BOE Meeting 5 9 23

001for their May 9th 2023 meeting welcome to those of you in the audience and those of you around the world checking in with us around the globe six people five people so hello Felicia this is antonucci hi Erica all right so we have uh so we have a quorum if we had to foreign [Music] one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all and Bella in our last meeting I'm going to make you sing the national anthem all right so tonight's meeting uh we're fortunate to be a Cherry Brook primary school thank you Mr Emery for being here tonight with us coming back going to give us a great report and I think this meeting will go pretty quickly tonight so uh everybody will be out of here to watch uh did I

002think the Celtics on tonight right yeah okay so with that said why don't we kick off with the student reports who would like to go first on Friday April 21st was the CHS electathon trip to Lime Rock um Tuesday April 25th was a half day for all schools Wednesday April 26th 28th is the cmse-free trip to BC Wednesday April 26th CHS drama club students found on a trip to see the Winter's Tale by Shakespeare at the Harford stage um Wednesday April 26th also was the CHS instrumental concert Thursday April 27th Canton High School chamber singers took a trip to Glastonbury High School to perform for analysts to other High School chamber singers ensembles Monday May 1st was the beginning of AP exams for high school students Tuesday May 2nd was Canton celebrates event Thursday May

0034th with the upcoming 7th grade orientation and Friday May 5th was the Canton High School junior prom at Thompson's Country Club in Farmington oh tell us about that how was that it was amazing yeah I thought it was so fun like I was really really proud because I you know like yeah I kind of she did a great job working on it thank you I just I felt like it was really really fun and everyone was dancing like the entire time and that was really good good turnout that is great yeah I think like nine new people came here which is great that is fantastic yeah I'm glad you had such a good time yeah about it all right uh so for upcoming events um Wednesday May 10th is going to be the CMS grade

0047 Spring Concert Thursday May 11th is going to be the spring into kindergarten visitation day uh Thursday the CMS 8th grade spring concert uh Friday May 12th is going to be the CMS student council dance and we'll also that day be the Canton High School senior prom at Crystal Peak um Tuesday May 16th is going to be the CIS for instance music concert president May 17th juniors are going to have their own GSS testing Wednesday May 17th also will be the cbps art show and the CIS grade 5 music concert Thursday May 18th is going to be the science grade 4 music concert Friday May 19th will be the grade eight music adjudication trip and we'll also be the CHS Elementary School tour and then for ongoing high school students will be continuing to take

005AP exams through Friday May 12th and spring sports are starting to reach their final weeks before electrical teams moved on to conferences and tournaments so what's the mood like at the school how's everybody doing it's good [Music] are happy that the classes are beginning to you know yeah yeah I think everybody can kind of see the light at the end of the tunnel right now nice nice I remember that feeling it was a good feeling anything else I don't think so really board members have any questions seated board members online any questions all right well great job so we have um let's see one two two more meetings before graduation is that two more two more so we'll have to honor our graduating uh reps and looking forward to uh who's going to be the

006next person I know that Eric is working hard on that with Dr Kidwell so interviews are tomorrow pardon me the interview's tomorrow oh fantastic okay great all righty then uh superintendent report Mr Case okay thank you chair Daniels good evening everyone I'm great to see all of you tonight um a few items as part of my report um again as Mr Daniels said it's great to be here at Cherry Brook primary school tonight for our last four Board of Ed meetings of the year it's always our tradition to have our meetings at each of the schools and to hear a report from each School's principal about the goals that they accomplished that year and also about different things initiatives that have occurred and we're going to hear from Mr Emery in a few minutes about

007that so it's great to be here at Cherry Brook and because we are here at Cherry Brook I want to mention um an issue that was brought to our attention last night about ticks on the school property uh here at Cherry Brook and we know ticks are are everywhere and you've probably heard the recent news stories that because of the mild winter we've had there are more ticks than ever around um but we're aware of the the ticks close to the playground so our maintenance staff is taking certain precautions um mowing the grass as short as possible we're asking teachers to keep the students so many feet away from the wood line there's one other step too Mr Amery what am I what am I forgetting we're also going to be looking to spray a

008non-toxic pesticide we'll be looking at that tomorrow am I missing another action step but I just want to let the parents and students know we're aware and we're taking um precautions as soon as we found out about that this morning we were on top of it I want to thank all of you for those of you who are able to attend Canton celebrates last Tuesday night it was really a great highlight and I want to let you know that there were some families that couldn't attend I think three families in particular here at Cherry Brook and uh Mr Amery and I presented those students their certificates and parents were able to join us for that as well so that was also a highlight and I think we'll be doing that again soon for another student

009who was unable to attend but I appreciate the board's support for that evening and recognizing our students foreign town of Canton vote on the budget and I'm sure everyone voted today thank you so much for voting and we look forward to hearing what the results of the vote are um very shortly but um hopefully our budget passes so we can move forward and begin planning for next year and I thank all of you for your hard work and that effort I want to let you know that after having to reschedule a couple times our community Gathering our diversity equity and inclusion Community Gathering will be held on Monday May 22nd from 7 to 8 30. we have a planning meeting with the facilitators um that Lewin Felicia will be part of on Tuesday the 16th

010next week so we look forward to um talking about um the results of the focus groups that were held in January and looking ahead to planning for next year at that May 22nd meeting the students did a nice job of outlining all of the events taking place in May and June all the exciting events in your folders tonight you have some invitations to next week's from Cherry Brook primary school art show being held here which is next Wednesday May 17th and then the following week on May 24th we'll have the art show at Canton Intermediate School and we also have the wonderful musical concerts that were listed um Claudia and I try to put all of those on your board of ed calendars that they were sent so keep referring back to those to keep

011track of all of the upcoming events and I couldn't let um this week go by without recognizing all of our teachers for the outstanding work they do this is teacher appreciation week and I know you all feel the same way about our our outstanding staff who always go above and beyond and it's also Nurses Appreciation week so please um we want to make sure we thank Diane cedaro our nursing supervisor Ryan Townsley our school nurse at Canton Intermediate School and this is Jessica Bailey our school nurse here we appreciate all the TLC they give our students and staff throughout the year that's my report about this evening are there any questions you may have for me online anybody Erica or Felicia no thank you okay thank you I just thought this uh invitation to the

012art show for four through six is just great and if you opened it up there's a note to Mr Case hello Mr case I hope you're able to join us this year at the art show we are really proud of our work this year Seraphina grade six so I just think that's great that's that's why we're here sure okay from the chairs report just a couple of things for you this morning I spent the morning at a cave Forum at uh in Rocky Hill it was a negotiation um kind of a primer on things to expect what to look like what what the negotiating team should look look like uh from um from a board of education standpoint they also went over some of the uh the grievance issues that are in the state right

013now and how certain things are handled I found it to be extremely helpful we're fortunate we have cave that runs these programs for us from the time to time so um um and thank you for making sure I was registered in that so um the second thing is I I want to also add my congratulations on the Canton celebrates which went extremely smoothly and I want everyone to know I'm out of lunch and the reason being is I I bet Mr uh Bishop that this thing would go Way Beyond the the two hours expected and guess what it came in under he had it planned uh thanks to Mr scheidler so now I'm going to be out of lunch so um it was positive feedback about the scheduling and how it went this year great

014I hope you like food trucks so so anyways the the final thing I want to bring the board up to date on is um uh through the para through the Peril bargaining unit um they have they they struggled this year they've had a difficult year uh some of it um you know is is um has been caused by um the certain environment that we're in as far as hiring goes and things of that nation and that nature but um our Paris as much as we love our teachers too our our pairs tend to be the uh we say this all the time but we mean it they are the backbone of our of our school system and without the Paris I think we would lose our teachers and it just it's one of those gender

015pieces if if that comes out everything starts to fall apart so um they've asked us to uh kind of sit down with them and listen Mr scheidler and I along with the superintendent um has uh We've now had two meetings one with Cherry Brook Paris and uh today with the Middle School Paris middle school and high school middle school and high school Paris excuse me and here's the theme and this is no surprise to any board member um we we know that the salaries are low we know that there's a revolving door because of our salaries we know that they go beyond uh the Call of Duty sometimes and for very little pay so our commitment and I think this board uh up and down has said that this is something we have to look

016at we knew that when that contract was signed and we saw that we were just coming up to minimum wage there was going to be some work to be done there um so that's something we have to look at the contract that does not open again until 24 25. next year yeah 24 25 but we'll begin the negotiations uh a little sooner to give them some glimmer of hope to try to come to some agreement and we can do this we can have informal conversations with them on their contract to see what we may be able to do to um to make them feel more appreciated the second thing they brought up was training and uh fortunately we have Barbara McLean that's taking a look at what type of trainings additional training so they're asking

017for trainings on certain areas so we're going to look at ways that we can improve that training and through that training ability to earn more stipends and to kind of move up the ladder that way and the final thing is uh you know better communication today we heard that uh the Paris feel that um you know they would like to be more active with some of the paraprofessional days and hearing what's going on in the school so they're not left on their own uh so much so they feel like they're in the know things that are fixable so um I was appreciative of the the approach that they took I was appreciative of the uh uh the spirit of collaboration and trying to find a solution um and so we're going to continue to stand

018that we've taken very good notes and uh there's some things we'll begin to get behind this year but is the new superintendent comes on we'll make sure that we can make some adjustments for next year um and not get caught kind of flat-footed um with the way certain things are so I I wanted to let you know that that is happening there's one more meeting that will happen Thursday um I don't know if we're going to continue okay we're going to reschedule that I can't make it and Mr shiver refuses to fly back from Italy I find that to be selfish but we'll do what we have to do so so but we'll reschedule that for when Joe's back and I can make the meeting so those are the uh three things that I wanted

019to mention um as we go into the final meetings of the year of course Mr Emery is going to be giving his uh School Improvement plan so will the other principles I think it's important that we hear that so that we are we are the um we are the bridge now into the next Administration so what we hear uh we can't necessarily make too many uh changes or effect this year but as we sit down in planning and we go over our uh our team meetings over the summer these are the things we have to carry with us with the new Administration so um just want to remind you if you can make those meetings that's fine uh graduation is the ninth last day of school it's the 16th just keep those things in mind

020and of course you have a list of the the calendar from uh from Claudia on all those different things that's all that I have any any questions for me any questions online okay for the parade that was something that's for the board right right the Memorial Day Parade will will be coming and I'm sure Mrs antonuccio will tell us that there will be watching them kind of March around the track and getting ready I think uh very shortly but yeah that we will be marching on the 30th if we can uh I think it's the 29th um you were so nice uh our board um Representatives carried the banner for us you're probably somebody in it is somebody going to be playing an instrument or no no if you've got Christine all right so maybe

021you'd consider carrying the uh the banner again for us okay well just a quick question sure there's you mentioned like they want to be a part of training and stuff are those things that like they're not in attendance that day is there is there funds available to do stipends and stuff until the contracts renegotiated so last year they were included on every professional development day and then there was feedback that that wasn't best for many of them because of their time commitments some have to work another job but what would you agree to for next year is that they will all work during that professional development time the teachers are having their professional development they're going to receive it at the same time so they'll stay for the full day on those two-hour relax days

022then they'll be paid for that okay yep thanks okay uh closing out that part of the uh the agenda then we'll turn uh to Mrs antonucci do you want to leave thank you Lou um for several months uh leading up to this April um Mrs antonucci our director of Music we're so fortunate to have Mrs antonucci here in that role and she had a vision for taking uh the students to Disney and um continued I think Mrs antonucci you had that Vision right before the pandemic and then the pandemic hit uh but you didn't give up on your vision and you worked with the staff and the students and planned what turned out to be I know a very successful trip so um tonight we wanted to spend some time hearing about the trip um

023this is antonucci I'll turn it over to you if you have any comments before our students talk about their experience just so you know Rachel yes sir the Disney stock went up while you were there that stock was taking a jump just so you know is my volume okay are you able to hear me yes yes thank you thank you so thank you for accommodating me this evening my first grader went home sick today so thank you for allowing me to present from home we have Lauren Bella and Simone in attendance in person and they will all make some remarks about different aspects of the trip shortly before I really get into that though I have to thank the board and the administration and ever all the parents especially our Canton parents for music for

024your tremendous support of Music this year from the return to the dedicated music classroom at Cherry Brook the starting of our new Cherry Brook singers what a wonderful group that's turned out to be CIS we've returned to our full complement of ensembles three grade level bands three grade level courses enrichment ensembles chamber day they are back in full force this year we're so proud and the teachers and students are working so hard for their upcoming concerts and at the middle school I feel so fortunate that my office is adjacent to the rooms they work in and all the duct work allows me to hear all that beautiful music I have to say that I hear almost two years of growth in our seventh and 8th graders in just this school year alone and the 8th

025graders are really looking forward to their adjudication later this month such a special time so thank you all for your kind support of K-12 music our trip was tremendous we had 82 students and 10 chaperones in grades uh 10 11 12. the students were amazing musically they were amazing with their conduct with their flexibility with their teamwork and to watch friendships flourish um the students here tonight will tell you more but my favorite was watching how the students created different groups on different days and sometimes they would be with friends they made in high school on the lacrosse team and then another day you would see that same student with their neighborhood friend that they've been together with since Cherry Brook but perhaps grew apart over the last several years and reconnecting with their friends

026from kindergarten and like it just was such a warm and special uh time for the students to have so much fun and also play um and sing um I came to you and I asked last June for this group of kids to be a lighthouse for our musicians in our district and they came through the choir was given a superior rating and they were had a wonderful performance the band got an excellent rating as well as a best-in-class designation for students it's like being in a we're a class s school for sports right and so in our designation we were considered Best in Class um we didn't have any behavior issues on the trip like I I just I can't say enough of how what a special special thing this is so today we have

027Lauren one of our Triumph officers here to speak about it as well as Bella and Simone who you know very well and then we'll wrap up with a photo slideshow that Mr Jones prepared to give you a sense of of what the students experienced thank you Lauren Bella hi everyone my name is Lauren I'm a Triumph officer um I thought the trip was just great I think it was definitely one of the highlights of my year I just can't all the memories I think I'll have them for the rest of high school going into college um one of my favorite moments from the trip was the cooperation and the passion for music and the passion for working together as musicians from our exchange with Horizon High School so um a day before we actually performed

028for the festival Disney judges um we did an exchange with um a very new high school actually two years old high school in Florida called Horizon High School um so their jazz band played for us and we got to meet their band drafter and their jazz bandractor um and we were also with Hall High School so Hall High School their Jazz fans played and their band played um and then our high our band and our choir um sang and played and it was really special just to be able to be in another building but feel that that music like had transported us to this other place and we felt comfortable performing with these people that we had never met before and with this director that we miss San Antonio had only really spoke to um

029over the phone and um with email and it was really special for me um to see all of my percussion buddies working together because it's very equipment heavy so we had people with people who had like checked bags on the plane had been lugging these huge suitcases everywhere with tambourines and all this stuff and so we got all this to Horizon High School and also the high school and set up all these instruments for us and um with the Horizon High School people our percussionists and the Hall High School percussionists people who none of us had ever met before worked together as one team like we've been working together for forever we had that percussion section absolutely Flawless in place in about five minutes left I think it was the best organization I've ever seen

030from any high school students and that was just amazing because I had never really seen people um we're together in that way we had never met each other before and just seen that power of music and their shared love of percussion and music and being in this special place was just really transformative for me thank you great okay all right so I'm going to talk a little bit about our actual um performances we had done on Saturday that week I have a little bit random done just to keep myself together but um I thought it was really cool that we had the opportunity both in the course to kind of perform in like really cool venues that we wouldn't normally ever get an opportunity to do so with um for choir it was the Saratoga

031Springs Resort and uh band was the Disney's contemporary resort and it was just very beautiful venues very good Acoustics it was just like very nice um you know exploded to different bigger venues that again we wouldn't have normally ever gotten an opportunity to perform in um and then afterwards we got very fun and engaging workshops to do for uh 15 minutes or so with one of the judges I know for choir we worked a lot on more accurate pronunciation of you know other languages we did Dynamics work so we got to do a lot of fine tuning with the songs that we could then apply to our music as we performed it later in the year or with new pieces we'd learned and then same in the band they learned a lot about you know

032taking music off the page and being very expressive with it um so that was very informative for us and um I think we were all able to better understand like emotions as we were playing in singing which I found very valuable and I think it also performing their places in a more serious and challenging environment that again we normally wouldn't get from just our you know yearly performances just in the auditorium that are more for enjoyment of you know our parents and whatnot being able to be not necessarily a competitive environment but just a more challenging where we have to hold ourselves to very high standards and have very good etiquette and stuff like that I think that was definitely a very new environment for many of us that was also very um I think

033it was very fun and it was nice to have that challenge when we are normally in that type of environment great excellent okay so I'm going to talk about like the friendships and just kind of like the social aspect of the trip but I found the trip to be so I want to say redeeming because we lost all of these experiences in past years and my grades didn't get to go to um Washington DC so that was the year of covet for us and there has been such a disconnect in our grade I felt like we haven't been as close and this trip really got us back to like I think where we were I think we bonded in so many different levels like we stayed up with 40 hours like we did not sleep

034but we were all together and it was fun and we were all going crazy together and um getting angry with each other because we're so tired but it was so it was so amazing and I know I personally like Miss Anthony she was talking about I each day kind of I stuck with similar people but you know each day we just add on a new person who were like hey like you want to join us and um this one kid I became really close with and he's a senior I've never talked to him in my life and then he joined our group and it ended up going on like the scariest roller coaster with him like music and it was just great because I felt like you know I'm making these great memories with people

035I didn't even really know um so it was just a really overall good trip I am so glad I decided to um you know go on the trip because originally like I had quit course last year and I rejoined this year um and I'm so glad I did because now I just have such a better like bond with everyone even and more specifically just like the chorus like it was it was great and I saw so many people with different groups like it was it was really interesting to also see like who was going with who um I really I really enjoyed that so it was great it was a good trip all right and I think I have the the video slideshow so let me pull that up and I will play that for

036all of you Lauren I played the sousaphone in high school so I can empathize with you about carrying large musical instruments getting them on a plane when I went to Florida in high school so did you get to go I did nice with my big tuba nice all right here thank you foreign [Applause] I have to say I know you started off your presentation by thanking the board and everybody else but the board wants to thank you because I think Simone you said it best it brought us back it got us back to where we're supposed to be doing these types of things and um so we're extremely grateful for the organization and the time you must have put in the sacrifice you made from your family but thank you for doing all that for

037us and getting us back so my pleasure we'll see everybody at the parade we'll see you at the parade any other questions no okay all right um that moves us right into uh we're going to have public forum are are the parents here for public forum per chance are you just listening okay good right because I didn't want to delay much more Mr Emery okay very excited about this Mr rammer you have quite an act to follow here the Disney trip you got to sing your presentation so um so to our students thank you for that um yeah thank you for sharing your thoughts on the prep very very meaningful very inspiring thank you thank you um as I said earlier uh tonight's the first meeting at each of our schools and we have the

038pleasure tonight to hear from Mr Abe Emery uh Mr Emery is no stranger to Canton uh Mr Emery has been working in Canton as our math science coordinator for the last several years after having an exemplary uh teaching uh career in New York City he came to Connecticut was an administrator in another school district and then we were able to lure him here to Canton and we'd certainly benefited and especially this year during the principal's leave I asked Mr Emery to to become interim principal here at Cherry Brook primary school and Mr Emery excitedly said yes and took on the challenge and has really been been a steady Force here at the school during a time of transition and so I'm pleased to introduce to you if you haven't already met Mr Amery and so

039tonight we'll hear our presentation on what we have as far as student data in both reading and math then this ramrey will talk about some of the highlights of this school year at Cherrybrook thanks for all your hard work Abe and thanks for being here tonight uh well thank you Mr Case Mr Bishop board members and Community I'm humbled and honored um you know it's been a humbling and honoring honor an honor experience the past few months and I'm just really thrilled to be here tonight and kind of share with you the highlights from Cherry breakfast here here first and foremost Cherry Brook is a joyful place for all Learners and staff our staff I tell them every day every week in a staff memo they do an amazing job engaging our children and fostering

040their growth both academically socially emotionally behaviorally um we have a few pictures here I'm not going to go over all of them but the picture there the children at the on the carpet it's just a picture of some first graders and as we all know a big focus in primary school is early literacy and here is just a picture of kids enjoying a literacy game learning about vowels and those snap words I have a picture from our newly formed Cherry Brook singers our third graders had the honor of going up to UConn with Miss card and I'm meaning some of her professors and meaning some of the students that are majoring in in music education so one student said it was the most magical experience ever I did tell Miss card for next year to

041schedule an extra hour so they can go to the dairy the Dairy Bar there and get some ice cream and then I have a picture there of our Unified sports season um it was my first year participating in it and and it just it was amazing to see the partnership and and and the love between you know the students within all grades the staff that was there the commitment of the staff just helping the kids and then there's just a picture of families and and staff and and the unified athletes participating in the classic parachute game um and then just a picture of one of the many book buddy groups that we have going on at Cherry Brook [Music] um so if we turn to the next slide um you know the next three slides

042are really going to just highlight kind of the core and the core of the work we do here at Cherry Brook so everything that we do is um is is rooted in our vision and our mission um the vision of mission helps us to make those decisions the best the best support students um on the next slide you know with everything um you know the challenges that we were faced this year um you know staff you know met every challenge with collaboration kindness and integrity um we partner with our students Educators and staff and community and every time we do that we we come at it with that collaboration mindset kindness and integrity um you know we always look forward to those collaborative opportunities with with families with staff and students and and we know

043we at the end of the day we we always are happy because we've tried our best and and we we always hold each other accountable for that um the next slide is is again something that's um familiar with you it's our vision of the um cam public schools graduate and at Cherry Brook you know we're the foundation of the building and we're setting that foundation for our students as they move forward to in the Intermediate School to middle school and high school so we really take pride at you know establishing a a solid foundation that's going to help our students achieve um that Vision vision of The Graduate when they walk across that stage well they already laughed when they walk across that stage you know in June to receive their diplomas foreign kind of

044highlights the district's Focus for the 22-23 school year um we've focused um our work on learner growth and success and obviously the culture and climate of our of our buildings and of our staff the next few slides just take a look at some of the theories and actions that were set in the beginning of the year that are again that are the focal of the work that we're doing one of the big ones is if we continue to keep all of our decisions rooted and student student-centered learning practices um you know we'll ensure that achievement and ownership and the achievement of the public schools vision of The Graduate will will happen and we'll we'll occur um the next slide looks at um students as the core of our instruction um you know we're always we

045always have students at the center of the decisions that we're making um we continue to develop and engage students in curriculum that's going to be rigorous that's going to be relevant um to students and relevant for them to to achieve those foundations of the vision of The Graduate of being critical thinkers creative thinkers communicators collaborators and and obviously compassionate citizens um the next theory of action talks about school Community if we create a school community that is inclusive and Equitable for all students and families then we'll have a safe and engaging learning environment that meets the unique needs of each Community member thereby increasing student achievement and the next theory of action focuses on on our environment our school environment and and the people that make up our school environment so for each person to

046thrive in our school environment it needs to be a safe place in which each person needs are met and differences are respected and regardless of one's you know gender race disability socioeconomic status you know every member of our community is included valued and listened to when a person feels truly seen and accepted um you know they're open to meet greater challenges and find greater greater success now um I'm going to go over um the work and the things that have happened at your work for the 22 23 school year um in the coming um slides I'm going to highlight the academic goals that were set at the beginning of the year um and then I'm going to go over some achievement data in regards to reading and math K through three um the beginning of

047the year uh the school goal um that was set with that students will improve their performance in the areas of reading and Mathematics um the indicators of success that the school decided to use to measure measure growth and measure student achievement um where the Dibbles reading assessment math end of the unit assessments and and star assessments the strategies um that we were focused on this year was the utilization of new resources that were implemented to support literacy instruction at Cherry Brook things such as phonics and phonemic awareness skills and in programs the specific programs of Foundations Hagerty and and some of our new unit reading summaries um we've been systematically looking at um understanding the information that we're getting from students and making sure that you know we're systematic in understanding it and making the

048next best decision to support student growth um you know we do that through in-house meetings you know weekly team meetings professional development days and as I shared earlier in the coming slides I'm going to highlight um the beginning of the year data and and relate that to mid-year data we don't have the end of the end of the year data just yet um in the next couple weeks we're going to be working teachers are working right now on some end of the year reading assessments you know we'll be giving some end of the year assessments obviously in the coming weeks but I'm just really excited to kind of highlight and celebrate the amazing work that our students have done you know to this point um so you all know Dibbles is called the dynamic indicators

049of basic early literacy literacy skills um it's the only assessment that's been approved by the state of Connecticut for assessing literacy instruction specifically at the primary school level um Dibbles are short checkpoints that are ministered to monitor how children are acquiring early literacy skills and just some some of the skills that we assess and it's not limited to this are letters and name fluency oral reading fluency non nonsense word fluency and segmentation um on the next four slides I'm going to show and know some of the growth that we've seen from beginning to end of the year I really want you to pay close attention to the green colors because the green colors highlight the students who are at proficiency when they've when we've when we've gathered that assessment of when they've taken assessment I

050also want you to look at some of the bands that are yellow and orange because as you'll see from the change from Fall to Spring I mean fall to winter you'll see a shrinkage in some of in some of those bands and that's a good sign that means that our students are moving within bands and and and and showing growth so kindergarten Dibbles [Music] at the beginning of our year 53 of our students were at at the proficiency at the proficiency rate range by mid-year um we were near 63 I want to note like at the beginning of the year having 53 of our kindergartens kindergartners in the green is is really great I mean we have kids kindergarten all teachers are being a teacher at every grade level is really hard but our kindergarten

051teaching teachers are amazing because because they have students who come into that door not knowing a letter not knowing a letter sound some kids who are reading so the the literacy skill is so diverse so for um for them you know for our kindergartners to come in at that percentage this is kudos to obviously the community but also the growth that we've seen from Fall to mid-years just kudos to to our staff our teachers our dedicated teachers you know um support staff that have you know have been you know making sure that children are are moving moving forward um so I'm I'm optimistic that when our end of the year information comes in we're going to continue to see that trend of continued growth again I just want to highlight if you look at the

052from fall to the mid-year you can see the the um the decrease in the red and an increase in the yellow and an increase in the darker green so we're having kids move ahead in bands which which is describing and showing us growth the next slide um takes a look at first grade Dibbles um again I'd like to highlight the growth of students um within the bands at the beginning of the year we were at 53 at mid-year we were at 63 so a 10 increase in student um achievement um this is really great because literacy wise first grade has the highest jump for reading levels and and literacy Acquisitions so we're having kindergartners come in over half of our kindergartners are coming in with some really solid skills and when our teachers get in

053front of them they're responding to the instruction responding to the curriculum that we're providing them and showing for us so again just as I shared with kindergarten I'm optimistic that you know our continued Trend upwards will happen so when you illustrate the um the growth let's take in the first grade from 50 53.4 to 63.1 so is that a good I mean how do we what do we compare that against like is the durg it's 70 or is it during it 50 or and is there a way to compare sorry about that no no problem I might be able to jump in on that because that's a that's a great question this this being um a a local assessment is not something that's reported to the state and it's not something that is referenced out

054um that's referenced out into the the broader area yeah that's good I I'll just interrupt for a second so the budget passed uh because it didn't meet the minimum again but the uh the count was 214 people voted yes and 332 voted no but uh in order to validate the election or the the referendum you need 10 of the electorate uh we fell well below that so the budget automatically passes just like it did last year so so good news um disappointing that not more people came out I wouldn't hold um the ratios to any um you know it is what it is but it's such a low turnout so it's about I guess that would be about five percent seven percent last year we had a 3.7 turnout Bob Bob vessels providing me with

055the information so he was sorry to interrupt just letting everybody know sorry no worries so my question was here and I I don't know if you if there's a comparative to this against other districts or so on and so forth no there isn't okay it's it's a it's a norm record so this is a national test that's really sure uh led by the University of Oregon so when we're looking at 63.1 percent that our our professional or above with that that is Norm referenced across the entirety so we're saying that already kids based on that based on that assessment at that time 63.1 percent of them are already uh proficient or above on that and that continues to track forward with an expectation and an increasingly higher level of rigor it's it gets more difficult

056toward the end of the year sure but kids continue to be able to grow with that and you see those those zones keep shrinking with that uh the green and growing and the yellow and orange uh shrink this is one of the assessments that's been approved by the state for screening of Dyslexia it is a really valuable assessment um and and one of the ones that is most like highly most highly related highly rated within the state for uh for efficacy so it's something that we really appreciate okay go on John or are these numbers compared to historically comparative where we we usually are around the this time of year next year or are we way below or way above or historically we're we're actually doing pretty well I would say that as we get

057on to our our third grade we actually are doing Beyond where we have in the past with that but I'd be happy to be able to pull in some additional longitudinal data the only difference is um we have only used this dibble's eight assessment last year and this year it's a slight difference from historical but I could get that information to show last year to this year different cohorts but happy to do that sorry no John mentioned a big piece of Jeff this is new to us and so two years into it and and so you know it's it's right now it's you know it's stressing those critical foundational skills and you know giving us that good information you know good good information about you know plan um with second grade Dibbles um it's impressive

058here that we nearly had 75 of our second graders at the beginning of the year within that proficiency band on on the measures that we were measuring and by mid-year um um almost near you know near 80 80 77.2 percent again I just want to highlight it's so important when when we think about student achievement is we always look at growth for every child because a student who might be lower on the continent Continuum is still making growth as compared to someone who might be at the higher end of the Continuum so the growth is really important and really important to note that um the increase in in the darker bands the shrinkage of students within you know the yellow the yellows and the red that means they're responding to what we're doing and and

059growing and and achieving so that's you know that's something to celebrate um third grade um came in again at almost near 80 at the beginning of the year and they've maintained um you know they've maintained that again um you know there's been some there's some slight changes there and some of the Bands again green the darker green getting bigger more students in the higher level of proficiency um again it's really important to note that when we're a third grade reader the text complexity is a lot harder we're asking kids to do higher level reading and so it's it's nice to see that what they're doing in the in kindergarten first grade and second grade is is is spilling over into third grade um I also want to note that this was our cohort who were

060remote Learners in kindergarten um and in first grade these some of these students participated in the hybrid model of instruction or or were in the remote learning option so um it's you know based on those factors you know they're doing they're doing really really well with that um I also want to kind attribute like growth K3 to um just kind of the work the staff has been putting in with the new resources that we've been provided by the board um you know even with coveted restrictions now lifted you know teachers are able to pull students for small group instruction we weren't able to do that in a coveted you know restricted classroom you know research says that's what moves students so being able to pull groups being able to offer small groups for for tutoring

061is really moving kids in that positive direction professional development a lot of our time here at Cherry Brook what up from what I've learned since being here since the middle of January a lot of time has has been spent on um really giving teachers a time to unpack the new resources work together look at the student information and and you know and plan for their for their students um and um teachers teach not curriculums and our teachers are educated by the science of reading so they're really spending the time understanding how children acquire literacy skills and really focus on that science science of reading um next um we're going to take a look at a slide that highlights star reading for grades two and three um it's really nice as a district um to have

062a universal screener for star and and for math it's a nice measure to measure our curriculum to measure the work that we're doing with students to measure the interventions that we may be putting in place in the classroom outside of the classroom um and you'll see here this is a highlight of grades um two and three students with their Lexile summary and what Lexa with the Lexile framework for reading is is a scientific Pro approach for measuring reading ability and text complexity so you know as as students read higher level texts they're they're higher level readers um you can see here for second grade we we had a Lexile level average at about 97 at the mid-year we jumped up to 280. 85 you know by the end of the year um we want we

063want second graders around the 450 Lexile level so we're making those those jumps for third grade students came in at about a 364 Lexile average mid-year we were at 450 by the end of the year we want them near 550 Lexile um so this is a really nice this Universal screener is a really nice measure to see how how children are responding to the reading instruction that we're doing in front of them every day the information is also really good to help us kind of plan for future you know future curriculum um decisions April 5th before we go on from this can you share with the board a little bit about um why we do the assessments that we do um the the paper and then the digital for grades two and three just so

064there's an understanding about why that's not happening for kn1 yeah so K and one it's all about being appropriate and we know we have really young kids and we get a lot of information K1 well all grades but in K1 at the heart of a lot of the information and um skill of figuring out where kids are at comes from that face-to-face time that teachers have um with those students so if you would walk into a kindergarten room first grade room you're going to see kids face to face with their teachers seven seven teach seven kids around one teacher a kid giving a teacher a massage on the back which I saw this week which is wonderful but you know it's that face to face it's making sure that we're appropriate they're little kids and

065and you know making sure that they're they're seeing seeing their teacher here and helping them guide them through that that early early learning so that's kind of the appropriateness of it um the next few slides we're going to take a look at some of the math achievement um to this um from Fall to mid-year um as as we move forward from kindergarten first second and third grade you're going to notice kind of area specific areas that we're targeting here in kindergarten we've been targeting counting and cardinality counting cardinales kind of the important foundation of of math it suggested that students who have counting in cardinality good counting cardinality skills when they're leaving kindergarten are are more likely to be more likely to be successful as mathematicians later on in their academic careers um so you

066can see we have a lot of green there and that that graph to the right we have 82 percent at this point in time 82 percent of our kindergartners are meeting proficiency when it comes to accounting and cardinality in first grade um you know we're expecting kids to have a good foundation of accounting and cardinalities leaving Kindergarten now we're going to first grade and and a focus has been on those numbers in base 10. so we've shift to focus to numbers and base 10. it's a higher it's a higher level of numerical literacy you know now now we're asking kids to learn how to learn about place value um number Concepts operations measurement and so you can see here at this point in time 82 percent of our kids are are within that proficiency band

067of that numbers and base 10 standard get second grade again we're focused on numbers in base 10. um and 82 percent of our kids are are hitting the mark within that proficiency band for numbers and base 10. and then third grade um there's a big I wanna I wanna note that there's a huge jump in rigor from second grade math to third grade math we're asking kids to demonstrate a higher level of math application and and show us what they've acquired in previous grades um I want to note that you know we're we're near 60 right now but that was the mid-year that was the mid-year Target I'm I'm optimistic that when our end of the year information come comes in you know will be higher than higher than that 60 um we have a

068great curriculum that spirals throughout the year um in third grade it spirals a lot it's very rigorous you know students are at that higher level of um mathematical application where we're asking them to solve multi-step problems um word problems so they're really faced with with um some really good challenge challenges and as I said I'm expecting additional growth as we get that end of the year information um time in and then the next slide takes a look at our star map um unified score summary um so just like Star reading we're utilizing star math as an additional Universal screener to measure student achievement and growth I'm really excited about this um in my fourth year in the district when I first started here in Canton we um we did not have a universal screener for

069Math and having this has been so powerful for our teachers and and for for not only for our teachers but you know for everybody just to help plan for instruction um you know to support student growth and Student Success it's been a really nice indicator on where we need to kind of put some more focus in in areas that we might not need to put as much focus in you can see here our kids are doing really well based on the unified score summary so it's telling us that that the children are responding in in second and third grade are responding you know responding to the instruction that's happening in the classroom they're responding to the Bridge's math curriculum you can see that our fall unified score summary was at around an um winter it

070was at a 908 um and the target for the mid-year is 900 so we were we were above that mid-year Target and for third grade um our fall unified score summary was at a 9 39 in the spring it was at 968 and a target for the mid-year for third grade is around a 9.50 so they're right on track of where they need to be and where they need to be heading there any questions before I move on to climate and culture february-ish about that's right yeah early February the next slide takes a look at our climate and culture goal that was set at the beginning of the year um the goal the second School goal was focus on climate and culture so students and families will be actively engaged in the school Community some

071celebrations I want to report out on our today our monthly attendance average at Cherry Brook has been near 91 so we have 91 of our students wanting to come to school which is which is wonderful um I want to celebrate the student participation in events we've had a tremendous amount of events um offered here for our students anywhere from field trips we're going back out on field trips the I wonder we have the upcoming art show the music performances Unified sports and we have a ton of assemblies um coming up and we've had some assemblies we continue um our our school support team continues to work as well as myself continue we continue to work and examine our child study and student intervention process for supporting kids with academic and behavioral needs um so we're

072really excited to be looking at that and and continuing to move that work forward and then another celebration is something that um when I came on board um in January you know my a real focus of mine was just really getting to know that even though I was in the building for the past three years I was only here for two and a half days a week and a much different role than I am and now and so um a lot of my time in from mid-January so probably even it's happening even today but it was really getting into classrooms getting to know the kids getting to know the teachers um getting to know families making those connections and so the cbps Gazette that I started a few weeks ago with the help of obviously

073of our staff is is this really a celebration all of all of the amazing things that are happening here at our school for our children and um it's just it's just I want to get that information out to everybody because the work that's happening here is is truly truly magical and amazing um and finally some of the overall School celebrations um yeah as I shared earlier with all of you um and I joke with the staff here at Cherry Brook I I in my memo to them every week I just say I have a paragraph that that stays in there is how much I appreciate everybody here you know here at Cherry Brook um that's first and foremost the staff here is incredible um what could have been a really challenging year here at Cherry

074Brook um the staff handled it with Amazing Grace combat compassion commitment and dedication to our kids so I'm putting that on the record that they are amazing here um and I sincerely thank them um just everybody from from our Paris to our to our custodial set to our kitchen staff to our teachers to our families who come in it's been amazing um again the families and friends who have supported Cherry Brook in various ways has been amazing from from parents who've run assemblies for us monitors parents who come in as monitors lunch monitors recess monitors who've helped kids with supported and um created some class activities for for them so thank you to the families and friends for that um again another celebration is just the implementation of more literacy instruction here at Cherry Brook

075really focused on the science and reading um within our classroom so I thank you the board um you know Mr Bishop um Mr case for your continued support for giving us the resources and tools that we need we need to address to address our Learners um and then um again I want to celebrate just the resources that we have in our building that can kind of identify those kids that are in crisis and and it's been amazing to have the staff here to help us because without them we wouldn't be you know addressing the needs of of every single child so um there's oh there's so many successes and so many celebrations but I won't take up all your time but um you know I welcome you like for some of the upcoming events that

076we have we're going to have um an end of the year all school assembly um which most likely will be outside because we're gonna have a Cherry Brook singer sing to our school um we have class celebrations coming up we've continued field trips coming up we have the children's Fair coming up which I'm really excited to be a part of um we have folk dances Field Day books we've had our book fair so there's a lot of wonderful things um happening here at Cherry Brook um and that's that's that's Cherry Brook um any questions you know I think about uh quite the journey that you've been on because um we started in September having you come in because we wanted to congratulate you on a great job running the Student Academy the summer school program

077and then here you are in Cherry Brook and this was a great presentation but uh questions for Mr Ameren yes sure um no thanks for the great presentation direct clear and it's great to hear you tonight talk about Dibbles my question John and I spoke briefly are not necessarily maybe maybe not appropriate for for Abe and they may not be able to answered tonight they're more like you mentioned we're kind of the bridge you know with Kevin retiring and the transition here I just wanna I feel like I wouldn't be responsible if I didn't um say that before things that I have to say or ask the questions um and I think the context of it is you know I've had the privilege really of following Cherry Brook for 20 years really following me and

078and being enmeshed in early childhood in our state you know Kevin asked me to testify they asked me to testify at the Capitol um I had the privilege of doing that um I visited schools you know the joy of being on the Early Childhood task force for many years so you know it's it's just this is coming from a different lens maybe um and Gabe I mean a did a wonderful job presenting so once again this is no questions the staff here is amazing they've conquered amazing things with children um it's more about Early Childhood in general and you know I really want to look at the love I would like to see the longitudinal data of Dibbles um you know this is this is great and we're looking at an isolated you know like

079this year like where do these children fall right now but what we have used Columbia University readers and writers college for 17 plus years in Canton the state you know is now questioning the use of that I know Kim's doing a phenomenal job you know the science of reading and new phonemic awareness and you know um phonics programs but I love I really want to see the data because you know we went from half day kindergarten we went to full day kindergarten and this is not just a Cherry Brook this is across the whole state across the whole country we are we are pushing more and more on young children on on the teachers on the children um you know we're increasing the curriculum and it's been increasing increasing increasing increasing every year for the

080past 20 years and then we talk about this Mental Health crisis we talk about you know covid the effects um we know children are on screens more in school than they've ever been we know they're on screens more than they've ever been at home so the whole landscape of a childhood has changed I mean that's I think we'd be in denial to not acknowledge that so I look at like what can what can Canton do this is our only Primary School what happens here in Cherry Brook is the foundation the foundation for these Children's Life the foundation for their the rest years in can so um you know I want to see what the data shows you know if it's showing like wow Phenom then we know what we've been doing is working and then

081obviously you've been looking at the data and tweaking it um but you know one of the bills they're looking to pass and I I haven't you know one of the ones they testify was clay-based learning they're looking to actually pass a bill that requires play-based learning for pre-k through kindergarten I am Paul that we 've asked the bill for that but that's where it's come to an education we have to pass a bill to require I mean I these are I don't want to micromanage and that's not our job as support but I think because we are the bridge into new um next year I think I want to know more you know in in this thing we talk about climbing culture if we build a strong Community with our students and their families and

082students will feel safe resulting in increased achievement I mean there's thousands of Articles books research that tell you children feel safe and they feel happy their achievement levels will go up so um you know it's great that we're looking at the achievement today but I want to know what Cherry Brook what what it what it's showing over the course of of many years um to see that what we're doing is really effective and then I'd like to know in the fall or when it's when we report again no there's no data I mean we have the SEO rubric and all that they came out but there's no data to show us how young children really feel or you know the play-based learning I want to I'd like to know we talk about you know the

083reading and writing and the math very essentially correct and of course that's the priority but like what I want to know more what our young children in Canton are doing for play-based learning they're talking about at the Capitol about passing a bill they want to require it in pre-k through K and then they want to permit it in grades one through five so like this is coming from the state you know but then we have Charlene Tucker who testifies that she wants to put cursive writing and World language in kindergarten which was a phenomenal debate amongst representatives in her about how much more can we squeeze in kindergarten so you know we talked about being a lighthouse District let us be the lighthouse district for Early Childhood for for bringing play-based learning back you know

084it was squeezed out it's been squeezed out it's not just in candidates across the whole state across the whole country so I I really would like to see what we're going to do to you know bring it back it's not that we're not doing wonderful things every day here but really to bring it back the play-based learning part um and having you know a closer look which we were starting to do with our early childhood task force and Kevin will not be here but I I just these are some questions that that I have for our subcommittee for Cherry Brook and that's why I put in the context of like nobody has to answer tonight but I'd wanna I really want to know more about that other part of the whole child I think go

085ahead I'm sorry sorry uh Mr Daniels again Kim just you know you bring up you know you bring up some really great points and I think the piece of the longitudinal beta of Dibbles I think over time as we continue to you know implement it we're going to have that information for you so next year will be your three I believe so that's a good good time of longitudinal data to start looking at some things is now what three years of information um I think our curriculum just being in the building and walking around and seeing our children in action specifically kindergarten um you know our curriculum our math curriculum our literacy curriculum it naturally embeds opportunities for kids to play so we have teachers um that were on that committee um you know that

086play-based committee really implementing centers um with all types of centers math centers um centers of of how to shop go shopping imagine it to play engineering centers I was in a room where kids are singing you know singing singing um singing that is embedding some of the literacy skills that they that they've been learning with with high frequency high frequency words and snap words on um you know in one of in some of the first grade classrooms you know building communities and building cities vow cities so drawing and building and that and playing a baseball game with with SNAP words so I think our curriculum is is you know honoring kids where they're at and knowing that you know we kids are very tactile and they bring in information many different ways so it's it's

087it's reassurance it's being in the building since January knowing that you know some there are opportunities in our in our new curriculum and in our curriculum where kids are are having that opportunity to really kind of explore that play-based piece and that that collaboration and cooperation with with their peers in the class um so and while we have a ways to go yeah boy I'm seeing more play-based learning this year than ever and as Donna will attest we spent um quite a bit of money at the end of last year providing play-based Learning Materials in every single classroom and that's thanks to your advocacy came before that so I'll admit we have a ways to go but I'm seeing more of that I appreciate the honest appreciate responsive feedback and once again like you know

088thanks to you for for recognizing the need and having the Early Childhood task force you know that we were in some work of that and I remember Dave you were a part of that there's meetings and then coca came along and that obviously changed the whole dynamic within an early you know an elementary school so we were picking up momentum so it's nice to hear that maybe you know maybe we haven't been in forms of the you know the effect of that and so that's where I'm coming from you know and we have um Heather um Antonella and Kate dolphin are are Mac science coordinator here and then Heather Sentinel our esteemed coordinator learning Commons teacher so Dave I know they've been they've attended some PD through the state on play-based learning and have been

089really doing a nice job implementing some of that within classrooms but specifically with our learning Commons with the work that they're doing in there giving those kids those opportunities to really you know um really use what they're learning class from and use it for like a play constructive play type of atmosphere so it is happening it's you know you know is it perfect yet no but we're definitely it's at you know yes exactly they're going to be able to be two great leaders to be able to support that that's part of why those two have gone out in that professional development so that so that you can build you can build that in a place and then scale it out and funny enough that was a conversation that the four of us had four years

090ago so you've been a champion of this and let's stay on I think you raised some great questions I'd like to hear some of those answers too but obviously that's not for tonight and we should carry those over they'll be in minutes so let's let's stay on those things okay all right thank you for that and thanks for the hard work thank you for your time any other questions for Mr scrambler you're good all right well thank you everyone I I appreciate the opportunity so and I thank you for your time thank you thank you for hard work no problem okay uh good report Let's uh let's continue on we'll go to public forum at this point this is the point of our program that we allow for any input um any comments that anybody

091wants to make I don't know if you want to speak in public forum tonight no okay thank you anybody online that would like to speak for public forum um we've got nine people so if you are joining us online and you want to make a public comment you can go ahead and use the Rays fan feature zoom and I will call on you by your Zoom name and you'll be allowed to talk anybody online would like to make a comment tonight if you do just raise your hand and let us know your name and your address for the record I don't have any raised hands okay so uh hearing none will close out public forum and we'll move on to our information reports and we'll go to the assistant superintendent schools Mr Bishop thank you

092Mr Daniels uh and thank you board for the opportunity to share tonight I wanted to to share that our state testing is underway uh we anticipate that coming to a close um throughout the the next week and Beyond um but we're looking forward to being a lab that's taken care of for us um in our next meeting uh Sarah Jones who was our student and family engagement director she's going to be coming to be able to uh greet you all but I just wanted to be able to give you an update on some of the work that we have been able to do so far to this point in her partnership um and and support with uh as a liaison with the open Choice program we've had several meetings with leadership from open choice to

093be able to make those connections and facilitate some conversation which has been fantastic for us and even opening up some new avenues for us this year and Beyond and then she has also had an opportunity to that all of our our students who participate in open choice at the at the high school level too and have an opportunity to be able to speak with their students those students as well she was excited to get some snacks out to be able to support there um I'm going to follow up on the great news from the um Walt Disney trip and I'm going to see a little bit of Jeff Moore's Thunder because I did get a chance to go on the Washington DC trip with the eighth grade class and I think it was sapped and

094sold for so many people to be able to go and have that kind of uh opportunity for students I will say unequivocally that it was the finest trip that I have experienced in my number of years going with the Canton Middle School um Mr scheidler all you know I I don't have the same reference point that you have with that but it was it was uh outstanding our students were impeccable it was well organized well planned so thank you to Tina Olson and Jeff Moore for all the work and our leaders who put that on but a very very worthy experience our summer Academy registrations are out there's going to be some additional information at our curriculum committee meeting tomorrow about some of the Middle School office that will have to we completed our camera

095walkthrough with the organization that we provided the preliminary approval for for the RFB so we're expecting to be able to get final information advice to move forward on that summer project and then um just an important thing to be able to to note we'll be sending out information uh this week on community family and guardian surveys this is a great opportunity for us as a district and for our schools to be able to receive feedback um from our um from our families and our Guardians on the communication with schools and the connection with schools this information we'll be using as we go into the summer and beat and work on the continuous Improvement plans for our schools and for the district as well but I I just want to make sure that folks know that

096that this is valuable for us and that as this information comes out please please do venture to uh provide us some feedback it does help us to be able to get better and we appreciate that opportunity uh we will follow that up in the next week with all of our staff surveys for all of our staff and all of our schools and then that followed subsequently with surveys for all of our students as well any questions for me all right thank you okay thank you John um moving on to the financial report uh if you want to tag team with Russell yep got it um if you can see in your packet I wrote up a summary the same as last month the board of sorry the finance committee actually met prior to this meeting

097uh and went over all the financials and details so at a very high level um we're continuing to watch Special Ed this month you'll see that special ed actually went down by 59 000 but it'll be going back up in May as we already know that information so it's always uh uh you know a little bit volatile uh so we'll see what month end of May brings for that but with the special ed expenses we are still planning on receiving the uh excess cost reimbursement of about 76 is the latest information that should be coming in actuality hopefully later this month and the Hartford billing and my summary actually it says 852 I believe that number should be 872. um that we uh will be getting for uh or we have billed part third four

098that would also offset those special ed costs fasting to uh come in close to budget there's still some uh items to watch the K-12 Transportation fuel utilities heating oil substitutes uh you know a lot of fmlas uh going on right now so that adds some costs uh and like a cost of custodial and other supplies so um we are still planning on coming in close to but we will know better at the end of May Russell you want to add anything to it oh no Donna covered pretty much everything but it seems like it's very accurate from what presented into those do you want to explain the um sure the uh CIP yeah so that way when we move to our approval right this evening I have submitted uh uh two motions uh to reallocate

099CIP funds uh we have uh uh about forty five thousand dollars uh in a an unallocated interest income account in our Capital uh plan our Capital fund uh so with that we have an unexpected cost for uh an elevator repair at CIS uh that is uh pretty important uh because it's the control board so to speak is Obsolete and on its last legs and if it blows uh then that operator or the elevator will be inoperable uh for for some time so um the inspectors have uh recommended that we go ahead and replace that now and be a little proactive so that cost is nineteen thousand eight hundred dollars and it was unplanned uh so we thought that that would be uh good use of funds in the CIP to allocate that for that elevator

100repair uh also we had a CIP approved last year of 25 000 for some High School auditorium lighting improvements uh that has in actuality the the quotes are a slightly more than the 25 000 so we are asking also from that uh unallocated interest income account to take 1 360 uh from that account and add it to the auditorium lighting account is is that been uh partially done uh the only thing that's been done is is really a screen has been moved but uh we had trouble getting some vendors in there we needed a few vendors to to bid but I think we've got that ironed out because we wouldn't have noticed a difference it's going to be done during the summer I've already majority okay any questions for Donald uh for Donna or Russell

101any questions Felicia or Erica no okay why don't we move uh we'll move forward we'll take up those actions in a minute let's go to the uh consent agenda Mr Case okay thank you this evening is part of the consent agenda uh we have the approval of the minutes of the regular meeting of April 18th 2023 the special meeting of April 18 2023 and the um break excuse me the special meeting which was Canton celebrates uh last Tuesday May 2nd also as part of the consent agenda tonight we have three um three resignations one which includes one retirement I'll begin with um with Mrs Kaufman this is Lynn Kaufman who has been a school counselor at Canton Intermediate School um for over um 15 years close to 20. um is announcing her retirement after 20

102years in education so she will be retiring on June 30th 2024. um this will be a big loss for the district Mrs Kaufman is so valuable has really touched the lives of hundreds of students as they've moved through Canton intermediate school so I recommend that you accept her notice of resignation to retire and I I would add with regrets a big loss for us thanks you know um we've also received a letter of resignation from Forrest zerpillow Mr zurpolo was a or is a science teacher at Canton Middle School this was his first year um he has decided to to resign at the end of this year and then after five years in the position um Catherine mattioli who is our library media specialist at Canton High School has taken a position in another District

103so she will be resigning June 30th 2023 so those are three resignations that are part of the consent agenda that I ask that you take action on today I have a motion to approve the consent agenda is presented thank you Russell thank you Cindy first and second any conversation hearing none all those in favor aye Felicia Erica thank you um motion passes unanimous eight or eight oh tonight okay let's take up the approval of the financials is presented by Donna and approved by the finance committee this afternoon we have a motion to approve the 2023 financials thank you Russell thank you Peggy first and second uh any discussion questions hearing none all those in favor aye opposed 8-0 on that thank you okay and uh I have a motion for the reallocation of CIP um

104to the elevator repair is done in his described I mean yeah stone is described first I think tonight foreign we have two online just right six seven eight okay hey so actually the uh we we have a uh stated motion move to the cam Board of Education allocate 19 800 from VOE CIP unallocated interest income account to a new project CIS elevator control board can I have a motion accordingly thank you Cindy second Russell any further conversation questions all those in favor spine it's ego can I have a motion we move the camp board of education allocate thirteen hundred sixty dollars from the boecip unallocated interest income account to project 048-00-996-59469 CHS Auditorium upgrades motion Peggy thank you thank you Joe first and second any uh any questions all those in favor I I 80

105there too okay great all right Mr shiver first reading of policy 6161-11 right there's three policies here they're all carried over from the last meeting where they were first read uh I'll start with the last one controversial issues policy kind of ask that we table that uh that uh another member Joe had some questions about it John and I met with Ryan for a long time and I made some improvements in that policy but we're not in a position to vote on that tonight I think the whole committee hasn't seen it and the whole board hasn't seen it uh it's very very similar to what we have but there are some you know probably a dozen changes so I'm going to table that if you're okay with that uh it probably has to be a

106separate motion huh the table uh no we just I don't think we just don't take it out okay do the other two are are connected uh and there was no uh I had no discussion no emails uh regarding those two uh the first one uh so let's start with the 6160 at the selection of educational materials that there are 11 items in that if you recall the idea is to make sure that the items that are go in front of our children uh in classes or reading in the library that sort of thing have some careful thought behind them and are vetted before they get there and there's a rationale behind why things are put there uh the the policy that we're being asked to adopt tonight just outlines the general guidelines the rules the

107regulations are late quite lengthy if you recall and we're not going to vote on those those are School regulations how the school will implement the policy part of those of the policy the education materials policy refers to what if someone in the community has an objection to something and that's a separate policy and that we we don't want we don't want things getting in front of our kids that aren't vetted nor do we want things removed without careful consideration that it can't be one person says take it out and it comes out and then we decide then there's a whole process established as a form established as a committee established and that's all quite spelled out in the policy how that would work should that ever occur so those are separate policies but they're really

108together really tied together you want anything to that or not answer so you're asking for approval of 6160 and the other one doesn't seem to come oh 61 61.11 and 61.60 are tied to get back together uh and the 6144 we're going to table so one one is the first reading one is an approval right you know they're both second readings so it's just misstated in the uh to to clarify what it was um what we had what we had initially done within 6160 um was to outline outline the um the policy the regulations within that regulation we also spelled out what the um the practice was if there was a request for reconsideration to be able to have that walk alongside effectively 61 61 61.11 can be adopted to be able to add to

109the overall structure of what we have so there has been an initial review of it well it's misstated in the agenda then um yeah I'm not hesitant yeah me too vote on it yeah we shouldn't vote on it as a secondary if it's on the agenda it's the first week I thought it was the first read last time but I could be wrong I could go back and look is there is there any harm in coming back to both and making sure we have it right no well we'll add both to the agenda next time okay so it's table all three of them yes okay now the only question I had on I happened to see Jody goer uh today and um you know our policy book if you haven't seen it it's about EA

110big right so uh one of the goals if you remember one of the board goals was I wanted to go back and I wanted to begin upgrading policies and and to be able to do that you know for a volunteer part-time board is incredible and I was talking to Jody about it and Joe had this suggestion and Jody kind of um validated it maybe what we wanted to take is um take a year in particular let's say every policy from 2016 and before just I'm throwing out an example we adopt the um shipping and Goodwin policies as written legally up to that point that upgrades all our policies up to that point and maybe we do the work from 2016 on or 2017 on or whatever it may be or everything that's new that's coming

111in post 2020. the point of the matter is it upgrades all our policies and it's consistent with what the work that shipping and Goodwin has already done and if we're challenged on it we we have no better legal recourse than to fall back on shipment and Goodwin it's already done the research there's no way we can read all these policies and upgrade them accordingly yet many of them are not current and not appropriate for today's for today's particular level I'm not asking for anybody to vote on that today it may be something that we want to consider and to have further discussion on but I think I want to see that policy book updated up to a certain point and then the board can pick up on the work the policy committee can pick up

112in the work from that point on just just my thought suggestion but I know some some boards are going that way for sure [Music] sounds like a good idea eventually so why don't we we'll we'll continue that thought process we'll have more conversation about it down the road and maybe uh as Jordan comes on board just to get guys some further opinion to it but um I'm thinking that's the way I feel more comfortable with our policy book knowing that we've at least on some of the work up to a certain point so okay um that's it on policy any other board comments anybody have anything they want to bring up to the board Felicia Eric I'll start with both you any any comments just so we're gonna have curriculum um meeting tomorrow and uh

113like Simone said we're interviewing for the next student rep tomorrow morning as well so we should know who that is going to be fairly soon are both those so I know curriculum's at nine are your interviews before that yeah eight okay so if if anybody wants to um pop in send me an email perfect if anybody wants to attend 8 A.M 8 A.M for the interviews or the new uh reps I think uh Eric has two nine o'clock is curriculum up at the Middle School uh yes okay one comment I wonder right I know we challenged Kevin in one of our meetings and John about experientials and field trips but the feedback from the community and the excitement from the children you know over at the Ellis Island you know I was silent simulation the

114Disney trip the eighth grade trip that you know bringing this stuff back um that's that's what it's about and the response of the parents and the students in the community and the buzz about it has been wonderful I think you're right my grandson can't sleep thinking about storage which is what two minutes away right so I think you're right thank you John and Kevin for you know really supporting those so great for working with us too okay uh we are going to walk into an executive session for the purpose of a Personnel issue and it'll be very brief okay um call them you want me to close everyone out of the meeting you can close everybody how would you like to handle the executive session I can either this is about uh some Financial numbers

115that I wanted to provide the board I can give it to you individually um just didn't want to Echo them out Felicia Erica if it's easy enough to close out everyone I'll just stay on to here yeah I can remove everyone yeah I can stay on or or if you'd rather send an email that's fine too can you stay private can we close everybody out and just go fight it'll literally be quiet no not yet you're just walking your executive session and after that and then after we'll post off the meeting so take all five minutes okay yeah