you and then when they you know and when they when they when they miss the mark you we've told them about it. So it's not like oh really I'm supposed to it's like we talk about these things. So, so, uh, for for us, it's a real it's a real balance to do that. Um, but you know, there's other things that you don't see behind the scenes that are important, too, like, uh, making sure students are here, right? That's a big part because a lot of students, uh, especially if they have addictions to their phone or other devices, they don't sleep and then they don't come to school because they don't sleep. So, we've got to work on that. So, the attendance piece is an important piece. And there are times where we employ officer Dowy

074to help us out with things to make sure because and the parents uh they they they uh they're grateful that we're trying to do that. Uh we have uh you know our and all schools have this you know but we have our our multi-tered systems of support MTSS that's a really important thing that that's not just for academics but it's kind of covers everything. it, you know, used to be response to intervention, but that is a place where we talk about students. We talk about what's going on with them. Uh the team talks about strategies to do things, you know, how we're going to handle things. Uh we think things out and it's important uh to do that. We have um our our counsel, you know, our our counselors also work with uh the seventh

075grade on um different learning styles, trying to prepare them for for high school. So there's just a lot going on that I think supports the work that the anxious generation speaks of. Um we do socials. So we have um you know those are big parts of middle school student school student school student school student school student school student school's lives. We have socials um sometimes they're outdoors sometimes they're indoors. Uh we do lots of trips. We are doing one starting tomorrow morning um when we go to Washington DC. And um those are just important pieces of of what we do. Um so you know thinking about overall looking at um how we handle trying to support mental uh um healthy ment uh mental health, how we support uh student achievement and how we support that

076discovery mode. Um I think is uh it's very holistic. Uh it's like I said it's kind of everything that we do that isn't academic and it's almost like because of those things those academics can take can happen. uh because anytime we've seen almost all the time that we see academic issues um they are related to these other things um for for the most part because most of those early most of those have been taken care of the academics with early interventions in the elementary school. So what we see when we see things in in middle school that are kind of keeping students back, it usually has to do more with uh this this um and I think that covers yeah ju just to finish I would say and this is this happens for teachers uh

077it happens for principles happens for anybody who's who's dealing with with education is there's always the concept of tight and loose when you got to be tight and when you got to be loose with things and that's kind of like getting back to the balance and that's what we try to do. So we try to we try to balance those things. Uh there's some things uh that where you know you get my newsletter that you know we go over things we explain what right is we explain very plainly like what you should not be doing you know we're very tight about that like you can't be doing this but then there's the looseness of be if you if you understand those things then you're free to be able to enjoy yourself and grow knowing like

078what's healthy and what's not helping and I think we do a good job of of trying to explain that to students in addition to you know you I haven't even spoken of all the academics that are involved, which is the main goal of what we do here. Um, and all that information, all the information I've shared is to is to support those goals. So, thank you. Question. Good. Okay. I guess it's a good thing you were approved tonight, so you can give your principal is on right. Do you want this on? Is it not on, Captain? No. Here. So he's there. All right. Uh before I begin that presentation, I want to go over a couple dates. Uh we have our two concerts, Monday the 19th and Wednesday the 28th and also our prom at

079Billorgazi is on Friday the 30th. It's just for everybody to mark them on their calendars. Um, do you have your click? Yeah. So, I don't want to be repetitive uh with some of the things that we've been talking about. So, I apologize. Part of the presentation is some background information, but uh when we were starting to have these conversations about this book, Exeneration at the high school, uh it didn't come as a big surprise to most of us. We've been dealing in secondary with mainly cell phone uh issues for quite some time. Um so we tried to think about ways uh that we could change some of the culture and you know I do think societywise we are getting there. Um, even in my own life, I, you know, I'm a parent of a four-year-old

080and, um, we're just trying to figure it out like most people are, but I pulled my phone out before and and my daughter whispered to me, "Poes are bad for your brain." That's one of the things we we we have to live with them. And they there there are many people that would argue they're great and and socially it makes uh people more connected. And there is truth to that. But I think uh we have to start teaching from a very young age this information that we are now just kind of recently discovering. Um so with that being said, our conversations shifted pretty quickly to um we're aware we're we're aware of this, but what are we specifically seeing in the classes academically, so emotionally um and and what is it all about? What are

081they actually doing? what is what is technology actually doing to the students? We know that it's um creating some uh issues with um you know um I'm drawing I'm sorry some depression anxiety we know all that but academically we haven't really addressed that either. So, I do some work in Putnham, Westchester overseas, and this is back in the summer. Uh had a conversation with an administrator down there who brought up uh the book Still on Focus. Uh why you can't pay attention and how to think deeply again. And when bringing it up with teachers, it was that was a big part of what we see is a huge issue with our students is the ability to focus, the ability to uh just sit and pay attention and do a simple task without having to multitask.

082And if you can remember, you know, 10 15 years ago, everybody had on their resume, I'm a great multitasker tasker. Um, and that was the first thing he said in interviews to try to get a job to show that you are someone that has a lot of skills. And now we're kind of shifting to, well, let's focus on one task and see if we can actually get through that and and can you commit to something and produce quality. Uh so we decided as a committee in our community connections committee to read this and try to look at the intersectionality of anxious generation and stolen focus and how uh we can kind of address things uh from a pedagogical level in the in the classroom. So what this presentation is there's some tangible things that you'll

083see but a lot of this is what philosophically we are incorporating into the teaching like the teachers all recognize that these are the issues that we're seeing and uh most of our lessons are driven with this understanding uh through through the readings here. So just want to preface this with that. So just an overview, it's a comparison of the anxious generation and stolen focus by Johan Hari. Uh what is spack and kill done? What will we continue to do or what are we looking into to uh change some protocols that we have in place? Um I tried I wanted to highlight some things and I know this is a little bit repetitive so I don't have to go into great detail but the defining feature uh is anxiety. Um there's a pressure to succeed, a

084constant bombardment of information, uh changing expectations and I know uh this is what social media and technology is doing to individuals. It's making them compare themselves with individual achievement, comparing themselves with others and it's also creating a lot of fear of the unknown, fear of falling short, uh inadequacy. Uh then on the flip side what the other principles here spoke about uh modern parenting you know we live in a world that is much different from 20 years ago. So it's hard to really try to be that exact type of parent but we we want to set high expectations. Um but with that uh a lot of us are sheltering our children from failure and stress. We don't want them to experience ACEs because we've also been educated on that. And a lot of the times

085when you be when you become inundated with some of this type of research and science like adverse childhood experiences and the information we're getting from generation, you become kind of uh you've had enough of it. But you have to remember that uh that just means you're pretty highly educated at that point and you've seen it so much and you've been exposed and now we want to talk about what we're doing to change it. Um, so you know, parents using technology as pacifier. We've talked about all this before. So this is the this is anxious generation in a nutshell. But stolen focus takes that concept and then shifts to well what what is causing the issue. And what uh the research is showing is that it's really driven by focus. And when we look at our

086students today, that is the highlight of what uh most of our issues are. If you separate the social piece from the academic piece, it is the ability to focus. Um it's deteriorated due to uh pervasive influence of technology uh constant digital distractions, doom scrolling as they call it and our ability to concentrate for extended periods uh is diminishing. So what large tech companies are I I wanted to bring this up to just kind of from an educational standpoint just to put out like what is actually happening. Large technology companies are exploiting exploiting psychological vulnerabilities. They're using algorithms. Uh I'm trying to talk directly to parents. They're using algorithms if they're not aware to trap you trap to trap children into doom scrolling. Um that's that is how these companies are making money and they are

087um kind of they're saying that that's creating uh community but it's also continuing revenue and continuing with engagement. So that's terrible. So um what's that what that is leading to is a group of beings that are over stimulated. They're constantly looking for stimulation because of the addiction to the phone. Uh loss of focus not only impacts the individual but the structure in the society. uh people are less able to engage in thoughtful reflection and deeper understanding of the world which is at the crux of a high school curriculum. That is our end goal. We are trying to produce engaging thoughtful reflection and deeper understanding of the world. This goes into um the point of our community connections committee is to try to get people try to get kids to understand each other more. Again where

088the tech companies would come into places they would say that we are helping people understand the world better by being socially connected through technology. So it is a pretty vicious cycle. Um but I want to shift back to the attention. So this is a little bit direct instruction from the book. uh what um Joan Hari describes is there's four layers of attention and this is something that we will look to incorporate into the education in the school to show students really identify how attention and attention spans work. And if you can put a label or identify what it means, it helps a child, it helps an adult uh identify with that. It helps them understand this is spotlight and this is not like the scientific term but this is this author's uh understanding of trying

089to describe what attention is and spotlight focusing on immediate actions narrowing your focus which is when you're in an academic setting. What our teachers are trying to get students to do is focus on the immediate task. Um and then when you expand that into Starlight you focus on longer term goals. Of course, that's going to be, you know, your four fouryear goals as a student in the school. How can you become a a great community member here? You lose sight of your longer term goals if you become distracted. Uh daylight focus focus that makes it possible for you to know what your longerterm goals are. And stadium lights is our ability to see others, hear each other, and work together to formulate uh and fight for collective goals. Um so all of that is layers

090of our ability to pay attention and it starts with a very simple task in front of you and that is our challenge and that is our charge for our students in the school. Um this is just kind of you know if you looked at that circle as a child today you know our anxiety and our focus uh constant stream constant stream of information, endless notifications, hyperconnectivity results in a loss of focus. Needing to stay connected, needing to be constantly on, constant comparisons results in a very high level of anxiety, a high level of feeling not good enough. So main points from the two uh topics anxious generation still in focus technological environments we inhabit inhibit are largely responsible for negative outlooks and our hyperconivity not only makes people anxious but actively undermines their ability to

091concentrate leading to a vicious cycle. So what do we do? Our goal to disconnect and reclaim a space for uninterrupted thought and relaxation. Of course, we are going to look at uh government mandates and see what's happening with technology. But at the core, what our teachers want is to create uninterrupted thought in their classrooms with each other, with the students. um and create environments where there is relaxation, where there is an opportunity to take in information and to learn together without all of this minutia in our heads about what could possibly be going on on our devices in our pockets. Um so some things we've discussed and we have implemented establishing clear cell phone policies a big one in the high school. Uh last year we started having this conversation. We started talking about using

092caddies in the classroom. Uh banning phones, basically banning cell phones. Um this year over the summer, we made it a uh very clear instructional directive that there are no phones allowed in classrooms during instructional time. We do see them in study halls. We do see them in cafeteria, lunch periods, in the halls. Uh and then if there's teacher discretion. So, we do want to expand on that a little bit more. Um, especially with hallways and and study halls because we want to bring study halls back to an academic place. And, you know, unfortunately, a lot of times a study hall becomes a time to socialize and, you know, some kids choose to use that time to get some work done. Kids choose to use that time to be on their phones and socialize. U, we

093want to try to tighten that up. Uh we want to make expectations consistent across the classrooms and schoolwide which we have done. We've a lot of feedback we've had. We're not having a ton of issues with phones during academic time. Uh which is a it's it's not just a uh a high school thing that we have to take credit for. There's a bigger conversation going on in the home. Um parent involvement that students are more willing to accept that too. Uh phone lockers. We're talking about if we do have state mandates coming out, how are we going to facilitate that? We would most likely try to use what we already have in place, our lockers. There's been a shift with students today. They don't necessarily use their lockers a lot, especially in the locker rooms,

094which we constantly remind students to do. Um, but we want to use some of the uh different solutions we have existing before we reach out into beyond pouches, those types of things. Um, incorporate tech-free periods. We pretty much do that throughout the day. Uh, but you know, we could identify more specifically what those look like. Using technology to limit technology, we use GoG Guardian. We use apps like that. That's why we have the Chromebooks. So students when they are using uh technology for essay typing or things like that we do monitor it on go guardian AI is a big conversation we're having now too and how to uh juggle the the the greatness of that with also making sure that students uh develop their own thought before they rely on uh artificial intelligence. um educating

095students about digital wellness is something that we are going to look into incorporating uh within the next year to come. So digital wellness is is the crux of this and that goes into kind of the when I when I wrap this up but we can't pretend like phones and social media do not exist. Uh we we may want to in a perfect world but that's not the world that we live in. So we have to create uh children and young adults that can have a healthy relationship with the technology so that they can use it to better themselves. Um that's we will invite guest speakers run workshops but digital wellness is definitely something that is going to be incorporated into the instruction in the classroom. Um, another one, in my opinion, the most important thing

096on this list is model responsible use. Every rule that we have, uh, we expect students to abide by, we should be modeling that as staff. Uh, so we should be modeling responsible use of our phones. Uh, sometimes I'm walking in the hall and I'm just trying to pop my head into classrooms and I find myself checking my phone and I I say to myself, I'm not modeling responsible use. it shouldn't be I should be finding a more appropriate time to use this um because I don't want the students to see exactly what I'm asking them not to do. Um and that's in my opinion one of the most important things and that goes for parents too. We have to model that at home. Uh student involvement we have been incorporating them into the conversation. Uh

097we are looking at letting them design awareness campaigns because there is a lot of buyin from students. they are recognizing it um at this age that it is an unhealthy thing and of course parental involvement uh making sure our parents are involved and they're receiving instruction. This, in my opinion, is parental involvement. And that's part of the reason why I'm doing a little bit of a lecture here with some information just to uh just to kind of give them some foundation uh to where some of this research is and some bullet points and some factual data that they can go to without looking at through pages and pages of of information. So, um Spack and Kill High School's focus moving forward. I think it's an appropriate night too. Uh again, thank you everybody for the

098appointment. Um this would be my vision uh for this particular topic and I know that the staff supports it. Digital literacy, mindfulness, time management and empathy for others. Uh I do want to read a little statement that our community connections group developed. So, as we continue to integrate technology into every facet of our lives, it is essential that we as educators and leaders recognize both the benefits and the challenges that come with it, particularly in relation to student cell phone usage. While these devices are a powerful tool for learning and connection, we cannot ignore the growing evidence that excessive or unmanaged use can negatively impact our students social emotional well-being and academic performance. And it goes in the academic performance piece we believe specifically tied to focus and attention. Um, many of our students report

099feeling increased anxiety, distraction, and social pressure connected to constant connectivity in social media. Academically, we have observed the persistent access to phones during instructional time can interfere with focus, engagement, and the development of deep learning habits. These concerns are real and they deserve our thoughtful attention. However, simply banning or avoiding the conversation around cell phones may not be the solution. These devices are an integral part of the world our students are growing up in, and it will be vital to their future personal and professional lives. Therefore, it's our responsibility not only to set appropriate boundaries within the school environment, but also to teach students how to manage their digital lives in a healthy, balanced, and intentional way. Our goal is to of course accept state law and guidance, but to also partner with families in

100the community to guide students in developing responsible habits that support both their well-being and their learning. By fostering digital literacy, mindfulness, and time management, we prepare our students not just to succeed in school, but to thrive in a connected world. So, um, just going back to this, this is kind of a map of where we're headed. uh some of it we are we have already implemented as far as just expectations for the devices but we really want to explore and go deeper into the digital wellness piece and the education and modeling that in the school with some concrete tangible things. So uh and we're just asking for parent support in that too. We have had a lot of uh feedback from parents. Many of them are opposed to banning of phones and our staff and

101our teachers do see uh why that why that makes sense. Many of our staff are parents themselves who believe that too. So there is definitely an argument for both sides. Um, we will respect and honor whatever laws come down from the state, but uh we will not forget that this this is our charge um to make sure that students can be healthy with it and grow into members of society that that that move us for forward and in in a healthy way, not in an unhealthy way to deal with it because it's not going away. Thank you. Thank you. Any questions for the whole Thanks. Just a quick question uh for Ken. You referred to the community connections committee. Who was on that committee? How'd that come about? Did that pre-exist this process? Uh yeah.

102So it started with our DEI conversations. There's about 10 10 to 15 staff on it. Kind of flows though because depending on different events, different topics, we get other interests and some come and go. Um it's it's like an ambiva. So kind of an ad hoc committee. Yeah. Yeah. So we just kind of felt like if this is something about our school culture, what type of vehicle can we use to start that conversation? So we went to that place. Yeah. Thanks. I'd like to thank you all for such a thorough presentation and just such an issue, but I I know I look over at you all the time with this stuff. Um the difficulty for the parents, for the kids, for educators or administration. I mean, it's just I I can't even put it into

103words that are any better than what you all explained to us. So, um we just we do need to work on it, though, but that's what I know. And um I think we we've got a a good track starting set up here and we appreciate all those efforts establishing that. You know, I I would thank I would just say thank you as well. I mean, I think my microphone there only a few of us here. So, you can hear me anyway. Uh I'm looking forward really to, you know, uh to next year when some of this that you've been really working on and thinking about so so uh effectively is uh rolled out to the students. I think such an important part of this is encouraging students to be engaged and self-reflective themselves about this.

104I mean, it's on their minds increasingly. I see that certainly at, you know, the higher ed level. And I think students are really in their own way eager uh to to think more about this and to be reflective about how their own use of these technologies has affected them because I think they're feeling it in so many ways. So I think that'll be just a really exciting time to be able to engage the students a little bit more uh directly and and you know especially at the younger levels and thinking about how uh you know these things are affecting them because it's uh it's that way in which you know their uh behavior is going to be um you know engaged and affected uh for the long term and I think our society's at a

105point where uh it behooves everyone you know, to just address these issues in a in a proactive and thoughtful way and I'm excited to see uh younger students be um pointed in that direction. So, should be an exciting time next year seeing how the students respond to this. Okay. So that will bring us to 3.01 board correspondence. We did have those two letters I had mentioned earlier. Um and we appreciate both candidates for putting themselves out there and volunteering for the host of this seat. 8.02 is comments from the public on non-aggenda items. We're here for that at this point. 8.02 comments from the board. So, I just want to shout out the crew and the cast of Little Mermaid was fantastic. It's like Broadway. It was It was good. If you missed it, you

106know, you missed it show. So, it was good. Uh, I just want to congratulate the um Youth the Parks students that, uh, went this past Friday. Um I believe band got first, orchestra got first and chorus got third. So again they did phenomenal. So ditto on Little Mermaid. That was amazing. It was good. It was phenomenal. I was at the Friday show. Um and and also just shout out to the 7475 class for all the lighting. Yeah, I thought that really came out excellent. Um, I was amazed with the talent. Um, I still like to ask them if they meant to break the candlestick on Friday shows that was a improv that they ended up doing. It was awesome though. Um, and you know, just the the fact that we had youngsters all the way

107up to the seniors and nosta youngsters were there. Um, It was just it was just a great moment and just seeing all the kids that were helping out and being part of it, the cast, the crew, pit, everybody just amazing job. I can't say enough. I really can't. It was just I I went away from it thinking the same thing. So that was as good as going to a Broadway show. Phenomenal. So kudos to all them. uh 8 in comments from the superintendent. So, a few things echo the Little Mermaid was amazing. Um the lights uh were fantastic. We also the district purchase a light board to help control them. So, there was things that were done in water look and would not have been able to have been done. So you know that'll be

108attention spotlight on the auditorium that's helped us you know trying to pick some things to really enhance that kudos to the sold out. We were sold out at night there was any people on Saturday when I was there who wanted to get in sold out. There were a few people that didn't show up and even those seats go. People were there. I've never seen that before. Uh and I just kind of wanted to wrap up uh our presentation tonight. So uh just want to thank uh our principles and everyone in this room. You know, this is this was a district focus this year on focus, right? Uh district goal. Uh so you could see obviously the work uh that was put into by all of us talking and to see it come to light today.

109I think we talked about when are we going to present, one are we going to go that kind of showcase, you know, all the work we're doing. Uh so just just proud, you know, proud of of the four individuals who presented tonight. I know how hard it was to stay focused on this. Uh no pun intended. Uh but just you know uh and having you present which we do normally just to see the great things that are happening to see parents to see who watch the board meeting we do a lot um but sometimes don't have the ven so tonight was definitely that um I use the word alignment a lot and I think when we stay aligned we get more done And you probably you heard some things being said today and I think

110Dan when he spoke he talked about P2 Abid you know a lot of things you've heard um if you noticed they all that's what keeps us able to to move forward and to really kind of explode with some of these things. So proud to see that. Um, I think also we saw something that we we talked about a lot here is this growth mindset and really look at the work that we've done uh in the four buildings or even look at like the let grow project that's all growth mindset um and you know staying line for that has really uh I think been key for us in growth and then really just the the planning that went into this year. I think we really talked about setting the stage. I think the book talks and

111and Ken finding storming focus which really was something really tailored to the high school. Um just just getting having the conversations, building the awareness um and having the forethought that you guys had to change some of the cell phone procedures uh ahead of ahead of time to really kind of get us going. And I don't know who said it, but you said it. It seems like the students get it and there's a little shift in society and don't sell your guy don't sell yourself short. That's because of all the work done uh in order to make people understand and just who would have said no cell phones or this or or that a few years ago, a year ago, a year and a half ago, it would have been different. But we built the awareness

112and that's where this book has really helped us. Um, you know, and there's pros and cons. I think you probably find some things in the book that that maybe don't agree with whatever, but it just gave us a framework to have the conversation and really to talk about what we are seeing, not necessarily what sees us talk about what we are seeing. And to close kind of what we talked about uh Eric and I were abroad and you see that they're talking about the same stuff. Um just powerful powerful stuff. So thank you everyone for your presentation tonight and we're done. All right. Thank you. So that 10.01 motion to adjourn the meeting. Second, the second goes in. See you next time.