SU Board Meeting - September 25th, 2023

001foreign thank you Christine I'm going to call this meeting to order um I think even introductions here changes addition into the agenda I believe um during the superintendent's report the yrbs data is going to come first yep that's perfect okay I didn't know if you want me to slip it before public participation but um I will take a motion to approve the minutes that wasn't me it was me I want to get ready for when I present that's fine the August uh 28th 2023 minutes do we have a motion to approve that so moved second okay um if any additions to it any questions any discussion I actually read them all the way through carefully because I thought I was reading the agenda um after I invited myself I realized that they were quite well

002done um so all in favor of approving the minutes please say I all right say nay any abstentions okay the minutes are approved public participation public comment is not legally required but we believe it is crucial for us to hear from our community members about their concerns over issues through these meetings our board models for our students how to conduct public discourse in that the board and members of our community can approach controversial issues in a civil and constructive Manner and can demonstrate mutual respect having said that please note that the board is here to listen the public comment period is not designed for discussion please start by identifying yourself and what town you reside in okay we'll start with in the room anybody with public comment in the room in the same way anybody

003online have public comment and yes no okay administrative report all right we'll start with um Melanie she's here to um report out on the y r e s data she did that at the mountas got me meeting um I think last month but she's here to share general information with the Southeast supervisory board so thank you for coming Melanie once again and you can I can you share your screen I can yeah I hope I hope to be more successful at it than I was at the Madison School District it's a bit of a nightmare but we're gonna we're gonna try better today so it usually goes sideways when I do the full presenting mode but can you all see that yes okay so hopefully it will advance um thank you all for having me

004I'm Melanie Sheehan I am the director of Community Health at Mount Ascutney hospital and I'm presenting our 2021 youth risk behavior survey data with you all so the outcomes of our time together is we're going to just talk a little bit about the demographics and some disclaimer statements regarding the survey year making sure we're framing the appropriate lens and and how we're looking at the results of this data we'll do overview of the data in a SWOT analysis and then you know allow time for questions input feedback also created a few resources at the end as well um so demographically the high school students for the Windsor Southeast supervisory Union we had 144 students nine percent uh bypoc 91 white non-hispanic and 38 identifying AS lgbtq Plus um middle school students 219 6th through eighth

005grade five percent by POC 95 percent white non-hispanic and 40 percent identifying AS lgbtq Plus um so the disclaimer here is um the 2021 survey was given out during covid in the fall and that's an unusual time to do it usually the yrbs is taken in April or May which is at the end of a student's school year so we're really not looking at Apples to Apples here and um we're trying not to I mean we always look at Trends but this is an unusual circumstance and so it's not really the same process to to look at this year's data compared to the previous years um so caution is to be used when interpreting it there are statistical differences noted among subgroups and they should be considered as meaningful and may the disparity May Merit

006a targeted intervention or mean something important to the community excuse me do you have a clarifying question I don't have a clarifying question I just the slides aren't advancing for on my end I don't know if anyone else is experiencing that if it's just me no they're not advancing out they're not advancing okay thank you for speaking up so let's not leave it in presentation note can you see the disclaimer now yes yes okay I guess we'll just have to do it this way it's not ideal and I know it ends up being smaller for you guys so try to make it bigger presentation I had it in presentation mode but that's what you're not seeing the um slides advance so this is the pickup I have I don't know why this happens so the

007slides will be sent out Christine has these and I can send them out again so everyone can have them um afterwards and you'll be able to to read through them so why is the data important uh we use the risk youth risk behavior survey data to determine the prevalence of Health behaviors and differences among subgroups of students schools can use this data to determine policies or practices needed to support students and we in community health and in public health assess um if we have community-based programs that can help support students as well okay so just talking about um framing a little bit and having objectivity and data review um you know we look at particular subgroups of students but we want to avoid the inclination to place blame our minds tend to do that naturally

008um not necessarily blaming individuals or societies rather seeking Solutions grounded in Civility and human-centered approaches we you know tend to if if there's an indicator that shows that you know students are reporting less support in the in the school environment that doesn't mean there's something wrong in the school that sort of thing so just keeping that frame in mind so this is an executive summary highlight of students from Statewide data this is not Windsor Southeast but overall across the state in this data set we are seeing students experiencing poor mental health anxiety sadness and suicide risk particularly among female high school students they are appearing to be two times more likely than male students to report self-harm making a plan for suicide or attempting to commit suicide during the past year uh we're seeing bypoc

009and lgbtq plus students significantly more likely to be treated unfairly and experience violence compared to their peers lgbtq plus students also three to four times more likely to report uh the harm self-harm suicidality um compared to their heterosexual cisgender students EVP stands for electronic vaping products alcohol and marijuana use among high school students continues to be a concern however many students are reporting the prevalence or the presence of protective factors so in prevention we tend to look at risk factors which are also balanced by protective factors and we find that the more assets that youth have in their lives the more protective factors they have to combat the risk so that's kind of good news what we're seeing is that Middle School females bipoc and lgtq plus students are tend to experience protective factors at

010lower rates than their peers so it's really jumping off the page at us across the state these risk categories okay so diving a little bit into the data for this school district again in swap format I just want to make sure that it's clear that anything that's on the list here are statistically significant differences when compared to Statewide peers so the strengths in this data set for the District High School males have a healthier perception of risk of use so high school males believe that they're at greater risk of harming themselves with daily um or frequent substance use than their Statewide peers um High School males are less likely to ride with someone who've been drinking high school students in this District are more physically active compared to the Statewide peers the high school vaping

011rates are holding steady and middle middle school rates are trending down cannabis use in middle school is trending down High School females report further education plans at rates higher than their Statewide peers and high school students reporting that their parents have a healthy amount of checking in and knowing where they are so these are all very positive results and you know we tend to get bogged down in Risk but we always want to highlight what's going well um similar to jumping over to the weaknesses that we're seeing in the data similar to Statewide poor mental health indicators especially among the high school females population um we're seeing troubling risk behaviors related to sexual activity and substance use again especially among High School females a disparate populations are being treated differently especially in that female population

012cannabis use in high school is up to one in four persons so 25 percent in the past 30 days less than 50 percent of high school males have reported further education plans um and middle middle school students are less likely to agree that their school has clear rules and consequences it's important to highlight from a public health point of view and what we've learned in prevention that having clear rules and consequences is a protective Factor among students so you know we think that students if we're their pal and we just let them off easy that that that that they feel valued but in reality kids like to feel that boundary um so opportunities when we look at this data to be thinking about you know oops sorry hang on um so look you know exploring

013further those disparities among subgroups again particularly around females bypoc and lgbtq students engage parents who are demonstrating connections so we see that in the strengths above so there might be some potential there in getting parents together um in leading some initiatives the students themselves can explore these results through a getting to Y program getting to why is hosted by up for Learning and the students actually learn a deep data dive process to get into this yrbs data and then they can do a presentation similar to this from their youth perspective and it's really engaging because they end up sharing their ideas for what they want for their peers identifying if cross tabulation reports can drive change so you might you might want to dig a little deeper into the high school female population and pull

014out just those uh responses or you might say you know what is the rate of suicidality or self-harm among cannabis users our cannabis users more likely to report self-harm than none so that's what cross tabulation means some threats in looking at this data some indicators of importance were not reported on enough in order to count in the the survey so if not enough students answered a question we really can't see what those results are and middle school students are reporting High incidents of riding in a car with someone using alcohol or cannabis so that could also be an opportunity for um for parent education at that level and I'm just going to keep going through these because I in presenting I can't see all of you so I do hope that I can address any

015questions as we get to the end I just don't want you to think I'm not open to questions um sorry was that a question for me nope okay so indicators of no so looking at the mental health and this is just to demonstrate just how much higher those female statistics are so reporting that their mental health was most of the time or always not good the Vermont average is 35 and the Su is 41 so it's higher in the Su but females are up to 60 which is a much higher and males are down to 18. and the risk across the grades is about the same um having been bothered or feeling nervous anxious or on edge most of the time or always Again State 36 su-43 so statistically this asterisk indicates statistically significant um

016different uh difference from the state and then again very much higher in the female population feeling sad and hopeless 30 percent the state 40 percent at the Su 54 among the female population and then this chart that's high school down here is the middle school so um we see statistically significant differences here within again females um it's the same across the Su as the state here well I should say not statistically significant that their mental health was most of the time always not good but the anxiety feeling sad and hopeless um and uh ever let's see there we go ever done something to someone I'm sorry ever done something to purposely hurt themselves without wanting to die such as cutting or burning themselves on purpose much higher in the Su Middle School than the state

017and the disparity is even higher among males in the district um but again seeing that bump in females as well and then other indicators of note here for bullying um here uh most of the are sometimes most of the time are always treated badly or unfairly because of race ethnicity sexual orientation gender identity or age much higher in the Su compared to the state particularly among females and that's where the statistical significance is there and then down here electronically bullied or bullied or bullied someone all three indicators at the Su are statistically significantly higher than at the Statewide levels and um females being bullied at higher rates so uh just talking a little bit about prevention of substance use what's happening to decrease the risk and increase protective factors we at Mount Ascutney in our

018community health department have been partnering with wsesu leadership and the principles on a monthly basis to talk about risk and how we can bring resources we have a new student assistance professional at this at the high school this year Rachel's lowesby um Universal prevention strategy there is a best practice approach through the lead program stands for law enforcement against drugs um it's like dare but everyone knows that dare didn't work and so lead actually does have some evidence based behind it and the law enforcement are partnering with school professionals to teach the curriculum too good too good for drugs and too good for violence so the the evidence spaces behind those two curriculums that's going to be delivered this year in grades three and eight um we had a guest speaker John Broderick come speak

019to the students a couple months ago about their mental health he met with the students and just trying to overcome that um the stigma around mental health and that's okay to come forward if you're struggling it's okay to talk to people it's not a sign of weakness and he's just really trying to help students overcome and and help people reach out and Middle School parent group was started at the end of last year um so how do we support students most at risk really looking at inclusivity making sure students and everybody feel that they matter and that they feel safe creating safe spaces teaching and lifting up the value of individual and cultural differences um the Ally versus Ally ship there's a subtle difference there you know being an ally is having a strong genuine

020concern for marginalized populations and acknowledging that challenges exist but Ally ship is having a physical presence where you're demonstrating or showing you know examples are Pride Flags or if you're doing advocacy or self-educating what are you know in leaning a little bit deeply into our own internal and implicit biases and noticing those and then doing more education to overcome those displaying pronouns and speaking up um obviously addressing bullying and incivility um the screening and treatment uh sorry screening and treatment for symptoms of trauma those are um you know the having the sap in the school is a really big help for that saps tend to work they they can you know do Universal prevention strategies across all grades but um they tend to also work with students who are a little bit higher risk or

021who may be struggling and can do some screening tools and referral to treatment if that's needed and addressing specifically suicidality in lgbtq plus population just wanted to share this resource the Trevor Project is one of the world's largest Suicide Prevention and Crisis Intervention Organization for lgbtq young people there's some marketing material we could work with the school to just you know get some cards out in student lounge areas or in restrooms it is a a connection to a free crisis counselor 24 7. and kids can start um Tech start to a phone number here allowed uh get a live voice on the phone or just do um chatting so that's a really good resource foreign PowerPoint slide I hope you will we have updated our data dashboard so we have all of our yrbs I

022shouldn't say all of them most of the substance use related yrbs indicators on our data dashboards and you can read the full yrbs report um at this link and I've also included my phone number and my email if you want to follow up I'll also pop that in the chat for all of you and I'm going to turn that off so I can see you all again because it's really weird not being able to see you all [Music] um so yeah happy to take any questions or thoughts um so I had one question and I I think I might have asked this have you showed this to Madison County School District too but when in the slide we're talked about further education plans do you do you recall how that's defined in the survey I

023just I I think that it was broader than just college but um it was yes it included um Tech it included Tech education um it's thank you for reminding me that I do have it um I don't I don't have it right in front of me but I can I can I can find it while we're in this meeting um but I can uh yes it had it was like your traditional four-year college or a tech school it also included apprenticeships um and things like that okay it's good to know thanks yeah I do have a question um when you were talking about protective factors in this survey how is that broken down um is it protect the factors in the school setting protective factors in the home because that that that's probably real helpful

024in helping move forward yep so when we when we look at protective factors um in in the world of substance use prevention we look at a framework called asset development and that's again the more if you can develop assets within youth then the more assets they have the less risk they engage in the the youth risk behavior survey has a very small section that is asking about protective factors one of them is youth feeling they matter to the community the other is do they have one adult that they feel cares about them in school so the first a community setting the second was a school setting and I'm going to forget the third one um since it didn't make it into the report here my guess is that the responses of students in those three

025protective factors indicators were not statistically significantly different than across the state um that being said we could derange a follow-up presentation for this or or for one of the schools or whatever we do have an asset development presentation like what are assets there's internal and external there's 40 of each it's really kind of a deep dive but there are very tangible things that you can do to increase protective factors um among students and some of them are very easy like look you in the eye and smile at someone or you know having dinner um at home three nights a week is a protective Factor um you know engaging youth voice and decision making is a protective Factor so there are a lot of them but um the youth risk behavior survey has a very um

026I think uh they just don't ask I was gonna say shallow but that's a bad word I don't mean or shall I just mean that there's not many of them so um uh I think there's other ways to look at protective factors I would say too I I want to say like 15 years ago Wethersfield school I think one other there is an actual protective Factor survey yrbs data tends to look at risk but you there is a school-based survey you can do to us to look at youth Assets in the community and then engage in a an asset building intentional asset building plan and that's something we've done in this District I think in at least two schools in the past yeah thank you sorry that was a long answer but I love to

027talk about assets happens we do have a group of high school students going to um getting to why October 16th several staff members so once they dig into the data we're hoping to have them come and present some ideas for helping um change the trends that aren't positive that's good yeah and and Melanie has helped us get funding for that because it's not free so there Mount Scotty's been a great partner good question the the survey that you just mentioned that that focuses specific specifically on protective factors uh is that something that you that your office administers or is it just something that you know of um in the past it was when we'd administered it before it was a collaboration much of the work that we do as a collaboration with the school because

028it's just it's a lot to launch anything through a school and you know notifying the parents and things like that so it's always a collaboration generally we tend to try to find ways to fund that and then help with distilling the data after the results are back and then helping to facilitate the action planning with the school or Community or parents afterwards so you know that could be something we could um Christine you and I could talk about that I'd have to like I said it's been quite some time so I'm I'm assuming that the search Institute still does those pieces but I'm not 100 sure so I'm happy to follow up and look into that I agree yeah [Applause] so I just found the language about the plans after school so the way it's

029worded is students report they are most likely to attend a four-year college or university a community college or technical school After High School so I think I sort of said that but I think I made up the apprenticeship parts is there any comparable question about employment plans or is that kind of out of the scope of this there is not a comparable question that I'm well I shouldn't say that I'm only looking at indicators that go got pulled out as statistically significant so um Christine if you could just um if I can find that answer I'll just get it back to you and if you could share it with this group that I'll put it on my list of follow-ups okay all right I think that I think you answered all the questions Melanie thank

030you okay so you're welcome to stay but you're also welcome to just hang up and get back to your evening yeah I have to go pick somebody up from a soccer game so I've got to go but thank you all for having me thank you thanks Melanie okay I'm gonna just present now all right in the beginning thank you just before I get started um Madison has been wonderful to work with um they meet with us every month they're paying for a lot of things that we have in place so it's been a great collaboration okay um I am bringing back the board of operating principals I shared them with you last month I said I would bring them back for your adoption I don't think it has to be formal but um we did

031I did change the last one the new language is there that we talked about last time and so I don't know that we need a formal um vote but just an agreement that this is how we operate we agree to operate the interesting to see I mean it's not a policy it's not a yeah it's not a it's just sort of just I'd like to change to the last one yeah were we going to talk about who the or add in who the stakeholders are presumed to be yes I think I did that but if I missed a spot um I did them on bullet number four Elizabeth but not oh okay I'm sorry then that's that's okay I should have done both and I didn't so I looked at the state is not in

032there you like that all right so thank you yeah you're welcome thank you absolutely um I did add the procedures in the portal I'm not going to go over them but if there are questions I'm happy to take them these two are pretty self-explanatory one was for transportation basically um stating that kids need to um follow the rules on the bus as well I won't pull it up it's a very short one and then the English Learners procedures Angie vetted again it's what we do with our ell population and we have six this year yeah I know four or six potentially seven which is new for us we've had years with none so yeah okay um I just wanted to put a plug out to you all I hope the graphic starts to unload um

033it is the uh fall workshop for boards and superintendents and administrators is supporting Student Success Through district school district governance it's at Lake Mori October 26th and 27th I will be there if anybody can attend that would be lovely you don't have to stay you can come for parts or all or whatever you can do you have you have to register you have to register but board chairs have to do yes certain amount of you know uh training and I think board members have to do a certain amount of training as well but I think I think it's eight hours yeah eight hours so this would get you your eight hours for sure so exciting it's usually a really good conference actually all right so that was just a plug for that if you're interested

034please just email Lori and she'll get you registered um I wanted to bring back feedback on the vision mission statements that were created last year with the help Mike Nicholson we did not get a huge amount of um feedback from Community but most of it was very positive towards the draft vision and mission statement and that was for the vision statement if I could just read There we go and then this is the follow-up is the mission statement staff also had an opportunity to weigh in their response in comment form we didn't have a ton of people weigh in again but the feedback was pretty positive from the staff the question being you know these are great how are we going to make sure how are we going to know we're getting there doing them

035which is a great question um so we did make one change which I'm going to point out on the next slide so I think it was a oh geez sorry that just been very fast um it was the mission statement did say wsesu is a diverse community of learners uh I'm sorry a community of diverse Learners where um and so we took that out of the header statement and we added a bullet diversity is celebrated and everyone is included that seemed to be more inclusive language and our next steps are um Angie is going to be working on uh she's she's drafted a learning framework which is one of the Strategic plan um strategies that we're supposed to be doing it's been vetted um a little bit with some staff a group of staff so

036she's going to update the learning framework to reflect these new statements and then um working in small groups building based groups um to get more feedback from staff is that correct Angie I got that right so you'll have the entire learning framework with this embedded um I think your goal is by mid-year yeah I have that January report yeah so it'll be in there okay Christy um where I have scheduling them where do the students come in in terms of weighing in on this and yeah yeah um being part of that decision making yep that's a great question we do have a student Lighthouse team in the works and that will be a team that um Angie brings the learning framework too for kids that's students or high school students to weigh in on um

037yeah and that group we set up this summer there are about 18 students who want to be part of it which is great um the staff was looking at the list and we were we were chatting about it and they really feel like the students we need a more representative group of students so we're going to be including some other students so we don't have a final list yet but um recognizing that we need to hear all voices so we'll you'll see that again okay I should have a drum roll here's the results of the first uh question of the month for September which was what is your preferred method of receiving information from and communicating with your child's School and um 55.6 prefer email a good portion appreciate text message and robocalls so really

038we we've learned that a letter website and social media are not our preferred methods of communicating with and um with our with our parents so it's good information we did I did ask Mike Walker our tech technology director if parents can receive text messages and Larry's here to let me know if I get it right if a parent signs up with their when they're when they're giving their information in PowerSchool or School messenger if they give their cell phone number they're able to receive text messages if they don't they're not did they get it right if we send that out via school lesson yeah which we have in the past if we send a message out that way if we send it out that way in addition to [Music] at one of the most successful

039method Hartford yes sending out a text message that an email is has been sent okay or that um the newsletter has been emailed or okay newsletter link yeah is it possible how do you uh know what you signed up for because it was so long ago how do you get into our responsive it was two ways you can you can go into power school and that's and then see your demographic information but if you don't remember your login pattern school email parent access at wscsu.com and they'll help you okay Christine I'm concerned about people who don't have a telephone or don't have a computer I I know that there are some people you know that go into our local library because they don't have either and it becomes a way for them to get information

040um even on the town managers newsletter yeah you know and so I I I I don't wanna just eliminate letters oh no yeah yeah all right yeah it's just it's nice to know what people check the most yeah but yeah what you find is that in what you find out is that when you survey who has what um for those who don't have a computer internet access access almost all of them have a cell phone yeah that's pretty much a universal tool but it can be a cell phone that's not I mean it can be one of those phones that you can buy 15 minutes the TracFone right but they still get text messages okay okay 10 students get notifications through school messenger uh right now the way it's set up now they get they

041will get uh maybe get it through email but not until school lesson okay the website or uh social media yeah which essentially is the same thing yeah I can look into that and maybe uh maybe filter it out for a grade yeah maybe high school because like together I mean if parents are working like weird shifts and you're in high school you may not get them out of that school is canceled [Laughter] [Music] right so can can teachers through PowerSchool message their classes yes okay so there's a classroom messenger yeah okay look to the next the month for October and oh oh Colleen I'm sorry Colleen had her hand okay I can't thanks just real quick one of the things that I just thought of that's come up in a couple of the last couple

042of days even for us is that when we receive emails that don't include the school name in the sender um wait we miss it when we get too much mail and it looks like a personal it gets biased um so just something you want to think about I got one from Hartford the other day for open house that didn't say the word Hartford in it anywhere like and I had no idea we had to kind of guess where it was where I was supposed to go you know how far it is to train administrators at Harvard I totally get it it was just funny to me I'm like I'm scanning it I'm scanning it I'm like I'm sure this is from my high school there's there was nothing in it that you know not even

043secretary uh level administrator really struggles but I always get these phone calls or emails saying none of these messages went out and I'm like that that's because it's summer there are no active students so you can't click active students when you send that message that's funny does some things that are really great A lot of it and that text message thing to remind me to tell me that there's an email I love that okay that's good feedback okay um here's the draft of the share this tab instead this was about and I don't know if we captured what you were thinking but um we did put in the the header there did you know that you can email parent access at wsesu for help in setting up your private school accounts we know parents don't

044always know that um and we were gathering some data on report cards and so let me know if this is what you were thinking I think it came from you Bill what is your preference for learning about how your child is doing in school so PowerSchool mobile app which we have yes uh monthly updates from your child's teacher a physical report card which we don't we don't currently print report cards parents have to go on PowerSchool and see them um or PowerSchool web application could we possibly send this out as a ranked um yeah yeah choice I feel like that actually might get us better data yeah that's true awesome header Christine you might want to add.net Parent Access you think so okay uh yeah what you mean yeah is there anything else missing or

045I for me I think that's a good starting okay somebody had their hand if I can't see the screen Beth yeah I'm not sure like I I think of it like I go to a physical report card to get some like written commentary about my kid you know versus checking PowerSchool is more like where like what are they missing and what's what's going on like so it's like PowerSchool I find is more like an immediate thing whereas a report card is I guess more I expect human to live in a little more in-depth color there so it's almost like I don't know if it's fair to compare them because I wouldn't look at them I look at them differently does that make sense yeah but we haven't done report cards in years no I know

046and I'll I'll tell you honestly I miss that I don't feel like I hear like I don't yeah I don't feel like I get what I normally would from feedback from teachers other than physically going and seeing them for in-person conferences yeah yeah okay which makes it harder at the end of the year because you haven't had an in-person conference since March at the end of the year and you're like what happened well this is a good question it's a great question right could we could we put a comment field in this too since it seems like there's some yeah yeah you get Nuance to it absolutely Elizabeth um email address uh sorry um is this I'm concerned that monthly updates from the teacher may be super onerous for future teachers um and I'm sure

047that every parent would love to have monthly updates from the future but I do not want to put that on the teachers I don't think that's fair yeah so maybe it's um regular and then you can leave it is if they're doing what they're supposed to be doing on PowerSchool then yeah or maybe you can um just do aware of the word buffer yeah updates from teacher yeah yeah yeah it's less prescriptive and still updates from teachers still implies that the teacher will provide an update for every student um and it's not it's very Broad is it more like um comments on a report card from teachers there is comments yeah in PowerSchool used to lesser greater degrees depending on the future right right and I don't I don't think that all teachers necessarily even

048use powers so something would be nice to have that administered evenly across can you that would be that my preference would be having making sure that PowerSchool is updated regularly by all teachers did you say that you think there are teachers that aren't using PowerSchool yes okay good to know well when I or not at least not until the day before the end of the school the trimester or what okay and one reason I brought up report cards is not yeah not just how information is is communicated but also you know what standards are we right we're using within yep um you know and I think just like 150 different standards within our school it's too many there's too many it's too many yeah yeah I agree um and it's also open to subjective interpretation

049by every well that's that's true for most everything but yeah um so would it be would it be better if that wasn't if it was regular updates from teacher in PowerSchool or something to that effect could it say written communication from staff because that runs it doesn't doesn't block it into a time box yeah what did you say space grading some years back that's one of the reasons we got away from a physical report card because the first time we did standard Bridge grading it was like a 15 20 pitch report card that's many parents feedback was they were happy about it so uh it's too much well the other big concerns I think our you know our issue goals that we have are pretty impressive and um the standards within PowerSchool don't align with

050that yeah they're common core standards right and which are dated at that in just way too many of them yeah okay I I just have a quick question um like PowerSchool versus Google classrooms like because I feel like there's like I I feel like I'm checking both types of things is there like how are we doing I guess I don't understand how are we reporting differently like how are the Google classrooms used differently than PowerSchool because I feel like teachers are putting a lot more information into Google classrooms our school is an SIS student information system and that's where the final grades should be going in the sis because that is what reports to the state so legally that's a requirement uh Google Classroom is a learning management system I understand the difference but I

051guess like I'm not understanding how our educators are using them differently because um I'm not seeing anything in PowerSchool but I'm seeing stuff in in like in Google classroom and where like how are how are teachers using them differently and where can we I don't know I just don't want teachers to be having to do double duty and having to set up Google classrooms and having you know communicating with you know parents through that and then now having to go into power school and having to report and put you know comments in there too and like how does that how can we make sure it's not kind of competing I guess teachers choose to use Google Classroom there's not an expectation they there is an expectation that they are putting grades into PowerSchool now it's

052different for a kindergarten teacher than a middle school teacher sure yeah the age of your student yep the first six weeks of school have will be over something in PowerSchool yeah and I think the expectation is regularly which I mean we've gone back and forth like once a week is that enough for parents to be able to have some feedback on how their student is doing and that might work for a Content teacher but not a first grade teacher so it's a little bit open-ended right so so my concern with that is that the um what was just said is the fact that uh Google Classroom is not a standard space grading platform right um and and this Su is a standard space creating issue um so I'm not sure why parents are being reported

053through Google Classroom which is not a great book it's not a student information system it's Bill I mean I'm not getting grades through there necessarily but I'm getting a lot more feedback through Google Classroom than I am like PowerSchool is empty yeah yeah you'll see the assignments you can see comments on how your child is doing on the assignments that kind of thing yeah like I can that's where I go where I know when to pester my children not PowerSchool yeah okay classroom uh not so much because we're standing based yeah I mean we can't if we were a traditional basement yeah there would be some other ways but could you can you put a Google Classroom assignment in a PowerSchool assignment your automatically syncing not syncing but in Infinite Campus where I can put

054in within the grade book oh yeah and a link to that Google Classroom assignment yeah yes yes and I think it's varying degrees depending on the teacher I think in the high school level Middle School depending on the school and depending on the individual teacher I think we're small enough that's you you do see a lot of uh differences variation yeah yeah and some of that's appropriate yeah um so I've got just a circle back PowerSchool mobile app we landed um I wrote down uh according to Communications and staff written communication from staff is that do you feel like that captures I mean this it's just a start right I understand Elizabeth's concern we don't want to give the appearance that we're going to mandate monthly weekly yeah that there's regular order and that's the

055word we used we had a discussion about it this summer a regular reporting is but so we wanted to sync with our right now it is regular to put grades in within PowerSchool does he have children do cartoons yeah against the standards um and the issue is that the standards are not particularly reportable but I'm gonna I'm gonna take the step back into that so topic so written communication from staff or regular updates I think written communication okay communication with your staff although I think you should if you're going to be putting one thing in the handbook um you know and helping parents kind of like understand what's being said you know it's like repeating it a second time yep and I can add another category regular updates by staff in PowerSchool and see if

056they like that I mean it's really to talk about preferences of the parents yeah but here's the question what uh what do you plan to do with the information I mean if you've got a physical report you're not going to go back to physical report cards I hope not right so why have it on there well my question is granted that there's one thing called physical report cards but why is it they're not electronic electronic report cards that's that's what we do that's what we do we should change it to electronic report cards yeah although to Nikki's point it's out there yeah yeah I'm still a reward card I could just do report card yeah yeah I could just take that off there yep or like when they tend to come out anyways yeah that's

057what it like quarterly yeah um well when you're in a standard space system you're always working towards the standard right so you're it's a work in progress all year long or something standards so you get I think we we arbitrarily have trimesters where you want to take a peek and see how your child is doing okay yeah that would be I mean I can't imagine that that would would that be terribly complicated can you do it backwards and get PowerSchool to just send it once uh we have not had report cards physical or otherwise in many years we'd have to we would if we were going to go back to report cards physical or otherwise we would have to do a snapshot once it's like the quick look up well I get I get snapshots

058weekly automated from for my daughter from PowerSchool right but I'm a pretty tech savvy Bearer so my question is when you're considering what you're planning to do with the information I would suggest I think that thanks to Larry driving me towards it I think we should get every parent to use the PowerSchool mobile app because it is so good um and that you know you could you could drive through the question you could drive parents towards the mobile app my daughter's grade change I get a notification yeah I have to wait for a trimester right yeah my son is late for class I know it yeah how new is it well it's pretty pretty new pre-covered uh I used to do trainings regularly at all the schools for the parents you guys might remember yeah

059so we could go back to that I think there's a lot of parents uh that aren't aware of what's available to them I have a question I mean I'm not I'm not a power school um Enthusiast I'll admit it um and I struggle I've the app I have downloaded like I don't know eight times and it just doesn't work great for me um and so I'm not I unloaded it downloaded a million times and um and so I guess for me I'm looking for um when I look at the power school all I'm seeing is um numbers black and white like one through four that's it I'm looking for color I guess as a parent you know I want the color commentary of my my students education um because the one to four doesn't give

060me much and I guess that's what I'm missing in PowerSchool is that color commentary um and I'm not sure where we can get that in our bed you just have to I just looked at my kids postcard I'm like I have a tab open I was just looking at their their report card or whatever the grades from last year and it was just one through fours that's all I got so I don't know if I just need I need to I need to go to class myself or if I go to you know a student's grade and it's a 2.5 for example for a final grade of if it's math 9 or math eight I guess would be better than algebra and uh I can click on that I can dig in and I can

061see all right well she's struggling with functions but she's doing okay with you know another part about but so I it's there and I do think training could help yeah I I think uh emailing a PDF of a report card to me is no different than printing one so I think um it's a lot more interactive and it's up to date the second you send that report card it's only as good as till the next grade goes in the system which could be two days later in high school could be a few hours later um but but isn't the isn't the report card available in the app it is it is a report card that's what I'm trying to get at I mean it's whatever can you tell me where where would I look to

062find the report card then because I thought I was looking at the report cards and I'm just seeing my great history of both my children and there's tabs all the way to 2016. but I just see numbers I don't get anything beyond that it's bad yeah yeah why don't I email you offline I'll help you with it yeah that would be great I just yeah okay just to get a thought out about this survey question it sounds to me like we've coalesced around the idea that the purpose the way that we're using this data is to figure out who is utilizing PowerSchool and then we want to drive parents towards using PowerSchool event correct so my recommendation then if that's how we want to use the data um could you pull the question again yeah

063if that's our goal with this I think instead of saying what is your preference for learning about how your child is doing school we should say how are you currently learning about how your child is doing in school because preference opens it up to things that we're either not going to go back to doing or we just don't I mean that I think we've kind of established that we don't want to do that yeah so let's do how are you currently accessing it and then have that notes and it's a parent that's getting a report card then we know that that's for sure yeah well I think we take we take the things off that don't exist and we say how are you currently accessing your students data rank them and then say what are

064your comments and that will actually give us usable data to be able to drive yeah all right Davis thank you great idea and that is a wonderful transition to um you want me to stop talking okay I just want to say one thing before I I know we've gone over um just quick update Health integration specialists it's really Angie's job to coordinate the curriculum so she's going to take that on and um I just listed some other things that we are doing to cover Health at this time but it's just it's a topic we need to revisit um the nurses are going to hold so that's and then Larry just wanted to let you know the budget has process has started and he'll be this is the timeline okay okay thank you Bill for holding

065us for time I appreciate that I did I'm trying to slide oh yes you're welcome to your leisure it's just where we're working on the curriculum implementation uh they they show up when you click because there was a lot of text but you all have access it's on linked on the agenda okay so I will stop sharing and the next on the administrative report um yes and I want to stay sort of to the record and everyone listening that um I think it's important for us as an Su to to dive deeper into uh special services so that we can find ways to support Katie and special services as as much as we can um one I'm not judging Katie because I think she does an amazing job and I feel very uh lucky that

066this issue has her um but two as the board it's one of our responsibilities to to finance special services and make sure that we have the people in place so this is just the starting so um I was asked to do a report out on Staffing my first slide sorry um they'll deviates slightly um because I just had to go to the second slide um this is caused for celebration we are no longer in targeted level three new about indicator 11 we met we were one of five districts at that 100 and the SEO and the state and as of Friday 100 of our transition plans we took the early bird special and I'm not kidding you that's basically what they named it um to get out of targeted three all of our plans have

067passed we are still in cyclical monitoring but I have never been happier to be downgraded in my entire life so that's how I'm looking at it that we've been got some okay um big big team with big teamwork so that takes a lot of work off Katie's shoulders it takes the big giant book about the Kathy and I were gonna have to do off yeah I just said we are very grateful we love for everyone so okay um team effort yes thank you um so Staffing updates um so we ended up the next slide here we go um the I should probably put it up on my screen so I can see what I'm doing um we are still in need of seven support staff across the SEO um we are interviewing as fast as

068I can getting applications in from people that are viable and then getting them onboarded which um includes check your references and then our onboarding process so basically from the time we get somebody that we think would be viable interview them it's a three-week to four week process it's a minimum two weeks once we get stuff to Tina so it's not instant um currently we have a need for three in the middle school or Elementary in Windsor two in Heartland um one's being officially onboarded one is in process two in Wethersfield um which also includes an invest for an HCR SBI and we're waiting for them to find somebody so right now we're piecing things together with great help from one of our bcbas um the reason why we had some resignations right before school started

069we had one since we have started um skip absence for a second uh we have hired some great people but they have very part-time schedules because we're taking people as they can and being as flexible as we can and they're great folks it's just not full time which is affects student programs we had some new students come in new students that came in with many more needs this was a year unlike last year where we had kids come in that it was a surprise out of state um IEPs don't match what kids were actually given things along those lines so we're we're learning as everybody else is learning about them and putting supports in place as fast as possible um the other is we've had some student needs change kids coming back that or not

070as stable not as needing more than what we thought they would need given where they left last year and also sometimes we do have some wishful thinking um but out there um I got that too I know um and one of the biggest things um you heard this a lot last year I think probably mostly from a couple of buildings building our bench of Staff because of abscesses um when staff support staff are absent the Domino is significantly felt especially if it's two support staff that are one-on-ones for example um we have students that you know we are not and I will hope never will be an Su that says a kid has to stay home because someone isn't here that happens versus um mostly in the other parts of the country but every once

071in a while I've heard it around here um so we part of this building of the staff part is building up enough of a bench so if someone's out we have some shifting and moving so um the other absence of that support staff the other vacancies um we're still a halftime high school special educator we've sort of filled the other half with the middle school high school reading specialist which has been was a great find by the way that's been wonderful we just had a resignation of the um one of the interventionists within the ace classroom um so that adds up and we will have a leave of absence for an SLP in the Su um from mid-December till mid-march which is speech language Pathologists sorry I should have not but my acronyms in there

072um were actively with posting internal posting external postings as well as all of the recruiters we've dealt with in the past or have been well aware of that since summer yeah speech language pathologist consultant that you're working with this position we have one speech language pathologist for the amount of scotny schools that is a remote SLP providing Services remotely we have one in-person SLP who is split four days between Weathersfield and Heartland and we have a full-time Pre-K SLP who works with all of our pre-kers in all the places that they are which is four towns and everywhere including our own Pre-K and then we have a two-day a week evaluator who's no selfie who does all our evaluations which takes that off the slp's plate so that they can provide services so with the

073with the remote SLP is it a goal hopefully in the future to move away from having enrollment we kept the ad up if the aoas the position is filled it's built because that's and that's our leaves name um but Staffing Wise It's considered a felt position if we find an in-person person there's a separability clause in our contract because it's a contract of service um 60 days I think it's it's actually 30 I already double double check some people are six December 30. at minimum they'll be looking at close to 45 to 60 days between finding somebody onboarding somebody and overlap right so I'm not necessarily saying it's realistic for this year but that is our primary concern to get up full-time in-person person right fully 100 percent it was a hard it was a

074hard thing to do and we waited we did not onboard that person until actually I was on vacation in August because I waited until the last minute to say yes because we just didn't have a choice Megan hi Katie it's Megan um I was just curious if you could speak a little bit to I know there was talk um I think at the last meeting of monastic meeting which obviously you weren't at about an adult being with the students in the um SLP rooms and how that is working do you speak to that a little bit our k2s students um always have an adult with them to help facilitate what's going on in the speech services right now that is one person who had been assigned to k um which actually helps with carryover um

075we're looking at shifting that up once we bring a couple other people on so that person will still be doing probably K1 and then other students that are older several already have one-to-ones so that adults the one that takes them so it um in an Albert Bridge they have it arranged so if it's a younger student some is directly in the room supporting them if it's like an older student they can sit there work for services the door is left open and it adults right there so um and that seems to be going pretty smoothly I think the kids are figuring out the adults working together Kirsten who is our SLP has been working very closely with um both staffs including sending materials up talking to them outside of the sessions of what's going to

076go on and other things so um I mean it's been a learning curve but from what I understand it's gone well um and I've stopped in and been around when things are going on too are you are you trying to get feedback from um I don't know how many students you have that are in this boat but are you trying to get feedback also from the parents on what they're seeing you know with the child when they come home we've had several parent meetings um over the past couple of weeks with families who had questions Kirsten is also a big part of that was Kirsten meeting and how students are progressing on IEP goals the nice thing is is we have a framework to go from the framework is how students are progressing on their

077IEP goals and keeping that communication like we would with an in-person um so that actually it may be in some way it's increased in all honesty because we're learning something new that it's a little bit like hey let's find out how this is going and maybe a little bit more than somebody who's an in-person person so um so yeah and I think families have felt as far as I understand it have been contacting and I've been part of lots of those conversations I think Kirsten keeps me in the loop for any email Communications going on just so that I know what kind of questions is that your last life Katie that I only did too okay so I was told short so I do shorts what is an evaluator of someone who does all the

078assessments the testing to understand a student's learning profile okay so that's her hold on hold on uh can I ask another question yes mayor um the SLP that will be out is that how it like I was just curious how that's going to affect is that like the um evaluator that's gonna be out is it the because it was a big difference like of which one it is our our um Wethersfield and Heartland SLP will be the one on the leave of absence um and so that's that's who's going to be out so my the only one I know that's going to be out have you reached out to other districts if they might have a part-time person that we could borrow get them full time I know I know I'm sorry we are all

079in the same boat and I just it is it is we still we are and I know this sounds hard and I am always optimistic and you folks are very used to that for me we are in much better condition than many of our surrounding districts we don't have any remote special Educators that might be a way we have to go at some point but we don't have three remote slps we actually have positions that we um when I did this out and I kept going back and double checking and do we really really have all these professionals we really do um but yes I'm not I'm not minimizing the question it's just um I mean it's it's just so everyone knows the reality last year Hartford hired I think two or three full-time teachers

080just to fill pair of positions needs in the elementary school if we had the opportunity that's sort of why we put of the ad for both either an interventionist anybody with a teaching certification to be able to help with special education we've managed to recruit some amazing people we're incredibly fortunate um and that's a great idea though I mean if if you can't get a you know someone that has a minimum yeah you know I mean I'm not saying too expensive yeah it's not an idea yes I think we want to make sure that our kids get what they need to be successful the last plug though our principle's been phenomenal and people have applied with firm Subs they've been like wait they really want this and then there's been a few of them have

081come our way from new power hires that originally asked to be a person and they're now going to be paraprofessionals instead of so like there's a sharing of where whoever we're getting for applicants um because they all see collectively all of us together what they need is so I don't I know you mentioned earlier about supporting Katie but it don't there's a lot of things I do that nobody knows you know that um but it's I mean you need an assistant yeah [Laughter] I do it's advertised still yeah you know anyone I well I do but she won't listen to me now yes I'm sorry I just have one more question I was just curious if um there has been any exit interviews or any information on um her feedback of why like some of

082the special Educators have left in the past or if there's Trends or things we can do to help support we have done exit interviews we've had actually very few special education teaching staff leave for reasons other than I'm moving out of the area um and other things the most recent changes we've had over the past couple of years we have made sure we've done exit injuries if individuals choose to do so so and the feedback's been good and we're using it to the best of our ability to continue to grow and change lots of things that we've done this year our response to that which includes um a lot more face-to-face time than I'll go back to bills I really needed an assistant um just there's I'm one person um and that's a there's a

083lot to fail and do so um but yeah that's we're going to continue to do so Megan as well as with support staff it's not we we do exit interviews for both yeah thank you Katie yes thank you Katie thanks I'm gonna stop sharing that is okay there is no assistant director of student Support Services currently there is no director of student Support Services and that's something that has not it wasn't filled we don't have we have not we did not have a um any applicants oh my God no that's actually kind of an unfortunate reality and special education right now yeah That's Not Unusual um operational diversity equity and inclusion so Tracy we've been a little uh scattered in here y'all have so much going on uh yeah Christine if you have the slides

084if you was that what you were yeah that'd be great and I also just want to know the um you know we're here talking about belonging but like we're going to try and squeeze it into like you know a little bit of time and so it's a noticing that you all do have so much like packing your your schedules and stuff for these meetings is this the best place for us to reserve those 20 minutes is it a booth and do we reserve the time now and also consider like where else is this work happening where else is the work happening where you all are in relationships with each other where you're in relationships with people in the community um so really this is just an opportunity to think about uh what is this theme

085of belonging uh really mean for you all in your role as leaders so um thank you in advance to folks who engaged with some pre-work I tried uh you know I was thinking if y'all can do some pre-working between sessions when we come into these sessions we can use the 20 minutes I can share back like a summary of what you all did or what you all shared and then maybe that'll help us make the most of you our time not sure we're trying it out tonight we'll see how it goes so thank you to the about 50 of the board who did some of the pre-work if you didn't do any of the pre-work I'll still share all the resources for you you can do it after this meeting um and so again it's

086like this irony of talking about belonging when only really half of you like shared your your thoughts and feelings about it but that's okay uh uh please feel free to engage like in the conversation as we go through this so Christine if you don't mind please uh sharing the next slide so these are just a couple updates uh was also something that I said that I would share with you all um once we start developing a Dei resource Library so there's a link that's going to be available to everybody we've got a bunch of books they were through some of the ESS ER uh Grant funds so we started compiling some book like they're like classroom resources and they're also just books in case like oh maybe people want to do a book club we

087can start to do that so we're going to have uh this Library check out the link you should be able to check and see the catalog without having to sign in so that's one update another one is um you know our in-service days for this year are pretty packed for teachers and so we started talking about like well what are some other opportunities because we know teachers need some um continuing ed credits and so I just started compiling a whole bunch of different trainings things that are like virtual trainings things that are in person so I'm starting to puzzle all those together and be able to share those out with teachers sort of under the big umbrella of diversity Equity inclusion which could include things like restorative practices I know there are a lot of

088folks who are interested in learning more about that so are there trainings that they can access um just building more inclusion in the classroom I mean other curriculum resources and stuff like that so uh compiling all of that also and please interrupt me I'm just going to talk really fast through these updates because again I know your time is precious I started doing some monthly now acknowledgments that are going to be they have batana out in Christine's superintendent's email and or in the newsletter and I know there's also an opportunity to connect with the Dei Windsor group because they were talking about at their last meeting doing some monthly acknowledgments so it's like last month uh actually we're still in uh the celebration of national Hispanic Heritage Month which runs from September 15th to October

08915th and it's like finding all the ways that these themes can show up whether it's in school libraries whether it's like at events I mean all the ways I think there's some possibility here right an opportunity over time for how we're not just doing this in the in the in the supervisory Union but how we're connecting to community so just follow along with the acknowledgments if you want to ever connect about them please reach out to me um and then again just you know we're looking for places where Dei is already happening trying to trying to plan ahead for what in-service days could look like next year to weave in some of the topics that people are interested in learning more about um and also responding to like the data that you all are seeing

090right or Katie like what Katie was just sharing there's a need for supports in our schools especially for kids who have marginalized identities so what does that mean again as we think about this whole theme of belonging of inclusion of where we need to be focusing all that kind of stuff okay and then I think uh Christine if you can just advance to the next one that's just just a a more visual way of showing what some of these things look like that I already mentioned pause real quick anybody questions comments I like the idea of having the um monthly acknowledgment because I think it really informs educates um it's not giving you homework it's just sharing and I think it's good for the community the students everyone around to sort of like be on

091the same page on what's going on during the month with other with other groups and individuals great thank you for that Rebecca Anna so this is a sneak peek October right October we have indigenous people's day and I suspect there are a lot of people who are like I mean I met somebody randomly who was like I still call it Columbus Day and it's like oh it's a dangerous people's day it's like you know it's an opportunity to share here is how it became indigenous people's day and why it's actually a law in Vermont you know and then seeing like oh there's all these resources there are local groups there are there are uh teacher professional development opportunities there's all these things that connect to that theme yes Elizabeth thank you a couple of things

092about indigenous people's day and actually month October is indigenous people's month in Vermont but it's kicked off by indigenous people's day but we actually have uh events that are going to go on through the uh office of Rachel racial equity and the Human Rights Commission and if you look on either of their websites they'll have a whole list of stuff that's going on uh in the state of Vermont about indigenous people's month and also um September 30th is orange shirt day which is uh uh a day for indigenous remembering indigenous children who were killed um uh in the um I can't think of the right residential schools residential schools there was a residential school here in Vermont um where uh Castleton now is so thank you thank you Elizabeth and thank you for demonstrating how

093this is like this is a community resource right it's like we all you all know about different things that connect to these themes and uh thank you Elizabeth again for sharing that and if I haven't already included some links in this one that's going to go out about some of what you mentioned I will I will add that in but it's great it's a it's a great resource so thank you for modeling how uh it takes a community really to Resource us all um okay great I think for the sake of time I'm gonna just keep rolling through uh again sharing a little bit of what you all identified in belonging and again the question that I have in mind for you all to just be to be thinking about is what does this mean

094for you and your role as a leader uh part of this was inspired by a conversation I had I mentioned in an email I shared with you all with a Community member who he and I have we have different ideas different different beliefs right different values and yet we still could come together and talk for two hours like we just sat and we talked about stuff for two hours right about like what how we see things differently but what we were able to do was really listen to each other and so I think that that's like well what does it mean right again to be leading this work trying to create sense of belonging what does this mean when we think about conflict or we think about different ideas and beliefs and values how do

095we still find ways to uh to come together across difference so um for those of you who fill this out I'm just going to share some word clouds of some of the findings uh it was anonymous anonymous in your responses so the first one was one to three sentences what does belonging mean to you just set anybody yell out one or two things that you see that's that that are uh standing out to you here welcome welcome smile y yourself I didn't hear anybody say feel that's like the biggest word which is also I know there's a road it's like what we don't talk about feelings or feel like what is the rule how are we creating that feeling right of belonging that was the thing that was mentioned most often in the responses from

096you all was something about a feeling there's a feeling that goes along with sense of belonging okay how about the next slide so the next one was asking you about uh recapping a time where you felt a sense of belonging and what were the top three things or conditions that made that experience that supported you and feeling a sense of belonging so just again anybody can shout out what are some of the things that uh that you're reflecting on and you're noticing about this care welcome kindness not a and who gets to decide whether something's welcoming or not you know I know that's that's something I know uh I used to work with a group that's like oh yeah we really we're just gonna put it out in Spanish right and somehow that's gonna attract

097people who are like lar latinx right and it's like is that the only way that you're trying to be welcoming and you're deciding as like you know it was a group of white folks who decided that's how to be welcoming it's like but who gets to decide it's also a question like who gets to decide whether something is actually supporting belonging you know it's like we need to um anyway I could I could I could keep talking about that I'm like and I know we're doing that work we're doing that work to really hear from students especially okay so welcoming who gets to decide how about the next slide when you felt excluded or othered a couple folks just what's what are you noticing about this felt unable unable yeah right I mean it is

098exclusion yeah and you know one of the things that stood up most to me in my conversation with this Community member was that people want to be heard right they want to be listened to they want to be heard it doesn't mean you have to agree but I know for me it's it's true for me too it's like you know my husband is really good at sharing relatable stories like when you do that I feel really unheard you know so like I want to be heard I want to know that somebody is taking time to listen to me so how can we how can we create that uh how about the next slide is uh this was a question about what do you all feel like you need to support sense of belonging because you

099all as a board right I mean you have your own culture you have your culture of being aboard what do you need to feel a sense of belonging on this board but then also as you think more broadly you know across the supervisory Union what do you what does anybody notice about this a couple folks what do you notice about this listening understand it's human yeah so I know this was that thank you thank you for sharing what you were noticing I think there were just there's like one more thing I want to share I think it's the next slide it was some some thoughts that folks shared just I asked you know any additional comments and so people feeling encouraged by the courage of this board this is all from your fellow board members

100right um navigating cultural behavioral shifts needed to truly Foster belonging as a tall order but hopeful to make some real progress um somebody wants to reach out to others more right spend more time this is kind of the the noticing I post at the beginning is like where do you have time to connect to be in relationship to get to know what makes each other feel welcome and sense of belonging if that's not taking place during these meetings like where does that happen when does that happen um change happens and uh important to remind it as adults and to teach kids that we all have feelings of not belonging right uh at times and that that can help us actually support a sensible line for others if we can remember that um so yeah really

101just wanted to see anything else you're reflecting on and then the question that I wanted to leave you with thinking about is on the next screen which is just and the next slide is what does this mean for you in your role as a leader and I know we don't have a lot of time to really talk about that but maybe just like one or two one or two comments or reflections I think I think my role or our I think my role is at some point to to educate our communities on what we are actually talking about when we talk about educational I think there's a lot of fear and a lot of confusion about what that actually means I think we can definitely build to that and you mentioned that last time I

102pictured like a photograph like yeah everybody has photographs at some point with signs that say educational Equity means to me you know or something you can develop over time but certainly Community conversations would be great for that and Elizabeth yes thanks I I have used as sort of a guideline for belonging and I think this is in one of the readings that you sent out from the other Milwaukee Institute that um and uh it goes it's a big step Beyond creating room at the table it's getting rid of the table so that uh it's letting somebody DJ if they feel like DJing instead of sitting at the table and uh you know not just moving chairs around the same table to be a metaphor to death yeah I love that I'm like why is it

103a table why isn't it like a party or something it's always a table but I love that right whose table is it who's setting the table who's invited to the table right it's like I love how you remind us Elizabeth maybe it's not about the table really it's about like and this is what I uh as you're thinking about right again thinking about what you've heard tonight about um certain students that may be feeling more excluded what could it look like to really Center them at some point how do we think about belonging from a way of centering the people who are most impacted and realizing that if and when we can do that right everybody benefits um so any final thoughts I know y'all have to move along yes um I was really struck

104with that um uh lecture when he talked about inclusion and you're all welcome to my party and but as long as you fit in with me it's okay and that was a such a a revelation to me that we don't we don't that's how we include but that's not what they need and that's not real inclusion yeah appreciate that is true comment on Bill said about educating our community um they need to be part they need to be part of this conversation they need to hear what we're hearing here they need to read what you know you're asking us to read I I really appreciate the um article on the longing by Dr Powell where he talks about um people don't understand and and so we need to take that opportunity to help them understand

105as Educators yeah I think to use the language of the the podcast that you kicked out it's uh bridging I think is a really good term to use right you know you need to and I think that speaks to something you mentioned earlier Tracy and and ties into a lot of these comments is that if we want to be effective you know Educators in this context like you know sharing knowledge and sharing experience and and bridging with our community part part of that is listening a large part of that is listening and I think that in order to be successful we have to be listening um you know it has to be a discourse not a uh not a monologue um Tracy I just wanted to say thank you for putting those questions together because

106the thought that went through them thank you it wasn't just use soliciting information from me it was me being like oh oh like as I was doing the questions and that was just really insightful for me to process what I was responding to yeah I appreciate it all right thank you for that feedback and thank you all for engaging and you know it's like you're this isn't easy work right because what do you do then when you are listening and you're listening to an idea or an opinion you know that really challenges you right that's outside I mean and I say that's because it's something that I I'm I'm not sure like you know personally like I don't know but I know that we're not going to be able to change anything unless we can

107find a way to listen to each other you know and and sometimes that can diffuse how people are feeling and we know we're seeing so much polarization everywhere in this country it's like if we can find a way to listen to each other and like meet on those places where we have some shared values and shared ideas I think there's a lot that's possible so um we shall see yeah well thank you yeah thank you new curriculum program presentation presentation wasn't was part of the superintendence report okay you can read it um let me uh share my screen please foreign so I have two plans to share with you tonight and um the first one is a continuous Improvement plan they were sent to you last week so um I would like to um first

108of all if anybody has any particular questions you want me to answer as I'm presenting now would be a good time to ask those questions so that I can make sure that I answer them when I'm talking about plan it's really small so I will blow that up for enlarged yes I'm enlarge it okay so um we are not required to do a continuous Improvement Plan update for the AOE every year but because we base our continuous Improvement plan on our legs our wildly important goals we did adjust it to show our updated wildly important goals we um in the continuous Improvement plan there are two kinds of goals that we have to make one is an academic goal the other one is a safe and healthy schools goal so our academic goal reflects what

109our Su goal is for um uh for both math and language arts and sorry I think that's the one that's shown second so the academic achievement sorry I got a little ahead of myself um so 100 of students will grow in reading and math efficiency and that um we will use our data practices to help um teacher teams review that data and be basing interventions and approaches to students um learning by basing it in the data we will increase the percentage of su students who um achieve reading proficiency by three percent we are transitioning from track my progress to the star assessment this year so we tried to pick a meaningful uh growth Target that could be reflected in the star data because not all students we in we piloted star last year but not

110all students took stars and we we tried to find a number that we thought we could still achieve um based on the fact that we haven't taken Star as a whole but now we have because those were completed in the last few weeks so that'll be like our Baseline data and then the next time is taken we will be able to see some growths and then that uh percentage of su students will increase their map proficiency by three percent by applying the star um assessment the things that we're doing um to do that also and what we will look at for measures is Christine and I are working with the principals to check in with them um on a weekly basis to help them uh to get look at the data from the meetings that

111the teachers are having to see what um specific actions a principal can do as a construction leader in the building to support that work and then the new program implementation which I talked about a little bit well I didn't talk about earlier but it's in the slideshow in Christine slideshow and then the safe and healthy schools goal is using our leader in me implementation um using our scores and our measured results assessment which will be put out I think in May April April May um to see that we are making progress in our course one two and three and while I'm here I'm going to just fold that up because that does not hold um so that is basically the continuous Improvement plan those two ingredients any questions [Music] it's not it's sort of about

112this but um I've been wondering are with the new curriculum curriculum um is right you are you are that is um have we dumped that for a new Ela person um yes okay for for good reason for good reason yes it's not based on the science of readings right yeah um it doesn't align um so yeah thank you thank you the second plan anybody wants the materials we have lots of them I think those books are um being I think can be used to practice and that sort of thing but if it's as an intervention that no it's not a good shot the Arab sr3 plan uh this is our last year with our besser funds we that Grant will sunset oh expire I guess September 30th 2025 summer school in and maybe um some

113professional development in August before we actually um use them uh have those funds completely uh used that's exciting it's 24 not 25 right 24. yeah yes did I say 25.25. thank you for listening so this whole front this first part is just about the brand and then I updated this part anything that's highlighted in this blue color is updated um and then I wanted to just give you the opportunity I wanted to explain to you that the I am working on Esser three Amendment right now it is um in development and so I was not it I did not feel comfortable putting a mounts in on this plan and I will as soon as I have a viable Amendment for the grant because we're moving some things around uh to reflect the priorities in this

114plan and I also so I you can see my comments it just shows where I need to update those amounts if anybody has any specific comments out there in our community you can certainly email me and I'm happy to um answer any questions and this is on the website correct this is on the what website because I have it linked to this live doc so as I make changes in this doc those changes are reflected on the website can you go back up for just a second sure right there um to the homeless children and you too yes um is it zero because we don't have any homeless children no no amount of spend it today is I I don't have the updated numbers what we've spent that's what we've spent today and that's not

115a very big Grant I think that one transporting one child could easily cost 10 15 grand yeah depending on you know how long that happened so um this is just one small piece that's helping us support that work and I was not able to get the top not that the numbers aren't available to me I didn't update the amounts but I will and we are but this that that area it has grown we have 20 years in live processed with several that are influx yeah so every little bit helps um for homeless uh support for students experience and homelessness so this next section uh we had a I think a condenses section but this sort of gives you some ideas of getting our technology systems up uh to set us up for um being able

116to manage whatever comes in um at us in the next 10 15 years Larry is that what you were thinking I think you had said that that this really sets us up to be uh state of the art so that we can manage whatever Mother Nature happens to throw at us so that we can best serve our students we've had the same switches for 17 18 years and this would uh allow us to uh I feel comfortable saying 10 to 15. um you wouldn't have to buy any more switches and I think it'd be a great use investor Grant funds um it's less money you have to go to the general fund eventually and it certainly falls under the covet guidelines it was our technology that allowed us to provide remote learning for our students

117and continues to support students in a variety of ways those are switches are quite outdated yeah since I've been working here yeah 18 years keep defining what switches are uh so yeah so the the boxes and wires and all the closets okay in that buildings where um we're talking about the uh MBS and the IDS every school has an MDF which is the main for lack of better word Mainframe and then it goes into the individual closets and every school is different so like Heartland has three closets uh Windsor has seven so and um you just uh it's replacing all those switches all the switches was replaced we also use Esser funds earlier using the same uh goal as uh that Angie just said for uh all of our access points which we upgraded throughout

118the uh all the schools awesome thanks 15 more years you have to start talking about building replacement yeah this section of the academic um the academic session we were able we're very fortunate to have these funds we were able to use title funds for Windsor and Heartland to purchase amplify ckla and um read the squared materials we also use Esser funds to purchase for Wethersfield and Albert Bridge school so um local budgets are not burdened with the costs of those materials uh I'm hoping we can do that again for any replacement materials we need the big expenses were the teacher manuals um thing but student consumables will have to be renewed every year so there is an expense of uh new programs our transitional kindergarten program unfortunately but we didn't have enough student participation to

119continue it for this fiscal year so what we have done with that teacher who we had contracted with she is a kindergarten interventionist and based on each she is serving students in Heartland and Windsor school right now yeah and you came to keep that as something for next year there's a need funds for next year because because I've got a question about that sure so the the transition kindergarten program um was open to everybody in our supervisory in the paper so now that the person has become an interventionist how do the other students in this other two schools access that was a decision based on a team decision those schools do not need the support at this time gave them the resources that they already have in their buildings and I think we we brought

120it to all of the kindergarten teachers in BSU and things of discussion so that the decision was made and it's with the teachers based on student needs and it's not set in stone so if something happens like student need arises in one of those other any others build their abs then that that is something the principal can bring to our attention and I I was I mean being really thinking more about spending and it's not really Equitable spending to since the other two towns our thing well it's Esther funds it is but but uh it's still not really Equitable spending is there a way to let's get a little bit but even TK itself was on identified students that wasn't balanced as well so that it was based on individual students who referred to TK

121for the last two years and even this year we had a few kids referred but not a critical mass of students none were referred from one of their field um and so for example so we this year so it was never like it was always based on individual students wherever they were exciting that in that sense whatever the kids are we're going to go no matter where they are um and have still had that flexibility just right now those teachers have not identified that there is anyone to do that intensive work with like the TK intended that that was the the route we took to because we had talked about trying to do and divvied up more equitably than the need wasn't there people like no we don't need this so yeah and some of

122it's student enrollment I mean Wethersfield has a small kindergarten cohort this year um with support in the classroom and that's part of the reason why they're they're not in need of this this extra support one Equity is based on need right so yeah I just I still wonder whether it's the teachers in the other two schools really feel that they can access it it's a great question that we should be revisiting regularly with your input and am I right to assume that even though this is a uh faster funded program this comes under um student services we we've been because Christina are the ones who spearheaded TK and then I stayed on with TK and with Lindsay because it was housed in her as a way to sort of bridge our early intervention um so

123by default it was just it was funded through Esser and I been working closely with kindergarten okay for developmental Services when the asset fund Sunset and there's a need for this program that's my question would it come under the hospital student services because I would not think so because these are probably identified students no no okay no no we we did there was that was not a deciding factor actually sometimes that was an exciting Factor not to do it because that wasn't the intent was for developmentally appropriate transitional program machine pre-knk okay my question is goes beyond that is the Azure funds are going to Sunset and if there is a need will we have that program or can we not afford that program I think one of the things that was going to bring

124up next August October my report um was thinking about what our early childhood needs um is it Pre-K is it TK looking forward down the future for what we've already done for pre-k which two full-time classrooms is huge from where we were to what else can we do in that realm or is it TK that that's a conversation that we need to look at this year as we put in for fy25 almost year by year I mean the question would be in my mind did we spend the money on transitional kindergarten or do we spend the money on bolstering full-time preschool in other buildings that that is that was part of the my thing next preview preview preview okay so for Summer Academy we added fy25 so summer 2024. um that'll be so it really

125is not summer 2025. in summer 2024. I'm gonna fix that right now oh my gosh yeah yeah keep your eyes on me that's true we'd be able to carry on that is all right this coming summer yeah definitely is part of sy25 Summer Academy is actually 25. yeah yeah but it happened somewhere right so we that would be the fourth year that we run it because we ran at 7 21 22 23 and then I don't know if Larry finds it but that is just a pain for State reporting High School summer Pro school yeah I'm sorry Larry Larry I'd love to see how it five deals with that yeah yeah and so would I so I have uh We've added some more so uh the best Institute we want to send teams from each

126building to um build to work on further developing their multi-tiered system and supports that's a conference that we typically or in the past have funded with best funds but the best funds this year were quite small and um so if we have funding in the our passer3 that would be a way to support this work the professional learning and self-determined learning is a conference that we would have would like to send administered administrators High School leaders and students can we determine which students go to the best Institute uh best Institute is for teachers yeah yeah so it's not the self-determined learning conference that so last year a group of us went to Colorado you may recall and we visited schools that were a self-determined learning school and it would have been so cool to have

127some students with us to see how that school was running this year the conferences in Virginia Virginia so it's a little more doable um for us to bring some students so hopefully we can make that work the Big Ideas Summit there a couple years ago um that has been in there for a bit leading Equitable schools training more self-determined learning this is our faculty in 912 working with our consultant Mike Nicholson on developing uh practices that align us up to turning any for students and the reports so far is we have a core group of Faculty that are very excited and very invested in this work so that is really like it's happening we're seeing things happen and grow that's very exciting um Schoolboy Advanced clinician last year we did not have one so this

128year we do have one and we are able to um fund with the Esser funds and I think uh adding more in for leader in May um and then our uh our teachers that we fund with this too in each of the um in each District really um we at Windsor School we lost that position um we had a teacher leave the teacher moved on and then and then that teacher that was replaced um left um so we are going to try to fill that position but um as of now I haven't heard that we don't settled that position what position is it is a intervention classroom teacher at the middle level [Music] and that's two years worth so yeah because we started using our professor 3 and fy23 um it says f-122 I don't

129think that's accurate so we've probably used sr2 in upline 22. our Equity coordinator is part of our answer funded position that'll be something that will be moving to the SU um for a fiscal year 25 the recovery coordinator we funded that position in 22 and 23 and that position was moved to the Su budget last fall or FY 24. and that is it for the updates with this plan so this plan in order to um meet the requirement for Meaningful consultation stakeholder engagement is available on the website on the curriculum website and you can also find a Google form there survey for your specific feedback and of course you can always email me directly with any questions that you have um the link to that is right here um but you can also let me

130show everybody in just a second [Music] um go to wsesu.net you can find curriculum under our SU iculum and instruction and over in this left column you can find Professor three foreign public comment form and our updated taking a second to load sorry I didn't notice that you can see it so there's yes sir there's the answer form okay thank you thank you okay I read just a couple things to hit on in the policy review um to sort of move things along for next time I'm definitely not going to hit all of them but um the public complaint about Personnel I put in a um comment around um which isn't something I think should go in there but IT addresses Davis's concern about what the media supervisor is it was just a straight definition

131and so it probably can be it you put down the comments I put it in the comments and then um one of the other concerns right that I read is that um most likely there's some redundancy when going to supervisors because yeah a lot of the time the immediate supervisor is going to be the principal and then so I said possibly that the as a third a second step to go to the building supervisor because that may be different not everybody's the media supervisor is actually going to be the Principal correct so that could be the case manager yeah it could be a case management so you put comments in yes um I don't know if there's any other discussion about that so um Bill what are you think about putting writing the definition in

132like a definition section or just having it I think so I think it would probably go really quick because I was hoping you'd say that yeah unless you know that I've heard that yeah in a lot of legalese of businesses as well as school districts that's it's it's confusing yeah I'm a big fan of definitions yeah policies um I I did have a comment on that and I know that there was some questions about um are we giving the individuals an impression that once they go to the board it's they can't go any further or or I was thinking to folks know that they can always go to the Board of Education if they're not satisfied with the decision that the board makes within this process in this policy the board is the last time

133that's putting something else in there even though it I mean you could take some of the Court you can contact but within this policy we can only make policy and inform policy based upon what our process is um I'm good with that I just didn't know if we wanted you know not everyone knows but I'm sure that some people know that well they'll see where what other options do I have but I didn't know if we needed to put anything but that's that's okay I don't I'm not fully clear what options the Department of Education yeah it really isn't nothing they could do except for poor to the Department of Ed and then an apartment the agency event you can't do something but the next step of course would be litigation hire a lawyer yeah

134um you can you can make a complaint to this yes and they do follow they yes okay yeah I mean most I'm sure most people know that about us having to tell them right yeah I assume we could also I mean this is in a policy but if there was like a procedure or like a toolkit or something or just like a blurb on a website that says you can also do this but it just doesn't go there yeah no policy and and within if it ever got to the level of coming to the board then you know and that came up yeah this is else you can do yeah I mean I've had you know you get a lawyer that's kind of yeah that's what you do yeah yeah I don't feel that I've

135done that and it's not a great path yeah um it does happen okay transgender and gender non-conformed students um just someone added a bunch of stuff I took the Hartford policy that was passed and put that language in there for your consideration yeah only um it's highlighted so there are some I mean they put a lot of work into that yeah and there's probably some portions we'd like to replace that's what I was thinking so um sort of a bit of a homework if we all can kind of review that and look at it yeah see which portion we want to have um so I tried to make it really clear with the highlighting so uh communication just communal diseases um it was pretty straightforward yeah um but uh yeah I apologize I'm whipping through

136these because it is like a board meetings and gender preparation and distribution um my reading of that I actually think it's pretty good yeah yeah yes and I will take a motion to approve the flagpole request okay so moved second yeah that's any discussion about it I like the way it's really spells out the process it's a very strong nice and clear yeah um and I believe had all the names written down so we will take because it's a policy I would prefer to go around the table and including online so Davis how do you vote hi Nicole hi Nancy hi Elizabeth hi Rebecca hi and I am an eye and Colleen I uh Mark I Megan I Anne-Marie hi and I I got to go through here and see because I'm doubled up yeah

137is that still there did I miss anybody okay I believe that says okay James says can you love Bill no I won't be on both houses okay um are we are used is that it for policy I've got a question about policy um that is go ahead Elizabeth thank you uh I was rereading our um anti-racism policy and procedures sometime in the last month and one of the somewhere in there it says that we should annually review that policy and we haven't done it since we passed it so uh I would like for us to thinking look at it yeah and saying it's coming the end of the year and hopefully next meeting we can look through some of these um so maybe put that at the bottom of the pile for next month and

138give us a chance to read it sort of a reminder on the agenda and do you want to move all the other ones to the next reading that you just flip through okay you got it okay so the um anti-racism policy next month first first review yes okay uh setting the next agenda and procedures yeah yeah they are attached I believe yeah procedures I think we have from course as far as policy is those are all there oh um at our sometime that's fine at some point um uh uh we talked about having a matrix of the anti-racism policy and procedures and act one and all of the things that and that how they sort of work together um Tracy's been working on uh I can I can work on that and I can look

139more specifically like to update where where are the anti-racism policy is at and then any alignment with some stuff so I can have that ready for y'all next for next for next meeting thank you of course Tracy's going to get at our homework yeah she's gonna extend her homework out to you yeah I I'd also like to I know Angie sort of skipped over um the um New curriculum program presentation um I I I'd like to hear that you got it I've been up flirting with the idea of maybe actually melding what we'd teach with what goes on as standards really yeah oh my goodness so yeah so um in the work plan you've got Larry's got a financial report next month five minutes but he's gonna do a budget update from the Su budget

140committee next next month uh special education report from Katie and then you've got Tracy's I'll she can add the Matrix to her report and yeah her training and then my report and the policies yeah going forward can we have Tracy near the front yeah right yes I like that first thing because I feel like it's yeah absolutely yeah I think if she tells you after public participation yeah um not to sort of push off the admin reports we're not offended in any way it's a good mindset yeah to get into yeah instead of being talked at or Prince Christine but like to have a joke yeah so I will take a um do we need an executive session we do not and I just want to know the time Bill you're doing a great job

141oh thank you I will take a motion [Laughter] [Applause] it happens right your brain just