BOE Meeting 11/08/2023

001flag United States and to the repic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all I I'd like to make a motion to change the order of the meeting agenda to allow for the first opportunity of public comment to occur before the PT report um and the reason why I'm requesting this is because I'd like to uh give our first select woman an opportunity to come up to the podium before she has to run to a meeting she has a presentation for our output and order that members okay motion's been made to change the order of our agenda today do I have a second so move second John pa uh any questions or discussion before we proceed to a vote caring none I'll call for the vote all those in

002favor of changing the agenda as proposed please indicate by saying I move any opposed any extensions motion passes the agenda has been changed thank you so uh we come to our first opportunity for visitors public comment um if you could please state your name for the record PA 27 Connecticut first the town um I thank you for this opportunity to amend the meeting to because I have to run to my B meeting um there are three members that are stepping down tonight this is their last meeting and just wanted to kind of recognize them and thank them for their service um I'm going to start with Lynette you've been on the board for six years these are CER certificates of appreciation that they're homemade I made them it's not something you buy office office stap

003website I made them so artistic ability is not the best but it's it comes from the heart with appreciation for your service so if you want to come on know if your husband did the graphics would have been perfect 12 years that was my understanding times of a child PCS um but thank you once again for your service that's dedication for everybody that's on the board um you know you're volunteers it's time it's dedication and we appreciate it so if you'd like to come up I don't know how artistic you are but bear with my ability [Applause] soow thank you make me feel good thank you Chris we saved the best for last the chair we all the best you are all best that is true but as the head of of the board you

004know you kind of guide how things sort of flow and that's a dedication and of responsibility I know um you take The Good the Bad and the Ugly and but you you muddle through and you make it over so thank you for your 12 years I believe 14 14 gave wrong number it's I'll have words with her later I'll be at my meeting but if you come and certificate so for your 14 years so I did go by 14 and a half isn't it 14 and a half 14 so thank you thank you thank youate thank you thank you everybody your service and your dedication to the children and the town it's appreciated it's it's an important important job so uh enjoy the rest of your meeting I know enjoying mine so have a good

005night good you good night thank you right we continue with uh further opportunity for public comment I see we have at least one so I'll note the usual generals we'll ask you to come to the podium uh state your name for the record ask you to limit your comments to 3 minutes and I reserve the right to limit uh discussion on any particular topic to uh 15 we've never got I I also came tonight to thank the three departing members U for their service to the town um that do I don't know that well but the and uh Chris for your service particularly uh these have been a tumultuous 12 years with the pandemic uh remote learning and uh coming back together to rebuild the schools um when I served in this board 14 years

006ago and I resigned to join the 's board uh someone said who should replace uh me and it was suggested that Chris P and I put his name forward and the head of the Democratic town committee at that time said is he even a Democrat and I said I don't know he's very qualified and uh so uh thank you for your service andette as well and also uh congratulations to uh the new members of the board and the recent election uh and I'm sure you'll all be in good hands so thanks so much thank you did I sayling from you did not I'll have words with you later you have a lot of words thank you so I was actually um prepared to make these statements after the PTO report so kind of use a

007football term with an audible here so with me Melissa 191 Ro I you guys be very proud of these um football team consists of 11 that's half of the team of boys from Beth fourth and fifth graders n 10 they won champ team have made this part we going to regs the boys are if you drove by the field C right now otherwise he'd be here wearing this um but I do want to um at the game I prior to the game I reached out to M and Mrs bir um to let them know that the boys were playing and they showed up for these boys they were at that game as well as three teachers Mrs dear M Mr G and Mrs he that meant the world to those boys that meant the world

008to parents to see the support from their Community while they played their hearts out I emailed them support but I wanted to publicly acknowledge in this forum thank you for coming out to support our boys not just my boy bethan boys orange boys Bri Bo and then them go thank you anyone else wish to address the board here at our first public okay hearing none will move on there will be another opportunity for visitors public comment at the end of our agenda we return to our usual order with the PTO report could you please state your name and of the p and like I just said ith grader and um class so of 63 we were truly impressed with all the creativity of the home so thank you everybody for participating in that um our

009P sale is over um we are able to donate a total of 31 Li pies this year 12 are being donated to school uh 10 are being donated to um Beth seniors and nine are being donated to the nagat edal Outreach Network for free Thanksgiving Community din so thank you to everybody who purchased pies and donated pies um the pi distribution is scheduled for November 21st we're still working out the logistics of how that's going to work so once we get that all nailed down we'll be mailing out um how to pick up Pi if you purchase uh other thing that just ended was the book fair um we did record breaking sales um I'm still doing the financials but it was every year we it I just want to thank everybody from all volunteers

010the teachers our set up um our parents who work the fair who broke down the fair is amazing um and because of gener the generosity of all the parents um every teacher that U made a wish list we were able to fulfill and purchase all the books that the teachers have made in wish L for so thank you very much for that um and also during uh book fair week was also future conferences we were able for teachers on their late night conferences so thank you to everybody who donated um the desserts Don money what we have going forward is on November 14th we are hosting a free internet uh safety webinar for children well for parents saf their children uh if you're interested in doing that um log on to our PT board we're

011asking for you to register about 24 hours before the event Zoom link so you can participate in that our next meeting uh is next Thursday at 6 o' here in the library we do have light refreshments and child care available and um we're getting ready to start our snowflake shop which is going to be in December we are asking for donations of um wrapping paper holiday wrapping paper holiday gift bags my understanding is that there's a box set up in the main office to get those Collections and we'll take that because um make their purchases we want to be able to wrap them to help keep help the kids keep those presents PR purchas that um picture retake day is going to be November 28th and after the busy couple months we've had this actually

012seems like not a lot so we're all just kind of Tak a rebreather and resetting so thank you everybody for your support thank you thank you and thank you for everything you do for this right we move on to our presentation of a report on student achievement Mr Reed Swale and other BCS staff thank you for being here today probably it's really bright walk every stff sorry it's big screen all right so um we're going to go through uh a bunch of data as as we typically do every um every fall we go through um we go through our results from the smarter balance assessment um we're going to go through some of that I want to share this with a caveat that this is um this is always a chance for us to be

013able to share that with you but it's really a chance for us to be able to share the shine and the hard work um that the teachers are doing on behalf of the kids on behalf of the community um and so every time you see a graph it's really representing and I think it's really important to think about it's really representing kids and it's representing their hard work and it's representing their learning and the hard work of the teachers that got them there so um all right so uh to just kind of set the stage for previously um we used to have uh the Connecticut Mastery test I was a kid of the first gen Connecticut Mastery test I mean it was Norm reference data right so it was always it was all the way

014you would get a percentile Rank and so you were a kid in third or fourth grade and you'd be told wow you're doing great you're in the 90th percentile or you're not doing so great you're in the fifth percentile and it really was sort of gut-wrenching for kids to kind of get that and think like I'm not doing good enough and so um what they did as we shifted was to now what we have for the smarter balance which is Criterion reference that the state sets an expectation if the kids meet that expectation then they're saying to have met that expectation at a three or going beyond that expectation at a four um and it really kind of gets away from that idea that if you're Norm referencing somebody's always going to be in the

015first percentile no matter how good the entire state of Connecticut does right um so uh the other thing that's really beneficial for um the work that we're doing on smarter balance is that it happens uh year over um and the state sets growth targets for every child and so we're able to be able to take a look and get that growth data as well so the first thing that we're going to look at is achievement data so when we talk about Smarter Balance scores this is what you think of you think of the achievement data how well did kids do right and so for the state they set an expectation for all third fourth fifth sixth seventh and eth we only go up to sixth um for all those students um and that's what we

016think of when you see the smarter balance scores that are reported out were given out through Ed site from the state what you want to think is did they get a high enough score to meet St meet expectations and so the state measures that at being at a level three or a level four the kids get a raw score but it comes out as either a level one two three or four and so when we say meeting that expectation it's a level three or four right and so um this is our um math achievement scores so it's taking a look at the last two years prior to the pandemic you'll notice there's no data in 2020 we didn't take smarter balance in 2020 um and then the state didn't report out for 2021 in the

017typical way that they do um so that's why the state data isn't there um what we'll see is that um as we're going longitudinally across um from 2018 up to 2023 we've got a slightly upward trend for our um for our math data and you'll notice that the trend across the state is actually losing ground pre pandemic um and so this is one of those things that we've been talking about where a lot of districts are trying to figure out how do we get back to we're trying to think about how we're continuing on so when we look at it this is a breakdown um by grade so our grade three four um five and six scores so the blue um is the percentage that are meeting expectations uh and the yellow is the percent

018that are approaching or not met um what we've seen both last year and this year is that we have that drop off from fourth to fifth um but what we are seeing is positive Trends so if you look at um our grade three data in 22 you'll see that our grade four data has gone up 5 percentile points right when we go um from our grade five to our grade six they picked up um they picked up 15 perenti of points the challenge that we have is those students going grade four to grade five and we'll talk about some of that in terms of our Reflections on the data and our next steps that we're going to be taking all right everybody I've got the ELA um so just taking a look at our Ela

019data our whole scho um data over the past um 5 six years what you'll notice is that we are holding strong um we're at 72% meeting expectations while the state is um trending downwards going down about 6% um so we again as M Reed said we're thinking about how we can take our school further and grow those scores even more um while people in the state are focusing on that learning loss so just taking a look at by grade so this is just a really great way to look at the cohorts so if you take a look at fourth grade and then take a look at fifth grade uh I'm sorry third grade to fourth grade the following year so third grade went from 73% to 82% the following year um and then taking a

020look at that fifth grade cohort to sixth grade the following year 66% to 67% so they're holding strong that sixth grade while it looks like it got it went down if you follow the cohorts they're just Holdings wrong they're staying the same and then taking a look at our ngss achievement score so we're really proud of our success the reasons why you might see those numbers fluctuate is it's a different cohort every single year so it's only tested in fifth and eighth grade um but we're really proud of these scores um really great scores coming out of um fifth grade every single year using our amplify science curriculum and one of the things to consider when we look at that science data is it's a small Cort right in any case so it's always looking

021out of a sample size your our n size is 55 you know so three kids could have an off day and we look terrible or they have the greatest day of their lives and we look broken so when we look at some of these things and that gets to when we talk about subgroups right we're going to take a look at some subgroup comparisons and for us as a small District there's lots of advantages right we know everybody we we can drill down to specific students very easily one of the challenges is that our sample sizes are really small so sometimes that can be misleading for our dating um so uh when we look at our school right we can really look deeper um there's several different ways that the State um extrapolates out our

022data for us into different subgroups one of them is uh a group called our high needs um and that's uh that's a designation created by the state um in that high need subgroup uh is students who are um who are receiving English language learner um Services students who are receiving special education programming or um students who are deemed low socioeconomic status um those are students who qualify for free or reduced uh price cions um the other things that we can look at are um subgroups like race and ethnicity and gender for further information um one of the challenges is that we get really small sample sizes when we drill down for specificity um and so what we can look at is that we want to ensure that we're being able to report out responsibly but

023we don't want to be able to we don't want to be reporting out and then compromising the confidentiality of children we only have three students who might fit one particular category which we report out on their on their scores we're reporting out their scores um so we want to really mindful on that so um one of the categories um we combine um students uh who are considered black or African-American Native American Alaskan native and two or more races have been combined into uh a category of um other unra and ethnicity to ensure that we're not reaching confidentiality for those students so this is our um this is our math achievement by race and ethnicity um one thing to notice when we look at our students uh who um who are in the category of Hispanic

024um and Latino um we have been able now that um that group has a larger sample size um of the 19 students who are um considered in that section we have 10 of those 19 students are receiving um English language learner Services um and not as an excuse but to think about the fact that language acquisition is approximately a sevene um a seven-year Endeavor and so if those students are receiving that service it's something for us to consider when we look at that data and think about what are the ways in which we can support these students to help and grow and do better uh this is uh Ela achievement results by race and ethnicity um this is our uh math achievement by gender um and then um our Ela achievement by gender and then

025this is our math achievement um for our uh High needs subgroup and our non- high needs subgroup and so um again this is one of those where we see a significant disparity and so we're really trying to think about what can we do to support those students who are falling into that high needs category doing the best that we can for those students to help them achieve with their non High needs views that's our pla for subgroups right growth data okay stay with me everybody because growth data gets a little confusing for me all right so first thing we're going to do is growth rate so the state what what they do is they take each student and they take their sumita of score so that's their SBA score and they set a target for

026each student so if they reach that Target then they are counted into our growth rate so that's going to be the dark green on the uh graph there so if they meet that Target they're included our growth rate and that's that's our dark rate all right then we have percentage of Target grow this is going to be your light green on the graph so this basically means it's the average percentage of how much growth was achieved so they set that growth Target for every kid and then how much did they achieve of that growth Target so if even if they didn't make it they're still going to tell you oh they've made 75% of the way or 80% of the way okay so some considerations to think about so for percentage of Target growth averages

027it's it should be noted that the state of Connecticut caps our growth at 110% so it will not include those kids if they made more than 100 110% growth so they cap us there so it means when we have a student with a lot of growth that growth is truncated at 110% which eliminates outliers but also isn't a full picture of our growth so just some other data for you in ela we had 70 out of 161 students um with 110% growth or more um so and then we had 44 students with an actual growth percentage over 150% and a Max of 410 per. so you think about how much growth that is that's a tremendous amount um and then in math 70 out of 161 students with more than 110% uh growth and 35

028students with an actual growth percentage over 150 Max 329 okay so this is whole school math growth data so that light green is the percentage the average percentage of growth made so you can see we started at 62% and now 79% is the average percent of uh growth made like towards that Target the green is our growth rate so last year 56% of students met their growth Target Ela we've gone from 63% to 74% students making it towards that growth Target and then 57 % have met that Target yeah with that truncation of the at the upper end at 110% you have the actual data so you could calculate these growth rates without trun right correct and because this may be a seiling you know 72 73% trun 11% might prev commitment so do you

029have have you done that like we might actually be continuing to impr AC 19 yeah that would be interesting to see yeah part of it which is really interesting so to eliminate outliers they they cap the they don't have a negative growth um so if say a student backslid they stop them at zero and of a student y yeah on both so it's definitely something that I can I can take a look at and and looking um further back to try and look at some of that growth data take a close look at I also do have the the Box the for thank you appreciate that I apologize I have to fail I that's okay go for it all right all right down by uh by great okay by great so some of the highlights

030to take from here is grade four 92% % is the average um to their target and grade six 90% so 67% met their actual Target in sixth grade but the average um towards that Target was 90% so almost there and then Ela um we're averaging around that 70 70% range 75% range for um towards their growth Target um and then by grade we're really around that 60% range you're next all right I'm up okay sorry all right so one of the things to think about we talked about this a little bit earlier is when we look at um when we look at our data we want to look at longitudinally across cohorts right and so previous viously you might ask yourself like how are your third grade scores doing and that's great except that like

031every year we get a different version of third graders and so what we want to take a look at is we want to see how are those cohorts progressing across um and so um in that way we can see how students are doing from year to year to year um and so this is our Ela data um and so you'll see we've got a nice upward trend for that class of 2022 um and you'll see that there's there's some bars that are missing and ultimately that's where we have that that 20 uh that 2020 um iteration of the smarter balance that's not there um and so we're working to try and ensure that we've got that upward Trend um it's not as consistent as we would like um but we're also looking and that's a

032lot of the work that we're trying to do both at a younger age really looking at that science of reading work that we're doing across our K you know k6 across but really really trying to get that solid foundation what we've been finding and what's been happening is a lot with that reading work um is that we're finding that kids are doing really well into fifth grade because a lot of kids are really good at memorizing things and so they're just memorizing words just site words they've just got thousands of words memorized and at some point they just top out and so what we're really trying to do is make sure that they've got an Exceptional Foundation so that they can be able to really decode new and novel words as they move forward um

033and we can ensure that Trend moving up um math has been a little less consistent um and so we're really trying to take a look at and ask those questions like why is that right we can't be afraid of the data we'll share it when it's good we'll share it when it's got some areas to grow and so part of that that we want to take a look at and you'll see we tend to get that drop into fifth we've recouped it into sixth but it'd be really great if we weren't recouping into sixth then we were continuing on and so part of our next steps is to really think about how do we eliminate that drop um so inevitably somebody's going to ask well how you doing compared to your friends glad you asked

034so um we will constantly be compared to our boa and I think that that's really important we're going to lean into that um but it's also really important to think about going to our typical peers right so when you look at the state of Connecticut they have what are called District reference groups or durs and so those dgs are um there's several different factors um to create those durs but it's really trying to think about how can you compare town to town um that are similar to each other so across those 169 towns durs are split from a dur a all the way to a dur I um and we are in dur SE should be noted uh that all of um our other boa peers would Bridge orange and Amity are in dur B

035when we think about dur B you can think of towns like Avon Greenwich Guilford West Harford and Fairfield when you think about dur sea towns included in dur sea are towns like Andover tand Hein Suffield and Summers and can because I'm from can we got a chip on our shoulder with Avon just saying uh so comparing to the state of Connecticut so um another thing that we can do um is thinking about um not only how we're doing against our bow appears but also like when we look at the 186 and 187 it's slightly different because of the sample sizes that I have and so on Ed site there's only so much public data that you can get um how do we compare to those other districts across the state uh and so when we

036look at Ela we ranked 31st out of 186 or we were in 84th percentile um when we look at math we were 27th out of 187 reporting districts um in the 86th percentile um and so are those are those to k6 numbers or to K8 those are going to be 38 numbers so I didn't extrapolate out yeah so I didn't extrapolate out just average for the of what grades are included in that and the challenge with some of that and this is where when I go to the when I really try and look at it through dur um the challenge is that some districts like Amity is just 78 right whereas other districts like us are only 36 and some are even lower than that because they go to a reg you know they're going

037their sixth grade is up in a region and they stop at 5 all right um so uh I took a look so it to think in terms of comparisons to where we um landed out for our overall achievement scores uh we were within a point or two one way or the other uh for El or math of towns like glenberry Fairfield Guilford Ellington Essex um and reading which was a dur game uh so this is how we compared against uh boa uh so you'll see we're um we're right line with our peers um that's in math this is in ela and this is achievement by the way this is growth um so when you look at it um we're we're really holding steady against our peers um for growth and then that's Ela growth as

038well so en Amity in those numbers really just create correct that's all y so one of the things that I I wanted to take a look at was well we can compare to B all day long but also like how are we doing against dur C and so this was pre- pandemic this is 2019 data dur C and this is only towns that I could get um publicly sharable data for grades 3 four five and six so if you had a district that was 3 to8 we went and took out seven and eight and only compared ourselves against their 3 to six students so pre- pandemic we were 66% for um math right even with um those uh with those districts in dur SE we were 10th post pandemic um we've gone to 68 we're

039fourth in our dur against comparable peers and outpacing the average by six percentile points for ELA uh we were eighth at 72% um we were slightly above the average pre- pandemic and then post pandemic uh we were 7 percentile points above that average for dirt SE um ranking fourth in that dur against uh towns that I could find comparable data something I want to point out about these data our numbers have gone up a little our ranking has gone up a lot yep that's because the average has substantial pandemic loss we hav't and so I just want to call out that you know as the success of our school and thank the staff for insulating our kids against that loss keeping them right on we've seen that in several of the slides you've shown keeping

040them right on course despite the buffeting of 2020 and 2021 yeah and and I think that that's something that we've been you know it's something that we were really mindful of to try and think about what can we put in place to make sure that we're doing the best for every kid to be prepared as we're moving forward um all right uh so one other thing and and and so we've just taken all this time to share all of this smart or balance data it's really important to recognize that it's one example of data a child is not defined by one score on one test that they took over 3 days in the middle of May when they were looking outside and they were going God it's a beautiful day outside right so we need

041to be really mindful that we're dealing with children we're dealing with children's achievement and that it's only one way that we look at data and we can't really just look at it only that way which is why when we come back in the winter we'll be taking a look at several other aspects of data that we use to really look at children on a whole basis some of that is our I ready we have Dibbles DSA patent core we have our interim assessment benchmarks from the smarter bals our fact fluency unit quizzes and tests um projects and class assignments um and it's really important that we think about not only looking at smarter balance and these but really triangulating those and looking at how we get a trend for children and really thinking about that

042whole child okay some of our takeaways from the data so Ela continues to see strong results in both achievement and growth um our math data shows um achievement and growth surpassing pre-pandemic levels and averse to the state Trend which is going uh which has gone down pre pandemic uh since pre pandemic there continues to be a drop off in fifth grade math which we are going to address in our next steps in a moment um the subgroup data based on race gender and high needs um show an area of focus for us in the future and then compared to our dur and booa town peers Bethany's results show the positive impacts of all the work done by staff during and since the pandemic so like everybody has said it's been a true team effort here

043at BCS um so you can go ahead sorry sorry no so we took a look at it and we wanted to try and think about our next steps in in sort of two ways right the first way is to really think about well this is really good I feel like we've been doing a pretty good job why have we been doing a good job what has been working right what do we want to keep and so several things that we're going to continue to do is we're going to focus on that srbi that mtss process really thinking about students that need additional support or intervention um we've got our boost Academy we have data teams where teachers are really getting together and talking about data and having instructional outcomes from that and then our case

044review is to really look not just at data on an overall school or a grade or a class but on a kid level how is this child doing um we're going to continue to identify students who met or exceeded in previous grade but did not in their most recent assessment and how we can get them back to where they were um we're also going to take a look and have um staff implementing those iabs from the smarter balance um they really help support um success and really now at this point we're getting a lot more specific in those assessments and we're getting a lot more data from them um and then finally we're not just going to focus on student achievement but the social emotional well-being of children right so happy kids do well academically

045well- cared for kids do well academically and so that's a really important part of the work that we do okay some more next steps so um what we did was we updated the summit schedule this year to include a significantly more time in math um 80 minutes versus 40 minutes last year we did not invent time um we revamped our schedule so um previously there was a Wind Block we combined the Wind Block with um all of the other blocks across the um schedule and science and social studies are being switched every other day so we got some feedback from staff who asked um like for a science for example to be a longer block of time which would be nice for them to do experiments and really dive into things um versus the 40-minute

046block where you're setting everything up and then it's time to wrap up so we we worked it out to switch every other day we also departmentalize data teams so we have Summit Ela meeting weekly and Summit math um teachers and science teachers meeting weekly so that means they're more focused and they're meeting more often um in their subject area we're working with our curriculum Department to discuss ways in which we can provide additional professional learning um support to teachers in the area of math um specifically in the area of problem solving um we have a steering committee focus on high quality instruction and then uh professional learning with Margie gills who was here yesterday for a full day um and her team to support small group instruction that implements science of reading at BCS they

047were also here today um working with our teachers right and so one of the things right so so we're really proud of the achievement that we've got but when we look at those right when we look at those graphs right we're we're chasing Woodbridge right it's not a surprise and so spoiler everyone in the state is chasing Woodbridge right they ranked second in ela and third in math right they're 99th percentile across the board so like tip of cap right so we reached out right we don't have enough Pride to say well we're not going to do what they're doing right we reached out and we said well what's the special sauce what are you doing and they said two really big things that they were focusing on one they were think they were really

048trying to look at not just computational math but looking at problem solving how we're applying that math to real world problems and getting kids thinking about and working through and using that computation in problem solving and the second thing that they were doing was they were looking at departmentalizing their data teams so their data teams in the upper grades were focusing on Ela and focusing on math so you'll notice we have two stat right so right if it's working it can work for us right so we're really proud of the work that we've got but we're also really looking and thinking how can we continue to do better and that's two ways that we're trying to implement some of that from you know some of the folks who are doing it best across the state

049um that being said wanted to share uh two other slides um and so uh Smarter Balance isn't um the only way that we can be evaluated right we talked about lots of different data um and so what the state of Connecticut does is they have what's called a Next Generation accountability index it's a whole host of stuff if you want to look up all the data and the percentages it's a whole formula it's super complicated at the end of the day you look and you say how many expected points are you supposed to get what percentage of those points did you get and then they give you a score it's kind of like a school report card right and so when you look at it we got 82.4% of those points it's based on things

050like our Smarter Balance performance our Smarter Balance growth our science performance and growth our attendance our English proficiency our physical fitness all of those things right so um this is one of those things and I I tell people this like I knew this right like there's some of those things you just know as a human being right so I come in every day and I go to bed every night I know that we're doing a good job I know that the people here are working hard I know that they are putting in countless hours I know that they are doing the absolute best they are bleeding for the kids here every single day right I know it I don't need a a score to tell me I know it but it's really great to see

051that that can actually come through in some way to be able to show and codify the hard work and the amazing work that teachers are doing on behalf of kids that our community is doing on behalf of kids for their growth and achievement and so what's really great is that the state thinks so too um and so we've been honored as a school of Distinction which is a really big deal um and it's really hard um so especially for the way in which we got recognized so um based on our performance and having 82.4% of those um points on the Next Generation accountability index boy that's a mouthful um they recognized us as a school of Distinction for high performance right and so there were I believe 135 schools that were recognized as schools of

052Distinction but only 67 out of the 935 were recognized for high performance and so to do so you have to be in the top 10% based on that accountability index that's the score and then you can't be ruled out right so there's ways that you could be ruled out like if you're not in a category one two or three like you've been struggling before in your a turnaround school but all of a sudden you figured it out you're still in that category and they're not necessarily trusting your data so you have to have had a strong Trend along the way you also can't have an achievement Gap you can't just have some of your kids doing really well but some of your kids they're just getting left behind um and then the last bit is

053that you have to have um you have to have participation so you can't just have some of your kids taking it and then others not taking it they want to make sure that every kid is is as many kids as possible are included in that um and so when we look at it we're really looking at um at a school that's achieving something that only 7% of the schools in the entire state were given as a distinction so um we're pretty proud of that we get a banner apparently uh we're not waiting for that Banner we made our own Banner but apparently they're going to give us a nicer Banner but like we already have our own Banner it's hanging in the office y um so this is one of those things like again I

054knew this right and I said this to the staff right were we doing really lousy last year and all of a sudden miraculously we doing better this year no are we doing a little bit better in a bunch of different ways I'm sure but we were doing really well last year and I'm sure we're going to be doing really well next year this year we happen to get labeled as a school of Distinction and trust me as a hyper competitive human we're going to be holding on to that label but it's really something like we were doing well before we're going to be continuing to do that but it's a way to be able to honor all the hard work of everybody in this room right all the people who live in this building all

055the kids who are coming in every day right and they're seeing me on Monday and dragging in right but they're here and they're working hard um and it's really a testament to all that hard work so um it's a huge shout out to our staff and our kids and our families and our community so that's what we've got yeah thank you any board members have uh further questions I could probably come up a few more but I'll we back uh any questions about the DAT I've seen this twice now so I'm I've seen this twice now so I'm I just wanted to comment on one more thing that I think so the outlier score is the B The Fifth Grade B yes it has been we've known this we're working on it continue to work

056on it that's good I love the steps you're taking to address that and I want to note that we consistently recover in grade right so that means yes there's room for improvement in fifth grade and also when we send send our kids on out of here that there's no there's no persisting trouble at he so so yes we need to keep working on it you're doing so I applaud that and also in that context when when our kids leave here they're they're well prepared so that's good to see in the data would be more concerning if there were droping fit that wasn't coming all the way back that would be differ concerned for sure all right thank you very much thank [Applause] you it's always nice to review that date each fall thank you for

057that presentation moving on in our agenda we will uh review and approve a minutes of our October 11th regular meeting I'll entertain a motion to approve those minutes thank you Angelo in a second thank you Amy uh I trust people have had a chance to review any questions Corrections concerns about the minutes as presented in your packet I just make a comment you know there was a lot of discussion on the procedure for the teacher contract and the minutes don't get into that type of detail but I hope in the future that we can uh do something with a u policy or bylaw procedure and uh it use legal counsel to have those recommendations made specifically because I'm not quite sure how different teacher contracts are from other contracts but there's seem to be a

058lot of sensitivity to seeing the contract before we voted on it so it gets irregular and uh I think we could do better for the board to inform everyone so that we're making votes we're confident of sure and to summarize for people who weren't here for that discussion thank you for for raising that we approved our teachers contract at our last meeting and that was done in the same way it has been since I've been on the board which is that um K it was the negotiations committee had already approved the contract and then K presented the changes in the contract language and then we voted on that and there was a feeling on the board that it would be nice to see the full language of the contract not just a summary of the

059changes and that it would be nice to have a little more time to digest those before being asked to vote I thought those were reasonable points this was raised in the last policy committee didn't get to the point of you know we need to do some research and as you said but between now and when the next contracts come forward I'm sure that can be done so uh we can you know either change the process so there is more time or have a very very clear understanding of why this process is the way it is so thank you for raising that the policy committee has already begun to discuss and I trust we'll continue to do so though I won't be here to try not to forget any uh further uh comments on the minutes

060hearing that I'll call for a vote all those in favor please indicate by saying I I any opposed any extensions motion passes the minutes are approved and will be posted on our website we come on to our various committee reports beginning with Asus okay's uh Asus had a regular board meeting October 12th and we heard the typical series of reports uh most notable to me was a report on the construction managers for their project at 88 Basset in North Haven uh the group had just done this big presentation September meeting with an updated cost estimate certification that was approved by the board but in the October meeting the same Architectural Group suddenly resigned uh breaking the contract with ases uh the explanation for them quitting was that it was a large company that was downsizing

061the consequences of their resignation has contract penalties uh but no detail on that was provided at the time so was just rather unusual uh there were also uh two policies offered for first reading titled uh chess feeding and affirmative AC on the chest feeding I did ask if that terminology that includes expression of milk is really necessary and suggested that I thought breastfeeding of any kind would pretty much cover all the bases on the affirmative action there were concerns raised that the former language had not been presented with a proposed language and I'm concerned for contradicting language in that policy but uh there wasn't any time left before the end of the meeting to really cover that closely so that pretty much sums it up thank you any questions for Mrs Bradford about the Asus

062report that she's okay moving on to curriculum um I have don't have much to say because we just basically heard the whole presentation um and then miss Kel in her report will give us an update on PD and uh GR updates I applaud you on an exceptionally efficient final curriculum report oh thank you I actually had like all these notes because I wasn't sure if it would be the whole presentation so all right uh facilities John Paul had had step out has there been a facilities meeting since our last board meeting yes facilities met on uh last week and we discussed some of the uh recent Roofing projects and started to make some plans for how we can proceed with addressing any issues with ro in uh put together a plan for hbac um and

063explore some of the grants that'll be out there for that okay any questions about facilities okay H not I'll move on to finance which I will present finance committee met uh last night by Zoom um I took beautiful notes so uh you have a finance report in your packet which I will briefly review there are a few changes so in general education the projections remain status quo no changes from the preceding month um and that leaves us with an unchanged surplus of $4,560 which comes almost entirely from uh Savings in uh salaries because uh and that's because of new staff who who you know came staff who came in different from the ones who originally budgeted on your PR um I will note one thing on this so you all uh will recall that late

064in the day after our budget was passed we needed to um add a fourth a second grade section because the census had increased and so there was a we added a teacher who wasn't in the original budget and that teacher was paid for out of our non-recurring uh savings account with the town um which sort of our rame kindergarten section kindergarten section as I said sorry my mistake it wasn't second which was already at four rather kindergarten that went up to four um so that added the cost of that added teacher wasn't added to the budget which had already been passed but rather was taken from our rainy day fund our non-recurring or non- lapsing fund that goes um that that's held by the town um and that is not reflected on this budget so

065neither the cost like the the income that's coming in from the non-aps fund nor the expense is reflected in this budget I've asked that in future budget reports that be here as a separate line so that the so that the report reflects the full uh the the full app so just that just to be aware fully covered by the plan that we all agreed on last May um special ed um so if you uh look at the special ed blah BL the special ed benefits is showing a surplus of $23,000 that's due to Insurance adjustments where uh staff are not taking the full Ben full insurance benefits um that were budgeted um the the special ed services line is showing a deficit of $4,190 that's new and that is because um of two students who

066moved into The District in August and enrolled in magnet schools in New Haven and we did not know about this uh until uh just a week ago um so uh we are responsible because they are our students they're students in our district we're responsible for their magnet school tuition so that wasn't reflected previously because we didn't know about it and now we do and so it's reflected as a new uh balance against us in the special ed um put all put this all together we end up with a uh special ed of uh surplus of 70 of $7,888,000 in uh in custodial staff uh benefits shows a surplus of $22,600 that's due to adjustments made insurance coverage also primarily in the custodial Department Services is status quo other line budget line item is also status

067quo these are um uh deficits of a couple hundred dollars and put it all together the operations and overhead um account shows a A marketly reduced deficit uh of $4,055 um add it all up and we have a balance in our favor at the end of August of $443 180 and that puts us in a good position to manage any unexpected expenses that emerge over the course of the year for example uh the roof project which was not originally budgeted but you know it became clear that that was something we needed to do urgently um the total costs I don't think are are clear yet but they're much less than 44,000 and so we're well covered for things like that as they come up over the remainder of the year um on the report you

068see uh you don't see a lot of percentage changes and that's just because this early in the year remains you will start to see those in in January probably because it remains uh difficult to compare to when we're this early in the year um any questions about this report that's presented I'm sorry a couple other notes we we are still waiting on reimbursements from ases for Paris salaries as well as prek funds which will uh be in our favor but we don't know the exact amount that's not reflected in this report um and uh that is it any questions about that uh report before we move to accept all right I will make a motion to accept the budget report um as of October 2023 as presented can I have a second let meita thank

069you um any further questions discussion before we move on to a vote hearing none I'll ask for the vote all those in favor please indicate by saying I I any opposed any exensions all right also in the finance committee we talked briefly about the audit which is still underway it's going along firmly going along nicely nothing to report but also no problems uh have emerged um finally we talked a little bit about the budget and I'll take just a moment uh to describe that to remind people of the budget process so for the last couple months you know basically as soon as this year starts uh Kay and Brandy and the rest of the staff begin working on next year's budget and um the starting point that we always ask that in has been our

070process for some years now we asked them to compute a status quo budget the status quo budget is if nothing changed if we kept the same Staffing that we do now if we with you know maybe if there are changes that are you know baked in or that have already happened uh and then take into account contractual increases and so forth and also if we don't include Grant offsets because offsets May fluctuate year to year what would the cost be and that's our Baseline number um last year to REM you the Baseline number was 7.96 increase and then after we went through the adjustments for you know various in the various departments and so forth added in the grant offsets the final budget was 3.58% so this um status quo budget is a high number

071that's kind of the starting point for the work that happens over the next couple months um I and I know others were anxious about the status quo budget because of the uh salary increasing salary costs and inflation but when uh when when um Brandy put all the numbers in the status quo starting point is 8.11% or 0.15% higher than last year so it's puts us in really a very similar place to where we started last year um the um so anyway so so we'll see so now so we'll see where that land over the did I get that right or did I read this wrong because it says 4.4 start this is our status quo and that this is no that was okay I misspoke and actually the numbers aren't quite as good so I

072want to make very clear so I'm not giving a misleading thing so our Peak last year after adding stuff was 7.96 our status quo our starting point was 4.49% so we are a few points higher than our starting point though not than our Peak when things were added I will say that that 8.11% in addition to to including the um contractual increases in salaries and in par salaries certified salaries and other things also includes that one teacher remember I said that that there's that one teacher who we're paying for out of the non-aps account not out of the budget that teacher is included in this 8.11% so it's a true starting point um and we'll see where that goes so what's happening now is Kay and her staff are meeting with all of the different

073department heads and they're saying what do you need from next year not what was your number this year we'll give it to you again but rather what do you need for next year let's build that up from zero and have a true number of what you need next year and some of the Departments will need a little more than last year and some of the Departments will need a little less than last year and those will all go into the um the budget number um which over the next two months K will get those numbers and put them together and I guarantee she'll be ask hard questions about you really need that and did you think of this to make sure that those get us to realistic numbers um then we'll go to other things

074that may impact budget especially Grant offsets so we make estimates of the very conservative estimates of Grant funds that are uh that we can reasonably expect to come in and those will knock a couple perent off the budget and then at the end of the day we'll come to a number of what the uh request for next year is likely to be we'll have a pretty good sense of that in December and a firm request from K in January then between the January board meeting and the February board meeting the board has an opportunity to ask further questions and you know poke and PR on the numbers and say did you think of this and what about this do you really need that um before the budget comes to the board in February for vote

075and approval so in January we have the superintendent's proposed budget and in February we have the approv uh we the board votes to approve the budget so at the very beginning of that process our number is a bit higher than it was last year they're not they're barely higher than our Peak last year um and we will know a lot more over the next two months about how the rest of the um the rest of the anticipated expenses go and how the grants go and where we're going to land so so that is something we discussed um the goal is to present a final budget to the finance committee in December then there's room between then and January for feedback and further discussion and then present a superintendent request in January 12 years ago we

076then had multiple meetings between January and February before we finally got to our budget but in the last eight years the January you there's been enough input in back and forth in questions that the January numbers have been pretty much wor but that's something to be considered at that time questions about the numbers and I again I apologize for my misstatement of the numbers I was going more from my memory than the notes before me and that was an error uh so I apologize for that but uh questions either about the numbers I presented or about the process okay that concludes the financial report we move on to policy policy we did meet um but because of the change with the board members um Amy side to side ahead of time we usually go over

077numerous policies at once and we we talked about it further within the the meeting that we would um just re we would review the mandated policy so that the new board member sitting could then just take on those um because they're mandated and and they're more time sensitive than the recommended revisions and the technical revisions um which weren't as time sensitive so we we touched on a couple which we kind of spoke about who gave her uh was her report um I'm sorry about the meeting minutes approval meeting minutes um so we we won't get into detail this meeting but um they'll I guess review them more detail in December meeting and then the the new board members will have a more of a chance to to review those policies and before they have to

078make a vote right so there'll be some policies for first reading in December but they are policies that are mandated in which there's relatively little scope for discussion and then anything that was scope for discussion was pushed off further so that the new board will have time to come out to speak thank you L questions about policy yeah I just wanted to to bring to your attention um I'm sorry Sue is not here because she might offer some insight but I was looking over the the uh mandates in the policy agenda and I went to try to cross check what was mandated with uh what's represented at C as mandated policies and it it's not matching up so I'm not quite sure why um some of the policies that were in your agendas are titled

079as mandated but if I go to cab they're only recommended I don't know if maybe Sue got different advice from the attorneys or if it's we do get input both from C and from the attorneys okay on what's mandated but it we could one could certainly ask for details on like where that where the Mandate comes from but a lot of the mandated the mandated language does does come from our attorneys okay so maybe Shipman and Goodwin has a list like cave that would be handy if they do have such a thing it would be nice to have so that I'm not confused about what's mandated and what's recommended and to be clear often the mandates like they need to be changed to align with language in the statute but that doesn't necessarily mean that

080every single word like it's not like the statute has the whole policy it says You must do this the statute just change a certain language and then the policy needs to be Rewritten to align with that language but I understand that but um yeah but but yeah it's always the it's always the policy committee's uh prerogative to ask for more information the I'm just trying to reconcile what's mandated and what's not and couldn't do it with P anym um thank you any further questions uh about policy and then we move on to transportation appication is not met uh and that concludes our committee reports we have no unfinished business to return to De we move on to new business uh and we have a discussion of the school calendar yes so all right so this

081evening you're going to see two proposed calendars for your consideration um I've shared with you previously that um some of the rationale for why I'm presenting two different calendars but the first calendar you will see essentially mirrors the dates and times we currently have for this school year and that we've had for years past with the extended weekend in February where we have uh President's Day plus one additional day the second calendar that I'm presenting to you this evening includes a full week off during the month of February and I'm presenting this calendar for two reasons um one was a request from The Amity superintendent to add at least three additional days to the calendar to help extend the school year in order to accommodate the senior internship program at Amity so that many of

082our any students uh that have benefited from that and I know will benefit from that as they transition up to Ami over the years that this program can continue to exist they're currently experiencing a challenge um where it's becoming more difficult to offer students these meaningful internship experiences because of the shortened school year um just so you're aware Amity has to navigate around AP exams which are mandated by the college boards to be within that first two weeks in uh May then they have Memorial Day then they can't do things too far into June because they have to have the students back before graduation to do all of their senior activities and so the internships which used to be about 3 weeks long are now about 8 or n days so um she did indicate

083that they could look at other options for them to consider ways to get more time for the students but I did let her know that in the spirit of collaboration I would present it to you for your consideration as it is your your decision uh the second reason to consider making the adjustment to the calendar um is that our earlier end time in June causes an adverse impact for my special ed program our special ed program um because it increases the amount of time that our students that are identified to receive services are out of school so right now if we were to end on June 9th there were no snow days and you all know I love a good snow day if we were to end on June 9th we're looking at almost three

084and a half weeks of those students being out of school and not having any services and then we have our program and then it's potentially another three and a half weeks three to three and a half weeks on the other end um for those students so that's one of those things where even if we choose not to add the additional days um I just want to be totally forthright and say that might mean we'd have to extend our esy program for our special education students so that they're not out of school as long as they are on either end uh of that programming which obviously has a budgetary impact so uh I also want to just share in full disclosure uh well there was one additional thing that came out uh there are a group

085of students from Amity who I believe sent you all a proposal um with regards to wanting to add additional religious holidays uh to the calendar if not for this proposed calendar the 24 25 year but maybe in the 25 26 year they're looking to have uh the boards of Education in all of the districts within the boa region to consider adding e Al fur and Dali uh which are two Muslim holidays to the calendar Muslim and Hindu Muslim and Hindu holidays thank you for that um so those are some of the reasons uh some other things that have come up since then and I just want to be fully transparent and let you know that orange has not committed to supporting any additional time off February I don't know exactly how that conversation is going

086to go when Dr scarpetti meets with his board um I have had conversation with bonda tensa who's the superintendent in Woodbridge um she's only going to present the kind of I'll call it the traditional calendar the first version of the calendar but is providing all the same background information that I've just shared with you to her board for their consideration um in the calendar and you know as much as we try to align ourselves as the four districts often times we are not aligned right so when I think back to last year we had a later end date because we had a burst pipe we didn't have any school you know Amity Woodbridge and Bethany had one additional snow day orange chose not to have that snow day because there was no snow on the

087shoreline so even though we try to be as aligned as we possibly can sometimes it just doesn't work so that is all the information that I have for you uh regarding my calendar proposal so when he do you need the calendar approve so typically I would present it now and then you all would have to think about approving it in December there's nothing to say that it must be done in December so this board because I realize that this is one of those things that straddles between you know outgoing board members incoming board members it's here now for your consideration you can certainly have me present it again in December and then the board can decide to either vote on it in December if they feel like they have enough information or they can take

088action on it in January okay because it's unusual this year that we don't have more alignment and agreement between the administrations if the administrations are the line and coming saying hey this makes sense we should do it everyone agrees right then it's it's a it's a virtual you know it's a non-decision whereas what you're telling us right now is there isn't alignment and we may we may get there we may not which is a little more complicated so that that's my question so okay does the Bea have an opinion um the when I met with the Bea they supported the second option of the calendar I mean obviously they're they're comfortable and they they've always had the other um calendar but they had no issue and actually thought that people would enjoy having that full

089time off uh in February and you know get some of the coties out of the building which te are you know having that break because once we go back into it there's no other time off until April vacation between the what we I I lovingly call fake Break fake Break in February till April vacation do do you feel like experientially there's a dip in absenteeism following a vacation so we looked at the data and it's actually we do have some Peaks you know that might be outliers we're averaging about an extra 6% uh in terms of absenteeism but it's actually that Friday before so it's not always even the week of the break people take the days before so like the Thursday Friday they take instead of coming back and taking the Tuesday the Wednesday

090Thursday they'll take the Thursday Friday before and then they're out Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday Monday Tuesday and they may come back to school on Wednesday okay so I looking at this and I being at Amity I am aware of the internship issues um if we say that we need to extend the calendar for a variety of reasons my concern is a small group of people just picking that it's February break that we add back in because I think that has potential to have a large impact on families having to take off weeks if we're not going to align with our districts older siblings watching younger siblings and things like that um I think that there should be a little bit personally think there should be a little bit more exploration on where some of these

091can go if we're looking looking to add three you let's say anywhere between two to 4 days to the end of the calendar if the addition of holidays is something that's considered and is going to add two more days to the school year there's two right there so if we adopt February break plus those two now we're looking at 5 days out um I would you know trying to look at the calendar and come up with some other ideas like just to throw out there for parents to we go aate week later maybe we come back a week later there's different school districts I Tred to look into a little bit of research to see how many schools were doing a full February break um I just I grabbed 30 schools that were semi similar

092to us in our area there are four that are doing regular February break um there were two that go back after Labor Day um other things that Poss these are just other ideas that I'm looking at and just throwing out there if we're worried about absenteeism how's that Wednesday before Thanksgiving look for our attendants probably not all that great as my guess if people are looking we're thinking about families I don't personally travel and jump on a plane but I know there are a lot of people that do jump on planes and usually that Wednesday before Thanksgiving is one that maybe staff members family members could use um the day before Christmas Eve that's two days if you did something like that plus if we add the two holidays there's four right there so I

093think it has those things should be considered before just jumping on let's just throw February break back in there there's an 80% of people that want February break back back in the community that by all means do it yeah I think it has to be asked and I think that that data has to be gathered for more than just a small group of board members from each town and four superintendents from each Town yeah we did look at a lot of those and I suspect that this conversation is taking place across the state because we received a caps survey on it and usually caps doesn't send a survey to superintendent say hey do you currently have any of the Muslim holidays or have you considered going back to February break unless there's something else going

094on so yes it was brought to us because of um the question posed by Amity but I suspect that it's it's even bigger than that and certainly I can go back and and try to work out lots of different other options um to the calendar but at the end of the day we'll have to figure out you know do we want to add days number one to the calendar do we want to all do we want to add any of these other holidays if we add the holidays to your point Angelo then we're already extending the day we don't need to necessarily touch the February break but the challenge with some of those holidays is that they don't always land on the same day in any calendar year so it might be that those holidays

095all in one particular year fall on a weekend then it doesn't help us with extending the calendar unless we come up with some sort of policy or practice that says if it falls on the weekend it's a Saturday we'll give we'll have off on the Friday if it falls on the Sunday we'll have off on the Monday so there's I think exploring exploring the options and putting them all on the table and slowly weeding them out would be I think the more prudent action than just jumping right into yes or no next month February break back in or out okay okay one question I had in terms of the districts not being aligned yet for the for emity that's necessary correct I mean it's made up of all of our districts so I mean ideally

096everybody would be the same thing so that the internship if that's one of the main issues yeah it's it's better for them if we're all aligned and it's actually it's more the the the reason that Angelo brought up is that for families that have kids in the different schools it makes it a little bit easier to know that if my third grader is out my seventh grader my high school they're all going to be home at the same time yet it's when we are out and Amity isn't then that creates problems for families we're relying on older children to um little bit of History we had until about 10 years ago the full February break and that was in a period when we were having a lot of snow days several several uh years in

097a row and we were getting pushed well into June and so we cut back on the February break at that time because of uh you know to so that we didn't run the risk of going into late June uh because of snow days it's been a long time since we've had lots of snow days so uh you know that that so from that historical perspective one could go back to uh to the full BRD and then another question I asked K about this so the two holidays um if I remember correctly I think it's a is in the fall in they they both move they're both holidays that move it's usually lunar it's usually follows the lunar calendar and one of them I no I think it's D diali is in the fall Dali is

098like in a week from now in November in November and I is in March next year though again it may move around March is a great time to take off an additional day because the the um you know there's a gap there um but anyway so that but that's that's kind of where they would fall but they they do move around as K pointed out um and the argument is that you we're taking Good Friday off as a Christian holiday we're taking um y Kapur and rashash off as Jewish holidays and to to you know take one day off for um for Islam and Hinduism with that's that's motivating the students request so things to discuss very it's it's challenging being in a conjoin District here right because we can't you know it' be complicated

099for us just to decide without having a clear idea with the is to do okay any further questions or conversation about the calendar hearing none we move on to the superintendent sure that would be me all right so as usual in your packets you'll find the enrollment summaries for 2122 and 22 23 um this year we started uh off with 445 students and as of October 31st uh our enrollment is currently at 44 six so we're holding pretty steady um I don't know that we'll we'll experience a bump in enrollment until if anything in the spring you don't usually have a lot of families moving in in the November to January time frame uh by way of a Personnel update Valerie kman has joined our team as the new BCS office Clerk and lunch Aid

100Brook F has joined us as a special education par professional and uh with mixed REM motions I share that Miss Abby Slater a special education par professional will be leaving her position at BCS because she's continuing her journey to become a teacher Abby will be going into full-time student teaching and so she'll be transitioning onto that and we wish her all the very best as she does that she's been a remarkable uh employee here at BCS any questions on Personnel before I go into my abbreviated version of the budget report because you've already kind of shared it can I go back to the enrollment I may have misunderstood but there's two kids that went to n Haven to a magnet school is that correct so they moved into Bethany the family moved to Bethany and

101then they registered with a magnet school in New Haven New Haven notified us at the end of last week that they had two Bethany students there and they sent us the bill for tuition okay so the students never came and sat in seats here in Bethany that's what I was trying to figure out that didn't minus your numbers okay yeah so they they're not in our our numbers there so thank you for that um and by way of the budget development process as Dr piter said we are well underway tomorrow is actually uh budget Thursday where Brandy and I will sit down and have a marathon of meetings uh with maybe that should be a new holiday and it's one day for just me doesn't matter for everybody else um so uh we will be

102working on all of that again with the hopes of having something to present to the board um sooner rather than later so it'll be our our week of project Brandy night been a lot of time together coming up and then lastly but not technically listed in my report I would like to thank Dr piter Mrs White Dr we we just a c Nita for all their years of service to the children The Faculty the staff uh here at Beth Community School you've shared your time your talents and sometimes your sanity showing to meetings as a cow um to ensure that we're providing a quality education for the kids in our community and we are enally grateful for that have something for forward and I'm going to ask the audience to indulge us just a round

103of applause for [Applause] all now that you'll have so much time so so Rob we return your wife back to you I know your husband isn't here we return the back to you and Jenny he's and [Music] that all right we move on to the the direct thank you so much that's the last time you'll hear that I don't know you never know cretive okay so I want to talk today about professional development on November 7th um our classroom teachers worked with Margie Gillis from literacy how and that's to further our work in science of reading the focus was on comprehension which is something we can all learn more about par professionals worked with a Special Education team and they were reviewing individual education plans student programming and working closely to learn as much as

104they possibly can about the students and Specialists receive professional development in their own areas or they followed my pathway which is a new professional learning series that we have and um it's an online resource with on demand professional learning opportunities and a number of topics and in the area of curriculum you'll be glad to know the science of reading waiver um kird Andrea hover and I met with the state department of Ed and we met to discuss our waiver they had a few questions for us so we were able to provide some samples from our resources as well as our curriculum and we are supposed to hear back with everything crossed on December 1st so then we might be able to know how to move forward in next steps that's a good step forward it

105is a good step forward so we'll see we'll see how it goes show them the little thing that says you're a school of Distinction I I trust me anytime I can tell them and share some good data I do great big h p for that we should have had shirts made or something I mean I did want to wear one to my boa meeting because we got the results on that Wednesday I believe you now that you can put on your oh we can put it on our letterheads do you have that I I think you get that eventually you get the right to use that for the year on your letterheads and stuff like that and we're waiting on our Banner we want all the things all the things all the things yeah all

106right thank you thank you any questions for Mrs Keel or comments on anything report other than the schools all right Mr re what's going on in the school a lot so uh we have been busy uh and it's always one of those things that's kind of interesting uh you know I reached back and all the stuff that we've done since we we were last here uh Friday right after board meeting was was really eventful we started in the morning with the Lions Club doing their uh their annual dictionary uh presentation to the third graders uh we had the boo bash in the evening uh fire prevention came on the 19th was really wonderful um we had pink walk to school day on the 20th it was a little bit of rain we made it we're

107tough um it was a bit of rain um the book fair of the week of the 23rd uh was wonderbly successful um and that um as Melissa shared coincided with conferences we had our evening conferences on the um the evening of the 25th and then the afternoon of the 26th thank you to the P for the food Mar lives on his stomach um and plenty of pizza to eat um before and after school music lessons have started been really great uh I showed up to the instrumental music lessons and there were actual like musical sounds coming out of the instruments I was really excited I I was I was mildly terrified at first and like they sounded really good um so it's been going really well uh we got quite a bit of participation so

108we're really excited about that and we're working towards uh both the winter and the fall the winter and the spring for some of our performances uh second grade went to Clover Nook uh and then they just had their pumpkin Pop Shop uh last Friday which was wonderful our community meeting celebrated growth mindset um and PTO wonderfully donated a whole bunch of posters they get uh one copy of every poster from the book fair so we were using those uh for our um our ruffle Prize winners uh which the kids were really excited about um Halloween parade was on uh the 31st was great went through the town hall um kids were elated about doing that that was super fun um and then we had our family literacy night uh on the 1 uh which was

109really wonderful able to come here um Andrea Hub Jamie Bowen really l a wonderful presentation here we gave parents little a chance to kind of decouple from the kids they went and had a story had some pizza they got to adult for a little bit um and then we run around and had different stations and really took a look at like what does this look like when we're talking about science of reading like what's that look like in practice what can you do with your kids at home like what are some really great games that are both wonderfully fun a little competitive and also will help them with um learning to read uh and then we had vision and hearing screens on the 1 uh and if you didn't hear uh we also found out

110that we were a school of Distinction um I it's new news uh and uh and we had 11 of our gentlemen who were uh who are un9 champions and they're going to Boston and you don't need to give me another excuse to drive on up to Boston so um looking forward we've got Seth cus and Adam Carbone uh we're really grateful for them they're coming in on Friday to do a presentation to our kids uh on Veterans Day so we're really excited they've both really been uh here and helping us with that for the past few years so it's wonderful to have them in American Education week is next week so we're really excited to both have families and community members coming in we're also going to be having the kids celebrate different members of

111our uh School Community there as well uh computer science for all uh is an after school club Focus focusing on uh coding uh and computer science for kids and it was actually an idea that was brought forth by a sixth grade student um so we had a wonderful student who was like Hey this would be really cool if we had a coding club and we were like hey correct and so she led the way and Mr defasio has jumped on and he's taking he's taking that on it's going to meet for about 15 16 weeks um every Tuesday afternoon I believe so uh really excited that that's getting going um awesome when are leave away uh our community meeting this month is focusing on gratitude uh as your heard picture retake is on the 28th

112snowflake shop starting in early December and report cards will be going out on the 8th so that's what we got going on okay thank you any questions for Mr Reed and comments on any of the matters he use discussed how many people came to the parent uh families came to the parent literacy night sounds really interesting and I'm going to go about something yeah it was really great um and it was nice because you you know then we had a we had a bunch as they rotated through we're able to kind of have a session proper here you know just kind of thinking about the the research and and the Brain science behind it you know and then traveling around different stations around the building um and we had I think eight or nine staff

113who were here leading the way on that um so it was really just great to have that participation and for them to kind of you know not hear it from some like like an outside consultant or some random person on the zoom but like our people you know like Miss sniff showing you how to do it you know Mrs lasser's here helping out so really great to have those and to be in person and sounds very interactive sounds really yeah good very effective yeah got botle it was super fun any other questions or comments okay move on to uh chair's report uh we had a board open Forum in late o what October 20 something uh on Zoom it was well attended number of board members were there thank you uh we had a good

114discussion of a number of topics nothing uh you know terribly surprising or controversial but some good you know some good input um from parents uh and so so I thought it was useful uh and I want to thank both board members and community members including teachers who came to that event uh the cape conference is next Friday spilling over into Saturday uh in Mystic and that's a great opportunity for current and future board members to to go can future board members AR sworn in yet can they attend so may maybe next year okay but it's a great opportunity to go and meet other board members and then you know get attend workshops on various topics um get swag from vendors you know lots of little Racers St uh so that's uh I think that's worthwhile

115the um our board will be uh receiving for the eth year in a row uh Board of Distinction award from uh or Board of Excellence Board of something really good like good adjective um so uh I'll be able to um to receive that award um and then uh on November 28th since we will have several new board members joining us um Amy and I with Kay have uh have scheduled a uh uh meeting on November 28th from 5:30 to 7:30 in the evening and we hope that though the they won't be sworn in yet that future board members will be able to attend and that's an opportunity uh to um you know on board people and talk about uh how the board works some of the things that are obvious some of the things that

116are really counterintuitive like open meetings laws and and Freedom of Information and confidentiality and all that stuff um we're scheduling this because be since the elections were moved the new board members really are are going to have to jump right in the middle um right in the middle of budget season new policies coming up there was you know it's it's it's going to be very much on the the job training and so uh we thought that it would be uh useful for the new board members to have that opportunity to to jump in and I will attend that um is this an orientation yes is that is that yeah orientation and early training yeah um so that again is scheduled for November 28th from 5:30 to 7:30 where Bo of office Board of bed office

117okay um that's it for upcoming items um this is my last uh board meeting um I've been on the board of ed for about 14 and a half years I've been chair for eight and if you'll indulge me I want to say just a couple things couple things about the past a couple things about the future um about the past so I've been here as I said 14 years four superintendents four principles although Once Upon a Time We called them house masters and there were two of them at the same time and it was very confusing um and so there's been a lot of change on those over those years and I think that it has really been remarkably good in a lot of ways and I want to highlight a couple one is when

118I joined the board there was a lot of tension and distrust between the Board of Ed and the board of finance and the broader Community communication wasn't very clear and that led to people second guessing and you know thinking that things were be that budgeting decisions were being done for you know improper malicious reasons and so forth and it was it was poisonous and it wasn't good for anyone and over the course of several superintendents uh We've streamlined that process we've improved communication and openness um and uh improved the budgeting process made it more transparent and I think it shows in the relative ease with of our budget process over the last at least eight years if not more where the board of Finance can see what we're doing they have confidence and so our

119conversations with them are easy if we're asking for money they know we need it if we don't need it we don't ask for it and we go in with low budgets and and that's been a remarkable change over the time that I've been on the board um there have been a lot of changes in the way we teach kids in in curriculum um some of these are just changes in the way Education Works in general but but really I've been impressed with the leadership that this school has shown so so I remember Everyday Math any you remember Everyday Math oh I know so you know just an example of a you know math curriculum that I personally not a fan that's been dramatically revised and so um I've been impressed with you know the way

120the math curriculum has evolved the way that uh this the school has taken advantage of the teachers College reading program and then moving on to other other reading resources and really staying a breast of the you know current thinking about the best way to to teach our kids and we saw scores today you know we saw that we're doing things right there always room for improvement we will always strive for that but we did you know we saw that and that's been a that's been a real change uh over the time that I've been here I feel that the um the climate and um how we work together as a as a as a community within the school working with our teachers has has been through strains the pandemic was was just disastrously difficult for

121everyone but overall as I look at the over the years um I I feel that there's been Improvement there um we've always people are always talking about teacher turnover and and you know teachers leaving we've been talking about that for 14 years and I'm sure for much longer than that we're a small District um we aren't the richest District in in the school and I mean in the state and so we've always had you know great teachers come they train here um and then they move on however I think with the last couple contracts and especially the last one we've really done a lot to to uh make this a place where people will want to stay by reducing the number of steps in our contract and making our higher level uh teachers our entry

122level teachers were already competitive making our higher level teachers competitive and I look forward to seeing in future years a return to uh teachers staying here longer because they know that they're valued and that they're compensated appropriately and it doesn't take them forever to move through the step scale so um and also with with changes that have been made over the last two superintendents about participatory leadership within the school where teachers have been given ample opport opportunities to work together on you know the steering committee and other opportunities to really make a difference and feel empowered um I think that's something that really makes people love the place that they're at and we do see teachers who could move for more money elsewhere lots of them and choose not to because this is a great

123place to work so again there always room to improve to continue to you know work together but the the feeling of working together as a community of transparency and fairness and accountability of showing people that they're valued um I really think has been something that's improved over the the time I've been with ups and downs and again the pandemic was a disaster and it was hard for everybody but um but the the general trajectory I think uh I think he good so I want to highlight that and finally um and this will transition into a few comments I want to make looking to the Future um the board itself when I uh when I uh joined the board was was a difficult and tense place um there was a lot of partisan ranker on the

124board at that time um there was a lot of distrust uh it wasn't always Pleasant um we had a few individual board members who are long long since gone but who sort of you know stirred the pot lot and and made it uh made it less Pleasant to work on and that's changed dramatically over the time I've been here um I I think that we as a board have worked uh very collaboratively together I think it's telling that the vast majority of our votes are unanimous uh that show you know we we talk about things and I think that because we treat each other with respect we don't come to things from a partisan angle um and uh we we keep kids first uh first first and foremost in our mind it usually becomes pretty

125clear you know what what the right answer is when it doesn't when we do have things like again during the pandemic like the issues of masking like other issues where we don't have alignment where we do have disagreement we're able to talk about those things in a way where the disagreements can be fairly sharp and the votes are not unanimous and we move on we we work through those difficulties together they're rare but because of the investment that we as a board have made in you know in uh mutual respect and collegiality we were're able to move uh forward through those rare challenging things when they do come up and that's been a pleasure to see over the time on the board and I do want to say um I take some pride in that

126change uh over the years um and in how we've functioned over the last eight years I take some pride that we've gotten the cave award for the eight years um the for for the last eight years I take some pride in the fact that for the last four years this has been a republican majority board and yet the board has chosen to keep me a Democrat on as chair I think that's a nice symbol of the uh the way that we have been able to work um collaboratively and so thinking about the future we are going to have a um a dramatic change in board compos in in board composition three new members um we're going to change to a m large majority six to 63 Republican majority board actually that's what it was when

127I joined um and uh I think that it's uh really and you know there'll be different personalities people coming with with different backgrounds and different views that's fine that's as it should be um but I want the board to keep in mind both the you know the members who are staying on as well as the new members to keep in mind the things that I just said about what has made us successful over the last decade what has made us successful is keeping Kids First in our minds what has made us successful is respecting our administrators understanding what their job and what's ours not micromanaging and not getting in their way um seeking consensus and collaboration whenever we can recognizing when we don't know something and seeking to educate ourselves on that before moving forward

128taking the time that we need to do things and always seeking collaboration respect and keeping kids first and foremost in our minds above any personal ideas we may have come to the table with above any political or partisan concerns that we may have had above of what we may be hearing from others in the community keeping the kids first because that's what we're here for so I hope looking to the future we can take lessons from I think a very successful last decade continue that momentum partnering with a wonderful administrative team let them do their job and uh keep doing what we're doing for the kids because we're doing the right thing we just need to stay the course thank you all for the faith you put in me allowing me to be chair thank

129you all for being willing to sit here during the last 11 minutes as I on on I've never done this before so um and um I wish you all the best thanks Chris that ends my Chairman's report do we have any correspondents we do not alas this brings us to our second and final opportunity for visitors public comment I'll ask if anyone is here uh wishes to address the board here at the end of um I'd like to you back Chris Chris could could you please state your name oh I'm sorry for the record I can't I can't relax the rules at the end Chris on behalf of the CCS Community you deserve thank you for all you've done as chair of this board for almost a decade and a member for almost a decade

130and a half just shy whoever takes your place big boots to with new board members coming in next month and you stepping down I just wanted to encourage all the board members present and incoming that when you vote for a replacement chair that you choose someone who has similar values professionalism and neutrality capabilities Chris you have been able to see every side of any situation and predicament way the pros and the cons and guide the board through discussions to the ideal move for what is best for the entire School community and always putting our kids first I encourage you all to choose someone who values and understands education the system as a whole as well as the roles and responsibilities within it a chair who seats the need for equity and inclusion for all of

131our students who speaks calmly collectively and rationally who attends full board meetings as well as their committed assignments and who has a full grasp of all of our policies and procedures we have been so very fortunate to have you pres in that seat and we should be ever so fortunate to have someone with similar characteristics equable Dem to thank you anyone else wish to address the board before we close for the evening hearing none we are Jour don't get [Music] keep just shift it around [Music] I just came actually just came from conferences of the Middle School oh middle schol yeahor one conference and it's at the worst time 5:00 when I'm like even if I Mo the 510 make my life so easier for 5 sleep there thought