Board of Education Meeting - June 2, 2026

001Calling to order the West Hartford Public Schools Board of Education regular meeting for Tuesday, June 2nd, 2026 at 7.07 p.m. Imani, can you please call the roll? Ms. Merriman? Here. Ms. Yagaloff? Present. Mr. Gagnon? Here. Ms. Herz? Here. Mr. Wiener? On his way. Ms. Bleich? Here. Mr. Goldman? Here. Kayla Jha? Here. Bridget Feeney? Here. Bridget, can you please lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right. So this is going to be a very exciting agenda with a lot packed into it and also our final meeting of the 2025-2026 school year. So looking forward to covering a lot of ground. Our next item is

002a revision to the agenda order, which we do not have, but we do have a special agenda item in the form of a school recognition. And I don't want to steal the thunder from our superintendent, so I'll turn it over to Mr. Vicinus to let us in on what we will be recognizing tonight. Absolutely. Well, I won't give away too much, but it's going to be a pleasure and an honor to once again... Welcome Miss Tiffany Cowett to the podium. She is the Assistant Executive Director of the Connecticut Association of Schools. She was here at our last meeting where she recognized the Conard High School Building leadership team for Conard being named Connecticut Association School High School of the Year for Connecticut. We are equally honored. and very, very excited by another announcement that she

003has for our Hall High School Principal, Ms. Sarah Isaacs, who's also here. So I'm going to turn it over to Tiffany. Thank you so much. I'm excited to see what's next. Like, why am I coming back again? Loving West Hartford. One of the greatest challenges in educational leadership is stepping into a principalship for the first time. It requires balancing confidence with humility, urgency with patience, and a willingness to learn. The most successful first-year leaders understand that leadership isn't about having all the answers. It's about building trust and bringing people together for a shared purpose. The Connecticut Association of Schools William Czekolowski Outstanding First-Year Principal Award recognizes a leader who's demonstrated exceptional promise and impact during their first full year. Earning this honor is a rigorous process. It's similar to our school of the year process.

004So the selection committee, comprised of principals from across the state, reviewed some rather lengthy nominations to advance just two finalists, followed by a half-day site visit to interview parents, students, staff, and administrators. Through that review, a powerful theme emerged. Sarah Isaacs has fostered an environment where staff feel supported. Parents feel connected and students feel valued. The committee was deeply impressed by Sarah's ability to build trust while maintaining high expectations, listening to her staff, and ensuring students feel known and encouraged. This is simply who Sarah seemed to be every day. But true leadership is tested in times of crisis. When the community was hit with a tragedy a few months ago, That already never wavering effort continued. Parents, staff, and students described her to our committee as a rock, a solid presence who supported each member

005of the community in the way that they needed it most. Sarah, can you join me? For your intentional leadership, your profound care for your school, and the incredible impact that you have made in such a short time. The Connecticut Association of Schools is proud to name you our 2026 Outstanding First Year Principal. Thank you so much to the Connecticut Association of Schools for this opportunity and for the incredible honor of being named the Connecticut Outstanding First Year Principal. I would also like to thank the West Hartford Board of Education for your continued support. and Superintendent Vicinus and the executive team for your unwavering encouragement, your leadership and mentorship throughout this journey. Your support has meant more to me than I can fully express. To my administrative team and support staff at Hall, thank you for

006your dedication, care, and excellence you bring each and every day. We could not serve our students, teachers, and families at such a high level without your hard work and commitment. And to our teachers, thank you for everything you do for our students. The care, talent, and dedication you bring to this work is extraordinary, and I am incredibly proud to work alongside each and every one of you. To our students and families, it's truly an honor to lead Hall High School and to serve this community. We never take for granted the trust you place in us each day. Thank you for sharing your amazing children with us and allowing us to be part of their journey. This process was such a gift because it gave me the opportunity to reflect deeply on my time at Hall

007and in West Hartford and to have meaningful conversations with so many people about the impact Hall has had on their lives and the lives of their students. Those conversations reminded me just how special this community truly is. I also want to thank, and they just walked in right on time, my family, especially my husband and my children who are here tonight. Thank you for your love and support which allow me to fully show up as both a principal and as a mom. While being a principal is an incredible privilege, being your wife and mom is the greatest joy of my life. I would also like to recognize my parents who are here tonight who are both lifelong educators teaching at the elementary and high school level. So much of what I am as a leader

008comes from watching their dedication to students, their belief in the power of education for all, and their deep commitment to serving community. Their example is my inner compass that guides me every day. Hall High School is a truly special place. It is a community deeply committed to its students and constantly striving to bring out the best in each person who walks through its doors. I feel a tremendous sense of responsibility and gratitude to support the work happening both inside and outside the classroom and to help ensure that every student has access to meaningful opportunities, both during their time at Hall and long after they leave. THANK YOU AGAIN FOR THIS INCREDIBLE HONOR. I AM PROUD TO REPRESENT HALL HIGH SCHOOL AND WEST HARTFORD AS WE CONTINUE THE IMPORTANT WORK OF SUPPORTING EVERY CHILD EVERY DAY.

009THANK YOU. I'M GOING TO LET SARAH GET HER HUGS HERE. AND WHILE SHE DOES, I'M JUST GOING TO... say to her family that's joined and to everyone here, Sarah is the epitome of leadership. Her humbleness, her wisdom, her vision, her caring. The award is so well deserved. We are so very, very proud of you. And I'm so excited. for this presentation to our board and to our community. Just another shining example of the excellent leaders and educators that we have here in the district. And thankful to the Connecticut Association of Schools for coming out and making these presentations twice and making this possible, something that we just know that this is a very special community. And thanks to Sarah and many like her. So thank you. So, and just to layer on as a representative

010of the board, I haven't had the privilege of having my children at Hall. We're on the other side of town. But every encounter I've had with you, Sarah, has been just immediate magnetism and a sense of ease and comfort in the way that you lead and confidence. And then just authenticity that just, you know, is how you lead every single day. And it obviously came through this recognition. And so we're just really proud. to have you as part of our community and can't wait to see where you're going to take things next for Hall. So thank you. And one more round of congratulations for Sarah. And we were going to take a one-minute recess just to let you kind of connect with your family. Before we do that, one comment. I just want to take

011the opportunity to congratulate you two. I'm going to get teary-eyed. You know, especially as a mom of so many kids, it takes so much effort to just show up every day. Never mind. Show up as I know you do. And I'm lucky enough to be on the Hall side. And it's not often that I feel such comfort and happiness to know, you know, that one day my kids may benefit from your leadership. And I just wanted to say thank you so much for all that you do. You make the community what it is. And I want everyone to also realize it's even more baller that she got this, considering West Hartford already got high school of the year, principal of the year, excuse me, for Conard. So I think it even sets her apart even

012further for all that she's done. So I just wanted to one more time say thank you so much. You are amazing, and we are very lucky to have you. Latoya Yagaloff. It's on the phone. Yes. Okay, great. Sarah, can you hear me? We can all hear you. Great. I just want to say, Sarah, Queen Sarah, you are amazing. I have had the benefit of having my baby at your school, very similar to Jen in terms of feeling emotional. Sarah, your leadership, the leadership at your school has literally saved my child's life. Saved my child's life. And so I know firsthand that when you make the commitment to go into that building every day, it's because you view all of those kids as your kid. And I can say that I know I am so blessed

013to have my child here with me today because of your leadership and your team and the wraparound support that you have provided for me as a parent to not feel ashamed to ask. for help and then just the unwavering support from your team to have high supports in place that also match the high expectations. And I am forever so grateful to you. And I will always be grateful to you for what you have given to me and my family. So thank you. So now we will take a one minute recess. So I mean, it could go on for hours. So and yeah, tough act to follow. So so thank you, Sarah and your family. If you want to take a minute and do some a photo. I'm not sure how you want to. Paul, did

014you have a photo opportunity? So we'll we will reconvene in three minutes at 723. I have my parents. Thank you. All right. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Yeah, that is good. Mom. Thank you. Calling the meeting back to order at 725 p.m. So coming down from that very celebratory occasion, we will be moving into public communications. Just as a reminder, this is a time for the Board of Education to hear from the public regarding your thoughts, questions, concerns, or suggestions. When you come to the podium, please state your name and town of residence. Each individual is allowed three minutes to speak. Please be mindful of Amani, who will hold up a yellow card when you have one minute remaining in your time and a red card

015when your time has expired. At that point, please conclude your comments and respectfully take your seat. Please note that we are actively listening while you make your remarks. However, it is a Board of Education policy that we do not respond to comments as they're being made. We will begin tonight with comments on agenda items. And as a reminder for this evening, our agenda items are a recommendation to amend the, to revise the 26-27 budget, revised policies, a second reading, school meal rates, ratification of the local 818 AFSCME Council for AFL-CIO Cafeteria Managers Contract. RATIFICATION OF THE WEST HARFORD FEDERATION OF EDUCATIONAL SECRETARIES CONTRACTS AND APPROVAL OF THE FINANCIAL REPORT FOR THE PERIOD ENDING APRIL 30, 2026. LASTLY, THE APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES FROM THE MAY 19, 2026 BOARD OF ED MEETING. SO FOR AGENDA ITEMS,

016WE HAVE FOUR INDIVIDUALS SIGNED UP AND WE WILL START WITH GETCH DEARIES AND APOLOGIES IF I MISPRONOUNCE ANY NAMES. THAT'S ONE OF THE POLICIES FOR TONIGHT. SO YOU'RE RIGHT ON POINT. GOOD EVENING, EVERYONE. MY NAME IS GATES. I LIVE IN WEST HARTFORD FOR THE PAST 12 YEARS. I'VE BEEN IN THIS PODIUM LIKE FOUR YEARS AGO, JUNE 2022. SO EXACTLY FOUR YEARS AGO FOR THE MASCOT CHANGE. AND THE RESIDENTS AND COMMUNITY AND THE STUDENT POPULATION. and the Native American communities, they all came in. We thought the Board of Education would listen to us, but it didn't happen. So that was disappointing to me. Anyway, now I'm here to oppose the policy 8100 because it is, in my opinion, it's not appropriate. And I have it here in my hand. It says the Board of Education shall

017serve. as a school district curriculum committee. So instead of appointing the Board of Education as a curriculum committee, I would suggest or in favor of creating a special committee for the FOR THE CURRICULUM COMMITTEE BECAUSE THIS, IN MY OPINION, IS A DISASTER FOR RECIPIENT, RECIPE FOR DISASTER OF EDUCATION. SO I CAN SAY A LOT OF THINGS. I WROTE LIKE A PAGE OF EMAIL. YOU ALL HAVE MY EMAIL. SO I DON'T NEED TO REPEAT IT AGAIN. SO I HOPE THIS TIME BOARD OF EDUCATION WILL LISTEN, AT LEAST TO ME. SO I OPPOSE 8100. AND I WILL FINISH WITH THAT. THANK YOU. THANK YOU. NEXT WE HAVE BARBARA FINK. So my name is Barbara Fink, and I'm a resident of West Hartford with two children in the school system. I have a master's degree in early childhood

018and elementary education from Rutgers University, and I've been in the field of education for over two decades. My husband and I feel very fortunate to live in a town that values education for the whole child. We feel lucky that our kids have so many opportunities to pursue their love of the arts, sports, and whatever their heart desires. We also feel fortunate to watch our children excel in academics as our daughter is about to graduate from Hall and head to Brandeis University in the fall. We have seen firsthand what the high standards and accountability looks like in our kids. And because of that, I ask that you not adapt the language that is being proposed in policy 8100. The policy states the Board of Education shall serve as the school district's curriculum committee and in this

019capacity shall review and approve curriculum presentations made by the superintendent and or designees on an annual basis. I do not believe that a presentation once a year is enough. I think our teachers, our administrators, and more importantly, our children deserve more. They deserve for this board and other stakeholders to have a deeper understanding of what is and is not working in our schools. And a committee that only receives updates once a year feels like a disservice to our children and to our teachers. I agree that this policy shall not authorize the board to direct or undertake the development of curriculum. That responsibility shall remain with the superintendent and their designees, but the need for open communication more often around curriculum is needed. I've had the opportunity to sit on a committee at KP that helped

020to develop advisory slides for Heritage Month that so many of you in this room have sat on. This committee helped streamline the content so that what was being taught during Hispanic Heritage Month, for example, looked the same as what was happening during Black History Month and all of the months in between. This committee constituted of parents, teachers, and administrators working together to create the best learning outcomes for our kids. They meet monthly and parents are constantly supporting the teachers and finding and vetting material for accuracy. Our teachers deserve more support, not less. Our administrators deserve more support, not less. And I believe that it is the duty of this board to give that to them. I ask that you please rework the language to allow for more transparency of process and to allow for added

021support from the community to build the best educational experience we can for our kids. Thank you. Thank you. Next we have Matthew Braunschweig. Good evening, Matthew Braunschweig, West Hartford resident. Can I just say what she said? Because that's a hard act to follow. No, I'm here to oppose 8100 because I believe education is a cooperative effort between parents, teachers, et cetera. Without transparency of a curriculum board, I think you're going to erode that trust and erode that... that whole dynamic of the educational process. So I'm here to oppose 8100. Thank you. And then Mark Greenstein. Hi, Mark Greenstein of West Hartford. I'm to the policy about parental ability to scrutinize materials. It's a little related to 8100, but I think this board would have an asset. if parental scrutiny is widespread, very open. Here are

022your eyes, and you can't do it all. As talented as you are, you've got a lot of responsibilities. So devolving some... to the mass of parents who will point out goodness and badness. And you've got the ability as a board to evaluate how many and how strong opinions are. I do think that there's probably not that much curriculum changes needed. I mean, what's changed in 2,000 years about math? English, maybe a little bit in the last 2,000 years. Science, sure. But I looked up the best books for environmental activism, specifically about climate change. The number one. Goes back 55 years. It's Dr. Seuss's The Lorax. We can do fine with curricula largely that are tried and true from the 1970s and when Mr. Vecinas or any of you bring forward others, let the rest scrutinize.

023I do have a quick comment about 8100. I do agree that it's a problem and having this board And it seems like only the board being in such control is problematic. As talented as you all are for scrutinizing curricula, every one of you is here in part because of politics, in part because you had either a D or an R by your name that helps get you elected. And I think some of the things that are most incendiary about curricula to many parents are also political. So you could shelve that too by devolving it to many parents instead of just yourself. Thank you. Thank you anyone else who would like to speak on an agenda item come up to the podium I must not have signed the sheet correctly because I am here to speak

024about an agenda item. I'm Lori Feldman. I'm a resident of West Hartford, and I respectfully ask you to vote no on the proposed policy on bylaw 8100 that would have you, the Board of Education, serve as the curriculum committee of the school district by reviewing annual presentations of curricula developed within the superintendent's office. Quoting the language of the proposal, You, the board, as the curriculum committee, would not be authorized, quote, to direct or undertake the development of curriculum, which responsibility shall remain with the superintendent. This proposal violates the letter and the spirit of Connecticut General Statute section 10-220E which mandates each Board of Education shall establish a school district curriculum committee which quote shall recommend, develop, review, and approve all curriculum for the school district. The proposed language in Bylaw 8100 would preclude exactly what

025our law requires, that a board-established committee, not the superintendent, with all due respect to my old friend Mr. Vicinus, recommend and develop curriculum. Moreover, this board's many other duties would make it impossible for it to fulfill the committee's job, which entails a time-intensive process and a wide range of curricular issues. Further, an aim of the statutory mandate is transparency. The statute, in fact, requires that the board, quote, make available all curriculum approved by the curriculum committee for public perusal. Yet most residents of West Hartford have no idea how curriculum in this town is developed, what exactly it comprises, or who is answerable if it is ineffective or objectionable. This board should create a committee with open meetings and a public face. A personal example experience of mine exemplifies this concern. My son's teacher presented a

026lesson created by the partisan organization Zero Population Growth and adopted by the West Hartford Public Schools. The lesson included the infamous hockey stick graph and the instruction to students to talk with their parents about the importance of limiting families to two children. Now, of course, we hear of a population replacement crisis. My husband and I compiled extensive evidence that convinced the head of the social studies department that the lesson plan should be replaced, only to learn that he was retiring at the end of the year. As far as we know, nothing came of our success. Had there been a permanent curriculum committee for us to approach, we might have made a lasting impression about the dangers of adopting one-sided materials from biased sources. Please reject the proposed policy and fulfill your legal duty to create

027a focused and answerable curriculum committee to recommend and develop all curriculum in the West Hartford Public Schools. Thank you. Anyone else who would like to speak? Good evening. My name is Ina Zhytomirsky, and I have two kids in West Hartford Public Schools. I'm here tonight to encourage the board to establish a dedicated curriculum committee rather than designate the entire board of education as the curriculum committee. Throughout the reports presented to this board, we consistently hear about importance of data, accountability, continuous improvement, stakeholder input, and thoughtful implementation. Whether discussing student achievement, school climate, discipline, attendance, college readiness or equity, the district rightly emphasizes that meaningful progress requires intentional work, ongoing review and dedicated time. Curriculum deserves that same level of attention. In fact, curriculum may be the most important responsibility entrusted to a school district because

028it influences every outcome we measure. It affects academic achievement, critical thinking, college readiness, citizenship, student engagement, and student ability to succeed beyond graduation. Regardless of our individual perspectives on educational priorities, curriculum is the foundation upon which all those goals are built. That is why I am concerned about the proposal for the full board to serve as this curriculum committee. Board meetings already cover an enormous range of responsibilities. Budgets, personnel, facilities, special education, policies, contracts, and so on. These meetings often extend several hours. In fact, last one, you sat here for four. God bless you. These meetings often extend for several hours. Expecting the full board to conduct meaningful curriculum review within that same structure is just not realistic. Curriculum review requires time to examine materials, understand standards, evaluate proposed changes, seek expert input when appropriate,

029hear community perspectives, and carefully consider recommendations. That is a committee work. A dedicated curriculum committee would not reduce the board's authority. The full board will still make the final decision, but committee would provide the structure, focus, and time necessary to perform the detailed review that curriculum deserves. BEFORE RECOMMENDATIONS COME BEFORE THE BOARD. It would also improve transparency and public confidence. A committee with clearly defined charge, regular meetings, objective review criteria, and documented recommendations would provide a visible process that parents, educators, students, and community members can understand and engage with. Most importantly, a dedicated committee would ensure that our curriculum remains rigorous, balanced, and focused on developing independent thinkers. The goal of education should not be... to tell students what to think, but teach them how to think, to evaluate evidence, consider different perspectives, ask thoughtful

030questions, and reach informed conclusions. If we believe curriculum is important enough to shape the future of our students, then it's important enough to receive focused oversight rather than being one more item on already crowded agenda. I RESPECTFULLY URGE THE BOARD NOT TO ADOPT POLICY 8100 AS WRITTEN TONIGHT AND INSTEAD ESTABLISH DEDICATED CURRICULUM COMMITTEE AND PROVIDE IT WITH THE TIME, STRUCTURE, AND RESPONSIBILITY NECESSARY TO DO THIS IMPORTANT WORK WELL. THANK YOU. THANK YOU. ANYONE ELSE ON AN AGENDA ITEM? I THINK I PUT MY NAME DOWN ON THAT SIDE. My name is Greg Collins, and I have three young daughters, two of whom are in West Hefford Public Schools, the wedding lane. And overall, I've been very satisfied with the quality of education there. But I am here also to reinforce the previous discussants in expressing my

031reservations about policy 8100. I don't want to repeat too much. as to what others have said about the importance of transparency, rigorous standards, parental input and feedback. But as I have become more aware of these questions as my daughters have grown up in the public school system, and it has been difficult to find some answers and to... have some accountability in terms of some of the material that is on the website, similar to what I've discussed in a previous meeting earlier this year, such as in addition to the question about climate change, anti-racism initiatives, anti-bias trending, and so on. As someone who teaches college students, I can see directly how this material suspends critical thought by diminishing the importance of understanding complexities in society, the importance of understanding different perspectives. And if they're not taught

032the importance of being socially and intellectually tolerant at this level, when they're six, seven, eight years old, 11, 12 years old, then that percolates up into the college level. And I see that directly in my classroom, which some of my students, I encourage my students to be more aware of critical perspectives and diverse views on these topics. All of which is to say that I do expect... express my reservations about the policy and I do encourage, I do emphasize the importance of parental feedback and input to promote transparency and rigorous standards in the education system in West Hartford. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else on an agenda item? Come on up. Hi, my name is Debbie Shaflik. And I'm a resident of West Hartford and I had three daughters that attended Hall High School. I'm

033here this evening to ask the board to vote against policy 8100 as it's currently presented. Instead, I would like to ask the board to establish a curriculum committee which would separate, which would hold separate public meetings. By establishing a committee which is in compliance with state law, it would allow for far more and much needed transparency regarding curriculum. The establishment of a dedicated committee would create an independent structure for necessary oversight. It would allow for more transparency in the district and more, and most importantly, honor parental rights. In my opinion, the adoption of curriculum is the most important responsibility of the Board of Education. I'd like to see much needed improvement in vetting. materials, speakers, and programming with respect to curriculum regarding DEI, and more specifically, materials used, speakers, and programming connected to the topic

034of anti-Semitism. I'm sure that the board is aware of the shocking rise of anti-Semitism across the country. specifically within the workplace, within the medical community, and within our universities. Curriculum in K-12 school systems is undergoing huge challenges as DEI dogma is often inadvertently or purposely pushing anti-Semitic views through the oppressed oppressor lens. Anti-Semitism in K-12 education has surged significantly with advocacy and legal groups increasingly scrutinizing how DEI frameworks are implemented. Jewish students and educators face pervasive harassment often tied to anti-Israel rhetoric. biased ethnic studies curricula and anti-Jewish tropes disguises DIA programming. Third-party contractor materials need to be scrutinized more heavily. We've seen this happen in our own community when due diligence was not applied. We cannot prioritize activism over traditional values. Current non-discrimination programming and DIA frameworks are failing to include Jewish identity. By establishing

035a committee whose role would not be just a rubber stamp curriculum, but to examine it, scrutinize it, and publicly expose it would be most welcome. Let's pull back the curtain, examine, and take a hard look at what our kids are being taught. Parental rights are paramount. Thank you. Anyone else who would like to speak on an agenda item? I believe so. Come on up. Welcome. Thank you, everybody. I'll just be really brief. Everybody else, first of all, I'm just here speaking as a parent. I'm Jason Wang. I live on Fort Mile. My daughter is at Duffy, and my son will be at Duffy. And I just echo all the comments of the other speakers. I think... IT WILL BE, I THINK HAVING A SEPARATE CURRICULUM COMMITTEE MAKES A LOT OF SENSE. IT'S SO MUCH WORK

036FOR A FULL BOARD OF ED TO REVIEW A CURRICULUM AND APPROVE IT AND ASK QUESTIONS AND REALLY CRITICALLY EXAMINE IT AND IT WOULD BE INCREDIBLY DIFFICULT, IF NOT IMPOSSIBLE, IN MY OPINION, TO DO IT ONCE A YEAR. I THINK IT WOULD MAKE A LOT MORE SENSE TO SPREAD THAT WORKLOAD TO A SUBCOMMITTEE THAT MEETS MORE FREQUENTLY. THAT'S ALL I WANT TO SAY. OTHERS HAVE SAID IT BETTER. THANK YOU. Thank you. Anyone else who wants to speak on an agenda item? So moving on to non-agenda items, our first speaker is Karen Wurz. Good evening. My name is Karen Wers. I live in West Hartford. My daughter is a rising fourth grader at Braeburn Elementary, and I'm here this evening to express my concern about the proposed reduction from three to two fourth grade classrooms for the

03726-27 school year. I understand the complexity of the decisions you need to make every year, recognize the challenge of balancing diverse needs of students across the district with the reality of the school budget, but research supports the value of smaller class sizes. For example, ETS researcher Dr. Harold Wenglinski found that fourth grade students in smaller classes performed better in certain math testing, even after accounting for demographics, school resources, and cost of living, and that students in smaller than average classes were approximately one-third of a grade level ahead of their peers in larger classes. These considerations are especially important in learning environments such as Braeburn's, where there's a wide range of student needs based on its role as an intensive behavior school. This added layer of complexity should be considered in class size decisions and guidelines.

038Classrooms that include IB students require additional flexibility, support, and physical space, making larger class sizes more difficult to manage effectively. Beyond the academic considerations, Braeburn offers an important opportunity to foster an inclusive learning environment by having IB and non-IB students learn alongside one another. When that setting is properly supported, it helps students build empathy, understanding, and respect for peers who may learn or experience the world differently. These are critical life skills that extend well beyond the classroom. However, their success depends on having the appropriate class size and resources in place to support all students effectively. It's also important to recognize that the district's class size guidelines were originally established in 1988 and last reviewed in 2012 prior to Braeburn becoming an IB school. The student population and classroom dynamics have evolved significantly since that time,

039including increased variability in learning needs, higher percentage of students requiring specialized support such as IEPs and 504s. Given these factors, applying standard class size guidelines without adjustment may not fully account for the unique instructional environment at our school. Maintaining three fourth grade classrooms would better support both IB and non-IB students by allowing for more individualized attention and consistent academic support at an age where this still proves to have an impactful benefit. It would also help mitigate teacher strain and burnout, which is an important consideration given the increasing demands placed on educators. And lastly, it would maintain a greater level of consistency across all grade levels at Braeburn for next year, where projected class sizes based on October 2025 estimates would not exceed 22 students in any grade except fourth. So I respectfully urge the board

040to reconsider this decision, explore alternative areas where efficiencies may be identified. Maintaining one teaching position represents quite a small portion of the overall budget, but could have a meaningful impact on student outcomes and teacher sustainability. Thank you. Thank you. Next, we have Kim To. Hi, my name is Kim To and I currently live in the West Hartford residence. I just want to point out if anybody here is from Braeburn who's not speaking, just raise your hand for this object. Okay, so strong representation here. So I am a mother of an upcoming fourth grader and when I was thinking about what I want to speak about tonight. I was kind of deep in thought, and my son comes up to me. He's like, what are you thinking about, Mommy? And I'm like, your class is going

041to go from 19 to 25, and it's going to be a much bigger class, and I'm trying to think about all the ways I can help your class and your school. He's like, that's kind of sad. I'm not going to really like having such a big class. And I said, well, you know, we're trying to figure it out. And he goes, well, I believe that you can fix it. And so... His words have really stayed with me because tonight I'm not really standing here only for my son. I'm standing here for every child who will walk into fourth grade next year with a curiosity, potential, and hope. Every child deserves to be seen. Every child deserves to be heard. Every child deserves the opportunity to learn in an environment where they can thrive. Braeburn is

042unique and a remarkable school. It serves students with a wide range of academic, social, and behavioral needs. And like Ms. Schwartz said, it's an IB program as well. Our teachers work tirelessly to meet those needs every single day, helping children grow not as students, but as people. But even the most dedicated teachers cannot create more hours in a day and cannot be in multiple places at once. When class sizes become too large, students inevitably receive less individual attention. Struggling learners can go unnoticed. Children who need encouragement may not receive it when they need it most. Opportunities for meaningful connection between teachers and students become harder to create. This is not only difficult for students, it's difficult for teachers as well. Larger classes increase demands, increase stress, and contribute to burnout. If we want to retain

043excellent educators, we must provide them with the support and the conditions they need to succeed. The evidence is clear. The Project STAR study shows that students in smaller classrooms experience meaningful academic benefits. Those benefits continue long after elementary school. Smaller classes are not a luxury. They are an investment in student success. Our district's maximum class size guidelines have not been meaningfully updated since 1988. Education has changed dramatically since that time. Student needs have changed. Expectations have changed. Many neighboring districts now maintain lower class size limits because they recognize the value of providing students with greater access to teachers. So tonight I respectfully ask for two things. First, I ask the district to find a way to fund an additional fourth grade teacher at Braeburn so that students can learn in classrooms where they receive and

044support the support they deserve. Second, I ask the board to undertake a review of our district's maximum class size guidelines to ensure they reflect the realities of today's educational environment. I know these decisions are not easy. Budget requires difficult choices. I also know that communities accomplish extraordinary things when they come together around a shared purpose. I believe in Braeburn. I believe in our teachers. I believe in our children. I believe in this board's ability to make decisions that place students at the center of every conversation. When my son told me... I'm going to have to ask you to wrap up, please. When my son told me, I believe you can fix it, he was expressing something simple but profound. A child's faith of the adults entrusted with his education will do what is right. Tonight,

045I hope we can honor that faith. Thank you. Thank you. Next, we have Ian Skillings. I now know what it's like to stand up here and wish I could just hit the repeat button because those are both hard acts to follow. Hi, I'm Ian Skillings. I'm a father of two children who go to Braeburn. I live in West Hartford. I'm here along with other families regarding the decision to restructure Braeburn's incoming fourth grade from three classrooms serving 51 students to two classrooms serving 50. I understand that enrollment shifts require adjustment, and I respect the complexity of running a district at scale. However, this decision raises serious concerns, both in terms of student impact and alignment with the district's communicated section sizing forecast adopted in the recent budget. Whenever I consider important decisions in my own

046life, I make a habit of trying to see the other side and build my understanding around that. I felt like that might be a good way to start off tonight with a point opposite my own. This is a strong decision. Let me make the best case I can for it. Moving from 17 students per class to 25 means less individual attention and less attention builds independence. It prepares students for the real world, a world where time is limited, resources are stretched, and you're expected to figure things out. So let's start them early. And I especially respect the desire to apply policy consistently. If the enrollment threshold says 50 students means two sections, then 50 students means two sections. Consistency is value, and I can understand the argument that exceptions should be avoided. Now imagine me

047standing here tonight advocating for this change using these points. Minimally, the hands you saw earlier from Braeburn would nominate me for the dunk tank at the next Braeburn Fair, certainly not advocate on my behalf. So let's step out of that framing and use it to highlight the issue. We aren't looking for less attention for our children. We've already watched them grow into independent, capable learners within this community under the current class sizes. We know that smaller classes increase teacher interaction, provide more timely feedback, and help prevent students from falling behind. We don't need to accelerate their exposure to a real world defined by scarcity. Elementary schools should be where support is strongest. And we need you all to weigh policy consistency against something equally important, stability. This change resets the structure for a cohort of

048students that have spent the last four years in a three-class model, just as they enter their final two years of elementary school. That disruption matters, and context matters. Braeburn is not a typical elementary school. It is one of only two host schools for the district's intensive behavioral program. That adds complexity to classrooms and reflects this community's commitment to supporting district-wide needs. We also support that role, but it creates a reasonable expectation that class-sized decisions would account for that added responsibility, not mirror schools without it. This change would leave Braeburn with some of the largest class sizes in the district in one of its more complex learning environments. As a parent, that kind of decision-making is difficult to reconcile as being in the best interest of my children, all of our children, or the teachers and

049administrators we trust to guide and protect them every single day. So my asks are straightforward. Number one, Reconsider this decision with the full context of Braeburn's role in mind and ensure the class size reflects not just enrollment numbers, but the realities of the schools and classrooms you're asking students and educators to navigate. And number two, longer term, consider aligning class size policy with the increasing complexity of modern classrooms so the next group of elementary school parents isn't put into the same position we are tonight. Thank you for your time and your consideration. Thank you. Next, we have James Healy. Hi there. Good evening. Thanks for the opportunity to speak. I think my friends here have said this really wonderfully so far. So I just want to add, I live in West Hartford. I have two

050boys in Braeburn. And my perspective is a little bit unique. I'm a pediatric trauma surgeon at Connecticut Children's. So I spend a lot of time with kids. I see thousands of kids of all different ages. And this is a bit of a critical time. I know that I'm preaching to the choir, that every time in a kid's life is a critical time. But with what we're seeing at Children's, we're seeing a massive influx of anxiety and psychiatric disorders, depression, self-injurious behavior. And it starts around this time. And it's terrifying. We know that more attention is better. I think we can all agree on that. And I think probably all of our goals are aligned is take care of kids, make sure they have the best shot they have. And I think that's what this is

051all about. I think more attention, more individual focus on what each child's needs are is going to benefit them in the long term. That's all I have to say. Thank you. Next, we have Eric Feeney. I'm a West Hartford resident and a proud dad. I have two amazing seniors graduating from Conard. One's home either sewing, cooking, doing a book project, or possibly mowing the lawn. One you may know and spend Tuesday nights with, Bridget. So I'm here to thank the West Hartford Public Schools. their teachers, their administrators, their staff, their coaches. It's just for my daughter's amazing educational journey. This district is special. So as parents of young children, it happens fast because a minute ago they were in kindergarten and now they're graduating. So enjoy every minute. But their journey has been fantastic. They

052went to Wolcott, which was a dream come true. There's some really amazing teachers there. Bristow, they found their person, Mrs. Tom, in the library. She would come over during COVID and knit blankets and just an amazing person. And then it continued to being their favorite place at Conard with Mrs. Casey. And then the opportunities at Conard are unlimited and unmatched. Unified Theater. I got emotional and cried. I haven't cried in a while, but Unified Theater. I highly suggest you go to Unified Theater, mock trial, Model UN, Black Box Theater, Student Council, the EMS program, AP classes, sports, pep rallies, and of course, the high school rep on the Board of Ed. I received so many wonderful compliments, and I'm so extremely proud. Texts at night like, oh, Sabrina, Jen, and is that your daughter? She's

053doing such a great job. AGAIN, THANK YOU. THEY'RE OFF TO COLLEGE. BRIDGET'S GOING TO QUINNIPIAC. BOB CATT NATION. NILA'S OFF TO UConn. AND I CAN'T THANK THE WEST HARFORD PUBLIC SCHOOLS ENOUGH. IT'S A WONDERFUL TOWN, AS WE ALL KNOW, BUT THE EDUCATION SYSTEM IS OUR CROWN JEWEL. AND I'M JUST HERE TO THANK EVERYONE INVOLVED, EVEN P.V. THANK YOU SO MUCH. Thank you for being our village. And again, I'm just a proud dad. So thank you. I think our work is done here. Thank you. That was wonderful. How are you doing, Bridget? Do you want to counterpoint? We can suspend the three minutes. If you'd like to come up, we can go more. All right. Next, we have Jonathan Rayum. So many difficult acts to follow this evening. Good evening. My name is Jonathan Raume. And

054I'd like to start off by saying thank you for all attending this evening. This is our last one of the year, so I'm going to try to cram a lot in a very short amount of time. And I'm going to start in an unusual fashion today. I try to make these interesting. And today we're going to talk about superhero films. My favorite superhero film was RBG. Ruth Bader Ginsburg was my personal superhero because she embodied so many values that I hold dear. She was the champion of the downtrodden. She had a razor-sharp wit. wise beyond, well, I shouldn't say beyond her years, but wisdom is a virtue. And I bring up her film because there's one scene in which she's arguing a court, a case in front of, I think, an appellate court, in which

055she talks about the most fundamental American right is the right to change one's mind. And I'm bringing this up as a preface to renew my call for a smartphone ban. But if you look in the history of our country, our founders decided that they no longer wanted to pay taxes to the Crown of England. And then we decided to abolish slavery. And then six or seven decades later, we decided to allow for women's suffrage. And then the Civil Rights era happened. Now granted, some of those rights are under attack right now, but I bring that up because we have had some changes in the last year that I believe should prompt us to reconsider a smartphone ban. Recently, the Surgeon General released an advisory on the addictive nature of smartphones, and not only smartphones, just

056of screens in general. And so we should definitely be minimizing screen time with our kids. And so I would propose... that we adopt the provisions of House Bill 5035, which unfortunately did not pass our state Senate, and we implement it as if it had, starting not this fall, but the year after. And so there's the addictive nature, and I will comment on that. In our district, we do regulate addictive substances, right? Nicotine, alcohol, tobacco, marijuana. If screens are addictive, we should really be regulating those too. And the smartphones are a great way to start. There's also peer-reviewed evidence that say that if your smartphone is within arm's length, if, say, it's in a backpack next to your person in a high school classroom, then you're never going to get into a state of flow. You're

057going to be constantly distracted. How many of us, throughout the course of the day, have just picked up their phone and you wonder, why am I picking up my phone? And so you never really get if they concentrate and that is a distraction in class. The last one is liability because students can generate hotspots and through those hotspots they can bypass the filters and the Wi-Fi and they can access anything on the world wide web and I mean anything. And so for that reason I would like, I'm hoping that you will consider. I realize that I'm over, I promise to wrap up quickly but. Okay, all right. So as a stepping stone, I'm asking for Wi-Fi to be, that the Wi-Fi connection of personal devices be, that personal devices be banned from high school Wi-Fi

058in the fall. Because I understand that some devices can connect to the Wi-Fi and access Roblox. And I believe that that's a really big liability concern when you have adults able to contact children through high school Wi-Fi. And for this, I'm willing to provide cover, I'm willing to provide op-eds, letters to the editor, and of course, coming here to address this body. Thank you for your consideration, and I hope that you will exercise your most fundamental American right. Thank you. Thank you. Next, we have Gunjan Sharma. Thank you. My name is Gunjan Sharma. I'm a resident of West Hartford, and I have a rising eighth grader at KP. The most important point that I want to raise tonight is why are there still two weeks left in the school year? We are done. We are

059done. I do not want to pack lunches anymore. But, you know, please put some consideration towards this. You know, that important point aside, I want to begin by... by paraphrasing a quotation. Here it is. Treasure your attention. It sounds simple, but paying attention is in fact one of the hardest and most meaningful things you can do. Because what you pay attention to shapes what you care about, and what you care about shapes what you become. And this is from Jonathan Haidt's speech at the NYU commencement a few weeks ago. He is the author of a book that many of us have read many times over, The Anxious Generation. I know that you as administrators, as teachers, cannot control which kid has a smartphone, a tablet, a Chromebook. We cannot control which kid has TikTok, Discord,

060or even Kalshi, a gambling app on their phone. But what we can control... is access to these devices during school hours. Be it, now I'm going to expand Jonathan's point, be it a personal smartphone or a school-issued Chromebook. Secondly, as a very, very educated, very highly trained expert, administrators and teachers, as you head off into the summer, I do ask you to do a sort of deep... data dive into how our students just over the past year have been using these school-issued devices, what URLs or IP addresses were accessed, how much is the epidemic of off-task behavior using school-issued Chromebooks in particular. It's basically the reason why we keep bringing it up is that it's kind of the analogy is the kid has a drug in their pocket and we're saying, don't do it. And

061they're... kids, even as adults, we are not able to withstand the temptation of constantly checking our devices. We also know, as has been pointed out, learning outcomes, right, are not well served with digital first pedagogy. And by that, I mean... Google Class, Google Forms as the only form of homeworks. Entire class time in ELA, social studies and science is spent on Chromebooks. Khan Academy videos and AI chat bots as review tools. These are examples from my daughter's experience. And I do want to wind up, it's going to take 30 seconds more than my time. Because when we think about digital first pedagogy, right, now let's juxtapose this against the World Economic Forum's report on the future of jobs. They analyzed millions of data points, right, across sectors, across the globe, and came up with a

062list of 10 durable skills that go across sectors and across the AI tsunami that's coming for us. And here are the top 10 skills. Analytical thinking. Actually, just because we want to be on par with everybody's time limit, if you could send those 10 to us via email. And they basically include nothing to do with technology. Thank you so much, and have a great summer. Thank you. Next, we have Sukmani. Hi, everyone. My name is Sukmani Singh. I am... West Hartford mom. My daughter is entering third grade and my son spoke here at the last meeting and he is a rising sophomore. I will underscore everything that Gunjan stated and Jonathan before her and you know, encourage us to really adopt what the Los Angeles Unified School District has done in terms of curtailing screen

063time and so on. Of course, the Surgeon General also has issued that warning and before him Vivek, no, who was the, no, no, no. Vivek Murthy, thank you, yes. Vivek Murthy was, who was. the head doctor of the United States, he was warning us that isolation is really increasing across the country, across developmental ages and stages, so even for adults. And I think what I feel very concerned about is our over-reliance on Chromebooks, iReady, Pearson, Scholastic. And what I fear is that we are... Like our minds are getting colonized. There's a monoculture of the mind phenomena that's happening. And even when we are in the bathroom, for example, I know people sit for hours there just scrolling on their phone. Bro, that gives you hemorrhoids. Like, don't do that, right? There's a reason that our

064best ideas come in the shower. Why? Because our brain is quiet and we can hear ourselves think. Screen time is an addiction. I turn my phone on airplane mode at 7 p.m. every night, except tonight because I'm outside and in case my family needs me, and I find I'm less irritable. I sleep a lot better when this phone, this leash is away from me. And intersubjectivity, which is our ability to connect to each other, to look into somebody's eyes and just... empathize with what they're feeling, what they may be going through, that has kept us alive as a species. Do you know what screen time is doing? It is robbing us of that. It is robbing us of that thing that was wired into our genetic code phylogenetically. So not just the story of my

065daughter or your daughter or your son or your child, but us as a species. Evolutionary anthropologists have taught us we survived because... we could take on another person's perspective. But if our everyday is, I wake up, the phone has my attention. I'm out to dinner with my friend, the phone has my attention. I'm combing my daughter's hair, the phone has my attention. Our brain is in a constant loop of excitement. It doesn't breed boredom. Boredom is so important. Just hearing the shower and hearing yourself think. It's like the one space where we can't take the phone because it's going to get wet. Right? So let's not, I mean, let's do what LAUSD is doing. Thank you. Thank you. Next we have Lydia. Good evening. I'm Lydia Robbins. I am a parent of a Whiting Lane

066first grader. I am here today, like Sukmani and everybody, the folks before her, to talk about limiting screen time in our schools. You know, we all want what's best for our kids, right? That's why we're here on, in the middle of the, or not in the middle of the evening, but in the evening, on a Tuesday, at a school board meeting. Since the pandemic, we've had across the nation, there's more abuse of screen time for education. And what I've seen and what studies show is that it's been to the detriment of education and human connection. And I really worry about that for my kid. I'm sure a lot of folks here do too. I saw this when I was in Philadelphia, organizing around public education with parents. who were worried about their kids falling behind

067and not having, and just being mainly in front of screens during the day at school and feeling like they were having to learn how to become teachers in order so that their kids could continue to move up and to learn. I know in my kids' class, as well as in a lot of other kids' classes, you're using iReady on a weekly basis. It's required. And, you know, what I'm talking to parents about is if your kid is falling behind, you're missing out on time where you could be working with a teacher and, you know, getting more support because you're spending time doing testing that's just showing you what you already, what your kid already... struggling with. If your kid is doing well on the test, they're being introduced to subjects that you know you haven't

068studied yet and you know haven't haven't been covering and so they're not like learning from that they're just getting tested on something that of course they don't know. And so what I What I see is that if we cut down on the amount of screen time, that's more time for kids education. And, you know, that's really what I'm up here to say is that we should limit screen time and have a limit across the public school district of West Hartford. Thank you. Thank you. Next, we have Nicholas Ferallo. Hi. Good evening. Thank you all for your service to our town. By the way, I'll open with that. I am Nick Forcello. I have two beautiful, smart, sassy children at Braeburn Elementary. My eldest daughter is about to go to Sedgwick, so I'll just very quickly

069voice some support for cell phone-related restrictions. I'm very much in support of that. Would love to see that. But I'm here primarily related to my younger daughter, who is about to enter the fourth grade at Braeburn Elementary. and I have grave concerns about the current policy related to maximum class sizes. My daughter does have a 504 as, I believe, a significant portion of that class. That creates a significant drain on resources for the teachers. They require a lot of extra attention, which is very challenging in that environment. I'm voicing support of the amazing teachers that we have at that school who are there every day trying to do a fantastic job for our children. And when their attention is spread that thin, burnout is a very real thing. I'm asking for you to consider not

070only... what we can do about this forthcoming year. You directly are able to impact the education and a full year's worth of education for 50 young West Hartford children. You in this room are able to do that and reconsider. the policy and perhaps think about aligning it with neighboring institutions which have looked at that policy about maximum class sizes and have decided to lower that threshold of maximum students per class. Thank you very much for your time. Have a good evening. Thank you. And that is the last person we have signed up. Is there anyone else who would like to make a public comment? Anybody else? All right. Thank you all for coming out on this last Tuesday of the school year. Thank you. Oh, you want to come? Okay, come on. I just wanted

071to echo what Lydia said. So I'm also a mom of a Whiting Lane first grader. Can you state your name? Sorry, Steph Corsi-Chervalli. That's Hartford, first grader at Whiting Lane. So I sent you guys this message, but I think a lot of people don't know that this is happening. We were recently out to breakfast in Newington and a bunch of elder gentlemen, this was before Melania said the humanoid robots are going to teach our children one day. So this was before then. They said they can't wait for the chatbots to teach our children because it'll lower their taxes because we'll only be paying for software, not teachers, which was really concerning that a significant portion of people think that. But in any event, we found out that our daughter was... According to her I-Ready assessment

072on her individualized learning plan called MyPath, she was assigned to curriculum for the next grade level, which was measurement, inches and centimeters. No human introduced her to this subject. She was taking measurements. on a digital screen of digital items instead of using a ruler in the real world and having someone explain to her, why do we have inches and centimeters? Why is the U.S. so different? Well, let me tell you about colonialism and everything. But she missed an opportunity to have these questions answered, to learn with other students, to be taught by a human, have this interaction. So after hearing this, I immediately thought of these. elder Newington gentlemen who can't wait for their taxes to go down when AI takes over education and how we're already seeing apps teach our kids, have their first

073introduction to math concepts be in the iReady app, which you guys know better than we do the amount of lawsuits that have been filed against iReady for privacy and other issues, and you guys probably do too, but it's just really concerning. And so I'd like to... ask, just like Jonathan and others said, please limit the use of these apps to testing only when required and necessary. Please don't let it teach our children new concepts. Please put the human first in education, and please eliminate screens in K-2. I think everybody has given you plenty of evidence, but I'm just hoping that that can happen as soon as possible. Hopefully, me and Lydia, we can see that next year, but... I think it's going to be critical. And I think that this is the country, the direction

074that our country and most of the developed world is going into based on the data. So thank you. Anyone else who would like to make public comment? Okay, great. There is another opportunity at the end if you... I feel so inclined. All right. So we will move on to non-staff communications and reports where we will get to hear a final report from each of our wonderful student representatives. So Kayla, would you like to kick us off? Good evening, everybody. It has been an exciting and memorable past few weeks at Hall High School as we have been preparing for the end of the school year. Last Friday, our student council hosted a highly successful end-of-the-year event that brought students together in a spring picnic. There were games, movies, activities, and several food trucks, and the event

075was very well attended and was a great way to celebrate all the hard work and accomplishments accomplishments of our Hall students. And on the same day, Hall held its annual spring pep rally where Hall's state championship hockey team was recognized with official proclamations by Superintendent Mr. Vecinas, West Hartford Mayor Sherry Cantor, State Senator Derek Slap, and Governor Ned Lamont. During the rally, school spirit was on full display with a school-wide dodgeball tournament. And with the winning team facing a faculty team and students did emerge victorious. This past Saturday, Hall seniors celebrated one of the most anticipated events, which was senior prom. And it was held at the Basketball Hall of Fame and created lasting memories with classmates. On the athletic side, spring sports have entered postseason competition. This afternoon, Hull baseball, boys volleyball, and girls

076lacrosse played home games in the state tournaments. Hull also hosted the Latin Awards ceremony today, recognizing students for their achievements and excellence in Latin studies. Looking ahead, this Thursday marks Senior Field Day where seniors celebrate their final day of classes, participating in games, doing crafts, and signing yearbooks together with their teachers. Then senior final exams begin this Friday. Additionally, on June 7th, the Hall PTO is launching a fundraiser in memory of Cam Siegel. All proceeds raised will go to the Cam Siegel Memorial Fund, helping to honor Cam's legacy and make a positive impact on our community. Finally, we are preparing for Hall's graduation ceremony, which will take place on June 11th. As this remarkable school year ends, we are so, so grateful to our teachers, staff, families, and community members who support Hall students every

077day. And that concludes my report. Thank you. Thank you, Kayla. And Bridget, let's hear an update about Conard. Of course. Hi, everybody, and good evening. The 2025-2026 school year is coming to a close, and graduation is almost here. But before that, I do have a few final events and thank yous that I'd like to announce. Junior and senior awards were a huge success and so was signing day. A great deal of effort goes into these events and we'd like to thank Mrs. Sarsasamo, Mrs. Beach, and Mr. Urich for all of the support and hard work that they put into making awards night a success. Also, we must thank Mr. Siegel and Mrs. Sarsasamo for signing day and just for making it a general great event. Thank you also, lots of thank yous, just be warned,

078to Mr. Harviel and Mrs. Casillas for their leadership and support of the Future Educators of Diversity program. Students in FEOD, Future Educators of Diversity, were pinned in recognition of their commitment to education, service, and the teaching profession. So good luck to these students on their future endeavors. National Honor Society had a wonderful NHS induction ceremony, so a thank you must be said to its advisors, Mrs. Beattie DeWitt and Mrs. Cia Dario, as well as their keynote speaker, Mrs. Blavel. Congratulations to Mr. Mealy and Mrs. Zielinski, two amazing STEM teachers who were chosen by the Yardgoats as Teachers of the Week. They both had the opportunity to throw out the first pitch and be recognized for all they do. Parachute Improv's final show will be this Friday at 7 p.m. in the Black Box, so if

079you want to laugh, make sure to come on over. Connard's Miss Cascadery will also be this Friday, so that makes double the reason to come up and enjoy our amazing performances. It will begin at 8, so make sure to come and get your seats. Congrats to the actors, actresses, and crew behind Connard's fall play, Good Kids, for winning the Fearless Award for taking on a difficult topic with grace and integrity. Also, as I mentioned earlier, the senior signing day was, I think, maybe a week or two ago. So congrats to the senior student athletes who have been committed to college sports, including Freya Morris, who will be playing field hockey at Union. Nathan Parker, who will be doing track and field at Wesleyan. Zach Fenton, who will be playing football at Endicott. Max Simmons, who

080will be playing soccer at Eastern Connecticut. Kevin Jakubowski, who will be playing baseball at Fitchburg State. Wyatt Daigle, who will be playing baseball at Curry College. Brady Sersosimo, who will be playing lacrosse at Western New England. Justin Nayanakara, who will be playing football at Endicott. Asha Kamiso, who will be playing soccer at WPI. Lennox Velez, who will be playing baseball at UConn. And Liam Oliver, who will be playing lacrosse at University of Harvard. So we got a lot of talented athletics and athletes at Conard High School. Congrats to Mrs. Isaacs, who is no longer here, but for winning the Cass Outstanding First Year Principal Award. And it's just such an honor to have like a school district that is recognized for both of their high schools winning Best High School of Connecticut and First Year

081Principal Award. That's like really incredible and just proves like what great options we have for high schools. And also thank you to the PTO and to the students who participated in the car wash for SafeGrad as they raised over $1,000, which will make SafeGrad just that much more fun for us. Speaking of graduation, graduation and SafeGrad will take place on June 11th, so make sure you pick up your caps and gowns tomorrow anytime between 9 and 2 in the Career Center. Grad day will be a full day of school, but there will be no after-school activities. Seniors, your elementary school's cap and gown parades will take place at the following times. Braeburn at 1.40 on June 10th, Charter Oak at 1 on June 10th, Duffy at 2.20 on June 5th, Smith at 1.15 on June

08210th, Webster Hill at 2.15 on June 5th, and Wolcott at 2.30 on June 5th. Lots of fun to be had. And also, I think he must be said to the junior ushers who will be ushering for Conard's graduation, including, this is a long list, Nathalia Chagas, Courtney James, Abigail Murray, Lila Kreik, Alessandra Guara, Mariela McCluskey, Cameron Robinson, Bree Wilms, Matthew O'Meara, Henry Tamachio, James O'Sullivan, Anna Maldonado-Gomez, Alistair McLaren, Caroline Hawthorne, David Atatola, Ari Selle, Rufus Dado, Ruzira Hamal. Afaf Yusuf, Brooklyn Knowles, and Paige Sweeney. And finally, this has just been a really great year for me. I've learned a lot doing this, and I've had a really good time. It's been an honor to reflect on Conard's successes with you all, and I hope that the representatives for Conard and Hall next year will have

083just as great a time as myself and Kayla did, and they will learn just as much as we did. So thank you for listening to Conard's updates. Thank you. And before we step away from you, we got a little sneak preview from one of our speakers about where you're headed next. Can you expand a little bit about your plans for the future? Yes, we did get that sneak preview. Thank you for reminding me. I will be going to Quinnipiac University. I will be attending their ELMPA program, which is Entry Level Masters in Physician Assistant. It's a really selective program. Thank you. I'm really excited about it. So yeah, it's a really great school and I'm very excited to attend. Kayla, can you tell us about where you're headed next? I'm heading to the University of

084Chicago and I'll be doing molecular biology with an interest in becoming a doctor. Well, I will speak on behalf of my colleagues in saying that you are a ray of light and joy at these meetings. We know we don't always get to... put a lot of spotlight on you, but every time you've brought your updates to the table, I think it's a highlight for every one of us in terms of all the great things that are going on at your respective schools, your excellent representatives of Hall and Conard. Please thank Conrad and Savannah also who have substituted in for you on occasion. But just I think anytime a meeting is running for four hours or getting a little, little tense looking over at both of you just I think gives us that extra boost we

085need to keep on going. we know what we're doing it all for at the end of the day. So we're elated with where you're going next and we want to stay in touch. We hope you'll kind of make some visits back and keep us posted on what you're up to and pass along wisdom and advice to those who come next and fill your big shoes because we're very excited to meet them in the fall as well. So thank you so much. We do have a small gift for you. We have, let's pass this along. So a gift from our board colleagues as well as the school district and just a token to express how grateful we are for your service. You've set in motion a great future for your public service, I hope, in this

086country and world. So thank you so much for everything. And we have already said that if the meeting runs a little long and you need to be on your way and... handle some of your graduation related activities, please feel free to do so. So thank you, but we'll be in touch. All right. So moving on to unfinished business, where we are recommending a 2026-27 budget revision. Barbara will be joining us at the table, seeking a motion that the Board of Education adopt a revised 2026-2027 budget of $226,156,566 by making the following reduction to the previously adopted 2026-2027 Board of Education. budget, reduce appropriation for health insurance by $400,000, reduce appropriation for utilities by $300,000, and increase pay to play family cap by $50. So moved. Thank you, Jason. I'll second that. Thank you, John. AND

087OVER TO BARBARA AND SUPERINTENDENT VICINAS FOR ANY CONTEXT. SURE. I'LL PROVIDE YOU SOME GENERAL CONTEXT. I THINK WE'VE BEEN TALKING ABOUT THE FACT THAT WE UNDERSTOOD WE DID NEED TO MAKE A $700,000 REDUCTION IN THE BUDGET BASED ON THE VOTE OF THE TOWN COUNCIL BACK IN April, I think. And as you may recall, during our second Board of Education workshop, we had identified both through financial examiners and had a conversation then, and then had a subsequent conversation at the Board of Education budget adoption meeting that we were projecting a surplus for this year. And we took that surplus and we were planning to amortize it into our risk fund. which is essentially a healthcare reserve to help smooth the cost of healthcare. So given the need to make these reductions, the idea is we would

088pull back the level of appropriation to our healthcare reserve. We've essentially already made a deposit this year, so we'll be able to pull that back by about $400,000, or by exactly $400,000, and still have some money left over, I think a total of another 125 barb. That would be a net savings for a future year's budget. And then additionally, we're very, very pleased that after budget adoption, in fact, in the last couple of weeks, we were contacted regarding what's called a virtual net metering credit. And I had asked Barb a couple of times exactly what that means, but I understand essentially it's a credit from the utilities based on solar panels and energy efficiencies that we've been able to achieve. It's not something that we necessarily count on. It's not something that we... uh... receive

089every year in fact i think the last time we received it was a couple of years ago uh... but we were very pleased to uh... be informed of that that information was timely uh... the total value of the credit is three hundred and thirteen thousand and change uh... the idea is we would be able to make an appropriation to the utilities fund $300,000 less, which would achieve the total $700,000 of budget cut that we're looking for. And then the other item on there is honestly just a piece of correction and smaller matter. I had made the recommendation in the budget, and you guys had voted in favor of increasing the pay-to-play fees. What goes along with the increase was that we have a family cap and we set a dollar value to that family cap.

090Unfortunately, I... I MISINFORMED YOU AND WE SET THE DOLLAR VALUE INCORRECTLY. THE INTENT WOULD BE, I BELIEVE WE RAISED THE PAY-TO-PLAY TO $200 PER SPORT, AND THE INTENT WOULD BE THAT FAMILIES PAY FOR A MAXIMUM OF FOUR SPORTS. SO WE HAD SET THE CAP AT $750. WE'D LIKE TO SET THE CAP AT $800 BECAUSE THE IDEA IS YOU GET THE FIFTH SPORT AND THE SIXTH SPORT, ANYTHING AFTER THE FOURTH SPORT YOU GET FOR FREE. AND IF WE KEEP IT AT THE $750, IT'S TECHNICALLY A PROBLEM BECAUSE NOW IT'S... We're not set up for that in terms of how you would basically be discounting a fourth sport. So those are the three proposals. Barb can speak to them more eloquently than I can, but that's kind of the big picture. And if I figure I'd open

091it up to big questions and let Barb respond to anything that you had on those. John? Yeah, just a question on the pay-to-play cap. So if that increases to $50, how much more revenue do we anticipate coming in? So there's not a change in what we're projecting from the revenue because we had already included that in our budget proposal that we approved on March 31st. What it does is it actually corrects what would have been a revenue reduction because we would have essentially been creating a new tier of credit for families in the fourth spore category after a longstanding tradition of giving the fifth and onward as part of the family cap. Okay, I understand. Thank you. Ethan? So the health insurance. That's the $150,000 goes into a reserve. The $150,000 savings that was $550,000

092now goes into a reserve. So the $650,000 additional contribution that we're making this year will go to the risk management fund. And there it would go to a reserve. But this year we had put the additional amount in to offset additional costs We had previously planned to use that as a savings over a number of years Instead this would propose to use the savings in the near term in the fiscal year upcoming. So is it 550 or 650? The savings in the current year that we're projecting to put in is $625 into the risk management fund, and it was attributed to savings in out-of-district tuition, which was greater than that. Okay, so the savings weren't health insurance. Savings was out-of-district tuition. Correct. Being applied to health insurance. Yes, exactly. Different question. Pay-to-play. Do we do

093that for any other activity? And I say that as a parent who had more kids doing... theater than doing sports. Well, they did both, but... We paid for the theater program. Did you? Okay. Because I've never seen that mentioned in the budget. If we do, we do. Yeah, I know. I couldn't specify all the different activities. I know there are different fees. I mean, the athletics is based on uniforms, equipment, buses, things of that nature. But there are those activities such as theater and some others where there may be some charges. And if that's of interest, we can try to roll those up. I was just curious. I mean, I hate pay to play, but they're doing it for other things, and that's fine. Thank you. Any other questions? Good. Great. So we can move

094forward to a vote. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Aye. Oh, thank you, LaToya. Any opposed? Any abstentions? The motion passes. Thank you, Barbara. Moving on to revised policy second reading. Seeking a motion by Latoya Yageloff, Miriam Bleich, and Jason Gagnon that the Board of Education accept as a second and final reading, the following revised policy is reviewed by the Board Policy Subcommittee. Student Series 5000, Policy 5110, Confidentiality and Access to Education Records, Policy 5320, Student Discipline, Suspension and Expulsion. Instruction Series 6000, Policy 6237, HIV and AIDS Exemption, Policy 6410, Media Center Library, and Policy 6421, Parental Access to Instructional Materials. So moved. Thank you, Jason. SECOND. THANK YOU, JOHN. AND WE HAVE JULIA DUARTE JOINING US. SO YOU WANT TO START OUT WITH THE WE'LL JUST GO ONE BY ONE THROUGH

095THE POLICIES AND SEE IF THERE'S ANY FURTHER DISCUSSION OR. Yeah, sure. I mean, all I really was going to add for today is just a quick reminder to the board and certainly the public that during the first reading, there were some questions that were raised. So I appreciate the policy subcommittee quickly gathering for an extra meeting back on May 27th to review those questions. The request was that legal counsel was present for that meeting so that they could go through some of those questions and just sort of double check everything with from a legal standpoint. So during that discussion, our legal counsel did reaffirm that all of the proposed policies are fully compliant with the applicable state statutes. It was also emphasized that the proposed changes reflect the district's continued commitment to openness and transparency.

096And so I don't know, I don't feel a need to go through all the policies, but I'd be happy to if that's what you'd like, Shannon. Sure. Well, why don't we start, just chunk the two. So series 5000, any questions? discussion. Ethan? So I'm making the assumption that these are dictated by state or federal. It's not a change? Correct. And if you look in the back of all the policies, you'll always see which exact state statues and, you know, if you look at the ones that have been blue, I guess, that'll be the new ones which will probably dictate what the rationale for the changes would be. Yeah. Just looking for why we're doing it. Any questions about the instruction series? And we can move forward to a vote. All those in favor say aye.

097Aye. Aye. Thank you, Latoya. Any opposed? Any abstentions? The motion passes. Thank you. Moving on to another policy, revised policy, second reading, seeking a motion by Latoya Yageloff and Jason Gagnon that the Board of Education accept as a second and final reading the following revised policies reviewed by the Board Policy Subcommittee, Bylaws Series 8000, Bylaw 8100, purpose of the Board of Education. So moved. Thank you, Jason. I'll second that. Thank you, John. All right. Any discussion? Miriam? I'm, can I make a motion? Or how? The motion's still open, so it's discussion about the motion. So how do I? Yeah. Yes. Do you want to present like the discussion point related to it and then propose an amendment? Yes. Okay. I hope I'm unclear about the process, so bear with me. I am asking the board

098not to adopt the policy 8100 as currently proposed. As drafted. Policy 8100 appears to codify the board's current practice of serving as the curriculum committee during regular board meetings in order to comply with the state statute. While this may comply with the letter of the statute, it does not comply with the spirit of the statute. It does not model best practice, and it does not allow for the dedicated time, structure, transparency, or public platform that curriculum review and approval deserves. Since 2008, Public Act 08-153, specifically Connecticut's State Statute 10-220 subsection E requires each local and regional Board of Education to establish a school district curriculum committee responsible for recommending, developing, reviewing, and approving curriculum. Curriculum is one of the board's central responsibilities. A separate curriculum committee would improve transparency, welcome meaningful parental and community input,

099strengthen oversight of curriculum and materials, and support evidence-based practices in areas such as literacy, math, special education, English language learners, and educational technology. Having a separate curriculum committee is a... I would like to make a point of order. It is especially important as the district prepares to post scope and sequence of approved curriculum and instructional materials online by July 1st, 26 in accordance with public act 25-174 section 10-16B. My request is simple that we not adopt policy 8100 as presented tonight. Instead, let's use a September workshop to build a stronger curriculum committee policy. One that improves transparency, welcomes parental input, strengthens BOARD OVERSIGHT AND KEEPS THE FOCUS WHERE IT BELONGS ON IMPROVING ACADEMIC OUTCOMES FOR ALL STUDENTS. THANK YOU. SO I THINK IN THIS CASE YOU JUST WOULD BE OPPOSING THIS RESOLUTION. CORRECT. YES. OKAY.

100HOW COULD I MAKE A, IS IT POSSIBLE TO MAKE A MOTION TO NOT ADOPT AND INSTEAD REQUEST THAT WE CONVENE A WORKSHOP? WE SHOULD, IT'S KIND OF AN ORDER OF OPERATION. CORRECT. SO WE SHOULD HAVE THE DISCUSSION ABOUT THE OPEN RESOLUTION. OKAY. AND CONCLUDE THAT. OKAY. SO ANYBODY ELSE HAVE A COMMENT OR STATEMENT? JASON. I REALLY APPRECIATED THIS DISCUSSION OVER THE LAST FEW WEEKS. I THINK IT'S IMPORTANT TO HAVE. I THINK IT'S IMPORTANT THAT WE HAVE IT IN THIS VENUE. AS I THINK I SAID LAST TIME, I DON'T THINK YOU'LL FIND A GOVERNMENT. you know function entity meeting that is more open and transparent than this is that is more welcoming to the public where the public has a chance to interface more than it does at this meeting i think those of us on

101the board who were in favor of that change last year take great pride in that so i think this is is a great discussion that we're having I think and I gathered from some of the public comment today that there's somewhat of a misunderstanding of what we're doing. This is not a change in policy or practice for us, for West Hartford. This is simply codifying what we've always done. So this is not opening up any new rabbit holes or anything like that. It's simply putting into the policies the way that this practice has always been. And I think it's a practice, as we'll see in the upcoming profile and performance report, it's a practice that has served this district extremely well. Our test scores continue to meet some of the very highest years, if not

102exceeding the best performance years we've had, not to steal Superintendent's thunder for his upcoming presentation on the performance of the district. So it's working. Our curriculum has served as a state model. It serves as a nationwide model at conferences. Simply put, THIS IS CODIFYING WHAT WE DO. TO DO OTHERWISE, I THINK, WOULD BE TRYING TO SOLVE FOR A PROBLEM THAT I'VE NOT HEARD IDENTIFIED. AND SO I THINK WE CONTINUE TO DO THIS. AND IT'S NOT A ONCE A YEAR THING. I THINK THAT WAS THE OTHER THING THAT I HEARD THAT I THINK IS A MISCONCEPTION. IT'S NOT THAT WE LOOK AT CURRICULUM ONCE A YEAR. I THINK ANYONE WHO IS FAMILIAR WITH OUR MEETINGS KNOWS THAT WE LOOK AT CURRICULUM THROUGHOUT THE YEAR. WE GET VARIOUS PRESENTATIONS, CHANCES TO INTERACT, DIFFERENT GROUPS COME IN. different

103parent groups come in and you know voice and public comment um so it's a it's a year-long process for as long as we meet what the the codification says is that there'll be a formal vote once a year based on all of those um so so again i'm not in i'm in favor of the current resolution um i think it's a good practice that we've had i think it served this district very very well and so i'm in favor of it thank you jason john I would just echo Jason's thoughts. I think a lot of the concern about the curriculum committee seems to be a solution in search of a problem. I have not seen any problems that a curriculum committee could or a specially designated curriculum committee could actually solve. Certainly aware of issues

104that have been raised by members of the public in terms of isolated incidents in various classrooms and with potentially some objectionable lesson plans or lesson plans that folks do find objectionable. I don't believe that a curriculum committee would be in position to address that situation. Curriculum is a broader level. Curriculum is then executed by the professionals that we employ as our teachers. And we rely on their professional judgment. I don't necessarily know that a curriculum committee would be in position, and I don't necessarily believe they should be in position, to impose what I would call lightning strike justice in individual classrooms. Again, as a creature of the board, they would be taking a broader picture. And the other thing is... THE STATUTE, THE LANGUAGE OF THE STATUTE DOESN'T SAY ANYTHING ABOUT WHO NEEDS TO BE

105ON THE CURRICULUM COMMITTEE. MY UNDERSTANDING OF THE STATUTE IS THAT WE ARE IN COMPLETE COMPLIANCE WITH IT. MOVING BEYOND THAT WOULD CREATE PROBABLY AN ADDED RABBIT HOLE OF THIS BOARD NEEDING TO DECIDE WHICH MEMBERS OF THE PUBLIC GET APPOINTED TO THAT CURRICULUM COMMITTEE AND IT WOULD FURTHER BRING US REALLY INTO A NEST OF POLITICS WHERE I DON'T THINK WE NEED TO GO. ETHAN? SO I COME OUT AT THE OPPOSITE END. I find it hard to believe or find it interesting that we had 70 pages of minor stuff and one page on the purpose of the Board of Education. There should be more to it. And just because it exists doesn't mean it can't be improved or changed. I had two bullets on page 75. Thank you for the page numbers, by the way. The first

106one is adopting an annual budget. That's not what our responsibility is. It's to adopt the annual budget. We're only reviewing the markup language, so the resolution wouldn't allow for any changes in any other aspect of this policy. Fine. I'm just saying that this is incomplete. Okay. That would be a different issue to resolve, though. Okay. Well, let me know when I can bring it up. Okay. Yeah. I mean, we can talk offline about that. Well, no. The whole purpose of the budget is to manage the budget. It's not to create a budget and then walk away. It is to manage a budget. That's why we do the financial reports every month to make sure we're in context of the budget. And when we're not, then we have to come up with resolutions or corrections. I

107would also say on the curriculum, I heard it mentioned, and I don't know if it's true or not, that there are certain things the state obligates us to do as a subcommittee. I think that should be resolved. In my mind, maybe everybody else already knows. And I just think we heard enough that we can be doing more and we should be doing more. And I don't think it's fair to dump everything on the school administrators. We need to be part of the process. Jason. So, and Julia, you can confirm this, that this language that is being proposed comes direct from our legal counsel, correct? As in compliance with state law? That is correct. Can I? Just because it comes from them doesn't mean that it's the best way to do it or it's right. And

108I think it's worth going back and asking. Thank you. Jason. We did, in fact, have a special meeting just to ask that question. And so I defer to our legal counsel. I'm not second-guessing their read of the statute. I'm not imposing my own. I mean, that's what they're there for. They're to provide us with legal counsel. I would say. Given the second bullet point, I think things can be re-looked at on this because the second bullet point is not what we do. John? I was just, in terms of the second bullet point, which is, you know, of course isn't necessarily part of this discussion, I would agree with you that we probably should have a, should send that to the policy committee to look at and make sure it reflects what we are actually doing

109in terms of financial superintendents. I do agree with you there. But, you know, again, I would... RELY ON THE OPINION OF OUR DISTRICT COUNCIL. JUST A COUPLE OF COMMENTS. I'M GLAD THAT WE'RE GOING TO RECEIVE THE REPORTS AND HEAR ABOUT HOW STRONG OUR SCHOOL SYSTEM IS DOING AND WHERE THERE ARE AREAS OF IMPROVEMENT, BUT THAT DOESN'T MEAN THAT THERE'S TRANSPARENCY IN WHAT WE'RE ACTUALLY DOING. IT DOESN'T MEAN THAT PARENTS ARE INFORMED THAT THEY'RE INVOLVED AND THAT IT'S CLEAR WHAT how our values translate into all the curricular areas if we can't actually see what's going on. The problem that has been identified is exactly why we're sitting here today and that's because THERE HAS BEEN THIS PUBLIC ACT AND THIS SPECIFIC SUBSECTION THAT REQUIRES THE BOARD TO FORMALLY ESTABLISH. THAT HAS NOT BEEN FORMALLY DONE, WHICH

110IS WHY WE ARE SITTING HERE TO DISCUSS THE POLICY. I WOULD URGE MY COLLEAGUES TO THINK ABOUT NOT JUST CHECKING THIS OFF THE LISK, SO TO SPEAK, JUST BECAUSE WE HAVE BEEN DOING IT A CERTAIN WAY, BUT LIKE MY COLLEAGUE ETHAN SAID, TO REALLY LET'S look at how we can improve what's going on. There are other districts who have lengthy websites with information about curriculum management plans and their five-year system for evaluating and reviewing curriculum. They have extensive vetting and curricular policies listed online that are multi-page. There are many areas where we can really look at and improve upon, and I would urge my colleagues to hold off a little bit. Let's look at... additional curriculum policies. Let's spend a little bit more time to really hash this out before agreeing to this just to

111check it off the list. Thanks. Latoya wanted to contribute. Latoya, you're on speaker. Okay, awesome. Thank you. Yeah, I just wanted to reiterate because I know we did, you know, this is our final conversation about this school year. And just wanted to reiterate that, you know, to kind of piggyback off of what Jason said earlier is that we do have a very transparent district. We have transparent processes. We have opportunities for families to engage. We have curriculum nights. We have a pretty much... open door policy for parents to know what their students are being taught, to know what units are being taught, and to engage in those conversations with school leaders and teachers. We have, you know, curriculum reports that come up and we're also able to ask. For whatever it is that we want

112to know, as the board, we have two meetings a month, and I think we have given this a lot of extra time. I know that for my colleagues, I want to respect the fact that this isn't just a box checking, that everybody has been very thoughtful about this and engaged in those conversations and put in extra time and effort. And I just, you know, want to make sure that that gets uplifted, that this is in no way a careless decision that everyone is making, but one that we've put a lot of thought into and just want to lift up the district for having so much transparency around curriculum that we feel that some of us feel confident enough to support this language. So thank you. Thanks, Latoya. I WANT TO ADD JUST ONE THOUGHT AND

113IT PROBABLY PERTAINS TO A LOT OF THE FOLKS THAT WERE TESTIFYING AND CERTAINLY perhaps further conversations from my colleagues on the board. But to me, it seems like having this discussion with the full board would provide almost more transparency than a committee. So I'd be curious to learn more about that, and maybe not now, but in the future, kind of like what we're thinking about a committee versus the full board. But, you know, as... Member part of the West Hartford community. I would say prior to joining the board. I knew very little about the board itself I definitely didn't know that they had subcommittees And so I would just offer up that I think I often hear issues Brought up in public comment, and I can feel the frustration of them Maybe you're feeling like

114they're not being addressed by the board And I would agree that we need to find a better way to do that in my opinion and you know if there is a curriculum issue that you know folks bring to the board like let's find a way to discuss that here um i i think it's important that we're relying on experts that are not me and probably my colleagues here too, but I certainly hear the frustration about, you know, something wants to be discussed and it feels like it's not getting airtime. But I would just offer up, in my opinion, the best means for that would be at least the full board. And I also know that my colleagues have worked quite hard to come to a resolution on this and have put a lot of thought

115into it. I'M OPEN TO HEARING, AGAIN, I GUESS IN THE FUTURE, I DON'T WANT TO EXTEND THIS CONVERSATION. I'M VERY MUCH IN SUPPORT OF WHAT JASON AND LATOYA AND SHANNON AND JONATHAN HAVE SAID ON TO THIS POINT. JUST WANTED TO ADD IN THAT THOUGHT. Yeah, and I'll just layer in more specifically just because this is something I would like to echo. A lot of thought and discussion has gone into this. I think to Jennifer's point, we are always listening. I mean, we do not comment during public comment, but we are taking everything in and then... looking at the way to kind of prioritize topics over the course of a year in a way that is reasonable and thoughtful and doesn't try to boil the ocean because there is a lot we are trying to address

116in any school year. And at the same time, we don't want to, I think, veer in a direction where we're... changing the way that we've been doing it since we are getting the results that we're getting and we're going to be hearing this incredible report just in short order. I will say I spoke with colleagues at the Connecticut Association of Boards of Education to confirm that way that this is implemented and it's done differently in different districts and there are options that we could have gone with but the policy committee reviewed and discussed this and this is the option that was moved forward through consensus and when I shared that we were interested in advancing this to codify what is already happening, which is a committee of the whole with the entire board being involved

117in hearing about curriculum and pushing on things that are changes and questioning why there's changes and looking at data and asking about professional development for educators to set them up for success. They thought it was brilliant that we were doing it as a committee of the whole because they realized that that is full transparency. We have more board meetings than most districts because we have two meetings a month. And the process of approval, which is a formality that the statute requires, will happen on an annual basis. And we talked about that in terms of timing at the beginning of a school year to identify any new changes to curriculum, anything that is noteworthy that came down from on high from state statute. We would review all of that and we would review it and approve

118it as the formal. curriculum for the year ahead, but we would continue to get reports and input about how things are going all year long like we have always done. And in fact, at that meeting, we could say, oh, that's a new curriculum piece. We haven't heard about that one before. We want to poke in on that a little bit more. Can we get a report on that specific curriculum change in four months? And that would be a priority for our board agenda. We have the ability to modify our board agendas and focus on the topics we think. are worthy of attention and focus. And so we would continue to do that and play that role as an entire board, which is a testament to the fact that my colleagues are so committed and interested

119in being involved in this process because we could, another option is delegated entirely to the administration and we're choosing not to do that. It is a collaborative process in this in the spirit of how this resolution is is worded and so I am in full support of it. Ethan? Small correction, and maybe Miriam's going to do it. It was in consensus. It was a majority vote. The committee operates based on consensus as opposed to a formal vote. Okay. I thought it was a split vote. I'm a non-voting member of the committee. I'm ex officio. So two of the members supported moving it forward, and one did not. But it's not really a, anyway, formality. I move to call the question. Second. Do you want to wrap up, summarize your thoughts? May I? IN THE SPIRIT

120OF TRANSPARENCY, I WOULD LIKE TO ASK AND RAISE THE FOLLOWING DISCUSSION HERE. AS MY COLLEAGUE MENTIONED, THIS WOULD BE A PLACE TO DISCUSS. SINCE MANY HAVE ALREADY SAID HOW TRANSPARENT THE DISTRICT IS, I JUST WANTED TO ASK A FEW CLARIFYING QUESTIONS IF THESE THINGS ARE CONSIDERED TRANSPARENT. IN 2021, THE DISTRICT ACCEPTED THE ASIA SOCIETY GRANT. At that time, it was a program of the Confucius Institute, a program of the Chinese Communist Party, considered a foreign mission of the United States of America. What was the vetting process then to deem that acceptable? Our current social justice standards that are listed on the, if I remember correctly, the social-emotional learning website for our elementary students. are standards that are from the Teaching for Tolerance program, which is now called Learning for Justice, which is the Southern Poverty

121Law Center material. It is known for being biased, one-sided, and Now the Southern Poverty Law Center is also under indictment by the Department of Justice for committing fraud and having claimed to be a civil rights organization, they are accused of funneling millions of dollars to the KKK and other extremist groups. My concern is that if these social justice standards that were adopted a handful of years ago are considered acceptable to the district, what was that vetting process? What is that transparency? And arguably, for these one-sided position, it would be considered a controversial issue. And therefore, I'm asking, where's the other side next to these standards that would promote... PRO-WESTERN VALUES IN CURRICULUM. AND LASTLY, FOR THE PUBLIC AND FOR MY COLLEAGUES, CURIOUS ABOUT HOW PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT THAT GOES TO, FOR EXAMPLE, THE EQUITY DIVERSITY COUNCIL

122AND TEACHERS AND STUDENTS GETS APPROVED AND VETTED. RECENTER, THE DISTRICT CONTRACTED WITH RECENTER LAST YEAR FOR $20,000. THE CONTRACT WAS SIGNED IN SEPTEMBER OF 2024. Was this organization vetted because after October 7th starting on October 8th the executive director who is the facilitator for equity and diversity council presentations had many anti-semitic posts on both private and public social media The website of this organization also endorsed supposed educational resources that were funded by known terrorist groups additionally If this contract was signed for $20,000, which if it's applicable to the purchasing policy on the board website, I'd like to know, was there a designee for this policy authorizing? Were there three other contracts to provide, three other bids to provide the same intended professional development? Where's the transparency? Where's the vetting guidelines for how this is done?

123So I'd like to ask my colleagues again to please reconsider. We need vetting. We need an open process to really learn about what's coming in and how our students, what our students are being taught, what our teachers are being taught. Content matters. Rigorous material matters. And I'm concerned that if we keep going as is, that... THINGS WILL BE MISSED AND THE OPPORTUNITY TO REALLY IMPROVE AND STRENGTHEN OUR STUDENTS EDUCATION WILL NOT REACH ITS MAXIMUM. THANKS. ALL RIGHT, JASON. SO I'M HAPPY TO FINALLY HAVE SOME CLARITY BEHIND THE REAL REASON DRIVING THIS FORWARD. SO I THANK YOU FOR THAT. I MOVE TO CALL THE QUESTION. ALL RIGHT. WE WILL MOVE TO A VOTE. ALL THOSE IN FAVOR, SAY AYE. AYE. OR WE'LL DO A ROLL CALL. LET'S DO A ROLL CALL VOTE, ACTUALLY. Imani, please. Ms.

124Merriman? Aye. Ms. Yagaloff? Aye. Mr. Gagnon? Aye. Ms. Herz? Aye. Mr. Wiener? Aye. Ms. Bleich? No. Mr. Goldman? No. All right. The motion passes 5-2. Thank you. Moving on to new business, school meal rates. Seeking a motion that the, thank you, Julia, a motion that the Board of Education increase 2026-2027 school meal rates for both elementary and secondary schools by 25 cents. And Barbara is rejoining us. So moved. Thank you, Jason. Second. Thank you, John. I'm going to let Barbara introduce this as this relates to... You're smiling at me, so I'll say something. This relates, we haven't increased the school meal prices in several years, and the only reason for doing so is because the federal government monitors the gap between what a district is currently charging and a metric that they calculate based on

125what the district could be charging, and then if that gap becomes too large, then it... triggers other issues relative to our participation in the free and reduced price lunch program and their provision. So that is why this is on here, but it's also a good opportunity. Am I stealing thunder if I talk about the state? It's also a good opportunity to share that at our most recent legislative session, the state of Connecticut voted to provide for free breakfast for all students, and they also voted to provide school districts with a difference in cost so that any student who's on reduced-price lunch would get free lunch. That's a related component to simply share that in terms of increasing the price of lunch, there would be no deleterious impact on our students who receive free and reduced

126price lunch. In fact, it will be free lunch for anyone who qualifies for next year, and all students, regardless of socioeconomic background, qualify for free breakfast for next year. But this movement to increase the price of lunch... IS ESSENTIALLY NECESSARY, IF NOT THIS YEAR, NECESSARY IN GENERAL IN ORDER TO KEEP PACE WITH THE METRIC THAT THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT THINKS THAT WE SHOULD BE CHARGING. AND BARB HAS GREATER SPECIFICS IF YOU WANT TO ASK QUESTIONS. JASON? JUST TO CONFIRM, BECAUSE I THINK THIS PROBABLY WAS A LITTLE BIT OF A KIND OF A STICKER SHOCK TO ANYBODY WHO LOOKED AT THIS WITHOUT KNOWING THAT CONTEXT. IF WE DON'T DO THIS, WE RUN THE RISK OF ACTUALLY LOSING FREE AND REDUCED PRICE LAUNCHING VIA THE FEDS, CORRECT? YES, BUT NOT IMMEDIATELY. IT WOULD BE INCORRECT FOR ME TO

127SAY THAT WOULD BE AN IMMEDIATE OCCURRENCE. YOU COULD SPEAK TO THAT, BARB. YES. You don't have, they're, they essentially, we take a weighted average of our meals, the meals we're providing, and we are comparing it to the federal rate. And so there are certain scenarios in which you can request an exemption, exemption, and you could request an exemption, you can do the exemption. But what happens is the gap between the rate gets so large that eventually your exemption is not granted and you would have to fill a gap that might be say. dollar at one time or you would have to what they might actually what they would actually require to do is just do consecutive year after year increases to get to said dollar just as a example if the gap continued to grow

128and so this makes strides basically we put our numbers in the calculator having not done it for four years we were at a point where we were due to make an increase BUT BECAUSE OF THE STATE STEPPING IN, THIS IS NOT GOING TO AFFECT ANYBODY WHO ACTUALLY NEEDS FREE AND REDUCED LUNCH AND BREAKFAST. JENNIFER? I'M OKAY WITH THE INCREASE AND APPRECIATE THE, YOU KNOW, NECESSITY TO IT. I WANT TO RAISE ONCE AGAIN, WHICH I KNOW IS NOT, YOU KNOW, ON THE SCHOOL, BUT I THINK I ACTUALLY WANT TO SEE A DISCUSSION AT ONE OF THE MEETINGS NEXT YEAR. AND, YOU KNOW, I THINK I'm sure we'll talk about this more. It would be great, I think, if we could lay out some time, some meetings where we know we're going to discuss food or we're

129going to discuss curriculum or we're going to discuss recess time or we're going to discuss electronics so that the public can be prepared to come in and share their thoughts on it. I want to just, I have to say again, you know, serving kids. cinnamon rolls and sugar in the morning, I think benefits nobody, especially them. Obviously, good food is expensive, and I appreciate all that. I think it's incredibly important to achievement and all the things, and I would like to see us take a look at what we can do in that regard. So thank you for bringing this to us. I appreciate it. I support it. and I hope to see more on this or hear more on this next school year with an opportunity for the public to weigh in too. John? Yeah,

130I would just echo that. I mean, I certainly understand the need to raise the price to keep pace with the federal regulations, but as that does get passed on to the students and families in our district, I think it would be an appropriate time to have a report on the status of nutrition services and really what we're serving. I can tell you that probably the number one constituent complaint I get is School food, which of course you know hey look it it's school food, but at the same time You know I think Jen raises a very you know raises a very compelling point about Sin and rolls in the morning you know will lead to sugar crash by 9 o'clock So I'd like to you know I would like to see more of a report

131on this nutrition status And perhaps ask for that to be an agenda item. I would say maybe through the first or second meeting. It is on the list, so already under discussion. Just to side up one more second. I think it would be very helpful, and maybe we can talk about this later, but to write, if we're going to put the dates and we know it's going to be an agenda item, write that now so that people can come and plan around that so they can have time to share or get their thoughts together because... There's not a lot of time when the agenda comes out, which I completely understand. Everyone's doing their best here. But especially if we know a topic like this is planned for the first or second meeting, let's put that

132out now. And that way folks can speak to it. Ethan? So my question is slightly different. Is it page 100 where the cafeteria food costs are? So page 100 is a report of the nutrition services financials as of... It's page 77. Oh, yeah, we're on page 77. No, no, I understand that, but if I'm looking at page 100, I see operating income of negative $100,000, but interest income, inventory change of positive $70,000, so pretty close to break-even, if that's what we're talking about. Or is it something totally unrelated? Well, they're related in that it would inform the financials if we were to increase the rate. It would increase revenue just in the way that similarly the state legislation that Paul spoke on would also increase revenue. But this is actually, so the federal government puts

133aside how your performance of your nutrition services fund is performing. Their equity calculation is really predicated on ensuring that you have sufficient non-federal dollars to support your nutrition services program. Okay, because I'm assuming this will make it, it'll all drop to the bottom, it'll all be positive. It would have a favorable impact on the nutrition services fund, assuming consistent meal purchases. Okay, and we don't know how much incremental... positive margin will be. I mean, it just seems like it's going to go from break even to very positive. It should be a more favorable experience. And in addition, you know, you may see more participation in breakfast when there's universal breakfast. So there's actually a few factors at play here. But yes, it should have a favor. It will have a favorable impact. It just seems

134so effective as a federal government. So I guess you can't do anything. I guess on the other hand, would we also run the risk of losing, you know, losing that favorable variance should food costs continue to go up? Correct. So there's a number of factors built into the cost. I mean, I don't think we have a choice, but I would have thought we'd be losing a lot more money before they forced something. I'm done. All right. Any other questions or discussion? All right. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstains? Latoya, did you? Yeah, sorry. I was on mute. Aye. Aye. Great. All right. The motion passes. All right. Let's see. Moving on to the ratification of local 818 AFSCME Council for AFL-CIO Cafeteria Managers Contract Contracts. Sorry. And we have

135Shannon and Julia joining us. So seeking a motion that the Board of Education ratify the negotiated agreement between the cafeteria managers and the Board of Education for the period of July 1, 2026 through June 30, 2030. So moved. Thank you, Jason. Second. Thank you, John. So I'm gonna let the team talk but I'll just very quickly say yep three three contracts tonight cafeteria managers cafeteria workers and our Educational secretaries and I'm just very grateful to the team. They have been in constant negotiations throughout the spring and so grateful for all their work and so grateful for these organizations with which they've ratified a contract as well and can't say enough about our cafeteria managers and workers and I'm looking forward to showcasing them at an upcoming meeting. Thank you, Paul. As we said, it's been

136a very busy few weeks, so we will have time to go through all three of the contracts with you, so they'll each have individual votes. But we did just want to start by echoing what Paul said, that we are grateful for the hard work of all of these employees, all of the ways that they support our students, support our schools. The negotiations were a very collaborative process. You know, in developing the contracts, we look at comparables with other districts, and we do feel that these are fair. contracts both on the board side and for the employees. So the cafeteria managers, just to give you a little bit of context, there's seven employees in that union. There's one cafeteria manager at each of the high schools. And then there's five people that are shared between the

137middle school and the elementary school. And they really, at the school-based level, see the implementation of the nutrition services and the food. They do the ordering. They're checking in and helping with the money. side of aspects with the different student accounts and they're overseeing that whole process. So as far as salaries for the cafeteria managers, we're looking again at a four-year contract. So we're recommending that the board ratify the negotiated agreement going from July 1st of this year through June 30th of 2030. There would be step movement and a 3% general wage increase the first year, followed by 2.75%, 3%, and 2.75%. You can see there is also a one-time yearly stipend for longevity based on years of service. And we're happy to say that there are several employees within this union that do have

138over 20 years of service to the district. The insurance, the cost share from the employee would increase by a quarter percent each year. And then for the pension contribution, it would be 7% the first two years and then increase to 7.25%. And if you have any questions on that, we're happy to answer. Any questions? John? I just had a question on the steps. How many steps are in each grade? So for this group, they have seven steps. Okay. Thank you for this report. I just want to give a shout out to the cafeteria workers and I apologize in advance but I think it's Mary Lou or Betty Lou but at Whiting Lane the cafeteria worker I have to say makes my kids day and their kindness and just smiling face I think when I think

139about kind of like the village and like what makes schools special I think of some of the cafeteria workers and obviously many other folks, but they make a big difference in my family's life and I'm sure many others and I just thank you for all that they do and what you're doing to renew this contract. So, appreciate that. No, I'm glad that you said that. Having had many years of elementary lunch duty, I can tell you that the food services staff, I was so impressed how they know so many students by name, know exactly which foods they like, know what their favorite thing is, who wants sauce on their pasta, who doesn't. And it really, you know, just the enthusiasm that they have and how happy they are to see the kids every day. I'm

140glad that you pointed that out. Ethan? I have a procedural question. Given the large rise in the budget or the salaries for this current budget, is it possible in the future to do members over total, just to get a context? I realize these are small groups right now, but like it's seven over how many people? So that would, you know, when it's 5%, it would mean something if it's a small number or a big number for future. Yes, but I would like afterward I can ask some more clarifying questions, but happy to provide additional information. All right. Thank you. Any other questions? Okay. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Latoya? Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? The motion passes. So moving from the cafeteria manager's contract to the cafeteria worker's contract, seeking a motion that

141the Board of Education ratify the negotiated agreement between the cafeteria workers and the Board of Education for the period of July 1, 2026 through June 30, 2030. So moved. Thank you, Jason. Second. Thank you, John. Any additional? Context or you want to go through? So the cafeteria workers, there are 60 current members of that union. Their average workday, just to give you a little context, is about four and a half hours because they're there during the time that lunch is being served. Part of that union, part of that 60 people, there are also cooks and drivers. The average length of their workday is about six hours because they're coming in a little earlier to help with all of the food prep, the food delivery, making sure that the schools have everything that they need. We're

142also looking for that to be the ratification of a four-year contract, also starting on July 1st, ending on June 30th. Their general wage increases would be 5% the first year, 3% the second year, 3% the third year, and then 2% the fourth year. Their insurance premium cost share would be 17% the first two years, followed by an increase to 17.25% and 17.5%. And then you can also see the pension contribution, which would start at 6%, move to 6.25, 6.5, and 7%. Do you have any questions pertaining to the cafeteria workers? I just have a question in terms of at what threshold hours per week do you have to work to qualify for insurance benefits in the district? Okay. But with their, okay. But presumably with their schedule they are eligible for, okay. All right. All

143those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? The motion passes. Okay. And then EXCITED TO MOVE ON TO RATIFICATION OF THE WEST HARFORD FEDERATION OF EDUCATIONAL SECRETARIES CONTRACT SEEKING A MOTION THAT THE BOARD OF EDUCATION RATIFY THE NEGOTIATED AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE WEST HARFORD FEDERATION OF EDUCATIONAL SECRETARIES AND THE BOARD OF EDUCATION FOR THE PERIOD OF JULY 1, 2026 THROUGH JUNE 30, 2030. SO MOVED. THANK YOU, JASON. SECOND. THANK YOU, MIRIAM. And over to you, Shannon. Again, there are 50 current members of the Secretarial Union. There are secretaries across all 16 schools and town hall. And, you know, secretaries are often the first people that you see when you walk into a school. And we appreciate all that they do to help make our school such a welcoming environment for parents and for our

144students. Sorry, I don't mean to interrupt. No, no, no. Can she take the name? They can take the name tag. Yes. Okay. It's an important souvenir. You don't want to walk away without that. It's great on a dorm. With the picture. Thank you, guys. Thank you. Stay in touch. We hope you have a great end of the year. With the ratification of the secretarial contract, that would also be a four-year contract. You can see their wage increases listed below 3%, 2.75%, 2.75%, and 2.5%. You can also see that they also have a yearly stipend for longevity based on years of service. And their premium cost share for insurance would start at 20.75, move up to 21, 21.5, and 21.75. And then on the back page is their pension contribution, and you could see that that

145would be a quarterly increase for each year. Any questions about the secretarial contract? Any questions? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? The motion passes. Thank you. That's great news. All right. Moving on to staff communications and reports, we will start with our superintendent's report. Thank you very much and welcome to June. Obviously lots of end of year celebrations. I want to begin with just a statement of gratitude to not only to this board for everything that you do in support of our schools, but a huge, huge thank you to all of our teachers as we wrap up. You know, everything that we do in our educational mission is... A reflection of their dedication, their professionalism, and their passion for children. And on that note, it's been so exciting to have

146Cass come here on consecutive board meetings. And it will be equally exciting coming up on June 9th. We're going to have a huge celebration of the Blue Ribbon School with Webster Hill Elementary being named as the 2026 Blue Ribbon. I'm sorry, I'm just losing my voice all of a sudden. A VERY PRESTIGIOUS AWARD. IT'S ONLY PROVIDED SCHOOL DISTRICTS THAT GET IN THE TOP 10%. AND WESTERHILL HAS DONE THAT FOR THE LAST TWO YEARS. YOU HAVE SOME WATER? THANK YOU. I'M SORRY. I'M NOT CRYING IN HAPPINESS. I'M JUST CRYING FROM THIS GETTING THIS SCRATCH IN MY THROAT. THANK YOU SO MUCH, IMANI. I APPRECIATE THAT. THANK YOU. So we couldn't be more proud, and I apologize. I didn't want my takeaway from that excitement. A number of others. I'm going to go quickly because I know

147it's been a jam-packed agenda, but huge kudos going out to Pam Moffo and Kathy Sweetland. They're of Conard and Hall respectfully. They were honored during a pregame celebration of 50 years of girls' softball here in the district when we played the Mayor's Cup. And just so proud of what we've done for women's sports over, you know, we were groundbreakers in that 50 years ago, and we've come so far. And it's... testament to folks like Pam and Kathy who are just leaders and they continue to be leaders in sports and for youth leadership. Connecticut Student Writing Contest. Kudos going out to Bugbee fifth grader Finley Tim. Finley, I got late notice on last time. Finley joins. A silver award winner joins honors among a number of other students, a total of six Bugbee students who took

148home recognition in that competition. And again, kudos this time to Erica Finnegan for her inspiration and writing and guidance throughout the process for Finley and the entirety of the class. We were graced, you heard earlier, we were graced with the governor coming out. We were graced with the commissioner of the Department of Motor Vehicles coming to Hall this week. And he's a good guy. I've known him for quite a while. And Hall students, Jaslyn Ravenberg, Gios Bastien, and Henry Menegea. took honors as part of the Department of Motor Vehicles Public Service Announcement Video Competition, their winning video, which I sent you a link to. regards distracted driving and a very important message that is delivered in a creative means. And I encourage you to watch the video. It is great. It's just super great. Hall

149has owned that competition since the Department of Motor Vehicles started it. Conard has also won several times, but I mean Hall wins like every single year. Very impressive what they do. And that's kudos to Scott Sanpetro, a graphics teacher for inspiration and guidance. Keeper of the Light Award. I don't know if you guys are all familiar with this. Some of your veteran members may be more familiar. It's an award provided by our own pupil services department. to recognize and honor staff for exemplary practice, professionalism, and dedication to excellence, especially as it relates to servicing students with need within the Pupil Services Department. This year, congratulations will go to Tim Richardson, who's a paraeducator from Wolka Elementary as being the recipient. based on his commitment to children and everything that he does above and beyond. I

150was super proud of Tim. And I'm told that they wanted to give the award to every single one of the nominees. It was a very, very impressive field. You already heard about the FEOD pinning, so I'm super excited about that. Odyssey of the Mind, I want to give congratulations to Charter Oak, Odyssey of the Mind team. They had an outstanding performance at the Mind World Finals, which took place in Iowa. They competed with teams from across the world. They earned 10th place finish worldwide, 7th place finish in the United States. So huge kudos to them. The fifth grade team was comprised of Nia, Ishan, Eliza, Shresha, Kurthy, Ryan, and Finn. And just again, a thank you to Coach Michelle Hadlock, our quest teacher, for all of her work and inspiration. Beyond that, just a couple

151of notes, updates. It is Celebrate West Hartford. I don't know if you noticed while you were parking this evening. Coming up this weekend, we're excited for that. We do have our two high school graduations taking place simultaneously this coming June the 11th at 5 p.m. at the respective schools. There is a community eat celebration happening at Blueback Square on Friday, June the 12th. Our last day of school will be on Thursday, June the 18th. And then there is a community Juneteenth celebration on Friday, June 19th. Other than that, I have... I appreciate everything this year. I want to thank you. And I will be prepared to take any questions before we hit the real highlight, which will be our profile and performance report. Miriam? Can I support and I guess maybe this is a point

152of privilege to echo the superintendent's acknowledgement of the keeper of the light award Mr. R My daughter certainly has benefited from his support and he is part of a really exceptional team at Wolcott So I'd like to congratulate Mr. R and support certainly the Wolcott team and all of their efforts as well. So MY CONGRATULATIONS. THANK YOU SO MUCH. THANK YOU. JOHN? PAUL, CAN YOU JUST CLARIFY, DO YOU HAVE A TIME ON THE WEBSTER HILL EVENT ON THE 9th? The event is at 1 p.m. Now, the state has not opened it up for us to invite every single person. Unfortunately, they've kept this for whatever reason. They're they're asking that each school district they're going to they're utilizing West Hartford to recognize all six schools from across the state. And they asked each school to

153only have four four guests. So that's a bummer. I know. I'm sorry. May I ask a question specific to Webster Hill, if possible? The math curriculum that they have been so successful with, is that utilized in other elementary schools or are there plans for it to be? Now, actually, they utilize our school district. You know, it's a townwide math curriculum. They've been involved for a number of years. First off, exceptional instructional leadership from Melissa Behrens for a number of years, and we just plucked her away and put her at the elementary. But it's professional learning communities and a very, you know, it was one of the first schools where they, we've always had PLC work. time allocated, but there's a very formal process to that where you're kind of laser focused in and around student

154learning outcomes, ensuring there's a clear understanding of what those standards are, what are the measurable outcomes, how are students doing at it, what are you doing in response to that? And they undertook that work, the team over there. with great fidelity and great seriousness. And that's the work that Ann and her office has been working to replicate across the district. We've had a lot of formal training in and around PLCs, but it's our own homegrown math curriculum from here in the district. And the other thing... That has come up, you know, I ready was raised and I need to look into you know privacy and the specifics of all that but the I ready platform as a whole since we've started using it as actually at least it's coincided with the increases that we've seen

155year over year in the math performance of the district as a whole. So that's not to take anything away. We have a lot of work ahead of us relative to screen time and all the rest. But I did want to just sort of say something about that since you asked about math. All right. Well, thank you for that report and looking forward to hearing more when we reconvene in September. But we will move now on to staff reports and board discussions. First hearing the year-end restorative practices response report with Julio and Teresa Rangel. All right. Good evening, everyone. I feel like I've been up here a lot tonight. So if you recall back in January, Teresa and I presented our first restorative practice response report to the board. If you recall at that time, I

156emphasized two important points. First is that this year's data is really going to be used to set the baseline for us so that we have a better understanding of patterns and regarding to student behavior and to allow us to evaluate the effectiveness of our efforts. Secondly, really also was just reminding everyone that behind every number is a student with a unique story, a set of circumstances, strengths, and challenges that they're facing themselves as well. So tonight, as I present the year-end report with Teresa, I believe those same points remain as important today as they did back in January. This will help us, again, establish a year-long baseline that will identify meaningful trends and pinpoint areas of growth where we really want to focus our energy on and continue some of the hard conversations that we're

157having. That being said, I believe the data reflects significant progress overall. While year-over-year comparisons are not necessarily apples to apples due to changes in reporting requirements, changes in the definitions, and just overall how we've sort of operated and looked at, we have seen encouraging reductions across many of the behavioral categories, specifically incidents categorized as physical, or I should say fighting, that decreased by approximately 6%. Physical and verbal confrontations decreased by 17%, and personal threatening behavior decreased by 23%. These are not small changes, and they do positively affect school culture, as these categories encompass some of the most common and disruptive behaviors that we know that we have to see and address in our schools. In short, reductions in these areas mean fewer disruptions to the overall learning environment for all students. Perhaps the most encouraging

158result is the reduction in the number of serious disciplinary offenses list issued. Here, we saw the total number of challenging behavioral incidents resulting in either removal from class, suspension, or expulsion decreased by 21%, as well as the decline in the number of individual students who retrieved at least one of these consequences. So from my perspective, this is one of the most important indicators in this report. Because simply put, it means that more students remain connected to their instruction and engaged in their school communities rather than being pulled out and missing the education that is so critical to them. So together these findings create a story, right? That vast majority of our students are making good decisions, that they're engaging successfully in school and contributing positively to the overall learning environment of all of our schools.

159When we examine the data more closely, another promising trend emerges. Approximately two-thirds of students who receive a serious disciplinary consequence did not receive a second one this year. So simply put, in a district serving nearly 9,000 students, only about 1% of our students received multiple serious disciplinary consequences. To me, this suggests the restorative intervention and supports accompanying our disciplinary practices are having a meaningful and positive impact on student behavior. We also continue to see very low rates of the most serious categories of behavior. These outcomes reinforce what we already knew, is that our schools are safe and they remain safe places for our students and our staff. With all that said, I want to be clear that these improvements did not happen by accident. They weren't just by chance, that there was a lot of

160hard work and thought that went behind them and a lot of the different things that we put in place this year to really make sure that we were doing preventative, proactive approaches that focused on relationships, creating a real sense of belonging and a community feel in all of our schools. And one of the folks that's really been, I think, a key player in that has been Teresa. and some of the different things that she's brought to the district and brought to this year's work. And so I do want to turn it over to her so that she can walk through some of the various things that she and our leaders did within the buildings. I feel like I'm a broken record when I'm here, only because I really do believe in the approach that we're

161taking. And I have to say that I've been pleasant, not necessarily surprised, but having it reaffirmed by the leading experts in the field. Yesterday, I actually participated along with some... district staff in a CPI training. So, um, crisis prevention institute training around culture and climate. And it was an all day online training where you actually train the trainers. Um, and so they're certified and they'll be able to actually roll out the training. Um, and we have an assigned person who kind of helps and supports to make sure that if we need anything additionally, they provide that. But one of the things that was reassuring is as we sat through that all day long online training and we had our own little chat going to talk about it is how in sync we were with what

162we're already doing. We've already identified as a district our pressure points and where we need to apply pressure and to double down in building relationships. And so what their training provided was just some additional resources. some new strategies for us to get there, to deepen the work that we're doing, but in no way, shape, or form was it out of line with what we have been doing. And this is, as Julia said, this is an overnight process. the things that we are trying to address are complex. Human beings are complex. Human beings are even more complex, right? Because we don't know their full story all the time. And so when we think about the behaviors that are happening in schools, our work that we have done with creating our modules that has been supported by

163staff that they don't want to see necessarily new work. They want to see us doing better at the work that we're doing, which is... extremely promising, considering the results that we already received with the work that we did do this year. So I honor their commitment to wanting to get better. I honor their commitment to wanting to see just increased visibility in the work that we're doing. And like I said, I do feel like the modules that have been created, and I know that we've, I don't want to belabor because I know that it's late, and we still have a lot to do. I don't want to belabor all the different modules that we've done, but you've seen the work in practice. I also want to take an opportunity to just remind... board members and

164we I know we have some new board members that a lot of the work that we are done is kind of based on our original work where we we spent a year taking a look at street data and learning to Listen to our constituents right listen to our students Listen to families directly all of our work with focus groups all of our work with with being intentional around listening to all voices started with that work that we did. And, you know, just as a matter of course, I do, you know, know that we've heard a lot of commentary and I'm always struggling to make sure that people understand what the work of equity is and what it's not. I, you know, have a strong belief in... practice of making sure that all voices are heard

165and that we honor all voices and that we see and listen to all communities in the work that we do. And really it's a lot about making sure that people feel like they belong and making sure that we don't have barriers, you know, in the way of people getting what they need. So that's really the work of equity work. It's, you know, again, same as a doctor. model. You don't want to go to the doctors and the doctor says, oh, I just saw Jason yesterday. I'm going to give you the same thing I gave Jason without examining you or knowing what you need and taking a look at your health. Well, we do this every day when it comes to our academics. We also have to do that when it comes to social and emotionally

166who people are, what they need, what they require. Not just listening to student voices, but doing something when they have taken the time to actually share what they would like to see happen. And I think the last time I was here and brought my little friends with me to demonstrate the program, that's a perfect example of listening to student voices in the middle school, what they said they needed, designing something that actually addresses what they said they needed, and then having the strength and character and... will and desire to make it happen for them. And they continue to shine. So that is the work of equity work, just so that there is some clarity in the public around what this work is, what this work isn't. I personally, if I had my... sometimes the words

167in the titles because they can be used and hijacked for other meanings, I think it gets in the way of what it really is. And so I don't tend to use them, to be honest with you, even though, you know, the word equity is in my title. The reality is, is what I am as a culture and climate specialist in my background absolutely proves that. It's what I do. And that's what we're doing as a district. We are moving culture and climate. We are ensuring that all people have a space within the work that we do. And our professional development reflects that. And we are also willing and we know that we need to strive to get better at what we do because we know that there's, in every place that we look, there's somebody

168who doesn't feel like they belong. And so, you know. hard as that task is to kind of keep going back for more, that is what we're committed to doing is continue to go back, continue to question, continuing to allow ways for other people to be heard. So that is our, that is the work that we've been doing that I hope has contributed to some of the results we're seeing and that's work we will continue to do to make sure that that happens. So, are you jumping in? Well, I was just going to jump in and say I know that, and I appreciate the report that each of these guys gave, but before you open it up, I don't know if you have more, before you open it up to discussion, at the last, at the

169mid-year meeting, you guys had asked for those, you know, comparatives, and so I appreciate that they've included those for you. And I'm very excited because I see the promise and the payoff in the work. Yeah, I just wanted to quickly wrap up because I do want to, you know, again, align with our, you know, being transparent, right? I think we talked a lot about the, I'll call them the glows, right? The things that we really sat down and I spend a lot of my time like this is my work and looking at discipline and, you know, so there was a lot of... I DON'T EVEN KNOW IF I COULD CALL THEM PROUD OR CELEBRATIONS WHEN YOU'RE LOOKING AT THESE TOPICS, BUT I THINK WE WERE, YOU KNOW, PROUD OF THAT WE'RE SEEING REDUCTIONS. I THINK,

170THOUGH, THERE'S ALSO AN IMPORTANT PART TO HIGHLIGHT THAT THERE DOES REMAIN STILL A REALLY SIGNIFICANT work and real significant concern when you look at the disproportionality in our discipline data, particularly related to our Hispanic students. We saw that at the mid-year, you know, we had a lot of conversations about that and, you know, certainly we're disappointed that we didn't see a real trend or a real change there. And so I think what that really does require us is continue to have and ask the difficult conversations. You know, one of the things I want you to know is that I meet regularly every month with the assistant principals and we look at real situations that happened, right? We change student names and we'll look at those. We'll talk about, hey, how did you handle that? What

171was the discipline that was issued? What did you do after the fact? But then we also start to think about what could we have done to perhaps prevent this from happening? And so we've had some really good conversations and they've been a lot of back and forth. And really, I think too, is just some is calibration amongst the schools. But what's exciting to report is that, you know, for next year, I've actually invited my good friend, Teresa, to come to those meetings and really help. us also focus, you know, and to have that real laser focus on this and to just put it out there and to start thinking about that. So again, you know, I think when we look at everything overall, there's a lot of reasons, I think, to be encouraged, right? I

172think that there is some, you know, some real pieces there. And I think when you look at the overall number, right, we talk about with 9,000 students, you know, that 1% that gets that second sort of consequence, I think that is something to be proud of. But I also recognize that the changes that we've made, they're not working yet for every kid. And so I know that we really focus on that concept of every child every day. And so I think that's the piece that, you know, I want to stand up in front of the numbers and say that we recognize that that is not yet speaking to every child, but we're going to get there and we're really laser focused on that. You know, and I guess the last piece and I'll end with

173is because I always feel that I just have to is that, you know, I think the numbers in this report, they're certainly important. And I know it's something that the board had asked for. And I hope that you see that that that transparency in those numbers. But I also know that they're you know, the numbers aren't just numbers, right? And that they're actually a child behind every single number. You know, in the every data point not only represents a student. but it actually is an incident reflects a moment in a young person's life, right? And so I think that all of us at some point probably have something that we weren't super proud of. And so I think for us is really taking the opportunity to never judge anybody by that incident and to always

174look at, hey, let's understand why you got there. Let's understand what we can do to make sure that doesn't happen again. And let's look at what supports we need to put in place to really ensure that. You know, I think that's the piece that we're really focused on. And in closure, really, I just would like to say, because there's a lot of people that are involved in this work, everywhere from our assistant principals to our principals, our teachers and the heavy work that they're doing, right? Because we've talked a lot about that, that a lot of these initial, I'll call it tier one interventions, they happen really actually before behaviors, right? It's that those establishing relationships in classrooms, getting to know that kid's story, right? Knowing that when, you know, my student comes in and

175he's... just got a certain look today, like, let me just give him a moment to kind of get himself settled in and I'm going to give him his space. And I know even I think when Joy was here last time, just hearing like that strategy. And, you know, I know that that probably wasn't strategies that everyone used years ago. But we also know that what we're doing now is effective. And we're seeing that. And like I said, I think it's really important for us to just continue to do that. But I do want to give a special thanks to everyone in the building that really does the heavy lifting. I know it's sort of interesting, like some of the contracts we were going over today, right? Like I think about what those cafeteria workers do,

176what those secretaries do to create a safe and welcoming environment. I used to tell my greeter all the time when I was principal at Connor, like, I hope you understand, you're probably the only person that most people will associate with this school, right? Is that phone call when they pick up and usually they're not super happy. So like... have patience and recognize where they're coming from and they're not yelling at you. You know, and we established that real culture right from the start to work on that partnership. But like I said, we certainly have a lot of work to do still. And I, you know, I want to sort of tackle that head on and acknowledge that, but also not lose sight that, you know, I think we've made some really good progress already. into

177this year. And I know I appreciate the support that Paul has given me and, you know, the flexibility to look and to get creative. And I think we've got some ideas already that I think really we'll see some difference next year. You know, I'm excited about that component. So. John? So, Julie and Teresa, thank you so much for the report. And, Julia, thanks for, again, acknowledging that there is some disproportionality in terms of the racial and ethnic impact of some of the discipline. And I know you are working to address that. I'm looking at page 88 of the board report and the two tables. So there's the disaggregation of the race and special education status in the bottom tables. And then there's the larger table on the top with the number of challenging behavior incidents

178resulting in student discipline. Do we have a more specific breakout of... the ethnic and racial makeup of those who are say receiving in-school suspension versus out-of-school suspension or removal from class because you know not all these consequences are equal. So I was wondering if the numbers in terms of or the disproportionate numbers are equal across the board of the various sanctions or there's some sanctions that are hitting some groups harder. Yeah, I mean, we certainly can get that. You know, one of the things that, you know, again, just full transparency that Teresa and I have really talked a lot about is this concept of OSS and really trying to get people to understand, like, I don't know that I see the real value in it unless and really holding to that line of unless a

179kid's a danger to themselves or the environment. But really asking that, that question and really sort of doubling down on like, well, help me understand that, you know, and then sort of. trickling back to that piece too. And, you know, one of the comments I'll share too is, you know, we've had a lot of debate and we may have shared it at this table, you know, and I guess I'll say frustration at the state level with our elementary group. And then at the end of the day, if you're out of a class for 90 minutes, they make us code that as an in-school suspension. And so, you know, I think last time I may have joked about like the Gaga pit incident, but that's the reality, you know, where we have a situation where students

180get into a disagreement on the playground and we want to do what's right by those kids and allow them to deescalate and then have the ability to process that with an adult. And ultimately, we would hope that we could get the kids together to sort of realize, hey, all right, like, we're good. Let's move on. The reality is to do that in 90 minutes, like, that's just... You know, so then we're wrestling with, hey, do we rush it and not do it right so that we don't have to code something? Or do we just do what's right for kids and recognize that, hey, that may look like a number on a piece of paper? And so, again, I think that's a great point, Jonathan. And we can take a look at to see like, hey,

181are we treating certain kids differently when it comes to the consequence piece? And I think that's the work that we're really starting to do. And I appreciate our administrators who have been very patient with me when they call me. And then I walk them down an exercise of like, hey, walk me through this and help me understand that and push back on that. I know Teresa does the same thing. Because again, I think to go back to that piece, it's recognizing that, hey, there's a story behind every action and trying to figure out the why. Because I think for most kids in the moment, like right when we make a mistake in the moment, it seemed like the right decision. And then when you sort of settle down and calm down and process it, you're

182like, yeah, I probably could have done something different. So I know a super long-winded answer to get to you, Jonathan, but it is data that we can look at and to sort of analyze as well. And Latoya just wanted to contribute. Latoya, you're on. Okay. Yeah. Thank you, Julio and Teresa, for this presentation. I love the continued work in restorative justice. I echo Jonathan's sentiment in terms of wanting to have a deeper understanding of the race of the students and the offenses, because I think that gives us an opportunity to look at bias a little closer. The other thing is the Latino, the Hispanic Latino students, I know last year their numbers were kind of rising as well. And so just really want to, you know, get an understanding of what's happening there and to

183just see if there's any, I don't know, just again. thinking about the climate of our country right now and how bias can play a role in how we see our students. So those are just some things I'm thinking about. And I know, like, we work hard to try to get diverse teachers, but I think this will always be a consequence of not having as many teachers to reflect the diversity in our district. It's going to be some of these punitive consequences. And then the last thing that I'll say is. I really want to challenge us to move away from suspending elementary school students. I mean, so many scholars and education leaders, experts, like, have already concluded that it is developmentally inappropriate to suspend elementary school students. And so I think I want us to take

184a closer look at that and think about, you know, some potential alternatives for that population. Thanks, Latoya. Paul? Agreed. And I just wanted to offer for the board, hearing everything that you're saying, we can look at how we disaggregate by race, ethnicity. But an observation I want to make sure we did do, we looked at the distribution percentage-wise as to how, you know, the representation across different race, ethnicity, comparing our end-of-year results to our mid-year results and comparing our end-of-year results to last year's end-of-year results. So the positive news is... while we still have this disproportionality issue, it's no better, no worse. So in other words, it's not like, hey, we reduced our overall behavior, but it really only helped out white students. No, the percentages... of incidents as they exist across the different race

185ethnicities and for special education are pretty comparable, not perfectly identical, but not significantly different from where they stood at the mid-year and where they stood at the end of last year, which is good news in the sense that all of those reductions that you heard the team talk about benefited all groups of students equally. Our work ahead, as you've said and we agree, lies with how can we then reduce that disproportionality? And to the elementary piece, you know, Latoya, I think I want to just affirm what Julio said. We hear you. We agree with you. We're slightly... STIMED BY THE FACT THAT IF WE'RE DOING SOMETHING WHERE A STUDENT IS DISREGULATED AND WE HAVE TO WORK WITH THEM OUTSIDE OF THE CLASSROOM FOR 90 MINUTES, THE STATE WANTS US TO CODE THAT AS AN EXCLUSION

186FROM THE CLASSROOM AS OPPOSED TO KIND OF JUST PROVIDING THE STUDENT WHAT THEY NEED WHILE KEEPING THEM THERE IN SCHOOL. SO THAT PART OF IT IS A REPORTING ISSUE. THERE ARE CERTAINLY SOME OTHERS. you know, on there with some out of school that we can talk about. But I think we agree and affirm what you've said, and it's in our crosshairs as well. I just want to add, too, I should have mentioned this. Two things. One is I agree with you, Latoya, and I also want to just recognize Kelly Brouse, who's, you know, someone who really has been a great support, too. So anytime we run into or I run into any elementary issues where we're looking or talking. one of these challenging behavior pieces like she's such a great resource. We get on the

187phone, we get on the phone with the principal and we really talk that through and even get on the phone with parents and try to work that all through too. So I do think we'll continue to see growth in that. The piece that I wanted to also provide some clarity because you may not think of this is that, you know, when you see it. number on here that sometimes again that represents students that that could be one incident and so for instance like we had an incident that involved six students and so now all of a sudden that one incident results in six numbers on here and so like we don't break it down by incidents I guess per se if you looked at it that way even though it may be called that and

188depending on, you know, what happens, where it happens. Um, again, if you look at some of them, it would make natural sense, you know, when you look at fighting or something like you're not fighting yourself. Um, so there's going to be more than one. Uh, and, and so, like I said, it's just the numbers don't always tell that whole story either. Also, I'd like to add that, I'm sorry, um, that sometimes, um, to answer to talk to you, Latoya, about the issue because again, I'm an elementary person to my core. But oftentimes what we find is we also have a responsibility to make sure that this the space is safe. So if you've had something happen with students and the victim of that incident Is also like say in the same space right and they

189have to share the same space in elementary school It's you're in the classroom. It's not so simple to separate. We also have the responsibility to make a thorough safety plan and sometimes that requires us, you know, all the parties who would be normally executing the, the, the intervention are now pulled to be involved with actually making the safety plan to make sure that we can be sure that, that when the student comes back, that they can reenter and that we have a plan for how we're going to do that safely. Um, that's happened, I know, several times this year. And, and again. But without question, we are looking, striving, right, to be able to keep our kids in school, in class, learning, thriving under the, you know, the love and care that they get from

190their teachers. But, you know. things do happen. And I, and the other thing I will say is that we look at every single entry. I don't think you even understand the level, like we actually go through, we get the phone calls, we actually go through and we were looking at the numbers. We're not just like checking off boxes. We are actually really trying to understand what happened. And, um, we do have like a, definitely a disproportionate disproportionality with our Hispanic Latino. Um, population of students when it comes to discipline, but also I can again, like, you know, what I can say triggers really high in that area is fighting, which, you know, it's very interesting to me because my husband's Mexican. So I have this conversation with him and I'm like, what is going on?

191And there are definitely some different cultural norms about how you handle things and what was required, what you feel is required when you've been disrespected. And so having those conversations, we've been having really great parent meetings to talk about some of those things. which are different culturally. And so again, the work pushes forward. We continue to move on. Ethan? Two unrelated questions. The first is, can you refresh my memory? Why did we not use prior years as a base case as opposed to this year? Because you have the statistics. So we looked at them, but if you remember the definition of certain things, like bullying was a good example, like that definition changed completely, and even how you're recategorizing or how you're categorizing some items. So although many did stay the same, some changed, and

192so we thought to ourselves, like, hey, we can look at it overall, which is why I presented our growth. But I also didn't want to present like, hey, this is exactly the same exact data from last year. No, it would have just been interesting, even if it's just for one year. My second question is, I understand you're going to use this year as a base case compared to prior. Do we also set an objective, or not an objective is the wrong word, but sort of where we want to be as opposed to the prior year? Because when you dictate by the prior year, you're not shooting for where you want to be. I mean, we want to be at zero, I think. Well, I know, but realistically. But we're realistic. I think the goal, you

193know, I understand. I'm poking with one. But I think our real goal lies in and around our disproportionality. And what we would love to see as a goal is that, you know, recognizing that incidents will happen and assuming that. any student has an equal likelihood as any other student to have consequences. If the proportion of students with incidents on page like 86 or 96, I don't have my glasses. 86. 88. Match the proportion of students actually in the, as it is in the population demographic. That's the goal. I just think it would be good to have an objective as opposed to... Well, that would be the objective. I don't want to say I want to reduce disproportionality by 5%. I want to reduce disproportionality down to the actual amounts. And it's not that we're going

194to try any less hard. That's the objective of where it needs to be. I don't know what... If we can figure out how to do that, it's not like I'm going to figure out how to get halfway there. I want to try to get all the way there. Okay. Miriam? Thank you so much. Would it be possible on page 88 for that top table to also get the special education status? We have it for the bottom one, if I'm understanding correctly. Yeah, I understand what you're asking me. So I know Ethan had asked, or no, I'm sorry, Jonathan had asked. For the demographics. Demographics, so you're asking for both. Yes. Thank you. Any other questions? Great. Well, very helpful report. So basically the idea is this is the baseline year, and then next year we'd

195get a report that does start to compare year over year. So that'll be great. We look forward to it. We get the mid-year, too. Ms. Midyear and then end-year. Mr. Yeah. So what I, again, we'll sort of talk that through. But what I would envision is you'll see essentially a very similar report now moving forward, and we'll be able to do some comparisons. We'll look to implement some of the suggestions by the board today. But I think we've established a good practice moving forward, which I know was at the request of the board. So I hope that you felt that we've met that request. Ms. Miriam? Thanks. I have one question. It just came to me. I apologize. So for district run summer programming, do incidents that happen over the summer get calculated into these

196numbers? I do not believe they do. And then actually I should have said that too. I pulled this data on 528. I think it was 528. So we also recognize that, you know, sometimes from From 528 to the last day of school, sometimes there's a lot of extra energy, and we may see. So I just want to be transparent, too, that all of a sudden you don't see the numbers. Like, wait a minute, that looks different. And even Paul and I, I think we're joking because we went back and forth. He was running data and I was running data, and we were off by one, and we couldn't figure it out. And I'm like, oh, wait, I think it was a kid that, like, had something happen. All right. Well, thank you both. And are

197you both staying? Wait. We are. You are staying. So now we will move on to the full group to hear about the district profile and performance report for 24-25 school year. So joining Teresa and Julia will be Ann, Shannon, and Melissa. So just as Ann gets her computer set up, to remind the board, so the district profile and performance report is a public-facing report for all districts, and it goes back, you know, you can go onto EdSight and you can see years and years' worth of this. Much of the data that lives within the district profile and performance report has already been reported over the course of this year because we report on... THINGS SUCH AS OUR STATE ASSESSMENT RESULTS. I KNOW THAT MELISSA GAVE A COMPREHENSIVE REPORT ON SPECIAL EDUCATION AT ONE POINT WITH

198WHAT'S BEEN CALLED THE ANNUAL PROGRESS REPORT. and so on and so forth. But just in general, there is a requirement, and certainly we think that it makes a lot of sense at the end of the year to kind of do a summary of where things are. But I know that Ann will hit the highlights for you and not necessarily belabor every single one, because this is a voluminous report that covers a dramatic amount of information. We're very, very proud of the results that we've amassed this year. And there is much to celebrate. So with that, I'll turn it over to the team. Thank you, Paul. You've just done my introduction, so I can dive right in. We are very pleased to be here tonight. We have the great privilege and honor of presenting to you

199throughout the year, so this will put it together for you in one finalized report. This is a lengthy report, the district profile and performance report, several pages, lots and lots of data. That's fascinating, really, and I hope you enjoy the presentation. What's nice about this report, it gives us a little bit of a holistic view of the schools. We often give you reports separated, so now you'll hear from us all together as a team. And we're going to start with, I'd like to tell it more like a story. As I was preparing the report, I had different board members in my ear thinking about, you know, sometimes data, data, data can be very dry, right? So let's look at it as a little bit of a story of a child's journey of where they go

200to school and what they do and how they get prepared to leave our... school district. So the first part of the report will really be the foundation. It will look at our district demographics, our chronic absentee rates, our who is our who's in our teacher education workforce, um and give us really specific information about our special education population, a very special population. And then we'll move into the core and more which will review a lot of what you've heard before but give you again a chance to look at how the state looks at these metrics. for academic performance in ELA math, science, academic growth rates, how we're doing closing learning gaps, and then opportunities that we're providing in the arts and in PE and physical fitness. And then the launch pad section will really go

201over our college and career readiness and our college, our graduation rates and our college going rates. Okay? All right. So, Teresa is going to start us off. So in terms of our demographics, what we're looking at on West Hartford is we continue to be an extremely diverse. It's one of the things that we are most proud of within our community. So we continue to be extremely diverse with 46% of our population identifying as either. Where are we? Sorry, I'm looking up there. Let's get up there. Well, okay, non-white. I guess that's one way we can put it. So 46% of our population identifying as not being white. But we do have some growing demographics within that. So although we've stayed stable in some terms, we do have some growing demographics, that being the number of

202students who are economically disadvantaged. I mean, I think if we think about where we are, you know, when it comes to, you know, finances at this time, that actually shouldn't be a surprising statement, right, that students and families are struggling. And so we have more students who identify and fall into that category, as well as our multilingual learners continue to grow as well. Hence, you know, the proposal. by Mr. Vicinus to ensure that we have adequate supervision to make sure that our programming addresses this need, which is, you know, still a growing need and one that, you know, once we've done this and we've done it right and we've supported students, is a superpower to be multilingual without question. So that's really where we are when it comes to who we are as a district.

203If you would like to just take a quick look at the actual demographics on page 90 in your board, very long board report that I'm pointing to page 90. I don't know if I've ever pointed to page 90 before, but page 90 has the actual student growth percentages. And as Teresa said, there is very little movement this year in the categories. But since 2018-19, we have lost. our population has declined by 400 students while the racial demographics have, of most groups have increased and the economically disadvantaged and multilingual learners have increased dramatically in that time. So we will move on and this slide is... Are we taking at the end? Yeah. I have a quick question on that previous slide, if that's all right. I do love a story. I've got to ask, though, how

204we get this data because my kids just came home and were like, we were asked, we had the school survey, and they asked us what race we were, maybe what culture we were was, because I know not to this now, but race is obviously a made-up word. How do we get this data? I was going to say two things. I think what your child might be reporting is we do a student survey, and students, we ask them in their survey to self-report, and we try to use that for our own internal survey results. But this data is reported through PSAS, and it's reported by parents at the time of registration. It is self-reported by parents, so it's what the parents have listed. Great. Thank you. I was assuming so, but I just wanted to ask.

205So how does the economically disadvantaged get calculated? Children who apply for, families who apply for free and reduced lunch. So 20% apply for? Yes. Qualify. When I say apply, I mean they fill out a form and that form is reviewed and they qualify for it based on federal guidelines. Okay. So we'll move forward. One of the things we saw during the pandemic was, and the whole state saw, was a real increase in chronic absenteeism. And I've included this slide because it's part of the report, but it also really tells a good story that chronic absenteeism, just for background knowledge, is calculated by the number of days you have come to school divided by the number of days you basically could have come to school. And if you exceed 10% of that, you are considered chronically

206absent. So a child who's enrolled for the entire year comes to school for 182 days. And if they are absent more than 18 of them, they would be considered chronically absent. This is also calculated for students who are with us for less than the full year. Let's say they came in in April. They're with us for 50 days. So we would calculate if they're chronically absent with the denominator being 50 and the numerator being the percent of their days present. So what was what's good and interesting about this is we've seen a strong and steady decline since the pandemic in our chronic absentee rate for both all students. and for our high-need students. And to remind you, we talk about our high-need students often, but just we have so many things to remember. I'll just

207remind you, I won't give you a quiz on high-need students, but high-need students are students who qualify in any one of the three categories, special education, free and reduced lunch, or multilingual learners. If you are in any one of those categories, then you fall into the high-needs category. And we have seen a nice steady decline now under 10%, which is great. You see before the pandemic hit, we were at 6.7 for the district, and now we're coming under 9.9. And in my report, just to give you a point of comparison, the state is at 17.2 for all students. So we're dramatically below that. For all students, the all-student category. So, we're very proud of our messaging. We work with our principals quite a bit. All of us send the same messages, whether we're in special

208education or HR or in operations or myself or Teresa, that the importance of coming to school, the importance of being there every day and taking advantage of your education. So, our principals have done a really nice job with resetting the prior to the pandemic attendance rates and get very- getting very close to that. Now, Miriam. We broke down a while ago. Go ahead. It's broken. Thank you. I'm certainly glad to see decrease. Curious about what interventions are at play to combat chronic absenteeism and if there are specific demographics for whom this continues to be, you know, a significant concern. So, well, first, every school has an attendance team, which is really important for every school to know where they're more challenging, either grades, demographic, where it is. It often is in K, believe it or

209not. K is a very high grade for absenteeism. I know a lot of parents think, ah, they're going to be a doctor a day later if I keep them home. But it is a message that we need to send early and often to start to establish good habits about coming to school and being part of the community and learning with your peers. So each school does have an attendance committee that meets. Shannon could probably tell me on an elementary basis, how often would that team meet? We would meet every other month. Okay, so they will go over their own data. They will, uh, they, parents receive letters on regular intervals at the sixth, I think ninth, twelfth, and fifteenth absence to remind them to come to school. Uh, parents will have, principals will have meetings

210with parents who are maybe in a challenging situation. Um, and yes, certain demographics do, certain demographic groups have higher chronic absentee rates. So, uh, making sure everything is translated for our non-English speakers, making sure that culturally parents understand that in our system in West Hartford, we really cherish coming to school all the time. So constant communication, systems like... school-based committees, attendance committees, and regular communication through the system as it tracks it. So it's not like we wait until you're at the 15th absence to tell you you could be chronically ill. And I'll just add on to that. We actually have specialized programs in the district. At both high schools, we have a school engagement program that services students who might be chronically absent that require mental health services and supports, and that's staffed by a

211full-time special education teacher and a full-time clinician. And it supports students by providing in-school support to help them access the school building, access their classes to the extent that they're available to. And this year, we've been very fortunate to partner with a group that we've... had a prior relationship with, Effective School Solutions. Through their own grant, they had received a grant and asked to partner with West Hartford Public Schools. So we downstreamed those. engagement programs into our middle schools at Bristow and King Philip based on their chronic absentee numbers in the hopes of intervening earlier and with younger students to prevent students from becoming chronically absent. And that's been a very effective model in changing the way we look at our proactive supports. And so at the secondary level, we have those supports in place

212as well. Two comments on this. One, as the recipient of many of those letters, and I know friends of mine get them as well, and I just, for the good of the order, I guess, would say I think a lot of parents feel like post-COVID we are trying to be more cognizant of something. kids to school may be sick or making sure they're fully recovered before sending them to school. And I'm sure you're well aware of that. I get comments from folks of like, you know, is my kid going to get in trouble? And I'm like, I don't think so because. Nothing so far has happened to me in my letters, but I just want to air that out there for everyone. You get them. One respiratory infection, that's it. And it's like you're out

213for, exactly, then you have a vacation or something, whatever, it doesn't matter. Anyways, putting that out there. Second thing is, I think, tying together all the good work that you've talked about today with... secretaries and making sure students feel seen and comfortable in school. You know, I know of a personal situation where maybe by myself, I was in the lobby with one of my daughters having a hard time entering the building and the secretary called the school social worker who came out and saved my day, I can say. And I... That is a great service. And I think to just kind of give a little bit of color commentary to what you're talking about, I've lived it. And I really appreciate all the efforts that you guys put forward in that regard. compliment the principals

214on creating the attendance teams, which includes the secretaries because they are the keepers of the information to start. They often know the parents the best, often, because as we all said, it's the first point of contact when you walk in. So it's been a very good team effort, and they're very diligent about it. And the secretary's staff has commented many of the principals that they're very happy to be on that committee and help with that part. Getting them to school is really important. So we will move ahead to our educator workforce that Shannon's going to take over. Yes. So our current percentage of teachers of color is 10% across the district. The diversity among new teachers hired for the current school year was 13%. We recognize that this lags far behind the diversity of our

215students, and we are continually working on our recruitment efforts. Some of the things that we've been doing, some of those direct action steps are... you may know of the Future Educator of Diversity program that runs at Hall and Conard just last week. They had their recognition and pinning ceremony here at Town Hall, which many of us attended. And any student from that group that goes on to receive their teacher certification, be it through special education, elementary ed, social worker. any type of teaching degree then when they come back to west hartford because we want them back they will be guaranteed an interview so that is something that we remind them of and we continue to follow their growth and progress after they leave hall and conard we also are continuing to partner with the teacher

216residency program through crack so we do have two additional teacher residents each year we've attended local job fairs at uconn at central through CREC. The other thing that we've looked to do this year is increase the amount of screening interviews that we're doing. So instead of just basing who we bring in based on resumes, we're trying to cast as broad of a net as possible. And I know for some of the recent principal pools, we've screened 20 to 30 candidates just to have them come to the table for 15-minute interviews. So it gives us an opportunity to see more people and have an opportunity for us to get eyes on more people. so it's not just resumes that we're seeing. So, you know, we're always looking for additional ideas in those areas and looking to

217continue. It's also becoming what we're finding is less and less students are graduating from educational programs, so that overall number of students is becoming much lower than it's been in the past at all of the universities. So it's also... you know, less candidates coming out of those more traditional programs and, you know, a lot of schools looking for a smaller number of people. So moving into talking about our learners with more diverse needs, as you know, we are a growing population. And just a friendly reminder, this is reporting for the 24-25 school year. You heard a more updated version of our numbers for this year, but we did see an increase from the prior reporting year to this current year, which represented an overall 0.6% increase to 18.6% density of students with disabilities. And within

218that, you know, we look at some trends to help us better understand how those students... with disabilities are doing and how we're serving them. And so one of those trends and metrics is time with non-disabled peers. It gives us the opportunity to capture how much time students with disabilities are being included with their non-disabled peers in their learning environments across our school settings. And we like to use a threshold of 80% or more time with non-disabled peers. And some really good news reporting there is that overall we've seen an increase of 1%. But specifically with our students who have specific learning disabilities, we saw a pretty significant jump from 72.3% to 78.8% of those students with specific learning disabilities spending 80% or more time with our non-disabled peers. And so that's an important metric that

219helps us better understand the inclusivity of our learning environment and the extent to which students are participating in their school buildings. Another metric that the state uses is this performance index, and they've identified a goal of increasing reading performance for all grade three students with disabilities statewide, and they're using this Connecticut ELA performance index. And we saw a slight increase from last year to this year, and we're at 51 point, sorry, 59.2%. versus the state being nine points over where they're performing right now. And so we're quite proud of that. And we see that in other areas of our data where students with disabilities are starting to close that achievement gap. We also look at students with disabilities that are placed outside the district. This is a little bit of a different metric than what

220I reported to you on our annual performance report, which is a special education measure. This measure includes multiple different types of school types. So I just want to be clear about what this is. This is our out of district numbers. So don't look at these and get... concerned. One of the things that it measures is students that are placed in other public schools. Those are students with disabilities who might elect to attend a charter or magnet school. West Harvard Public Schools still, still monitors the provision of special education. We hold their PPTs. We attend those PPTs. And so we monitor that number. It's down from last year, which was at 2.4% to this year's 2.1%. And we do see some students coming back to district with regular engagement as we speak to them, meet with

221them, and they might choose to access our services here. And then overall, our private schools, which include some of our private not-for-profit parochial schools that are located in West Hartford, but also some of our approved special education schools. Those settings are up from last year from 10.4% to 11.5%. But just a friendly reminder, those are not all placements by PPT. They might be parent choice based on the fact that they're private, not-for-profit schools in the area. So those initial slides kind of set up, you know, the foundation of our students, our teachers, and some of our important demographic information reported through the PPR. And now we start to look at the core and more. But before I get into that, I want to just take a moment to be a little wonky, but not too

222wonky, I hope. There is a metric that state... creates, and Paul can probably do this justice better than I can. It's called the District Performance Index, and it is an index. It's a metric for measuring student achievement across a variety of state exams, and the metric runs from zero to 100, and it converts each student's scale score from their tests into an individualized performance index and each student gets a number from 0 to 100 based on their performance on all their tests. And then these are averaged and divided and the district gets a DPI. The state target for that DPI is 75 and that would put all students in the solidly achieving at the standard level. This, if you have been in education for a while, replaced a system where you really only looked at

223the kids who made proficiency. You either made proficiency or you didn't, didn't matter how much you grew. It didn't really look at that. So years ago for us who've been in a long time, remember just reporting students who made proficiency. But now everything is converted into an index and we look to... having our students solidly in the performing at the grade level standard. So that is a term we use, DPI. So I'll share our outcomes. Right now, our DPI for ELA across all of the tests that measure EP. ELA, which would be the SAT and the SBAC. Our metric is 74. We are solidly in the performing at the grade level standard. Our math DPI is 70.7 and our science is 72.1. And this is the highest ELA DPI since before the pandemic. So we're

224really proud of that, that we continue to see progress. For math, it is the highest ever. achieved since this new system went in in 2015-16. And for science, a 72.1, it is not our highest, but it is just off of our highest ever. So we're very pleased with these metrics. I know it's hard to think about student performance over several different tests, right? So you're looking at ELA, and then you're looking at the SBAC ELA, and then you're looking at the SAT, or you're looking at the SBAC math and also the high school version SAT, and you're looking at that. the NGSS, which is given three times. So this is a way to bring it all together and show a district how you're doing. So we're very pleased to say that we are very solidly

225within the metric. I'll just do this at the bottom. It says... Dr. Yes. Because there is more to the DPI than just these three metrics. There are other metrics. There are 12 total metrics. These are just the three leading academic ones. We'll get into some of them. Dr. There's three components you show there. Dr. Three should not add up to seven. Those three should not add up to 79. That is correct. But there are other things, such as your chronic absentee rate, your graduation rate. So there are 12 metrics that you actually total. Yeah. Right. Thank you for letting me point, you know, thank you for pointing that out because it wouldn't make sense. The state also looks to see, is your achievement gap an outlier? So an outlier is they look at the achievement

226gap across the state for high needs, again, ELL students, special education, and... free and reduced lunch and then your all population and they look at that and they say if your district has the state gap plus one standard deviation if you're beyond that you have an outlier that means your achievement your gap is much larger than than the state would want. And we are compliant in the area of English language arts, mathematics, and the four-year graduation rate, but we have a very small outlier in science of 0.5 index. So this is a good news story. This is a difficult metric in Connecticut. Connecticut is an extremely wealthy state with very... very high performing school districts. We also have some big poverty gaps in Connecticut. And that also often goes along with achievement. And so to

227have three of our four metrics being compliant, we were very pleased to see that. The state also in this new system looks not only at did you achieve the grade level expectations, how much did you grow? Perhaps you were a student who was starting at the very lowest band in one with a very low scale score. Did you grow over the year? And that counts that in a way that prior to this accountability system was not able to be captured. So the academic growth measure is the percentage of individual students who meet or exceed their state-defined growth target, because every child has their own state-defined growth target based on how they did the previous year. So third graders don't have it because they didn't take the test in second grade, but fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh,

228and eighth graders have that. And our students... So I should explain that if you hit about 60 on this growth target, the band ranges from zero to 110. A child who gets 110% of their growth is a child who made all the growth target they were expected and more. And a child who got a zero on that growth target would be a child who did not make their growth target at all. They did not make it. They scored the same or below the previous year. So when students score 60, it's very solid performance. And our students this year, the average growth was 66.7 for ELA and 65.9 for math. So improvement over last year and solidly where, solidly in the range that you would want to see growth. This growth is the highest since 21-22

229for ELA, which was 66.1. But this performance profile and performance report goes just beyond the core. It also adds other metrics that are important to look at a school district's health. And that would also include arts access. So what percentage of your high school students have access to an art course every year? And this year we had 43% of our children taking an arts course. It's the highest arts enrollment since 2018-19. And it's proving that kids have strong engagement in the creative arts. This would be music, drama, visual arts. visual arts, performing arts, drama, and if you have a dance program, which we do not. At the high school, right? At the high school. That's a 9 through 12 metric. Also, the state wants to know how you're doing on your physical fitness test. There

230are four subtests to the physical fitness test. Your children might have talked about them when they come home from time to time. They had to take the physical fitness test. They had to do the pacer test or they did something else. And to meet this benchmark, a child needs to pass all four parts of that. Forty-four percent of our students passed all four parts of that. It's the highest percentage, meaning all four parts since 2018-19 and a 7% increase from last year. last year. So that's another view of how the state of Connecticut wants to look at schools, not only the academic performance, but arts access and physical fitness. We'll move into how the children are going as they start to leave us. We have, and we've done this in the report that we give

231you earlier in the year on students involved in AP, ECE, and other dual enrollment programs, but 92.9% of our students are actively engaged in rigorous coursework. One of the nice metrics is... A vast majority of our multilingual learners are also engaged and our overall passing of tests that go with those courses is 68.9, well above the state average. And our graduation rates, well, 97.1% of our seniors were taking that high-level coursework. 97.1% of our seniors were taking the high-level coursework. Our six-year graduation, that is for our high-need students, we have seen 92.5% of our high-need students graduate within six... High-need students not graduate within... six years. We have 92% of our students graduate, 92.2% in four years. And we brought that to you during the presentation on the block schedule. And we said that rate

232had fallen, that rate had fallen since off of about a 97%. But you listened to our presentation and we are moving to that block schedule next year. We think that it will be one positive outcome. We also think the arts access will increase because of the additional electives that students have. And, oh, I didn't fix this. 981% of our students are entering post-secondary institute. That should be 81, not 900. Just wanted to see if you're still paying attention at almost 11 o'clock at night. Sorry. And it's funny, Melissa Behrens pointed that out to me and I forgot to make the change. 81% of our students are entering post-secondary. And that is the overall view of this very large report. But we're open to any questions that you might have. Questions? Jennifer? Thank you. That was

233really helpful. I would like to... I guess a point of order. I think we can talk about this, I guess, for next year, but I would like to see these presentations earlier in the agenda. To your point of it being so late, I think this often happens. I think they can come before the contracts, before maybe some of the other reports, so we can actually have a more robust conversation and not be so tired. And then secondly, the only other point, which... isn't totally applicable to this but just the amount of testing it seems to me for lack of a better word insane and i know a lot of it is state driven anecdotally teachers have been telling me that no no it's west harford that's requiring these tests i don't want to belabor this

234tonight but i do think this is a topic i hear from parents about quite often and also a personal concern i know it stresses my kids out i know there's weeks in a row when they have testing and again i'm sure it's different needs for state and grade level and all of that but I would be intrigued to understand if there is West Hartford required testing, what that is. Again, not for this moment, but in the future. Noted. And thank you again. Amazing results. I like how you laid it out in a simplified format. I really appreciate that. So thank you very much. Miriam? Thank you also for the presentation. Going back to the slide about the state-defined personal goals, I was just curious exactly how that gets defined and if those statistics still mean

235that there could be students who are not proficient in their grade levels. So if you took the test, let's say you're a third grader and you took the SBAC test in third grade, the state will look at your scale score and they will give you, they have a target for growth based on a year of schooling. So you'll get a target and this is all based on scale score. So it's a number. I'll say it's between, I can't remember the range, but let's say between 400 and 1200 is the scale. So they'll look at your score and they'll say in a year. of growth. This child who's at this number should grow this much each year. And the growth is measured. So if you're a lower scale score, you would have a higher growth target

236because the goal is always to get you on grade level. So students who are below grade level have to grow more. And if you meet your growth targets in about two and a half to three years, you should be on grade level. So they will look at that individual score from third grade. Then they'll look at what you got in fourth grade, and they'll tell you what percentage of that growth target you achieved. And so our students are achieving. vast majority of their growth target. It's a very, it's a challenging benchmark to get. As I said, some students get and get 110 because they made the entire growth plus. And other students, if they perhaps had a bad day or perhaps were struggling, they may not have met it. But 66.7% of our kids are

237meeting their growth target. And then you also had a second part to that. Did you say students could still not be? Correct. Yes, sometimes kids who are struggling take several years to work towards grade level proficiency. So if you were a student in third grade who was in the very lowest part of band one, it could take several years of good solid growth to get to grade level. Students who are at grade level or higher have lower growth targets because they're already achieving. They still have growth targets though, because we expect every student to improve. But those targets are a little bit, there are not as many points to achieve because they're really already performing at grade level. Any other questions? Mary? One more question. Is there a metric used for the achievement gap? Well,

238we look at the achievement gap in many ways. One was this where we say, are you an outlier as a district with your achievement gap, this one. But we also look at it much more deeply than this, just are you an outlier. We look at it by all different categories. What is our achievement gap between the all students in any racial category, between the all students in high needs, between the all students in individual categories like ML? multilingual learners, special education students, free and reduced lunch. So we look at it in many ways. And we do that report usually as it comes out during the year. Yeah, I was going to add that... We do look percentage of students reaching goal across the different categories. This is a different look. This is looking at the

239performance index, which helps to take into account not just if you're at goal, but like, hey, if you're below goal, the performance index kind of takes into account, hey, I'm just below goal. I'm well below goal. I'm just above goal. I'm well above goal. So that kind of puts the performance onto a continuum, and it normalizes the continuum from zero to 100. We also, there's another way that we look at it that just fell out of my head, but to Ann's point, it's multifaceted. It's probably one of the most consistent dialogues that we have as a school district. And when we look at where we have real successes, like Paul mentioned Webster Hill School and math, we look at what is leading to that success. And we find them all over the place. But our

240real work is to scale that to 16 schools, and it's a great challenge. All right, wonderful presentation, and thank you very much. Okay, moving on to routine matters. Seeking a motion that the Board of Education approve the financial report for the period ending April 30th, 2026. So moved. Thank you, Jason. Thank you, John. And who will be presenting? You can wrap us up for the year, Ethan. All right, over to you, Ethan. I can drag it out. This month's finance update was the fiscal year full year forecast as projected at the end of April 26. There's four specific funds we look at. General funds with budget, $214.1 million. State and federal grant funds of $6.5 million. Special program funds report, $2.3 million. And the nutrition service funds, $2.8 million. The fiscal year 26 full year

241adjusted school adjusted budget general fund was budgeted to be $214,500. The difference between the fiscal year 26 budget and the forecast as currently projected at the end of April is to be a positive variance of just under $26,000. There were several minor changes since last month, the March reported projections. March had been projected to have a positive variance of $16,000, which is now projected to be $26,000, so a positive $10,000 difference. And the most significant positive change in the last month was a positive reduction of $75,000 in the expense of line 5430, which is out-of-district tuition, a positive reduction of $65,000 in the expense line 5186, student aids, and a positive $50,000 in the expense line 5319, professional services. On the negative side, there was a $65,000 increase in the expense of Line 5117 paraprofessionals

242and a $100,000 increase in all of their purchase service category. There were several other minor adjustments. In addition to the variances, both positive and negative, but it resulted in an overall month-to-month variance, a reduction of $10,000, as previously noted. For the full year, the most significant negative variance has been health care reserves, spending $625, which is what was used earlier today, $325 in line 5117, paraprofessionals, and a negative variance of $367 in other purchase service categories. I think I screwed that up. No, I didn't. On the positive side, there had been the utilization of $700,000 in education on lapsing count. that have been put into the balance at the end of fiscal year 25, partially accounting for the savings in line 5430 out of district tuition of 925 and 350, 350,000 for student aids line

2435186. In terms of grants, state and federal, 6.5 million, 6.1 specifically earmarked for West Hartford public school system, and there was no significant change in the last forecast. In terms of special funds, the third set of funds, The 10 different funds are expected to end the fiscal year with $2.3 million balance. And again, there was no significant change from month to month. And finally, nutrition service funds had a balance at the end of fiscal year, April 26, of $2.2 million. And there were $730,000 that's been identified as equipment purchases in the current fiscal year. And that's what I had, unless there's any other comments. Thank you, Ethan. Any questions? Great job. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Thank you, LaToya. Any opposed? Any abstentions? The motion passes. Moving on to minutes. Seeking a motion

244that the Board of Education approve the minutes of the regular Board of Education meeting of May 19, 2026. So moved. Thank you, Jason. Second. Thank you, Miriam. Is there a reason there's just a missing header? No reason. Okay. So, fixed header. Otherwise, any corrections or changes to the minutes? So, can we vote on it, assuming that'll be adjusted? Yeah, off the top of my head, I'm trying to recall. I believe the header identifies, only identifies the attendance. And Jennifer is reminding me she wasn't there. This was the 19th, so I was here. Yeah. Yeah. We had that because I reviewed the minutes, so I just didn't notice that it hadn't printed. So we will fix that. It depends. You could table this entirely and we could bring it back up or you could vote on

245the content with the notation that Jennifer, just affirming that Jennifer was absent. And I believe that is reflected because then I think we had one other board member who just arrived late and it had identified the time in which they arrived. Is there a time in which we have to have the meeting minutes posted? No, the meeting minutes, according to a good question, but the meeting minutes just need to be available to the public, so we always have this draft available. And then once they're attested to, that becomes the more official record. Good. Technically, it's seven days after the meeting. To go to... the Voices of Belonging session, final session this past weekend, which was just a really beautiful community-centered event with just so much thoughtful intention and hard work put into the program from

246the students who represented a lot of diverse backgrounds, the families, the staff. who represent a lot of diverse backgrounds and expertise, the people who the students were sitting with, from police officers to EMT folks to getting to learn how to cook and just the experiences that those students got and the powerful experience that families got to engage with. It was just really heartwarming. And kudos to Teresa and team for making that happen. I know that, you know, you went out and sought a grant and applied for that. You know, it's just really inspiring to see, you know, you went out and found resources and brought it back to do something like this for the district and try it out for this year. I heard a few different people say. This past weekend, this program needs

247to be duplicated like everywhere. Like this is, it was that special. And so I wanted to make sure that I shared that. And then the last thing that I'll share, because I know Paul briefly mentioned in the beginning, we're celebrating Juneteenth this month. I know our town has some things going on and, you know, Jubilee Thursdays. And I hope that colleagues can, you know, attend. some of these events and for folks who don't know what Juneteenth is, You know, when slaves were freed, there was a two-year period where, you know, a lot of the Confederate states did not release those enslaved people. And so Juneteenth, we honor and acknowledge the freedom of all enslaved people here in the U.S. And just for us in the black community, it's also a remembrance of what continues to

248be. You know, we experienced 246 years of chattel slavery. We did not get reparations, but slave owners got reparations because it was hard for them to no longer have free labor. And then we had 99 years of the Jim Crow era, and then we went into about 15 years of the Civil Rights Movement, and about 60 years of the war on drugs, and police brutality, which started at slave patrols in the 1700s. continue to be enforced through Jim Crow laws, which is why we're really grateful for organizations like the Southern Poverty Law who paid informants to help. to really help identify those hate groups that really make sure that people who look like me are protected and know where, you know, their potential danger zones. And just want to say that in terms of the

249police brutality, that there is no end date. And so from 1619 to 2026. There is still no end to the killing, oppression, and abuse of black people in this country. And so I just really want to lift that up, that that is a reality we live with every single day. No one's coming to save us. No one's going to war to help us. And so Juneteenth is a really big deal. And I really encourage my colleagues to, in some way, shape, or form, to make your way out to a community celebration. and invest in the black community here in West Hartford. Thank you. Thanks, Latoya. Any other reports or information and discussion? Okay. Future business announcements of future meeting dates. So we will have a little hiatus over the summer. And so our next meeting

250of the board will be on Tuesday, September 1st, 2026, here in Town Hall at 7 p.m. 314, followed by Tuesday, September 15th, here in Town Hall, 7 p.m., room 314, and then Tuesday, October 6th. 2026 regular Board of Ed meeting here in Town Hall room 314 at 7 and Tuesday, October 20th, 2026 regular Board of Ed meeting 7 p.m. Town Hall room 314. Any requests for future agenda items that haven't been brought up before because we've taken out? Yes. Sure. I'd mentioned a couple meetings ago potentially an EdTech resolution. And so I guess I'm asking if it's possible if my colleagues think this could be something that we address at the next board meeting, a resolution that we work on that would support what the superintendent has already shared, the district is working on, but

251really as kind of a binding way to show our community that we hear you, that we're listening, we're reading your emails, we're taking in. to account certainly all of the evidence and we are also concerned about the impacts. So I would like to request that we put an EdTech resolution on the agenda for the next meeting. I would join in that request. Okay. Would that go to policy committee first for drafting? Yeah, I'll have to have a better understanding of what you're looking for in terms of the difference between a resolution or a policy. If it's a resolution, just something like a statement that you want to make publicly about ed tech versus a formal policy. We can feel that out. I will share that we certainly planned and expected at our first meeting regardless,

252I'll be giving you some updates on ed tech. But I heard your motion and your second. I can certainly see the resolution being a precursor to a more detailed policy. Agree. Do you want to take... I think thinking about this before just bringing it forward would be helpful. So would two of you kind of start that conversation and then something that would be presented at the meeting, maybe informed by what you then hear in the presentation also. And then for discussion at the board meeting to refine it. I think procedurally that makes sense. We can take what the administration has already been working with. put it into the language of a resolution, and at least get a first pass on it at that meeting. It doesn't sound like we need that for a resolution. It

253depends on what you're trying to do. I don't know. The high-level statement, it's signaling, I think, something pretty high-level, right? I think where I'm looking at this right now, at least in terms of what I'm hearing from the community and the importance of this to the community, and we're not alone. I'm hearing this certainly from other towns as well. I agree. I'm just thinking of the practicalities of drafting it because... You know, we can't meet or we can't email more than four of us, you know, as a group to draft something without it becoming a meeting. So if we're actually going to have like a back and forth of trying to craft something, I'm trying to think of what that form looks like. It's not very efficient to do that all of us at a

254table on the fly. No. So I'm thinking, does it make sense to have a policy meeting before that first meeting so that you can have a resolution that, you know, these different voices have weighed in on trying to craft? So, is that possible to schedule a policy committee meeting prior to July or September 1? We would just schedule that. Oh, it's very possible. As long as you guys can make it. And you could always share a draft suggestion with someone on the policy committee to... Yeah, we've done that before. So we'd welcome if you want to work on a draft, send it to policy at least to give us something to look at. And then I think we could take it from there. All right. Yeah, I think that would work. That can be my

255August project. Yeah, no, there just needs to be a way to create this. Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense. I mean, like I said, I'm not looking at this as a... I DON'T AT LEAST I DON'T FORESEE THIS RIGHT NOW AS BEING A DEEP IN THE WEEDS POLICY I THINK THIS IS MORE OF JUST A STATEMENT FROM THE BOARD RIGHT ALL RIGHT SO IT SOUNDS LIKE YES WITH A STOP AT THE POLICY COMMITTEE WITH POSSIBLY DRAFT LANGUAGE TO REACT TO AND REFINE AND BRING BACK TO THE FULL BOARD NOW I WANT TO RESURFACE JEN ASKED THE QUESTION ABOUT if you wanted to pin the tail on a date for the Nutrition Services Report, and I would only ask not September 1st, but if you're looking for it early, we've got three other

256dates that are published here. I THINK I WOULD LOVE TO HAVE A CHAT WITH OTHER FOLKS OVER THE SUMMER ABOUT THE SCHEDULE. I MEAN, TO MEET TWICE A MONTH AND TO GO PAST 11 O'CLOCK I THINK IS UNNECESSARY FOR EVERYBODY INVOLVED. BUT I WOULD IMAGINE I AGREE. I MEAN, I CAN'T IMAGINE COMING ON SEPTEMBER 1ST WITH THE NUTRITION. BUT I THINK WE GOT TO FIND A WAY TO MANAGE THIS BETTER BECAUSE I DON'T THINK IT'S REALLY EFFECTIVE. But so I don't know. I'm happy I saw the schedule in the packet. I'm happy to take a look. I can kind of compare it to like what was this past year and like what would kind of match up and then talk to folks. And I think it would be helpful to kind of, you know, share

257that out. You know, I think if maybe EdTech resolution becomes the highlight real item for September 1, then maybe nutrition services could be the major item for one of the next two. We will also have the curriculum piece, too. And there's the return to school report. So I think the first two meetings are pre-packed. But we'll put, I mean, there's a calendar. We've shared out the calendar before of the meeting. And then they change based on priorities that come up. But that is. Well, I feel like we've said in the past that there are typically. there are certain topics that are brought up typically at certain meetings. So I think we can share the information we have. And then plus, if we know that there are going to be topics we want to discuss, we

258could, you know, guesstimate at least like the month or I don't know. Yeah, that's put it out to the public, I think is the helpful piece because I can, you know, guess there are only a few stragglers right now listening in. I think we get a lot more hits on the recording version. So, Miriam. So, just to clarify, is it still possible for us to get the schedule, Superintendent, of what's being scheduled kind of yearly, those kind of maintenance reports? Can we get that schedule, please, so we know? Yeah, we talked about it. Okay. I talked about that with the board chairs. Great. Just confirming. Awesome, thank you. And then just one ask, a follow-up. I think my colleague Jen had asked at a prior meeting about the graduation policy for walking. Since it's graduation

259time, I was reminded of that and hoping we could revisit that policy or have more information about it for discussion or bring it to the policy committee. However, it needs to be kind of funneled for conversation. Yeah, two different questions. Okay. I think... INFORMATION ABOUT IT, I THINK WE'VE SHARED. RIGHT NOW OUR POLICY IS ESSENTIALLY YOU HAVE TO MEET GRADUATION REQUIREMENTS IN ORDER TO WALK. IF THERE WAS A DISCUSSION THAT YOU WANTED TO HAVE, THAT WOULD BE A REQUEST FOR AN AGENDA. I KNOW IT WOULD GET ON TO THE POLICY SUBCOMMITTEE AND THE DISCUSSION WOULD INITIATE THERE. OKAY. I MEAN, I THINK I SAID PRETTY CLEARLY AT THE LAST MEETING, I WANTED A DISCUSSION ON THAT. I KNOW FOR A FACT NOW THERE ARE OTHER DISTRICTS THAT ALLOW STUDENTS TO WALK WHEN THEY HAVE A

260FEW CREDITS REMAINING. I know we're gonna talk about this more, but I know colleges do it. I mean, I get there has to be standards, completely appreciate that. We're not gonna be handing out diplomas until people finish it, but obviously there's a big emotional component to walking. YOU KNOW, AMONGST THE LIST OF THINGS, I GUESS, I DON'T KNOW WHERE THIS FALLS, BUT I AGREE, WE DID ASK ABOUT THAT. AND I THOUGHT THE POLICY WAS GOING TO BE SHARED. AND I UNDERSTAND NOW THERE ISN'T AN EXACT POLICY, IT'S JUST YOU GOT TO GET ALL THE CREDITS, IT'S A YES OR A NO. BUT I DO AGREE THAT WE HAD ASKED TO REVISIT THAT. YEAH, IT IS SOMETHING THAT I ALSO AM THINKING ABOUT. SO, MARIAM, I KNOW WE'RE BOTH ON THE POLICY SUBCOMMITTEE, SO THIS IS

261DEFINITELY SOMETHING THAT WE CAN, YOU KNOW, TALK ABOUT IN TERMS OF DISCUSSION AND GETTING ON THE AGENDA, BECAUSE I'M IN ALIGNMENT WITH Y'ALL ON THIS. THANK YOU. ALL RIGHT, ETHAN? YOU SAY THAT A LOT. YOU PREFACE, MOST THINGS YOU PREFACE ARE UNRELATED. WELL, I'M NOT FOLLOWING THAT. We had passed the finance, not a committee, but different ways of looking at things. I was going to propose a couple things to analyze that we could then do in the fall. So just to let you know it's coming, if that's okay. And I'll copy Jonathan in since he's also on it. Sure. Yeah, yeah, I'm aware of what our financial examiner is and I would expect. And I do think, you know, we should figure out a venue to have perhaps a board conversation because I'm hearing there's

262some interest in the board. And, Jen, I understand you have strong opinions. And I, as your superintendent, I have equally strong. Perhaps even stronger opinions and I think they're they're in the opposite direction of what you're asking for and there's there's a lot of Rationale behind that that I would want to be able to share with you guys So I don't know if maybe it's a workshop topic before it gets to policy or something but I'm happy to have those conversations because it's it's a much bigger can of worms than just some of the social and emotional. And we do have a lot. First of all, we have a million things that we do to support kids. But relative to the socialization and the other pieces, we also allow kids to attend their safe grad

263with their friends. So there's multi-facets to this. And I think I would welcome the opportunity to have a conversation with all of you. And maybe a workshop is the best place because it sounds like there's a lot of... DIALOGUE THAT FOLKS WOULD LIKE TO HAVE. WE ARE GETTING INTO THE DIALOGUE NOW. I THINK THESE THINGS NEED TO BE DISCUSSED AT THE MEETING. I AM SURE THERE IS SENSITIVE INFORMATION AND WE DON'T NEED TO GO INTO THAT. I OBVIOUSLY VALUE YOUR OPINION. I WANT TO DISCUSS IT SO THE PUBLIC CAN HEAR. THAT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING TO ME. I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR YOUR THOUGHTS, I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR WHAT IS HAPPENING, ALL OF THIS STUFF, BUT I WOULD LIKE TO DO IT AT A PLACE WHERE EVERYONE CAN EASILY ACCESS IT AND HEAR

264IT THEMSELVES. Anything else? And then I will say that I've talked with everyone, I believe, about the idea of a board retreat, and it is in the works, and that would be a place to let us workshop all the things that are priorities and then actually prioritize them because, again, we keep talking about limited time, and therefore we have to be selective, I think, about what we take on and in what order so that we do it thoughtfully, thoroughly, and completely. And with that, any comments from visitors? Seeing none. And I just want to say that it's been an amazing year, 25-26, with high school of the year, principal of the year, Blue Ribbon Elementary School, new... board colleagues, returning board colleagues, and just really grateful to be part of this community, grateful to this

265team for staying late into the night. Thank you, Paul, for your leadership throughout the year and beyond. And we're just really proud to be part of the West Hartford Public Schools community and hope everyone has a wonderful summer recess and ekes every minute out of it. In the meantime, I am seeking a motion to adjourn. Thank you, Jennifer. Thank you, Ethan. Meeting adjourned at 11.13 p.m.