001I think we can. >> Can everyone hear me? >> Super. I have quiet voice. So, nice to meet all of you. I've known many of you. All right. Dear Superintendent Caruso and members of the board, I am writing to you as both a parent and an educator with a long-standing connection to the Folton School District. All three of my children have attended the schools for their entire educational journey. One a recent graduate, one is a high school senior, and one is a seventh grader. Seventh grader. In addition, I was proud to spend nearly two decades of my career in Bolton as a teacher and dedicated member of the leadership team. Sorry, I'm shaky because I'm pretty emotional. Anyway, I'll keep going. All right. My family's ties to this community run deep, which makes me especially
002invested in raising a concern that has been ongoing for over 15 years. During this time, my children have repeatedly missed important school events, including picture days, athletic competitions, festivals, homecoming, and college fairs because they were scheduled on Jewish holidays. And most recently, this year's Bolton Center School Walkathon is being held on Yangapore, again forcing families into a painful choice between practicing their religious observances and participating in meaningful school traditions. On one particular year, I brought my daughter at the end of the day just so she could take a yearbook picture with her soccer team that she has missed school for a holiday observance. And you know what? Instead of feeling included, she was questioned by another student about why. Why was she there when she had been absent, which left her feeling singled out? These
003experiences underscore how scheduling decision can unintentionally make students feel excluded or unwelcome. While the intent behind the scheduling may not have been discriminatory, the impact has been significant. Our family often talks about equity, diversity, and inclusion at home. These values are essential to raising empathetic, engaged young people. Yet, when events are scheduled on major religious holidays, families like ours are put in the position of either staying true to our beliefs or conforming to the norm in order to fit in. This is not only a personal struggle for us, but for other families as well, especially those who may not feel comfortable speaking out. I recognize that a number of students in our district observing Jewish holidays may be small, but the broader issue is about inclusivity and respect for all faiths. Other religious observances can
004also be overlooked and I believe Bolton schools should strive to proactive and be proactive and thoughtful much as other nearby districts have been. It often also feels particularly ironic that in our schools will not allow the mention of Halloween during spirit week in the name of inclusivity yet continue to overlook the impact of scheduling complex with religious observances. If we are mindful of cultural celebrations like Halloween, surely we can extend the same care and consideration to sacred days of faith. I deeply respect the hard work and care that goes into running our school. And I share this not to criticize, but to encourage us to do better. By making a commitment to avoid scheduling major events on religious holidays, Bolton Public Schools has an opportunity to create a more equitable, welcoming environment for all students
005and families. Thank you for taking the time to hear my shaky voice and my friend's family's experiences and taking steps that will make our district more inclusive. My friend would be glad to offer further perspective or be part of any future discussions. So, I just wanted to share that on behalf of her. Um, it was hard to read it before I came here. It's hard to read it now, but I was happy to have the opportunity to read it in front of all of you. So, I hope you consider her her letter. Thank you. >> Thank you. Thank you very much. I think it was more useful coming from you than from me. >> So, is there anyone else this evening who would like to make a public comment? Right. Hearing none. Do we don't
006have any additions to the agenda? Right. Um on to routine business items and the approval of minutes. Do we have a motion, please, to approve the minutes of the September 11th, 2025 board of education business meeting? So moved. >> I'll second. Uh, is there anyone who has any questions, edits, or comments on minutes? Hearing none. All those in favor of the motion, please say I. >> I. >> Anyone oppose or abstaining? >> I will abain. Carries. Um, on to board of ed committee reports and finance. Sure. So, finance committee met um this morning. Um in your you'll see there were a few items included. The first one uh looking for a motion for the approval of two transfers appointment material. The first one is a $14 reclass uh for science to cover the shortfall of
007subscription for counselor science. So, from instru instructional supplies to online subscription services. And then the second one is for $1,550 and that's just a transfer um you know to cover athletics to cover gym equipment you know etc. That's all within the athletics department budget. >> So could we have a motion please to approve the transfers for September? >> I'll make a motion to approve September's transfers. >> Second. So, anyone who has any questions or comments about these? >> Just a quick question on the the gym inspection. It says it's performed annually. So, is this just moving it? Is this just like reclassifying the expense? >> That's correct. Okay. Ask for it. >> Not that we didn't realize it was going to happen and then had to pay for a side. >> Thank you. >> Anyone
008else? All those in favor, please say I. >> I. No one opposed or abstaining. We had more. >> And then the second item just to highlight that we're 13% um expended. Um similar to last year at this time there's there's nothing to call out that's you know outside of what we would have anticipated from a budgetary standpoint. >> Thank you very much. Uh next is curriculum. The curriculum committee met yesterday. Uh just kind of did an overview recap of some of the summer work that happened in world language, social studies or BHS world history 1 and two, BHS math, grades four and five ELA math and the EMR course that we approved last year. That was all worked on completed. Also, we discussed how we are attempting to increase and strategies for increasing our ECE
009and AP courses. Um, including reviewing the current offerings, which include 11 AP and ECE courses, and we do plan to add more. I believe a couple of the teachers, some of you who are here tonight, um, have already volunteered for next summer's course. uh what do we call it the institute or what was it was Monica I don't remember what what the word was but the summer >> the AP summer institute >> okay thank you much >> you're welcome >> for more summer institutionalizations a couple of ET courses also um also discuss staffing and resource needs um and a new textbook proposal. We have one for economics that is currently being vetted and will be bringing forward in coming months. And then finally uh also there will be the first ever meeting of the artificial
010intelligence planning committee which uh is in response to our new technologies that are making the teaching world more interesting. Also the realization that there have been no uh policies. We have no policies officially for how students are to use um these tools and uh the policy committee. However, that will be in a couple of months. We'll look forward to crafting some new policies to address AI in our new modern world. And also the finally our T val plan was approved over the summer. Have any questions on any of those things or finance? >> All right. Um on to BHS student representative report. >> So the musical was just announced. We will be putting on Spongebob the musical in February. Auditions will be held in late October and we're all super excited to start. We're going
011to continue the new tradition of inviting BHS BCS grade 8 students to participate. A few weeks ago, we had a spirit week and fun games during lunch in honor of starting Hello Week that allows students to get to know one another and meet new people. We have our homecoming dance and flag football game coming up in early November. The dance will be Saturday, November 8th, and the flag football game will be the night before, Friday, November 7th. We had our college fair today. 89 colleges, military, and other post-secondary or organizations joined us in the BHS gym. It was our biggest fair ever, and for the first time, grade 10 was also invited to visit the fair. Mr. Gians has also begun his one-on-one meetings with seniors. Some of the class of 2026 have worked with
012him to take advantage of the free admissions days, and already there have been over 50 applicants submitted from the class of 2026. This week we have been going pink for October. At all of our sports games we have been collecting donations all going towards breast cancer research. On Friday we will be wearing pink and collecting donations at the beginning of the day. Um, our sports team have been working hard this season with records of six and seven for girls soccer, five and eight for boys soccer, four and 10 for girls volleyball, and the cross country team has gone 9 and2 in the regular season and are the only class S or double S school to win two big invitationals. Yesterday, Bolton High School hosted the NC cross country championships. The Bolton's own Dolly Livingston and
013Doll Dominic Lombardo won their respective races, earning the title of NC champions. Both runners also earned all conference honors. Next Saturday, the boys team will look to repeat as CISC class S champions. Last Thursday, we had Bolton eighth graders and Columbia eighth graders visit. We showed them around the school having a small represent presentation at it was hugely successful. We also had our open house later that night with many of the families returning asking any questions. On November 3rd, we will have the national national honor society induction. We are excited to do induct the many new members this year. >> Thank you very much. Um you are welcome to stay for the rest of the evening if you so choose, but if you have something to do, you're also welcome to >> All right, on
014to community meeting reports. Do does anyone have any community meetings to report on? Um, PTA just had their waffon. They raised over $24,000 and our admin all dressed up at the end in inflatable costumes. So, it was wildly enjoyed um by the parents and students. Um, they scheduled the one for next year for September 30th. Um, and then they have their trunk retreat coming up new location. It's at the high school uh next Friday, the 24th. It's from 5:30 to 7:30. I attended the Bolton scholarship funds uh first meeting of the new school year which was in September. Um our annual meeting is coming up later this month. Uh we are recruiting uh if anyone is interested in joining our board. U looking for new directors. So reach out to us if you're interested. All
015right. Is that all mean? I think just drop your garments. Uh we will now turn things over to the superintendent for tonight's superintendence report. >> Thank you. Um so, as you know, our district strategic plan uh was supposed to expire last year and this board um extended it for one more year. So, we're continuing that work this year. And tonight, our teachers, they're not here to hear my superintendent report. Uh they're here to report on the work that they're doing with the strategic plan right now. Um we're excited with the work that's going on. I've been really energized sitting in the meetings and listening to the principles and administrators talk about the work that's going on in the schools. Um one big focus area for us to share as a district is try to make
016sure that everything is aligned and we're connecting the dots. So no matter what role you have in the district, you see your everyday work connected to the strategic plan. So, I think that's that's happening right now, which is really exciting. Um, makes it more meaningful for everybody and meaningful for the day-to-day operations. Um, Miss Gold Snider and myself met with Kelly Lyman, who's going to be facilitating the development of our new strategic plan, which we're excited to get going on. Uh, the first planning meeting will be in January. I'll be talking to uh the leaders leadership team about getting some representation from students, from staff. Uh, we're hoping to get a board member or two to be able to participate in that committee also. Um, and really this is a a really important undertaking because
017the strategic plan um is the roadmap for success for us. It's really the the guide that leads all of our work and um is really critical that our work is is aligned to it and like I said everything is coherent throughout the district. So that's been a big focus this year. Um real excited to have the teachers. Thank you very much for coming this evening uh to talk about the current work you're doing uh that aligns right to the strategic plan from teaching and learning um helping kids be successful in all areas of school life um being fiscally responsible. You hear some of that um how we're working to build uh continue to strengthen our culture and climate in our buildings in our district. So I will turn over now to Mr. Gard. Thank you.
018Uh, real quick, it is an amazing group. Our leadership team, I'm going to introduce everybody in a second, but they came together starting in the summer. So, when the school year ends, it's not summertime. It's let's start working within the first week or two of school getting out. We have our first meeting and we meet two, three, four times throughout the summer to come together to develop our plans. So, I'm going to introduce our leadership team to you and as I say your name, please stand. K to5 ELA Wendy Beanni 68 ELA Heather Warner K5 social studies Tracy Wch 68 social studies Peter Stanovich K5 science Sandy Mashriki 68 science Allison Caruso K5 math Diana Michalloce 68 math Ariel Fields Special areas. Jennifer Heric. Physical education. Stephanie Fuchcher. World language. Chris Palace. Music. Dan Air.
019CTE. Chris Jones. Special education. Larry Ian. Special ed. and instructional coach Jamie Kanto. I give them a quick round of applause. I got kind of saying they doing a few minutes of work coming this evening. They're they're amazing and integral part of we call them the instructional leadership team ILT because they make a lot of our decisions on upcoming PD and all the work that we do. So, thank you everybody. I'm now going to call up Diana Malocci and Larry Eaton to present our school plan. Good evening. How are you? Um so Miss and I are here um tonight to talk about the BCS plan and our first goal um is sorry my glasses this part uh is student success. Um at Bolton Center school will challenge and prepare every student for success in school
020and life. Um we have our action steps. So our first one is maximizing the work of the leadership team which you were just introduced to. Um the interventionists that we have in our building um whether they be the instructional coach um the math or the reading interventionist and of course all the departments in the building. Uh developing curriculum creating and maintaining classroom environments so that we have conducive learning uh conducive to learning. Um, and then the next three I'm going to talk about together for those bullet points because they really do just go hand inand. So, we just recently finished our first round of MTSS meetings at BCS. And our MTSS meetings are all about collaboration. So, we come together with teachers in the building, the intervention team, and all the classroom teachers. We all
021have meetings. We talk about all the data we've collected, what we've known about the students since the beginning of the year until our meeting. And we really talk about what each student may need for any kind of intervention, whether it's in tier one, which is the classroom, in tier two, which may be a small group in the classroom, or a tier three intervention, and they may be pulled out of the classroom. So, we focus on every single student. We talk about every student one at a time. Um, and we use every everything that we know about them and everything that we have. So, we are continuously collaborating and communicating throughout the school year. We not only meet for this first meeting, but we have meetings between six and eight weeks from that point all throughout
022the year to make sure that we are meeting the needs of every student as best that we can. And now I'm going to turn it over to Larara for Goth. >> Hi. Good evening. Um our second goal um talks about a caring culture. So Bolton Center School will foster a responsive, caring and inclusive culture and collaborative relationships. So for strategic actions, we have communicating and building relationships with families. Um we have a good communication tool for using parent square. Um we also have each grade level sending home bi-weekly newsletters giving updates about what's going on in the classroom. um and opportunities for uh participation and other ways to communicate what what the successes are. Uh we host family events to strengthen school and family partnerships. So we have our winter family night that will be
023coming up in March. Um there's always an art show in the spring and then we have a number of musical concerts, band and chorus concerts. And we've even had some um new opportunities with different types of um concert presentations where students can perform their own um music as well. We monitor attendance and um implement interventions. Um I know that um Mr. Gard and Mrs. Keller are always um checking in with any students that um have attendance issues. Um facilitating town hall meetings. U Mr. Gard and Mrs. Kellaher met with students from each grade grade grade level to get input on what they uh were interested in, what their thoughts were and then held town hall meetings with each grade level on um October 3rd and that was a big success getting the perspective uh from
024the students. Um we also implement um social emotional learning. We have PBIS and second step in grades kindergarten through 8. Um and then we also foster relationships between students across grade levels and schools. We have um building buddies where older grade levels will meet with younger grade levels and do activities, read books, and we know that we have the eighth graders that went up to the high school already. Um and that's really their first opportunity to go during the school day and that was a nice successful trip. Goal number three is talent and development. uh Bolton Center School will encourage a learning environment that emphasizes excellence and recruits, develops and supports, retains high quality staff. Um our admin uh they meet with new staff several times a year. New staff is also assigned a mentor
025um and the instructional coach and I will come in and model lessons and strategies. Um, but just from knowing all the people that I work with every day, like we try to do our best to make new staff feel welcome in the room. I don't just even talking to Jamie who's new in the building, she's like, "Where's the coffee machine?" Like, you just don't know those sorts of things or where's the bathroom? Um, so we always try to make sure that we are there to help new staff as much as um our administration. Um we are going to be supporting and helping new staff build capacity again through um our instructional coach to come in um through PLC's providing job embedded professional development aligned to meet the needs of today's learners. Um, so we as
026a staff really want to thank the board um because we recently had one of our early release PD days. Um, and we get so much done during that time. So, we really want to thank you. It's an invaluable time. Um, we know we have the full day PD days, but those half days that you give us um are really appreciated. Um, in our recent full day PD day, um, we continue to learn more. We learned about a data analysis tools and also um some tech tools. Um we are going to be m maximizing our PL time to improve student outcomes. Um we have weekly PL meetings which is where grade levels come together um to meet with administration and the instructional coach to talk about any needs that they need um any issues that they're
027having um successes things like that. Um and then we are utilizing our fourth Tuesday and staff meeting times to support teaching and learning. Um and part of that goes with the ILT team that where we get together and we talk about what are the needs of the building, what should we be doing next, you know, should it be personalized learning, do we need a specific PD day um or specific PD for staff based on the needs? And this year we have a fourth goal, resource stewardship, which makes us align with the district strategic plan. And that goal is that Bolton Center School will champion the needs of the school system and be responsible stewards of the public's investment. So um the action steps for this are collaborating within departments and teams to identify needs. So
028recently department leaders met with grade levels to identify needs in preparation for you know preparing their budgets. um developing a fiscally responsible school budget for the 2627 school year and also partnering with the PTA and other community organizations to provide new opportunities, enrichment opportunities, activities and support existing programs. And as you had previously mentioned, recently we had the um walk-athon that the PTA planned and it was uh extremely successful and raised um a lot of money almost $24,000 which then go for school enrichment activities and we're very grateful as a school to the PTA for their level of commitment and support. That's it. Thank you very much. Does anyone have any questions on the BCS portion of this? >> The only thing that struck me was as you go through the resource um stewardness, you
029know, section thinking about our conversation at three board meeting on grants and just the awareness for how big grants they'll make an impact in a town like this. Our budgets are, you know, constrained. So just keep that tap in mind if if anyone becomes aware or wants to you know kind of search around for what might become available for their respective areas. It's just an area that you know the three boards I think need to dive into a little bit more. So um comment >> good evening everyone like to introduce the high school team uh Mr. repair, fine arts, Jen Carvalo in science. You guys can stand. I know it's a repeat for for some of you. Um Stephie Focher, health and PE, Tajin Santi, student support, Chris Jones in CTE, uh our librarian, Mickey
030Cleer, Chris Palace in world languages, Abby Sakul, who could not join us this evening, social studies, uh and Sunny Singh in math. And did I skip calling? >> Wow. Hi, Mr. Dennis. So, please stand. Um, and now I'll introduce uh Jen and McGee to do our presentation. Thank you. >> Well, our first one is student success. Um, our goal is to continue to foster student success through comprehensive system of structures and support. Um, some new things we have school links this year which students are using. Um it's like instead of Nvian um so they're using that um obviously continuing with both parent and student square um MTSS which Jen will talk about in a little bit and then we have something new called senior seminar which seniors meet with um I'm one of the capstone
031adviserss Laura Goule and um then we have our portfolio digital portfolio with Caroline Ta so they meet with us mandatory once a month by invitation a second time if they are not getting their work done. Um and that's a new support system for them for capstone portfolio and then Mr. um Janate also meets with them for postsecary and obviously all of this is just to help you know the smooth academic transition and everything. >> Yeah. All right. School culture. So our goal is to continue to foster a positive and supportive school culture that promotes high expectations for student achievement. We have a variety of action steps for for this goal. Um so as McGee mentioned, MTSS is still a big focus which kind of spans all three of our goals for this year. Um but
032in terms of school culture, we are looking at some tier one which are the universal um strategies um and shared practices that really kind of get to that that cultural side of things, not so much maybe the academic performance aspect. So our focus area for quarter one is to greet every student by name, which sounds like something very simple. Um, but really it's just a way to ensure that every student, every child feels seen, doesn't no one feels invisible. If you're being addressed by your first name on a daily basis by multiple adults in the building, you can't help but feel like you belong to the community. So, that's one of the big changes we've started this year, and it's actually one of our district-wide shared practices. Um, another change that we are making, actually
033our first one is next week, is we have built in monthly enrichment opportunities during our connections advisory block. So, every month teachers will volunteer to host um a variety of enrichment activities that students can choose to participate in if it's something they're interested in. Um, normally our connections time is focused on the senior seminar activities, students doing retakes, getting extra help, but once a month we wanted them to have the opportunity to connect with other adults in the building, connect with students from other grade levels around a common interest. So, next week we have our first batch of enrichment activities. We are currently offering yoga, pickle ball, um introduction to musical theater, pumpkin painting, and book bedazzling, which McGee can give you info on that one if you know about that. Um so variety of
034physical activities, arts and crafts, but again really just under the the guise of just building that cultural and that positive atmosphere at the school. Um and then continuing obviously going along with um just communicating communicating student successes, highlighting them on our TVs in the lobby, our bulletin boards, you know, Instagram post, the social media presence, and really just kind of celebrating the everyday aspects of being a student at Bolan High School. Uh goal three is uh based on instructional practices and our goal is to continue to cultivate a professional learning community that collaborates to improve instruction, student performance and achievement. Um again, we see MTSS percolating to the top of this goal as well. um really looking at how can we support teachers in the building and helping them implement a lot of those universal
035strategies and tier one supports in the classroom. Um we're also looking to expand our peer observations. They went very well last year. Met with a lot of positive feedback from everyone on the faculty. Um so looking to include more peer observations with specific focus areas. We just conducted our first one uh the past couple weeks. Um we identified a need for um exploring collaboration in the classroom and group work and how to make it meaningful for every student in the group. Um how can you structure your groups maybe in different ways? So we all went out and observed our colleagues you know when they were doing group work and you know just debriefed afterwards in our PLC's what did you take away what could you maybe try to implement in your class? Um, so that's
036just one example of, you know, how we use those peer observations. Um, really our PLC's are where a lot of this instructional practice work and improvement is taking place. We are fortunate to meet weekly for an 80-minute block every week. Um, where we're able to identify what needs we have in the building at that time. you know, as we said, group work was something that kind of popped up the beginning of the school year, and we're able to look at ways to kind of pull our resources, um, focus on strategies, ways to improve, um, you know, what we're doing in the classroom, how students are performing in our classroom. So, really just taking advantage of that, that PLC structure and our half day PD days and full day PD days. Um, you know, for example,
037McGee just led a great um, session on Tuesday. It's been a long short week. um about ways to effectively use AI from the teacher perspective in the classroom and just different strategies we can try. Um so we're always looking at what's new out there, what can we incorporate and really using the structures we have in place to kind of dive to dive into that. Um and always continuing to look at assessment practices and our grading policies and just a lot lot of collaborative conversation about how to just always grow and make things better. All right. So, um I know we've mentioned this, but when are all when is this all happening? So, PLC's team and grade level meetings, staff meetings, sport Tuesdays, early release, I know they mentioned it and again, same with us because
038we get so much done during those early release PD days and the full day. um just being able to sit with each other >> you know and even like I this time I well I got to talk with some of the um eighth grade teachers which was amazing and then I went on to the humanities teachers which I work with a lot but then just to talk about you know our transferable skills and how everything's interconnected in all these classes and stuff that's happening in band that I didn't know and art so it's just great use of time that we, you know, we appreciate that we have built into the calendar. Um then, um we have our um T-Bal goals that everybody is working on and then of course our leadership meeting. >> Any high
039school questions? >> I just want to echo what what Carol said. uh my group. I mean, if if you could have been a fly on the wall for all the work that got done on a Friday afternoon and a Tuesday after a long weekend, um it was really mindboggling and it was all of their ideas and all of their hard work pulled together. So, I want to thank my team as well. Thanks. >> Thank you. Um, so it has been a busy October. Uh, and one of the things I think the board is aware is that we've made a conscious effort to initiate some of those grade 8 to grade nine activities sooner this year. Um, so we have already accomplished quite a bit. Um, I went um to both schools and did a uh
040question and answer with the students. I did a presentation and then took their questions. amazing questions from them. Um, very interactive. We also did a survey, a quick paper survey again, both schools we visited and we used those surveys um to drive what we did bullet number three when bolt center and horse porter students came and visited us. Um, so their questions, their areas of interest is what was reflected on those two days. Um, I did schedule a visit from the horse porter administrators to here. They have had to reschedule. that hasn't happened yet, but that is something that we we did make that connection on. Um this is your cue, Mrs. Buckley. Um we published a newformational and departmental highlight documents that are coming around now. Um and some of that and other things
041have been reflected on a new page on the website um which is all about BHS or you can get to it directly with that URL. As um our student reps mentioned, we had a fantastic um again very engaging, lots of questions for the grade 8 open house. It's actually the first grade 8 open house that every single family that came brought their eighth grader. Never happened before. Um and that was that was awesome. And um as mentioned, the eighth graders are going to be invited or have been invited by Miss Carval have been invited uh to join the Spongebob musical. I just want to quickly talk about the one of the bullets from the other slide. The other day, the eighth graders came up to the high school. Mr. Miss Elli and his team did
042a phenomenal job uh touring the building. There was parts of the building I hadn't seen. The wait room, the art room. It was really an outstanding experience. And the students who were part of that tour really sold to me and I work here how amazing Bolton Public Schools is. and uh they they spoke articulately. They performed music. They really told the story of Bowling High School very well. It was it was a pleasure to be a part of it. Uh some ongoing and future grade information and recruitment activities that we're planning and we have coming up. Uh BCS morning announcements. Mrs. Keller uh regularly announces uh BCS events that are happening, sporting events and BHS and that students have have really liked that because they want to go and see some of those sporting events
043and it really connects them um earlier on with the high school pass for all BHS events provided to all eighth graders and for Horus Porter students as well. So they have free admission to basketball games, uh performances, all of that. So that's a really nice touch. Expanded efforts for grade eight and nine teacher collaboration. Uh we had a PD day recently with eight and nine teachers in this room came together by content area to talk about that vertical articulation for curriculum expectations homework rigor all of those things was a very rich conversation. We're going to move forward and have future meetings throughout the year to really uh make it as smooth as possible for eth 9th grade students uh BHS team to continue visits to eighth grade. So it's not a one-off. High school has
044been down to the center school a few times already this year. We did the visit up here and it's going to continue throughout the school year. Uh BHS and BCS planning a seventh grade visit. So this spring seventh graders are going to come up and visit the high school. So really connecting them even earlier with the high school. Uh the BHS team to participate in horse border high school fair. Uh planning for BHS students to tutor and read at BCS. So we have some new ideas in the works where high school students could come down at the end of their day because their day ends earlier to help tutor um in study hall to some of the middle school students. So, that's in the works and and I think that'll be a great way for
045students to connect and give some support that would be greatly appreciated. Um, personal outreach to Columbia families towards info sessions. And lastly, we're continuing to brainstorm and add new ideas. Um, I know there was the three board meeting and there's like things talked about there and ideas and and we're constantly at every meeting think about how can we promote Bowen High School? How can we connect our students, Columbia students, uh, to that amazing high school experience here in Bowen? Thank you. I'd like to thank the whole team. Um all the work that uh it's incredible when you get behind the curtain and you see all the work that goes on a day-to-day basis uh to make B public schools what it is. So I really truly appreciate all your efforts. Our our children are really
046fortunate to go to school in Bolton. I really believe that. Um and it's it doesn't happen by accident. It happens because of your intentional work and the things you do above and beyond. Um and that's what makes this such a special place. Uh the retention recruitment efforts are off to an awesome start. I think we have a lot of really good things going right now. Uh the challenge for us is how can we build on that positive momentum that we've created. Um and I like uh principal Gard's message about continuing throughout the course of the year staying connected to those kids as much as we can. So we're having uh ongoing conversations and brainstorm ideas about um how we can continue to reach out to students at go to Horus Porter. Uh they have 50s
047something eth grade kids. They were all awesome. Um they were really engaged here, asked a lot of really good questions. So, uh, we want to capitalize on that excitement and Mr. Miselli and I going to be reaching out to Columbia families individually and offering them private tours of the building um, weekends, nights, whenever they want to come. Um, as much as we can do to make them feel like this is their school and merit community, make them feel a part of this because we know how much kids want to be a part of something and uh, we believe that being part of Walton High School is something special. So, we're doing everything we can to make sure that we get the word out there how great we are. Um, we're also working on a promotional
048video to highlight the day in the life of a Bolton High School student. I'm really excited about that. Um, and so we have a lot of good things in the works and um, I appreciate everybody's efforts putting that together. >> Yeah, I'd like to echo the words. Thank you all for your leadership and help to improve what is already an outstanding place to go to school. Um I know that we all appreciate it on the board and I think people in the community the more they find out the more they will appreciate as well. So um I think rightly they'll choose. Thank you all for coming and we all appreciate your your efforts again. >> Thank you. or >> Okay. >> Yes. Oh, yeah. That was >> Yeah, I'm going to do Okay. >> All
049right. Moving along. Those are you just saying? Thank you for the rest of the report. >> You're more than welcome to stay. >> Thank you. Um, so as I I sent a message out to the board as well as uh at Bowling Center School and then continuing out through the high school. So, a big celebration for the district as a whole. Um, I thought it got stolen a little bit with PTA sponsored events, but Booathon was fantastic. Um, I'm sure it was wildly entertaining seeing people dressed up in different things. Um, it was fun for us. It was really fun for the kids to see us and get a kick out of that. So, that was neat. Um, thank you for Cory the Dribbler coming in. Um, really when when you can hold seventh and
050eighth graders attention for uh 45 minutes or so, that's impressive. and he had them locked in um not only with his entertaining dribbling but with his life message about perseverance, working hard, accomplishing your goals, um you know, talking about how much practice he had to put in to get to where he was. I think really resonated with some of the kids. So, a lot of positive feedback from adults and and students. I taught some teachers that were reinforcing that message in the classroom, too. So, I think that's also really important when we have learning opportunities that may occur outside the classroom. How do we reinforce those in the classroom so kids are are hearing that consistent message? Um very excited to report. I hosted my first student chat yesterday. I met with a small group
051of 12th grade students and I asked them some questions about um their experience here at Bolton High School, their experience in Bolton public schools. Two of the students happen to be um students that currently live in Colombia and are coming here from Colombia. Um and at at the top of all their list when I asked them highlights of going to Bolton public schools, they listed the teachers. Um all of them said the adults and the teachers that they've made connections with. Uh they really appreciate the level of um trust and responsibility and freedoms that they're given at the high school. Um they they happen to all really like the small atmosphere and small classes and the teachers really getting to know who they are as learners and who they are as people outside the classroom.
052Um, so they spoke really highly of that. It was uh it was neat for them. It was neat for me to listen to to their stories and and different perspectives. Um, so I'm going to continue to do that. My hope is uh once every week or two I'm going to be with a different group of students. Um, I'm going to start with all the seniors and then I'm going to work my way down through the rest of the high school. Um, I have found that speaking to students about their experiences, you can learn a lot about the school because ultimately it's it's their school. Um, it's their experience and we're here to try to make their experience as positive as possibly can. Uh, this morning, uh, Bolton High School hosted our largest college career fair
053college fair ever. Um, really well attended. I have a couple pictures I took of it. The gymnasium was um, filled with over tables for over 80 presenters. >> There are 89 presenters and seven no shows. So, we were we were ready for 95 people to do. >> So, that was really impressive. What was equally impressive is the job that the staff did getting the kids ready so students knew what questions to ask. They were prepared with notepads. Most of them um some of them kind of took the tour but um I asked a few students like you know how it was going and a lot of them said things like I did a lot of active listening. I gave a lot of eye contact. I shook hands um which was really good. Those are a
054lot of soft skills obviously we want our kids to have. um as well as asking important questions about is it a big school, small school, all those types of things. So we had students of different grade levels attend that um college fair. So some of the younger students getting just some exposure to some of the college that are out there. We had colleges from Chicago um and some from distant places also which was kind of neat. Um so that was really good. Uh somebody earlier tonight mentioned the coffee and conversation that we had last Tuesday. Um Mr. and I hosted um and uh we had a really good turnout. I think uh that's we've done a few of these now and the participation from the public is really good and been really informative to us
055as we plan our budget and plan different things for our school moving forward. So, uh we're going to continue to have those uh and hope that the turnout continues to be uh really good and positive and gives us a lot of good information. Um with that being said, our budget development process is in the works. Um because Saul is hard at work behind the scenes behind three, four computer screens sometimes I think plugging away. Um and I appreciate the work that the buildings are doing right now really trying to identify uh what kids need and what the staff needs. Um and we certainly want to be fiscally responsible. We're also very committed to making sure that our teachers have the resources and the tools they need to make sure that our students are provided with
056the supports and the instruction um that they deserve. Um, we have a transportation contract that's expiring. Cassaul right now and I are preparing um the RFP for that. So, I was looking forward to getting going on that. Um, the religious holidays and school events. Uh, the leader, the senior leadership team and I met I think a couple weeks ago. Um, and we had a conversation about all of the all the things that happen in school on a daily basis and throughout the course of the school year. There are many many things. If you don't work in a school, it's hard to understand all the things and the complexity of our schedules. Um, so there's a lot of events, testing windows, things like this we have to adhere to. With that being said, we certainly want
057to be respectful to all the religious holidays out there. Um, and while we may not be able to schedule everything around everything, we're going to make every effort we possibly can to make sure that we're not scheduling any of our special events, booster, things like that um on days where religious holidays are are happening. So, um I appreciate the the comments from uh the public. Uh we hear them loud and clear and we've already put things in motion to make sure that uh we do our best to avoid those situations in the future. Uh really excited. Uh we've solidified a facilitator for a board of ed workshop scheduled for this December. um looking forward to getting together with the board as a new superintendent and we will have some new board members um and getting
058us all on the same page and making sure that um again we're we're working collectively as a group um for the best interest of the district. I talked about strategic planning already uh professional learning update. Monica, are you still here to talk about that or would you like me to do that? >> She is not still on. >> She's not. Okay. So, we had uh I know it was mentioned already with the half day and full day professional learning. Um I'm just going to try to give a quick little overview. Some of the key things that went on um were data wise protocol, which simply means looking at student performance data, looking at different different pieces of data from students and identifying what our strengths are and where we need to focus some additional attention.
059So, sometimes that's really impactful. let us know if we need to set spend more time on fluency or or something different and then we can adjust our instruction accordingly. So having those ongoing discussions about our data is really really important. Um and having new and innovative ways to do that is is very helpful in the efficiency of that process. High school teachers parttook in PSAT training on Friday. Um and then they got some exposure to uh with along with the BCS teachers with AI prompting on on Tuesday. Um also for the might going to say for the first time maybe in a while or ever uh the middle school eighth grade teachers and the high school ninth grade teachers got to meet together for a little bit. Um we know in schools the transition grades
060can be really challenging for kids and adults. So we want to make sure the teachers actually want to make sure that they got together to talk about things that ninth grade students are experiencing that maybe the eighth grade teachers could spend a little more attention to when they're in eighth grade. and then the eighth grade teachers sharing with the ninth grade teachers, you know, uh what they're doing to prepare and then what the ninth grade teachers might be able to do to better support them in that transition. Um in talking to some of the nth grade kids this year, I think the transition overall has been really smooth. Um but it it always brings about different challenges for different students and we just want to make sure we're aware of those. So having those eight
061nine teachers be able to meet and talk about that stuff was really really good. um our specialists and our support team working on the MTSS framework. Again, in a nutshell, that's just making sure that we're meeting the needs of every single one of our students. Uh and in order to meet those needs, we need to be able to identify those needs. And so, making sure that we have the things in place where we're identifying whether it's social emotional needs, academic needs, and making sure that we're putting the appropriate uh support systems in place for those students. Um overall, really positive day and a half of professional learning. As you heard from a couple of teachers, they really appreciate the time. Um the time is used really wisely and beneficial um to do the things that
062they're doing in the classroom because if you ask any teacher, there's never enough time for all the planning they have to do. And uh so we appreciate the time that the board gives on those half days on Fridays. Um and and shout out to u Miss Jello Casper and the administrators for putting together uh a nice day and a half of professional learning for our teachers. That concludes my update. >> Thank you very much. Is there anyone has any questions before we move on? >> Any idea when we're going to start receiving bids for the transportation contract? >> Uh I don't know cuz all timing wise once we get the RFP out when will we start receiving bids you think? Um well right now we're drafting it and have to get it over to legal
063and then we get it back to legal and then we have to post it. Typically that from when we post it is about a month >> putting it out there. >> It's hoping we'll get it to legal get it back within the next few weeks. >> Timelines to report August done. So it's approximately a month when we get the bids. Do we have an idea if our current transportation company is going to put in a bid in RIA? >> They are. They are planning on putting put in a bid. Yes. >> We met um we met a few weeks ago and and he expressed a serious interest in continuing our partnership. >> Did we cover item 5? Oh, yes. Thank you, Chris. I appreciate that. >> I rearranged things and um so the state came
064out with a new requirement for superintendents um that requires superintendents to have this report to the board in the fall um with these three items. So, you have them in front of you. Uh the first item is number of names of all community based organizations with which the BOE has contracted to provide services to students in the school district. disagregated by school and type of support service provided. Currently, we do not have any of those. Um, the second item is the workforce development programs offered by the BOE to support students that involve partnerships with outside entities including arrangements such as co-ops, internships, in job inschool job training programs, inschool workforce board presentations. So as you can see in the righth hand column, annual manufacturing trailer visit from Goodwin manufacturing program partial day with Goodwin ECamp
065trips to manufacturing mania Lincoln Tech each our nursing programs amplify youth coalition Bolton prevention council and then job sites for students in the in our transition program including trips to V uh CVS, Walgreens and um the town economy fire department TCFD and the Manchester Food Bank. And then the third one is the attrition data for certified non-certified staff. This aggregated by school and subject. So you can see that in there uh there was a total of four certified staff members and six non-certified staff members um that left and we hired. This is just for the board's information. >> What's an example of something that would be an item one? Is that would be like if we had like a co-op with like a local farm or something or like what would be an example of
066that? Good question. Um, there was a youth services bureau based out of Hebrin that Kristen had been talking to us about and the town about trying to contract. I think there's some involvement with town that has to happen for that. I'm sure that that would fall under >> Yes, that certainly would. Thank you. >> Thanks, Mr. U. Any other questions? All righty, moving along swiftly. We have no unfinished business. We have no new business. Do we have future business? Not you. >> Um I guess we can briefly mention that we are looking into for future business. We are going to be forming a temporary building commission to get the roof project going which was the subject of much discussion at the three board meeting. Um, we will be looking to move on that for next
067one. And actually I toured the roof with the superintendent and John Bramovich yesterday morning to try to assess the urgency and scope of the work which is fairly urgent and we will be needing a building commission to really dive into but that is future business. that we will have for next. Um, okay. Now, looking for a motion to go into executive session for discussion on possible action to ratify the administrator's contract and to invite the superintendent. >> Uh, any questions? Oh, in favor, please say I. >> I. opposed training. Thank you all for coming. This >> recording stopped. >> We are back to all the viewers out there. Uh we are looking for now a motion to ratify the tenative agreement with the administrators union. Uh actually I'm sorry that was let me start over.
068I'm looking for a motion to ratify the ten of agreement between the Bolton Board of Education and the Administrators Union. >> So, second. >> Any questions or comments? All those in favor of the motion, please say I. >> Is there anyone opposed or abstaining? Motion passes unanimously. And we're now looking for a motion to adjourn. >> Absolutely. >> Okay. questions or comments? All those in favor, please say I. I. >> Opposed are abstaining. Thank you all. See, thanks everybody.