2023-02-14 Board of Education Regular Meeting

001to call to order at 6:32 the board of education meeting uh February 14th, 2023. Please stand for the [Music] pledgece of the standice. Happy Valentine's Day [Music] everyone. And um are there any amendments to the agenda? I'm sorry. Were you ready? I do have a minute. You take your time. Um, if you take a look at the policy section, it has three policies listed as a second read for tonight, but those policies were actually um approved as our last meeting. So, um I think we could take those off the agenda. So, it's physical activity. I have it right here. physical activity, food, antigens, child abuse, and staff possession. We're keeping that's keeping the first read. Yeah. The other ones were listed as second reads, but they they were approved the memorandum to model policy. We

002don't need that either. Okay. So, do you have that, Deb? So, we're keeping what? So, we're just keeping um staff possession and personal use of wireless communication as a first read. Okay. And then the others, all others listed are um already approved. Okay. So that's the only policy we're actually talking about tonight. Not even talking. It's the first read unless people have questions. Yes. Right. Yes. Um any other amendments to the agenda? Okay. Hearing none, we can move on. Um roll call starting with Vinnie, please. Vinnie Canadella Shelley Caps Debbie Sherman Stephanie Miller Nicole Livian McCraski Thank you. Um board corrections for the 10 um January 10th 23 corrections. So I'll make a motion to correct the January 10th board of education minutes. Oh, is he gonna turn that fan off? I hope door. I

003think I think he might be. Oh, thanks, [Music] Vinnie. Maybe when the fan's off. Let's see. Vanish in the closet. Okay, testing. Is that better? This is this is actually for more for the um owl. It's not really to project our voices. So, we'll just try to speak up if I was Can you hear this if I'm like this way? Okay. You're welcome. Um so, we are making amendments to the J. Thank you, Alex. I made the motion. You made the motion. Did somebody second it? No. Second. Second by Shelly. Um so, our discussion count was not listed. So, I just went in and I made the adjustments. You'll see in the minutes they're bold. The corrections are bold. Um, and we'll just date them on the top that they're approved as amended as of

004this board meeting. Okay. So, let's just go through. Um, you see in the approval minutes that still isn't holded. Okay. That's okay. Yep. I'll for the December 13th uh January January 10th. No, no, no. For December 13th meeting. Okay, I'll make that change. Thanks. What? Can you explain that to me? So, it says we're right here. Right. Oh, for December 13th. Okay. Gotcha. Gotcha. Gotcha. All right. Thank you so much. Okay. Um and then bold though. So, you went through and put all of them in. Yes. Except that one. Let's just go through and make sure. Motion carries. Motion carries. Okay, I got them all. Yep. All right. Any further discussion on changes to the January 10th, 2023 minutes? All those in favor? I oppose or abstain. Corrections carry. Uh, board of education meetings January

005minutes, sorry. January 24th, 2023. Motion to approve. Second. Oh, well, if you have corrections, well, after we after Yeah. Or Yeah, we could correct them there. Um, so second, want to second that. Okay. Um, so corrections. If you look through all the vote tallies are missing again on the same thing. 124. Let's look 124. I So, let's let's remove the um let's resend the motion and then I'll make them I'll fix them and I'll do them for the next time. We'll do it the next time. Okay. So, we make a motion to resend the motion. Motion to table. So, go ahead Deb. Make that motion to resend um the approval and then second I think do those have to be second by the same person? Yeah. Second. Um, to table the January 24th minutes. We

006just we just said that. No, we Oh, now I didn't do all those in favor. So, going back to that, all those in favor? Opposed or abstain? Motion carries. Now, we can do yours. Motion to table the January 24th minute. Good. Second. See, Mike's Mike's not here. Okay, Vinnie. Second. Um any disc any discussion? No, I'll make the changes. Um all those in favor? Opposed or abstain? Motion carries. And then how about the January? Oh, motion to approve the January 31st, 2020. The same. [Music] Yeah. Yeah. Um second. Thank you. Any discussion? All those in I'm sorry, Vinnie. Don't put Mike, just put Vinnie. All those in favor? Opposed or abstain? Motion carries. Now you know why I'm not doing minute. Yes. But you do a fantastic job. Audience of citizens, if you'd like to

007speak to the board, just come right up, give us your name and address, and tell us what you want to talk about. [Music] My name is Christine Bavone, nine Macintosh Drive. I'm a parent of a middle school child. Um, first I'd like to talk about reestablishing the posting of the honor roll. Reading the honor roll used to be something that parents, grandparents, and even students used to look forward to when opening the local newspaper. Unfortunately, the honorable disappeared from the Oxford school district and is now in tiny print on an electronic report card. I emailed the superintendent on why Oxford school district no longer post these honor rolls. I was shocked to find out that according to him, most likely it was no longer posted due to safety issues. Safety issues for posting a name,

008grade, and if the student earned honors or high honors. He noted that if we can get parents permission to sign a waiver, we may be able just to list the p the student's first name, we could consider doing that. Um, I replied back that this we already sign a media release form as part of Power School. I think that this policy of safety is a poor excuse. Other school districts have no problem posting online with full names. and Sonia, Derby, Seymour, Holy Cross, Waterberry or just to name a few. I would like to look into returning to this previous tradition. On the academic side, I want to give a few points about I Ready. Um I Ready testing at the middle school I believe in my opinion was a disaster. The extra amount of time

009that was required as homework on top of their already heavy workload was ridiculous. The constant pushing of this test on the children, in my opinion, was having the opposite effect. You should probably be asking yourself why the test scores were so poor to begin with. Was it the curriculum? Remote learning didn't work as it expected or is the test flawed itself. I don't know. But when the seventh grade class are yelled at during testing week because they are either not taking the test fast enough or they need to do better so I could show better test scores is uncalled for. I have yet to see anything done at Oxford Middle School. Bullying, vaping, vandalism, poor bus behaviors. We constantly receive emails from the administrators lecturing us to talk to our kids about good behavior. But

010what is happening to the known disruptors in that school? Is bringing the Boys and Girls Club going to solve that problem? I don't know. Are you going to force families to pay the $200 a month to hope that these problems during the school hours magically disappear? I'm disappointed with all the recent motions and policies that this board of ed and the superintendent have been making. Schedule changes, possible shared buses and school start time changes with the middle school and the high school. Our district is losing principles, teachers, and staff, but we are told it's normal. Show me the data of surrounding districts that are having the same problem with losing educators during the school year. School district morale is low. That even includes the students. Their students, including my son, who used to love school.

011They no longer want to go. While you continue to pat yourselves and Dr. Miller on the back for a job well done, I beg to differ. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Anybody else would like to address the board? If you have a loud enough voice and we can hear you, then that's Can I just talk in a really loud voice? Sure. So, my name is Tracy Rose. My address is 21. For those of you who don't know me, I'm a staff member in the district, but I'm speaking specifically regarding my son today who's available. So, and I'm here to talk about Ready as well. Um, specifically the Ready. So, um I do think I ready is a really good program if it is um used the way it's intended to be used.

012I think it's worthwhile. I think it's beneficial. I just don't think we're really using it that way right now. So, my son is a seventh grader. He's almost 13. He's busy after school. He has sports. He has extracurricular activities. He has a 504 for gifted and talented. He's in the enrichment program. Last quarter, he had straight A+es across the board. I could not ask for anything more in my son academic. Um, however, he's doing I ready homework. It can take him an hour and a half, two hours a week to do this homework. He his fall test scores were great. When he took his winter test scores, they went down after all this homework time. His test scores dropped. So, I'm not really sure what the emphasis on doing all this homework has really done

013for him as far as the testing goes. um he um he's burnt out from being on the computer so much. He already has homework. He has um quizzes and tests to study for. He has other things that he's responsible to do. But there they have to complete a minimum of 30 minutes per um subject reading and math and but they also have to complete a lesson during the week. So a lesson can take him 45 minutes, an hour, longer. Um it can take a long time depending on what he's doing. Um he is also what he's doing right now I it's hard to quantify for reading because it's hard to know that level but for math it's not um grade level curriculum he's been given he's doing algebra on math he's in seventh grade he

014hasn't been taught algebra yet but because his test scores were high he's given work that's not really grade level curriculum so I'm not really sure how that um falls in line with the homework policy which um I'll quote says it's also the policy of the board that any imposition of homework should be related to the curriculum goals and standards recognized as appropriate for the student's grade. So, it's he's what he's doing is stuff he's never been taught before. He's teaching himself on the computer and hoping that he gets it right. Um he also from from what I understand kids who score really high on the test kind of have nowhere to go. So, they plateau or they drop because there's really nowhere for them to go. But with the emphasis being on improving your scores,

015what's the lesson those kids are being taught? They don't have anywhere to go. So, now they're kind of feeling like they failed because his score dropped in both reading and math this time. So, he didn't have anywhere to go. His score dropped and now it's kind of looks like he's failing even after all those hours of iron time. Um, so, um, and like I said, he's teaching himself. He's getting frustrated. He has no teachers to ask when he's doing it because he's home doing it at home, not in school. Um, so again, I would just say to I think it's a good idea to rethink this policy. Is it really doing what we intended it to do or what the board or Dr. Miller, whoever instituted it, intended it to do. Um, like I said,

016I think it's I think it's a good program. I just think I don't think it's being used the way it's was intended. Um, kids should be doing it with access to a teacher so when they have questions they can ask when they're not sure about something they can get help on. Um, that's all I said. I just don't think it's meant to be done at home. Okay. I just want to clarify that I Ready is not a policy. I Ready is not a policy. There's no policy that Okay. Well, when I say policy, I mean a directive because it's I believe a districtwide directive. That's what we've all been told from administrators that it's a districtwide directive that students have to do a minimum of 30 minutes reading and math that came from the district.

017I don't know who the who the district is but they refer that. Um but that they have to do a minimum of 30 minutes of each and specifically a night 30 minutes a night 30 minutes a week. But in the middle school they also have to complete a lesson during that time frame. And then however long it takes you to complete a lesson, you're working on I Ready for that amount of time. So for example, if it's a super hard math lesson that takes my son an hour to complete, he's working on that I Ready lesson for an hour for just math alone on top of all his other homework he's being assigned. So that's a policy as it's been told to us and and the kids are graded on it. If he there was

018one time he didn't complete a lesson, he got an F for his homework. Okay. Well, while it might not be an actual policy, it's I just wanted to clarify. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Thanks. By the way, um I see that some of you are speaking from notes. I'm sorry. Sorry. I see that some of you are speaking from notes. Would you be able to um provide us with a copy of your concerns at some point in time? Oh, sure. I mean, I just jotted down some notes for myself so I can keep my I just can't take notes that fine. I don't send you to your specific No, no, it would be to Stephanie, the chair, and she'll share with the rest of us. Sure. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Anybody else like to address

019the board? I'd like to. Hi, Pam. Pam Aldridge from 584. Um, I just wanted to ask um first Hello, I haven't been here in a while. Um but uh first of all I just want to tell you some of the great things that are happening at the high school. We had um the um home club visit the senior set us yesterday um specifically for the heart. Basically they created some ceramic um hearts with the um elderly I have to use the right word now the elderly and they were before I could say no I guess we're going back again good because um they asked the students to come back and do something spring with them which is works out great as far as long as we go after school because of buses and everything the

020students provide all their own transportation and during this time and make time for the citizens of Oxford. So I that's a true Oxford way of doing things. Um also we're bringing back that district boy art show and that's going to be March 6 and 7. Um and that's going to be a big thing again to bring our district together. And um the thing that is on my mind about the school system is is the board of edge moving. Are you guys moving out of this building? We're talking about it. Okay. because I I just don't I I thought when you guys planted here because of the dollar sign instead of cost to rent because I don't know if anybody remembers back then when we strip it cost us tens of thousands of dollars actually over

021almost $80,000 to move in but that wasn't the rent per month was closer by the time we left it was closer to almost $9,000 a month, $8,000 a month. I don't have all the numbers. Um, but isn't that a silly way to spend our taxpayers money? We're not we're not going somewhere where we're going to be paying rent and actually, you know, the plans have not been, excuse me, finalized yet, but it will actually be a cost savings. So I mean like we had people walking through the schools and and you know before we knew anything about like I was almost a fact that wouldn't stay in a historical building in the box um and and I I questioned it and I was like um I didn't understand why we move from I mean this

022should be our home I think because it's the oldest education something and and it represents education in itself. I mean, granted, our landscape's gone in the back and another part of our history is gone, but would be nice to keep a connection to this school as an educational part of our building. I I mean, I don't know political move. I don't know any of the true stories behind it. You know, some people are saying this, some people are saying that. I'm in the middle of the lipo. But I I do have a heart for this school. I mean, you look at the history of it. I I believe that education is here. It started here for me so many people not. And I I would like to see it stay here instead of moving or

023I I mean even in our buildings like when it came across that people were walking through the buildings to look for new room for bed. Um, still it was just like I don't understand is there some place that we have to go to to to the town and say I don't know how much cost effective it is and and pick it or or or storm a meeting and ask them you know why would it be more cost effective moving again you know um sad but now we're moving buildings You know what I'm saying? Well, there's, you know, Yeah, absolutely. Um, it's in the it's in the works. There's nothing that's going on. You know, this there's nothing changing here. Um, there are committees that are formed because of ARPA funds and there's ideas of how

024to utilize this building. Um, and you know, that hasn't been finalized yet. So, you know, there's nothing anything that you hear that is there's any controversy, there's any problem, you know, we're not renting, you know, we're just, you know, looking into maybe trying to find something that works better for us, may or may not. Um, and it is going to actually be a costsaving and it will also benefit I'm not going to get into the details, but it will also benefit the kids. So, that's all I'm going to say at this point. Yeah. I I yeah I think I I it just needs to be clearer like but nothing needs to be the thing is the thing is Pam and this is the issue that we have like I can't be clearer now because there's

025no decisions so the point is that people see things they start saying things they start rumoring about things they start putting things on social media so we will be clear transparent you know we'll give you all the information when we have it but you know right now that's where we are steps are there's no political there's nothing political or planning steps yes we are in the in the research and planning stages and you know and the other thing is um you know as far as a board and as far as Dr. Miller. Um, you know, I would say pretty consistently there's nothing that we don't do that doesn't benefit children, benefit the school, benefit the district to our best of our ability. So, I mean, I I can make that pledge and and stick by

026it. So, all right. Thank you. Thank you. And thanks for everything you do, Pam. Honestly. Um, anyone else? Hello, Jennifer Wall. How are you? Fine. Hello. All right. Um, I just wanted to touch base um because I have some concerns. Um, I used to be part of this district at one point as well. I still have a lot of uh teachers and friends who work here. We'll talk later. Um, I just wanted to bring up some concerns. There is to your point a lot of talk talk talk and chatter and social media going around about um the BOE moving or and the possible displacement of classrooms and students that may come into play with that. I think there's people have concerns. We they feel like they're not in the no and that can be upsetting.

027So I'm glad you guys are aware of that, but I think you also have to look at things from a parental point of view. Um, and I know I mean I don't know how many of you still have kids in the school system, but I know not all of you do. So, um, that's a concern. I really have concern about the number of teachers that are leaving. My son is in middle school and hasn't had social studies teachers since I think the end of September. Um, I'm thankful that he's doing well in his social studies class, but I know some of his friends are not, and I know the grades are not being inputed the way they're supposed to be. I understand this is an issue. I understand that P school is a pain in

028the butt. I actually worked on board a lot when I worked in this district, but I can tell you that the lack of finding substitutes or finding a permanent sub or a permanent teacher for my son is concerning for me. He loves school. He, unlike my other ones, is my smartest kid, which is exciting for me because I haven't had a smart kid yet. So, in spite of not having the teacher, he is doing well. But I know that there are concerns. Um, and I have concerns about that. he's not receiving the social studies curriculum. As I know, social studies greatly impacts English and as he moves up into high school, those two come into play and are intertwined. And can I just stop you? So, um, you know, we need to know this stuff.

029Absolutely. But I assume that you've already brought this to the school ad super I'm not super sorry administrator assistant principal or principal about grading and things like that. But have you talked to them about your concerns about the lack of stuff or social studies or I talked to them about getting the grades and and that my son was getting very frustrated when he for the second I'm sorry or the trime whatever they are he had one assignment and for the whole semester and it wasn't his best grade so he was upset. So I did talk to them I did not talk to them about finding a new teacher. I didn't think that was we might consider our pay scale or substitute teaching scale or something like that or how we're working power school to work

030those things. Um, I also wanted to bring up that, um, there's also rumors, I'm sure as you know, and I don't know how true they are, of that, um, teachers may or may not get cut as a result of some issues between the board of ed and the superintendent and fields being pushed between the parks and recreation committee and the board of ed and how that's going to work. I am I am a member of the park and recreation commission. Um and I know there in the past few years there's been ownership of fields going back and forth within the district. Um I am concerned about teachers being let go if the board of ed is going to become responsible for those fields. I I have big concerns with that as as a member of

031just community. And don't get me wrong, I don't I I love taking care of the fields and I love volunteering. Um, but I just want to make sure that I feel like people aren't playing nice in the sandbox and that's why we're having a lot of problems. Um, I'd also like to bring up that I think it's very important and I appreciated this in my last district as well as when they did it here. um as Alice training um if safety is such a big concern and we can't put the kids things in the honor roll thing um how come our our teachers haven't been newly trained on the Alice training um we've had a large number of students that sorry teachers that have come into the district um and Alice training I felt my

032experience with it was extremely positive and made me as a teacher feel empowered and I think it would be helpful if our teachers could feel the same way especially in a time when they don't feel empowered empowered um because morale is so poor. So um I appreciate the fact that you guys know a lot about what's going on behind the scenes and and have an understanding of how parents feel. Um and I understand social media can help us and hurt us at the same time. I know it's a double-edged sword. Um, but I think people have real concerns and that's kind of where it's coming out. So, if I as I sit here, if I tell you and I tell the parents and I tell people who are listening that there is no conflict between

033the board of education and the town then is that because there is no conflict and we have people have you know contacted the superintendent and he has told them that there's no conflict. So, I'm not sure what else we can say except to tell you that there is no conflict between George Temple and the Board of Education or the M municipalities and the board of education. So, that you can take that for what it's worth. Um, I guess we'll find out, right? No, there's nothing to find out. There's nothing end up being an issue. It's going to end up coming out like Okay. Well, we're going to end up having problems with teachers. That's my understanding. Um, well, I Yes. Go ahead. Well, I'll just say one more thing. The fields are nobody. The fields

034are owned by the town. So there's no you don't have a back and forth of who owns the fields or I mean that's the fields are all owned by the town just like all of the buildings are owned by the town and then it's a matter of who is going to maintain them or who is going to. So the board of education pays for the utilities, the plowing and everything for our schools. So then it's really just a matter of when you think about it um it's all coming out of the same bucket. So whether parks and wreck takes care of the field or the board of education takes care of the field you know that's a budget issue. So you know so that's where we are as far as that's concerned. Um go ahead

035Deb are on the the issue that you raised about staffing and all of that. Our biggest problem is going to be what number comes back from the board of finance, right? Regardless of the fields because we can sit here and we we do it all every year. We put forth a budget that meets the needs of what we need to do in this town and then we get cut. We get we get, you know, 1% 2%. It's never enough to be able to move us forward. Happens every district. It's all I know. Not every district. It happens here all the time. So when it comes time to have all these town meetings, the board of finance meetings is when people should be paying attention about what's going to happen because once we vote on the

03628th on our budget, there's nothing that we can do. It goes to the board of finance. They make those decisions. We end up by having to fix and make changes based on what they do. They don't hear from the community to say, you know what, this is what we want. This is this is important to us. You need to, you know, respect the board of education's budget or give them some portion of what they're asking for that's greater than 1%. Then then we're never going to get ahead. So that's has nothing anything with dollar amounts is more about our basic budget, not necessarily the fields. I appreciate that. I I I understand. And um Dr. Miller isn't here because he's not feeling well, but um he said that he personally um revised the Alice training

037with new teachers during their orientation session in August. So um what about the uh previous teachers? Is there I I I can't I'm just telling you. So, you know, maybe you know, he's listening, so I'm sure he'll he'll get back to you and um you know, can tell you, but um it it seemed to you seem to be thinking that no one's been doing anything with Alice. I I don't know if you have specific people who are saying they haven't been trained, but you know, it's it's something that is still being done and orientation and teachers are now re renewing and you know, I mean, I I'm not sure. I can't speak to that because I just don't know. Well, that's good. I I I appreciate hearing that because I do think it empowers teachers,

038helps them get a better feeling of safety. Absolutely. And and it it you know it was a huge investment to do that so it shouldn't go to the wayside. Exactly. Okay. Thanks, Jen. Anybody else like to address the board? [Music] I'm sorry I didn't hear you last. Brushy, are you Oh, brushy. Brushy. Okay, thank you. So, I'm speaking to you today not only as a as a mom of a middle school child, but I've also been an educator for 21 years. So, I am concerned with the way I Ready learning is being utilized in the middle school. The purpose of I Ready is to provide personalized instruction and support the needs of all learners. I Ready learning allows for teachers to plan instruction, set goals with students, and differentiate for students based on their individual

039needs. However, this is not how it is being used in Oxford. Instead, students are required to complete 30 minutes of math and 30 minutes of reading a week for homework on top of their other homework assignments. Students are not just required to do sorry student just required to do 30 minutes each week, but they must finish a lesson in each subject. This could take a child more than 30 minutes to complete, adding even more time to his or her homework. Students receive an A if they complete it or an F if they don't. These assignments are not being used by teachers to plan instruction, nor are they helping to differentiate work in the classroom for students. When I asked the principal about the purpose of completing these assignments for homework, I was told it was

040for students to increase their personal growth and achievement. My child has not increased her personal growth or achievement by doing these assignments. Instead, she has been stressed out at home over having the added homework and has watched her IA scores go down. My child is not a student who struggles. However, if she were, she should be receiving intervention services, not being thrown on a computer for an extra hour a week. That isn't the best method to increase personal growth and achievement. If you want students to complete lessons on I Ready, they should be given time in school to complete them. This way, teachers can use the data to differentiate and plan instruction, which is the goal of I Ready. I also think it's important to look at the current homework policy. Um, it's very vague

041and it needs to be uniform. So one team in sixth grade can have a ton of homework while the other team in sixth grade has no homework. So I know that in my district where I teach, we have a guideline that states the amount of minutes each homework should have. So first grade should have this many minutes, second grade should have 20 minutes a night and so forth. So I think it would be very beneficial to all of the children in Oxford to look at that policy and make it more uniform and more specific. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. What district do you work work in so we can copy? We like their policy. They do. We've we've used a couple. So, we we like them very much. Thank you. Anybody else

042like to speak to the board? Hearing none, we can move on. Get my Okay. Audience of citizens, is there any board correspondence or communication? None at this time. Thank you, Mike. Um, so we have our midyear reports. So, um, this says MS, but I think that's goes. So, um, we should have should amended that. So, go ahead, Heath, you're up. [Music] Heath, can you just I know, but can you just I didn't hear what you said. I said I understand there's concerns. [Music] Okay. Um, but that being said, I share a little bit of information. Gotcha. Okay. Great. Thank. Sure. I got your back. So, um I guess I guess guess the first thing is that most of my report and I believe Rachel's report will focus on uh our most recent winter I Ready

043uh administration and in comparison to our fall results. Uh we are thankful uh to the board of ed and central office for continuing to provide us this resource. Um, we will touch briefly or I will touch briefly on a few other items that are related to the go school improvement plan. Can you talk into the microphone? People on online can't hear you. So, it's for just closer. Yeah. Am I good here? It's like I said, it's it's more for the owl. Okay. People. So, u I'm looking to spend 15 minutes going through the report that you have in front of you. Uh the first page is um just kind of technical. You can see that our enrollment uh is stable and consistent. Uh there's also a copy of our most recent student activity account for

044your consideration. Uh and if you turn to page two, uh there's a laundry list of um events and things that have been happening at the school. Um basically if you look down through there you'll see that there's a continued return to normaly uh a increase in celebrations and social activities. Um I also want to point out that there's some efforts when it comes to the business end of things. uh when we start thinking about how to refine and get back on track with our pacing guides, our assessment calendars, uh how we're delivering efficiently and effectively our support services, uh and attempting to provide differentiation for all learners, whether they're challenged learners, uh high achievers, uh or anywhere in between. So, that kind of summarizes what is in the first two pages. I'm not going to

045read it for you bullet by bullet. Um, but if there's any questions with regard to the items on those first two pages, I'm open to that at this time. I don't think so. Okay. So, I just want to um talk about the diagnostic test just for a minute. Uh, I just want everybody to understand the test is always whether we administer in the fall, the winter, the spring, it is always based upon endofear results. So yes, we are asking fourth graders at the beginning of fourth grade to take a test that's going to measure their proficiency against the standards at fourth grade. So I just want to make sure that everybody understands that the test is untimed. Say that again. Can I ask because that's been clarified to us on many occasions and we get

046a different answer every time we go for clarification that those at least from the last time I was updated on how it works. it's at that moment in time, not where they need to be at the end of the year. So, if you're saying that it's it's different, you know, it it'd be nice to just collectively get a an update on on this I Ready because we were told it's measuring at that moment in time across the board like let's say across the nation, the state and so on that it wasn't endofear expectations. So, it's a it's a yes and yes answer. Um, so the the third part of it that um I I said it was on time. The third bullet after that is that it's computer adaptive, right? So a student goes in,

047they answer the first couple of questions, it determines is can they stay on grade level type questions? Do they need to do the does the rigor need to be lower or increased? And it go they go through the test and it keeps wavering. They come out with a rating as to are they at grade level and above or above grade level? Are they within a year of grade level, two years of grade level, three years of grade level? So the test adapts, but the end result basically says, yeah, they're in the grade level ballpark or they're below or they're above. So the answer the answer to your question is the expectations to be at grade level are consistent and end of the year. Bottom line is if the kid can't get there, they or the

048student can't get there, they will um be rated at below grade level, two grade levels below or three grade grade levels below. The expectation is by the end of the year they take that test for the final time the computer adaptability takes place and that's where we want to see kids performing at grade level. And what what you'll find is if you look at the data uh across time is you'll find it at the beginning of the year that you'll have approximately a third of your students performing uh at grade level, a third of your students performing a grade level below and a third of your students performing at those two and three grade levels below. A third, a third, a third seems to be uh the number. Even when you look at ESPback scores,

049a third of our population is above grade level, third is at and a third is below. So if you think about it, a third, third, third, that's kind of where we start the year. By the time we get to the midyear or the winter, we're looking to be more 50 to 66% halfway to 2/3 of students at grade level. And then at the end of the year, we're looking for as big a number as possible. Connect. I know we're not at the bar charts and all that yet, but looking at the uh the amount of improve I never seen anything improve so much from fall to winter. Okay. I mean, you know, it's 2% to 47% or above grade. You know, I've read and read and read I Ready over everything I can on the

050internet. I have to agree with the parents that in theory it seems to be an ideal way that they engrade and teach. But these reports are like to me unbelievable. I mean after we went we just had three parents say my kids overdone and his scores just went down and he was in the upper part and these all say Eureka we made it. We're doing fine. I don't believe it. and and and this is slicing and dicing everything so finely that no one can understand exactly if if Mike can't figure out when it's when is it valid because every time we talk to you it's valid at another point in time there's Victor I I'd like to go through the report and show you some of the successes that I is attached to uh because

051it's not me it's not anybody in the district it's the state of Connecticut standards that are determining the levels of success when it comes to student achievement and growth. Yeah. You know, I I understand that the state of Connecticut is like CO. It's a shield that we always hide behind. We got new courses coming down and new criterias coming down that probably won't have money and funding in a year from now. And it's it's just tiring to hear. It was COVID. Now it's the state. Well, the state is worse than CO. Go on. Thank you. Question. I ready is is um not as right. So the state the state doesn't tell districts. I'm asking I'm assuming they don't tell districts what um assessment to use in order to measure your students because we used to

052have star now we have it ready. [Music] So And I know I think we're waiting to see what the cor I think people are working on to see what the correlation is. But so when you say the state you don't mean that the state is telling us to use no I mean no matter whether it was map or star it's part of the or I no I was going to say um sorry let me unmove. So, um, you know, I happen to be talking to a Chris from, uh, the performance office. Sorry, can you hear me? Okay, bad throat day. Um and um so they've updated the 2016 uh accountability guide and um they talk about the ways that um scores are to be reported the way that USBAC and to some degree I Ready

053um the use of the scale scores and how those are uh related to standard error of measurement. And then they talk about the need to um um make sure that we're talking about scaled scores, but um you know, I'm going to let Keith talk and then I do have a a few questions. I just wanted to say that when um um Beck was talking about the state. Okay. Thank you. Go ahead. So, just a little context for the information we're going to look at. Uh starting on page three and four, uh you're going to see bar graphs uh with regard to I already scores that go from left to right. Uh the two left bars are students that are at significant intervention levels two or three years below. Uh the middle bar uh set of

054bars is students who are within one year and the right two bars are students who are in the ballpark of being at grade level or above grade level. Uh we're going to talk a little bit about growth. uh you're going to hear the term typical growth and basically that's looking at a student who has a particular score. So let's say you've got a fourth grader that's got a scale score of 400. They compare every single student in the nation in fourth grade that got a scaled score of 400 and they determined uh what the 50% 50th percentile is. So if a student makes more than 50 or more uh the amount of growth than 50% or more of the students in the nation that got a 400 in fourth grade, they're considered to have met

055their uh typical growth. They also give us a stretch growth uh where they're saying no not not better than 50% or more but better than 80% or more. So when we're reporting out we're talking about the amount of growth that they're making compared to like peers like scale scores across the nation. So, I just want to kind of clarify what that's looking at. Um, we're going to talk about usage a little bit and you've heard uh middle school talking about requirements per week of 30 minutes. I Ready uh recommends suggests in order for their learning pathways to be successful that students uh average 45 minutes in math and 45 minutes in reading. Uh what I will say is is that we uh are looking for students to utilize that time uh in the classroom during

056classroom based centers that may be part of the curriculum. Maybe it's during time they finished something and they can do some individual practice and maybe it's some time at home but it is not tied to uh homework and it's not tied to grades etc. We're trying to find ways to meet that 45 minutes in a way that makes the most sense. It's not the end all beall. Um we're going to if you you take a look at the pages three and four you can kind of see our building level results uh in reading and math. Uh the thing that I would point out there that I didn't spell out in uh text is if you look at the cohort comparison which is the multicolored graphs at the bottom of page three and bottom of page

057four. Uh that's looking at last year's second graders who are now this year's third graders. How did they do in second grade last year? How did they do in in third grade this year? So, in reading, uh, just doing the math quickly, our third graders improved by 23% of students at at and above grade level. Our fourth graders went down 17% and our fifth graders went up 11. So, I'm just trying to demonstrate that we can track growth across time for the same group of kids. And it's not the exact same group. You got a student that moves in or moves out, etc. If you look at the Before, I'm sorry. Before you go to the next page, can I ask a couple of questions? While you're you're on page three, right? I saw you

058flip go to four or Yeah, I was just going to comment on math. Um those same percentages are there and I can Thank you. And um I appreciate that. Um in the following pages, both of you reported on the domains. So, thanks for that. So, one of the things that jumped out at me, and I'm not a math major, believe me, is um I I do see some progress according to the uh bar bar graph, right? And um but it was concerning to me that this bar graph says also although it wasn't listed at the bottom that 35% of the of our students in your in the elementary school are one to three grade levels below. Um and that I found concerning. And then when I looked at it in more detail, um it seems

059like we have the same um one to three or 4% three I think was about the average that are still hanging at the bottom as time goes on. And then um the folks at the top are still hanging on. Um and I think that where I saw the most growth was the middle um of the um bell curve as you put it. And um so I'm concerned that we have the top top, you know, and I don't know the answer to this. You can a answer it after. Um I hope that those kids that um by this report have already met their stretch goals for the end of the year and even their regular goals for the end of the year by this testing. Um that we're offering them some kind of um challenge to

060keep them moving. And on the other end of the spectrum, our kiddos that are well below that that percentage keeps, you know, hanging on. And I tried really hard to track it from, you know, when the kids were in the fall and then last year as much as I could find. Um, we just seem to have that three or maybe 4% that are hanging down the bottom, one to three grade levels below. And then um and it's not just Heath. I'm I'm talking to both because I I will not um you know bug both of you, but you can both jump in at any point in time. Um so I find that a bit concerning. I realize it's only midyear. Um but it is very concerning to me that we still have midyear um 35%

061of our kids in reading that are one to three grade levels below. Um, and again, the top top and those that are struggling the most, it when I looked at things over time, um, those kiddos seem to be top top staying there, you know, most struggling staying there. Um, and I I kind of found the same thing on the map. I know you didn't go there yet, but I'm going to ask all my questions and then I will try not to interrupt you again. But um when um I was looking for these baselines um for instance their scores in the fall, I did find some of them in Dorothy Potter's report. Um but there I I'm sorry I had a really hard time looking at full um grade three um say math and reading in

062the initial data report from October 22 and then looking at this information and trying to figure out um what what's the baseline here with regard to you know these kids started out in the fall. Um, I'll just give you an example. So, in the October report, the math cohort grade three, um, so if you look at fall 2022, um, it correlates nicely with yours, Heath, the 2%, etc. Um, but then, um, there was a one below of 58%. But when I looked at yours, and you know what, redirect me if I'm looking at the wrong thing, please. Um I see in that case um where it says one um level uh sorry one grade below um the percentages just don't align. For instance, like I said, fall, according to the big data report from Dorothy,

063um 58% were one below in the fall. And then when I looked over here at your nice bar bar graph, um one grade level below was um 34%. So, I'm trying to figure out, you know, um how this tracks across time, but I I couldn't make the numbers align. And to that end, just as a comment to the board in general, I went through every single presentation from the very first of September to the present date and I tried to find and maybe Deb knows the information. Um and I looked in the share drive. I looked everywhere. I tried to find information for instance when you were talking about um having uh met their um target growth. I'm assuming and maybe you're talking about something different but I'm assuming you're talking about where they calculate

064um what the expected growth is for each student based on standard error of measurement and their initial performance and so forth. Um maybe you're talking about something else and you can let me know that. I just had this other question beyond the um the uh sorry goes to the other page for your math at beg pardon but when I was adding up the percentiles again guys I'm not a math person so all you math wizes jump in and uh fix my calculations at any point in time so when I added up the percent across the board in the blue bars um they equaled 101% when I added up the green bars. It added up to 99%. I'm just looking at the reading your whole um that's probably rounding. That's probably um well I'd be interested

065to see because you know I went out to the I Ready site and I tried to look it up and so forth and um I could not um find information about rounding and and how they generated their data. And maybe you know to your point Mike you know when you aggregate the scores you you do lose a lot of information and and granted this is you know aggregate for the school and um so maybe that's somewhat different than um the initial grade level reports and I could certainly flip to that and it be better correlation but um so I'd be interested in those several things um you know what what are we doing for are 35% of our kids um in your well by this report in your school that are one to three grade

066levels below in reading as of now not you know earlier um you know and we know there's some you know summer regression um and then the kids at the top top um you know what are we doing to meet their needs if they are already at their stretch level um you know back in my ancient days we used to call it flexible grouping I know that term is coming back and vote a bit but and I know that you know teaching in general we're asked to do more with less and I appreciate that but you know and you don't have to answer that question today but I would be very interested to know um what are we doing for those ends and um then the last question is uh I don't know where all of

067the baseline is there a place that has the whole building um baselines that I missed in the October 22 report. Uh because I I don't see that. I also uh don't see Sorry, it went Let me turn the page. Sorry. I'm just wondering because you you've given a lot of him a lot of questions. I probably can't remember half of them. So, do you want to just let him get through a little more of the report? Yeah, because I don't want to butt in again. No, but let's we'll get through the report and then just keep that one. Yep. Okay. Thanks, Sha. Go ahead. There's a lot in there. Sorry, I was realizing to put me back on track that I feel comfortable with. Um, number one is as you pointed out, it is mid

068year. Uh, and we do expect these percentages in the spring, that third bar graph to see yet again that progression of kids, more kids at grade level, less kids at at intervention levels. Um, I'm going to get to a part in the report where we start talking about differentiation of instruction for struggling learners as well as those enrichment kids. One of the misconceptions that I would put out there, I'm not sure that this is what you meant, but just because a student's a high performer doesn't mean that we have lower expectations for their growth. So if we have a student that's at above grade level, we are expecting to provide instruction and exposure to content that's going to help that student grow just as much as a student who's at grade level or who is

069uh below grade level. So that it's I agree with the sauce. It's it's in here. I'll get to that that part of it. Um with regard to overall let me just say this. I Ready has built-in data reporting systems. So I we can walk into any year, any administration and see whole building data, grade level data, classroom teacher data, individual student data. We can pull that in any way, shape, or form. It sounds like it wasn't in the October report, but the blue bars in these graphs uh on pages three and four are that data. It's the baseline data from the fall, but may or may not have been in your October report. I'm I'm not sure. Okay. think the 99 versus 101 versus 100. It's one of those things when you pull up the

070data report, it does its own little calculation of round up, round down, and that kind of thing, and that's what you get. So, I'm whatever. So, um, so to get back on track, I just wanted to share the cohort data with you so that you can see that in all cases, but one, we're staying the same or improving in reading and math across the board. So again in reading our second and fifth our our our last year's second now third and last year's fourth now fifth have increased significantly 10th percentage points uh I'm sorry 11 percentage points and 23 percentage points. Uh in reading uh we did go down in fourth grade. Stay tuned on that one. I don't think that's going to be the case in the spring. Uh in math um our second

071to third uh stayed the same at 0% increase or decrease. They went up in fourth uh unlike reading 26 percentage points and they went up in third reading in math by 12 percentage points. So our cohort data is increasing as they go through our grade levels. They are improving with regard to performing at grade level at or above grade level. So uh I'm going to move on from the um whole building data and I'm going to jump into the um grade level data. So I'm now on pages five and six looking at grade three. So if you look at grade three and reading, you can see that 72% are demonstrating that they're achieving at or above grade level. This is up from 55% in the fall. Back to Shel's point, 9% of these students are

072are performing at significant intervention levels, meaning um two and three grade levels below, but that's down from 19%. I anticipate both of those numbers are going going to go in the right direction and we have 55% of our students at this point in time meeting their typical growth, 27% uh meeting their stretch growth in reading. Down at the bottom um you can see the areas of focus um that we're going to be working on in third grade. You know, we're going to be looking at helping students uh develop perspective taking, the author's perspective, their own perspective, perspective of characters, uh point of view. Um moving to grade three math. Um you can see the the bar graph for yourself. 45% of students are now demonstrating that they achieve at or above grade level. That's up

073from 10. Uh 12% are performing at significant intervention levels. That's down from 27. And we've got 30% of our students already meeting typical growth, 6% meeting stretch growth in math. I'm sorry. Did I just give you I just gave you the math. Page six. So, moving to grade four. Sorry about that. uh grade four and reading uh 61% students are demonstrating grade level up from 37 5% um are performing below down from 10 54% are meeting growth targets math 55% students are demonstrating that they're achieving at or above we're down to 7% performing at significant intervention levels and 30% % are are meeting typical growth. I'm going through this quickly because you can read the numbers for yourself, etc. So, if you want me to slow down or you want to pause on any of

074it, great. Um, grade five, uh, you'll see 67% uh, students are already achieving at grade level in reading, 10% still at significant intervention, and 62% have met targeted growth, 32% there um, have met stretch growth. with grade math 65% are demonstrating at grade level 6% uh intervention uh 44% meeting growth you're in great Can I just ask going back to one of the parents here is that her son I think it was her son was doing very well in math and he's he's above the level of the math and he's learning algebra at home and so I just been reading over here that I read is, "Oh, you can go above the thing and you can go home and look at the tube and and learn the next level and with student or teacher help."

075Doesn't sound like he's getting stu or teacher help and he's learning algebra around his home and he feels frustrated that he's above the level. Wait a minute. He's just above the level that you just said, "Oh, we can handle that. We encourage everybody to be up above above the bar." And they and they fall off a cliff personally. they feel like, hey, and then his grades go down, you know, there's there's a disconnect here. Yeah. I guess to address that since it's come up twice now, I'm going to jump Okay, over pages 11 and 12, I want to go to the part in the sauce where it's in there. Um, so if you go to page 13 with me for a minute, one of our school improvement plan goals is to uh implement uh our

076support services in an effective and efficient way. So what you see here on page 13 is a table and one of the things that we are fortunate to have developed through efficient scheduling and concerted effort equals desired results is the ability to provide enrichment experiences with a teacher uh in the areas of reading and math. So it's not about going home and trying to figure out how to do eighth grade algebra in sixth grade. It's about meeting with our math coach one or two times a week to say, "Hey, let me introduce you to something." Maybe that's algebra, maybe it's geometry, maybe it's, you know, advanced fractions and decimals. So, we are working with students who are capable of handling uh curriculum and content that's above grade level in person, small group. And then I

077Ready is meant to be a support. So they then have the tools and the readiness to go on I Ready in their pathways and when a question comes up about eighth grade algebra. Oh, Mr. Latina helped me with that. I I think I can figure this out or I can't figure this out. I'm going to see Mr. Latina tomorrow. Maybe you can help me figure out how to do this. So we're providing enrichment experiences in a very creative way uh to the degree possible. And we're doing that in reading as well. We're taking students who are at above grade level and we're bringing them together um not in the same classroom but having talk experiences with literature that's significantly above their their grade level. So, you know, when we're talking about support services and we're

078thinking about reading specialists and math coaches and how can the classroom teacher address some of this stuff, uh on the right side of the bell curve, we're providing those experiences the same way on the left side of the bell curve to Shel's point. What about those 35% of kids who aren't there yet? That that 35% of kids is re are receiving special education services or early intervention services of some sort. Again, I go back to a third, a third, a third, right? We got a third of our kids who can handle above grade level curriculum. You got a third of it. Grade level curriculum is the sweet spot. You got a third of them that need some type of individualized support to help them get there. One of the things that's really fun to watch

079when you look at our I Ready data, the growth results are high and they're equal across that that continuum. Our lower achieving kids are making high levels of growth the same way our grade level kids are the same way our enrichment kids are. So this table right here where it talks about the number of enrichment kids, it also talks about the number of kids who are receiving SRBI services. What table Heath? What table are you talking about? 13. Oh, 13. Okay. 13. Okay. So, it it's talking about how we're servicing kids and if they need more services, do we move them to to more intense services? If they're ready to fly, do we dismiss them or or give them less services? Um, this is a very important part of our ability to do what we're

080doing on these I assessments. So, I hope I came back and and answered some of your questions. you did answer some of the intervention. I would just say I wouldn't consider um 40 or 50% to be a third. You know, it looks like a skewed bell curve, but um you know, we'll see what your um intervention accomplishes. It just bothers me when you know, we've got three or 4% and they start out that way in kindergarten and you know, through whatever best efforts, there they are years later. So that's the only reason I bring that up and preaching of the choir. I'm trying to figure out how to address the needs of all kids across across the continuum. Um if I can go back to page 11 now um you've seen bits and pieces in

081newspapers or uh Dr. Miller's given you some information with regard to our most recent ESPback results which uh students took the ESPback last spring and they reinstituted this concept of school performance index and basically they they pull a whole bunch of data in a bunch of different ways to determine how schools are doing in comparison to other schools. So um there's really six things that are important with when you when you think about that. Number one is uh what category is a school in? And categories are based upon if you receive 85 out of 100 points. The state looks at you and says you're doing an awesome job. You're category one. If it's between, I think 60 and 85, the state looks at you and says, "You're doing a great job. You still got a

082little little room to go. You're category two." And then it goes down there from three to four or five. We're category two. We missed category one by.7 84.3 and that's not district that's per school. That's per school. Okay, thank you. So that's the first thing to think about. Uh the second thing to think about is the state takes your achievement numbers. So they look at science, reading, and math and they look at them for all the students in your school. So science, reading, math. So there's three three different numbers. And then they say, "Okay, well, what about your high needs students?" And high needs students are your special education population, your free and reduced lunch population, and your uh English language learner population. How are they doing? Because if your whole need your whole population

083is doing significantly better than your high need population, you're not servicing kids to the degree you should be. So um it adds all that together in some sort of formula and it says across all content areas across all these groups how are you doing compared to other group other schools in the state. Our number on that was in the top 10% of schools in the state. Good job. Right. So that that that's number two. The other four are not achievement categories. They're growth categories. And what they're looking for there is if we look at the average growth across your school, right? We took all 350 kids and we determined how what percentage of growth on average that they meant. So one kid meant 100% of their growth, one kid meant 80% of their growth, one

084student made 120% of growth, the average is 100. If it was 80 90 and 100, the average is 90. For whole school growth in math, top 10%. Take that high needs group that I described, special ed, uh, free and reduced lunch and English language learners. Growth for that group in math, top 10%. Growth for that group in reading, top 10%. You may want to venture to guess why we didn't get the one category high growth reading for all students. 26 of 1%. There's a lot of good news in there. And I guess the what you know back to somebody's point I think Stephanie was how do we compare and look at I Ready data is it a predictor or is there a correlation uh with ESPback data? I don't have a scientific answer for you

085on that. But what I can tell you is that our I Ready results this winter in comparison to last winter are on par with or better than So that's what I have to go on at this point in time. We're going to get to do a second comparison this spring when we administer the SBA again and we administer i again. And over the course of maybe two more years, we'll have a solid handle on is this does this have a predictive value, etc. But all I can all I can tell you right now, I'm not touching the money. Not going to be here to touch the money, but we're on track to have another reasonable year when we're comparing ourselves to state standards. And I know how you feel about state expectations. You can see

086on page 12 some of the things that I feel contributed to that. And it goes back to some of the stuff we already talked about. It's about the differentiation of instruction, the enrichment, the special ed, the early intervention, the schedules, the pacing that it's all that whole ball of wax. So to try to put your finger on, oh that works or that's what made it happen or that's what it's not. It's really the collective uh implementation of all that stuff. And I'll be the first one to tell you growth mindset, continuous improvement, that's what we're all about. We still have room to grow, but we also need to keep doing the things that we think are working well. Would you be able to send to Stephanie um so that we can all look at it?

087the baseline um you know the information that you said pointed out wasn't probably in the October 2022 um baselines that you drew upon for your um whole building aggregate scores and maybe send that over if that's all right with you Stephanie. Yeah, I can take print out right from I already so you know that I'm not uh Yeah. No, I know you making things up. Okay. Yeah, that'd be great. Um I like I said I just remain concerned about the uh I can I can do that. That means sometimes it's 45 or more um students um one to three grade levels below. Okay, I'll get that to you. Hey, I just wanted to on page 11 there was one other part of goal one that's data driven and it has to do with absenteeism. Um

088we had 24 students who were considered chronically absent which means they were absent more than 10% of the school year or 18 days uh last year. So we missed that checkbox on the school performance index uh to the degree that we could the state um has an expectation it'll be less than 5%. So we were at like 7%. Remember I was telling you about category one we missed it by seven. That's attendance. That's where that it existed otherware other other places. But last year was the first year in my career that we ever didn't meet the less than 5% goal. So it just tells you the times that we're in coming out of pandemic. And actually right now we're struggling even more because now it's not only COVID, it's common colds and the flu and

089all that kind of stuff. So we've got a lot of legit other absences besides just CO absences. So, uh, chronic absenteeism is something that we're trying to put a big dent in, but you have to be conscientious of, do you really want kids coming to school sick? So, it's a double sword. Yeah. The um, I would assume that chronic absenteeism is above and beyond. I mean, kids have been getting sick since kids have been on Earth. So, you know, it's the, you know, we don't want kids coming in sick, but it's the kids that then, you know, just don't feel like coming in or the parents feel like keeping them home. And that's where you go from normal absenteeism to right, you know, to an issue. So, yeah, I I agree with you. Uh, I'm

090just going to finish up the last page, page 14. Nothing rocket science or write home about here. We're on track with regard to um staff evaluations. Staff are engaged in what we're calling instructional rounds where they're actually going into each other's classrooms and providing affirmations and I wonder statements. Uh and most uh teachers are going up a grade level or down a grade level to kind of see what's before and after. Uh so that's been going well. Uh communication, you know, the hawk talk, you see that in the OPS news probably every every weekend. And so we're trying to keep those lines of communication open. Um and then the final one is with regard to during the pandemic it was a lot about the emotional well-being of staff and students etc. Uh there was some

091permissiveness if I can use that word um that went along with that. So, we've returned to the PBIS um positive behavior intervention support program to reward and support positive behaviors as opposed to the emotional element of things. Uh in addition to this, the social uh interaction of things. So, we're we're using a combination um and we're seeing the dividends in the sense that our student behaviors uh expected versus unexpected are coming back more into alignment that we saw before. uh before the pandemic. Great. I'm sorry. Yeah, that's all right. Were there any other questions for Heath in regard to this report? I just want to say congratulations on the distinction. I mean, it it is an accomplishment and it's a it's your accomplishment. It's your team's accomplishment. So, yeah. One of the things I hope

092that people pick up on is it's really a K5 endeavor. Um we get kids coming in with they're highly capable. So we're very appreciative of our friends down the street. Uh it's also been supported with various initiatives and funding and resources and patience and understanding of central office the board of education. So, this is our recognition and I see it as a a pivot point for our district to get back on track with regard to focusing on what we've always wanted to focus on, which is student growth and achievement. So, absolutely, kudos to everybody. Yep. Thank you, Heath. Thank you. You can say all that plus a bag of chips. So, it's actually very nice to have to go second. Um, so if you turn to page two, uh, we do start with our school

093student enrollment. As you can see, we've been very consistent from September through February. Um, went from 400 to 402, but as you can see, some of the grade levels, um, they have either increased, decreased. Our biggest increase overall right now is currently in preschool. As you know, we accept birth to three students. So anytime a child is at that age where they're exiting out of berser 3, it is our district's responsibility to then um evaluate and or accept the students into our preschool program. So that's our biggest um change. So overall, it's been a pretty steady enrollment thus far. Um our student activity report certainly it's self-explanatory. Our one main deposit was from PTO. They are funding amazing hero art. I'm sure some of you are familiar with that where we have Rob Satcom. Um

094he is worldrenowned. He comes and he does a wonderful presentation and he does this painting where the kids are just amazed. Staff are amazed. We actually had him here a few years ago with with PTO um for families to come and he's just outstanding. Don't have the exact date, but I do encourage if anyone happens to be home and they want to come see the show, it really is amazing. So that's really exciting. So that's our basically our student activity report. um QFS overall update what's going well. I did include from our November report just so you have it in one place. Those are student and staff successes and accomplishments that I had actually staff involvement in. So that was from November. So that was reported out to last time. But if you turn to

095page four, um staff had a participation in writing some of their successes and accomplishments that they felt were really important to share with all of you. Um, and again, you can certainly read all of them, but there's lots of wonderful things bringing the community together, bringing families and parents back into our school buildings. We've been obviously the past several years, we have not had that, so it's nice to have everyone back into the building and things are back to normal. Our biggest most recent awesome opportunity was to do the Oxford PTO, which I feel I should mention to all of you. We had our PTO glow run, all three schools, K through8 with an outstanding profit of $55,90. So, kudos to everyone that participated, everyone, you know, Dr. Miller who brought it on, PTO, and

096all of you. Thank you for your support. That's huge. Um, shocking. We thought it was 15,000. That was our ultimate goal. And it just kept growing and growing and growing. Um, families reached out. We went for I think it was 35 different states, three countries. We had 82% registration participation and then 74% of our families K through actually donated in some way. But all students just were participating involved. It was a wonderful week. And the glow run, I'm not sure if my staff or if the students had more fun, but it was remarkable. Remarkable. So, we were really happy to participate in that and it's such a huge success for the community just to bring everybody together. So, it was really outstanding. So, thank you to all that were involved. Rachel, I just have a

097quick question. Um, for the SEAL lessons in all second grade classrooms, it says that the social worker is doing that. Yes. Um, where are these lessons coming from? Is it part of a curriculum? Is it Um, some of them are just some ruler activities. Um, there has been a program called Gizmo that was adopted by the special ed department. um called Gizmo, just so you're aware of that. But others are just regular SEAL lessons that the classroom teacher and the school social worker are working through. Um coping strategies, things that you can do if you're upset, what are some strategies you can use? Um there's some cool down centers in some of the classrooms. Yeah, just a variety of strategies. But one of the programs is called Gizmo and that was purchased by the special

098ed department. So is that a computer? I assume it's a computer program. Activities. It's not computer. Okay. So, it's so activities. It's kind of self-directed by the social worker in conjunction with the teacher. Yes. Yes. The teachers also went through just got some knowledge and what went through. I think it was a one day training just to get an idea of what it is. Um but it's overseen by the social worker called Gizmo and it it only second grade classrooms at this point have the Gizmo training. Yes. But the social worker is going into some first grade classrooms working on coping strategies and just delivering some social emotional activity lessons in the classroom and the teachers obviously present as well. Right. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. Some upcoming events. So this current week is our

099February fun week. So yesterday was PJ day. So we did have an incentive if we met booster thon um 50% registration the students would be able to participate in PJ day. So that was yesterday. Today was pink red love for live. So for our little friend at Quaker Farms, um we donated a dollar and we raised today just at Quaker alone, we raised $562. We partnered with um Great Oak Middle School. They had asked us to join in. We got approval from Dr. Miller. So just at Quaker, we raised $562 for it. And actually the money is going to something called Circle of Care. It's a program that actually will pay for any outstanding bills that might take place. you know, the month that Liv was um in the hospital that this company actually or

100this program actually paid for the the family's first month mortgage while she was wonderful. So, it's a wonderful program. So, um that was exciting. Tomorrow we have our game day which is kids get to bring board games to school and we get to play school bingo and that was also an incentive for the booster thon depending on the participation. So that was an overarching we met that goal. We got to have a big schoolwide um activity. So we chose game day. Um and kids were like, "Can we bring electronics?" And that was clearly a no in my letter. Um so they're actually going to participate in some type of a board game. And then we're going to do a whole school bingo. So that's super exciting. Thursday, we have one of our character ed assemblies

101for the month of February focusing on kindness. And Friday again we're doing um all students and staff are invited to wear blue called Sea of Blue for the Burns family. So obviously as you know there was a devastating fire in Oxford and as part of that community partnership we really wanted to do something along with that was actually a parent idea we could do something we came up with a sea of blue for the Burns family and we are doing that on Friday. So okay with approval from Dr. Miller that's going to go off on Friday. So we're looking forward to those fun activities. Then you can just see some of the other upcoming events including um our districtwide art show, conferences, bookkeep, a bunch of field trips, all of our end of the year

102activities. So again, looking back and saying, "Wow, we we didn't get to do half of these things over the past several years." So this is really, really exciting. Um and it's a celebration. Um some areas of growth that we had mentioned listed, attendance issues. I'll get into more of that in a little while. Um some behavioral issues. We're definitely seeing an influx of behavioral issues. probably the two most unstructured times which is the bus and so obviously we're working on that. Um, school safety, I know that was mentioned. So, you know, school safety staff obviously are looking for some of that training. Um, again, we're looking Are you talking about Alice training? Alice training. Okay. The science of reading and the I Ready and use of data. So, those are just Can also um for

103the Alice training, they're looking for a refresher course because everybody should have been trained. I I don't know what happens after you're trained with Alice. Do they have then a re a review to be reertified? So I believe that all staff certifications have lapsed. So we need that research. It's a reert. Okay. And does that usually happen on like a PD day or how could Yes. Okay. So So we're just looking for I believe staff are just looking to get that training updated. And then again the new staff I'm not sure if they have been fully trained. I was not aware new staff. Dr. Miller said that he did it in orientation but yeah I don't know about the followup. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. Looking at the I Ready results. Um, I think we

104talked a lot about that, so I don't want to spend an enormous amount of time. Keith did such a fabulous job explaining all of that. Um, the numbers are here. They look at it. Obviously, the graphs are exactly like he obviously our numbers are certainly different. Um, just remember that kindergarteners um are not part of the overall yet because again the kindergarters are just taking their their test. this is their first time whereas other students in first and second grade they have taken their their assessments um back in September October. So looking at QFS reading building growth and achievement um you can see obviously the graphs were two grade levels below one grade level early on mid 65% of our students are demonstrating that they're achieving at or above grade level and this is up

105from 30% in the fall. This is not including our kindergarters. 2% of students are performing at a significant interventional level. You can certainly look at the cohort comparisons at the bottom. And then the same graphs are there for math as well. For whole building math, 45% of students are demonstrating that they're achieving at or above grade level. This is up from 10% in the fall. 2% of our students performing at a significant intervention level, which is two grade levels below, which is down from 14% in the fall as well. Now, um I know the classrooms have changed in the um kind of teaching style and Chromebooks. I would because the I Ready is on the Chromebook. Right. Correct. And I would assume that there's a a curve with kids. I mean, I've been in kindergarten,

106first grade classrooms when they've tried to try to do this. So, I'm not saying your numbers aren't valid, but I'm saying that it's a little it's a little skewed at that at that age level to try to get and not really. I mean, is it is it recommended that kids at that age should be tested in that way or the oldfashioned way? I think, you know, where you sit down and you talk to the child and have the child read and you, you know, maybe do running records or something. A very valid point, Stephanie. Like, that is huge. This is one assessment. This is one snapshot in time of a life of a kindergartner, first and second grader. Teachers are doing what you just said. So teachers are sitting one-on-one with a child and they're

107showing they're doing funological and phmic awareness activities where they're showing every letter of the alphabet. They're showing every number, they're showing every color, they're making the sound. So you see a letter B, what sound does that make? But they're doing that, right? It's not reflected here. This is I ready, but it's one snapshot in time. So they are doing exactly what you're saying because that's what good teaching is. This is one little piece of data that certainly sometimes we're putting too many of our eggs in this one basket especially for our little ones. I've seen them they're just doing this on the computer of course. Of course. And we do have touch screens which is a good thing because usually they were using the mouse or they weren't using the mouse and they thought it

108was a touch screen and that was so so my question is has there been any study um or is this across the educational landscape that kids in K1 and two are getting these types of um assessments and may maybe there's maybe there's a valid that it could build their confidence in in using that. I I I don't know. I we have seen that students are becoming more as they're taking tests and as each year goes on. So kindergarten they just seem to be able to become better test takers on the computer. They're able to manipulate it better. We have seen a great um increase of kids using the the touch because with kindergarteners using the mouse that to me those scores were really really skewed. Right. Um teachers are also looking at the time piece.

109So if a child's doing it in 10 seconds, the teacher's getting a flag on the computer like, "Wow, this child, it's like a yellow flag that comes up and says the child did it in a time that there's no way that that that's accurate, right? So they're looking at that. So again, is it recommended? I mean, it was recommended that kindergarteners do not take it in September. There are some school districts where kindergarters are taking it in September, October. We felt that was that was not valid at all." like that to us that's just not acceptable for a four-year-old who's trying to get acclimated to school, to routines, to all that good stuff and now is going to take a test on the computer. So, we did push it out and we do obviously in

110January. Um, and so then do you have other do you have other means of data points? Yes. So, those are internal. Correct. So, we're using all of our curriculum based assessments. We're using like I said the funological assessments where teacher are literally one-on-one. We're using all of our trick word assessments. We're using foundations. So after every unit in foundations, children are being assessed, right? One, too. An assessment after every foundations unit, there's an assessment after our reading units. Oh, yeah. I'm not questioning whether you assess kids. I know you do. Make a bigger puzzle, right? I'm just saying it would almost seem like those those if those can be um coordinated. It would it would probably be more meaningful data at your level. Sure. And I think teachers really focus on that specific data have

111their data sheet and I think that's where they're really looking at. So if a child's bombing out and is like two grade levels below, but they're looking at, oh wow, look at all their foundation scores. They're are readers. Why are they getting two grade levels below when in my opinion? No, they're reading on grade level. So, there's sometimes that discrepancy when you say like the I Ready doesn't necessarily match up with the academic performance that they're seeing, right? My daughter's a straight A student, but I get her ESPback scores and I'm like, what what is that? Like they're they're not aligning necessarily, right? Um so, I think that that's a huge part of looking at data across, you know, many different um assessment pieces. Okay. Thank you. So going just basically to our kindergarten, they

112did take the assessment for the first time of January 23rd. As you can see, we have one data point which is obviously the winter, one grade level below, early on, mid or above. Um, and then obviously all the different domains. We'll read all of those specific numbers to you. Um, what was interesting is when we compared focus areas, like what's the the lowest scoring focus area, they were very similar to this time last year. And that's because some of the skills we haven't even introduced. So in kindergarten, we're not really necessarily introducing the EDS reon pre and we're not introducing those things yet. So of course we're they're going to score a little bit lower and that seemed to be consistent across all grade levels. And we're looking at the area that necessarily wasn't the

113poorest or the the worst area. It might have the lowest scoring, but it wasn't even that considered I want to say bad. It's probably not the best word. It just was an area that we haven't really had our focus yet. We haven't really done that piece yet. So of course it's going to come out in the lower end. Um math kindergarten again 40% one grade level below early on 22 mid or above is at 38. We're expecting to see those numbers obviously increase by the end of the school year. And then it's broken down by domains. Uh reading, same thing. Um 56% of our students were demonstrating that they're achieving at or above grade level. This was up from 25% in the fall. 3% of our students are performing at significant intervention levels. This is

114down from 4%. Um and 34% of our students met their end of the year typical growth and 17% have met their end of the year stretch growth for that was for reading for first grade. Um in regards to math, 32% of our students were demonstrated their achieving at or above grade level. This was up from 11% in the fall. 3% of our students were performing at significant intervention levels. This was down from 9% in the fall. And 24% of our students already met their end of the year typical growth goal. And 9% of students have met their end of the year stretch growth goal. Moving on to 13 and 14. That talks about a reading achievement for second grade. 69% of students demonstrate they're achieving at or above grade level. This was up from 36%

115in the fall. 4% of students are performing at significant intervention levels. This is down from 8% in the fall with 43% of students who have met their end of the year typical growth goal. and 24% evident they're ending stretch growth. And finally for math, 48% of our students demonstrate they're achieving at or above. This was up from 9% of students in the fall. So we saw a significant increase there. 3% of students are performing at significant intervention levels. This is down from 20% in the fall. Okay. Can I just ask a question? And I'm really not nitpicking your reading, but the numbers that you're saying are not the numbers that I'm reading on here. I mean, they're just slightly off. So total yeah I mean I'm reading here math achievement 4% of students are performing

116at significant interventions level. This is down from 19% in the fall. And I just unless I'm not following you on the right. What page are you on? Just to confirm. I'm on page 15. I'm on 15. What are you on Rachel? I'm on 15. Yeah. So do you see 48% of again or above the 48% of students? Right. And thenove. Yeah. And then the next bullet says 4% of students, right? I need to do a a new copy. There was a typo in one of the numbers. Well, someone should tell me that cuz I'm figuring why do I have this when I have it right here. All right. There was a little typo in the numbers and I handed it out. There was a typo in one of those things. I had to make happy.

117Well, you Yes. I thought this is just a nice gesture. Gotcha. That was my fault. I had told I just I would just like it noted that I am really listening to you obviously because I noticed that. So go ahead. I noticed that. I'm like and I've looked at this many many times and I'm like how did I not notice that and then tonight of all times I'm like that was wrong. Okay. That that was the quiz to make sure we were paying. I'm one. Deb didn't want to share that in. Okay. Thanks Stephanie. Go ahead. You're welcome. Sorry. And then just looking at overall um progress towards our district goals. again nothing completely um overwhelming outstanding but again chronic absenteeism when I look at that we have 21% of our students who currently have

118nine or more absences so they're missing 10% of the school year so if you look at that out of 42 students have 88 students who have 10 or more absences so we did meet admin with Dr. Miller in January just to review like what's what's going on and I literally went through every single child's attendance and there were as of January 18th there were 64 students who had at least two or more vacation days. So the amount of people that are children that are going out on vacation which again parents have the right to do that but when we look at our attendance and say what is the school doing? Well 64 students have two or more vacation days. Some children have 14 15 16 vacation days. That's huge. That is huge. Three weeks of

119school. Um this week alone we have six kids that are on vacation in Florida. So again and that's the parents choice. That's but again when we look at our numbers and say what are we doing? You know the things that we are doing is we hold monthly attendance meetings with the team school nurse social worker myself classroom teacher. Um the school social work is constantly reaching out to families. Letters are generated. I think last time I sent out 47 letters last month just to say you're approaching the nine and these are the expectations. If you do read my newsletter like the attendance policy, it's all right there. We're holding we have to hold family meetings, parent meetings, PPTs, we're having those constantly, which again is taking teachers out of the classroom to have these meetings

120and we try to do it either before or after school, but we certainly want to accommodate a parent schedule because it's really important to get them in. Um, classroom teachers are reaching out. Our attendance is documented in Power School. documenting all of the reasons. So when we're looking at, you know, reasons why we don't want children at Quaker that are sick, we don't want them here. And again, the sickness, parents are really trying to be very conscientious of not sending their child who was sneezing and coughing to school where maybe three years ago they might have sent them to school if they were coughing. Um, don't get me wrong, they still are. Um, but it does seem like parents are really trying to be, you know, just not spread the germs. Um, school nurses reaching

121out to families. We're doing the rooc calls which has been great just as a reminder to parents you need to call your child's been out etc. Um and I always put in our newsletter like just notifying parents of like upcoming days off so if you want to plan something here are the days off utilize those. Um so there's a lot of that's going on behind the scenes. But again if a family is going to go on vacation they're not I have no say. I can't say not to. Um but I just found that to be very interesting that 64 students have had two or more vacation days. um and that we're at 21% of students who have nine or more absences and we're only in February, February. And again, we talked a lot about the

122I Ready. We do do the 30 minutes for ELA and math. We use it as a center. So, you walk into a classroom, you're seeing so much going on. You have the classroom teacher who is seeing three or four groups. They're differentiating that instruction, too. So, Shel, to your point, there is four different groups going on. They're flexible groupings. They're skill groups. They're using guided reading. They're using decodable text. They're using whatever skill that might they might have a difficulty and they're grouping kids and there's a menu and students are just, you know, every 20 minutes the bell the little bell rings every 30 minutes and they're moving to the next center and these are little ones that are following the menu on the board. They know exactly what center to go to and there's

123a lot of differentiating going on. There's so much going on during say an hour time block that it really is, if you haven't seen it, it really is mindboggling differentiating, meeting the needs of our students who might be experiencing some difficulty enrichment. So there are those kids that those higher kids, they need to get that differentiation because they need to maybe read an accelerated book or a chapter book. And teachers are doing that just so easily. It just comes so naturally to them. And while that's going on, there's different centers. Maybe a snack is one of the centers where they're eating their snack time at the center. And then they move on to the I Ready and they're opening up their Chromebook and they're part they're excited about getting on it. It really is fun.

124It's not for our little ones. I can't speak to the older grades, but this is exciting because they get to do a little eye ready. then there's a game and they want to get to that game part. Um, so it's really exciting and it's just kind of embedded into their day and they see it as something exciting and fun. So we really try to make it that way for the kids and I just think it gives them so much more experience in manipulating that computer. So are we really testing kids based on what they know and not just accidentally clicking something and they're getting it wrong. They're getting that experience of using their Chromebook and using it well. Let's see our SRBI that in one minute again as Keith mentioned evaluation and feedback process we

125are on par with you know our goal settings our observations are taking place review of practices are taking place instructional rounds we just completed our second round of instructional rounds last week which really focuses on the five attributes which is critical thinker collaborative learner empowered learner citizen effective communicator teachers are identifying one of the attributes they're collecting evidence from a 10-minute visit, writing an affirmation statement, and providing an I wonder statement, which has been very successful thus far. Um, our newsletter, it goes out weekly as part of the district. Um, emails are constantly being sent out to to families all the time. I'm also on every classroom teachers distribution list, so it just keeps me in the know as to what teachers are sending out. There's that open door policy, which is regularly practiced by

126all staff. staff can come in, families can come in. They know that I'm easily available at any point in time. Lots of activities that are supporting um different causes and charities, especially throughout the town. And again, focused a lot on our star assembly, star behavior, bringing that back. Um we revised our school charter, we created classroom charters, our monthly character ed assemblies have been brought back, which is great. Rachel, um Nicole has a question. Sure. Sorry. And hi. At the beginning of the year, there was some clapback about um the behavior charts, the clip up, clip down. Where did we end up with that? Did the procedure change? Did it stay exactly the same? Did things quiet down? Some minor tweaks, but again, I had I had one parent that reached out to me that

127was very positive about about the chart. I had never I had never received any parent communication regarding that. So, we did make some tweaks, so it's not as obvious to the whole class, but again, I hadn't heard I hadn't heard from one parent. If I if I hadn't gotten word that it was on social media, I would never have known. So, we haven't had any fallback from that. So, but we did make a few tweaks. So, it's not publicly recognized. It's more the teacher might talking to the child more in a personal level. So, it's not this whole big. So, I think what Nicole's asking though, do you have the chart are the charts still is it a chart with kids names that it's kind of more in a discrete place? Okay. not so visible,

128but it's still it's there for teachers just to keep track of, but I teachers were told to keep it less visible so it's not just publicly out there. Our SRBI update, again, you can read the numbers. Um, students in our SRBI, the numbers of tier 2, tier three, those students that have exited from Serbia as of December, students that move from tier two to tier three, students that have been referred to special ed as of December's date. Same for math. um the numbers of tier two and tier three, those who exited, those who might have moved from tier two tier three, and those who might have been referred to special ed. Our tutors are being used less as substitutes. I'm not saying that that has completely stopped, but it definitely has been less um over

129time. Um we still are using them as needed, but we have hired most recently, probably about it, three weeks ago, four weeks ago, we did hire a building substitute. I know that we had been looking, but unfortunately there weren't any applicants, but we did find one. That's phenomenal. So, we're super excited to have her here as well. So, that was our newest hire. Again, lots of positive things um to report on along with obviously, as you said, there's always continued areas of improvement. As staff, we always want to improve our practice. That's our ultimate goal to be the best that we can for our students. But I just want to thank that the Quaker firm school staff is truly outstanding. They do amazing things for our students and thank you for your support because we

130couldn't do those amazing things without the support of all of you. So, thank you and thank you to my staff. Thank you, Rachel. Um, go ahead, Michael. So, I I have something positive to share. Um, for leading into the glow run, I do drop off. So, I drop off my daughter every day and they had music, the the people, the staff teachers, uh, they were dancing, the kids are dancing. I don't know who the gentleman was that was playing the music. Um, high energy and I tell you it was probably the best week for my kid for academically. It was like I hit the day and it was like on a high. Thank you. It was wonderful. They were truly outstanding and they were here for over six days. They were in they utilized the

131office conference room next to my office and the amount of excitement and just they were super organized and super friendly. I came into work and both myself and my two secretaries, they brought us flowers and coffee. I had a hot chocolate because they knew I like I don't even know how they knew that. I don't drink coffee. Like that was on my desk. They were they were truly outstanding and that just continued throughout the entire day. That's great. So it was wonderful. Maybe we can pick up some of that energy and extend it. Yeah. you know that you know it when you see kids excited like that and that's and that's all it takes is a little bit of music and a little bit of you know having some fun. I think that you know

132sometimes we get so serious. Yeah. And sometimes you know you put your head down and you're so serious in in what you have to do but sometimes you just need to enjoy your job and enjoy your kids. Yes. I have to say that was the good part of social media was being able to see the kid right participate and dance in the videos and things like that. So that was a nice part of what we've seen on social media. It also boosted staff too. Like they were so excited and they they got called in like it was almost like the Olympics like they got called in by my by classroom and they all had flags and they had names. So like one of the classroom teacher her last name was Lorac was called the Loracer.

133since he came running away with the flag and that happened with every classroom. They all got announced they got to run in run through the tunnel. It was it was so fun and I think staff also needed just that. Absolutely. Absolutely. Um any other questions for I just wanted to say thank you guys for doing all you did for that and making it successful. So um I I know the PTO is very appreciative and it came from a an idea of a parent that came from a different school district and it just fell into place. So, thank you guys for everyone. We're hoping that we'll bring it back next year. Oh, I I would at that price, I think it will be back. We're talking about a March date. So, um, anybody else have questions

134for either Keith or Rachel? Quick question. You're not off the seat yet. Yeah. No, no, it's okay. So, um, I should have opened with this. I do want to thank you. The fact that we're getting regular data reports is very much appreciated. I know it's just one more job for you guys to do, but I I also appreciate Stephanie's comment on the little ones, you know, how much is testing artifact. Um, and if you guys ever want to throw other data in here that represents some more balance, please feel free to do it. And then my last question after the thank you, um, is this. I um well you know my background everybody but you know when I looked at this um and again it's one data point but one of the things that I

135noticed is that on this test anyway um the phological component was um sort of an area of weakness that you then later began to see it be problematic in vocabulary development and ultimately in comprehension development. So my question to all of you and you can give a thought or whatever is if you need something from us as a board that is a different kind of support an additional support so that you know for those kids that maybe whatever we're doing is not working if you could let us know. um because that was another thing I noticed when I tracked it through um I saw over and over again and then um you know the impacts on the rest of reading development um sort of similarly um the numerology kind of things I don't mean the

136study of but you know uh math facts and so forth same thing um impacting so uh if there's something that you guys can think of um let us know Please. Thank you. Thanks, Shelley. Um, so thank you guys for those reports. I know it's was much longer than 15 minutes, but we appreciate it. Have a good I had some time over from the last time I There you go. There you go. Have a good night. Good night. Thank you. Um, so moving on, if you can pass Oops. I need one. Yeah, please. Those on you and Vic. Um, so Robert is not going to give his report tonight. Um, [Music] I'm doing report of the chair. I'm not there yet. No budget discussion is after that's part of the report or chair of designate. [Music]

137Okay. It moved. I don't know when it moved. I I printed this right before. What does that mean? That's what I just said, but it moved. Okay. Well, I'm going to go by the agenda that I have if that's okay with you guys. Number six is the report of the superintendent that we're not doing. Number seven I have is the report of chair. That's me. And then it says budget discussion. So we'll do it in that order if you if that's okay. Yeah. Why? I don't know why mine's different. Um and mine's very quick. Um I just handed you guys out a flyer about the um middle school program. They are thrilled. They have a site director and a I don't know if it's an assistant site director. Um they are ready to go March

1381st. Um, so, uh, we're going to get the word out to parents who are interested and, um, this flyer gives the, uh, web web page of what you can do to become a member of the Boys and Girls Club. And, you know, I just noticed on this flyer, which is a certainly a great perk, um, that the kids can attend um, Shelton or Sonia Clubhouse on snow days, holidays, and school breaks. So, I know especially for working parents, you know, if you don't have something set up, then that could be something that's um very problematic. So, um I'm thrilled and proud um to have the Boys and Girls Club be a partner with us um with our middle school kids. So, that is that. Um now, I have budget 2324 discussion. So, Mike, do you

139want to take that? I could start the start the process off but uh as we've reviewed the budget it's been presented to us we've heard from all the centers that basically describing what's in their budget all the highlights the the you know any of the large ass or reductions uh the question now comes are we missing anything that we should be adding is there something that we want to remove and any changes and I can start the process us off to go uh Stephanie for the fields. Do we have an update of how we want that blended in? Because we had in the last time the budget was presented, we had it as a possibility. So on the page where we kind of went over the totals and the percent increase, we had both scenarios,

140but maybe you can give us an update of where that might fall. Yeah. Um, I'll speak and then Deb can tell me if I she could be my backup. But, um, as of right now, we are not putting the fields in our budget. Correct. Um, and but we probably will be taking over the fields as of July 1. As of July 1. So, I don't know if that kind of answers your question and then probably has more questions. It it does answer the question. I mean from the pure perspective of the budget impact right it gets pulled so we don't correct we don't need to take that big hit but uh it's something that we probably will have to have more conversations maybe facilities uh mixed with finance uh for future implications but at the

141moment for the budget purposes right budget neutral it's well it's it's a budget neutral reduction depending on how you look at it right because we would stay at our original budget number. So, we're staying at our original budget number budget number. So, then I I open the the floor to the board. Uh what changes would you like to see made? Right now, we're at um 5.3% or 4.6. Oh, we went under we went what are we without the fields, right? It was 5, right? Something with the fields. Okay. because we weren't sure whether we had to pull it up or pull it move it below. Right. Um, anybody have any budget questions or go ahead. I don't have any questions or changes, but I would like to take this opportunity just to remind people that

142the board of finance is the one who has the ultimate decision and there they will be making these decisions in the next coming weeks. So if you have any concerns, that's where that's where to make make your take your stand and make your opinion known at the board of finance meetings. Absolutely. Anybody else budgetwise? No. Okay. Subcommittees. Um Joe isn't here. Uh I don't You're on facilities, right, Vic? I don't think we have too much to discuss, right? Where? Oh, you're on curriculum. Who's up on facilities? Mike facilities. I don't think there's anything new. I think there's uh we're now moving forward in in some areas where we were hoping to make some traction, right? Um I think the operational budget impacts what we can and can't do on facilities, especially with the capital improvement

143projects. Um I don't think there's any new updates that I'm aware of. Yeah. and and the um the issues that we had with the pipes and the water and everything um during that cold spell have been um have been taken care of. And I want to thank um Mike Dagustinino uh who's our COO now and he um had the custodians going in on that cold weekend to check things and because of that they averted. We still had some issues, but they were able to avert major issues. And I guess we're just looking at the um the fix that needs to be done at the high school, but it's my understanding that the part that is ruined or, you know, buckling or whatever is under the bleachers. So, okay. So, it's not the new floor that

144we put that beautiful, you know, at the high school. I haven't been in to see where it is, but that's what my understanding is that it's under the bleachers. I can address it if you want. Oh, hi, Robert. Sure. You scared us. It's like It's like being in Oz. The the damaged part of the the um gym floor is underneath the bleachers. It did not creep onto the actual playing field on the gym. We got lucky um for the extent of um the damage that's there. Right. That's great news. Thank you. Thank you, Robert. Anything about that HVAC yet? Uh Robert, the HVAC, we're we we are still waiting for the state to award. the state has to award it. Um, we've done everything. We've put everything in. We've done everything that we need to

145do. So, it's hurry up and wait. One thing with that though is that um the Eversource grant has to be um the work has to be completed by December of 2023. So, that's going to be a tough tough thing to um depending on when we hear because we haven't we'd have to make some serious plans between now and then. Deb curriculum. Unfortunately, we did not meet. We will get back on track and get a schedule. Um, there were some issues. So, all right. Thank you, Deb Nicole. Policy. Okay. Recognizing that we have a gap in guidance regarding expectations for the appropriate use of personal wireless communications. We came up with this policy. It's down for a first read tonight. So, everybody take a look. If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to reach

146out. And hopefully at the next board meeting we'll have our second read and put it to a vote. Okay. So the the policy So there's policy and then there's regulations. The regulations um we don't control. We we only control the policy. Correct. Okay. Just checking on that. Um okay. So that's a first read and anything nothing else with policy. Right. That's it for Thank you guys for going through those policies. Um finance, Mike, you kind of already did your thing, right? Nothing else coming up. Nope. And um the LEA actually the only thing for finance is that we will be putting it to a vote for the board to adopt our budget for next 28th. Uh yeah, the 28th. So if something changes between now and then and you'd like to make changes, please reach

147out and uh you know, we'll we'll adopt what we need to. When's our next finance meeting? I believe it's uh the Tuesday 21st. So again, you could also show up to the finance subcommittee meeting, but an email would also suffice if you had any changes, updates or additions. Okay, great. And liaison, we know so proud of the PTO for doing that fantastic job. Um anything else? Meeting is on Thursday. Okay, any other liaison reports from anyone? But I did want to make this comment the testing in the second half. Just one comment. I searched and searched as I mentioned before and that maybe a place I did not look but one of the things that uh I did not find anywhere was a uh sexual scheduling of when testing is taking place and what testing.

148Um and for example the district across the district. Yeah, across the district. Um, thank you. Um, so I didn't see I know we talked about it uh being presented earlier in the year. I also did not find any um sort of data repository. Um, so I had to kind of look at every single presentation just to figure out when what school was doing what testing. Um, and I only have it, you know, for the winter part. So typically um and again Deb if you know if you know that Dorothy has it somewhere you know let me know but um typically in a district you have the the calendar and schedule of testing what kind when um and for instance in I read and there are different types and then um a data repository so that

149when we're comparing apples and oranges and so forth um we are comparing apples to apples oranges to oranges I couldn't find that anywhere in any of our internal shared uh drive information. I couldn't find it in any of the board presentations and I found it very challenging because I was trying really hard to figure it out and and I talked to Steph about it a bit because I you know that's what I used to do for a living and I couldn't find it to compare to. So, I really think that, you know, our test administrator um needs to make sure we have that calendar of all the testing. Um we need to have all the results there where they're easily accessible. Um things like growth target and so forth that were kind of thrown out.

150I didn't see anything on that. we get to the ESPback, we have um all of the uh personal growth targets as the students make um things that are more like scaled scores. When I reviewed the document that the skateboard had shared with me um when we were talking about another thing together and I looked at it and they said that's how they tabulate. So, so just to put it put a bow on it, what you're asking is and we can have um Dorothy as the director of curriculum. Well, or well, she you don't have to wait for a meeting. We could just ask her to get if that might be something that she has a calendar calendar of assessments and then on the agenda we can put um a data repository where where that would

151be. Okay. Thanks so much, Shelley. Um so without further ado, motion to adjurnn at 8:34. Second. Okay, let's go. Happy Valentine's Day, everyone. Motion approved. [Music]