Colonial School District December Board of Education Meeting

001Class and so this is a full year credit class and Last year that even went even further we were asked to play some some pretty nice venue We played the Queen in Wilmington, which was an iconic stage And we actually commanded that stage and because of our success at the Queen somebody saw that from WSTW They asked us to come play the Wilmington flower market and there's been many more things Because of you know, really I asked to play a few times in the hallways and then after that It's like a snowball and it started just getting bigger and bigger and so now next month because somebody saw us playing at the Wilmington flower market and got on to the news journal at WDL and Somebody from the Paul cares foundation the former bass player

002from back company rock and roll Hall of Famers Asked us to come down and play her venue in Lewis, Delaware. So we're gonna play that January 11 It's just been getting bigger and bigger But uh, you know just like with anything like a football team we get new members that come in Some of the senior guys Take off and we got field roles. So that's that's where we're at right now we have new kids coming up picking up the bass and guitar and Filling and filling spots almost kind of like when you lose that hot shot quarterback Who's gonna fill that role and we got guys waiting in the wings? You've got freshmen sophomores juniors and sitting seniors here, of course So we have a nice set list for you tonight and hope you enjoy

003it It's necessary to give the chance for the board members just to be able to give you guys some more praise Because we really have no clue how proud we are of you how much you guys represent the diversity of what William and can offer in this Area and just showing how great this district in this high school can be. So thank you guys for doing this and Having the willpower to go out there and have fun and enjoy because we can tell you guys love it You make us happy to come around and do these types of things because of you guys So I'll give a chance for any of the board who just wants to give some praise or anything else Flip it up or speak loud Oh, I just want to commend

004y'all Senatore listen to y'all play it taught me back when I was in the name It really did and I know how sometime you get in front of people I before could be some time because when I was in high school, I had to Be on stage with a band playing popular music at that time from a group that was real real hard to back up it was difficult but actually have fun so enjoy your music and never stop playing. Mr. PQ did a real good job of that and you guys are terrific I was not what I expected and even and and more than I could have you know I could have expected so terrific thank you. You know Ted doesn't like to use the microphone very good job you all should be proud

005of yourself for what you do there a lot of those songs were after my time but you did you did a good job very very nice and good luck in the future. That's awesome. It's a regular day. Yeah. That's awesome. Alright, good job. Keep doing it. Keep doing it. I'd love to see you guys on American Idol or something. Alright? I don't think I'll be doing it anymore for that reason. Geez. Awesome job. Thank you. What can I say that the others haven't said? This is great. You all get an A+. It's my computer. And you brought me back a few of your songs when I was young. Long time ago. Well, that was a good memory. When I first heard about the, you guys are gonna play, I was thinking about some Christmas song.

006I'll come and do this. But you really surprised me. Thank you. That was amazing. Thank you. I hope you come back maybe next month. Thank you. Thank you all. Take a bow. First of all, Mr. Erickson and Mr. Desjardins. This wouldn't happen without two teachers who just came up with a kind of an idea one day to throw together a bunch of musicians and make some music. And this is where it is now. They're performing at the Queen and they're getting gigs all up and down the state. And we're just super proud of the staff and the students and the families who've supported the students here. I mean, future stars here, no matter what, they're gonna be here. No matter where they go. So thank you so much for joining us this evening. We're gonna

007now take a little bit of a pause. Our meeting is scheduled to start, the board meeting is scheduled to start at 630. So folks, we're gonna take a break. If you wanna get some photos and autographs for the celebrities there, go ahead and have that. All right. Thank you very much. I think all of this is really gonna do it. I have to thank people personally back there. Thank you. You got that, man. She's gonna hold it. Yeah. All right. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I called the December 9, 2025, Colonial School Board meeting order please rise and remove your hats as we're led by Senator Tizzy Lockman in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for

008which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you Senator Loffman. Alright moving on. Do we have any additions or corrections to the agenda? There are none. Alright with that being said do I hear a motion? I take a motion we approve the agenda as presented. Alright do I hear a second? Second. Alright as moved by Mr. Law, seconded by Mr. Handy. Are there any questions or comments from the board? All those in favor please signify with saying aye. Aye. All those opposed nay. Alright motion carries. You cannot do that all night. Mr. Gallin. Alright do you want to present? Yes. We have a modified agenda this evening. We started a half hour early so that we could have a presentation by the Reading Consortium co-chairs regarding redistricting options

009being presented to the consortium for a consideration for a vote on December 16th. So joining us this evening is the co-chair Senator Elizabeth or Tizzy Lockman and Matt you don't have a faint first name just Matt. Matt Den to kind of share with the board a presentation that will be on the screen. Take some questions from the board and then following that will be our public comment section for the board meeting as well as anybody making public comment related to the Reading Consortium presentation and then Senator Lockman and Mr. Den Matt will wrap up the that section of the agenda and then following the public comment we're going to jump in. right into our regular scheduled agenda so that said Senator Lockman and Mr. Den the floor is yours. Okay I'm going to get us

010started and we'll take turns coming up and down the podium. So I just want to start just by thanking you the board for hosting us tonight and for allowing us to talk about through the initial decision that the Reading Consortium is preparing to make and most importantly to allow us to hear from you and from those of you in the public here in Cleveland. Thank you. Thank you for joining us and we're going to start with Senator Lockman. Thank you for joining us and we're going to start with Senator Lockman. Thank you for joining us and we're going to start with Senator Lockman. We know that we're here tonight because we believe in our public schools and we care about the success of our students and we appreciate sharing those values with you tonight. So

011our primary goal as I said is to listen. So our primary goal as I said is to listen. We're having meetings like this we've already had meetings like this in Red Clay and Christina and Brandywine. We also have a lot of work to do. We're going to be doing a lot of work in the next couple of weeks. We also have a lot of work to do. We're going to be doing a lot of work in the next couple of weeks. We've spent recently several hours with the State's Advisory Body for services to students with disabilities. And this Friday we will be before the combined meeting with representatives of all of the New Council County School Districts. To kind of pull it all together. We'll be collecting all the comments that we received at all

012of these meetings and through other means that we will offer. And sharing them with all 25 members of the Redding Consortium. And that of course is in addition to the many public meetings that we have had in the weeks, months, and years prior to today. So to provide a backdrop for tonight we'd like to explain what the Redding Consortium is supposed to do and how our process works. We also hope to share with you how the end result of the process can be not only higher academic achievement for some of our students at schools that are struggling. But also greater choices and opportunities for all students in colonial and otherwise. And potentially the more efficient use of tax payer dollars. So to take us there for a moment I'm going to hand the mic to

013Matt Dunn. Good evening everyone. Let's start with our mission. The Redding Consortium's mission. Our mission generally by statute is to make recommendations to the state to achieve educational equity and to improve educational outcomes. For all pre-k to grade 12 students in northern New Castle County. Including the city of Wilmington. We think that this is an incredibly important mission. The variance in academic outcomes for students in northern New Castle County schools is really staggering. And it's no surprise to anyone that the outcomes often track the percentages of students in those schools who are facing poverty. Generally speaking colonial has fewer gaps between its schools with respect to the percentage of kids living in poverty. As compared to some of the other northern New Castle County school districts. But in some of the other New Castle County

014districts the difference in proficiency rates for students at lower income versus higher income elementary schools is 7 to 10 times. We have within single district students at higher income elementary schools achieving proficiency in reading at 7 times the rate of students at lower income elementary schools. And math at 10 times the rate of students in lower income elementary schools. And we just think that those discrepancies are unacceptable to everyone. And it's really those types of disparities that the Ready Consortium was asked to address. The General Assembly gave the Ready Consortium a number of specific mandated responsibilities when it passed the statute in 2019 that created the Ready Consortium. Meaning those are shalls and not mays. These are things that we have to do. And one of the mandated responsibilities is that the Consortium shall develop

015a proposal for redistricting in the city of Wilmington and northern New Castle County. That must include provisions under section 1026 of this title formulated specifically for that purpose with designated responsibilities and timelines for action at all levels. So the Ready Consortium doesn't have a choice about whether to propose a redistricting plan. It's the Consortium's assigned job under the law. And this was not controversial when it passed in the General Assembly in 2019. Passed unanimously. Every Democrat. Every Republican. Every House and the Senate. And it wasn't passed quickly, either. It was discussed. It was amended. There was serious, thoughtful discussion given to making sure that the process was thorough when a recommendation did eventually come to the General Assembly in terms of analyzing the costs of it. And also making sure that there was bipartisan representation

016on the Ready Consortium when it came up with its plans. So the decision that the Ready Consortium is going to be scheduled to make next week is part of what it was directed to do. By the General Assembly. But as Senator Loughman is going to explain, next week all we're doing is narrowing down our focus to a single model around which to build a much more detailed plan. It's an important decision point next week. But it's really just the beginning of a very detailed planning process that's also going to be done in a very public way. Part of crafting the Ready Consortium statute also was ensuring that the school districts were part of the process. The superintendents of all four Northern New Castle County school districts and the school district. And the school district. The

017school district. And the New Castle County OTEC school district are members of the Ready Consortium. And they've all been active participants in the consortium's meetings from the beginning. And their insight has actually been very helpful. So I acknowledge that Representative Nonti Chicocha is joining us as well. And I generally recognize him as the co-founder of the Ready Consortium. We sort of reauthorized the Women's Education Improvement Commission together as the Ready Consortium in 2019. So thank you. So three more details about the Ready Consortium's responsibilities to propose a plan. First, I'll just reiterate that our recommendation about a redistricting plan is just that. It's a recommendation. The recommendation that we make will then go to the state school board. And if and only if the state school board approves the proposed plan after a full public

018process that's all spelled out and required in code, it can then go to the Delaware General Assembly, which would also need to approve it. If the state school board, for example, doesn't approve the Ready Consortium's proposed plan as submitted, it can send it back to the Ready Consortium, which we would then have to submit revisions to address their concerns. Secondly, a very important detail. The plan that we ultimately propose must, by law, through the bills that Representative Chicocha and I have passed, be detailed and leave little uncertainty about how the implementation would play out in real life. We call these the 13 Stipulations. So the law requires that we propose what we call a Transition Resource and Implementation Plan that covers these 13 different subject areas. I'm not going to read them all one by

019one. I will highlight a couple of them. But it includes resources that might be required from the state, from the school district, other local sources, both during the transition period and on an ongoing basis, student transportation planning, and a timetable for implementation. So we have a plan that is implementing each element of the redistricting plan, and who has the designated responsibility for carrying out responsibilities until the date of full implementation. And that's just three highlighted areas. And here they are all listed in accordance with the subcommittees that they're assigned to. So we have our Operational Impact Subcommittee, our Fiscal Impact Subcommittee, and the Community Engagement Subcommittee, which each should have an assignment from those stipulations. A third important detail, which is actually one of the stipulations, probably under operational, is that by law, no student

020who is attending a particular school at the time that any implementation of district line change begins would be required to leave that school. That child would be able to stay in that school until he or she completes whatever grade level is taught there. That's non-negotiable by law as a required component of any plan that the Reading Consortium proposes. So the process to get to where we are now, where we're choosing from among the three, the different potential redistricting models to get to a single one around which to build a detailed proposed plan, has actually taken a little bit longer than we wanted or expected. But it's been important for us along the way to be deliberate and to be inclusive and to take seriously questions that have come up along the way. So between the

021Reading Consortium and its committees specifically related to the proposed plan, there's also a fourth that we'll hear a little bit more about later. Some key areas of focus to support decision making were identified. And we have also had a total of 46 public meetings over the last three years. We have a website, SolutionsForDelawareSchools.com, from which all meetings, including video recordings of just about every one of our meetings, can be viewed. And we think there are very few state bodies that are this accessible to the public. As Matt mentioned, the Consortium will have a lot of work to do in order to put together a plan that meets all of the state's, the statute's requirements. And we feel that we are more than ready to move on to the space of our work. A starting point

022in order to proceed is to know what the lines would look like. Which conceptual model or map are we, do we think is going to put us in the best position to achieve equity? And because the requirements for a plan are so detailed, there's neither the time or the resources for us to develop full plans for multiple potential models. So we have invested quite a bit of time in trying to slowly narrow down the list of potential districts' lines, and to build those arrangements in order to get to the one around which we will build that detailed plan. As a body, we have slowly taken options off the table, using dimensions identified by our committee members and research partners. We began this process in earnest really in May of 2024, with the adoption of what

023we call our interim plan, with the aspects that we could all agree on as a 25-member Consortium. We voted on a plan that recommended not having the Christensen Center, but a plan that would allow us to have a full-time consortium. That was basically to see a school district continue to oversee any schools in the City of Wilmington, due to its discontinuous nature and other things. And we also voted that under whatever plan we eventually proposed, no more than two school districts should be responsible for overseeing schools in the City of Wilmington. This gave us the ability to sort of extrapolate some possible models, and we came up with nine. Some early models actually had involved one of the remaining districts, Red Clay or Brandywine or Colonial, being the sole district to absorb all of the

024city of Wilmington. And those were probably, I think, the first three that were eliminated. As I would say particularly some of our very experienced educators and administrators didn't think those were viable solutions. And now as a consortium, we've narrowed the list further all the way down to three. And we have to vote to choose one of those to continue our work. And we will, of course, continue to gather public input as we craft and eventually vote on the full proposed plan in 2026. That will involve more than just moving district lines. But for the next few minutes, I'll just focus on what those models look like at a very high level. This is some of the opportunities we've had for the public. And this is how we've been referring to those three models. We've got

025the Northern Kaplan County Consolidated School District, Metropolitan Wilmington School District, and Brady-Wine and Red Clay School District. So two of the remaining three options involve consolidating existing school districts into a single district. Both of these options would cause a newly created single district to include and unify all city of Wilmington schools and students. One of these options is to consolidate all four Northern New Council County school districts into one single district. And the second of the consolidation options would just consolidate the Brady-Wine and Red Clay school districts into a single district, including students from the North Kaplan County Consolidated School District, and students who are currently in the Christina and Colonial footprint of Wilmington. So those would now move into this new Metropolitan District. And then, so then you have the Brady-Wine and Red Clay

026School District, which just actually broadly is the same math as Metropolitan Wilmington School District, but it maintains Brady-Wine and Red Clay as independent school districts, just taking on, in some fashion, splitting those students moving from Christina and Colonial into the new metropolitan district. Great. So we're going to move into Brady-Wine and Red Clay. A little more language on each of those. So some of the thinking that has gone into the two consolidation proposals is that consolidation presents both unique opportunities as well as new challenges. Consolidation, especially as we are viewing it, which would include transportation planning throughout any newly created district, should give students and families more choices about which schools best serve them. Not changing what is already working, particularly on a building level, for the community, but scaling and improving access where that

027is called for. Right now there are programs and services in each district that are unique to that district and, effectively, not available to students outside of those districts because of preferences or transportation challenges. You know, so in Colonial that could potentially mean opportunities for access to popular programs in schools in other districts, whether we're talking about magnet and charter programming in Red Clay, gifted programming in Brady-Wine, or just other programs that are not in the community. So, you know, those are the things that we're looking at. So, I just wanted to say that, you know, we're looking at more of a, you know, more of a, you know, more of a, you know, a, you know, more of a, you know, more of a, you know, more of a, you know, more of a, you

028know, more of a, you know, more of a, you know, a few other gray areas, whether we're talking about magnet and charter programming in Red Clay, gifted programming in Brady-Wine, Chinese Immersion in Christina. More schools should mean more choices to your boundaries, less hurdles, and bureaucracy to navigate. Interview consolidation should and could mean the maintenance of successful programs and schools, just as many that exist in Colonial now, and scaling up access to these things, not narrowing it as has unfortunately been the trend, I think, many of us as parents have felt in recent years. Consolidation could also mean sending more dollars to frontline school professionals and spending less on administrative overhead. In calculating estimated costs for different proposal plans, our consultants that we're working with on that analysis is assuming that school employee salaries in

029individual districts would be leveled out through collective bargaining. In other words, if four districts are combined, teachers, parents, etc. would end up being paid at the highest current rate among the four districts. We've also asked the consultants to estimate potential savings, whether there are places where consolidating four districts or two districts into one would allow us to eliminate duplicative positions over time. You know, combined, this should result in a net movement of resources, we think, from administrative costs to salaries of frontline educators and staff. We are expecting those estimates this week, very shortly. And we expect that the leveling up part of the equation, that the level of the cost of the school face, that we also anticipate the consortium will propose being borne by the state, not districts, in the form of how they

030tax their residents, will outweigh the savings. But the net effect could be to give raises to school personnel who serve them and shift the overall mix of funds away from admitted frontline. More generally, we know that cost is an issue. Constituents are justifiably concerned about the amount of taxes they pay, so we have waited to vote on choosing between the three main factors. So we're going to end our session at this point, and we'll see you in the next group. plans until we have those thoughtful estimates of what each option could cost the state. We have contracted with that outside consultant, American Institutes of Research, to prepare these estimates using data provided by the state and by the four school districts. They will be considering things like that leveling up, along with other issues like

031new districts' responsibilities to integrate bus transportation and IT, and in some cases, absorb outstanding maintenance model or maintenance needs of some school buildings. We don't have those yet, but they're coming very, very soon. There are also real challenges that arise when school districts are consolidated, and we want to have a clear-eyed discussion of those as well. Transporting students across larger areas can be more efficient to plan and resource, but it can also be complicated, and it can be expensive. What will be the impact on the responsiveness of school district administrators and school boards if the district gets larger? Will it be harder for smaller groups of parents to have a voice and have a voice in the school district? Will there be increased demands on popular programs? And if so, could these programs be expanded

032or replicated to accommodate more students? We think if there are more Delaware students who want to pursue the arts or can handle challenging coursework at a school like the Lincoln Charter, we should certainly, as a state, make that opportunity available for students, that having been the original idea behind some of these schools, not that they would be exclusively institutions, but that they would be testing grounds for successful programming. So, we're going to be looking at that. Thank you. So, we're going to be looking at that. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Kay seasoning Mr. Marones, I'm just going to turn it over to you. Call the call. Call the call. This

033is awesome. I wanted to talk for a minute about students with disabilities. Consolidation also creates possible opportunities and challenges specifically for students with disabilities. Every student with a disability is unique and different interventions are different with different students. In a larger district with a wider range of service providers and services, it holds out the potential for having a better chance of finding that provider or that service that's going to be right for an individual student with a disability. That is a possible upside of consolidation. Possible downside of consolidation for students with disabilities is that there are often parents who have difficulty getting what they need for their children through the process. And can be frustrated and intimidated trying to advocate for their kids with their school and their school district. And those challenges can potentially

034be compounded if a district is larger rather than smaller. Senator Luffman mentioned she and I had the opportunity to spend quite a bit of time last night meeting with advocates for children with disabilities and parents of children with disabilities. And these are some of the issues that were raised. And there really wasn't consensus in talking to those parents and advocates about which of the plans that we are looking at is the best going forward for children with disabilities specifically. One thing that there was unanimity around was whichever of these plans that we move forward with, that there have to be very clear structures and protections in place for children with disabilities. And in particular for their parents' ability to advocate for those kids if they are not getting what they need and what they deserve

035from the school that they are attending. As Senator Luffman also made some reference to, regardless of which of these three models that we choose to build a more detailed plan around, there are additional benefits that we think that colonial students could see that will come from any of these models. Because the Ready Consortium, I talked at the beginning about things that we are, we are required to do, we are also permitted to make additional recommendations that go above and beyond just changing district lines. And many members of the Consortium have said consistently over time that it's critically important that we do additional things and not just recommend moving district lines. So I just wanted to mention some of the things that are being discussed. And these are all things once a model is chosen to

036build a plan around that we will be looking at potentially adding on and making part of a proposal that is, that is sent to the school board and the legislature. We are looking at a proposal to offer academically focused before and after school programs in high needs schools throughout northern New Castle County. The types of very focused before and after school programs with an academic agenda to them that have proven successful around the country in improving students' academic performance in school. There are some versions of this proposal that are limited to schools in the city of Wilmington. But there are other versions of it that we have looked at. When it comes to a consolidated school district that would include high need elementary and middle schools throughout northern New Castle County. So it would include

037schools like Isenberg Elementary and New Castle Elementary and McCollough Middle School. There is a proposal to offer some unique new programs in elementary schools currently in the city of Wilmington that we think will be very attractive to students who are in the theater patterns for those schools. Very interesting to teachers who want to be teaching in schools where exciting new things are happening. And also potentially interesting for parents who don't live in the city of Wilmington who might choose to choice their kids into these schools if there was capacity to take advantage of some of the new programming that we are thinking about. An elementary school in the city that would offer some of the day long gifted and talented programming that is offered currently to parents and families in the Brandywine School District but

038now available to students who don't live in the Brandywine School District. A proposal to offer some unique new programs in elementary schools that would be very attractive to students who are in the theater patterns for those schools. An elementary school arts program in the city of Wilmington that would be available for parents who don't want to wait until middle school to give their children a more expansive arts education as part of their daily education. A program for students with language based learning disabilities in the traditional city of Wilmington public school that will be modeled on some of the very successful programs that are offered in private schools in Delaware and Ceramics states but available to families who can't afford to pay the tuition that is required at those private schools. Thank you. I see a

039lot of questions about the opportunity of state funded high quality pre-k programs in some or all of the elementary schools that are part of the newly created district. The possibility of salary premiums for highly qualified teachers and paraprofessionals who are willing to teach in high need schools in the city of Wilmington. And a discussion in any newly created school district of reforming choice and charter rules to ensure that all students have access to innovative programs that the choice in charter are administered in a fair way. Thank you. are administered in a fair way all those programs i just listed the decisions about which of those are going to become part of a final proposed ready plan will come after a district map is chosen and after we've had more opportunity to hear about what the

040potential costs to the state might be of doing some of these programs some of them would probably cost relatively little some of them would cost more all of them are programs that we would envision the state paying for rather than individual school districts picking up the cost but they're definitely on the table they definitely could be very advantageous to parents and families who live currently in colonial and even at this early stage we would welcome hearing from you about it one other quick note um senator lockheed mentioned we've been to a few of these meetings now and from time to time we've been asked about money that the reading consortium has has already spent um back in 2021 when we were just starting on this process it became pretty clear to us that it was

041going to be a long period of time years before we got to the end of the process of proposing a redistricting plan and years and years beyond that before one was actually put in place on the ground that in the meantime there are thousands of kids moving through our northern newcastle county schools who we felt need help now so we decided to make some interim recommendations to the state starting in december of 2020 to do additional things for these kids now that would help them uh with with the struggles that they were having while we go through this process so sometimes you will see numbers about money that the reading consortium has recommended uh you can get all the details about how it's been spent on our website it's all broken out by category but

042about 93 percent of it is money that we recommended that the state spend but that has gone to the state department of education for other service providers who have been responsible for administering it bid out the contracts for it and then we're going to at overseeing the grants and monitor the performances things like before school programs after school programs summer programs pre-k programs scholarships for teachers and other professionals who are teaching in city of Wilmington schools professional development teachers who teach in those schools so these are these are programs that were very proud of and I just wanted to make sure that when people see dollar figures that the reading consortium has recommended that they understand that this is money that has gone 93% of which has gone directly to provide services to kids and

043teachers in schools so that's where things stand as we headed for our meeting at December 16th really a conceptual novel stage of our work pretty high level even some of these ideas with some more details or concepts that we are just getting costs for to find out what might be possible and even what is desirable because you know we're just getting cost for to find out what might be possible and even what's desirable because it's a what we're hearing in every district um you know you know there are different uh programs and things that we love about each of our districts uh that we want to be taking into consideration as we move through this process um so the decision that we're going to make next tuesday is an important point in our process but

044in a lot of ways just beginning of a lot of work to come in the new year um you know not just which new or expanded districts have oversight of particular school buildings but we hope creating a stronger context for what is able to happen in all these schools and that's because ultimately what this work is about is making sure that the students that we all care about have every opportunity to fulfill their potential and live out their dreams not just some of our students but all of our students in the schools close to their homes or or otherwise and we're proud to leave this opportunity and look very much forward to hearing thoughts and questions that you have for us senator thank you so much for presenting with us i know it's been a

045uh a long month for you guys um to say the least it's only day nine yes um so we do thank you guys for being here and um going through all that um at this point i have questions myself too but i'll kind of open it up um walk down the board for first rounds um start with mr andy do you have any questions of course i just want to stop yourself hello checking out um one game moves um one i just want to commend y'all on where you're at now i actually um go around people when this was just a conversation in back roads and i remember the very first public meeting just talking about this plan to see where it's at now so i truly commend y'all on your work uh a couple

046questions that i have is um did anybody look at the way the school districts were set up pre-1978 to use that as a model to come up with a new way to district these uh districts now great i would say we looked at pre-1978 i mean we're very aware that we've had a lot of evolution and you know a lot of change in those arrangements and what that's meant to people i i probably think about that period more in terms of like the process and maybe some mistakes that were made because i feel like a lot of these conversations that we uh are part of you know that was a long time ago but the trauma that people felt from i think the suddenness and the the the trauma that people felt from i think

047the suddenness and the sense of loss of community voice and community cohesion was really deep and it still reverberates so i think we my hope personally is that we are um shepherding a process that will not be a traumatic one for the communities that are impacted and that we can respect what communities are what they envision for for their children um and and you know that we can respect some of those footprints maybe some of the newer footprints and communities have been created um you know can be taken into account as we get into the design phase i think that's i think those are things that are possible um even if we decide to go with a larger footprint model i think there's ways that we can still respect the communities within it right also

048with the um 2019 legislation until now that's a six-year period please um i just implore not to wait another six or seven years because what happened is you got a whole group that started in kindergarten that graduated and won't get advantage none of this right here so how are we going to monitor that and implement programs to assist the kids that are already in the system now and i know that's going to be when you redistrict they're going to be some upper level people that got to be repurposed and i know that would be an issue and the last thing is have you um because there's some local talent and very great programs and a lot of times they're working in some after-school spaces but they're not in the school system that have great results

049is there any way that you can look into helping them scale to help uh remediate some of these issues we have with reading and math it's not going to be kind of a complicated response the short answer is yes in the sense that when when we recommended that the state fund uh competitive after school and before school program grants now um part of that a required part of schools applying for and winning those grants was using community organizations as part of the service as part of providing services now that we have had three years of those those were three-year grants and we're coming up on the end of the third year i think we've learned some lessons uh from how that has worked and i think that and i'm always last when i start saying

050i speak only for myself i speak only for myself about this i think that one of the lessons that i have learned uh with respect to how those grant i think they were great i think they were they were well run by the schools that won them i also think that we probably may have tried to do too much with the grants and and do too much with the after school programs and as i look at the experience with them and think about how can we do this better going forward one of the things that we that i've been thinking about is more narrow focus uh don't try to do quite as much and and um so i i i think moving forward there's still the opportunity to use very successful community groups as as

051part of that but i think that as we do more of that work going forward um one of the lessons at least that i've seen from the experience we've had is that it's it's good the way that we did it but it's also possible to do it in a more focused way that's also less expensive for school and allows us to spread the programming to more schools okay that's a um the last thing is i just please look at local talent because it does two things one it inspires other people with programs locally to actually give back to the community and it gives more community bias so we can limit or mitigate some of the trauma because it's going to be something but we really got to work on making that as less as possible

052and you know what i don't want to be a really long response to your question but one of the just one other lesson that i think we've learned again from the experience we've had most of the programs that successfully linked up with the schools that fund the grants were very large programs uh that have lots that have they're good uh but they are the larger more experienced programs that are very experienced and helping to write not knowing how to write grants and things like that and one of the things i also think we can do better going forward is figuring out how to incorporate smaller and newer organizations that may also have very successful practices so that they also have an opportunity to show what they can do i guess my question and i'm kind

053of new on the board so i don't have as much background knowledge maybe as some other people do but the is the purpose of redistricting to give you're bringing more diversity into a bigger place or bigger a bigger district so that you can offer more things to those students that need more it's a wonderful question i think where it came from in my view at least as a wilmingtonian is mainly a response to the fragmentation that uh you know currently exists in the city of wilmington with you know so many districts um and charter schools dividing governance in that state um and and the negative impacts that Beth has had for students and I personally think for other social determinants as well in the city. But I also think when we're looking at the model

054and some of the factors I think that we were considering in the different footprints when we were narrowing it down, do you have to do with that in a way? Like what opportunity is there to have sort of socioeconomic balance in schools, which we know has positive impacts, so it's like are you creating a footprint with a high concentration of poverty throughout a district or are you creating a district where there is much more of a balance of different student characteristics? So I think that's something to be considered. I think whether or not that's specifically a goal or a positive outcome is going to depend on the person that you're talking to looking at that across the different possible models. But I personally think that, I think that there is a potential to have socioeconomic

055balance in schools is a great possibility to preserve and enhance maybe that is possible in some of our current districts. Because I feel like what he brought up from back in the 70s is what the goal of that was. But what happened? Well, I think that I love that question too because I think people usually go right back to the decade and I think, you know, I graduated high school. I graduated high school in 1997 and then I had a daughter going into kindergarten in 2008 and saw a vast difference in the decade between those times because a lot of major public policy happened between 1995 and 2008. And, you know, that was choice and charter law, that was the Neighborhood Schools Act, and also on the federal level, you know, you had No Child

056Left Behind and high stakes testing and all kinds of things. And it was a perfect storm of disaster for what we did. And not just Wilmington. I just think that Wilmington structurally ends up being, you know, showing the most extreme outcomes in a negative way that affect every student throughout New Catholic County and Delaware. It's a structural issue. We just see it in Wilmington the most acutely. Do you want to add to that? Also, there's kids in the city who are having to ride a bus 45 minutes to go to high school. That too. I mean, that's... You aren't choosing to. Right. Right. Good evening. I too want to thank you for your hard work. I know this has been hard work. I know there are other people at this table who have been involved

057in the work and we appreciate it. I just want to kind of backpedal a little bit just for any community members who may be listening. So the process at this point is the commission is going to be, is going to vote on a recommendation next week. Correct. For, you know, a model. We have three model designs left, the three I described, so that we can begin to actually draft the full plan, which will contain the answers to the stipulations, which I think answer the questions most people start asking when they find out that we're a country district. And then that vote goes, I think, to the State Board of Education? Correct. Oh, sorry. Not Monday's vote. Oh, Monday's vote? No. Sorry. Where does the recommendation that's done on Monday go? On Tuesday. To ourselves. If

058we are able to affirm a single model that we agree on as a consortium, that unlocks our ability to start drafting. And then what is then drafted, we will be reviewing in full body meetings and, you know, having public review opportunities until such time as we have fulfilled those 13 stipulations until we have a final fully drafted proposal. But then the consortium has to vote on again, fully draft it, then that is what goes to the State Board. Okay. Okay. So ultimately in the process it will go to the State Board of Education? Yeah. And then, and where does it go from there? Once they approve it, assuming that that happens, then it can move on to the General Assembly. And then, you know, sort of mirroring the process that occurred for anyone who was

059involved in the Wilmington Education Improvement Commission work. I think it was, was it in 2016 that that came before the General Assembly? You know, there was a fully drafted implementation timeline and resource plan, transition plan. And essentially I think there was a resolution representing its approval but passed those, didn't pass those, passed one chamber and died in the Senate. So legislation will need to be drafted to basically change the law, which is the way that the districts are set up currently. Correct. Okay. I took some time to read through the materials on the website and there's a lot of very interesting information in there. And I noticed in the landscape analysis that three of the highest impact social drivers included issues around transportation, neighborhood safety, and of course the bureaucracy. And I did read that

060there are actually 11 different educational entities that are involved in that. Okay. And I did read that there are actually 11 different educational entities serving the kids of Wilmington, which is a very, very high number for that small of a city. How do you see consolidation, other than the bureaucracy, because I can get that, if we can cut it down from 11 to, I can't do the math, seven? You know, perhaps that makes a difference. But in terms of transportation and, the discussion around transportation was the kids simply, they can't get door to door transportation and they are fearful walking in some of their neighborhoods. So that has an impact on whether or not sometimes they're going to be involved in after school activities or activities that would have them out, you know, after dark

061or at night. How does consolidation address that? How does consolidating these districts improve those conditions for those kids living in the city? Representative Chicocho would like to speak. Great. If that's okay with you all. That's fine. Thank you. One way in which consolidation would help address some of the community concerns in my district in particular, I represent the first district, North Wilmington. Currently in my district along 30th Street. If you're on 30th Street on the Northern side, you're gray line. You're on 30th Street on the Southern side, you go to Red Clay. That creates challenges within our community. I mean, from education challenges. I have parents, families on 30th Street who can literally look down Jefferson Street and they can see Hardin. But yet their school is Red Clay and they have to go all

062the way to Shore Ridge or to Warner Elementary School. And sadly, some of those very children aren't being provided transportation because they've been told they're within a mile. They can see this school, but they have to get to the other school. And so that's some challenges. But one of the issues to me that is often, you know, a challenge is that, you know, I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to get to the other school. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to get to the other school. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to get to the other school. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to get to the other school. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to get to the other

063school. And so I think that's something that's often overlooked when it comes to this four-district model and a lot of the social drivers and the negative social drivers that impact education are the division that it has created within our city. I have children in my community who literally live across the street from children and they never get to really know those children. Same thing for all of our communities. Our children don't get to interact with one another. To me, that this same division is that undercurrent for me not knowing the students. To me, not knowing the students. Believing that they're different. I don't like him. I don't like that. I don't like that neighborhood. It fuels the violence. It fuels the, a lot of negativity within our communities. We believe that unifying our city, coming

064together, our children can come together in a way that's wholesome, in a way that repairs this brokenness that has been perpetrated within our city. It's not healthy. Our city is broken. It is a lack of not just control but a lack of input. It's not healthy. Because another thing that's very important that hasn't been mentioned yet is our city's involvement, our local government's involvement. So we have a local government that has no authority or involvement in the education of its children. So the city of Wilmington in our city, the schools used to be owned by the city of Wilmington. We lost that control. So those very schools now belong to the districts. Those schools, when they were a part of the city, they used to be open in the evening. And they would have after

065school programming. And the city ran these programs. And that happened and it went away. And then the city still tried to provide some services. They were providing tutors and mentors in various community centers. But it's those type of supports that are needed to help address some of those concerns where youth have the opportunity to participate in programming. But I just wanted to add that to your question. That's the way in which I believe we really can address some of the negative impact on our children in terms of providing support. And so providing just a holistic community that can address some of the violence, undercurrents of violence. So are you suggesting that under a consolidation plan that the city would take back perhaps some control? The city would not take back? Or access at least? No,

066but no, they won't. We'll never get that control back sadly. I'm rested in my heart in two things. Because when the city lost the school district, there was another part of it where the city lost part of its wage tax. They lost. They lost 2.5% of the wage tax. And that was taken away from the city because that's what the city used to fund the school. They weren't funding schools. Now, we will never get that back. So the city will never really be fully invested because they can never get that. They will not ever get that tax back to be fully invested. But what our current mayor and our city council as well, they created an opportunity, a Wilmington office for educational advancement. As well as our current mayor. I mean, he's a member of

067writing. He's very active and engaged. And they want the city to be involved, to be invested partners in education again. So we are grateful for that support and partnership and moving forward. And we believe that there can be a role for the city to play. Okay, thank you. I was going to say, much less poetically, you know, just that I see it the same way. You know, it's not going to create an overnight change. We didn't get to this position overnight. But, you know, the way I read the landscape analysis and the social drivers, for me, it led me to a place of seeing the fragmentation. I think the way Representative Troja described it beautifully, the fragmentation itself has become a root cause of leading to a lot of these conditions. And that once we,

068you know, heal that, ideally, you know, that leads to eventual healing of those conditions. And I think, you know, in terms of the city. You know, in terms of the city's role, you could say the same for, you know, anyone who wants to advocate for the students of Wilmington or to serve them, you know, through outside of full-time programming and things like that. Having one district with which to interact is a very different dynamic than many. And I think that came off very clearly in the landscape now as well, the barrier of coordinating across multiple districts to serve families who so desperately need assistance. Yes, I agree. And so in that way, you can see how it leads to worsening conditions. Like, you know, we're in a situation where we're not able to do that.

069Right. And so, again, those who are in a position to serve can't properly and effectively serve. Right. Thank you. I'm just going to be even less poetic. You saw we were listing off those discretionary additional recommendations and some of those are very specifically targeted at the issue that you pointed out when we were talking about how to design before school and after school programs. We were very deliberate in saying what we were looking for and saying that they must include transportation. To and from the before and after school activities for students. So the vision is, you know, for students who feel that it's unsafe for them in the neighborhood or feel unsafe, you know, transporting to and from school, that they would be able to get on a bus to their home, come to school

070early, be in a safe and nurturing environment, get to help with schoolwork, be able to stay after school. Same thing. Safe, nurturing environment. Academic health and safety. And so, again, that's a very different thing. Right. And so, you know, for students who are in the neighborhood, you know, take a bus, academic health, and then take a bus, safe bus, back home to their school. So that part of the discretionary recommendations was made specifically with the types of issues that you brought up in mind. Right. Because, you know, one of the unfortunate byproducts of the Choice Act is initially that the districts provided choice bus stops. And those do not exist anymore. So even if you have a consolidated district. If you have a child who lives in, say, on the west side, who wants to

071go to Mount Pleasant, they got to get there. Because if the same rules are going to be in place, that it's the parent's responsibility to get them to the nearest bus stop. I don't really see how anything changes. The last thing I wanted to address is one of the documents on the webpage is a study from Hanover. The Hanover Research Agency, they do a lot of research and reports and studies for educational institutions. And there is a report that they did several years ago for Michigan. The city of Ypsilanti was looking at consolidating with perhaps some smaller area districts. And they were pretty clear in this report that consolidation seldom results in savings. Right. Unless the student count remains under 3,000. So there aren't any big studies that show that consolidation is actually going to

072save a lot of administrative costs. And that there is a correlation between smaller districts and higher achievement. So is there national data that your organization has been looking at to show that a consolidation like this is actually going to make a difference? And improve educational outcomes for our kids? Let me address the financial part of it. And then I have to apologize. Your superintendent and board chair know my employers are in California. And they would like me to be present for a meeting at 5 o'clock their time, 8 o'clock our time. So I'll have to leave at 7.30 and I apologize. But for the financial part of it. We very much want to know what the implications of that would be in terms of potential savings from consolidation. Additional expenses. Senator Loughman talked about leveling

073up of salaries. So we asked the American Institute of Research to look at that specifically with respect to Delaware. Part of what they are looking at is the experience in other states and how it's unfolded in other states. And then they are going to be applying that specifically to what they know of Delaware. From drawing district level and state level position and salary data. So we are trying to be as educated as we can by using outside experts. I think you have spent more time on our website than any person I know. Thank you so much. We appreciate it. But part of what we wanted them to do so that we could be as informed as possible is to look at a combination of what's the outside experience been. And try to apply that in

074as Delaware specific a way as possible. Great. Is Helen Anderson here? Sorry, Helen. She's famous. Sorry. You had a question for public comment in regards to Redding. Is there anything that you need to ask specifically that's directed towards Mr. Dent before he leaves? She sees me all the time. Oh, okay. She has free access to us. So you're okay if I wait until we open? Absolutely. Thank you. I just wanted to make sure. And I'm finished. Sorry. We won't give long answers anymore. I promise. I think Matt did that one. Tizzy and Nnamdi, are you guys okay? We're good. Thank you. Matt, I'm sorry. So much. No, no. You're fine. Thank you. Go ahead. I'm going to . Oh, you're going to . Yeah. I just wanted to make sure. Go ahead, Mr. Wilson. Okay.

075Thank you. Senator Walker, thank you for being here. And Matt, as you all know, Matt and I would go back a few years when he was lieutenant governor. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. On behalf so many students and all of us, as you can tell by the gray hair that I have, I was part of that group before the 1978. Way before that. That's . A couple of questions I have for you is, Colonial is one of two school districts in New Castle county that have footprints above and below the canal. I'm assuming that when you say Northern New Castle county, the canal is the lifeline. No, actually. When we say, Northern New Castle county, we

076mean everybody but AFO. Everything but AFO. Seriously. has footprint above the above as we have designed it we've taken the existing does that now look we're taking feedback so you know okay so my my question is how are you going to deal with that because that's our growing part of our district is down below the channel as you go that's one question i have for you how are you going to address them i wholeheartedly support that there doesn't need to be full four school districts in the city okay and i know that in the past prior to 1980 or around 1980 is it went to a single school district in new castle county and it was a disaster the public was ranting and raving because they didn't have control of their public schools which if

077you were to lean that way that's going to raise its head again and would be a problem so i hope that you would support that that's personally some of the items that you covered in your items that were going to happen with the consolidation of the district is if you don't go with the single school district in new castle county or the other districts going to be the recipients of some of those some of those programs as well special programs i can see so so i actually really want to answer your first question with a question which i would love you to tell me what you think what do you think that dynamic is so the book below and above the canal because i don't think i have a good answer for you honestly i

078mean i think our charge is always in north new castle county but the good part is we're going to go to newcastle county and which has always meant sort of in our definition everything above so to speak applicant and so I wouldn't say that we've grappled with what you described and so I would welcome input and advice from you I don't think I have a good handling for people to be honest with you. I don't think you need to put more weight on their scale. I think that would be a disservice to their community as well as our community. When I say our community, I mean both colonial and actually there's parts of Christina that would affect that as well too. Over on the 896 corridor and whatnot. I personally think that you should take

079that option off the table with some of the weight from that perspective. From a perspective of other items that are on there, we have a larger, as I said earlier, we're growing. We're growing more in that southern part of the district that's going there. And I know you had mentioned earlier about kids being able to see across the street they go to one school district and the other side of the street goes to the other. We have that. Christina has that. The old Newark special school district. I don't know how many of you remember. But that's always been there. The kids always got along. So it's just part of growing up that they have to do some of that. But that's not part of that. But my main question is, are the other districts, if

080you go to a, if you were to combine Brandywine, Red Clay, that model, or whatever, would the other districts that are left there, would we want to get some of those other programs that you have out there that are listed in your presentation? So where we are now is costing out the big ideas, which is what we used to call them, the discretionary recommendations can be looked at. And so I think it might be somewhat dependent on what we see those costs looking at. I think obviously we want, I hope that our models that are on the table show that we want great things for all of Northern and Capital County, which is our charge as a consortium. And so, you know, we want everyone to receive a great education, equitably, every student. I think

081probably when we first started doing it, I was thinking probably more in terms of the impacted district, sort of whatever new district or districts were formed, receiving new students within the city of Wilmington. But it's been a long process. My mind is open. I think we've had a great experience as a consortium. I think having all of the minds at all the districts at the table, and I would love for us to continue to be able to operate in that way, exchanging ideas and seeing all students well served across the county. And then adding on to what Kristen said earlier, have you, have you, have you, have you, have you, have you, have you, have you, have you, have you, have you, have you, have you, have you, have you, have you, have you, have

082you, have you, have you, have you, have you, have you, have you, Is that possible? What kind of structures? And what do you put in place to help communities continue to have agency and a sense of community within it? So I think that's the question that comes with it so far more than getting it administratively. But then they're probably kind of related to the question. I mean, if you compare, you go back and look at some of the bigger cities. You go back and you look at Philadelphia. You look at New York. You look at Chicago. You look at some of these other counties down in the southern part of the country where they have their Span County schools. That's one of the biggest problems they have is that the parents from the local areas

083don't have any control or any say. I should say control. They don't have any say or input on what goes on to their schools. Sure. That's a big part. And that's not the Delaware way. Well, the Wilmington way, unfortunately. And that's a big part of what's driven our work here is Wilmington feeling very disempowered and underrepresented as a community across all districts. And we don't want that for Wilmington anymore. And we don't want to bring it to other communities either. We want everyone to be able to sit equally at the tables that cover them, their schools, I should say. Dr. Dorsey. Good evening. First, I want to thank you for the work you put in. I know you put in a lot of work. I know everybody else in the committee has put in a

084lot of work. I've had the privilege of actually sitting on many of the presentations. So I know a lot of your questions. I only have three questions. My first question is, I think leveling up. I heard your idea and thought about leveling up. I think that's a phenomenal idea. I don't believe our educators are getting what they are well due and what they deserve, as far as their education and the debt they accrue of getting that education and educating other children. So I think that's phenomenal. And I think that's something to do. But also thinking about it, it's also expensive. And to look at it, where would that money come from? Because in all reality, especially after this whole issue of reassessment, the likelihood of a school district ever passing another referendum again is never

085going to happen. Let's be honest. Not in my lifetime, Brown. So we have to be prepared for that. And is the state ready to take on that cost? Kind of similar of the model they used for Newcastle County Go Tech. I'm going to let you talk, too. But I think those are right on questions. And how to address them. I think, you know, I don't think we have illusions about the importance of cost with the political feasibility of any kind that we look forward to. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Again, we're also trying to look at this as a long game and not expecting, you know, as we see numbers roll in and there's going to be sticker shock and it's going to freak out and say, what are you talking about? We plan

086to be, to continue to be methodical and thoughtful about what it might look like to move in certain directions. What can we afford? When can we afford it? And those types of things. So we will take that very seriously. I think, you know, tax-based questions, factor in as we look across the models that are currently on the table, the possibilities for supporting, you know, equity generally seem more feasible when you're looking at a larger footprint. That's how it makes the case for that. Are there alternative ways to get at what a county-wide tax base could do in providing a much more broadly shared footprint that would make it more fair across all the households in a sense. I mean, the county from a tax paying perspective. Is there a way to get at that in

087some other way? I think we have, you know, we have a fiscal impact subcommittee. One of the co-chairs may be at your table right now. Hey, Emily. And she's brilliant. You're so lucky. And so, you know, we've talked about many ideas for reform, whether it's on the referendum reform. I can let you speak on that. You've done that work. And we are working, I would say, in parallel, intended to align with the Public Education Funding Commission, who's also taking a hard look at potential reforms in the funding space. So we know that it's going to be the big, the biggest, scariest part of the work to look at and grapple with, very honestly, those big, big numbers. And we are doing our best to get accurate information so we can make wise and educated decisions

088about how to move forward and develop a plan that we can afford. And that we know that we need to afford, because taking on some reasonable cost is going to yield, we think, a stronger system, which will pay off in a variety of ways for all of us. Now, Dijon. And just to address the point on referendum reform that Emily and Super Kim Minzer were telling you, when, during COVID, we took a break pretty much from the redistricting work and worked with our districts. And one of the key things that we were working on was developing legislation for referendum reform. And we presented it. And of course, there was a different kind of door that got shut at that time, saying that, why would you even propose this, knowing with the reassessment that had to

089happen? But it's definitely a part of the conversation. I believe it is connected to the work that we're speaking of in terms of equity, because we still have a very inequitable system when we do think of how our New Castle County and how the WOTEC systems are treated within our state. And my final two questions are more, I believe I know the answer to it, but I need some support with that. But I get asked these two questions all the time, especially from my families and women who I work with all the time. So the first one is, is the priority of the plan that would be eventually chosen be focused on cost, convenience, or was it actually best for children? 100% was best for children. And I believe that is our when we think

090of what's happened right now and what has happened over the past 47 years, we've seen a lot of resources and revenue. This initiative, that initiative, pushed into the side of our city. So it wasn't always about revenue and the funding and support for programs. It was really about what was in the best interest of our children and having a school system that addressed their needs, that where communities and families were together. My mother is sitting here. My sister is sitting right here. And I often tell this story about my growing up in Northeast Wollongong. There was a school, which is now Thomas Edison Charter School, but it used to be George Gray. Never went to George Gray, but I remember my sister taking Girl Scouts there. And I remember my mother being a Girl Scouts

091teacher in that school, because it was a community school. And it was that sense of how that district configuration made the schools connect to our community again. And I believe that's the greatest intent of what's we're trying to do is to really have that sort of sense of community involvement again, where our schools are connected to our communities, where we realize that the heart of our community are our schools and they're for our children. So to me, that's how we address that. Of course, money and resources and governance, all that plays a part. But we want to make decisions that are definitely in the best interest of our children from the first step we take. Yeah. I think different. I want to say on a panel about PESB, investing in a system that is structurally

092unfound is not a good way to spend money. We're investing in structures that we think are unfound right now, at least when it comes to our Wilmington students. We want to fix those so that we can have the money that we are paying into the system yield the kind of results that we believe our kids deserve. And you also talked about the separation of neighborhood based on students going to different schools. That kind of leads into my next question. Are the city charter schools also being considered? Because some would argue that the same product out of those schools is the same product coming out of Christina. So are they even being considered in that? And I would add one other point to that. Oh, yeah. To his question. Are you going to do away with

093this? Are we going to do away with it? I can say no to that. I don't think, no. Because you want to have the same thing. Your kids are going to go and say, why don't we go to that? And that's what it's like. So we haven't missed that at all. And that's something I personally care very deeply about. I would say, so I hope that our people will go on our website and see. And we can share more about this at future meetings. But our membership is quite generous. It's stapled to the consortium and our subcommittee. We have representation not just from the four large districts, but also BOTEC and also charter school. Really technically, I think we have one charter school. We'll see for our city charter school leader. And that's for a

094reason. That's because they're part of the landscape that we are calling out as dysfunctional. And so they have to be at the table to talk about how we get things back on track. I think at the stage of conversation that we're in, we haven't been very explicit about what could that look like. I think that's part of the next stage of conversation. One of the things that came out of the discretionary recommendations committee conversation, was that mentioned, I think it's an exploration of, I would say we're looking at compelling any district that results from this process to, before implementation, take a look at how choice and charter policy function, at least within that LEA, so that we can address what I think we all know is the severe impact that choice of charter has had.

095I mean, there's pros and cons. And every LEA design. But I think we really feel like it's high time for us to grapple with what's working. Do more of that. And see the things that have been really painful and really inequitable and been a drag on our system. And figure out how to reform them. And choice and charter to me is absolutely, it is in the code that we presented to reaffirm our work, is that we can address that. And we already have a proposal on the table for it to be done. And I think even with this plan, charters are going to be greatly affected. Because right now, as you said, we talked about Christina School District and getting them out the city. A lot of the city parents are voting for Christina School

096District. That's why they chose to go to charters. If you get your Red Flags and your Colonials or your Brandy wants to take over these schools, they're not choosing those schools anymore. They're going to come to these other schools. They're going to leave the charters and come back to place that funds better. That's great. That's very possible. And I think what I just want for us is that we have a coherent system that works for kids. And I think we have to figure out how these different school types that have emerged, I would hope, can be more collaborative and less combative. I don't know how we get there. But something's going to happen for sure if we get to the meeting on this path. And I think it should be less about preserving an LEA

097and more about making sure that kids have great places to go. That's the most important. Yeah. Thank you. I agree. He had the best microphone skills. But he was .. Great. I have two questions. Number one, for the kids with disability, the children with disability, 18 to 21 programs, do you have any programming plans? Because already two of the districts, like Christina School District and Red Flag, have a program. Do you have any programs that are very good plan for the 18 to 21? And a lot of them live in the city. Man, I really wish Matt Dunn was here, because he's our pro on this topic. But what I will say, I did sit in on the GACEC meeting, or we talked about. And honestly, consistent with what I think we've said about LEAs

098in general, we know that there are programs that are working really well here in Colonial. And to your point with the example that you used, this is really growing things out. This is about administrative. This is high-level governance change that doesn't need to be changing or certainly eliminating great things that are already happening on the ground. If anything, we hope that we're able to grow things that are working really well on the ground like that. One thing that came out of the GACEC meeting that I thought was interesting is that, I think, as we pointed to, there's a stipulation that says that students have to stay in the school that they're in. It's very specific, that wording, the school that they're in at the time. It's very change. And what came up at that meeting

099was that we need to go beyond that and talk about programs and not just schools, because especially when it comes to that student population, there's a program continuity, particularly when you're talking about those older age groups, that we want to make sure we are able to provide continuity for. So in that sense, we're thinking about the preservation and continuity of very highly specialized, successful programs within any school. So I think that's a really good point. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Well, my second question is the ELL program. We have, in the city of Wilmington, some really good programs, and they were trying to shut it down, but they survived. What's going to happen with those programs? Like Lewis and Marbrook specifically? Like Marbrook, Lewis, and we have also in, it's not very much, but you

100have Pulaski who have above the 17, 18% of average of Hispanic at school. For example, and now we have a big influx of Arabic. So what's going to happen with those programs? Are they going to be enhanced? New school? Because the population in Bradywine of Hispanic students is only 5-7%. I didn't know that statistic. Again, I think when things are successful and in demand or just a need as a specialized program for a Hispanic student population, we want to make sure that it's provided at the scale that it's needed. I think that's why we're not at that stage of planning, obviously, and we're also focused more on the design of the LEA, who ultimately, the way we do things, is empowered with that level of planning. And so that's kind of part of the spirit

101behind the choice and charter piece I was talking about, charging that district prior to implementation, which makes making sure there's the right spread of programs and the right buildings, especially if we're talking about a community. So that's a consolidation option, that that can provide the opportunity for broadening, scaling up, and just making sure things are placed where students need them. So we are not at that stage of planning. We're probably not going to be that prescriptive as a consortium. We think that's ultimately up to the LEA. We're trying to just create a context with the least amount of barriers and the right amount of incentive to have an LEA. We would make great decisions about those types of things. So you mentioned the salary scale would be at the higher level. This case would be

102brandywine. I just want to make sure that that's where we include the cafeteria people, the maintenance, the security. Everybody would be at the higher level. That's the assumption, yeah. Because we all talk, and then we just talk about teachers. But it's more people. Like, if the maintenance don't come at 5 o'clock, the school will be freezing the whole day. If the cafeteria ladies don't come, the kids won't eat. So I just want to make sure that they are taken care of as well. Yes, sir. That is the intention. Okay, thank you. And no city tax. No city tax? Because Christina School District, for some special school, don't have city tax for the teachers. For the teachers. We'll take that note then. Thank you. Gracias. So I saved mine. I did not save the best for

103last. They stole half my questions. More importantly, one you had mentioned as a side note of like a silver lining of everything here. You said it's one of the most transparent committees you've ever seen. And with that, do you feel that some of the work that you've done here for transparency, that you can start adopting that in a lot of the other committees and other side work that's going on that comes from legislation? Maybe we can push that? That's something to be proud of. We're trying to lead by example. Although not everyone agrees that we're, you know, the example. Obviously, people who are newer to our conversation may not agree with you. But I appreciate the compliment. And yeah, I think a lot of entities try our best. Technology and staff capacity and things like

104that, you know, is part of the issue. But we are very fortunate that we, that the state has worked with us and invested in us. People have the staff capacity to do work and have that level of transparency. Transparency is always the key, you know. Even if you don't think someone's looking, you feel better and you sleep better at night knowing that you've done your best for the public to know. We believe that here. Next one. If choosing an option that creates a much larger district that's not the full county, you know, part of the county consolidated. So obviously the red clay, brainwashed consolidation. That's a loss. I'm sorry. Yeah. So with that happening, obviously we have this legislation here that's to fix that issue. But then do you then see that type of a

105size of a district becoming the standard that we need? And then do you see that becoming the standard that is expected across the rest of the state in the future? Because I think that's what some questions, what you saw from Mr. Walz, are worried about. And are we losing some of our future areas and things like that? I kind of want to know what the plan is too. Because if you set that standard in one area, where are you at for the rest of the state then? I mean, our charge is Wilmington and Northern New Hampshire County. And we have tried to keep it focused to what we think, you know, will be beneficial. Particularly for Wilmington and its fragmentation. And I do think that's a unique scenario within our state. I can't, it's not

106our intention that it started cascading, in fact, all over the state. But I mean, if we suddenly see a great deal of improvement, you know, I could see there being interest. And maybe an increase in following suit. But that's not our objective is really following through on the greater Wilmington question. And what we think would be best for that very unique and specific challenge. And then after you guys get unlocked for drafting, and then moving more into the future with this, are there other plans? I really like this communication with the public. And obviously you've got a lot of media attention that's hit with all these presentations this month. Oh, okay. I didn't have time to read that. But with the public interest and everything else, do you guys have other future presentations, plans at

107school board meetings? For things like this when we get to the next level? Absolutely. I mean, we love being your guests. And we are happy to come back and talk at any time. You know, again, we have it kind of baked into our expectation that there be plans for engagement. So if we're like getting a good precedent that should be continued, we would love to just keep repeating this. Until, you know, probably the end of the year. We'd love to invite you back. Even if it's an option where it's kind of like Colonial's out, but one option. It's still the public who loves to hear about this. And again, it kind of goes back to transparency and giving the public an option. Because this is one of the most, you know, well-attended board meetings that

108we've had in a while. And it's the December one. Yeah, it's pretty amazing. Yeah, we don't have the choirs going on. Yeah, it was the Garage Band. The Garage Band was amazing. But with that first meeting. Yeah. So with that first, also just want to thank you guys. I was in a meeting, Nandi, I think it was the first time you and I met where I just got to kind of sit and like fly on the wall when you're meeting with Emily and Dr. Benzer a couple years ago in regards to this. And I think we were at a point where it almost looked like it was never going to happen. And now you're really getting to a point where you can possibly see progress. So I mostly want to thank you for not giving

109up on it. I know you've been working for years with us. And it's an amazing thing to see that we're getting to a point where we're doing it. And I know it's tough because maybe not getting exactly what you wanted with it, but to keep pushing and making this happen. Yeah. The green rice to the crop. And I think you're seeing it when you keep churning it. That's what's happening. So just thank you because the better, the good is going to come out of this. So I appreciate that. And with that being said, I got a slight disclosure just to give real quick for public comment. We do have a public comment that's for Reading. And then the other one that looks like it's different from there. But just to open up the public comment,

110do you have anything, Dr. Benzer, you'd like to say? Any questions for them? I know you get a lot in your meetings. We talk all the time. We're talking plenty. All right. Real quick, as indicated on the public comment sheet, when your name is called, you'll have three minutes to speak. You are expected to remain in the designated area for speaking with the board. If commenting virtually, you're expected to turn off your camera. Failure to do either will result in your forfeiting your allotted time once I turn on your camera. Please note that the board members are not obligated to respond to you within your three-minute time slot. Administrative staff may be identified and asked to provide follow-up on specific questions or personnel issues regarding your child or children after the meeting. Ms. Helen Anderson,

111I'll start with you since it was noted that was a Reading comment. Would you like to speak? You have three minutes and I'll give you a one-minute warning. Hi. Good evening, everyone. I'm Helen Anderson. I'm actually a former student and former educator right here at William & Finn. I love my days here, so I appreciate being back. So I want to address a few things. I have been, I am the daughter of William Pix Anderson, for those of you who may or may not know him. He was an advocate in the state of Delaware for education. He was also a federal, national advocate that helped bring the Title I, Chapter I program to the state. So, this conversation for the last 47 years of my life has been the dining room table conversation. And so

112I wanted to make sure that I hit on a couple things. I'm coming to all these meetings and I'm speaking only because this is my passion. This is the world that I sit in. I even left corporate America to come into teaching in order to be able to speak better to this for educators, for parents, and for students. And so there was a couple things that were said. One is about the data as far as large districts versus small districts. Delaware has 19 public school districts plus the 23rd and 24th charter schools that we have. And in our smaller school districts that are downstate, we have the data that shows that they're not doing great at it either. So, we can talk about big districts versus small districts, but when we're still talking about proficiency

113rates that are well less than 40%, some 30, some 20, and they have 2,500 children from K to 12. If we can't do it in that district, then we probably don't have the tools and the resources we need here in this state. That's where I would go with that. So, I don't know that I need national data when I have state data that shows me we are piss poor in Delaware when it comes to education. Then number two, the one district model back in 1978 when it was implemented, it was implemented as something to do because the federal law said we had to do it. And if they did not do it, then there would have been a bigger problem with the federal law. It was never given a chance. It was never funded. It

114was never fully implemented. It was never fully set down, fleshed out. We're going to make this work because we need to make it work. It was we're going to put something together to do something so that we don't continue in this lawsuit. So, this time, we're being very intentional in the way that we're going to conduct ourselves. Whatever model we have, we are going to make this thing right because this is about our children. And until children is the reason why we sit at these tables and sit in these rooms, we're not doing anything well. The other thing is that... Thank you. The other thing is that when we talk about what can make things work, it is all about leaders. The one thing that this state is so pissed poor at is making sure

115that we are putting in systems and processes that do not include the current perfect person that we love. I love Jeff Minzer. I love Darrell Green. They're not going to be here 30 years from now. And so, we cannot make rules and systems that surround them. We need to make rules and systems that make sense for children. Philadelphia, with their 198,000 students. That superintendent is changing the dynamics. He's bringing parents in. He's being very intentional about everything that he's doing. And if we demand those things to happen in Delaware, we can change everything. And then the last thing that I want to say is that it's about the accountability, the leadership, and us bringing everyone in. I also sit on the Public Education Funding Commission, and I want to be very clear. This process that

116we've been doing already has been way more intentional than that in the last 10 years. And so, I want to say that we are going to continue to do this. We've been way more intentional than that, and that affects us from Claymont to Del Mar. So, if we want to talk about being intentional, we want to talk about being transparent, the money conversation is where we should be packing our rooms. This conversation is important, but from Claymont to Del Mar, that one is bigger for me. So, thank you all for your time. I'm sorry I went over. You're fine. Thank you very much, Ms. Anderson. Ms. Anderson, if you're here at the end of the meeting, can you come stand here? If you're here at the end of the meeting. Okay. Okay. I was late

117one last night. Yeah, that was great. I'll talk to you. Don't you worry. You know where she is. And I have Mr. Eric Perry. Good afternoon, board members, esteemed guests, community leaders. My name is Eric Perry, as you've heard. I understand this consolidation. It was made, every time there's a consolidation, something has to do with finances. Finances about consolidation is going to affect our taxes. Already, the school taxes are going up from last year to next year, you know, this year. Okay, this affects our seniors. Now, I understand that everything is important at this meeting to address for what's best for the students. However, seniors age 55 and older, they were granted unless they are adopting children, do not have children, but they're still property taxed, you know, and the school taxes are going up

118for them. It's like taxing someone who has an automobile but doesn't have a car. So, you have these taxes that's going on, and everything is supposed to be for the children. And understand that the children are supposed to have a good education because making this consolidation is to help them. But what benefits does the seniors receive by these benefits? Even the grandchildren, if they do not live within the city or not immediately, you know, affected or affected at all. You know, what can be done about that as we look at this budget that's coming up for this consolidation? Because with this consolidation, I'm sure a budget plan has been put into place. So, taxes will go up somehow or another. Everyone will be affected either with the seniors paying more as they do without children

119and parents who have the children who will be benefited from them. You know, school boats and laptops. Whatever is needed. You know, transportation was also a mission. The gentleman out there spoke about the taxes with the other employees within the school. You know, but all this is generally affected as well with these seniors. You know, I'm a big advocate for seniors having more because the seniors are on a tight budget. They're not getting any raises or increases, but yet, there's still taxes going up for them. What can be done for that to address it? So that with this consolidation, they're not hit even harder. One minute. Thank you very much. You know, I hope this is addressed, though, you know, with this as we'll take this further, you know, as it's taxed. All right. We

120didn't have any virtual submissions for public. They beat me to the punch. That concludes public comment. I'd be asking to say that again. With that, Senator Lottman, would you like to kind of wrap up everything? Sure. I mean, we said a lot. And I thank you all for your time and your patience and your attention. And so I just really want to thank you for that. Again, I'm very grateful and look forward to continuing the conversation. And I'm going to hand it over to Representative Bocha. All right. Thank you. And just a personal note of thanks to Colonial. My career has been very inclined with this district. As some of you know. And you have always been a good partner. And I knew there were times where we disagreed. And I'm still crying when I

121think that you guys closed Martin Luther King School. But I'm thankful for the leadership and Mr. Jones, Dr. Jones, and all of these years over just loving our children and really doing the best you could for our Wilmington students. And I appreciate you because when you didn't have to be at the school, you were able to be at the school. You didn't have to be at the table when everything was saying you're going, you're going, you're going. Your leadership stuck in there and wanted to be a part of this conversation for the good of Wilmington students. You didn't have to. There were others who just, you know, they're at the table, but they're not at the table. When you were really at the table and you were participating, your leadership team were invested partners. And

122it really made a difference and helped us get us to where we are today. So thank you. We'll take a brief pause for those who are here just for the ready presentation. Thank you. Thank you. We'll take a short pause at the end for the ready presentation if you want. Transition. You're more than welcome to enjoy the rest of the board meeting. I know you haven't. I'm going to put my baby to bed tonight. Oh. I didn't get to do it last night. Thank you. Thank you for coming out. Good to see you, Helen. Mr. Simmons, take care. All right. So now is the time in the board meeting for our celebration of the E in the Power of Weight. We're going to begin with our student board member, Mia, to provide us with her

123report. Makes me feel good that it's not just the people we're taking. There it is. Every time you walk in. Yeah. Figures it out. Okay, for the social section of updates at Penn, I know we're going to acknowledge this later in the meeting, but I just want to say a quick congratulations. Congratulations to Ms. Logic for winning Delrec's Law-Related Educator of the Year. She's done so much for her students throughout her time teaching here, and we're all so appreciative and proud of her. Love you, Logic. For students, now that the weather is getting a lot colder outside, if you're ever in need of any winter clothing, please don't hesitate to find what you need at the care closet. William Penn will be hosting a Polar Express Tuesday evening where they'll be playing the Polar Express.

124And if you're interested, don't forget to sign up for William Penn's Talent and Prom Fashion Show. You'll have to sign up for it before tryouts on January 9th, 10th, and 11th. And don't forget to dress up for next week's Fair Week. For academic updates, peer tutoring is still up and available to any students that might want extra support in certain topics. And there's so many extracurriculars with fundraisers and events going on. So please keep a look out for those. And for the dreaded conversation topic for all seniors, there's various scholarship applications and opportunities being shared through Schoology and Ms. Handy's weekly email blasts, many of them being for more than just seniors. So keep a look out for those, too. And for the sports section of updates, I'd like to start off by congratulating Michael

125Baker, Colby Gilbert, and Justin Widener for their signing with Wilmington University, Golden Beacom, and Arcadia University for their dedication to William Penn's baseball team and leading the team to many successes. And lastly, Winter Sports is now starting back up with many of the first games being this week. Thank you. All right. And to continue our E in the Power of We storytelling, I'm going to turn the mic over to Colonial's Ms. Butts. Ms. Butts, the floor is yours. Good evening. Thank you. I'm Colonial Wition. Tonight we have one staff recognition, and it's a special one. We are thrilled to share that Ms. Camille Logic, a William Penn legal studies teacher, was unanimously named the 2025 Del Rey Law-Related Educator of the Year. Not only was Ms. Logic the winner of the unanimous decision amongst the

126members of the Delaware Law-Related Education Center, she was also nominated by her students at William Penn. And that's what makes this honor extra special. Her dedication to the law pathway at William Penn has been nothing extraordinary. Ms. Logic has poured countless hours into guiding and uplifting your students, opening doors, creating opportunities where none existed, and making sure every learner is seen, supported, and inspired. The Delaware Law-Related Education Center seeks to empower every K-12 student in Delaware with knowledge of the justice system, with opportunities to help students learn, and pipelines to careers in law and to experiences with the legal profession. Congratulations to Ms. Blagich on being the 2025 Del Rey Law Related Educator of the Year. We are so proud of you. Camille, please come forward for your photo. Oh yeah, the board has asked

127to deviate a little bit from the script. They have one other recognition they'd like to do. Mr. Piqui, do you want to step up from here for a second? For those of you who are not aware, the board runs basically off of one person's organizational mindset and drive and persistence. This will be her last meeting here with us as she's retiring effective the end of this month. Ms. Maureen Leary, come on up here please. So the board is here to discuss the draft. The long and the short of it is when I have a really good idea to do something with the board, I just tell Maureen she's got to call all the board members, she's got to text all the board members, and she's got to make it happen. So that's what she does

128day in and day out. Part of her side job is she's also involved in my, is the secretary in my office. And I thought that the board definitely did want to recognize you for all your years. Twenty years of service in Colonial and they're doing the clap out for her. This year we're taking every employee gets a visit from a, from a, from a, from a, from a leader in the district to present them a plaque, balloons, and their retirement gifts throughout the school year. So Mr. PQ is going to take that honor tonight. One, two, three. All right, the whole board. Everybody come on up, all the board members. Go ahead. Front. Go around front. Come on. Come on. Ted, get up around front. Come on Ted. Oh no, I'm sorry. He did. He

129did. He did. He did. He did. He did. He did. He did. All right. Alright guys. Don't move. Don't move. Don't move. See, y'all go. See, y'all go. . All right, ready? One, two, good. She wants, she wants one with us. She wants one with us. Thank you. Thank you so much. Okay. Three, all right. One, two, three. She wants one gay. I'm sorry. See what it's like? That's what it's like. Thank you. Thank you all. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You're welcome back. Once a month, you know where we'll be. Do you have where to find us? I think I have something to do. Moving on to association updates. Now it's time for the board meeting for board members and executive secretary to discuss the necessary items

130of information, topics from our participation in various professional organizations. We're going to have a little bit of a discussion. Specific updates and documents are listed in the agenda. With that, we'll look over the different committees we're a part of. We'll start with an update for DSBA. Yes, we meet the next month. The legislative meeting next meeting is in February. And for you, Dr. Benzer. Just the record reflect. We had our monthly chiefs meeting last week in Smyrna district. I am not sure. where we had conversations with the Department of Ed and DIA around the Department of Ed specifically really focusing on the opportunities around open AI as a super resource for the state and then with the executive director Mr. Baylor and the competition committee with respect to divisions across all sports in the state

131similar to the three tier system three tier football but looking at two tier divisions for all competitions except for some of the individual sports like swimming track and field cross country and golf there's a committee out there that's been doing some work and they're making presentations throughout the next several months and they plan to try to have three minutes so that was a large portion of the meeting and then we engaged in professional development with the University of Delaware and Dassault sponsored workshop around literacy for multilingual learners it was pretty powerful I'm looking forward to further conversation regarding that that's the most of the update all right and strategic planning everybody yes so I missed the November school board meeting my husband had surgery so in the last couple of months the strategic plan and

132Nikki feel free to jump in if I make like a mistake or I forget something really important but at this point the strategic plan committee has finalized new mission and vision statement and the last month we worked on priority statements and focus areas to support that mission and vision and we actually have another meeting tomorrow where we're going to work on reviewing a you know feedback and just making sure that we were happy with the work that we did last month and then we're going to start moving into writing goals that are going to be specific to those priority areas and that did I do a good job thank you that's my report thank you so much um all right with that we're moving on to the consent agenda next agenda item is consent agenda

133the items listed under the consent agenda bond through gold review including documentation concerning these items that have been provided all board members and the public in advance items in the consent agenda generally include routine personnel and business office actions and updates as well as approval of previous meeting minutes and education related items such as choice and student placement stay safe filled with our concerns move that we approve the office centers that items that present their second second all right as moved by dr. Dorsey second by mr. handy are there any questions or comments for the board all right all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye opposed nay motion carries all right next up on the agenda is updates and action items with dr. Menter first action item we asked the board to

134consider an act on the non renewal colonial administrative contracts I move that we approve administrative contract non renewals as presented second any questions or comments from the board all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye all those opposed nay all those opposed nay motion carries next action item is administrative contract renewals and lanes we ask for the board to consider and take action upon the recommendation as presented in exact motion all right as moved by mr. handy second by the priest the priest the president I'm sorry it's when I think about it any any questions or comments for the board Um It's not gonna fit like this of all this in fairly signify with saying I I all those opposed nay 그래서 scary a next up we're fortunate enough to have the McCullough

135admin team in believe others to help support others to present and share a parent engagement act strategy that they took in the last past several months and a year and that said I'm going to turn it over to this principal miss Lewis good evening everyone again I'm Hyacinth Lewis I'm the proud principal of McCulloch middle school and I'm going to take you down a four-year journey of McCulloch transforming and partnering to make growth and parent partnership to push us towards our benchmarks I actually had the opportunity to present this information at policy and practice this summer alongside a president with president PQ participated that presentation and so he was eager to have me share that share this story with the board tonight and so each of you as a board member you have a bread

136folder in front of you so feel free to take out the two pager that I'm going to kind of reference to you a little bit and then I'll kind of go over some of the other handouts that you have and so I just want to talk about where we started so year one of this journey was a twenty to twenty twenty twenty two twenty twenty three school year where I was appointed to be the principal in February so mid-year appointed to be the principal and during that time a lot of trying to think where our focus is going to be where the priorities and we determined as a leadership team that we will focus on student achievement school safety and climate and parent involvement student achievement and parent involvement kind of went hand in hand

137and so we started to make strides in that in that area but when we started that we started this work our DOE partner said to me you're taking over this building and what I want you to think about is that your school has data and the data has no emotion but it's going to elicit emotion from you as you look at the data of the school that you were down the leader of and so during the first three months four months of that that's school year where I was the principal we looked at the data of McCulloch and so you will see under year one where we looked at in detail our students proficiency on our math and ELA math. screeners, our benchmark assessments that we take three times a year. And that data was

138a hard pill to swallow. However, we started to think about what could we control, what could we do, and what changes could we make in our system. So the following year, we looked at the beginning of the year screener data with the math coaches, myself, our leadership team, and we really dived into why are we not seeing the things that we want to see. And so we determined that one, the students need to take the test more seriously. If you know a middle schooler, then you know sometimes they'll just click through. And we actually went through and looked at our students' assessments. We found that some of them were finishing the assessments in five minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, when the math test takes two hours that we allot. And the ELA test takes an

139hour. So if a student is clicking through and not taking it seriously, then we're not getting a full picture of what they're capable of doing. And so we decided that we would take it back to elementary a little bit because I do have elementary roots in the school system. And so we decided that we would take it back to elementary in the district. And so with myself and the coaches, our leadership team, we developed a plan for students to conference with each of their teachers around their goals. So when students take a benchmark test, the platform will actually say to the student, this is how much you should grow this year. Our students really didn't know that information, because we had never really shared it with them before. And we look back historically at our

140data. And so in your folders, you'll see an example of the orange card. And this is our goal-setting card. The true goal setting We also have one for math, but you just have an example of the ELA card. And so we had to talk about, as a leadership team, even within our departments, what data do we need to have and organize and share with our students around their proficiency and where they are and where we want them to go. Our coaches did an amazing job organizing this data so that our teachers could then have those conversations. So I commend our ELA and math teachers because they conference one-on-one with each student to fill out these cards. Then our students sat down and took the middle of the year benchmark, knowing where they were in the

141fall and where we wanted them to be in the winter. And I'm proud to say that if you look at the bottom of the 2023-2024 score, you look at that table, for math, in sixth grade, 127 students increased their score that school year. 147 students in seventh grade for 71% increased their score. In eighth grade, 119 students for 71%. So that's a lot of students. In ELA, we were averaging roughly between 63% and 64% of our students, increasing their score from fall to spring. Now, did it kind of get us to where kids were on grade level? Not in every case, but in most cases, kids were making amazing gains. We even had the opportunity for executive counsel to come by when we did our grade level shutdown, and they could see kids in classrooms

142with their goal cards, taking their time, using their scrap paper. And a lot of that work happened because teachers were conferencing with those students prior to taking the assessment, and students were actually taking it seriously. We had kids running around the classroom saying, oh my goodness, I beat my score, or I jumped 70 points, and I was only supposed to jump 15 points. Can I text my mom? Can I go tell this teacher? And they were super excited, and we really started to see a lot of bonding with our students that school year around their proficiency and where they fit into our school's goals. As we go into year three, this was the year that we had the most students in our school. We had a lot of students that were in the middle of

143the class, and we had a lot of students that were in the middle of the class. We had a lot of students that were in the middle of the class, and we had a lot of students that were in the middle of the class. This was the year where I was selected as First State Educates Fellow Scholar, which meant that I was provided with funding to participate in a year-long parent engagement cohort with other school leaders from around the country, facilitated by Learning Heroes. And that professional development really took myself and my school to thinking around parent engagement to the next level. Parent engagement is more than just hosting a craft fair or a skating night or parents to conferences. How are you engaging your students? your families and what the goals are in your

144school success plan and we really hadn't dug that deep into that and so what we did was that's how McCulloch's Got Goals became born. We decided that we were going to have our parents come in three times a year once after each benchmark assessment and we were going to really talk about what our priority goals were for the year. We were going to then work side-by-side to be transparent and show that our families what our goals were, where our students were performing, and then to dive deeper their child's actual report and thanks to Gabe Phillips we were able to give each family their report in color which is which is that which is key in parents being able to read it. If you give it to parent the triangle or the pie and it's in

145black and white it's really hard to like decipher what it means so thank you Gabe for helping us to make that happen and so if you notice the data for year three we can be maintained being in a 70% for our kids increasing their scores or at least maintaining for both ELA and math on average. If you look at the packet in your folder you will see an example of our parent meeting slides and so one thing I learned as a fellow scholar was one transparency and trust building is key and so if you hide behind the data the parents are not going to trust you if you don't show them the data your parents are not going to believe that you're really operating and moving at the best interest of the child. So we're

146going to talk about that in a second. So you are very transparent in talking about that in our Title One school where our goals were and then also our coaches did a really good job of teaching our parents how to read the report so not assuming that our parents that attended knew how to be the reports that were in front of them and then we actually read some activities where they got to practice so one activity that we did was we actually pulled out sixth grade text we gave it to the parents asked them to read and asked them to try to answer the questions. And that, for parents, was very uncomfortable as an adult to sit and read a sixth grade text and try to read and answer those questions. But they got to

147see the complexity of the questions that those students are answering when they're in the classrooms, or when they're taking standardized tests, or when they're benchmarking. We also gave parents the opportunity to look at some of our math programs and to understand how the game works. And so, as Colonial, we offer our middle school students seats in ST Math and seats in Essia. We wanted our parents to really understand how those programs work. So our math coaches and reading coaches went with parents and really talked through the practice of what that looks like. I think those opportunities and those activities really helped to build trust, build community. As you can see in some of the pictures on the handout, you see our coaches either teaching or were sitting side by side with parents. We actually also

148provided meals each time we had these meetings, childcare each time we had these meetings, so that parents could really engage in the workshop that we were trying to facilitate. So we just also wanted to give you an example of a parent meeting. And as we go into year four, which is the 25th, 26th school year, we continue to celebrate the improvements in structural alignment, data analysis, and family engagement with a key adjustment. So just from looking, we always try to look back and say, how can we improve the process? And so one thing we noticed was that last year, on average, we had 15 families. McCullough has 600 students. So we have 600 students and we only have 15 families. How can we try to engage more families to participate? And so in thinking about

149best practice, we said, okay, well, at Open House, the building is packed with families. Let's merge Open House and our fall meeting together. We had well over 100 families that participated in the fall meeting this year. And so we're really excited as we go into the winter benchmark window. Because we are hoping that since we had over 100 families participate in the fall meeting, that they'll return for the winter meeting. Just to shout out to my students, because they're working really hard. As we started this school year, the summer slide is real. And so we really were focused on, again, conferencing with students, having those conversations. And we also shared the data with the parents that attended Open House. But for this school year, in math, our sixth graders, when they took the benchmark assessment

150this year, I don't know if you saw it. In seventh grade, out of 180, 121 of them maintained their highest score or increased it from last year. In seventh grade, out of 172 students, 99 of those students either maintained their highest score from last year or increased it. In eighth grade, out of 147 students, 89 of them were able to maintain their highest score from last year or increase it. In literacy, sixth grade, 193 students were tested. 57 students maintained their highest score from last year and or increased it. In seventh grade, 183 students were tested, and 77 of them maintained or increased their highest score from last year. And in eighth grade, 155 students were tested, and 48 of them maintained or increased their highest score from last year. And we shared all of

151this data with our parents at the fall meeting, and if you have the chance to come to McCullough, it's also displayed in the main lobby in our battle wall. So our families, anyone who comes into our building, we're being transparent. Are we perfect? No. Are we where we wanna be? Not yet. Are we making strides to get there? Are our kids constantly moving towards the benchmark? 100%. And so we've really learned over the last couple of years that again, the data that we have does not have any emotion, but it sure does elicit some. But what are we doing with the data that we have, and what changes are we making as a school community to make sure that our students are progressing in the direction that where we want them to go? And also,

152how are we engaging our parents in that conversation and empowering them to assist their students in working together in true partnership? And just some, I'll close with a few parent statements. So some of our parents that attended last year and this year said, the most important thing I gained was seeing that the school is focused on supporting students, not only academically, but mentally. It was nice to hear that teachers are checking in with students and goal setting. After attending the meeting, I started having my son log into his math and ELA program, so he could use his computer for just 20 minutes a day. The next time he took the test, his score surpassed the goals that he and his teachers had set. I know that the teachers are doing their best, but I believe

153that a child's success is a joint effort. When schools and families work together, our students will thrive. And so that's just a summary of our parent engagement strategy, and I was being transparent with our data. And so if you ever come to McCullough, just know McCullough's got goals, and we're really working towards them. Thank you. Michelle. Go on, where's the microphone? Okay. I'll give everyone a chance, but this time I kind of want to go first with it. Family participation data is not something that gets presented to us like that. That is something that I would like to actually see more from our principals and throughout the district, because it's a benchmark that kind of gets lost in so many other proficiencies and everything else, but we know just how important that is, and it's

154not maybe more important, because then that's going to play directly, I feel like, with proficiency data, you know, increasing. And also I believe presenting that to the parents as well can be a wake-up call, because I think when they see some of the low numbers and they hear it, they understand that you actually care, and that you're tracking, and that's more important because I think parents, I'm a parent of a student as well, and you just think you skate by and it's not noticed, but they notice that, you're not, you're not, you're not, you're noticing, like, it can awaken with them and kind of put more of a responsibility on them. So it's great, I love hearing about that. And that was it for me. Do anybody have any questions that are starting to run?

155That just looks like something that should be put in place across the district for a lot of things, because that looks like that's really been successful. Thank you. I do know that the other two middle schools are now goal setting with their students. They have adopted our template for the goal cards, and they are conferencing with those students. I know that George Reading, and Benford both started that this year. Okay, I just want to say, because McCullough is in my backyard, I know the challenges that the school did have, and I really like your focus on growth. I mean, like you said, the numbers aren't where they, we would like them to be, but we're showing constant motion going, and we're moving forward, which is great. And parent engagement, and the last thing is, I

156don't get as many phone calls about McCullough anymore, so I really appreciate that. Thank you. Everybody in the room better knock wood. You know, great job. I think it's just terrific that you made the connection, that the parents are already there for open house, that you've got this kind of captive audience, and take advantage of it. So good on you for figuring that out. Thank you. I don't understand that. I don't have any questions, but I do want to say awesome job. I'm hearing a lot of really great things about McCullough, and what's happening there, and also great job looking outside the box, and looking at alternative methods to get our parents engaged, and to transform the outlook of how people see McCullough. Thank you so much. Fantastic. I mean, I see your energy, and

157that energy is going, when the head have energy, everybody around there have energy too. So congratulations. I can't wait. One of my location is working distance from McCullough, but I had never been there, and I'm going to be there next month. Thank you. Thank you. And it's funny, I actually see Dr. Keller back there now, and I did not know you were there until just a second ago, but I was going to thank First Aid Educate for funding that. They've stepped in a couple different times here with our district, and we appreciate looking out for the community, and having other people in the community invest in us. So thank you so much with that. I do want to just make two comments. One, kudos to Hyacinth for the passion, the energy, the willingness to do

158something different, loving her kids and loving the school. I really wanted to make a difference. That's what it boils down to. The game plan fell into place for her. She had a couple of aha moments, and people really prompted her. So a random person from DOE, most people will say, don't give them any attention. They don't know what they're talking about. But when someone takes that piece of advice, and they're like, oh, I'm not going to do this. And then they actually take that piece of feedback, and then really runs with it, and implements it, and puts something in play, it takes a lot. Also, it takes a great team, the assistant principals, and Ms. Sumner and Mr. Land. I've been up with her for four and three. Mr. Subkhan is coming in as a

159new student advisor. The leadership team makes it happen. So it starts at the top and it works its way down. Kudos to them. And then, really, on the cake was her willingness to step outside her comfort zone and engage with an outside provider or a resource hear them out see if it's something that fit with McCullough she didn't have to take it like it was like hey I had heard the first aid educate had a program that Julia reached out to me and said hey where do you think this might work and thinking about conversations I have with mr. handy about the struggles that families were having in in McCullough in the community it's like all right there's some pieces here let's see what happens and all of them took up you know huge risk

160and an attempt to try to do the right thing you know that doesn't always pan out and you don't always get the success that we're seeing here so thank you Julia for you know looking to colonial for that resource and Kudos to the highest and the teachers we were there that one day and it was pretty awesome I mean teachers were tired because there's a lot of work you can see they got a lot of cards are filling out and they're like oh god another success how many times can I write awesome in a different way like they were really it was really fun to watch but uh you know so kudos to McCullough so just wanted to say that so next up we do have a math presentation and I believe it's I know

161that miss dr. Lankor is cognizant of the time because I know many board members are probably way past their bedtime I'm so she does have an activity to share with you math activity so dr. Lankor well next time maybe we won't have writing before you come on and take up time for you but she has something to show with you related to math and I think it's important if you got an experience this like what it's like in the classroom for students when they're engaging in I'm not sure new math this is a new math curriculum yes here we go doctor Lincor before I get started though thank you for having me and I wanted to share my appreciation for our community as a whole for coming out to our math night last week it

162was an amazing event with lots of families lots of smiles my own parents came and enjoyed and played and had a blast I like to start all of our meetings with our math department core values be the spark own your brilliance and be bold and brave I'm going to do all three of those things tonight I'm going to set up a presentation around that and you have the you have the right you can use your right to be a learner you have the right to be confused to make mistakes to say what makes sense to you to share unfinished thinking and not be judged and to revise your thinking as we go we use this in all of our classrooms okay so we're going to start today with being the spark I'm going to share

163a little bit about our new curriculum and elementary that's expanded up through middle school and high school and this curriculum is really about how it sparks joy so this first this little lesson I'm going to share with you is a grade three unit one lesson 15 and the students up to this point in the lesson have been working through multiplication very introductory concepts around multiplication what does it mean what does it mean to be groups of things that kind of thing and now they're going to apply that knowledge of multiplication to graphs I see some of my teachers thank you for coming you're just for math aren't you yeah so they're going to apply that knowledge of multiplication to graphing and scale graphs this is their first introduction to that so what you'd like you

164to do is you have your Chromebook or laptop up you can work in partners yeah oh you might have to log in by the share of a partner your own lesson maybe I'm your thinking partner up okay good so partner up if you can see it great we actually like to work in partners when we do this because I'm gonna have conversations together let me exit out here this is called puppy pile and so now look at some bar graphs okay so the first thing I'd like you to do is on your screen you get a chance to play a little bit this is our warm-up so take your puppies here and you can everybody maybe pick a different number every character a different number you can add extra puppies or maybe take a couple

165of puppies away and try a couple times with your partner and then click on the bar graph button that you see there to the right and see what happens and think about what you notice and what you wonder and then tell your partner what you see and you add or subtract puppies and then click the bar graph button what happened? error saving? is it working? error saving? I read the grammar you might need to monitor it and see what happens I can show you how about we pick a couple as a group we never have tech issues in our classroom so let's try it as a group maybe let's say look up the screen so let's see if I have what do I have any do I have on there five let's click the bar

166graph and see what happens what do you notice? cutting off the bottom there you made that graph let's go back to the dog to the puppy let's pick another number let's do just two and look at the graph let's see what happens you notice about the graph you can't see the bottom the bottom does show oh there we go the dog and the scale on the left let's do a whole lot of puppies do a whole bunch that's a lot of puppies let's see what happens with the bar graph once you see this time when I click the graph, what do you notice about the graph and the scale? What was different? Scales up and down changes the intervals to two points. And what I can do as a teacher, thank you for sharing that,

167the scale moves a little bit. What I can do as a teacher is I can take pictures of that work in time and we can talk about the difference in these scales and what happened. After we do some notice and wonder, we turn and talk with our partner. We have some discussions about what we notice between the difference in this scale on the graph and this scale on the graph. And then the next thing the students might do is now they get to do a whole bunch of different animals so they click on an animal. They get a whole lot of animals now and they do the same thing. They get to continue to play so they'll look at their bar graph and see what happens when different amounts of animals happen. And we talk

168about what does that mean and what does that look like and sound like. And eventually we'll start to get into what does that mean for multiplication. And so as you can see, and I can click through a couple of other strategies for you. Actually I have a couple things on the teacher dashboard real quick. You can also anonymize so when you're looking at students' work, like there was a student summary. These are all famous mathematicians so the kids don't know whose work I'm showing. It's kind of cool. I can pause the screen so right now you can't go any further. You can see that there's nine screens here. So if you pause here and if one more grad can finish their discussion, you can add the next screen to keep going into work. So I

169can kind of control where those students are going. So all that to say that our kids are having a really good time in our curriculum. And I want to share a little bit more about the supports that kids get after they start to play and learn a little bit about multiplication. So after they do a lesson, students can engage in a mini lesson with their teacher or another support staff where they get a model review. They get guided practice and checks for understanding. Then they can also do a personalized learning lesson that provides follow-up support. So I'll have two questions that are the same for our kiddos and then they get differentiated support based on how they do on that personalized lesson. The mini lesson is paper, pencil, and small group with the teacher but

170the personalized lesson is digital so it can adapt to their learning. There's also the fluency component that I shared a little bit with you last year. The next part of the curriculum I want to share with you is around our data. This builds nicely off of what McCullough was sharing. So we're going to be a little full and brave and share a little bit about our data reports. This curriculum now also has, and you'll see how it all fits together as a whole piece here soon. We also start with benchmarks in K-5. This is a fourth grade example. You can kind of see up there to the left that little spinny thing here. It gives kids a composite score based on how they do at that beginning of the year benchmark. It gives them nice

171little color coding. You get a nice summary as a teacher. You see their domain level. I just took a snippet and tried to keep their names out of there. You can see how they do on each domain. So the algebra, thinking, fractions. Geometry is a little bit harder to score. There wasn't enough items to score. Sometimes when there's drawings, it's a little bit different scoring, but hopefully it will build it in the winter. We're going to learn more about that soon. Measurement data and numbers and operations. You can kind of see how kids did. We're going to analyze just that fraction. It's also sortable. You can see their goal at the top. So the goal to be at benchmark was around 326. You can see where the kiddos were. As a teacher, you can click

172those little arrows at the top and sort. You can see this data with an overview with a deeper dive into the standards of the teacher. So you can see each domain here listed to the left. What standards were assessed. And you kind of get a nice summary there of the number of students in each level. And if you hover as a teacher, of course this isn't live, but if you were in your own class, you would see those students. You can get a snapshot of your class. The next thing you can do is you can click on that and go back there. See that domain item circle there? If you clicked on the buy item, you would get this view where you can see every single item and every single kiddo to the left. Their

173names are cut off. But same thing. You can see their overall score on how they did on all the items. You can see whether they got it correct or incorrect with the X's and the check marks. You can also see at the top it's sortable. But what's kind of neat is you can also click on that where it's underlined. Item 1, item 2, etc. And it will give you what the item was. A little bit about it. Recommended practice if kids needed some practice there. And you can get a sense. It gives you a little summary of how each help kid did. So that first fly-in, that middle fly-in there, you can see that 21% of the class demonstrated understanding. And then the second little fly-in, 50% of the class had a little bit of

174a misconception. It tells you about them. So it's a nice little summary of your class. And then what happens as you go through your instruction, you're doing the lessons like we just saw. We just played their multiplication lesson. You can then assess students' progress along the way. And what's kind of neat is every time the kid does a progress monitoring, I focus on fractions because that's the snippet I took before, it updates. You can see when they were last monitored on their progress. And you can see in real time across the year, you don't have to wait for benchmark data to see how the kids are doing. And it's updating them just on that fractions domain when they take a fractions progress monitor. So the top kid, the beginning of the year score was 317,

175and by November 14th, they've improved to 378. But they haven't reassessed. They've reassessed just on fractions. So it's updating just on that domain. So it's giving them an update just on that domain. You can see the next kid was at 343, went to 378. This kid stayed the same, still doing okay on the benchmark. You can also kind of see how they're doing on each one of those, whether they're below, well below, or on benchmark. And so you can kind of see the kiddos are, how they're doing throughout the school year. And so now we're at the point in the year where we're at the middle of the year benchmark. It just opened yesterday. I was kind of hoping it would have opened last week so I could get a better snapshot to see how

176they're doing so far, to see what it looks like. So we're still kind of anticipating what it's going to look like now that we're at the middle of the year benchmark. But you can see how it kind of, as a teacher you can do this regularly. So even 228, who's well below, remains in November well below, but gained 40 points. Yeah, and you can see at that bottom level when they're doing the, when they're taking those little mini assessments, they're doing well in those assessments. So you can show that the growth is remaining. So our hope, right, is that when we take that middle of the year benchmark, that they're going to show growth in more than just that generation. Yeah, it's really neat. Like, really impressive. I feel like going back to the supports,

177the different supports that this program has for our kiddos, it's got so many supports to meet all the kids' needs. Even those personalized lessons and the mini lessons, you can meet the needs of the kids right at that grade level, and you can also pull some from before grade level. You can also assign them beyond grade level to give extensions as well. So we have a really nice school package here. And so I just wanted to end with a few celebrations. I asked each school's coach to share some celebrations with us. And so you'll see how they're a little similar and a little different so far, because I didn't want to own their celebrations. I wanted them to own their brilliance. So as you can see, I'm not going to read them all to you,

178but we are in places with our data percentages, and you can kind of tell the trend. In kindergarten they all worked on accounting. In fifth grade they worked on multiplying and multiplying fractions. They kind of had similar sharings here. But the scores that they're getting now, the proficiency that they're showing, is well beyond where they have been in previous years at the end of the year. So this has been really nice data. And then our secondary school, their data celebrations were a little more anecdotal. They've been really working hard on strengthening a lot of systems. So you can see that their celebrations are a little bit more anecdotal. Similar to what McCulloch shared, they've been working on having stronger data conversations, pulling up the dashboard, using their formative assessments, and really checking in on the

179curriculum and pacing and working towards supporting students. So Gunning-Bedford's celebration was they really appreciated that calibration on the assessment. They appreciate that the curriculum is interactive. And kids can actually check their self-assessment. They can have their own self-checks. They're appreciating that and they love those off-grid level differentiation tools. And then George Reed, same thing. They're engaging in the data conversations. Again, similar to McCulloch, they're having pre and post goal setting conferences with students to try to support student agency and their investment in their learning. McCulloch, they have I didn't want to double share their data because they do beautiful data goals and their math question is a beautiful data wall. And they're all, that's just amazing. But they talk about every PLC. But they're really noticing that students are developing more independence as they're working

180through their tasks and on their digital lessons, like the example that you saw. And students are getting better at self-monitoring as they're working through their tasks and revising their thinking. And then our high school has been dabbling as well in some of these curriculum units. And so the integrated math two team has been really embracing a pilot and trying to think about a shift in how they teach math and mathematics. And so they've been, one of the goals they've been working on is the math language routine, which supports all multilingual, multi-language learners. And they're doing some peer observations to give each other feedback and support each other as they do. That's awesome. They're really impressive. They've enjoyed that. And so I always like to share just some extra supports if there's, if you want to

181learn more about the program, they have a caregiver hub for families that's in English and in Spanish. And that is all. Hopefully it was short and sweet, but enough to keep me excited about our group. Can I answer any questions for you? Seeing the benchmarks and the for Chris and she ratings and everything like that, it sounds like the teachers must love using this system. I mean, is that the truth with it, that they're happy with it? I think for the most part, you know, sometimes change can be difficult, right? But we are, one of the things that I'm really proud of and that we, I think as a collective we're really proud of is we've been partnering with our students and our teachers to help us with our learning. And so I think that's

182really important. We've been supporting the safety services division and really ensuring that every single kid is getting access to great level of content, which has been a huge support and strength and celebration for us. So I think that's why we're seeing some of those gains is that little by little we're going to get some progress towards our goals. We're really excited about it. Thank you so much. Thank you, Dr. Lancor. Tough one to close out, Dr. Lancor. Yeah. She's sticking with us on that one. That concludes updates and action items. Mr. Piquet. Thank you, Dr. Manson. And we'll give it right back to you. Oh, yeah, you know, before we close out, and I know this has been a long... Look, I'm just going to run it down for you real quick. As a leader,

183you have a couple moments where you have to make decisions, right? One, for the long haul, or two nights? Because, you know, we had to have writing come out they wanted to present. So we had to either have a separate night for them, or we had to figure out a way to do our regular business and honor all the people who come on a regular basis to present and make it a little bit more of a longer haul. And I think that, you know, we did pretty well. I mean, that was a good... A lot of engagement, a lot of... This wasn't, like, easy stuff either. It wasn't all garage band. Like, we could have probably sat for two and a half hours with garage band and not missed a beat, because they were awesome.

184But I think I would like to leave on a high note for the board. So if you would like, there's a... Up on the TV screen is the latest Keeping Up with Colonial that just got released to the public. Watching the Colonials battle it out on the gridiron will soon become even more exciting when this becomes a reality. Take a look at the latest artist renderings, William Penn's brand-new stadium, the multi-use sports complex, and the new field house. As you're walking into the breezeway of that stadium, there's going to be an alumni room that we can celebrate the history of William Penn Colonial School District. But also, underneath that breezeway, there's going to be access points to a large classroom, a large state-of-the-art, multiple locker rooms for both male and female sports to utilize. The

185new field house will include indoor concession stands to replace the ones outdoors, along with indoor restrooms. As for this field that has seen decades of football games... This stadium is going to be converted. It's going to be converted into a tennis and pickleball stadium. It is going to be the first of its kind in our region and contain multiple tennis courts and pickleball courts that we're also very happy to say are going to be open to our public. There's more. The complex will have an eight-lane track for large competitions, an additional access road on Route 273, and multiple turf fields, something that excites Charles Hope. This former... William Penn football player went on to play for the pros. Playing on turf is much faster, no matter which sports you're playing, whether it's football, field hockey,

186soccer. It's a much faster game. And I think it gives our kids a chance to be there, you know, before they get there. You know, as in, they're not just going to see the turf when they get to college. They're already experienced. And if turning grass fields into turf doesn't excite you, get ready. There's more. Friday Night Lights is what it's all about. I think kids are going to really like that opportunity. And not having to get up in the morning on Saturday mornings. And they'll be able to have kids come and support them more on Friday night. So I think that'll be an awesome thing for the community. Of course, the big question on everyone's mind is when. When will all of this come to fruition? Well, construction is slated to begin as early

187as this May or June. And while a groundbreaking date hasn't been set yet, you can bet we'll keep you posted. That's it for this edition of Keeping Up with Colonial. I'm Lauren Wilson, your public information officer. For Colonial School District. How much do you think she wanted to say? Channel 6? That's terrific. That's great. That is going to be great. Well, we've got a long way to go before we get there. We've got a lot of work ahead of us. But that is exciting. Very exciting. Very exciting. It's coming sooner, man. I remember a couple of years ago when we were just putting big boards up. You made Emily laugh. This is what happens when we pass 9 o'clock. We're all past the witching hour. That's not a bad sign. That's not a bad sign.

188All right. Yeah. So real quick before we do close out with this being a separate meeting. On behalf of the Board of Education, I do want to wish all of our students, staff, families, and community partners a joyful and much anticipated holiday break. Colonial Nation remains strong thanks to the hard work, dedication, and resilience of every single person. Who works here and inspires our students to do the best every day. Tonight I personally want to express my gratitude for your support. Let us continue to please embrace the power of we as we enter into this new year. So please rest up, enjoy your time off with your family and friends. Give the gift of kindness to those you meet. And come back ready to finish out a successful school year. With that being said, do

189I hear a motion to adjourn? So moved. All right. That's moved. I heard. Do I have a second? Second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.