001yeah I am a session hold your hands in front of schools available places foreign thank you Joe yeah um thank you foreign experiences so far um well yeah yes yes director of Technology School director of Technology um [Music] foreign [Music] this is me just trying to get the hours [Music] I realized for all of the technology were closed in a school district eight continuous improvements over the past about several years is really to build a strong team uh for two years I'll stop talking thanks for being here tonight to give us um [Music] we can try I don't know owls owls misbehaving this evening I can do this yeah our owl is currently Frozen so we can uh I could I can try something else each prepare the HP first people yes so thank you
002for the opportunity today uh science presentation will focus on the command rates news um technology this year um I just wanted to briefly discuss the student and technology department uh most of the technology we've seen is about sitting in this group so um you know this is the first year for many of our people and um is super motivating a lot of business before you get to sell them uh in total we have two four or five including myself and then there's Europe and uh the statutory come out so so we started this school year um with about 300 percent of the outstanding work here is the super her job for having a number of statements down uh we're having nowhere about 30 it was already at any activities either so uh a full staff
003as well as [Music] being proactively instead of reactionary so we've done a lot of cool things with that we've spent time working on looking at what things in our department can be optimized what what products that we have can be changed and swapped out what can we do in-house instead of purchasing expert elsewhere one of the things that you'll see is that our digital signs will um be done in-house now um so that so really really pleased about that physical science at each one of our schools they all have basically just a billboard that is rotating with days events um and it's got a reduction of eight thousand dollars here so we'll really happy about that um so on the infrastructure side and this is uh slide three I'm happy to say that we cut
004um over to a district-wide Hewlett-Packard wireless solution this year and it's given us lots of gains greater security greater Wireless speeds um significantly reduced login problems because now it's a hardware-based solution instead of sort of passwords and stuff like that and we have a lot more flexibility on how devices log in so we have an extension-based thing such so we have um that we can allow little one-off devices to be accessed on our Network like blood sugar Monitoring Solutions like that so it's a lot more flexible it's a lot more secure a lot more stable and it's District wide at this point the slide board I promise I won't keep jumping in no please don't I just want to make sure everybody understands we have several students who have health Physicians where technology is really
005useful to monitor those conditions so that's what Jeff was referring to when students need to check their blood glucose our system can handle all of those devices right in a really secure way so essentially in the past we would do it but it would also expose some security passwords and stuff now now we just have this exclusionary Zone that we can allow these things in a very secure method they work really well and not have to worry about anything leaking out like student passwords getting onto our computer network and stuff and that's what was happening so um slide four continuing with the infrastructure category we have successfully migrated many of our servers to a real Hardware infrastructure for better performance now we had this pending for years and it just wasn't as you know involved
006and now at this point the new server administrator he was able to resolve that so very close um we've implemented routine full user uh audits this allows us to reduce or make basically maintain the amount of data that's flowing through our Network at any given time to ensure that a single person is not congesting the network for all of our users so that audit happens automatically now it's part of the automation that we built into it to ensure that everybody kind of gets an equal piece of the network Pi if you will uh we completed a server uh closet environmental Monitoring Solutions so each one of our key servers around the district now monitor humidity and temperature and send alerts if anything goes wrong so we really hope that this reduces any kind of loss
007that you would occur or even dig a loss that occurred if we had failed um you know air conditioners which unfortunately is a reality in the united world probably and shockingly the most intense part of our migration this year was the PowerSchool migration um to the cloud which doesn't seem like it would be that difficult we had worked with a company but effectively our school is the Hub of a lot of different products and so we had to recreate that connection with with each one of them using an external entity so it was an awful lot of work done predominantly by our server administrator again Legacy just a brilliant job um Slide Five yep so I feel that the technology department has seen more profound changes in cyber security in the last two years than
008in the entire time that I've been in Canton so a lot of this was driven by uh you know the the mandates that were given to us by the Cyber insurance companies but it's good it really needed to happen I needed to happen globally you know we've implemented multi-factor authentication I think we've all faced that in emails but it's gone way beyond that you know we implemented it for all Windows computer logins for any administrative person so even to get into your computer if you're if you're somebody who has the keys to the network you're dealing with multi-factor authentication no matter what device you're on so that's really great we're starting to roll that out for cloud platform to solve this so a year ago uh Wilco had an issue that they got the they
009got blocked out is our security system would that prevent us from having someone hack in like that and no there there is a very specific there's a very specific failover solution that we build in and tested it and it's a very simple failover solution and we made sure that in the event of something happening to these sets of servers that are responsible or multi-factor authentication we could kind of pull this little trick and suddenly it would only require our standard administrative level passwords so um we stock to be password protected right and while those things are um in place there is still that multi-factor authentication but should we need to we have a way of segregating that out and gaining access to the system okay yeah that was integral in adopting this solution actually uh
010we adopted the cyber the center for Internet Security this is a amount of order Center for Internet Security best practices assessment strategy you know so I read that out because it's the acronym CIS right so we adopted the CIS best practices assessment track for hardening computers for cyber security tracks so that's a company that's um just it's it's a government-based company they they give you all of these solutions for making sure that your local computers and servers are not susceptible to Common threats when we first started the solution which was in September this hardening track our computers were about 30 right so they were right around 30 we were told by the person that's doing the implementation with us that that's pretty much where most people are it's right around 30 the Casual person is
011not going to get in but a real concerted effort would be able to get in as we stand now um we are at a 70 percentile basis so we've really increased the hardening on the computers and the IT computers are at 79 and at the end user computers it's still in testing we do extensive testing before we push this out to anybody's computer you know we don't want to disable things um but we're confident that we can get to 79 before before July so we're very happy about that um yeah so we also worked on a user build so it's a user account automated uh monitoring solution um so that if a new user account is created that user account is monitored over time if it does not get accessed in 30 days it gets
012disabled so what that does is essentially stops orphaned accounts from poking around and people just trying random passwords to get into somebody's account and gain access to another so that's an automated process that we also built into this so and of course our wireless security has been greatly improved because there's no real password for it it's all done on a hardware Network level so no one types a password there's no password to give out it's not done like that it's done but secure trust we keep between the computer in the service oh so are we on slide six does it my notes say read off the slide so so we also continue to refine our Disaster Recovery Solutions we updated indust you know based on industry best practices which change all the time but we've
013implemented multi-factor authentication protection on our immutable backup Cloud backups and so immutable Cloud backups you take your backups you stick them in the cloud and they can't be touched not by us not by them not by anybody the only thing we can do is read from them after that and what that means is should a hacker gain access to that or something they can't encrypt that that stuff that's in the cloud it's immutable for a period of time it's also password protected and MFA protected so they need a phone whatever phone we use and they need access to our password and a bunch of stuff in order to even get into the system and the only thing they could do is delete it they couldn't encrypt it um we've also done a monthly restore testing
014procedures so the insurance policy that we have now requires us to do monthly Restorations of servers bring them up online make sure that we can do that in the event of an emergency so it's built into our routines yes so a lot of this I have a cyber security policy so and that dictates a lot of things I have to do so you you have to conform to the insurance to the Cyber policy right and a lot of these things you're talking about are requirements pretty much absolutely okay well in order to me they are less requirements and more recommendations okay um and basically if we do not adhere to those recommendations the money goes up right so we do this keeps our policy down because we've met these yes absolutely thank you um so
015we also do offline double lock and key encrypted data store for critical systems and so basically there's two different lock and key Solutions fireproof safe and another thing and then an encrypted via password device that we offline our data to and then stick in a case so we're we're sure that it's you know not going to be physically accessed by anybody and if somebody wanted to access those things somehow it would still be encrypted so happy about that all right slide seven so in the teaching and learning areas we implemented single sign-on solution for many of our small products across the district so we're about five of our larger Solutions now fully integrated with either Google or PowerSchool login which makes you know logging in for students and teachers much quicker and much faster um
016so this results in a lot more learning for kids because they're not messing around with passwords and it also reduces uh support needs so less time reaching out to people and trying to get that connectivity for this one kid who may have forgotten this password we'll be expanding our SSO greatly this year because we love it right we we want to see that um in many many more products out there and it just takes quite a bit of time on a per product basis to make that happen so really what we're looking at is how can we most effectively get that out into the products that are most viables we have a far better centralized data warehouse solution in place that brings data in from many different applications they give teachers a single Focus View
017and more insight into student needs so this is a data warehouse solution called Lincoln um that we've been working on with John and um it's just beautiful the way it works and so we're really making big strides with that and we we believe it has takes dividends Jeff that's important to say again so this tool called link it tracks student achievement data so that teachers can see how well their students are doing or not that adjust their instruction and when the principals present to you their end of the year data in the next few weeks they're using this data management system to help them determine what Improvement has been made and what an improvement still needs to be made so again that's called link it and you'll see more of that describe right it's just
018wonderful I mean you know it's one thing to see the data on one or two applications side by side it's another thing to see them the aggregate of all of the data in one page that one Studio um not uh yes and yeah it so it pulls from Power School it pulls from a bunch of different sources and then it Aggregates that data so that's that's the beauty of it is we we really don't have another solution um without looking at five different screens with the same kit of really seeing that aggregate data and that's that ability to do with the product since you see this where you are I mean you have a lot of this or is there's a difference pardon me we don't use our school what is it you have a
019similar system or are we yes are we equal are we behind how do you you know private school I I like our school a lot better than what we're using this orders it's well it's it's kind of um a hybrid of something called teacher ease which is really a misnomer and uh and uh um Black Thought which is kind of their all-encompassing it tracks just all kinds of things you know it's an interface for calendars and all kinds of stuff But the teacher he's saying has been to give a little bit of context for for other uh Public Schools right now too they will sometimes contract out with different data analytics companies to be able to give them reports this gives us a robust solution to be able to use that also allows us to
020lend more uh Solutions into its own um being able to keep track of student support and tutorial what does that trend line look at and what does it look like and we can be able to see that a little over time the tool that we're using right now um we and Greenwich are the two early adopters of this right now everyone in the state is looking for someone like this to be able to implement right now and we keep singing the praise of it with the hope of being able to see some some more expansion and we're really excited about what this does this this approach to data analytics is a new approach within the state right now and it's on the website yes so application return on investment so this is something that we've
021been looking at for years right we've all we've really wanted to be able to do a very exhaustive examination of all of the applications that we use in the district and what they return right um so what what do they cost how how and forget about what they cost what do they do for our students right like how much value is the time that we're putting in those applications delivering to our kids so um what we've done is starting in September this September we we pushed a network monitor that allows us to really see how frequently those applications are being used both by teachers and by students so we have a bar graph over time that shows hey this this happened this many times this happened this many times and not surprisingly Google is the
022the runner with hundreds of thousands of hits on a monthly monthly basis and all of the other applications are so very small so we can delve into that at a later time but great metrics on what's actually happening in the district um then we are also using teacher surveys to get the perspective of the teacher so we're asking things like how frequently do you use this application or your students use your application how much value do you feel that this is in terms of learning is it a good value for for that um and we have a couple other questions um and so we're Gathering that data that way so and we're doing this on a per application basis lastly we're looking at the built-in dashboard part of the application itself to see how frequently
023they're being used and for how long and if there's any definable like quantifiable uh increase in performance for the student over time so we're doing this so that we can really find out what the value is of the dis of the product is both the students and how much it costs and how much value you're getting out of it so very excited about that and the data is amazing so um also um I know a lot of you have heard that we've done some interactive LCD projectors around the district as well as smart boards and this was a really um highly desired thing amongst our teachers our smart boards and lce projectors were really really old and we put a lot of money into that this year didn't we get a grant and we got
024a grant for that thank you Luke um a program public utility regulations Association so we got this program um and we um purchased additional boards and put them up in place and part of that program was to um to they they needed some evidence about how we used it how frequently they're being used so Kira developed a video and it's a great little video and we thought that you'd like to see it's a very short video but it's great fantastic so hopefully foreign and so Lee and uh Jen zenoa are on my way out of the office and every day that I leave for news now so I'm really happy um and I I love to see them really engaging with the technology and it's funny what um what I think would be engaging a
025lot with people like in front of the classroom really find absolutely that's impressive yeah I thought you'd love it so I think here it did a great job and their presentation very interesting all right so fiscal responsibility I spent a lot of time on this slide wordsmithing it because I I feel really profound about it I like I do an awful lot of thinking about money when it comes to the board of education so and normally I don't read from the slide but today I'm gonna so the objective one objective uh our objective is to Achieve Financial stability if I can see that part and shortened repair turnaround times thereby reducing down time for teachers and Learners and maximizing student engagement so uh we believe that teachers and Learners have access to real when teachers
026and Learners have access to technology it can significantly reduce their learning or enhance rather their learning experience in addition we aim to drive Innovation by enhancing existing Solutions with a focus on increasing usability Automation and reducing costs wherever possible so by doing so we can ensure that our technology resources are optimized and tailored to meet the needs of our teachers and learners yes so I like all aspects of that slide so so we do that by providing a very clear and transparent I.T funding requests a detailed itemization of costs annual replacement of student and devices servers you know the scheduled replacement Cycles which you all know have have been presented and we ensure that our systems and solutions align with the values and support our vision and we have a strong commitment to exploring alternative
027funding sources wherever these or wherever we can find these initiatives okay so sorry so this is an example or these are examples of the Funding Solutions that we found in the um in this calendar year so so they're significant and they wouldn't be possible without having adequate time to seek out and request the funding it takes a lot of time a lot of effort um and it's only possible because the funding that is available for staff and excellent mentors that John Kevin Donna and a great support team behind me like my IT staff so really on behalf of all of us I just want to thank you all yeah you get those um from France how are we doing funding are we shorting you at all no no the replacement Cycles are really cute right
028having a very clear understanding of the cost of Education from you know and and conveying that to the Board of Education um and knowing what you expect from us and knowing what that cost is to you um is really vitally important so I think that's what you guys need how much is it going to cost to do this thing and what I'm going to need what are we trying to do with the funds that are available we can look for alternative funding and we did everything's about that last slide um anywhere we can so I'm going to hit you with this question because I've been reading a lot about artificial intelligence and what's going on at the college level it's on and so forth what happens is that starts to trip into the high school
029level all right this is great it's a great question because you saw that slide that I was really proud of yeah well just joking but um but I did run it through chat GPT just to make sure what I did I was really really proud of my slide and then I ran it through and I was even more proud so here's what I found um what I found is you can't get a really really good result right now from I'm not saying it's not going to be a good way in the future you can't get a really really good result from artificial intelligence until you know exactly how to articulate your question you really need to know that you really need to say no I don't want to focus on staff I want to focus
030on teachers and Learners so please rephrase this this way right and then it kind of comes up like this and then it's like oh well I don't like that because I want to focus on transparency in my budget please rephrase at this one so yes it's neat it gives you some really good stuff but it's not going to give you Jeff's stuff right unless I go back and forth with that thing 15 times until I have that really beautiful message well I'm saying high schoolers are going to learn how to use artificial intelligence on tests and and um assignments need to look different that's what we're going to see as part of the evolution of what is the ask that we have yeah but you're going to need money for that right you're going to
031need to start preparing for that you're going to start planning for that I think we need to think differently right and I I think we need to sorry no and that a lot of that comes in professional development there's a lot being written right now coming out in the educational domain right now and we are having staff conversations that are moving around with that too all right well you're not going to stop this you know this big phase of artificial intelligence so I think part of it is how do we get students to ask the right questions right and that that is funny because from a from a hobbyist programmer standpoint asking the right question is is fundamental to finding the solution even if you're asking even if you're doing it on your own so
032that's that's a really important thing right learning how to ask the right question okay it was a really good article in the cave Journal last month uh where the person who wrote it asked chat whatever it's called to write it down it came out pretty darn good uh and the conclusion he came because exactly what you said and what John is saying you have to think differently in terms of assignments and what you're asking kids to write so that that technology to this with a Stamper right yeah software technology yeah yeah and as as something new comes out some other solution is going to come up that game is always going to be moving for us yeah and that's that's where we get to the sense of how do we put leaning forward into the
033future with the right tools We're very professional development great status okay um I want to keep this moving any other questions for Jeff the student data obviously that's as secure as it can be right I get that question a lot including but you know how secure is all this data and information and tests and scores yeah well I mean a couple years ago I remember I think it was 2007 the student data Privacy Act came out and um it basically changed everything it did what we wanted to do which was essentially um secure our data centers and make it so that our data centers are needing a certain standard right like the insurance policies they're looking at them now and say hey if you've just told your 20 000 employees that you're not going to
034leak data and that you're this type of standard you better make sure that that happens so it adhered they're now adhering to the same data standings that that are you know the same security standards that we have to another question are you on the technology committee we still have a technology Community right well it's supposed to be curriculum in technology I just I just was curious comes up a lot and we see it in the news and the schools that go without phones and you know the devices what involvement of are you involved with that the awareness of you know from Individual devices that children bring to school you know or is it more that's more administrative that is really an administrative decision yeah yeah yeah um but you're involved in the city the filtering
035and all that absolutely yeah that's right is that still continues to be an evolving everything everywhere every day yeah yeah every day there's ways around internet filters and um so every day we try to get better at what we do this relations of policies or anything that very much I mean with regards to personal devices um it's very much an administrative decision so um you know I think that that would have to come up during them as you know a technology administrative counseling session did you mean policies through AI Etc all that stuff I mean personal devices AI just I mean these are it first I just wondered how much involvement and input that you give on this is yeah I mean usually John kind of reports on that right yeah Jeff you're fully staffed
036now yes and where are you located um I'm in the middle of the high school on the bottom floor room on the basement or you've got a real office it's the bottom floor it's not a it's a real office my office is does your team have the right you know uh facilities and absolutely okay yeah just check it out what are the areas concerned about right most concerned about right now as Lou would say the things that keep you up um it ain't security anymore it ain't security tonight it ain't it was and Joe will tell you that it was security for quite a while but um that's the thing now that I'm fully stuffed I'm not kept up at night right that's the thing we're we're on top of stuff for the first time
037in a very long time so I'm happy to say that so a report is riddled with examples of you're taking the technology plan seriously and trying to implement it so I compliment Joe on that for sure Jeff probably time to be next year or a year after to look at that again but but the plan was written by board members and deaf and teachers and all and for real commitment to implementing it uh what caught my eye one thing I was the application uh return on investment um something that we've talked about for a long long time and that you're doing that now how are we doing in our investments are are you finding in your research in your surveys that the things we're buying are really used a lot or we made mistakes and
038all things yeah I don't think any mistakes were made per se um I think I think maybe procedurally we need to look at um a review frequent review of the applications and there needs to be like some onus on each application so if if somebody was to get I'm going to use this right off the top here it's not specific gizmos somebody want to use gizmos and the owner of that the requester of that application was Jane Smith um Jane Smith should annually be saying this is not really paying off so let's just draw this um I think that that would be very helpful if somebody would look at that data um and honestly say yeah we're not getting the value that we want and switched to a different product for the big products like
039the data warehouse the power schools we do that right the district does that but the smaller applications there's no way for it to have their hands in that to really evaluate we were able to save some money but that too by really being able to evaluate what were some of the things that we added we were able to collapse and condense some things in this past year to be able to to sharpen our Point notes and social screens yeah and and certainly that's what that data is about is to look at does it really get used you know and how much now after it's been implemented for so long what's you know how do you feel about the application is it really is it really um making a big difference in the students learning final
040final magic wand scenario one thing you wish you had if you had a magic wand and we're not giving uh well that's not something I can answer really there's nothing that I can try nothing right now that's great thank you for your presentation tonight thank you for waiting and getting home so late unless you're going back to sleep at the high school probably a cat down there or something right thank you Jeff okay yeah all right um we'll move right along uh budget discussion just in case thank you Lou um just to remind everyone of the next steps in the budget process um I believe it was two weeks ago um Lou and I match with the board of Finance just a step back here we call the board of Finance ask the Board of
041Education to reduce our budget by 165 thousand dollars we then went back to the important Finance on April 3rd and it was at that meeting that the board of Finance determined that we could utilize the 85 000. in savings that we just realized we could get in our health insurance account we could count that toward the 000 reduction so um what we have done and this could change in the process but uh we re-implemented the special ed teacher for the Thrive program at Cherry Brook Primary School we reinstated the Paras that we wanted to reduce from the budget and Donna was also able to forecast some some cost savings and electricity because we're now going with Constellation Energy as the service provider through eversource then we'll realize about eighteen thousand dollars if I believe the
042other correct so that's where we are now with our budget reduction Monday evening um we have the annual town meeting which is the public budget hearing that will be at 6 00 PM um in room app so 6 p.m right here on Monday night and um Lou will say a few words on behalf of the board that budget Bob Bessel will say um some words on the board of selectman's budget and we will be present to answer any uh taxpayers questions and then the budget will be sent to referendum um at some date to be scheduled in May so the mailer is out you each should have gotten the mail from the board to your homes um so are we in a quiet period now where we can't Advocate that's correct we cannot we cannot
043Advocate using Board of Education you can work by now but we can't do anything more than what's already out there now that's correct you can't use technology we can't improve the Flyers everybody has big excuse on Mondays pound meeting May 9th is the uh is the vote the votes here there has to be a minimum last time it did not meet the minimum although I I tend to think I was talking to Mr scheiler here and I tend to think that this one might stir up this is this is a one of the larger increases that this town has seen in some time so it may still have some emotions yes the most important thing you can do is encourage voters to vote in the referendum right any questions about our budget where we are
044at this point so Monday night is the next budget meeting all right to go into my report I don't have much to report on um tonight I was going to report on some of the items the students reported on to again let you know the Disney trip was successful as the students mentioned the choir received the superior rating of the band was rated first in their class and then congratulations again to our student Jack bendinger who was uh given the recognition of the best student accompanyist so congratulations to the band Inquirer and blue and I'm going to take a look at our upcoming meetings before the end of the year and invite the students to come and present their PowerPoint we also had a very successful student trip to Ecuador they would also love to
045come and present to you um what they learned throughout the trip just as the music teachers in the parent chaperones on the Disney trip deserve to be commended both teachers who took our 13 students to Ecuador deserve to be commended we earnings to Breezy and Andrea Shack both veteran Travelers and did an outstanding job and I believe well I know one of the highlights was eating a guinea pig I thought they were joking was why I saw the guinea pig on the platter so we'll we'll hear from the students in the future we'll we'll hear from the students in the future about their wonderful experiences I can't I can't thank you enough for providing both opportunities for kids and especially the international travel opportunity because that really is something that our district has valued and
046the students take so much away from that so thank you so much for that again I want to let you know that following our last meeting where we had several and um Lou and I met Adam brazar as we look at staff who report back to you but what our staff is is saying but I wanted to make sure you knew that we were following up on that I sent the notice out today about our next uh Equity Community Gathering being tomorrow night um I received feedback from several key members of our group that um the date wasn't communicated out enough frequently so many have conflicts tomorrow night so we're going to postpone tomorrow night's Community Gathering and hold it on our next scheduled date which is May 17th and I'm asking here and now
047the first thing in the morning send that message out to the community somewhere I apologize uh for not communicating that more on the April 19th day that was a date that had to be rescheduled um but I look forward to our next gathering on May 17th so to be clear our next Gathering will be May 17 7 to 8 30 through zones I worked with Claudia today to put together a calendar through the end of the year yes with all of the important dates to get us through June 30th so what he will be sending that out to you but there are three dates I really want to highlight for you right now June 9th High School graduation will have a reception in the high school beginning at 5 30. so please mark your calendars
048graduation starts at 6 30. but we always have a reception prior for our staff and all of you that'll begin at 5 30. June 9th Wednesday night June 14th will be the grade six promotion ceremony between 614. yes June June 14th thank you we're checking on the time for that but you can save that evening if you'd like to come to the grade six promotion and then the following evening on June 15th that will be the grade a promotion and then the last day of school for our students will be June 16th that following Friday we're preparing for two weeks from tonight May 2nd to have our County celebrates and as you know from our discussions prior to tonight um we're breaking up the evening it's still going to be one evening but our Cherry
049Brook students in Canton intermediate students will be recognized beginning at six o'clock then we will have a brief reception following those of those honorees of being recognized and then we'll have our middle schoolers and high schoolers we've recognize the second happening that's two weeks from tonight May 2nd at our high school I'm sorry starting starts at six correctly if I'm wrong John or Claudia and we're putting the final touches on the program right now for that this is the second portion of 7 30. I can't respond or just was there a time 7 15 is our goal okay that's my report for tonight any questions any questions sorry sorry you can go ahead well just a quick question um for the um May 2nd award ceremony our kids being um recognized in the same categories
050that they were last year pretty much yes John so they are an academic um you worked hard for the administrative on that yeah it's a similar similar instructors we try to make sure that they're objective objective awards that would be something that they would be recognized for okay Nutella help I know it's still early but do we have any percentages on like uh submitted consent forms or usage rates or anything is there any update on there so Kim I will send that information out Donna and I don't have that tonight yeah um I'll verbally report on that on May 9th but in the meantime we'll get that information out to you I heard that it's uh so far so this goes back maybe three weeks ago it's on it registrations and hints so already so
051we're also um at the high school and going to remind our students of the service during their chat period this Friday April 21st so we have posters throughout the school so we're working hard to Market it when does that service end I'm sure I don't remember a relief everywhere so thank you for asking about it we'll get back to you said it any other questions okay [Music] um Coe report I I just um just want to Echo um how well Mrs San Antonio Chief Mrs Breezy this is Jack did you know having those there's always a little interpretation and worry uh when you're sending that many students out outside of the district but they did a wonderful job and I can't wait to hear their uh the reports to come back um and again just
052to mark your calendars I try to send out reminders Claudia sent out reminders I send out reminders just to make sure that we can get everybody at these meetings um the next so our next sport event meeting is technically May 2nd we're getting to celebrate it's an actual award meeting but the one after that is May 9th okay I mean I and that's our those are our two meetings we have three yeah we have three yeah um curriculum had just met when's your next meeting um Erica please uh you know May 10th May 10. okay so May 10th is curriculum and technology and uh we'll get a reminder out on that if you like it and that Joe's policy would be um but we met earlier the week and it lasts before the last meeting
053in May what's in the last second thing it's May 23rd May 23rd okay thank you yeah policy it as is important uh if anybody like me that and then next Finance meeting is going to be that would be to accept those kids so the committee meetings are important and really that's I just want to emphasize that as the work of the board so any any member that would like to attend can attend but those that are assigned to those committees I just appreciate that we continue to keep the momentum that you have um that began at the beginning of the year it carries forward so that's it for the uh the chair report any questions for me okay hearing none we go to public forum nobody's in the audience why don't we open up on
054the uh on the screen all right yeah we've got a couple people online today if you're joining us online and you'd like to make public comment you can go ahead and use the raised hand feature zoom and I will call on writers his name they want to take bets on this one yeah and if you're one of the one of the attendees online go ahead and use the raise hand features on the bottom of your screen if you'd like to make a public comments memories and okay we appreciate you being online though and listening in and being informed so thank you for being part of the meeting tonight okay so moving forward um public form we move into the assistant superintendent and I'll be I'll be quick tonight um but a couple things that are
055important so I think I'm very excited about um yesterday Sarah Jones our new uh student and family engaging director again in the district which is she's wonderful just a couple highlights and we'll love to be able to have her get an opportunity just to think that maybe the second day of work might be a little uh precocious worse with us but um a couple things about about Sarah uh she joins the district from the state education Resource Center so it's certain where she served as both project officer or the school climate transformation Grant um and then as an educational consultant over the last eight years uh her consultation areas have included possibly intervention in sports uh restorative practices and restorative conferencing uh Equity culturally relevant pedagogy multi-tiered systems of support and stakeholder engagement she's got
056a wealth of knowledge and experience she is a trainer that we might have been Outsourcing for in the past who is now outsourced with us now um she has previously served as the safe schools and Community program manager at the governor's prevention partnership we're at her program supervision included School climate Improvement and bullying prevention she was a director of residential life for a global school she was the director of Student Activities at Manchester High School and actually has worked with Dr Grossman Ryan coming superintendent as well she's the state executive director for student councils through the Connecticut Association of schools and director and past director of recreation for the town of Bolton in his spare time he serves as the deputy mayor for the town of Manchester and on the planning committee for the Manchester
057Road right Road Race she's an outstanding hire a wonderful addition for us wow we're excited to be able to have her here yeah it was that was an All-Star honor and she was a student so we're very excited to be able to have her I also wanted to be able to let you know that um Mrs McLean and I have been working really hard on the mental health grant that the state has been offering that was submitted today um where it went totally what we're asking for is about 120 000 and we looked through the rubric board we feel like we've got a very good opportunity for it we're hopeful for that we'll report back to you um when we get an update on that is that great we'll give you support company um support
058staff Journal yeah so we're looking at it to be able to expand our systems of support with two additional social workers and a board-certified behavior analyst we currently um contract for some of those services and would love to be able to have ourselves in a situation that could um be able to have those folks in-house and then work strategically alongside within our Thrive program so this is a this is one of our strategies to continue to fill out that program and through some of the work that we do in them having a situation where that program again becomes self-sustaining with that and we would we would anticipate the grant serving us over the next three years nice that's what I have to share you want to say anything about space or I'm happy to share
059just a little just just so you all know um we continue to be able to work on the issue of space and we had a walk through with an architect um on um just this past week we're going to be meeting with the town leadership uh later this week to be able to share a little bit more with them about what some of the some of the considerations are and we expect to be able to have a report that would come back from the architectural firm um at some point this next month hopefully within the next two weeks or so as that information comes forward it'll be it will give us a good sense of what's feasible for us to be able to do based on the conditions that we have and then what would
060be are possible options to be able to move forward with the ballpark estimate of cost like that great thanks Joe okay well I don't have too much uh you have your packet in front of you uh and you can see the earlier this evening we had a finance committee meeting uh where we went over things in detail um but basically it's uh these special you know we're still watching our special ed cost but we anticipate we are hoping to get uh some funding through uh about 823 000 for Access cost reimbursement uh and also 853 000 was built in Hartford schools um that should offset those special ed deficits as of right now uh so we haven't gotten the funds yet but that's what we're we're anticipating um so we're just continuing to watch our
061regular ad expenses um mainly uh utilities and heating fuel District substitutes and some uh supplies and such dual inflation and we're just uh forecasting every day and reevaluating where we're going to be at year end and we're going to be allocating some items to Grants and such and working through our financial funding sources [Music] although better for forecasting you know as we go along in time but uh right now we're we're hoping that uh you know we should be on target good when he is the utilities is a big info the utilities is a big app so we'll have to see how that goes roast me in Miami everything for that one thing I will add and I I don't know if Kevin knows who's getting there but we did not we did not I
062know we did not get the age back Grant so I wanted to oh we did not you guys in fact the only reason um the only one around here that you got anything was really fun so we did not get that disappointed okay thank you Donna any questions from Finance keep watching it um I think we're on track though okay um Mr kitchen one lead is through the consent agenda sure so in our consent agenda tonight we have um the approval of minutes the March 28 2023 regular meeting in the March 28 2023 special meeting we also have leave requests for two staff members and go through them individually we have a regret request from Laura Eldridge she is requesting maternity leave as she's expecting uh twin girls on the June 14th that's great very
063exciting for um for Laura and her husband and she's looking to begin her leave on or around May 9th 2023 and to take the first half of next year off and return January 2nd 2024 for request Falls within the guidelines in the teachers contract so I'm recommending that you improve or maternity leave requests and then the second request comes from Allison McKay and I should say I'm sorry Laura Eldridge is a speech language pathologist in Cherry Brook Primary School and Allison McKay who is a teacher at Canton Intermediate School is expecting her third child this summer so she's also requesting maternity lien um for the first half of next year ending or I should say returning on Monday December 18th 2023 again her request Falls within the guidelines established within the contract so I recommend
064approval of that request of course so how do you um speech languages especially be clearly um and the classroom teacher is not easy either but how do you so how do you replace these two uh you know curious so fortunately um one of my former teachers who I worked with in the past district has been willing to come forward and as a speech language pathologist she's been working with us this year in the fall we had to leave and she's returning a name to finish up this year that while we State this it's it's also linked to our deficit in our District substitute account it's because of these leads of absences and needing to pay um substitutes coming in that has caused our budgets going to deficit in those line matters the good news is
065we have people that are like this person I'm mentioning so you're finding people the position great I'm also related to speech language um tonight I have a liquor of a letter excuse me I have a letter it's only one but um she writes Dear Mr Case please accept this letter as my formal intent he retire as a speech language pathologist effective June 30th 2023 after 43 years as an active speech language pathologist in 38 years with the Connecticut public school system I feel it is time to start my new phase in my life I've enjoyed my 19 years of employment with the Canton Board of Education I've always felt very supportive by both Administration as well as my colleague so I recommend you accept Vicki Holbrook Duran's letter of resignation effective June 30th 2023. all
066right uh could I have a first on the uh consent agenda thank you Felicia second joke any discussion on the consent agenda the FMLA the uh retirement Korean there was regrets or it's called works we can be connected to regret and I will say one thing about Vicky Holbrook I she grew up um I've known her because her kids grew up with my kids so it goes back a long time and when I saw the resignation it really hit me um you know and she's been here that long and uh so yes we we will move to accept her resignation when we bet and wish her well in her retirement how's that okay with those adjustments uh we have a person second all those in favor aye opposed that's 8-0 okay thank you um approval
067of the financials as uh provided by Donna first on that muscle thank you second thank you Erica any questions on the financials for the questions hearing none uh all those in favor aye h o no need to ask proposed that covers that okay so Mr shiver is going to walk us through the uh policy 6160 and policy 6164 then you're gonna vote on his first greetings tonight right you know at the end of hours three years not the best time to be discussing policies these are important all of our policies are important but these are particularly important policies at this time uh we all know what's going on around the country in terms of uh schools and materials things are being taught and challenged and that sort of thing and the policy is replacing and
068I would urge you to take some time to read it between now and our next meeting and certainly come with a question a lot of time and effort gone into rewriting these a lot of people have been involved so a lot of you are pretty familiar with what's here uh the policies in red in the front that's the current policy it's 20 years old it was a good policy but it needs it needs more so what we have come up with are on the next page there the 11 Commandments uh and they the goal is to set guidelines for how materials get selected how they wind up in front of our kids uh how they want to go to the library what videos we have all those all the educational concerns how do they get
069there we need to be able to answer the question how do they get there and why they get there why they in the curriculum why is it appropriate um because for folks to challenge that and we need to we need to follow guidelines to be sure that we have answers that we can support for those questions and that's the purpose of the the 11 Commandments there and also one of the item number uh and uh it it assures people the right to challenge but it doesn't give people uh anyone in On the Border in the community the right to say I want this off the shelf tomorrow uh there's going to be a process for that and that's actually policy 6161.11 that's at the back of the of the the separate policy John correct yep
070uh and that's a really I think well thought out uh form and procedure for folks who want to challenge something and you have to complete the questions on it and as you want and then John with the great lens to spell out what the what will happen then uh to to adjudicate your uh concern your request for for something to be withdrawn I'd encourage you to read that in between that are you know eight or nine pages of regulations what we decided to do as a committee was not to make them part of the policy a lot of specificity there for teachers or principals who are curriculum directors for the librarian uh I just love getting the library how to stuff get out of the library that there's there's too much specificity for our policy
071um that you know this or that might need to be changed over time and all the items and the regulations are based on the the 11 items that would be in the policy um so again I would it's late right now but I would encourage you to read through that if you have questions concerns comments and it's very very important that they'd be addressed before we can go on into adoption I would especially encourage you to look at the uh part where it gives someone the ability to challenge something that's being used as an educational material textbooks by state law have to be adopted by two-thirds majority of the Board of Education um so any textbook that we buy we move all curriculum committee and then it goes to the whole board what about all
072the other materials the thousands of books and all the rest of it well you know why did you pick it how does it with the curriculum and does it belong here teachers need to be able to answer that question we can and what's on the third grade reading shell we can't answer that the teachers need to be prepared to do that and I think they can now this just puts it in in writing yeah that's a good question about that um it's simply like literary merit I mean is that to match the curriculum or can you just be it's a damn good book so we're gonna have it on the show I John I would say for sure yeah right but it doesn't say well this matches up with you know in third grade we're
073doing a unit on holy Mammoth so we have to watch it right you bring up something that's really important because one of the challenges with this and this is why the the trust of the Board of Education policy and then regulations that we've fallen through with this this is why they're so important because it could be so nuanced if we wanted to be able to say it then it then hit then all the way along there are some things that are that that based on actually I'm going to take it a step back you hire great teachers you've got higher grade administrators to be able to do a good work and then their job is to be able to collect those things aggregate those things that are going to be of of interest and service
074to a wide variety of students and human interests and backgrounds so that those can be able to be available that's part of our responsibility to provide access for students so we we're able to do that and then when we do look to be able to purchase something that we're going to implement as part of our curriculum then we do really want to be thinking about what are the content standards for it how is it really going to serve us how is it going to help us to be able to be on a on a cycle of continuous Improvement so it's Ryan to your point then we kind of have an approach where this is how we can do things for overall School library media spaces an approach to this is how we do things for
075Core Curriculum and then when it comes to those ancillary resources and materials use professional judgment to be able to support it that should be allowable for us and the two point out that John ran all this by Librarians by teachers Department chairs by uh curriculum folks and made some adjustments along the way uh because what I was hoping we'd hear is well we do a lot of this already maybe we don't want to do that or we we should add this or and from what John tells us uh the teachers are supportive recognizing that we're looking to support them and make sure they're not out there on a limb by themselves uh that that here's the policy of all the policy made a mistake made a mistake but but it was all done in good
076faith and and with a good result hopefully but again experiment 20 minutes to read it I was just taking a look at it the I'm not going to rush it but it is like the second policy is uh controversial issues and the uh again the current policy is 20 years old it's not bad it's very brief but we felt it needed needed some strengthening and if you take a look at that uh it's not a whole lot longer the first paragraph first two paragraphs of that policy uh I think are pretty crucial to what we're about as a school system um if we're trying to educate and raise children to be productive adult citizens they need to know how to Grapple with controversial issues that and the need to have to listen they need to
077do research they need to have a way various opinions and they don't get practice doing that in school then we'll give it your gift so I I really feel that that's important that teachers know that following some guidelines that we would encourage them when it's appropriate and age-appropriate and those are tough questions uh for a youngster class to be able to deal with a controversial issue what happens when something comes up out of the blue it's okay and I'm going to go up on a three-day tangent maybe but it's okay to do that address those things with kids when they come up and address them more formally as a physical curriculum how do you jack well there I think one of the things that that um I was impressed by our committee and something that
078they thought strongly about was some of the some of the requests of the different players um we talk a lot about what we want our staff to be able to do but we also want to expect that our students are going to have the hotels a certain way we want to expect that our community will look to be able to handle themselves in a certain way as well we can't necessarily compel people to do things but this is it's kind of an onus of trust that we put out to say let's deal with hard things in the right way um so I appreciated the board of support on being able to wrap that into it we want to own this to say this is how we want to be able to handle hard things as
079a community and this one as opposed to the last one was a committee felt that regulations should be part of the policy because it's sort of a Hot Topic right now and they're being able to own it and be in position to support um teachers in the work that they do and encourage you to read through that too because there may be a sentence or a paragraph or whatever that you feel needs to be discussed or changed and then but what it's worth one final bit of information um after our after our last meeting with this we did say it was good to be able to just have a conversation from him to be able to get their Insight on it I spoke with Jody bowler who is the head of their of the policy
080Services he was thrilled thrilled with the work that we've done but also the process that we have gone through to be able to get to the point that we are so um grateful to be able to have support at a higher level with that as well if I can just thoroughly sure I think when we're all looking at this you know I I think it's well I think it's going to be the parent Crux of this is it's all I mean it's terrific work and but the question is what do you do and let's let's use transgender issues I think as uh as uh as a example here is you know talking about viewpoints that does not come to the rational breast intimidation bullying and uh institutions shall not the instructions shall not reflect adversely
081on the person because so like four and seven particularly the students actually earlier you know I I think that's going to be a flash point because let's get going back to talking about transgender students or the the issue of being transgender in general I mean that's something that elicits very passionate responses I think for people who take both sides of the issue and when you start to throw out you know there's there's a sense occasionally I think you see this in the media a lot that certain opinions constitute harassment certain opinions constitute threatening behavior right and who decides what is harassment threats intimidation or bullying that's a very broad word right someone says I think that your position that uh you know if you're the sex you're assigned at Birth is your sex for life
082you know that's not for some folks that's not a conscious Workshop or some it is that constitute bullying the student says I feel you know unsafe around this other student now even though that's a respectful conversation I think that's that's an issue that we have to be prepared to address well there were or sleeping guidelines about bullying right I mean I think but if you say that's bullying right if I say that's bullied your petition on this issue is de facto follow you yes it is right [Music] but one thing that I would say if I were to interject the one thing that I would say from the following perspective I appreciate the long thought that you provide for us with this too trying to be able to think where where might there be an
083unintended consequences or other opportunities for things like this is wrong um from The Bullying perspective I think what I'm what I'm confident with that is what the protocols look like for a bullying investigation and then you think you're right that the the term bullying and some of the information around it will be relatively subjective but coming back to um an actual investigation of something like that were to would have that would be able to shine lighter and I think what our hope with this too I I wrote civil discourse snacks to that to really think about um when our when we're speaking even if we disagree and we might disagree we might disagree passionate and we also participate passionately within the similar community and that's what we need to be able to come in I
084keep thinking about policies there's laying and you're waving with each other so the bullying piece the Civil discourse element the controversial issues the instructional resources that these all weave in together with the gender to be able to develop an ethos of what a civil Democratic instructional practice should look like for us and you know I appreciate that I think as we all read it I think the issue is how do we let folks know that a Viewpoint is not de facto intolerance or intimidation I think that's that's important that a Viewpoint that you don't like is not the fact of intimidation so you I think you have to come back to us on how do you think that should be sure I don't think ever again but yeah I think in other words yeah I
085mean you recently I think you raise a very good point uh I think it's a valid point um so I think we have to think about that okay we have uh two policies here tonight I um my first policy is policy 6160 because I'm a first this is the first Marine can I have a promotion on that thank you Kim second second thank you uh Cindy so first and second any further discussion I just want to say that policy is a very hideous uh function and I want to thank Mr scheidner and Mr Bishop because when we come to these meetings it's already laid out for us the summaries are there they they did all the hard work uh that went on behind it so I just want to thank them both for their their
086time and getting us to this point so the first and second on the discussion all those in favor I opposed okay so that's first reading on 61.60 uh 6144 motion thank you Joe first Joe second Felicia uh any questions on that okay that'll be a first reading all those in favor aye opposed okay I think Brian you really need these These are bad topics they really do have to read them and you need to be familiar with them in case you're asking Mr Case approval the healthy food certificate certificate certification thank you um Abe is held limit whether two webinars this past week one on the censorship of books and it was really an interesting webinar you can find that on the cave website and then today there was a great seminar sponsored by the
087Jody rail Center for civil discourse um civil discourse and what that means that that would be great for teachers to listen to how to teach that within a classroom it's also great for all of us to listen to as well so I think those two webinars are on the cave website if you're interested so again these are timely topics so to end our meeting tonight we have the approval of the healthy food certification so once a year Board of educations are asked to just certify that they will comply with the nutritional standards through the federal government so that we can get reimbursed the amount per meal I'm not sure if it's 10 cents or fencing is it 10 cents um and we also certify that for food that is sold outside in the school day
088for example through booster clubs or athletic events four big sales that we don't need to abide by the healthy school regulation so board the Canton Board of Ed for the last six seven probably more years has made his certification so that's what we are asking you to do tonight very complicated language basically the first paragraph is saying that all it has to be read a word but emotion but basically the first motion is saying yes we're going to comply with the Connecticut regulations of this uh of the state which are very similar to the federal just a little bit stricter so we're like why not just you know go ahead and get that extra 10 extra 10 cent per meal um so that's what that first paragraph is and saying yes we're going to do
089it and like seven said the second motion is so we can at athletic events it has to be an event uh not like a practice in an event that you can um go ahead and author from that policy a little bit of analysis sure yeah motion Kim um I moved that pursuant to CGS section 10 215f the Canton Board of Education of gov we're governing a hurry certifies to all food items to offer for sale to students in the schools under its jurisdiction and that Exempted from the Connecticut nutrition standards published by the Connecticut State Department of Education will confine with the Connecticut nutrition standards During the period of July 1 2023 from June 30th 2024 this certification shall include all food offered for sale to students separately from reimbursable meals at all times and
090from all sources including but not limited to school stores vending machines School cafeterias culinary programs and any fundraising activities on school premises sponsored by the school or non-school organizations and groups new second thanks Russell any discussion on that I know it's mouthful you have it in front of you we have one more motion I know all right all those in favor aye opposed I moved at the Canton Board of Education or governing Authority will allow the sales students of food items that do not meet the Connecticut nutrition standards and beverages not listed in section 10-221q of the Connecticut General statutes provided that the following conditions are met one the sale is in connection with an event occurring after the end of the regular school day or on the weekend of two the sale is at
091the location of the event and three the food and beverage items are not sold from a vending machine or a school store an event is An Occurrence that involves more than just a regularly scheduled practice meeting or extracurricular activity for example soccer games school plays and interscholastic debates or events but soccer practices play rehearsals and debate teams meetings are known the regular school day is the period from Midnight before to 30 minutes after the end of the official school day location means where the event is being held and must be the same place as the food sets thank you Malaysia any discussion on that all those in favor aye opposed okay um fantastic all right final any any board comments anything to come before you I think we didn't cover going to make your comment
092on it hearing on uh motion to adjourn thank you Ryan thank you Cindy all those in favor we're excited thank you very much thanks for coming tonight thanks for coming early