001foreign so it's awesome I think it's putting together all right um let's see I'm going to call the regular Board of Ed meeting to order on Wednesday January 25th at 6 32 pm Stan join us for the Pledge of Allegiance and do we have any public comment on agenda items nope not seeing any we're going to move right into our presentations this evening we have three of them the first one is uh Ellen Turner and student Athletics speaking to co-op Sports thank you Ellen can I just ask oh sorry uh no just real quick you know I do follow the sports the wrestling I wrestled so I always had interest on our team in 12 wrestlers I think it's no the the only thing I always wondered on the co-ops I love to know which
002kids that they always put kids names in the paper who are actually the North Stonington kids that are wrestling okay so it is in let's go off whichever is harmful effect s for our holy friend to say bye the day will do that too yeah I haven't seen I haven't seen much in the day I'm I'm certainly on the wrestling but okay okay because them on those teams of one um if we do extend beyond that is there another option that we have in play like if we come into outdoor track and there's six boys who want to do outdoor track so that would be that we would need to have well I was going to say it's tough with track because if you can I mean what do they count it by [Music] if
003we had our own team instead of a team of one where would they train and where would they practice okay foreign can I just um stop us for a second I just got a text from Nicole Porter who said that they can't hear a word that you're saying is your microphone on I don't know she just said we can't hear anything she can hear the members fine [Music] start from the beginning Ellen you look like you look like you know what you're doing chat I don't know either yeah yeah are we missing a channel over here all right nope they're always dead testing oh I hear you now on that speaker oh she said oh check check check check check check yeah hello it's off again no it's not sorry sorry people at home can
004you hear me now yes yes yes all right yeah all right so the co-ops again the big difference between a co-op and a team of one Co-op our kids can um compete with another team as one team and it's more towards your team sports whereas a team of one we could do if it's like an individual like track swim like our swim kids wanted to do a team I was going to get them for a team of one but they fought for the co-op because then they can do the relays because you can't do relays with three people you need to have four they don't let you have four so therefore you can't do the relay I'm not sure that was I learned that so any other questions and again again I I think our
005numbers might I I can probably see our numbers for track actually going up because the kids really the three kids that we have going love it love it love it love it and we have a young boy who did football who's probably going to do outdoor track with Griswold he's gonna be shot put and that so that's kind of cool do we have any Co-op people in here that want to speak yeah all right thank you Ellen um and then I just had did you want me to do the fall uh yes yes please all right so um very quickly the fall this fall season was about as normal as season as we had finally had in the last three years I cannot tell you how exciting the season was and it wasn't just because
006we were winning games in certain Sports it was just to watch all the spectators be down there in their chairs without a mask seeing their face watching the kids compete without their masks seeing their face seeing their excitement after two years of not being able to see that on the field it was very exciting and not to mention then we we did pretty well we um from we our boys soccer team uh they made the state tournament they're very consistent about making that state tournament it seems like it doesn't matter what team he puts out there they end up you know uh doing very well this year like I don't want to embarrass John right here he's here he was a field player got thrown into the goal kind of like last minute game three
007and not only does he crush it he makes all ECC first team I mean that that is commendable and I'm not trying to embarrass him but that's the kind of kids that we have here they are they rise to that challenge um we had on our boys soccer team we had three kids that made first team on ECC we finished about third in our division we have good players with the kids and other coaches notice them so for our boys soccer team that was I would say a very big accomplishment for us this year um as far as our girls soccer which was another one of our perennial Sports around here we had a little bit of a rebuilding year and when I say that I truly mean that we started six freshmen on our
008team and we were able to finish within the middle of the pack but like I said the the future is very bright they're all coming back um and we're gonna hit the floor running we have a little bit of a divisional change we have a couple of teams that um our league is is supposed to be based on enrollment and competitive balance I personally felt that we had a little bit of not competitive competitive imbalance and I I kind of brought that to the ECC board and we were able to to work that out so now I think we have a division that is a competitively balanced Division and one that we're going to do very well in as far as real soccer which I think is going to help us and that youth as
009they get better and start winning some games we're going to be right on that map again where we were in the past with girls soccer again we had one girl that had made first team ball ECC and we had a couple of honorable mentions like three I believe it was and uh so we're gonna we're gonna be fine the future is very very bright for girls soccer uh boys cross country hung their first ever conference Banner which it's not hung yet because I need to get a board to put it up there but it is in my office um which was a great accomplishment we always finished second and this year um we finished first we had three First Team all these CC members we had um one young man that made Allstate so that
010was awesome I got to go to Allstate banquet with him and his parents and his coach and um that he was so excited to be there he had done such a great job so it was that was kind of fun to see their boys across country girls cross country won it again for the second time and it's kind of funny with our with our team you know everybody says well they don't really run against anybody well I'm sorry we're the smallest School in our division and if I can get five kids to run shame on the other school for not doing that they need to get their five Runners up there put them on the field and we'll compete with you but they do a great job we had uh five five girls I think
011made first team all ECC one honorable mention and we have we we get a sportsmanship person and a scholar athlete for every one of our Sports also so that was wonderful um I guess I think the biggest surprise for us in the fall would have been that of our girls volleyball team they they started the season losing four games and we thought we were going to be in for a rough ride and then they proceeded to win their next like 13 games in a row and that's when I realized that wheeler was coming back because the stands started to get more and more full and I was like how to work harder and harder to keep everybody calm you know I was like okay this is great these I'm not home until nine o'clock what
012is this you know I'm used to that for basketball but volleyball I wasn't quite ready for it but it was exciting it was exciting to see our kids coming to support our girls I I want to say that the girls volleyball team not only did they play well but they kind of brought that spirit and that Pride back to Wheeler and um when I say that when I say that sorry I think of we made it to the finals of the ECC tournament and I think all of North Stonington was there one of my friends said to me L did you bring the whole town I said yeah I think I did and I said and we're gonna do well and it was we they could not believe it and then I sat at an
013AED meeting not too long after and they were just so great comments about our kids and our fan behavior and they get it right and they know what they're doing over there and keep it up and I was thinking you got that and I said I really have nothing to do with it I just sit there and smile and tell him not to jump on the court and right just behave um but they did a great job so and then we and then we end up making it to the portal finals in the state tournament so um it was very very exciting um after not seeing that in the gym for like two or three years to be able to see that it was awesome um and then the climate I think the ultimate thing
014of the fall too is our fall banquet we had 192 people at the lake of Isles and um it was awesome it really was awesome it was awesome to listen to the coaches talk about their kids it was awesome to see the parents happy and everybody just really smiling and enjoying our kids and the wheeler Pride was just loud I think we ended with a cheer I can't remember was that Jason it ended up one of our kids that was in the stands a lot did the cheer um you know who are we or whatever whatever I don't remember but it was really cool and even the people at Lake of Isles were like wow you guys have a lot of spirit I said we do it's coming back we're getting it we're rocking it
015right now but um again I think moving forward we have a great senior junior class it'll be seniors next year so I think they know what it feels like to win they know what it feels like to be a team and I think that's just going to move us forward for next year going into 2023-24 for the fall any questions feel like I've been up here for an hour thank you Ellen for everything that you do we really do appreciate it I don't have any questions but you have a really hard job and you're always at the school you never go home but you're always there always and I just really appreciate how Innovative you are to make sure that like every kid that wants to play every sport you find a way it's a
016hard job I think you hear complaints from everyone all the time and I just really appreciate that you bring such a great energy and you really show up for our kids thank you thank you thanks Ellen I wanted to thank I wanted to also thank you clearly you don't have to say anymore clearly you put your heart and soul into what you do and I so appreciate your enthusiasm and um it's contagious onto the kids clearly um you don't get Spirit like that without someone with without leadership like yours but thank you [Music] foreign thank you so much and thank you for coming and doing the recap like this has been really helpful it so thank you that was great thank you and that brings us up to Allison Moline and our special education okay
017all right I I think I do yeah hopefully yeah yeah well thank you very much for allowing me to come here tonight to talk about special ed 504 laws and requirements it's a little less exciting than Sports thanks for the lineup but that's all right now I know um so the the special ed laws and requirements really fall on you the Board of Ed and I'm sort of your compliance officer but it's really important that we're all on the same page and you understand what what is required of the district and and why so I'm going to give a little bit quickly uh the laws but first just the philosophy behind the laws so if you look at this first frame these students they all or people have an equal opportunity to watch the game
018they all have the same support but they're not all getting the same experience and so special education is set up so that students get Equitable resources to be able to experience those equal opportunities standardized testing is an important part of of Education we use it to monitor let me let root duck in um standardized testing is important it allows us to measure how well students are doing but a lot of times for special ed students we're we're getting a snapshot that doesn't really play to their strengths so the laws behind special education really focus on making sure students have Equitable resources in those equal opportunities and that as we consider transition into either college or the world of work we're really focusing on the strengths that students have and we're prepping them to be contributing
019members of society so here are like all the special ed laws on one slide I'm not going to go through all of them it's a there's an extensive list these are the basic ones that really Drive what the district is responsible for doing so they came about in the 1960s really with um the Civil Rights Movement um the first law I don't have it up there but it was in 1966 it was the Johnson era when they decided to fund special education but it wasn't required for all schools to provide it at that point 1973 is the start of the 504 which is still you know when we talk about Special Ed versus 504 it started in 73 when they banned discrimination based on disability it was later revised again in 2008 and it more
020broadly described what was meant by disability and it was basically really an encompasses impairments that substantially limit life activities and then in 1975 that PL 94 142 is the basis for the idea law which is the individuals with disabilities Education Act and that's been revised over the years but basically it mandates uh all of what you're responsible for doing and so I'll just go into that here so the district's legal requirements under 504 you're required to provide all students with a free and appropriate public education comparable to students without disabilities so those accommodations and modifications you're required to provide those Equitable supports that students need for special education there's there's more sort of not just expectations but there's more compliance that's that's required but there's also some funding to support that compliance so you're required
021to provide a free and appropriate public education in the lre is the least restrictive environment so students should be allowed to be in general education classrooms as much as possible with their non-disabled peers child find means that we have to um Locate identify and evaluate any children in North Stonington who could potentially have a disability from the age of three to age 22 to their 22nd birthday doesn't mean we necessarily have to provide services special education services but we do have to evaluate and identify them the evaluations this takes up a lot of time of our staff so this year I estimate we're about doing about 46 evaluations because we're doing those 46 evaluations in the district with our District staff it's going to cost in terms of like testing materials and supplies about two
022thousand one hundred and thirty dollars one outside evaluation where we have to pay somebody outside the district because we don't have enough staff costs us two thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars so when we have to get one initial evaluation it costs more than all of the evaluations that we do in the district timelines if we don't follow them we get penalized and fined um response to intervention this is an interesting caveat this is actually general education so the district is required to provide good quality education with a viable written curriculum that teachers follow that allows for and defines what high quality instruction is and it and differentiation for kids who have different abilities so in order to identify students as special education we have to show that we've provided that high quality education and
023we've provided tiered supports so we've intervened with like a math Specialist or reading specialist we've provided some supports and those students haven't responded to that intervention um decisions all have to be made by a team a planning and placement team so and and parents have to be part of that team and parents need to get prior written notice of any implementation or changes to an individual plan the district is required to have on individual education plan for each special education student that includes goals and objectives that have to be taught by a special ed teacher those goals and objectives have to be measured and there has to be a meeting annually to review and revise the plans and that's a legal meeting and again those Equitable resources of accommodations and modifications have to be provided
024if I'm going too fast please stop me I'm trying to save time and please ask questions if you have any as I go through so qualifying for special education in order to qualify to be a special education student you have to have one of these disabilities and that disability it's not just that you have the disability but the disability disability has to adversely affect educational performance and the student has to require specifically designed instruction in order to make gains and then eligibility must be redetermined every three years so the district is required to do triennial testing which is why we wind up having so many evaluations so if you look up here there's two two categories the emotional disturbance category in a specific learning disability those it's really important that we have a good viable
025curriculum in place and that teachers are following it and we're providing supports and intervention to our regular education students because we have to prove and and for the emotional disturbance we have to have counseling for our regular education students in a tiered way so we're seeing an increase and it's not just North Stonington it's across the country we're seeing an increase in students with anxiety and depression and other mental health issues it would be completely irresponsible of us to say that a student is emotionally disturbed when we haven't provided any counseling before doing that we need to provide counseling and help them before we would ever give a label like that um so that that response to intervention is an important piece qualifying for a 504 plan it's less restrictive so you just have to
026have a physical or mental impairment and it has to affect some major life functioning if you look at major life activities the description it's basically everything concentrating walking seeing anything um and the way the law is written this is the exact wording you have to have that physical or mental impairment that substantially limits or have a record of such impairment or be regarded as having such an impairment I'll let you interpret that so um I just want to give an example of the difference between what you're required to provide for um 504 versus special ed so if we have a student who has a physical disability and is it confined to a wheelchair under a 504 that disability would not affect their learning right they're they're bright they just have that that the need for
027the wheelchair so you can't discriminate because of the disability at all that student has to have access into the school and into the classrooms that could require the district to have to to do some modifications to the physical building you might have to put ramps in you might have to widen a doorway um when we look at going from the elementary school or wheeler over to the library we we don't have a way for somebody in a wheelchair to do that so we would have to provide transportation would also have to provide specialized transportation to and from school and we would have to provide accommodations so that could be Paris support we might have to have a pair of help that student navigate through the hallways we could we might have to have a pair
028of help with um with physical care so perhaps toileting things of that sort um all of that stuff is also required oh I'm sorry and speech we might have to have occupational physical therapy as well so all of that stuff would be required under special ed but also if they had a learning issue they would have to have that psycho-educational evaluation every three years so a triennial review they would have to have specialized instruction with an individualized education plan that's created by a team that includes the parents parents would have to get rid of written notice to any changes in programming we would have to do Transition planning so help figure out what is the career path going to be is it going to be College what and we could potentially have to provide services
029until the student's 22nd birthday was was the age 21 at one time or it was covid I don't know if that will change back but as of right now it's 22. okay yeah 22nd so when we look at North Stonington student services it's important to understand that we're not just talking about special ed we're talking about general education for that response to intervention so we're talking about making sure that all students are receiving high quality instruction and that there are tiered differentiated supports for students it includes all special ed and 504 students um and like I said we're seeing an uptick in students needing services like counseling services So currently in the district we have 93 special education students and 90 students on a 504 plan if you look here at the high school numbers
030you'll see there's more 504 students this is fabulous actually because the whole goal of special education is to try to instill Independence and help students develop those skills that they're going to need but also an IEP ends at the end of high school but a 504 plan can be taken to college and those accommodations are covered under the office of civil rights where the idea law ends when the student finishes their High School experience we currently have four students outplaced um and in grades K through 12 and six post 12th graders receiving transitional vocational services um I'm gonna just talk a little bit about and please don't shoot the messenger here what we need for next year in terms of Staffing so when we look at the needs that our students have we we realized
031that they need a lot of support we're seeing kids coming in with behavioral issues that are really more uh needy you know they're the we have some kindergarten students that struggle to just regulate their behavior like we have that we have to teach that it's like first grade those early grades we're having students struggling with that and we're having students in high school who are struggling with like attendance issues anxiety there's like phobia around coming to school um they're like a little bit of disengagement um so we're trying to provide services that support all of those kids and obviously we want to follow the law so when you look at what we're going to put forward the largest number of workers are the paraprofessionals and the paraprofessionals they're really our Frontline workers they I I
032think there's a little bit of a misconception sometimes I think some people think paraprofessionals are making copies or you know just helping the teacher they are doing essential duties when we have paraprofessionals who can work with kids they're they're working helping them with their IEP goals and objectives they're helping them with their behavior they're in the regular classroom supporting those kids working in small groups they're teaching and they're saving the district money quite honestly although what we currently pay our parents is counterproductive we're not able to hire new staff we have a nice group of Paras who are committed to North Stonington and they're here regardless of the fact that they're underpaid compared to their peers um but we've had a very hard time hiring new staff a very hard time and so what we've
033had to do is Outsource some of that so rather than paying a Para like twenty dollars an hour to do a job we have to Outsource it that costs you fifty dollars an hour to Outsource and hire Behavior Specialists because you're not paying that person you're paying a service and there's overhead that comes with that service so um the budget will reflect an increase in parapay it will also reflect an increased need for another social worker right now there's one social worker in the whole District that social worker is doing so much counseling with regular ed students because of that tiered support we want to be able to keep not have to send kids out we want to have the services in the district we want to keep our North Stonington students with us we
034don't want them to drop out we don't want them to have to go to another program we want to keep them here but in order to do that we have to have the Staffing that's required um we're so in terms of nursing we are required and I I don't think I mentioned this but part of the North Stonington requirement is to provide services for non-public schools so we provide a part-time nurse to the Christian Academy um so when we look at what do these people do central office we're we're doing compliance stuff as I talked about we're scheduling meetings the PPT meetings that need to be held we're doing uh budgets grant writing I mean Bill's in charge of the budget I don't wanna act like I have don't want his job at all I
035work with Bill to do the budget but grant writing um the related service staff they're providing um Physical Therapy occupational therapy speech language therapy Counseling Services nurses they are also providing counseling a lot of times they're the go-to but I think everybody knows what a school nurse does and how hard that job is the teachers in the elementary school they're doing a lot of instruction like the science of reading instruction on basic like decoding and encoding math in high school middle school and high school they start to also Focus not just on that but also on transitional vocational skills you'll see I have alternative add-on there because I'm also gonna is a little spoiler alert for the budget presentation whoops sorry going the wrong way all right so I wanna we wanna propose an alternative
036Ed program over here so we have a few students that were sort of piloting this with right now students who have had some struggles with attendance and earning credit toward High School their high school diploma and so we're trying and and really the idea is that a traditional classroom 85-minute class is traditional time does not work for everyone we don't want these kids to drop out and we don't want to have to outplace them into another school so we want to provide the support here in an alternative setting away from wheeler away from the elementary school where they can get sort of a much more individualized approach to their education we're talking about up to 10 students recommended by counselors and administrators it would be a blend of online classes and in-person classes it would
037include some work study and and flexible scheduling so right now we're piloting online classes through a program called Edgenuity it's been great that we have some students who are doing it and they're they're moving along much better than they were in the traditional classroom setting the space would be basically what we have over here right now eventually we'd like to use the wood shop but I won't even go there right now but bringing the wood shop back would be hugely beneficial um the Staffing it would be a special education teacher a paraprofessional and then a stipend for somebody just to oversee some of the basic clerical stuff when you add up what this would cost with the teacher the pair of the coordinator it would be about eighty two thousand dollars that's less than the
038cost of one out of this shirt placement so we could serve as up to 10 kids for the cost of one and and we could also provide them with the the sense of community like we keep them in North Stonington I think that's very important as well all right that that would be um yes yes I have a couple questions sure with regard to these 10 students would all kind of them be special education students or what okay so they would be regular a potential mix yes and you said you would be using Edge annuity now I I know Edgenuity is a web-based computer-based program and we're seeing that students who have become disengaged and you said some of these students do have attendance related issues really had a lot of attendance related issues regarding
039remote learning and learning through computers now I understand the adults in the room would be helping them through those programs have you looked at other programs at schools in the region that have started to move into these alternative programs that have both special education and regular education students where they are helping them make up credits and coming up with creative ways through the work studies through multi putting in multiple you know courses beyond the normal day to help those students get there or are we just looking at Ingenuity as the kind of not just the genuine Ingenuity would be sort of a framework and um a tool one tool but Project based learning um work study Hands-On kind of stuff um vocational preparation like some of the students are doing the OSHA 10 training they'll
040get some vocational credit for doing that um and and sure to some traditional in-person classes but just individualized more to students direct interests right so when we have a small group over here and there we have some students here now the guy who's working with them the paraprofessional who's working with them he knows them so well he knows what they like and what they dislike and so he can tell her even the edge annuity lessons around what interests them and it's not a traditional 84 minute or 85 minute class you know it's like you can work for half an hour do something different and then come back to something else so yes thank you yes um can you maybe I miss this can you just give me an estimate of how much we're spending again
041in the out of District placement so out of District placements vary so the least expensive out of District placement I think that we have is I want to say 277 dollars a day per student um but it also has transportation that does not include transportation Transportation 162 a day a day yeah yeah the other thing that we've had to do because as I I did mention it earlier because we cannot find peras um we've had to hire Bloom Services they're great but it is much more costly the district will spend probably 230 thousand dollars this year on bloom can that was actually my question because I I pulled out our our last um Finance report and I was trying to remember because it used to be different before we flipped to the new style report
042and you could see that that was them is contracted student services do you know is that the so contracted student services we have Bloom we have Community Therapeutics they provide physical therapy for our students okay um we have um some hearing impaired students and we employ somebody to oversee those language and communication plans and the accommodations that the hearing impaired students need is is purchased professionals I I I was just looking at it because I was trying to figure out if we're looking at the idea of when the budget comes through we're hoping to hire more pairs um to replace a different line item because we have purchased Professional Services and then we have the other one that I just said that I've already forgotten the term for the contractual Services those are both kind
043of the lock items where most of that outsourced work is coming in through I you you don't need to know this all the time if you don't know this so you don't know I I mean bill would probably know this but yeah so I know the contract contractual Services which are considered other contract other purchase Services would be those Community Therapeutics are you saying there's two line items like that well that's why I was trying there's purchase Professional Services and contracted student services and I didn't know if those were both within that same piece or if it was just the contracted students services that would be those outsourced behavioral therapy pieces and things like that I that's a bill question I'm sorry I don't want to I don't want to stop no it's just coming
044coming into budget I want I think that needs to be one of our yeah and we will get a cost analysis uh putting in a program like this and where the savings would be that would all Show online items in the budget when we get that right Troy right all right and and we actively bill has been fabulous in this regard we actively pursue all grants and any funding that we can get from outside sources to to kind of alleviate what the district's responsibility is any other questions I just want to say thank you you did a wonderful job of uh I mean I've been to plenty of special ed presentations and things like that you did an awesome job of just kind of breaking it down in a way that I I felt was
045very understandable for for people and and and gave a great overview thank you thanks yeah if you have any questions you can obviously email me I'm happy to answer them thank you Alex so we really appreciate your time tonight thank you did the admins have anything they wanted to add we have kind of temporarily started a program over here for a fair number of students and I'm going to be honest it has been life-changing for some of these students um who you know continuously putting them into a traditional classroom and it isn't working and what that impact is on themselves but also the other students around I think it's really made a huge difference it's not perfect by any means which is why I think we're coming forward and saying I think we could make
046it something really good here and if you look at the budget I know we've talked about it before I think there's better ways we could do it and save the district money um and find success keeping our kids here and there is pride those students are not disengaged from the district they play sports they come in for lunch they go back and forth they are part of our community and I think that's a big difference than somebody just being gone and we just don't see them so it's been great um it's been really nice to collaborate and work together but I do think there's a couple things that would make it even better financially so we just appreciate the opportunity to try it thank you everybody that was what she pointed out a teacher and
047a para so right now Allison Allison myself Ryan Beatty we're all coordinating it but but ideally a teacher over there to work with like what Brian was saying within the program with students all of those things um what I would certainly make it much more efficient okay thank you I don't know why it died I am flexibility I have on my screen but it doesn't that's only for you so if you don't care about seeing the people who are up on here okay all right yeah they won't affect what's recording so all right thanks again Allison we really appreciate it uh brings us up to a superintendent's report yeah good evening um I want to say I'm very proud of my administrative team for their Innovative thinking and uh I think it also lines not
048only to Innovative instruction goal but goal One Is Safe valued and sense of belonging they want all kids to have no matter what their needs and of course efficient and transparent uh this this is a alternative program that strongly supports all three of your board of ed goals for the next three years uh it's it's really exciting to think about the possibility you know I I really again appreciate the the vision uh of Allison Moline and the administrative team in this thank you I wanted to uh talk about a few items uh and there was a handout uh called the North Stonington Public School school wellness policy training assessment if anybody like a copy has extra copies up here um and this that you didn't have it in your board packet ahead of time because
049it was just produced today uh so Bill Merrill and I have spent hours trying to get this report done that was due in June of 2022. um and so we I believe finally got it done and um the administrators and some of the teachers were involved and the food service and um several people answering questionnaires so basically the first uh page front and back is basically the narrative that's required that I had to write today um and then the rest of it is a nice score card on the district based on the surveys that we did and it's it's really interesting basically it's comparing if you look on the survey part there's the two columns well sat three score and well Sat one well the well set three that's has to do with policy okay
050and that's the board of Ed's responsibilities policy do we have Wellness policies that address these things right so I'm thinking you know goal two sub goal ones subcommittee Maybe because of wellness and being safe maybe if it's there but do we have the policies uh address these things and then the second column is are we actually implementing the policy in some meaningful way all right so The Narrative basically summarizes the work that needs to be done and so we do need to kind of restructure some of our already efforts that are happening at both schools regarding safety and wellness but we got to have a district Wellness committee that meets on a regular basis uh so we're gonna work with the ministrative team to kind of restructure some of the efforts to try to get
051more done with less time less people in being efficient um you know this is one of these things it's really important but it is a mandate that every three years we're going to do this assessment and then we have to post it on our web page okay so this will be posted on our webpage and uh so it gives us all work to do we could talk more about it at a later time it does point out though when you look at it the need for to do more to support student wellness and when you look at the fact that our elementary school students have PE once a week in most elementary schools in the state the students have PE more than that and if you look at our PE Fitness scores it is in
052alignment with the fact that they have PE once a week and only once a week so I'm going to give you a little foreshadowing a little spoiler alert as to my budget presentation that you will see on February 8th and Allison already gave you some of those Clues you might see a elementary PE teacher in the budget proposal we don't yet know if it would be full-time or part-time we have to analyze the situation uh and we will then come up with what we think we need it's very likely there'll be some form of PE teacher in that proposal because our job is to present what the students need okay the data supports it this trineal assessment the fitness scores and the fact that they only get it P once a week and by the
053way some of the behavior problems are because the kids have energy that they're not getting out other spoiler alerts uh Allison mentioned the social worker I fully agree we needed additional social worker that's whether we have the alternative program or not we need a second social worker a social worker is working too hard it's not a sustainable job I'm glad she's still here there'll be wood shop supplies in the budget okay that's going to increase the budget that's not the status Pro budget that's going to bring it up a bit wood shop supplies we want the wood shop up and going again well we got to put some money behind it Allison already mentioned additional Staffing for the alternative education program that'll be in there there'll probably be supplies and uh money and professional development
054for Innovative instruction there may be a part-time Clerk or human resource person for the central office all right so a little foreshadowing now I want to talk a little bit about and this is another handout and it has to do with um the district curriculum uh coordinator and but I want to talk more broadly about the district curriculum documentation plan that administrators or I are talking about and as you know having curriculum and Allison mentioned in a presentation you have to show that that kids are mastering the curriculum or they're not and there's the srbi process and what are you going to compare it to if you don't have written curriculum and can I unfortunately we're in a situation where one of our schools doesn't really have a whole lot of documentation there's great stuff
055happening great instruction happening in the school school of Distinction but yet when you say where's your written curriculum it's hard it's hard okay we have to get that done um now when we did the book review and we discussed innovators mindset I think we all agreed that people needed to have time time was a limiting factor right and when we want people to innovate that's doing something new and different resulting in better outcomes they need time to plan that now the Board of Ed has been really supportive enthusiastically providing funds through non-lapsing and for professional development and equipment like the xylophones are in now right for example and and you guys are it's fully behind that and I totally support that now through the I appreciate the urge support the curriculum writing process where teachers
056are going to spend time thinking planning and collaborating on Innovative instruction and producing common documents within grade levels and aligned vertically from grade to grade that everyone will use to plan their instruction and assessment that's important work that takes time and curriculum writing is not easy and it requires support and our plan is going to include fifteen thousand dollars for a district curriculum coordinator which may be divided up into multiple people doing it or it could be one person and I'm proposing it goes into an administrator's contract as a memorandum of understanding uh which we have not signed or anything yet but I want to put that in the budget that 15 000 to support curriculum writing and when I present the budget I'm going to compare it with uh similar towns nor stoning to
057similar towns of enrollment and demographics and you're going to see that a lot of them actually have a full-time curriculum coordinator to do this some of the work that we're trying to do just piecemeal and everybody wearing multiple hats everybody has a curriculum hat here it's also essential if we really do want to pursue District knee accreditation one of the non-negotiables is do you have written curriculum so not only do we have to get it done because it's the right thing to do and for special ed and to justify like the kids are meeting the standards and learning or not but if we want to get the district accreditation we need it for that so it's I I think I think you're all going to support it in the end but I just wanted to
058give you a heads up that I'm going to talk more about it in my budget presentation can I just ask quick two quick questions absolutely um so the memorandum of understanding is something that we'll review um we can put it on for our next meeting in executive session since that is contractual correct we could do that that's a great idea okay and then my my other just for clarification you're saying we have no written curriculum at the elementary school at this time is that correct I I don't know I don't I don't know that to be correct I I just know that there's a lot of curriculum work that needs to be done okay in terms of making sure that we we have documents we can point to at each grade level in each subject
059and it's a lot of work by the way for an elementary school teacher who teaches all the subjects and I'm not saying we don't have curriculum I don't want to sound like we're not teaching anything I don't that's not what I just the written yeah go ahead sorry everything thank you for clarifying that and we think you're doing a wonderful job over there I don't want you to think I don't think you're teaching or something uh the the last thing I just wanted to mention is uh it's exciting and I don't know if the kids are going to mention this I apologize if you are um but uh Christian St Germain was asked by the executive director of Cass to uh run a session at a conference called leadership for learning on March 17th uh
060I believe it's set to Norwich Inn and Spa is that correct yeah so um and and it's basically on something that uh was facilitated here um athletes from multiple schools came together and produced a series of videos to encourage uh appropriate fan Behavior at an athletic events and uh it was really Innovative to do that kind of thing uh and so I'm quite proud that you know our principal was asked to facilitate a work session for for other principals uh at this so I want to just mention that to you and that's the end of my report foreign thank you does anybody have any quick questions for Troy okay all right so we're going to move into the student ambassadors report okay so starting with the Elementary School drama club is still rehearsing for their
061play and there was a PTO Bingo meeting for all families and that occurred the 13th um sixth grade had their fun nights and that's used for fundraising and that was on the 20th and a couple weeks ago it was steam week for the elementary school so all the teachers had steam activities that were made by the steam team and they do it with their classes for each grade level and on the ninth unified Arts had winter themed activities in the gym so they had like fake snow they got to build snowflakes on popsicle sticks fake skiing with like plates on their feet and they have to build igloos um we'd also like to thank Mrs shop for organizing all the events and getting the entire school to participate so p through six there was a
062faculty meeting on the 10th to discuss plans for nias and they went over updating vision and mission for the school and they'll update that next month as well there's been lots of K-12 research on the science of reading which was mentioned earlier and it's a most recent change and there are 20 years of research to find a better way to learn how to read so some teachers are beginning to have professional development on how to teach reading in a new way and that's starting with a lot of like reading specialized teachers as well and Kate of first grade is beginning to have professional development on the science of reading as well and they're implementing this new way of teaching into their curriculum I believe and the elementary schools knee deep in the curriculum changes and
063new learning so first grade is visiting other schools and they're starting to learn the grade one standards and they're going to have the same curriculum template for K-12 which was mentioned earlier um as of right now this is like a year one of the process so it was mentioned that like there's gonna be new curriculum curriculum writing earlier I mean later on and it's for the purpose of unifying grades one through five as well as relating all the grades K through 12 for more Unified District overall which I've mentioned also this Friday the sixth readers are going to be a part of the Dare program so that begins and for the wheeler uh High School Middle School the mid-year assessments went well and speaking for myself there are mostly low stress and we're completed quickly
064in an organized manner our school statements and class rubrics are used during these assessments and students fill them out for every class to complete a self-analysis there's also a class period where students reflect with their teachers on the results of the exam and how the exam days went the skills we are working on are analysis collaboration communication and literacy these four skills relate to relate to niask and they will be asking about midterms and these values then yes visit is very important for a school to be accredited and the meeting is coming soon wheeler is trying to pick a winner for the wheeler distinguished alumni award and people need to turn in applications to apply you must be graduated from wheeler for five years and have contributed to its Society the selection date is February
06515th and we are still seeking for nominee for nominees so far nine student applications have been accepted for freshman next year from students in Voluntown and Preston Wheeler's wheeler is working on an accepted students day for those students to come in and Shadow wheeler for a short amount of time just to get a feel for the school they are currently paying a 12 000 tuition which goes into our town and is big for our school budget the ECC has created a fan statement to share with the crowd with four games and events the statement was recently shortened but the purpose is to tell parents and people watching that student athletes are not professional and that the game should not be treated as one there are also radio ads on 106.5 by some of our students
066discussing how the gym should be a safe space for the students fantastic thank you I'll say as a parent going through the testing this week I think the new assessment you guys have done a really great job it was we went through it much less stressful than what midterms have been in the past so kudos to that new program anybody else have any comments or questions for our students um I just let's see committee chair reports if we want to start with our goal number one so gold goal one and goal two met uh met last Wednesday and we met with uh each committee for for an hour we we test we we talked a little bit about the different policy pieces that we had discovered that we thought best applied to our different goals
067it was one of our first steps was to figure out what exactly we could do as a board of education to help support the goals and part of that was figuring out where we were already addressing some of the issues that came into play um we had a couple of things that that came up um I talked about the idea of of adjusting our equity and diversity um policy to state that it was a diversity equity and inclusion policy just because it's the language that's more consistently used um and also actually specifying Dei since that tends to be the acronym that most people would search for if they were going into policy to try and find those specific styles of policies um we also took a look at see which policy it was um with
068our hate crimes policy it states that there's that the policy should be distributed every year to parents and students as well as to all teachers and we were talking about the idea of perhaps talking with the administrative teams and seeing if we could have a bolded set of information at the beginning of the student handbook where it just referenced short blurbs on these policies and directed people to be able to access them so a quick hey this is what this policy would to refer to this is where you can find that policy as opposed to you know or whether or not we we believed that it was important to physically hand out that specific policy to all all parents and all students as was stated in there we're going to be continuing moving forward I
069believe our next meeting is on February 1st um and we're going to to continue discussing kind of next steps and where we're looking to go with some of those policy changes um oh the one other thing that we had talked about was adjusting uh one of our one of our policies specifies certain language and replacing it with language that more directly aligns with Goal one um that had to do with our safe schools one where it actually has valued and part of the statement but we would change it to Safe valued in a sense of belonging so simple things to begin with but hopefully moving into more in-depth pieces of those policies moving forward so thanks chat uh gold two all right so we met afterwards and um so we just kind of also looked
070at other policies that are out there um reflecting Innovative instruction the words Innovative instruction weren't really found we did Identify some areas where we could add them such as the visual arts grouping policies things like that so we're going to be looking at the next meeting of kind of rewording some of these policies to include and align with gold too um we had lots of discussion about our Innovative instruction and how we can implement this within the district and I think our first uh idea is that we need to support these policies and these Innovative instructional ideas through our budget and so you kind of hinted and we were kind of also going to hint to you to kind of maybe highlight where these Innovative instructions line items might occur within the the new budget
071um we also thought about um maybe having a discussion with you Troy and and the admins about how we can evaluate whether or not this Innovative instruction is actually being implemented within the district and how maybe that might look but we're going to kind of look to you to kind of lead that in the guidelines um and so I think that was about it we are switching the goals meeting so goal two is going to be at 5 30. am I right I think I'm right on this okay right goal two is going to be at 5 30 and then goal one will meet at 6 30 on February 1st in the media center and let me just say I know that administrators have a thousand things on your plates but you're always welcome at
072our committee meetings if these are things that you're interested in and seeing what we might be able to do we spend a lot of time with us saying things and then going we don't know if this is something that can even be implemented or if it's a way to go and so it is it is always nice to have the people on the ground involved no pressure but if you you know if you feel like seeing what what we're thinking about in terms of these things please feel free to join awesome and that brings us to goal three the goal three group does not meet again until February 22nd so no updates since our last meeting um I there is a board of um a Cabe con not a cave conference but a cave webinar
073on the 9th noon to 1 30 regarding uh the board of Ed's role with communication that's the one right I did I was going to sign up for it but I'm not I'm not available now on February 9th so if anybody's interested in that to let Irma know and she can register for you 12 to 1 30 on February 9th and you can just shoot her an email and let her know but sooner than later would be helpful I don't have a lot to report out on other than um the para custodial contract work is starting and I know you sent me an email on the dates do you know when the first one is off the top of your head but that's kind of feeling was like this week or something isn't it so
074excellent what time okay um and other than that I've just I met with Troy today we talked a lot about budgeting I'm looking forward to seeing what's coming forward I will be mentioning to the board of Finance to listen to our meeting tonight I think this is really important uh groundwork here is so that they can see the work that's being done so when we are presenting they're not saying well when have you been talking about this um so I will be inviting all of them to pull up the video to see tonight's meeting as well and I appreciate everybody coming out staying out and um showing us everything tonight your presentations were fantastic Ellen was great so thank you so much and that takes us up to the give back Club okay so I
075think last time I I mentioned it in my report and then we said Okay can it wait to you know for a vote and I said yes and so it's on the agenda uh this is where the give back Club goes to Maine they spend uh one night staying at a disabled veterans Camp helping out and they they did it last year right Kristen and uh so they just want the official permission approval from the board to to do that trip again I uh I make a motion to approve the give back clubs trip to Maine again this year okay any discussion okay um do we have the dates if not that's fine I don't I I don't have them with me I think it's Mark end of March okay March 20th okay thank you
076all right all those in favor I opposed abstain okay and takes us up to the London trip addendum oh good [Laughter] I make a motion to amend the trip approval regarding the trip to London to include a trip to Paris wait oh yeah second okay was that a second or just a yes okay um any more discussion on that all right all all those in favor aye opposed and abstain thanks for staying so late thanks thanks Mary Beth okay thank you okay perfect thank you all right and new business did you want to talk any further about that I think uh I talked maybe enough about this already um and I think ultimately it will probably be part of the superintendent's budget um you know right now we're we're kind of going through and right
077now we call it the business manager's budget that we're working with and we're gonna massage that into the superintendent's budget which what you will hear on the uh in February 8th and the administrators as appropriate will take uh part in that presentation at that point when it goes to the board of Finance it'll just be me uh at that point unless a board member wants to jump in but um I think this way you hired me to do that and I look forward to that I'm excited to uh talk about the budget with so not only you uh but also the board of Finance uh coming up um so we'll talk about that later the curriculum coordinator seven position therapy dog I don't need I don't I'm not looking for approval on that right now
078it's just going to be probably part of the budget and you guys are going to support the parts of the budget or you're not and we'll do it that way I think yeah that that works great yeah um therapy dog uh Dune is a black lab who is fully certified and trained and vaccinated and insured and would love to spend time in our schools um helping with our safe value sense of belonging goal um I think it's a great idea uh rabies vaccinated right yeah we've got all the all the paperwork here trained uh the the owner is willingly gonna take the dog in for visits and um everybody feels like it'd be good for the school the kids the staff other schools have done this our schools have done this here before the pandemic
079right and it was well received so we're really just kind of looking for your approval for dune to come into the buildings I think it's a good idea um I mean June doesn't need fingerprinting but I'm sure that the Handler sorry um but I'm sure that the Handler has been vetted and is going to be safe coming to school is correct yes okay that's correct students are nodding yes it'd be fun to have doing at the class yeah I was just gonna say speaking from the from experience I have our business office next door to my classroom and we have she she trains uh guide dogs and therefore we have consistent dogs right and I'm not even a dog person but these dogs are amazing and and just watching kids faces light up and watching
080every I mean it's it's spectacular it's good for the dogs and it's good for the humans so I I can see no reason why not [Music] I make a motion to oh excuse me sorry can I just ask a quick question um so how is this going to be a weekly thing monthly that's I am not quite sure the schedule I think it's going to be worked out uh between the owner and the building administrators okay and then I just wanted to know if like will they spend the whole day like at the high school middle school and then Elementary or is it kind of like a broken up Mr Selena yeah so Mrs Mrs West Rebecca West is the one who's kind of headed this up uh I know that the this Handler has
081had this dog and they she goes to other school systems as well so I'm sure that you know it's been better that she's good to go too on that um but in terms of the point I know uh Mrs West was talking about trying to run something a little more programmatic in terms of the middle school high school set times where they would she would visit um and be available I know at the elementary middle school she was talking about maybe doing like a 10 15-minute visit for a classroom so kind of come and just kind of go through that way but I think would be almost one full day in the district I believe okay thank you thank you go ahead Lisa I make a motion to approve visits from the black lab Dune
082to our schools a second any other discussion follows in favor hi opposed from State great bring Dune to a meeting sometime do we have any public comment tonight any online don't worry all right not seeing any we can get a motion to adjourn make a motion to adjourn