Bolton Board of Education - January 14, 2021

001tonight i think it's important that as always we start the meeting with the pledge of allegiance pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states thank you uh i believe we'll be starting the meeting tonight by turning things over to the superintendent for the celebration of workable excellence great thank you uh mr misselli could we go to um that page please um so actually we'll just stay on pictures right now so we have two uh awards tonight i'm so excited that we're doing some celebration of excellence this month i'll start there and our first one uh is the hobie award and our recipient this evening is julia zimmerman give julia a round of applause to start virtual though it is so since 1958 the hugh o'brien youth leadership program better known as hobie has provided

002leadership development training to positively impact the lives of thousands of high school students in the u.s and abroad annually hobie's program allows high school sophomores to realize their leadership talents and apply them in becoming effective ethical leaders in their home school community and workplace students will attend a three-day we hope in person seminar if not hopefully it will be virtual and practice hands-on leadership activities meet leaders in their state and explore their own personal leadership skills while learning how to make a positive impact in their community teachers nominate a grade 10 student who exhibits the following traits and skills outstanding communication critical thinking creative problem solving strong decision making sensitivity to others charismatic personality courage to speak out and challenge and interest in community service julia received multiple teacher nominations julia has and continues to

003make a very positive impact on bolton high school she carries a very rigorous schedule for her classes and shows her talent in all of them julia is already showing how she is a leader among her peers she is recognized for her ability to think critically about things in bolton and outside of it she also has the ability to start conversations about difficult topics and speaks out against injustices with julia's strong work ethic and desire to learn she is well deserving of this award we are very proud that she will be representing bolton high school at the upcoming leadership conference julia congratulations to you and your family a well deserved honor young lady well done would you like to say anything i guess just like thanks thank you for the award well deserved congratulations next we

004have the daughters of the american revolutional good citizen award and it gives me great pleasure to announce cassidy collins as this year's recipient of the dar good citizen award cassidy is now eligible to participate in the national scholarship program sponsored by this organization way to go cassidy the daughters of the american revolution was established in 1890 by a group of pioneering women in our nation's capital who wanted to perpetuate the memory of the men and women who fought to make our country free and independent dar members are passionate about educating the youth of america and contributing to schools and student programs in a variety of ways and in support of that the dar good citizen award and scholarship contest was created in 1934 to provide scholarships and awards to outstanding students throughout the country each

005year teachers from high schools across the country select students from the senior class who demonstrate dependability service leadership and patriotism in their homes schools and communities cassidy transitioned to bolton high school during the second quarter of her junior year with a transcript reflecting high honors and continued her success here at bolton high school in honors and ap courses while moving to a new school naturally poses many challenges cass city acclimated very quickly she was inducted by acclimation into the philip c ligouri chapter of the national honor society not only on her academic transcript and character but also due to her strong service and leadership credentials cassidy has been an active member of the jrotc in south carolina for years and hopes to continue her path of service and leadership to her country through an rotc

006program at her chosen university here you go that's awesome cassidy is a selfless and caring young lady who has risen as a natural leader and a role model to all who know her these qualities and more make cassidy a very deserving deserving recipient of this award cassidy congratulations to you and to your family on this wonderful honor way to go thank you so much i appreciate it even being here for like this will be my first full year now and so it's just a big honor thank you guys well we love having you and congratulations thank you chair o'neill that concludes tonight's celebration of excellence thank you congratulations to our recipients and it's nice to hear about some of the good things happening during all this um i believe that next we'll be moving to

007comments from the audience do we have any of those this evening mr mishriki okay good evening everybody letting me share i am going to attempt to share my screen not because i want you to read off of it a brief video okay i hope that's working and if it's not um somebody could just let me know that'd be great so thank you so much for letting me address you but i know that you know you don't have a ton of time so i'll be as brief as possible i'm here to share why i think it is in the best interest of the town of bolton the bolton public schools the high school and especially the track team to consider the construction of a track and field facility i know you don't have a lot of

008time and so i am going to try to keep myself to four minutes or less and then i do have some students here to share as well so i'm gonna focus on just three points but i tend to be long-winded but i also believe that there are many reasons why this is a good choice and why it's in the best interest of the town so i typed a very long proposal but i assure you each point has been individually kind of thought over and um if you would just do me the honor of reading it and considering it and passing it on to anyone you think it might apply to that'd be great so the three things i wanted to share would be my first point which is included in here but i'm not going

009to be scrolling through my document is i think it's in the best interest of the bolton public schools that we continue to attract as many students both from within bolton and from without bolton to our school system i don't think it's a secret that we sometimes lose some talented students both academic and athletic to other schools whether they be private schools whether it's students from colombia mark you're frozen try turning off your picture and see if we can hear you still because we keep our faculty at capacity and ensures that we keep our school system top-notch and competitive so i i think the track facility is essential to that effort um and i also think within that same vein if bolton is a tiny town but bolton going to continue to have its own district

010and this era especially financial constraints might move towards things like regionalization bolton high school should be a whole school i think it's in the best interest that it offer the same offerings that virtually every public high school in the country offers and has offered for decades and i think that will help keep our school bolton high school quite simply um i also have a lot of photos uh that i have included so i would just like to share them because they can express a lot more than i can this is our current track team home base which is the parking lot out behind the school um keep in mind that we work from march through june and that's outdoor track our indoor track also has to work outside um so we have one of the

011biggest teams in the school district we make up more than half the athletes competing each year at bolton high school um other athletes get to train on an actual start and finish line that seems like a small thing but our athletes are using a jump rope here on the soccer field which we're not allowed to step on which i i think says it all i'm not even going to elaborate our javelin throwers work in a muddy field in the corner because once again they're not allowed near the soccer fields because of course we know the soccer fields are badly in need of repair and better drainage as well our long jump runway if you want to call it that which would be very generous is blacktop it's too short and we jump into a pit

012that was made by a community member for us and we're so fortunate to have that but in no way is that an adequate facility for our jumpers i'm not going to bring up the issue of safety it speaks for itself but if one were to read my document it's pretty evident and so is this picture hurtling on uneven grass and a tilted field on the side of a soccer field that we're not allowed to go on and it's not just the soccer field it we are not given permission to work on any of our fields which leaves us virtually no actual training area our kids are stretching on blacktop as well shin splints are a regular problem we go to coventry to practice pole vault and i'd like to point out that our commentary to

013practice all after practice because i'm only one coach so sometimes they end up doing four or five hours of practice friday afternoon so they can learn pole vault but i assure you they all show up wanting to pole vault um here we are training on what is primarily our sprint track which as you can see through the duration of the season is covered in either ice dust or dirt but usually it's covered in all three which is a simple recipe for an injury and it'd be really nice to say find a safer spot but our options are a parking lot or the side of the field so that's not really an option and this is my favorite picture because we see our kids making the best of what's around them and i think we owe

014it to them to do the best but as i started i think that what's in the best interest of the track team and bolton high school athletes is in the best interest of the community as well so to me that's a win-win-win i have a lot of concrete examples of why this benefits academic safety making the town more attracting and appealing keeping people coming to our schools and property values but i'll just close um by reading from the 2019 knee ask accreditation visit committee's report because mark you're frozen we cannot hear you 60 which is exactly what the chair said to the bolton high school mark mark we did mark we didn't hear any of that oh okay where did i leave off you were frozen you started to you were referring to the 2019

015knee ask report that's as much as we heard okay we still can't hear you mark i'm gonna take that as a no there now i can hear your voice okay i'm i'm going to walk through the house and i'm going to try the kitchen and i'll be done in a minute can you hear me yes i can it also might help us a few of us turn our video off sometimes that helps with zoom and then some chromebooks just for his presentation okay um so at the end of the niask visit the committee chair spoke to the faculty and his number one critique as you'll see in the report was that our athletic facilities did not instill a sense of pride in our athletes and that they quote looked more like 1960 than the 21st

016century and in that official report they wrote a lack of adequate outdoor athletic fields is a significant deficiency that impacts student life on campus poor drainage often renders the school soccer field unplayable there is no track and field facility tennis courts are in a state of disrepair of course those have since been repaired therefore bolton athletes are often forced to compete away from home and lose the opportunity to compete in front of peers with the exception of [Music] can't hear you again mark mark you're frozen and we cannot hear you in programs in some way the capital budget does not reflect the needs of the athletic complex the lack of proper field drainage tennis courts that are in need of repair as well as additional resources necessary to support the many athletes engaged in the

017track and field program are problematic some areas of the field complex require remediation for both performance and safety reasons it is not uncommon for soccer fields to be unplayable thus denying student athletes ability to practice for track members to be practicing in parking lots and running on roads is a as poses a safety issue the athletic director and school leadership have presented various budget proposals recommendation develop long-term planning i think for those reasons and the many more i list in my document which i really really hope you read um i just want this to be a consideration but i did invite some students here so i'll cut my video but if you guys have time i'd like to just let them each i asked them for 30 seconds to a minute so do we have

018time for that if not i could always record their statements and share it later please take your time no all right um well thank you very much so um i will forward you all the one video in case you would like to watch that at your leisure but the first student who is also alumni actually is riley gardner so if rather than to um share why this is important to him that's great and i hope there's something nice in the back printer because i don't even know all right uh hello is this good hi riley you're good okay uh hi my name is riley gardner uh i'm alumni i graduated 2018. and during my senior year was uh the first year of mr mitchucki and mr smith being the coaches of the track team and

019uh i had always like since freshman year i'd wanted to do track specifically throwing uh but we simply didn't have the facilities at all uh i was told by coach kennedy uh basically go to coventry and that's all we have um when we started we didn't have any shot puts we didn't have a javelin we had a single discus basically we had nothing um for our throwing we had to set up a bunch of gym mats outside in the back of the school uh so we didn't crack the pavement um it didn't work uh there's some cracks back there but uh a track would be a great thing to have so the only reason i was really able to uh do what i did was uh i had already had a relationship with people from

020coventry uh since i played football there and so i had connections with those people and i was able to go there on weekends and practice with them and just like the sheer difference in like what they had versus what we had like i understand we were still building up the team but like they had a shed full of uh full of equipment like they had more than four hurdles uh which was a foreign concept for us um they didn't have to share shot puts the first time i ever threw a shot put was added competition because we didn't have any to throw with so we had to borrow them from other teams yeah it would be a huge help like safety wise because plain and simple a parking lot isn't a track we can't pretend

021it is uh no matter how many times we uh measure it see oh if we run around three times and it counts as a full track but i mean shot put specifically it's not a tremendously difficult thing to have it's literally uh seven feet of concrete and if you want you can have gravel but it's not a very difficult thing to have but i feel like it could uh as mr turkey touched on uh it could bring in more people because i mean like going when i was going to high school like i said i wanted to do track but we just simply didn't have the facility so i'm sure there's dozens of other people that saw saw the same thing i mean uh eo has a track so for columbia students that are deciding

022if they want to track it's far easier to choose eo over bolton when we just don't have one that's it thank you thank you riley i know mr mushrik is trying to talk but we can't hear him a year and a half ago so um oh i'm sorry claire actually graduated in the spring go ahead claire hi can you hear me hi claire so um yeah i had a great experience with bolton track um although i would have loved having a track in our field but um i was captain for two years and that gave me great leadership skills and i um got all-conference i went to i placed at states and i now compete at eastern because of my experience um for track but so for me i was a jumper and like mr

023mistricki showed the picture of the pit like it was a really like the runway was all pavement so i actually i it was my junior year i developed like shin splints and that caused me um to sit out on some practices and even one or two meets and also um just like a lot of the sprinting and all that on the pavement was really tough for like everybody like for me the shin splints but other people developed injuries and i think just because all of our competitors they all have tracks i maybe like one or two doesn't have tracks including us but like so it puts us at a slight disadvantage because they practice every day with a track and we don't so i just think we would very much benefit from one thank you

024claire um next is senior corey peacock who throws javelin i hope he's still here hello hi corey hi corey um so my name is cory peacock i'm a senior at high school and i just have a little to say uh throughout my four years here at bolton high one of my absolute favorite experiences has been being on the track team um but one of my biggest setbacks throughout my career was not having an actual track for me to practice on um though i feel my progress was outstanding with the help of my extremely hard-working dedicated coaches i felt that having access to something more like the real thing being a track um would have greatly been would have greatly benefited me in addition as i'm proud to have these wonderful gentlemen backing me as my

025mentors as i begin my collegiate career as a javelin thrower as i plan to in college um i could not help but question whether or not i'm missing out on something not having the opportunity to practice on an official javelin pitch uh looking back in these four amazing years of track and field i really hope sincerely that future athletes who go to bolton uh will be able to have a real track to practice on as i strongly feel that with that i along with other fellow athletes of my class could have had just that small edge in order to obtain things such as scholarships at our respective um universities that's all i have thanks corey and we just have one more student with us uh which is george chikulski george uh has come to bolton

026from columbia george is a senior distance runner hi can you all hear me hi george we can that's great um so i came from porter obviously and a lot of times at porter the general consensus is if you like athletics go to eo smith everyone really kind of overlooks bolton high school i had the pleasure of meeting mr mushrik and mr smith at a running camp like two years ahead of time so i knew personally this seems like a great place but a lot of kids don't have that they get their one day tour and they don't really get all they could i think if students could see a good track and good athletics and they they know that they could compete and have fun they would come here more and the numbers are really

027a lot of the students from porter go to eo smith they go away um and we could get that number up we could get more students here and they would enjoy it and they'd stay and i just think having a track and having good athletic facilities for them to participate in would help them a lot thank you all right well thank you all uh first of all thank you students for showing up thank you members of the board of education administration and community for hearing us out i'm happy to discuss it further but i know i went way way over time so thank you i hope everybody has a great night and stay healthy and safe thank you everyone for your commentary um it's helpful to have all input from all parties and i know

028this has been an issue that we've talked about for years and um hopefully we won't continue talking about it for years uh next we have additions to the agenda oh do we have any more comments from the public any submitted or anyone else here okay uh do we have additions to the agenda we do not this evening i i would just like to say thank you to mr mishriki and our students for coming out tonight i greatly appreciate it and to our honorees you all don't need to stay on but you're welcome to continue to join us thank you thank you we're on to routine business then chair romeo okay uh do we have a um motion to approve the minutes of the december 10th 2020 regular business meeting so moved this is chris thank

029you second second this is ben and ben thank you uh is there any um discussion or edits that anyone would like to see on these minutes uh this is chris again i have no edits but i would like to thank the superintendent for following up on my request of the last meeting to offer minutes that are a bit more reflective of what the board members actually ask and say i appreciate that thank you thank you yes they were very detailed anyone else okay all those in favor of approving these minutes say aye aye aye opposed we have an abstention me got rich stains um that passes unanimously or suffers i'm sorry uh committee reports capital committee so uh our kappa committee met with the board of selectmen in the you know the overall committee on

030december 16th and we reviewed the the lists that we had prepared and presented to the board previous to that we actually went through a very detailed list of the full five-year capital improvement plan um kind of updating on what the scope of all the projects were moving forward and then spent some time focusing on next year the fiscal year 2022 plan it's been decided that there there's really two categories for projects in 2022 there's going to be the typical capital improvement plan that comes out of the town budget and there's also expected to be a bond package since there are a lot of large-scale big-ticket items that are on the schedule so as we were talking about what was going to go into the bond package some projects actually specifically one of the board of

031education practices moved forward from future projects because it kind of fit in with the projects that would be talked about for the bond so um the board of education projects that are anticipated to be part of the bonding package are the center school roof replacement and masonry repair the center school hvac replacement of the existing equipment potentially the new air conditioning in the center school based on the feasibility the greenhouse at the center school and the high school soccer fields and the science high school science lab that's the one that had been projected out in 2024 but it's been moved forward it's currently it's been moved forward the items in god i'm sorry was that the bcs science lab or high school high school science lab sorry yeah oh you that's what you said i'm

032just that's what i have in my the notes no i think it's joe and daryl correct me if i'm wrong i think it's the bcs science lab i believe so i think it's the bcs lab yeah oh yeah you are correct sorry ecs science facts no worries the yeah the high school science labs are fairly recent the the items that are included in the capital improvement plan from the budget are the center school exterior door replacement the septic system evaluation window the balance of the window replacement and high school commons eight audio visual and lighting upgrades the final meeting our expected final meeting for kappa is january 27th where the list is going to be finalized and and voted on and then that will go to the board of selectmen there was some conversation when

033we were discussing the high school fields about some type of prep work to to look into whether or not a track could be accommodated um the the bond i'm not quite sure how the timing is going to work for from design standpoint and getting estimates and getting into the bond but there is there has been conversation about that that project being expanded to at least to provide the foundation the the pad size big enough for a track and so it is the border section are aware of the request and the need and the desire to have that so i would suggest perhaps that follow up with mr mishriki maybe they uh submit a similar letter to the board of selectmen that's all i wonder too if maybe we should bring that to our kappa meeting

034i could forward it on to that's what i'm sorry that's what i was suggesting maybe they they submit to the board of selectmen so that when ahead of that meeting so it can kind of help inform the conversation of what's there's no it's a tbd budget on that i believe no we actually do have a placeholder dollars for that but um prior to the january 27th meeting i would i think it would be helpful to have a letter sent to the board of selections it's certainly a good idea uh thank you very much on to the curriculum committee yes we met on tuesday ria also joined us um we had a review of the five-year plan for curriculum and how that's going to be addressed you know like each topic over the next five years

035um we had a presentation on the state mandated and also created by the state um a course that's going to have to be in place not next year but the following year um we have to at least offer it and it's african american black and puerto rican latinx course of studies um and we had a really in-depth presentation on that it looks like a pretty intense class we also had a fantastic presentation on the probability probability and statistics um textbooks um that she reviewed and you know piloted parts of um that we will be looking at possibly this meeting or next sarah next meeting meeting okay um but she did a lot of work and research to come up with what looks like a pretty good um textbook for us so that was it chris

036was there anything else oh you covered everything quite well thank you i should have asked before did anyone have any questions for scott or now does anyone have any questions for sue uh scott this um this is ria um i just have a question about the field uh so so right now there is a plan for soccer the soccer field correct yes to improve the in its current location to improve the the landscaping that the pitch of the slo of the field the crown and the drainage um and then to res you know beside it so so that would that would that be enough work to incorporate the uh a track or you need to pad the flat area the pad would have to be increased in size the field re-centered if we didn't have

037a track um accommodate be accommodated around the soccer field so it would if the the one point roughly 1.5 million dollar placeholder fee that would not cover the expanded site which just the site slopes off pretty drastically after the field so to build that up to the appropriate dimensions for the track is not included currently in the budget so do you think it would be another 1.5 million no it wouldn't double it to certainly to create the footprint but um it just it then it's a question of what is what is built you know that's you have to create a bigger pad and then you have to then if you start actually looking into the construction of a track then you have that expense there is also conversation about putting in the and i i'm

038not sure if it's in the budget or not the uh at least the infrastructure for lighting it would be conduit and bases but not necessarily actually installing the lighting at this point but having a pathways in place for that so it could be used in the evenings as well and would you also like in the center of the track would you have those other activities i don't know that would be it'd be the soccer field so i don't know how some of the field events would work in conjunction with uh soccer field in the middle oh the soccer field's in the middle that's how it would work yes we don't have that much land oh okay well i really feel that um after listening to the the coach and the students that it it is

039important for us and also the knee ask recommendations that it's really important for us to to do more than just talk about it if we can i i fully agree i understand that like i said so this is included in the potential budget for the um funding at 1.5 million right we don't even have a number for the center school roof which i believe was going to be in the 2 million range the town is looking for a new fire truck at 630 thousand dollars and the demolition of the natural municipal center and whatever their hope to do to do for the new or expanded town hall so we're looking at a bonding package if all projects are included of what seven million dollars that's going to go to the town for approval and i

040don't disagree on what the high school needs by any means for for athletics i agree with everything they said about attracting athletes retaining athletes but right so i think the most the best we can i mean at the minimum we should be shooting for is to make it ready to receive a track and not because it will never we'll never do the landscaping again to get it built up again are there um kristen are there any um grant possibilities to write for grants or like locally or you know nationwide or we could do a gofundme page yeah i mean you know really i mean that's really about it i mean probably going back i'm not even sure how many years ago at this point uh we had probably a year and a half or so

041worth of discussions with the board of selectmen and the board of ed um about soccer a track and field there was discussion about making the um tennis courts go from four to five rearranging where things were um setting up the conduits for lighting but not putting lighting in and then things just sort of happened and kind of fell apart i guess is how i want to say that so there's been discussion about this for as long as i've been here which is nine years now and there was discussion going on before i got here so yeah if funding sources were found like requests for you know proposals would that be something that the board or the school you know the school district would um be interested in exploring well it would become a a board

042of selectmen project because it goes out to bond so i mean i'm certain that the school system would be interested in that but i cannot speak for the board of selectmen i've just been i mean i've written a couple of grants for the uh bolton heritage farm commission and so i do work with they all have to be approved by the board of selectmen so everything's been approved but you can get some you know there's money out there for things so maybe um we could explore that anyway absolutely i don't think anyone's going to turn down a grant so exactly okay chris when i was at the cave convention in 2019 i approached the various architectural design firms that were there and asked if they could give me a ballpark figure on you know what

043does it typically cost for a high school track to be constructed and you know of course they hemmed in hard and didn't want to give exact numbers but they did say that you know you're you're looking at probably two to five million dollars depending on how many bells and whistles and what sort of materials you make the track out of um so and of course that would be in addition to the work that would need to be done to level the soccer field and um that number would include a lot of the sub drainage and prep of this subsurface that is already a lot in large part being accommodated by it would have to be increased but that drainage system you know that there are certain subsurface things that would be included in that number

044that may already be captured but i don't disagree you know and and then it's the field piece and how much if it's land that's just dedicated to the the field events um and setting those up which you know so that that's why they hem in hall by the way there's too many variables right okay i'm speculating quite correctly speculating i think well thank you thank you for letting me ask my questions by all means you know i think um to scott's point scott i think and andrew that we can just forward to the first selectmen and ask that it be uh shown for consideration at our next kappa meeting what mark had shared with us tonight since it's been shared with the board of ed we should be able to just forward that on are

045you okay with that sounds like i am all right but you know there's benefit minimum there's also you know benefit to students showing up at a board of selectmen meeting and a couple of comment there i think oh i agree i agree i think i i don't have any issue with forwarding it on behalf you know that with our blessing or our recommendation so yeah and i think that mr mishriki uh and company and i think there's a lot more company than that was with us tonight um would be very eager to go to a board of selectmen meeting and share um and i they were just trying to be respectful of certainly coming to the board first which they absolutely did um and i don't think the board of selectmen has a meeting prior

046to our kappa meeting so we could share it with kappa and then i can share with uh them also the board's thoughts about them taking their show to the board of selectmen meeting which likely would be if they went to the next one would be the one where the capitalist is being voted on correct all right i think it would speak volumes to have uh someone other than us board members speaking about that uh definitely it was powerful to hear the personal experience rather than say about others personal experience but okay so are we all done with that and the curriculum then we can move on to the finance committee report anne's with us right yes yes thanks andrew um okay so finance met this morning and at this point we are the budget is

04741 expended as compared to last year at this point we were 40 expended um and we have a few routine transfers and a couple of transfers requiring some board approvals so if the superintendent could take us through this kristen you're muted i'm having a great conversation with myself over here thank you we needed to purchase uh printers um so we had a reclassification there on a technology supplies from travel into technology since uh administrators aren't using travel monies to go anywhere right now we needed a subscription for seven bolton high school students at 99 dollars a month uh we had a re-class to cover the cost of the east con contract to support director of instructional technology and curriculum to manage plan and implement new systems acquiring acquired during our one-to-one rollout as well as

048support with data privacy google asset management and technology planning you will also see additional monies just as a precursor to what's coming in the budget ask for some additional um technology uh support uh for a day day and a half a week next year because we are now one to one and teachers who are teaching all day who get a stipend afternoons it's just not enough for us to keep up with the issues that we're having and we need additional um technician support so that part's coming in the budget so that's just a precursor um we purchased viewsonic 18 view sonic boards we reallocated some technology monies that were in the budget to purchase these 18 boards um our boards are failing you've heard that before you're going to hear more about it tonight from

049sarah and then there will be more to come on the boards a little bit later on for the remaining boards 20 boards that need to still be purchased um we have um five teachers who have um found that particularly in this blended learning environment that their boards that wasn't uh the way that teaching really can happen within their specialized classrooms and that they needed a large screen tv uh instead art being one a visual medium so um mr miceli was able to get some great deals on tvs just before the um christmas holiday and so we were able to take care of that so that teaching can be much improved in those five particular classrooms at the high school we had some more instructional supplies we needed to purchase uh and um purchase of books

050for every teacher as well and then we have um uh french online subscription and um to purchase um some more instructional supplies so we'll need a motion to approve the transfers please i'd like to make a motion to approve the december transfers recommended by the superintendent thank you ben three seconds thank you ria do we have any questions or discussion on this transfers hearing none uh all those in favor of the motion bye bye is there anyone opposed or would like to abstain hearing nothing we'll continue on to our next item so could i just i would like to call to the board's attention one other piece if i could casal is on the page where i need her to be um and that is uh the two ninety 46296 um because i'll wear those

051so um we were able to reduce uh reported expenditures by that amount um because these monies were reclassified to the additional coronavirus relief funds that we received if you recall um that i shared last month we applied or we requested additional funds and were granted them so you will see uh additional uh savings there um so uh we currently have um up top you will see a projected balance of 318 251 dollars and we will be uh requesting a transfer uh total of fifty four thousand three hundred dollars fifty thousand eight hundred of that will be going towards the purchase of twenty additional busonic boards which sarah's going to talk about a little bit later but since we're on this page i just want you to have a precursor right now so that you can

052see that we well have the money to do this and uh request a transfer of thirty five hundred dollars to purchase seven touchscreen two-in-one laptops uh for our our six to twelve math teachers who are in real need of this technology to improve mathematics instruction in a blended learning environment so we'll come back to this um but i wanted you to see about the monies there okay thank you uh is that all for finance that is all for finance i'll set cassahl thank you we need a motion uh not for this part we're gonna do it later on in the meeting so you're good good night thank you thank you uh on to transportation committee um yes so transportation um matt and um are we going over this yeah so we'll review it in executive

053session transportation met on december 21st and uh we're talking about that in executive session tonight thank you okay thank you thank you all right and now on to the student representative reports midterms started next week and they stretch from thursday until friday or tuesday until friday with two exams for two hours each day the students will be taking them from home while the teachers are conducting them in the classroom and the junior psats are scheduled to be held on january 26th and the cia ciac confirmed today that winter sports will start on tuesday of next week so a lot of kids are excited about that and students have been doing a great job wearing their masks and social distancing in school and also cleaning out their lockers every day before they leave and mr mishriki

054who was just on has created something called the bbn which is kind of like a spin-off of a news network for the high school and they're pretty funny they have segments where he and mrs noheimer hosts them and they give the latest school updates on sports events and other miscellaneous things and they also recognize students who are doing well in school and have a segment with mr dennis where he interviews different students who come out as guests some of these students have been megan minikucci for her um cross-country achievements and a group in a personal finance class who has won the stock simulation so it's pretty funny and that's all thank you very much uh feel free to go do your homework or stay with us andrew can i ask can i ask a question

055ria thank you jack um okay is this only uh uh broadcast in the school or can yes it is not for public consumption oh okay and and i don't mean bad by that partly because of the inside you know tongue and cheek type stuff but also we don't seek out permission for kids to be in public it really everybody knows it's just kind of an internal piece okay thank you emin jack thank you very much i know you have to study for midterms today thank you uh do we have any other uh community meeting reports this evening is anyone think we have such things well yeah there haven't i haven't actually had any community meetings but i did want to report uh that crack is is considering we'll be considering at the january meeting next

056week changes to the correct constitution these have kind of resulted from some questions i raised last summer and the the major changes that they're proposing to make are to eliminate the board of directors um currently there's a confusing system where there's a correct council which includes one representative from each member of crack and then from that grouping was selected a board of directors which was supposed to be i think 13 to 15 people or somewhere there and um this caused some confusion well regularly caused confusion um and there was an issue this past summer where they nominated more people to be on the board of directors and the current constitution allowed for and so i raised some questions about that and they formed a committee to look at it and the i think it's a

057very elegant change to simply get rid of the extraneous body and just have one body it would also do some more minor things like allowing for virtual meetings to take place and allowing officers the executive committee to handle emergency matters in the event that a meeting can't be arranged with the full council so uh like i said we'll be discussing that uh at next week's meeting and most likely voting on it at the february meeting um if if anyone would like to see a copy of the proposed changes i'm happy to forward that document to you but in my view they are good changes and will clarify the governance of crack thank you do we have any questions or is there anyone else who has any community meetings to report on not hearing anyone so

058i will now turn things over to the superintendent for the superintendent of schools report great thank you so um as i think everyone is aware we returned from distance learning on monday january 11th and i announced that we will remain in this model at this point until the end of february our bcs k5 students are continuing with four days a week of in-person learning on monday tuesdays thursdays and fridays grades 6 through 12 is going to remain in hybrid and wednesdays will remain distance learning day for all students families again who continue to opt for full-time distance learning will be allowed to continue to to learn from home i will offer right now we're hanging on by a thread staffing wise i hope that we can continue to uh remain open and i at this

059point uh the other the only other thing i want to call uh the board's attention to at this point is that the state of connecticut has received 490 million dollars earmarked uh as like second phase of coronavirus relief funds to go specifically to education i was notified on tuesday that we would be receiving wednesday that we would be receiving notice tomorrow um about how much money each district is going to receive or can allocate or spend and what it can be used for uh you will recall the last time when they announced when we were going to find out it took a number of weeks before we actually found out so as soon as i know more i will let the board know i am hopeful that they allow communities like bolton to also utilize

060funds this time around for things like staffing and technology which we were not allowed to use uh in the last round because we have uh utilized the resources that we had the last time around for our ppe and all of those components for the most part i'm going to now turn it over to mr g yard uh good evening everybody uh as miss superintendent heck said it wasn't on my slide but yeah the staffing is very tight right now and we're doing the best we can it's day by day overall the staff and students so we're excited to be back in person this week uh which has been great to rewind a bit though the eight days uh prior to this week starting on december 21st uh through january 8th we had a very successful

061stretch of distance learning the feedback from students teachers families about distance learning now compared to the spring has been very encouraging combined with the feedback we received the administrators have made it a point to stop into many of the online classes and very pleased with the progress that we've seen firsthand we have well-established schedules that are similar to in-person learning days which has been a nice bonus from the spring to now the online life classes are very well attended by students attendance is up more and more students are putting their cameras on which is a big thing especially for engagement and most importantly students are becoming more actively engaged with their learning whenever we're learning remotely whether it's a stretch of distance learning or it's our learning from home wednesdays we continue to make improvements

062because of the great work of the teachers and students but also just as equally important is the support we've received from parents and families because we know it's not easy to be working and have a full schedule and get your kid on the computer health and safety continues to be a priority in the buildings students are doing an awesome job of wearing their masks social distancing washing their hands sanitizing their hands and using their desk shields the shields have been amazing to the point where a couple of parents have asked me what company did you use because i want my my work company to use them so it's been a nice addition and the kids are appreciating having those uh the families were excellent about notifying the school about travel plans over the break and

063following the guidance from the health department keeping the schools open and safe i can't emphasize this enough really is a team effort and i'm happy to say that i feel like everybody's trying their best bcs participated in the annual ccmc pajama day on december 11th uh which is a statewide effort to raise money for ccmc the bcs staff and students raised 1 352 for ccmc which is the highest amount since i've been in bolton this is great news especially during these tough times the staff last but not least the staff and students are continuing to think of ways to bring positivity and excitement into the school days we continue ms saffron meets with the pbis committee regularly to plan spirit days share buster shout outs on the morning announcements uh and we share a lot

064of success stories with each other and with families we try to make it a point to call home to share some of those positives overall the climate in the building is i would say very positive and we're just going to continue pushing forward together i'm going to now turn it over to mrs saffron for a bcs remote learner update thank you um as we can see here we we are changing um every month and there's a little bit of movement and what you'll notice uh recently is that overall we had a slight um increase in the number of students that have um switched to fully remote um the remote learning parallel track so some increases we did have some students return from being remote uh for a longer period of time to joining back in

065the classroom we have some intending to return within the next few weeks but i did snapshot this is as of monday's data so it does change daily between um students returning as well as choosing to go remote and we just really work with the parents the families we also work with the teachers to make sure we have successful transitions both ways so my subjects tonight is all that is normal in a high school and not pandemic related we're gonna go gonna grow some normal type stuff tonight with uh with a few quick updates so uh as the board might recall from conversations in the past the um the manchester community college program um dual enrollment program kind of dissolved because of changing what they were doing so we continue to investigate opportunities with colleges we

066have an excellent partnership with the university of connecticut and what they call their ece or early college experience program i'm happy to announce that just this week they certified mrs midford our math leader to teach university of connecticut ec calculus this means that next year's students will the opportunity to get the uconn college credit an actual yukon transcript with calculus on it as well as uh a bolton high school credit as they take mrs midford's calculus class here at the high school so that's that's a nice expansion of that program um as mentioned earlier by our students our mid-year assessments are next week and fully remote for all students and this signals the end of the first semester so i just really want to thank all of our teachers and students for really a really

067good first semester it has been impressive and it also signals that it's time to start planning for next year so ms johnson and our guidance team has already begun working with our leadership team to finalize our program of studies to include ece calculus um and some of the other new courses you've heard about and um we've started our whole work in powerschool just to start getting ready for next year so it's you know we barely finish the calendar year when we start talking about the next academic year another piece of all of this work is uh mr ginsanti and his work his upcoming meetings with juniors so he will be partnering with our english teacher to meet with every junior coming up soon as they start to work on resumes college essays and all that

068other pre-application work integrating you know the writing learning piece in the english class along with the the natural necessity of college stuff um mr ginsanti is also working with mrs destiny to begin a work with eighth graders not just at uh bolton center school but i spoke with the school counselor at horace porter in columbia this week and we have a tentative schedule for amy and todd to work with those students early in march um and similar story uh mrs zafran shared with you just moments ago the you know the remote numbers always changing the yellow column is our is our kind of our numbers that have changed since we last reviewed these everybody is up a tick and this as jessica said also a snapshot it changes daily um and we just work i

069think one of the other things that's made us successful as a district is our teacher's ability to uh welcome returning students and also to kind of embrace uh those families that have made the decision to uh to go remote so that's worked pretty seamlessly for us this year is there anything i can answer for anybody or are there any questions for any of us at this point under this part okay i don't hear any so we're going to move along to miss malinowski for a curriculum update please good evening everybody can you hear me okay great thank you uh so as part of this curriculum update i'd like to begin the presentation with the acknowledgement and appreciation of the tremendous work that our bolton teachers have done to provide us this information this evening um

070i do want to share that the document i boiled down to will feel a little bit lengthy this evening was originally 65 slides plus 30 pages in a document plus another 15 for the middle school so i um was very cognizant of who our ultimate uh audience was but uh during this reflection our teachers really dug in it was about six weeks of diving in and reflecting uh on how the fall went so the new normal is to pivot quickly and our teachers have been amazing in their ability to learn and teach at the same time and i cannot understate that enough they are learning how to teach in a whole new environment rearrange their curriculum and draw their students in and it as mr giardiv alluded to just visiting the classrooms now is um

071it it's exhilarating on one hand to really see how amazing things have changed are we perfect no but no no day is ever perfect in this in the classroom and we're continuing to work and to grow and i i'm so proud of everything that everybody has done um so with all that our curriculum our curricula were designed for daily in-person learning and not to be taught in all these different learning environments and so teachers have been having to work to figure out how to make it meaningful content as well as meaningful assessments so this evening's presentation will be an overview of what's happening in both curriculum and assessment the teacher's effect reflection and analysis was guided by the examination of standards addressed units and lessons reviewed in relationship to our various learning models successes and

072challenges and documentation of assessment practices we then connected this ongoing work to the bolton public schools 2020 2025 strategic plan which you see right here uh as a review um mr miceli i'm ready to go to our next slide uh our four goals and i'm pointing these out if you could take a note also of the graphics at the top we have a little brain for the students success the caring cultures the talent development and resource stewardship so as the administrative team and the leaders we reflected on all the work that the teacher brought forward to us we also saw natural connections to this strategic plan and usually about this time of year we're about ready to give you the beginnings of our strategic plan update so we thought we would tie this together because

073all of our work very much aligns to these goals and when no you can't see them very clearly all of our little action steps and they're not little but they're little print little font action steps um underneath each goal and so the graphics you will see throughout so to begin with the district-wide trends and all of these points that you can read and i'm not going to read each one again we'll be here only even with the 14 slides i have with this um do all address all four of our district goals in some way and i do have to say the ongoing support for the technology and the online resources from this board from our administrative staff from our teachers teachings about it from our community members sharing what's happening in other places has

074really been um a lifeline for us so we will be discussing technology a little bit later but that really has allowed us to do what when what i hear in other districts doesn't happen quite in the same way it hasn't been quite as seamless so i do really want to um thank the board for that continued support along with that what has been indispensable has been a common end of day of end of day planning uh for the teachers because now more than anything we're trying to be creative over ways we can connect we never knew how much we planned on the run in the hallway when we saw our colleagues when we could pop over to someone's room next door we can't do that any longer we can't share that so the end of

075the day has been invaluable for people to catch up with each other we can do that virtually we can maintain a safe environment likewise we can connect with our students who might be remote or have that extra time to be able to reach back with students who weren't in class that day because of they might be on that um their their bulldog day versus their buster day so that that end of day has been very very helpful helpful as well as our wednesdays we have to keep remembering each month we review how many of our students go remote so when we think about equity our wednesdays are very important for making sure we have some consistency throughout the year for all of our students times have been crazy as we all know so being able

076to count on those wednesdays for all of us has been very important for teaching and learning so moving on to the next slide while all those first ones were really had a lot a very fiscal piece and there's always a piece that is about fiscal responsibility the rest of our work really has most of its support for student success a caring culture and talent development and these aspects are truly interwoven for everything we're doing because we're learning teachers are doing pd as they're teaching as they are trying to build their community and this is just ongoing more than any other year so we have uh really this year when you're asking so how are the kids doing what are we doing we have had to review some skills from the previous year that was common

077across the district our sequence has had to adjust depending on the different topics people are appreciating the virtual environments for more immediate feedback in some of our some of our classes i'm hearing more and more that with that ability to have um seesaw our google environments kids aren't waiting till the teachers get all the papers grade them that night and get them back it's ongoing it's much more fluid and that's just getting better and better as we learn more we are um moving at our opportunities for partnering in small group is definitely a challenge so things are not the same and you know there's less use of hands-on activities because again we've had to be creative and find online pieces but students are really learning about being a little more self-directed answering their own questions

078and i've certainly been in many classes and say hey miss malinovsky did you try this with the technology and they're there and it's great and nobody worries about that some as we move along in language arts specifically the standards what they've noticed in looking at the standards we really focused in k-8 on the priority standards the state department of education provided some resources so teachers could really focus on the important standards because our bolton curricula is actually very vast and we really try to hit it all we try to do it all so this document has allowed us to really hone in on what the state has identified as the priority standards and upon reflection k-8 the teachers felt that they were on track except they feel that the listening and speaking standards are challenged

079because of this virtual environment and as we all know we're attending more of these meetings we can understand that i think the standards were written before we were thinking about maybe some of these speaking and listening standards that may have grown in a digital environment but yet we can't check that box on that part um the nine through 12 grade they feel that they are on track with their standards and then below i know everybody's curious about so how do we know and you will see on at the various content areas the different online platforms that um have been most helpful for that department doesn't mean it's not used in different departments but these were the ones that were highlighted most and certainly things are um you know the thumbs up thumbs down one two

080three using hand gestures in that regard the in-person online conferring and then again our our summative assessments and much of that's very much what we've done all along our platforms are different in math very similar what has been a great resource for us is that the ready math was designed for a blended learning experience so for elementary math class classrooms it was the big piece of how do we regroup from last year and the nice thing with ready math is they were ready to support us with providing us with materials to to um i don't know if there were gaps that were talking about but to fill those needs of maybe you didn't get to a certain unit and so we were we were on par it was it's great that we have this resource

081nine through twelve they very much prioritized their work this year around the sat and making that their priority the state did not provide priority standards for secondary so that is how the the teachers decided to to hone their focus first what is felt at the high school and as you heard superintendent tech reference math we will be asking for some devices math is really hard to teach in a remote experience especially the higher you get and if it's not an online or written from a program that's already designed for blended learning such as ready math you can't do a long problem very easy easily without the appropriate resources so they are finding that it this has been a challenge across the board and when i go out into um listen and speak with my colleagues

082in other districts that that is a common theme out there and again below you will see formats that have helped us learn how we know how our students are doing what is tremendous that you might be wondering about in the ready math program there's something called my path it's a totally differentiated individualized pathway that's based on the assessments that we do with ready math and so how i do versus how kristin may do our program will be tailored to us our strengths as well as our challenges again moving along to the next subject science we were able to have resources on the ngss priority standards in k5 and the teachers feel they are on track the online resource that you see below uh mystery science has been something we've used for a few years it

083was more supplemental this year teachers are finding that it is a more primary resource because it also has they've expanded their platform you know the company has responded uh it also allows for some assessments with it likewise gizmos is a program that was used limit in limited capacity at the high school it's an online lab simulation and i do believe mr gr you can give me a thumbs up because i can see you i believe that the pta is trying to support uh our use our continued use of it at the elementary so that more kids have access to it so a huge thank you to the pta for their support in providing another great resource so that we can tell how students are doing in social studies a very similar story the nice thing

084in the elementary social studies is often integrated with english language arts so that allows us to stay on track we've all the difference in our covid world is that we've integrated a little bit more of the second step lessons in our social studies lesson in k-8 because as we spoke about earlier this year including more sel the social emotional learning activities our social studies track our curricula has taken that on to make sure we are continuing to do that so that we've not we're not missing students when there is so much to do and 6 through 12 report that they feel that their students are on track as well world language again the teachers there were no resources provided by the state of connecticut for our world language teachers so our teachers did prioritize the

085standards they actually started that process last year because everybody teaches pretty much their same subject so spanish teachers at the high school stick with spanish students the difference is that collaboration between the buildings and as we know we've had a turnover in staff so we're fortunate that last year there was already a conversation about how to focus our standards and as you can see these are the standards that we used and the difference another difference being in grade eight we were able to maintain french for our eighth graders only by using a program at genuity which is a band-aid at best for some students some students are doing very well it's but it's allowing those students who at least had the basis for continuing on with french and the to keep our french program going

086it's providing them those opportunities and then again we have our cte and our college and technical mr misselli tell me what it is i why am i always i'm drawing a blank career technical clear i knew college threw me off i'm like no college thank you career technical education our four through eight uh computers is with iste this has been i think everybody's getting some some technology standards this year if they like it or not and uh but our we're continuing on with um more focus on fun on coding than ever and we were again in a response to scheduling needs due to the to covid we did add additional computer opportunity for fourth grade so we did focus with adding some more coding at younger grades and then the cte specific standards at the

087upper levels teachers are again reporting that they're on track however this content area was the one content that across the board felt that they were moving uh more slowly because if you think about a construction class in a pandemic world in a hybrid schedule it just doesn't it's just they're covering they're hitting their standards it's just slower so um that would that was a one big that one resonated very loudly pe and health they use the sh they follow the shape standards and what was their common message was because of again the schedule and their content there's less opportunity to follow up with people in person so while kids might do something offline that on that ability when they're face to face that's that's more of a challenge for them and again they also feel

088that they're covering their their content more slowly moving into the arts both visual arts and music our content is again being followed more uh covered more slowly as you do know it took us a bit to get going in with our music because of safety so this has been a very challenging area for our music our performing music performance music especially anything with wins our guitar as we heard i believe last month was fortunate to have that opportunity and anything with percussions also went went a little more at a normal pace and then of course their how they how students perform and we saw that last month um and again music theory which has a strong online component anyway has had a the least amount of impact one thing for the visual arts a students

089have been encouraged especially in the upper levels to create a home art studio and that has allowed um for some students so that that has been that actually has been a bit of a challenge because that is something we as a board of ed we can't fix that for students so students have to do art where they can do art and so to have that space so that that has been something that we've been working with the art department so that we can support all of our students to do what what they can do best and next mr miceli there we go alright so just going back one we don't want to get into this yet mr macelli i want to make sure anyone has any questions i need a sip of water before i

090go on chris thank you so i i i have a few questions um and since most of them are quick i'll just go through them and let you answer them uh will there be state testing in the spring would what you've accomplished this fall have been harder at bcs if we were still on a split schedule with the middle school coming in an hour earlier um is latin really included in cte was in the wrong one okay so that was a mistake okay thank you i thank you thank you chris thank you you got that answer so yes yes and thank you okay and then could you talk a bit more about the state priority standards um who came up with them and uh you know were they provided by the department of education and

091can you estimate what percentage of the overall standards are considered to be priority and then what will a focus only on the priority standards mean for readiness and you know preparation of students especially those who you know are going to need to be moving on to courses that might have prerequisites so i'm going to move back yeah can i go first please yeah um i want to talk about state assessments first actually i'm going to have daryl answer the easiest question of all darryl go ahead the two schedules um yes we are going to have s back this year i have a training no no daryl daryl daryl no no no no you're answering the question about bcs would it have been better or worse schedule yeah you're taking that one all right um 100

092uh that moving to one schedule has been beneficial during this time and in just a normal time and the biggest concern was the arrival and dismissal of the parking lot and i see you in the morning mr davies um it's pretty smooth and even once we get back the other half of the hybrid at the middle school i was talking to miss williams the pe teachers on a bus study with me today but i think we have we have a good system and that we figured that part out so on a whole with staffing and just the classes the scheduling like i mentioned with distance learning earlier having a set schedule some of the staff would have been kind of funky and kids would have had it would have been a little off um if

093we were on the split schedule so it definitely has been great so i'm very appreciative that we did that in advance um that helped us a lot in terms of the s back as of right now s back and state uh day s.a.t are scheduled to happen i will tell you there is a lot of discussion happening about whether or not it should happen um i am in superintendent meetings multiple times every week lots of times talking about covid but also talking about the actual work of school as well um and that is a topic that has come up over and over again and as a whole superintendents are not in favor of this we are being asked to have students who parents or the student themselves are choosing to remain home for learning this

094year to come into school to take the test um that's a problem uh a big one um and it's it's not being tied to any district-wide results you know in the past we've kind of shown you the district's report card if you will that waiver has happened by the feds and is not happening this year obviously we didn't even do testing last year um we do have a new secretary of education coming on board hopefully soon um and i am not sure what he is going to do and whether or not waivers are going to be granted for the testing so that is a stay tuned right now now the longer question that i'm not sure sarah got all of because i couldn't write that fast i will leave to you and sarah to work

095out how's that all right and i felt like i wanted to start with your last question about the uh the preparation so the prior so priority standards uh at some point so that that actually came out as part of our when the common core they did identify which were more important to prepare all students for those classes coming for that should prepare everybody so if we just focus on those and do a great bang-up job of those our students are going to be able to move along the extra the all the standards are important some just carry more they go more over more years they provide the foundations for some of the other standards which might not be called the priority standards if that makes sense to you and so uh in bolton you know

096we we shoot high and all of our curriculum has attempted to hit all of the standards so to to back off and to focus in this during this time more so on the priority standards that we're we're in good shape with that that doesn't mean we're not looking at the other standards but we're not making that the primary assessment right now so so when we when we so how do i know somebody's learned something i need to assess it in some way so we're asking that teachers choose the most important because again as we heard the time is less so focus on assessing those priority standards so we know that we're solid there and all those other standards if those happen to be there you might know it more more informally it might be that

097thumbs up thumbs middle thumbs down i get a sense of it and we can move along so that's where teachers are using a variety of assessment practices assessments do not look like what they used to and some look like what they used to depending upon the content the age of the students um the activities we're asking them to do uh so i don't know if that helped no that was very helpful actually so i mean just to make sure i understand it it sounds like the priority standards really come more into play with the assessment side it's not that we're cutting back on what is being taught necessarily but that we are assessing the most important parts of what is being taught right we're not cutting so we have cut back i'm going to be

098honest we've had to cut back some things mostly topics but we've made sure we've not cut back anything that's going to make sure our priority standard is solid if that makes some sense there because assessments also take a lot of time and so helping our teachers learn how to um have assessments also become a learning tool that's a little of the work we're doing this as well now that's that's nothing new but it's moving faster this year and teachers will learn because now i'm learning perhaps you saw a jam board up there quite a bit that's a great way to do formative assessments like sticky notes online it's a great feature well now you have a formative assessment so teacher or it could be a new summative assessment so this is all part of that

099everything moving quickly so teachers are not um we needed to give teachers a guide as to how can i focus and the priority standards have allowed us to do that and that they found that very helpful and uh the k5 especially because they teach all subject areas they were very thankful to be able to stop and have this review i mean we review more informally we asked for a very formal review i i'm serious it was 65 page i asked them to do a presentation for the administrative team so that we could have really all the details and then they many of them felt that that was not good enough and then created a document on top of that for us so the teachers really appreciated it it was an extension of what we did

100last year uh where we started during the the distance learning which was that little bit of a free-for-all um to to evaluate but we had the basis so actually our basis of how to reflect on curriculum started last year and so we were able to move quickly and again i have to say this was a lot a lot of work and the teachers they didn't they didn't push back they just did it and and it was very thankful well thank you that that was very helpful um i also just wanted to say that it's very encouraging to me to hear that you know you don't think that our students are falling way behind um and i i have to think that that's you know a credit to you and superintendent hecht and mr giard and

101mr miceli and and and everyone for all the work that you all did during the summer to ramp up for this and of course all the teachers as well definitely to be commended because you know we're in a crisis situation and it's the leadership that sets the model for the team to follow and you guys have clearly set a strong model and have hired the right people to implement it so thank you thank you thank you and i'm not going to say you know it's not all all rosie it's hard and are some things you know if you as a teacher they're going to say no no not good enough you know what at their gut because teachers really hold themselves up here and but it was the reflection that helped them say because kristin

102came to us a bit with like it's like none of them came to us in a panic other than what we heard we knew how music fell early on they were in a bit of a panic at the start of the school year the content that can't be i can't cook i can't do culinary the same way i did before so those are real things so is it across the board perfect no you know i'm not going to i don't want to paint that picture but it at this point and we're going to do this again we're going to start looking again at some of our harder data in march we feel like march we'll have some more solid data for us to do an internal look um between our ready assessments and people have

103had time now to adjust to everything so we feel like the assessment information will be more more realistic as to the state of affairs so you know we will be updating again later this year but at this point we're feeling really good about how our fall went and we've adjusted so how we can move forward and our staff to your point chris before is absolutely to be commended because they have been nothing short of absolutely positively amazing bolton public schools is the clear definition of what teamwork is all about from this girl's perspective are there other questions thank you chris uh i don't have a question but i just wanted to um add my comments to this um and just say that anecdotally um this year has you know it's given me the opportunity to

104be a fly on the wall um you know so i've got my three kids in third grade sixth grade and eighth grade and i get to hear a little bit of all their classes um so uh you know watching your presentation i'm kind of nodding along like i hear all good and this all jives with what i am uh you know understanding from uh my kids experiences uh the teachers just like knock it out of the ballpark right i mean just everybody has done an amazing job with what we've had to deal with so thank you thank you chris all right kristen i feel like i'm going to have a christian moment i'm feeling a little choked up i don't that's not my role but i am thank you you know teachers are working really

105hard and i really as is sarah and our administrators yes they are absolutely so for sure are there other questions i don't want to leave any questions unanswered ria i know last time you had some questions about assessment i hope that this answered the questions that were kind of lingering in your mind yes thank you good all right hearing nothing more we're going to move on to technology replacement cycle okay i need to make my screen bigger for this hold on one sec all right so before i get into all of the technology and a little bit of what kristen had mentioned earlier on with a request of a transfer part of our technology plan as you've heard we are now a one-to-one district and that has happened at a lightning pace and excuse me

106one more moment while i make sure i can see my notes that i'm not missing anything over here um so the the chart in front of you is now considering what do we do because a chromebook we're going to work on the assumption that a chromebook lasts for five years five years out i'm going to assume that we don't want to be in the position of having to replace the number of chromebooks that we just took on so this plan is created with the idea of a way so that we no longer that we can keep to replacing no more than three grade levels so that's anywhere between 50 to in a grade level depending upon the year so at most 210 chromebooks if you had if it was big big grades in every one

107but that's not really typical so keeping that as a fiscal goal um we're also going to make an assumption that moving forward once this year settles down and into next year that we can get us into some best practices with at the elementary level where our devices will live mostly in the classroom so we will be a one-to-one district but in a ideal world students aren't cracking that device back and forth especially at the youngest for our youngest learners obviously for the fears future we really need to make sure we're one-to-one and that's what this plan makes sure of so where you see that the k-3 is in gray that's because those are the grades that we would like to make sure those devices stay within their grade level and as we look out our

108first column is 2021 and this is our current status our kindergartners have five-year-old chromebooks and then you'll see one through five the majority are one-year-old these are our newest chromebooks and then six through eight has some of the ones we bought previously and then the high school has a mix the high school also while we do have enough devices to give a device to every high school student i think and i think it might be miss johnson you may be able to help me in this a little bit it's about a third if not more of our students take a school device kids most of the kids have their own device at the high school most do we most i'd say yeah maybe a third to a half of our students yeah i think it's

109a six like a 60 40 split yeah yeah yeah yep so so that that our so what we've had has worked very well with that now moving out for the number of the years ideally next year we can get new chromebooks for our kindergartners and then moving forward those devices would stay with that grade level so here's their age out over the years and then the second grade assume they keep the ones i'm in the first grade soon to keep the ones that they have again they would age out you begin to see a star well this third year they're still good after that third year but i want to scatter i'd like us to scatter when we purchase our new chromebooks and so we'll use these retire these to be used up at the

110high school or other great or other areas so those will go into our reserve so that's how this chart is read for that so that we get to a point where every fourth grader will then get a new device that will then travel with them and that's the device that will carry on at the end of eighth grade those devices will be handed in anyone that still has a viable lifespan will be put into our extra pile because we do need extras those certainly have saved us in many ways and then high school will then become in charge of their own chromebooks and then begin to age that out and then we can we'll also be able to adjust our numbers as we move along in this plan because we'll know how many high schoolers

111are really needing devices for all that so this is the chromebook intention any questions about this okay hearing none this will take me on to now all of our technology so all of our technology has changed my old plan has been blown out of the water and it's not necessarily a bad thing but there's a lot to consider so this is this year you'll see fiscal year 21 this is these are all the things we have purchased anything that is not italicized these are the things that bolton center school that we have purchased with this year's funds as you've seen in previous uh some point last year i believe we talked about things we bought with last year's money a big number of our chromebooks came at that time so this year you can see

112the various pieces that we purchased the viewsonic boards i'm sorry and i also mentioned that we um also have the various funding sources that we were able to use this year between general fund open choice grant and then the corona virus release fund grant which has helped as well so one of the pieces um i'll do i'm not going to talk about let me review it and then i'm so i'm sorry i'll come back to the boards and talk about boards all at once two pieces that we've not purchased yet are some math laptops that kristen had mentioned earlier for our math department as well as some more boards so let's look at the high school before i move on to talking about those specific things so so far this year we've been able to

113purchase 15 deusonic boards that allows us to make sure all of the boards at the high school are now replaced with a viewsonic board or tv so now i i know you've heard in the past we were working on a replacement plan for our smart boards throughout the district and it was still a couple more years with that in fact we started this year with about 42 boards to replace and uh we're trying to do this a little faster because what we have learned is that we now ask teachers to travel and we're asking everybody to connect with devices and once you have a room that has a board that doesn't work well you no longer have equitable access to to the instruction so it really is paramount that we get our boards all of

114our boards working at an equal um functioning rate so that's been that's that's been our shift in priority and you see that the 15 boards were purchased they were delivered yesterday and we will begin installing as soon as possible so then the bolton high school will be whole with new boards from the oldest ones are three years old this is their third year yes you're number three for it so what you also see on here are the touch screen laptops for the math department as you've heard a few times this evening math is very difficult to teach in this virtual environment we've tested quite a few different devices quite a few from something you know trying to be as fiscally as responsible as possible and what we found that we'll do work best with allowing

115teachers are our secondary teachers meaning six through twelve teachers to run both ready math for our middle school but also cuda works which is a program we've talked about in the past we've had it we the teachers have used it for years but now it has a program for chromebooks that allow students to work in mathematic notation especially in the high school courses that's helpful but ask a teacher to write out a long math problem get into your advanced math and try to write out a long problem and have a child follow it on a digital screen in real time is pretty much impossible if you don't have the right materials the document cameras just haven't been working for the t for the teachers they've tried that's what they use it's fair it's okay but

116with um we've tried out we've tested a touch screen device and it allows teachers to make it feel more real so that when they are teaching it is immediate feedback they can work on problems and students don't have that delay and lag and time that all the other programs offer so that is our request for like uh wanting to get two in one laptops and that means the ones that fold over to be like a tablet so they can can continue to purchase you also see on this bhs is a hundred student chromebooks we put an order in for them in august they are still somewhere somewhere uh so my chromebook replacement plan did not include them i i don't know where they are i think we're going to have to make that decision as

117we finally hear where they are we do ask our vendor weekly we are able to complete this year just you know we're doing okay just fine without it they would it be better with it yes because we're now starting to have to give some of our newer elementary students some of the older ones you know it's but we're doing fine it would be great when we know where they are so this year as you can see our technology between the two schools the total is 137 280 dollars uh should the board be willing to um help support us in getting bcs whole as well as we're able to do at bhs so i don't know if kristen you want to add to that yeah no i just think you know to echo sarah's sentiments it's

118essential that we're on the same platform uh we really can't continue uh in this blended learning model uh having different boards having boards fail it's just not equitable and we just can't have it so if we are there questions on this year right now all right hearing none if we could go to the next slide please no couple more next one we'll come back come back one more there we go so at this point uh i'm requesting a transfer of eight hundred dollars uh from benefits to instructional technology to purchase twenty viewsonic interactive boards for the bcs classrooms as well as a transfer of thirty five hundred dollars from fiscal to instructional technology to purchase seven touchscreen two-in-one laptops for the math teachers in grades six to twelve do we want this as one or

119two motions uh if we could have it as two that would be great okay do we have a motion to approve a transfer of fifty thousand eight hundred dollars from benefits to instructional technologies to purchase 20 viewsonic interactive boards for bcs classrooms so moved thank you sir second this is ann thank you anne do and and do we have any questions about the uh viewsonic boards or discussion on this topic transfer got this yeah so we're just projecting if we transfer money from one one section to another and then we find that the monies that are gonna in this next grant package support technology or something like that do we transfer it back how do you know how do we get reimbursed for the technology if we've paid for it out of a different fund

120so in the last coronavirus relief we couldn't um actualize any of the monies until we actually had the product in hand so we had to pay for it already and then basically reimburse ourselves um which you saw show up in tonight's um right right so it would be the same thing i don't expect however necessarily i would be surprised let me put it this way if the coronavirus relief funds allowed for the purchase of boards i wouldn't be surprised if they would allow us to purchase chromebooks but i will be surprised if they allowed us to purchase boards so as far as we're concerned we pay for it ahead of time out of whatever fund it just gets reimbursed to the general fund correct even though it's foreign particularly items okay yes great question is

121there anyone else okay uh hearing nothing all those in favor of this transfer please say aye hi anyone opposed any abstentions passes unanimously now could we have a motion to transfer thousand five hundred dollars from the fiscal account to instructional technologies to purchase seven touch screen two in one laptops for the math teachers in grades six to twelve so moved thank you sir thank you thank you ria and ria do we have any questions or discussion on this transfer hearing none all is in favor of this transfer please say i opposed or abstentions uh thank you that passes does that conclude our report thank you everybody no we still have a couple more years to do for you but i appreciate very much as does our staff uh and sarah and daryl and joe very

122much thank you and uh i'll make this a little faster okay so what this means for next year so when we're into our next year needs and this is um what we're looking at to get onto that cycle 130 chromebooks and that is assuming we get the 100 chromebooks right so um i'm going to go with i we're going to get them and that's what we would need for bcf so that we can get new ones for kindergarten than another grade level at this time we've made bhs whole they have no immediate needs for next year the following year you now see our chromebooks continuing on we have added the chromebook cases that's something that we were also able to purchase this year that is again new to us so we're estimating they have a

123five-year life span and making sure that we have extras in place at this time we'll have x we have extras at this point so we're fine for next year um another piece that we are piloting that we are looking to pilot in our viewsonics we also were able to get a mini board one thing this platform offers is a 24 inch version of their board so teaching in a one-to-one classroom especially as you move up in the years you actually need to start to teach behind the students or be able to move around the classroom so as wonderful as the interactive boards are they often um glue a teacher to to the front of the room so we're all going to be dreaming and happy and healthy and 22 23 and teachers are going to

124move around the room and we're going to see a little bit of a normal classroom but now all of our students are going to have devices so the viewsonic mini board is a board that will allow teachers to then work from wherever they are in the room and it can project to the front of the room so those devices are about or 600 and some change right now each uh we are having a teacher try one out this year but this something like this where you can cast is something we're very interested in moving forward as we look to stay a one-to-one district in the younger grades we would anticipate it as a station so i know if you've seen some primary classrooms have had tables in the back things like that this could then

125just be another station for teachers to use so uh this is what the many boards we would like to consider as future planning another piece that we would like to at least put out there we don't have hard quotes this time is also classroom amplification systems so while this is something that superintendent and i have had intimate experience with and are huge proponents of and i know other other other people have as well uh the coronavirus has cert and pandemic has certainly made us aware of how important the sound is for all of our learners so amplification systems uh if you've ever taught um look at a few people have been in classrooms with an amplification system it saves the teacher's voice and it increases i forget what the decibels were it's like 10 decibels

126up it's just enough and student attention all the way around improves their learning improves there's all sorts of reach research behind how these amplification systems uh improve learning so not only does it do that for people in person should we still need to have to be in a distance this will only enhance our ability to have a blended learning experience and it puts us in good shape for just really solid a solid technology classroom that it has with the student at the center the learning at the center not the devices this is also the year that we would anticipate uh replacing the teacher desktop so this is a that's a number you would see for that at the high school chromebooks the chromebook cases the mini boards and then the amplification system and again this

127is the futures planning and as we've seen things change so i'm sure we'll we'll have a more a different something a little different next year but this is what we're thinking about exactly thank you sarah very much thank you any other questions for sarah before we move on um let's have a couple quick questions and kind of just one thing looking forward to when you talk about those mini boards and i started thinking about students start coming back the teaching pedagogy may still rely more on the technology that we're on the chromebooks at every one to one does is there any concern or about the wi-fi capacities and the infrastructure to handle that type of no no increase okay nope we've been on that one we've been out we're already primed for that scott we

128put in extra what do you call him joe sarah um more access points and an increase in bandwidth of the last couple years like a major step up from the original infrastructure okay we've been hoping to move to something you know long-term planning this is this is a vision of good teaching practice so we've been trying to make sure our infrastructure was in place for that should we be able to go there and this is more for kristen just to kind of the confirmation now we've done these these budget transfers and quite a few to handle different expenses um i just want to confirm we have not had to go back to the town to the board of finance for any additional monies correct to request dipping into the contingency fund that was put in

129place so we've been able to still manage it with reimbursements and expected reimbursements from the grants but with managing the budget correct so since i think that's important to keep track of yes thank you when people start questioning the volume of transfers correct if people sorry if people do thank you thank you thank you thank you all right that concludes this evening chair romeo on to you sir for unfinished business thank you sarah thank you very much uh unfinished business we have one policy second read uh we'll be looking for motion to uh approve the policy change for 6161.21 fees fines and charges i'll make that motion this is chris thank you second second oh was that sue someone else then ben got it in first oh he did okay thank you thank you chris

130and ben okay uh any further discussion or questions on this policy very simple straightforward change you're hearing none all those in favor of the policy change please say aye aye aye aye opposed or abstaining that passes unanimously and as all of our unfinished business uh we have some new business tonight uh the first item is the hs graduation date yes thank you so as the board is aware um or maybe not currently our last day of school is june 10 2021 and by statute that you are aware of last year uh statute changed whereby uh the board can set a graduation date for the 180th day of school and the night they set it that becomes the date uh within that school year so i'm requesting a motion to set june 10th even though it

131it's a little wonky this year because we have 177 days but we've been checking with the state so we're within where it's the last day of school so a motion to set june 10th 2021 as the bolton high school graduation date is the request this evening i'd like to make that motion thank you ben real second thank you ria uh is there anyone who would like to ask any questions or any discussion was june 10th the original last day of school or was it junior no it was june 9th and then we had that one snow day okay correct if we have another major snow event like the one to two foot category with wind potential which is why we had a snow day uh with because of potential power outages so that students would

132not be able to learn remotely what would we do in this instance mr miceli um we would just you know we would adjust so first of all we hope that if there's snow where we're in the remote mode right so that's goal number one uh and then there'll be enough time you know ahead of time to kind of figure out how to adjust but it will stay our date um and we're gonna and i'll share that with the faculty tomorrow so it'll always be in their heads yup and mr g yard sorry i'm printing something hold on one second okay with my new printer yeah the um so they would just you know we would have school until that day that's just how it would be um and as for seniors you know it might

133be we have to tell them you know you can come back tomorrow i because that's pretty much what the statute allows that's where it is and we're primed for the distance learning so if it were to snow day we were to have it we're in great shape but to your point andrew if it's a snow day and we can't have virtual learning we're still primed to address it by setting the date tonight so just to just to make sure i understand that correctly if there were to be snow days it would extend the school year for everyone but the seniors is that correct yeah well technically we tell the seniors that they come back you can't come back lock or clean out will be the day after graduation yeah you know and maybe yearbook signing

134or something i i you know but yes i have to get pens on six foot long sticks yeah exactly okay anyone else okay all those in favor of setting the bhs graduation date say aye aye aye on opposed or abstaining bhs graduation will be june 10th great which leads into our next new business item of the board of ed meeting on june 10th so i'm suggesting that we reschedule it to wednesday june 9th so do we have a motion to reschedule the june 10th 2021 board of education business meeting to wednesday june 9th don't move this is anne thank you man seconded sue thank you like to question why we are doing this or discuss it hearing nothing all those in favor of moving the june board of education meeting to the ninth say hi

135hi hi anyone opposed or abstaining that also passes unanimously and [Music] our last item is resignations so we have uh one resignation this evening caitlyn jones administrative assistant in guidance has resigned uh we'd like to thank her for her service and she will be greatly missed that is all do we have any future business no okay so now we will be looking for a motion to go into executive session to discuss the transportation contract renewal proposal from m j bus company and to invite the superintendent of schools i would make a motion for that purpose and to invite the superintendent thank you i'll second that chris thank you thank you any questions or discussion all those in favor say aye opposed abstaining the recording has stopped thank you everyone else for coming tonight and we

136will all be signing off and going to our executive session zoom meeting uh the email was sent on january 8th so the link should be in that email thanks everybody good night