001call this meeting to order 633 will start as usual with the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all uh welcome everybody this evening i'd like to turn things over to the superintendent for tonight's celebration of excellence thank you very much it's an exciting night of honorees tonight so we're going to start with our bolton center school scholar leaders and our first scholar leader this evening is sophia bakshon so she sophia is a quiet leader who is always willing to try her best do the right thing and help others in need she is truly a role model to her peers and is esteemed by her teachers her dedication to her
002academics has earned her high honors distinctions throughout her middle school career as well as award recognition for her writing and for her achievement in social studies she is one of those students who can always be dependent on to work diligently whether it be in a small group setting or individually sophie has been a member of the bcs book club since sixth grade she always comes prepared to club meetings with thoughtful questions and comments about each book to help facilitate the club's discussions outside of the school setting sophia is a member of the coventry crew rowing team sophia is very well deserving of the cast scholar leader award and like to say congratulations to sophia and her family sophia would you like to say anything thank you you're welcome congratulations and our next scholar leader this
003evening from bolton center school is grace osborne grace is an absolute standout both in and out of the classroom she is always willing to participate and puts in extra work to always do her best she has a natural desire for pushing herself academically and improving her work as a result of her hard work and academic prowess grace has earned high honors in every middle school trimester in her time at bolton center school not only does she go above and beyond in each and every class but she also is involved in many extracurricular activities grace was on student council and is currently part of the tennis team guitar club and the yearbook committee grace can also be seen leaving the school announcements in the morning outside of school she competes in gymnastics and has been part
004of a youth group in eighth grade she has demonstrated her desire to help others in the community around her by helping run a food drive within the school based on her service through this project along with her desire and capacity to learn grace is also a well deserving candidate of the cast scholar leader award grace congratulations to you and to your family well deserved anyways would you like to say anything thank you you're welcome congratulations and now on to some big announcements as well this evening for bolton high school it gives me great pleasure and it is my honor to introduce the 2022 bolton high school valedictorian samantha sondeck um i am not sure samantha has joined us yet uh in typica in typical bolton high school fashion um our kids do lots of things
005and there was a softball game and the fact that i don't see sam here makes me wonder if the game isn't over yet so i know our other recipient is here why don't we move on to her and maybe sam will get here okay sounds good and honestly if sam doesn't join us in time for this part i'm pretty sure the board would be fine with me talking about her once she gets here right all right so now it gives me great pleasure and it is my honor to introduce the 2022 bolton high school salutatorian taylor michaud taylor has involved herself in different aspects of bolton high school over the course of her time here she has served as co-captain of the cross-country team and has participated in indoor and outdoor track as well she
006has participated in national honor society spanish club the book club and his friend how are you good thanks uh mrs denunzio could you please mute yourself thank you um taylor has participated in national honor society spanish club book club and has competed in the american rocketry challenge since 2017. she has received various awards for her excellence and achievement over the course of her time at fulton high school including the bausch lomb science award in 2021 taylor's teachers have noted her exceptional dedication leadership skills and compassion for others that will set her up for certain success in the future taylor will be attending the university of connecticut in the fall to study actuarial science taylor congratulations well deserved well done good for you can you say anything taylor thank you looking forward to graduation taylor right
007yes excellent okay um mr miceli has our valedictorian joined us do you see her on the list anyway i i do not see her on the list so we'll just uh embrace her presence when she arrives okay so can you um let me know when that happens all right cheer bro nails so we're gonna move on at this point if that's okay that's fine we'll be happy to recognize a valedictorian when she shows up if she's able to get away um so the next part of our agenda this evening is comments from the audience is there anyone who would like to make any public comments in the audience this evening [Music] okay not hearing any um do we have any additions to the agenda this evening i do not um okay on to routine business
008items looking for a motion to approve the minutes of the april 7th 2022 education business meeting so move to ria i can second that chris thank you yeah chris uh are there any questions comments edits to these minutes i'm hearing nothing all those in favor of the motion please say aye hi hi hi um so anyone who's opposed i will abstain as i was not at that meeting um emotion carries uh now we're looking for a motion to approve the minutes of the may 3rd 2022 board of education special meeting thank you chris and maria are there any edits or questions about the these minutes hearing none all those in favor of the motion please say aye hi is there anyone who is opposed or abstaining okay that motion passes as well um onto board
009of education committee reports tonight the only one we have is curriculum to chris anyone wanna you guys met correct we did i was waiting on sue to jump in since she is the chair i apologize it's a little distracting right now um yes we had a [Music] great sorry i'm just trying to gather my thoughts um we had a presentation on [Music] um chris refresh my memory totally blanking or sarah well do we have a social studies presentation thank you to up do you want me to just go through it okay we we had a an update as to where we are with the k4 social studies presentation uh just to update the board since we had started this project before covid and in transition with a new director of teaching and learning to just
010give everybody an update as to where we're standing we also had some presentations for new spelling program that will be presented later this evening and a new high school course and an overview of uh work we've done over the years in diversity equity and inclusion i miss anything chris nope oh that was it thank you thank you and sorry about that thank you no problem um okay thank you very much we can move on to bhs student representative reports all um sorry i was taking a test i had to move over okay um since this is my last report i thought i'd talk about how the bolton school system shaped me and my peers to the people who we are today my family and i have been in bolton for about five generations now and
011one of the reasons why we keep coming back is because of how great the school system is my grandfather he went to school when it was located in a little building on school road and now it's a garage but that's where you went to school and my mom my aunt and most of my cousins went to the elementary school before bcs was built and now my sisters and little cousins are and i are all currently in the school system my sisters and i have been here since preschool and it's changed us all for the better i've made friends and memories that will last a lifetime but more importantly i learned the skills i need to leave the school system and live a successful life the seniors have a task of finding out what our next
012move in life is going to be and it seems really daunting at first but there's so many ways that all makes it easier firstly my freshman and sophomore year we had college fairs where we learned about different colleges and what they had to offer so it kind of got us thinking about where we might want to go another great thing is that anybody can have a leadership position in bolton no matter what their interests are whether it's a team captain student council national honor society a club leader tutoring or volunteering there's always something that students can do to get involved in bolton has volunteer has volunteering guidelines that we each have to meet before we graduate it usually is 50 hours but with coverage it got modified but we still did have to do some
013and if we're part of the national honor society we have to get 10 more hours to graduate personally i have been team captain for cross country basketball and basketball for multiple years in the national honor society of vice president and the co-president of the donut club and if you talk to any student they will most likely answer that they have at least one of these leadership decisions one of the reasons that so many students get involved is because of the school size we have a lot more opportunities to get involved because in bigger schools you'd have to run against people and usually we don't have to do that different colleges oh with the college fairs it actually helps us like with what guidance has to do too we all met with guidance at one point
014or another to talk about college and our future goals and they've been so helpful during this process and it really helps us and make it as smooth as possible there's been many times with myself or others that there were issues with applications or that were just stressed and didn't really know what to do and time and time again the guidance department has always helped us now we're committed to our next destination and whether that be college the military or trade two other senior requirements are taking ap gov or civics during our and doing our senior capstone project taking those classes teaches us about the united states government and how it works and how it was created it puts us right back on track and to make informed decisions in our life the captain project is
015completed in our senior year and includes a research paper and a project portion where we can put pick whatever topics we want personally my research paper was about different types of working dogs and what they do and how why they're important to the society and my project was to train a therapy dog other people's projects included building rockets coaching teams learning how to compost and learning how to play an instrument it's important because it focused all the it helped us all to be focused and disciplined and even helped us find new connections because of this project i learned so much about dogs and how they act and i even helped teach a therapy dog class and now i have connections with that therapy dog company that i can keep doing when i when i get
016older along with volunteering all students must also have to complete a job shadow this helps us narrow down what we marry down what we may think we're interested in for a career one day this helped me decide my path by shadowing different people in a medical field an ophthalmologist a physical therapist physicians assistant and acupuncturist the juniors and seniors have an opportunity to also earn ap credits and ece credits which would earn credits for college there are a lot of different topics areas to choose from and there's even more next year the credits will transfer to almost any college and it helps us lessen our course load and have an easier freshman year and even a jump on college most of us are able to take these classes and it also looks really great on
017our resume great job thank you and very much go back to your test quick good luck um um no he's not here tonight but i do believe we have a parent who was having some technical issues under comments from the audience so i don't know if you want to what you want to do with us that's fine go ahead if you'd like to make a comment you have three minutes oh thank you very much i won't take three minutes um this is sue dinunzio and i'm representing a lot of the senior parents who we were having trouble finding this link and i think that there may not be so many of them that were able to find it we just wanted to to stress our concern about graduation night and we're hearing that there's going
018to be a limitation to tickets and we're just hoping that um we will you guys will consider extending the tickets from six to to more than that considering that graduation's outside so just so you know um thank you for the comment um it's not a question and answer period that's not what's allowed under commentary so thank you for the commentary and i'm certain that uh mr miscella will be reaching out uh thank you and i know that there are other parents who who also wanted to share their their concern about that so is it is it recommended that we reach out to mr miceli or the board of ed or who well i think we gotta go ahead and i would say all the above but okay all right thank you thanks thank you okay
019um let's move along um community meeting reports has anyone been to any meetings that they'd like to share all right i can go um attended the bolton scholarship fund meeting uh in april no may sorry keep getting confused because we changed our date to the first wednesday of the month uh so the may meeting uh was the most recent one um [Music] our applications uh have been closed for this year's scholarships so we're now in the process of reviewing applications and making determinations and the scholarship awards will be announced at graduation this year i also wanted to bring up under community meeting reports i know several several of us attended the public hearing on the budget but i just wanted to mention that one of the comments that was made during the budget hearing related
020to the issue of the student population in bolton public schools and the fact that it has been going down we were challenged by the townsperson who made the comment to come up with a plan on how we were going to address this issue of continuing uh declining enrollments so i would certainly want to encourage my fellow board members to look into that further at a future meeting it is an issue that i've also been concerned about and i think we owe it to the taxpayers to be looking at it seriously that's all thank you chris um we can consider that for future um i guess also there was another community meeting which was a town meeting where we took some money that had been for um door locks and applied it to our septic failing
021septic system so that passed um was there any other community meetings anyone else can think of okay hearing nothing i'll turn things over to the superintendent for the superintendent of schools reports mrs hecht if i may uh our valedictorian has arrived excellent thank you all right we're gonna hi sam how'd it go did we win we won five to four last inning come back awesome that's awesome that's a great day all right so everybody it is my pleasure and my honor to introduce to all of you the 2022 bulletin high school valedictorian samantha sondik congrats sam so sam has involved herself in many aspects of bolton high school from being captain of the varsity softball team to co-chair biggs and littles program as well as participating in national honor society and serving on various school
022committees sam is committed to equality and inclusion and has spent her school career volunteering with various local and national social justice organizations she has been the recipient of the frederick douglass and susan b anthony award the joseph shanahan u.s history award as well as other awards for excellence and leadership sam's teachers have all spoken of her honesty determination and passion that will help her succeed in the future sam will be attending smith college in the fall to study government and spanish sam you worked very hard and this is a well-deserved honor congratulations good for you sam um just thank you to the staff and uh board of ed and all the teachers who made it possible for me to achieve so much i can't thank you enough thank you good job thank you congratulations again
023all right now we're going to move to superintendent of schools report if i could please and our first up is a math curriculum update and i'm going to turn it over to uh mrs malinowski good evening everyone uh as uh mr misali is getting this up we are on uh a every five years we take a closer look at various curricula throughout the district and this year we took a closer look at our math curricula and this is a more complete update of what has changed over the past five years since our last big report with me this evening i see uh the alicia rose is our six through eight core leader who's been able to make it this evening as is diana mkhilochi i saw on the chat but i'm sorry my screens have
024changed and remain rene midford i'm not sure if she could make it this evening renee is the academic core leader for high school and diana is our k5 leader tremendous team and we are very grateful for all the hard work that they do in guiding us and helping make decisions next slide please beginning at the high school and i will just say that i am happy to report that we are feeling comfortable comfortable in all at all levels about being aligned to our connecticut core standards as we know this was a year of re-engaging with academics and school and that has been a close study at all levels so i won't keep repeating myself we also at the high school have to consider other national standards such as ap course standards and at this time
025our yukon ece standards we have two courses that we've taken up over since we've met a few years ago calculus and statistics and this evening we will be proposing a third class uconn elementary discrete mathematics the students in high school who receive college credit for um ap when they pass an exam their exam at a specific score and is that the discretion of uh the colleges if they choose to accept that credit where a yukon ece course uconn guarantees that credit with the passing grade so it's it's excellent the amount of work that our teachers and department have put in to offer more opportunities for our students to receive these credits and have some some options for being such a small department and small district and i do have to say to be uconn ece
026teacher you must get approved by the college so it is not just oh hey we want to do this there are extra steps so i'm very grateful for our teachers who are willing to step up for that and of course ap has its own training as well at um our status we're always on ongoing revisions looking how we can better our curriculum and our instruction as we move along we are now at the point of being able to be current with post pandemic status where we are with our topics uh and continuing on to align with transferable skills and bolton's portrait of a graduate in grades 12 10 through 12 you can see the list of our electives that we also offer and moving on to grades eight six through eight so six through eight
027during their pandemic years uh did roll into a new program the ready program which was a continuation of the k through five program grade six uh had a partial rollout and truly a full rollout this year and seventh grade also rolled out ready eighth grade uh they the directive was to start the training however our eighth grade teacher dove in and has also rolled out for our non-algebra course ready as well it's been a tremendous resource and we've been working on revising the units in atlas to to align with the program and certainly the teachers were able to attend pd for the program always looking at sbac and making sure our work aligns with that analyzing our data at bcs we have the opportunity for the win time the what i need now and the
028ready program what's wonderful about it and for families who've seen it at home it has a robust online portion which allows students to have a personalized path which is called my path which aligns with their assessments and what the teachers are seeing and then on go moving on to k5 this is our third year with ready math as our main resource this year we really spent a lot of time looking at fact fluency and our instructional practices with best practices and a few new supplemental online programs to help us with that as well as utilizing my path and the ongoing work again continues with uh the work in our atlas and this year was a big focus on assessments and revisiting our practices and how we consider our big ideas and learning targets for each
029unit and because of covid especially in the k5 world we've had to revisit the unit sequence again in its alignment and we are feeling confident that we are feeling more pre-demo pre-pandemic-like than i was able to report last year uh is there anything that i've missed from my few academic leaders who are here or any of the building administrators who support us in this tremendous work hearing none i do want to thank them we really can't do that this work without this extra effort this is a stipended position outside of school hours and we are very grateful for the energy and the learning and the professionalism of our leaders and the ongoing support of our building administration so thank you very much and that concludes my report on math thank you any questions for sarah
030or the leaders or principles on this okay hearing goodness thank you sarah very much i'm going to turn it over to mr giard for an update from bcs good evening um cover three things tonight end of year events a little bit of information about eighth grade promotion and then we'll end with the talking about the successful student-led conferences for end-of-year events we're currently finishing up smarter balanced testing uh with a few makeups left to complete everything has gone very well technology every kid's using their chromebooks don't you know what i mean you're always a little on edge but everything went perfectly and we have a few makeup so we're going to finish the end of next week our fifth and eighth graders um still have ngss testing that's going to take place on may 24th
031and that is a one day science test we then jump into june full steam with two parent events on june 1st which is the incoming kindergarten parent uh meeting at 6 pm on june 1st and then the 5th to 6th grade transition meeting which is at 7 p.m also on june 1st both events were held via zoom last year and it was overwhelming response from parents that they want to even post pandemic when we get to that point to keep it via zoom so we're going to try it again this year on june 10th we will have our academic awards assembly which is for grades five through eight and that's going to be at 9 15 a.m and that's on june 10th last year we did it via zoom as well and got some good
032feedback and we're going to have it on zoom again this year and the last day of school is june 15th our promotion plan uh the eighth graders are extremely excited we have some end of the year activities coming up uh promotion is scheduled for june 14th at 10 a.m at the high school and a huge thank you to mr miceli mr bachmovich and the bhs custodians for hosting uh bcs again this year at the high school because it's an undertaking to get everything set up for that early in the morning and to have us over the day before for practice so a big thank you to them uh like i said the promotion will be at 10 a.m it's a ticketed event and we'll have a photographer it'll be recorded and also streamed on youtube
033the ring date is going to be the same time on june 15th same time and location uh student-led conferences we were actually able to see it through this year we had we were just about to implement them in march of 2020 before the pandemic hit and we were able to see it through this year we had the actual conferences uh via zoom which went really well and that was on march 17th and 18th we had 98 of students run their own student-led conference with their crew leader and their parent or guardian present the students reviewed the goals they created in the fall and the work samples that they collected that supported their work towards their goals the goals included two academic goals a habit of work goal and a transferable skill goal the goal is
034directly connected to the portrait of the graduate and the work that we're doing at the building level we surveyed after student conferences both the students and the parents to get some meaningful feedback so we can even better next year we had 48 parent responses on the survey with 81 percent of the parents saying that they felt that the student-led conferences helped them to understand their child's strengths and challenges at a as a learner so i thought that was an extremely uh great feedback the 81 percent of parents felt that they uh saw a meaning in the student conference uh on another question 83 of parents selected that they either agreed or strongly agreed that they had a positive experience with student conferences on the student survey we had 163 responses and 132 of the 163
035which is 81 of the students said that they put their best effort into preparation for the student led conference and 60 felt that they understood themselves better as a student and learner because of this process uh there were also open-ended questions for both parents and students and we're reviewing those responses we already have some great ideas to build and be better for next year and we put together a short video that mr miceli is going to queue up in a second that highlights the student led conferences and i hope you enjoy all right mr g i think i've got it wave me off if you can't hear it though no volume we're not hearing anything okay no problem i think i know what it is welcome back friends i'm here to tell you what i
036am great at proud of and how i grew this year i will share a habit of work and scholarship a transferable skill one strength and one area of focus at the end of my conference i will give you a chance to ask any questions you may have and i will ask you for some feedback so we've been working on a presentation and collecting work samples for a while and now i get to present it to my parents and to show them what i've been working on and how i've been doing student-led conferences with the concept that came out of building the portrait of a graduate and building student ownership of their learning and the learning process and they set four goals throughout the year and they collected work that they're already doing in their classes
037connected to it so saying what was the objective of the project the feedback they received from the teacher the growth that they've experienced that's where the value in this comes from is that they're telling you the story behind the assignment or the work connected to that goal and how they grew in that area thank you mr osborne for joining us remotely i can tell a student that maybe he's waiting last minute or something like that and that goes right over his head but when he has to reflect about what his grades are like and what his work habits are like and how he can improve that is going to stick with him much more than just teach intel academy i think it was great it's nice to hear from her perspective how she's doing um
038ultimately you know if she doesn't feel she's doing well on something i want to hear that her not necessarily from her teacher um she needs to be accountable for her learning which she definitely is and that will only help her improve um next year as you know the independence and learning and expectation will become greater if she goes to high school so i know that if i have questions for a teacher dan and i can call and find a time to have a meeting with any of her teachers if we need to but again i just feel like it's so important for her to be able to tell me how she's doing and be proud of that or be honest you know i need to improve in this area that intrinsic motivation to improve and
039learn is is really important for students [Music] they were virtual it's just that mrs osborne works in the school so that one actually wasn't persons uh but the rest were via zoom it was a great event thank you any questions for daryl great job thank you all right on to curriculum update and i'm going to turn it back over to ms malinowski oh no i'm sorry i'm turning it over to mr miceli for a bold high school update sorry no problem uh first i wanted to personally thank emily for her detailed reflection and a short explanation she was not interrupting a bolton high school test uh she like a handful of other bolton high school students this year and in the past years have taken upon themselves to take the emt course so emily actually
040stepped out of her emt course was she taking it uh to present to you tonight because uh she needed to keep up with that work so i'm really proud of of everything that she's doing there too and i think she really captured where our class of 2022 is right now they've been an amazing group of students keeping up a great attitude even in the in the face of some difficult years just a quick note to throw out about class of 2023 as you all know we do have our students participate in standardized testing including the psat and the sat one of the components of the grade 10 psat is the possibility of being recognized as a national merit scholar although we don't know of any of our current juniors we'll be finalists we do know
041that some of them qualified as semi-finalists and as i mentioned that because the semi-finalists actually means they scored in the top three percent of all students in the nation taking that test um sometimes we have one semi-finalist rarely we've had two um this year we had four um so fingers crossed that at least uh some of those for members of the class of 2023 are named as finalists and i'll update the board on that um a few months ago our grade nine teachers presented to you about team 25 uh we're so happy with how that new model to support incoming students work this year we are continuing that model with the class of 2026 with a few modifications things that we've learned our grade 9 teachers have already begun communicating with the grade 8 teachers
042at the center school and we are excited about official 2026 kickoff day which we have scheduled for august the week before school opens and as we rapidly approach the one month mark to graduation we are getting ready um we're going to use a similar format as we did last year incorporating scholarships and awards into that outdoor ceremony for commencement um and i have been coordinating with bolton scholarship foundation and projection project graduation families uh to make that all happen and we plan on live streaming that event on the bhs youtube channel thank you any questions from mr miscellany okay hearing none now i'm on to mrs malinowski again for the curriculum update for the last time for the last time yes thank you so hopefully every board member was able to get a packet that
043looks like this is just a clip of what you should have in your pocket which is a about two and a half page update for each content area as to where we stand with standards and assessments and some of our practices i'm happy to report that as always and even this year which i know at various times throughout this year it has been a challenging year to keep up with every level of professional responsibility and our teachers yet again um just rose to the challenge of making sure they were able to keep up with checking in with where we are with curriculum updating making sure our documents and our resources are reflecting what it's like to be back in person versus where we were with kovid we tried to document that so as things shifted
044and changed throughout uh that we were able to have record uh for so that it's fair and equitable and everybody could see where we are within the district and we can provide our best practices for the kiddos uh so throughout each one i've identified the standards that the different content areas are aligned with and then the different assessments that go along with the different contents also added and i kept from last year's report because it's worth recognizing as then the number of online resources that we now implement for assessment practices especially some of them which are also instructional uh but the teachers and the did go through and add which ones they really do use for their assessment practices one of the silver linings of our remote time and and covid has been this tremendous
045understanding of of things such as jamboard google forms and now how do we use that appropriately so that when is it best to do something through handwriting and through more uh pre-pandemic styles versus piece um some of the platforms that are responsive and give immediate feedback to the students so for each content area we also added the online resources which again are greatly supported by the board's budget and we thank you for that ongoing support and i do thank our teachers for being very thoughtful uh through this process so instead of going through every single one are there any questions that the board may have for me monica is on the call and is ready to take over the reins we've been able to meet and um so thank you very much for your support
046with this ongoing curriculum work thank you sarah very much for the last curriculum update that you will give in your very amazing career and now on to your last professional learning summary great so going on to uh the work that we continue to do the chart again this is a a snip of the document that was sent to the board members of the various types of professional learning that our staff engaged with this year all of our professional learning uh is aligned to goals our both district goals school goals you know and certainly our goals have to be responsive to when there are mandates so some of the things might be more mandate driven but that's very few and far between and no we need to be responsive to the state and so on some
047level we are responding to our goals in that way uh the majority of all pd this year remain to be virtual for obvious reasons and in that way some pla some pd was actually more available because they became late afternoon short meetings versus a full day or having to leave to go to a meeting i anticipate next year we'll see some of our partners such as crack and the other rests around the straight state offering pd opportunities in a virtual format when they're short and that opens up some doors for our teachers and administrators as learners uh there has been a slow transition to a few in-person pd opportunities and next year we anticipate that we will you know fingers crossed everything goes in that direction we'll be seeing more opportunities for that so again
048i really do want to thank the board and the community for their ongoing support of the teachers and their learning so that we are able to provide the best education possible for all students here so with that any questions about anything on our professional learning again thank you very much and i have to say as that is my final report about curriculum professional development which is a huge part of my role i am very grateful to this board and to the town for the amazing support uh for the learning of our teachers because it really does show how the students are the total focus so again thank you thank you sarah very much and finally our strategic plan update for the year all right kristen you saved everything for the last for me huh i
049did sarah it's a whole bowl of wax here all right well that's okay because uh joe and daryl are going to help which you know can't do any of this work without our partners here so uh as always our work is grounded in our portrait of a graduate and our strategic goals and um which are highlighted here so at the our first goal focusing on student success uh at all levels the pk12 we focused on all the bulleted items that are listed here and this has really been accomplished through the embedded pd and learning that we just looked at and again the support of the the board and the town for our eight early release days that allows us to do much of this very important work turning it over to mr miceli uh thank
050you so some of the things that we worked on this year was you know that flexible time that we call connections um we kind of always take a peek at how we can improve that that was part of our our work this year um we actually have an ongoing revision of capstone capstone looked different this year than it did last year and next year there's already some changes that we're making that you know we think are going to improve things uh primarily um the biggest thing that our board members might notice is that it's starting sooner um the pathways uh for responsive intervention rti to you know focus on credit recovery mastery and support you know in all areas really making use of all the resources we have to support students uh and the continued
051implementation of that you know all that digital work that sarah referred to earlier and the team 25 work that i mentioned earlier and all the bullets listed for bcs under student success have been ongoing and year long throughout the year we've collaborated with vhs to ensure a successful transition for our eighth grade students to ninth grade as you heard earlier we recently completed our spring student-led conferences and are in the final stages of gathering more feedback from students and families so we can make it even more meaningful next year we continue to utilize our pbis team and school-wide expectations to guide our work and making bcs a positive learning environment and lastly k-5 teachers have done an amazing job this year and the saffron has been an integral part of that work as well continuing
052to work hard on their development of clear learning intentions and success criteria um all this work supports um the student learning and towards specific standards as evidenced by our standards-based report cards and connects directly with our bps portrait of a graduate our goal too is about creating a caring culture foster responsive caring and inclusive culture and a collaborative relationship so again at the district level excuse me all of our activities have been ongoing and these are what you see pk12 very similar to what was presented at mid-year and then dhs and bcs will report more specifically you know so you know the caring piece you know is also interwoven into those those big structural pieces that we have in the school that flexible connections piece um we did all sorts of you know not just
053academic activities but uh you know other things to support students during the the tricky times uh and that team 25 piece um again wasn't just academic support with social emotional support um and even a huge boost in communication of parents uh with the newsletters that they did every month and at bcs uh we take obviously the similar the high school tremendous pride in our caring culture that we've established and we work hard to build upon that work that we've done in the past uh we have done this by continuing to include inclusive language and titles in our classrooms uh through building teacher-student relationships with learning experiences like the student-led conferences and by encouraging students to think and explore uh their future at bhs and beyond with our eighth grade career day which is tomorrow and
054by other interest building activities as well so we're super excited about the career day tomorrow and ucs is a special place our third goal uh talent development uh i've spoken to this already in many ways can't do this work without our academic leaders uh our administrative team this really is a a collaborative effort and um no kidding aside this year has been been a challenge to make sure we're carving out that time and continuing our learning and i again thank everybody and especially the the motivation to continue learning through these times we do have a ongoing pd calendar that for the past two years we've left it more flexible than set just to be responsive to our needs but the plcs at each building are aligned and also flexible for what needs are going on
055in the building but always with an eye to our district goals and building goals another piece is team i have to say we have quite a few new teachers and the team program is a required program but it is also part of a pd opportunity where teachers are able to visit each other's classrooms they it's very reflective so we are very active in the team program and uh we have a very supportive district-wide p-deck committee at both buildings one key piece has been this revised plc schedule and structure as i had mentioned earlier this has been the year to be responsive you know at the middle level daryl really needing to dig in and make sure those student-led conferences happen along with all of the other work and the high school to to address the
056ever-changing needs of as we get back to this post-pandemic school so that has been an ongoing work uh so sometimes we give these very big picture ideas and so we're gonna take a pause in this presentation to highlight something that's very important to all of the administrators and teachers in this district about diversity equity and inclusion and our work while we are talking about this strategic plan was part of our last strategic plan that has been a goal an embedded goal in everything that we've been doing and so our professional learning that happened prior to 2020 and some of it still ongoing has included the master report approach and you can see our topics with our supporting organizations so this is not learning that we just pick a random group these are very highly recognized
057and vetted groups reputable um and the nice thing about it there's been some long ongoing relationships so it is not the many many years ago i know when i started teaching uh you know you get the one and done and that's it for your for your pd these have been this has been ongoing and i i do want to emphasize that so as you can see our topics that you've heard at many board meetings mastery approach portrait of a graduate culturally responsive practices student engaged assessments the workshop model and i do want to say a workshop model and that's k-12 we've looked at that not just as an elementary practice there have been open choice book clubs and there's the support of from crap from being part of open choice and as mentioned before team
058module 5. i do want to mention this specifically because there's been a dramatic change in this in that the csde also supported districts with culturally responsive learning in that in team module 5 teachers are given a scenario where how you might respond and this is for our beginning teachers it's an induction program and districts have options as to how we participate in it in bolton we started a few years ago where every other year all staff members get to participate in this conversation so it's a reminder of how important we are as educators and how really keeping the forefront uh the best practices for dealing with all of our students so while the new teachers get specific pd all of our teachers get to participate in this particular module uh since 2020 into our new
059strategic plan we've continued much of before but there's been some more specific work uh we've had world events where staff asked for book studies we continued our work with diversity equity inclusion our lmc uh teachers both buildings or both librarians have worked with their association and equity audit for ongoing understandings and they are a great resource for all of our teachers we've attended very specific institutes and with equity work being embedded in all of our new learning the important piece with this in bolton when we think about equity we're not just talking about racial equity we need to think about all students and that's really very important for us to highlight and so this is not a one and done deal this is about having conversations continuing our learning and making sure that this work
060is deeply embedded in everything we do because we have to do what's right and best for all kids i don't know where i got that line from but it is embedded in my soul and it really is uh what we need to um what's really at the basis of all of this work so again as you can see trauma-sensitive practices certainly we've heard that in the news but also just so we're also doing it sel um and then the ongoing el training english learners so what does that look like in the classroom so we don't just adopt any program and i know we try to make these meetings a big overview but we think about these topics when we're picking our resources so uh you know our ready math program is very rich with um
061resources to help us understand how to best provide instruction for all learners likewise the reading and writing workshop approach has a very long history with culturally responsive practices even back to the 1990s so that's taking us way back to way back and you know just this idea where literature is our our way to experience the world our windows our mirrors our sliding glass doors and i'm not going to i'm going to have to look because you know i'm talking fast and trying to give you as much information but it was really um dr rooney rudin sims bishop who really got that concept going and has been the foundation of work and sometimes we don't mention it because really this practice has been around and one of the challenges that we always have to remember as
062educators things become embedded but sometimes we have to get back to the roots as to why we do these things so really our our strategic plan allows us to always revisit the important conversations uh for that uh again listing the different curricular implications that we've seen how we've changed our book talks the choice of the second step program to support the students with sel and again any time we make a major uh text selection resource selection this is considered at both levels and then at the high school we have other opportunities for things such as the unity and connection activities and um certainly we were able to celebrate a few years there when the computer science program was new and the state celebrated us for really promoting women and girls in the computer sciences so
063again this work does not escape any of us and over the next i'm not going to read all of the next two slides so at bcs the programs are more universal things such as the ready math program our workshop approach and and resources at the high school it's more course embedded so i'll chatter just a little bit and let you peruse uh what the teachers have chosen to share about ways they're making very conscious efforts and this is not an all-inclusive list please by any means but these are some ways in which teachers are highlighting um some of our marginalized voices or coming into ideas and so that we we provide an accurate picture for our students and making sure we're representing all of our students in a way that they can access materials and
064ideas so next slide mr miceli and i think the only subject area i did leave out was our pe and health department certainly this is a topic that does come up in health uh um again not having an academic leader i didn't have somebody to lean into for this but certainly you know there is plenty here for us to consider and i do thank uh the board by my subcommittee for asking questions and making sure that we are thinking about all of our students because again um i said it earlier this evening and i'm very i feel honored to be able to end my career in a district where students all students are welcomed and held to an expectation so they can succeed and enjoy a life that is um ahead of them so thank
065you for everybody's support i don't believe do we have anything else at the next slide i'm not sure i don't think we do for that for that so our last goal resource stewardship i may turn over to the superintendent because this really is her purview but certainly all of us this is a team effort so with that i thank the board profusely for your time happy to answer questions after this about any piece i presented um but that concludes my very long report and maybe last time thank you sarah very much so as the board knows we have had an ongoing budget process that begins in september um we have done pre and post covert analysis of our programs technology and other resources that was done back in the fall we do an annual review
066of purchased resources that's an ongoing thing that we do we do do zero-based budgeting we have applied for and continue to receive grants uh each year and you know do our very best to be good stewards of the community's money for sure any questions chris i i don't have a question i just wanted to appreciate or express my appreciation uh for sarah i've been fortunate to be a member of the curriculum subcommittee since i joined the board over many years ago and as a new board member uh being able to ask many many questions of sarah and have really thoughtful discussions with her um has really helped me learn um so much about the education process and it's been really my pleasure to to be able to work with her over these last last years
067so all the best on your retirement sarah and thank you thank you chris appreciate that it's been a pleasure working with you anybody else i'd just like to stop the second what chris has just said and just say sarah it's also been a pleasure working with you and i'm just so happy to see how the curriculum and instruction in bolton has been implemented because and designed because it really does follow excellent practices and um and i know i think i know and um so i i do want to express my appreciation for everything that you do and how you've been a real leader in the school district so thank you thank you ria it's been great working with you and it's so much fun talking about educational things with you and thank you for your
068resources i think chris and ria said a lot but we have to repeat you are just amazing we are going to miss you you've been quite an asset to the school district thank you sue agree with what everybody else said we haven't worked together directly too too much but uh i can feel your impact through the successes of the students so enjoy your retirement thank you thank you appreciate it ben and thank you everybody that's good thank you thank you um there'll be more commentary about sarah's retirement at the june meeting um i will not be making commentary this evening because i need to get through the rest of this meeting tonight if that's okay uh because i'm gonna have a hard time at the shoot meeting i can tell you that so that concludes
069our report this evening sarah thank you very much joe darrell thank you all very much chair o'neill it's all yours sir thank you everybody uh we don't have any unfinished business tonight um we'll move on to new business we have resignations we do i have a few to report on this evening um special education teacher adam jodine has uh along with paco ruiz and food service manager jackie o'brien have resigned um adam and paco will finish out the year with us i would like to thank them for their dedicated service to the bolton public schools and they will be greatly missed thank you we have a new course next that is ece elementary discrete mathematics yes boy i thought it was done renee midford was supposed to be presenting this course this evening and so
070mr miceli i might be leaning into you a little bit to make sure i don't miss anything with this so we did present a new course proposal to the curriculum subcommittee at our meeting for the high school to add an elective a uconn ece course in elementary discrete mathematics this course uh like i said earlier a staff member renee midford has to have special certification and she when she was at a ap statistics meeting she was listening to the requirements for this course and it was all of two different two additional units compared to um our contemporary math topics course and so she asked hey can i add and they can extend a course that we already have that is board approved it does not require a textbook it has an online resource and it
071does add two extra units that and at a faster and more uh intense or more rigorous topics for the college credit and will be available as a junior elective and is one that guidance will be able to look at us once this course gets into our cycle for students having an additional math ap opportu or and math ece opportunity as well did i miss anything mr miceli or any of my fantastic job as always oh thank you so we're hoping for course approval tonight everybody so i can make a motion to approve the ece elementary discrete mathematics course chris and sue do we have any more questions or commentary about this course i'd just say uh again uh thank you to ms midford for recognizing that this would be a relatively easy course to add
072and would be of great benefit to our students and just taking the initiative to get get certified i think it's a great great addition for for our high schoolers so thank you i'd just like to echo chris also that uh you know that i love minimal budgetary impacts extra courses and i also love more math courses uh so great job um all those in favor of the motion please say hi [Music] abstaining i think that was everybody um next we have a first read on grade three to five spelling program sunday essentials yes and that is not a typo it is sunday essentials sunday essential spellings uh it's been a while since we have updated our spelling program currently we are using the scott forestman reading street program and would like to update to a
073more relevant program that is aligned with what we know about instructional practices for early literacy word work vocabulary development it's not just learning a list of words to memorize it's embedded in supporting both reading and writing so our english language arts committee at the elementary school did do a comparison of three programs and settled with this program we do have familiarity with the sande spelling program because we do use some of the resources in our intervention program which makes another an additional alignment uh for all learners with this the program we knew this was a program that we would like to consider updating the funds for this already are allocated in a grant so again that is a impact a financial impact that we have already accounted for in our grant programs so this evening
074we would like to propose a first read and for the community should they want to preview any piece of this would need to contact me at the board of ad so i can make arrangements for that thank you very much we make you made you work hard tonight going out last time um okay is there any questions about this all right uh do we have any future business no all right uh then at this time i'm looking for a motion to go into executive session to discuss the superintendent's evaluation and also to invite superintendent hecht still moved and thank you sue and maria any questions all those in favor of the motion please say aye aye all right uh recording stopped we went to executive session thank you everyone else for coming this evening