001Um, I'd like to call to order the September 12th regular board of education meeting at 6:29. Um, please stand for the pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. I'd also like to say that 22 years ago, we were all reeling from the attacks on our land. And um I'd like to take a moment of silence for those lost and um the first responders and their families. Thank you. Um, welcome back everyone to our first board of education meeting for the 2324 school year. Um, we can start with a roll call, please show Nicole Woodcraft. Stephanie Miller, Michaela. Thank you. Are there any amendments to the agenda? Hearing none, we can
002go on to minutes. Motion to approve the August 22nd board of education. Any Oh, we have to second. Who's this? Oh, got it. Good job. Are there any amendments or changes to those minutes? All those in favor? I opposed or abstain? Motion carries. Motion to approve the August 30th board of education. Sorry. Uh any changes to those minutes? Hearing none. All those in favor? Opposed or abstain? Motion carries. I'm sorry, Steve. I didn't I could see here. I could have waited for you. All right. You're not late. Um, is there any I know someone's audience of citizens. Hello. Hi. Don't mean to rush you, but did you want to seek an audience of citizens? We started one minute early. Um, well, yeah, I actually like to. Sure. I never do. It's the perfect time. Please
003state your name, please. Karen know but 12 Autumn Ridge Road. Um I had the pleasure of going to meet the teacher um at the middle school and I'm very excited that there is now a program for called WIN to work on executive function skills and study skills and community outreach. And it's an organized class where kids who need extra help can go get extra help and kids who need help with study skills can get help with study skills because I just know with COVID I mean it was brutal and these kids even my boys now it's like I love the remind app because teachers are like yeah you do have homework you know and um but I'm just glad I'm just glad that that was brought to the able because some of these kids are
004totally fine and some of those kids are really struggling. And if they're able to get these strategies early on, not only does it help them transition to high school, it helps them transition to life, you know, to college. I mean, just very, very quickly, my oldest son just graduated last year. This kid flew through college, I mean through high school. Um, he was an honor society Eagle Scout. Had everything under the sun going for him going to college. Preparing for college was the most anxious. I thought, "Oh, honors program. Oh, yeah. You're going to go." I mean, he he missed the last month of school because he was so anxious about the change. And here is this kid that I never thought in a million years would struggle, but happily um he waited till last
005minute to um register in Nagatuk Valley, which he learned now that he has to take classes at night. Um but he's like, "Oh, next time I'm going to go earlier." But he's loving it. He's really really loving it. So he went to Nagata. He's he's doing great. But again, here's this kid that is going through this great kid doing awesome and yet when it's going back to that transition phase to life, you know, are these kids ready? Um, so I'm really happy. I'm so glad you got rid of flex. If I heard flex one more time, I was just going to be like, you know, because I just felt like it was a time for kids to rush through their homework and not work on study skills because I really feel that these kids, they
006need some sort of homework. They need some sort of structured study skills because even my son who's in college is struggling a little bit organizing his time and getting those study skills in. And I think I'm past my two minutes. Okay. But but thank thank you for bringing that program. So I'm very impressed. Oh, good. Thank you for saying that. It's nice to hear positive things. Um would you like to speak this audience of citizens? Just a silent observer. Okay. Um is there any more correspondence mic? Um so now we're on district goals. Yeah. Go ahead. So we're going to share with you the district goals which cover a range of areas starting with student learning and taking a look at student achievement based upon various different assessment measures. We have a goal on curriculum
007and instruction. I have heard moving forward in that area. Um there is a goal on fiscal responsibility um with budget and communications with community stakeholders. Um and then a goal on school climate and culture and how we can improve that. So I'm open to any questions you might have. I have um our new director for construction and assessment here and our director of Megani here as well that could answer any specific questions related to the goals um that we worked on them as an admin team and our admin council retreat in August. We spent half a day working on these goals collaboratively. So this is not the um creation of just me sitting in a in a dark corner writing these. Um this was a collaborative effort of an entire initiative team to draft a
008set of goals we that we thought was um aligned to work that we've done last year and continuing to move us forward in the way that we thought would be measurable um and demonstrate progress towards initiatives that we felt were the most important for the district. I guess I'm just gonna ask a couple of questions. For the curriculum goals, we have progress will be reported in June with a plan to finalize the work and stuff. Is there a way we could report like twice? Yeah. Like do one like maybe in January, February, and then at the end of the year. I just I just don't want us to miss the opportunity to fix, right? if we're off track, get back on track. And I'm sure we won't be, but I'm sure that's going to come
009up in the subcommittees as well. They can do that. Absolutely. I mean, maybe it's not necessarily you come report. Maybe we as a subcommittee can come report, but I just don't want it to be a whole new year of, you know, out that we talk about any of the progress that we're making in in case we're not making it. Right. And I would say just to tag team me that that would obviously apply to anywhere that you said progress will be reported in June. There's a couple of stocks. Yes. Yeah. I think those are mostly in the curriculum and instruction category. Okay. And I know we talked um yesterday about the first assessment in October. So I assume that the first for student learning the two baselines would be filled in at that point. Yeah,
010we need to we need to first capture the data from the fall assessments and then analyze that. That's it. Um did somebody say they have a question? Go ahead. Um so I I just wanted to know uh in number two when you talk about student scrutiny or exceeding projected level of growth and risk measurement uh instruments. Wait silly where are you? Number two. We certain right number two. Sorry. Oh, I'm on the wrong category. Okay, student. Sorry. Go ahead. I just want to be able to follow you. I went right to doing the rest. Okay. So, um when you say um I know I'm assuming that when you say medium or exceed projected level of the annual growth, you're talking about each individual student. Um you're talking about averaging for a grade level. um how
011is that going to be done? So the way all of those assessments have a after the baseline give a a typical growth measure for the students. Um so looking at the percentage of students who hit the measure that they should be hitting throughout the school year. Okay. And so um maybe I missed it but I didn't see what you just mentioned about um what percentage of the students would manage to achieve this number two goal. And I think once I know that's usually we talk about all students um but we're going to present all that data and the information when the baseline is done um to see where those students are at. So, we're not maybe I didn't maybe I missed something. So, we're not at this time um u saying what um percentage of
012the students or saying 100%. Is that a Yeah. So, part of it as well as some of these are brand new assessments. So, take the HMH which is going to be and that's the reading the new reading program we have. Um those assessments we haven't done yet. Um and so you know for example that um I have a call with the um with our rep who's going to take us through the data afterwards um to go over some norm reference stuff with us and how to read it and what are typical measures they see um across the country. So we're kind of waiting to go through the analysis with the company um so we have a better understanding of the data present it. we just have that full understanding of what those numbers actually mean
013when we present because um I know that um you know the aspect um and I I think I already correct me if I'm wrong on that one because I didn't look at it I haven't looked at in several weeks but they do have the targeted level that a student is expected to or hope to achieve but I don't think they have that difference I don't know if it has it in the reading program or the math pro program. So I was wondering if you could um just clarify for me how does that happen if it is in the built-in part of that assessment. So so Dibbles does have they'll have a breakdown and we have someone to talk to on that point after we did that as well. But there is a breakdown where students
014should be um beginning of the year end of the year the typical growth they're going to have. I just haven't had a chance to in the two weeks have those meetings yet with those companies. I know 13 days. I haven't had a chance to have those meetings yet with the company. So, I just don't want to put a number here meeting with the company and go, "Oh, wait a second." Okay. They're telling us this is what to expect at a typical or what they see typically and okay, we're just way off because we haven't done that yet. Okay. Thank you. Do you have anything else? Um, not right now. Okay. Um I'm I'm wondering because you know we're so excited to have Eric on board. Um and you know this is a great document and
015I think what's happened in the past few years is that it's just kind of like start out great and then it kind of peters out because there's there's really no concrete um benchmarks or we're not and you're not really sure how you're measuring some of these goals. So I'm wondering if maybe kind of what Deb said take this document and you know whenever you're ready or you feel feas you know feasible you can go back and say okay this is how this is going to be measured this is how that's going to be measured because um you know you have improved student engagement across grade levels through the implementation of universal line down of learning practices. Um but again how are you going to you you talk about behavior referrals academic achievement. So again those
016are how you're going to measurement but then measure but then how is that going to be um kind of like calculated and dispersed. Does that make sense? Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Um anybody else on the on the district goals? You're saying that they'll get back to us when it's the same time. Yeah. And I I think that and I think between that and you know Deb's so great in curriculum that and and Eric we had a great meeting yesterday with Eric. So I think as long as we kind of use these as a roadmap then it can be all right. So now we're in November you know where are we and just from input of you know the teachers and the administrators. Um yeah, because I I think our frustration was that um and Vick's
017being very good. He doesn't even hear me. Um you know, I Ready, like if we get I Ready in November and it shows a grade above, a grade below, you know, two grades below, and then the next one. I mean, it just I don't think it resonated with us. Um and that's why we asked about I Ready and I think most of us um still don't really know how I Ready what the capabilities of I Ready are and and how you're going to use it. So we need to be educated in that as well. So then it makes sense to us right and we talked yesterday in the committee that we've changed and evolved how we're using I Ready and assessment tools in the district this year. So part of our work that we need
018to do is to provide some um information to the board and community on what that evolution looks like and because of the new assessments that we're talking um with HMA to dibbles and we're talking about the the instructional round data all these are measures that we've got to collect that baseline which can then point this towards what's that growth look like we need to capture that data institute first yeah and and obviously being cognizant that you know the kids just can't be tested to death absolutely and it's been here 13 days and that's blocking the door so you can't run. And that's why I think took a hard look at assessment data this summer and we said okay instead of keep adding on this assessment to this assessment but they tell me if we're going
019to add something what are we removing so that we're not assessing students every single day there classroom right I mean that's and one of the other things we talked about last night was we've as a board really never seen the working of I Ready who had that lovely sales pitch but we really haven't actually seen I Ready and that would be oh that was the other thing I was going to say um in our new room. Um, can we hook that up too? So, now that we're all looking at this document, can you show the document on that? I certainly can. So, we rearrange the room in this way. The entire board can see. Yeah. And just so just in general, you don't have to do it right now, but I mean for for the
020next meeting that would just I think that would be great for people who maybe didn't print that. Absolutely. Um, okay. Anything else on the district? On the ready stuff. This is the one where I think we get confused. Just I'm going to unravel, but because it says on grade level, but it's really the entire grade. So, of course, everybody's beginning year is not going to reach. So, it's hard to calibrate it in your mind of like we're one grade level behind, but we're in September and the end of the grade is June theoretically on all the content, right? That's where I keep getting tripped up. It's not a point in time measurement to grow or achievement. I think that's what we keep. I agree. Do I guess I don't want to do and you guys
021already answered this please let me know but do we have a dashboard or a way of integrating power school and the I ready data I believe so yes and isn't there a fairly new um arm of it that that you talked about yesterday curriculum that was the MTSS for the for intervention what through power school through I ready through CTS oh CTS okay so that that which is kind of is that kind of strange because that's an evaluative well no CT stat is where the um the IEP so they have an arm now for intervention oh just for intervention so everybody's not going to be store receiving okay tier support so everybody else their data will be um stored in either I Ready or P school or within the platform that the data is in
022so I has its own dashboard system okay So it's not integrated to power school. Eventually it would be nice to have all that data inside of P school. So you've got some sort of a data warehouse. I think that it is right now. So last year the work with SRBI um to create the form we did do an upload of the three times a year for the IR data. So it pulls right into that form. So it is accessible. It's just we don't have to build with certain platforms. But I Ready I believe is in there and I believe PS AT and S and S. See, the only reason I'm asking is because, you know, sometimes you have something going on that, you know, there might be a gap in evaluations or testing or whatever
023and and then you have your daily work or daily grades that, you know, all of a sudden you see might be able to flag something and see a problem developing over a few weeks rather than a few months, you know. Um, teachers have access to that. Is that the point? But you know at least somebody could see something at a threshold in monitor and start catching you know earlier rather than later you know before evaluation or support has to step that's one reason I was asking I just comparing the previous one to the current one and what the goals yeah okay is there's no mention of improving student attendance we spend a lot of time on student attendance last year and we had a lot of different action items that we consulted that went with
024that. And when we looked at the data, we looked at what was causing students not to be in school. There were behaviors and actions that we didn't have direct control of. And we felt because of that, it wasn't a goal that was measurable that we could demonstrate progress in because it wasn't anything we could do necessarily about. It's a statewide issue. It's a national issue. There are statewide initiatives around that. So, so we we found the reasons and we've worked on it. We are going to continue working on it, but it's it's not something that we made as a goal because it's not something that we can directly impact. For example, is it we're talking like students going on vacation. I can't do anything about that per day. Yes, that's but that's not in anything
025I've read that's not one of the top issues that vacation time is a problem with attendance and and usually it's with the kids that are doing pretty well. You know, attendance when you dig into it goes much deeper. goes into family, goes into school subjects, you know, all kinds of social things that are going on, you know, plus the school itself. So, it's much cheaper than right, you know, if you missed vacation time, it would be bulked in two or three periods of time coming back to school day, whatever, Easter, Christmas, Hanukkah, whatever. But, uh, the charts don't show that. That's that's not an issue. When we take a look at our data, um, vacation is something that has been an issue with our with our attendance here. It's not the only challenge that we
026have, but it is a challenge we've had. Um, but there are a whole host of reasons why students are not in school and not all of it is directly something that we have direct control that we can influence and make a change over. And that's why the states really take a hard look at what are there what are actions that schools can do to help work on this that it's it's nothing that that's unique to us here. It's something that is educationwide across the entire city across the country and as said the state department of education has a whole initiative around looking at students and well before co there was very structured attendance state attendance mandates and you know those got lacks covid and even postco because now we're going into year three of postco
027so for the you know postcoid and then even a little bit. So I think that the gloves need to come off as far as that's concerned and you need to implement that very you know and I know the nurses do a ton of that work but you know it needs to be followed and if you know and I can't remember it exactly but you know you have 10 freebies and then on the 11th whether it's so you took all your freebies and then on the 11th you need to be out you need to have a doctor's note or you need to have so it does need to be put back on the parents and we do all of that. Okay. So that's my question is so that the plan is to adhere to that attendance
028and we did that we did it all last year that that was adhered to with a strict policy that is across the board. We we do all of that and there's other there's there's you know it's not like you can't take a mental health day you know for the kids. You just need to call it in and you need to you know you know you're not trying to stronghold parents but you kids aren't learning as we learned during the co that they don't learn sitting in the couch in the feeling room. So I mean they need to come to school. Yeah. So were you going to say something like I was just going to say that it it's a lot of it is is family. It's the choice and it's it's hard for us to
029kind of reach through the you know you know the ether and tell the parents you have to send your kids to school and if they want to take their kids for a month to you know anywhere Greece or whatever and they're like well it's a we're visiting family it's a life experience what's the district going to do about it and that's just one example and I know vacation is just one piece but if the if a child gets depressed and says I'm not going to school you know you can't make me like you have to go to work before I have to go to school. Good luck trying to get me to go to school. I'm not going to do it. I mean, the school can say, "Well, we really want you there." But part
030of it is they have to want to be there. It's a It's a catch 22. They It is, but you know, they need to be responsible for the work that's going on in the classroom then. You can't just, you know, yes, that's a great educational experience to go for a month with your family, but then you need to, you know, work something out so that you are being responsible for what's being taught in the classroom. You can't expect to come back after a month and have the teacher go, "Oh, you missed a month, so let me let me back fill you." You know, it just doesn't work that way. It's extreme. Yeah. Yeah. I just have one last thing that because the church that they show is that absentee uh starts early and that if
031it isn't caught and corrected early it the line parallels to drop off rates in the high school level. So what you see in first and second grade whatever the reason is an indicator of failure they don't make it through high school. So I just I think you know I just saw that on here and it dropped off. I just think it's an important thing to address. I think in my opinion is you have absenteeism that is directly related to the culture and it's a partnership with the parents. If the parents are going to allow this and not be responsible and say hey you know I'm I am going to leave for a week or two tell me what I need to be caught up on. I mean especially this day with Google classroom I mean
032they can do stuff a couple days or you know whatever but what's the threshold? I forget the how many absentees before it has to be the judge of DCF. Oh DCF is well there's I think it is. So the thing with DCF is there's like a number they'll put out and then there's a number that they'll actually do something about it. So just from previous history in multiple districts they over the past few years they've also pushed back that they want the communities to have resources as well not just hand us a sheet because DCF you know or Oxford go look at water barries and bridgeports I mean they could they could have offices there and just be there every day um you know we found that you know if it's you know 10 or
033more unexcused absences hits that mark of you're now truent where it's four or more unexcused absence of a month or 10 or more in a year, you're considered truent and DCF could be involved. They're not going to unless there's a previous case open up against the family or something else or last year there was something too. Generally speaking, even at the younger grade levels, you know, high percentage of those are not going to be taken. They're going to wait till those numbers get a little higher. But they also want communities to have resources themselves to support the process too outside of the schools whether it's like a community a youth agency in town. Um I think each years ago they were trying to get like a not with the police department but like a truance
034truency officer whether it's a through a youth agency or something like that to be part of the process too. But as someone said before, there isn't a lot of teeth in any of that because even with the truency piece, when it's done through the community, it's all volunteer based. Like you can't force the family or the parent to show up or there's no nothing that's going to happen to them. And DCF will act on some families, but there's it's not a fill out the form, they fit this, and we're going to take it and go knock on doors like that. That doesn't happen. I mean, most of your juvenile review boards now are well overwhelmed. Yes. And my my concern is is we don't have many resources here in Oxford for that. Um but like
035Vic says, if you have a two-year-old that's habitually and then moves to third grade and that's a habitual thing. But I mean to me my experience is there's something else going on in the house and that's something that seriously has to be looked at. And and to Vick's point, it's not like no, it's not on the district goals, but when we do the monthly meetings with the principles, one of the things we ask them to bring every time we meet with them is attendance information. Where's the attendance information? If there's a concern, what are we doing about it? So, it gets talked about all the time. It's not, you know, it's just like Dr. Miller was saying, that measurable piece like how much of that percentage of students are chronically absent. what how do we
036measure how much we can actually have an effect on and part of that goes into UDL that um with the district goals we are going to look at is does the implementation of universal design of learning have an impact on attendance um that piece there is hopefully going to bring more student choice and interest in the classroom um and we're hoping that plays a role um but again it's not something that's hey we're not doing attendance it's not something we have a number on in that district goal but it is something that's talked about with every school every month because some districts are aware of what the chart does is that in order because the resources are not finite, you know, and we have to put it in the right place. It's like fighting any
037war. You got to put it in the right place. Is that they do a study to see if it's geographically to the district? Is it economic to the district? Is what what is the key area? because it's it's you know you can have a bad parent in the rich neighborhood and a bad parent in the poor neighborhood and vice versa. So, but if you see a cluster of, you know, an area, you can take them most of your resources that they eat can't go in there and you don't have to worry about, you know, the upper hill that pays an extra $7,000 to do the river, you know, might have to be the people at the river, you know, that type of thing. And that all that data is available. We track uh schools by
038economics and you were to us and they have all kinds of charts. So I I think that's a key ingredient that you have to look at is what is some of the root causes besides you know this family sometimes it's the nature of the family you know you're going to be a plumber when you worry about it now but even a plumber knows you need that so that I think there's a way we can analyze it to focus our attention. Yeah. So can't we in keeping that so we can still know what is going on with attendance have that reported out during the admin report quarterly when they do that we can still keep it on our radar and still get the information and you know maybe it's some backup as to what's been going
039on like is it vacations is it whatever um and be able to track it that way through those reports. Yeah. At least that we're not saying we don't want to know we can just And we can report out on what's vacation versus what's sick. So we can tell you excuse versus not absences. We can tell you how many students have hit that 10 mark or the 18 mark or above there. We can give you those numbers. So we're still we're still following it. We're still it's just not going to be another dependence that will probably come up later in here in different things is that obviously you know certain people go to school for certain reasons. you know, I may not like certain parts of the academics, but I certainly go through the sports or
040certainly go through the art program and we certainly go for the music program. So, with those things in mind is that as we improve those areas, you know, you know, how do we improve those areas and get more people involved in it or how do we come up with another thing that interests the people? Probably 60% of the school doesn't participate in any of those that they that's the reason they want to build school. So, I'm just throwing out suggestions of things that we could look at to work on that attendance. And another thing um and this is um just a little history and maybe you can discuss it with your admin team on how they feel about it, but years ago um the daily bulletins used to be sent to each school. And I
041remember it being helpful because if you saw, you know, the Miller family, the Quaker Farms kid is there and then you saw at Prado Elementary School, the other two Miller kids are out and then you saw in the high school the other four I don't have that many children. The other four Miller kids are out. It was kind of like, oh, there could be something go, you know, and then that that was just data that you have that you can possibly follow, you know, follow through. And I I would be just kind of like personally interested in why I mean I know why it was discontinued and it and it wasn't because it wasn't a benefit if that makes sense. Um, so but I'd be interested, you know, if that's something that, um, well, I'm
042trying to think. Rachel, Rachel would probably be the only one who would have remembered that because everybody else is because um, even probably 10 years ago with Anthony, I don't think it was it might have stopped just around when Anthony started those bulletins were sent to all teachers or just from admin to admin. No, no. For to to everyone like every and the other thing was, you know, when you talk about um you know, collegiality, it was because in the daily bulletins, it was like, well, this is coming up at Quaker Farms and you know, and so you say, oh, we know that that they're doing, you know, spirit week or this week, so that everyone, you know, it was just within district, but everyone could kind of see what's going on in the other
043in the other schools. And that was a, you know, it could be something that, you know, just like these teachers get the daily bulletin of their school, they would just get from the other three schools. And um I don't know, I I thought it was I thought it was um you know, great. Now, that's also before I mean, not that you use social media, but that was before district-wide newsletter. So there might so when you have the conversation these things might be covered in something else right now but I just remember it being really helpful in attendance because you knew that there were families that if one kid like they would just the entire family would be out um you know and you just knew well if there was one out then you knew that
044they were out across you know across the board. I I wonder if that went away when the state made a huge effort on data privacy um and confident student records um that switched over and having student data tending data from one school per student for teachers that don't have those students have that shared via email that I don't know I don't I don't remember it being a law thing because it's it's within I mean when you send when you send a bulletin out I mean actually do they put absences on the bulletin now maybe they don't even do I don't think they oh they don't even do on our social my age. Okay. All right then. Yeah, I guess that that so you would so a teacher could only see their students. Okay. Okay. I
045thought that the bulletins because the bulletins used to have, you know, all the kids that were out and then and used to have, you know, the staff was, you know, and that was kind of helpful too for staff because you knew that, oh, there was stuff. So when you hear you know chaos going on across the the you know you know that somebody's out um so yeah maybe technology has taken over but just things to think about as far as um you know addressing globally things that that you know that could um help the families they're helping. Okay, thank you. Um approve the do you think we need to do a motion to approve the go? We haven't in the past. Just want to want to make sure everybody Well, if anybody reports us, we
046can approve them next next time. Um see I have my backup. Uh board of education goals. Um, you know, this was something we had a retreat in August and um, you know, these are things that that we talked about that, you know, the the board would like to focus on and, you know, we probably could have put um, goal two was goal one because safety and security is, you know, it's top-notch. It's it's where we put a lot of our resources. Um, um, but, you know, we're going to continue to review and update the security plans. um you know on the bottom it it um under communication you know we talk about um the committees and the board of education representatives which is something that Anthony maybe you can put a note to get Anthony
047in on um the website audit I mean that would be Jim and maybe it's been done I haven't checked recently and um and then we did talk about how we're going to have more of a plan to have you know not just you know at the end of sports season, you know, then we have, you know, all the sports kids here. Um, you know, but along the way getting information from the principles or even from the teachers to the principal saying, look, this kid just did this amazing, you know, assignment or podcast or, you know, um, and and celebrate those things. and we developed a board event calendar for the year to showcase to the board every um starting in in November um student work related to graduates to graduate and an opportunity to bring
048to you student work and students and showcase and celebrate the work that they're doing within the school. Yeah. Yeah. And I think just naturally Megan, you know, at at some point will, you know, give us a synopsis about, you know, connections in CDP and the preschool program. So I mean that does happen but we just wanted to you know solidify it in here that you know um it's something that we want to just be and just we wanted to promote the student achievement throughout the district just not at the high school. So, right, we seem we get all the sports stuff on the high school, but we don't ever see anybody K8 really coming and saying, you know, this is this is what the students worked on. This is the poem. This is the the
049song they wrote or whatever. So, I think unless we we're okay with that, we we want K12 and this schedule we we developed city is constructed in such a way that all four schools will be involved in a rotating basis in front of you for students. So um why don't you just add increased promotion of student achievements K12 anything else questions additions subtractions so I don't think we have to vote on that um service child nutrition program health research yeah so whenever there's a change in a business manager the um board of education needs to have a vote that allows the board clerk to sign a document that allows the new business manager to be the authorized snee for the food nutrition program. Who's the board clerk? That be I'll make a motion to approve
050Howard Wardwalk the authorized snee for the ch child nutrition program. Second. Didn't they say that Mike has to sign it? I'm just reading what's on the motion. I can physically sign it, but it has to be the motion, but it has to be Howard or the as the snee, right? Yeah. Mike. Yeah, that's what you wanted. Motion to the authorized sign for the authorized sign of the child. Okay. So, he's the authorized sign, not Mike. Mike signs. It's giving him the authority to sign it. Gotcha. Okay. Wow. Convoluted. Yes. Did we have a sir? Yes. Okay. All those in favor? I opposed. Abstain. Motion carries. Thank you. Quest for boys and girls diving coach. Yeah. So, I received a request from the high school administration and athletic director to um hire two assistant coaches, one
051for the boys team and one for the girls team to coach dive. Um, apparently um a while ago, we used to have coaches that were able to that have expertise in both swimming and dive and that's why the name of the swim coach actually is swim and dive coach. Over time, the coach became just a swim coach and didn't have the expertise to coach dive. Um, as a result of that, our boys and girls teams have just been swimming. Um, and when it comes to the swim meets, they have not been able to dive. Um, and the way that the tournaments are constructed, if you don't dive, you actually lose points. So the as an example the boys team last year they lost the opportunity to win the NBL tournament because they locked down a
052point they didn't dive. So Joe Stockwell who's athletic director has um requested that we hire a assistant dive coach for both the boys and the girls team so that the boys and girls can actually dive in the tournaments and there are boys and girls in both um programs that are interested in doing that. Um he's um asked that we reallocate the wrestling u money. Um we don't have a wrestling program. We co-op. So those stipens are available. So he's asking us to exchange the um the money that's in the budget for the wrestling stipen for a boys um and a girls um assistant d assistant that deal with diving. that the request is to authorize Stephanie to sign an MOU first and hire a boys and a girls diet coach. Um, were there were there
053efforts to try to once they realized that they had divers? I mean, sometimes you have, especially in a small school like this, you don't have kids that can dive, but obviously we have kids that could die. So, was there an effort to find a dive coach last year so that these kids wouldn't have been penalized? I don't have an answer to that. We do know why. I mean, why it wasn't submitted into budget this year from the athletic director himself. I asked that question. He said he spoke to the business manager said he spoke to the the principal in November, December, but he actually never made an actual request in his budget documentation. And then when you do the allocations in May, you didn't do it, right? And in that process, I send out a
054list of siphons to the principal then say, "Take a look at this. Talk to your staff." Um, and that with the opportunity for the administration to come back and say, "Okay, we don't need this. We need to put this in there." So, there's two opportunities to um send the apple to try and get it done. And neither were were taken advantage of at the time. How much does this um the stipens they are requesting that we have a statement of 357 um one for each. So that totals um $3,570. Sorry, I apolog for each um boys and I thought the boys coach got more. No, the the request is for both of them to be the same. The one that's more is the wrestling coach who head coach and assistant showing that. Okay. For the
055head wrestling and then the sister is 3,570. So combined together um if you factor in the 23570s you end up with a net positive. So the budget of 163 that's still left. I mean so the girls are in their season right now. Do we have girls that are divers ready to start? So it would have been nice if it was started before the season. So I don't think that we would ever say no, right? because we would never want the kids not to be able to do this. But we need to be better. We need even if we do a spreadsheet that has every stipen in it and somehow we click off that we're not doing it. But um meaning ones we don't need to. Yeah. We just need we just need to be better
056about it because we need to budget for them and they need to be included. We had two opportunities to be able to add this to earlier on and we're doing a ton of on these contracts and we just I think we need to do better. Funny gave us a spreadsheet coaching didn't know I know that but it's not all the ones that have been in the past. It's just the ones that he's playing. So I mean it would be nice to see them all there. I mean this used to be one job. Now it's kind of divulged into two. It used to be one um stipen several years ago. What do you mean? It used to be the coach was swim and dive and there was one person that did that. Yes. And then somehow
057we now and just let you know the process I do is I give to each school a big mass spreadsheet that lists all the site I've had in the previous year which is both the non athletics and athletics and I have in there um recommend keep recommending don't keep and I ask the principal to review every single one either do description for each of those and ask them to sign off at each individual line approving that they want for both athletics and for non-athletics. So, there is a formal process that we go through annually. That's asking the schools. I'm not making up statements. I'm asking them to weigh in. Um and each year there's some they come back and say, "Take this one out. We'd like this one to be in it place." And and
058that's why they recommend to the board um in May and June. So, the process there in the school to actually um have those conversations and come back to us with this is what we want to do. At the same time, I mean, we're having a conversation of Um, is there a way to make it more fluid so that sometimes changes do place take place during the year and is there a way to look at stipens in the um in the process differently so that we are not having a conversation backing when we have a change like this? Do we look at if here's a a pot of money the board of education has approved and um we have an arrangement that as long as we don't go over that amount that we are able to
059use the stipens based upon the overall amount we have there could be a more good way to do it but I think your your process up front here's what you did last year the people were in the no should have a strategic thought of where they want to take their programs their school their building and it It was just a double oversight and the process is there. Yeah. People don't need to think strategically about what's missing and what their needs are. Didn't happen. That's all. Make a motion. I didn't. I make a motion to approve. Okay. Second. Second. Um, any further discussion? All those or abstain? Motion carries. Okay. Report to superintendent. Okay. I first would like to um thank all of our educators and all our administrators, all our professionals, but all of our
060secretaries had a very smooth opening school. Um as I went through the schools, um we saw students engage, we saw students um learning, we saw teachers um teaching. Um and it was a very positive um place across the entire district. today. I want to thank all of our educators and all of our staff districtwide for all the hard work that they did to open school and for the first two weeks of school. It just it was a great um beginning of the school year across the board. A lot of positivity that I saw from opening day through today. So, I want to thank everybody for all their hard work um in that. Um I also want to thank um our custodians. Our custodians did a phenomenal job um getting the buildings ready. We also had
061a number of custodians that helped construct the new central office. Um Van Jefferson, Henry Carney, Peter Smat, Paul Marbel, Rich Ranchi, and Gina Fletchia. And we're all individuals that contributed mightily to the work that we're sitting right now. And I was actually charged that you asked us to do is to do it um using our staff internally. Um they rose to the occasion and they put together high quality professional work. I'm very proud of what they did. um that team. Um as many of you are aware, we ran into some weather issues last week. Um we are still struggling with two of the force school not having air conditioning. Um we know that there's an aback project for this building. We know that we use Baker Farms in the future. Um we had temperatures last
062Monday that were in this building that were in the upper 80s. Um Baker Farms in the upper 80s as well and that would be before the true hit gateway hit. So, when I looked at the data, what the weatherman was recommending for us um across our region, the schools that didn't have um AC were looking at needing to to shut down early. Um Tuesday came around or Wednesday came around and um walked through the buildings, I had classrooms that were 90 degrees and above. I went into a bus um that was um at noon, so we work in the heart of the day. It was 95 degrees. And when students are sitting in the bus for 45 minutes and 95 degree temperature, it's not healthy. And imagine with temperature at 2 o'clock, 3 o'clock in
063the afternoon. By the time Thursday rolled around, the way that the sweet wave and humidity was, these rooms and these buildings just continued to get hotter, so they didn't have an opportunity to cool down on each night. So they just continued to expand. and and we had classrooms by Thursday afternoon that were consistently in the 90s that the gym itself in these two schools was off. I was going through I went through these um two buildings um twice a day with the temperature gun um measuring temperature in classrooms and these teachers and these students were sitting there sweating to death and we had students that were getting sick headaches and and and nauseous and stomach aches and it's it wasn't a healthy environment. Um, so we had to do an early dismissal three days for
064the health and well-being of the students and staff in these two schools. Um, I made the decision that um, it was best for families to allow um, students that were older to go home as well because in a short notice that you have families that that rely on older siblings for child care. So I made a decision where everything is keeping the high school in school which they have AC um best for families to send older kids home as well so that families that rely on child care to all their siblings and have access to that. That did impact the school um those four days and I'm sure it impacted families as well. So, I do want to apologize to families that were inconvenienced in that way. Uh, but it was done in the best
065interest of the well-being of students and staff because the temperatures in these buildings even by Friday that the air temperatures were not um as high as they had been. the humidity level was off the charts and as a result the the floors were actually getting slippery. You actually were slipping um as you were walking through the classrooms because just that everything was just ripping wet and that caused the the the air feel of the temperature to feel even hotter than it had been the previous day. So that the staff and the students um needed it and they really did appreciate that we're looking after them for their wellbeing for that. Um, speaking of the HVAC, um, the bids came in for this building. Um, the original building committee reviewed the bids. Um, there's actually only
066one bid that came in. Um, it was, um, airtemp. Um, they made a recommendation that airtemp be approved by the board of selectment. So, that request is going to the board of selectman. Now, um, the project actually came in a little bit less than they had anticipated. The numbers came down slightly from the original quote. Um, but in terms of challenges that this town faces, once we get this building going, we still have to address Quaker Farms. And as much as we need to get Quaker Farms going, we've got a high school that's that's beginning to show age. It's 2007 and we're still we're starting to see HVAC issues there. So, I don't want to wait until the high school starts going before we start upgrading bigger farms. And there is a new HVAC grant
067that was just released by the state a couple days ago um that we should probably take a look at as well. Um I don't know what type of um funding is um locally for us to support that. But there is another round that the state has just released and the way that we saw last week does have an impact on our operations in schools and education and the well of our kids. I have a question on that or do you want me to wait till the end? It's up to you. Um, so we've been going round and round with HVAC for quite a while and I remember there were two very distinct um laws. One was the units being outside and most of the work being done. And you can correct me if I'm wrong,
068Joe, because you know this better than I did. you know, the units being outside. And then there was another one where they would have to, you know, do the work from the ducks inside, right? And there was a lengthy discussion on when this would happen and if it would impact, you know, teaching. So, which one of those is airtemp and when do they expect, you know, the the the airtemp one is the one that's in the ceilings with cartridge units that are basically outside that cover four to five classroom pods together. Okay. So that was the one where they could do a pod. Yes. At a time. And the way that it was constructed is to do the work in the evening when students are not here. So it wouldn't it would not be impacting
069the school day. That one was the most disruptive learning environment. They would have to shut down a wing of the cliff. The air one. It was, but we went back and said, "We want you to design a process that wouldn't shut down anything." And that's what they did. They came back and said, "Well, we would do this all hours so there wouldn't be any disruption to school day." So, kind of a win-win on that one, right? Yeah. Exactly. I was not any down parts of the building. Do we know when the meeting is for the select? I don't know. Mike, did you want to say something? I was just going to ask, let's say it's approved today. Do they have an estimate of how long it's going to take to get the equipment to start
070the process? Are we six months out? Uh, a year out? I I believe that they would be starting the work later this fall and they need to be done by next December because part of it is on the funding from the state when they the timelines need to be done also part of the ever source um reimbursement as well. I'd like to know if we can find out when the meeting is and I think that we should show up as a board to the board selecting meeting and and be supportive of the project moving forward as quickly as possible because this long time six years ago from the original but we I mean we really coming to an end. Yeah, we have we have to No, no more. I think we just need to show
071up and say, "Listen, we as a board support this moving forward and it's good. You know, we're here to move it, whatever we need to do." Yeah. Um, speaking of of state funding, um, we applied, um, in the summertime for what's called a dual credit grant. Dual credit, um, grant, um, which is a pathway to provide students high school credit and college credit simultaneously. Um, it was a statewide initiative to expand, they wanted, um, to increase the percentage of of high school students that actually earned three credit or more, but having graduated with five credits. um which also helps get them into schools as well as helps lower their cost once they're in school because there's less classes they need to take and they're accelerating their pathways. So I applied um in um end of
072July, beginning of August for the grant and we got accepted. The grant was $20,000. It's basically R&D money and development money. So it's designed for us to do research on what the best pathways would be, whether it be one pathway or a second path. Give me an example what would a pathway would be. We could create a pathway of students that are in biio medicine and have a connection with a local university and foster group hospital where students become um either um part of the way certified to be a nurse or could be part of the way certified instead of biio medicine. We could look at a pathway dealing with possibly culinary and business where the students are we have a phenomenal culinary teacher. we have a a growing business, you know, do the students
073have a pathway where they learn that type of skill set and design, right? Um I know that some of our neighboring districts also have that pathway. So if we develop a pathway that's unique to us here and for example, CMR has a pathway that's unique to them there. We might have an opportunity where we send some of our students that are interested in their pathway there and they send some of their students to our pathway here. So the first steps that we need to do is we actually attended day the statewide um kickoff meeting. I see Vinnie was on that um meeting from Sacred Heart. So hello again today. Yeah. And um the goal as I said is to do research. Now we will probably do a kickoff survey of our middle school students and
074our high school students to find out interested what type of pathways they reach. You don't want to build something that students are not going to want to participate in. So you want to gather some baseline data for that and then do some research and develop and then part of the the grant is actually some curriculum writing. So actually design any curriculum related classes or programs that would then be developed to be that type of of courses that we would be offering. The grant needs to be expanded by September 2024. So this is work that will be done this year um and over the summer time. So um we're just today was basically the kickoff. We actually don't even have access to the funds yet. they're still populating our um fund management systems so we get
075the funds so that we can actually begin to use the funds. Um but it was the type of program that made absolute sense for us to apply to and it helps it aligns directly to our strategic operating plan and developing additional pathway for students. So I'm excited that we got that we applied. I'm excited that we um got the grant and I'm excited that we're going to begin that work. Anything else you wanted to add with that? that like yeah we're at the same was a lot of opportunity there and districts there's it's pretty some districts are pretty creative in how they do the courses and the pathways so like we said we got to see what the students are interested in and build that's a good place to start and what a lot the
076school wheats partner with the sacred heart right now it's not even new pathways they're taking AP psych they're taking some AP some higher level courses where they can get university credit without having to pass the exam assuming that what our deans what our departments do is they test the rigor of the course. So they'll go over the curricular materials. They'll check the CVS of the teachers to make sure they would meet all the same requirements as anybody teaching a section of that course at Sacred Heart. And then without doing anything else other than sitting in the classroom and taking that course, they'll have a Sacred Heart transcript with college credit when they're done. Awesome. It's a great opportunity for kids if our students partner or if we partner with other schools around the area. So,
077say for example, Seymour has something that a student in this district wants to do. Does that make them a Seymour student for the whole thing or how how we have we have to sit down and really talk out to the districts behind that? Yeah, I this is done like in Prince County and stuff like that. It's a common thing that they can have one school, one district. So, like our little bus would take them over for two classes and then they come back where they might spend their entire day over there. We have to really talk about logistics behind that. We had to build the programs first. The one in Seamwork, they had it there was a criminal justice. I think they were doing it. They were doing the manufactur when I had to go
078over to certain investigative classes with them. They uh there at certain times there's you know certain period for that specific class and we normally go there. So they have to figure out a schedule might be some creative scheduling. I mean the first thing is we need to figure out what the pathway is going to be and build that. I have one question because the way I understood it from a while back is that uh like Danbury Waterberry their program is that as you're going through high school you're accumulating enough credits that you can go to college and not be two years behind have that many courses. So you save two years of making up what you did learn and your two years ahead when you go into any class. It wasn't really dedicated to a
079particular discipline. It was to save money, get you into college at a much higher level, higher step. So you work for this year. Yeah. Yeah. So this seems much different than this. Yeah. I'm all for trades really basically, but it's going into this segment because it's working the dirty and stuff like that. They had pretty good success with it. So The key is working with the colleges because they're the ones who basically allow you have to show what you have in the curriculum. You can't go in and be like, "Here's what we got. Give us the credit." They're the ones who tell you, "No, there's a whole we agree don't agree once. It was coordinated through the school." And the other thing that the schools have done was that they listed the schools and it
080wasn't just one might be dark and it might get Harvard now. But the thing is that they had it pretty well broken down as where you were going, right? And if you took the and they had it there was pretty well segmented. If you take these courses and go through this module and you will we we guarantee you which is something never ever done. You know, 85% you're going to get into these four colleges. You go this way, you're going to get into this. It's a little bit easier. There's a 99% chance. So it was much more encompassing for the whole student body versus somebody that wants to be a medical student and stuff like that. So but either one's a great step forward. The state has a certain initiative. This is also one of
081the reason they're doing the grant. It's one of the indicators on the accountability index. So when they put their was there 12 indicators when they put their formula together um this is one of the major indicators. So they're looking for how many students do you have that are dual enrolled and and so forth. So that's another reason that's right. Yeah. I had some anxious emails this summer from our partners because they were like we need to get this before. Yeah. We need that we have to fill out right you know say that these students attended from your district and there were some deadlines coming up and just partners this summer. Right. And part of this is a partnership. Part of this is for us to develop a partnership with an institute of higher education somewhere
082in the state and having that relationship. Great. Very nice to Vinnie. Yeah. I already asked my boss if this would be a conflict of interest. She's like, "No, we're not giving any preferential treatment." So, if you want if you want to do dual enrollment, let me know. That's my report. Okay, great. Thank you so much. Um, so my report, you know, beginning of the year just um I'm excited that uh the year started so positively and you know, little glitches with the weather, but we can't control that. Um, I feel that we have, um, you know, are really getting solid people in place with Eric, Amy, Howard, Tina, you know, and of course Megan and Linda who just came on a couple years ago. I just feel um really good about the um structure that
083we've put in place for people to really address the things that not one person wearing 15 hats. Um, and so I, you know, have great hope that with all of that that, you know, we're really going to, you know, catch up on those areas that we were concerned about and really be able to, um, you know, put this district on the map and you guys work so hard to do this. So, I appreciate working with you. Um, that's it for my report. So subcommittees um facilities Joe um we're going to have one coming up next before the next board education. Um Robert, I'm sorry that one. Um, can we have Mike do a list of all the projects that were started from June of last year, but and then what we have coming up until
084June of this end of this year and just have um a stat a list of what's completed, what's in progress, and what's on the horizon starting in June 2020. Yes. 2023. So, what was so up throughout? Okay. Yeah. So, just kind of like what's been done and what what has to be done. Yeah. Basically some the summer. Yeah, pretty much summer forecast that we had to be projections. Do we can I ask a question? Do we know what happened? Come on. Swings where those were ordered. They required that a check be sent to them. Um and so the check was mailed to them. So it's being shipped on Seattle, California there. So it's in process. Do we have a spatform? Yes, we've identified two possibilities that can go here um based input from school and
085then the new playground for bigger farm that's also in order and that should be in in the next month. Sorry, Deb and I are going to take a picture of us on the swings and we're going to post that social media. I have I have one more question. Um they've been working here on the garden. Yeah. Um and I guess the agricultural committee visit them while they're out there in August. So, um, you know, maybe we we get some kind of idea. I know there was some discussion about some incorporating that into a curriculum or, um, I just would really like to hear what the plan is with that because I mean, we have people coming. I just want to make sure it's clear that they're not on premises when the kids are here. And
086so, right, the one of the things I have on my list is for Eric have a conversation with day 14, Eric. Sorry, I missed that. Oh, we just added something else. We're having to talk with you about getting the garden. And then um I just want I found out today that thank thank God we are out of center school. The roof sprung a leak with all the rain made a big mess. Ceiling tiles have since dropped their trash cans collecting water. So it just again reaffirms that you can't get planned for it either. that one. I can't say that I'm surprised that's um curriculum. We had a great curriculum last night. We uh we actually had a lot we went through. Um just a couple of things we went Eric. If you look at your
087um agenda for the meeting last night, you'll see there's a plan curriculum plan 30 60 90 days attached. So, we went through that. We gave him a little bit of break because he's only been here, it was only 12 days, three days, but um it it's well thought out. It gives you a lot of information, big author. We also talked about some of the summer work that was done by the staff that you'll also see that. Um you can actually click on the curriculum that was written. Um we have some we still have more work to do on that. Um, we've applied for our high dosage tutoring grant, which is, let me see if I can get this right. Um, from grades six to nine, it's um, one tutor for math only. Yep. For math
088only for four or five kids. Um, our estimated cost for that is $150,000. We'll find out in January. Find out. It's not 45. It's four four tutors. So, one tutor per grade level six through nine that will provide small small group up to four up to four students per yes. [Music] It gives us more opportunities for intervention. Um let's see. And then we talked about the legislative changes, changes in the kindergarten age coming in and attached to that as well are the um legislative changes that are coming play pay based learning. Um there's some PD for that and there's um a bunch of other stuff that's coming through. So, it's there was a lot of information provided and um I I encourage you to read the legislative changes. Could we take a minute just to
089explain like it's I don't think most people have read about it. Yeah. And it's the 1950s coming back back to the future. No, that's it. I thought they used to once you hear it, you go, "Oh, yeah." And I think you can explain better. It could be done in a number of different ways. It's, you know, they very specifically say it's not recess. Um, and it's the state actually wrote into the law. It is not supposed to be with kids in front of computers and so forth. So, at the at the early level, so Quaker is going to have a lot easier. They already do this. Um, so think about your typical kindergarten first, second grade classroom, especially kindergarten, they usually have like, you know, play centers with um, you know, whether a kitchen or
090so forth. and it's setting the students up in certain like um could be social situations, it could be just a teacher watching, waiting for interactions to give feedback or to help a student who's having trouble sharing stuff like that. Um the law though goes up to fifth grade that um for vacation will allow teachers to provide play-based learning up through fifth grade. So not so not everything's going to be play. There's not going to be kitchens in fifth grade. the the point is to bring it into the learning realm as well. So when you're doing reading, writing, math, again, it's not, you know, always play games, but is there a way to bring play-based learning to the instructional realm as well? Um, you know, to make learning fun. So sometimes kids do that without even
091knowing. So sometimes like geometric shapes, you have those maps where you have to make a um an image out of different you got to figure out which ones go. Like technically that could be an activity used for play-based learning. So, you know, don't think of, you know, all right guys, we're going to stop learning right now to have like this game that has nothing to do with um what what we're doing in the classroom. It's just trying to make things more engaging for students. It could also be based. Um so, if you're having a problem in your classroom um with certain behaviors, you can do some role playing stuff. So, it's it's not there's no mandate as in amount of time or when it has to happen, but it is mandated that K through five
092teachers um you know may partake in the play-based learning. So, we'll have to provide some PD for what that looks like. As I understand it is basically the thought process behind it is with COVID and all of the social things going on is kids don't play like we play. You know, we didn't play with baseball and guys on the stage. You didn't play one deadline. You didn't play tag. You didn't have a friend group. No, I know. But this this is bring that to another level. Start to have some kind of interaction between maybe you can even call it almost team build sometimes at a higher fifth grade might be team build type of thing. But you know I envision it as almost an SEAL type of thing in a brief period of the class.
093You go to any business class and you don't sit there for two hours without the guys saying okay you know break time and but here's a project and you go out and make an electric card that we've got to do and come back in and you got your team you do something it's an interaction type of thing they can and builds you know social emotional learning through experiences yeah I was just gonna I was just going to say I and correct me I mean when I hear this is what I'm thinking So for math on Friday, you know, instead of doing page 62, you're going to play Jeopardy. So the teacher has math problems and have two teams and the kids say, you know, just like in Jeopardy, I'll take multiplication um for 10. And
094then they have to that's taking learning into the playing environment. It's, you know, so it and it's very specific, excuse me, very specific in not saying, okay, we're going to go out and play baseball. I mean, unless unless you can turn that and I mean, you can also turn playing baseball into into doing something with measurement and, you know, blah blah blah, but it's taking the curriculum and then just presenting it in a way that the kids don't even realize that they're learning. So, back in the day, they, you know, the state a lot of lesson plan templates were like, you know, and a lot of interview questions for teachers was all, you know, how do you use technology in your classroom, right? So, now you almost don't you always use technology in the classroom.
095it's like second nature. And so I see this more as the state saying, listen, we understand that um you know, students being active, actively engaged in the lesson. Um movement is extremely important. You know, especially these little kids, you can't have them sitting in a a seat for 40 minutes and expecting them to have an attention span that's going to that's going to um that's going to last for that long of a period. So I see it as a way of the state saying, "Hey, we know this is good practice, but we're telling you through this law like this have to be done." um you know so it's not just I say playbased but it's not just like think of like a recess type thing yeah so there's a strong alignment too especially in the
096younger grades and there's a big heavy body of research um that supports executive functioning skills um and it builds those executive functioning skills um throughout so obviously how to maintain how to resolve conflict but also how to figure out a problem on you know on their own um and when and how to ask for help. So that starts very young, but it builds so that when they get to fifth grade, they have those executive functioning skills that you're talking about so that they're better prepared to, you know, handle different situations that come up um as they go. would um would the morning meeting um kind of like philosophy would that it could be done during that time period but I think no no I meant I mean the way morning meeting um you know if
097you if you follow the the morning meeting program and I forget I think it's called the morning meeting book um you know I don't is that is that too obsolete um in that way you you know you speak you know say hello in different languages or you I won't say it's obsolete I just think if anything's going to be effective it's got to be authentic, right? So, I think all the stuff you can do organically throughout the day and it's just it's just a matter of getting the PD and the examples and the strategies in um you know can be super easy at you know last year I'm thinking of a kindergarten class that was blending words and you know students used to sit there with their whiteboard and do it but you know one
098teacher you know one day did um you know she had these mats on the ground with the letters um you know with the parts of a word and the student would jump on the first one and say jump on the second one and say it's just another way of doing it. It gets kids moving, active, engaging. I think it's pushing more of that. And and I would say use our ST I mean, you know, we've talked about this a lot, you know, like the the high school teachers, you know, you know, think that they have it all the answers, but I mean, actually K1 and two, those teachers are so creative and so innovative. I mean, you can use not not saying high school isn't creative, but um rational. Yeah. So I I mean I
099think you can use the people in our district that are already doing things like that. When you walk around the classrooms you can see you know the teachers that have kind of like that knack and then that could be a great collaboration you know program where they painted the steps and kids would do the numbers on the Yeah. Yeah. That was great. Didn't have that spatial right thing or could make that next step and it was a a game play. Yeah. that they can and use that time once we get into the year. I mean, it was hot. We talked about a lot last night and then tonight. So, I'll make sure to do some updates as to like what it what it's actually looks like and some of the opport just to create more
100clarity. Yep. Thank you. Um Nicole Wel and Goodwin put out their packet their legislative summary. It's a thick packet. So, we've got a lot of work ahead of us. So the I read it committee is going to meet um at the end of the month and we'll have to talk about what what is the main priority and we'll go from there and our cabinet tomorrow is attending a webinar I'm sure on the policy updates as well. Do they give you kind of like a a road map of saying you should you should look to revise this, you should look to revamp that. They do and they give us timelines too which is very helpful. That's good. That's helpful. At least you can structure. Exactly. Okay. Great. Thank you so much. Uh Mike finance uh nothing
101formal. Our next uh meeting is uh next Tuesday. So we have scheduled monthly the third Tuesday of every month 12 p.m. over Zoom. So any board members that would like to join. Um that's pretty much it. I I think we're going to we're one of the topics that's being added is looking at uh the surplus spending and what happened over the summer and just kind of getting an update that we can include in our minutes. So Okay. Um, thank you. Leaison, do you have anything with PTO? First PTO meeting is the 21st. I will not be able to go. I have negotiations. Um, please. Um, so I'll let you get an update from And um, you know, we talked at the retreat about Oasis and um, we talked about having um, you know, someone from
102the high school possibly in the in the healthcare seal um, participate participate with them. And I actually I mean the meetings are on Zoom. Um and I contacted Vinnie and told him that that's that's I told him that that's what's going to happen. So you know he knows and I think he does have contacts at the high school. So I think back to facilities real quick. I just I forgot to mention um anybody who attended the Wolverines first football game uh saw the the dedicated press box magnet. Yeah. Um did an outstanding job. uh with the kids in this this uh town and he you know I think George you know uh said it the best but he did a lot up there to get that field in that facility in the condition it is
103and look forward to taking the next steps of pushing us forward so and the kids won 34 nothing for but you know that's inspirational example what the town could do you get the right group of people okay so that ends our agenda at this point so we are going going to go into executive session to discuss the superintendent goals. So yeah, motion to motion to enter into executive session to invite Dr. Miller to review superintend. Okay. Um all those in favor. So um thank you everyone.