Board of Education Meeting

001the regular meeting of the Brookfield Board of Education to order. Please stand for the pledge. >> I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Okay, we have all seven of our board members here tonight as well as members of our administrative staff. Oh, I'm sorry. Obviously, that's why I'm here saying these words. So, Wendy's not here. Um but our first item um after this roll call is public comment. We only have one uh signed up. So Mr. Mesh, you are welcome to take the podium. Three minutes and just state that you're a Brookfield resident. I have your address for the record. >> Mark Morash, 25 Mistill Drive, Brookfield, Connecticut. I have something

002written and I'm going to get to it, but I want to preface it by the fact that I just walked over to Mr. Banda and talked about what I have in here. And it was lovely to be able to talk and communicate and have a back and forth about this issue that I spoke about on the ETH and I'm going to speak about again tonight because I think it's important to have it on the record. But what just happened there is exactly what should be going on with boards and commissions and everybody talking and I just want to thank him. And while this is going to come across as being irked because I am irked, I want you all to know that progress is already being made and I'll hope that you make the second

003part of the progress. So on October 8th, I spoke um about the pending policy about uh renting the auditorium in the high school. And then I went on the 9th to the policy meeting and spoke about it again. And I heard from board member Sakura that she had spoken with someone who said that the reason that the kids couldn't use the sound system in the auditorium was because it was prepped for the musical Chicago that they were putting on. um she didn't say who it was and the fact is it's an absolute lie and I typed it into the chat and then I was chastised for typing into the chat and was told that the chat shouldn't have been available to me and I had no recourse to something that is provably false and I

004want to know who lied to a board member because as a member of the board of education when you go to a teacher or an administrator and ask a question you're expecting a truthful response. So the fact of the matter is is that the musical Chicago was done in March of this year and the kids from the park and wreck went in to do their show in April. The board wasn't set up for Chicago. And so I'm asking you tonight to tell us who lied to a member of the board of education because after that moment you said that you weren't going to change the policy. In fact, tonight that policy is here to be voted on and cleared. And there is nothing in there that protects the kids from somebody's ego or some sort

005of vengeance from preventing kids who are doing a musical in a room from using something you would think would be expected to be used, which is a sound system. So, I'm begging you to hold document 1300 and just add a little bit of language because right now the language is it's decided on by the principal or a responsible administrator. There's no definition of what an responsible administrator is and that could be the person who decided they were going to lie about it. So, I'm asking you once more, who is the person who lied to the board of education and is affecting policy with that lie? Thank you. >> Thank you. um written correspondence. >> Uh the following people have emailed the board of ed since October 8th. Carrie Columbbo, Justine Enzero, and Irene Korea. Um

006I also wanted to say that as a reminder, we have put several questions out about the district calendar for next year. So we're hoping to receive more correspondents from the public. Um there were some questions listed in the three main points um asking for feedback specifically about starting before um Labor Day, before after Labor Day, um the different holidays, number of days, snow days, things like that. This is a tangible opportunity for both parents and students to have a say in what our school year might look like in the future. Um we'll compile all those correspondents and review them before the November meeting. >> Thank you. Thanks. Okay, moving on to approval of board minutes. I move that the board approve the minutes listed below as recommended. Regular meeting 10825. >> Okay, the motion's been

007made and seconded. Any questions, edits, comments on the minutes? Okay, seeing none, let's proceed to vote. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. >> I. Okay, that's unanimous. Thank you. And on to the superintendent update. >> Thank you. Good evening, everybody. Um, thank you. So my report is going to be just a little bit segmented because I prepared just a few brief comments to add through the chair if permissible before each of the the smaller presentations later on. So I'll start just briefly. Our enrollment hovers right under 2500 and you know that's a good number. It's down about 37 children and there will be an enrollment report provided a little bit later on this evening. It's about down 3700 37 students from last year at this time October 1st. This is our benchmark

008number. So the 2494, that's the number that we will use for all state reporting that's consistent across the state. So um you know, last week I spent much of Wednesday in the buildings and I saw some really great things. So I I saw the new MIDI lab actually creating um some rock music and the the kids were really excited. I watched some collaborative problem solving in chemistry and it brought back some memories. not all positive, but they were doing great. Um, you know, they were exploring in one of the schools, they were exploring AI and a hands-on project application that the the teachers had worked really hard on. Fifth graders were working on a historical newspaper article regarding, I believe, the Freedom Trail. And so, there's two things I noticed that I I wanted to

009share with the board. One is that I noticed that in the classrooms that we visited, there were very high expectations for the for the learners. In fact, you know, I was sharing with one board member earlier, there was something on the wall that I took a picture of. It had to do with engineering, and I sent it to my two children who are engineers themselves. And my daughter wrote back, "Well, if they're asking that in the elementary school, they can have my job now." Um, and and so I just thought that was impressive that there really are hard things, critical thinking things, explaining your thinking, um, opportunities being designed by our teachers, and that is something of which we should be proud. And I also want to point out that in order to make these

010things happen, it requires common planning time for teachers to have together with their colleagues. And that collaboration is important and our administrators work hard to make sure that that time exists. Um was over at CLS this morning with Deb and we saw the CLS floor. It is beautiful and finished and the PE teachers, yep, looked very happy to uh be bringing their their things back in. Um and just two small pieces. One is that we are continuing at the administrative level a discussion which I believe was started a while back about one device next steps and so you will continue to hear more about that and it is really an opportunity for us to really look at all of the pros and cons of having all learners use district devices during the school day. There

011are pros, there are cons. We will talk about it with you. It's being explored in a lot of other districts as well and so we reviewed a lot of the advantages and disadvantages and you will hear more about that because it does have some budgetary implication. We do have devices but it might it might impact the budget a little bit more. So more to come on that and then I just want to end with yesterday was beautiful and Debbie and Bill who's not here this evening and I and you know Dean and there may have been other people there. We were over at the high school for the CIA Wiscaneer/Middle School um unified sports kind of like a regional tournament of sorts for soccer was amazing. So there's great things happening in Brookfield. Thank you.

012>> Thank you. Any questions? Moving on then uh to the superintendent search update and we have uh Reena and Roy from school leadership joining us via Zoom. >> Can you hear us any chance? >> Yes, we can. >> Okay. I just want to be sure that you can hear us both. >> Yes. >> Great. Okay. So, good evening everybody. Uh, I want to start off. I'm Mina Beer and I'm joined by Dr. Roy Montasano from school leadership. Uh, we are going to report on our time in district which we greatly enjoyed. We had many good conversations with people. Individuals were extremely generous with their time. Um, and we really appreciate the work of the hiring committee and uh, Lisa Brownley uh, with their warm greeting and how they've got this all organized to identify groups

013and individuals for us to speak with. So, thank you all for that. Um so Roy and I were in the district uh on September 17th, 8 and 18 and conducted additional forums uh virtually uh and meetings with individuals on on two additional dates. Uh this is a list of the groups and participants that we met with a sample listing of everybody that we spoke with. Um you can see we had 44 participant for forums and focus groups and uh 177 responses to the survey. And we identified some consistent themes based on responses to these questions which you can see up here on the screen. And each group and each individual was asked each of these uh three questions. We heard a lot of focus on bullet two. Um I loved how Vonda started off your

014meeting talking about all the wonderful things she saw in the classrooms. We consistently heard about the wonderful staff and students that you have in your district. Um the dedication uh of your teachers came through uh time and time again as well as the support of town government and the partnership that you have with the town government as well as your community organizations such as the Brookfield Ed Foundation and the booster club. So there is widespread community uh support for the school. It's an engaged community that cares deeply about schools and many individuals to Brookfield for the quality of their school for the quality of your schools. So let's go through. Roy, do you want to go through some of the um what we the data from survey? >> Sure. Hi everybody. Um again thank uh

015re reiterating what Rita said and we want to thank you for inviting us into the district. We have a great we had a great experience. People are very positive and honest and open when they were talking with us and gave us a lot of information that's going to be very useful as we go on our search um and as it translated specifications that we'd be looking for in the next leader. Um so it was a it was a good time for us to be there and we appreciate the openness and the welcome environment that we received. So um in the first question we asked people to in survey question we asked people to pick the two uh prior experiences that they felt were most important or most critical for the next superintendent. And uh we

016were I somewhat surprised and somewhat unique to Brookfield that classroom teaching experience came through uh by more than 50% of people not only in the survey but we heard it continuously in the focus groups as well that people felt that was really important uh for the next superintendent so they can understand uh perhaps they're in touch with the classroom experience in touch with what teachers go through can use that experience to help support them in their work. Um so people felt that was extremely important. Um the other uh area was not as well second the other uh experience was not quite as well defined. Uh we certainly leader in improving an already high performing district was important and other experiences as an administrator uh particularly in uh in in in building level and central office

017level not necessarily um as a prior superintendent. Um and we did hear that uh theme throughout. Okay. The next slide uh was in response to the second question where we asked people we gave a list of of skills. We asked people to check the boxes besides the three that were that they felt were most critical uh for the next superintendent. And you can see that where the boxes are around those were the top three uh choices in the survey. curriculum, instructional knowledge and leadership, including current research and best practices, knowledge of budgeting, finance and facility planning, and collaborative and successful uh at successful at building highly productive teams. And uh you know in my opinion and in our opinion uh during our visit that last one even though it was third barely third I think

018that one is is such a key ingredient for the next superintendent coming in because you have um some terrific staff members there and you have a a a good administrative staff as well and it seems they're searching for that leadership. they're searching for somebody that can help bring them all together um and and share a common vision and move the district forward. So, that was nice to see as well. And the last one, uh just you know, in terms of who completed the uh survey, um you can see the responses there. Um we had a lot of people who are residents in the district with children currently in school. We had 34 uh members of the teaching staff and 28 residents uh of the district who did not have children currently in the district. So,

019a pretty nice cross spread of people who completed the survey. Of course, we'd love to have more responses. Um but it was nice to see uh a large group of parents who care about the district, care about the education their children are receiving respond and give us their opinion. So based on both of what what we heard in our focus groups and interviews with individuals and on the information that we obtained in the survey, we came up with the following specifications. Now these specifications guide the search. They are tonight I believe are going to be uh we're going to get feedback from from the board. uh and they are also going to be included within the advertisements that are going to be posted for the position. So I'm just going to take the time and

020read these out loud. So an experienced visionary and people centered educational leader with a strong record of enhancing curriculum instruction and student achievement grounded in significant classroom experience and a commitment to fostering student well-being and addressing the diverse needs of all learners. a compassionate, thoughtful, visible, and supportive advocate for students and staff who actively promotes the mission of Brookfield Public Schools and hold self and others accountable. And a collaborative, energetic, and strategic team builder who fosters strong relationships, mentors, and develops staff, understands and strengthens board governance, and unites the school community around a shared vision. That's it's a culture of trust, transparency, innovation, and excellence. Oops. Okay. And I I'll just continue um reading the specs on this slide. A clear, proactive, and effective communicator who listens and engages across multiple platforms, explains decisions openly

021and transparently, builds understanding among stakeholders, and approaches difficult conversations with fairness, empathy, and respect. A skilled and adapted financial and operational manager with expertise in budget development, resource allocation, and long-range planning capable of addressing enrollment shifts, facility needs, and staffing priorities while maximizing available resources. And finally, a courageous, ethical, and approachable leader who is excited to become an integral member of the Brookfield community and is dedicated to leading the district toward sustained growth and continued excellence. You're muted, Reena. >> Unmuted. Thank you. >> So, our next steps. So, the search will officially launch, meaning we'll be sending in advertisements on October 23rd. So, October 23rd, 24th, applications will be open. We are continuing with our recruiting. Uh we're going to be advertising as well as there's a letter that it's sent out to many many

022organizations, superintendent organizations, education organizations um with information about the district. The application uh the applications will close on November 20th. we could always decide we the search committee uh together with us could always decide based on the candidate pool that we've received to leave the application uh to extend the application deadline. So that's that's an option. But the interview currently will start around the first week in December, continue in December. And the goal is for the the board to appoint a superintendent uh sometime around uh the end of December, beginning of of January, given where the holidays fall. So are there any questions? I don't think we have any questions. Um, so as you heard Reena mention, um, the search will officially kick off tomorrow, October 23rd, but that is pending a very key, um,

023motion that we have to approve tonight. So, um, if you don't have any other questions for Reena or Roy, we can let you guys go. Um, thank you for joining us. Um, and then Wendy or sorry, Stephanie. Um, I believe you have a motion for us. >> I do. I move I move that the board approve the specifications as outlined in the specification report as presented by school leadership and I further move that the board authorize school leadership to use these specifications in advertising for the position. >> Second. >> Okay, it's been moved and seconded. Um, we as a search committee have already approved these specifications. So now we as a board have to actually approve this to set it in motion. So is there any other comments or questions on it? All right, then

024let's vote. All in favor, please signify by saying I. >> I. There's no nays. That's unanimous. So thank you. You can go ahead. >> Thank you everybody. >> All of you and a big thank you to the community for participating in this process. >> Thank you guys. >> We'll talk to you soon. Thanks. >> Good night. Bye >> bye. All right. Uh on to subcommittee reports. First up is Cape. >> Okay. So we met on we met on October 8th and we had um I'm not going to go into detail because um we're going to be getting a presentation from Deb regarding the state assessment achievement presentation. Um the only other thing I'll add is we had a public comment. Um a parent had shared her concerns and asked about the rationale as to why

025students in middle school who take high school algebra 1 and or world language and eighth grade are not awarded high school credit because we adopted a board of ed policy in 2023 and the Connecticut State Board of Education allows for this and many neighboring districts award this as well. So, um I asked for a comeback for Deb to get some clarifying um information to come back with so that we can um you know talk about it and discuss it and get back to the parent regarding that. So, we'll receive later in the agenda the presentation. Okay. Thank you. Uh policy and communications. Okay. Um during our meeting, Mrs. Stenza gave guidance to the committee about policy initiatives and best practice. As we all know, the board of education is a policymaking body. So, there's a

026few important points for us all to remember as we move forward. Um, first, the policy committee should not include regulations with policy approval. This falls under the purview of the administration. Policy defines what is to be done while regulations dictate how it is to be done. And the board's sole responsibility lies in establishing the policy. It's the responsibility of the superintendent and the building administration to determine the regulations. So, there are two policies that are on for a final read tonight that originally had a regulation attached to them. Um, those have been removed for a final read. Uh, so only the policy is on the agenda or on the in your packet tonight. Um, those regulations will be uh reviewed by the administration and um the superintendent and implemented as they see fit. Um, it's

027also crucial to remember that legal statutes always supersede policy. So, if there are legally required policies that we do not yet have in place, there are laws in place to guide the district until such a time that those policies can be sufficiently updated. Policies should address specific challenges that are pertinent to our district. Um, and so as you know, the policy committee has been going through and trying to update and clean up um some outdated policies, policies that we don't necessarily um don't necessarily apply anymore, policies that the shipment and Goodwin policies are sort of um enveloping. And um it's also important to remember that altering the wording of a legally mandated and required policy given to us by the attorneys at Shipman and Goodwin is ill advised and not recommended. required policies should be

028adopted as written by the attorneys with the exa with the exception of personalizing it to the district. But it's important to remember that changing words can also change the intention and the meaning of the policy and negate its legal requirement. So this is another important reason why um all of the policies should always go through the superintendent. As we move forward, things are going to look a little bit different because we talked to Mrs. Tenza about kind of establishing um a different process. The last few months, the committee has focused on updating policies that can help the administration create a district-wide handbook. So, with the support of Mrs. Zat, uh we have been working at a break neck pace, but we need to start relying more on the superintendent's review of each policy so that

029we're not bogged down so much by trying to review everything and getting feedback from the board. Going forward, the superintendent's office will review the policies and then run them through the administration to either redline or recommend how the committee should proceed and then the committee will put it forward for a first read at the board of ed meeting. And that is where most of the conversation about feedback where it should take place so that then we all as a committee can go back to the next policy meeting, review the um the feedback and bring it back to the board at the next meeting for a final read and adoption. there shouldn't be um quite so much back and forth within the committee. A lot of what we are doing should already have been done at

030the superintendent and admin level. And so we're going to move towards that um in as we move forward. The committee's priority will now shift to mandated policies that we are lacking. Um I'll get with Mrs. Tenza um to go through those before our next policy meeting. You'll see those as well as the um outstanding policies that we didn't include tonight that we've already been uh on have already been on the agenda for a first read. Tonight we have several policies on for a final read. These have all been on various agendas for a first read over the last few months. They've been reviewed extensively and there have been no questions or concerns by any board members. Um there were three policies that need more review and discussion and that we want to have leave with

031the superintendent's office. That's the chemical health for student athletes, the food allergies policy, and the student discipline policies. So, you will not see those on the consent agenda tonight. Um, and then just as an FYI, there has been a small addition to the fee schedule for policy 13:30, the use of school facilities. The business office has added an asterisk to the uh fee schedule, stating that fees are at the discretion of the superintendent. that was added so that if there is a for-profit program that is for the students and charging them per hour for the facilities will mean that it's not affordable for them to run the program, they can talk to the superintendent and work something out on how to proceed and that would go through the business office as well. >> Okay, there

032you go. >> Thank you. That was a lot of information. >> It was we had a really good productive meeting. So, >> um any questions for Stephanie? >> So, that was add was that added highlighted? Yeah, the highlighted is what um Casey and Vonda decided should be included so that programs that are so we don't outpric programs that are run for students. >> An example or something like an example? >> So uh a a group that may be renting space at one of the schools um every day to provide um you know a before school uh you know activity or programming for students. Okay. >> Um it serves our students on a on a daily basis. These rates are all charged hourly. So if you were to charge, >> they're just going to pass it

033through to >> Yes. >> Yeah. Or it just wouldn't be feasible, right, to not run the program. >> Um and that's why it's really important that it is, you know, assessed on a case, they may be adjusted on a case-bycase basis. Um it says, you know, at the discretion of the superintendent or his or her designate so that, you know, we can really assess everything, right? Um >> so >> Okay. Thank you. All right. Uh, and the last report is from finance, so I'll give that. We last met on um the 9th. And big takeaway, uh, we have a few areas of the budget that Casey is watching most closely. It's still obviously very early in the year to try to forecast something um, you know, several months away still. Um, there are some areas

034of savings, some areas of budget exposures. So, of course, we're going to keep watching that. Our outofd district special education um as you know is being tracked sort of in a separate bucket. So we kind of continuously um take a look at that month-to-month snapshot every uh month which is really helpful. Um and the purpose of of doing that tracking it in that you know sort of separate little snapshot um is just being completely transparent about the fluctuations um within these accounts. Um and sometimes they can get confusing when mixed in with the rest of our budget. Um and then we briefly discussed um food services, how the new breakfast program is rolling out um and the upcoming um very comprehensive administrative review um that'll be conducted by state inspectors um of all of our

035food service um programs. Um and that will be a very large undertaking. Um but that is it. >> Can I provide one update on the breakfast program? So I think at the time of our meeting um it had not rolled out yet at CLS. Um we are now in the second is it second week I believe of yeah second week of breakfast. Um and we're serving anywhere from 100 to 120 breakfast at CL every morning. >> So um that is great. >> A couple little tweaks we still have to work out with timing of some some of the later buses. Um you know making sure that kids have enough time to at least sit >> have a few bites before they but they are um they are graciously allowing them to take um breakfast to

036their classroom to eat. So if if they need a breakfast, they are they are getting it. But yeah, the turnout there is about 10% of the of the school. So >> awesome. >> Cool. All right. Um now on to our student representative report. So Emily, take it away. >> All right. So this p past week, we had one of our most successful homecoming weeks. The pep rally, homecoming carnival, and dance were a culmination of weeks work by our student government executive board. While they were supported by their adviser and the BHS administrative team, the entire week was organized, planned, and facilitated by our student leaders. They did such a good job. Like the pep rally, the spirit week, it was it was great. They they did awesome. Um the homecoming carnival was sponsored by student

037government and eight clubs participated running booths and activities for all the Brookfield students. I was there and it was it was an amazing turnout. I've I've heard the past year it wasn't it like the turnout wasn't great but the weather was perfect. It was a little chilly but it was and um there were so many kids. It was a lot of fun. The boots had everyone be active. Kids won prizes. It was so cool. Um our homecoming dance was one of the most successful in many years. We had close to 500 students attend and a large number of kids stayed until the end. I stayed until the end as well. Um we had a pizza truck and embed an embed and Jerry's truck which were great. They're awesome. And as well as snacks and drinks

038provided by the community donations and student government. So, thank you for those who donated. And upcoming events, um we have a Halloween costume spirit day Friday the October 31st and a Veterans Day activities Tuesday, November 11th, and IT gingerbread house activity um early December. I don't think we have a set date for that, but I'm excited. So, that's all. Thank you. >> Great. Thank you. Any questions? No, I just wanted to um remind you that we are putting the calendar on the November agenda and we would love to have um the student feedback that at that point. So just wondering if you have been able to um organize that like how are you are you going through the student council like how are you collecting feedback from the students? >> So I um made a

039Google form >> and I'm planning to meet with uh Mr. Belinda this Friday actually just to discuss it and then hopefully get it out in the following weeks during >> No, I think Google. >> Yeah. So, it just I could send it to you guys if you guys want to just look at it and see about >> No, no, no. I was just curious like what what were you like how >> Oh, yeah. But and I also want to talk with um Maria who's the um yeah, student government leader. So, yeah. >> Awesome. Of course. >> Thank you. >> All right. On to the consent agenda. I move that the board approve the items on the consent agenda as recommended. New hires resignations policies for a final read. September financials second. Any questions, comments on

040this? >> I did want to point out we all got an email from Lisa, but um we it was 13:30 was the policy, right? We had uh redlinined or crossed out something, strike strike through something and didn't actually put the actual positions. it was where it was who's responsible for um and so that was that has been corrected in the version that we're approving tonight. The only question I have is, you know, through public comment if there's rental equipment like how does that work currently the sound system like >> um I think it is described sorry >> um is it true I'm thinking a application procedures applications for the use of facilities shall be submitted to school building secretary in accordance with the administrative regulations groups requesting use of school buildings and facilities must identify

041the specific specific facilities desired. >> It's on the actual building use form, right? That was what we had looked at at the meeting. >> Yeah. So, there's an there's an application form and they have to they have to fill out what type of equipment that they are requesting. And then it has all different approvals at the building level, um, custodial level, all that stuff. >> Okay. So, I know when we talked in policy, we weren't sure if a sound system is able to be used for the public. So, I mean, I just am looking for clarification there. I was just told it's at the discretion of the building administrators. That was the feedback that we got. Depending on what's going on, how it who's requesting it. I don't know exactly what the >> Yeah, I

042don't know that that has ever been addressed in the policy. Um I can get more information on that if you if that's if that's going to be a hangup. I can certainly get more information on that. >> The sound system at at in the auditorium. I just I just want to know that if the community wants to put on a play that we're making it readily available if we can >> we can look into that. >> Yeah. So these so these items here are on the consent agenda. They're not actual, you know, separate agenda items and Oh, I'm sorry. Um so being that they're on the consent agenda and not as separate regular items, we shouldn't be spending too much time discussing them. Um these I understand have been have gone through the policy committee.

043They have appeared on our board agendas prior. There were no questions or comments or edits on that. >> The questions and comments we had talked about through we talked about them at the policy meeting with no resol like no answers to the question. So I think that it's you know it's imperative that we know that. >> So so does does the board want to pull that policy out of this consent agenda? I think I'm I'm satisfied with the answer that it's at the discretion of the building administrator. So I don't >> Yeah, I'm I'm comfortable with that as long as you know I think that we do right by the public, right, to address it at another time or a followup. >> Okay. >> All right. So then um I think we will move forward

044with um the motion that is on the table for the consent agenda. Um all those in favor, please signify by saying I. >> I. I. >> Joy, you were I sorry was like whipping my head around. I didn't even No, I'm I'm I >> Okay, you're I Sarah. >> Okay, so then that is unanimous. Thank you very much. Okay. Um on to new business, the district enrollment report. That would be me. Um this is a standard report given in almost every district every year, October 1st data. So it's it's pretty straightforward. Um you know, we certainly could go back if you needed it. you you can see the past few years have been tabulated here. Um and you know I believe it's Lisa very nicely compared to to show the ups and downs. I had

045said overall we are um 37 pupils less than we were the year prior. Although you know it is good to note that our enrollment is fairly consistent around 2500 over the last several years. That's it's it's good to see that it's not dipping in the way that it is in some districts and also that it's not sharply escalating. It's always great to have more students coming to us, but you have to have the space to put them. So, you know, we just like to be able to to look at those numbers. And it also shows our special education population on campus and off as well as our multilanguage learners and our free and reduced lunch. So, you know, the one thing that I would want to highlight to you as the superintendent is that these

046numbers are beginning to show a nice robust diversity for our population, which I think is a wonderful thing. And it's important for us to think about what what does that do for our learners in in terms of offering rich collaboration opportunities. It also does impact our teaching and learning and it might also impact our budget. when you look at the special education has held fairly consistent around 350. So that's pretty that's pretty nice to see that consistency. The multil- language learners from 2022 to now have increased from 98 to 128. That's that's a good jump. Um and that does have impact on teaching and learning and staffing. and our free and reduced have increased almost 100 as well from 563 to 643. So those numbers do um have faces to them every day with our

047children. So that's our enrollment report. It's a it's a nice report, good numbers. Um overall very happy to see it. >> Okay, any um questions? >> Okay. and we will move on of the class size report. >> This is the nitty-gritty. >> All right. So the class size report you will have that the purpose of it is really to help inform out budget planning, right? Um so the total enrollments you can see for each of the schools and each of the sections. Um in terms of class sizes relative to the guidelines, grade Oh, I pressed it. >> Yeah. >> Um, grade Thank you. Uh, grade three, um, has a has seven sections that are above the class size guidelines with the where the maximum range of 22 because the largest class sizes are 23. So

048um of those seven sections, most of them are up by um over the guideline that we have set um by one student. Um at Whiskanir in terms of sections that are above uh class guidelines are really the UNH's um you've got really one section in art, two sections in teched um and then there are four sections um in fizzed. at Brookville High School. Um you've got a couple of sections that are over the um class size guidelines, just one section of um English. Uh two sections of math, six sections of world language. Uh the largest uh section has 27 students. Um and the class size guidelines for Brookville High Schools is 26. So again by one student. Um and then um business classes we have seven sections that are exceeding the the guidelines which the

049largest section has 31. So that's um that those classes are certainly over um the 26 students which because the largest section has 31 and then music, health and PE those um special classes as well um with PE exceeding by four sections, health one section and and music three sections. So, I think for the most part, um, we're pretty we're doing a pretty good job at maintaining our class size, uh, guidelines that you all, um, worked hard to, uh, work in updating last year. So, thank you, >> Deb. Do you know if that um, for the world language that one class has 27, is that French or Spanish? >> No. It's high school. >> That's high school. >> Yeah. >> I didn't I believe it's >> okay. >> It shouldn't be French because we did that

050point too. >> Yeah. Well, I was making sure because we did the point too. >> Y Okay. >> So, I have a question about the business. Is that by is the reason why they're all over because the demand for the class or because of the way um requirements are. >> Yeah, we'll have to we'll we'll get back to you on that. >> Thanks. No problem for graduation. >> It's probably the required one. >> So I'll probably I think most of the questions that I would have would probably be under item F under budget assumptions to see if we'll see anything reflected. So I'll save any of my questions for then. But any other questions on class size report? >> Okay. >> Um so we'll move on to the student achievement report. another very hefty >>

051and while she's getting set, I just had a few words to say while she's getting set. That way, it's an effective use of everybody's time. Um, you know, so we just wanted to share collectively. Deb and I work hand in hand, but there are many ways to measure growth and achievement. So, tonight this focus is just on standardized assessments that are issued from the state and national level. Um, we are, you know, proud to share our scores. It it was shared with the cape committee a few weeks ago and the committee members Joyce, Sarah, and Wendy who's not here. They had the opportunity to review this information and they asked some questions which kind of helped us, you know, kind of like tailor some of our thinking. These data points don't measure a lot of

052the other aspects of a Brookfield learner, right? So, we have many children that may not be successful on a standardized assessment who are extremely successful in the in the arts, the music, the athletic field, a club, student leadership. So, you know, we're very proud and that's where the companion of that whole, you know, portrait of a learner comes into play. They hand inand go together to create a school community and a system of learners. So, we we do have and again that whole enrollment report supported it a nice diverse learning community and we should be proud. And so what Deb's going to share with you is that we do have some great areas to celebrate. And you will see we have some areas in which to grow and we put them on here because we

053we have to look at the good and the bad and and face it and figure out where we need to go from there. This is district level. So, it's important for you to realize that at the building level and at the teacher level, teachers have access to different layers of this companion data and they look at it and their um important role is to make instructional decisions and curricular decisions based on what they're seeing. So, this is the broad district level. It doesn't go down to those granular levels, but rest assured, you know, I've even already heard them talking about the nitty-gritty. Um, so thank you. >> Thank you for that introduction, Nanda. All righty. So I have the awesome privilege of presenting to you tonight a snapshot of uh really our state assessment achievement

054and growth data um from last year. And I say a snapshot because um as Vonda shared this is really um one data point in time for students. So first I want to start off with who are our learners? Put some faces behind it. Um some of the numbers actually I took this from the October snapshot before it was finalized. So there's a couple of uh students that are there's a couple of uh numbers that are not totally there but it's it's for the most part right on. Um so you'll notice here this is really um a a source of data which is demographic data right that's another type of data and this snapshot shows you really the faces behind our BPS learning community. So, we have 15% of our student population um with IEPs. We

055have 10% of our student population um with a 504, 26% of our population with students eligible for free and reduced lunch. And we've got 5% of our students who are multilingual learners. Um so, you can see as um Vonda had shared um we are very fortunate to have a lot of diversity um in our learning community. So, this brings just some context to our data. Um, and it's important to know, right, who we serve and who we support. Um, and to note between our students on an IEP on a line of a 504 where there are some accommodations that need to be made in terms of helping access uh curriculum that that's uh 25 comprises 25% of our total student population. Okay. So, this really is um the portrait of the learner. The uh portrait

056of the learner basically articulates the dispositions and the characteristics that we are um working to provide our learners as they um move through the K12 learning experience. So, uh we are in the process of formalizing some of the I can statements u which we'll get to probably in the later part of the year um and then potentially start to begin to consider how to integrate it into curriculum. And we thought it was important to include the portrait of the learner because this is what we're striving to um embark on and um instill in the learners that uh are moving through our community. So as an overview basically um as Vonda said these are going to be highlights. I'm not going to read every single bullet on the slide because we will be here for a

057very very long time. And while I would love to do nothing but spend a couple of hours in talking about this uh this information, um I would think that uh you'd rather read some of it yourself and have me just highlight some points. So I'm not going to read numbers. I'm going to it's going to be high level um and talking just about um some of the celebrations and some of the areas of challenges and then um at the end the principles are going to share their school improvement plans or highlights of their school improvement plans that will talk about some of the adult actions uh that they're embarking on and leading at the schools. So we'll start off with the AP student achievement. the first slide um which will be on I guess on

058the right side depending on where you're looking. It's on my left. Um I call attention to really the this really speaks to the numbers here. So it talks to the increased numbers of students that are challenging themselves with AP courses which is really nice to see. Um so you can also see that we've had an increase in the number of tests taken um by our students and also a slight increase in the percentage of students that are scoring um a score of three plus. So um those are increases to certainly celebrate. The other chart shows you the percentage of students with scores of three or more. Um, and you can see it's relatively flat, but did go up um by one percentage point from last year. So, we'll talk a little bit about the SAT

059school day assessment. This is given to 11th graders across the state of Connecticut in March of each year. Um, they're assessed in two main areas. Um, ELA on the evidence-based reading and writing and math. And this slide shows these two slides are showing you the achievement uh with that. So you can see that um in ELA a celebration and that our students um the percentage of students that are meeting or exceeding the standard um went up by um five percentage points which is nice to see that 76% of our students uh met or exceeded the standard in ELA. And in math, um not quite as celebratory, but nonetheless, um it did also increase um some percentage points as well. Um but we know that we we have some work to do there. You'll also notice

060that the um starting score in terms of meeting the range is 530 versus the 480 on the ELA side. Um which makes it a little bit more rigorous. Um and as we've talked about at the Cape Committee, we talked about at the board level, um you know, the national um issue in terms of math performance um just really across across the country. So some work to do there certainly. Okay. Um I did include this um slide um because we we felt that it was important to include this comparison. Um it's certainly not where we want to be at the bottom pretty much of the dur. Um and it's not a new trend. This is not new to us um this year. But um and and certainly not all districts in the dur are the same.

061Not everybody's demographics are the same. Um there are a lot of variables um and data that uh comes into play here. Um but it's important to note and uh to see where we're at. All right. So, the last links assessment, uh, this was presented in spring. It's usually presented in the spring of each year. Um, and it'll be presented again, uh, this coming spring. Um, it's the assessment, uh, it's the standardized tool that evaluates English language proficiency in students grades K through 12 in the four key, uh, language domains, listening, speaking, uh, reading, and writing. So these slides illustrate the last links um percentage of students by performance level. So those are the percentage of students at each of those performance levels. So while we only have 083 that are above proficient, the reason for

062that is by the time they get to that, they're pretty much testing out and exiting from the multilingual um program. So you'll see that there's been a decline in the percentage that are meeting the the average percentage of the individual growth targets that are met. Um and that's something that I do want to call some attention to in terms of our case loads at CLES. We have 74 students um that are uh multilingual learners with three teachers, one Tissole and two bilingual. And um we have 54 students between Whiskanir and the high school with one T-OLE teacher. Um so they're spread pretty thin and doing a really good job um considering the numbers of students and the numbers of them. With that said, we are very thankful and grateful for the board's um you know

063uh support and the community support in um supporting the bilingual Portuguese teacher that was um newly hired for this year. um and she's a great addition to the team. So, thank you for that. All right, moving into smarter balance. So, this is administered to students in grade 3 through 8 um in math and ELA. So, we have a few slides on this page, but before going through that, I wanted to just explain some of the um the data in terms of achievement versus growth. So achievement is basically talking about the students re either meeting or exceeding the standard. The average percentage of individual growth targets is basically the um smarter balance uses a metric that measures how much a student grew relative to their target. So every student gets a specific target for growth based

064on their raw score performance and they use a metric um to determine that. And the average percentage of target achieved is that is that average percentage of that target that that they got um and how that whether they achieved it, right? Um it's what the state uses on the accountability report which I'll be back in I think November or December to report on and that's kind of like the Connecticut report card on those 12 indicators. So I just wanted to give you some context to the data. So you'll notice here in terms of some of the um celebrations, we have 71% of our students um in grade seven in ELA um that met or exceeded um the target uh you know the grade the um standard, excuse me. And you'll notice that 85% of students

065met the growth target moving from grade three to grade four. Um and that's also a celebration for sure. We have 74% of our non-h high needs met or exceeded. So let me talk a little bit about high needs versus non- high needs. High needs are defined by the um by Connecticut State Department of Education as students on free and reduced lunch um on uh having an IEP, a 504 or a multilingual learners. Okay, those are the student population in which you know there have been some systemic barriers and we need to make sure that we're providing equitable experiences for them. Um, so it's important to also see performance of all of our students, those that are the non- high needs versus the high needs. And you'll notice that certainly in terms of the percentage meeting

066or exceeding um we've got some work to do, right, to um support our high need students um and 74% of our non- high need students met or exceeded. Um contrastly um in terms of meeting individual uh growth targets the average percent of the targets achieved in growth was was pretty good. We had 81% of our nine non- high needs and 77% of our high needs. Now these two slides here in terms of high needs and um with meeting exceeding and the individual uh targets met is grades three through eight. So it's not um delineated by grade and as Vonda said we have that information. It would just be so much to to provide at that level. Okay. So certainly some work to do is grade three first time they're taking the test. Um so historically

067we've seen grade three be a little bit lower than our other grades. Um and certainly um grade eight as well. Um, and I believe we had a teacher that was um out for mid, you know, like around um mid year. I think we hired um a newer grade eight teacher if I'm not mistaken. Yep. Again, the shaking of the head by Mr. Render. Okay, moving on to math. So with math you'll see here on this slide um some areas of u you know celebration is grade six you'll see that 97% of our students met their u you know the average percentage of the target was achieved was 97% of our students um moving from grade five to grade six math. So that is um an area of celebration and also moving from grade three to

068four 75%. Right now that's very good especially since in grade three and grade five the math scores in terms of the percentage of students meeting or exceeding was pretty low right so it's nice to see that they made up for that in terms of at least making their um making a good percentage of their growth targets. Um so yes, grade three, five and eight, um is definitely an area where we've got some work to do. Uh the other thing also is oh I already talked about that the 75%. Um and again the non- high needs versus the high needs right in terms of meeting and exceeding. Um and then here in terms of the average percentage of targets met um also the high needs are performing relatively the same as the non- high needs relative

069to making their growth percentages of their growth target. So this is a chart that you're used to seeing um in years past. Um this is the cohort um information uh for achievement. So you can kind of see even across the board from uh 2022 to present. You can see um that again grade three um certainly in ELA um and grade eight some areas certainly to um to look at some areas of challenge um but grades four five six and uh a nice 71% in grade seven um is caused for some celebration. So, one thing to notice is in grade seven for ELA and math, um, they increased this year from last year by six percentage points. Um, and I think Sarah, that was something you had noticed as well, um, during the Kate meeting, right?

070Okay. So here is our DUR comparison uh with ESPA and um again um this is an area of uh some work to do right so you can see grades three through eight combined in ELA we have 62% of students meeting or exceeding and grades three through eight uh in math we have 54% of uh students uh meeting or exceeding Moving on to science. Okay. So in science uh the NGSS assessment is uh assessing um phenomenon and experience experiential based thinking. Um it's designed to align directly to specific content and skills standards. Um, and it really um is a test that um really synthesizes um math, ELA, critical thinking all all in one and in addition to science. Um so let's look at the um data there. So you can see here that um grade five

071um improved uh from last year by four percentage points. Um certainly some some uh something to look at right in grade 11 um as they've gone down by 10 percentage points. >> Um and certainly an area again to be looking at is our um percentage of students um meeting or exceeding in the non- high needs 70% versus 36% of our high needs. Right? So again math, ELA um all coming into play. um for all of the students that are taking this test as well. And here we are in the DURG comparison in science. Okay, this shows uh this is a a combined score grades 5, eight and 11. So the combination of that is 59%. Um so all right so move moving on as Vonda said from a from a district bird's eye view high

072level um these are just some of the um folky um that we have in terms of curricular enhancements um for alignment and coherence um as you know we've been embarking on the full implementation of CKLA and IM um we also um you know the curriculum folks and myself really advocated very strongly um with um the administration, with Dave um to really look at structural coherence and the teameing and scheduling structures um specifically in grade five, but also um in grade four to really redesign it to support instructional depth and make sure we had enough instructional minutes um in math and ELA. So that has started this year. Um and um curriculum leaders continue to develop curriculum and we are still continuing to work on portrait of the learner. Some instructional approaches you can read here

073just as some highlights is we're um we have a few uh K12 vertical teams so we can really have some vertical conversations. Um we have one uh that's just the K12 uh vertical curriculum leaders and also a math K12 um team that's really working on problem solving approaches um and they are working u using uh building thinking classroom mathematical thinking classrooms um and then just something else to call out is the K12 um leadership team for curriculum and MTSS multi-tered systems of support formally known as Serby, also known as RTI. Um, and working really to strengthen um the implementation with a focus back on progress monitoring um and student growth data and uh building capacity through professional learning. And here just to kind of um point out that the um admin council team, we're working

074to build capacity with our administrative team to really build capacity as instructional um leaders. So these are just some of the um professional learning that either already took place or that we will be embarking on continually continuously throughout the year. for example, leveraging the evaluation and support plan to enhance teaching and learning and AI literacy so we can develop a framework for the use of AI in teaching and learning. Um, so those are just some of the highlights of um some of the things that we're doing. So this slide wraps us up. Um, and I feel as if uh Reena and Roy kind of said it earlier on in terms of what we're looking for to lead this district, right? Um, and I say together we have the opportunity to do great things, right? And

075as Vonda said, it's important. You you can't do great things unless you look at what your current reality is, right? So, we really need to look at the current reality where we're at right now. Um, because we have the opportunity to do great things. We do have a lot of very talented teachers that are, you know, really interested in doing some great things. So, I am optimistic that together with the board, the community um and the talent that we have in our schools that um we're we we have the opportunity to really do some great things for um for students. Okay, that was a lot to digest. Um I I kind of want to just kick off with just my own comments first. just seeing this is the biggest thing that stood out to me

076was this achievement gap. It's huge. And it was here eight years ago when I first joined the board. It was enormous. And we worked to slowly close it. And now it seems like it's back and it's wide open. And I don't know what happened, but it seems to me like there's a couple of different puzzle pieces that come together in all of these reports, right? I mean, we have um multilingual learners and those on free and reduced lunch. Those numbers are going up and up and up. It seems like we have some sort of equity issue in terms of students are not coming to school with, you know, the same. They're not all equal when they walk in those doors and yet we're maybe giving them curriculum that's just sort of, >> I don't know,

077it's not reaching all of our students. So, it's kind of tough, but how do you how do we sort of ensure that we're keeping all of this at the forefront when the district is in such flux, >> you know, because we can't sort I mean, our goal is to hire a superintendent by the end by the end of the year, but who knows if that's going to happen, but even then, it's going to take a little bit of time, right? So, like >> um even then, but they'll they'll be new and they'll be in the middle of the school year, right? So, how do we we can't just like ignore this until that person gets their feet wet, you know? So, how do we like do something about this now? Because I sorry to ramble,

078but it seems like, you know, when there was a big problem with fifth graders with their math scores, we dumped a whole ton of attention onto that and now and they they spike up. So, it seems like where we put the effort there, it pays in dividends, but we're not seeing it sort of across the board. So, how do we like ensure that we're like doing it in all ways? >> All ways. >> Yeah. And I think that's a good segue for the school improvement plans, right? Because the principles have worked with their teams to talk about what are some adult actions um that um they plan to do um together with the with the teams in order to address um and speak to some of this student performance data, right? Because again, this is

079one data point. There are multiple other data points. Um, but yeah, to your point, there's a lot to do to make sure that we're providing equitable equitable access and making sure that we have the scaffold so that all students can access the curriculum. Now, just to keep in mind that while I showed you the performance of the high needs versus the non- high needs, that doesn't necessarily mean that we're going to have um gaps on our accountability um you know uh report card in every grade level. We do kind of know already that we will have a gap in grade three. >> Um >> I believe it was in ELA, but I'm not sure. I can I'm getting the the head nodding from Vonda. Um but we won't we don't have all of that information

080yet. >> Um so we need to look um and wait for it and we'll have that in November. Um nonetheless we do have work to do. So that is one of the reasons that we brought in a evidencebased researchbased curriculum for ELA and we're working hard to make sure that we have fidelity with the implementation. Similarly in math um because curriculum really designs the learning journey for students and it's really important that we implement that with fidelity at first because we don't yet know what we need to cut, keep or create in order to meet the needs of our learners. Right? So, we're really in year one for our fourth and fifth graders in um ELA implementation of CKLA in year two for grades K through three. We're in year one for K2 IM grade

081I think year two for grade three um and year three I believe going on for um grades uh five uh four through eight. Um and we're also identifying are there you know are we how does is it looking with fidelity right so we these are things that are happening right now um and I think the principles can certainly speak to um some of the datainformed work that they're planning to have um at the schools. So yeah to your point we're not waiting for you know a new superintendent to walk in um and not doing anything. This is this is definitely data that we need to pay attention to. But again, it's not new. This has been trending in this way for a number of years. >> Yeah. Well, I also want to understand if we're

082looking at all of the factors and we're, you know, we're paying enough attention to them, right? like if our if our diversity in terms of high need students has grown in lots of different directions, you know, are we looking at that or are we just going to continue like spinning our wheels trying to focus on something while we're completely ignoring like perhaps one of the biggest factors? >> So, I don't know if if there's an answer to that. Um, but >> yeah. >> So, >> all right. I'll I'll I'll stop talking, but does anybody else have any questions, comments, please? >> I just I know that science I know that science is, you know, it just recently started getting testing but or tested but, you know, we're seeing it in ELA, we're seeing it in

083math and I mean the science scores are really low. I mean, they've gone down. >> Um, you know, are we focusing there or are we still just f, you know, like where do we focus first? >> Yeah. Yeah. Um, so and it's it would be great if it was, you know, one area, one high need, but it's not. It's across all levels. So, you know, I I just question, you know, as we start to go into the budget season, you know, do we have enough do we have enough resources right now? >> Yeah, I appre I appreciate all the questions that you're raising. These are questions that um we have been asking of ourselves with our teachers teams as well right um you know just to try to find like root cause analyses right like

084what exactly >> brainstorming like what what variables right because it's most likely not just one thing right so last year we identified whoa we only have 20 to 30 minutes maximum of math in grade five well hello that's an issue right so these are the kinds of things. That's part of it, right? Curriculum, instruction, assessment, scheduling, it all plays a part in that. >> And I know you're hard at work for it. So, it's not directed that you're not doing enough. I mean, that's not what I'm trying to say. I just know that. >> I just, you know, is there more that we as a board need to provide to try and close these gaps? >> Well, I think part of that is understanding the story, asking questions, right? That's super important. um using our

085expertise in the field and um trying to work with the stakeholders to nail down you know how we can close this gap. Um but thank you Deb for this presentation and we really appreciate transparency. Um we never really had this before. >> Um the real transparency of it so I appreciate that. >> Thank you. I also wanted to say just on like a personal positive note to like feed what you guys are doing is really impacting. I have a current fifth grader and the changes that have been made in that math curriculum and the structure of the fourth and the fifth grade have really benefited the students and so I appreciate you know that that was really looked at and that's where we're seeing um real growth. I think it's it it what you are

086doing and where we are looking and the direction we are going is making a real impact to learners. So I appreciate that too as a as a board member and as a parent >> and and it took us a number of years to get here, right? So we really need to also understand it's going to take us a number of years to you know to move out from where we are. Um but with you know purposeful meaningful planning I am very confident um that um we as I said have the opportunity to really do some great things. And an important point too is given the we've invested in you know illustrative math and CKLA's doing that with fidelity that's super important and it >> you know the admin teams really regulating that and making sure

087that the programs are being carried out the way as it's intended. >> Yes it is. It really is super important for sure. >> U Sarah any comments? All right. Well thank you very much. >> Thank you. Oh, Bond, sorry, you had a comment. >> That's okay. Thank you. Um, just through the chair. So, I do just want to say that it was it was a risk to put some of this information in here for you. I appreciate the fact that you recognized that. Um, you know, when Deb and I looked at it, I think at one point she kind of like raised one of her eyebrows and I said, "Yep, we're we're we're we're going to do this because first of all, it's our community and these are our children and so we appreciate your

088sense of urgency and we want to just make sure that our focus is deliberate and collaborative and all in the same direction. I also think it's really important for you to have these conversations and show this commitment because candidates are going to be looking and they need to see where we're at because you want the right person to come here who can move the needle. >> So, we share this as our number one priority. >> Yeah. We it's it's teaching and learning and growth. And so for us to put it out on the table now and say this is where we are and we want to move collectively, I think that's a huge message for somebody to see because you want somebody to come up come here who wants to help you move in the

089right direction. >> The teachers want to they want to the administrators want to. >> So we are ready to roll up our and do the hard work. >> Um would it behoove us to really look at like I know our numbers went down at the high school. you know, we're 37 less students, but I because I know a lot of these students, there's so many students that continually leave our high school, you know, to go to other schools, other placements, private schools, things like that. Is it, you know, would it would it be important to look at that and really investigate why our students are leaving? >> We certainly we certainly can and we certainly should see I mean, I don't know what grades they were in. We certainly can look at that data. It

090is interesting to look at that data and see how many even in the middle school opt out of the entire >> because I think those 37 I mean I I could probably give you 20 names of the 30. No, I won't do that. No, I wouldn't do that. But I could tell you of that number. >> Yeah. So we we definitely can look at that. Absolutely. As another data point. Thank you. >> Great. >> All right. I think we can move on to the school improvement plans. >> Yes. So, I'm going to uh invite Dr. Pepsaski up to talk about the CLES uh school improvement plan highlights. >> And just before Dave starts, I'm going to jump in again because that's what I do. >> So, the administrators tonight, they're here and they're reluctantly limiting

091themselves. They they each could and were willing to stand here and talk for many many um minutes to you about their plans. They actually gave me a bit of a hard time when I kept decreasing their time slot. So, the reality is the plans I I want them posted. I want them posted, the full plans. I want them posted on the website. I want the community to be able to see. I want our administrators to be kind of updating their families. Hey, these are things we're working on. As a member of your community, we should know what we're working on. We will come back probably in February and do a midyear update. Here's what we're working on. Hey, we changed our mind on this. We decided to do this instead. Um that that's that's the

092good stuff. So tonight they're just highlighting on a few things and I I did give them the heads up that I you know as a leader am most interested in. What adult actions are we doing that's going to be different than what we have done in the past that might merit a different result? It may not. But what are we going to try to do that might merit some growth or change? So again, you know, word for word, the plans will be out there. Um, I apologize. I take full ownership. I thought they were sent to you last week. I of course never gave them to Lisa. Um, my fault. Deb's like, "Where are they? I'm hoarding them." So, and the last thing I want to say is that, you know, you will have a

093new permanent superintendent. And, um, the way these look is as different as everybody's fashion design. So you very much could have a new superintendent who comes in and looks at the design of the school improvement plan and says, "Hey administrators, I want to work with you. Tell me what you really want to showcase. Let's change the structure. Let's change the content." So you might have something completely different next year. And that is so fine. Um so just know that what they're sharing they're they're, you know, it may shift for you. >> Thank you. And I promise I'm just going to do the highlights. I will not be too too comprehensive. Uh but before I do begin, I do want to echo what Deb had said that we are have two great uh curricular programs in

094place CKLA and IM. We're fully implemented K through 5. Also with the increased instructional time for math, I think it's worth saying again. We have increased instructional time for math. We have 80 to 85 minutes in fourth and fifth grade. Uh we have 70 to 80 minutes in one, two, grades one, two, and three. So the time is there. It's built in. We have the teaming structure that's there that needs to be. We were we're full on elementary school model now. Rosa brought up a good point like we we put so much effort and energy into certain areas. Well, what we're doing at class this year is really putting the effort and energy across tier one instruction and strengthening that MTSS process which reaches all students. As you know, 100% of students receive tier one.

095Uh so specifically, we're looking at monthly meetings. We're going to really hyperfocus on the aim lines for every student in particular those who are well below benchmark and below benchmark. So those of you who don't know MClass, we use MClass for reading and MClass for math and they create aim lines. So the beginning of year data point and they they print out this or create this trajectory of where they have to be to get to to midyear. So if they are well below that's a very sharp and and increased uh trajectory line whereas if they're above course it's it's a little flat but still we're going to pay attention to those students. I'm just going to speak briefly with the monthly meetings what that looks like. So, if we have somebody who's really below and

096is at red, we're going to within the classroom setting, classroom interventions are going to have five in-class interventions and then we're going to progress monitor. Then we're going to have five more we're going to progress monitor. We're going to have five more we're going to progress monitor. So, every month we're going to have those three data points for progress monitoring. Hopefully, if the intervention in the classroom is working, those data points are going to be on or above that aim line. If they're not, what we're doing is either maybe it's kind of working, maybe they need more intensive interventions within the classroom. Whatever it is that they need, we're sitting around the table with an entire grade level and my curriculum specialists, uh, Jim and Julie, who I can't say enough about, and we're really

097going to look at each individual student in that aimline and what do we need to do to make sure this progress monitoring is keeping them on the aimlines. So, if we get those three points, wonderful. We'll continue the interventions. Maybe the next month we'll do five with the progress monitoring, five with the progress monitor. we'll do it twice as long as we're still staying on the aim line. So, we're looking at all of those students. And then if they're at or above, you know, maybe one or two uh or if they're at benchmark, one or two just checkpoints to make sure that we're not losing them. And if a teacher is seeing, hey, wait a minute, based on my classroom instruction, I don't know if they're where they need to be, progress monitor, make sure

098they are. Uh with respect to the IABS, you know, it's we're going to go beyond a prefuncter. Hey, we did it, one and done. We did the IAB. We're really going to use these strategically. We have our teachers working with our curriculum specialists and the state has provided a bunch of IABS and good ones. So, what they're going to do is align those with the CKLA and IM units. We'll teach the unit, we'll give the IAB. We'll do this a lot more than once, hopefully at least four times, if not five, before we get to the ESPA. And the reason for that is now we're giving the students the experience and the language and the format of showing what they know. Maybe it's they know the material. They're just, "Oh my gosh, look at this

099format. I can't show them knowing this format." But again by meeting monthly to share the results around the table what how we do on the IEBS instructional tools how they do hey they did great wonderful they didn't do great but I know they know the material so maybe we can look at the questions and give them more examples of questions and wordings and formats that are similar. Uh as far as professional learning we have our curriculum specialists are facilitating our PLC blocks and they're going to be supporting staff with CLA and IM implementation all year long and the tier one instructional strategies. Uh we also have tier one instructional strategies for our MLS. Um Nikki Galvos came in during our PD day and worked with with the Teslaw teachers, did this amazing presentation for my

100entire staff on instructional strategies for MLS for school climate. Hopefully you all remember our spotlight uh where we had those kiddos who were so proud that they were recognized. We're doing that monthly this year. Here we have these monthly assemblies, pause assemblies um to recognize not only does it recognize and kind of appreciate and celebrate all the students who are celebrating, but it also reinforces those behavior expectations monthly with a K2 assembly and a 35 assembly. And hopefully we can get classy back at all the assemblies because the kids love to see classy. >> Uh just quickly on expanding, we have a several peer mentorship programs. One that's coming back I'm thrilled about and it's because you sir are starting earlier. So now we have a nice chunk of afternoon time with high school because

101we had over 90 high school student. Were you one of them >> who said they're going to be a big friend of Huckleberry? I'm I'm sure you're full of of of extracurriculars that you're doing. But we do have over 90. So we're so excited about that that they're come back and they're going to come and work in the classrooms, work with students both on the playground and uh in the classrooms. We also have our PBIS rewards referral system. That's just our disciplinary referral system. And so the nice thing is that collects the data for the behavior interventions. uh the teachers there's a behavior that needs to refer to the office they fill out the PBS rewards referral system here's what the behavior is here's what I've done as a classroom teacher notified parents then it

102comes to us as administrators so we then work with the child or whether it's a restorative circle or whatever we need to do enter that into the referral system immediately that gets back to the teachers so that really closes the communication gap of gosh I sent that kid to the office what did they do uh with family engagement communication uh we have our amazing new Katie Robersonson is our music teacher. She's going to do K through2 concerts. Uh so we're excited for that. So the entire grade level and I she's kind of teasing how it's going to be organized. Maybe each class is going to sing a song, but I'm really looking forward to that. The class chronicle will continue uh based on parental feedback. We you know they wanted to see more calendar highlights,

103more procedural reminders and updates and curriculum resources for parents and PTO events. So that's all included in the chronicle now. And then our class connects which is once every six day cycle that's just communication for staff and the one new thing we're doing this year is the staff's news slides. So now if we have a new staff member we can take a picture with little clips now they because we're such a huge school with 200 staff members with the new you know here's the new face so to speak we just our new social worker starting Monday. Uh if somebody's having a child or getting married engaged all of that news can now be shared to uh heighten that community awareness in our building. So that's the highlights of our school improvement planning class. >> Okay.

104>> Um I have I do have one question. Um and it relates to the the progress monitoring that you mentioned um which sounds great, but how will you be ensuring that you're continuously using and looking at that data? Like what what are you going to be using it for? >> We are meeting monthly to look at these line. So there's the >> teachers >> with Yep. So during the PLC block once a month, that's the focus of the meeting. We're going to be looking at these aim lines of these students. Uh and if there's too many students to do to the aim lines, you find the time. We have Jim and Julie and our whole admin team who will sit. And like I said, if if what's happening isn't working, I think it's really important

105to have that whole grade level who's there's, you know, if it's fourth grade, for example, there's 10 professionals right there that can help us with some other strategies or techniques that we could use at that tier one level. >> Great. Yeah. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. And the well and the data collection or progress monitoring is going to be the same consistently for each child like what tool what progress monitoring. >> Well, we're yeah we're always going to focus using the MClass system or MClass progress monitoring. >> All right. Thanks. >> Sure. >> Anyone else? All right. Thank you. >> And just a quick thank you to Stephanie for that plug on uh >> your child having I don't know if that went over the time limit limit or not. >> Seven minutes. >> Um,

106some of the things Hi, I'm Dean Rand. I'm the principal at Whiskinair Middle School. Um, some of the things that you will see here, um, obviously are things that that Dave brought up and I'm sure will be similar even when Mark comes up, um, as we talk about the different things that we're doing at the schools, but really that same through line in a sense as you go up. So, I'll start with our educational outcomes. Um, we talked he Dave is just speaking about the multi-tered support system MTSS protocols that we have. Um in the past we have done it where we met every other week and one week was um teachers putting together information or things that students that were struggling and then the f uh two weeks later they would meet as a

107team and start more to talk about the interventions. We changed that a little bit this year. We are and thank you to to the board. We are able to have did I just knock out of that? >> We're able to have um Come on Dean, you can do this. um three different le uh meetings now for interventions. So we're going to have a math we have a math uh intervention one week uh with the teachers that are in math and science for the team with our um math curriculum leaders and also administration. Then the following week we're going to have literacy which is literacy um social studies and our world language and then the following week we're going to have the whole entire team and we're going to be doing uh work around our social

108emotional with behaviors. So, it's a little bit different this year, which um I we think is is going to make a difference. Um also, we've had for our uh social emotional um interventions before, we have had areas where we'd pull kids for ELT time, which is a small amount of time. I think most of you know our ELT is about 32 minutes, 30 minutes um by the time students get there. And we've had in the past where they've worked with social workers, with uh student coun with counselors, excuse me, school psychologists. They will still be doing that. But this year we are looking to have um which we currently have a math intervention with a math lab and we also have a reading intervention for periods of time where students are taken out of their

109specialists class for a period of time. We're doing that now with also our behavioral serby uh excuse me MTSS where students are uh with a curriculum of uh DBT behavioral supports and then also uh a separate one for executive functioning which we just started. So, we feel that that's going to make a difference. Um, having those specific ones for six to eight weeks and it's for uh the whole entire every other day like the student would have the specials class, it would be every other day instead of just maybe once a week during that ELT time or twice a week during ELT time. So, it's a little bit more time allotted to it. Um, again, Dave brought up the SV ESPA and NGSS interimm assessment blocks that we have. We've used them before. or we

110going to continue um as we've talked about that the data that we get back from those those um scores that we have or assessments that we have are utilized for our future planning like where are the kids really struggling in this area and for those of all of us that know our teachers you do that with certain assessments that you have obviously we like to use the interim assessments because those are similar to what the kids will see on the Smarter Bounce tests or the NSS tests um so that's something that we're going to be working on um and meeting the data that we get from those will be shared at our department meetings. A little bit different than with a team meeting because this is more specific to a department um that they have.

111So it would be sixth, seventh and eighth grade say math together, sixth, seventh and eighth grade literacy, science um professional learning. We obviously are given time for the the goals that we have with our new plan um that we have for the evaluation plan. But to me the the the more more important ones are the bottom two are uh created targeted PD opportunities for our staff around our ML learners. Our numbers have increased like we talked about our current uh sixth grade level. Uh we were very lucky to have Nikki Galves got the uh one of the teachers from CLES that had worked with these students to come up and literally meet with our team of teachers and let and help them give them resources um and because she had been so close in working

112with those students, she was able to give different ideas uh for the teachers to be able to help them with their instruction and not just with their instruction but also pulling them to decide whether it was an intervention with them specifically or with one of our uh intervention teachers. um which was which which was a success definitely. She is also going to be coming like Dave talked about. She's going to be coming to us and doing uh professional development for our staff whether it's going to be we're not sure yet we're working if it's going to be on the PD day or during a faculty meeting or building leader day that she's going to come and um work with the whole entire staff because not every as we know not every staff member may have

113a student. We have uh our MLL students are in specific classes so they have support but as we talked about before that support at Wiskanir in the high schools every other day just because we have one person has to split it between those days. So the person isn't there consistently but with this we're also talking about ways when they're not there that we could make sure that those students obviously are able to our our our teachers are able to have plans and set for students um that you know are struggling in those areas. And then this is another one I just think is uh as we all talk about artificial intelligence AI. We already have uh Mr. Ben Naric went to a conference, our assistant principal went to a conference um before the school year

114and met with our teachers and did a little one on Google AI. And then Jackie Whiting, our our library media specialist, and Kobe Fitzgerald, our eighth grade literacy teacher, have been working together and they did one recently on school AI. And going forward, we are looking to find ways that we could have little breakouts for PD times where if people want more information about that one or how they're using it as a resource for teacher, but also for differentiating instruction for all of our learners, whether it's ML student, whether it's a special education student, whatever it may be, that they're able to utilize that to better be to be better prepared for that school climate. Um there's really I don't say anything new per se, but it's our second year of doing the web, which

115is where everyone belongs for our sixth grade student orientation. It was uh bigger and more students going into sixth grade uh came this year than than the previous year. Um those lessons, our eighth grade students, our our web leaders are leading those lessons. I think I said this before, but just if you think about it and you if if you follow me on Instagram, if you don't, give me a click. Um but um you'll see the pictures I have and and I tell you it's like Dave was talking about the high school kids coming down to to work with the younger kids when the eighth graders are sitting there and they're teaching lessons to sixth graders. It always makes me kind of giggle a little bit when the kids aren't really paying attention. The teachers

116in there too and they try to get the kids to, you know, to to uh to to to stop goofing around or whatever it may be. But the eighth graders, they take it very seriously and and it's so cool. Um, but there we have a certain amount of lessons and we're we're changing something up. The kids said to us last year they didn't want to have to not that they didn't want to have the lessons throughout the year. They wanted to also be a part of the next one I talk about is unplugged hour. They felt like they were missing out a little bit on that in sixth grade. So this year halfway through we are going to then switch over with a sixth grade unplug. But some of those activities uh that we had

117talked about before again just because I think it's pretty cool. We have teachers doing lawn games, yoga, there's a just dance, there is a reader theater, jewelry making, there's a Miss Fitz's fancy nails. So, it's a way for kids to develop those relationships. And it may not even be a teacher they have. It's a it's a maybe an older uh the next level or maybe a level behind them, grade level, but it's another way for kids to really, you know, make that connection with with staff. And it's in a fun it's fun. And to see their teachers in those in those ways, I think is really really neat. Um the Say Something app with Sandy Hook Promise we've had before as you know. Um we that is something we monitor and it's pretty much monitored

11824/7. Uh and um anything around bullying, crisis intervention, meanspirited behavior, whatever it may be. Anything that crosses our plate with that, we uh have we we not have to investigate, we absolutely investigate it and follow through. Sometimes it's hard because we get anonymous ones and I see these guys shaking the head because we've gotten phone calls at 11 o'clock at night. Um and we have to sometimes have to get the Brookfield police involved um depending on what the what the tip is. Um but these are things that we follow up with um you know uh every time that something crosses our plate. The ne other one I want to bring up here was uh restorative practices because we know that with the new uh state law and um school climate um laws making sure that

119we're using those with our students. We want to be able to create those opportunities for students to better that relationship that that maybe or repair that relationship and also for obviously the social emotional learning aspect of it where we want to we want to get deeper into what's really going on. We all know that students behave and adults we behave for a reason but we have to be able to repair those relationships because as we know as as a teacher there may be an interaction between me and a student and guess what I had that student that student has me for the rest of the year. So we got to sit down and we really got to talk about it. we it's almost like with with siblings sometimes like we need to get along so

120what are we going to do to make this happen and I think that sometimes can be a very powerful uh conversation uh with students um family engagement same type of things again I think that we do you know on a year we kind of we've asked uh parents what their what their um things that they may be looking for or would want to hear from us or have um someone come in to to teach on um also opportunities for just to be in the school I know there's opport opportunities a lot at the elementary school. There's not as many at the middle school for parents to come in, but we obviously do look to do we have the walk-athon, we have music showcases, art showcase, career fair, we have our veterans day that's coming up,

121we have the book fair, all little things that we have um junior achievement, we have through the community of Brookfield. It's also a lot of parents or people that have come through Brookfield school system, which is really cool, um that come back. And the career fair is also another one that we a lot of times will get WMS alum that come and and and uh do the career fair for us which is really awesome to see. And then our monthly newsletter again just making people aware of everything that's going on. Our teacher posts keeping uh teachers excuse me parents aware of what's going on in the classroom which is very important and through P school and then of course our WS Instagram that makes you smile and see all the fun things that we're doing

122at Wanir and celebrating. >> Any questions? Um, during the tech free are the unplugged are they have an opportunity to play any sports or anything that like they do. >> I didn't I just didn't say those because those are like the there's volleyball, there's I think there's a basketball, there's a volleyball. Yeah. Yeah. And again, it's one of those things where there's kids that like the physical thing. There's also we has we have a um a music one that students it's um I think uh I think it was called I don't know if it's rock or something like that music that kids were into. Yeah. different things that kids >> they want to do and I they find it really cool when they when they know that their teachers wants to go they're all excited

123about going to this Rush new Rush concert that's coming out or at Moheagen Sun they're all talking about >> um >> takes me back to the day >> that's good >> I just have a question when um you were talking about the MTSS educational outcomes um for math literacy emotional and UNA are we going to start involving science in there >> well It's for us science is with the math right now. And it's interesting because we we had this conversation in the first obviously there's a lot of reading and writing in science too. >> Yeah. >> But like Dave did say when we we we've tried to make it we want that time to be productive for for staff and that's obviously times that we want them to be meeting preparing and collaborating with their

124content partners and things. So right now we have math and science together. Uh I apologize if I didn't say it before. And then we have reading uh excuse me literacy social studies and world language together. But we did say to science that, you know, we're going to see how this goes and we may move them to the literacy, but we we also want other people there because we want more minds to come up with ideas and ways that they that we think that uh could help in intervention. So, thank you for bringing it up if I didn't say it. Um along similar lines um regarding the MTSS um and and maybe this is maybe you said it and maybe this is a question more appropriate for Vonda, but how are we you collectively um ensuring

125that we're that this data is being looked at frequently enough to be or agile be agile enough to make changes? Well, what we have to what we do is we go through that data that we have and like I said, sometimes it goes to a department meeting, you know, if it's it's considered math or with the ELA and also with our curriculum leaders that we have. And the big thing is when students aren't making that progress, we have students that are cons consistently not making that progress right now. Uh Dave brought up MClass. That is something that we're looking into. We haven't had now that it's K through five, we're looking to make it uh also through eight. We've used a cadence before, which we've done. you guys have known the beginning, middle, and the

126end of the year. Um, with that, we're able to with this uh MCL class, we're able to do it more often. >> And I think it's a little bit more um more uh data that would be more of uh beneficial for us than with just a cadence because a cadence, I'll give you an example for math is more about basic skills. It it is it's more about just the basics of of math skills. So, we are collecting that data. When kids are consistently not doing well, that's when we moving in. And I I don't know if I mentioned before, we have our math lab which is during UNH time, but we also have math tutoring during uh um their ELT time. So, it's a shorter period of time where we are working on part of

127it is on skill and then part of it is on helping the students with the current thing that they're doing in the math class at that time. >> Okay. Um >> I think that's more along like lines of my question is are can you use that data to quickly do something y? >> Yeah. And if we continually see that and obviously in the neg like the students that are in the red and I think sometimes we get not confused but when when when uh Deb was showing the scores up here when they had the growth chart we have to remember that those numbers like wow 97% made the growth chart because we when they when they come up with those scores it takes them from where they are and the whole idea is if a

128kid is a half a year say behind in something our mindset is they need to grow a year and a half because if they just grow a year they're still a half a year behind. Right? So when you see those percentages, that's for us. We want to meet the growth the growth target, but sometimes that growth target isn't I'm saying it's not a grade level, right? Um but that's obviously that's what we're what we're pushing for. So when we consistently see that we also set up times where we've moved kids and it's a process where we can move them in and out obviously during a special and and and we still do have I'll tell you we still do have parents that opt out of these services which we do our best to try to

129listen we understand they want to go to special. I get it. That was those are probably my favorite classes. But at the same time, we want them to be able to have these basic skills or for us to help remediate those skills now because we do that as Dave said in tier one in the classroom, but it's different story when we're getting to tier two and then obviously tier three is where it's, you know, pretty much a one to one or one to two >> ratio. So, >> okay. >> Thanks. If I may, it it might be helpful for the board if I can see maybe that you're not as familiar with MClass as as perhaps I thought you might be. Um it might be something that we could put together a brief presentation to

130bring to the cape committee and then perhaps if that is interesting enough and get your feedback, we could >> I mean it'd be interesting to look at. I just wanted to make sure that like you had tools that you were you know readily using. I think if you see the the tools without student identifying information, I think if you see the tools that it provides, >> I think it it would be very interesting for the board to see. >> Cool. >> Yeah, >> at our level it's much more intricate than the cadence that we have. >> Definitely. That's why we're looking to get that way. >> Um, so I think just kind of connecting back to what Rose is asking and also tiding ti tying it in with the um data, you know, achievement report.

131I think it for me, you know, the parent engagement, you know, that's obvious stuff. Improve communication, that's all generic kind of >> items. Improving school climate sounds great. All those items, you know, for me, the improving educational outcomes is really the meat and potatoes of >> Yeah. >> Um, not discounting the other work >> because we all need those other things. >> Those are important, too. >> Yep. >> Um, for example, curriculum specialists. Like to me, that's really generic. like department meetings, curriculum work, data review and sharing new learning with staff. So, I'd really want to know more about that, like how that looks given the situation that we're in right now with test score. So, um for me, I'd kind of want to see more with that. Um I couldn't bring up the CLES

132one before, but um for that says curriculum specialist utilizing PLC blocks to support staff in humanities and STEM. So, like how are they supporting the staff now given, you know, what we know and the position that we're in with test scores, you know, what how does it look different for the curriculum specialists now? Because that's a really those are really powerful positions. >> Um, and they're the ones really in charge of spearheading that change and, you know, making changes and improvements. So, >> and that's a lot in the area of curriculum obviously, right? They're not the interventionists, but they're in that area of making sure that we are following those standards and the curriculum that we have. And like Dave said and you said before with the fidelity that we have with those programs that

133with IM and with uh we don't have MClass, not MClass, uh CKLA. >> Yeah. >> Um but we do have >> So I guess maybe like a followup. I mean that would be >> at the mid point in February we can provide some specific examples of what has been done like that is what I would be >> anticipating >> that's a good question >> and if things have changed your mind saying that we actually have to divert or detour because we realize we we should focus more on that. >> Correct. Correct. Thank you for the importance of that. Okay. Anyone else? Stephanie put on this. All right. I assume we have Mr. Vanda. Now, Dr. Dr. Pepsi informed me that because uh Mr. Render took 20 minutes, I now have 30 seconds to share. I

134will go a little bit longer than that. Right. There it is. All right. So you've heard a lot and as we said I'm not going to read at you and I think it's an important piece that I picked up that uh Vonda brought up at the very beginning she talked about the importance of collaboration right and that time that we have and how important that is into improving things particularly educational outcomes and I heard from the first two sets of information that was presented that's a real important obviously it's the the crux of our work right educational outcomes for kids um and so those members that have been on CAPE also know that we've had uh significant conversations about grading and scores and final exams, right? And so it's important for me whether I'm talking

135about um you know course grades or grade analysis or PSAT scores or SAT scores or even the MTSS program which you've heard a lot about in different places. It's that collaboration time. I want to talk about how that actually happens and what that looks like. Some of this is newer, right? The things that we're doing in MTSS that this year in particular are going to be different we've done in the past. uh which is helpful as is some of the the structures remain the same for uh looking at PSAT SAT and grades but um it's a renewed it's a different focus than we've had in previous years. So to share with you, we have things called CLTs, right? Call them PLC's, call them CLTs, whatever you want to call them. The the the acronym is

136the same, right? It's collaborative learning time, professional learning communities, whatever you want to call it. We have those embedded in our um for our teachers uh once every four days for 80 minutes, right? That collaboration time is huge. That allows them the opportunity to look in real time at how Emily's class did in particular in a particular subject, right? um those teachers can work together and say here's areas of improvement here's it's been used in the past more towards planning less about the actually analysis of um grades and data moving forward because I think we always feel this push to get to the next thing okay we we taught this we assess this move on to the next thing because the curriculum's this wide right and what the board and other people have asked us

137to do and it's it's a good question is to go back and review and say okay how did we do on that is can we do anything differently moving forward. That's important. It's always a challenge and a balance between what do you remediate the kids struggled with and still move forward to make sure they get to that end point. So the renew the the change in that focus is using that time for admin for the teachers to do that to look at grades at the end of the quarter as the quarter approaches right to look at those grading policies and practices and what are the scores that are coming back and how are kids doing on things in particular particular topic skill things of that nature. Um, we will get um, PSAT scores back. Today

138was the PSAT day. I have to put a plug in there. 593 I think tests we gave today. So, shout out. She's not listening. I guarantee she is sleeping right now. Rosa Hopcraftoft, our school counseling secretary who essentially has become our standardized testing coordinator. Um, from the digital student readiness all the way through today. I just to put a plug for her. She's amazing. the fact we and this will tie into some other things that um Mr. Tenza talked about about getting one to one Chromebooks because that was a challenge today um to get everybody on the same device. But that being said, we'll have the PSAT scores back right in a couple weeks, right? Because it's digital, it's very helpful. Um we also do an admin CLT because I do believe that if we're

139gonna if teachers are going to do this and we're asking faculty to meet every four days, we do that as well as an ad administrative team. So, the principal, the two myself, the two assistants, um the department heads, uh are also there as well. Um and then sometimes Mr. Baldwin is depending on what athletic activities perk up at that time of day because it always happens to be a one:00 meeting and he's going to be real busy at that point in time. Um but we're going to be looking at those PSAT scores as soon as they come back, right? um and looking at those things and trying to identify certain areas um of areas of improvement, things we have compared to the SAT from last year, the PSAT from the other grades from the previous

140years. We'll be able to compare some of those things and look a little bit more. What I'm excited about is that from the budget last year, um I know it's really hard to get excited about testing, but we budgeted for spring PSAT, right? So, we're going to get another opportunity for benchmark. It's great. MC class dibbles and CKLA and all those things at the elementary and then you start to see a little bit less as you go to high middle school and then once you come to high school this abrupt break stop there isn't anything and I'm part of a group uh Connecticut association of schools does a a monthly um connection so all these principles administrators get together and that was the topic I brought forward what are you using well we used to

141use map we used to so we don't have that stuff now at least mo a lot of people are using PSAT at least fall and spring because it gives is a standardized reference. So we're for the first time in a very long time going to have how the kids did in the fall and how they're doing in spring 9 10 and 11. That will be huge for us. We haven't done that. So we'll be able to have those scores and take a look at that. It doesn't give us the same rich information we used to get from the SAT back in the day thanks to the adaptive test that the SAT and PSAT has become, but it will give us something, you know, some general trends that we can look at. So, that stuff we're

142going to look at the admin CLT and then um as I think some of you at Cape have heard from what Mr. Hill has talked about the things they're doing to actually incorporate um types of style and questions that are like the SAT or PSAT. Um we don't have the interim assessment blocks, right, like the SBA has. We do have them for NGSS, which isn't on here, but that is something that the uh science teachers do work on is the NGSS interim assessment blocks. We do have those and they utilize those. Um, shout out to the science teachers and the PD. Um, this past week, two, October 13th, uh, Mr. Hill had his science teachers breaking down a performance task to see where it fits into three dimensions. So, they had to work backwards and

143then develop their own from that. That was an actual task and I can certainly share that with Kate if they're interested at some point. So, really, when I tell you we're digging into this stuff, we're digging into how we can do this, design better tasks for our students. And then once we have that information, what do we have to do next? Um, so MTSS I said is a different process than we've had before a little bit. Um, you know, we now have we're now bringing teachers in which I know to people sounds like what do you mean bringing teachers in? It was an admin driven or support services driven types of meetings. We split them a couple years ago into two different pieces with um student mental health and behavioral supports and then an academic

144piece. There was two different meetings. They met every other week. So, you had a meeting every week. It was either academics or it was mental health and behavior conversations. Now, when it comes to some of the academic ones, we're inviting teachers in. We're figuring out ways to get them coverage to come in and talk about what's going on specifically in the class. I know it sounds like we should have been doing that all along. It's not the easiest thing to schedule in a high school schedule to make those teachers available. We knew that was a critical component. If we're identifying areas or students that are having specific difficulties in a core academic area, bring those teachers in. Let's talk more about some strategies and provide what you've been doing, what's working, what's not working. It's

145a 20-minute hit. It's helpful from that perspective. And then the other thing in terms of educational outcomes, there is uh state legislation about making sure that there's um opportunity for all students to take at least one rigorous course, right? So, we'll be looking at the program of studies um after we do budget which is coming up soon for submissions. Um next step is rolling into program of studies and looking at that and looking at prerequisites and seeing are we actually open enrollment for people or are we restricted because I have had some questions about that. So, we're going to look at that and analyze and figure out what we can do to help improve those outcomes. That kind of ties that whole thing in. Professional learning continues throughout, right? What does that look like? I

146told you a little bit about what Mr. Hill did uh last week. Each department did something a little bit different but also similar and looking at student outcomes and what we can do to help dei the de develop assessments and take a look. I actually have the world language is having conversations. Do we really want stamp or apple? What gives us the best data for our kids? Um so they they're having those conversations from that perspective. Um but as you know every teacher with the new um every faculty member and I have to be careful to say faculty, right? Because sometimes I say teacher and I really mean faculty because it's also about the school social workers and the school counselors and we forget about not we don't forget about them but we lump them

147into that fac that uh teacher so they're having the opportunity to explore and what does that look like will that look I have uh some school counselors that are look taking doing some training on the science of the teenage brain right that are going into that others that are looking at DBT um skills and how to to better develop those skills um but then I have other people that are still working on supports for pair professionals and how to better integrate a pair professional adult learner into a classroom to help support the work that we're doing. That's huge given as we've had conversations before about we only co-e in two different subjects and everything else is adult support. So, how do we better utilize that? Um, so we're able to provide that support and things

148like that. Um we'll be looking at at our next faculty meeting leveraging faculty meetings, building directed meetings, some of our Wednesday meetings that you know that we have. Um we're going to be looking at the school's core values and beliefs, right? And we're starting as a faculty. We'll roll that out and have that conversation. Do we still believe this is what we believe in, right? And what does that look like? We'll be bringing students into that conversation. We're also doing conversations about AI as uh Mr. Renda talked about, which is the future of everything at this point. And then my other focus is tier one uh best instructional practices. Coming up with a set of best instructional practices for all students to to have and exhibit. When I say that to teachers, everybody has their

149bag of tricks, but we want to have a more universal tier one set of best agreed upon instructional practices that every student gets. Um and provide some training to make sure that we have those set. Um because when we talk about MTSS, it's that triangle that you know 100% everybody gets that core. We need to solidify that and make sure everybody is getting that stuff. That helps us determine how kids move from up to the tier. If they if everybody's getting this, then we know that we can move somebody up to the next tier of support because we know they all got the same thing. So now we know how to differentiate afterward. So we're trying to level the playing field there a little bit. Um, school climate, um, school climate committee met today. It's

150the largest climate committee meeting I've ever had. Um, and it was fantastic because I didn't have to really run it, which was a really awesome thing. We had student representatives from every grade. Um, we had, I think, seven teachers, uh, somebody from the youth commission was there. Uh we had a parent and this is all in like short notice where we turned it around to to have the meeting pretty quickly after initial conversation. Uh we had a parent that's coming. We have two other parents that are planning on coming. Um it was and we looked at survey data. When I tell you this is with the students as well. Here's our midyear school climate survey data. Here's our end ofear school climate survey data. And the two climate coordinators directed that analysis of that data

151today. Let's look at that. What are some trends that you're picking up? One of the students raises his hand and says, "My parents are both teachers and it there seems to be some conversation about uh unhappiness with professional development and my parents feel the same way at their school." Um, okay. Well, that's interesting. Um, but that came up that is the kind of organic conversations. Kids saying, "Well, the staff said, um, they're concerned about building conditions, right? That came up pretty high." Um, and the students are like, "It's not really that bad." And I'm it was conversations that I that I just so interesting to hear their perspective. So when I say we're looking at the school climate data, they're looking at what are what things that we can move forward and try to identify

152priorities moving forward. We also see uh each of us each school has to create a school climate improvement plan due in December. We're running that right through that committee. So like this stuff continues to work. And because it's after school, so not every kid can go. There's also going to be um every other month an opportunity during ILT for people for kids to come in during the day and weigh in on the topics that the kids decide about, right? The students that are on the meeting that are there for they kind of become captains. They come to the ILT meeting every other month, but they also represent the school climate committee at the same time after school. So, we'll get some more student input, which is really, really important. Um, and obviously, you know, we're

153going to continue to do other activities to continue to, uh, improve the climate. One example is No Place for Hate. That's in there. Um, but then I'm also excited because we're finally going to implement Link Crew, which is a huge one. I have to give that shout out. Uh, it's taken some time. We've got two teachers trained, ready to go. So, that 9th grade transition program for those incoming nth graders this summer is going to be so much different and so much better, particularly because the kids in the middle school have been part of web and they understand what that is. when we talk about the transition here to high school, it's going to just be that much better and continuous throughout the year instead of a standalone event. So, we're really doing a lot

154of different things to try to build that climate and culture uh and help that bring that up. And then student family engagement continues to be uh obviously something that we're always going to talk about. Um at the PTO meeting the other night, the conversation was uh and I'll be frank, a lot of the parents don't like parent square. um that came up as so yes an easy tool for us and honestly many years ago those of you that were teachers remember when seed came out and everybody said I'm going to make a goal and I'm going to send out newsletters and every teacher sent out newsletters and parents got 73 newsletters every week and it became this white noise you know we're going to look at parent square and they have questions we're going to

155do some sessions and have these conversations with parents how can we better utilize it there's some tools in there that are really powerful to gather information from parents whether it's polling um or how do we better manage the you know they came up why are there district flyers and they're all about the elementary school we need more flyers from the high school and so that like some of these questions are like oh you're it's not as engaging and we continue to talk about what does parent involvement mean that actually came up at the school climate committee one of the one of the kids said what does parent involvement mean at the high school and I said well what would you want it to be and he looked at and he went, "Not much." Right? So,

156that's something to be mindful of, too. Like us as parents and being a parent of a high schooler, I get it. I want to be involved. That's the last thing my kid wants is me involved. It's bad enough when he comes to the homecoming dance at Brookfield High School and his father is there for that. That was fun. Um, but there's enough, you know, there's a level of what does parent involvement look like or family involvement look like? what do students want from their parents to be involved? Um, and how do we find that balance, right? So, we're going to continue to investigate that. But at the end of the semester, I think this is a big piece, too. Uh, because we talked about this. We're going to give student enga student surveys about engagement,

157right? And what it was like, what are some helpful strategies? It's not we're not always looking for things. We're not trying to catch anybody in doing something incorrectly, but what worked for you? What didn't work for you? Think of that college model, right? For those of you that taken college classes, the end of the semester, you take a survey where you talk about you kind of rate the professor. We're not looking to rate teachers. I'm not doing that. I know the union's not here. I'm not looking to rate teachers. Anonymous surveys about what worked well in the moment in that class for you that we can then say, okay, let's build on that. So, how do we um that's getting students engaged and then our ILT connections program. Um you know, I had some conversations

158uh and Emily, you'll understand this like it's been a lot of Mr. telling us a lot of stuff. We need to do more team building. So, there's going to be some interesting things coming up in the next couple weeks uh that you'll see beyond the gingerbread houses that we're doing. We're also doing a couple other competitions. Um so, it's going to be there'll be more team building activities, but that has been a great way to connect students and teachers together and doing um having uh parents have the opportunity to go to ILT first this year at open house. Uh, I got some positive feedback about that because they had never met the ILT teacher that their kid had for four years or was going to have for four years. So, we tried that to try

159to make some more connections and engagement. So, that's a lot. It was definitely less than Dean. Um, but happy to answer any questions and obviously there'll be more details in the plan itself when it comes out. Um I just have the same question that I asked the others but um so how looking at the school um the uh the achievement >> sort of the MTSS and any other data that you use >> how are you personally you know sort of overseeing um you know that that that data is being looked at routinely. >> Yeah. So that's that's the insurance that's the great part about having that admin CLT time with my admins. Right. So I'm working with them and it's going to be we'll talk about in in terms of we start developing goals right

160for the school year each individual administrator has to develop goals and that's a data point that we can't ignore. Uh we have to have a goal about how do we improve that right and so and having that structure in that time uh we've started looking for with the cape committee at AP scores and final exam data and those sorts of things. We're going to be able to look at that even more now because final exams while not a popular thing um for everybody. Um it's going to be anybody but only seniors are going to be exempt. We'll have more and more data points. We're working to become more data literate with what that actually means. Um and my admins also so you also know um go out to the CLT. So I didn't it's important

161that CLTs or PLC's have some level of autonomy to kind of decide what they want to do but the presence of the administrator not there the whole time not there as like big brother to over to look at look over what you're doing but also provide input insight ask questions and give guidance as to where we should go next or take a look at this that's an active part of what our structure is um and so we'll see pretty quickly at PSAT when that comes out I mean we took it today we'll see in I think it's three weeks I get the data back. So, it's going to be relatively quick um to see and I'll be able to compare those ninth and tth and 11th grade scores of what they got in the previous

162year. Um and so that'll be a data it'll be a data team walkth through and see what we're going to do. There's a pro tuning protocol to look at that stuff and we will do that. Um and then continue. Yeah, we could say yes, I know the math scores went down the state. That's an that's an easy one to say. Um but our team does take it quite personally when that happens. You can you know you can see that happen. So, we we have a plan though. We're moving forward with that. And MTSS, you know, continues to be we don't have the ability to always pull kids out because of the structure of a high school schedule. Um, we do have some quote unquote opportunities for that to happen with our interventionists. We only have

163one math interventionist. We have two reading interventionists. So, it's a little easier on the reading side, easier only in terms of scheduling, not easier in ter in terms of the work, I will say. Um, but it's a little more challenging on the math side because we also use them as co-teers in the classroom. So, um, but we are working to find ways to creatively get students that inter additional intervention they may need, um, working around their study halls because we do have intervention blocks of classes scheduled throughout the course of the day. So, you may be in study hall as Dean said and not love the fact you're going to miss UNH, but we're going to pull you and put you in there for a little bit. Figure that out. >> Thanks. And I was

164just going to say thank you for um making, you know, putting the plan together to really shore up tier one across the board because with our high school students, we know how hard it is to service them on to tier two and tier three. I mean, they don't want to be pulled out. It's a lot easier to provide interventions, you know, for our younger students from even our middle school students. So I think you know if we know where every student is um tier one it's going to be easier to know who we have to service. >> Exactly. We can ensure that level playing field for everybody that gets the same thing and then those kids that you said kind of >> both. So thank you for looking at that because I think you know

165at the high school level we kind of or in high school you know but >> those data points >> I think it's that that theme of that balance across like how much like we want to pull back. We still have to be parents. We still have to do this. you still like it's it's definitely a balancing act. >> I have two things. Um was there any conversation around like consistency and grading or grading practices? I was hoping to see something on that. >> Yeah. So consistency and great that's that's been a it's been a lot of conversations about each department has general like so within within a CLT let's say so a group of three teachers like they they are going to have um they're going to give similar assignments they're going to give common

166assessments what it comes down to is how somebody actually grades something um you know you will see um whether it's total points whether it's on a rubric there's there a lot of different ways that they go they will teach that choose to assess and put grades in. Um, but that is that is a constant conversation as to how best align this so that teachers still have some level of autonomy to grade things the way that they see appropriate, but also have an experience that matches from teacher to teacher. It'll never be exactly the same. We know that um because the instructional experience for an individual teacher can bring their personal perspective into it. Um but the end result the grading um if we're grading them on if we're giving them the same assignments we're I

167mean we we don't want an English two class right of the same level one teacher giving 15 to 16 assignments a quarter and another person giving five. That is not an equitable. So, we've worked to that's the starting point to make sure and we're we're there now where we're let's say between different um courses of the same level. They're giving the same assignments, the same types of things because they're collaborating. >> The next part is kind of that tuning protocol. We can get to that through CLTs. Um but there hasn't been a, you know, a a universal this is how we're all going to grade conversation. We have them in bits and pieces as things come up. Um but it there is always discrepancy unfortunately across the board with different teachers between the different teachers

168and how they assess things. Um it is something that certainly can be addressed. I have to go back to look at my full um I don't know remember if it was the grading policies was actually in my school improvement plan but something I can look back at >> and then that ties in obviously to like midterms and finals right like >> right >> um so when we looked at that data right I think that was a concern that came up well >> are they having shared experiences as far as assessment the midterm goes or the final exam does it look the same and depending on the teacher that's >> yeah they're generally like in a course the the exams are going to be the same. What does happen sometimes um depending on pacing, depending on,

169you know, you may have a teacher who's out for whatever reason, you know, like things do happen and you may have to compact things. So, we we have seen on occasion where there may be a section that may not be assessed on that midterm that the other sections that that does occur. How do we figure that out to make sure that everybody does get as close to the same common experience as possible because then we can actually, as you said, we can actually look at those grades and it means more. >> Right. all the and all the other stuff that's built into a grade. Like I tried that a couple years ago trying to and we'll it's it's always in the back of my mind. All the extra stuff, you know, here's the actual mastery.

170Here's the the skills and knowledge of how many are you getting points for? Like it's not my favorite thing, but you handed in your lab safety contract. Here's five points. Like that is that is a habit of work. That is not an actual skill in science, right? It it is a so separating out habits of work and actual skills. Um, we definitely have improved from when I started because it was like extra credit for everything. Um, but there are still pockets that we absolutely need to work on to determine between habits of work and actual skill of mastery of content. >> Um, I want to be cognizant of how much time we're spending on this particular agenda item and I know that's because you guys have been very used to giving us like tons and

171tons of information. Um, but I think just for the sake of just efficiency in the meeting, I think if any if there's any more sort of operational type questions, we compile them. Um, we can send them to Wendy and then certainly you can provide like a really thorough response. >> Absolutely. >> But thank you very much. >> You're welcome. >> I don't have I don't have a question. I just want to make a quick comment. Um, >> the one other thing I thought I'd see is like um a shout out to like vertical alignment, >> right? That for all the three buildings. Um, that's something I've brought up in the past, you know, our middle school students being ready for high school. Um, having those shared experiences. So, that's something I'd like to see maybe

172a followup on. Um, is that vertical alignment between buildings and our students having the consistency between buildings. >> Yeah, I think if anybody has those, we'll just we'll compile those. >> Okay. >> Um, all right. Let's move on to the uh 2627 budget assumptions and priorities. Okay. So, as part of our Thank you. Thank you. As part of the annual budget process, we start every year by reflecting on strategic planning, our vision and mission, and we form priorities and assumptions. I did shift the way this looks a little bit. I tried to condense it. It's been my practice in other districts that the budget priorities and assumptions and/or challenges are bigger buckets that are broader and encompass um a variety of of topics which they're listed here. I can touch on them briefly and then

173as we unfold the budget meetings, we might discover that there is a need for an additional I'm making this up. I don't know. um an additional person in this department. And so that would probably be justified under the student support bucket, right? So if you will, our priorities number one, the cornerstone priority of of any district needs to be learner growth and success, right? So that that insurance of rigorous learning for all students, knowing where each student is so that we can move them forward from where they are to where they need to be next next in that continuum. that is our priority and all of our budget decisions need to support that and and so that's one of them. Safety and security is another top priority for me. Those are my two cornerstone priorities.

174Um you know we have a large focus over the next few years on building that compassionate culture that that culture of kindness and respect and restorative justice. All of those pieces that the state of Connecticut has supported will show up in some way, shape, or fashion in most school districts budget priorities. Again, student support. So, the funding for a variety of special needs, not just special education, but individual needs that that learners have. That's a student support bucket. And maintaining our educational programs. So, it's a it's a priority for me as your superintendent to maintain what we have and still continue to grow, right? So, that's that's another um priority. We have our we want to maintain our 4C's. We want to, you know, if we have to make a cut somewhere, we want to

175invest in another area. So, we want to maintain. The budget assumptions are things that you're very um commonly familiar with. We are going to assume inflation exists. We are going to assume unfortunately that health costs will escalate. We built in, you know, Casey and I met with the first selectman this week. We meet weekly and decided to build in a 7.77% increase um in medical premiums. So, we will build that in as will the town. And you know, we will experience that growth or decline together. So, we will assume in our budget that we will have contractual obligations. We have already a lot of data. We still have one bargaining unit that is um still in the process. We are anticipating that they that will be solidified so that we can get a contractual obligation

176percentage to work with um within the next few weeks. We assume that operating costs are probably going to increase, you know, whether it's purchasing goods or transportation. Um staffing, we we don't have an assumption that it's going to increase. We have an assumption that it might need to be flexible based on needs of enrollment and or student needs. Um, again, we we have assumptions that our capital plan would be hopefully funded. We have assumptions that our grants I point that out. Our our title grants are an assumption that we will get them. We will get them this year. Um, but I we are going to build next year's budget on the assumption that we will be awarded those title grants. There is never a guarantee because they're grants. Um, so that's the way I look

177at priorities and assumptions and then we build our budget around that. And these would be some of the foremost slides perhaps in our presentation for ourselves, our community and our town. But I'm interested in your feedback. If you see priorities or assumptions that maybe aren't here or something that you don't know if it fits somewhere else, I'm definitely welcome to that discussion. I actually really liked how you explained that. >> Thank you. >> Anybody else have any questions or comments? >> I was just going to say I appreciate the paired down sort of clear um layout of this. I think it's really easy to see uh where each everything aligns. So, thank you for that. >> All right. Well, then if there's no other comments, uh we'll move on. We don't have any old business.

178Um, up next is public comment. I I saw you looking for the sheets. There's There's only two members of the public here. I'm just going to sort of ask forward members if anybody wants to make a public comment. Are you guys would you guys be okay with that? >> Yeah. >> Okay. Do does anybody from the public want to speak? >> You're good. All right. Well, then we'll move on to three main points. Yes. So I have the three main points as the superintendent search update, the student achievement report and the school implement improvement plans. >> Yeah, I think I think that's it. >> Okay, great. >> All right. So then upcoming events. Okay. Um CLASS ongoing from now until the 24th is the book fair. The 22nd, 23rd, and 24th are parent teacher conferences,

179and both all of those days are early dismissal for CLES. Uh now through October 31st is the Candlewood craze, which is the PTO fall fundraiser. Um the 31st is the Candlewood craze event if the goals are met. So, uh parents are encouraged to set up a profile for their child and help meet the fundraising goals for the school. Um 10:30 is October 30th is the pause assembly and cubs club meeting and November 3rd is the kindergarten field trip to the Ridgefield Playhouse. For Wiskier, November 3rd through 7th is the Scholastic Bookf Fair. November 5th and 6th are parent teacher conferences and so those are half days for WMS students. Um they're also the BHS parent teacher conferences. So they're also half days for BHS. Thursday, November 13th is the student the uh Whiskanir student showcase.

1806:00 to 8:00 PM here at the BHS auditorium. And then for Brookfield High School, Sunday, October 26th is uh 3 p.m. is the Booster Club's Harlem Wizards basketball event. Um tickets are on sale now online. Wednesday, November 5th and 6th, parent teacher conferences, half day for students. And November 10th is the NHS blood drive. Districtwide dates to note that are off for students. November 4th, which is also election day. November 27th and 28th, which is Thanksgiving, and the Friday after. Um November 26th, which is the Wednesday, is a half day for all students. Okay. Thank you. All right. Well, um then that is the end of our agenda. So, without objection, we will adjourn at 9:18.