2024-10-22 Board of Education Regular Meeting

001are we live I'm waiting for to go live now please stand by watching all right like to call the meeting to order at uh 6:34 6:35 everyone stand please for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America the stands Nation indivisible right let's do roll call Dr we starting with our students um Mr Brian is going toce them yes we'll do a roll call after you introduce them okay so I want to Welcome to the table for their first night um our two very proud warm Wolverines from Oxford High SCH school we have lindsy Kim and Brandon Rose who will be joining you as your new student Reps for the Board of Education um the administrative team chose them at at very high value for their recommendations

002given to us by the staff um not only are they uh people who make us proud academically but also in their individual Pursuits whether we be athletic or otherwise um and I know that there'll be great voices for here at the table so welcome to lindsy and Brandon congratulations guys so at the beginning of every meeting we do a roll call I'm going to start with you guys just have to state your name hi my name is Lindsay Kim Brandon Rose ni M Debbie Sherman Benny kadella Mike Robert Carr Tom Steve ker all right uh do we have any amendments to the agenda I do um I'd like to make a motion to add citizens after the approval of the minutes and before board correspondence in accordance with our board bylaw 9325 D2 entitled order

003of business second is there a second discussion what was the policy number it's a bylaw and it's 9325 point2 order of business I okay your read comments or yeah absolutely okay because well hav been on the board for seven years we had a procedure where it was late or after board meeting and uh it really wasn't conducive to actually having a good audience because uh you know parents have things to do places to go and uh I think they want to get their opinions and things in place early and it was a courtesy that we offered a number of years ago to um I don't have a problem with all we could put it back anybody else um yeah um you know what we need a little bit of a pieace in our time so

004let's just put it back um so it's so all those in favor say I I those opposed any abstentions motion passes so we will have audience of citizens when when exactly was it Nicole um between three and four minutes after the minutes are approv after minutes but before board correspondence okay that fantastic I got all right okay uh is there a motion to accept the Board of Education regular minutes meeting minutes for 10824 like to make a motion to approve the the board of edge regular meeting minutes from 10 a24 you have a second second Nicole discussion all those in favor I those opposed abstentions motion passes I'd like to make a motion to approve the 1015 24 Board of Ed special meeting minutes those yeah it came up late today I think they were

005added yesterday oh yesterday uh do we have a second I second and all those in FA or discussion I'm sorry it's my first day um I'd like to make an at it um I was actually an up stain on the boat did I type that wrong I'm sorry that's okay that's my bad I went back and rewatched it I just to type off I'll fix it so there's another motion need be it has it in there as an obstain no no I just clicked it and it shows abstain did you just fix it in real time no I have it as an I just pulled it up it says oh that was the first I just pulled it up just the second the first one was the was the point of order and we voted

006on that and then we had the bottom okay good Steve you retract your I retracted yeah I got the wrong section my apolog any further discussion all those in favor I those opposed abstentions I'm gonna abstain just because I haven't read the whole thing okay so Nicole stains motion passes all right let's lead into our audience of citizens um just very quickly when you come up to the mic um or to the podium or if you want to stay there that's fine uh just please state your name and your address for the record um and whoever wants to go first is can go first and you can stand there if you like you can stay right there I'll go to the podium sure I long I've long been past politics but I thought I would

007come to your meeting I I heard some things about the meeting and I wanted to meet you Robert and say hello I'm Kathy Johnson former first selectman of the town of Oxford and um I I I want to view this committee as a nonpartisan committee I want to view this committee that they're here only for the children and I believe that almost all of you are here for that very reason I would never say you weren't but um I don't want to think of this committee as a republican committee or a Democrat committee I I don't ever want to worry about being a good Democrat or good Republican first and foremost a good person and so um because I've lived in this town a long time and I saw this town through a lot of

008difficult situations I just thought I would get up and say something about my concerns so Michael uh I'm I'm I'm I'm just going to sit here but I am a little worried about what was said at the last meeting I heard it on tape and I'm being honest with you and uh you know that's all you think I'm the board chair I I'm the board chair you're the board chair ma' excuse me uh forgive me I'm going to fall back on my my best excuse I'm 77 okay so okay Robert yes I was concerned and I in Oxford here some of the couple of people on your board one especially I appointed I always viewed this board as only for the children and we have two young people here congratulations to two of you I

009know you're going to do a good job and you're going to learn about Oxford and politics and how things are done uh so that's all I'm going to say to you I I don't know you as a person so I'm certainly not going to be rate you just come up and have a I have a concern about it if you have anything you'd like to say to me uh Mr Carr I wouldn't mind the only thing I have to say Kathy is actually we have met um a few times we've actually been on some um caucuses together uh oh so we have met and I appreciate your comments and thank you for um number one your service to the town thank you and thank you for your comments tonight and thank you and I'm sorry

010I hadn't remember that I'm lucky I remember my own name that's okay but anyway thank you all for listening I felt that I had to come up and say something thank you anybody else sure I'll go Molly Smith 24 good Hill Road um you all know me I sit here every week I'm here with you in the through of it um there's been a lot happening but I want you to all remind you that the center of everything you do is to ensure quality education for these children it is your job to support our teachers it is your job as a board to support our administrators and making sure that the administrators are in the buildings doing their job I hope and you guys can pull it all together for our children as parents we

011have rallied behind you and you have our support right now we're on edge we don't know how to go with this board you have a lot to earn at back as a board for parent trust so that we are ensur that our children are safe too so thank you anybody else I enen Fox 22 Traditions Court North in Oxford Connecticut I know some of you um from past experiences whether it's through the booster club Sue um or through interactions through this sport event or um you know on the DTC what Michael from meeting you in you at at the carnival um Bobby um of course I know Lori and I know you and Victor we've had several conversations um I I just came because I felt deeply saddened that a letter that was written on

012my behalf to voices dated October 10th by three minority members of the Board of Education in support of my candidacy for State Rep um came into question by the majority members and the headline of the letter was chosen by the newspaper you do realize that right yeah okay um not by the three individuals um who endorsed my candidacy um I'm a former educator I I taught for 21 years in the state of Connecticut um I taught in inner city schools I taught in urban or uh I I taught in hampen I taught in um in new ffield and I taught in Ridgefield and um I have a degree got my master's degree in education and I have um my 092 in educational leadership okay so um as a former educator in Connecticut with over two

013decades of experience it it boggled my mind that other members of the Board of Education thought that the letter that was written on my behalf was so controversial so egregious so awful that they needed to make an example of De Sherman and push her out as board chair de has served as Board of educa on the board of education for approximately one decade um her own kids are grown and she's doing this because she doesn't have an agenda um it's because she loves kids and she cares about their well-being um she's worked conscientiously and enthusiastically with other members of the Board of Education to create a positive environment for students parents teachers administrators and staff through her discipline efforts on behalf of the families whose children attend the Public Schools she's provided effective leadership and

014demonstrated the ability to move the system forward and watching the Board of Ed meeting last night or watching it on on um videotape Nicole had pointed out that Victor had written a letter on behalf of Arie um Bobby you wrote a letter on behalf of the Arnie um and with de have been removed had the letter been for Arie um is endorsing an educator who actually would pass policies if I got up to Hartford on behalf of your kids something that is such a terrible notion to the members of the Board of Education would it be I'm aor to have a teacher actually sitting on the education committee up in Hartford to advocate for more funding and resources for the schools in Oxford there are a lot of State statutes that you're going to have

015to learn and follow um and you guys are made up of members who bring firsthand experience of classroom dynamics um curriculum and challenges faced by students and teachers to the Board of Education you can provide insight into policies that support Educators effectively there are parents on the board board representing the interest of families business professionals sit on your board and bring expertise in budgeting and financial management and strategic planning there are Community leaders who connect with diverse constituencies and engage Community Voices there's an attorney on your board who provides insight into law contracts and compliance with state and federal regulations and can help to navigate the legal challenges related to education policy for the anger and victory law on display at that meeting was shocking and disappointing as a teacher I had never seen that

016I never saw it in Ridgefield never um School settings are always supposed to be safe places including for other elected members on the board of education regard regardless of party affiliation um for the new chair to threaten a longtime member of his own party and warn him to fall into line or to run the risk of not being put back up for consideration was both disturbing I I mean I I just I couldn't believe what I heard and he's done so much Steve you've done so much to positively effectuate change in the school system and people notice um and it's on behalf of the families in this town and the the Oxford Public School System um I would like to see the Board of Education make a commitment to public education and Student Success remain

017nonpartisan and focus on policy rather than politics um and I I'm sure you find it funny that I'm up here speaking but I'm first the teacher that's how I identify myself um I loved kids and I wasn't fortunate to have my own so I went into teaching specifically to work with children and my hope for this board is that you can get it together because what I saw last week was just not something that I would like to see and you have my you have my promise that if I am elected um I will be sitting on that education committee and getting money and getting the things and the resources that you need to do your job the best way possible as parents and business people and attorneys and Community leaders and members of this

018board of education okay um that's all I wanted to say thank you all anybody would is there anybody else that would like to speak um my name is Amy sisman Road um many of you well I hope know that um for this past year uh 20123 I've been one of the parents that have been advocating for our students and for the betterment of our buildings um I've been attending Town meetings and I have been I've spoken with Debbie Sherman spoking with Dr Miller um questioning how come conditions of our buildings are the way that they are um how come funding isn't coming through um Dr Miller and Debbie Sherman have been the only people who have given me honest answers that I have been able to confirm um by facts um I've spoken to our

019first selectman spoken with Mr Jensen I've spoken with our um uh Board of Finance uh director and I am told lies or on truths um to make the public believe that um things are happening when they are not um they often turn the Board of Ed to be the bad guys why aren't you using your operating budget to maintain these buildings that is something that um Mr Jenson has said um he asked why your ARA funds weren't used to uh do the pool pack and as you guys know you put $100,000 into the pool pack and $100,000 into security upgrades and did other things um um your board of ed the Surplus that you guys were able to get was out of proactive work by you that was turned against you and tried to take

020a million dollars away from our school budget this year that upsets me it upsets me that we have people at the Town Hall who are taking facts and using them against us um so to hear you have on wavering support for Mr Jensen is concerning because he is not the person who has been going after our funding for our schools he's been turning things against us um there are um Mr Carr I know in your letter you didn't reference the fact that you are serving On The Board of Ed but your information that you put in your letter is um directly related to your role as being on the board of ed um you also discussed uh the early voting requirements costing Our Town $100,000 in addition additional funds I'm not sure where that number

021came from um looking at the town's budget it looks like 56,000 may have been for early voting there was also another 20,000 that was in there because we needed to purchase air conditioning and heating for Great Oak the reason we don't have heat and air conditioning in our schools is because of town hall eight years we've known from our facility study that these have been urgent priority projects where is the people standing up and saying our schools deserve better our kids shouldn't be cold it's not just cold workers who need heat and our schools are used in the summer for uh summer school it's not just during the year and it's getting warmer and um it's not right um Victor you had sent a letter in support of um Mr Jensen as well the Board

022of Ed relocation are you there you are that was something used against you they tried to make it sound as if you were moving out of of a Center School on your and making bad decisions for this school it was because they want to put the police station in there which they are doing now that was a good just you had to move it was this building was supposed to be renovated as new that was the promise then it was going to be Ren ated in phases this building does not have fire suppression in it it does not have updated insulation and the ceiling tiles are have not been replaced why is that because Mr Temple and Mr Jensen said that they were too costly they could have done it in line with doing the

023HVAC system that saves money for the town down the road some of it was stuff that would have been able to have gotten under the grant for the HVAC system um anyway we have a candidate who is up for election I don't care what party she is she's the candidate that's going to support our schools and she's going to work for our kids at the state Mr Jensen has proven time and time again he doesn't care it's dollars it's always the dollars taxes the reason why our schools are in the condition they are is because of taxes I think our kids deserve better you shouldn't be at the state representing us if that's who we want for our kids thank you thank you uh does anybody else like to speak would anybody else like to

024speak hearing none we're going to move into board correspondence and communication nothing all right uh some information items um Dr yes so welcome to the board of education and as the First Act we've asked them to make a presentation tonight to talk about the experiences at high school up to this point of the year so I'm going to turn it over two of you and Screen here and I'm going to share it to so our school recently had spirit week so if you could just move on to the next slide it's okay yeah so this is our pep rally at our high school so it's a really nice like time where we have it like a couple times a year where like students are doing like a bunch of games like basketball and like tug-of

025war and like students are like designated into like each section of the assembly so like seniors are on one side and then like the sophomores and juniors and like we're all cheering for each other and like basically uh Mr Houston was introducing like uh all the fall Sports so like basketball oh basketball's in the winter sorry gymnastics dance football soccer and all those other sports so it was very nice and you know like students were cheering for each other and it really like enhanced our school spirit so I thought it was really nice and a lot of students enjoy it too because they can participate in these games and we also have during spirit week I didn't have any of the photos but uh we have like so each day like we have like a

026designated theme so like on Monday like students dress like teachers and teachers dress like students and then on Tuesday we have like twin day so like we match with like another person and then Wednesday we have decades day so like we dress like you know 1970 fashion or 1960s and then Thursday and Friday we wear like our school color and it's just a really fun like you know week to like you know promote like ohos school spirit and stuff like that and then we also recently had homecoming so student council actually organizes this me and Brandon are both in student Council and we organize things like you know school events and like parties so these are just a couple pictures but at our Homecoming this year we had like mini golf and we had like

027this um bcro wall so like students jump and like they stick to the wall but it was very nice and like very enjoyable yeah and then our next one we had color War so this was one of our big ones so uh this was a photo that I recently organized to get our senior class get it to take a photo I just thought it was nice to capture like the moment you know but color Wars is basically like an annual event where students come together and they decorate their own hallway and it's kind of like a competition of like who has the best hallway so these are all our seniors like helping to prepare we prepare like a month in advance for this because we needed time and the class officers organiz this I'm president

028and Brandon secretary so like they kind of organize and get all our class together so this is also the process of decorating and these are like some of the freshmen decorating and and so we like basically spend like a couple weeks you know painting and all that and then we have like this one day where we have to decorate everything and like within like two hours but like last year I pen we didn't have enough time but this was a result for the Freshman hallway so their theme was their color theme was gray so their theme was I think medieval castle or something haunted castle something like that yeah and then this was the sophomores their color was blue so their theme was under the sea So This Is How They decorated it and then

029this was the junior so their color was white as you can see and their theme was Polar Express and then this was our hallway our theme was Gotham City Batman and I have a lot of photos just to show but this is our outcome we prepared a lot and we ended up winning side I note so these are and these are some of like the pictures I took of our class together it's very nice and very fun yeah and that's about it for what oh yeah also yeah we also had newly inducted members of National Honor Society so mostly all the Juniors and yeah and that's about it okay and then uh we have some other events that are coming up at OCT High School uh tomorrow our underclassman are taking their PSATs and seniors

030have the option to go into school to work on their Capstone project or work on college applications um and seniors are working through their capstones and they're submitting their Capstone proposals for example my Capstone is I'm going to Quaker Farms to start a Unified sports program there so the uh seniors have a wide variety of cap zones where they're making a difference in society um and they're doing this through job shadowing through research or just finding their own way to uh be involved uh in sport our teams are uh have recently been having their senior nights our volleyball team's uh senior night is tomorrow night our boy soccer teams senior night was last week um and our sports teams are beginning to prepare for NBL po season games and finally uh students in AP classes

031are beginning to sign up for those and beginning to uh get signed up to take the exam in May thank you thanks guys thank you well done um School Improvement plans so at this point um breaker farms and and good evening welcome great presentation see welcome to um in regards to the Capstone projects just as a side note Brandon is doing his cap project at firms along with four other Oxford High School students so we're super excited to have you so welcome back we hope you don't mind we're presenting together again this year we're working really hard to align our goals not just with the district goals but as A5 cohesive unit so like we did last year we're going to kind of take turns going quickly through the district goals and then we'll each

032share our school specific goals with you and answer any questions you have perfect so I know that you've all heard from Eric weeks ago so a lot of our goals obviously are tied in with the as well so our first goal is to access high quality and rigorous instruction so our school goal is to increase academic outcomes for all students by ensuring access to engaging rigorous learning opportunities um as you are a are aware we've done the devil's assessment as well as the ISL so we're hoping to see that increase about 10% so I know and Eric had presented we are still reviewing all of the data as a schoolwide um these presentations were due last Wednesday so again our closing date was on Friday so we're still analyzing all of the schoolwide data so

033information has blown up to parents with parent information reports for both dibles andl along with um a curriculum letter that Eric had sent out to the district so we're still analyzing all of that data um but right now you have copies of the numbers for our ISL data ver Qui your firms we only doing the matho whereas goes into doing the meing and the and the math um so that information is provided in the packet we're looking at providing professional development to support the new ISL program at goes year some of the teachers did pilot the program this is brand new at Quaker FM so he has sent out our math coach last week to a full day workshop he then has brought back that information and he's meeting with each grade level so this

034morning he actually met with grade two for about an hour going over all of that information because again it's a brand new assessment so making sure that we provide the necessary PD to our staff to make sure that we're doing what's what's right for kids um We are continuing to hold our monthly literacy and math data team meetings um our new literacy coach is meeting individually with each teacher each level going over all of the student data um with them um we're providing support and feedback um for our professional learning plans which is part of our future evaluation process so we're working on that as Eric probably had mentioned we're creating revising our Ela and math scope and sequences so again we've worked on that all last year and this is our second year with

035hmh so we're really looking at tweaking that scope and sequence to make sure it's exactly what is needed along with modifying any of our grade level assessment calendars um we're continuing to implement our district science of reading plan by providing opportunities for contined professional development in the area of reading as well as I had mentioned this is our second year of H it's a very big program to tackle our staff did a wonderful job um last year implementing it and again this is our second year so we're just looking at fine-tuning the things that may being didn't work so well things that we want to refine make better improve our improve our own teaching practice um providing curricular resources um teachers C 5 providing all the necessary materials and resources that our teachers want and

036need we've done a really great job so thank you to the board for approving the budget and we're providing anything that teachers ask we are giving I don't think I've said no yet um so we're giving them all the resources that they need um and they seem um to be working very very well um our last thing was providing we're working on a K5 report cards to align our standards so we are working on hopefully the first week of November start looking at report cards get a team together make sure we have representation from staff members from teachers from all all all stakeholders including parents we want to make that we're you know looking at other District's report cards seeing how they're aligning their their standards and type of report cards what they look like

037so we're going to start that process hopefully sometime in November but we want to make sure that we also have parent representation um on that committee as well um for the district goal around increasing student voice and participation in decision-making processes um a little bit trickier the younger grades but we like to start them early we actually our student council uh fourth and fifth grade graders are able to uh write speeches and they give the speeches to their home room classes and we have a whole voting process we're trying to teach them about the election process and what leadership means so that as they get older they can do the types of things that you guys are doing um so we are supporting student leadership and empowerment through a lot of our clubs we added

038the gardening club this year uh which has been very popular and this year we're looking towards taking the student leadership at the 35 level and helping to to um reach down to the K2 level both schools are going to be participating in the look for the good project um in November and it's really just a two-e kind of um gratitude campaign it fits nicely with simple seed and um spreading positivity and it was actually all of the resources were provided to us for free this year because of the flood a group reached out and wanted to share but um our student council will be running that and they would like to go down and work with the kindergarten when do that our gardening club would like to do some activities later in the year in

039the spring with Quaker Farms so for my understanding having I've been here all these years there used to be a lot more that the schools were able to do together and a lot of that slowed down during Co so we really want to take the opportunity to give our students OPP chance to come up with their own ideas have these leadership experiences so that they're ready when they get to the middle and high school to kind of take on those leadership roles um the next District goal is ensuring the successful integration and development of new staff members to the Oxford Public School through the Oxford new staff success program um so again supporting the the certified staff that are in team so it's your first year first year second year teachers supporting supporting them um

040providing mentors so every certified staff um needs a mentor so making sure that we do that at the beginning of the school year making sure that they're paired up with someone that's sort of in the realm um so if you have a grade A new grade 2 teacher you want to make sure that there is a m where that's at at least at Quaker firm so really enticing other teachers to go because you do have to be trained so offering that as a district to staff who want to go get trained as a mentor so again the district has been wonderful at putting that out there to allow staff that would like to go they are in fact able to go um in regards to supporting job coaching we want to make sure that we're

041supporting either brand new staff members or staff members that may have changed grade levels this year or I in my case I have two long-term substitutes so we want to make sure that we're providing them with the necessary training so therefore our math coach and our literacy coach is going in there more often than other classrooms just to make sure that those new new teachers are feeling supported and that they are supported um also the onboarding process that that the district has implemented seems to be really effective so now there's you know Keys being distributed there's a whole section of what needs to be done when a new staff member um joins the team um there definitely seems to be more positivity around that that things are very organized that people are getting what they

042need the first day and not waiting you know say a month or two they're they're really getting what they need that immediate day so really focusing on the onboarding process um encouraging suggestions meeting with those new staff members just checking in with them is huge again they're brand new to the district or they may have changed grade levels making sure yeah brand new to teaching making sure that they feel supported and and just coming right out and saying what do you need from me so having those conversations is definitely key in regards to maintaining we want to maintain good staff and when you have a great staff you want to keep that there so what other things can we do to make sure that they feel that they're being supported and that's obviously our job

043we want to make sure that that happens which leads right into um the next District goal which is to support Wellness of our staff and along with that Wellness goes morale the two go hand inand um so as building principles it's important to us that we really promote that as well as being good models um expect appropriate work life balance from our staff model that of course with high expectations but you know treat them as individuals um we will we both have members on the district bonness committee that are able to participate in those planning events and um kind of get staff excited about them and then we all do individual things in our building we do regular staff breakfasts um Rachel staff does something a little bit different we also try and promote team

044building activities through our monthly staff meetings and grade level meetings um and we will just continue to be empathetic leaders so that our staff does want to stay and realizes that they have um a good work life balance and access to these Wellness activities and resources here in Oxford quicker firms we also develop this year we had done it a few years ago probably prior to co we really created a quake airm School morale booster club where we have staff members that join and we meet monthly and just kind of think of things that we can do as a as a staff just to boost morale and just and just have fun whether it's something during school whether it's a breakfast or a lunch or things that we could even do outside of school hours

045and having that balance and it's nice to just get together and just have fun kid like to have fun we also like to have fun but just doing those things so this month um we started like we I don't tell anyone it's probably on video but I started like the get boot so I just put like little presents in in classrooms and it's like you've got Boo and it's a little certificate and there's there's presents and then their job is to make a copy of it and then maybe give a little something to somebody else then hang your I got food so it's just a little something but no one knows it was me that started it don't tell any too late now right now uh it is the little things uh teaching can be

046a very lonely profession because you're in a classroom all day um we updated the staff Lounge over the summer and staff were very appreciative we they restarted the sunshine club and even little things like we have a lending library of books in the staff Lounge now um so people can come in and switch out books it's it's little things and it might sound silly but it all adds up to that morale and that overall Wellness that we want to and and Dr P and Dr thank you for coming they came in this afternoon for about an hour with their little treat cart and staff were like this is the best I was excited I had oros in soda so was super exciting so it's so it was just those little things that you're like oh

047my God this is so great so again thank you for for coming toer day um so our next District goal was to enhance communication on District news a balance coverage of academics extra births Etc um obviously we're going to continue our Weekly Newsletter this one that goes out every Friday I hope that you all get it we do send it to you so I hope you enjoy reading it pictures again just trying to enhance it with you know parent things parent information that we can provide parents more pictures parents love you know my daughter's supposed to don't tell her but if they send out pictur I want to try to find where she might be so I know parents love that so again including more pictures providing some parent information um we both created a

048Facebook page feel little all to create but I finally was able to create it um so that went out on Friday so I think I have 78 likes as of Friday or as of today just kind of having different modes of communication and actually posting like our snor our letter on there as well it's just another form of communication you know to parents we want just keep those doors of communication open because if if that's we need parents support and today was our book fair so this week has been our book fair and just the amount of parents that have come in because we welcome parents come shop with your kids the amount of parents that have come in and we obviously are keeping a roster it's astronomical which is awesome to see I think

049one class had almost I think it was 90% of the families attended as well so it's encouraging parents that's what I've been in oord a very long time um it won't tell you exactly how long but that's what we're known for we're known for parent involvement we encourage parents to come in any part of our community and and just the love of learning and parents were just so happy to shop I know it's like maybe 20 minutes of your time but kids just love it so we appreciate that we want to make sure that we're getting it out there in any mode that we can and then going to school goals so on top of all those goals on top of a lot of other things that we're doing that maybe aren't on paper two

050major goals that we have um at Quaker one is as you know with the hmh program there was also this piece of a structured literacy component that kind of came out mid year last year with hm AG was kind of like sort of there but not really so we have continued with our foundation's um phonics program the structure and literacy program this year three staff members of K A1 and a grade two teacher have piloted the hmh structured literacy component while the other classroom teachers are utilizing the Wilson foundations program that we've used for many years that teachers absolutely love but we said you let's see what this hmh structured literacy piece is it correlates with hmh we're already purchasing it let's see what it entails so right now I have three teachers that are

051piloting this program and we are working alongside with Eric and meeting as grade levels meeting as a team of three with Eric and myself to really talk about the scope and sequence of the program what are some of our likes what are some of our dislikes and hopefully our goal by the end of the 2425 school year is to have are we staying with the foundations program is this what's best for our kids or is this H ofh structured literacy the best for our student students um so that's one of our goals our other goal is to understand and Implement play based learning so there was a state statute you're aware that we have to provide play based or purposeful play throughout our day um K2 pre2 so again what does that entail so at

052the end of last year we did have three staff members one staff member from each grade level who went to just the kind of the beginning phase of of professional development some workshops there's another Workshop that's coming up on Monday which I'll be attending along with three different staff members on purpose on purposeful play so again we have to incorporate that into our classrooms where classrooms are given specific time period for purpose to play if you're not sure what that is definitely I have a whole I won't read this to you but there's a whole section on what purpose to play is what the benefits are and again we have to remember that these students are five six and seven years old it is a state it's a statement date how how are we going

053to implement it effectively so the students are getting the best that they possibly can so those are our two main goals on top of all the other things that we're working on but I do have a summary of purpose that I'd be happy to share with Dr medal shy and I'll finish up with our school specific goal that goes uh this work actually started last year um you might have heard me talk about wanting to implement a wind block and really strengthen our srbi or mtss um well detered systems of support whichever acronym we're using these days um regardless of what Acron we're using we're trying to find the best way to make sure that we are bridging any Gap gaps that students are having in their academics one of the challenges when I got

054to go was that there was no set intervention time so interventionists were trying to pull kids um and it became very challenging for the classroom teacher because kids were missing core subjects so starting this year after uh quite a few months of planning with a committee last year we are implementing a walk to intervention model so each grade level has an intervention block built into the schedule for 40 minutes and during that block kids are possibly switching a classroom within their team of three or four depending on what their needs are they might be going to a room to get extra support in Reading they might be going to a room to get extra support in math they might be going to a room where they're focusing on stem and enrichment it's all based on

055student data and it's all fluid so every six to eight weeks we're reviewing that data the progress monitoring from those classes and determining if switches need to be made we still have students that are receiving either push in or pull out tiered invention tiered intervention as well but by adding this walk to intervention model um it does a few things it keeps those kids from missing core instruction um it gives them an extra dose it gives us flexibility without having to pigeonhole kids and say now you're officially a tier 2 or a tier three kid um it helps us keep the system a little more fluid it doesn't mean that it's Loosey Goosey it just gives us flexibility but it's all very databased um the staff has been wonderful very open to to new ideas

056we've been meeting extra times I worked out a little deal with them it's been working great um but they are really invested in this because they want what's best for the students and they don't want the kids missing any of their core instruction so all but one group of three have started as of this week um and we will be continuing to progress monitor not just the kids but ourselves throughout the year to make any tweaks to the program that we need to make sure that it's doing exactly what we want it to do which is make sure we're bridging those gaps apps um helping the students achieve in the most time efficient and Personnel efficient way that we can um so more to come on that because it will be a work in progress

057but I'm very happy with staff um buying and effort and just kind of really taking it and running with it because they want to do what's right for the kids so I think that this is going to be a good thing for us going forward is that 40 minutes a day or a week it's 40 minutes a day wow that's great yeah um you know and initially it might be a little scary to think but that's 40 minutes that they're not getting of something else but the reality is so many kids are pulled in and out throughout the day that everybody's kind of missing something so by implementing this model we're trying to make it so that all of the core instruction that everybody should be getting is happening outside of that intervention block and

058then whenever possible that's when kids are getting the extra that they need so they're not missing anything else there are times that kids have a number of services and they still have to get something outside that block but um our goal is to make it as as time efficient as possible so that kids aren't missing their regular Ela or their regular math or any of that and because it's fluid if you need a little bit of extra in both you can do six weeks in Reading then you can do six weeks of extra math um the teachers are really being creative about how they're grouping the kids right now and we'll keep refining that as we go on that's great especially since we don't always recognize the talented and gifted kids so now now this

059is an opportunity to do that yeah um any questions for either of us on any of our goals maybe not so much directly go but thanks for all the and good stuff going on so I know when you arrived Amy like it was kind of a change and the alignment started happening more between the two schools so you know I'm not an educator but what what are some of the things that you guys have to do to like we've always heard that we need more vertical integration between schools and there's the alignment now so what does that look like like when they say vertical integration what does that really mean in practicality so I think that what we're going to start to see happen are some of the things some of what I just discussed

060it will start to trickle down to Quaker in a way that um works for their particular schedule of their particular age groups um having a K5 literacy coach as much as I don't like having to share her with the building to like what is really powerful about that is she sees the full spectrum and so she's able to say to second grade teachers hey I just met with the third grade teachers and here's what they say the kids are coming in struggling with so how are we going to make some tweaks to the curriculum in our instruction so that those kids are more ready for third grade and that continues right on down the line and hopefully up into the middle school as well um and I think just the fact that Rachel and I

061also have Eric um to do curriculum work with it it took us a year to kind of all get our our feet under us but we're able to have those conversations about what's working in hmh or what's working in IM how are we bridging those gaps and we're not working in isolation so I think having the district curriculum coordinator things that are across the district it just makes it Fly State easy if that's not going to work because n none of this is easy education is just not easy but it does it makes it easier to have conversations that I we all can sit down with Eric and and it's like a K5 look where you know I'm looking at my school as K2 that's what I'm I'm I want to make sure a K2

062is successful am's looking at her what we really need to look at as a b what you guys are all looking at as K12 that's that's what's need to be know we need to view it that way too so I think we're really the past two years it's been a lot of conversations um especially with the third B like what do you see what do we need to work on and it's not a fault to anybody but I we want that feedback just like first grade gives a feedback to kindergarten and second grade gives her feedback to first grade and then kindergarten gives her feedback to the parents no um but things like that's how it triples down so I just think having that K5 um is huge and obviously we expanded ak2 that's the

063ultimate goal and especially with the attributes of a graduate I mean that breaks it down very you know systematically these are the things that kindergarten should be leing kind around first grade second grade um but it's just been a really great it's been great working with am for the past two years that seems a good partners um literacy coach I know that that was something that we bought long um how is it working out and um doing one an extra are we how are we do you're asking the wrong person what I used to do many many years ago um it's definitely been working out beautifully um just last week just for example she actually went into first grade classrooms and was mod modeling structur literacy lessons and maybe not so much for teachers that

064they're just me am I doing it in your classroom if I give feedback but it's always nice to have that expert to say your spot on right there or I we can try it this way or watch me and then they take that back and they just meet as a gr level and run with it so two days last week you know we found some Sub sub coverage in the morning and we allowed the first grade who to all be meet together watch her do a lesson and then then they had a debrief and that was something that came out of the H&H coaching that we obviously had to pay for last year teacher said we l watching the hmh course because hmh is brand new we weren't sure if we were doing it right

065when you read a manual you just hope you're doing it right um and they loved that I think that's where they got their that their biggest their biggest learnings came from was watching coach so now they're watching Stacy and yeah I am doing it right no I never thought to do it that way that that makes total sense um it it can be hard to break in as a coach in a district because it's hard in your classroom to say yeah sure come in and show me what I'm doing wrong um but that's not really the the purpose of coaching but I can say um sure it would be great to have another one but Stacy's doing a very powerful job um even though she split between the two schools we're only halfway through October

066and for my third grade team who she started with because they're trying to get these you know incoming babies ready to go and I have some new teachers in that grade level she has already um has them up and running on a new 15minute daily reading program that they're doing to supplement um she has done by grouping the teachers with coverage she's modeled small group phonics lessons using a new um highly effective research program U for all of them they're up and running with that and she is working with some of the teachers around their professional learning goal to start working on our writing curriculum um and that's that's just one grade level she's doing similar things with other grade levels in the other school so yes it would be great to clone her but

067there is a power also I think to having somebody K5 who is helping to bridge the schools together yeah and teachers have been very receptive very receptive yeah um so we talked about the vertical integration and how the literacy excuse me can um can help with that I'm interested to know what you guys thinking maybe this isn't a question for you maybe it's a question for Eric down the road but may I'd be interested to see what you guys thought about how that progression happens once they leave goes and they get into into the middle school and like can we keep that progression and help those kids keep learning and keep improving as they go through middle school and high school yeah I mean I think that's a huge conversation but a big part of

068it is going to be the curriculum work um as we align K to five and then we align you know five going into six and seven and upward um and the more that we learn about our assessment data as well that's going to help guide what that curriculum looks like um as far as coaching I think that I wish we had more of it in the district I've seen effective coaching at the middle and the high school level um but it's hard in a small District to totally get that but I think the more collaboration that we can do amongst the interventionists and the coaches that we do have as we're building that curriculum is what's going to be that powerful piece yeah I just don't want to see it and at middle no it's

069not and it's I mean the teachers you got to remember especially literacy last year the district brought on a brand new program K12 like every single teacher in the district so they have been working extremely hard and there's a lot of hard work left with curriculum writing alignment with assessments and the work comes with them meeting having discussions around the data what does it mean so the work is being done and it's like the teachers had a huge lift over this past year with you know learning all these new programs and now in year two a little more comfortable with it it's easier to have the conversations now so and there are celebrations I don't want to go deep into the data because I'll bore all of you but with the Dibbles the foundational skill

070data that was new to teachers um learning what that is and what to do with that data was very powerful and I can say for my teachers who really put some effort into that last year the results of beginning of the year this year you can see the kids the growth from beginning of the year the prior year like there was learning that definitely happened that was retained over the summer and as that continues and our teachers get more comfortable with the data and with those instructional strategies we should just keep seeing that that build thank you anybody else all right everyone so it's time for the the middle right the middle Tri I know you are so um at the top of our school Improvement plan I put a quote that I found when

071I I was reading a leadership article about Middle School leadership and it talked a lot about that you know a middle school isn't just the place that prepare students for high school right we aim to develop leaders who are ready to make a difference in their school and their community so yes a big you know a big lift for us is the next step but it's also the step that they're in and meeting the students where they are in the step that they're in and you know I've talked a lot about where middle schoolers are and all the res and everything that I've done you know finding the Magic in middle school has been a transformative book for me and really talking about um where Middle School brains are so you know we really aim

072to to hit that the Crux of that quote through our school Improvement plan goals and you know I'm just going to give you kind of a high level and then if you have any questions I'm not going to take you step by step just my Styles so of course we remain committed to increasing academic outcomes right not only on District assessments but also State assessments we have made really good gains at the middle school and I'm so very proud of the work that we have done we still have a lot of work to do and I Know It And We are continuing to work on that but we also are we're looking at academic gains not only through that um academic data and state assessment data but through new electives we have a new pip

073class a personal interest project class for eth grade the kids are loving it it's a pilot there's 20 kids in it it's a mini Capstone class and um I can't wait for you to see what they're what they're going to end up with in men we have more PE we have more music thanks to you listening to us and helping us get a halftime um another halftime te down at the middle school another halftime music it's been great to see kids be able to expand their pathway of electives we have teachers um identifying high level goals for their evaluations they're excited about going to professional development again enriching themselves so they can enrich the students in their classrooms uh we are going to continue the work with the attributes of The Graduate looking at being

074critical thinkers effective communicators productive citizens that work is going to continue and then our big school goal this year is all around grading we really made a major sh to our grading philosophy this year and what we were expecting from students we looked at the research we looked at what you know students should be their grade should be from multiple lenses not just from one lens of summative assessments it should be summative assessments formative assessments classwork projects homework all of that should compile into the grade it shouldn't be a single sort of myopic view it should be a a look at the whole child right so all of that is academics then all of our other goals that support the district goals are about Partnerships okay so one of the Partnerships we're partn we're partnering

075with um AJ when it comes to Athletics I'm really excited about what the new 612 Vision will be we made an investment in Cross Country last year we have you know a so many kids that weren't able to tap into that sport now have their sport on their second year what else can we do right there's always these ideas of could we have club sports could we have a running club in the winter could we do this could we do that right the so I'm really excited to partner on that um we're partnering with the new coordinator of student conduct right he Dave VCA is at our school and we share him again you know like you don't want to share the literacy coach it's hard to share Dave right um and so we share

076Dave Ellen and I at the middle school and we partner with him when it comes to student attendance and behavior and then we partner with the students in their voice and their participation uh we just met it was so funny we have boo grams for sale next year next week the student council is selling them that um the PTO is sponsoring it but we had a bunch of kids come to our door can we deliver the vrs and you know it's like we have to all right we need the party lines here like this is student council this is not you know this so are you part of student council but we also have our student leaders ship of the eighth grade class officers running the speeches are written the posters are up they're going

077to be you know um exercising their civic rights next week and trying to get people to vote for them um and we do this also we meet with these students groups but one thing that I'm so proud of our Middle School Is our commitment to community service and we do that through our win on Fridays and I just want to tell you about a couple things that are going on one during the month of September we um we raised money it was a seventh grade grade team in the eighth grade grade team took this on for Avery's little army um Avery was a girl in Milford that died from brain cancer and the kids were removed by our story and so um this is like a side note mnap when I do this say swirl

078then I go off on little tangents but so we this is just a little side story to tell you about Avery's little army so last last summer we sent the teachers off with ducks and we told them to duck out for the summer and we asked them to take pictures of their Ducks when they were on their vacation send them to us and then at the beginning of this year we compiled all those pictures and we made a slideshow to say see where everybody went on their vacation um but we liked that duck idea so much that we were incorporating it into this this school year and we talk about in the um Pond of Excellence Spartans making positive ways and so the eighth grade grade team and seventh grade grade team when they came

079up with their fundraiser for Avery's little army they sold little ducks at lunch okay and so the kids could buy a a duck or a bracelet now the ducks have squeakers in them bad move for Middle School bad move but the kids loved it they bought so many ducks they we raised $900 for Avery's little army Avery's dad is coming tomorrow to pick up the check and the kids are going to present the check to Avery's dad he was so moved he cried on the phone with me so these are our middle schoolers doing this work I didn't tell them to do that they did that and our sixth grade um team right now is doing treats for troops they are um getting uh candy together and the day after Halloween they will send all

080of that candy to our troops and they made the posters oh some funny misspellings on those posters but we fixed them um but they they made the posters they are making the morning announcements they are rallying the kids to bring in the um the treats for the troops so really the voice and participation we're trying to empower them to to do good things and they are so um we're also partnering with staff new staff and um existing staff we're mentoring the new staff same thing as K5 we have the team process we're mentoring them and we also continue to invest in current staff if you want to if you if you have to do something for a staff we just did a caramel apple bar at the last PD they loved it you know we

081just do little things like that all the time for them and I and they know that we're authentic in our efforts to um keep them happy because it is a tough job and staff Wellness is important we do something silly called a monthly DJ Miss naap gets on the um gets on the announcements plays a snippet of a song caller number so and so to extension you know the front office's extension if they're the right caller with the right name and title of the song they win a prize and they love it they fight for that we're like caller number two sorry caller and they come down and it's you know it's a Starbucks gift card or gift card but little things that we can do we also um partner with the community organizations and

082the Civic engagement again like I said with um community service and you know we're ready for cleanup efforts when whenever the district is and then um last you know we partner with parents and the community Through communication I have my Weekly Newsletter that's very important I try to make that that One-Stop shop but I have been I I have entered the Instagram universe and so if you would like to follow us we are at Oxford Middle School Spartans and I have um I think 50 followers right now um and it's modest but we're getting there we just put it in the Friday newsletter but again it's a it's a great place to Showcase pictures and like you know I plan to Showcase tomorrow when Avery's dad comes and um picks up the check and in

083the students so that is the overview does anyone have questions for me quick question um back to like goal one I can't remember the EXL yes is that the one where um when you do the testing it's giving the kids the test beginning year thinking trying to find out what they know about the whole year ahead of them or is it point in time lesson I can't remember his back and I can't so EXL is new for us this year so the diagnostic is trying to Pi like is trying to place them on a right their score is based on what grade level they think they're at so their score if it starts with a six they're in the sixth grade grade level seven so it is the grade level standards and they're trying to

084place them within that Continuum so the goal is like so like e8th grade like 12% at above right so but they're being measured at all eighth grade curriculum yeah to get to I mean perfect world 100% by the end of the year y yeah you know Eric and I talked at length about that um that eighth grade starting point and and what happened there and why is that there and we had a we have a couple of we think reasons there's there yeah and you see you even saw I ready like each school like the first grade level kindergarten at Quaker third grade at go sixth grade at Middle School nth grade at the high school they kind of start off the highest and then we kind of start the year always droing down from

085there um a lot of it has to do with the amount of skills they have to learn usually the fall is always the lowest scores obviously because they're saying hey you know it's rare for a student who's going to be if they're in sixth grade to be midway through or above sixth grade coming into fall sixth grade you're two months away from having to done any math you know we're asking you to come in and go where are you where are you at the other thing with the program that we're still learning is like when it breaks it down by the strands so there's like the overall score than the each strand actually gives you a score what we found with a lot of students as well um I don't say a lot so working

086with some of the math tutors we have in the building we had a group of students that I happen to be with who showed like your two grade levels below I think I used this in the letter um in fractions right adding subtracting fractions which you should have learned a couple years ago we found that it really wasn't a you didn't know how to do it it was within the math program we gave them like a quick refresher and they were like oh okay I forgot that step and now now I'm good so that this program for teachers is used as a way to kind of it's a starting point in the fall of like okay we have a direct to look not every skill it says to work on is going to be a

087priority for the teachers right away and that's why kids have you know 20 minutes a week um for math 20 minutes a week for ELA and the middle school for each to work on those skills that the teachers may not hit right away or meas is another example so that way they'll get the eth graders up yes so that way they get that practice and those skills they may need while teachers are able to look at the skills that they're like all right these the ones we got to get to now and start to work on those and you know what we've talked about as well as the seventh grade sbap scores don't reflect this eighth grade start in math either that they made really good gains an S back in seventh grade so we

088expect this this slow start in eth grade to incrementally go up we really do so I know just we measure growth right you measure Ki is there because back to integration between grades are and you have all this by student obviously you put plans together by student see where they are all those things is there a look back where it says all right I've got these students coming in from seventh grade and I know my ones that were weaker didn't complete at or above I know they're already got to be targeted eth there's no way they're going to hit e8th grade yes than is that is that that's all the time yes and that's through our that's through our srbi program with the math in inventionist and on the other side with literacy v um

089reading interventionists they start the year off with the data from the previous year so the fifth from the 5ifth to the sixth the data comes in there and we have they have those meetings right away and they they pull those kids into srbi and we start targeting those skills some need some don't need very much time and it's it's like wait what happen and they're right back onto grade level but some based on the previous year are are there again and that we keep working with them so it's proactive when they're coming into grade versus oh crap they didn't do well me back exactly exactly and we've been lucky with this grant funded tutoring through the state department that we applied for we've had two extra math tutors in our building both last year and

090this year to work with students on top of our math intervention so our math interventions is identifying you know the SBI but students who are cby that are right there almost at grade level then the math tutors are taking those students in working with them so any other questions thank you thank youcome so similar to uh Sylvia's a coach I'm gonna kind of start big picture um and then if you kind of want to parch things out along the way we can your questions to the end I'm GNA let you sneak away we were trying to get out um so much of the work that we do subsumes the district goals that were shared by Dr Miller and Dr kelki earlier um at the previous board meeting and so while we're looking at all of

091those things like staff supports um improving instruction how we're partnering younger teachers with our more mentors and our team we're also looking at the way in which we continue to build Partnerships within and outside of our community I think um Eric um and Vic you took a trip recently with a couple of our teachers to explore a local manufacturing plant um we are looking to revise and really refine our current Capstone internship project um we hear great things coming out of it from our current students but we think too that we could capitalize and leverage that work into an even greater more meaningful Endeavor um particularly for students who might not be College Bound uh right now we know that PSAT sat is the state mandated benchmark test that all of our Engineers are taking

092um and along the way obviously the PSAT is what our freshman sophomores are taking but in talking with um Eric as well as our school counseling department I think it's incumbent upon us as we think about what Readiness looks like for both those Bound for college and those who are not um how we are preparing them no matter the experience that they're pursuing so for instance should we give an interest survey on the level of value that the PSAT sat still holds it's not to say that we don't find valuable but is it valuable for all kids the way that we're defining it to be of value so I think a good starting point for us is working with our school counseling team and reaching out whether it's through navian or own building based survey

093to see what we could do to really refine the offerings that we're giving our students to best prepare them for the world they want to be part of um some of them will be very College Bound some of them will not and I think we want to extend the opportunities to all students um so I think that's certainly one of our goals we have a committee um in place and sort of carrying the torch now and looking at what that partnership might look like um and utilizing some of our current staff whether it the school counselors our library media Specialists um our own building based administrative team and then local businesses to see who we can really work along side to prepare our kids for the World At Large um we think I too I

094Echo the sentiments of Sylvia when she talks a lot about our beginning partnership with our new uh 612 Athletic program um we're very grateful to have Mr Houston on board and the the work that he has begun to really uh inre the Athletics already underway I know he and I as on our way in we're already thinking about something else that we kind of want to toss around uh as far as a senior night and a teacher recognition but I'm not going to spoil that before we really cash out that plan um but he added a great deal of information to the athletic piece and again I really Echo the sentiments I have um both my key team members in this room this is truly a collaborative Endeavor um not just because I'm new and

095I'm still figuring things out but because we are really building this from the ground up um and I really couldn't do this without either of them and really all the sending schools or the support that we get from each of you um so we are looking to really build upon what we have improve upon what we have and move into kind of this new this new way to approach teaching and learning and success um along the way we're also thinking about how we capitalize on high leverage instruction I think the way in which we're going to approach this right now is proving to be effective through the use of our new teacher value system um Stephanie and I have had the opportunity to sit down with the majority of our teaching staff and really hear

096them talk about the goals that are going to improve not only their own practice but teaching and learning outcomes for students and how we most of them come in with very big ideas but how we make those ideas manageable so that they really can bear the results um I think what's important to note is that we aren't just looking at outcome data but processual data along the way and it's incumbent upon us is we see things happening to be able to go back and make iterative changes so that we're always sort of learning along the way and why that learning is important in what the outcome will ultimately be for both staff and students so when we think about high quality instruction we really are using this new T Val plan to say to staff

097what is it you need to know more about to really have the best impact on the kids in front of you how can we help you make that happen we've sent a lot of Staff already out into the community on professional development um the school counselors intended enrollment seminar recently uh we have some teachers doing some ISL training and so we're we're continuing to kind of feed the need of the things that they recognize are important in both their classroom or in their office spaces depending on what it is that they're doing uh we are working very collaboratively with Mr veca our coordinator of student conduct um we know we have a pretty substantial chronic absenteeism rate so we're looking to continue to reduce that um so in coordination we have two school-based teams we

098have student attendance team which is facilitated by my assistant principal and then we have our mtss team which is facilitated by me where we're looking and trying to be proactive in finding the kids who are becoming school avoidant how are we rectifying early on those patterns of behavior so that kids can be in the classroom because if instruction matters instruction happens in the classroom this is where they need to be so that they can be successful um we right now we have put together what we're calling our watch list um it's our early early list of students for kingom attendance is already proving to be a little bit problematic how are we reaching out to them what are we doing um from a restorative practice approach to get them to understand why being in school

099is where they need to be and outside of school what might be preventing that from happening you think of Ma's hierarchy of needs we kind of have to meet them where they are and build from there um skipping ahead we do have I will say I um I I credit my AP here for allowing me to check one item off the agenda which was selecting J Le reps who are joining us tonight so thank you again to Lindsay and Brandon I think that their voice is going to be critical in the work that we continue to do to also build upon that we are going to start something in Oxford High School Club school council it will be comprised of building administrators teachers students and support staff we will meet once a month not only

100to talk about the current activities underway but also how we continue to build upon our school community so it'll be the opportunity a for for them to provide feedback and input um really be kind of a a Roots operation to think about the work that we can just build upon that we already have underway um that the deadline for uh students and teachers to let me know that they're interested is this Friday so we hope to have our first meeting in early October um speaking of Partnerships we continue to work very well with our booster club and our QB Club um we are Miss today uh she's eager for the Festival of treats to start so uh we're kind of starting planning I 10 mon meetings with them and I know they just finished up

101or about to finish their Oxford strong fundraiser which was a huge success for the town and we were very honored to be able to recognize at our first opening football game in partnership with our local First Responders to be able to make oural um we talked a little bit about the Partnerships with employment and career that'll be something we look to have a database for U by the end of this school year so that we can continue to Pilot that work moving ahead I think that will be a great opport Unity again to build into our internship Capstone experience to be able to provide more meaningful community experiences to our kids that not only aren't just community service based but also work based so what might these experience be able to lend you going out

102into the workforce to give you a glimpse into what it is you think you want to do or perhaps what you thought you wanted to do and how to best plan whether it's CTE or business Pathways and then school specific gools um we are looking at mainly right now I did not include ISL data and if you have questions about that Eric and I are happy to answer it uh but we're looking specifically right now at our PSATs data um again I recognize that I just said we're thinking about whether or not the p is the most valuable assessment I think as we continue to look at curriculum we also need to look at the benchmark assessments that are giving our kids that Readiness approach whether it be for college or the world work but

103right now the p sat is the state mandated test um students take it multiple times while there are students at the high school and we really need to improve upon our Benchmark data points um so I touch upon those and the achievable metrics and I specify the class of 26 because it's more helpful um to a school-based team to kind of look longitudinally at the cohort data and how kids have progressed from the beginning so we could start with this class all the way back to their eth grade sback testing and then track their PSAT test through freshman sophomore junior year which will happen tomorrow and then also there's spring sat data which will give us a really um good metric of where we stand and where we need to go this again will help

104us revisit curricularly where we are and where we might need to make some adjustments whether it be to math or to ELA so a lot um I feel honored and privileged to be here so far it's been a pleasure getting to know the staff and and most importantly the students for um really all the work we do is um and I'll take any questions yes so I want to welcome you to to the Board of Ed I don't think you had an opportunity to present to us yet y um so one question I have is on H the absenteeism have you seen an improvement I know Athletics has done their part in trying to you know uh provide a a carrot stick approach to have you seen an impact on that compared to last year's

105efforts yes we have um I'm I don't know yet what last year's number at this point was but I'd say collectively in talking with both my school counseling staff the support the administrative team uh Mr Becca who was in more of a teaching capacity then there is a Define and I think what we're doing is targeting those students in a way that's going to be most meaningful and getting them to recommit to being in school and the athletic fece is certainly a great carrot but I think Beyond just Athletics it's just this is your tool community and if there's a reason that you're not here what is that reason and how can we help you so that you can feel like this is a space you want to be in um I think we we

106started to make great strives I know that you know the student body is working hard to build you know culture and climate I know the adults are also doing the same our advisory piece certainly helps it lends that adult sort of student relationship to consistency over four years and being able to build that report um and so I would say at this point yes we are seeing a market increase the hope is that that traj continues hi welcome you didn't mention it in your report but I've heard about your the new pilot program for a Saturday detention what facilitated the need for a Saturday detention we're going to determine what the need is so it hasn't started yet um our first Saturday detention would be on November 9th but we are looking to curb a

107students missing class right now one of the caveats towards discipline is like in school suspension which is great because the kids are there and they do have a point of contact dur the school day but they're still missing class for the duration of the school day so four more minor offenses whether it be chronic tardies chronic absenteeism um vaping of nicotine we could sort of progressively get to a level but is the Saturday detention a component that helps us avoid students missing class and instead they report to Saturday detention which is facilitated by either a certified teacher or a school counselor which also serves as kind of a wraparound service because now you're with that person there can be a check-in process let's look at Google Classroom talk to me about your assignments can I

108help you and so it's I know removing them from their weekend which isn't the most ideal solution but it is a means of issuing consequences while also not interrupting the flow of the school day it is after school detention or we don't we never we still have after school detention I think again we're thinking of progressive measures so we do have kids who stay after school now um for 30 minutes at a time depending on their offense but if that doesn't seem to be having impact that it should sort of what's the next level and do we jump right to in school I think there's kind of a medium there with that Saturday detention which can be done in two doses you can have a two hour or a 4 Hour um and the idea

109is to kind of see a if it's a need and if it is is it rectifying any of those behaviors and helping prevent students from missing more class than we should I think supportive to the teachers as well because they end up raching whether it's missing class for attendance reasons or because you're in trouble we're supporting our staff as well all that reteaching be extraordin go ahead just thinking about Saturday and um how do you qualify for that and uh you could be our first you want he's already done did breakfast so but uh the thing is that after school detention you know we got three DS for simple things and then three the you went down s of principal he talked to you then you try to modify your behavior and you went on

110to attention and hopefully the detention will be more than you we just had a copy the dictionary you know socl my pionship somewhere and uh but Saturday is I think you're going to know what core person's in there so may it should be Conant because if they're that level you got a strong image of who's going there and why they're going there and the same thing with absentee isn't for the seven years I've been on board here absentee has been a problem and if you look it up nationally locally it's the same 12 things they just move around I'm always disappointed that in seven years with the same 12 things that we're going to study again how much more studying do you have to do it's broken home it's about you know those 12 things

111you I just hope that as we move along we move along faster than another seven years they analyze it I think we know the problem yeah I don't disagree I mean I so I sit um on our multip systems of support and I think one of the more recognizable differences between that and a very strict srbi model is the idea that it's far more proactive than reactive um I we're looking at everything when we sit down at the table we think about a kid who is missing school and whether or not it's impacting them academically is there testing that was missed are there certain days of the week like because perhaps it's a peer issue or a staff issue what time are they getting here who's bringing them to school like what is there tends

112to be a lot of contributing factors um we as a school-based team can do our best to rectify them whether it's through home visits or we now have you know the contracted social worker who can check in who's providing an extra layer of support that may not have been in existence in the past and strengthening that relationship between school and home is ideally what we need to do in order to get kidss to believe that this is a space I need to be I believe that the people here care about me and that the work Happening Here matters and I think when they come to recognize that those two things are true they'll make more concertive effort to attend the other thing is on play dat or play time and that's pretty much old an

113old Theory and kind of goes back to when I was gr up you know which was Abraham Lincoln's so you know we could go out you know get a Beed or something but no but you had play you had playes you had the community could go out you played tag you play you learned leadership you learned being a follow and part of the play date thing part of the program that was done iner was the play date was to have them play in leadership roles while they're learning something and we started it we had an exellent program I don't know if we're still doing they the the staff had painted this the stones out there in different numbers so they would add they're out there playing they're adding numbers so hopeful that that's the kind

114of play thing that it's just not an hour of Randomness and know it's got to be structured and and play goes all the way up to high school you know it's called you know doing a team Capstone is almost playing so I'm hoping and I feel encouraged that we're going that way and the uh detention thing I always think think was cool I was pretty upset about it because I was thinking I know when you're a Junior and senior you can't afford to go to detention because the guy was going to talk to you is your boss it's going to cost you so your father could say anything the man that is paying you you're late fire so I never had detention in my junior senior year I needed the money for has so I'm

115hoping this program that but the other thing is discipline starts right down in kind Garten and we've been on this Crusade of you know Magnum School type every you know pick your chair do your Disney and we created this lack of discipline going up and now you're the catch all for so I'm hoping that your planing work on behind you maybe thank you Heather Heather if I may just real quick to Vic and the rest of the board school counselor first disciplinarian for most of my career but it's always been very important to me to think of the kid first and so our approach although you don't get to be part of every little ounce ofit is always counseling first why and so there's a reflection packet whether detention suspension dates um Mr Becca's jump

116right on board and what are those support systems we can get so it's not just the stick it's it's the rest of it as well and I'm I'm very happy and hopeful I mean we we've had to have a herculine jump past Co to get high school kids back in they were so used to being at home I can do this from home I don't need my teacher now rubbber meet in the road they need us again so I'm very hopeful for that whole piece to be back together so yes it is an inconvenience to upset your boss I hope they think we're their boss once in a while um but also yeah uh to get to get back in for for what they need and and to make them happier and you guys when

117I first got on board about the Capone internship I jumped right a board with a student L um proposal for how we could grow Capstone internship which was student LED which means it's what they want and now we we've taken some big steps to make that happen now we have a media library specialist and some programs just ready to help us fight so we'll be back at you when we need more support to make that happen next year um so have you thought at all about the the parent that refuses to bring her kid in on Saturday or have you thought at all about the kid in the broken home that if he tells what happened and gives the slip up he's not coming and he's probably got other issues or she has got other

118issues I think the piece of Saturday detention and it it it's true for all of our discipline whether we issue kids at detention and in school whatever the thing is it starts by having a conversation with parents and so far knock on whatever laminant surface this may be um we've been very fortunate in like forging very good relationships with our parents um and even when they might not always agree we can meet in the middle about what it is that you you kind of see as the issue and build from there um and so to to your point about Saturday attention I recognize it's going to be an inconvenience PR if a kid can't drive himself and they need to get a ride um it is going to impact people and so I think we're

119going to cross that bridge as we come to it and and see what happens um the nature of Saturday attention it is it is an inconvenience and it is an inconvenience for a reason and hope that's a little bit of a deterrent in itself um but for those kids who have difficulties or come from a broken home or who know it's going to create more of an issue than we intend it to be we are certainly willing to have that conversation as it as it arises yeah thank you're welcome anybody else thank you very much thank you can I just say one thing the administr I just um would like to thank you guys for the hard work that you put forward during the flood um we could not have done a lot of what

120we did without we all being there um getting kids off the buses standing out there directing traffic thank you all for all the your hard work during that time I know it took time away from your families and your other efforts at school but thank you all for doing what we did it was appreciated does anybody have a good impression of Dr Miller correcting traffic I was at the high school every morning it was awesome there's even right out there with everybody of farms I wanted all the buses leave at the same time so I jumped in front of the road and I stopped grabing and I started waving the buses through and I'm cheering them morning was we didn't get to see that I just my just my yes thank you for everything with

121all right you okay um let's go through action items so it came to our attention that there is a high school guidance counselor that spends an extensive amount of time every year preparing for the scholarship Drive each year for our high school seniors there's a huge event at the end of the school year with um good night thank you with students um receiving anywhere from $50 to $60 to up to $95 in scholarships um the guidance C spends the entire year consolidating all the scholarships getting people to commit getting the funds in getting the night organized it comes AR that person has never received statement for that work it was not part of the colletive bargaining agreement last year the OA has approached me about having a sement for that person we discussed it at

122the finance committee The Proposal will be for $240 for um assignment I'm asking the board this evening to authorize the board chair to enter into anou with the OA for this person to get a statement for the year okay do we have a motion to approve theou request for the OS scholarship advisor I'll make that motion that we approve the stat for the scholarship courin do I have a second second second uh discussion anyway who is the person who does it right now it is Andrew mcra so one just one of the student council yes no further discussion U all those in favor I those opposed extensions motion passes thank you she does a wonderful job every year benefit to our students it is um is a recognition to all of our work and I

123just want to publicly thank you for all the the years she been doing it and now she form thank you very much thank you um so do we have a motion to request for approval of Q qfs MZ bid award so we went on to bid following the flood um a great deal I just make the motion make a motion to approve the request for uh qfs mol bid award in the amount of $33,000 okay following the flood um the bulk of the M on the playground forer farms all watched away and it became a safety hazard so we went out to bid we had one vendor that put in a bid and that's the bit you see this evening we' like the Board of Education to approve this bid yes it's for $32,000 but

124we feel that we can submit this to Insurance you get partially funded it's actually already been submitted to Insurance to see if we can get get any piece of back so we have $1,000 deductible so most people can get back is 23 if we get back back but it's also going into all the towns stuff so maybe we get the full 33 I don't know my guess is the town's going to keep the 10 we're GNA get talking about Fe re no insurance um did we do that motion okay yeah yeah the motion is fine I just want to make I where it's coming from what line you're going to be we have it we didn't have it funded so where we did not no we don't have it funded in the operating budget so

125the thought process is we're going to utilize um the central activities uh General activities fund dist General activities fund because there's $56,000 in that line and so then when the re insur when the insurance if we get insurance money back we'll just re that with the insurance proceeds I wanted to hear how they're moving the mulch with the two fences so I heard that in facilities and I thought it'd be fun so they can't get the vehicles across the fence they're actually almost taking a conveyor belt and then transporting it up and over it's more in mulch right I they're picking out the sand replacing band and and it really yard 200 yard so any further discussion guys all right so we'll go to the vote all those in favor those opposed extensions motion passes

126and finally um need to make a motion to approve the snow removal contract renewal um and I'll let Dr Miller describe that and then we'll go to make a motion oh yeah I'd like to make a motion to approve the uh the bid for snow plowing and removal in the amount of I believe it's 9902 $92,000 we have a second Dr okay so three years ago we to bid for all the snow removal um the way the contact was written back then was a oneyear renewal each year if we decided to implement it so each you come back to the board last year is right after we mooved new property so we did a soft bid to see what it makes sense to go to somebody else makes sense to stay with Nature's Edge at

127the time that we had two competing bids um this became significantly less than if we went to another company so we it became the9 $90,000 for this year with some minor tweaks because we had some new parking that we didn't have before when they did the original bid so we're asking for the 92,000 for this year there going to be some minor tweaks now because we have added some additional parking and we do need to have conversations whether or not we need to get any back by C or not but it's the $950,000 removal for year three of this contract do you know if we're making an addendum to it to include the new central office parking that we've created they've got to revise the prices slightly so we're asking for you to approve the

12892,000 like we did last year with a slight modification and with the new machine that we have for sidewalks and stuff is that a factor no because what that machine does it clears the sidewalks nature that does the parking lot okay so they don't have anything to do side got it thank you if it's like a usual fee I mean I have no idea what yeah so yeah so essentially there's two ways to go about snowb REM mobile one is a per storm where they give you a flat rate and you pay every time it sows the other way is the way that we've been doing it for a long time here which is giving a large contract for unlimited number of snow removals it's a gamble last year we didn't have a lot of

129snow so we paid for a lot more than we actually needed previous years when we' had a lot of snow it pays for itself so it it the risk reward um this guarantees you know what the cost is going to be and we fig from a finance standpoint for a number of years out this made the most Financial sense in some years you do lose out like last year anybody else all right so go to the vote all those in favor say those opposed abstentions motion passes Dr Miller okay so I'm gonna be rather brief tonight I know the late hour tonight District P quick updates the town did give us a revised Road list um the end of last week there are three roads that remain um unpassable by buses we've given that list

130to the bus company and we're waiting for the bus company to now reroute the routes according to the revised list we we're also trying to get them to add an additional driver to we're still waiting for formal response from them um we are right now working on compiling a list and going to have our attorney send them a formal letter um demanding that they follow the contract if they don't do so that would try and help with the um 515 pickup for the the magnet schools at the same time we're also have a policy first read this evening to also help address the 5:15 pickup so we're still working in that um second um as you heard earlier this evening Dr and myself have been going through all schools we went through high school on

131Friday th and we did um great o and greats today with the Gratitude part basically uh nice cart of snacks and drinks walk class by classroom office by office and house our staff members and teachers are interested in snacks on to drink just as a way to say thank you to them and the smiles on their faces it works on teachers and staff members that wanted how much to pay us but we have that it was a gesture of kindness to them and they were very appreciative of that um and finally just as a reminder to the board and community in two weeks November 5th which is election day historically schools and Connecticut are closed on that day schools are used um for elections on the school calendar that origin had been a profess learning

132day with no school since we had moved the PD day before the start of the school day school year that day will be a no school day students and for sta the offices will be open secretaries for administrator 12 month staff but for students and for teachers and Par um that will be a day off that day so that's in two weeks that is on the calendar for students and it's um newer for the staff as well and that's our rep for just I noticed and I don't know if it was a type of the public content said there was an attachment for analysis of Staff departures was handed out I it's been on there for like last okay sorry I must have copied over there sorry about that always start the previous event and

133you oh yeah I hear you all right um second audience of C citizens hello um I did watch the meeting but that's not what I'm here to talk about and I go back and Bobby and I go back but I'm sorry if the word elected is there politics is there and everybody has to deal with it I totally support Saturday detentions kids need consequences and so to parents um hopefully deter people from but the other thing I read about absentee all the time absentee ISM all the time um and I really I I really hate our policies um only because they're so like you're not a good parent if you keep your kid home um and I noticed on and the when the administrators were here that it said that they were going to talk

134to the student before the parents and my daughter was accosted by someone I'm not exactly sure who last year not that's strong that's a strong word I'm sorry aost just be careful Jess please just be careful she was um she was asked by somebody why she was absent from school yesterday and her answer was call my parents they I had permission to be out of school by them call them them so um that made her feel very uncomfortable I'm just letting you know and so I would hope that um knowing that things that that could make a student uncomfortable because that is if I have to call my child out then somebody should be contacting me as to why my child was out and if they are excused or unexcused or or whatever um so

135I just wanted to say that thank you J do we have anybody else anybody else and anybody else all right um okay so report of the chair that's me Steve I would like to publicly apologize to you for my actions and my words I'm a pretty good big guy integrity and I had none I make no excuse because there is no excuse so I hope that you would accept my apology and um I hope that everybody understands that I I very I am very uh for lack of a better word I'm very upset with myself about my actions so I apologize okay I appreciate that thank you thank you um School business uh so at some point very soon um we're going to be uh changing the facilities chair um that requires a vote by

136the board um Mike is going to step down and we're going to um we're going to vote on Joe being the facility's chair um no other subcommittee chair changes will occur um I am very happy with uh the way Deb has run curriculum she deserves to stay there and I'm also very happy with where Nicole is at policy she's an expert there should be no changes there whatsoever um and Steve needs to stay on finance because he did such a great job with the budget last year um if you would like to change into something different just to change things up for yourself I would really like it if some of you would come to me and we could talk about it and maybe we could figure something out uh regarding that that type of

137stuff um and then the last thing I have is um I need to meet with George and I'm not sure Dr Mill if you want to be with me with about Oasis yes okay um Oasis is a from my understanding they are a um drug prevention uh organization that we've worked with in the past that the school would like to work with in the future and um we just need to uh have a meeting with George and go over what we need to get and how we get that done because I think that's a good thing for us to be doing here in school um and that's all I have for tonight um subcommittee reports facilities Joe you're up all right pretty lengthy meeting tonight um just to put out their first the next facilities

138subcommittee meeting will be TBD because we're looking at a new possible date and rush through things like I said it was they've been getting very lengthy and we don't want to rush and have to just cut things short um AJ was with us tonight he gave us a long list of ideas that he have has to try to build the program help the district um a lot of things do with safety and may the environment vate their work with a lot better um some of them do have dollar amounts tied to it so we'll uh kind of work on those see what makes sense and prioritize them and see if we have anything to bring back to the entire board as a whole but AJ uh gave a very long presentation and it was really

139good um Brian berer was next he gave a security update things are looking good without going into specific details um he is still doing audits on schools and constantly reviewing things as well as um some Keys Hardwares cameras Etc there's a lot going on in the security aspect of things without going into detail itself but if anybody has any further questions feel free and reach out Jody mind real quick I'm sorry to interrupt I actually um I would like feedback from all of you guys about making an ad hoc security committee that would not be a permanent Committee just something there was a lot of information both with AJ uh with with Mike Di austino and with um with Brian vager about security and it's not it it took an hour and we could have

140probably spent two so um any feedback from you guys about that if you want to be on the committee I'd like to hear that as well sorry uh moving on couple District stuff from Mike datino snowplow bid obviously we did mul we did pool pack is going to be work scheduled is for November 1st start date with a hopeful completion date of November 22nd um at the maximum we believe it's going to be two weeks we really give ourselves 3 weeks in case there's any HB update goes the job has been completed the manufacturer inspections have taking place so that's in good working order um the big ticket item that was on discussion was the Wolverine field bathrooms today we're trying to look into our options to redo those this best way to do it

141um get rid of the porter potties make actual bathrooms for people to use um that takes a couple different pieces of the puzzle to get together and make that happen so it's still on a working stage right now um Building Maintenance um a lot of preventative maintenance for this the winter is going on that's all undergoing or been taken care of and that's about it uh de um curriculum we did not meet we going to meet um yesterday Eric was not quite ready for the numbers so we'll schedule another meeting and get together and could you let know please absolutely thank you can I absolutely you're on the committee oh yeah you want to talk about your visit yeah please I think still want you to next I didn't kick you off okay the uh

142we went to a local manufacturing company and uh I thought it was uh very eye openening for Eric and the other two teachers that went with us and uh in a nutshell not to take away from Eric thing next week is that uh they're very open and it was interesting because uh I drove up there with my truck and I met this secretary and it's a performance type thing she says oh you drove up they want to come out and talk with you so I had a a presentation after the presentation to go over you know high performance trucks like that but the interesting part was that as we talked to the different managers and people in there they were students like what we have here like the one said he's in charge like CP

143of operations I had no idea what I was going to do when I was in high school I had no idea when I got out of high school and I started working in a machine job and before I knew it I took a course I took a class and thing all of a sudden I had enough credits I as well get a degree and something that people have to bear in mind that many degrees happened because you just happen to be there and you accumulated stuff I know it from a fact it's like hey I'm also just finished get my BS I only a couple grades away but more interesting as we went around we saw these machines coming down and drilling Milling shaping and uh 3D printing and different metals and stuff it was

144a big eye opening for you know this part of the world to they can see how that works you it's not but but they think it's not oil spraying all over the place in your supern Flor but two questions came up is that should we send down our AP students to which they said no should we send down the next level okay they said no we want the kids that you're having problems with because those are the kids that are going to make something with their hands and get satisfaction that's what they're missing in school they're not making anything there's no way in today's world that you actually make things you don't make model PL you don't do things like that he says if we get those people we will help you and we will

145help them find a career and then the next question was well should they have calculus no they don't need calculus they get here if they could read micrometer oh we'll get digital micrometers no get the basic one that you have to learn the Vernier you will learn learn fractions in math from doing that you'll learn what it does when it comes out nice and shiny with this spec you'll learn the readr principes we would prefer to have those students here to teach them to get them benefit of our company then he went through the benefits we pay for college here so you can come here we'll pay for your college each step so the burden of paying for college got to get a c it's percentage B A and so and and then best of

146all was that the president of the company and I think her name was something like that anyway she is working with a company that owns them to set up some kind of schooling which is kind of like what I always wanted to do that would teach kids how to make things and that's she said I would love to do that as much as running this complex here and so what came out of that was that in addition to kind of thinking this is a guy thing it isn't a guy thing she say I started you know doing the chips doing the Machining I learned the business I'm the president that's what we need to get with our students here is that there are no glass ceilings if you they can go to work there but

147you got to start at the bottom you got to know how to read or burn here before you learn so do a CNC machine we went through square footage how much space Oh machine takes up too much space we can't put it in this in the school and Footprints one quart of this table oh we have to get a CNC machine computer op no the more they learn to do two things at one time and make a part they'll be happy they'll be better they'll know how it work so basically that's what I got out of it they were very enthusiastic they were very honest and it was a good Core Business for everybody would take and sa so that's nice I had a great time then I got to talk about my truck thank

148you de thank you Vic Nicole all right so we've got two policies down for our first read tonight the first one is the transportation policy with Dr Miller already touched upon we have a situation where we have um students who are going to Plat Tech and the start time has changed it's much earlier now they're starting at 700 a.m. some of these kids are catching the bus at 5:15 and that's just way too early uh we're changing the start time in the policy because that it can't be any earlier than 5:45 I realize that's still really really early but it's necessary in order to help us negotiate with the bus company to try to get maybe a new bus driver or something else so these kids aren't on the bus for so long so that's

149the main purpose of the first policy the transportation policy the next policy is the school climate policy and this one's going to have a budgetary impact it's a mandated policy it's required that we implement it we need to implement it by July 1st 2025 and there's a whole lot that needs to be done in order to make this happen so we need to create a school climate coordinator we have to have a school climate specialist in each school um The Specialist needs to appoint members of this for the school climate committee and then there needs to be a school climate survey for students employees and families and from that the school climate imp Improvement plan will be developed so um I'm bring it to bring it it to your attention now because that's going to

150have to be funded in this next budget it's going to be big bud item and the state of Connecticut in part of the legislation said that the policy that the districts need to adopt has to be the C policy which is what's in front of you today normally the shipment policies that's who we subscribe to but the legislation actually read that the cave needed to write the policy that districts adopt so with the policy that in front of the C policy we're working goodwi forms come out we're going to from a regulation standpoint adopt their forms but the policy needs to a k policy so how many employees are they are we I'm guessing it's it's unfunded mandate correct of course yeah so it's it sounds like there's three positions yeah not addal position so

151I'm are these the coordinator yeah I'm the coordinator of the district and then each of the schools would have to Point most likely the principle to be um but there's going to be additional then layers to the you know the conduct and the bullying and the new language so there's going to be language for bullying there's going to be language for challenging behavior and then how do we disseminate from there who's doing what but then each school has to have their own committee that has parents students and staff on it as well so we have to oversee that part of it too so the cost I mean from that policy the cost initially wouldn't be new hires but with the challenging Behavior the amount of paperwork you need in 092 to complete are we are

152we looking at more admins is that what this policy leads districts to potentially I I have some ideas I think as we work through the budget ways to address it um so we can talk through that um there there's other ways to do it but I do think it's going to at first put a lot of time and paperwork into those additional um you know the two definitions now to not not only bullying Behavior but challenging behavior and how do we investigate all of those claims and then also provide the interventions and supports that they're going to need based on those claims so I question so based upon that information um investigations can take a while I mean the sheer volume at the beginning of this could be sure pretty big that's what yeah that's

153a concern that we definitely have um it is I mean the building principles are doing it they do take a long time as you know when you interview another child you get more information and then you're interviewing six more children and it could take you know it could be very short but it also could be very long depending on the situation and I I get pulled in and I'm doing investigations and then you know sometimes unfortunately it rolls into a sexual harassment or into um you know enti discrimination and so then it goes into the next layer in which um you know I'm pull to go and do those two so yeah there's a lot of layers to this um and then the other cost could potentially depending on what the board wants to do

154or our team wants to do with um the culture and climate survey there are some free ones out there that the resks are putting out there so it's something we can consider but if there's something else we want to look at there could be a cost there are platforms that do those as well do either one of you guys Nicole or Dr G do you know like I guess is there a time frame for how soon investigations have to be done does it say timely manner does it say a month yeah it's timely manner um depending on the situation so Title 9 definitely has a timeline associated with that depending on when the claim comes in um depending on bullying fact fact specific right so it depends again if sometimes you talk to a student

155and then you're talking to 10 more students because then that 10th student gives you another one so it really is dependent there's no specific timeline but we TR to do it as as much it's the volume that's going to kill us yeah because up to this point we've had to investigate it's a violation of its discrimination and if it's bullying now you've added another layer that's challenging behaviors that doesn't necessarily rise to that threshold from increase the volume of of complaints that parents could put into the school district or students could that we now need to investigate you guys looped in Brian because he was a climate specialist where he came from right if I remember correctly from his he was obviously there more security related that was part of his title yeah so yeah

156we definitely Loop him in when you know there's that security and he's newer so we've looped him into that piece of it too and we are utilizing the um the the what is it the coordinator of conduct I remember all the acronyms that's definitely helping with it too um the tricky part with that is that he's only there two days a week so sometimes when it's a specific type of investigation and if he's going to another building we want to make sure that we're consistently addressing what's happening so so yes there's potential I have a couple ideas actually a couple more talking that others have sprung up in the last week of ways that we can address it so um I can put those proposals together too as we do budget does it make sense

157to talk to cab about it so how how do you handle FAL sorry that's okay um I mean we can I don't think we're going to get much leway as this was given by the government to the state of Connecticut deemed them responsible for creating the policy and so this is the policy that they created that we need to adopt I mean we can definitely talk to them if you have any specific questions I'm just not sure necessarily where we would get with that okay oh I'm sorry Vic was first just I interrupted Vic no how do you treat uh false accusations same way I mean you have to investigate it until you find that you don't have enough information to substantiate it um same with any bullying claims too there's often sometimes 10 different

158claims and we we will send once we finish is you know which ones were substantiated and which ones were not substantiated so we have to investigate it as if it was a claim it does happen yeah course got schools were soccer teams were found guilty of then after being EXP in their Liv from there it wasn't real I mean that's happened four or five times in my recent and that's what we also try to do is complete the investigation before the consequence is given out because again there's sometimes where there could be false information and we don't want to provide a consequence without having the information so we put protective measures in place in between um but as we're investigating it's big shoes to F because all those process that you're talking about were done

159with these other that you know many R and uh people are vious on both sides bullly and can be the person that's say bull you that type of thing so so big big thing well we get extensive training from our attorneys and from the state on how to apply these policies and how to do investigation and consequen go along with them so it is something we take very seriously and the hope is that we would never discipline a student with consequences that was not appropriate that the right steps were in place before a child was ever disciplined that whether is sub or not yeah so I mean it's obviously we want to school with safe and welcoming everyone can come here and and we should have a transparent government governed process and approach but I

160mean I'll just say like I am not a fan of cave at all I find them to be an unofficial extension of the government in my opinion um so with the policy does there come um prescriptive templates reporting I mean is that for us to decide as a district what's right for us or are they gonna the next that's the problem there's some forms that are problematic and that we're we're looking we're looking to shipment and goodwi instead of using those forms but you got to keep in mind that's on the regulation side of things that is not our purview as a board we're here for the policy so we have to let the administration take care of what's best for as far as the forms and the investigations and one and we don't intend

161to adopt the cave forms shipment and goodwi are piloting their forms right now they analyze the legislation and that legislation said that we need to adop a policy does not mean that we have to adopt their forms so right now they're they're piloting their forms and once they're ready for us to have they'll then release it to us and our intent is to review their the sh goodwi forms which we use all the stuff from fre it if we need to but not from the regation side there are for not cave forms um so of course you know policies are always vague they have a very vague definition of challenging Behavior are we allowed to like hone in on that and make our own like I don't think so I think we have to keep

162to the letter because I mean it could be anything from he looked at me funny in the hallway to you know he you know dropped a pencil and I tripped over it whether that purpose or not that's really the investigation comes into play so he asked me to dance three times that's took all the gust the guy had and I think that's why we have that reservation because I think we're going to see at the beginning a lot of complaints come in for those various reasons and then thinking them out based done with the respones so and at times they I mean from some of those meetings they hold there's some would say some of their viewpoints can be extreme some cases so that's what I have the concern about did they give a reasoning

163for this new added like layer of it was I I think part of it is trying to curve The Bullying so I think we're going to see you know a little bit more at first and then trying to better understand and identify true bullying versus challenging Behavior I think they're trying to extrapolate the two I think it's going to make things a little more difficult at the beginning as we learn you know the difference between um unfortunately I don't think we can change the definition um as you I don't know if you've seen But The Bullying definition has changed probably every other year um so it's something that continues to to change um through legislative cycle so we'll see where it goes after this because I think at our last meeting either before during or

164after is like the dress code we have a dress code that's not en forced and uh I would just say that uh that could be a problem you know address code that that I see and I was picking up my granddaughter from know P it's like I don't know how any of that could ever be allowed so you know that's got to be an ingredient to it because uh we're teaching all kinds of different things from kard not enough you get to be own want to active you say the wrong thing to the wrong world that's stressed appropriately by today's standards and you're creamed you're killed for life because you stepped out of bounds whatever those bounds are through handbooks and student you know that that would be separate kind of from this but we

165you know those are things though that we talk through when we're doing title line investigations and we always have help and support as well so things like that do come up but we make sure that we have all the right information so number one thing since we have a dress code that we don't enforce we we don't have to have a policy we already have it this is not Dr this is challenging Behavior there's something we need from POS need look at the Dr we certainly can do that this is not the address poliy I think Victor's point is somebody can make a comment about how someone's looking based on the dress code and that could get them into a lot of trouble that's end challenging Behavior exactly I think there's a lot of different

166angles that this is gonna be so much trial and error yeah we I mean there's definitely know title n cases that come up with that part and you have to go through each one of those processes and things like that so it is there's definitely different layers to to that so so this is just a first read everybody take a look we're g to talk about it again at the next meeting and we also have a policy committee meeting coming up it'll be the first Thursday of November at 5:45 and we do it virtually can I also make a recommend I two new board members should be included in this but I'd like to have their input the kids y kids they're they're board members okay yeah as it's approprate as long as it's approprate

167voting board down board members and and this is a school problem just like uh cell phones and stuff we should get input from they're not full they're not full board members they're just Representatives and their kids too like don't think that's appropriate but what we could do is we can have a session with them for them maybe to understand the process of policy adoption and what the board does in order to adopt a policy and then how we enact it and what the regulations are versus the policy we can definitely sit down maybe each of the Committees can sit down and say what they do so they have an understanding um of how the process of the board works it's not just the one meeting there's many different things that happen and they might want

168to ask just it could be that that they are interested in actually even sitting on a committee I wouldn't not obviously on security but the other committees are that are are relevant to what they're doing they might be interested in act participating in that yeah as long as it's okay with the the chair of that committee I don't have a problem with that the one area that the board policy is clearly state is that student Representatives cannot be part of executive sessions um confidential material is something that they don't have access to but so for example if we're talking about a career related issue that's something they would not have a conversation about by dealing with curriculum policy facilities all that stuff is something that they could theoretically have conversations rather and understand and learn

169about how word functions anything else okay thank you Nicole um Steve Finance yeah so um the notes are up there we met last Thursday uh we covered few things already such as theou the mulch the plowing so I'm not going to go into those um currently from expenditures and conferences were at $32.6 million with $2.5 million availability left um at the meeting Howard indicated the approximately our flood expenses and resource costs ended up being about 31,000 uh for that event uh in addition we've got a $43,000 grant that was provided by the state um for meta for repairers who utilize the medical benefit plans um and and that funding will be given back to them through the payroll process and how I speak out of turn or whatever just you feel free to trample me

170um one of the big items we spent a bunch of time on is um our electricity budgeting for this year that we're that we're in right now could be as much as $240,000 under budgeted due to uh pretty much uh some rate increases but mostly driven by the public benefits we all see on our bills now mine's 28% of my bill probably years are twoo so that wasn't something was factored and known about um at the time of budget so that right now it could be as much as 250 but I think as we go on through future months we get actuals Howard can model he's a nice model in excels laying it out so that's probably a little conservative maybe Howard we think could yeah and perhaps it's going to come down but we

171want to call out as as a risk um so we'll continue to watch that um we had an update on the purchasing card we talked about that ppard meetings there was a a Consortium of schools in the district that were using JP Morgan to get use a credit card to get rebates back um the state has left JP Morgan in favor of US Bank Howard I know we're talking about seeing if we they'll honor the terms and conditions of our agreement as an independent if they are we'll stay right if they hon that we're going to stay so we did is because we're so far into the process of going through we actually got the card so we have the cards now we haven't used them yet um we have three cards there's a purchasing

172card that has a that's going to be can be used for vendors and things like that that we have to software a lot of times it's software and things like that that you have to purchase they only want in the credit card they W pick a purchase order so we have a credit card um um and then Dr panowski and Dr Miller both have a expense card um and so those those are the only three cards that the district has um they have theirs I control the one that's in a safe in our in the office it'll stay there and i' be the only one that utilizes it if someone calls me up and says we're going to need to pay I will be the one that's paying so there's a control over that as

173well um we're going to try it for the first time sometime this week um just small purchase just because on Friday we're going to go through the training to be able to see if we can um see how we get the reports out of the chase system once we go forward and Chase accepts and we're going to continue forward and then Chase says yes you can get the 1% back back on your spending we'll stay with Chase if they say no what I'll do is I'll start the process to move to the US Bank because I know the state's going to get that respect it just didn't make sense at the time we were so far into the process to just stop the process and then have to get going because again it doesn't probably

174wouldn't have until March then by the time we get to car because that's the process with the state so that's why we J um couple more notes and we'll move on but the administration identified EA program EAP program for employees to provide family well-being support benefits whether it's calling in for counseling or getting you know papers on how to deal with elderly parents whatever it may be it's a nice benefit to have it's low cost it's approximately $4,000 also ties into one of District goals um for staff uh perhaps it's we're at least being more competitive with our our benefits package with that um and then what else do we have here and we'll give the uh the nightly trophy to Howard tonight for identifying $9,000 that was being held the state relating to unclaimed

175property from probably well over 10 years ago right easily yeah there's one there we had a bank account at Liberty Bank that had 5 over $5,000 in it and one of the signers on the account had passed away so that's how long ago I mean it's a long time ago so we actually literally had to go get the death certificate from the town to approve to the bank that the money belong to to the board of B and so we got that so we got $9,000 that we put into the it's we got the check it's in it went into Central activities into the District activities funds so it's taxpayer money it belongs back to to the taxpayer and so that's how students That's How we'll utilize it um and just finally we just touched

176on some highlights of the Personnel report and open roles um and we talked about the scholarship buer role I think I think that's the highlight of it um we'll meet in November after we get the October financials from Howard and we'll we'll be monitoring closely the electricity forecast that say we have any transfers no transfers this um liaison report um I got an update from Miss Lisa uh I think I mentioned this before the O strong six we made $8,400 that they presented the check to the at the football game last was it last week before two weeks ago so $400 under the fire department um our designer bag Bingo is this Thursday um it'll be held at the Riverside Fire Department um Festival of trees will be 1213 and 1214 um we're to see

177the whole District participant Quaker Farms has been the first to send In Their donation so like I said get a prize um forms will be going out this Friday and hopefully the high school will get a lot of the different groups at the high school to participate again um and the Performing Arts have been working on their fall production 12 Angry DS um November 15th and 16th I guess you can go on the booster club Facebook page and find those link for tiets for that um I was unable to the PTO meeting last week but the Book Fairs are all um taking place this week in the three schools and very popular lots of parents in supporting the book fair and help the kids and so thanks for for making that happen makes literacy important

178because Le wants to go back to PTO we need to fill that spot so I'll be looking for volunteers to for the PTO AA on we'll figure it out we do need to F that spot uh is anybody I guess that's it forther subcommittee reports is there a motion to adjourn motion second all those in favor I those opposed