BOE Meeting 12/11/2024

001e for shall we call the meeting to order folks we're short too but we're understanding one will be here yep okay well I'd like to call the December 11th 2024 uh Bethany Board of Education meeting the order we'll start with the Pledge of Allegiance Pledge of to the flag United States of America the for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy andice for all Charlotte schol we be seeing gentlemen stter engine all right PTO report you're up hi everyone uh my name is Melissa zaldo I am the current PTO president uh since we last met um our student or excuse me our teacher appreciation chair and her committee um walked around to provide uh uh holiday pies and coffee right before the um Thanksgiving break we also right now currently have our

002smake shop going on if you want to take a little Gander in the gym on the non-stage side it is still set up uh this shop is scheduled to last through tomorrow um most of the class V visited today and yesterday tomorrow it's just going to be open for kids who didn't get a chance to um go with their class on either one of these days uh we're still looking for help to help take down the um the shop so if anybody can give a hand tomorrow afternoon after school um I would say just show up at this point you don't need to um register to volunteer our next meeting um I sent my weekly out my weekly announcement out uh this morning there wasn't error on the date of our next meeting um our

003next meeting is scheduled a week from today which is the 18th erroneously erroneously put the 15th um a new announcement just went out like about five minutes ago with a crack date um I just I just blank but the next meeting is next Wednesday it's a zoom meeting uh the link is sent is in the weekly that is corra it's also in the flyer that just went out um our BCS spirit store is still open uh if you need to purchase some items for uh upcoming holidays certainly check that out everybody's loving that um hockey sweatshirt with the with the laces on it and then um we currently have uh BCS night at quinap Pak hocki tickets are for sale for that um the game is January 11th at 700 p.m. it's going to be

004Quinn Pak versus Princeton we have 100 tickets resered for BCS when I checked last night I think we had sold about 42 so there's still quite a few left um tickets are $15 a piece everybody over the age of two needs a ticket and you can go on to the BCS website to purchase tickets for that and that is all I have thank you thank you very [Music] much uh presentation student achievement by Mr Reed whale and Miss natham have move right [Music] somebody might have had it before I'm see if I can find all right oh generally there all right um so uh every year we kind of come together we have our um Smart Balance and our ngss assessments that we take in the spring uh we get that data in the early

005fall we're able to take a look at that analyze it uh and then be able to share out a report uh to you all what we try and do as best we can is to try and do a year-over presentation so things that we've shown you similarly last year we try and bring that back again this year so you can kind of get a sense of how we're doing longitudinally um when we look at this data there's uh really kind of three types of data so previously um kinetic used to have what was called the Connecticut Mastery test or the CMT and it was a it was a norm reference test so what it meant was when a kid got a report and I know this cuz I took it and I got a report

006um you would get a percentile score so it would tell you what percentile you were in the state of Connecticut um which was great for any kid that was in say the 80th or the 90th percentile but the problem with Norm reference data is that no matter how good every kid does in the state some kid was sitting there in the first percentile which if you think about children is really awful to do for data so what the state did is they looked and they said well this is kind of crazy we should do Criterion reference data we should take and say what is the standard that we want to meet where do we want kids to get and if they meet it then they meet it if 100% of the kids in the state

007meet the expectation that's good that's really great and we can celebrate each of those kids and so that's what we look at now is um we look at Criterion reference data so um for this it overall there's a raw score that kids get it's um in the thousands it's like 2,300 to 2600 right but it really equates to four bands 1 2 3 or four nice way of thinking of it is one and two is not meeting three and four is meeting and then exceeding um the other thing that they're able to do now is they're also able to be able to have growth scores so any child that took it in third grade once they take it in third grade they get that achievement score how did they do against the expectation and then

008the state says based on that score how would we expect that student to do how much would we want them to grow into the next year and that's for every kid if they really struggled and they were in a level one two three or four um and so what we end up with is we end up with data not only looking at achievement which I'm going to tell you a little bit about but also growth we only have growth for fourth fifth and sixth because our third graders have only taken it once so when we look at achievement um they set that expectation for third fourth fifth and sixth grade students it's what we typically think of when you see esack data right when you have smarter balanc data what gets reported in the current

009um and the state will always say we don't report it out that's what they're talking about when you get that number the percentile that's typically what we're talking about but we can really look deeply at it when we think about this you want to think did they get a high enough score did they meet that level three or four so we're going to measure that in what percentage of students met that achiev Target this is the too long didn't read when you get bored of hearing what we're saying and you can't remember everything that we said I want you to think about this slide there are 182 reporting districts in the state of Connecticut now the fun thing is for math there's 187 why because there's some that have really really really really small groups

010and when there's a certain small number they can't actually report all of that data out to us reliably and so um there's 182 reporting districts for ELA and we ranked 11th out of 18 2 when you look at that it puts us in the 94th percentile out of all districts in the state um so other districts with Ela scores comparable to us were Simsbury Farmington Greenwich Guilford reading Avon um all of whom scored at or below our achievement level of 77% Meeting those expectations for math uh out of the 187 reporting districts we ranked 12 um that puts us in the 94th percentile on the state as well um both of those are increases from the mid 80s last year so we were 84 and 86% I believe um I have it in a later

011slide um but we're in the 94th percentile now so uh districts other districts that had scores comparable to us in math were towns like chesher Greenwich Trumble Glastonberry Fairfield all of whom scored um at or below our achievement level of 74% in math so what do the numbers look like this is our overall score for the last six years that we've taken the assessment you'll notice that we still don't have that bar in 2020 it's because we didn't take it um so the two years prior we at 62 and 66 prior to the pandemic um we had a bit of a drop off in 2021 um but we've gotten that back and then exceeded it now to 74% of our students last year met expectations in math um that's the highest that we've achieved ever

012um in Bethany for the all um 15 years that we've given this assessment um if you look it's also in contrast to the um to the trend in the state um and you'll also see that we talk later um in our co- our dur cohort our dur sea so our dur sea often you're seeing a lot of towns that are also having some of this drop off where um we're not only getting back to preand prepandemic levels um but exceeding those levels this is what it looks like grade by grade I'm really proud of this slide um previously this was just last year um you can see we were at 68 80 58 67 we were kind of up and down this year we've really kind of leveled off and overall um strong data and

013universally strong data so what we're trying to do is make sure that we're doing a really great job with all of our grades um and we're starting to see that both um in math and Ela um this is one of those things that like I thought in my head and I need to actually look at it in the data because we've had a lot of talk about what are we doing for those kids right we say okay the kids are meeting it and and we have a lot right we'll talk about you know our MLL services our services for students who have um who have IEP our srbi students who are getting intervention but what about those kids that are already getting it what about the kids that might need enrichment and so when we

014look at it those students um when we look this the gray bars are our Trend in overall achievement but the blue bars below are our overall growth in those students who are in and achieving a level four so not just meeting but exceeding so in 2021 27% of our students were exceeding in 23 24 this year 45% of them were exceeding so we've almost doubled that number when we look at it and we're really proud of we've more than doubled um but we're really proud of looking at that as a data within the data not only are we increasing our overall um number of percentage of students who we're meeting but we're also increasing the percentage of students who are exceeding time read do me fa yeah can you stop with all the rations sorry

015ma'am yeah English language artarts Ela is English language arts you got if I can't follow on the people at home can either you got it so uh I'll jump back one so uh SBA is smarter balanced assessments so when we think about it that's your reading and math assessments that we give um in the spring um and Ela is just short for English language arts sorry I'll get I'll just go thank you Sean I'll just yep um so when we look at it longitudinally for our um for our English language arts um so we were also looking at math but um our Ela um has traditionally been a lot stronger for us right so um English language arts has typically um eclipsed math um and what you'll see is that uh this year we got

016to 77% which again is the highest level of achievement that we've had in the 15 years that we've taken it um you'll see that it is also again in contrast to the trend that we see for the state this is it split out by grade again what we're starting to see is we're getting that leveling out of that data we've got less of an up and down there and overall really strong data by grade same thing looking at the level fours those students who are exceeding uh in 2021 44% of our students were exceeding in 23 24 49% of those students are exceeding so again we're not only increasing the overall percentage of students who are meeting and exceeding but the data within the data we're also having stronger um numbers of students in that

017exceeding data so ngss next generation science standards assessment so they give it in fifth and eth grade um so the great thing here and I'll tell you this we're going to live by the sword right now we'll also Die By The Sword it's a really small cohort so in this you have to remember that five kids is 10% right so if we do a really good job with those five kids and they crush it we look like Geniuses if those five kids have a rough time they had a meltdown they didn't eat breakfast they could tank it and we look foolish right so um I'm going to live by the sword so 81% this last year um met or exceeded on our Science assessment in fifth grade again that's the highest level of achievement that

018we've had um since we've given the Science assessment in fifth grade all right um there's another way to look at the data and you can break it down um the dangerous thing that you have here is that we're talking about children we can really kind of split kids into really small subgroups and sections um but we can look at our subgroup data it's important to really think about kids who they are how we can support them and this data really looks at how are we doing not only overall as a school but how are we doing with individual students and groups of students and trying to think about what might else we be able to do to support them so um one of the groups that we really focus on and the state um expects

019us to focus on is that group called our high needs subgroup It's a combination of the students who are either um English language Learners or Ells those students um whose primary um or um first language was not English so students who are still learning or needing support with the English language um students who have an IEP who are receiving special ed services an IEP is an individualized educational plan um or students who are low socioeconomic status those who qualify for free or reduced lunch so you take all three of those subgroups you put them together and that's considered our high need subgroup um we can also look at race and ethnicity and gender the challenge that we have here is that sometimes the data gets really small right so when you look at a subgroup

020you could get to a really really small number of students and we're not going to report out if we have say a subgroup of three students it's inappropriate and it violates their confidentiality so when we get to a really really small subgroup what we do sometimes and this happens with race and ethnicity is we combine those into say like an other um that is not to other students it's to protect their confidentiality um so here's what our math achievement looks like by race and ethnicity um so uh overall strong data uh we have noticed that our students who identify as Hispanic or Latino um are are the lowest subgroup and so that's something that we're really trying to think about how we can ensure that um we're helping those students ultimately what we do is

021we take a look at individual students too we just look straight at the data and say who met who didn't and then we also think about what factors um might we need to do um what factors might we be able to address to try and support those students uh this is the same for uh Ela for uh reading and writing um for our students uh by race and ethnicity kind of a similar Trend there as well this is it by gender um this is a pretty typical graph for us uh it it tends to Waffle back and forth for both math and uh reading in terms of uh how our students split on achievement for uh female or male students uh it's not a large gap there that we see between those two same thing

022for um Ela uh for reading and writing this is our high need subgroup versus our not high needs subgroup um while there is a noticeable difference there it's a smaller difference than it has been it's a number that we've really been working on trying to think about those students their individual needs and the intersectionality of right when we look at a high need subgroup it's identified as meeting in one of those subgroups but you could have a child who could meet all three of those subgroups which means that they've got several things that could be um challenges for them as they're facing this you know as they're facing their learning and this assessment same thing for ELA um and I'll talk a little bit more about this in terms of how the state calculates this

023for an achievement Gap um but it's really we've really really shortened that distance between those two subgroups so uh the other way that we can take a look at it is growth data I'm up all right growth data um so looking at achievement is great uh but when we look at those achievement uh graphs it only takes into account the students that have scored three or four um and our growth data really takes into account the growth of all of our students so think about a student who might be scoring at a level one um and maybe they did really well and the next year they scored a level two and they met their growth Target that will be accounted for in these graphs so the growth rate is each student regard regardless of their

024achievement score will will receive a growth Target for the next year's assessment so if they grow by that amount um they are said to have met their growth Target then um on the graph you're going to see a dark green and a light green bar this is going to be the light green bar so a percentage of Target achieved so for each student the state Compares how much they expected that student to grow versus how much they actually grew so you're going to see an average percentage of how much um our kids grew something to just keep in mind too is that they cap it at 110% so we have a lot of kids that actually exceeded 110% of of their growth so we had 70 out of 161 students um in ela or English

025language arts with 110% growth or more and then in math same thing 70 out of 161 kids with 110% growth and more so it's a significant amount so just looking across the board here um from uh year to year we have grown as far as students who are meeting their growth Target starting from 48% in 2018 to um 62% in 2024 um and we have grown also in the average percentage of how much of that Target they have achieved ending at 80% uh last year in ela um pretty much the same Trend we kind of stay steady with Ela um with 50% meeting uh the growth Target in 2018 and 54% meeting it in 2024 and then if you break it down by grade so again we don't have it for third grade um because

026they have they've only taken it once so um but you can see by grade um in math 66% are meeting that Target in fourth 53 in fifth and 66 um in sixth grade and this is Ela so same thing 64% in fourth grade and then just about uh over half for Fifth and six so one of the other things that we think about is that comparing third grade to third grade works on some levels but ultimately it doesn't because when you think about this year's third grade it's different than last year's third grade so what we want to also think about is what about cohorts as they travel through with us how did we do with a cohort when they went from third to Fourth to fifth to sixth let's track their data and see

027how they've done over those years um so in this way we can see how that group of students is progressing and so um in reading and writing it's been a typical Trend um the last couple of years um have been a little uh trickier I think some of that is what I would consider Ripple effects and and aftershocks of the pandemic um I think we saw some of those uh students just having some overall challenges and gaps as they had um from the pandemic but filling back in when you look at our current sixth grade in um third grade they were at 73% 82% of them met in fourth grade and then 86% of them met in fifth grade so we're taking that same group of students and we're picking off just a couple more

028students we've gotten to crack the code to fix you know whatever is a challenge for them chipping away chipping away chipping away same thing we're seeing with our current fifth grade and then we're starting with our fourth grade they were at 66% in third uh this was something that we saw um uh as not a trend for math math was kind of up and down we really didn't see kind of a linear growth there um and you can see that in the 24 and 20 classes of 24 and 23 um but what we're seeing is really kind of overall strong growth for our current sixth grade we're seeing that upward trend for our current fifth grade um and then we've got really strong data starting out um for math in our fourth grade so that's

029really promising okay we're always going to ask it so I'm going to share it people want to know how do we do against our neighbors answer good um there's two ways to look at it though and I think it's really important to understand how do we compare our eles right how do we compare ourselves and what's a reasonable comparison right and so the state of Connecticut recognizes this that um there's lots of different towns there's everything from new Canan and Fairfield and Greenwich all the way down to um cities that could have real challenges that they might not be facing um bridgeportspeedway way um from an A to an I am I right yes uh a to I um think ultimately a is more affluent I is less that's ultimately one of the largest ways

030that you can really think about it splitting out with those 169 ttimes they split those through for reference we are a durg c it should also be noted that all of the other districts in boa are a durg b all right so we're punching above our weight the other thing so we can look at um both boa and dur sea um while we compare ourselves to Orange Woodbridge and Amity um and I think it's important that we do um it's also important to note that they're in dur B like Avon grenwich Guilford West Hartford Fairfield dur C towns uh towns that are in our dur um would be towns like Andover tand uh Hein Suffield Summers um Canton I grew up in Canton where at dur SE um so uh when we look at that

031three of four we already talked about that great so uh this is the thing so I wanted to share so um we were in that 94th percentile last year we were in the 84th percentile I did have it right um this year we were uh 12th out of 187 or the 94th percentile overall in the state last year we were in the 86th percent so this is how we did comparative to other districts in baa for math um so you'll see that we are um just behind Woodbridge um but we're eclipsing Amity and orange good job us um also for ELA um right behind uh Woodbridge um and right in there with Amity and orange it should be noted ultimately when we look at this like this is not the hate on orange like 66%

032I mean maybe some people would those are all really really strong scores right you're looking at top third of the state scores all around regardless of where you are if you're at that point um so here's how we do in terms of growth so I think that's also a really important thing right where are your kids how are you getting them to move um and so this is what we're seeing so we're really doing a great job in terms of that growth you'll see that we have the strongest growth numbers in um math um through boa and then we're right there um with all of those growth numbers uh for ELA for our reading and writing compared to our boa counterparts the other thing that we can do is we can take a look at

033how we're doing against those other dur sea towns um what I did is I took a look at all the dur sea data that was publicly available and I extrapolated out every town that counted in that just their third fourth fifth and sixth grade data if they had seventh and eth I either took that out or I found um or i' only looked at towns that had just third to sixth there are some that were really tiny a lot of towns that fall into durg sea the reason that they fall into dur sea is because they're similar to us right canton's a small town Bethany's a small town so when you get really really small your data gets really really small and sometimes they can't publicly share that so they are some towns that are

034in Dury that are just not reflected on here because I couldn't get access to their data but this is third to sixth data this is how we were doing in 2019 we were right on the average for math we were at 66% the average was 66% this is how we were doing in 2024 we're at the top of dur sea we're at 74% um and the average is 62 so you'll note that the average went down and we went up and if we're at the top of it by the way that means we are the ones pulling the average up same thing for ELA so we were at 72% just a little bit above that average in um and then in 2024 we have eclipsed um durg SE and we're the ones who are pulling

035that um average up for dur SE so I I'll just do that as a once over again that's a really nice graph to look at um and I think that if you really look at it the other thing that I think is really important in here and I said it earlier but if you look at the higher end where where towns were in 2019 right before the pandemic a lot of them were above that percentage right and what they found is that there's a lot of challenges that are still there for kids that were growing up with a significant percentage of their lives that were affected by a global pandemic by having to sit in rows and columns by having to have a mask by having to worry about whether or not your friends were

036going to get you sick that has all I mean it has Ripple effects for us has huge Ripple effects for kids I think what's impressive is that we've really negated those Ripple effects and we've Ed that we've not just and I think this is what affects our data is not just to focus on kids and their academic growth because that's really important right we want them to be successful but if they're not happy if they're not well adjusted if they don't have social skills if they can't interact right then they don't have the bandwidth to actually show up for instruction and so that's another really important factor that we have for our kids is that yeah are we taking academics seriously of course we are but we're also thinking about a child as a child

037as a person and ensuring that they're really successful that way um okay so I know that this has been a conversation um in several different meetings um and in several different circles and I thought well I'll lean into it and I'll see what is the actual number because I think numbers and and data are actually important and so I took a look at our historical nine-year Trends um so I think I said 15 I apologize we've only taken it um nine times so looking at our Trends um for math across all four grades and what we've seen and what I've shared with you is that we have that third and fourth grade right and then we see a drop off in fifth and sixth grade um so what I did was I take a look

038at I took a look at how have we done historically how did we do um at the beginning right before the pandemic and now so our 9-year average third and fourth was at 69 and 70% strong strong growth overall fifth and sixth was at 60 and 62 there's our drop off that's our historical drop off it's right there first year that we took it it's really exacerbated right so in 2015 that was the first year that we have um data from smarter bals big gap huge drop off right 80 to 39 right in 2019 before the pandemic hit right that last time before the pandemic we'd really started to shrink them we'd really started to to to eliminate some of that Gap by 2024 we've eliminated it entirely and eclipsed it so I think this

039is really important to consider when we hear you know concerns about what are we doing in Summit math are our kids prepared are they learning what they need to are are they ready I would argue yes and I would argue far more now than they ever have been especially compared to our third and fourth um and so I think this is an overall really strong Trend and I think that's due in part to the hard work that people have put in I think the ways in which we're really trying to talk across grades and think about how we're delivering instruction and I think it's also really to how we've tried to make sure that we're emphasizing the importance of math instruction if we want our math numbers to be strong then we have to actually

040put the value into the amount of time that we're giving that math instruction so uh yeah yeah t of other considerations of data so tonight we've really talked about the smarter B balance assessment but we don't just look at that assessment um we consider lots of different pieces of academic data so we really use our I ready um assessment that's uh taken three times a year um we do Dibbles um the DSA Pat core those are all reading assessments um interim assessment benchmarks those are those there are little assessments that we might do in between um our SBA so there are like little practice tests uh fact fluency which is our math data um unit quizzes tests projects classes assign and assignments putting too much weight into one thing doesn't give you a full picture

041of really our school and a student's success so we like to consider all things and then just some takeaways from the data all achievement levels are the highest we've scored so the highest that we've ever scored if Tom has not said that enough tonight um they are the highest that we've ever scored so we are extremely proud of all of the people involved and all you know we get to stand here and and talk on their behalf but really it it it's the it's the work of a lot of people a lot of people here in our community um Ela data continues to show strong um results in both achievement and growth um same thing for math um surpassing pre pandemic levels math and Ela results are in contrast to the state Trends so um

042as you saw kind of through that that um Durk data um it's the same thing for the state so we have count uh counteracted the previous trend of math score drop off as Tom said in fifth and sixth our subgroup data just gives us a good um place for our Focus um compared to our dur and boa Town peers Bethany's results showed the positive impacts of all the work done by our staff during in since the pandemic and just some next steps for us so as we think about what we're going to do moving forward um we're going to continue to focus on programs and procedures that support positive growth and achievement so our srbi process which um really targets those students that need that extra support and what are we do for each of

043those children um we have our after school boost Academy um which also targets those students that need that extra support we meet um daily for data teams grade levels are meeting weekly but we're there daily student case reviews um are held four times a year and that's when a a larger team will come together to talk about those students that need some extra support um we're going to continue to identify those students who meet who met or exceeded in previous grade but did not meet in their most recent assessment so continuing to kind of track um taking those extra data points and thinking about our students continuing that growth um we also take a look at attendance so average number of absences for uh 11 students that didn't show growth in fifth and sixth was

04410 about 10 days so people take vacations people get sick all of these things happen but if students are not in school then we cannot have a large impact on them so it's just it's just something that we always take into account um continue to have staff implement the uh IAB assessments those intrum assessments and then continue to focus on not only student achievement but that social emotional well-being of students so um really taking into account the whole the whole child so something that we noticed had an impact um on that growth in fifth and sixth was an increased time for instruction um so continuing to focus on that increased time for fifth and sixth grade um developing a comprehensive multi-tiered system of support So supporting those students that um just need a little extra

045help um that you know we want to make sure we give them that boost we have a new reading program it is called ckla um so implementing that and really thinking about that as a whole staff how we're doing um how we're doing best practices with that steering committee is taking a deep dive into that program to ensure quality instruction is delivered continuing professional development um we have someone who come in here name is Robin Moore um she helps our staff in the area of math um for fourth fifth and sixth grade um continue professional development literacy how so we have a focus on the science of reading which is aligned with our reading program um ckla and then implementing a responsive teacher growth cycle plan so that's really our new evaluation plan that we

046have here at BCS so implementing that and it's all about really growing our teachers and our staff so um so we'll start with the sad news then we'll get to the good news uh sad news is we couldn't put the badge up there for the school of Distinction uh the good news is the only reason that we didn't is on on a on a I'll call it a one student technicality so like I said before in science you live by the sword so I lived by that sword with the 81% we died by the sword on participation in fifth grade science participation so no matter how good we do we could have 100% of the kids that take the assessments nail it fours across the board if we have 94.9% of our students in fifth

047grade taking the Science assessment by 0.1% we would not be a school of Distinction last year we were a school of Distinction we were at 82.2% of the possible points on our like report card from the state we actually eclipsed that we're at 84.4 we did better but we had four kids who did not take the Science assessment in fifth grade and when you have a really small cohort that puts it us at 93.7% to which I thought to myself I know math I'm going to fight City Hall I did and I lost um I tried to look at it a bunch of different ways uh and so when I spoke with a Jeep who is the guy he is the the as I like to say the head math geek right I was a

048stem coach uh so so we geeked out on on data and I was like what about if we looked at it this way and he was like no I was like what about this way and no he knew what I was getting at um so ultimately on this um we did a really good job on this and you can see compared to both our boa partners and the state of Connecticut in terms of the total percentage of the points that we could earn um and I'll go through what some of those are but because of that just for our participation rate on um our Science assessment um we did not get that um notification uh as a school of Distinction um we'll keep at it here's what I do want to share though this so

049this is our report all the things that I can highlight are all of the things on there that we improved so when we look at that accountability for our Ela performance index of all students we improved our Ela index of high need students improved math performance index of all students improved math performance index for high need students improved uh academic growth for ELA all students improved academic growth for high need students improved academic growth for math all students improved there's a theme uh academic growth for high need students in math improved uh progress towards uh English proficiency so all of our students who receive MLL support um in literacy that improved our physical fitness assessment that Mr Duca gives improved this is the number though these two I think are the most important so the

050state says look we know that that high needs subgroup has factors that are working against kids kids who are having challenges with learning they've got an identified learning disability they're learning English as an MLL student their family Maybe having some Financial struggles those are all factors that are really challenging for kids to come in and do their absolute best and Achieve at the same level of students who don't have those factors against them do we use it as an excuse of course not what we do is we look at those kids as humans and say what can we do to ensure that we care and work to do our best for those kids so the state says how are you doing and what they say is you can't just go and live by the kids

051who are in your regular sub group you're non-high needs they say if you're not caring about the kids in the the high needs group then you're out of luck and so they create what's called an achievement Gap so they want to make sure that you're within that achievement Gap and they set that Gap at 17.3 percentile points so you got to be within that to qualify last year I thought we really did well for ELA we were 8.4 that was our Gap in terms of their achievement Gap this year We Shrunk that to 2.8 last year for math we were at 122 again that was a number I was really proud of actually we brought it down to 6.9 so not only so when we look at it if you think all the way back

052to that that slide with the blue and the blue line when we talk about those students that needed in Richmond we're focusing on those kids because we want to make sure that if they're threes we're growing them to Fours but we're also thinking about those students who have factors that we know can be presenting challenges to them and thinking about how we can remove those barriers and work with them and we've cut one by a fourth almost and we've cut the other in half um Sue gazy almost fell out of her chair when I presented this to the staff and rightly so like that's a I cannot express like that's the data on here that I'm absolutely most proud of because it means that we're not just sitting on students that we can get to

053right away or who might have come in having all the support and the success ready for them but all the kids regardless of what might be a barrier for them and caring about those kids to get them across the Finish Line too so um that's what we got uh we didn't get a badge but I'm darn proud of our not badge this year um because we're doing the best that we have on that index um and so we're going to do our absolute best to make sure uh that we don't get beat up on a technicality next year so that's what we got oh there's no more slides usually I have a question yeah I'm curious with the the number of students there like if it was like absences things like that was there attempts

054to get them to do the makeups or was it a for that number of students was it just a refusal to take it it was families who reached out and respectfully said I don't want my child to take this assessment and so in that we can't force a child to sit for the assessment right and not for nothing like I'm just going to be ask I know the way to cook the books and we're not going to do it the way to cook the books is you go hey Jackie I know your folks didn't want you take you something can you just sit down we're going to start the test start kid doesn't take the test we go end and that kid counts as a participant I'm not going to do that that's inappropriate right

055so if they say we don't want our child taking that TK we're not going to do that right how many of those par uh gosh uh I don't want to speak out of turn five in fifth grade um we had five that did not take it in fifth grade I believe we had eight overall I could be wrong on that but yeah huh why parental preference parents uh typically don't give us um much some one or two have said that they don't because they're worried about um test anxiety and how it would impact their kids mental health well-being and so they didn't want them to sit for it um others uh would have just reached out and said Dear Mr reedale I am informing you that I do not want my child to take the

056smarter balance assessment this spring thank you so very much and yeah and so then I just you know we have a list and we're and so when they when we sit for that ass we just have a different space for those kiddos some work for them to do either in the office or the library um and then when those test sessions are over they just rejoin their class yep so good question the other thing I think I find it I don't know if I'm insulted the the the idea that just because a kid is on a du lunch program is considered a special needs kid M I think that's kind of I don't know that just kind of strikes me as wrong yeah I I think what when when the state looks at it I

057think what they do is they look at the overall trend to look and say if you have a family that's having Financial challenges that there's a lot of things that might be opportunities that aren't available for them that other families or students have and so that can be a limiting factor to their overall it's a barrier and so when we look at it right so we look and we say um I mean the tough part that is we can't like we don't know um you know it's it that's confidential information for us but I think what we look to say is we want to make sure that anything that is here kids have an opportunity to participate in if you're a kid and you want to be an Invention Convention and you're one of our

058top kids that goes to Invention Convention we go hey it might be you know a couple of bucks to go we cover that cost so that a family doesn't have to say hey I can't send my kid CU I don't have the money or if there's the snowflake shop they don't feel left out which can be an impact on just their overall sense of being we go hey we can find some snowflake shop Bucks the pto's amazing with that so we try and eliminate money and access as a barrier to kids right we can think just overall if we make sure that that's not a barrier to kids we make sure that things like that at least within the four walls of the school are not a factor for our kids and we feel like

059that as a way to make sure that that we're treating kids with kindness and respect and eliminating that as a barrier so so thanks guys appreciate [Music] good job and and um for everybody you know say good job I I you know can't speak for everybody but I know that not just a good job in the presentation but the fact that the numbers are clearly trending up and I know it's something some people have been on the board for a long time some of us for on and off a couple times and and that's been one of the things that um has been a focus here for a while of trying to get that Improvement and trying different things and it seems like maybe we have the formula finally for how to do it so

060kudos to you guys kudos to the staff and the teachers kudos to the teachers anybody got any more questions for Tom or what's the matter any questions all right again thank you guys um and I have to agree with what Angelo said you know for 10 years I've been wanting to know why the math sores is always in the toilet and it looks like they're finally starting to climb out all right um public comment policy I'm not going to waste my time uh approval of minutes we might have one she's already talked I mean she's more than welcome to get up and talk but I didn't think you were coming back for seconds or do we have anybody online we have to do uh we're not online are we we're not live are we are

061live we're streaming we're streaming oh we don't have any we have five people streaming currently that's it and there's no public comment from we have five people yes I could say something but I won't how many parents do we have maybe they forgot like I did yesterday how many how many parents do we have December's a tough month very tough Christmas I understand that on we go all right moving right along I'll I'll take that under advisement all right go back and watch later what's that it's recorded they can go back and watch later enjoy your CBDs nobody's going back and watch you later um move the uh anybody's got uh any comments about the uh last November 13th meeting minutes Jesus jumped on that one didn't we did all in favor I commit reports

062curriculum uh curriculum committee we met and we had a preview of the presentation that we just saw um and that was our update okay it's a good update I think uh as you said we're finally starting to put the round peg in a round hole okay um Finance Amy okay have finance committee met last night uh you'll see in your packet there's a copy of the operating budget uh for November of 2024 under general education salaries projections are now selling a surplus of $813 18 due to an additional adjustment for a teacher that's currently out on leave benefits is now showing a savings of $60,000 due to an adjustment to the health insurance projection many of our new staff either did not take the insance insurance or they took the single plan Services is status

063quo the latest information regarding our insurance claim is that after a a review of the equipment it was determined that it was wear and tear that caused the issue because the equipment is 7 years old we are hoping to still receive a reimbursement but it appears it will be much less than we had previously expected likely around 10 to $12,000 which would cover the cost of the server and some smaller items supplies and are both status quo from last month general education ends the month of November with a surplus of 13,47 if you look down under special education salaries is showing a surplus of $3,657 this is due to an adjustment for an additional special education teacher that's out on leave benefits line is status quo Services is now showing a deficit of $2,679 this

064is due to an adjustment made to our professional Education Services line to account for the cost of two special education substitutes who will be with us through the end of this school year still under special education under supplies and other they currently in status quo from last month and special education now ends the month of November with a surplus of $978 under operations and over head line item projections currently remaining status quo and we can note that as of November 30th the overall budget is showing a surplus of $14,455 however after the New Year we're going to take a look at the general education sub costs and likely make an adjustment adjustment to that projection since sub costs are currently coming in higher than anticipated due to teacher absences from illness down below at the

065bottom you'll see prek account has a balance as of November 30th of $ 7,721 7 and you will see that our 10 248a account has a balance of $422,400 our budget on the 2526 budget as we communicated the last meeting our budget for 2025 2026 started with a status quo at a 7.22% increase departments presented their budgets some revisions are made and that brought us up to a 10.34 but Mrs Bird and Mrs and Miss richardi worked with Miss Kel to identify budgetary offsets happy to say that these offsets brought us to now an increase of a 4% range however Mrs bird is confident they will have a budget increase in the threes once all is said and done but there are still a lot of moving Parts I don't know how much she may

066speak to that tonight but I know that she will present to the board uh as a whole in January and have a more definitive almost definite number that's all I have thanks Amy anybody any questions we can ask them now or we can wait until okay gives a full presentation in January I want to 1048a account yeah are we going to have a budget with that account showing the activity so that there's well the only activity that's coming out of that is the north stair that's the only thing that's going to come out of that everything else is going to get uh we're uh we're going to bond the Great if I'm wrong when we take out of that that's something that goes to the board it's not they don't pull from that and they

067tell us about it after it's more of a before like large yes scale so we wouldn't there's not a report because we would be voting on it to determine if we're going to let them take it okay so there's a vote somewhere along the way it's not going to be in the budget we already did we already we already discussed this um in a number of meetings that what we were going to do was handle the north stair um David Stein uh um is is right now uh preparing the contract documents put out the bid and we'll pay for it out of the 10 248a account that's already been decided okay you don't need to vote then no we we well we already approved it we already approved it right I think what you might

068be asking is once we know what that final number is going to be it will be it'll come back before the board and then it will be reflected in the finance report you'll what comes from that account okay I'm just trying to find out the approval process yeah it has to it has to be accounted for we don't have an accurate number now we allocated 170 it could be 135 it could be 182 who knows but at some point that will be accounted for you know you don't have to run a budget the same way we normally do okay so the 170 is going to come out of the 10 that's correct well whatever the number is whatever the number is and that will come back the 170 go into whatever this general fund is

069and then there will be some type of blind item yes in it'll be reflected in their Finance report yeah you have to have some kind of there there has to be some kind of a balance sheet yes it'll be reflected in the finance yeah I'm just trying to figure out where and it will come back because once we find a new number and once we get all the particulars it's got to come back to the board okay I had one other question and I I assume you've already pursued this if it's possible there's no way to appeal that insurance decision no we tried they did a forensic audit of the entire system that's what they came back with that they're leaning more towards because it was older equipment that was probably more likely due to

070wear and tear than all the other weather related issues we didn't love the answer but that's where we are but we're still going to receive something so it's something's better than nothing Pokey ey with a sharp stick in the world of technology technology that's an old piece of equipment unless you're wor for the IRS and then it's a new piece of equipment um any other well I see if any more questions any move to approve the oh I I was going to ask everybody any more questions all right go ahead jump on a CH can I I'd like to move to approve the fin do I hear second second second all in favor I all opposed carries thank you policy sue your onor so the committee met yesterday evening January willing policies to the agenda

071changes dur2 we have some recisions five Chang last okay um unfinished business approved for first reading at the boa regular meeting on November 13 we have a number of policies hold the phone these were the policies we did for first reading M so um want me to RW them again uh can we just read the numbers do we have to read the entire just read the numbers policy 401 Title 9 sex discrimination harassment prohibition policy 5145 44 Title 9 sex discrimination of harassment provision number two recommended retirement policy 5145 53 transgender and gender non-conforming youth item three recommended revisions policy 5141 point2 211 sunscreen application in school item uh poliy uh 61 46.2 Statewide proficiency Mastery exams technical revision policy 5133 so private technology devices by students no revisions policy 6000 concepted roles and instruction

072policy 6114 emergency and disaster preparedness policy 6115 C ceremonies and observances policy 6141 312 migrant students policy 61 61.2 care of instructional materials all right do we need a motion on that so we'll need a motion to each it section pardon you have to have a there's a recommend motion for each of the sections okay recommended motion section A Move the Bethany Board of Education approve the m rision to FY policies presented policy 4000.1 and policy 51 second all in favor I I okay no opposed move that the Bethany Board of Education approve the recommended retirement of the following policy is presented policy 53 motion to approve make a motion second all in favor I so move three move that the Bethany Board of Education approve the recommended revisions to the following policies as presented

073policy 51 41. 211 and policy 46.2 motion Amy second all in favor move the Beth Board of vacation approve the technical revisions to the falling policies as re as presented policy 5133 am second Caroline all in favor all right move to the Bethany Board of Education approve no revisions to the following policies as presented policy 6000 policy 6114 policy 6115 policy 6141 312 and policy 61 61.2 second second all in favor all right okay now to the fun portion of the project school calendar discre sure so um there was a a typo in the one that's in your packet so we put at your place uh two versions of the calendar so you've got two proposed calendars uh for your consideration uh version one Mark V1 is the version that I present last month um

074I'm aware of an email that had been sent to the board members by a parent on behalf of our community requesting that the Board of Ed add Ed and dewali as official holidays on the annual school calendar so for your consideration I have created an additional version of the calendar for you to take a look at um just keeping in mind that the original version that I presented to you last month did have two of the original Three requested holidays uh in the calendar version one calendar as presented in November shows that during the 25 26 school year Eid alatar falls on March 20th which you'll see is already a day off for students because it's a professional learning day for staff the Lunar New Year Falls during the proposed February break and dwali falls

075on Monday of the Fall conference week so when you look at version two of the calendar um all I did in reference to me in response to the email that had been shared I added a day to the calendar that represents a day off in October for dwali it does mean that during that particular week there would be no no school on Monday school on Tuesday half days Wednesday and Thursday and a full day um so that would be the potential impact to the calendar for next school year by adding the one additional day because the other two days were already accounted for in the calendar I don't know if you have any questions um I will share that I know AMD um had their board meeting on Monday and they tabled their calendar they

076did not take a vote on their 25 26 calendar for next year you had sense in the week you had detailed for us how it impacts you went further I went out five years right which was really helpful so I guess a question is this might be ridiculous question but I'll ask it nonetheless you know currently if we opted we voted to take it for the 25 26 school year it adds one day which isn't you know huge I say that but who knows with the snow convering and things of that nature but obviously down the road what you projected showed it's going to push us out even more if we opted to take this an obligation to do so every year or is this a discussion I mean this is something that once we

077commit to we commit to it's a discussion that the board can have every year it's the proview of the Board of Education to determine which holidays you honor or do not um honor each year um when you all decide the calendar so in some years as I said I projected this out for 5 years what it would look like to include all these holidays more often than not they fall during what we could make our March professional development typically we make our March PD day a Friday it just so happens that this year it also coincides with the particular holiday and the next two years it falls on a Wednesday there's nothing to say that we couldn't hold the professional development day on the Wednesday no different than we do when we have election day

078which is on a Tuesday so we have some of that flexibility um if in I think it's in three years might be in two um if the board decided that they also wanted to have the holiday that falls in October we could certainly have the October day and be a little bit more mindful of maybe when we have our conferences you know there's nothing that is set in stone as to when we have conferences and open house and those things we tend to set those Ates because we like we like to work around Board of Education meetings we like to make sure that we're in alignment with Amity so that way if we're having conferences here we're not doing them on the same night that they're having them at amid because we want to make

079sure parents have the opportunity to participate in both schools so we do have the flexibility um you have the purview as the board you have the ability to set a calendar every year and if next year you said you wanted to have Veterans Day Off K create us a calendar for our consideration that now gives us Veterans Day as a day off instead of a day on then that is what I would do but it's the purview of the board to make that decision and you're not locked in once you do it once doesn't mean you have to do it forever um but you you know would have to have I think a sound rational why you would make a change correct I guess my question would be what's the impact on our school Community

080if we don't do these celebrations so we've had and Tom and and I talked about this it's very difficult for us to know exactly how many students um or families in our school celebrate any of these given holidays we base it on the information that is like someone will email Tom and they'll say Hey you know we're celebrating this particular holiday our child will be out we say okay no problem do you want us to send home work you don't want work that's fine we'll catch your child up when they return so it's an excused absence for the students so there's no adverse impact on them and we have less than six anywhere between four and six families who during our time here have ever asked for support if it's a holiday where students have

081to fast they want to be in school but they're fasting so you know we don't make you know we don't send them to the cafeteria to sit there and watch other children eat like so we support the families in that way um but it's never been a large ask of us that's not to say that there aren't students who are absent on those days we just can't say for certain we can't you know look at someone's name and say oh you must be absent on this day because you're celebrating a particular holiday for all we know the child could actually be sick or like some of our other families on vacation so it's it's very hard to tell because we don't require you know that's not a box that they check on their registration for

082I celebrate this particular religion or these particular holidays and there's an interesting there's a couple of other interesting things that just just throw it out there you can give it some thought a number of parents have expressed in the last couple days the idea of getting rid of most of February vacation so you can pick up days there there's other and there's also a number of studies that indicate that the more you break up the schedule the learning process becomes different and Kay and I talked about this I think you said New London does a six week on two we off excuse me they have no holidays per se that's something we can look at what you mean by that I look sure so when we when Shannon and I attended the Cap Caps conference

083there was a um workshop on thinking outside of the box you know getting beyond the agricultural calendar for school and uh there's a school uh in New London and so what they did is they piloted a version of school where it's 6 weeks on two weeks off and so they were able to work with different Community agencies and I'm just a really really brief summation of it they work with different agencies to make sure that parents had child care but what it is is every six weeks they're like they go to school for six straight weeks no days off then they have a twoe break they go for six weeks then they have a twoe break and what they found is they found that there is um greater teacher satisfaction there's less absenteeism greater attend

084for teachers and students um and it didn't cost them financially any additional dollars because what they did and so you don't have to open contracts is they reworked the teachers work schedule so the teachers still work the same number of days and they're still paid the same amount of money as the teachers who work the standard calendar um so that's something that they've been piloting um dur in year two um in that particular district and one of the nice benefits that they hadn't thought of that worked out for staff is that any of those teachers or par Educators that usually work during that 62 model when they're on their two weeks if they decide that they don't want to go on vacation or be off they hire them to work as substitutes during those two

085weeks so the teachers actually make additional money and some of the par Educators and the teachers also during those two weeks work in the their park and wreck or whatever their um organization is that they partnered with to cover the child care for families so that way parents don't have to figure out a 62 work week uh work schedule for themselves they know that they already have the child care uh available to them at the school and then July and August would just continue in July and August it just continues the 62 and the way they they made sure that they all the children start at the same time but then the children who are in the 62 model again they go six weeks they're off for two weeks they go six weeks they're off

086for two weeks from a family side many of the families who are able ble to really appreciate being able to go to Disney on an offse instead of in February whenever else goes so they they've you know expressed lots of different benefits lot of work goes into it because you have to do compacting of curriculum so you've got to take that fifth grade curriculum that you're stretching you know for the trimesters and you've got to look at okay this is what we're going to cover in this six weeks then we have the two weeks off then we have the six weeks on and so it was a lot of work to do um but you know I've always been an advocate of the year round school in a longer school day but I know I'm

087in the minority but but because there's so many things that we're responsible for doing and there's just not enough time in what this is pointing out is the fact that now is is is we're starting to get more and more quote unquote diverse everybody wants a piece of this pie and so pretty soon you're going to be it's time off and you're going to school on days you know you're going to have the days that you're in school you know if you add three more days now it doesn't impact us as Cas said the next year or the next two years but it can and so you add three more days off into otherwise fractu and it really impacts that there are numerous studies I've only read two or i' I've read the synopsises on

088a number of studies but there's only you know so much time when you start to break up the school year the kids just you know you're in school for a day you're off for two you're in for two and and that does not promotee learning and that that's why we're just talking about this it's not something that I'm saying we should do but conversely it solves in some respects it solves a number of problems now when no no one group gets preference over well he's got seven days off a question that was risen we don't get Sink of the mail you know and my the joke with my daughter when she was in Middletown is they don't recognize any of the Jewish holidays you know so it's it's a matter of where and what but

089at some point there has to be some give because now it's starting to get very very fragmented and there are any number of Educators that want to see the February vacation I know my wife was one of them because it breaks up the cycle of sickness and gives the kids and the teachers a break when you know it's February is normally a um a nasty month for for kids being sick even though the couple of months haven't been all that great if anybody knows so it's just something to think about you know we're starting to get uh requests and we have to be cognizant of those requests so it's just something to think about could I ask is it you know you've got so it's not so choppy if you do this holiday can you

090move the the parent teacher conferences to the next week it would be possible to move the the parent teacher conferences we would just want to make sure you know that that we align with that we're not aligned with our boa counterparts so in some instances things on our calendar we don't want to be Lock Stock with our neighbors because it makes it difficult for our families they have to choose do I go you know support my child that's at BCS or do I go to the middle and high school and support those kids so that is that is a that is a potential consideration to to move the dates because if you if you do it I think it's too Chun you off you're on and it's a half and a half and you're on

091and you're off it's like you coming or going and and that that's what we're talking about is the fact that I agree you know the continuity is important I don't know I mean seems a little like we're kind of talking out of two sides here because we're talking about how we you to improve education but we just had a report about how awesome we finally got the formula and then we're talking about we have to but now you're adding three more about choppy well we are well well right now it's one but we're talking about the choppiness if you have a a you know one Monday off or Tuesday off of the week that's a little less choppy than every six weeks you get two weeks off to me that's just as choppy different CH

092levels of choppy but I agree it can get a little bit much if but now the question is like I think the impact of this is going to be a very dependent on February break is there going to be a February break or not and if that is something that's up for discussion then you know whatever action we were to take on this calendar you know I think it's got to be dependent on what's looking at that you know what is going to happen with that and what is the trend for that is this just it was away and it came back now we're talking about bringing it away is there some sort of what is the rationale for our community wanting to have it and then get rid of it and then have it

093again because we don't want to keep doing this that's to to me that's choppy wasn't the discussion to bring February break back because Amon and break and the internship well and then orang is only what three days match that correct So currently um based on this current Year's calendar three of the four boa districts have the full February break orange chose not to participate in having the full February break and in my initial conversations with the districts the first version of the calendar that I shared is the one that we all agreed upon the only exception where we weren't aligned is orange had the shortened Break um for February they weren't short whether or not they were going to propose it for this calendar because there has been some feedback that they've received about being

094the only District in the four that didn't you know support the full February break for the Ed situation so but I don't know Community let's just put it out there orange didn't have a February break of the elementary school which then impacts the students from Orange that are at the in The Amity District the my understanding the push back is the majority are the orange Board of Ed members from Amity that are saying they don't want the February break because which would make sense as it would align with the orange school district do we know at all from Orange what the rationale is for not having it is it we're just going to be different or is it the majority of families have said they didn't want it and they're answering to their families from

095what I recall from our initial conversation last year it was not supported by their board um and when we went kind of round and round we always have the conversation of what does it do for our families when our elementary school students are in school and Amity students are out it's not really a lot of impact for us because if F if families are using those Amity children as babysitters it it's not a problem right the elementary school kids are here The Amity children are home it's when it's the opposite that parents tend to say you know we don't really love this because we depend on older siblings or what have you so if they're in school and the or you know the younger children are out that makes it very difficult for families for

096child care so we had kind of remedied that situation um in this instance I it might be because with the orange children going to school The Amity children are out so it's not an impact to the to the families looking for child care through Amity students but my understanding was that the board didn't support a change in their schedule so what Wood Bridge in Orange think about these additional days so they haven't presented yes so they haven't presented um in our conversations that we've had since Friday evening um they were going to wait to see what happened at amid on Monday nothing happened at amid on Monday they decided to table it um AMD was putting together several different iterations of a calendar for their board to consider um most of them with the exception

097of I believe one version all still included a full February break so it's not something we have to act on tonight but it's just something to keep in mind that there's a lot of Swirls and Eddies here would it be it might be interesting I I was thinking about the number of families who you know reach out and say like you know my kid is fasting today or my kid's going to be home today because of the valley or you know whatever the case may be I wonder if it I think there are families who maybe would benefit from having the day but they might not reach out about it right um so I wonder if like the next time that we do some sort of a parent survey it might be interesting um and

098maybe we don't want to do it because we don't because we can't give people everything that they want but it would be interesting to know which are the holidays that are that people are celebrating if there's some sort of way to gather that in a in a way that we could for not for this year right I think it's too late in the process this year but it might be nice to do that in advance of yeah and and I would say say to to that we can certainly ask whatever the board would like us to get in terms of input moving forward um but just in having conversations there are people sayable there are several other Roman Catholic holidays that we would we would that we would like to have right like yes you

099have Christmas but I celebrate Easter Monday or I would like holy Thursday or you know some of those other Hol well there's several Church holidays and she do give excused absences yes yes it's always an excused absence if someone says you know I'm out because I'm celebrating this particular thing they're never penalized um for it but I guess just in terms of thinking about like you know we have a history of trying to to honor a you know a limited but diverse number of holidays it would be interesting to think about not just from the perspective of which you know people who have reached out on their own but like of the families that haven't talked to us what their interests are sure if we chose to table this again is there a what's our

100like quote unquote deadline that we need to make a decision or there is none I mean we're not going to T this till May no we usually try to have it we say by August we better have a calendar we usually try to have it done by January um so that we stay in alignment with what we have to report to the town clerk's office with regards to the board of ed dates so this evening also on the agenda is the um request for the approval of the Board of Education dates because those dates must be filed by a certain deadline and so what I would just say to that is regardless of what the board decides to do with regards to these holidays or anything else just you know you could still vote tonight

101on the board of ed meeting dates because that doesn't change I would recommend that we table the only reason I say table it for one is to find out what amon's going to do because in some respects I think we could say okay we're going to go with version one fine and then all of a sudden Amity comes back with something in which they've they've eliminated February break yeah or who knows and and without that knowledge we're kind of maybe making a decision and so since we don't have a a hard and fast uh wall up against not a Time wall yet I think you know punting wouldn't be a bad idea until we find out I mean if they come back in January and say we still haven't decided what we're doing then we

102have to act unilaterally and be done with it and then we live with the consequences but I I think is one day sufficient for these holidays I don't I don't know Ober for this year for this year for the one day per holiday yes so it it has potential for being multi days and we don't have to take it three holidays a day each for each of the holiday we we don't have to even accept it these holidays are not like you know I have to fast for three days for I'm just trying to the duration religious celebrations right I'm I'm not a keen expert on all of the aspects of it but what we have seen is it's been during the daytime it can be multiple days where they're fasting um but they fast

103from sun up to sun down kind of a thing which obviously impacts children when they're in school um okay but and aside from being respectful of people's religion which I certainly am you know there's a description here that burden for catching up on classes but they're only missing one day so has there been any experiences where you think the kids missing one day is going to be stressful not here catch up um and as I said the the other part of it is we have children that miss a day all the time you know whether it be for sickness or traveling or whatever when students miss the teachers you know take the time to say this is what you've missed they give them the work if they need extra help they get help it's stressing

104the kids out if they miss one day it's more so that you know we're trying to respectful everyone there's nothing that says we have to accept it if we can just accept the calendar as was present with it and I know the Jewish holidays are far more impactful with their sabbaths and their fasting than the one day that's included in our calendar excuse so my suggestion put off the voting on it until January but can we send out a survey both regarding holidays but more importantly the February break to see how how the February break is for families because I've heard the same thing I think it might be tough to get a read February break because the calendar year right now is the first time we've had we haven't had it long so they

105haven't had it yet yeah and that was the question that came up last month a lot of people are actually thrilled to have it exactly for one of the reasons that you pointed out that it's that break of illness lot of people end up taking the week because there's that long weekend before and after so they just oh just take the days anyway and you end up having a February break and missing and and just so what we learned last year when we were first proposing this is that we we found that there was a dip in the attendance the Wednesday Thursday Friday before because they would take the Wednesday Thursday Friday before have the Saturday Sunday and then the Monday Tuesday um and those are cheaper travel days than just traveling on that you

106know Friday to the following week um and I know that we had had a little bit of discussion about this before like what do people think of the February break can't tell you because we're not in February yet so I don't know that it would be meaningful I mean we certainly could put something into to the weekly or send something out to the families but I don't know that it'll be meaningful because people haven't had the opportunity to experience yet um I know the superintendent in Woodbridge um had you know done a little dipstick of a survey of of her folks to see and it was split you know I think it was like 56 you know to 40 something for the split on the February break and again I think it's probably because people

107don't know what they're going to well how they're going to feel about it they haven't had yet point from earlier to have it one year and then gone the like that I I think it feels to me like it makes more sense to be a little bit more consistent with it and then a CH to evaluate given the amount of work that you have to do between now and January I okay chotki um I I don't think a survey is like I said just table this for for for a month give it some thought there's nothing that says we have to take the day off there's nothing that says we you know don't have to it's just a matter of uh you know give it some thought and hopefully by next month AMD have arrived

108at something and if not then we go at ourselves it's it's that simple and I'm and I'm happy to create a version three of this calendar that represents all of the days off but with your suggestion of moving the conferences to to a different time frame I wouldn't move them sooner because we like to get kids in and settled and get some good data on them um just recognizing that if we moved the conferences by one week um we'd be looking at the Wednesday Thursday of Halloween I don't just let's let's happy to do it let's let's stick with what we've got for now okay like I said we're we're in the middle of budget we're we're we're not the middle of budget we're coming up on the end of budget this was just something

109it's starting to make the rounds the board should be aware of it personally I you know I I'm not willing to make a decision yet but I am going to be willing to make a decision next month so just give it some thought whether or not a we should consider it B let the calendar is presented go and we'll worry about it next year you know we'll kick the can down the road but I think we need to see hopefully some input from Amity um yeah and I won't wait until the next meeting if I learn anything or get any additional versions I will if am has a new version out that they're going to present I will make a comtable and I will share that you know I think not to try to add

110any more work and C not to rush it but I think that when we with this February vacation I I believe it's more of whether we want whether there wants to be time off or not I I think it's more of a myth about this holding off the sickness I remember it was a year or two ago where everyone got hit with it about two weeks before February break they all got it they were all healthy and then we went on break so it's we're literally just guessing and then we're sending kids off into all these other states on vacation to go get something and bring it back I don't know that that's a you know I I don't know that that's was The Helpful so I understand that but that wasn't our primary driver

111for correct I'm just for anybody intership piece yeah no but for anybody who's thinking that February break helps for illness I don't think so this February break coming up to look at absences and how you know how that balances out to see what those stats are yeah I mean and we can certainly do that it's just we still will have to figure out a way to tease out the people people who called their children in absent yeah sick because they're still on vacation right that's a thing it's okay I think we beat that we'll get some additional information we'll be ready I think we beat that horse up there so if if there was so you didn't actually make the motion that was in here correct no motion's been made it's just disc so we're

112going to table it you made the make a motion to table this for 30 days postpone it well table it it's same thing so who's who's making you're making the motion I'll make the motion to table this till the next meeting yeah that's all second Sean all in favor I that was my point that we need to make motion to do it you're T yeah you're tabling to the next meeting no big deal we do these things all the time okay now this is what K was talking about the Boe meeting dates for the town court those have to be published we have to act on them that's a state statute yes so what you have before you uh in your packet are the proposed dates that fall on um our typical second Wednesday of

113every month for the Board of Education meeting um that's in accordance with Section 1- 225 of the Connecticut General statutes a schedule of regular Bethany Board of Education meetings that have to be filed by the town for a period of no less than 13 months beginning January 2025 through January 2026 do we want to have an August meet well we we have it with the um so long as it's published then we can have it but we can always choose in July to not have it yes so we'll leave it in there but just understand that the August meeting is discretionary at our uh at our convenience many of your meetings are discretionary well but for the most part that's the one July or August yeah yeah we don't want to start you know February

114and March and say we're not going to bother having any um so okay so I'll move that the Board of Education approve the above schedule of regular Board of Education meeting dates for January 2025 through January 2026 person to can General statute section 1-22 the motion second all in favor I all right administrative reports superintendent sure it will be very brief um you've got your enrollment summaries in your packet uh as of November 30th 2024 we have increased our numbers by three students we now have 434 students enrolled um by way of a Personnel update Joseph Slowinski has filled our vacant full-time custodial position that um Mr McCoy left um and Regina kratus has filled our vacant lunch Aid position our our vacant RBT position has been filled internally by one of our par Educators

115who's gone forth and gotten the additional education and and uh certifications that she'll need to do that and uh that is Carla Roberts but Carla is going to remain in her current par educator position until we can fill that spot with educator uh the position has been posted and the team will be able to start interviewing once we have some viable candidates and that concludes my report so is that position for special education yes it's a special education position so we didn't want to remove that individual from working with the children she worked with we wanted to be able to provide a continuity programming for those those children um and she's more than amenable to that so once we have a replacement for her and then we can get them trained on you know working

116with the children that she currently Services then she'll be able to move into her new role uh do you want to give a brief update on the before school and after school programs Mr re has that in his report okay I turned I turned that over I handle it that's fine it's in someplace it's it's in Tom's report okay director of special service or anybody have any more questions for uh for K director of special services Cheryl you're on I just have a very brief report um great Forest had the opportunity to work with Robin Moore they working on strategies solving multi word problems as well as thinking classrooms so they're working fifth and sixth and now we've added in fourth grade this year so we have that continuity working that's it thank you Tom

117reach whale you're on all uh so just to give kind of a recap of things that were happening December we had our November community meeting uh and we moved that up to coincide with Rudy brid's uh walk to school day so we had our community meeting and then at the culmination of that uh students had made posters and signs uh kind of commemorating her first day of school uh and we walked out the back of the gym and around the school um and came into the school and ju position to the environment that she being clapped and welcomed and celebrated into the school so kind of honoring uh her challenges but also being grateful for our school and community and then we also talked about the obligation that we all had as a community to

118make sure that anybody who comes through our doors feels that same celebration door open so uh really a positive day was brought to by Brook hly as an idea and we ran with it um and uh Miss na and I are really excited to take a look at that is a successful start add to that in the coming years uh we had American Education week in the second week of November which was really positive uh picture retake day was on the 26th our snowlake shop as you heard uh from the PTO has been going and kids are ecstatic it's adorable uh I helped like seven kids today find Little Friends for their mom or their dad grandma uh it was really wonderful um we're working on our pause holiday donation toy drive so um what

119we've uh been able to do was Secure some dollars to be able to purchase some uh toys for the uh holiday toy drive so families are always donating things which we're really grateful for but it's tough for kids to participate in that they can't be like oh here let me take $20 and I will go get a toy right um but what they got do is they've got Paws in our whole syst so as they those Paws we collect those and then we as um per the number that they donate we go and take that money and purchase toys on their behalf so they are purchasing and participating they're an active participants in that um uh we conducted our second round of case reviews for students receiving additional support our intervention students so tier two

120and tier three uh students who receiving support in um either reading or math or both as well as um any support that they might need with uh social emotional learning or behavior challenges uh our Sayang for the senior lunch in uh this last Friday and then the tree lighting as well on Sunday it was really adorable over I was telling the staff this morning uh Mr Fortune Chad Fortune uh is our Music Teacher our choir director and he brought the kids over and they sang through their program and they got through it a little bit quick and they were like well can you sing a little bit more and he goes sure and so he said well can you just sing the whole thing he goes okay and so they did oncore their entire performance

121it was absolutely adorable um so there great um it's one of those things where like kid singing does it get any better the answer is no um in terms of an update for BCS kids it's been a really positive program uh as we started you know we had initial concerns about how what our capacity could be based on staff um and so really our limiting factor right now is that we have four full-time staff and we think people can do Monday Tuesday wednes Friday the reason that our teachers can't do Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Fridays because Wednesday is our staff meeting day so um any of our certified staff who need to be staff who needs have the availability on everything but Wednesday so we have four staff um who can be there all the

122way through so our Max is 40 I call 39 so we got the mess with that ratio um currently we have 24 students signed up um 17 who are you know full week Monday to Friday and then as we had reported uh previously we opened up some what we were calling Flex spots so if a student is doing BNN and they need say five six weeks go five six weeks and then when I not doing BNN they they would go Al BCS kids or somebody might say listen I know I have a staff meeting at work and I need to get into that early on say a day can I have just Wednesdays to the end of the year and so we've got seven students who have some version of flex a lot of it's

123you know one to three days a week um we have one student who's doing a short stint um we have another student um who's doing uh you know one day a week through the sem the spring semester um um and then we had a family who had requested just a really short bit um they just had some child care but they let us know ahead of time so it wasn't like a drop in um we planned out what that would be um and then got that set for them so we've been trying to be really responsible and flexible but making sure the families are planning with us we can't just have 10 kids show up on a Wednesday that could really mess with our our ability to cover Keep Kids Safe um yeah uh they

124love making bracelets so mus faits is um it's one of the things they keep running through in terms of supplies like that's our additional cost you know we have the supply cost the only thing they're going through is all the be for rais because the kids are having it red up so um been really positive uh as we look forward tomorrow we have a parent Academy focusing on coping skills so our our Behavior Support team is going to be doing that Parent Academy we've been able to secure um uh both uh dinner uh to be provide and child care so that we're making sure that that's an availability for anybody to be able to become cards go out on Friday um and Miss K Miss Na and myself have been working um we know we've

125gotten some feedback in terms of our handbooks we try to enhance the handbook so that when parents look at the um report card they can look at the handbook and say this is the state you know this is what I see is being reported out for my kid what is that go we've identified exact word and language for those standards for every single grade in a chart for each grade so we've got that available for it kind of connect those dots for so they can see you know what we're reporting out on and and be able to have a greater understanding um we have our holiday singalong on um on Thursday next week uh Miss na and I are still working on our kindness for the staff we're really excited about that uh our winter

126Benchmark uh for our Benchmark data is coming up in the middle of January and then our Winter concert is s for the 16th of January we're really excited so that's what we've had going on and what we will have going on Tom quick thought um when you when the report cards come out with all that information on there whatever feedback you get sort of put it in the bank for now because I know our ccul committee we've had those discussions about report cards it's going to come back up on our agenda again to sort of see where that is so that would be great data to have and and see what kind of feedback we get from parents on the changes that you've implemented sure and is that at the are you thinking like you're

127going to send out the link in the handbook again or just make sure people know to go with it yeah our goal is the report CS are going to go off we're going to have that updated for the handbook to go out so that you've got those in and we tried to make sure you know really kind of connected up because like I think about okay phological awareness let's specific we're really looking at it very specifically so if we are if feel like full transparency this is exactly what we're recording out on and and so that way parents can that's the whole point standart right you got a B is it a b because you were doing really well but your homework was lousy you were struggling but your homework was great you know like

128how did you get that be right but when we do the standards based report card it really allows us to be able to say this is the skill that we were working on for students parents to know what those were are people happy with that process with the report card um I I mean I don't know everybody's data I said for me looking through it with my kids and knowing you know a little bit about standards based grading and um I you can it can be difficult to follow sometimes and not just because of something that bethan is doing but in terms of Standards based craving in general so we had talked about trying to find ways to make it easier to read like an example was that your feeling Shannon and that's what we

129talked about yeah you know you you three guys have and Jo you guys got kids in the system I mean I'm used to it by now my daughter in sixth grade but yeah when my kids first started report cards were like like an example might be my child has a two on this math standard and then I'll read the teacher comments you're kids doing awesome in math and I'm so proud of them and all the work they're doing and they they've really hit all these standards right and I'm like how you just said they had a two so how did they hit all these standards right but then when you go and have that conversation it gets explained out a little bit more but the you know the question that kind of I brought up

130is well is there a way to explain that out before I have the Panic of why is this saying why is the teacher saying my kid's awesome but the standard saying they're not meeting it and something before I have to go in and have that conversation explain it the last two or three years seemed this the report card thing seemed to be a big bone of contention I have always found these this is nothing against the summit teachers I me the summit teachers are all amazing Kim um but I have found with my second now I sometimes feel like what you're getting in the the note section is almost like they're hit maybe they are I don't know I mean there's a lot of kids they're dealing with in the younger grades you're getting a

131more detailed one to one on your child but because some's got such a broad range of children it's a little more it's a general and that's fine and you get a lot when you go in for conferences and the teachers are available but I've come to grow used to it and being on the board of Ved I understand it but I know sometimes for some parents that could be a little bit well that's why I was asking because for years the last two or three years especially it seemed to be a not a bon and contingent but it seemed to be a concern and I was just curious that you know you four guys it was very different it was different and there was definitely a learning curve for it and like I said I

132think it was something that we could as a school district look to improve on because if I'm in education I was having trouble following some of it then someone who's not in education is trying to understand it is definitely going to have trouble following it and that's where we had brought that up and I think that they've been you know the school district's been responsive of trying to find ways to make it more accessible to parents and that's why I brought that up to save that data and see this is something they're trying to see to make it more accessible to parents let's see if it works if it doesn't let's have another conversation about it so yeah there's definitely been conversations about it and the district's been receptive to trying to find ways is

133it there yet maybe maybe not we'll see after some of this we'll see how much of that is it's kind of like the the assessment data that we just watch the presentation on you know for four or five years trying to figure out the right formula looks like we got I think you're probably looking for that right formula now for you know to really assess the standards and report it out in a meaningful way okay thank you good question all right superintendent uh chairman I've got nothing to report I just would like to say one thing though for nine years I've been asking why aren't our math scor is going up it's ridiculous and I'm finally happy to say thank you because now we're seeing them go up and nathman is nathman Tom Cheryl K

134teachers all the teachers thank you because we're now finally starting to see and I remember Sean and I having this discussion a while ago we're finally starting to see measurable positive results and as Angelo said earlier uh maybe we finally hit on the right formula so now we just have to build on but again uh kudos to all involved you guys did a good job and I think our parents are well served but that's my opinion hopefully it reflects the rest of the board but um correspondence nothing public comment oh okay see it pays to ask what's that you got three minutes all right I have to give my address this time um Melissa zaldo 191 Beacon Road um I just wanted to add my two cents to the whole calendar conversation as apparent um

135recognizing the fact that I do have an older child who these one or two day offs really don't impact me he can stay home I'm a work from home mom so he's fine on his video games um for a day it's just I feel too that this calendar is getting choppy especially coming out of Christmas break where I just counted it's eight days eight School eight calendar you know business days it's not including the weekends they're back for two weeks get an early dismissal Martin Luther for King day then they're out again for another week um it's a lot and as a working parent trying to arrange child and again I said having my kid home from one day here or there is fine but a week off trying to arrange for child care for

136Christmas break now my husband was able to do it this week this year now I have to come back and try and reach child care for another week off which I'm taking this February vacation off and then coming back and having it's very choppy and again all this success that the students are having is great but I feel that this I'm starting to feel that these kids are out of school more than they're in school so I am not in favor of the of the February break I might be the only one who's saying that I agree with Angelo I think that whole sickness thing might be a little especially coming out of the pandemic thing might be a little overblown and kids get sick like illness has went through the school what a couple

137weeks ago and they're going through the school now I just want to take I just wanted to from my opinion out there as a working mom that having an extra week off in February I think is too much and is a lot okay thank you y no I've got a lot of got a feedback there's some for and some against all right that uh includes the public comment policy of this program motion to adjourn make a motion so moved all in favor thank you one and all