BOE Meeting 5 23 23

001okay I I called the meeting at the board of education for uh May 23rd uh tonight and welcome everybody tonight um we don't have a flag to drink I just you're reading my mind I was just thinking we have a flag in the office or we can face the front of the building where we have our own um all right we're gonna forego but saving your head back okay uh tonight's meeting will be I think fairly short we're going to make some changes to it and we have some guests uh and we're going to be able to hear a little bit more about CIS it's a continuous Improvement plan um so we're going to get to the majority of our meeting tonight and public forum will come after uh through the presentation so if you're

002online for public forum it'll probably come in uh closer to uh eight somewhere between 7 30 and 8 15 uh accordingly so with that we are going to start then with the information reports and Khalil is here and he is going to give the first report High pollution sure you can stand why don't you stand because it's kind of a weird place um sure whatever you want to do so for our past events uh Wednesday May 10th the CMS hurricane Middle School had their grade 7 Spring Concert went great um on May 11th um it was it was the May 11th it was a spring into kindergarten visitation day Thursday May 11th from Friday May 12th from the CMS student council events which went greatly um Tuesday May 16th was the CIS grade six music

003concert which I hear was also amazing on Wednesday May 17th the Juniors had their ngss testing Wednesday May 17th was the season towards the chamber primary school art show on May 17th was the CIS grade five music concert and Thursday May 18th which is CIS grade 4 music concert followed by Friday May 19th in eighth grade music advice casing I can't speak I'm sorry it was a trip there's a trip on uh on that 19. and Friday May 19th is the high school elementary school tour all right yeah okay so for ongoing events uh students experience uh 12 through 11 to 12 um have begun to take their finals most of our elections right now and the seniors will begin tomorrow in about two weeks from now and then other other customers follow them was

004it goes across have begun there and Triple C permanent runs a Singapore had had their last meeting of the year and during that they came in for us to spread positivity on school canvas so for upcoming returning fourth CHS band is going to be March into the senior center tomorrow as well it'll also be the CIS grade in addition to that it's also going to be the CIS art show on Thursday May 25th is going to be the CHS honors celebration a senior picnic's gonna be Friday May 26th at five Meadow day camp in grenadine that's also going to be our release for all schools Monday the 29th there's not going to be any school for Memorial Day Tuesday the 30th is going to be the event celebrating the superintendent case uh Wednesday May 31st

005there's the CMS moving up day CIS volunteer luncheon and the CHS Coral concert uh Thursday June 1st is going to be Cultural Arts day where some high school music ensembles are coming down to CIS and Performing some things for kids um as well as CMS we speak as from social justice event is going to be on that day as well as the senior scholarship celebration that evening uh Friday June 2nd is going to be the CMS 7th grade field trip as well as cbps children's Fair Saturday June 3rd is going to be the Canton Public Schools just Driftwood chamber Dave uh Tuesday June 6 is going to be the CHS end of year sports award tonight and then graduation for the class of 2023 is on June 9th and then following that is going to

006be the substance free celebration as well I'm not sure on the date but the art Society is hosting graduation cap decorations I believe that's from the fourth week that's good yeah okay so uh what's the mood in the high school as we start coming down to the end of the line here all seniors technology we are definitely um ready to be done a lot of you I mean the end of the year for every move uh sort of you know contacting everything that you've learned in here and trying to get into those finals and I mean not everyone's taking them but um it's definitely a lot of information this teachers are trying to get as much out of students as they can but I'm sure we'll miss it when it's over so I'm I'm not

007I'm not rushing it I don't think anyone's really rushing and I just but again I leave here and then there's a lot of fun I said he's coming up like that and then our stuff is free on the United States so so some advice from an old man with gray hair for white hair actually um these are the best days these these days will stay with you forever so enjoy them don't get too uh too stressed out uh not too much anxiety and just enjoy your friends some you won't see again and some you will and and the ones that maybe you don't see and 20 30 years later it's like you pick up like you haven't ever left each other so really have uh enjoy it and I'm glad we have all these activities

008planned for you guys so you can enjoy it absolutely um Bella what are you doing this summer uh Khalil shared with us a little earlier with me anyway in Mr Case are you working or uh what's your plan yeah I'm gonna be doing some work at um playables and Avon but I don't know if I have any like concrete uh plans so far for the summer I'll probably have a little bit somewhere I'm going to England but I definitely gotta do some of that uh summer work for college and did you pick your couch last time I spoke to you a while ago yes I've been committed to Marist College excellent beautiful on the river beautiful School so on the sixth on the sixth we will meet our new uh Representatives uh and we'll save

009that uh for that announcement for uh for the six but we'll be saying goodbye to our student reps and we hope that you'll be able to make it on the six so we can all um say farewell and um enjoy you for one more meeting okay um Eric is there anything you want to add to any of that or no no just make sure you come on Eric was uh Erica was wonderful um going through this with Dr Kidwell and making the selection of our our new reps and uh more to come on that and I want to see over Thunder but thank you for taking the time in those early morning meetings to getting that done so great any other questions for our student reps okay all right moving on I think we have

010one PTO report which is in our in our kit and um I'll just let you read that uh and kind of go over it and see that once again our ptos are so active this is the uh middle school PTO cable report we'll probably have another report in our next meeting on the 6th but um sometimes I wonder how the school would operate without our ptos and so so dedicated so selfless and the things that they do and the activities they do and they supplement and complement uh the district so well especially in areas financially where we certain things that we can't do the parents step up and we're that's what makes Canton a great Community I think that's why people move here is uh a our schools will be the sense of community the

011parents form and the PTO so take a moment they took the time to put together um this report just take a look at it and we can uh we'll put that as part of the minutes going forward okay uh now we're going to move right into Mr case's report um and hear what he has to say just in case thank you chair Daniels good evening everybody it's great to see all of you um tonight I have a couple of things to share the first is that last night we had a diversity equity and inclusion Community Gathering this is a follow-up to the community Gathering that we held on January 18th and again this Gathering was facilitated by Dr Shannon holder and Trida Collier dickenman um our crack um resource Specialists Focus you know experts in

012diversity equity and inclusion and we talked about three things number one Dr holder reviewed at a high level the focus group results from January 18th and we'll be um will be taking a deeper dive into what folks had to say on that evening as we form our action plan for next year we're calling it an equity action plan we took a look at our Equity statement that the Board of Education adapted in June of 2021 to see how we are doing in each of those areas and we learned about the cycle of socialization in What's called the cycle of liberation and if anyone is interested in knowing more about about that we certainly can send you some information and those of you who are at home if you'd like to know more just send me

013an email kks at cantonschools.org and we'll make sure we get you that information so we're going to be busy um over the summer I say we I will be busy through June helping our administrative team plan for next year and we've already been in conversation with your next superintendent Dr Grossman who will continue to carry on this work here in Canton so it was a great evening last night and I thank Shannon and treated for facilitating and for our board members who are able to be there as you can imagine this is not only a very busy time with all of the exciting end of the year events but administratively we're already busy recruiting and hiring our staff for next year because as we know we can never start early enough so as a matter

014of fact today we did hire we did hire a World Language teacher for the high school so um interviews are set up for tomorrow for our special education teacher vacancies specifically our Thrive program now that the budget has passed we're able now to fill the special ed teacher vacancies and the para educator vacancies so we are moving along quickly to do that so we can we can find the most highly qualified individuals for those positions we're also looking for a school counselor here at Canton Intermediate School as you know last time you approved Lynn Kaufman's resignation we'll be looking for our math interventionist at the high school level which was approved through this budget we'll also be looking for our literacy Innovation specialist also known as our library media um library media drawing a blank

015now specialist at the high school as Katie mattioli has resigned we've posted that position and there was some question as to how that position would be posted I know one of our staff members emailed a couple members of the board wondering whether certification in library library media science would be required and after quite a bit of discussion we are requiring that for the position so if anyone else if anyone reaches out to you we are requiring it we were going to say preferred but we really believe as Mr Bishop and I talked that it's important that our staff have those qualifications the difficulty there are challenges that it is a shortage area so there may not be a large pool of candidates to choose from who have that certification so so I guess the question

016would be and I understand why you won't be required and I think that's great but I also understand why it might be preferable because of that and we've heard through the input that we've received drop year about Staffing shortages and what that does I would hate to see that position go unfilled just because of the requirement I would almost you know look for a short term I don't know if we can do a short-term film but I'd hate to leave that position open if we didn't get somebody with the exact qualifications that we're looking for I don't know if anybody else wants to know Lou you're exactly right um that position is too important to go unfilled so if we did not find anyone with that certification we could ask the state for What's called

017the dsap dsap a durational shortage well I don't know what AP stands for area provision right so there is there is a process with the state that if we find a highly qualified individual but they don't need all of the requirements of the certification we can still hire them because it is a shortage area there are certain certain Staffing areas that are designated shortage areas by the state special education is one of them mathematics library media so we'll definitely fill the position with the most highly qualified person so your confidence will fill in position we are going to fill the position okay absolutely it's two two important a position at the high school and then of course search process and the recruiting process is underway for the Cherry Brook Primary School on principleship Dr Grossman

018is working with um Rebecca Corto our principal here at Canton intermediate school and with Mr Bishop our assistant superintendent we're very fortunate that both Rebecca and John have agreed to co-chair the initial search code and we now have people coming forward from throughout the community in response to Dr Grossman's letter for people who want to serve on the committee so that's the next step selecting the people who will serve on the committee we have dates already set up for the application screening process in the interview process so that is well underway and applications are being received on a daily basis so we're busy with the recruiting and hiring process for next year does anyone have any questions here all right thank you we had some great meetings with with our Paris tutors Subs uh there

019were minutes taken from that I wonder if we could Supply the board window with those minutes buddy when you get a second just so they can see some of the areas that we're going to be working on going forward would that be all right absolutely okay okay thank you Mr Case excellent report so now we move on uh to Mr Bishop you have a guest you're going to introduce us here too I do and I'm to be able to introduce this guest here tonight after a long period of time searching for the right person to be able to join the Canton Public Schools and be able to support us on a work in partnering with students and families to be able to continue to promote successful Pathways for all and in partnership with our open

020Choice program we feel thrilled to be able to welcome Miss Sarah Jones Miss Jones has been with us for about five weeks six six this is the sixth week so far and it has already made a tremendous impact within our community providing support for our Administration for our staff and most importantly for our students and families too so Sarah we're thrilled to be able to have you here tonight and uh would love for you to be able to just have an opportunity to be able to greet the board and be able to share a little bit about yourself [Laughter] John didn't tell you that you have to assume your college fight song before you begin you didn't all right well all right so [Laughter] um I just wanted to thank you all for the opportunity

021to come tonight and to be well um in person I have gotten some Zoom squares of a few of you so it's nice to see you all in person um want to share a little bit about my background although I know many of you saw uh Mr Bishop's gracious uh introduction to me when I first joined several weeks ago um so I Canton has you know a couple people have asked me along the way sort of why Canton or what made you figure out the internet I will admit up front that Kim has been on my radar for a really long time um I was as a baby baby um a colleague of Dr Grossman a thousand years ago when we were both at Manchester High School and as he went he went out to

022pursue his administrative dreams as an assistant principal again High School um farewell as colleagues but we've remained a touch over those years and so it's so it was known a little bit about Canton as I've started to follow his career um so when he left me alone at Manchester High I was the activities director there and I spent 14 years there um I know that Dr Grossman's one of his mentors uh Joe already also served in that roles I feel like I come from a very nice lineage of um of people who kind of spent a little bit of time doing that with students and the Student Activities program at Manchester High School was very large at the time that I was serving at one point I think we were up over 2400 students so

023you know that's in one school but you know almost twice as many students as there are again completely so I've been playing over and over my head something I learned from um a person who's not a superintendent and it can be written but who also was a colleague some years ago in Manchester um that you know don't apply big school or big District Solutions the middle school or little District problems so I've been trying to keep that in mind as I'm sort of learning and listening to everyone who's been sharing um very graciously since I arrived um after I left Manchester High School I um decided that I wanted to kind of spread my wings a little bit I'd been in Manchester basically since I graduated college Uconn and um I took an opportunity to

024go work for a traveling boarding school and so it's a chance to live in Buenos Aires Argentina and then also in Boston it was an international school service students from all over the world so Boston was an international City even though you know feels a little bit like home for us um and then also in Hyderabad India which is sort of the tech capital of India and it's a spot that I think the most Microsoft employees um live and work than anywhere else in the world aside from Washington um staying so it's a very interesting and exciting time to go around and travel and uh then I decided I wanted to come back home and see what what music there was to do and so I joined the governor's prevention partnership which is an agency

025that does some safe School climate and some anti-bullying work and some um some substance misuse prevention work with you so I was lucky enough to to try my hand at that and then that led me to the State education Resource Center which really I think set the stage for sort of a match here with the camp because combining all of those experiences and being able to have gone out and do some training in positive behavioral interventions and supports restorative practices racial Equity working on a federal school climate and transformation Grant across the state they're just excellent opportunities to cut big systems but also help um and so after just over eight years at Circ I decided to start thinking about what my next thing might be and one of the things that I loved about

026Consulting was getting out and being able to work with lots of different people in lots of different communities something I really missed about being in a school was like what happens so you see like you go you meet with administrators you go you meet the teachers and you have all these great conversations and there's lots of intention and interest in what you're talking about but then you leave and you're not entirely sure if it really happens and so I um really wanted to get back into a place where you can kind of see it play out day to day and so that's sort of what led me to applying and I really appreciated the very thoughtful and um process that we went through um you know with the interviews I got to learn a lot

027about the community and a lot about the school system from the members who sat on the panel and I really appreciate that and so as as was mentioned I started about six six weeks ago um on the 17th and since then I've been um really trying to just get around and meet students and meet staff and I've been kind of meeting kids off the bus in the morning just sort of saying hello and getting to know them I visited um here almost every day at the intermediate school and over at Cherry Brook as well and then my in the high school so I'm at the high school kind of by the after Bus arrival most days um we've been trying to sort of establish uh for those of you who knew Mr Campbell um when

028he retired last year there was a little bit of a just just communication gap I think that we were trying to sort of reestablish and so I've been trying to reach out to our families who reside in Harvard and just let them know that the position had been filled within that there's someone that they can contact I've been working with our prep Partners to kind of understand like what supports and what Partnerships we can do to ensure that students are as successful as they they can be here in Canton and excess as successful as we would like them today um and then sort of that sort of run the more personal side and then on the uh sort of more systems side looking at school climate information looking at sort of our attendance policies and

029practices and thinking about what that might look forward Behavioral systems um an initial meeting with Dr Grossman and Mr Bishop about some programmatic ideas so with all that I sort of expect back in front of you all in the fall with some more formal plans and information we look forward to that so questions for Sarah any questions so uh being here six weeks I'm not going to ask you about the challenges you'll let us know about that in September but so do we have any bright spots what would you say is you know as you start to look around over the six weeks what have you looked at and said wow it's pretty good I mean I think people right people have been beyond I mean from students to to staff to families that I'm

030still going to everyone's been very positive very um welcoming very very gracious what I ask like questions over and over again about sort of how does that work or what does that mean um and so I think the people for sure kind and respectful all right Sarah welcome good luck and uh when you're in the fall we look forward to getting those reports and anything else that you may need be interested in hearing thank you so much thank you and I know you have quite a drive so feel free to um sneak out okay uh so my report so uh I have a few things to go over um I want I wanted to revisit uh Michelle trobbs uh uh sabbatical I've talked to a few of you and um as you recall she made

031a presentation about her sabbatical and the issue was uh contractually um it's in the contract for a teacher to request a sabbatical it's a discussion of the board the problem is we don't have any criteria on what how to measure a sabbatical and how how it should what the expectations are and what the return on investment might be Michelle came back to me and said listen I I really think that this could be good for camping she said but I understand that we don't have a criteria in place to really judge the sabbaticals she said but I'm I'm willing to raise my own support I think I can raise minimally 80 and potentially greater she said but before I go through that work I'd like to know from the board if I can raise the

032support would the board be willing to um to support me in the sabbatical you might remember now have the exact figures about eleven five or so eleven thousand five hundred dollars was the was the bogey uh as far as what it was gonna cost the Board of Education uh for the sabbatical and that covers her and um and some time so eighty percent of that would be ninety two hundred dollars so the thought is uh Michelle's looking for if she can raise minimally ninety two hundred dollars or maybe the whole thing and it has to be done institutionally it can be done through family friends teachers or others because that would that would kind of skew that puts her in a position what was these if you will so um it would have to be

033institutional and there are there are places if she's discussed there's a couple grants that are available to her for that type of thing and I know rotary would consider Canton Education Foundation and so on and so forth so I'm not asking for a motion I'm just asking for a kind of a soft opinion on this and I think that's what Michelle is looking for she puts the effort in just want to raise the money and then come back and we say well we're not going to be able to do it she's looking to know that if if she can raise the money would we be willing to support her in sabbatical so thoughts my question is if the reason one of the reasons why we were hesitant about it was that we need the criteria

034we have no criteria right how does the money answer that question that we don't we still have the criteria we don't have the criteria to judge a sabbatical but the thought is if if one of the big concerns of this award was the financial obligation if she could meet the financial obligation and as you all know we're going to be going through teacher negotiations next year and it's one of my areas to one of the things that I've checked we'll discuss so it really is until we do that if you met the financial obligation would that or for the board we will be setting the president's number there's some problems down the road so in checking again a little bit with um board attorneys told me about the institutional side of things we wouldn't be

035setting impressive because we would then be putting it into the criteria will be established within the teacher's contract next time around and that would be done for the 24 25 school year so I don't think we're setting anything out setting up a precedent in any way I think it's better than the financial concern with my concerns you know right here well yeah because um by the way I told her if the board does decide to move this way we would need to know by September 30th whether she has the point or not she plans to leave Ward I believe it's the 24th January through June of 2024. so she would need to start her fundraising and earn this right away so she was looking for some type of thought from the board if she's able

036to come up with with the dollar she'll present that to the board at that point we would accept it as important we would vote then September if she doesn't make it she knows what the what the line is and if she's going to fall short she'll know that then she'll have to make her own decision foreign [Music] so but she has to come to us to show that she raised it she can't just say it because that money has to come to us okay yeah it has to be made out to the board it has to be institutional institutional ization yeah parent can't say you know here's here's the dollars that would obligate so you would feel an obligation so that's why it has to be institutional like organizations like rotary and she has some

037Grand foundations that she's still here can't use their own money that's a great question John could you remember and at this point because we Master yeah we've said Daniel's disaster yeah any questions Kim I'll go to this side while you guys think of it okay that's what I was going to ask was she able to use your own money and then if it if we do end up going this route so we we would be paying two thousand dollars minimally and then they have during that time I've heard that you may have lost the sub that she had she had talked to Kevin I don't know if you know any of this so we would work hard to find the substitute Felicia so [Music] um just generally a feeling what's your general feeling if she's

038going to go to work on this so I'm going to go around again Erica um I'm just I'm a little conflicted I mean generally I would support continuing education for a teacher always but I Cindy and I were just trying to recall I think there were other concerns [Music] you know multiple concerns there was the money but then there was also there continuity of students yeah would it be helpful if you're moving this to the sixth which is only you know could have a refresh everybody maybe we can send out her presentation again would that be helpful yeah maybe that would be maybe give us a little bit of time okay all right um that'd be great so see if we can cover that is that okay Kim Alicia I believe in concern was before

039what um educational benefits was bringing back to the students like right like what was the lesson she was learning that she was actually going to apply within the district of for our students investment basically yes certainly okay so why don't we do that for the six so we'll table that action to the six uh I did want to mention Memorial Day parade is this uh Monday and when we have everybody all right uh and uh of course our superintendent is invited and I invited Mr Bishop also if you would like to march with us so these the uh the um organizational time is at 9 30. step off I believe is at 10 o'clock so okay so 9 30. wear comfortable shoes in 9 30 here CIS correct okay and Bella I think you volunteered

040with someone okay thank you for the banner make sure we have that right okay um I want to mention for your calendars on 810 cab is having their one day seminar down in uh Water's Edge in Westbrook uh Mr case and I attended last year it was a it was really a very good one-day seminar so it's uh uh you know begins it uh again at 10 we had lunch and then there's a dinner involved so it's at Water's Edge if you mark your calendars for 8 10 uh just think about it until when Claudia uh goes to register she'll know how many are coming from August 10. I thought it was in the fall so the second thing I'm going to tell you is the cape conference is November which is a two-day conference

041down in Mystic which is also really good and uh extremely beneficial with a lot of different seminars and forums that is uh for your calendars again it's 11 17 through 18. 11 17 through 18 and that's in Mystic and we can make those arrangements for you they have rooms at the Marriott right there on site so pretty board member that would like to come again I think it's uh it's pretty beneficial um I did want to mention that um on Thursday morning if anyone else would like to attend the superintendent myself Donna miskowski in in Tom Richardson will be meeting in the superintendent's office just to talk about the building maintenance where we are and specifically about the promotion ceremonies and the graduation ceremonies it bothers me to no end when I go by our

042schools and they're not trimming and there's grass growing up between the fences and all the work that we did last year is starting to pour through and we just came through a very difficult budget year where the taxpayers have uh given given us their trust and making sure not only are we falling through academically but we're also taking care of their buildings when our buildings start to look like they are right now um I feel that we're shirking our responsibilities for them so anybody else is welcome to attend that meeting it's at eight o'clock in the superintendent's Thursday Thursday correct and it's at 8 A.M Thursday okay and then um excuse me well if you are coming can you let us know because we'll need to post that if there are more than I think

043three members time for Wednesday can you tell me like tomorrow morning so please let Claudia know if you're attending I don't enjoy your roommate I'm gonna try again okay so we know we have Joe myself any other board member just so we know okay then it's just on myself okay uh and then the final thing is I've mentioned uh we have the teachers contract coming up and um we have I've assigned um the members of the board some members of the board to be on that Cindy I think uh Ryan myself we should present you yeah and Felicia those would be the former board members representing this on the teacher's contract I'll be rotating others in on a pair of contract and it'll be also coming up during weekend discussions on next year uh in

044September and um and then as far as the um principal's search I appointed Felicia and Russell to be on that on that principal search and I've been working with Mrs cortell and Mr Bishop and the committee they put together for that first round that's my report any any questions for me concerns comments okay all right well this leads us to a very exciting report from our Ecuador trip that kind of got changed last minute but um Mrs fabrisi is here in Mrs sack is here and some of the students they're going to tell us about that trip and uh clearly it went well because you're smiling and that that's always a good sign well good evening everyone and thank you so much for having us here uh we are so excited to be reporting on

045our beautiful and wonderful liquid joint trip um I want to introduce you to miss Andrea she checked with my colleague and my trusted companion on this wonderful trip and then we have for you to introduce yourselves uh yeah I'm Grayson Morgan um so anyway um we are going to guide you through some of those pictures um everybody has a little cartridge to play it tonight so um this is my fourth time presenting to the board you know having having come back from trips and one of them was with Mr Case um I'm really I'm still as excited as I was as the first time I started news trips um a while back when I first started in Canton so um I think this is a tradition in our town to continue those trips um we

046are so happy that we can do those again of course kovitz stopped that and unfortunately but um feels like it's back to normal now so let's just um guide you through some of our trip and then um we'll have the Reflection from our students as well and I will just end the presentation with the little folks that we have okay so um thank you everybody again good evening we're really happy to be here uh you know just a few extra things like behind the scenes from all the pictures that probably don't need these words but just a cultural experience that we offer that cult the language immersion the confidence that you come back with like these trips are you know overall like absolutely phenomenal for the well-being of all of these students and then we've

047shown them the gift of travel open their perspectives kind of wet their feet to Future travel so we we stand by them and thank you very much okay so for the first picture um we were standing by the equator and it was really fun and we did something oh yeah for the next one and we did some experiments there we got to see the stars of the southern hemisphere next question anybody wants to comment on that all right these are the street vendors and um in Quito um they're selling fresh fruits that they grow um these are the the ladies from the indigenous um ladies from Ecuador they're wearing their uh specific costume you know like they it's really very uh authentic right we can't get more authentic than that right and they've really barely

048speak Spanish also that's an interesting fact it's one this this was one of my favorite those are my favorite days this was one of the highlights somebody wanted to talk about that [Music] all right so these are two of my teachers holding the head of a guinea pig that's all I gotta say about that so this is a delicacy so they wanted us to obviously try that and we did um you know everybody tried it here right and maybe it is okay um all right so um we got to hike the Sierra negro volcano um it's massive the picture can't even really capture how huge it is but this whole middle area everything that's darker there is the Caldera so it's huge and we hiked up it it took a while maybe an hour or

049so um it was very hot but it was a lot of fun and it was definitely worth it at the top when it was nice and windy at the top and had a great View and that volcano erupted in 2018. so we were lucky to actually see that here we are again doing our favorite activity shopping but we shopped in a very specific Market the indigenous the largest indigenous Market called otavalo and as you can tell we actually the whole experience we had to bar again which was a really good experience right the guide explained to us how to do the bargaining so all of this of course and espanol right in the language so that was a good experience and I know I heard so many kids come and say hey you know what

050I got that shirt for 10 bucks so yeah looks just like our shops yeah but it's outdoors and we have like the Olympian you know brain I mean incredible designers yeah right that day yes we're littering your bags do we have there exactly yeah a lot of stuff for the classroom okay oh yeah yeah yeah but this picture doesn't do it justice I actually adjusted it I thought it was going to be a live Google slide just there are pictures of the market the whole market and it's just shop after shop of handmade crafts that that base this is their library and so it's quite amazing this is um it was quite an experience for everybody to use their skills and a lot of them couldn't even communicate in Spanish or actually um that our

051guy told us about this volcano he mentioned that it was acted you can tell that was that's not a cloud that wasn't there when we first got to the airport it was just doing that so I mean it was pretty unique to just be sitting at the airport and just see that happen is really cool the name of this volcano is is one of the highest volcanoes in Ecuador [Music] um to get to our hotel we had to take a plane to a bus to a boat to a bus to a boat and then walk down some some little path so I mean yeah I don't know if you can tell but it was very hot patience yeah a lot of patients yes okay so anybody's planting so he actually got invited to go grab

052some trees uh course like Sanctuary kind of place there's giant words that just running around everywhere um and we got to they had these little saplings all ready for us so they were already like holes stuck on the ground and we got to go like pick a hole and plant a tree like to make a little more yeah and we were invited to come back in 20 years right that's what they said we actually will have some food or something okay and all right that's why I had to go outside [Music] and they swim very fast yeah are those ones who bite and have boys okay tons of different species so we get to learn you know ends up in this um creatures right so many of them don't exist anywhere else in the world

053oh I want to talk about this okay so there are sea lights right yeah so there were sea lions everywhere just everywhere we would walk by them they would be like three inches from our feet they were everywhere and it was so everybody else that lives there was so casual about them and I thought it was really funny like they think of them like we think of squirrels you know but these are massive hundreds of pounds of animals so I I just they're just you got a report that somebody tried to bring one home on a plane racing for the pool right they take over the benches really they are they're just like right there so you know sit down with no there's a skill there so yeah oh so many times we saw some

054of them on a rock when you're on a boat there are a whole bunch of them there so this is a picture then unique to the God by no silence okay so when we're scuba diving we actually saw a giant manta ray it was like really big oh Stingray actually and I thought it was a robin but it's like it was really big and then we also saw little manta rays those were just swimming around like when we were shopping in that area sounds Santa Cruz yeah so they have like this little pier like he looked over there were like a bunch of little manta rays and yeah they were just kind of scattered around right scuba diving um snorkeling [Laughter] how big was it I wasn't lucky I I didn't yeah we didn't get

055to cinema they were ridiculous thing they were just so close to us that that's what made it really unique yes very fast you know there was a very very best everything I was just talking about this little bus there we go it's the sides are open uh so it's like open air this benches yeah they don't have AC ID so it was really nice to check so we're traveling and one of the main ghosts we took right to go places yeah [Music] Santa Cruz is the Galapagos were basically where uh Charles garment interior Evolution so they have a station here of that depending elsewhere foreign yeah if I didn't try everybody's try that one was that I do it let's do that fish and we had it I think just about every single day once

056you're going to Galapagos and this is one of the last pictures one last day the sand is really really almost remarkable sure Guys Wilson and they treated us really well he was with us from the moment we landed till the moment we left and he was sad and it was just such a bunch that is also a that's one of the experiences that's really bond that is created between and moving on a person from the country in order you know he was obviously bilingual and explained to the students sometimes in Spanish sometimes in English and just made you know a really special memories and this is a quote that we saw at the Charles Darwin Center curiosity leaders leads us down the path and I really like this quote because obviously in Canton High School

057one of the pillars of education at the high school the three pillars is collaboration perseverance and curiosity and I think you know bringing students through other places is really just doing that making them curious about the World opening their eyes to different things and I really think when you see them when you hear them speak about their their testimony for this trip that your eyes right and to a different world right completely different in different languages different foods and then on the other side also is the the experience of being together with your peers for one week you know sharing you know a room and you know just having to deal with you know um waiting for a long time maybe in airports you know uh playing cards which you guys did you know you

058did a great job at that being very patient because of the delays we had um but so I don't know in conclusion I don't know if anybody has anything else to add I would like to know from from the four of you what's what's one of the greatest takeaways that you're you left Ecuador with something that you didn't know when you arrived but you're leaving with one thing I guess mine sorry um my first one like the first thing that comes to mind is just a new view I mean these are people I've grown up with that I've spent years with but I've never grown close to them and being physically close to them for the trip really helped me with that so it's just a new view on experiences with people that you might

059not be friends with but you know no because of you know being physically thank you I just found it super interesting to be like another country and to be able to be like immersed in a different culture thank you um I couldn't do really agree with the Christian um I think he was a real New View for everyone especially being able to travel so young with so many of your good friends as opposed to like with one other person or your parents like I think it was just really unique and giving people being able to like experience the culture but that was really um eye of the day uh I thought it was cool to actually like put Spanish like into action because we've been practicing that for like five years and never really had

060the chance to actually speak to like people who actually speak that as a native language so being able to like bargain with people or just like have a conversation was pretty cool thank you all and this is sabrizi and this is Shaq the work that goes on behind the scenes to arrange a trip like this and the work that you had to do quickly when they when we couldn't go to Peru you moved within 24 hours to arrange this and trips like this wouldn't happen without the two of you and I've had the pleasure and will always remember of my years as superintendent of traveling very unique with you to Costa Rica one of the highlights one of the highlights of my 17 years here and Andrea you've come to join the Canton Public Schools

061and we're so thrilled that you have with your passion and enthusiasm um thank you for allowing our students to have this opportunity thank you all thanks for being here we are definitely hoping to continue you know to travel you know so for many more years okay so yeah thank you all keep up the great work thank you thank you so much [Applause] okay without further Ado I'd like to uh just in case information so it's our pleasure this evening to be here at um Canton Intermediate School and um what's really wonderful in the setup tonight is that we're facing this wonderful wonderful mural that was put together by our Canton Intermediate School community in the greater uh Community as well it's a beautiful mosaic and um it just represents the culture and climate here at

062Canton Intermediate School which are outstanding leader Mrs Rebecca Cortel has worked hard to establish over the last few years so tonight we'll be able to hear about the great work that's happening here and Mrs Porto will talk about some of the goals that we're accomplished this year among many other things so thanks Rebecca for for being here and thank you for your patience as you run a little bit later on our agenda tonight no problem thank you I was joking with a couple of people that I think I will forever hope that this meeting is scheduled for here at school the same week that we have our art show because it's it's pretty cynical the amount of work that's discussed you with parent volunteers setting up so that every student has a piece of art

063on this slide but um before you leave pop your head into the gym it's very impressive I wanted to start and I'm going to close also with a quote that actually goes in our mural that was written in collaboration by several of our students and we developed three different quotes that we wanted to be the theme of our mural and then our students all voted in what they determined to be our theme for their mural and the inspiration for our mural was at CIS we grow like Rising Stars we grow as students Learners creative thinkers and friends with positive character um so if that doesn't embody what we're trying to do as CFS I don't know what else would but that was like I said crafty buyer students um this evening I'm excited to be

064able to share with you some of our achievements and our proud moments that we've had at school this year um it was certainly a year not without its challenges but I'm I'm incredibly proud of what our teachers and what our students were able to accomplish so thank you for allowing me the opportunity to share with you some of those proud moments um so a reminder of what our continuous Improvement plans set out to achieve when I shared it with you in the fall ultimately all of the work that being outlined in our goal advances our strategic thing and falls into this year two primary areas we have an academical and we have two climate related goals this was our academic goal I'm very much focused on growth so we had two kind of benchmarks and

065goals that we said for ourselves and the first are that students who are at grade level in the fall would remain at grade level at different points when we assess them I'm going to be sharing winter data which was collected in January review so that means that students are growing and they're staying on that trajectory to be able to gain a Year's worth of growth and value over the course of the year our second goal was that for those students who in the fall were not at benchmark we don't want them to just stay on the trajectory of gaining one year worth of growth but we hope that they have accelerated learning then they end the year closer to if not at Benchmark closer to Benchmark with the work that they and their teachers do

066together so room of students who are at Benchmark in the wall they don't always reach Benchmark by this spring um our goal is that they make more than one year's worth of growth and we can do that over multiple years then they eventually won't even work so that's why we're focused on that accelerated growth for our true academic goals so we'll start with math I recognize that it can be challenging without the pre-test data that we do collect and kind of see where the growth is when we look at the top chart of the post assessment scores but I include that here because when we have conversations about students and we are determining do we need intervention plans for students and if they are in need of some small group instruction we need to use

067multiple points of data for that and one of those points is our curricular assessments so this is kind of the chart that we would start at that's the biggest most Broad View that we would look at um and from there we would drill down to which standards our students struggling with and that would inform what type of bridges intervention we're going to be doing what volume and what module will we be starting up for a student um we then move on to our star assessments these are our Universal assessments to be complete in the fall in the winter and in the spring and a reminder that when for example in grade four we had 64 percent of our students who are at Benchmark for either the bottom is The Benchmark or the further grade equivalency

068those are two ways that the data is reported to us from a star four months later we would want to see 64 percent of our students at minimum still meeting what our Benchmark is at that time so anytime we can see an increase of 9 or 14 that means that students who are at Benchmark remain there and then we've accelerated growth and more students are where we want them to be for you four months later um minimum we want to see that we're maintaining the numbers as we see like in fifth grade with 62 62 that doesn't show that there's a lack of growth it means that they grew on the trajectory that we moved on them to be in the remaining Adventure the thing what I'll do is maybe give me an opportunity to

069ask questions as I go through because each page of data can be a little bit heavy so is there any question about the math I'll move on it's not that we don't have questions it's just we're waiting we'd like to see how it progresses and I think you're because this is winter data and now as we go through the spring your your September October presentation is going to be yeah and then really tell the table that is a challenge because so the data was collected in September and January so we're talking we're looking at four year four months where did it grows right um said it is data that we use we have February data team meetings where we're designing plans for students and we have April that a team meetings we're looking to see

070if those fans that we created in February were impressive but I do see the need for that that big picture um one of the other data points that we look at it can be difficult sometimes for us to gather is the mobility and so when we talk about accelerated growth it's really worth looking for students who can jump from one band to another they're not at Benchmark the other categories we might have students there on watch on the intervention plan intervention bands and an urgent intervention a student who's following a trajectory of meeting one year's worth of growth would stay in that band each time they're assessed so a student on water will remained on watch both in January when we assessed them and then again our hope is that students who aren't at Benchmark

071are able to jump up and dance and that's what this attorney shows us um so you know for years we've been going through the binders and looking at students and kind of charting it for ourselves this year using LinkedIn which mrisha Mr key to bringing to the district of this board supported um just very quickly to have to have a little bit more of the working with teachers on the plan and so what we see here is the mobility of those students so in in grade four for example percent of our students who are on watch in the fall they moved up to Benchmark by the winter so these are the numbers when I'm talking percent of our students taking accelerated growth this is the drug that I look at um in addition to that

072we had 31 of our students in the area met alone were an intervention to actually went up two levels so that's not just accelerated growth that's incredibly safe that's a big jump those students went right to Benchmark and six percent of our students who are in the Urgent intervention band those are our most struggling most vulnerable Learners I'm also we've had such steep accelerated growth the bottom chart is also showing Mobility data but that's looking at sustained acceleration comparing last winter to this winter it's covering right around you know the 33 35 of students making accelerating growth moving from abandon to below Benchmark to abandons either Adventure benchmark [Laughter] [Music] a green band is looking at where our current fifth graders last year as fourth graders where they were compared to now were they over

073100 years so it's comparing whole words [Music] it is more simplest form though wondering over the course of this year are our students growing we rely on our skills scores and also on our quantiles so these show purely this year's students grade four in the fall where their median score was in grade four in the winter and you can see with each of the grade levels then there is growth from fall to winter and there are still sort of sports comparisons and the white bar there shows their goal would be so in each of these not only are we starting but angle when we last assessed we had Insurance growth I was still exceeding and the same pattern holds when we look at quantile so quantile scores that those quantile scores correlate with the concepts

074that a student is ready to learn so the higher a quantile score the more complex skill or More Concept students are ready to master and ready to learn so this graph shows the median quantile growth for each grade from the fall to the winter in the white line or in some cases the Blue Line shows what gold was so for example in grade four the goal for the fall of grade four is the juantado scored 540 our median score for our fourth graders versus 355. incredible amount of growth between the fall and the winter in our fourth grade class and they're now exceeding what the goal is so a lot of hard work on the part of the teachers and of our fourth grade students we're not as far off in the beginning of fall

075for fifth grade and then we see again growth to exceed in both Fitness it was by the time we had our wedding dresses what would you what do you attribute that deficit to is that still covered or is it switching schools or I think it's probably a combination of both of those things these are fourth graders were significantly impacted by the distance learning I think that what this graph shows us is it's not for a lack of ability to learn because in four quick months they were able to go from pretty well below to exceeding part of it could be summer part of it could be transitioning into the year I think that I'm happy to see is when I look at like summerslide between our grades when we don't have that transition that students

076are maintaining their skills I'm not sure exactly without probably having more years worth of dad as you know we always start that loud for a great confidence a steep amount of progress was it like that last year that's my I'm not sure and so I think without being able to look at that I've had a difficult time in 2020 exactly what it was we do know that some of our students the transition was challenging for them this year into fourth grade again not an inability to learn by any means this was also their first year taking this assessment too so we we saw that a movement and chairman as well it was their first year this year again so being able to connect with an assessment to be able to understand how to be able

077to interact with it let's take a little bit higher a little bit of time to follow interesting to see what it is next what do you think too this fourth grade they were shut down in first grade and then second and third grade they're curriculum although the teachers were teaching math relaxed manipulatives this small group partnership the workers a lot of that math programming is interactive and Hands-On materials and that was not the case with kova so like the curriculum although it was taught maybe it wasn't the implemented to Fidelity right and I mean we experienced the same thing here you know every student had their own packet of manipulatives moving them into our language arts data we're focused on our reading level and then again on our star assessments um so the same thing

078holds at minimum we're looking to see students maintaining their skills in the same percentage of students at Benchmark in the winter as there are in the fall and anywhere where we can see growth means that students are that much closer to um foreign Mobility here um just about a third of our students not at Benchmark in the fall showed accelerated growth by the winter 11 of our students that were at in prevention skipped up two levels and what I think is pretty remarkable and a testament to our special education teachers and our reading tutors 15 of our students who are in that urgent intervention band in the fall skipped up two levels and had really steep accelerated growth when they were reassessed just four months later in January so we and then the bottom chart

079shows actually higher levels of sustained acceleration in the area of reading and being kind in math what I will say though is when we look at this data in data teams both in ela Mobility data and the math Mobility data in February our data teams immediately go to the students who didn't make that accelerated group we celebrate for a few minutes those who did but then we're going back to the action plan created back in September and October when they saw who wasn't at Benchmark and we look at those plans and for some students those plans are working and so the goal now for the rest of the year is to maintain that to see if we can continue with the acceleration and for those students that it's not working we're revising spend a half

080day on one of our PD days working with the Department leader and with each other from plans what are our action steps and the students are outside of the classroom working with a tutor but what are we going to do for those students when they're in our classrooms we had about 50 students of concern in February in the area of math and in ela despite having that really remarkable accelerating growth we still had 73 kids that we were worried about in each of those 73 kids had an action plan designed by their teachers so that we could be trying something new and something different between you know January February and April and May to try to keep moving moving kids along we so we use quantile measures in math we are a Lexile more complex

081in text a student is able to read so again here we're comparing just the growth the median growth in those Lexile scores same grade same cohort from the fall to the winter with that white bar being where our goal is so we're starting and ending our benchmarking from all the winter exceeding gold for Lexile but seeing really nice consistent growth between fourth and sixth grade all the way up Rebecca who sets the uh the goal the start of the goal is that you as the principal or you say this is my expectation yeah how's that established um for Lexile and quantile are um Norm reference those are standardizing others so they set their goals and the next chart shows a cohort growth by lifestyle just I was interested in okay so if we're looking at

082the median Lexile for a grade we've only done this now for a couple of years so I don't have a tremendous amount of data but how has our current fifth graders over two years we have fall winter and spring from last year and now I have fallen winter from this year so I have enough data points to really kind of look at over that two-year picture what is that cohorts a growth trajectory look like and that's here for both fifth and sixth grade so you'll see from the beginning of last year fall through to the most recent winter assessments each of the grades increasing in their media and Lexile of score and all the way through exceeding what our goal would be so I'm still confused on the setting the goal when you say they

083set the goal are they setting it recently are they descending it by the state of Connecticut they say by a durg I mean how does that vegetables Norm reference those are standardized National goals and I would imagine National goals are I mean because you're you're homogenizing from coast to coast those expectations to me would seem to be we should be able to hit or receive I think it's fair for us to set our goals and expect Ed it's interesting here fourth graders or way below in math that made tremendous progress in a couple of months but they were above they're reading correctly in Reading you probably have an answer is that a curriculum issue is that a construction issue yeah it's not your school I understand that first yeah you did not have where students

084work for math when we looked at all the data points together and the input from Cherry Brook staff at the end of the year prior we weren't panicking that we needed more math interventionists and then we had a huge amount of deficit we've been able to service the students in math intervention using the same number of staff that we have in the past um but I don't know what to attribute why it was so sure other than um it could have been not familiar with the test format what I do know though is the students who needed support through intervention were able to receive it but that speaks also for reading as well it'll be interesting over time any questions about um okay um so then when we look back on our year I'm at

085the beginning of the year when I had shared with you what our action strategies would be some of the successes were in the professional development they made engaged in as a staff called in the moment wanting to utilize Learning Ally and freckles so that we could have some really individualized on the asynchronous support plans for some students and we also um double down on our student intervention team meeting so we've increased the number of meetings that we've all over need twice a week now we had which then allowed us to increase the number of students that we had in our sit process the student intervention team so we had roughly 25 students there are kids that we exit at points in the year and then there are new students of concern that joined but we

086had about 25 slots and for each of those students throughout the year we spoke about them in terms of parents including classroom teachers the department leader our school psychologists our counseling team and we're really looking at the whole child and making sure that we have the right plans in place to support a student's growth thinking ahead to next year we still don't have 100 of our students at building work so we're going to continue to try to make little adjustments and see what changes we can make that are going to be helpful one of those is thinking about the access that our classroom teachers have to students to do some reteaching of Their Own our Flex block is a wonderful block of time good thing many of our students are going through small group instruction

087with Tutors or special education teachers and so we continue to think about how can those same students also have several teaching experiences with our certified staff teachers the teachers didn't know them so well so we are looking to play around with our special schedule a little bit and increase that contact time especially in our lower two grades Learning Ally was a tool that we found great success with this year we still need more practice utilizing freckle and being effective and efficient with rental so that's something to think about next year and then we're also considering um how can we adjust our intervention blocks you know we've been traditionally servicing students in intervention for possibly for 25 minutes there's some research that shows that longer blocks of time you accomplish more in three 45-minute sessions anyway

088in five 25-minute sessions so thinking about what what's going to be that little push that we need to move ours more of our students to that accelerated growth and that's something that we're going to try is having some longer intervention blocks next year yeah and that was a lot of information about reading and math but I do remiss if I didn't also point out that while much of our Focus because much of our our time during our day is spent on those core skills not all of our teachers are working on math and leading goals our sixth grade writing teachers focus on and structure and informational texts which is just the work that those things students are doing in Reading this is Costello focused on improving student advocate application of the elements so you will

089see that our students have achieved very well there and if you came to our concerts last week you've heard what the culmination of a Year's worth of work in our music department sounds like if you think about the fact that our fourth graders have never played an instrument in a band before and that we haven't had a great band concert since 2019 um to be able to put on the kind of show with a level of this musicianship that we were able to do last week is pretty impressive our fifth grader graders which usually have a year of band under their belt by this time we're also beginning band because they were drumming on buckets last year for their band experience so our fifth grader also haven't played in a concert and we're beginning band

090and you never would have known that by listening to that at last week's concert Mr American into choirs hadn't even been allowed to sing Our Choir couldn't sing for several years and they were able to put on the shows that they did so I'm proud of I'm very proud of our students for the work that they put into the final Performing Arts just as much as I am for their working reading them a little bit one of the areas where we committed a lot of our efforts and our resources was in teacher PD we had a commitment to implementing instructional strategies that we felt with support the success of all Learners so we continue to focus on the strategies from high expectations teaching from John sappier the book that we've been using to study simple

091strategies like making your learning goal really explicit to students if it level the playing field and allow all students to access that learning and really thinking about what are those strategies that we need to have commonplace in all of our classrooms it's it's not an easy thing as adults as professionals as teachers to be able to look at your practice and acknowledge where you might need some improvement and where you might need to try something new to get a different result we read culturally responsive teaching in the brain and we thought about what are those practices that we want to embed every day and in every classroom and we learn from each other we learn with each other we had Dr Seiler from the University of St Joseph joined us and again talking about just

092how do we engage all of our students make learning relevant we give students choice so that allows us then when we're creating our action plans or writing curriculum when we're trying to revise units that we've been doing for many years we've made it more relevant to our students this was the work that teachers did in the background to be able to make that work successful to your students we're back at just a couple more minutes okay I'm in the interest of time all right I'm so excited about everything that I will do this is it this is exciting stuff um but our next two goals actually are both our clinical for parents our students completed their surveys last week and our parents survey has been sent out as well um I would encourage any parents

093that are listening I think we're only at about 20 of our parents have responded so we do want to have some more but that that will help us think about our goals for next year one of our data points when we thought about climate was you want to go for it one more year we continue to recognize positive behavior and celebrating that positive behavior we do that through recognizing naming and defining respectable or respect responsible and Role Model Behavior we also had some kindness celebrations this year and that is our winning class holding their kindness trophy we with the support of this board were able to offer a lot of extracurricular and after school activities and these are what those activities were along with the students who participated in that some were the regulars and

094some were very new some were by student ask we have disc golf was supported by youth service and in town they purchased for us some of the equipment that we needed and you'll also see in several places that we were able to connect mentors from the high school with students here at CIS and that's something that they want to grow and do more of next year they were enjoyed by all that's really impressive I mean in the participation and getting those kids to you know being around after school to be involved with this stuff this is really good so bringing to those students it gives them one more reason to be connected to school advisory was one of our big initiatives this year and it was a huge success we met twice a month for

095the most part in very few small groups been creating our family crests throughout the year and those will be a part of our closing ceremonies at the end of the year when we have a field day our goal through advisory is that everybody meets some new people they have a new circle of friends but they also have another adult in the building that they can connect to that they can go to if they need help in somebody is one more adult that they can go close enough to that they can access for help so when I think about our successes and thinking ahead as far as climate and culture go and we want to continue an advisory we're hoping next year we're going to meet less often but for longer blocks of time so that

096we can really get into the conversations with one another I'll continue to expand our after school activity offerings and one of the pieces of work that we just started uh with a very small But Mighty group was our code of conduct we recognize we I hear from staff that we needed clear and transparent conduct that the more we got into researching best practices and seeing models from other districts we have a lot of work to do so that's going to be more of a priority next year involve more staff if it's a big lift with the hope of involving parents and students that sometimes describe so lastly I'll go ahead a couple I'll go for a little more here and just share this this year you know we continue to add some Community connections and

097involve parents we've had a fantastic qto who offered a lot of opportunities for our community to be involve Aaron's back in the building has mystery readers helping with different simulations and social studies units and experiential learning and we had um the cast of The Seussical come down and read to our students so trying to connect as often as possible our students with role models from the community and role models from here in the district because I think that when we build those strong connections with encantas um it helps us build a strong Community within the school and that's ultimately our goal we want our sixth graders to feel like they've been a part of a community when they leave here and go across the digital school um so much of what we do it's a

098high value and we're very intentional on the experiences that we offer for students so that we can have experiences like Empower leadership where our students are working together we can celebrate Thanksgiving and our sixth graders have opportunities to do a lot of team building and just some leadership work with one another [Music] um I think I'll open it up to questions at that because I can continue to talk and talk and talk and talk to students but I want to give you a chance to I just getting clarifying questions that you may have any questions other than uh we're pretty proud of this school too and the reviews are always very good for parents every year I hear and so and this just demonstrates that I know we always have work to do but we're

099making we're making a lot of progress and that's that's what the board looks for thank you any Kim I might I might kind of similar to what I asked spoke about at Cherry Brook a couple weeks ago just like maybe looking at longitudinal stuff you know data just seeing like why be super simple write tremendous growth and um this war is left right just really looking across to see you know it seems like an education everywhere we keep pushing pushing more right there's a lot of you know the pacing is very fast in education everywhere and I'm just in Canton so just curious you know we talk a lot about all the academic you know scores and data but I'm curious about you know the social piece the emotional piece and you know we spoke

100about these fourth graders you know you and I spoke about this help they're the ones who you know covet happened in first grade you know they didn't eat in the camp they didn't eat the cafeteria and they're second grade they didn't even cafeteria in third grade so this is their first experience in a cafeteria going to an art room going to a library it's like resetting restarting all over again for them and the staff's done a phenomenal job but I imagine as we hear all over the you know the needs of children emotionally integrated that need to practice self-regulation um so I I'd like I'd love to know a little more maybe not now but to really track and see how we're doing behaviorally um and you know what are the needs and how can

101we better support you and your staff I think that's important because I don't feel that's not in here it's hard to assess sometimes how children are feeling and we know that children who feel well feel safe are happy have a childhood achieve better so it's kind of what I spoke about you weren't that meeting but I spoke about that and thank you to something that I think we should always keep in the back of our minds about um as well as the academic and I appreciate all that everybody does here and the clubs are amazing I think that's a great way for children to have practice you know have some more childlike activities and then children can't participate in you know team sports or other activities like some children who they have other options here

102so I I kudos to all the extracurricular activities that went on after school and and the field trips I I tomorrow is a big day Sturbridge Village and all the things you've put together so I you know just great the way you rebounded back with all this stuff thank you for being here I know you have a long ride home so uh for listening to my data so I appreciate it yeah we do look for it at this excuse me we do look forward to the fall when we can you know kind of continue to do this comparative analysis and but it seems like we're we're making great headlights yeah so that fall meeting on the end of this show you know the spring data yeah and then what that means for us for next

103year and how does that inform our morals so Rebecca thank you for being uh what is the most important role of a principal as the instructional leader so thank you for all your hard work as the instructional leader in this building that work couldn't happen without the collaboration with teachers and um as I'm sure everyone at these tables realizes these extracurricular activities couldn't occur unless teachers are willing teachers and para educators are willing to and tutors are willing to stay after school to help with these activities and Rebecca your ability to collaborate with staff and help staff support students is really remarkable so we thank you for your hard work okay so I I'd like to go to the public forum now to see if anybody let's let's go to our studio audience first and

104uh hearing none will not go to anyone online that has a a comment sure we've got a couple of people um if any of you online would like to make fun of me but we can go ahead and use the raise hand future assume and I will call on you by your same name all right so this person has DD as their names I'm gonna lie reading payment address for the record please all right can you hear me yes oh uh Diane 38 High Street Collinsville I want to thank Kim for bringing to light the emotional piece and the social peace is something really important especially as the CIS students transitioning to Middle School the Middle School yield years are very daunting um my mom was a teacher and she kind of would describe it

105as everybody thinks elementary school kids are so cute and the high schoolers are blooming and the middle schoolers are kind of like the ugly ducklings that kind of get forgotten and I would laugh at that but then I experienced it for myself and it was quite trying so I wanted to thank him for bringing that to light and definitely agree that there needs to be a lot of focus on that thank you guys anybody else I don't have any other race now okay with that we'll close the public forum we'll go right along we'll move to uh Mr Bishop again hmm and I don't have anything further to to record tonight so what I would like though is just just a brief report on um on what how we're moving forward with the principles higher

106thank you very much I'm happy to be able to do that um uh as was shared earlier Ms Porto and I are chairing the uh the search process as uh as we work through we've had a number of um community members who have offered to be um uh joining us on the committee um for the uh for the interviews for our uh the principal candidates we expect to be able to bring a strong pool together for us and be able to initialize that that work in that uh second week of June so we would look to be able to have our first week or our first meeting with our committee on June 7th uh June said we have a little bit of work to be able to do on that but we're looking forward to

107being able to connect with our committee on that um it is a a private it it is a process that requires us to be able to have a level of confidentiality to it right because folks are are trusting Us in the participation in the process of being able to come forward being able to interview with us some of the work that we're going to talk about with our community members is how important confidentiality is and the uh the collection of the the various resources that we might provide for them so that's an important thing to be able to know but for you all to be able to as well which I think is really important is the process will will begin with an initial vetting of the pool and then bringing them forward a number

108of candidates to be able to come through with what we see as most likely interviews first round interviews over two days and then continuing with a second round of interviews that we anticipate adding in not just questions but some some practical experience as well of uh here's some data what would you do then based on this information and then also some scenario based work of based on this information here's a scenario that you might come up that you might come across how might you look to be able to respond to that we're giving very careful attention to what some of the needs have been at Cherry Brook primary school and where there are opportunities for us to be able to come forward but part of what we'll do as we go through the community survey

109that we have the responses for that we'll use that to be able to help calibrate some of our questions that we'll put out there as well so the process is well underway we had an initial meeting with Dr Grossman last week and then Mrs Corto and I met again this past Monday we'll be meeting again later this week and continuing on from there so the community survey is out there is your input now it is so I don't know how we hyped that I know what we did the superintendent survey we had 300 responses or something like that they thought that was good but uh I don't know how we plan to hike that a little bit any thoughts we can add it to the communications yeah Communications agenda I'd really like to see a

110great cross-section I really like to see the parents of Cherry Grove give us their current uh parents and then anybody else certainly but uh I just think that's such a critical part uh as you begin to formulate the process yeah agreed and we did say that that as as we get to a point where we'll be closing our community survey soon to our Panorama surveys we'll look to be able to pull information from them as well but we'll we'll bring both of those together bring those questions out in front of our community to be able to see if there's anything that we might have missed along the way if there's anything else that we want to tease out but then we'll be able to tee that up and be ready to move into the process

111so is the point as you update the board in the future um understanding confidentiality is there a need to have those updates in executive session or is it just going to be General updates where we don't need I mean you don't have to tell me now but just as we set the agenda um because I know this board would like to have updates um well what what I can what I can say is we will not have um trying to think about the the timing of our of our board meetings our next meeting is the Sixth and our our meeting for the um the committee would be the seventh so so and then our interview process will will continue over those next two weeks I think I think it would be um it would probably

112be to board leadership to be able to share out as necessary for anything that down great thank you yep I I want to thank you and I think I meant to thank Rebecca and I didn't buy a note but um how important this is and we appreciate the extra time that goes into this by both you and we're back here and getting this done we appreciate that the trust and the opportunity for it we know that this is a great opportunity to do right by our community um and you know definitely for for Mrs Portugal she works very closely with our primary school program um as she is the direct recipient of students so for us to be able to work together from now we're really excited about being able to do that work and

113I would say too as part of the part of the vetting process as well um Mr McLean has done an amazing job in ordering directly over with Jerry Brook to be able to support over this past year that she's been here with us she's going to be doing some administrative work with us as well to help do some initial betting in the process and she'll be there in our second round as well great okay thank you yep thank you thank you for that report the case of consent agenda please thank you as part of the consent agenda tonight we have the approval of minutes from our May 9 2023 meeting and we have a letter of intent to retire from Helly we're biking this is where Vicki has been a special education teacher at the

114middle school for over 30 years uh Mr scheidler shared that she has been in the same room for over 30 years which is really remarkable she has decided to retire and her loss Will Truly be felt here in Canton especially at the middle school where she has served our students with very intensive needs throughout the year she truly is a student Advocate that really collaborates well with parents and she will be missed that's on the agenda tonight for you to accept her letter of retirement so uh mad emotion accepting consent agenda will accept the other title will regret and well wishes for a happy retirement so Peggy is a first thank you second is Erica any uh any discussion hearing Nunn all those in favor aye and I opposed eight zero well I have some

115good news for you we're going to table the policy discussion tonight do some tweets that still have to be done as we went through the policy committee meeting tonight there's there's a couple things that we still aren't comfortable with so on six six uh we'll be reviewing those policies again so that's off the agenda so from that point uh then we move to board member comments anybody have a comment about uh tonight or any of the things you heard about the processary meeting over the summer we will we're going to meet once in July and we'll meet once in August and the reason being is that we could cancel I'm waiting to see how the transition works with Dr Grossman and what he wants to report back to the board so I want to leave

116July open probably that second meeting in July would be left open I don't know what would that specific date is the second uh and if you're on vacation you're on vacation I we won't be taking any votes certainly it's just a matter of keeping board would you do Zoom would I do Zoom of course of course yeah because I know you know years ago we did meet some of us were on vacation we made it happen yeah whatever's most convenient for the board okay any other comments questions which I think what's important to keep in mind is Dr Grossman will need the sex uh with Mr Daniels a date to appoint the new principal which will need to occur in very early July I think that's the goal uh so it's important to keep that

117in mind the superintendent needs to make that recommendation that that recommendation will be coming from Dr Grossman So the appointment needs to be made after July 1st but I think Dr grosser would like to do that as early in July as possible [Music] it's the fiscal year well it's actually it'll be on July 3rd yeah on Monday it's July 30th a holiday weekend anyway it coincides with the physical here all right okay Joe second thank you Erica um any any conversation discussion anybody want to stay no okay all those in favor aye aye opposed we're out at 903. perfect time thank you