001we can all rise and join us inside Alicia [Music] again this evening with the celebration of excellence thank you madam chair good evening everybody all right our first celebration of excellence piece this evening is the DAR award and I would ask Bobby flowers if you would come up here please and see it right there all right I is the recipient of the Daughters of the American Revolution good citizen award this award 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 da our members are passionate about educating youth of America and contributing to schools and student programs in a variety of ways and in support of that the DAR good Citizenship
002Award and scholarship contest was created in 1934 to provide scholarships and awards to outstanding students throughout the country each year teachers from high schools across the country select students from their senior class who demonstrate dependability service leadership and patriotism in their homes schools and communities this year's recipient Bobby flowers is now eligible to participate in the national scholarship program sponsored by this organization Bobby is a selfless and caring individual who has risen as a natural leader and role model for the bold school community he has successfully balanced many extracurricular activities and programs along with his academics he is a member of the National Honor Society has consistently served on student council has logged countless hours tutoring and mentoring both high school and elementary students his dedication to Bolton high school and the surrounding community is
003simply remarkable his intrinsic ability to build rapport with others and his dedication to the community will serve him well that I am sure as he pursues his future endeavors these qualities and more make Bobby flowers a very deserving recipient of this very prestigious award humming congratulations well deserved well done [Applause] so we move on with that scholarship process I want you to let me know how that's going okay promise and now we have our boys cross-country team gentlemen you want to come up here so everybody can see you please along with your coaches and you all look very nice by the way I like it very very very Bobby look very nice too sir like it when young men dressed up straight last year in the Class A state championship race the Bolton boys cross-country
004team narrowly defeated Terryville by nine points to win the class state championship this year Terry bill returned with four of their top five runners from last year confident they would not got Bolton who ran in this year's class s race with only two of their top five brothers from last year however I would like to report that Terry Miller was sadly mistaken senior Lukas Carini finished second junior Kevin Rudd's placed third scoring critical points for Bolton to offset Terry Mills first and fourth place finishes after two finishers from each team the score was tied jr. George Tchaikovsky then plays seven finishing several places ahead of Terry Bill's third best runner giving Bolton a critical advantage bolts fourth and fifth runners junior Alex Lennar and freshman Silas Worley then finished neck and neck with Terry Mills
005fourth and fifth runners securing a narrow four-point win for Bolton 47 to 51 Terry Bell had no idea what hit them both teams finished with identical team times and Bolton had the second lowest score of any team winning a state championship race that day also note is that George Alex and Silas ran significant pr's in the race in order to make the victory possible for freshmen Silas it was his first race and he did not let the pressure get to him the pressure brought out the best in all of our bolts and runners running in sixth and seventh positions right after Silas were freshmen Sam Bruns and junior Peter Swenson having such strong six and seven runners like Sam and Peter took the pressure off the rest of the runners knowing that he had teammates
006who had their back def and teamwork was a hallmark of this year's championship team after Sam and Pina salmon Peters senior Cody Fox and Junior Henry Rose were waiting in the wings in case something had happened to one of the top seven racers death was a luxury that a small school like Bolton does not often have along with a strong batch of runners returning next year the team plans I'm happy to hear this job I'm Michael idea to be standing here again next year at this time selling celebrating a three-peat hard work commitment and grit will determine whether or not we are here again next year feel no pressure I'm certain that your coaches are not giving you any pressure either for the record Lucas Kevin and George all earned all-conference and all-state honors this
007and this year's point total 47 was the lowest ever in Bolton's six state championships in the past 14 years the Bolton boys have won six state championships and six runners-up next year's goal is to win another state championship go lower than forty seven points enter in a spot to the New England Championship on November 14 2020 you're wondering what that date is in that bird Vermont way to go gentlemen well done well done congratulations thank you very much for all of the time and effort that you put in with our runners you are here I don't know all the time it seems like in the summer on the weekends kids are running all over the place so it's great stuff thank you very much and I would also like to thank our custodial staff who
008also did a lot of great things to help out when our course would agreed yeah great thank you well done guys thanks for coming tonight congratulations on your state championship win well done okay and our last piece tonight is about our Board of Education departing board members we have two board members who will be leaving the board and we have new board members who will be seated in December first I would like to thank Alice and rocky for her six years of very dedicated service to the Bowl the Board of Education to the students and to the staff into the community she was an integral part of the work that we have done as a school system to improve teaching and learning for students and I would like to thank her on behalf of the
009Bolton Public Schools for her dedicated service and now to my chair hey are you doing this Kreuger thank you for want me to shoes thank God thank you this bed board chair for 4 years and we have forged a fabulous relationship that has become both personal and working I've been practicing all day yes she has been a tremendous leader for this Board of Education a tireless advocate for education here in Bolton and for the betterment of our students and our staff and has been just a great partner for me and the work that we've done together and a wonderful leader for this board she is going to be greatly missed by the superintendent and I believe by her entire community and I wish her well and health and happiness in her new endeavor in her
010new promotion University of Connecticut and I'm going to miss her tremendously and have a get free so after four half years this is my last meeting but I'll be around born and raised didn't go very far it's been an honor serve along side of you and to work with you on and the quote I wanted to reference with one from a politician very close to my heart one said that the people are amazing the issues are interesting and the politics suck and it's true the people are amazing and are very appreciative and thankful for your expertise your friendship your knowledge your respect because about those things we wouldn't have had our success than once for years so until next time see you in the hallway I'll see you soccer games games see you around [Music]
011okay that concludes our celebration of excellence tonight madam chair all right are there any comments from the audience this evening and if so state your name and your address guys that we're honored for the celebration of excellence you do not need to stay for the entire meeting I'm sure you all have one yeah thank you very much for coming and kids thank you very much happy Thanksgiving everybody so for those of you I'm Markin shrinking a social studies teacher and the assistant 5 century coach head indoor and outdoor track he'll cook in a capacity that I just want to take one minute of your time and I appreciate that I've coached the track team for three years and it's grown unbelievably and part due to the support of mrs. hatch mr. punished in just a
012Miceli and the Board of Ed and I want to say thank you for that but also given the fact that if you take last year's outdoor track team and the numbers we currently have for this year's indoor track team we're talking about 115 athletes participating in this program for a school with I don't think anybody will argue that we are woefully unprepared when it comes to facilities and frankly we don't have any and as the track coach I feel it's my duty to start making a presence fully acknowledging that some people may laugh at the idea some people may say we will never have a track in Bolton but I think with Paul's six state championships with over a third well over a third of the high school student body participating I think it's a
013conversation that needs to be had out of respect for the effort the kids put in to volunteer coaches who come for nothing for the safety of our athletes but most importantly I think for the pride that these sports have given our athletes the health and the holistic education that these sports are providing for them and I think there's a conversation people need to be willing to have and just to share my own opinion I think it's never going to happen is not a fair or acceptable approach and yeah that's not speaking of anyone specifically but that's a common thing and I'll just close with you know I have a friend in Thomaston Connecticut he is their track coach he started that conversation 23 years ago in his town he's won seven state championships and they
014finished construction on his track last year and so maybe I'll be 64 years old standing here saying thank you I do want to be clear that I appreciate all the support the board of that gives and I understand that as mrs. Kruger pointed out there are politics on many different levels and they are complicated but I just want to start sharing that message I'm not going to continue to share it briefly maybe more wrinkly than tonight but I think to have it on the record is the least I can do for the athletes and volunteers and parents and school the school community that's a possible Thank You superintendent feels exactly the way that you do and you have always supported us and said that's I appreciate that we will continue to say thank you as
015your mr. Keegan great job Wednesday now they must job midnight thank you to any agenda addition city agenda yes we need to g4e OE vacancy please and Chris has also something on policy a couple changes our agenda reflects what we're actually doing we modify the agenda item F dot 2.3 which currently reads 4 1 1 2 2 - certification to read for one 12.2 - becomes 4 1 1 2 . 1 - certification and then to modify under new business item G to be 13 which currently reads for 1 12.2 - becomes 4 1 1 2 . 1 certification to read for 1 1 2 . 2 - hiring of non-certified staff yes all those in favor opposed extensions all set to and you know that we probably should do a motion on a Jeep
016or two engines alright approval of minutes is there a motion to approve the October 10th 2018 any comments questions or edits all those in favor okay opposed sentience passes unanimously VHS students represented yesterday the boys soccer team lost in the second round of states and Holy Cross and they finish their season with a record of nine wins eight losses on one tie the girls soccer team season ended with a loss in the first round of the state tournament to Northwest Catholic and the girls ended with a record of seven wins six losses and three ties and as you know the boys cross-country team won that class devastated can't be feeding out material for first place girls volleyball made it to the third round of states which they're playing tomorrow last night was so exciting yeah
017well they were ranked two students dressed up for Halloween to celebrate that was fun drama club started at their rehearsals this week and band of course had their first concert this year with a small ensemble Thank You committee reports buildings and grounds we spend time reviewing capitalist December update pricing prioritizing some of the items and in the context of some of those conversations we talked about some of the maintenance issues that have been happening in the DC Sen BHS budget expenditures and Finance did not meet but superintendent Hector's going to finance report thank you madam chair so you have a number of packets in front of you so I would like to start with the budget status for October first please and you will note pleased that we are currently 23% expended versus 24% expended
018last year at this time and then what I also have for you is the feed of our education grant objectives it's the same information that was shared with you last year it's the yep smaller handout yes and it just goes through all of the grants both federal and state grants that we receive and intend to receive this year as well and it gives you qualifiers and requirements the objectives that are associated with it and what the grant period is and then behind that in the in the the one with the gold columns and it's our projected FY 2019 2020 expenditures for each grant you will see they're listed the monies that we bring in and what we intend to use it for for the variety of grants that we receive from IDE to Medicaid title
019grants open choice chef's team the Perkins pact grant Perkins College Career Pathways erase and another Perkins grant as well and then in the blue is the 2018-2019 use of grant funds and how we use those funds last year and again it's the same identifier with the grants and the grand total along with how those funds were used in a summary column as well I will be including this in the posting on the board of Ed's website under under Finance so that you know any member of the public that wishes to see just how much money we bring in grants and what they go to pay for it's readily available to them I'm hopeful everybody's happy with that Thanks policy we did after the last board meeting and we're going to talk about tonight meeting mover
020purpose so last month I attended the annual meeting of the Bolton scholarship fund secretary the other exciting thing that we're looking at right now is we're exploring ways to have our application online so that people worry about mailing it in and navigating I'm smart right I also attended the October council meeting thank you Superintendent of Schools reports okay so first we have tonight a k5 math update and I'd like to turn it over to miss the sovereign and company part of the team and I'm here to introduce our team and this evening we have assistant principal Jessica Safran Diana Michelob she's third grade teacher and one of our elementary academic leaders and mrs. Felicia Rose is also an academically there for math and this team has been incredibly instrumental along with our other support staff
021mrs. Sullivan who you often hear about as well as our coach in bringing aboard our new math program which we're excited to to share this evening so the I ready math program which you'll hear about this evening is just part of a complete balanced math approach we talk about a balanced literacy approach we feel the same with our math approach so that we have a program where students are able to take ownership for their learning do all these great things that we have listed here where we're developing because conceptual understandings not just going through road experience as you'll hear a little bit more about that in a minute really diving into the engagement and the discourse that happens in the classroom the math classrooms variable held these days it's very active lots of conversation which
022also allows the students to become more fluid opportunist integrate technology it's very focused coherent and rigorous so I'd like we'd like to begin again by thanking the board for approving the purchase of the ready class or mathematics working text it has made a big change in both the center school this year and it's being used in all k5 classrooms ready classroom mathematics teaches through application and context that help students make sense of their mathematics problems are designed to connect to the real world and the student environment lessons are designed to build on conceptual understanding through use of concrete materials there are different types of lessons depending on the day and a lot of critical thinking questions that help to deepen that understanding so as early as kindergarten and first grade students are exposed to this
023whole class activity to get a problem acted out in a real world connection to the math of their learning and their environment and as you can see with the following examples from 1st 3rd and that you're gonna see the problems are engaging and they spark excitement and interest from the students in this first grade example that you see up there students are able to connect the experience of balloons at a birthday party and the math involved in what first grader doesn't love balloons in this third grade example students are learning math within a context which is really important for them to deepen their understanding of mathematics in general and in this example they're talking about quilt making and ironically we just did this a couple days ago but making those real-world connections to multiplications really
024helps them understand what it means to multiply which is what we want them to know we don't want them to just know what five times four is or four times five is we want them to understand why they're multiplying to do it and having these real-world examples it just helps them connect to how it's used in real life so here's a fifth-grade example where students are working on developing their strategies for estimating quotients at the same time they're working on larger numbers and the relationship between multiplication and division however it's in the context of a factory and that's a you know engaging and a real-world skill that's used in professions not unlike school systems and buses and once again fifth graders you're talking about toy robots and they can kind of actually see what this
025means in the real world not just memorizing the conceptual procedures so big change that happen in the classroom now as Sarah said earlier is that routine and the discussion in the discourse so the classrooms if you when you imagine them you're going to see this routine called try it discuss it connect it it's embedding the math practices which is what mathematicians do it's the actions of a mathematician in there with the learning of the standard it's two different parts and it's really supporting the student talking so in the try it section that's really focused on that productive struggle and how building the perseverance and students they're looking at that problem they're working through ways of reading and making sure to know and understand the problem and sometimes that means reading a problem multiple times but
026each time differently with a different purpose then they're taking time to think on their own about how they're going to solve it work on solving it with a supportive way during that try a time they're trying now they're doing however they want to try it they have a lot of options as you saw in that fifth read page there was you could use tools you think of suggestions but kids are doing it differently in trying different ways then it moves to the discusses and this is when students now turn and they talk to the partner comparing talking about well this is how I did it and then if it says well this is how I did it sometimes I don't it was I did it one I did it wrong or oh I noticed you
027did it we did it the same way and really giving that time to talk it out before sharing it out practicing critiquing listening to each other then they come together and then compare as a class then the teacher really does that facilitating during that comparing and then making that connecting it this is when the teachers connecting what they're doing to the big math idea and reflecting on what they've learned and then they plot it we've tried these we've seen these now here's a new problem how are we going to move from it we're super excited because this is a blended program so that you know the hard work book that they have in class is in conjunction with the technology component and students are able to practice their skills in a variety of different ways
028including interactive practice online games and learning which can be accessed from home they've enjoyed these experiences tremendously if you tell them that they can go on to my learning path they're really excited about it and it is differentiated right to the students needs so it's it's fantastic and they enjoy it even better learning games before I came here before dinner to a fish was going even at home a big part that we work on is developing that fluency and fluency and that topic is often confusing in math instruction because it's no longer drill and memorization fluency really is described as three ideas soozee accuracy and flexibility and efficiency is really looking at does the student get bogged down do they have an efficient strategy for working through the task one that they can carry out
029easily not all places and learning is it always efficient sometimes it starts really messy and we work to get them to being efficient when we're tired my accuracy how well do they know the fact are they recording it carefully are they taking their time at that are they making relationships between numbers if I know that two plus three equals five and three plus two equals five and that helps me make those relationships and know more and I've been going back at times and double-checking making sure they're accurate the big one is flexibility and right flexibility requires the knowledge that there's more than one way to get there we talk a lot about ways and strategies and making those connections some students might use doubles some students may make a ten all these different ways and
030it's okay that we got there differently as long as we both get there in an efficient accurate way so at Bowlin Center school our curriculum is really designed so that students are building that learning making connections working and talking about it with peers a lot of times doing it through gains and enjoying learning the facts can you still do it on paper do but it's not just sit and learn and and write that it's not we're making it fun so in conjunction with the new math program we're continuing to implement number talks which are conversations about a particular set of problems that have been crafted in a way so that the key foundational ideas of math can be evaluated and demonstrated it supports the idea that math is not a set of rules and procedures
031it is the relationship between numbers and the many ways to create and build relationships they take between 10 and 15 minutes and we do them about three times at least three times a week in every classroom k5 and they're building computational thinking and mental math strategies there's no pencil on paper involved is all using mental math strategies students are able to share their thoughts and ideas about math and they support the idea about the early in ships and also that rich discourse that students are building is applied here and you know they're able to share their thinking without one off script a little bit but really and especially if one day we have math my parents will get to participate in member talk and see what it's like and how it works in I've learned
032a lot from the mental you I know you guys their demo but I continuously learn when I see students sharing their thinking early I hadn't thought about it that way so instead of them writing it out them really just sharing their thinking is an unbelievable way to see inside their minds just I have been working with my class on a certain strategy and they kept sort of reverting back to one which is also a fabulous strategy but finally today they started using the stretch and I was so excited but we just talked about how what they were doing was efficient and great but this other strategy was even more efficient and just as great it's exciting to see that so I'm just gonna jump in his last two pieces that both Alicia and Diane are
033speaking about our practices that we used with our old program however our old program really just didn't enhance the opportunities in such a way so we're really able to to weave in great instructional practices that they've been working on and now you hear their excitement about great practices along with great resources those thinking about that at the bullets at first you're gonna hear to see the same things over again because the discourse the foot it's it's just it's a constant leave now it's not just jointed yes okay so math workshop it's an instructional practice when teachers meet with small groups or even individual students to reinforce skills extend and have students either practice current or even some path past math concepts or skills in order to build on their fluency currently some teachers are exploring
034this with our new map program trying to get their feet way a lot of us were using it before but now with the new BEC were trying to figure out how we're gonna weave it all together it's working you will see and something that you see my class doing some things so the class may rotate through centers and small groups working independently with a partner reinforcing or extending during workshop time they make me focused on one center or two centers that they're going to and they're just we're just trying to meet their current map needs whether it's today's lesson or what we did two weeks ago or something that we're going to try to extend in their knowledge the teacher has a variety of roles during this time from observing students and what they're doing
035and their partnerships or groups are even independently or even meeting one-on-one to provide that differentiation or meeting the students needs so as you can feel the enthusiasm and excitement this really could not have happened with also your great support for the professional development that our teachers have been able to access so it is the endless resources that you as a board have supported and we deeply appreciate it we are able to take advantage of the company's amazing resource it was one of the reasons we chose them they provide amazing high quality resource that you can go out nationally or and go to their workshop and not buy their program and still have a high quality professional development without mathematical instruction so that's we're really excited about that we also have been able to work with
036the crack lead learners what's our title its consultants here's another new title where we're able to form look ahead and plan forward so take our time to where teachers are not jazz diving in and trying to teach something new and learn something new all at once we're taking our time and again our time with our early release days has really afforded for teachers to be able to take a closer look how they can best use all of the resources that are there and as always we have our embedded professional learning communities throughout our day with a grade level meetings and our ongoing support from not only Jessica and Alicia and Diana but also Becky and other teachers as they learn there's an opportunity to share and so it's been really a very exciting time and
037we'd like to end with the video yes so just so you have a sense what it really looks like here are the teachers enthusiasm we also have a video [Music] [Applause] [Music] mathematics at bowling center school is an active time that has students taking ownership of their learning teachers empower their students by presenting rigorous problems and guiding meaningful math discourse students work together to make sense of the problem than solve and support their thinking using whatever tools and strategies they choose students have access to a wide variety of grade appropriate manipulatives and tools students develop greater understanding of mathematics when given think time and then time to talk with a partner for equal partner talk provides opportunities for students to rehearse and refine their thinking and subjective to get as students are solving problems and
038sharing their thinking the teacher is listening and planning the teacher sequences the different strategies and solutions that will be shared to the whole class to help build and extend their learning those actors I want you just to try it how figure this out the teacher then facilitates a whole class conversation in which students notice similarities and make connections between their work and the work of their peers the work spent on making connections it is important to help deepen understanding of math concepts students have multiple opportunities to apply what they have learned to new problems and are encouraged to try different approaches or strategies to build flexibility in their mathematics thinking all students have the opportunity to engage with mathematics interactively there are short interactive videos that can be viewed as a class or individually the
039online learning games help students gain a rich conceptual understanding of key mathematics concepts and improve fluency students can also use different learning platforms to reinforce learning or personalize their math instruction I like number talks because it helps me think about math in a mate and it makes me learn more and more and when I see it on the smart board I think about all my paper and I always solve it [Music] Appleton Center school we are committed to creating a learning environment that builds mathematics confidence in all students thus our kids are getting fair use to his video taping them but those like those little I mean not why I'm not one of those was practice I was in there and that was just and they were just turning and having those conversations those are
040all pretty left we didn't we didn't do anything it was just unbelievable I was running back and forth between the rooms and you know what they're just doing it's been really pretty to say and that really is just bringing all the hard work that teachers have been doing for the past few years I'm hearing about the professional development and then now having this tremendous resource serving now all together two huge thank you to to your support for this I would also like to thank our teacher leaders and our staff because it has been a yeoman's job and we know that but I want to make sure that the board knows that too and you guys have done amazing work with this and and it does my heart good to see you so excited and went
041on there for everybody to be so excited about it it's great remember see how many questions burst out great job thank you so much for coming tonight to as well we appreciate it thank you and now I'm going to turn it over to mr. G yard very good evening we're here this evening to present and talk a little bit about AP Computer Science at the high school and five through eight coding at the center school along with robotics which is in its second year at their Center school along with me or mr. Turgeon from the high school and mr. negly uh so we're gonna start with a video and then we're going to take a little bit more about we saw the video [Music] and now it's fun but now that you scratch she's a
042lot better because there's way more idea knocks you can make games and music videos and artwork and it's just very expansive all computer classes said the center's law has some kind of coding amounted to them in fifth through seventh grade we part with block base coming using co.org and scratch our eighth grade computer class Kirkland is all coded based students explore the finish for lots and use the site code each ask to a Python and JavaScript my senses everywhere so those crashing and anything or if you code it over this is my global variable it's called I created a whole bunch of functions to draw things [Music] the computer science principles class is designed for every student to be able to learn about the internet how it works learn a little bit about encryption and
043decryption and from there we go into learning about the basics of programming using javascript students are required to complete two performance tests for the College Board mr. surgeon will use the videos that code.org gives you and then show the class answer any questions that might arise from the video and then you'll go off a student on your own and you will go do all the activities that were testing to see which is what I use for robotics last year would be for cortexes C++ because that's what would be five minutes and operated I alerted the new code in which students have to be very precise when writing code decoding helps to develop critical thinking skills and the traits of perseverance and resilience [Music] I'm gonna be honest the first time watch the video at no
044clue I have the things that get there safely so we're continuing to learning grow the program we're not completely where we want to be I'm in my middle of my second year being part of the significant computer science committee they're developing a plan that they're submitting to this state dealing with certifications and programming and part of that committee are some business manufacturing members some University members from Sacred Heart University so it's interesting to hear what they feel the need is in the computer science field and if we're heading in the right direction and we are hitting a home run with it and I try to take some of those ideas and pick Randy's brain I talked with Sarah and we're in a very good place right now but we still have some room to grow
045as you also saw in the video on our second year of Robotics and even though I miss Crusoe did not say anything at the end of the video I thank her for taking the reins after mr. Garrett did a great job of starting the program last year and the kids are excited in preparing for their first competition you can also just see the energy from the students a computer class the other things that they used to do were meaningful typing things like that but now they're the coding like you can't hear a pin drop you look over their shoulder like what do you want to try to focus on this they use every minute of the class we're here in their the energy is amazing and last but not least I want it before I
046turn over to miss Cornelia she has done and I want to personally thank her for an amazing job that she has done researching and bringing in a lot of the programs on her own she's currently going for her misty certification so she's taking online courses and putting a lot of time and effort into that so thank you and comes forward every year with hey there's something new I can learn is this okay thank you very much so just to revisit what the video said in all my computer courses 5 through 8 we do to have a coding component in fifth and sixth grade we work with the curriculum from code.org and thats block based coding and the students just solve puzzles and then in seventh grade we move on to scratch and I probably couldn't
047say it any better than shepard did scratch is also block based but there's no limit there's whatever you can create you can do in scratch so the students instead of solving a puzzle it's just wide open they can create games music videos artwork anything like that this year for the first year I decided that I wanted my eighth graders not to use block based coding and so I wanted them to have the experience of actually writing code so we're using the code each ask curriculum to do that and they're taking an introduction to JavaScript and then an introduction to Python and it's been quite a learning experience if you came into the room you might not know who the teacher is I consider myself more of a lead learner and just a step ahead of
048them but we're learning together sometimes I'm even learning from them in all these courses students are exploring programming concepts and building their own understandings through playing and experimenting with code watching videos interacting with examples writing code and also debugging code and we've been talking a lot about coding but really the class is about computational thinking and comfortable computational thinking is just a problem-solving process and change is happening so quickly nowadays that to succeed you have to be adaptable and flexible and these coding courses they take a lot of hard work a lot of persistence and resilience so if the students can my class with those characteristics and a handful of them taken interest so they want to do a course in high school or college then I think I've done my job fellow and so
049this is my 15th year here I was an electrical engineer first and I remember taking computer science when I was in high school back in 1981 and I was shocked when I came to ball in high school I realized they didn't have any computer science classes and turns out not many in high schools did and I don't know why but you know it's it's amazing that College Board put out this curriculum for the AP computer science principles class and their goal is that every student that goes through high school someday will take it because it's at a level that almost anybody can understand the goals of it are you know these kids walk around with their appliances all the time they're glued to them but they don't know how they work so their goal is
050for them to understand how the internet functions how security privacy all those things are implemented technically on their devices give them a little bit of knowledge about that hmm learn about encryption and decryption really all the basics of modern communication so they learn about that for the first half of the year they do a research project that's that's submitted to the College Board for grading and she was a Graterford last summer for the College Board and it was kind of interesting to see how our students stack up around the countries it was actually pretty good the second half of the year they get heavy into programming so we go through all the way through JavaScript using databases and things with JavaScript and then they are allowed to choose a project of their own which takes
051about three or four weeks of class time for them to do they not only have to develop their own apps something of interest to them I don't give them any guidelines on that you're not allowed to give them any guidelines if you're supposed to pick something that meets certain technical requirements that the College Board gives them and at the end of it they're supposed to have a running code they're supposed to have a video of the app running they're supposed to document it and submit that to the College Board for scoring as well so for them to get college credit they not only need to do well on those two performance but there's a 75 question multiple choice exam that they take in May as well so it's a really great class for them I
052like it because literally almost anybody who's mature can take it because there is a lot of independent work in the classroom like Ali said in the video my talking to all of them is really limited they're usually independently working and I'm walking around supporting them individually while they're taking the class which is kind of why we laid out the lab and they're a little bit to make it more friendly for people to walk around students that take that have the option of going on and taking computer science a which is all Java and it's very much project oriented we don't offer that here except through PHS at some point in the future it might make sense for us to add that as well we just don't have the resources now and honestly I don't know
053if we have enough students because most of the kids in our in our school will take the classes that we offer in their junior or senior year and sequentially if you do that taking computer science a is really not much time left so we'd have to rethink how we offer things now as we suggest AP classes it's also need the teachers initiative and willingness to go learn as you know just as Randy came forward he came forward with wanting to to offer this course knowing that it was a whole and we were very appreciative of and we've been on the conversation about the next level figure out when it could be so again our teacher there are two teachers who are here are really modeling exactly what we're asking our students to do and I
054can't feel more honored to work with staff as strong as they are absolutely thankful with you because done so much professional learning on your own time in the summer on the weekends at night you know all the pieces that go into it that I think often times the outside world doesn't really understand to really make the impact that you're making for our students so when I thank you both for your professionalism and your dedication to the craft of teaching and really making it better for our students to really learn cutting edge work so that they're better prepared for the world that they're going to face for sure so thank you very much for being here tonight appreciate it very much thank you very much to our elementary staff as well you do not need to
055remain unless the board do you have any questions for our staff just one quick thing yes thank you similar sentiment to the math presentation thank you to the board for supporting some of those shifts there's a preliminary plug ladies and gentlemen thank you all very much good night so next I had on there Kappa just in case but we're not moving forward this month but we will be discussing it next one so now unfinished business first I have for you the Columbia contract I have been in discussions with the Columbia superintendent Garrett over the last several months and we have come to agreement and what I have before you this evening is a new proposed contract with Columbia for July 1 2020 through June 30 at 2030 and the changes to the new contract include
056removing the limitation to the number of Columbia students that can attend Bolton high school using the 2019 2020 tuition rate as the base annual per pupil tuition cost identify rates for special education services assessments and student support services which are all subject to the same annual percentage increases of tuition rate providing IEP is developed by Columbia to Bolton within five days if Bolton does not refer a student for evaluation and or assessment pursuant to child find obligations by law Bolton will be responsible for the cub compensatory services a clear process for transfer students and student records will be provided by Columbia to Bolton by August 1 and lastly we added in their material breach language so I'm hoping for a motion this evening to approve this contract it will be going forward to the Columbia
057Board of Education at their next meeting which is coming up in a couple of weeks and Goodwin represents both Columbia and Bolton and so it has been a contract specialist with shipping Goodwin that has reviewed all of this well she's been involved in it peripherally but their usual person hasn't been either it's been the contract specialist a third party at Shipman to address all of the language pieces all those in favor okay opposed abstentions passes unanimously great news thank you spent a lot of hard work thank you very much policies second reads showed you the usual mr. Davies we emotion for policy 7,000 for 1 1 1 1 4 1 1 2 2 4 1 1 8 1 1 2 & 4 1 2 1 all those in favor opposed tensions endlessly alright then I
058will move that we delete policies 4 1 1 1 4 1 1 11 11 11 11 3.44 1 17.21 for 1 17.4 for 1 18.1 1 3 & 4 2 1 8 1 1 3 4 1 2 2 4 1 3 1 4 1 3 1 . 1 4 1 3 5 2 4 1 4 8 4 2 1 2 . 4 2 & 4 2 1 7.4 second any discussion all those in favor ok those engines passes unanimously business 2020 2021 school calendar okay I can sense the board a proposed school calendar for next year and now I'm giving you a different proposed school calendar for next year because the SAT school day SAT dates have come out for 2021 and they are being given on a day in march and on April 12th
059which April 12th you will see in our original draft was when we had planned to have April vacation so in an odd flurry today in between meetings across okay I called mr. viselli and asked him to speak to his leadership team because I had concerns about shouldn't we give kids as much learning time as possible before they take the SAT school day tests meaning that I thought we'd be better served by having kids taken on April 12th he met with Miss Johnson and the leadership team and I believe they unanimously agreed with my thought process there in the meantime the Earth's and NASA East Kahn group met this morning and they have made the April vacation week the week of the 19th of April which means that Columbia will have vacation the week of the
06019th of April and if I was a betting person I'm thinking that Hartford may be doing the same thing so my recommendation would be for us to go with draft B which moves April vacation from the week the 12th of April to the week of the 19th of April motion and they can be flexible with their tastes great question but some of those leaders who run those trips were in the meeting today all those in favor opposed abstentions thank you next we have policies and I'm going to turn it over to Chris so as agenda notes the first changes because recent changes in state quickly as I can feel free to ask questions if you have any but for one to zero reports of suspected abuse or neglect of children or sexual assault of students
061by school and pull employees the revision here updates legal references makes a few copy editing changes and add school counselor to the definition of school employee thus making clear that school counselors are also in fact obligated to report suspected abuse neglect or sexual assault of a student policy for one 18.1 sex discrimination and sexual harassment in the workplace this policy and the accompanying administrative regulation are being read numbered and replaced with Shipman's model policy which has been updated to reflect new sexual harassment training laws Christian I just wanted to know that the regulation included it should be changed from 4 1 1 8 1 1 to our two policy 1 2 to 0 non-discrimination this is the board's general non-discrimination policy we have a separate policy that specifically addresses non-discrimination and hiring that you'll hear
062about later I also have one for students 12:20 is being revised to clarify the discrimination based on citizenship status the legal term used in the policy is alien edge is now prohibited by state law as is veteran status a definition of veteran is added to the policy and procedures for filing a complaint are clarified to reflect the current law policy 3 1 6 0 transfer funds between categories so this revision clarifies our budgeting procedures including our reporting requirements for titles when the superintendent has to use her emergency transfer authority you may remember last year we noted to increase that so it's 0.2% now would occur in a situation where you know there's an emergency and she can't reach or convene the board and has to transfer funds the policy revision specifies how that such a
063transfer would be reported curiously such transfers are to be reported not to the Board of Finance but or to selectmen policies also revised to clarify that the document we present to the Board of Finance each spring is an itemized estimate not a budget the reason for this is that under state law only a board of education can craft a budget for the school system what finance is supposed to use are itemized estimate to arrive at an annual appropriation figure and once they give us that figure we're then supposed to vote to adopt a final appropriated budget so you show the museum feel free language this coming budget season policy for 112.5 employment and student teacher checks the revisions bring the policy into alignment with Public Act 1991 which passed earlier this year the primary change
064is to expand our duty to conduct criminal background checks to also include student teachers and to require all job applicants to declare in writing whether they've been convicted of a crime or have charges pending before a court of law I'll see 4 1 1 8 not in scrim ination as I mentioned with policy 12 20 we have both the general non-discrimination policy and an Employment non-discrimination policy this is the employment policy and it too is being updated to prohibit discrimination based on a lien in case you were wondering it had already prohibited discrimination based on veteran status the accompanying administrative regulation is also being updated to reflect current legal requirements I'll see 5 1 1 8.1 homeless students there's a revision to incorporate changes concerning the hearing and appeals process afforded to school aged homeless
065children and youth who are denied access to school accommodations policy also clarifies or the revision also clarifies the rights of unaccompanied youth LLC 5 1 for 1.25 management plan and guidelines for students with food allergies glycogen storage disease and/or diabetes this is revised to clarify that students with diabetes are entitled to the same protection students with life-threatening allergies and glycogen storage disease and students with life-threatening allergies and glycogen storage disease should be referred to a section 504 team because they in almost all cases qualify for protection under the Americans with Disabilities Act policy 5-1 41.8 sunscreen application in schools earlier this year the state legislature passed a law allowing school children to self apply sunscreen in schools the skin policy implements law for students in school system students must be six years old and have
066written authorization from their parent or guardian the accompanying administrative regulation allows building principals to develop further guidelines as needed to ensure the policy is complied with in at least in a least disruptive manner know that the policy is presented for this first read includes a few passages proposed amended a second read in order to clarify some language I had concerns about normally we wouldn't proceed this way but in the interest of time and getting the policy adoption as quickly as possible and the fact that clarifying language will not alter the meaning of the policy so when that comes to you next time I will highlight the sections where changes were made so that you can easily see it policy 504 5.4 non-discrimination students this is formally called Americans with Disabilities Act section 504 so the
067policy being renamed and then like are two other non-discrimination policies it is like our to whether or not discrimination policies except that this is the one for students previously it addressed only non-discrimination under the ADA a now it serves as our blanket policy for students policy five one four five section 504 so this has been updated to reflect feedback that our board attorney received from the state office for civil rights presumably for Shipman's model policy and not specifically our policy all the changes are to the administrative regulation as with the new sunscreen policy I anticipate we will propose slight modifications to a few passages as a next board meeting again the changes are needed clarify the language all right policy twelve so these are first reads of new policies or completely where we swap many
068of them are swapping out shipment policies for old ones they're not necessarily based on recent changes to the law policy for one one two appointment and conditions of employment this replaces our old policy with ship as model policy it also clarifies that the Board of Ed is responsible for appointing all building level and district-wide administrative positions that had been our practice in the past but it wasn't codified in our board policy so for one 12.2 this is the one that's was worded incorrectly on the original agenda it should read for one 12.2 hiring of non-certified staff the policy that was included in your packet is the wrong one it was the one that we last time I did I live for when the three of us this particular but I do next Kristen does have
069the correct policy in Chile mail it to everyone it's very very short basically what we're doing is the old 401 12.2 is becoming for one one 2.1 and then we're adding a new for one one 2.2 which basically says that all hiring of non-certified staff is a responsibility of the superintendent okay now on to the fun one for one 12.8 nepotism so this replaces our existing policy with one that differentiates between immediate family trainable spouse child parent sibling or step-sibling and a relative which is anyone with a more distant relationship including in-laws and individuals who live in the same household as you domestic partner or i suppose even a roommate i wanted to point out for the board that this policy also applies to us under it we are required to disclose any existing familiar
070relationships with board employees and we are obligated to alert the superintendent or board chair if we discover or have knowledge their relative or immediate family member has applied for a job with a district furthermore if any of us begin a romantic relationship with a board employee we must declare the relationship to the superintendent LLC for one 18.1 one two this becomes policy for one 18.1 sex discrimination and sexual harassment in the workplace okay so the changes have already been described did the same as policy 401 1.41 18.1 I talked about earlier so it's actually just there to put in two places yeah it didn't really need to be in both places so all right so I'm gonna take 15m altogether yeah make it clear next time for one one eight two three one final alcohol
071drugs and tobacco it shouldn't say final either more sense we might check the actual policy because I think it might say final on the cuz I have it in my word doc it's like five times okay good so the current policy is being replaced with in Asmara policy will also be deleting policy for two 18.2 three one our original policy was in our policies twice for some reason so get rid of the other one for one 18.2 three for prohibition on recommendations for psychotropic drugs again we're simply replacing it with shift as model policy there are no substantive changes for one 18.4 notice to employees now this is a new policy that lays out expectations for employees who use a district's computer system and electronic communications include Wi-Fi or email basically less employees know that
072they have no expectation of privacy in their use of the district's computer systems including email and Wi-Fi that the district has the right to access any data that is sent through the district systems by employees or anyone else for that matter so if you're using your phone and logged on to the Wi-Fi here said step through that theoretically in the district could have access those data pockets and analyzed them we could decrypt them don't you know the question but all right policy for one 18.5 one half rights responsibilities and duties also being replaced with Shipman's model policy the policy portion here is more compact than what we had had previously but the administrative regulation goes a lot further than the previous policy coverage district sponsored social media activity how employees may use personal social media
073accounts in the classroom generally it's prohibited or very least found upon and I believe it would need permission from a supervisor to do so how employees may link to reference or otherwise use district social media content on personal social media accounts they may not do so in a manner that creates confusion about what is a personal communication and what is a district communication it includes one provision that has troubled me because there's potential First Amendment implications that provision reads an employee may not post official board of education material using a personal online account without written permission of his or her supervisor Kristin our board attorney and I have been back and forth about this language and I don't think we've ever really reached a consensus I still object to it on first and then then
074grounds but when I was reading it tonight it occurred to me that perhaps it's actually not saying what I thought it was saying perhaps that portion of the regulation is not about limiting an employee's ability post publicly available board event materials to the personal social media accounts which is a restriction I would object to I wonder now whether the sentence is actually saying the employees who as part of their job have to post official board event material are not to do so from a personal count unless I have permission so in other words if you're logged in to your Facebook account or some personal account and you're asked to upload something to the web you have the board website or something maybe that's what it's trying to prohibit so send me an email with that
075and let me one more time with Rebecca the other thing that is new is this policy is it would allow teachers to create crowdsource crowdsource fundraising so if they needed to fundraise for a special project for the classroom or a robotic flow or something like that they could use a crowdfunding website to raise those funds there are certain restrictions on the sorts of projects they raise for and there has to be very clear educational purpose and then last and certainly not least for one 52.6 Family and Medical Leave replacing the existing policy with shipments model policy which is a more compact and straight forward thanks Chris close out with VCS asbestos abatement and tile okay so the project as I've shared previously has been completed and the total cost of the project was one hundred
076and thirty eight thousand nine hundred and sixty dollars and seventy nine cents this project as you may recall was approved for partial reimbursement by the state in order to finalize the reimbursement so that we can send forward our paperwork for monies back from the state we need the project to be accepted as complete so I'll need a motion to accept the center school both center school project number zero one two dash zero zero four zero - C V as complete zero one two - zero zero four zero - C V thank you thank you opposed abstentions that passes unanimously and lastly we have the addition so yes we do have a letter of resignation that was given to the town clerk by Alison romkey and at this point Democratic Town Committee will need to make
077a recommendation and I believe it's 60 days I think we checked on that and read that but I'm hopeful that maybe we can have someone in time for the December meeting would be my hope and again we'd like to thank you for her dedicated service any future business is our motion to adjourn