001e good evening I apologize to everybody for being late um like to call order the Bethany board bed meeting for the 13th of March uh we'll start with the Poli States One Nation indivisible withy andice for all thank you all for coming uh going to start with the student recognition policy yes so good evening everyone um this evening we are recognizing students who have won the southern Connecticut area superintendent award uh on April 26th I will have the privilege of escorting two of our sixth grade students to the southern C the South Central Area superintendent association's lunching Mr Nico kavis and Karina BGA they're being honored for their community service academic prowess and leadership in the school Community Karina please come forward Karina is an extremely dedicated compassionate respectful student she is committed and motivated
002to learn and seeks opportunities to better herself and the broader Community Karina is an active leader in our school Community serving as an anchor on the Bethany News Network and this year Katarina took the initiative to found an after school club computer science coding for go with the intention of imp improving computer literacy she's already set her sights on ways to expand her efforts and provide opportunities for the broader Bethany Community and the New Haven Community Karina hopes to use her passion to lobby for computer science classes for all of Connecticut's students BCS is proud of Katarina's amazing accomplishments congratulations [Music] Karina and next we have Nicholas Nico conalz come on up Nico is a hardworking studious and kind student Nico is committed to his academic success and often seeks out feedback on ways to
003improve his understanding at school Nico serves as a leader and is regularly recognized as a positive role model with his peers outside of school Nico is very active in his church Community he regularly volunteers as an alter server and helps Orient new volunteers additionally Nico assists with different church activities such as Christmas angel tree where he helps to organize the Bethany Community School is proud of Nico and it's privileged to have such a well-rounded deserving student [Music] [Applause] on uh PTR report please identify yourself hi everyone uh Melissa Z BCS PT president and Mom of fourth grader Mrs Spear's class um so since we've last met we have held we held our Bingo night uh bingo night was this past Friday we had pizza in the caf and then we had about two hours of
004bingo in the gym um so I just want to shout out our thank you to our volunteers for running event fantastic job we had some awesome Bingo callers we had Mrs bird and we had Mr re for us um I also want to give a huge shout out thank you to the be fire department um because of them we can have events in school again because we had our fire for us so thank you so much for that and then um yesterday our teacher appreciation chair s cson uh assisted by Andel neelon um did a muffin treat cart for the staff they walked around handed out muffins and um coffee tea and various beverages to the staff just as a way to show uh than just to show thank you to the wonderful staff here
005um one of the things that I'm hearing president is what what do we do with his money that we're collecting um so I'm happy to say that the PTM has fun has funded partially a field trips so far I think we've done third through sixth grade and first grade as well so I think there's a couple more days we're still waiting to hear on what their plans are but we do help provide funding for those field trips so any out of Po cost of the family's um head is reduced I know my son's going on his tomorrow he's very excited to go um April is going to be kind of a quiet month for the PTO we don't have any events scheduled um we are working with um partnering with at sa yoga here in
006town for um a yoga month uh if you sign up uh for any of their classes in the month of April and use the coupon code Bulldogs um she will donate 20% back of that purchase back to the PTO so that's for the entire month of April and I understand she's going to be adding um specifically targeting children probably during spring break time um so that kids can get involved too I've done a couple her clets I highly recommend um she has she has a studio here in Bethany and in Milford and she'll do she'll honor both locations so um our PTO meeting is next week it's going to be virtual next week um just because of the personal conflict that I have um and then we are in the throws of events mon May
007is going to be a very busy month for us we have quas night coming up we have spring C coming up um teacher appreciation is coming up um so we have quite a bit month today also we're looking at a board positions um to start filling positions for the 2024 2025 school year um I'll be sending Communications about that probably in the next couple of weeks thank you very much public just point the board will um hear public comment if anybody wants to get up and speak you have three minutes um to talk on any topic other than Personnel any takers no takers um approval minutes from the February 14th there included in your package anybody have any errors omissions comments modifications hearing none I'll accept a motion to approve the minutes of February 14
0082024 I make the motion a second all in favor motion car message you again we apologize for starting this we were Sean and I were looking at the uh ramps and the stairs and Sean will report out in his committee um committee reports start with curriculum uh curriculum met and um the fol of the meeting was spent on an update from that Mrs Kel and uh Mr re whale provided on Team Summit math uh they did a great job with the presentation for us on changes they've made and giving us an update on how they're progressing and the data they've collected um I believe it was shared with all the board members and also Mr rewale I believe shared it with the community the BCS community in his coffee hour and I'm sure if there's
009any update that they need to provide us from how that went we'll get that in the committee report any questions comments okay we'll accept the report of the curriculum committee facility Sean you're on all right you guys ready um last night we sat down um with Kevin John Paul Garcia and uh K we had a uh extremely informative meeting on um I think Kevin has really done a great job of getting his feet on the ground here figuring out where everything stands and kind of moving forward with a plan um some of the things we talked about was our roofs are complete that were ongoing those projects have been completed um and then along with that we had a in-depth discussion about our facility and general the overall what's going on in our building I
010know we've had some ongoing bathroom issues that they're they're working on which is taking some time from Kevin and his team but they're getting it done they're getting it all squared away um you know we talked about the overall cleanliness of the building and all that stuff is just greatly inre increased and I I know I've had some taable talk with some of the staff and uh everybody's pretty happy now here's where things get interesting um I know you guys are aware I don't know if you guys are aware there is a uh comprehensive mechanical study done of the building um within that report it it issued um areas of concern and areas that are going to need to be addressed in the long term um with our HVAC system we had a uh discussion
011at length um about you know what the proper procedure would be how we should proceed and addressing those issues um and what we're going to do is Kevin's going to do some more researching into it um mostly faced around the rooftop units that we have um they're obsolete unsupported we're going to do some research into that and then Kevin's going to get back to the facilities committee with some uh a process of how to address that so that plan is ongoing um currently it's part of our HVAC C system okay I love the fact that I knew all thebr you did it um um for you guys don't know this building is computer run so we have your solid mechanical systems and then attached to that there is basic a computer board that talks to
012that individual component and then talks back to our computer well when uh Kevin mentioned Albert system I went uhoh um I know in my experiences in other buildings that an Albert system is unsupported unmaintainable and unfixable if we have a crash so guess what we have we have an Albert system with a software package that is no longer supported and we have all our ribs on all our individual units that's basically the control box is uh outdated and not supported here's where we run into the problem if that system Should Crash we have no HVAC system in our building and we will be scrambling to run wire to every single unit I believe the first floor is done and we have 17 units that we have to run a hard wire to so and we
013also need an updated computer system and I know in the past we've come in here on Monday morning to find the building at cold when we upgrade the system and all these boxes the whole system will talk to each other it will be fully supported and here's the great thing about it Kay and Kevin will know if the building is warm the building is cold they'll know if a unit is not running they'll get messages they'll get text L so we add a great deal of safety into our building so I know we talked about at the meeting of pursuing Kevin getting active quotes to get that system swapped out and finished before we have a catastrophe under because at any time you could come in and go click no computer and I saw the
014computer today I would say early 90s and he can't touch it because that's only thing that supports that so um Kevin's going to see quotes um for getting that done and get back to the facilities committee but that is a top priority to get that Albert system upgraded before we have a problem and here's a unique thing they put sensors in this building to do what we already own a system that it can do itself why would we do that the system will monitor the entire facility and we can put the building to rest we can do so much with the upgraded system that we can't do now and knowing that it's knowing that it's no good anybody have any questions on that we're not done yet well just just to put everybody on thew
015and this is we're talking about a $20,000 fix versus a $100,000 fix so and that's not exact that's just a range in other words we're not talking we have to mortgage the the farm to fix this this is a relatively simple fix that can be done probably within our budget constraints as they stand now but it's something that has to get done and it has to get done sooner rather than later we're living on borrowed time and and it's to the point you guys where the company takes those things that's in here that are working and they hold on to them like gold should something happen these guys literally dig through their truck and find an old one for the 9s and they will put it in trying to get you back to run but
016if we lose that computer and that software package it doesn't matter what's in the unit we are done and we're doing it anyway so probably next month we will probably come back with a recommendation on how much Kevin's going to do the research um what what the exact cost will be but this not something we can we can lick up but we do have the money available within our own budget and if worse came to worse rating the U the uh that's the first one that's what it's for one one question for you so um that new computer system if we update the hbac units later it would be able to switch from the old to the new correct basically what it is EJ is there's a box about this big that gets a Cat
0176 wire to it so these units are all hardwired and that all runs back to a separate computer that nothing else is on that runs the system did we use some ARA funds to do some work to the H yeah he ran the wiring and uh yeah they did the one unit yeah okay and they didn't want to do it the the two units for the gym yeah were connected with two ribs that Kevin came up with from somewhere mhm and they were able to do that but they did not want to do it CU they were afraid of touching the system I see because each each when you look at the computer each individual unit you can see I can see if it's running I can see every parameter of that unit but if
018he touches anything the whole building goes down yeah and then we are in trouble I got two questions sure first so are you talking I just want to clarify are we talking just replacing the computer right now and then the HV vacu unit on the roof later if we need to no no no no that the computer system to operate all the units will get done now we're visiting the rooftop units to come up with a plan to how to proceed with that in in in in terms of of of order that's number one is upgrading the software and the computer because it's a relatively low Tech a low budget number fix the rooftop units is a relatively High budget number fix in K is checking into and I'm going to check into uh whether
019or not there are grants available that may offset the cost of replacing those units but just to give you an idea the computer system we're talking about is a $20,000 fix versus a $100,000 fix those rooftop units are an $800,000 fix versus a $10,000 fix so it's it's it's not apples and apples so we're trying to do what we can as soon as possible so that the thing doesn't go down and as Sean said the beauty of it is they now monitor it on their cell phones it's an up-to-date system Kevin and uh K will get notification on the cell phone and anybody else you designate as but like Sean said the computer of attorney this thing is from the 90s my only other question is just and this might be a little premature right
020now but what kind of disruption is there any kind of potential disruption to the school day or anything like that with changing this out not this system but again we yeah that's all different later that's a different ball game we talking now this yeah basically imediate there's no no basically they've been able to run the first floor is already wired for it they spent some time and they ran some wires for some other stuff and why they were there someone had some good sense to run cat six of those units um I guess it's some of the the north end of the school and the second Flor it has to be wired I think he said it was between 11 to 17 units do not have um wire to them so that would be the
021most interruptive thing they literally go up they unscrew one thing they wire this all up and then the programming is a whole different ball game to make it all work but it would be a clean change over so that's those those are the first two items now it the th one more question before on is is there any opportunity to achieve like an upgrade in um equipment like to heat pumps or geothermal like maybe more Mone available for like that that's down the road and that's we're trying to we're trying to prevent the Titanic from sinking no I get I I'll worry about putting a luxury cabin on it later uh right now we're trying to prevent the Titanic from sinking right and and when we looking at the you know mostly the targeting the
022rooftop units in that report um we're going to look in the best practices at that point to achieve the goals but I mean that did take stck work there there's a lot that goes into that sure so you know we basically got to get a mechanical engineer and go hey you know this is our end goal can we support this with this if we can't support this with this how do we proceed in a good manner using best practices and that we're going to figure out but the downside to that just to give you a heads up is we're going into looking at this thing now these things have a 26 we lead time so you know while geothermal and all this other stuff may be nice you know we may not have the luxury
023of um having the time frame to do that because a lot of things have to happen we're just starting the process Kevin's just starting to look into it K's just starting to look into the to the to the grant you know what's going on I got to call somebody up at the state to see what grant money is available we're just starting to look at that but that's got to get done sooner rather than later yeah I mean cuz that's number two in all in all Theory EJ you're you're four years into that report and that report at that time declared them functionally and unsupported and obsolete Our Guest is those units are about 40 years old Kevin has parts that I don't know where it came up with them to put them back together
024for right now but if we have a catastrophic failure again we're in trouble with those units so so we'll figure it out we'll get there it's just going to give us a little time to work through it last night okay that's number two now up to three can I just yes ma'am so this is strictly a control system correct correct all right so you're you're monitoring heat and cooling heat heat cooling um our circulator pumps will be on we have 10 condensing boilers so we'll be able to see all that we have vavs in the ceilings those will all be on the system okay does it do uh humidity controls anything like that uh the building from what I'm taking I don't believe is set up for humity control all right CU you know because
025we're using window units well the legislature has been tinkering your hbac requirements and you know I didn't go into it because that's not my committee I I'm just warning you I don't know what they're doing but they never seem to be uh really we had a great deal of discussion about that last night all right just making sure you've got that in mind that's all that's all and my head was hurting when we were done with the meeting so I was okay okay all right now number three you ready we're not done yet that's okay um as part of Kevin's evaluation of the building in the exterior of the building um if you guys take a look we have concrete that in our staircases our sidewalks our railings is all beginning to massively fail it
026was greatly accelerated by the wonderful winter we had of the Freez and thaw cycle um you guys go up the North over here the concrete railings have basically broken out of the concrete and you can go like this the concrete in that stairwell is completely swalled and failed oh I'm not done yet um if you look at the handicap ramp over there we have 2 Ines gaps where the concrete slab and the foundation has separated and when you look at all the concrete of the foundation it is all spalled and massively deteriorated are they using rock on concrete I'm sorry we had that discussion today when I was here yeah couldn't I just thought yeah yeah mind um so it's going to get better this is a good movie so you like Happ to notice
027that's all what's that I just happened to notice well SE and I had some well keep going have you looked at where the pickup is the a through K pickup that okay we're taking this how do we do this we I had a chance today I spend about two hours up here today walking with Kevin the entire facility um yeah I mean we have these stairs we have 140 ft of sidewalk that goes in the loop here that's all failing yeah um but we we got to start with what our targets are because clearly we have a safety issue well the only reason I mentioned it is the brick I saw some cracking and okay you saw it okay Sean and I that's I apologize yeah we were out walking that's why we were that's
028why we were late I I took Sean raised some very interesting points in order um where we want to go we have to get the stair I say was it 100 the north stair yeah 101 102 103 those stairs and that ramp have to get done and those are complete teared down there's no way to save it the building the corner over here outside what's the the the loading dock is that a loading dock that Salvage that we may be able to salvage with some patch but the the the stairs in the ramp uh need major work and um one of the things I was talking with Sean about is the possibility of maybe bringing an architect in and doing all of them because they all are in various stages of deterioration the end of
029the use of I I worked on this in 1972 when we built this I was working for my family company if you look on the board it says arello I worked on this building when I was 16 so it's been around a while so we're at the end of our youthful life for a lot of this stuff and it's been held together with uh bailing wire and chewing G we have to fix that stair in the we have to fix that ramp that's that's imperative but but there's so much other stuff that has to be done we're out we're missing rail at our front entrance way our main entrance to the building the right side railing is gone and that's what we talked about last night Sean and I were talking about I took one
030look at the door there and I said that door's going to get fixed and John said there's 19 of them so we have bigger fish to fry you and I are going to have to talk about um in the near future and Sean and uh whoever else is on that committee but we have we got to get that one started almost immediately because that's a a hazard it's a safety issue liability what's that liability it's a liability so but in the meantime what I was talking about with Sean is maybe the time has come to get an architect in here and do the entire outside of the building which now we're starting to talk some serious pocket CH yeah maybe reach out to like George or Leslie orosa see if I have some federal school
031dollars that eventually within the next month that discussion has to be held in facilities and then we'll bring it back to the board right now we're just talking about the things that are immediate which are the uh upgrade to the hbac system and the stairs and the ramp I got to call Don and Mar to see um if they're they're doing some work down here and maybe we get that contractor to do these in place at the same time um we may get an architect involved K and I had talked about it and Sean maybe it's time to get an architect involved to see if maybe we can reconfigure those stare and ramp and loading dock to a better um to a better more functional uh uh and more athetic pleasing more aesthetically pleasing look
032yeah if it's about access too it kind of opens up a different bucket of money well I I mean and what we have to understand is you you are given so many distances and then you have to have rest know you're you're not changing much you're going to stay within this box because that's what the code says yeah you're not deviating from that yeah so it was like I said it was a very interesting meeting it all boils down to the fact to be perfectly upfront is that uh things got uh ignored or uh or brushed aside uh know to us but Kevin is doing a marvelous job and K is doing a marvelous job and Sean is doing a marvelous job of trying to get us out of the the uh yeah K K's
033going to flip out when uh you know I you know I don't know if you guys realize I do buildings for a Liv part-time fulltime and were firing part time yeah and and you know when we walked it was like we gave Kevin I gave Kevin a recommendation you know we could solve off some of this you know just take these simple steps oh we're talking $19 a tube saving $40,000 worth of concrete right now well I'll bite the thousand in in material and Kevin's willing to do the work you know there some of it he can do in house to prevent further damage and buy us a little time there's no buying us time on this end and the rail needs to get fixed in the and that's again that's a that's a 30
034or $40,000 operation versus a $100,000 ration so we may have the monies available or we have have to dip into the 248 account it's there but it's got to get done and we'll have better handle on that next month but we're trying to get and that wouldn't get done probably until uh summer because that that's going to be disruptive ripping that stair out and ripping the uh the ramp on or destruct it but the ramp's got to go down to the foundation there's no way of salvaging it U and I mean we gave it some discussion you know maybe that stairs if that works out doing that in April vacation because of the safety issue with that you know we gave you know Kevin some potential ideas for doing something with the ramp for right
035now to buy us until the until we get out of school but that that's that that back staircase needs to be addressed immediately there's no if F or butts about that 14x14 pattern those stairs need to be removed I mean we can go look after but you'll see the railings are actually so all right I think we beat that and then the roof's John was oh well and and the roofs are actually uh go ahead Sean the the roofs are completed the next Target roof is roof s um and I think we were talking about tackling that after July you know because that that roof is in some pretty rough shape you can actually stand on the ground and see the nail pops well that roof's got to be original to the addition so we've
036got our money's worth and then Kevin has a couple other roofs that are on the drawn board for replacement as uh money allows does anybody have any questions I know it's a lot well you got if if you're doing HVAC Replacements you may not you may need to do because these are rooftop units yeah they're on this section you think you can do a the roof's nine years old yeah but you you got curves that go with the Kevin thinks the curbs will fit yeah that's what that's what they over they oversized the curbs when they fixed it so that's one of the things he has to look at that was a head that touch in the roof okay but Kevin I guess Kevin was saying that they say if we put curb extenders on
037there that will be good so they'll make a new boxes sit on the curb and then rest the unit on top of that we'll see what the final mechanical engineer comes back with yeah okay he I think he said he had modified bit of Ro and you got leaks that start over there but they don't show up until they're over there because there's erosion underneath there yeah okay that adds a lot of weight because the stuff is wet in there and hangs on the structure okay no we know about that I'm I'm concerned that if we have to touch curbs I do not want to touch that roof because that opens up P door's box and we'll never fix it you got to get that stuff out of we'll have more details next month because
038we're probably going to have another meeting this month once we get some real compromises the building so just my two cents sorry roofs are a nightmare yeah flat roofs work but the the new the new U theas am I think we fix that one he on last so that's that's got a lot less problems than a uh three or four or five by pitchman roof true but you don't want to put the rubber over the modif no I don't care how good of a said okay we're not borrowing that we're not going there right now you can't cover that up you got to get it out all right that takes care of facility are you all right K I'm good okay more to follow anybody has their whist no I think again thanks to Kevin
039and and K I think we we we're starting to to make progress all right um Finance you want to get this go ahead all right so if you take a look uh at general education general education salaries are showing a decreased surplus of $668 due to midyear salary adjustments and an increase to our budget sub cost um our benefit projections are now showing a surplus of [Music] $5,784 showing a surplus of $4,875 which is lower than last month but still largely due to salaries and benefits any questions before I go on okay in special education special education remains status quo from last month as we've been utilizing the different Grant dollars for required year end spend down uh and special education ends the month with a surplus of $1,162 moving into operations and overhead operations
040salaries is now showing a surplus of $1 15,156 7,650 due to medor Insurance chush release as well as unemployment adjustments Services is status quo from last month with a surplus of $3,980 supplies and utilities remain status quo from last month with projections equal to budget requests facilities is now showing a deficit of $35,100 which is due to unanticipated costs for different system repairs other uh remain status quo with a deficit of $179 operations in overhead now ends the month with a surplus of $ 31,38 the overall budget is showing a total surplus of $92,400 uh quite a bit but once we hit the end of April things tend to start to level out and then Brandy will work with me to get a better Pro projection of where we will land as of February 29th
041uh in our prek account balance it is uh there is $855 45 and in the 10 248a account there is $351,500 that requires a motion uh to approve do I hear a motion to approve yes one one note on there um in the the far right columns on there where it says variance it says January four times are the last two supposed to be February I don't know if for voting on Corrections like that thank you y any other questions com motion to approve move second all in favor post pass unfinished business none now on to oh wait there's a question about talk about Aces whether stay Aces yes um does the board feel one way or the [Music] other t for thank you chair's report yeah that's under the Chairman's report okay I thought
042there was something else under ah all right next new business byw 9300 submission of increasing educated diversity plan you're on yes so I Shar with you all a summary of the plan the increasing educator diversity plan is a result of a legislative change in 2023 the 2023 legislation included statutory language changes that affect employment Public Act 2316 7 section 10 it now requires that districts submit their increasing educator diversity plans these are essentially the hiring practices that we already engage in um we have policies about uh non-discrimination and all of those things already codified in language but the state uh in their Infinite Wisdom decided that we should now all create a plan that we can submit to them for their approval um this plan is intended to create a variety of candidates that apply
043to different districts enough shell for us it's really just submitting proof to the state that in Bethany we don't discriminate against people who apply for jobs here we hire the best people regardless of who they are where they come from Etc so what is also required is that even though these are Personnel practices that we already engage in in the district they want board approval for the superintendent to submit proof of the fact that I'm doing my job to the state So the plan has three large goals we have a recruitment goal a hiring goal and a retention goal um you have them in front of you um as well as same information that I shared with you all last week so my request of you this evening is that you give me permission to
044submit the plan to the state on Friday for their feedback uh they'll either approve it or they'll send it back and say we don't like what you do here in desany you should do something else um at which point I'm not sure where it will go because I also today um participated in a technical assistance conference um with the West dead agency because it's not necessarily going to be Connecticut state department and headed employees that are reviewing the plans they're also working with West Ed which is another company um I I have shared with some people that this is very similar to what happened with the reading waers I would they're hiring outside Consultants so it's outside consultant and so uh there's a portal that I have to submit the plan to through westad so
045that it can be accessed by the Connecticut State Department of Education uh and they will give feedback as to what those plans are supposed to be could be not really sure uh when I went to the technical assistance Workshop today I shared with them the summary that I shared with you all they said from their standpoint these were the West Ed folks not the Cs folks they said that it was right on Target and there wasn't anything that they would recommend I change her course admission so had that meeting this afternoon so is is orange and Woodbridge and Amity all submitting the same thing on a different letterhead yes y Woodbridge submitted their plan uh for approval at their last board meeting so uh superintendent tza will be submitting hers to the portal um uh
046orange and Amity have not submitted Theirs to their board yet because they were going to uh their committees to discussed before so at one of your boa meetings you s you guys sat down and discussed this and came up with all this language okay and do we need a pol we have to modify the policy to go along with this we don't have to modify any of our policies to go we we do it already we are if it's so they renamed it that's all yeah you know but if it's okay with you it's we do everything we we do everything that she put in I I read half of it and that was as far as I could go yeah it gets it gets there isn't any uh language that we need to change
047in any of our policies okay because I think the only thing that is different is watching some videos right but that's not got anything to do with the policy that's more again that Personnel hiring practice okay so nothing has to do with everything that's really here is these are all of the practices that I and my team engage in whenever we get applications bet applications we put together our interview teams we talk about what are appropriate interview practices what aren't we have our interviews we debrief we document so these are all the things that we have been doing but for some reason um someone decided that it need to be submitted to the state I did share uh with John Paul I was invited to be a reviewer for the state for these plans and
048I respectfully turned it back understandably we won't go there we got concrete to PO I have bigger so again my ask is that U today the board give me the approval to submit the plan to the Well's got another question sure no I just it's something that I don't know if this is proper venue but you they they had public hearing today at the education committee about uh the State Board of Education is no longer going to be in charge you're going to Department of Education being in charge I don't know if you're aware of that there are lots of discussions about there're setting up one of those committees or councils or whichever one of the task force to look into yes am I correct the Department of Education is the administrative arm of the
049State Board of Education correct okay so they're talking about stripping the State Board of Education of their Authority and making them subordinate to the Department of Education just so everybody knows that that's what they're doing yeah no there and that's just one of many things that the rocket scientists at the state level were working they're doing a good job this time around well one of the things why Earth would they want to do that and but you know they keep on bringing in all these consultants and delegating their responsibilities to the the cave or there's the sad part about it consult the sad part about it is a lot of this stuff we can talk about it all R in the face but there's nothing we can do to impact it so my feeling about
050this stuff is K's on top of it we'll mention it to everybody somebody has a question but there's not much we can do about this stuff yeah I I know that it's just the water just keeps getting muddier and muddier and muddier and it's just very it is what it is it is okay so K's asking that we we we allow her to submit the plan and I have no issues with that I make a motion to submit the plan second all in favor I I all right Sue you're on so uh at our last meeting I tried to describe what uh was going on because uh Su Carpenter isn't here anymore and we're basically trying to stabilize how we're going to for and uh you know just to briefly review uh uh we have
051two policy Services cab and the attorney Shipman and Goodwin uh neither of them provide tailor made policies for the ECS it's all boilerplate language and we expected to curate it and and copy and paste and put it together so that it suits our school and uh neither C or shipment and good seem to be able to agree on what policies are mandated or or required so that uh we're going to have to just rely that shipment and Goodwin is right and Cave is doing their own thing uh in any case trying to find some standards to do this curating is is is another issue so uh I've been trying to formulate that and demonstrate them in these three policies that I had uh make policies orderly and consist consistent um provide the committee with legal
052comments when they're available uh they can also be provided to the board if you so choose uh you know and uh prioritizing mandated policies per bylaw 9000 uh making sure that any policy that comes before the board that is marked mandated is specifically only has language that is mandated uh that all other policy revisions will be recommended or or technical Corrections and uh it's also bylaw 9311 says policies Express what we're going to do and the regulations designate how we're going to do it so to try to keep the policies confined uh to be explicit to the point plain language and let the regulations contain guidance examples clarifications definitions that might be offered by legal council so those are trying to create some basis for how to do this because I'm not quite sure how
053it was done before and so you have these three policies that uh are all non-discrimination and so it should be pretty straightforward and there was a a change for uh adding one protected class and uh something to do with not disclosing uh some Criminal re anyone have any questions on these things I mean the emission age that's still floating around that that's still that's still in limbo there's a Senate Bill 318 that uh talks about reporting for uh um the SRO is to the resource officers reporting uh there's a number of stuff that's floating around I think the only one that really impacts us as the admission and I think you want to talk about that or okay well there's a there's a proposed a um mandated revision for that policy as well in this
054ping they Chang is the the H5 from being effective the January to September and with some kind of uh opportunity to appeal if somebody's born beat from September two to December 31 yeah although there's questionable whether that's going to need a continuing thing but well that's K and I talked about that the other day the fact that the state still hasn't gotten off the dime and Infinite Wisdom are talking about whoever whatever they're on to other things yeah but the problem is it's going to impact everybody you know all the school systems it is what it is well it's it's in La so so we uh we have to deal with what we have and this policy reflects what is in law and is the language from Shipman this doesn't have to get on tonight
055correct this is the first read what's that effici move Board of Education accept the policies for revision for first reading so move second all right so do we need to do this again yes yeah okay so all right I thought you needed to do that twice if there was some questions and changes okay yeah I'm waiting all in favor no that's all right okay pass so just to clarify the process for the new people so we kind of get it at a first reading right now we have an opportunity to read it at our Leisure and then we'll come back to next meeting assuming we've all read it and we'll have comments if you have comments or we just pass it whatever so the second reading will be our opportunity to say yes yes or
056no revise yes right yeah I understand it right okay actually you know just as an aside if you want the issue goes with the U with the weekly if you have't ready to go with the weekly uh update that you sent out on Fridays that would give you a little bit more time if anybody wants is that your life more difficult most of the time we don't see these until we have to come to thee when you issue the the week before say the policies come Frome okay yeah rather than wait till the the week before the meeting if when the policy committee decides that this is what we're coming forward just issue is part of weekly does anybody care about that or I just think it give you a little bit more time and
057if it doesn't impact you it doesn't add your workload all right and that's how we're going to do it as soon as they come forward they'll uh they'll get issu as part of the be de brief administrative report superintendent sure so before I launched into my official administrative report I just want to take a moment to recognize all of our board members March is Board of Education board appreciation month so Mr pillo Mr Faso Bradford Mr martinsky and Miss Lane we not here Caroline Larry Andel and John Garcia just want to extend our sincere gratitude this is certainly an elected position but this is still a service position um you don't currently get paid for that although they are talking about that in legislation allowing Bo to pay themselves um but that's not not here
058or there uh but just want to sincerely thank you for all the time and effort that you take not just in evening meetings because we certainly have lots of those but taking time from your day to come and walk the building with us for two hours and make sure that we're doing the best for our students here in Bethany we just appreciate your effort so thank you for that um enrollment update we are steady uh the enrollment table is in the packet the summary is for 2122 22 23 uh we started our year with 445 students and we are as of February 29th at 400 individual students so you haven't taken in or lost any official students at this time we might have some in transition heading out but that will be reflected in the
059next month's report um sign how's the enrollment for next year's yeah so enrollment for next year uh will Brenton and his office have been amazing giving um some numbers right now we're looking at about 47 students based on their enumeration report for our kindergarten for next year however I do not know as of yet um Mr Bron and I believe her name is Stephanie and his office are working to get a month by Monon breakdown of the report so it's in the past it's been wonderful just to have the number of students that are coming that met that January cut off so that's historically what we've gotten now we need to sit down and take a look at what does that look like month by month so of those 47 students how many of those
060students have birthdays or were born in those September you know after September one because that could bring our number down um so we're going to look into that and I'll give you more of an update in a future future date or in the weekly so that's where we are was that kindergarten or pre kindergarten so in addition so when you add the uh other 10 or so students that we have or 18 I think it is in the prek for so you add those 18 to that 47 that gives us a larger number however some of those children don't have or have birthdays after September 1 so depending on how this enrollment goes with appeals and everything else we could be looking at much lower numbers so what happens to the kids who are in
061the prek program right now that don't meet that guideline what do we do with those so they have the right to appeal like everyone else okay so if they're identified students that it becomes a discussion with their planning and placement team the Special Education team to determine what their programming would look like for those identified students when the nonidentified students those students have to appeal just like everyone else they're not automatically guaranteed to roll into kindergarten just because they're here in our prek war they don't automatically get to go into kindergarten so if their appeal is denied we just send them away and say see you next year they do prek again right over they do pre that's a that's a valid point I'm curious automatic guarantee that they stay in wow I'm staying away
062from Steves thankfully for us our current prek students are not going to be adversely impacted by this year that feel that makes me feel better we're we're in pretty good shape with our current pre preschool students preschool is the least of my worries when it comes to the appeal so well if you are there such guidelines for prek to you know you have to be born by such and such a date and be such and such an age so would it not be prudent to make the prek like the K the prek is like the K okay always has been so pre our preschool you had to be three by the deadline you had to be four by the deadline so you would be aligned with what the regulation was for kindergarten entrance okay so
063now it's Chang for kindergarten we have to change it for preschool and say you must be three by you must be four by all in order to to go into the lottery y so we've already we've already done that okay all right and then if there's no other questions I'll go into personel all right so uh when last Our Heroes met we had a PA professional V that vacancy has been filled by Magdalena aad U Magdalena joins us from uh her work in region 16 so she was a professional in region 16 and now she is here with us uh in Bethany the Boe executive assistant position has finally been filled uh Mrs Brandy Spargo Bethany business manager had applied for the position and was a successful candidate Mrs Spargo has been in the finance
064space for well over a decade and a half and she was just simply looking for a change in position but did not want to leave Bethany um in her new role she'll assume the district level HR responsibilities in addition to her executive assistant positions she will assume her position onor before July 1 until that time she will remain in her role as the business manager to finish out the year and then train any incoming replacement and the position for business manager is is posted that concludes my report any questions okay we don't need a motion on that y all right um director of special services you're on thank you um quick report for you today U professional learning on Friday we will have a professional development day and the focus is on Wellness for our
065teachers and we also continue to have ongoing work with literacy how I've spoken with you about that previously uh to support our reading instruction as well as at Advance for grades five and six in the area of math in for the curricul update I know that you shared previously that we um met with the curriculum team and Tom and I were able to go ahead and share a presentation about Summit math and finally in the area of special education I submitted a grant today for um professional learning for $5,000 for pair of professionals and I'll report back on the outcome um when we hear the results on that you're ready yes I guess my question would be probably like sixfold I know you just made mention a fifth and sixth grade math or curriculum what
066is that all about so what did what was the presentation did that tail so we went through the data um with um I what the results look like looking at growth looking at data so I know you have that do you want to well you want to do part of the uh you have more you have more to go with that the principal report or I mean I wasn't planning to I mean I can speak to if you'd want me to oh absolutely because I have a couple more followup questions finish and Tom and Mr can do it as part of the report so that's all I had for my my report but in regard to that so basically we went through the presentation was looking at the data basically the history last winter to
067this winter having a comparison of how the students are doing as well as the changes that we've made so so far we have put in professional learning for with Ed Advance um we have extended the time in math that um teachers have to teach math and um I know there's one other area that we did like that third thing we did professional learning as well as extended time uh so it's it's I mean when we look at it we really looked at trying to to be able to to get a greater amount of instructional time um that was the that was the biggest part we wanted to make sure that we got more time on task right um and then I think it's we're really looking at that that specific PD um and then we're
068also looking at both having our um staff um just focusing on one grade so they have less standards and they're um fewer units so they can focus uh specifically to fifth grade or sixth grade and then we um we departmentalized our um data teams so previously we had data teams where you would have all of Team Summit would be coming together in a data team of six teacher of uh five teachers what is Team Summit ah fifth sorry so fifth and sixth grade um we have so when you think about like a typical elementary school right so when I was when I was teaching third fourth and fifth grade it was Tom Reed Swale your fourth grade teacher I taught in I taught Reading Writing Math Science Social Studies all of it right and we
069do that all the way up to fourth grade when we get to fifth and sixth grade what we did is we departmentalized so when you're a fifth grade student you have a teacher for math you have a teacher for ELA you have a teacher for science you a teacher for social studies and the kids rotate and so we've kind of called that model summit we're trying to kind of think of as a transition between quote unquote elementary school and middle school we hear a lot of times that that transition from elementary school to middle school is really difficult for kids and so what we want is we want our kids to like still be kids but we also want to make sure that we're trying to give them a good foundation so that it's not
070such a shock to the system when they go up to the middle school and so that's a big part of it and so we think of that as a core um um and so what we did was it was always kind of a core and a group of those teachers and so their data team their group of teachers to talk about instruction met together once a week and so on an a week you'd talk about Ela and then a b week you'd talk about math the challenge was that and let's be honest if you're the math person and we're talking about Ela you're there and you're helping out and all that but it's not as directly focused on your discipline right and so what we said and it's it's on me took us this many
071years to think about it why not just have a math data team and and an Ela data team and then we're meeting twice you know for us it's we're meeting twice a week but it's a chance for the math teachers to talk about math every single week and so it's a greater time on task for teachers to talk about their data and their instructional decisions based on it so that's been a big part and I think it's been really helpful because it gets us more chance to really dig into and and think about the data and the assessment that we've got well I know last month we had a you know we had a pretty interesting discussion and and I kind of walked away with a lot of information but I kind of walked away
072with some questions sure um what I'm trying to figure out you know in discussion we had I guess you get both answers I guess it kind of pertains to both of your your wheelhouses y um you we talked about I ready am I correct um you know and you you saw some great Improvement in those areas yeah but you clearly indicated we had a shortcoming there so what my question question I guess would go to you explain to me how our curriculum progresses through the year and where are our stumbling blocks that you clearly indicated we had Within These programs and how are we addressing that because you identified it I'm just curious how we get there we talked about the state Statewide the jump from fourth grade to fifth grade is pretty significant so
073across the board the entire state fifth grade scores are much lower um so that was one piece that we had talked about um and then we talked about in the presentation some of the um with the jump some of the things have to do with vocabulary some of it has to do with how we teaching so solving problems is what you would use as an example and when is that typically you know that advancement within the curriculum start taking place where we we see the kids start struggling well I mean I think it's it it's a really it's a it's a a quick question to ask and a really complex one to answer when we think about it when we think about it overall right when we think about a math curriculum what we really
074think about is all the way down from kindergarten up through High School mathematics right everything's based on and building upon one another to one thing to the next thing to the next thing perfect example would be when we get to the upper grades we have kids working on the coordinate plane right so we were just talking about this in a data team right so they're working on that coordinate plane right and when they're working on that coordinate plane in say sixth grade things that are precursors to that are kids working on number lines and it doesn't seem like that's a precursor skill like a pre requisite skill but if you're thinking about how numbers are regularly placed on a number line when you get to that coordinate plane and you're having to go on a
075regular basis through that coordinate plane on the X and Y AIS you've now got that basis to think oh I've got to have a regular interval here I can't just go 1 7 20 3 36 you know you've got to you've got to have a regular two four six and up when we think about Advanced multiplication it gets all the way down to first grade when we're counting by twos right because multiplication is repeated addition and so if I know that I'm counting by twos and then I'm adding and I'm doing repeated addition and then I'm building around figures then I'm going to multiplication so all of those things build upon each other as they go one of the challenges that we see is that a lot of things that we're working on and a
076lot of the work that kids are doing we we have a a large shift in some of the mathematics that we have as we as we move from lower elementary to Upper Elementary um and there's a really great article we've been looking at it and really thinking about it's it's called 13 rules that expire right so simple things like you would say when we've got addition and multiplication right addition and multiplication when you do that the answer always gets and kids have say it gets bigger well what if I multiply a half by a quarter half of a quarter is an eighth it's not bigger than a half or a quarter now I've multiplied my answer isn't bigger it's smaller and it kind of turns that thinking that kids may have developed as they're going
077on its head and so a lot of those things that work really well in certain situations start to fall apart as we start getting into more complex math and more um deep problem solving and that's where you progress within the fifth grade a bunch of do yeah a bunch of those do take some shifts and changes in fifth grade I think it's also a space in which when you're a really good computer right just think rot computation right you can do the multiplication you can plug in the formula all of that right you're really having to think more complexly about math you're having to apply that math in fifth and sixth grade it's really getting into that you can't just go and take a number and plug it into a formula as you go and
078so part of what we're trying to do we've we've seen that as an area where kids struggle and so part of the work that we're trying to do and that's a big part of what we've really thought about we've got this greater time and the question was we were like okay great you know we're like more time now right what do you do with it right because you can't just can't just sit there and be like all right I'm going to just drill this into your head longer because then kids are going to hate back you lose them right 100% right you got 80 minutes and you just drone on the kids gone and so a big part of what we're really trying to do is build in productive struggle because and what is productive
079struggle ah so the problem the challenge with teachers is that we're helpers right so you set a kid on a problem and they start working on something and then you see that they're not necessarily doing it right you go hey what if you tried it this way and we jump in and that student hasn't been struggling and challenging and trying another way and getting it wrong and feeling a little bit bit of frustration in a safe environment to go oh you're feeling frustrated what's what's making you frustrated about this and then giving them that help and so what we're really trying to do is think about how we can extend that productive struggle um and part of the work that we're doing with that is it's generally a concept we call um thinking classrooms so
080um if I'm just working on a formula I can plug through the formula and when I get it wrong I go hey just change this part in the formula do it regurgitate it you know old school math book right do the do the even I do right do the evens because the answers are on you know the answers to the odd problems are in the back of the book right so instead of just going through those rope formulas and processes we're saying here's a more in-depth problem that still focuses on this concept I want you to work with two or three kids there's a whiteboard over there and I want you who does that the teachers the so so part of what we do is you're going to have like if you think about when
081we talk through this if you think about a typical math um there's no typal math for me so you just kind of got to dumb it down a little no I got you so kids walk into that room they're going to they're going to come into the room and the teacher's going to have like a do now a Energizer just get your brain onto math thinking about math thinking about the concept you're going to work on during the day right could be a small problem could be you know a word problem where something the you know the the answer is wrong and you've got to figure out what's wrong about their answer right gets your brain going right up to cruising speed then you go over and you say hey we talked about that in
082the warmup let's talk about some of the work that we're going to do today here's what I want to teach you right and you go through some of that then I go that's great I want you to practice it now you try it out but instead of just setting you out to do it independently I'm going to have you work with a couple of kids and I'm going to have you work on a whiteboard and the reason I do it on a whiteboard is because it lacks permanence and one of the greatest challenges that kids have is if they write it down and they're wrong it has that permanence of being wrong and so you can sit there and go that's wrong and you just erase it or you go over and I put a
083little bit and you put a little bit and we talk about it and they go wait why did you do that I because of this and we start talking and then the teachers monitoring through that they're helping with some of that productive struggle the kids are struggling together then they bring the class back together they clarify some of the misconceptions they go hey I saw that three people were all trying to do this they multiplied a half times a quarter and they got a half again I'm confused I thought we were multiplying by a half how do we get back to a half somebody talked me through some of that thinking and they clarify right then we set out on another problem or we do some small group work and so the work on it
084is really kind of designed to think about building that productive struggle and really taking that computational skill that we're really trying to build and then putting it to practice right because ultimately like the world the world doesn't give you a like here's here's this perfect formula right the world gives you you know you've got you've got a school the school has some deteriorating um sidewalks you're going to have to think about what's the cost how many people you going to need what's your timeline all of that stuff that's a giant math problem that you have to figure out but they didn't just say like hey you've got six bags and multiply it by four bags and right they're not going to give you all that and so we want kids to be able to in
085that build that productive struggle so that when they get something that's a little different they feel that confidence to be able to try some things out and they don't just fall apart um and so that's a real big part of what we're trying to do um and I think what a real benefit to it is is that kids are talking with kids so they're having to try out their ideas they're having to really justify their ideas and it's a deeper level of thinking um and it's an application of that thinking not just a regurgitating um and so that's a big part of what we're trying to do so that kids can be more flexible thinkers and they can persist through difficult problems now now within within this process do we get to a certain point
086you know within the curriculum that we have clearly defined sticking points that we know we're going to give more support to these kids during this period or we just kind of so you know we do XYZ from September to October we do you know from October to this you know based upon the care we're doing this do we have clearly defined like benchmarks we know this is an area you know we struggle with and you know do we put more resources to that to help the kids Excel or do we just kind of hope for the best they're doing it on a weekly basis so every single week at those data teams they're looking at how did the students do it might be one of the larger benchmarks like I ready but it might be
087specific lessons and targets that they were working on so there's constant looking and reflecting on the data changing lessons changing what they're doing so so it's ongoing within that that weekly meeting I guess we'll say you guys have with the the team you know hey you know classroom 17 struggling with this do we let them struggle or do we throw some different staff at to see if we can work through this let them Excel and then move on to the next level how does that work yeah so if I can clarify so so to think about when we think about productive struggle it's not just like send you're not sending on a Lifeboat without you know without a p right the idea is I want you I want you to experience Challenge in a safe
088environment where I can be teaching you along the way and I can help you clarify but I don't want you to just depend on me for all of the the things that you're figuring out right so I want you to be able to work through that right how do how are we addressing that are we continually on the classroom level or can you pull someone and send them there go hey you know go go help them you know send send an additional person to kind of help them along within this journey yeah so I think I think ultimately what we look at is we look at we look at is it a grade level thing is it a classroom thing is it a small group thing or is it an individual student thing right so
089if it's a whole grade level thing we look and we take a look at our units and we say like whole grade level wise fractions we know fractions are a challenge we dedicate a greater amount of time to fractions because they really upend kids knowledge right I've talked about it before RB you know RB or um A&W Root Beer had all these stores and they tried to sell a third pound burger and it lost to the quarter pounder because people couldn't conceptualize that a third pounder was bigger than a quarter pounder adults in the80s it's legit right and so we know this it's a whole thing they it's true that was their marketing strategy they were going to go we're going to challenge the quarter pounder with a third pounder and everybody in the exit
090surveys is went why would I pay the same when I get less than a third pounder it's a thing it's true um it failed so we know that on a global level right so we pay more attention you know we really try and put our instructional time greater to that right if it but do we ramp up as we see a need or do at what point do we correct that when we start to struggle so we were looking at all of the data so it could be something we say oh we need to go back and teach it to the whole class y because or the whole grade level or it might be that there are a few students who are really struggling and the teacher works with them in small group if they're
091not responding to that and they start might doing a Target and a student may then qualify for interventions and then they be getting additional support so might be push in support or it could be that they're getting support in a quieter setting so there are supports in place it's a whole process that we have so we absolutely want to make sure kids are getting we want them to be able to struggle we want them to be able to persevere because some sometimes it's easy to just say I can't do this and give up but we want them to be able to real life is you have to just figure things out but with support but as a whole we're looking for the whole entire class then we're looking what small group instruction do they need
092and then what oneon-one individual support do they need if that's not enough what other the supports can be put in place and this is done on a weekly basis on a daily basis ultimately in that so as a teacher you'll give that instruction right you say I taught it did they learn it and so we have what's called a cfu a check for understanding right and so I'm working on on a pro on a a particular learning Target I do some teaching you do some work on it and then I'm going to give you a couple of problems if you're doing really well with it I know you've got it I move you along if I go and I go wow well Cheryl really seemed to struggle with that Tom really seemed to struggle with
093that I'm going to work with those two in a small group here I'm going to look at what the mistakes were that they were making and in that lesson we're trying to respond to that or we've looked and we've said hey here's your benchmark assessment like see that there's some spaces where you're struggling you know based on some of the assessments that I've given and I know that at the back half of this lesson I got to help you out with that because that's what you're going to need for next week's work so we know that there's some spaces where kids have a need and we automatically plan and address that and then we know based on the instructions we're doing that day we have systems in place to be able to check and be
094able to give kids that work right in that in that particular lesson the beauty of the 80 minutes is that you can do it it it's much easier to be able to do it in that particular day because you've got enough time to be able to introduce it to get some of that independent practice and then in real time in that day look and go oh hey Sean come here I noticed you did XYZ I want you to change this one thing try it again all right um and so I think that's the goal the goal is to try and make sure that what we're not doing is we're not holding people you know a whole class back but we're not also leaving kids you know in the dust and so it's that it's that
095constant kind of it's that finesse work of making sure that you're getting everybody exactly where they are and I think something that you know Disturbed me kind of when we walked away and I walked away kind of thinking about it when you said we clearly know this is a a problem AR and I was like what are we doing about that I don't want to see kids struggle and it's it's horrible because they hate school quickly I just want to make sure that you we're being aggressive about it and getting the teacher to support or getting the kid to support to push to the end goal yeah absolutely yeah and it's I think what we were trying to get is this is a state situ you know it's it's a fifth grade thing going fourth
096grade to fifth grade is a big deal across the entire State it's not just a Bethany situation but what we're doing is all the steps in place to support students yeah so quick question yeah um at the fifth grade level is that that is when there's more you're going to see more word problems and relating to real life situations and plugging formulas into you're going to have problem I would say I would say more I would say yes and no so we work so so we work to ensure that that's kind of connect that's connected all the way down through uh you know on a developmentally appropriate level I'm not getting kindergarteners these huge long work problems right um but what we start to see is that we start to see as you start moving
097through decimals as you start getting deeper into fractions a lot of those Concepts become more complex and the things that seemed kind of rote and regular and steady unchanging change so kids who have say challenges with um reading comprehension statistically will struggle more with that area of math so in fifth grade as that intensifies you have that that reading comprehension component that comes into play and it's a big thing is that how is that being address well it's a good point and we actually we really look at that and we start to ask ourselves is this a reading is this a reading issue or a math issue right and so what we do is on the flip side right you want to make sure that you're setting kids up to be able to use those
098math practices to attend a Precision to be using math tools to reason abstractly right you want to get all of that but you also want to make sure that if a child's struggling with reading that you're directly addressing what they need and so you can be doing it kind of in parallel and so we look and we ensure that if a child has a difficulty in terms of um reading comprehension that we're addressing that we also have in a lot of spaces an opportunity depending you know and there's you know it's a Curt right all the way from like reading can be a little tricky to me to decoding is really really difficult right basic decoding difficult I can do the computation I can you know you tell me it we can work through it
099and so we have systems in place and accommodations in place to have things like a reader or speech to text or things that way depending on a students's individual plans and needs to make sure that they have the opportunity to be able to access and implement the the work and the learning that they that's in front of them so it's it's a really good question we ask all the time you'll sit down you go well this kid's getting this wrong and we'll sit in the data team we go is Tom getting it wrong because he's a tier 2 reading intervention kid is he getting it wrong because the reading is difficult or is he getting it wrong because the math is if it's verbally explained then you might see a a difference there and then
100you're also looking is it the reading comprehension or is the decoding causing the reading comprehension yeah so all of those pieces are part of all of what we're doing with the screenings to look and make sure we're not missing those things yeah and sometimes it's both you know and you have interventions for both exactly yeah exactly yeah you know all of the above strategy and in the curriculum committee we also you know there was some concern that uh parents felt they needed to hire tutors and it there was going to be a better uh communication maybe in the parent teacher conferences or on a regular basis to let them know that they should communicate with you guys yeah to make sure that they're utilizing all the resources the school has available before they go to
101outside sources if they feel the need to so yeah and right so that was my question is that is hiring a tutor would you say that's defeating the purpose of trying to have the the students struggle a little bit in a safe environment I mean obviously hiring a tutor should probably be a conversation with the teacher first yeah I well I mean I think I think ultimately the challenge is right is that is that every child and every family is going to make different decisions for different reasons across the board and I think there's a reason that there's Kuman math all over the pl you know there's you know there's um you know all kinds of you know there's Russian math school there's Kuman math there's you know lots of things that way I think
102that different people are going to utilize those resources for different reasons I would argue that if you have a math tutor that math tutor could be pushing your kid in productive struggle just the same if I was tutoring a kid as you know as a former stem coach as a former third fourth fifth grade teacher I wouldn't just be sitting there working on formulas I'd be working on building something that we're learning and then I'd be pushing them to persist and I'd be sitting there and waiting for them to struggle and sit there and go yeah this is tricky try it out it's all right we'll go try you know try your first one in green try your second one in blue let's see if you get the same answer let's try it a different
103way so I think that you know I think that people are going to utilize those resources for different reasons I wouldn't say you know that we're trying to get students into productive struggle and that would be a reason to or not I think it's really a decision that a family would make that way what I would say is if if families are feeling like there's a challenge that their child is facing right we're all in the business of positive student outcomes Happy Kids you know and Safe Kids right it's safety above all else you know then it's you know then it's learning and joy right and and I think they're pretty parallel because if you're learning and it's not joyous then what's going on if it's joy and there's no learning what are we doing
104here right but I I think that's why we all got in that's why we got we got here and so I think you know reaching out and saying hey this is what I'm seeing this is what my kid's saying to me you know how can we work together and I think what we've seen is that a lot of kids you know against our best work have negative self-image around math and that's really what we're trying to counterbalance with some of this is to say it's okay for math to be a little tricky and hard It's Tricky and hard for everybody like that's the whole deal just like working on a really difficult book is really tricky you know your brain's really got to think about what you read and so it doesn't mean that you're
105bad at math it just means that you're figuring it out like everybody else and so we're trying to give kids those experiences so they don't feel like a failure when it gets difficult because that's where kids can get it's like easy easy easy tough I must not be good at math it's more like well this was easy for you this is tough that's okay let's work through it so I'm a science teacher in a math-based science at a higher level at the high school level and we see these things all the time students try to memorize they memorize a path they memorize plan some students are phenomenal memorizers and then they can't memorize because the rule didn't work they couldn't just memorize the multiplication table trying to put it on an elementary level because now
106all of a sudden they have to do a couple different steps or you add the fractions in and then the memorization things break down and then there's that that struggle and it is a balance but at the same time there's also that learn helplessness is a real thing and I see it at the high school every day I can't do it I can't do it just just give me the answer just give me the answer everyone every time I struggle someone has stepped in to do it for me and they need to be able to struggle a little there is the balance of if you would say wait a minute you're going to really struggle and be turned away we want to guide you but you don't want to just say every time well I'm
107so afraid you're going to hate the subject I'll just give you the answer every time because then students learn real fast I just cry and they give me the answer it's great and I I graduated high school and I go to college and now there's nobody giving me the answer and then there's the real struggle you know with regard to tutors again we see some of the same thing there's different reasons for getting tutors um you know there are there are struggles that you have where you're asked to persevere and maybe you're you know struggling a little bit in the class or maybe feeling like you're a little bit behind that's also where the question comes in who do you feel you're behind the neighbor or do you feel like you're behind the grade level
108because parents will hire tutors for those different reasons um one thing that I think came out of we as the curriculum committee had asked for a presentation because we had I think all of us are asking some of these questions because we had heard some concerns about this struggle that students are going through so we asked for this presentation which I thought was a great presentation uh I think it was great that it went forward right away to the community to talk about and the the conversation um I I think the big takea away from that though is we kept hearing things and when we asked this to the curriculum committee and said you know to the team what have you heard nothing nobody had contacted them or the teachers that they were aware of
109about struggles or concerns or a very minimal interaction from what we got out of that I think it's very important that us as board members if we hear some of these things that are going on where people have concerns about what's going in the classroom we encourage them to reach out first and then if they're still not getting some of these things I think it was great that we asked for this report because it really you know gave us a lot of insight I think it's important that we also make sure we tell parents if you got an issue you know contact your teacher if you think they're struggling you think they're behind don't just listen to your neighbor say that their kid is is way higher than yours so you think they're behind maybe
110they're just really Advanced and your kid is right on ask the teacher reach out to the school I think it's just important that you know we say that to the public for all the public that's here well don't forget those of you at home there's a lot of people watching them and those of you at home with that Cera been staring at me for the last hour now two hours um and for everybody hopefully I don't know if there was any insight that you have about the uh coffee conversation if there was if the report was well received I hope yeah um I know my wife watched it and she said it was it was great there was a lot of informative things in there you know she had some questions for me after but
111she said it was it was well run I think you know I think as always a thing that parents are always going to bring to us is is what what's going on in terms of homework right because that's a very parent facing thing right and so I think that you know part of what we're trying to do and and we you know we got some of that feedback from you all as a committee so we tried to make sure that you know we we reestablished that we set that out in our family weekly um you know we tried to reiterate it in that conversation that we had um in the coffee hour is that the goal of you know the goal of homework is multi is ultimately multifold right we're not expecting some like Breakthrough
112Miracle learning at home right we want to help reinforce some of what we're doing we want to try maybe if you know students have some individual needs give them an opportunity for that some of that threw I ready um you know but also we want to help them build skills right because like as as an adult you all come and you say hey Tom can you come and do a presentation on you know on math for us at the curriculum committee well I have to have built those executive functioning skills to say well I'm not going to do it in a half hour before I roll up to that Zoom meeting right I'm going to have to you know I'm going to have to budget my time I'm going to have to think about how
113much I do I'm going to have to really plan that out and so that's some of the work that we try and get that way if it becomes overwhelming or a challenge again you know reach out and let us know um you know and I think I think as always people are always going to be worried about going you know next level what you know what happens when we go to Middle School what happens when we go to high school you know and that and I you know and I think that's that was something that was definitely articulated in terms of you know what are the expectations from middle school you know what are we doing in terms of that making sure that kids are prepared that way and what do they expect you know
114so I think there were some things that were raised that way um which I think are all valid you know questions you want the best for your kid you want your kid really prepared you know I've got a 16-year-old I'm thinking about like what am I going to do to help him be prepared so when he graduates he's feeling successful when he goes to college you know I mean that's where where we're thinking so I you know I get it just everybody anything else you would want to say I just want to say we look at more than one data point that key is that the teacher because the teacher is going to have more than one just data one data point teachers might hear oh the IR ready score wasn't as high as they
115had hoped to be that's one data point dayto day how are they doing how are they responding to those daily um checkpoints so that's why that is so critical uh first I think that was a that was a worthwhile exercise discussion um so you're all done Cheryl I'm Al done to you're on do you have anything left huh or do we Ste all your well wanted to talk to you about math no I'm just kidding um listen we um you know I think both you know PTO um Cheryl and K have talked about some things that have been going um we've just had some really great things going on at school we had our uh February community meeting uh was focusing on relationships uh and Black History Month um we had honor Black History Month
116with classes researching uh prominent black Americans we have um our posters that we've lined through the cafeteria hallway it's our highest traveled space um you know and then what I did is I took pictures of those and shared them out with the staff so it could be you know some digital learning walks for um teachers during their uh morning meeting times um we felt really proud of some of the great work um that has happened there uh we had a parent Academy on the 29th and it focused on um supporting families and students around mental health um and specifically anxiety and I think I was really impressed because I think it's one of those things that isn't always talked about isn't always admitted it's kind of a there's a lot of social stigma and barriers
117and things that way to say like hey you know like hey my kid needs some help with reading as opposed to like hey my kid needs some help with mental health right um and and we really tried to be able to have um you know a bunch of our staff here to be able to support families really well attended uh and we found kind of a a really great time uh we started at 4:30 really good people could get kids off the bus get set get here have some food some Child Care uh and we're planning to have another one on the 9th of uh April going to be focusing on Executive functioning uh and so we're really excited about that we had read Across America day uh where we celebrated by having our buddy
118classrooms so we've got um our older classrooms are um connected with our younger classrooms they have their buddy classrooms uh and the older students were reading to the younger students uh really kind of a a good reconnection for that um and then our younger students sort of repay the favor as the older students go to take smarter balance in April the younger kids um they build out um all these posters like don't not give up you're great you they put Donuts on it it's adorable um and we have a little pep rally and the you know the little kids are like yay you're great and we play music and you know we get all fired up and we send the kids back and really try and you know we try and make it a big
119enough deal so that kids take it serious they feel supported but they're not feeling pressured um and so it's kind of a way to be able to connect all of that our Invention Convention took place yesterday which was amazing uh we're sending on several students um who are moving forward as representatives from BCS uh and just giving them a shout out alongo and alakia uh had a they had an invention that um had a detection whether or not there was carbon monoxide to be able to open a window so that that didn't stay in the house and um and protect uh folks and pets uh Sam and Paul BL had a building black it was a whole invention designed to help them with their chore of doing recycling for their family uh Luke pilage um
120had the plumberry and he had designed a specific fertilizer that was all natural so that you weren't putting chemicals on your strawberries and then he's tying it into a science fair project I'm super excited um his brother Ethan had the boredom Bob which was a minion that he had programmed in to be able to have things for suggestions if kids got bored and would have like all these things like pay somebody a compliment or was adorable um and then uh Indigo Ratner had the spray shine glow brush which my daughter would very much enjoy I told her it wouldn't work too well for my hair um but it was a brush that had um a spot for spraying conditioner so it was like a twoin one invention um and those are just the kids that
121like Are Moving on but there were you know we had a watch that had a you know that was designed to be able to have an alarm and give a medication there was all kinds of Amazing Inventions just really great to celebrate kids um and then Unified sports restarted today so we're really excited to get that great program um back up and running um we're looking forward to women's History Month uh we're going to be doing something similar but using the bulletin boards and then doing a learning walk throughout the school for uh for classes we've got community meeting in March uh grade one's going to be presenting and then we got conferences on the 20th and the 21st uh and and then our student Leadership Council is going to be holding a toiletry drive
122to benefit youth Continuum uh we have our staff's stepup challenge starting next week um and then last but not least you kind of heard from uh PTO our grade level team leaders are working with us to develop plans for field trips and get all those planned scheduled and and done by the end of the year so we're really excited some really great um opportunities for kids to to learn offsite and really kind of make some really lasting memories and anchor points for the year so um we're forever thank grateful um dollars help you know like it makes it doable it lowers the burden on families um you know and inflation hits everything and so it's really great to be able to have that support um for our families and our kids so that's what we
123got going on that's what's coming up question yeah you said something about parent anxiety and child anxi anxiety do you see kids coming in are very anxious they don't know the Fair the unknown kids coming to school for the first time kids transitioning from fifth to sixth grade kids from sixth grade start thinking about going to mhm Junior High yeah so at the start of the year you're probably going to see fairly high levels both in parents and children do you see those levels coming down I mean are you able to and this is a serious question you know and maybe it's just I'm I'm no we weal so um Miss laskan Ariel laskan who's our school social worker who was one of the folks who was running that really talked about it that like
124everybody has a little feeling of anxiousness right it's it's you know the there's there's a typical amount and then we really try and think about what is what is an atypical amount and so we really try and work with families to be able to support and think about what they need you know and we try and put a lot of things in place like for kindergarten we know that there's going to be a bunch of that and ially and so we have our kindergarten orientation where they come in and we try and be able to support that way or for say like sixth grade moving on we have a day where they go over and they have their field day um we work with the middle school and they give them a bit of a
125tour around the building so we try and really build in some of those things to be able to assuage some of those worries or fears that go that way at the end of the year we have students um you know traveling up to meet the next year's teachers see some of what the rooms look like learn about some of the things they're going to be doing so we try and be able to give some of those supports ahead and then if we see that a kid has something um you know additional we we you know we address in kind we have that tier one level where we support in every classroom and then you know we have our you know we got school psychologist our social workers you know our our whole crew but you
126see it here at the start and hopefully you see it here at the conclusion of the year I it depends I think it's Case by case student specific I think it's student it's student and family specific you know and I think that's the it goes back to the quote be kinder than necessary because everybody's fighting the battle you don't know and so I think you got to learn about you know who's in front of you and how you can help them and the coping strategies to be able to address when you go through times that are more stressful right that was something they really focused on and let gave the family some little little cards to um have strategies to do and even how to talk to kids when they're going through a stressful time
127and giving them a quiet space in the in their room or in the house somewhere where they can go just kind of decompress things like that okay just something when you talked about it you it just triggered something yeah all right that was I think very informative thank you very much everybody good questions good answers and good conversation so Cheryl you're done Tommy you're done I'm on and the only thing I have um is the spring parent open forum and not been historically well attended or attended and the question is whether we really want to do it um you know if the board feels strongly about it one way or the other we can still have it if the for board doesn't feel strongly about one way or the other you know no one shows
128up for all intents and purposes um so it's just something to think about and if you're interested in having we'll have th vote some dates and set but this is up to you guys this just a spring or the fall like you're talking about across the boorder neither neither of them we would have this conversation again in in in uh in June because neither of them are very well attended if at all I mean I think a number of years there's been one or two people no you know so it's just something think about uh if you want to have it schedule it Donna can send out some dates if you don't want to have it we don't have to schedule I think there's value to it um I don't the last one I attended
129there wasn't a lot of attendance and questions but the one before that there had been I think it's worth continuing send out dates okay no problem I cond it to one if that's the case I do remember I remember there's being sometimes where there's a lot of people but a lot of times they say okay what do you have and everybody just says I'm wait for somebody else ask something I just was going to listen in that's more so what we see a lot of times you need that conversation starter somebody to open up Pandora's Box and then the rest flows and that actually might be a a good conversation do we want to encourage participants to submit questions beforehand so that we have topics to cover maybe somebody doesn't want to in a public
130forum ask the question that they want to ask but they'll submit it to be read off so I can oh I'm sorry so I just saying that it's a good idea so I was going to just share that I know that um The Amity board had tried to um kind of follow what we were doing and and went to trying to do an open Forum kind of thing but they didn't want to just have it at be uh everybody show up in a free-for-all and they did that same thing where they had people submit questions ahead of time and then kind of condens them down well we got 15 of these questions that were basically the same so we summed them up and said people had questions about this and then they went and had
131the board kind of answer it to each other but little less of a go back and forth but pre prescribed plan more than again if we don't need to necessarily have it twice a year if we're looking at the attendance being low if there's just stuff people want once maybe a one a year well then would you rather do it in the spring or would you rather do it in the fall i' would say the Fall's more prudent so people can get their questions answered earlier you know and put things in action for their kids through the balance of the school year as it B I don't do we have a record of what the attendance has been like maybe the last two years spring vers fall it's usually more well attended in the fall
132because in the spring you're combating a lot of the springtime better people aren thinking about summer what that people aren't focused on summer know everybody sports are kick starting ready everybody's ready to go they then why don't we plan on doing one uh early fall Donan float dates and at the same time we figure out some way to get a question ero so that people can questions beforehand does that make sense everybody on board with that or somebody want to something better all right then let's let's float it that way we'll plan on doing something like September October and getting a questionnaire out um yeah it's more so just a simple form of you submit your questions to us yeah let them submit them we can read them and uh and go from there okie
133dokie moving right along that's all I had um Kate we've covered everything else I mean we've been we've been visiting um correspondence nothing public comment second reading come on down state your name and address for the record Melissa Z 191 Ro um I wanted to um it was brought up about the use of tutors um I 's a tutor for my son he left third grade last year um reading below at reading at grade level that was the first time that he's ever not met grade level when he left the great and that's including my son was in kindergarten when the school sh come for Co he left kindergarten he left everything so I looked and I said I need to help him and so I hired a tutor over the summer for him who
134was who was a former teacher at the school and um she started working with him in August is um and then you know the goal was weekly but you know life happens vacations whatever um and she's been working with him almost weekly almost by we every other two week every other week on his reading and his reading scores have shot up tremendously he's even listen when she's working with him he has become such a more confident reader than he was um even going into fourth grade and then I made it know to his um at the beginning of the year that he is working with the tutor and I looked at it as a partnership I said because like and the thing with homework too is that I was trying to work with him in
135third grade trying to get him where he needed to be he's getting frustrated I went to the teacher what can I do I was getting frustrated he's getting frustrated and when that frustration level is like it's all bets wrong right we just can't do it so hiring a reading to has been honestly the best for because they they respond differently to somebody other than their parents right I get a different response so his teacher reached out to me about a month ago and with some concerns regarding his math which I've seen again with a struggles with homework um with his map we see it nightly it's a struggle so now she's working with him on his Ma and we alternate reading math reading math um she's only just started working with him on math but
136I don't look at it as detracting from what the teachers are doing here I look at it as a team you know there's he's in the fourth grade fourth grade is the largest class largest grade in this building and has been since he's been a kindergarten and he may not be able to get all that attention he needs so hiring a tutor and I think I'm like I'm actually lucky that I have needs to to pay for a tutor for him there's parents out there there's may not be able to so I don't look as necessarily a bad thing that's got he needs thank anybody else name long stream sorry wanted to add with the issue excuse me you name and address Naomi Rosenstein North hon driver thank you um with regards to the open
137fors in the past I've attended every open Forum since my son started here in prek 3 he's in second grade um there are plenty of parents that are on I just like to point out that in most open forums less than half of the Board of Education members are on that's all [Music] Octavio gonal 35 kimberlain um I attended uh this week's um coffee hour um where um Cheryl and and Tom did a really great job with talking about um some of the the data that we got from I um I thought it was very pretty well attended and it was really an Engaged group we had a lot of great questions from the parents which I thought was really reassuring um my request during that um during that kind of discussion via the chat
138and my request to the board today as well is to consider is to have a discussion an honest discussion about um putting the I ready scores and the um spack on the report cards and here's why um it's an objective source of data um as we saw today um an immense amount of not only resources but time and effort is being placed on um improving those scores yet as a parent when I go and I talk with my teacher uh with my students with my student teacher um I get tons of excellent data right how is he doing in school both subjectively and objectively um and that's really good but I don't know how he's doing in comparison to other students across the state yes this data gets sent to me once right um I
139may or may not look at it I tend to look at it like Sean I appreciate your line of question very data driven I love it um and Cheryl like you mentioned um yes it's just one piece of data but we need to look at all of the data so why not put this data also on the report card so that the parent can have a discussion with the teacher and say this is how he's doing the IR already this is how he's doing under class let's talk about why they're the same or let's talk about why they're not the same thank you thank you very much okay thank you anybody else going once going twice ask one question does is someone checking online to see if any parents are submitting comments yes answer I
140was I okay I I just I didn't know if the people online following us along have the opportunity to submit a question to be read at public comment I was never thank you did I get no I'm I'm just asking I was just thinking that we used to check online for the oh it your pH no I was just wondering if something was I didn't see a computer up oh we're going to get your building alert soon I'm ready I so there's nothing coming in well and you're going to check your so just give it a second folks maybe we could add that to the announcement of the public comment like hey by the way if you're online feel free to well I thought there were I was always under the impression that there were
141two uh methods that uh alerted us to the fact that there were questions and I thought Kim was one and and K was the other one it just turns out that K is the only one and she no got nothing just make sure NOS left out so just bear with us for a second okay so americ uh we have to go into executive session so let's take three minutes have to make a motion oh make a motion to go in executive session and invite k some second all in favor five minutes please back here 27 thank you we're not coming back into public session after that no you go in just close by bye online friends shall we St it is Frid dress down Friday tomorrow thank you have a great day e for e
142for e for e for e for e