001okay give me a second okay we are live good evening this is a call to order for the instruction and support services committee today's dat is January 18th 2024 um The Time Is Now 7:16 p.m um in attendance there's a lot of people in attendance um my name is Jennifer pre I am the chair of this committee um Committee Member Willie Medina is also on um I see board member joose sovic on and I'm just going through the list are there any other board members that we see I think that's it for board members um see Dr Woodson is actually here with me okay I see okay Committee Member Andre Woodson is in um with Dr Levy David and then we have uh Dr uh Avery uh Royce Avery and Dr saki staff members on
002as well um and Mr planus is also on um so we'll get started the first item on the agenda is a motion to approve um the meeting minutes from the teaching and learning committee dated September uh 19 2023 do we have a motion there you go I make the motion okay I'll second the motion are there any um changes that need be made for those committee members okay um so all in favor I to approve the meeting minutes sorry um I any opposed any exstension Iain okay so as I wasn't here in the last meeting so I'm not you know familiar with all the details thank you okay um so the motion passes the next item on the agenda is the approval of meeting minutes from the education diversity equity and inclusion committee dated October
00316th 2023 um do we have a motion yes I'll make a motion thank you I'll second that motion um any discussion um I took a look at this um I watched a video on this one and read the many minutes I did see one change that need to be made a really minor change on uh the third page of the notes of the mini minutes uh second paragraph uh where it says New Beginnings has 2.2% of elll students um it's a slight change that's actually 2.3% so um if we can um I want to make an amendment to that so if somebody will second that amendment I second it I no problem um and all in favor of the amendment thank you I I all right so the amendment passes so all in favor of
004the amended meeting minutes I I any opposed any extensions okay so that um passes and then the last um uh approval of meeting minutes for students and families committee dated November 15 2023 do we have a motion make a motion thank you so this motion um to approve the meeting minutes of the students and families committee I'll second that any discussion okay all in favor I I any opposed any extenstions I abstain again thank you um so that motion also passes and so the first item on the agenda is or third it or fourth item is the discussion and possible referral to the full board for approval to enter into an agreement with relay um and I see I think Timothy Ms is going to present on this yes hello everybody uh may I have
005uh permission to share my screen oh uh hold on Timothy thank you as uh that is getting set up I'll just uh introduce myself my name is Tim Mains I'm the managing director of Partnerships for relay's professional Education team I'm really excited to be here with all of you tonight to share a little bit more about relay our impact uh with our partners from around the country and some more details about our proposed scope of work in partnership with Bridgeport Public Schools um and I see that I now have permission to share so bear with me one moment while I pull up yes you should be all set okay great are you all able to see my screen now yes okay great um so as I was saying I'm really excited to be here with
006all of you um and uh excited to share some more details about the proposal that we have developed in collaboration thus far with DRS Avery and Levy David um and we're really excited because this proposed scope of work is directly aligned with your District priorities of developing teacher capacity immersing The District in instructional leadership practices and introducing instructional Frameworks to improve tier one instruction but before I review the key elements of the partnership proposal I wanted to start today's presentation uh by sharing a little bit more about who we are at relay Graduate School of Education and the work that we do in partnership with K12 institutions around the country which I think will help frame the proposed scope of work so the best place to start that is to start with our mission and
007vision statement so relay graduate school of education is a nationally accredited not for-profit institution of higher education and we serve prek through 12th grade teachers and school and system level leaders at every level of their career all around the country and the mission and vision statement that you see on the screen is really our why it grounds everything that we do here at relay and since the Inception of relay's professional education programs 11 years ago we have trained over 9500 leaders through all of our professional education programs and you can see some of the highlights of feedback that we received from participants over those years and we are really proud of the really positive feedback that we consistently receive from our participants not only about the quality of our content but also its impact on
008their work and we've also trained over 20,000 teachers since we launched our teacher professional education programs in 2019 and you can see we received very similarly positive feedback from those participants as well and all of our programs at relay are designed to do a few key things one is Center Equitable practice in service of creating inclusive conditions where all students can truly Thrive the second is to honor research but provide actionable Frameworks based on that research that are proven to drive success for all students and third everything that we do is grounded in practice and feedback because we believe at relay that the best way to master a new skill is to have time to practice it and to hone it before you deploy it out in the field and that's especially true for teaching
009and Leadership positions that are really performance professions uh but to Circle back very briefly to the research based actionable Frameworks I just wanted to quickly share a little bit more detail there so the Frameworks that we use at relay are based off The Leverage leadership get better faster scope and sequence designed by Paul bar brickson Toyo and those Frameworks were developed based off action research from the highest performing principles and supervisors from around the country so what that team did is they studied the highest performing schools with the lowest economic status and then they then developed Frameworks off of what they found all those schools were doing to truly move the needle for student students and those Frameworks have thus you know since then have worked and they've supported improvements in student outcomes across all
010partner types across the entire country from a single sight Charter School to a large Public School District like New York City public schools and I also want to highlight that that research is continuously ongoing we continuously update our Frameworks based off of the real word success that we're experiencing in partnership with schools around the country and speaking of successful Partnerships I wanted to share some impact data from two of our Partnerships from around the country uh starting with uh DC public schools for a little bit of context uh two of DC ps's public uh schools uh clusters were experiencing lagging student achievement so they identified a need to align leadership across the district in order to improve the teaching and learning across all the campuses and to accomplish this goal DCPS began a multi-year partnership
011with relay in school year 18 and 19 and since that year we have trained over 700 leaders across that District through a multi-year scope of work which is similar to The Proposal that we've designed uh for you all at Bridgeport with the goal of building alignment across the district around key instructional Frameworks that partnership with DCPS included professional development that is districtwide and embedded into their PD structure and then relay coaching support which in DCPS was uh directed towards the instructional superintendence and that coaching focused on planning and executing systems for coaching monitoring and establishing accountability structures in order to support uh effective implementation of the PD content and together in partnership with DCPS we've achieved really exciting results um and students at these schools have made impress impressive gains since the partnership began you
012can see one uh quote one piece of feedback from a leader on the screen uh but I want to quickly dive into three headlines U about the the success that we've seen in this partnership the first headline is that schools in cluster 3 which is one of the Clusters working with relay support saw dramatic gains in student achievement in ela and Ela was the content priority for the district uh for our partnership uh because it was a priority for them to address the post pandemic literacy gaps that they were experiencing so we focused on Ela uh that we saw dramatic gains in student achievement in ela with nine of the 12 schools in that cluster outpacing The District in growth and two of them achieving double digit gains also within this cluster all schools receiving
013relay support saw a decrease in the percent of students scoring at the lowest level the second headline relates to math where three schools in this cluster saw double digit gains in student proficiency and this is despite the fact that math was not a priority Focus area for us uh as I mentioned Ela was so it's promising that we also saw uh growth in math as well and it's really a sign of not only the depth of the principles investment in the work but also the real power of an aligned leadership team's knowledge of the content excuse me and then the third highlight from this partnership is relating to DC's bold old performance schools so in DC these schools are uh schools that serve atrisk student populations that also have combined math and Ela proficiency rates
014that are dramatically higher than schools with similar demographics and these schools Encompass both district and charter schools within the city and for the second year in a row DCPS has had five schools selected as bold performance schools and we're really excited because of those five three of them were in cluster 3 were receiving relay support the second partnership I want to highlight um and share some results from is our work with PUO School District in Colorado the context here is that in 2017 the district was identified as one of the lowest performing in the state their student achievement ranked in the bottom 20% for both Ela and math and based off of the impact of a few of their leaders participating in relay's National leadership programs a few years before this the district selected us
015relay as their turnaround support partner and we launched a multi-year partnership with the district and over those years we have provided diverse and tailored support to both the district level leadership and to leaders at the three Target school campuses and this partnership us used a model of supports uh similar to those found in our proposal for Bridgeport and the the results of this partnership were also really exciting over the course of these three years the focus schools went from being the lowest performing schools to outperforming the district average again you can see a quote from one of the participating princi on the screen and I have a couple of additional highlights uh to share based on that impact the first being that all of the three Focus schools uh that were participating in our partnership
016have either uh been removed from turnaround status two of the three have already been removed from that status and the third is on a positive trajectory to do so as well that was just the Third third school that is that was entered into the multi-year Arc of supports so we're really excited about that trajectory of that third school to also be removed from that status the second headline is a specific example from one of those schools minqua elementary they saw significant growth in for their students in both Ela and math compared to their peers in the district and also throughout the state of Colorado and uh it was actually exciting because they saw such incredible student growth that they were actually spotlighted by the governor of Colorado which was really exciting for us to learn
017and then the third impact headline is that teachers in these Focus schools reported improved teaching and learning conditions so every two years teachers in the state of Colorado are giving a teaching and learning conditions survey it measures a lot of aspects of school and District success one of those aspects surrounds leadership so they ask questions like is this school led by an effective team team or does the staff feel comfortable raising important issues with school leaders and while the District results in that survey held steady between 2020 and 2022 the staff at the relay supported schools saw significant increases across the school leadership component of that survey across the same time period so as we continue our partnership well with additional cohorts of schools in peblo we're really excited and looking forward to replicating these
018results with those additional Focus schol schols and then the final headline from this partnership with peblo is that we found that while all of the campuses participating with us saw growth in teacher satisfaction those schools that had the greatest level of supports meaning more frequent coaching more frequent site visits we're able to see more increased impact at all levels and we've Incorporated findings like this and others from our previous Partnerships into our scope of work for Bridgeport so now I've shared a little bit uh some more details about our impact with other partners um I now want to shift to explaining more and sharing more about our proposed scope of work with Bridgeport and I want to ground that scope of work in relay's a framework for Effective School leadership and this is our theory
019of action um that grounds what we do here at Rel and how we approach this work so we believe and we have found success when vertically aligned teams of District leaders School leaders and teachers all experience aligned highquality professional development that professional development builds skill in the core improving practices that support outcomes for all students and then alongside a relay coach those skills are honed and refined in order to build the Key Systems and structures that help support those practices across an entire system and then effective implementation of those systems Drive increased use and efficacy of those core practices all in support of improving student outcomes over time so we've found that the Catalyst for change across a system especially a large district is highly engaged leaders such as your District team um and those
020leaders investing in a strong Foundation of professional development that is then supported by customized and focused PD and coaching that focuses on the diverse needs of distri leaders School leaders and teachers so with this framing I'm excited to review some core components of our proposed scope of work for Bridgeport so our proposal is designed around three core pillars which will roll out intentionally each year the first pillar is District level supports these supports are designed to support a skillful cohesive and aligned District team supports under this pillar include a core group of District leaders particip ating in relay's National principal supervisors Academy quarterly strategic planning supervisor implementation clinics and Executive coaching the second pillar is cohort by cohort Focus School supports which are designed to provide in school and virtual coaching directly to the selected
021School leaders in each cohort every year and in addition to the in school and virtual coaching this pillar also CL includes additional targeted PD and strategic Consulting for those School leaders and then finally the third pillar of our proposal is teacher professional education um and this pillar is designed to create alignment that alignment that we have found is is so critical for Success um and investment across all the levels within the district including the teachers who are most directly engaging with students so a critical component of the success of of this work and I also want to note here that we have built into the proposal strategic opportunities within each of the three pillars at no additional cost for board members other key stakeholders like committee members uh to have the opportunity to see the
022work in action across all those pillars in order to better understand the impact and to support that effective implementation so we're really excited to have lots of you participate with us and see all the great work that we can do together and the multi-year proposal that we have developed um includes a strategic plan to execute the work in all three of those pillars with focused groups and schools each year in order to gradually and intentionally scale the work across a district so at the district level what does that look like um each year we would identify a cohort of District level leaders to attend the national principal supervisors Academy we anticipate being able to train the core leadership team within three years so you see that support drop off starting in year four but that
023program will continue to run so is always an option if there are new leaders who are joining the district or for some reason a key leader has not yet attended that program that could continue in year four but we don't anticipate it being the primary focus of the supports for district level leaders in that year we would also prioritize districtwide leader training in the first three years as I mentioned it's that building that strong Foundation is how we found the most success so we prioritize the district-wide leader training in the first three years and then each year of the services within this pillar for district level supports includes the customized support that I was mentioning the additional targeted professional development coaching Etc and then that customized support will become the primary focus area for supports
024in years for and Beyond in terms of the school level supports so this would be pillars two and three uh so leaders and teachers um we will take a cohort by cohort approach um to the work for those pillars so the year one cohort will begin with nine schools and those nine schools will begin a three-year Arc of content of professional development and coaching at the same time the teachers in those nine schools will also begin their own three-year Arc of professional development that is directly aligned to the professional development their school leaders are receiving so that is a lot of information uh but it concludes my uh presentation we're really incredibly excited about the potential impact of this partnership uh I am we are incredibly grateful to Dr aav and Dr Levy David for
025their collaboration thus far and we're really excited about the the potential of this opportunity so with that I am happy to take any questions okay um we'll start with committee members um Mr Rina do you have any questions thank you um yeah I was just reading some of the things uh you had mentioned that we're going to start with nine school that is correct yeah okay I was just seeing some I guess some literature that was shared with us and it was just stating that it could start with 12 priority schools that were referred uh in the 11.8 a call with uh with your team so I was just wondering um when will this program start and um you know you have mentioned that it was some things were step by step with three years
026and some went into four year so the whole program is a four-year kind of like box so the Arc of content for all three pillars is a threeyear Arc of content so every time we start a new cohort it is a three-year Arc so um what that looks like years four and Beyond um we can continue to run that three-year Arc of content or starting in year four we might find that we have enough of the content starting in the district that we can narrow The Arc of content starting in year four and Beyond to a two-year Arc really depends if we are starting to see success from that districtwide training that is prioritized at the beginning of the scope of work we're hoping we can find gains to to shorten the Arc of content
027years four and Beyond but for now it is a three-year Arc of content for both the school leaders and the teachers and as I stated earlier that there I see in my notes Here of literature that was Shar with me it was 12 and you said nine have we identified those nine schools I would defer to Dr Aver and Dr Levy David um about that um I'm not sure if the exact schools have been selected okay I apologize because I am one of that that way I introduced myself Willie Medina I'm actually one of the newest board members so I just started uh I got swed in December 1st first meeting was December 11th so I'm kind of new so these questions might be some things that the other board members might have known so
028I do apologize but uh I'll uh refer to uh our chair and um if I have any questions I'll raise my hand thank you thank you Dr a did you want to answer that question or uh Mr um medino we we are we we started with 12 but we we kind of you know scaled back a little bit in order to make sure that we have enough uh of the campuses that we will start every single year uh we have not you know U finalized the the nine campus that will start the first year uh but we're looking at different options of being able to look at schools that are currently in turn around schools that are successful we're trying to balance that out a little bit in order to pick the schools um uh
029again we have not finalized that yet but once we get a little bit more Direction and approval from the board we will solidify those and make sure that uh uh we get that to the full board uh to consider those first initial schools that will start the program thank you uh Mr Woodson do you have questions no I'm all good okay um and I know from I was on um I was presentent at the last committee meeting when this was discussed and um just from hearing today the idea is to obviously build teacher capacity um so is this going to eventually um this might be for Dr ly David or Dr um Avery um but will we eventually be able to build um the district leaders who will then offer the same professional development to
030other um schools is that the way that this is working this is Dr go ahead go ahead ma'am I'm talking while I still have voice so yes um as we are more and more embedded into our various cohorts we will begin to have the expertise to then deliver that training ourselves to um the professionals that are in our district and any newcomers that we have in the district thank you and then um the other question um is I have two more questions and then I'll I'll go to you mic um as far as um I lost my question give me a second oh first uh this would be for Dr Levy David um what is this a soul Source um project or it is a soul Source it is a soul Source provider yet and
031can you just explain what makes it a soul Source in for us I will defer to Mr M okay thank you yeah so uh we um own our content so we are the Sole Provider of those Frameworks that I was explaining have seen success around the country so those are our intellectual property we are a sole source provider of the leverage leadership get better faster open sequence Frameworks okay um I forgot my my last question so I'll refer to you Mr if you would like to ask a question I remember it now but go ahead you can ask yours yeah thank you um cost I I've haven't heard the cost of this program hello yes Tim you want to go you can go through that if you like I just have to pull it up
032uh so give me one second um it does um vary slightly year by year because of the cohort structure um but let me pull up the pricing quickly bear with me in one moment sorry okay sorry about that it's loading right now um so the year one year one total is here I can share my screen again actually okay uh so the year one total is a little over 1.3 year two as we bring in that second cohort of schools is a little over 2 million year three when we have all three cohorts running at the same time is 2.6 and then the fourth year as some of those initial cohorts start uh finishing their their Arc of support it goes back down to 1.5 and okay another question as far as on the programing
033is it necessary to have all the years of this contract for the program to be effective it is important to finish out the scope the three-year Arc of content to see true results this work is difficult work it's it's long-term work um and it requires an investment of multiple years to truly see success especially across a district where we found success is following plans like this where there's a very strategic intentional plan to scale across the district so we have learned and we've worked with drors Avery and Levy David to understand your context this is what we believe will be the most successful to truly drive those student outcomes is if we have a three-year Arc of content so that would be the minimum I would say but that is the the first couple Focus
034schools the more the more cohorts the more impact then exponentially comes from that okay thank you I think I got a couple more questions but they're gonna be more related to staff um do we have any program like this currently existing is this like is this like a new program or new expenditure or is it replacing an old old expenditure well we have several that are expiring but this is a brand new approach to aligning instruction and improving student outcomes in the district longterm in a scalable and sustainable way okay and what F I'm sorry again I'm I'm sorry I cut you off continue please yeah you know we have approximately the last time I counted it's going to count them because I don't want to give you a wrong number excuse me we have
035nine campuses currently in turnaround status that means that they are the lowest 5% performing schools in the state of Connecticut they're in the lowest 5% of performance and so we are very committed those are not the only schools that we have we also have schools that are part of the commissioner's grants we have schools that are part of school Improvement we have schools that are we are also an alliance district and we have Focus schools so we have schools in various stages of failure or failing to meet standards but the lowest performing are those that I just named the turnaround campuses so we are very invested in a program that has a solid reputation that is research based and that has a proven model of partnership that not only aligns with our district and instructional
036goals but also aligns with our desire to ensure that everyone is accountable for the learning and for the efforts to turn around student learning in the district from central office to the classroom level okay my next question is um funding source the funding is currently available I've already worked with Miss seagull to identify funding and we currently have funding available what budget is it coming from operating budget s grants a combination okay so this will be and okay that's all I have for now thank you um and this is kind of a followup to Mr Sak's question first of all I would like to recular reflect that I believe Mr um Ben has joined the meeting sorry um I didn't call your name earlier it's hard to see um all the names um but he's
037here that's M here thank you thank you before I ask my question do you have a question no not this moment thank you okay um so um it's kind of a followup to that question that Mr sakovic asked about um what we're offering already currently in the district um do we do we have anything in the district that is like uniformed throughout school to school and um will this eventually be that program we currently do not have a uniform aligned system of learning for our teachers in the district we currently do not have a curriculum in the district we currently do not have a systemized um annual training that supports every single campus in the same way or actually individualizes based on campus need or performance we currently do not have a way to train
038uh staff as they arrive and they're onboarded and are as we have attrition with our teaching staff we don't have a program that does that and we're looking for something that is going to be able to cover all those bases hence our efforts to find something that would work in a cart style where we would have schools working for multiple years to gain capacity build those experts on the campus level and to be able to make the work sustainable scalable and sustainable over the course of the next five years thank you do we have any further questions for any committee members all right um any board members as as well um Mr M I want to say thank you for um showing us the um comparisons with other districts um that was helpful especially um
039some of those districts had similar demographics to ours so um it was helpful to see the the comparisons to see what we could eventually look like if we if we approve this um so I appreciate that um so I'm at this point I want to entertain a motion if somebody would like to uh move to um oh Mr Medina thank you thank you one question um I don't know if it's going to Mr Timothy or Mrs uh Levy when are we looking to try to besides after the vote when are we looking to try to in implement these Services the services will be implemented beginning in the fall semester of 20124 but we will actually have have um professional development that will occur in the summer okay thank you I just wanted to see what
040what window we have because I don't want to prolong things and I want to of course give our our our district the best resources uh for Success so I appreciated that time I just wanted to find that out that way we can uh get more res because I look forward to uh like Mr Timothy said to just you know get to see a a direct insight for us to see and and to meet and see the programs in action and to understand you know how everything is so I I I I welcome uh that invite for me to accept so thank you guys um M Madam chair yes oh Dr ay yes yeah uh Mr Bina I think the other part is that if we get things approved by the board uh by the end
041of the month uh what will happen first between now and summer training is that really what command and do an assessment uh and just trying to really for them to get their eyes on the district they'll go through different campuses they'll meet with staff they'll meet with leadership just to really get a feel for you know what's happening at the ground level uh which will help build you know the program when we when administrators go to training this summer so again there's just a lot of initial things that will have have to happen so between now or like March and you know June and July before training starts they'll assess they'll come back they'll give us a report uh the things that they see uh target areas that we can focus in on in order
042to make a have a better you know return on on on the investment uh moving forward so again there just a lot of really neat things for us to to grab hold of as a district as we lead into uh the no the brand new way of how we're going to approach teaching in the thank you for that Insight um at this point I want to entertain a motion um to refer this to the full board for approval um to enter into agreement with relay somebody like to move that I'll make a motion all right um do I have a second I'll second it um for committee members all in favor to move it to the board I any opposed any extensions I abstain okay so the motion passes it's going to go to the
043full board um on the next uh meeting which will be this Monday coming up the 22nd okay thank you Mr Mains thank you very much I appreciate the time looking forward bye um next up we have um a presentation from Hanover research hello I'm gonna pull up my screen here really quickly one second um my name is Lindsay how I'm a senior director at hover research I'm also joined by my colleague Dr Matt regon he's a senior research advisor um one thing I also want to note too um Matt is a part of our content and research team he's a former District administrator and practitioner which we have a lot of those on our staff um I've been working with the district leaders the last few months at Bridgeport about utilizing research to inform the
044following priorities so um strengthening instructional practices data literacy and Assessment program evaluations specifically evaluating programs added under Esser funding and an analysis of Staffing and HR districtwide um really tonight my plan is to share an overview of Handover research and how we support districts like Bridgeport our model of support and an overview of plan deliverables for Bridgeport specifically um Handover research we are a custom research and Professional Services firm specializing in K12 education we work with about 400 districts Nationwide also a number of State Departments of Education Regional agencies um and we serve these groups through a membership model including several districts in Connecticut that would be considered your peer districts Hanover supports these districts in the four key areas that are displayed on the screen here so the first being custom research this is
045what we're best known for we designed custom research to support improved outcomes that's specific to each district common methodologies include surveys focus groups in-depth interviews d data analysis best practices pure benchmarking focus groups um we have over 200 different areas of research expertise on our staff the next gear there in Orange think of this as implementation support and action planning as it relates to the research a member of uh our excuse me your research your designated research team will lead workshops and quarterly consults to empower District leaders to make informed decisionmaking using completed research search um the educator Learning Center um this is not something we're proposing for Bridgeport at this point but I wanted to highlight it um this is a district-wide professional development platform that includes self-paced courses like classroom management social emotional
046learning instructional design and others this tool is used to drive staff development and retention for districts um and then the last bucket there is Handover digital so this is a library of syndicated research tools and discussion guides pure benchmarking and best practices across K12 topic areas um any of the work that we do on the research side if we're able to redact it and make it available we can so we add topic areas to that Library almost on a weekly basis um this next slide here illustrates the life cycle of a research project and it really kind of identifies our approach to research so we complete research sequentially as part of a queue meaning we create a scope of work that includes a series of research projects that we deliver one at a time um
047we believe in a mixed methods approach to provide comprehensive research so for example a survey can tell us a lot um we typically use things like a ler scale but layered in with qualitative feedback such as in-depth interviews um really expands our understanding of perception data layered with data analysis that really provides a comprehensive look at the particular topic area um our model is rooted in flexibility meaning that we are continually scoping the needs of the district and presenting research deliverables best suited to maximize academic impact research projects are presented in a series so as not to duplicate work in the case of Bridgeport looking to utilize Handover across multiple priorities if we can identify areas where um we can combine forces that's a high priority of our research team um you'll have a designated
048group of um staff members at Handover to support Bridgeport specifically to make sure that that repetition doesn't occur after the conclusion of each each research project Handover debriefs key findings and recommendations we'll train the district on use of any deliverable so in the event that we create something like a dashboard or a data workbook we're going to make sure that District leaders know how to use it and interpret the data we can also create Capstone deliverables to inform constituent groups such as the school board and the community um these often illustrate progress and impact occurring from the research um especially if we're doing this over multiple projects at a time um I'm going to flip into the slide about what we're proposing with Bridgeport um this is based off of discussions with with um various
049board members and District level leaders and we're suggesting support based on four key areas so high quality instruction um often takes the shape of an instructional audit data literacy an assessment Staffing HR analysis and program evaluation um and I had uh linked within this proposal as well a very detailed scope that has those project descriptions but also happy to have on hand I'll also have this in physical format at the board meeting on Monday if this is recommended for that um but really here more specifically District leadership has expressed a desire for Handover to deliver research to understand the use of Assessments and Grading practices if those are standardized across the district and if they're aligned to State Standards um for Handover to complete a data analysis of student outcomes districtwide that looks at academic
050programmatic and demographic indicators of success this would likely be delivered through a dashboard to visualize the data at various levels including school grade level districtwide and year-over-year Analysis of performance um a thirdparty evaluation of um programs across the district to determine a return on investment or if they're being implemented with Fidelity and positions created to understand staffing needs as well as strengthen dat literacy practices districtwide um here on this screen um I wanted to talk a little bit about our approach to an instructional audit meaning we create a framework to examine how instruction is planned designed delivered and assessed we know that there's many components to instruction that need to work together to improve student outcomes and this is going to include things like curriculum materials assessment standards um teacher evaluation professional development we want
051to gather feedback from staff on their input on how effective these components are in their ability to deliver high quality instruction we'll look at data on student outcomes to help the district monitor if inputs resources and programs are improving academic outcomes um we also have the ability to take past data um from past years to look at longitudinal performance but our data analysis really looks at that student outcome across all indicators since we know that the impact of instruction extends outside of the classroom as well um typically the first phase of an instructional audit is about collecting and centralizing data to establish a baseline for performance and for monitoring hover will guide District leadership in identifying opportunities and risks from what the data reveals we'll look to deliver root cause analysis as in why do
052these gaps of uh in instruction occur and how do we mitigate them um I also want to take a minute here to make the distinction between Handover and relay here Hanover's goal is to provide research identifying gaps in alignment with the many components of instruction um our advisory support is connected to action planning from that research so in many cases when we're looking especially at the data analysis of things we have a lot of District leaders who will tie that back to their strategic plan and progress monitoring um handovers work can inform form and support the services relay is planning as they work with districtwide staff uh excuse me as they work with dis staff districtwide to strengthen practices um additionally if the district looks to evaluate the efficacy of relay or any other program
053Handover is a leader in program evaluation we have worked in tandem with many vendors to ensure we're not duplicating work as well um and to sum summarize the work being presented to assess and understanding instruction layered with data anal Anis of student outcomes over time is going to create an understanding for the district to improve those outcomes and then really um from there we move into effective program evaluations so we really look at it from a macro perspective and then start to get very specific into a program evaluation so we may evaluate a district special education program we may look to evaluate what does your summer school programming look like um we may go into the core subjects of ela of math or even look at vendors within those there um I did provide some
054visuals here just so that you can see what how our timelines tend to work so when we work with districts um again we deliver research one at a time um what we're recommending with Bridgeport is um two sets of research occurring simultaneously and we're also recommending a multi-year agreement um we can walk through how that looks um through the Fe component as well um now I should note here that this is from initial scoping conversations so we fully anticipate that this is a working plan with a working scope that is subject to change based on District input so the process that we have here highly collaborative and it's also timeline based so if the district is seeking to have information um for example to inform summer planning we're going to utilize that research 1st as
055part of our sequential process um here as I flip into our fees um so um we've presented two options to the district um and again we're we're suggesting a multi-year agreement there are optout components of a multi-year agreement the benefit to The District in entering into a multi-year agreement is you maintain pricing over the course of that time um option one here this is a one-year agreement um and this is what we call our strategy membership which really just means we're working on two sets of research at the same time plus our advisory work there um we anticipate about 8 to 12 completed projects here within that process um and the annual fee there is listed in the event that the district would like us to do focus groups as part of this um that
056that happens while research is ongoing so we can come on site and deliver those research or excuse me those focus groups um but again that's an optional component there um if the district wanted to do a strategy membership with additional research so this is really based on the timing and the needs of the district so if we wanted to take a look at all four of the priority areas that we've identified with the district early on and we wanted to do research in one two three and four particular areas they you do all have the flexibility to do that um you'll see the fee there that's an annual fee um but we can also adjust that in years two and years three there um and I and I anticipate questions there as this might be
057a little confusing if we talk about it but we do have the ability to tailor these contracts based on how we deliver that research there um I'm going to pause here and I welcome any questions you all have thank you um I'll start with committee members um Mr Woodson do you have questions no thank you Mr Medina not at this time thank you um like the record reflect that Mr travor has joined the meeting um I'll go to you in a second Mr tror I'm ask a question first um Mr I I I won't ask my question I I realized it was answered in the previous committee so I don't want to duplicate that question Mr trabber thank you madam chair um my first question would be that at the outset of your presentation you
058referenced having uh sat down with board members to design this plan and I'd like to know what board members you sat down with sorry about that um so we had an initial conversation talking about Handover that um a couple of board members were present at um I can answer that question go ahead the executive board team was present for that training so uh Miss batist Perez Miss Casmir and Miss Perez the executive B yes sir okay um and then the second question is um among the services that you've just outlined to us um what is it that Handover is offering that anyone on the Bridgeport Public School staff with an ed can't do oh gosh I think that's a that's a pretty broad question um it is it is but your presentation was pretty broad
059too and I'm so I'm just trying to understand what the difference is between what our current staff can do and what you're offering to do or presenting that you will do sure so it's like a lot of the stuff that you laid out is stuff that you would think the existing staff that we have can do sure sure um and what I'll I'll share there to oh go ahead Dr Love I can help answer that question as well I think that the competence of Hanover research which is probably in the top three um assessment and development research companies in the country is not in question you're now would I ask Lindsay to defend it um I can provide you with tons of literature on Handover research if you're not familiar with their work if we
060had the expertise at the district level to do this work we would have no need to contract with relay or with Handover or any of the other organizations that we are proposing tonight the expertise is not something that is granted with an ed lots of people get degrees and it doesn't make them experts unless they've been able to practice and apply the learning to gain expertise in those areas so I'm not gonna have Lindsay spend time answering that question because I think it's a bit factious it is not a factious question it was an honest question that I would like her to answer uh either here or Monday I'm gonna ask that question and I would like it to be laid out what it is that they're offering to do I I this is a
061whole boatload of money that being asked to spend and I think it's worth us knowing sort of what it is that's going to be done by this company that we couldn't do inhouse if you go to slide five Mr Traver it outlines our high priority areas which is high quality instruction and instructional audit data literacy and assessment evaluation staff and HR analysis evaluation and overall program evaluation we are currently a failing District with nine schools and turnaround status and over a third of our schools in some form of failure status and over the past five superintendent that issue has not gotten any better and our kids continue to suffer so what I would like to do is to bring in actual experts reputable experts in this country who have been successful all over the country
062with the work that they're doing to support us in that transition I don't expect you to take my word for it so I'm bringing in people that have impeccable reputations in the work that they do to help us to do that work and we have a lot of work to do here in Bridgeport and a lot of broken systems and you as a board member and as a former teacher in the district probably know that better than I do and so um I have I'm sitting outside a a building in my car attending this meeting so I don't have the packet in front of me are do we have uh the data that shows us where they have been able to do this in other parts of the country that you're that's in the packet
063there especially in Connecticut there's I think four or five districts they're using Stanford Norwalk and I I guess um I think South Windsor West Hartford I remember that so four districts in the Connecticut and but none of those districts have had the success that you're talking about so that's what I'm asking about and Mr tror what I also would State here too as is we often act as a capacity extension of the data support that currently exists within the district and the other side of that too is the fact that we are able to deliver work um faster we're able to address multiple priority areas at once and we also have the flexibility um we have 200 different areas of expertise and so we can switch back and forth between those methodological areas to support
064the district um that's one thing that we have found with districts who have multiple and complex priorities is that um we have a team of researchers that are Adept at being able to be flexible in the research needed hi uh also jump in to say um that we work with districts that have uh you know very very large research departments you know populated with uh EDS and phds and as Lindsay say says um they just don't have uh the capacity to do all the work that's necessary uh for them to get the answers that they that they want the other thing is sometimes it's uh valuable to the districts that we work with to have a third Party by unbiased objective look at your data uh for us to analyze it in with the experience
065that we have with other districts uh we uh have the ability with the kind of the the visibility that we have with work all over the nation um to uh Benchmark uh how you're doing against uh peer districts or districts with uh that have had success so it's that kind of visibility that um you know I I don't know your EDS or I'm sure they're they're smart I'm sure they know what they're doing I'm sure they're really uh valuable to the district but it's just the the positioning that we have uh through the nature of our work that that brings that additional capacity I can understand that could you give me some examples of some of those districts that you would you've had that success uh yeah well we have we work with over what
066Lindsay probably you know two 1 15 300 districts so um s you know we're we're not um we're not the only factor in the success that they have but we work with Alexandria City public schools here in Virginia Atlantic uh uh sorry Atlanta uh Los Angeles Chicago uh those really big districts that have humongous uh uh data departments uh and yet they still see the need for um utilizing our expertise just based on the the positioning that we have uh uh somebody mentioned the the several Connecticut districts uh that we're working with um I don't have that in front of me but Norwalk West Hartford um are two that that I heard and that I've worked with personally and their um uh growth and um uh achievement gaps are uh you know Works in progress
067of course but certainly seeing uh the expertise and the research that that helps them um uh minimize those gaps or or uh uh implement the the programs that they want to implement with Fidelity are certainly seeing progress yeah and I I understand that and we're just trying to as a board since this is Thursday and you're being we're being asked Monday to make a decision on what may be a million doll contract if I understood what was laid out as one of the options um uh yeah we're significantly different than you we're significantly under a million it wasn't that high yeah but I thought one of the options that I saw was a 250,000 260,000 multi-year option per year multi-year option I see what you're saying sure you're you're approaching you're approaching uh $800,000 with
068that option depending on you had the focus groups or not the focus groups um so that's what I'm looking at so we're looking to be able to go online and research Alexandria Chicago Los Angeles um you know West Hartford or Hartford I heard both towns mentioned Stanford Norwalk uh you know the towns mentioned on the specific uh package we got in Connecticut but also towns around the country that you mentioned um where you said that you you've had an impact Atlanta um you know to see what to reach out to in Connecticut we can reach out to the organizations but the other we can go online and see what kind of experience they're how they're doing and what they're the on what we can find out before Monday night before we are being asked to
069vote on such a decision can I add something um for can ask Dr ly David which option are we looking at option one or two and I also want to add that this this has been our packet for the past two weeks so it it's not something that's gonna be surprised on us on Monday I didn't have that packet because of not being in the country okay sorry about that then yeah and I was just able to get a hold of it in the last less than a week so I know there's two options Dr Levy David we're looking at Option One okay which is the the one year is that the one year be 130,000 um for the one year the district can opt into a multi-year agreement to maintain pricing but that has
070opt outs in there um and Mr Traer too I'm also happy to forward a number of case studies that we have available we keep those publicly on our website happy to share those with you that'd be great with the board members of the board not yes oh definitely that would be great thank appreciate that you too Mr sovic yes I got a a couple of questions and these have no reflection on the inte rity professionalism of the firm we are a district that is in not only in the bottom of the Heap but in dire Financial Straits and every dollar is very dear and when $1 doar is spent it can't be spent somebody somewhere else so my questions are basically on the financial Financial end and as as far as saving money because we
071I think my question is are mostly for staff um Mr trav's question was um maybe me think of it yeah you may be correct uh at the Eds not all EDS are created the same but we've been building capacity in our executive staff at the very top of the Heap is there not any executive staff that could take on some of this work I think from what I I guess Miss Dr Le David can answer this but from what I'm understanding is the the work that's going to be put into this is like a separate job a whole a whole full fulltime job Rees so it would I'm assuming if you we put let's say Dr saki on this this is what he's working on and maybe not working on other things that he's supposed
072to be working on but Dr every day maybe you probably have a better answer than that yes the actual assessment of Effectiveness program evaluation component with every single large District such as like the district I come from has a data analysis team that this is all they do is do program evaluation all day every day and gather data and look at outcomes and compare them longitudinally and when they're not able to come up with answers then they turn to companies like Handover research to support them and identifying the high leverage areas that they can focus on if they don't have the resources or if they are not able to make a decision about what the high leverage areas are and so no matter how many experts you have at the table there are always individuals
073who have greater expertise and greater finesse at doing this type of work than those of us who are Tas with actually the dayto day of running a district and if I can jump in here too on the return on investment components here I pulled up um I pulled up a slide here that walks through this we have a number of districts who come to us to evaluate not only the effectiveness of programs but the return on investment how do I know that my programs are working um how do we know that our dollars are being used appropriately that that is a huge component um especially with Esser funding right now I would say that that's a pretty consistent conversation Nationwide of how do we keep these programs or how do we strategically abandon them um
074in one case we worked with the Nashville uh the Nashville School District very large District to and we realized that they had multiple reading programs and so they came to us and said which one is working can that one be distributed across all of our districts and what do we need to know about it and so what we were able to do is identify a significant savings for the district to utilize One Reading Program over the other I just share that as an example but that return on investment piece is a huge component of program evaluation to make sure that um these programs are working within the school district yes thank you thank you for that that's definitely helpful and um back back to um The District staff questions um back to fin uh funding
075source yes Dr Ley David the funding source yes we've identified funding for this program as well we've strategically abandoned programs in order not to continue to waste money in areas where we're not seeing any return on investment with student achievement in order to invest those funds in the programs that we're proposing tonight so it'll be like a a net wash on the at worst net wash on the operating budget it will never be a net to net or net wash because we've spent Millions over the past three to four years in E funding on programs that have not yielded results I cannot I cannot regain exra funds that have already been spent on programs and we we purchased over 20 two programs in this District in the last five years and seen no results I
076can't get that money back understood uh my question is are we adding to our expenditures overall in operating budget which in turn adds to the deficit that we currently have between funding and expenditures right I'm not aware of that deficit But to answer your question we've identified funding to pay for the program oh okay okay I got to digest that for a while thank you Mr Medina yes thank you and if I can just piggy back a little bit on um on that question that Joe had but actually more on the answer I think what Miss Davis was saying that there are programs that have been identified that have not um brought forth uh you know to uh you know benefits to the district which those programs are going to be pushed to the side
077and instead of those programs being active they're going to be deactivated and these programs like Handover are going to be basically substituting those programs if I'm understanding that Mrs Davis Dr Levy David the pro the Handover will not be substituting Handover is a standalone unlike anything that we've ever purchased in this district and so is relay but we do have programs that have run their course we have programs that we will not be continuing with and we have programs that have expired and we have spent millions of Sr funds on those programs over the past three or five years I app I appreciate your answer so the answer to my question was yes because I was leaning on your side saying that we're going to be I'm not saying that Handover is going to be
078substituting a program that is like Handover itself but yet a program that we're not going to be using that way you're thinking of those funds that we have already been spending you're going to say you know we're not going to do those programs because this is a better program or whatever and you know that's how you're saying that we have the you know you have the funding kind of like lined up and that's what you just mentioned um my second question is for you m uh is how many years are we looking at uh kind of like Contracting Handover what what are the years that we're trying to look at how many years that's uh my next question sure or oh sorry Mr Medina was that for Dr Levy David or I don't know who
079has that answer to that question so it's a question I believe for both tables Mrs got yeah your superintendent or Miss Lindy well and I can and I can share um we tend to take an annual approach with districts we know that projects are going to build off of each other so again like that comprehensive analysis of multiple projects occurring so that one year is a component we are recommending that the district looked at look at three years however uh with that said you know the number of districts that we work with really fluctuates we have some districts who have worked with us for 15 years we have some districts that come in and ask for a very specific ask work with us for a year and then potentially come back at some point I
080hear you so miss uh Miss Levy how many years are your considering sorry how many years are we considering you asked yep you're on mute Dr lovey David we are going with option one which right now is a year multi it's actually one year where they'll be prioritizing several different areas and we will accept at the end of that year we need to continue with the second year understood thank you for your answer because I just wna same thing as uh Mr Joe and everything just thinking that if we do lock them in for definitely a two-year then we can lock in the price as Miss lindsy had mentioned you know we want to try to save as much as possible instead of going into the second year and have an increase of another whatever
08120 30,000 whatever the case might be so I was just asking if there was a a thought about how many years we would like to try to uh uh have them contracted so thank you guys so ultimately for $130,000 we we're looking at a program that can possibly save us millions in in of those 20 different programs that we have Dr Levy David or somebody just to confirm that that is correct okay so that's my question now you answer my question Mr benan and then we're going to move on thank you Miss Paris um this question is from let's say hi this is Mr benan I have a um two question this um going to be um this program is going to be the special need um students going to be involved and second it's
082going to be um different language just in case somebody need I just want to know confirm with you please yes no that's a great question um when we look at demographic groups we look at of course um your racial makeup but we also look at special education students 504 students by gender um by access to gifted and talented programs access to AP programs so we're looking at a wide variety um all of the work that we do especially Community facing so if we do a survey we have the ability to translate it into multiple languages um and we really work with the district to identify what are the languages within your District that you will need this when we are doing especially survey work um we need to make sure that we have a representative
083sample population of the district and so that includes hard-to-reach demographics within the district and we know that language can be a challenge there and so we work on that translation piece to try to collect as much of that perception data as possible thank you thank you m Paris thank you thank you Mr Benard that was a great question um so now U committee members I would like to um uh entertain a motion to refer this to the full board um an agreement to enter in um an approval to enter into an agreement with Handover so somebody would second that so we can refer to the full Board second thank you Mr Woodson um comme members all any further discussion all in favor I um any oppose okay iard you Mr Woodson any opposed any abstentions
084I abstain please all right so the motion does pass we will see you miss how on Monday at our regular board meeting at um on the 22nd thank you all thank you thanks for having us um thank you the next item on the agenda I believe Mr planus is going to um present on it's um uh an agreement with hey tutor good evening everyone can you hear me okay yes outstanding let me share my screen here just share my PowerPoint one second please I apologize do I have the rights to share my screen can you see not yet I think you got to ask for that and I think you have presenter I think you have presenter privileged you're on the presenter list yes you have rights Mr planis I'm trying to share the screen
085and it doesn't allow me to see share screen window window PowerPoint share we need permission to share the screen go to security privacy start recording no I'm I don't need that what PowerPoint are we trying to find I could share it uh the uh the high dosage tutoring you have it there Sam I'm looking the hey tutor yes yep I has it hold on I apologize I had there he goes thank you uh I I have the pleasure of uh tonight of presenting the hosage tutoring um Grant um we we're planning to partner with ay called Hey tutor for um for this grant uh Sam can you go to the next one uh and so our purpose tonight is to acquire approval to engage in a contract with hey tutor to provide tutoring services to
086two schools uh our grant allowed us um to to do so we receive $240,000 uh from from the Connecticut State Department of Education and with this amount of money it allowed us to um basically do a a small pilot uh of offering 17 weeks of tutoring to schools Gerald deine Johnson and Fairchild wheeler um now we chose these schools uh for for many reasons first of all Geraldine Johnson has a very uh population that U has has had uh English language Learners as well as special ed students and um and a very diverse population in that school and so it would be a great great place to uh put a program like this in place also fch wheeler uh has also a very diverse population um we were looking when we were selecting at the
087high school level we were selecting uh schools that have uh principles that have been there for some time and that um accepted the role of being part of this program uh and who will provide full support and so fach child wheeler from the very very beginning said yes we will do it we will change our schedule whatever it needs so we were happy to partner with them Sam the next one uh and so and so in brief uh the Connecticut State Department of Education allocated $10 million from the American Rescue uh plan Elementary and secondary school emergency relief funding uh this program was provided uh to provide tutoring for grades 6 through n uh for mathematics in accordance to evidence-based guidelines and uh there were there were several companies that were selected uh from the
088Connecticut State Department of Education and amongst those uh some were selected for in-person tutor and others were selected uh for virtual tutoring now in our district we had tried already uh to to do a lot of things virtually and and as you know if you have uh if you have been through the school system or even have uh you know students who went through covid uh you know that the the virtual aspect the the entire virtual aspect was was very very difficult for students especially for those who were learning mathematics it's it's extremely difficult uh not to have someone in front of you to to to really learn a concept of skill and Mathematics next one and so when we thought about the grant we thought about doing it in person we we looked at
089the list and started looking at the features that each one of those uh I believe there were six different um organizations provided and we uh we actually went through each one to select the very best and we came up with hey tutor um we we also liked about this grant we liked that that hey tutor um had in-person tutoring and as I mentioned before we received $240,500 for to cover tutoring fees supplies and equipment for this project um hey tutor would only be the cost was $2,970 and this is for 17 weeks of of tutoring we will get uh 12 tutors which they will train and uh Gabriel ning will explain a little bit more about that uh next next slide and so our plan is to provide in-person tutoring during the day not after
090school but during the day during our Wind Block each school has a Wind Block uh wi stands for what I need uh what I need meaning what students need at that time students are uh put in in pods in groups of uh three to five students where they are um they're basically selected by by their needs so if for example I'm teaching uh a sixth grade lesson on fractions additional fractions and I have some students that need um help in combining you know common denominator so I could put them together in one group and teach those students for x amount of time now the beauty of having a tutoring a tutor during that time is that they could also help in in lowering the amount of of groups that the teacher has to see so
091so students will get double dosage of this tutoring that is provided during the Wind Block the Wind Block is taught four times a week about 20 to 30 minutes each day and groups are rotated uh throughout each group sees a teacher for approximately you know 10 to 12 minutes uh we utilize the data to gauge student progress throughout and the the placement the the the focus is not on basically intervening but helping the student moving the student forward so that uh they could access the instruction that is happening in the classroom so we don't want skills that will not be used in the classroom to be taught during this time we want skills that um teachers will be utilizing as part of their regular mathematics instruction and so um next slide please and so I
092I have the pleasure of introducing Gabriel uh ning who we have been uh speaking for uh about two months about this project and who who we've been narrowing down uh as to what what we want to do in terms of this project so I'll let Gabriel take over um and and present his company's uh tutoring program thank you thank you Mr pis um so uh essentially so my name is Gabe ning I'm director of Partnerships with hey tutor um for us we're essentially um going to work with um we're going to work with uh Bridgeport to help a lot of its uh students on the sixth and Ninth Grade especially uh with mathematics according to this grant so um if you can go to next slide please um so a little bit about us we've
093been business the past 10 years originally as a business consumer company so we uh help children um on the beta C side and now we work with districts across the country 70 plus school districts across the country um we have we worked with 200 plus subjects uh 50,000 plus students and more than 500 schools uh some of the school districts we've already partnered with is um one of the largest school districts in the country Los Angeles Unified School District we help with uh 40 plus School sites all in person um with uh uh a lot of their after school and during school mathematics and Ela which are the two core subjects that we SP specialize in we also work uh with the Texas Education Agency uh in districts um such as Austin ISD and other
094large uh Urban District uh and other school districts such as Castlebury ISD um some other uh urban districts that we work with that might mirror the demographics of Bridgeport is we work with Inglewood ISD I mean USD uh Glen Glendale istd and so forth um if you can go next slide please um so essentially um our program utilizes many factors but one of the biggest factors we are proud of is flexibility so we can help uh Bridgeport before school during school um and even after school during school the pushin or pullout model which um Mr planus already kind of explained um so we use 100% utilization of live Hands-On and interactive instruction uh these are all going to be iners so we provide uh three main core competencies inperson high dosage general education tutors in-person
095PA professionals and finally IND uh iners ESL bilingual tutors um and I know that Bridgeport has a especially large bilingual ESL population too um so it's about 30 to 60 Minutes uh per session uh and we focus on flexible scheduling um a lot of our curriculum is geared towards recovering unfinished learning especially from the pandemic on um grade levels in middle school and Elementary School along with early High School uh next slide please um so essentially with our um professional um what our um tutors are going to have is three plus years of experience um either in a private school uh private setting or classroom setting um on top of that they'll all have bachelor's degrees and we also partner directly with your HR department to do uh National background checks according to New Jersey
096state standards along with fingerprinting uh and TB testing if that's required in your District um we have about a four to six week implementation timeline from the date we receive um a purchase order and and a assigned contract uh four weeks for more urban districts such as yourself and then six weeks for more rural districts by the end of this time they'll be fully trained uh background checked and deployed at your school site ready to go um we basically uh take care of most elements within the program so it's an all-encompassing uh program including the price point so it comes with our pre-trained tutors be W2 employees our W2 employees so we also handle everything through our HR department um whether that's um issues with tardiness absenteeism or anything like that we have a very
097strict um tolerance policy on that so our HR will take care of all that for you uh we also have specifically project managers that uh talk directly to um your individual School sites and your individual uh tutors deployed at the school sit so they'll be keeping track on a daily basis to make sure the program runs smoothly then we have our customer service management team uh talking to higher level District officials such as Mr planus and anyone else on the district side giving High Lev updates either bi-weekly monthly or however often you like um and then that's also a great time where you guys can give us feedback and then we can Implement that in real time to our program uh next slide please um so this is a little bit about um some of
098vending so we work directly with your HR department um we have um a lot of experience having worked with New London public schools in Connecticut uh with the background checks so we're quite privy to what the background checks entail uh the timeline with the back checks which is why we do have the 4-we estimated timeline um and then we also take fingerprinting seriously make sure to document all of that on top of uh TB testing if that's required in your District um next slide please um and this is just kind of going off what I mentioned for Block scheduling so part of our flexibility we do schedule according to block scheduling that's going to be approximately 20 hours per week um for each of our tutors and that could look many different ways that could
099be you know five times week four hours a day four times five hours a day or any kind of combination thereof the main reason for this is to make sure we have a high tutor retention rate and the district doesn't have to deal with their involving with tutors because everything we do is going to be in person um this is just going to ensure that our 85% plus High tutor retention rate by having a minimum of 20 hours of work for each of our tutors next slide please um so essentially uh this is just kind of a little overview of some of our curriculum so um we was give District two options about 30% of our district Partners utilize their own curriculum and we have our tutors AC me to that uh with built-in time
100during the week to um kind of collaborate with the teacher or any point of contact in charge of the curriculum at each individual School site to make sure that um each tutor is following uh the path that the point of contact would like um the other option is about 70% of our district Partners utilize our own in-house curriculum to develop our team of In-House curriculum Specialists they all have um Masters phds and education uh and it is going to be geared towards Connecticut state standards K through2 uh Ela and math so perfectly aligns with the six to9 grade high dosage tutoring grant that this uh program will uh be streamlined into um next slide please oh and this is our dashboard so we do have a built-in dashboard where you can track their progress um
101using our curriculum we have Diagnostics built into it so we have a baseline diagnostic a midyear Diagnostic and an endof year diagnostic all these would be visible to District administrators such as yourself through a built-in dashboard and that way you'll have uh all the data points um necessary to present at the school board um should you choose to renew the program at the end of this program um it is going to be um capturing data such as attendance um and then based on our baselines there'll be a lot of um data points accessible that's specifically geared towards our curriculum that is going to be based on Connecticut um State Standards so uh for specific sorry specifically um uh 6 through 9 math um we will be um tracking that data points and we will be
102tracking um more small check mark U mini tests so that's all going to be available on the district dashboard next slide please this is just a little bit about customer service that I mentioned U we do have a tier two- tiered method of communication we have the project managers like I mentioned and then we have our customer service managers project managers once again geared more towards the individual schools making sure everything runs on a daily level uh and then our csm's customer service managers talking to higher level District officials to make sure that they're aware of how the program is going uh next slide please uh and this is just a little bit about once again going over our four-week implementation timeline uh once again it does start as soon as we get a signed
103contract and a purchase order um and very finally um all our tutors are going to come from the local District or neighboring districts uh we tap into many Avenues of school district that not be able to student alumni networks College alumni networks people we've already worked with in the past uh consultants and so on so that is how we're able to uh find high quality individuals in a time frame given in all law districts such as New London Englewood USD LAUSD and so next slide please uh this is just overview of the projected cost um our hourly rate is $55 per hour um and that's just a flat rate um and you can pick any kind of um kind of ratio youd like so if you want a one: One ratio 1:2 one: three up
104to 1: four which is the confines of this specific high dosage tutoring Grant and the general definition of high impact tutoring um I think uh Mr planus already kind of mentioned the structure of our program so I won't go back into detail with that um but at this time um I would love to open the field to any questions thank you uh committee members do you have any questions Mr Woodson do you have questions Mr Medina do you have any questions I would assume but I don't want to make myself look like a fool what subject are we leaning uh for this tutoring program th this grant is uh just for mathematics great and um how many students are we looking at are we targeting because you mentioned two schools uh so how many students
105will this be targeted or would this be um accessible to do we have kind of like an excellent question Mr Medina 480 students is what we're looking at uh between grades six through nine in the in the two schools that's awesome I just wanted to say because I was involved in the program when I was in elementary school my only year that I served at Black from school and um I tell you it did turn around uh my math and I went from hating math to being the worst subject but to the best subject when I had somebody like an individual from People's Bank that was tutoring Us in algebra so I know the effects of some programs like this um so I'm excited but thank you I'll pass it over Mr sakic yes thank
106you madam chair um yeah a couple of questions all for the firm the financing questions were answered right away straight off thank you um yeah as far as um you mention guaranteed certified and it's grade level and hat to is certified we're talking about we're not talking about Connecticut state certification we're talking about uh what your your specific certification process correct yeah so um like I mentioned our tutors are going to have three plus years in experience either private classroom uh private setting tutoring setting or classroom setting and then vast majority have at least a bachelor's degree um so there won't be any official uh certificates as in these are going to be uh certified teachers or certified substitute teachers okay and as as far as your recruitment you mentioned college campuses and such um
107what about about retired what about retired teachers do you reach out to like retired teachers and try to get them to come back or whatever have you because that would be a nice yeah we cast our yeah we cast our net pretty widely um the only thing is it is usually hard to uh get teachers and that's why we don't want to misle people and say um that we provide certified teachers but if we are able to find one we most definitely will uh send them over we just want to uh make realistic uh expectations so yeah and yeah see as this is a state Grant and we can't really do anything about it ourselves um I'm wondering about the overhead ratio because I'm sure because at at $55 an hour and I I think
108I I would certifi staff if I'm not mistaken get about 35 per hour if that's in the ballpark I mean if you can land anywhere like 30 to $35 an hour you might get some bites yeah um I think in general um you know we we'll definitely reach out to see if we can find retired teachers but um one of the biggest uh cost points is a lot of our cost goes towards um you know we have a specific hiring team we have the uh customer service management team and then we also have the project manager so a lot of this is going into the customer service side to maintain um both Communications but also to maintain our level of Standards when it comes to hiring high quality individuals and on top of that to
109make sure that each of these individuals keep performing for the entirety of the program um and that's where um any extra money comes from aside from paying the tutors awesome and um final question about the insurance um richport used to be unique I don't think they're so unique in as as they used to be but since your staff will be having contact with our children we always insist on um uh molestation Rider is is that includ yeah so uh we usually do have um sexual harassment training including initial training um but we can always for every uh District we always can add additional addendums to any contract that specifically state that so yeah good thank you Mr Medina thank you um I noticed uh and uh the last one I said a projected cost um
110and I think this is more for you Mr Gabe um that annual fee that I see administr cost that's included in that that number that you uh revealed to us yeah it's included 11,000 yeah beautiful and uh second question for Mr uh plas um that grant that state grant that we're using that you applied for and it was granted uh is that a renewable Grant excellent question and uh there's a possibility that they will have a round two of this grant um so that's that's why we wanted to start at at this point uh and show you know show that that that students could definitely grow by using a program like this in order to apply for further dollars uh one important thing is that you know we we um the the grant was provided
111um like schools that received a lot of funding through Esser reive less funding through this grant so so for us we received quite a bit of funding iner and and so we knew we went in knowing that if we appli for a lot of money we were not going to get it so we were very careful about that great no excellent job done because like I said I know what that individual thing might spark in a child you know to be you to have somebody like that as a mentor and like I said it it changed me completely so uh you know great job thank you Mr Gabe also great job presenting also that way um some of I I had one more statement I wanted everybody to know note uh if I'm correct for
112my other fellow board members and our chair um that I see that this is going to be implemented this year this this grant is for the 23 24 so this is something that we need to kind of like um you know it's at no cost right now and that thing so I think it's something that we should uh really consider ASAP because we want to give them the time to get those uh tutors uh vetted and uh into our into to this thing so thank you I just want to note that that this is for this year that was one of my questions with the other contract this is for the 2324 school year specifically this grant so money that we need to use um and I think this is a great uh way of
113spending it so I'll pass this over to the chair thank you absolutely um that was a good point Mr Medina um with that said um any further discussion before we move on I see any hands so um can I have a motion a motion to approve to bring it over to the full board yes for hey tutor um so I'll second that motion was that that was your motion Mr Bina yes it was I'll second it um and so committee members all in favor I I I sorry all right no worries um any well that's it eyes carry it um so we'll move on that will be presented on Monday at the full board meeting on the 22nd everyone give opportunity have a great night everyone great job Mr Gabe thank you gab thank you
114thank you Mr Mr planus are you presenting the dream box as well I I am I am and I'm going to ask uh Mr Sam to help me out one more time uh with the dream dream box thank you sir uh uh yes next slide please thank you so the purpose of uh this part is my presentation is to acquire permission to purchase uh the DreamBox math program for grades K12 I would like to add that I'm also going to ask permission to extend uh the licensing the current licensing for reading plus uh for for the current grades about 8,000 students for uh English language arts in my presentation also next slide so I'll give you a little background about how I learn about dream boox and it's it's very interesting uh when I first
115met Dr leevy David you know she she said um you know hi my name is Dr leevy David um and and I'm wondering what you know about dream boox it obviously didn't go quite like that because she's a very nice person and you know we talked about other things but the bottom line is that I I really didn't know anything about DreamBox and um and so I was a little ashamed of not knowing uh about this program and and anyone that knows me knows that I research really quickly things that I don't know and so I went out and and I started researching about this program and right away I noticed um the power how much power it has and how it captivates uh audiences how it captivates students and helps them learn mathematics in
116ways that no other program can do um as you know or probably don't know but uh currently grade 6 through 12 are using Can Academy and so these licenses are going to expire at the end of the year uh in June 2024 and so K Academy um we've we've used it uh for the last uh three years and um what we notice is that it's a program where students are watching a video and they have to use that video and kind of learn on their own through that video to to gather their answer and their knowledge of questions um we notice that our students need something deeper than that and so what we're looking for is a Powerhouse way a way to ensure that students know the concepts of mathematics and they're not just memorizing
117steps and procedures that they're really thinking and allowed to think in a through the computer to ensure that they're learning mathematics as I mentioned before we have also the Wind Block which in which we utilize these programs we utilize a Can Academy now uh in the lower grades we utilize moim Max um and these two programs are very similar in the way that that they provide um some knowledge and then they allow students to kind of follow those steps what we're looking for is something more powerful than that we're looking for something that utilizes new technology to move the knowledge of those students and to allow those students to really think about the math that they're learning and for the computer to make those moves that it could make when the students do not understand
118and that is just the beginning of the power of dream boox um we're looking for a product that helps us support the Wind Block in order to move students from where they are to where they could be next slide a little bit more and so I have the pleasure of having the team from DreamBox here uh I have Mr panameno and I have uh Davis Harley here with us um and I'll let them take over and tell us a little bit more about the power of this program thanks so much Tito can you all hear me okay thumbs up yes yes yes thank you uh so first I want to say thank you for the opportunity to present today I am uh Davis heartley I'm your sales representative at Discovery education for our DreamBox learning
119programs and uh again I'm joined by Carlos uh Carlos Panino who is part of our sales leadership team as well as Christy Robinson who is your current implementation manager uh for both Reading Plus and our math implementation and I've thoroughly enjoyed uh working with Bridgeport over the past year as far as the uh reading implementation has gone and also working with uh Tito the past several months to build a plan to accelerate growth uh for your students in math achievement um today I'm going to provide a high level overview of our why our efficacy and our student and educator experiences uh Tito if you could click uh one or two more times for me please and once more thank you so I'd like to start with sharing the the full scope of our Partnerships and
120who we are as a math program uh drbox is currently used by over 200,000 Educators and 5 million students across all 50 states Canada and Mexico uh that includes both large urban and rural uh districts across the country um dreb is a kindergarten through Algebra 1 fully digital U math solution for all students that is designed to complement enhance and extend teacher L instruction and accelerate student learning Dre box is also designed to help student or help to support students at higher grade levels that are in mtss or special education programs which need additional individual support and our program is available in both English and Spanish drbox is the only tool that can capture uh student thinking and it makes teachers lives Easier by mimicking the effects of a one-on when tutoring session we couple
121that with A continuous embedded assessment that generates a stream of actionable data and insights that make teachers much more informed more efficient and therefore much more effective in their everyday practice the embedded assessment works as a formative assessment that assesses student needs in the moment and provides support both within lessons and tailored next lessons independent research is has been conducted on the advocacy of our program by Harvard University SRI International uh We've also received a research validation and recognition from stemworks whatw Works Clearing House digital promise and Mathematica Center for improving research evidence the independent research done by Harvard revealed that students who use Dream boox On average for about an hour a week grew approximately 58% more than their peers who aren't provided access to our program dream boox math is also received the
122same rating as Reading Plus by Johns Hopkins University's evidence for Essa which is rated our math program as strong and if we go to the next slide please thank you drebo math doesn't just assess right and wrong answers what we do differently is that we assess the strategy students used to solve problems to truly differentiate on the specific needs of every individual Lear learner Drex math uh provides rigorous and engaging lessons to ensure your students build a deep and meaningful understanding of mathematics we don't waste time with students watching video lectures guessing at multiple choice options or just answering questions on digitized worksheets our lessons are going to provide open-ended and exploratory and sensemaking exercises that helps uh ensure students develop deep conceptual understanding we support students critical thinking development by helping them identify mathematical
123structures and finding relationships between Concepts and we always do this in an engaging fun game oriented approach dreb will also require students to apply the strategies that they've learned and build mental math fluency and automaticity and next slide please so dream knows how valuable the minutes in a day are to a teacher and we build our dashboard with this in mind we we surface information that supports their one-on-one conferences small groupings and the teachable moments happening in their classroom your educators are going to notice many opportunities to play lessons embedded within the dashboard to be able to help further support their students and our job is to provide your Educators with the vital data that is both meaningful and actionable your teachers are going to have the ability to connect directly with their students through
124the dashboard receive alerts when students are struggling and have access to valuable prog R monitoring and proficiency data Educators can also see commonalities among students and pull quick skills groups based on standards we also help expand teacher capacity to meet students where they are to individualize math instruction at scale they'll be able to use real-time data to know the right students to support with the right content at the right time they're going to have flexible instruction models to support individual small group and whole group instruction educators will have the visibility into how students think and learn regardless of time and place administrators are going to be able to track progress and uh address math achievement opportunities through actionable integrated assessments and curricular insights the reporting Suite will enable Educators to monitor both usage and progress
125track grade level proficiency and Target instruction individually and at scale and I will turn it back over to utto if you want to go through the uh the pricing and the scope of the implementation or I can take that to you I think you're on mute oh sorry I just wanted to mention a few things before we go past the slide uh one of the things is uh we are currently utilizing the program at three schools we we decided to um before um try trying it districtwide we want to make sure it's working and it it really does what what it's meant to do and so we're trying it at Multicultural Magnet we're trying it at um Discovery we have uh one more School uh Multicultural Discovery in Johnson School uh and I I happen
126to visit uh actually twice already many of these schools and what I noticed when the teacher said it's time to uh work on dream box I you you hear a roar right away like a cheer like yeah and so I I W walked into Multicultural the other day and I mentioned I I just happened to ask students why what do you like so much about the program and and basically they they just all jumped at the same time and said different things one said I love the games I love how I'm learning through just playing with different uh uh games and how is it's teaching me step by step what I have to do um how is is is making me think about what I'm learning and I feel good about it another student said
127I I I get to earn coins and I could buy different things with these coins um and I asked them how many coins do you have and one student said I have 5,000 the other one 7,000 they got about 299 coins per activity that they do so that means that this kid spend so many hours that has five to 8,000 coins it's it's it's incredible and then with these coins they could they could buy different things in the program to make the program look different to improve their Avatar um it's totally different than what we currently had and uh students are actually using this at home instead of playing their their uh Playstation or Xbox they're actually utilizing this as as a way of of learning not just learning but having fun having a good
128time with learning so I just wanted to throw that out um and the program for for mathematics we're planning to have it uh for grades uh K through 12 and um it's a three and a half year license uh it bottom line uh combined with with reading actually reading is using reading plus uh we wanted to have uh the Reading Plus license extended and and not only to have them end at the same time but also to ensure that we get the very very very best price this is this is this is uh a great program and something that we should have go to the next slide please so the price the price is uh the regular price is actually um one one um 1.5 uh million dollars um we because we're putting both of
129those programs together math and reading we got it down to 1,224 283,000 that's three and a half years for math two years for reading Al together um we're talking about uh 18 over 18 uh 18,000 uh students for Math and uh 8,000 students for reading they use it for grades uh 7 through 12 we also got uh the company uh has partner with some companies that uh are providing a COR corporate sponsor and I'll have Mr panameno explain a little bit about that uh in order for us to bring that cost even further down to 1, 26,33 to8 so Pano can you talk a little bit about that corporate sponsoring I can uh yeah I can take that so our um we have found a corporate partner to help fund your implementation and our social
130impact Partners work to drive uh Discovery education's mission of supporting all Learners uh by directly investing in the districts to ensure Equitable access to digital resources and I'm excited to let you know that if you move forward with the uh proposal they have agreed to fund an additional $200,000 to help support uh Bridgeport Public Schools thank you also that's cover the uh professional development uh is covered on under this funding so we don't have to pay any extra for any professional development um to to during the three and a half years for the math implementation now I'll take any questions that you might have thank you Mr wus can you um The Wind Block for those who may not know that's is that for younger grades or does that go through 12 the the Wind
131Block is K12 okay and it's basically slice of the time where they're doing acceleration activities for students okay so this will be implemented during that block of time for K through 12 in uh math and yes reading for be yes it could be used there it could be used after school um during homework it could be done at any time students have uh 24 hours that they could utilize this program but mainly during that wind BL that was one of my questions too but you had answered it um is will they be able to use it at home which is a good opportunity as well um and um is there this is probably a question Mr St ask but um um the the difference in in pricing between like con and this um is it
132going to be additional like monies that needed that are needed or is it kind of replacing Con in terms of the amount of money and everything yeah this will be replacing KH this will be replacing all the other programs that we're utilizing um in speaking to miss seagull she has allocated um uh money from AR Esser to cover both the reading and the math component of this Bo okay um I'll yield my time to one of the committee members Mr Woodson do you have questions no I'm all good Mr Medina so you mentioned already the number of years that we're looking at so what the math is three and a half and the reading is two years Years and we're trying to do this and implement this program uh this year starting this year yes
133I want to implement this program right away uh I think I think that it will help us in in in getting a jolt a direct jolt uh when Stu before students take the espc assessment um and it's so powerful already I'm looking at the results from uh all the schools that are using it and I'm I'm just dumbfounded at how much the students are learning and how the data is showing that they're Meeting those stand standards and I'm sorry I don't have that number in front of me so what would it ca for the remainder of this year uh if we were looking at doing it right now and what would be uh the remainder this year what would it cost us for this physical year school year so I'll let Davis answer that or
134Carlos but I will say that the the money that I told you the exact amount that I told you covers the remaining of this year it's a 3.5 um year license for for mathematics everything should ends 3.5 years after you purchase it so so it includes whatever time when you start up to 3.5 years later but it will Encompass all that time frame gotcha correct yeah I'll y my time to the to the chair thank you all right um are there any further questions Mr s yeah you didn't steal them all but you still some I was I left you a few thank you um yeah I know mo most of the people I talk to and my son has used a Reading Plus program so no issue with the program um just a quick
135question I know some staff had run into problems probably more for Mr Planet than it did and programing people um are we going to mandate that the teacher has used this program a certain amount of time because I know that has caused issues with some staff members saying they had to get their time up on them thing and was taken away from other issues yeah I mean um has a great question we we are currently monitoring the usage in fact we started uh some time ago uh because when we make an investment we want to make sure that people are using the products that we buy uh after all I when I asked you for specific spefic amount of money I want to make sure that um it has been properly used so we are
136monitoring the usage of all schools using all of our programs and that will be no different to this one um students this year different than all the other years this year we have a wind block and so it allows us time to utilize uh all of our programs during that specific time um in during our rotations so students are not just using the program but also have another station where they're working directly with a teacher um the power is in that combination is utilizing the program looking at the data and being able to have a teacher there that could support that information did I answer a question I want to make sure I I did yes yes thank you Mr pus if possible on Monday when um if this goes through this committee on Monday
137would you represent the um the so far the data you have from those those um schools of course I don't want to put you on the spot right now but on Mondays um you'll have to present again anyway so if you want to like if you can prepare that for us that way we can kind of see what's happening in our district already using it sure I'll add a few slides on that appreciate that uh Mr Medina yes Mr palas like you said I think I did want to pick it back on that that this program is being used right now in some areas correct this program is used in three schools uh in the schools I mentioned uh Discovery Multicultural and Johnson and and it's used uh specifically for mathematics uh the Reading Plus
138program is used uh in I believe and and please don't don't quote me on this um it's not it's not my area but I believe it's 7 through 12 it's 8,000 students using it currently um and and and it's been in place for uh Davis one year uh I think since 2019 19 2019 yeah so they they've been using it I know um before when I started looking at this program I went to the high schools specifically and I asked them what what do you like the most about this program and one of the principles said to me you know I like the fact that I could open the program and see where each one of my students is at right away and and that was a high school teach uh principal speaking in regards
139to the hundreds of kids that they have uh another question is this because it has been used since 2019 according to the record right now um so this is so I'll still ask the credit so this is not going to substitute another program that we have um so this is going to be an added cost to our budget or is this G to substitute another program that we have that is not you know it's replacing con right it's replacing KH Academy I'm sorry it will replace mob Max once the license expires so so we're not buying any other program we're going to use this for three and a half years now notice Mobi Max is also used outside of mathematics so social studies science uh and other areas um and so uh that's that's the
140reason for for keeping that program we already paid for license for I think we have two more years left of that so can you get us the board um like you you you just mentioned I think two or three that are their licenses are going to expire that this would kind of like take off of that those costs for those three or two whatever is that is like going to substitute it those costs that we are already paying for those that we can get a number of what we're looking at whether it's going to increase our costes or is they going to keep it the same or it's going to be lower you understand what I mean uh you you you want figures comparative figures with the programs that we purchased is that what you're
141looking for yeah exactly so if this is going to take over one of the programs that you just mentioned was the first one that Jen mentioned was what's that called again Jen please KH Con Academy so for examp Khan Academy if it's if that one is not going to be used any longer there was a cost to that I would like to know what that cost was if there's another one that's going to expire which I think you mentioned another one that's going to expire soon then if it's going to take you know that one is not going to be needed or used or we're not going to renew that contract I would like to know that cost whichever ones are going to be substituted if you don't mind getting that that would help us
142I think it will help the board you know with our with our vote and knowing you know the cost because we got to be consider every dollar that we uh we know I appreciate that not a problem you know one important one important thing to to keep in mind is that uh it's it's the difference between the programs so you're you're not just replacing one program with the other you're you're buying a a more substantial program that is going to help move our students even faster than what we have purchased in the past because we were trying to save money so because we were trying to save money we bought these programs that um that that that did the work I mean did some work um but as you saw and you heard Dr leevy
143David uh it did not move the needle as it was supposed to amen so that's so we could compare Monies but if we want to make change we have to look at the product itself and what it could give us and what it has done so far so just putting that out there and I agree I just wanted that information because it's gonna help uh I believe having that data to move that needle when it comes to budgeting to understand where we are and not saying that for example that we're taking on another $1 million but it's really not the case so I just want to have the data that way we can weigh it and I understand what that means to you and to the the district because we want our kids to serve
144the very best so yeah again I I I I heard your enthusiasm I you know I appreciate the presentation and I can see how it can work like I said I I'm here I'm born and raised here as you already know that so I know what we need and what we again what our kids deserve and I'm not holding any dollar away from our district uh being used in the right uh Direction and that's why I wanted I I I want to propose something else to the to the board later but thank you very much thank you to the chair thank you thank you and I I do um like that this is a k to2 program as well that um you know we can start them early on um you know in that Mr
145trayor go ahead thank you madam chair um uh I I think Mr M uh Mr clus uh I think that the question that I'm looking at is a sort of spin-off Mr Medina was asking about the um the financial comparisons um and I think that would be useful um but also uh as Dr Levy David said uh we also have been spending money on programs that aren't producing the results and we've been using one of these programs now since 2019 as Mr Davis said so I'd like to know sort of what results have been since 2019 that we want to then continue to spend on it in the reading program so I think Mr Davis um wrote in the chat that was actually 2022 was that correct I thought I saw that yeah so we
146had it looked like we I'm kind of going back to the records now had a full or a larger District um implementation in 2022 I can only see back as far as 2021 um because of the acquisition of Reading Plus with DreamBox learning with our system um but we have partnered with you to some level since uh 2021 and I can just expand my name is chrisy I'm I live here in Connecticut I'm kind of the implementation specialist so we started with just one high school with reading plus uh about three years ago then we expanded to all of the high schools and then last year we expanded um to have that Middle School secondary so Mr tror to your your kind of your question about the reading plus when I met with Dr Jenkins
147at the end of last year what we were able to see is that with students completing just a minimum of 40 reading lessons in our program their average word per minute gain because we look at our silent reading fluency was um 50 words and they were on average moving up over over two reading levels with just completing 40 reading lessons um in the program which is about an hour a week um so they have we have been able to show some success with the Reading Plus program and that's part of the reason why Dr Jenkins kind of expanded because last year we had the conversation of we're only in high school what if we can get this to our you know our middle school students to kind of catch them earlier and how might that
148affect their PSAT um so this year will be really interesting because it's our first year kind of a full year in that middle school and we'll be able to see like what difference that's made but um we have been seeing success with raing plus which is why the district decided to kind of expand it a little bit over the past two years and it's grown okay so all I was saying was that for Monday's meeting it would be use to not only see the financial data about what we've spent com you know on this program and other comparable programs over the last few years whether it's 20 21 2019 whatever whatever those pieces are that you all are talking about and what the actual data is um that you know for our schools of it
149evaluates how we've done with it how what what it shows us um so that's that's all I was saying that Mr TR are you looking for it in in in Reading correct because because you're bringing in math I get that Mr planus um yeah but yes in so far as we have had experience with reading that would be the relevant history um so yes you do you don't have math data I get that yeah that's that's my point thank you um so if there's no further questions um what some I like to make a motion to move this to the full board I can make the motion to um refer this to the full board for approval to enter into an agreement with dream box can I have a second thank thank you all in
150favor I I any opposed any extensions I have say okay thank you um so it will move to the full board on nove oh not November sorry January um 22nd 2024 um all right um thank you um for presenting and we'll see you guys Monday thank you have a good evening thank you have um the next item on our agenda um is a discussion about the 2024 2025 uh school calendar so I'm not sure who's presenting on that I can present there you go I thought someone else was jumping in but I can present so you have here in front of you two copies of the calendar one is our current 2324 calendar and the second is the 2425 calendar calendar the biggest changes to the new proposed calendar are longer breaks for Thanksgiving making
151it uh full week versus three days longer breaks for the holidays making it uh two weeks instead of one week and moving the winter break into the month of March instead of waiting until April and these adjustments were included in order to adjust many of the concerns that have been hearing over the past few months regarding timing uh the accumulation of days losing approved days and also the exhaustion that quite frankly comes after the first semester and pushing into the second longer semester of school and the need for more thoughtfulness behind how we structure those breaks for our employees and also for our families we are one of a handful of districts that have um such few days around the holidays uh for actually for teachers and students and staff to recover prior to starting
152the first semester and so with that in mind and all of that feedback make I'm making a recommendation for the proposed calendar for the new school year are there any discussions um for this I will say I I um I like the the March recess um I remember being in the classroom um for a very long month of March um just waiting for April um so uh I'm not you know I'm not sure how they feel feel about that as well but I I remember that was a very long month for us in the classroom um and I see that April has a few like half days and and so there's some um time in there as well um Mr Medina go ahead uh yes I'm I'm just I haven't then the math uh I'm
153just wondering with the new school year um I know there is a mandate of how many hours how many days and things like that I'm not sure what that number is um did we assess that when we try to change the Canada how many days and how many you know hours the kids are in school I think it's there's 180 still on the calendar um I I don't know if you see it's kind of small it's in the bottom in the bottom uh middle bottom you'll see in the middle bottom of the the first calendar last day for students it says um 180 there okay so that means it's the same then yeah same as normal thank you I just I know it will be somewhere but I I can't I can't see it still
154but that's I got you thank you promise you it's in there I believe you um Mr trabber um I'm sorry I haven't yielded yet I apologize oh I'm sorry go ahead Miss I just want oh no I see it I see it Three Kings Day is on there I just wanted to make sure I just wanted to see that I just wanted to make sure Three Kings Day was there thank you Mr Traer yeah I was curious where this sits with regard to the coordinated state plan uh scheduling and there had been a move a couple years ago to try and have a Statewide coordination of school schedules I don't have an answer for that question I actually thought about that too and thank you for bringing that out Mr trer I believe that came
155up um Dr Le David a couple years ago where they wanted um school districts that kind of have align their their um weeks off and days off um because you have teachers who you know teach here in bridor but live in Seymour and things like that so with with their children's um aligning with their children's day offs as well um thank you for that question Mr tror I'm not sure if that's a um I will say I don't know if that's a requirement to have the same days off so maybe we should look it was it was not it it was never something that could be enforced and it was chaotic um but I know they were you know making efforts and it never fully succeeded so I didn't know where it was at in
156the last I haven't followed it in the last few years so I didn't know where it was at so that's why I was asking it's not it's not a mandate um I don't believe um so I was curious sort of what had happened since then thank you Mr sakovic yes has it um has this been uh coordinated with the other unions other than teachers because some unions um like the janitors and other staff have U mandated holidays that are actually different than do are we sure none of those fall on the day because we want to have our buildings open when uh those St are given holidays we actually had a lot of eyes on this calendar before bringing it before you so yes it included all members of cabinet and their respective unions hey
157thank you um is there any further questions or discussion go ahead Mr tber I'm sorry it involved who Dr Le David that all members of the cabinet and their respective unions okay earlier I thought you said all members of the cabinet was oh officers it was officers I misunderstood you um so who are in all members of the cabinet all members of the cabinet and their respective unions which would be bcast which would be our our teachers union our tradesman's Union our custodians Union our 1522 all of them okay thank you thank you I see the three hands still I know Mr TR you um asked your question other two do you still have questions okay thank you um I I don't mind moving this out of committee um but uh Dr Le may maybe
158we could uh talk about it on Monday about U Mr tra's question about aligning with like the State calendar we could look into that a little more um if that's something we could bring up on Monday to you know see and you know any teachers watching if you do have questions or or not teachers just any staff you know come to our public hearing on Monday 6:30 um and you know voice any concerns you may have with this um but I don't mind moving out of committee for now and we can have further debate on Monday um so do we have a motion Mr Medina yes I have a question and I don't know if this is the right thing so again uh I'm a novice to these meetings um but I know Miss Davis
159had mentioned uh uh some of the programs that you know 20 plus programs that we have not yielded any results or true results or really have not impacted Mr Medina we're still talking about the calendar oh I'm sorry thank you apologize um so um can I entertain them I I'll I'll make the motion to refer this to the full board for approval of the 2024 2025 school calendar um do I have a second I second it second thank you all in favor I sorry I'm uh any opposed any obss um so we will move this to the um full board for approval um on Monday um and then the last item on the agenda thank you guys for hanging in there we still have one more big item on the agenda um but it's uh
160kindergarten enrollment and I promise this committee I will not have a 75 meeting again but we will we will definitely meet earlier but uh this an important topic and we wanted to make sure we discussed it sooner than later so kindergarten enrollment hi good evening everyone I'm lindsy Davis I'm the director of Early Childhood um and I'm here tonight to talk to you about the kindergarten entry date change um that was brought forth by this new state legislation um I do have a presentation that I'd like to share so if you give me one moment can everybody see my slides yes okay yes can you go to ENT legislation yes so um in 2023 the state passed new legislation that changed the requirement for children to enter kindergarten from uh sep uh January 1st birthday
161to September 1st um which would essentially um create the makeup of our kindergarten classrooms um of comprising of all students that are 5 years old um onor before September 1st with that legislation came some um flexibilities where parents May request early entry and it also stated that districts and schools May rely on an assessment to determine if a child is developmentally ready and appropriate for kindergarten if they have birthdays between September 2nd and January 1st um what that means for the Bridgeport Public Schools is we have comprised a plan that would allow for parents to be able to request early entry next year if their child turns 5 between that September 2nd 2024 and January 1st 2025 um the registration um registration for kindergarten opens in March and that registration would serve as the parent
162official request to enter early and included in that registration we're um planning to have a CDC Milestones checklist which is a 15o checklist that parents can fill out um and that information would be available at the school level so that um teachers and administrators could review that information um when that child enters kindergarten um the decision to roll out the plan this way is for a couple of reasons early entry would support our families um and eliminate the burden potential burden of an unexpected additional year of paying for prek or paying for child care that they were not expecting um and this would also it would support um students enrolling in kindergarten if um we had a hard cut off at September 1st we would we may see that um our enrollment would significantly decrease
163and that could affect the number of kindergarten classrooms that we have across the city um and it could it could result in school closures and we're looking to avoid that parents can choose to op out of the assessment and and remain in our prek4 classrooms for an additional year if they choose and also if the child would benefit from another year of of prek the school campuses will work closely with those families to create a plan to enter kindergarten for the 2025 2026 year so there will be some flexibility there in that plan additionally there's um three phases three years to this plan for next school year the 2024 2025 school year again we will allow parents to request early entry to kindergarten but we will will create a September 1 start date for our
164three-year-old programs the idea of this is so that we can slowly over the next three years get our threes fours and 5-year-old programs to that legislation in that September 1st start date um that has been set forth by the state and um but for next school year we will allow our three-year-olds to move forward to the four-year-old programs our four-year-olds to move into our kindergarten classrooms for the 202 5 and 2026 school year we will allow for that same flexibility and allow parents um of children that have birthdays between September and January to request early entry and complete that checklist but our start date for three-year-olds and four-year-olds will change to September 1st so that we can again meet that legislation and by 2026 2027 we will have um fully complied with the legislation and
165have a September 1 start date for threes fours and 5-year-old programs throughout the City of Bridgeport um so just in summary part of the legislation parents will create the CDC Milestone checklist for kindergarten consideration and campuses will have flexibility and families will have flexibility if they feel like their child would benefit from another year of prek um for the next two years and as part of this um presentation that I said previously there are links to additional documentation that has information from the state from the office of early childhood and the CDC Milestone checklists are included as well do we have any questions Mr sakic or let me ask committee M first sorry Mr whats in any questions all right I'm I'm assing no questions all right Mr Medina no thank you um I'm gonna
166ask question first or just make a statement um you know um Mr talovic Mr Traver U Mr benan myself went to a a cave uh breakfast recently and um this was brought up with legislators um and Mr K actually is probably gonna speak about this but he made a great point to um legislators and um you know they were kind of surprised by this some of them didn't um realize that this was an actual um issue but um you know because our enrollment will be lower this may in turn mean that we will have um less funding from um the ECS and eventually over time you know this cohort is going to go through 13 years of school and that money won't be there um and eventually it will come back again but you know
167some of the legislators weren't aware of that um this is also something that is out of our control because it's a mandate from the state um unfortunately but um you know we're going to try our best it looks like to to make sure we can um include as many families as possible my I did have a question and you might have answered this um but um for the CDC Milestones um I saw that like a parent can fill it out is that going to be double checked by one of the teachers going in so that you know it's not a parent just checking the list oh yeah my son can tie shoe they can use a bathroom they can do whatever the Milestones are um is that going to be an actual assessment in the
168classroom prior to enrollment so there are other kindergarten assessments that are completed at the beginning of the school year um some benchmark assessments and there's a kindergarten um entry inventory and that provides the teacher with information about where they those students are when they're coming in um usually right at the beginning of the school year as early as September if not early October and then and the plan is that when the parents fill this um CDC Milestone checklist out this at the school level they'll have access to those um those responses so that they can take a look at those prior to the beginning of the start of the school year um just to have a little something to get started with and start their planning as well uh Mr thank you Mr sakic yeah
169a couple of questions first of all I'd like to like thank thank you thank you thank this been keeping me up since they first announced the law because i' always equated four 500 students possible loss in ECS and all that um first question has this been vetted through legal so it has not gone through legal um but I have been a part of a cohort with other Early Childhood leaders talking to other districts about what they are doing um and this follow follow suit with a lot of the other districts um and it meets the requirements um we're giving the assessment we're allowing for the early registration and we're taking requests the the registration counts as the request one thing I can say that I have made sure of is with changing the start age
170for our three-year-olds next year and four-year-olds the following year that has been vetted with our School Readiness Liaisons um and they have given us the go-ahead to be able to change those start ages so that it aligns with the arten legislation as well right I'm most I'm most concerned with the um part of the statute that reads um assessments must be done by certified see bring it back up right here by the principle and appropriate certified staff member of the school into can I ask Miss Davis is that the is are those assessments going to be the benchmarks that you mentioned earlier or the there will be the benchmarks that happen during the school year once they've entered it um but we are going to our plan is to take any requests from parents to
171enter early um and and get them into our kindergarten programs right I yeah I I don't I do not disagree with any of this at all and I'm just concerned that if we don't V for legal we might get caught behind the AIL so if we could just get this ready by legal and have it pass which I pray it does I think it's good and I think we should use every possible way to keep our children in the schools especially in our community because it's has a disparate impact now year three where it seems to all come to an end we we're basically kicking the can down the road which is not a bad thing not a terrible thing because might be our only option but um it looks like the way the way
172it reads it looks like we totally stop the assessments and the early inter the early admissions for students who may be developmentally able to attend and then we have the same issue is there plan to still allow parents to requ to request request it with maybe some um additional safeguards in place or something restrictions I think we would need additional information from the state because again you know as Miss pre stated this is legislation and um it's something that we have to meet and you know right now we do have these flexibilities and we'll have to wait for more information from um the state and from the office of Early Childhood to see how long these flexibilities will be implemented right okay yeah fi F final question observation request um as far as any students
173who may or may not be rejected can we track can we track those students by uh demographics to ensure we we'll complete the assessment but any parent that asks for early entry will receive early entry okay awesome okay thank you um great job great job and I love this totally just the one concern is the get it past legal yeah before you go Mr trer I just have a qu um just a go off of Mr sik's question about the threee um roll out you know one of the things we we talked about or we were in discussion about last week um at that breakfast um I believe it was you correct me if I'm wrong the other attendees but it was a superintendent of Stanford who mentioned there was um a roll out like
174they were um either they had been a part of a rollout program before or something like to this knowledge but sorry basically over time they will like the first year it would be left alone like we would we would do the waivers as is but then the next year maybe anybody um will take people up till November 31st birthdays um and then the following year October 31st is there a possibility we can do something like that if the state legislature doesn't make changes um and others that were there if you want to like um add on to that because I know I probably butchered what they were saying that actually was something that um was thought about and consider Ed one problem that we would have with that is we we have a a a
175large number of students that are enrolled in our four-year-old programs and if they remain in those four-year-old programs those are seats that are not available to the community and we want to make as many seats in our Public Schools available to the community as possible so we would like for you know all students that may fall in this birthday between September and January to have the opportunity but especially those that are enrolled in our three and four-year-old programs to be able to move on to the next program so that we have those available seats um right now in our in our public school programs to welcome more families and more students into those programs that already exist thank you Mr trabber yeah thank you madam chair um I I do applaud the effort to um
176and uh I want to give credit Mr sakovic has been um raising this issue since the first cave meeting in the early fall um and at the c meeting that we all attended uh Cap Caps convention he raised it again vigorously there was a growing awareness there I think of the problem and obviously you all are uh addressing it with this approach um but uh you know there was a lot of among districts smaller districts less impacted uh wink wink nod nod we're going to handle it this way and I think that's where Mr civic's uh concern is in the smaller districts the wink wink nod nod we're going to handle it this way um was they're small enough that they might get overlooked by the state but in a larger District where the ECS
177money is is of such significance as it is in a district like ours um it it is worth making sure that we are uh not um crossing a line that the state's going to um care about and I so I want to Echo Mr civic's concern at the meeting this past week that Miss Perez is referring to um uh the district that we still had a State Rep arguing with us about whether it has a negative impact on a district like ours um and literally challenged Mr sakovic on whether it was a bad thing that it was only one year that it was going to have any possible negative impact not a cumulative impact um Urban District um yeah and so uh the superintendent from Stanford and Joe uh did explain to her how that
178worked and other legislators clearly understood um but it was uh you know it's still a growing need to make sure the legislators who voted for this last year and I I think without intent to make this happen but without realizing the potential impact on a district like ours and so I think we I don't I think it is doable and you know with the work that you've put in and your colleagues um to to to construct a solution that the legislature would be supportive of um because it is not their intent to and I think that was a point made by Miss perz I think you're referring to the legislator uh from Cal who had lived in California in the Bay Area in the pal Alto area who was referencing an implementation she had lived
179through with one of her children where they phased it in over a period of years um uh changing it month by month each year um and the impact of that um but you know I think the legislators are sympathetic to seeing it done right um and there was extensive discussion within that room by the members of the board and administrators as well as the awareness among the legislators that the the often uh gap between uh policy and the what reality is that needs to be bridged after they vote on something that everybody can agree is a good idea but making it so is not always as easy to do um and so here I think there was a consensus that this is a problem that should be addressed so it's just but it is important
180to make sure that we're were within the boundaries of where the legislators are at now um but I think they also will be looking to address it in this short session that's coming up because it is the type of material they're not looking to make a major change they're looking to uh fix a problem they created in the last longer session yeah yeah and the session begins in three weeks so I think this is something that we're going to be um probably looking at again in this committee um and it'll there might be some changes and we're definitely open to the discussion um as you know the the session goes on um Mr calovic I'll ask I'll let you ask your question yeah no no it's not a question it's just a a point all
181our legislators are going to be on this in the same place on January 31st so it will behoove us and everybody here within with their listening ears to attend I forgot where it was the at at Decline and who's aonic oh who's aonic I apolog thank you so much yeah so so it'll be who us people watch our web page our Facebook page maybe we could get something up on the web page to call people out to come advocate for some more funding and for these types of issues yes especially since um some of our legislators sit on the education committee um so um if there's no further discussion I would like to uh first I would like to make Point per Personal Privilege Mr tror thank you for tonight this is your birthday so
182we want to wish you a happy birthday um and thank you for your service to our community um and then um I will also entertain a motion to adjourn Mr Medina Mr Medina Mr Woodson I I I I make a motion to adjourn if there's nothing else thank you okay I'll second that and all in favor I I all right motion to Jour has passed it's 9:58 thank you for hanging in there guys we won't do this again this late all right have a great night thank you God bless you God bless take care