BOE Meeting 11 21 22

001will start our meeting until 7 7 15 but this is a special occasion and we thought we'd bring everybody in you know my uh my career as a board of education person has a has an interesting uh twist to it I I had the pleasure of hiring um Mr case and of course now Mr case I'll be here with Mr K sleeves I also had the pleasure of um working with um passports to make sure that we had that our administrative team was growing equal to that of the district and one of the things we were proud of is we went to a curriculum director and then we we went to an assistant superintendent of the schools uh back in 2006 or so and you know with with the way Financial uh situations are in

002town uh and going through a couple rough things there would be some um we needed to make some consideration along those lines and I understand why and um but we uh we were able to maintain that that that position that Mr Bishop held uh which was kind of a curriculum director with some other uh things to it but this board and what I'm most pleased about is this board had the foresight and and the uh in in the uh really the intelligence to uh to say that listen the district is growing and the idea that one superintendent can do all the things that he did and as I came in to see all the things that Mr Case was doing this board recognized that and said you know what we need an assistant superintendent if

003we needed to put that position back uh it was good for the district it was good for our students it was good for our administrative staff and so as we began to have that discussion last spring um when it came time to say yes we're going to move forward it became very apparent by this board there was no other decision then we wanted to see Mr Bishop become that assistant superintendent of schools and of course with the recommendation High recommendation of Mr Case saying that uh you know we we have the right person right here and so this board moved forward with that so tonight I'm I'm pleased to announce it effective December 1st uh Mr John Bishop would be our assistant superintendent of schools I'm so thrilled that we have that position back and

004we have our number two uh and unfortunately we're going to be losing our number one but we'll get we'll get that back too so I have this point thing that when I sit in this chair we're losing people but I'm glad that we're gaining uh Mr Bishop and uh both the Maggie and Kim um we we're just so thrilled and just in the year that I've been working with him and some of these folks on the board for a long time um just what a value-add he is and uh a real guidance and help to all of us so I am thrilled to say that John will be our assistant superintendent of school is effective in just a few short days so John congratulations foreign thank you so much um I don't remember how many

005years ago years ago it was um that I actually met John I'm losing track of time um I heard of John uh for several years as I had the pleasure of working with John's mother-in-law um at another school in another school district um she was an educator and I heard so much about John's educational career and then I met John when John was part of the University of Saint Joseph's masters degree program which I was an adjunct instructor for and um had the pleasure of meeting him knowing John's professional values professional attributes um fast forward a few years and John applied to come to Canton as our stem coordinator and we made the right decision then to to hire John so he came on board and was our stem teacher and coordinator at the middle

006school and high school level and then moved into our director of learning and Innovation position and has done an outstanding job so again John congratulations thanks for all the value you add to our school district much appreciated to your family thank you for your sacrifice to support John to do all that he does because I Know It Takes a Family to really support what we do here and I'm grateful for all of it I think uh the the best thing that I can say about the Canton Public Schools is that it is a family um uh coming here uh within two years I knew that I well immediately I knew I wanted my family here I wanted my own kids here and we moved here within two years after that um to be one of

007canton's own and have an opportunity to have broad shoulders to be able to to do the lift that's necessary to support each and every kid to support every one of our staff and and to support our community I think that's a really great opportunity and a challenge it's not something that I take on lightly um you know I go to bed sometimes concerned and worried but uh always know that I have the opportunity to be able to do something great in the next day to be able to support our community support our kids support our staff so um I'm grateful for the charge uh I'm excited about the future and I really appreciate the collaboration I have onto this board our our staff who are amazing in our community so thank you all I want

008to let you down thank you so what do you never let us expounds we're going to take a five minute break we have some cookies uh and we could kind of mingle and talk to Kim and Maggie and uh just glad that uh glad that we got this off the ground I'm gonna call this meeting daughter of the uh November 21st meeting at the Board of Education welcome everybody thanks for coming tonight uh we have a great agenda um the way we've re rearranged some of the things uh we now give the reports up front so to give you something to think about and then we'll go to a public forum uh tonight we're thrilled that um Dr Kidwell and Mr dippo's here they're going to give the report on the high school um Miss

009Swagger is going to be here also I think unfortunately so oh all right knock off 15 minutes um anyways uh so we're gonna have a a great meeting in uh before we start we and everybody was here for it but we're thrilled to have our new assistant superintendent schools here tonight so with that I think I'll uh we don't have any experience here for the student report so we can take their candy oh they are all right we'll see if it's there at the end of the night if you'll stand and join me into place I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic and which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for God okay thank you uh we'll uh delay the student

010reports and uh Andrea and Julie are here tonight so thank you for coming we appreciate it we'd like to go first um we're gonna to get a tag team all right now you know you know you have to sing it so yeah tonight tonight you're singing um and why are you doing that I want to say hi to Ryan Ryan's on the screen tonight hello Ryan hello everybody there we go sometime okay so we prepared a little slide to go with each of our pieces of our updates so you can have a fish and we'll look what we're playing um first of all thank you to the board of education for the opportunity to update the community on the Canton middle school PTO a few recent events we'd like to share first of all with

011the student versus staff soccer game um we organized our second annual student staff soccer game on November 3rd at the Turk field under the light we had over 40 students as well as 17 staff members play in the game staff members included not only teachers but Mr John Bishop District administrator the principal of custodian and it and it and Food Service staff member can I ask a question though was he was he partied I heard there's a rumor again he got a yellow card in the game did that happen there was a card called against someone who came out actually my son um as well as two teachers that recently left BMF but still feel that connection um the 8th grade band played the national anthem and student council member sold confessions we invited everyone

012to play a game of thrivia at halftime local Girl Scout Troops 6655 go into 154 non-perishable items of admission for the camp food bank we had parent volunteers participate as coaches Russ and DJs and although the staff team dominated the first three quarters of the game and were up four to nothing a fourth quarter comeback left the students with a 5-4 win and bragging ranks until next year we love how this event brings the school Community together promote school spirit creates lifelong memories and allows students staff and families to have fun and fun together site we will see some pictures from Halloween so the tradition continued this year where The Kindergartners came over to CMS and did the parade in Mexico and then buildings and we wanted to support that with some fun decorations we

013had a moon Arch when they came in we had the entryway decorated up to the first stairwell um so that was just a fun way we got to see the converters which is super fun from us and it made it just a memorable positive experience for them coming into the building that they will come someday attend and then we took the balloon arch we really got our dollars worth of it we brought it into the cafeteria so if the lunch waves could have a little fun Halloween spirit then we even repurpose that later in the week when students came that's right the orange so so first um the next dog you'll see we are um happy to share that we passed our uh budget for the year the PTO budget and we increased funding for

014the DC trip from 3000 which was I think historically kind of budgeted for up to five thousand um sort of anticipating there may be some were me and want to be part of helping to ensure that all students that want to go um we also during the first meeting when Jeff has shared with everyone the plans for the trip one a parent had asked if they could contribute to the scholarship fund and so we took that and thought you know why not so we just have that out there no pressure but if somebody's interested in helping another student attend um we are accepting donations that will be through the PTO we're not of course part of any of the decision making we've got no knowledge of who it's just a lump sum that'll be requested

015by Joe inside your CV also concluded our puzzle in game collection and that was for the the library the Middle School library that was something they had piloted last year the public library it was a hit so very bus time I think they can sign up for once every other week um for some time if they're up to date uh their homework or their grades are good standing and so across the month we've watched over 60 Kings and puzzles that were either brand new or Alive new and we encourage great feedback that the kids are having a lot of fun and a librarian had shared some photos of the kids in action so I wanted to share another this is just recent last week um the PTO the right conference week um in November and

016then again in March um helps to purchase or provide a meal one of the days and so last week on Monday we stopped the stop lounge with items purchased with PTO dollars as well as some parent donations and she's had all week long to try to keep all of our staff people for conference days and some fresh fruit and bars and nuts and um chips and just some some trains coffee and tea we replenished it um on Thursday kind of restock and then also had a catered lunch that was delivered individually about lunch and found it all over and some great feedback um well we assisted the middle schools in Tampa Bay with a Veterans Day reception a breakfast reception after the assembly um basically just logistical support for them the students really ran the

017show they they serve they welcome they escorted the veterans in so we just for kind of like a little support role when we you know we capture some beautiful pictures of the of the family um we're also planning to assist the student council next month with idea but finally um the final thing we'd like to share it was something that came through as a teacher request from school psychologist Amy Nadu um this has been Street challenge which is something that we didn't even know existed at Canton middle school but um basically students with with significant special needs are have this job of stopping the tree trolley with you know chips drinks um Candy and they deliver it to staff around Camp middle school so um if they do was very appreciative and she just kind

018of further explained that it helps the the students um with responsibility it helps them interact with adults that helps them feel effective responsibility so it was something that we felt really strongly that we surely wanted to support such uh such a worthy effort um so thank you for your time tonight those are those are the updates we have and we appreciate being able to share the glimpse of how the VTO it's a fantastic update I mean what you guys do and I've said it before in the whole board feels this way they've done we we couldn't do all the things that we do without you I mean you just add uh so much just not not just from a um educational standpoint and how you support but just just morale I mean you you lift

019the Morales but you did for the teachers for those lunches during uh during uh the times of what was uh they had conferences yeah thank you so during the conference week I mean that's just fantastic isn't it so thank you for all your hard work and I wish we could freeze you in time because I know what happens it we cycle through but uh uh what you do is fantastic so thank you very much is there anything the board can do to help you is there anything that you want to ask of us that we should be focused in on or a way that we can help you [Music] um I think we all feel that the teachers are just so deserving of whatever support we can give them so um they would just ask

020that I think you would support the teachers however you can when we deliver when we deliver the adventure to my neighbor and that and and they walked in the door and they're like can we help what can we do to help we're like no you are the guest you come in and you will serve you you enjoy like you you take a break they're so hard working and we just you know we we enjoy so much what we do because we see we just we just feel that they just deserve whatever whatever little thing we can do that their spirit that makes their makes their day a little happier we're going to talk about that a little bit later right we um so you should Uh Kevin and I were the cave convention in my

021comments are going to mention something about that but thank you for that we will we're gonna we continue to think of ways uh that we can support our teachers better so thanks I know Ryan I don't know do you want to say anything for Whitney I I sometimes you're her yeah I I well I think she sent in something that someone was going to read um oh okay oh yes I'm sorry she did do you want to read it do you want me to do it I I don't have a copy a seasoned professional was going to be reading it right yeah then I Gotta Give it to Mr Case um so uh actually the the CIS uh PTO another phenomenal organization and I was at their fright night so it was Felicia um I

022think and Kim had Kim had just like it was a Disney World thing over on Kim's side but uh it was just unbelievable what they did that night and how they put it all together and I think uh Brian was in there scaring kids and we got DCF kind of checking him out now but uh not the first time but no you were you were you were great so the uh I'm not gonna read the whole report but um Whitney goes on Whitney Jen and Amanda and Allison go on to say about what a great night that was in the haunted house hallway and all the things that they did um they did talk about the field trips and about supporting Mrs Cortel on the field trips they did they are going to be hosting

023a student staff basketball game in February which is always kind of fun that was always a a tradition at least when my kids were in the school and it's actually fun and funny um so that'll be a great night there's a movie night coming up and um they also supported with the teacher and staff luncheons they provided salad fruit cookies bread and Avon Prime Meats so those sandwiches must have been pretty good I don't know how to get an invite to that but in any event they stocked the staff Lounge similar to the uh the goodie cart that goes around they also stacked the stock the staff lounge with beverages granola bars uh on Wednesday they did a crock pot cook-off I mean it's fantastic what the parents do and um on Thursday they did

024Cherry Brook Pizza how did I miss out on this fun food in fact this was like a fun Food Fest oh my gosh it was great um and on the fundraisers they have their catalog fundraiser that's going on right now uh 39 students participated and they raised I guess it's over they raised over three thousand dollars at CIS on the catalog fundraiser uh in October they raised 350 dollars from the Chipotle fundraiser I remember that uh in March 2023 they're going to be hosting a readathon fundraiser to coincide would be read Across America week which is just fantastic so um they have Spirit we are spirit wear going on we're PTO member uh and Amanda Garza will be looking at new vendors for our new spirit we're aware so I think we'll all be loaded

025up for the Memorial Day Parade I think we'll challenge the Board of Ed members to wear something from every school uh when that happens but another you know very active um this this PTO is very active and would you thank Whitney and the team too Ryan let her know I did the best I could but um it's clear that there's a lot of work going on out there so thank you thank you uh student staff basketball game and February it just says February on here I don't know if they said it yet um yeah just just February I bet they have it set and we can get that okay so thank you for the reports PTO thank you Ryan anything else Ryan and you can you can mention to Whitney if there's anything aboard if

026she can think of anything she'd like to bring to the board she's got kind of an inside guy that she can yeah yeah I guess you know that's all I'm good for these days not a problem thank you thank you okay so tonight we have the superintendent report Mr case thank you chair chair Daniels good evening everybody it's great to see see you here and those of you at home and to our guests attending tonight thank you for being here um just to follow up on PTO um I've been spending a lot of time at Cherry Brook primary school and I want to thank Jamie Nieman who is PTO president along with uh the Cherry Brook pto's executive board as well uh staff truly appreciated a couple of things that uh the PTO did for

027them over the past few weeks uh one of the initiatives was to adopt the staff member and uh family sent in gifts for every single staff member at Cherry Brook Primary School it was like Christmas with staff members getting gifts each day what a great way to have staff feel appreciated so I thank the Cherrybrook Primary School Community for that as well as providing meals during the conferences again you'd walk into the Teachers Lounge and it was a buffet every day and how great at all of our schools for teachers not to have to worry about preparing meals so thank you to all of our ptos for supporting our staff in that way what you do is just unbelievable and just know it's very much appreciated I want to let you know that um you

028may have read the article in the Hartford current on Friday about Canton being one of three school districts um according to the article that is retaining that Native American imagery uh I just want to clarify that uh we have eliminated all Native American imagery you'll recall that um about a year ago the Board of Ed decided to eliminate all Native American imagery but to Rebrand the warrior name and currently our student representatives are coming up with ideas for establishing a new mascot to go along with the warrior name I just want to let you know that uh no reporter reached out to me as the superintendent so I was not able to give any clarification um so I just want to let the community know about that where we stand yes we kept the warrior

029name but uh I mean we I should say several community members and several board members at the time felt that Warrior meant much more than just being associated with a Native American Image so I did just want to clarify that and if anyone has has any questions or concerns they could feel free to to contact me yeah absolutely so um we were at the uh the cave conference when this kind of hit about the uh the warrior image imagery and uh actually the Hartford current reached out to me it was at 5 17 to see if I wanted to have a comment and we were already in a breakout group I didn't see it till later that night when I went on my computer however I did respond back to the reporter saying that uh

030we had retired all Native American imagery I said it is all all sportswear all banners all indications of of that is off the property and we had done a pretty good job of that and I also emphasized that we spent I believe it was I used the term uh forty five thousand dollars if I recall in in buying new uniforms uh to have that happen the reporter thanked me for the comment and and that was it he's not going to uh I asked him if he would go back and retract it or at least clarify and he said he wasn't going to be able to do that I understand we're also on the news that night and uh therefore I put together a letter that's going back to the Hartford current that will be in

031or for current hopefully it'll make it in their common area and I've also done a letter to the um uh for John Fitz for the um Valley Press just to indicate that we've done that however I'm going to take full responsibility for the reason why that happened is because I did not follow through with what the previous board had voted on there were certain actions that they wanted to see happen and we've kind of slow walked that so uh in my comments tonight I'm going to talk about setting up a committee I'm going to take it out of the hands of the students and I'm going to put together a committee with a with a start and ending because if we did have if we did Rebrand the mascot we would not have been commented

032on well I mean we would have been a warrior or something else but uh because we had not had anything done at that point or in place I think we kind of got dinged for it so we're going to fix that but I apologize that we haven't been faster uh to the draw on that but we're going to get that uh the mascot done with the help of Administrators students public board members and I I also have a I'm not going to impose on anyone on the board to be the chair I have a chair or two that I have in mind well I'm going to ask the board to do is to approve that we've moved forward with that and that we do appoint a committee and we finalize the mascot so I'll ask

033that later on in my comments so I just wanted to make that clear thank you chair Daniels um other items in my report tonight um I did want to let you know that we had very successful Veterans Day ceremonies at each of our schools the high school had veterans come into the classrooms to talk with the students about their experiences on Thursday November 10th and then on Veterans Day Friday November 11th there were three ceremonies held at the middle school at Canton Intermediate School and at Cherry Brook Primary School all very successful and I do want to thank our administrators and the staff for all they do to support our veterans and for honoring them on that day we had uh also successful parent-teacher conferences since we last met uh those were done in a

034hybrid way where teachers were able to meet in person with parents if they chose to or virtually so I thank our teachers for their ability to adjust to that hybrid environment that's not always the easiest thing to do but it seemed like it meant parents needs due to the number of parents we had attending conferences either in person or online last Monday night um we have a wonderful presentation from Justine Ginsburg who is our Public Health liaison for the Farmington Valley Health District Justine gave a presentation that was entitled navigating teens hybrid realities students in their relationships and um both Lou and Kim were in person that night at the presentation and we had several people join us online we've recorded the presentation and we'll be sending that out shortly so that everyone in the

035community can view it Kim not to put you on the spot but do you have anything to say about the presentation since you were there no I always loved hearing Justine speak she's very real and honest and transparent with what's going on um for our children and community and technology and I hope parents can watch it find time to watch it and then the next sequel Clipper one I've attended that before elsewhere that's really a different one for parents of any age child with them so thanks for you know having her speak to Justine always gives great messages for both Educators and also for those of us who are parents and grandparents and I said to Justine afterwards I want a do-over as a parent right I'm always learning more and more how to be

036a more effective parent um so I would encourage everyone to view her presentation and we'll be working with uh Justine to set up three more presentations for this year and we'll make sure they're publicized well I had the great opportunity to accompany our educator of the Year Lori DeVito our district-wide I should say Lori was our district-wide social worker at one time our only social worker now Lori is social worker at our middle school and high school and the only social worker to be honored this year as teacher of the year so I was really proud to accompany her at the Connecticut teacher of the year ceremony that was held at the Bushnell uh it's the only time I get to walk across the Bushnell stage so I'm very appreciative Laurie and I got to

037walk across the stage and I have the program I'll pass around for any of you that would like to take a look at it um and Lori's mind flew up from Georgia to be present that night um and it's it's just such an inspirational ceremony um to hear from the teacher of the year and past teachers of the year you really leave feeling so inspired like we are in the right business there are so many outstanding Educators in Canton and in the state of Connecticut so it was a great ceremony when you see Lori please make sure you congratulate her I also want to let you know that uh last week we held a meeting with all of the bus drivers through Martel Transportation once a year we hold a meeting with them just to

038review protocols procedures mandated reporting requirements and to allow them to ask questions over our administrators and I thank Mr depipo and Mr Moore our Middle School principal for being present um it's just a great way to communicate with our bus drivers how we can make things better for them how we can support them and we really are so fortunate just on the news this morning you may have heard that in the City of Middletown four bus routes had to be canceled today and maybe even for the week because of a shortage of bus drivers and that's happening in several towns in Connecticut we really have been fortunate uh with Martel transportation that all of our drivers are so loyal to Canton that they've remained at the job and we are so fortunate for that my

039job is so varied I also want to let you know that I had a meeting about recycling food waste at each of our schools prior to the pandemic we had a program going on where we didn't let any food go to waste from our kitchens and also food that students did not eat we were recycling that and that was prior to the pandemic so I just want to let you all know that we're starting that up again post pandemic we are really working with the students to teach them about how to be more environmentally conscious and how to how important composting is for the environment so we have a true advocate in Diana Heiser one of our teachers at Canton Intermediate School who started this this initial initiative I'm trying to say she um formed

040a club for the students known as the Green Team and she trained students how to train other students how to separate their uh food because certain food is compostable other food is not so it's a training process that begins at CIS and we're working to um again bring that up to our middle school and high school and to begin training our Cherry Brook Primary School students this is an initiative the town is starting to focus on as well so you may be hearing more in the Canton Community about households how Heist households can begin to recycle food waste also so I do like to let you know of those different types of activities happening which are very educational for our students finally I just wanted to wish all of you a very Happy Thanksgiving with

041your family and friends this week and to all of our students families as well it's at this time of the year we think about what we are truly grateful for and what I am truly grateful for is continuing to be able to work with our outstanding staff and also to serve all of you and our Canton families I'm so grateful for that curriculum so thank you so much and then I just want to let you know that the town Board of Finance is meeting right across the hall so I do need to go over and communicate with the board of finance and and make sure that we're all good with the board of Finance so Mrs mizakowski who's over there right now will text me and I will go and if I happen to leave

042that's where I am and then I will return as soon as I communicate my message so thank you so much thank you and thank you for the card and then the chocolates that was very nice thank you okay any questions for superintendent anybody have anything you'd like to say Ryan you good all good okay thank you for um Veterans Day Mr Case didn't give himself credit he emcee two of the schools Veterans Day it was my pleasure yeah you did a nice job people with comments how nice it was so thank you Kim and I did uh forget to mention that under my report on the agenda it does say mental health support for middle school and high school students I have a program I'll be recommending to you um but it won't be tonight

043it'll be at our December meeting so I'm just holding off on that but you will hear more about that thank you thank you very much okay hearing no more questions thank you Mr Case all right so my report my report there's a few things I wanted to go over number one is uh we went to the cave meeting uh Felicia uh the cabinet myself it was a it was actually a fantastic event we picked up a lot of great pointers but the most important thing I think we picked up was on student safety and we uh we attended a presentation on safety and there's some things I think the Board needs to know about that are in place that you know that may have been communicated in the past and we haven't really talked about

044so I've asked Mr case in our January meeting I'm not sure if it's going to be the first or second he is going to give us a thorough overview of some of the things that are in place of the things that he can talk about as far as safety goes um for our students so um I thought that was really good you wanted anything you want to mention on that or no um what was stressed about I should say yes I would like just add a couple things um what was stressed was um the importance of the Board of Education knowing what the safety plans are that we have in place so um in our district Mr Bishop takes the lead um to ensure that our safety Protocols are updated each year in partnership with

045our Canton Police Department and other Homeland Security officials every school district needs to submit a safety plan to the state by November 1st we were one of only 24 school districts that met that goal this year it's so important that school districts have that plan in place um what was stressed at the conference is that as board members you need to know uh as much of the specifics of that plan as possible so that's what we will bring to you in January in executive session uh because we certainly would not want to share all the protocols in place in case there were any Bad actors out there so you'll be learning more about that and they mentioned that the number one safety issue we all should be concerned about is cyber security and um at

046our cabinet meeting this morning um cabinet our our central office administrators uh we talked with uh Jeff delmastro our instructional technology administer administrator about all the uh prevention tools that we have in place and so we'll be reporting to you on that in January as well thank you okay um the next thing I want to mention is space um I want you to know that uh Kevin and I attended the leadership meeting which is with the chairman of the board of Finance the chairman or the first selectment myself uh the Chief Operating Officer along with our chief administrative officer along with the superintendent schools where I laid out my uh concern for our space at the board of education level that we are shoehorned into the basement of the Town Hall that our it group

047is somewhere else our accounting is somewhere else our um our pupil Personnel director is somewhere else and we we just can't function yet we're two-thirds of the town and uh so I laid that out to them I said that if we could come to terms there may be a way and this was only an ancillary part of it because really the main part of it is that we need space we we don't look like a functional Central uh district office down there and I've looked at a lot of different off of Board of Education offices and quite frankly we don't we don't show very well especially at a time when we're trying to bring in a new superintendent but the but the answer that if it may be that we don't need a building uh

048project that we may be able to work through that bubble if we are able to maybe in what I was suggesting was right here in the um in the community center right where park and rec is that possibly that we can trade park and rec or um for the basement of the Town Hall consolidating Town Hall functions and Board of Ed would all be on this side or functional we're close to our schools um and we could even move our our pre-k program here which would save us some space so I'm going to formalize that in a letter if the board will allow me to do that I would like at the end of the meeting tonight to allow me to create a formal letter asking the town to look at space generally and potentially

049that that space that I've just identified so um I know at the time Mr Humphrey who's the boy or to finance chairman he said anytime we can avoid a building project that could cost Millions it's something that may just cost a few thousand dollars to handle uh he'd like to look at that further so that's that's something I wanted to make the board aware of so at the end of tonight as we get into recommended actions I'd like to see and that's okay to submit that right for the board to uh for the board to give me the okay to uh to begin a uh looking at space for our Board of Education um the other thing I would like is uh I mentioned about the the mascot and the warrior mascot and I know

050we've been talking about having the students take a look at this I think we've been talking about it for months but what I like to do is formalize a an actual committee that starts in January and brings back to the board in April uh one or two options for us to look at from a mascot perspective so that as we go through the budget cycle if there's some things that have to be ordered they can begin uh we can begin moving forward with a new mascot now I did mention I may have mentioned to you all that I was at a Girl Scout meeting where a very fantastic Girl Scout uh in a middle schooler she went up on the Whiteboard and she Drew this Roman Legionnaire helmet you know back in the um 600

051800 BC maybe or uh at the time of um you know with the feather and with the nose guard and she put a c on the helmet now that's a warrior helmet but I thought it was pretty fascinating that this girl could just go up there and say how's this one and it was it was pretty pretty cool so um what I like to do is formalize that committee and at the end of tonight a number uh f g or possibly G authorize the chair to organize and advertise for a committee that'll come before the board for the board to um for the board to a point and to let's let's put this one thing behind us I think Erica did a wonderful job Russell Kim Ryan the the previous board all the work and

052time went into this and I'm sorry that we haven't followed through uh with some of the things were recommended by that board I'm also going to ask Mr case in January to give us an update on where we stand with the other recommendations that were made and directives that were made in that vote as we move forward okay um so that'll be another uh that'll be f and g that will add to the recommended actions um also I want to mention to Mr case that in six uh February or January actually marks the six month Mark of his goals to us and in the first meeting of February I'd like to see if we can have a update on where we are relative to those goals um for the board to review finally uh I

053would like to say that Justin Ginsburg was a fantastic speaker and I understand there's going to be two other sessions one is going to be in January and uh actually there's two more things this is one of them um I was wondering you know our teachers have continuing education all the time I'm wondering if we can substitute if they were to attend these sessions could could they opt out of a uh a train you know because to give them a little bit of a break but if they chose to be part of this either by Zoomer in person and I just want you to think about that but I'm trying to figure out ways to maybe lighten the load for our teachers and to the point that we were talking about earlier last year we

054we gave the teachers kind of a free afternoon to kind of kind of a day for their head a little bit a half a day for their head instead of uh I'd like to see us do that again this year uh I'd like to see us I know we sponsored a lunch last year I don't want to get away from that one of the things we heard at Cave from the superintendent of the year and she was out of Old Saybrook she said remember our teachers our teachers are a little bit overwhelmed they've come through a very difficult time and and they need to know that they're appreciated and what the PTO does I think is fantastic you're actually acting in some ways as a surrogate for us for us to do some things but

055I think we have to as a board of education also let them know that uh hey our staff is important to us not teachers Staff office workers the custodians that keep our buildings so pristine and clean um so we need to think about that and I don't expect you to have an answer but we do have uh you know one meeting in December when we come back in January what's your slogan refresh renew um hey I'm in my 60s all right give me a break I'm doing pretty good I want to say refresh reboot reboot rejuvenate we do but I don't know if that's it all right it's ours I want to come back to the RS store I want to come back to the RS in January and come up with something for the

056spring uh Claudia and I also talked about something that we might be able to do you know towards the holidays maybe that's when we sponsor a lunch at each school and maybe the Board of Education members are there to maybe serve that lunch or something along those lines I know Kim will maybe share that for me so so uh anyways so that those are the things I wanted to mention uh to you folks and um I think it's important if the board can make Justin Ginsburg I mean I'm a grandfather I went through this with my children but what she said was just fascinating I think she's going to really drill down into the cyber bullying component at the next at the next meeting and how much time our kids are spending on electronics and

057what that can do to them I went home to my wife and just went fascinating thing I'll say is um you know I forgot when I was a kid if if you were made fun of or whatever on the bus that ended when you got off the bus and you went into your house because you didn't have Electronics to keep that thing going so it ended and the next day you went to school and who forgot it we didn't forget it but with electronics kids stay on that they hard so if they're doing some bullying in the schoolyard that continues on the electronics through dinner and at night and it's something that's on their mind so it's it's those types of things that add to this stress and the anxiety that our children are experiencing

058and that that stood out to me and I went home to my my wife and I said um we're going over to the grandkids house we're taking all the electronics that we're throwing them away so that was an overreaction but the fact of the matter is they need a break because some of that just carries over so I thought Justine did a great job on that so board members can attend uh those next two meetings and give her the support of being the audience that that would be great any questions for me on anything that just said concerns thoughts what did I overdo completion usually you couldn't kick me anymore oh committee reports right right you're not helping me out at all there's so much help you can give this guys all right committee reports

059I I the the work of this board of education has to be done at the committee level and we've got to really drill down I think what Erica does curriculum and Technology phenomenal Joe Joe scheidler my God what that man does on policy is just unbelievable Russell would Finance it he's going to be pulling his hair out over the next three months you know I I appreciate all the work that gets done in all the support that you put in on those committees so we we need to really drill down on those committees and be supportive I don't know Erica if you wanted to make any comment about curriculum and Technology tonight if you have anything you want to report yeah um we met last week and just a couple of things to highlight that

060were discussed Kim Felicia and John and I met with Mr depipo Mr Moore and Mrs schwager and um we discussed the need to convert algebra 1a1b into a new class called conceptual algebra one with an additional support class starting with next year's ninth graders which would be in the class of 2027. uh what is that what does that entail by doing that is that is your also a budget implication to that or no no no it was it's kind of reorganizing the math schedule too I mean you could probably speak better to this but um to better prepare the kids for applying to college um cover material before the SAT um taking junior year and then there's a group of kids that were not getting into certain schools because they didn't have uh was it

061algebra two four years ago four years of math based on the algorithm that those schools um were drawn from students were taken out to 1A and later on 1B in schools were looking at that as one one course but we were doing it over two years so essentially instead of splitting the algebra over two years we're going to have an algebra one for all in ninth grade but for those identified struggling students will also have a support class that will meet every other day so it's accelerated um in terms of like the norm that we've had but the support it's almost like one and a half years in their freshman year so that opens up Geometry Algebra 2 in a further stem opportunity to them for seniors who are opening up all kinds of doors

062on the back end and not limiting them to algebra two which was our case for some years for some success so it's a it's a different approach that we think will benefit a segment of our population um that hasn't had that opportunity on the back end so really excited about that um that starts your freshman in freshman year right so to be for next next time right but there's no is there any support at the eighth grade level that seemed to be where we were we were struggling so this is this is the concept of being able to know where our kids are at right now and knowing that we want to be able to provide additional support that goes on through through the high school and then the the conversation at the middle school

063just after that was around the schedule yeah yeah so that leads into the next the next thing we talked about was revising the middle school schedule moving away from a block schedule to a straight seven um with an additional x-block period for flexible interventions okay which is something that has been needed and also would allow for team meetings teacher teams which has also been a struggle and that would involve a little bit of an ask for point that you know another tutoring for art graphic art teacher point and then having week two social studies in seventh grade yeah we're working to be able to get those finalized numbers I'm asking Mr Moore to be able to bring those To Us by um prior to our winter break so we'll have a really defined sense of

064what that would look like for us going into the new year with that but you hit it straight on well well done there providing additional time to be able to uh support the intervention for students to make sure that there's additional time to support our students who might need to have um uh special education services as well the whole concept for this then allows kids more kids to be able to have access to a world language program to have more kids who have access to intervention in sports for more of our teachers to be able to take what we would call a tier a tier one tier two support where we can say Hey you were struggling with this today let me flexibly give you what you need to to better support you right now

065to make sure that you're in a better position so it's it's uh it would expand our tutorial support and our tier one teacher support for our students as well that's great we're really excited it's it's taking some of the things that have worked well from our uh our K3 and our four through six program with this Flex block and intervention time we'll move some of that into the middle school and then the high school is embracing some of that with that uh conceptual algebra one for some students um at least algebra one for all are we mirroring another school's model on this side how do we pick up on this was this something that um came about through some form for the map well this whole rejiggering and then moving away from block because we

066were we're wild for a long time we've been in Black that was studied once before Middle School was never prior to copen middle school was never on a block schedule they were always on a staggering yeah it was on a straight seven yeah it was a fun it was really a function of of covid and needing to be able to be in line with the high school to be able to support that the the study to this point has um made there be flexibility that will would allow there to be a different um structure for our middle school students should be able to have but still give the resources that they need so yeah uh Mr Moore worked with a consultant over the summer and worked with a team he's continuing to work with his

067team um to refine some of the the remaining elements on Mr schwager there was continuous work to be able to look and Mrs HSN continuous work to be able to evaluate what are the programmatic designs that are out there that are successful for math so we're going with our own particular flavor but not without some uh some core recipe from uh our friends out out around us and the last thing that we talked about was similar to what the reconsider consideration the books and learning materials so how that's going to work with policy curriculum together Joe's going to give a report on that next time and we spent quite a bit of time on that I think we've we're on a pretty good track for that thank you and I don't know you did great

068there okay any questions for Erica I know Finance is meeting next time so Russell I'm not going to put John's popular report and by that time you should have the uh the grand list we should have some type of indication of what the growth in the town has been um okay um any questions for me okay so we will now go to public forum so we listed we've kind of gave everybody a taste of what's going on in the district anybody have anything from public forums right on yeah I just had uh one thing just say your name and address for the record that's all my name is Paul Merino 157 High Valley Drive from Canton thank you um I spoke with Mr Case briefly before the meeting and again I understand there's a lot

069going on at this Lancaster class at the chair of the primary um you know some of the I guess concerns I have as a parent were really um not at all how Mr Case is handling it but how it was handled prior to it got to his hands um I felt it was slept under the drug as regards to what is going on in that classroom and how these kids have been evacuated since basically day one and first I heard about it was pretty much the end of September or mid-september um which I felt was you know not being in in great communication with the parents right so a couple of concerns that I have in regards to to this issue is essentially you know um and I know it's being documented now Mr Case

070has been in the school which is fantastic um Miss Lancaster is unbelievable she's done a phenomenal job um you know with these students and what's going on and again I understand the struggles I'm not direct via anybody or any student it's just a tough situation in general the biggest thing I wanted to just kind of figure out is is there something in protocol that we can be communicated to as parents as to you know here's an update um they were evacuated a couple times last week it was this this and this is that something that can be looked at as uh possible you know just to be able to talk to our children you know my son uh he'll talk to him about what's going on is kind of something that I'd like to instead

071of having to kind of weasel it out of them every day just to know what's going on um so that was one thing and and you know again I don't know if there's been any sort of board certified behavioral specialist that's been in the classrooms to study and observe I know you've been in the classroom that's that's great I just don't know if that's an option um you know something that can be looked at um in the future again you know here we are going towards the holidays and you know the years progressing and I've understood it's gotten a little bit better but again I just kind of wanted to see if there's anything that could be done further on that so I really appreciate your time and all that you everybody does appreciate it

072thank you for coming tonight thank you I'm sure the superintendent get back to you on those things thank you anybody else if not we'll go to uh the big board sure so if you're joining us online tonight you can go ahead and use the raised land future Zoom if you'd like to make a public comment and I'll call on you by your Zoom link okay thank you Carol thank you uh thank you for the comments thank you everybody that is attending the meeting tonight okay with that we'll we'll close out public forum and we're very fortunate to have uh Mr Pitbull and uh Dr Kidwell here and I'll leave the introduction to you um thank you chair Daniels as you've said um we're excited tonight to hear from Mr dipepo our Canton High School principal

073and Dr Ruth Kidwell can high school's assistant principal and uh the goals that have been established uh for this school year we've got so much going on so much so many wonderful things going on at Canton High School and we're preparing for our New England Association of schools and colleges the seniel visit in early December which I know um we'll talk about tonight so thank you both for being here tonight thank you Mr case I'm very happy to be here tonight to share our plan with you for the 2022-2023 school year and before I uh get going um and I just want to um thank the board for a couple of things as far this year the um the professional calendar that afforded staff time on our Tuesdays have been highly valued by staff and

074ourselves we've been so much going on um it's been integral and we've been part of our development this year and I just want to let you know we feel very supportive I know you listen to the meetings we we hear how concerned you are about our staff and and you know student well-being so it's very apparent to us um you know how much you're here to support us so we do appreciate that we're going to try to be concise there's a lot to talk about you've seen these you know we're the fourth meeting through so I think you know some of the jargon you know some of the the sort of a process pieces here so my report will be much different in staying in line with you know with the other other administrators have

075brought forward everyone share some data from your past that helped us inform our plan for this year our plan is pretty brief um similar to others but but maybe less data overall just based on it being a high school level so I want to share those two things and I want to talk to you a little bit about our priorities and successes as well and also so as Mr Case mentioned to give you a flavor for the ass presentation that's coming in a few weeks um briefly touch upon your role as well as give you kind of the big picture if you're interested and just go to seeing some of the things that we're prepared for that we're excited about so as we get into the the presentation um I think this board has seen

076the first couple of slides so I feel like we could probably move to the slide four where um it has different areas of focus perfect thank you Karen so um you've seen this I believe sky before and um for us you're moving forward you know our fears of action and our goals are really center around two things both climate uh as a goal overall culture we're looking for people to be kind and feel connected to the school um and our staff to feel um connected to the to the students as well as as um you know the things that they deem important and clearly we want our students to grow academically and Achieve to the best in these two are Sterling intertwined um so those are really our Focus points and those you know obviously

077Drive our goals so uh where we get to our goals those of you that have been on the board in the past this is um a goal that um we've carried for for years and um I want to share the data past performance um in the next slide so um basically a major goal for us or undertaking has been our process for Preparation preparing our students for the PSAT test um assessment as well as the SAT exam and what we do over time because we take this yearly we do have um you know a coherent set of data for a particular group of students so what I shared in the presentation is is where our sitting seniors are or how they've evolved I shared this briefly with you last year um last I want to

078say um June um and in the in the broader CIP plan I I had other data about all all the classes all the cohorts essentially you know students are assessed in writing reading and math and there's a cumulative score based on a myriad of types of questions that mirror our curriculum in terms of our skills and you know the goal over time is that they should be growing about 20 points per um iteration so that is always sort of our Benchmark that we move forward and what I've indicated on this slide is is students who have met met that bar in terms of meeting the state assessment um goal um at means or exceeds level so to look in in when you see red those students have not met um those in yellow are approaching

079and those in green have advanced um interviews or exceeds level so it's always hopeful that we would have students trending towards green and away from the red but another thing to keep in mind is as they age forward the proficiency levels also raised too so it's not like if they get 451 year and they stay you know they get to 470 then then they automatically say out of yellow that might stay with them so it really is a measure that um forces us to do a great job so um you know this is this is the story of of the last few years and it's their sitting senior class so I'll say this out loud that you know we would like to see those red numbers below it and um you know especially um in

080terms of where they start where they finish so you know we gain some red over the course of the four years like what those numbers signify so like if I'm looking at that 512 the numbers underneath yeah 9 17 yeah I'm sorry so yes of course character so 19 students did not meet gold in that case seven students were approaching gold and 86 students Medical of the 512 or um the average I'm sorry the average score for that back class in that City okay so the 112 students that took that exam their average score was 512. got it and then individually 19 students do not meet in this case it would have been um in this case 400 was the proficiency score seven students who are between 400 and 420. and 86 students were above

081420. now you can see our average score is 100 points above the proficiency level so do well but but we're really honing in on those kids who are struggling and I do want to get to that in mind today certainly in particular the math right you're going to go over that correct specific project so um so that is just a broad Rush of things that we've done over over the years and we continue again and show all of our courses to uh sorry all of our class sizes the cohorts to to mirror that process and again the goals and indicators will spell out exactly what we're looking to do another bit of data to move forward is um what we look at is is our ngss which I know you've heard about our next Generation

082science standards there's there's an assessment taken in fifth eighth and 11th grade and the results are we received last year would say that about 66 percent of our students met or exceeded the state of goal in our average test score on scale school was uh 111. um we don't have we don't have um cohort we don't have cohort data because they only take this test essentially you know every third year and because of kovid there was a iteration of time when this test wasn't was above one so I think what we're excited about is is now we'll have some comparative data to kind of look towards but it's very third comparison to those things yeah so um we are high in the dark we're high in the dark um we're kind of lower end in

083the valley we feel like we can do better um I will say that out loud what we have to do a major part of this world forward would be for our students to be a little more connected to the exam they get a little test fatigue that that seems to occur you know when we're taking these assessments so we've the the pre-data versus the post date was very different meaning we had interim assessment opportunities with our our groups so that they swore it in a 70 75 and then when we when this score came to fruition we went well you know we'll look back we feel like we didn't probably show like publicly like what we would like um but you know again that's that's more of what we'll be working towards this year I

084mean they had like a test Sprite or something oh I so for for well not test Pride I I would say that for many students this score doesn't impact their rate it doesn't impact their college acceptance it doesn't impact their SAT score it's kind of a standalone assessment some people might not have put their all into an exam answer I'll just jump in for it hits the 11th graders who are and it happens in the spring just as they're coming off a couple weeks after SATs so there is a little bit of testing you can see coming in there yeah scores too okay so there's a lot going on so there's a window that we can maybe choose a better day earlier there are some things that we can do to entice students a little

085bit differently so we're going to be looking at that as part of the plan actually so so the information is not credible then right I mean what are we doing with it because we can't right we can't really say if it's good or bad that's part of the frustration tonight but without a doubt okay I don't want to dodge and say I think part of what I want to say a little bit later is we want to hone in on students they've given them more money than in terms of um what we look what are we looking to do that this year but next year was tied to a graduation standard and that would I think enforce the idea that this is a valuable Endeavor for them but it's more about a school Benchmark than

086with an individual Benchmark okay and that and that lends it something maybe not the level that we will hold but I'm just trying to be transparent with what we're doing I think we're doing really good things in our science classes and you know we're really tracking students and training students in the phenomena areas that that potentially affects examples right I I don't I don't mean to be a pastor again but the latest but what can an administrator do with this information that what what do you take back from this I mean it's I hear what you're saying about the kids but what do we what do we glean out of this and how do we improve from it if the information is not credible you know how do you how do you act on it

087as an administrator that's right well I think there's there's probably like a pre-step meaning when I was just sort of kind of working backwards into that is we have to we have to make it more uh meaningful for students right I think the idea is to tie it to something that's meaningful meaning students um would um a graduation standard about a certain assessment level a proficiency level okay connecting to this would make it more of an independent opportunity for students to um to do better but the other piece of it too is you do have some data that's not public that says that we're doing so there's two reasons why we might have this you want to look at student outcomes we want to look informing our curriculum construction and receptional process pieces so those

088pieces seem very sound based on the internal I guess right so I feel like I can glean that we're doing a pretty good job but yet I'm a little disappointed that we can't represent that the way we would like look at it okay thank you drew sorry to be here no don't worry I'll go ahead about it okay and a third piece of data that that we technically or uh yearly look look forward to just seeing is how many students are willing to involve themselves in any advanced placement tests how many would want to be in advance place of course and generally how well we do um in those particular areas so I've shared this with you before but I'm excited to report that we continue to have high levels of AP students in our

089school um that um over 60 percent of students who graduate end up taking an AP exam that um about taking an AP course that um we continue to have you know a wide range of students in these courses and to me the most important numbers how many students actually sit in the course so this year we have 134 students in the courses last year we had 123 year before we had 132 our population is a little bit less so that makes me feel good and that um you know this opportunity you know students take multiple courses so basically there'll be about 257 individual opportunities to take it uh to being seated in 18 in AP class so those numbers you know are are particularly I think encouraging and strong for for Canton um and you

090know we continue to Value students stretching themselves they've done better on the exam um of late but less people are taking the exam we've explained some of those reasons last year at this time that um universities aren't looking at it the same way families aren't looking at it the same way because um basically it was for advanced placement credit and those are further and far between in terms of opportunities for students have you seen more of a decline I remember you making that comment last year and then you have to weigh the the cost from the expense of providing the AP or should you just be providing more honors type programs I don't know what do you think well I think think we continue to well I think it's it's simple I think um I

091think advanced placement courses are great they're great for um again putting stretching students into um you know the highest level of learning um there was people who are highly interested in particular subject Arrow you know chemistry allergy physics you know World Language so okay and then there's maybe another segment of students who say hey I really want to extend myself in a particular way I want to I want to get a college experience and so those students have been signing up that's been a few years ago that was our big push to offer more advanced physical courses to get more students involved in the process for so now again the result of certain world we have all these students in this interim process of teaching and learning learning learning in a more rigorous setting they're

092doing fine they raise are strong they're learning they're reading their writing they're presenting they're doing the things at a more rigorous level so now comes to taking the exam some students are opting out of the actual exam again similarly what's the benefit for that if there's a distinct benefit especially for juniors they end up taking an exam what you know if we put a little pie chart out is is as students get second semester senior year that AP government exam might not benefit them at all personally they're already in a school um they already know their major they might not that that AP World credit isn't even going to be accepted where they're going so why why might I sit at the exam what benefits so so that's a family decision I don't think it's

093a school decision I hear what we offer right and we just need to understand the option yeah that's like this past year 71 of our kids are taking the test they get a sign up in October so we know this last year was about 77 of the students actually took the test it's still pretty good you know seven out of 10 kids we're gonna say good all right so this is what we look at is what we look at and then question on that street as well so on 2021 and 2022 the numbers underneath the number of exams were what's the differentiation between the two and what's the asterisk stand for yeah thank you so much so I think that was the first year I denoted that um that was the first year students begin

094to opt out of the exam so what I I want to let the board know at that time we actually had 228 students in courses but I can't read my number oh 228 kids took the exam but they were 267 students who were in enrolled in Classics and then the next year was 193 out of 254 and then the little numbers to the right say moving into this year we have 257 seats out of enrollments with real no 184 people will be taking it so it's kind of a you know a decline overall thank you that's not in specifically yeah thank you for bringing that word Erica yes I feel like they're probably doing better than that okay um so specifically then that those those types of drivers help us think about what we want

095to what we want to support in terms of very specific goals so there's five bullets here and this is really our academic goal we want students to achieve and what we're going to measure measure in terms of of a true limit is is how we will measure is through the state assessment scores but we want to be a little bit more specific than that general information that they gave you so you know there's some um Global growth and there's a specific growth so getting back to a schema with the psatsat we want students aggregate Sports to grow as I mentioned earlier 20 points in each test area from iteration to iteration so what we'll do is students took this test in October we haven't got those scores back yet we will get them soon and

096then that goal whatever that number is when I present to you in in June we want it to be plus 20 at least for for each area your W and Matt but more more importantly frankly is that we want to to look at individual students in in as as a ballpark number eighty percent we want 80 of our students to actually grow from one iteration to the next so that now speaks to all of our students we're not just looking at numbers like 5 or 12 or 463 we're saying Johnny got 492. and we'd like to see Johnny make sure that student gets you know an approved score based on that and the link uh the link yet database will help us with that all of that being shared with staff so we're going to

097be very cognizant of all the student scores and be able to work in our star data will be very helpful in the iterations because then it's not that just Johnny struggled maybe a little about PSAT but the start date will tell us specifically the skills that are deficient and that we can work and then we can compare so you're going to do that for every student we will that's that's fantastic I think that's fantastic did we take that individually and we create a plan for that so we look at where he's deficient how we're going to get them to move maybe that 20 points or correct right those teachers will be like surrounding around patterns okay like in algebra what do we mentioning okay because we have a group of kids we seem to have

098these themes right it might be lacking okay and then when it really pulls down to and these four kids over here let's get them over here for a little bit that's the beauty of a small school it's the beauty of coming to Canton right that's great so we're excited about that goal and I do think it is absolutely the most important one here I think um okay so that is really our academic goal and I guess I I sort of jumped jumped the guttle over here the indicators that we would we will we'll be using that um you know is in the next slide so you know we'll look at the the comparison scores between um you know the psh and sat we'll look at the release scores in upper ndss we will also um

099you know use star data to help monitor students to uh inform our own practice and I think again that's a real linchpin in this plan working and so the board is aware um it's really an important bullet evaluation of teachers student learning objectives each each teacher has an academic um SLO it's called which teacher um creates a goal themselves based on their student population it could be around writing it could be around reading it could be around math it could be around [Music] lab growth opportunity it's a particular academic focus of the class and you know they're measuring students on a rubric and they're you know infusing their instruction to to help that evolve and grow so you know those those teachers are rated and discussed you know throughout the year or those plans are

100discussed throughout the year and that ends up being sort of a linchpin to again the independent work that happens in classrooms so that that we feel like it is core to to making sure that the academic goals are reached so that's how we'll look at our success at the end of the year and you know our many plans are sort of built in that so as I mentioned many plans it gets us to strategies and there's a lot of words here um I don't you know I'm happy to answer any questions on any of them but the first three talk about a little bit about [Music] um General teaching generalized teaching you know what we're doing in the classroom like that's part of our strategy good teaching every day help students achieve so it's about

101strategies meeting times massive maximizing instructional time effectively using class time and that's all part of the evaluation process that our department shares we administrators work with staff on you know the fact that we use good assessment practices and common in bricks you know are really important for humans they they become able to verbalize new works and understand their own process and growth that's really exciting you know what I have next is to talk a little bit about those next four bullets talk a little bit about how we use data you know how we'll use Link it this year to you know um compare students and student growth and psh and sat to look at the skills through star um we have some other software Khan Academy and IXL which helps students practice these exams um

102or practice skills so you know that's kind of how we use our data and then we have a student intervention team that might help our supporting students our our students reading a little bit more support and then we have our support for students who are struggling and we have a couple outlets for students who are struggling um we have Resource Centers and we have student um study center um that helped you know pull out students to to get extra support um and then again we will be using observations a little bit more with our ngss students to Target those most at risk to help them with specific strategies to motivate them um and so you know this is Again part of our daily practice our daily work um in order to help help students along

103so Drew let me ask you um there's this uh in management they called the Chinese ping pong Theory Chinese always had this great people if you ever watch the Olympics how great they are and it's really their backhand so they say that when they interview them they say they practice their backhand ninety percent of their time and they only practice their forehand ten percent of time because the best thing they do is they're back in what do we do to support our best soon so how do we continue to challenge him because I hear these I hear um when we sit through these things I'm really proud of how we we take the lower end and we're continually trying to push them up but what do we do I don't hear enough about what are

104we doing to challenge the top end too how do we get them you know to really Excel yeah so um so the point I feel like we spent a lot of years talking about that and I was sort of like you know um back here but I so I I think almost where we started like the 13 AP classes that's good yeah you know it's a hard it's a high number for a small District you know and we've extended that into uh environmental science we can send it out to music theory so music theory is a great one you know though that's a very sort of distinct group of people who have a particular passion and gift that is a small AP Gatherings right um physics is is a small one it's usually because so

105we continue to offer and have small class sizes to bring those passions forward you know I think some of our elective areas while it might you might not seem like academic per se but when we have errors like um Theater Arts and we have ceramics so we have opportunities for um you know drawing a painting three which is like an advanced art course so we're trying to extend into the Arts as well um well I was just going to say too some of it I think to support that population students also happens outside of the classroom so any of these opportunities we have for new clubs and new activities that are student-led instead of created whether it's coming out of the camp classes or whether it's ninth grade students grading different kinds of clubs um

106you know it allows them to to hone their skills and push themselves in more of almost a organic and realistic kind of setting that's a piece of it too there's also this might take a slightly different spin but um there's been an increase in Awareness in anxiety and stress levels and some of our highest achieving students too and so being able to focus more on that and having some of our just social support services be working with kids at that range too and not just assuming that everyone's fine because they get straight A's but how are we helping them actually feel good about those grades and and push further that's great I I forgot but I think the 13 AP course isn't the same we have something in Music Theater music theory and Theater Arts

107I mean those challenges allowing them to be creative and I think that's pretty cool so also any uh if a student is interested said I'm going more into in class that's not offered I can to take it through virtual high school I should take any AP class um you know like psychology computer science and so they can really go in depth through the VHS and it's a great thing thank you yeah we had 20 students at VHS since last year wow so it's a little bit lower this year but you know that's we've maximized that [Music] um to maximize that support that that we buy into it but as part of Consortium so it's so originally it was set up for years ago when we didn't have that many electives and it was like hey

108we want to take an elective and do an offer and we build it in and now it's been a bump out on the bump bottles we still offers many but just things that are smaller I forget about I think we remember you mentioned that I guess you know back in I think I listened to it in the spring before I even got elected I heard you mentioning that so so like we had a but we we have we have AP calculus but there's a calculus we see that a few Advanced students can get to and they they take the BC through that because we don't offer AP Psychology but a few people have taken it in Psychology and with that Court board yeah how many students AP students are in multiple AP classes so it's

109a great question I I don't know if I have an absolute answer but if we have 123 students to 134 students in an 18 class I'm going to say about 80 to 90 take a moments does that decrease a little bit because I remember a few years ago on the floor there was discussion you know some are taking his names they could it was like overwhelming and stressed up they couldn't do some of the other activities they wouldn't produce or some thinking with that change some of that well I think a couple things happened I think um also the better I I really didn't examine that five or six years ago and Mr Schrade was supposed to be here tonight but I really feel like we balanced ourselves as a school and a community like

110what's most important and I think what we came to understand is we didn't need 12 AP classes but stretching ourselves in a few errors and How We messaged that through the through the scheduling process hit right for most families feelings a few students it was it was great that they would take six or seven or eight eight courses while they're again High School but for many students two or three or four had helped them meet their goals and and got them exactly and it hit just right so the stress levels went down when people came to understand really what it meant on the back end and I think we were able to articulate that much better about five or six years ago and it really did bring down um that concern that was traveling at

111the time but it was really just getting communication with students and you mentioned it was that one-to-one conversation with the school counselor who really knew that it was a kid and knew sort of where they wanted to be it was like you you want to take oap classes how many take these two right focusing on these two honors classes and do a great job on your college application process and you will be fine and that was exactly sort of process start to Kind of Wonderful so the last thing I would just mention that we're really focused in post-cover is attendance as and I include this as an academic indicator it's also a control indicator um but you know Kobe really broke down attendance processes policies um all together so we we reinvested in that I'm

112not sure I feel like uh Rebecca talked a little bit about it in in her meeting with you so we've sent letters home early to kind of reminds families about dealing with what the policy is and what structural cases did to remind families and there are some meetings coming up to ensure that but I just want to let you know like that toss is a huge indicator and kidding to be in school to be at their best right we we like this so we're we're you know it connects to our culture which drill is going to kind of jump into in the second phase here um but I did want that to sort of segue that to let you know that you see any Trends in attendance lately or anything yeah I mean we we

113definitely still see some students who are who are struggling um and I think it is sort of the perfect segue to it talking about our next goal of climate culture because it's truly you can't do any of this you can't make any of these academic goals you can't get in the building if you're not feeling comfortable and happy to be there um and so that's that's kind of where we're jumping into next okay um so really [Laughter] um this is kind of a big picture shot of some large areas related to culture and climate and this is you know this is one of those areas and again you've heard this from Egypt at school so I don't know you know how dissimilar it will be but um there's a lot of stuff here and there's

114a lot of different directions we could take as a specific School goal and a lot of different ways that we can work on these things and they do go hand in hand with the academic pieces with policy pieces um just trying to make sure that kids feel safe and welcome and ready to learn in each in that learning so we always are going to want our scores you know these numbers are indicating how students um you know responded positively towards these things and some of them we just want to be higher you know and and we've been working on that for years working on school culture and and connectedness is not a new thing not a new thing at all even prior to covet and that Kobe came and made everything worse and so now

115we're climbing back out of that as well um so there's a lot of pieces that are going to kind of go hand in hand with some of our goals but that gives you just some some big picture data and the third bullet the respect for diversity across that line there I'm going to come back to that because that's where we really end up sort of honing in for for some of our goals okay um but really you know what we end up looking at as a school culture and climate goal is this idea that if students are feeling included and welcomed um then they're going to have a better learning environment overall which is going to lead to their stronger overall well-being as well as being able to be more academically successful in general so

116our second goal really focuses on strengthening our own commitment to equity and diversity and there's a couple of big things here by increasing programs curricular revisions and Student Activities and this does as we're going to speak back to later connect to our knee as goals as well and the ask recommendations um and it's worth mentioning I think we'll say it again later too that our Nia's recommendations come out of our own self-study and our own dissolve reflection so it's it's what we were able to over the last few years say this is something that we need to work on so how are we going to figure out if we're improving or you know making any gains in some of these areas of culture and climate we have the survey data we'll continue to use that

117that allows us to look at school-wide approaches and how all of our staff and and administration and students are working together to improve some of those numbers that we're seeing um we're going to be you know paying more attention to and trying to kind of get into some details of exactly how many students participate in all of our extracurriculars we know it's a ton but who are the ones who are not and how are we servicing them and how are we making sure that we're we're kind of grabbing everybody um part of the overlap for both the academic goals and our cultural goals is um another written yes recommendation of creating a more consistent and cohesive written curricula and our curriculum has has long been in place and teachers are constantly evolving that and working

118towards it um but what we've been kind of looking at is how do we get that into a formatted template for the purposes of mass but mostly for the purposes of being able to have a better bird's eye view of curriculum and then how do we Infuse pieces that might not have been a focus area in our written curriculum before such as vision of a graduate looking through cultural lenses and these types of pieces that end up um you know having us look at the whole broader picture together and then as Drew was mentioning for the academic piece our teacher goals our teachers professional evaluation goals we also have a couple of specific areas that are really explicitly connected to school culture and climate as well and I think the next slide kind of highlights

119a piece of that so this was the survey question that we really wanted to focus on because what do we want more than anything we want students to be nice to each other to be kind to each other to learn how to get along despite any kinds of differences and for all the good that we see related to this area some of the patterns that we've seen have been about students who have differences and who may be in Conflict learning to problem solve with each other and to move forward and how do we how do we communicate better how do we have a better discourse you don't have to be everybody's best friend but how can we make sure that we're accepting and understanding of all the different backgrounds and everything that um you know

120make us who we are how's that question worded is it where did just like it says right here students new school respect should you be rated just like that so that is the question that's the question and and how what are the choices for a student to answer and it's a micro scale yeah so that 60 is is um the higher to an electric scale um so and then you know when that's the 61 that is it was sort of on an uptick for a little bit and it was doing well and it's come back down and so that's the one we really do we know what the bottom was on this I mean like this 20 says it's just non-existent or is it 10 or because you get the middle this is the high

121and you get the middle and then you get the load you know what the low was for chance thank you no I'm just wondering how many kids felt that it's just not there yeah that 53 is pretty low yeah I understand is there something inherently um about the adolescence um sense of Independence and growth they're like psychological um that sort of maybe makes them less Community oriented more focused on their independence or their their own self-development it might be in contrast with kind of like the Kumbaya thing going on I used to be a high school teacher I'm just wondering if maybe yes is the short answer to that yeah yeah um it's definitely and it is it's it's kind of an interesting Paradox of we want students to embrace their independence and learn who

122they are on their own and their own identity and then at the same time we say but except that person's identity as well and all their differences and and it's not and I think it is it is a hard place to come to but I think it's always going to be worth the effort and I agree but I just am looking at these numbers thinking maybe there's another thing that's going on absolutely yeah absolutely what is that five percent indicate under the school-wide so um this is actually a good question this is actually what's connected directly to teacher goals so I don't know how are people mostly Familiar of how each individual teacher creates their professional goals so let's give you the short version um so each teacher creates one or two student learning objectives

123and so they really think about as their professional role what am I going to do as a teacher that's going to help students that have a particular outcome you know and they're going to do better on their written assignments that sort of thing um and one of the other teacher goals is essentially what can I do in my practice that's going to help the school as a whole perform better or increase in some way on a particular idea so for us we chose this as part of we want our school-wide goal we want students in general to be working towards this idea of respect and we've spent time as a districts and as a school over the last couple of years doing different types of equity training and people digging into different ways to promote

124discourse and just communication pieces and so we said to teachers you know think about that as a continued goal It's A Small Piece honestly of their professional evaluation plan but all together as a community what are teachers owning and embracing in their own classroom to help desk or go up so that's that's what that five percent means so we've got 45 for the the SLO this student learning indicator five percent of the teachers evaluation then comes from this 40 is from their actual observation of professional practice and then 10 is on uh engagement communication but this is five percent isn't taken away like the 61 isn't five percent less correct okay the five percent is connected to the teacher goal thank you yeah sort of a random so you can get information as to what's

125behind the score there it varies um I think you get captions of students I don't know if I could pinpoint as one specific answer but I think for me that sense of and maybe it actually comes back to your point um students having a difficult time sometimes owning any negativity that they may bring and just looking to sort of blame others as opposed to creating that open communication and just acceptance about learning about one another um that's it's interesting it's something we're working on in terms of like different groups of students that we are talking to this year trying to get our um our student Equity team out of more engaged in the conversation so it's something we'll keep exploring a little bit yeah all right thanks bye so in general again a lot of

126bullet points there this is how we're trying to do that and we see sort of a couple of different pieces of it um we have school Improvement groups that every teacher at the high school is a part of one of these different Improvement groups we have five different groups but two of them are sort of focused in this Lane so we have a committee for Equity of academic programs and a committee for Equity of school culture and we have our student Equity team it's small But Mighty so we're working on getting some of those pieces going and just just embracing some of those conversations and some of those questions um we've mentioned the adl's no place for hate as a program that we're working on bringing into the school and I'm happy to talk more

127about what that looks like but essentially it's just a framework it's a framework for um how do we have students and staff Embrace this idea of we do not accept heat we do not accept we stand up for each other we learn about each other as a school we're working on some process and systems pieces that would actually help contribute to a more positive culture looking at some of the digital pass system uh again being able to have some data on that still using our Canton High School advisory our chat times to have different lessons come through um the teacher professional goals around the surveys what we were just sort of talking about a little bit um discipline and our policies and what we're seeing around that is also a huge part of climate and

128culture so we're working on different Avenues to help students again collaborate and communicate better with one another whenever possible our curriculum writing is also a piece of the overlap of our making sure that we have some of those structures in place um our vision of a graduate is is huge for us this year and that's an overlap of everything right that's a district-wide piece so teachers are also incorporating some of those standards from the vision of a graduate collaboration communication um being a good citizen those types of pieces into their everyday instruction and assessment practices is also part of their professional goals and then again using some of that professional time that we've been given as a district and that we've also structured throughout students teacher school day to be able to just talk interdepartmentally

129about different practices related to you know reading and um and just looking at some some different pieces academically as well so there's a lot there but it all sort of leads to how do we start to embrace go ahead so how often um typically would like the school Improvement groups meet and what type of systems are in place to implement some of the changes that they'd like to see in the school Community to help with the culture and climate um about once a month for the actual groups so it's part of our we have meetings as a school every Monday faculty department meetings and those groups end up meeting about once a month to have some of those so it ends up being a slower process but we work you know we work through some

130of those pieces so one of those groups is also getting acquainted with the no place for hate framework and so they'd be working towards helping students be able to roll that out just kind of understanding what that looks like a little bit more the other groups are looking at with some resources um because this has come up before our grading for Equity practices and and how we're working on some of those pieces every day in the classroom and they have Opera the students that have opportunities to give feedback to you also Implement things that would help yeah so that's the goal the student Equity team and I'm looking to recruit more um and we've also been holding at least offering the option for grade level open Forum meetings so any 12th grader wants to come

131talk any 11th grader they haven't been jumping for that necessarily but I'm still trying to recruit a little bit more and keep that as an Avenue of just open Voice mailing thinking we have about 10 minutes so maybe we can I know the niask is important so sure I'm happy to jump back yeah so um the priorities here that we have listed really do embodied in the assets accreditation visit and I think to spell out a little bit differently about the the first slide here that talked about priorities really you know talk about you know um the priority growth areas that we have we have outlined with uh with the support of the ask so the things that we've been talking about here for 45 minutes strength and commit impact of their diversity revised curriculum

132um to understand our invention intervention strategies you know are all part of our focused areas and then to move forward um you know other things that we are prioritizing this year um you know fall under some of the things we've discussed but you know the utility of data um you know especially around star and our Universal screeners um to look at our literacy coach and understand how best to use this position we I think it's been an incredible help and support to our staff and our agreements much more than we could have could have hoped for um and we'll continue to work that um as a as a priority um and um you know again we've implemented a new course this year so those are our general priorities it's true how about math though I

133mean what are we going to do about math I know I I see all the stuff on what we're seeing I think I mean it seems like it's a district where we're lagging behind in math yeah so I think couples have thank you a couple of things have come to a Forefront in this meeting I think programmatically like in so we have our students so we have our students so we can the supports I think in Star are going to be incredibly helpful in our literacy coach though she's on the learning literacy side has strong organizational skills around how to infuse um these test outcomes into a plan so when we talked earlier about independent plans every teacher's already implemented the STAR testing in October so they're getting kind of a road map for kids

134where they're struggling so this is a work in progress all year long at whatever level math they are in but really it's for 9th and 10th graders in the algebra 1 and geometry to really focus on those who who haven't fully developed skills yet to to understand the deficiencies to move forward so in in and of itself that star data and I just you know it's not a magic pill but it's what you do with it so we didn't have this last year this is the plan like we didn't have to know where Lou was in this particular schema so now we know and now we can attack it a little bit differently so do you need are you going to need support are you gonna you know the math tutor or you know so

135so yes and no and what I mean by that is what Eric had talked a little bit about before I I really feel like that is the best thing we've done in a long time to shift for that group of students who are struggling the most to give them a different avenue to increase their skills at a quicker rate at an earlier age I feel like those excuse have always lagged behind and now we can try to catch them up almost two years in one year right so that remediates a bit of a concern we will be bringing a bunch of proposals together to around Staffing to attempt to get other tutor level positions to free up our certified staff to support students who are struggling in our academic Resource Centers okay so those are

136three things that we've thought about math for the next year that's great thank you you're welcome perfect okay so to jump in and you ask I know I I would be happy to move it along I we could talk about this as little as much as you are um a few minutes a few minutes will be great so just to to give the board an update the the there's a six person committee coming December 5th 6th and 7th and you're a team of Educators three uh two are central office administrators and for our um to our building level leaders and to our teachers and you know they are our peers in some ways and they are they're they're going to help God and Shepherd us into um you know thinking about how we can improve

137but this process is in a gotcha process the process is we've been working with this group for a couple of years we've been a South report two years ago we've identified and self-reported on areas that we can improve upon and um therefore we have priority growth areas that we've been working on and you've seen in this plan so they're here for two days to basically look at all of them they're gonna they're gonna be in classrooms upon classrooms upon classrooms to see students learning to see students work to to meet with staff about um you know areas that they're focused on so that's that's like 70 of the time they're actually in classrooms we have meetings set up um what we call Priority area growth meetings where we have small committees where they'll come and

138meet with a group of people who are working on curriculum or working on tier two interventions and things that we've redeemed important um they'll look at student work they'll meet with students as well they'll be the leadership team they'll meet with the department chair they'll meet with the superintendent in central office and they'll be meeting with members of the Board of Education that is sort of the Arc of their visit um the third day they generally um you know use it for writing their report and asking questions that they don't fail with they don't feel have been answered as of yet and also during that time we are going to give them opportunities to see some of our our meeting times in action they'll see us writing curriculum they'll see us in a Sit team

139meeting so they can see how we're addressing some of the areas that we we've talked about as concerns so I want to give you that update I've given Kevin the schedule um and asked him if certain people can be or if members of this group can be ready at a certain time it is someone flexible if we can't make it work but we need to work with Mr Daniels on on that time so I'll let you know right now yeah um December 6th uh between eight in the morning and ten in the morning I don't have the specific hours drew the intervention but right that's the window we would love to have all board event members participate in talking with the committee the committee has certain questions they ask for to bed members and we

140can get you those questions ahead of time so you're prepared uh but we would we would love to have all of you join us for that if not everyone can come certainly we'd like our committee chairs to be able to uh to be there and speak along I know Lou was our chair will be there as well that's December 6 between 8 and 10 in the morning and we'll refine that but if you could look at your calendars and try to save that time and this would be an in-person meeting at our high school thank you foreign thank you okay so in our last minute um here maybe you could just jump to the pictures I I you know we're gonna wake up a little bit we are having I'd say a loud success this

141year I um it's been I'm kind of clinical in my thinking but it's really felt great it's really about the way people have been spoken to I really feel like you know not you know when you're trying to work through covet and trying to kind of recapture the vibrancy of the school I really felt like our heart because we're so based on the things we do and when so many things we couldn't do we're just going to stop and I just feel like the the retrieving or recapturing of opportunities for students is really again what makes our small school great it's just and I've said this in front of the world I mean it's giving kids opportunities to be involved with it so we've had our spirit week we've had our whole football games we've

142had um opportunities like 60 of our kids last year played uh uh on a sports team we had Alice in Wonderland this year with 40 kids were involved in this play we have a you know our music program is is growing yet again and obviously the the there was a concert tonight we're back to having field trips um model yuan is going to Yale in January thank you for your support there we have like 26 students going we have our Disney trip is that 80-something students our pool trip was at 17 students it's it's happening you know um we've had programs in school we had a great mock election around in early November um we had Veterans Day in person we had a homecoming dance um our clubs are the highest participation I'm actually I

143don't have the numbers I was trying to get them before tonight but um like I said our model event is up to 45 again our Dungeons and Dragons Club it's a new club 30 plus students we're trying to get an ambassador group to go to CIS to work with RCs oh I mean [Music] so um again we had Halloween we saw some of the pictures from middle school but that also tell the work of the high school our camp projects are up and running again we want to have a camp Expo this year January 9th we're going to do an evening opportunity we used to do it in school but we're going to kind of provide a public Focus for some of the great work that our kids are doing some of those Camp projects

144help the community or help another school um so I I just really you know feel like there's been a wave of positivity around being here in high school again and you know our good work you know has to be in these other areas that we've talked about I think we've really laid out but um you know very proud of the fact that it's been resilient through a very difficult time our teachers it kind of come full circle to kind of have that energy pack in um that was just really tough to offer during times of struggle um and I think the kids have reciprocated well so um you know I'd like to say as a school Success you know uh first and foremost is really about opportunity and connectivity I think amongst the students and

145I think you know in time it's really short but I I do want to mention our literacy coach that you all supported here you know I think we've talked about it a few meetings ago but um really what um that position is offered it's just uh opportunities to professional development for staff and we need to understand reading patterns and deficiencies that's huge come to us with and I help for students specifically doing and a whole opportunity for us to understand data more so this position itself has created an information flow that we just didn't have last year and it's really helped our staff and our students but those are two real success questions for yeah or Dr Goodwill Ryan are you good so it's an impressive presentation and you know your our Flagship really our

146high school when it comes our Flagship and you're doing such a great you're a great team I hear good things from parents you know you know I walk the sidelines and I'm always asking folks um so if everybody seems very positive and upbeat about the high school and like you said we're clicking again what can the board of education do for you what's what's the ask what do you mean yeah so continued support with professional development days and Canada I'm not sure you're on that process have really been on hell what's the recommendations I mean we have a yeah are you asking for more or I I think we're I'm gonna call it a sweet spot but we've hit three areas of curriculum writing you know data collection and student culture components and and I

147think you know the 11 to 14 days that are sort of balanced between the school seems to be about right another example that plus we have contractual days as well we can build on it and a beauty that you might not realize but because you have a contractual day on Monday and the day on Tuesday that's a half day we can blend meetings and we really use our time effectively that way so we do that often so we can not just take the two hours but almost certainly to a three-hour iteration of whatever number two there will be a few um in working with John and Kevin a little bit around um some some support positions at the high school again the goal wouldn't so much be a um necessarily a certified staff but some

148more support staff to potentially free up um some of our certified staff so those are two real opportunities I I think would be of help it's our next little bump out um that we need to keep our work going okay how are facilities doing yeah so I get I I feel like we have um I want a shout out to Andrea tune you know Luther Stone in um you know he has very high standards and he's a great communicator in our building is always you know the best it can be in terms of what we have you know the building is old it's in you know 1950s construction you know some of you know some of the work that that I just wrote down about some CIP work um you know in some of the

149you know foreign um in in the basement areas around the shops around those bathrooms those could use an upgrade for sure um and again I've been working with Donna on the CIP in this that should be presents and okay great okay anything else they're a really good reporter I'm sorry I missed the beginning of it and we missed it really really good the band continues I didn't say for all of them the two-thirds yeah great job for everyone thanks for taking time out we'll see you here tonight and I also want to thank you both and what I really see as an improvement is um celebrating students voices and empowering more and more students have a say as to what their Canton High School experience is all about I thank you both for that I've

150also noticed how excited our students are about their Camp project which is the Canton Mastery project which is a graduation requirement I was in a restaurant this weekend and two of our students happened to be servers in the restaurant and they both came up to me and said Mr Case will you attend my or will you be involved in my Camp project I'm having a jog take place on December 11th and then another student mentioned yeah another student mentioned another project so they are so excited and it's great to see that right because this is a project they're interested in they're applying all this 21st century skills they learn in this project and I'm not seeing it with just the two students that I met this weekend but but throughout the school there's that excitement

151and that was part I know Drew mentioned the January 19th date that you came to us from really good teachers as well so say we need a there's a better way to highlight and and put some good pressure on the students to celebrate so we're actually going to send that and save the date at some point very so great that's great well thank you both thank you good night good job putting it together okay we'll try to move right along Donna how are my friends over at the board of Finance tonight oh they were wonderful they're still our friends you came over and I you were smiling so I said oh my God she was in there for an hour what could have happened I think it was like two hours so your report tonight

152my report I don't have the financials um right is right I mean you don't have to yeah I mean I don't know I saw I was on for budget but I don't know just every meeting you're going to be on a budget for this point you don't have to if you don't have anything that's fine I understand you'll be on for the first meeting December 13th you know Russell will have his community Awards yeah is there anything you want to alert us to or any concerns or I was just going to tell you about the process or what we've done so far but I don't me too is that right yeah I think what what we can share with you is that very very very preliminary health insurance costs um Donna was looking at that

153today coming in at about an eight and a half percent yeah we hope that will come down over the next couple of months before it's final it'll be six okay that's that's what we hope Lou yeah I said six to eight so they came in tonight they came in at the high end absolutely because they bought the business and Don is also working hard to project our utility costs which we're hearing electricity we're just hearing that right that our electricity cost for our homes is going up so we're looking at how much of an increase we may expect next year along with gas um gas and oil prices as well so right so that was in the middle of that analysis that was going to be offline with the board of Finance they knew that

154they were gonna they were going to um accommodate the town Nanos because of that it's a it's an unbudgeted an unforecasted expense right right yes but even looking ahead to next year yeah right that's what we're looking at yeah okay uh just to update you on what uh Donna and I just had a conversation about with the um Board of Finance just as we look at our um reporting procedures you know I wanted to do a check-in with them are you receiving enough information want more information would you like and it was just mentioned that when we present our monthly financials if we could talk more about the grants while we provide them the grants we don't necessarily talk that much about them so we will talk more about what the grants are and what

155they're offsetting within our budget and to make sure we're reporting on food service every month well for years um we reported to them on food service and so we will get back to it while we provide the financials again it's there in their packet they would like Donna to speak to that and fair enough they didn't ask anything about um special ed or they didn't because they know we do a great job of reporting them so I just wanted to make sure with the entire you know board uh that we knew what they wanted and uh so more about grants make sure we talk about food service talking about special ed is something we do anyway and they appreciate our communication on that exactly um to that point um Mr Lavery brought out the fact

156that he would like to bring in our state legislators in December to talk about fully funding the excess cost Grant so just now the board of Finance proposed that we have a tri-board meeting on Monday night December 19th at 6 pm to talk with our state representative and newly elected State Center um about special ed issues and anything else that I actually think that's a great idea we got two billion dollars sitting in the State Surplus and even at the cave meeting that's what everybody's clamoring about you know if we're only with 74 on the excess brand right I mean even if you took us up to 85 or take us over 80. what a big difference that would make in our budget but the fact of the matter is state has those dollars and

157they're talking about where they can spend it well I can tell you to help us help the towns out because that is a way to lower taxes okay they talk about you know how they want to lower taxes do that because then we're not we're not uh shouldering the uh that large amount that happens that we can't even forecast sometimes because it's so fluctuates and Katie Kenny just spoke to that perfect yeah those exactly she made those exact same points great well I called um but they also shared with us in preparation for a budget uh you know one board member said we received too much detail in the budget we don't need to know how many pencils are bought for every classroom okay another member said we like the information we're getting so we'll

158have to uh we'll have to we'll have to look at that just give just give it a pencil and then they'd like a five-year comparison of our budget expenditures per line item which we will look to our Software System to to see how we can put that together again I think that's a good thing absolutely because uh we can we can then begin modeling did they mention anything about that Granby I still talk about the Granby forecasting model that that the town and the Board of Education uses so they call it the long-range planning sheet and um I'm sure they'll be using it as we approach budget well the only reason why is because we know our fixed is about 3.5 now you're going to add the uh employee benefit cost to that so let's

159say we're going up to 375 just on the fixed if we begin to model that out for 20 to 20 24 25 25 26 based on the contracts because the contracts I think end in 2024 25 that's when we're going to try to bring it that's when we'll be up for renegotiation so we should at least take the Contracting out on the fixed we should try to forecast out the um the oil uh the electric and all that other good stuff and try to put that in some type of format that we can model so we can see where our fixed is going out um that gives us an idea of what we can play with based on other needs that we may have so so I know Bill and Donna will work I appreciate

160it okay thank you okay so I believe that it was there anything else that uh was shared that I missed no I think that about Governor was is in he was not there tonight okay because I understand I heard that he resigned I'm not sure so I know he resigned from the Republican Town committee um so I understand he may have I heard his second hand and there was no other member there it wasn't a new member yeah sure no yeah that's that's important financing what do you want to do so the next thing that we're here so are we done with the business anybody have any questions on the business manager okay let's go to uh John thank you sir uh I'll be I'll be quick and to the point tonight a couple things

161that we are are excited about that have that have happened and some things that are going to be happening for us I wanted to to let you know that in partnership with uh Frida Collier dickerman and our seven uh 7 through 12 program that we were able to host a family gathering for a number of our uh open Choice students we talked about that last time it was a small But Mighty group really good feedback to be able to have we'll be looking to be able to scale that out to our elementary families as well they appreciated the the location um I appreciated the opportunity to have some planned conversation and the opportunity to grow for that I also had a chance to join uh first select with Bob vessel and the Canton Historical Society

162members over at the Canton Historical Society so uh you'll recall we've moved to uh a program that we're piloting for social studies at CIS this was in partnership with them to be able to develop some more experiential authentic learning opportunities that resonate around the history of Canton and looking to possibly move Sam Collins Day from the fall to more closely coincide with the research that our fourth theaters would be doing to be able to generate some real Buzz around the work that our our students are doing so we're really excited about that further conversations are going to be going on with them um was there Sam constant in the fall exactly it's it's stated it's it's it's it shows up as basically a tweet from the town but we don't have any way to really

163be able to celebrate some of the some of the founding of the Town itself and then also to a wider extent an understanding of the history of this place that those you know even farther back um so we're looking at opportunities to be able to continue to look at what does the uh the stewardship of the history of this area look like and how do we improve upon that as Leaders within our community so we're trying to bring back that Festival I think that's great that's great but we haven't had it for a few years um things that are upcoming for us I'm excited tomorrow we've heard a lot about star uh over the past few weeks this has been part of the you know part of the desire that we have to be able

164to have a better sense of who our students are academically again the concept of well-known equals well-taught so we're um uh having folks from Star uh Renaissance coming in tomorrow to be able to do Perpetual development for uh some of our key staff to work on the analytics and better understanding how to be able to maximize the uh effectiveness of this tool but we're not going alone we have started to do more with sharing resources and supports with other districts uh just recently we had our feeding Department go over with Simsbury to be able to do some professional development so in kind we're inviting Simsbury to come over and do some of this professional learning with us we're also collaborating with Granby and bernalin with a number of folks coming in to be able to

165work with us as well so we're all trying to be able to work uh within the resources that we have leverage our Collective strengths to be able to be in a better spot for uh our own communities and all of our kids and then um you know as we as we move forward you heard a great report from the principal and assistant principal at the high school as we moved through this budget season you will hear information about our program of studies and you'll hear information about upcoming changes that there might be as a part of the the textbook adoption process as we continue to be able to renovate some of the practices that we have through um through policy at the board I just want you to to know very clearly that work will

166continue to come through our curriculum subcommittee to be able to have conversation service around this and there will also be the opportunity for the board at large to be able to hear and review our um our program of studies for our high school and any major curricular changes that would be coming through any questions for me you know that's it take it what's the communications report oh thank you thank you Communications reported um can I uh I'm thrilled thrilled to have Kira Lafave working with us as our Communications coordinator our Communications and audio video coordinator so um we have been working together to be able to put together an implementation plan moving forward and care I don't want to speak solely for you but I'm going to give I'm going to give some of the

167highlights for this year um a lot of what we've talked about is being able to bring back uh brand standards to to who we are what are the colors that we want to use what are the thoughts that we want to be able to use they're small details but they go a long way toward um conveying a level of professionalism I think you'll see that as we continue to uh work on our website which you know all things willing from Houston when this upcoming Wednesday after break is what we're hearing from them so um but I will keep the board updated through this week if we if we find out anything else uh from that but brand standards with that uh you know part of this too is is helping us to be able to

168have a better sense of who we are with like a view sheet a new book part of what we need to be able to do in attracting the best candidates uh for um for teaching within Canton and helping folks whatever their background might be and wherever they might be um they might be studying they need to be able to see themselves here as a possibility within Canton and so one of the things that we've talked about is being able to develop a view sheet that would review the um uh the the profile of Canton for uh for upcoming Educators but it would also be a a resource that potential families might be able to look at as well um we also want to uh pull forward uh some improvement with our social media um my

169thumbs were too slow on some things with Facebook so here's going to do a wonderful job uh building upon that and also launching an Instagram for us as well I'm excited about that I haven't been much of a grand person but I'm excited to learn from her and see her be successful with it we also see an opportunity to be able to improve the regular timing of on communication that comes up from the district office as well with monthly notes that care would help to be able to produce and then have go out in a really nice published manner as well as an early winter Community update as we start stepping into budget season we want to we want our community to be able to know the state of our state and all the things

170that we have to celebrate but we'll be able to do that in a hybrid some print but also mostly digital Edition for folks to be able to access for us um and then I think what I'm really really excited about as well with this is Kira being being located right now at the high school because she does still have some local responsibilities where she supports teachers and she supports AV um but her skills in the communication piece will allow us to be able to have her go into the digital media and communications class and leverage an assignment from our kids to be able to improve student voice to be able to go into our um our video production class give them an assignment to be able to work on and have them be able to

171produce for us as well so these are things that are are added benefits of being able to have somebody like well not just to have Akira in the position to be able to do this work here is there anything that you want to be able to share of anything that you're excited about with this too follow us on Facebook we've only got like 200 people following right now and could you share too about your thought on LinkedIn oh yeah so when I was in high School resources how I found this job that in Facebook um and I want I want to establish a LinkedIn profile so that our past teachers our past staff and even our graduating seniors have this platform they have this background or they can say they were at Canton CT schools

172and you have our logo and you have all our information so that going forward we're creating this like base level for them and you can be proud of where they started and they can be proud of where they started that's great where are we with the website so we are we are 99 set the one piece that we don't have set right now that we're waiting for the um the the webmaster to get back to us we had wanted we had wanted a board of ed update and a district update so all those updates that we would be able to post and be able to clearly see Board of Ed meeting information from the chair um information on bus route changes they have been really struggling to be able to it sounds very it sounds

173silly Claudia could attest my assistant Lynn who had done an amazing job trying to work through with these folks can a test as well it's been very challenging to be able to get them to understand that if they're not able to get that set by um by tomorrow we're going to condense it into one piece and we're just going to try to launch and we will make them get that to a level that we want it to be at at a later date if that's what it needs to be okay how does the board use care for communications I mean what's you know how do we promote any any Communications you would like to send them through John she'll do the update right okay and then you know what I would welcome too is is

174some periodic planning that we do to be able to strategize about the type of communication that we want to be able to put out there and make sure that the right information is in place we've already started learning about uh an early winter newsletter but would love to be able to have board Insight on how we would go to put that together okay great thank you foreign [Music] okay for your consent agenda tonight we have the approval of minutes from November 7th and the special meeting of November 9th for your approval tonight we'll take care of a motion on consent agenda please Felicia second Ryan of Pop any further discussion on consent agenda all those in favor hi Brian unanimous ly okay um Joe do you want to give an overview on the uh on

175the two policies we're going to approve tonight sure we did last week uh last meeting and the first one is a opioid overdose prevention it authorizes the school nurse to keep Knox along Narcan on hand and touchdown uh rules about the U.S access safety security training that sort of thing uh it is uh authorized and by state law for about a year and a half now second policy is the health assessments and immunizations it updates our current policy would help me out what are the changes I forget the religious oh the religious objection uh is uh that expires for folks starting the last last April and it codifies that for our problems okay can I have a motion approved policy 5141-213 opioid overdose prevention solution second thank you Joe the children yeah Joe seconded okay

176any discussion any questions for Mr scheidler all those in favor opposed motion carries unanimous you can have a motion for policy 5141-3 revise the current policy of the health assessment and immunizations and the first thank you Peggy Second Joe any discussion on that any questions for Mr Scheider further clarification okay all those in favor aye you opposed what opposed to a post to a post Ryan uh Ryan were you a post opposed so three opposed so it's a um five three in favor of any extensions do I have that right five three podium okay so it passes five three okay what we uh failed to do last time is uh we went over the uh approved the superintendent leadership profile with Mary uh Broderick and we should accept that uh we should accept that profile

177so may I have a first for that thank you Russell second thank you Erica uh any any discussion on that and why we're doing that okay all those in favor aye proposed eight zero okay thank you approval of the financing and authorization is schematic drawings for HVAC Grand I'll pick a first and then I'll have you describe it in your discussions oh I'm sorry Mr Case board event meeting is sure so in exhibit six of your packets um what Claudia and I did was to list the draft of our Board of Education meeting dates for the next calendar year um Claudia do you recall when we need to adopt these days bye um what they would like is to have at least a draft um and then we've been maybe vote on the final a

178draft by December 1st a draft yeah yes okay so you'll be able you will be able to vote on these as a first reading pending our discussion tonight so I just want to highlight a couple of the the dates we currently will meet on the second and fourth Tuesdays with some exceptions in January January 17th would be a meeting just related to the budget where administrators would present their budget proposals to you we would do that in one night as we have in the past unless our finance committee decided to do it differently but I thought it was important to schedule that date and hold that date for that purpose I scheduled additional meetings in February because of the budget um one of those meeting dates will be the public budget hearing I would present

179my budget on the 14th then the public budget hearing would be on Wednesday the 22nd following the long Presidents Day weekend ask a question absolutely so on on the budget meetings we don't need to start at 7 15 because there's no prior meeting so we can start those incentives that become thank you as my budget proposal [Music] I don't remember four I normally had three but I couldn't figure out another way to provide a meeting for you to deliberate and [Music] tell one of these that are safe than sorry so the board had time to deliberate and consume the budget sure we would be adapting the question on the 28th correct it could be just a whole day too Joel [Music] okay what have we done in the past we've had you presented your budget

180at a regular meeting that's great and so you just don't you're thinking [Music] no I've always presented around February 12th 13th well sometimes on Valentine's Day the 14th I've presented and then the following week has been the public budget here everybody's hearing my budget for the first time in the board and the public the next meeting which is following President's Day on that Wednesday would be when the public can come and give them more their impulse and what they thought of my proposal then you would have um I think in the past there's been a only one meeting where the board could really deliberate thoughtfully about the budget before voting on it I wanted to give the board another meeting to do that but it doesn't have to be on these dates it could be

181other dates as long as as soon as the board adapts the budget by Monday March 6th March 6. did I say first no I can't wrote down Mark six to be clear Monday March 6th is when we send the budget to the town okay does anyone have I I did attach a calendar so if anyone has another date they would like to uh propose tonight we could do that I mean I don't know how other board members feel I personally would rather combine two and and have a week off yes I agree that's what I would vote I just think for for you know something everyone that's a lot to ask I'd rather have a longer meeting than an extra room Kevin you don't think you'd be ready to present the budget to us on

182the seventh yeah I would make as we're discussing tonight I mean as much as I would love another week I can be ready on the seventh yes what if we eliminated in the seventh and we could just do it on the point so can we do the 14th and the 28th or you have to do three we need we could uh yes we would need to do three because we need a public budget hearing and you wouldn't be able I don't think to listen to the public and then make decisions that night on the budget I think you would need another meeting so I think we can uh I think we can get it down to three meetings right the 14th or we could do the 14th 22nd and 28th and that way you get

183an extra week or we could do the seventh I don't know if people would come out on Valentine's Day if that matters to speak about the budget I don't know I don't know that could be our public budget hearing and then we could meet on the 28th Institution [Music] what do you guys want to do you want to go four you want to go 7 14 wouldn't you say 7 14 22 7 14 28. you got to have three I guess pick your poison man I heard me at that point 7 14 27. a million on the 28th okay there you go okay 7 14 22. 7 14 22 Kevin and so when does that mean the Board of Ed would adopt the budget because we had that as the 20 it would be the

18422nd the 27. the public hearings public hearing on the 14th 2014. Erica does that meet your needs yeah three I mean you said four yes okay sounds better okay thank you all right in May those are our regular board meetings um I know we're going to talk about doing Canton celebrates in a different way this year so we didn't put that down yet as a board meeting until we talk about how we want that to be done but those are the schools so it won't present too much of a problem okay Linda okay um jumping down to November uh November 6th is a Monday because of the next day being election day and then um a year from now November Francis looks like a Sunday yeah I don't have the 2023 November calendar November 20th

185is a Monday yes November 20th is a Monday yeah um but we want to avoid what happened tonight with the high school concert taking place traditionally that's always taken place on Monday doesn't mean they can't move it to Tuesday um so we either meet on that Monday or Tuesday the 20th or 21st of Thanksgiving week next year why don't we just stay with our Tuesday the 21st and I have caused the ban to move their day okay then of course of course we plugged in meetings for over the summer um it's at your pleasure when they're not you'll need to yeah those those are the those are the draft dates that's my love [Music] all right everybody's good um and these could be changed uh between that you know for the next meeting if you

186go home check your calendars so is this the first reading first reading okay may I may have a motion on dates that is provided thank you Russell second thank you Kim any further discussion on this it's only a first reading we can finalize at the next meeting yeah if not all those in favor aye opposed we lost Ryan because we lost internet so okay okay so that passes seven zero okay um the next exhibit has to do with the HVAC grant that you heard about uh previously that we are completing that after we're completing that applications to send it in by December 1st and then I know you needed approval for a couple more items I did I did uh has to be submitted in the meeting in meaning minutes from the meeting whether you

187were approved has to be submitted with it with the grant so uh these items we figured out that we need uh is one is the approval of the financing for the HVAC project at Canton Middle High School um I think we've all had discussions that it's going to basically uh come from CID because we can't use arpa funds to right so all that is is a movement between CIP and RFS so um I think um no we approved applying for the grant we have to approve the funding for the grants yeah so we just walked through the board of Finance about that right we did yeah and I had a previous discussion with Mr Skinner uh so basically we're saying that the uh funding has been approved and it has been from the CIP that

188will be paid for so what's the motion sound like uh the Canton Board of Education approved the financing of the HVAC project at Canton Middle High School you have a first on that thank you Peggy II thank you Erica any further discussion for Donna questions not all those in favor aye opposed seven zero okay and then the second piece of that is and this wouldn't happen until after really that the if we get the grant or if it's approved uh but yet we have to have permission by the Board of Education that we will in that event prepare a schematic drawing so the emotion would be that the accountant Board of Education authorized the preparation of schematic drawings for the HVAC project at the Canton Middle High School remember first on that thank you conclusion

189thank you Russell first and second any further discussion on that all those in favor aye opposed at 7-0 okay and then the uh app would be to authorize the chair to organize and to advertise to create a committee to uh finalize the mascot the warrior mascot you know Birds yeah we'll do it not discussion okay so first second thank you Russell so first and second discussion Erica well I'm going to be brief just because of time but um I just want to make sure that the you know where the previous board left off was that it was handed back to students and administrators to take from that point forward so I'm just a little concerned about putting together a committee bringing all these people in and turning into something else that's a good idea you

190know when you when you talk about people from the public and town officials and teachers and this and that and and I just hope that we don't get away it doesn't have to go that way then I just want to get it done sure and this where it was initially supposed to go so you have the history and I appreciate what you just said so what we're saying is that what what what the last born asked for was to go back to the administrators and the teachers I mean the administrators and the students right to come up with the vote the vote was to turn it back over to them and that if they didn't want to do anything then it would be left with the Block C and if they did want to do

191something they would it would be up to them all would be in there or and so I just I'm concerned and taking it down a road that it was never intended to go I just want to fulfill with the last board wanted so if that's what the last board did then then the motion would be to direct the superintendent to be back to the Board of Education by April using the administrators and students to come back with a couple options for the board to decide is that does that make sense that that was my obsession too yeah good let's do that then I just want to fulfill what was voted on before yeah so I I so so we're not gonna so I would draw would you would draw the motion who was the first

192[Music] what's a reasonable date Kevin get back to us I think at our April board meeting the first board meeting in April okay so so we're gonna make a motion to direct the superintendent to task the administrators and students using maybe the student reps yeah to be back to the Board of Education by April with some options on the mascot they'd fit the warrior that was voted on as a warrior is that Russell yep okay yeah everyone's up to them okay I just want to get it done that's all yeah is there a discussion part of this we didn't make the motion we're gonna we're gonna and then there'll be a discussion so can we make that emotion Kim yes okay so Kim Farsi Erica second now it's discussion so is was the fact that

193we were like cited in this article is not having moved forward do they have a problem with the idea of the warrior the word Warrior just the word Warrior they have a problem yeah and they clearly stated they clearly stated that not only with imagery but the name Warrior so if we use Warrior but we have a c let's say or come up with something they're not going to like that either right no so we have to change the warrior but we don't um in order to be eligible for grant funding from the mash and Tucket Peak wads we needed to abide by that we do not you know it's a separate track but we don't get grant funding from them anyway yeah we've never been eligible we've never received brand funding so that was

194the purpose of every District having to report whether or not they still use Native American imagery or they use the warrior name okay so we reported we still use the warrior and are we going to still keep using the warrior name according to the last board the voted on it yes that is the somebody that that voted in favor of using the warrior name has to come back and say that they would like to rescind that vote that has to be seconded by somebody that approved it and the vote the board would vote on it and it has to be by I think Robert's was two-thirds not that we're expecting money from these this organization right but are we being toned at like saying we're going to keep the warrior named regardless of what these

195Native American this Native American organizations I mean my personal opinion we're doing half the work that we got rid of the imagery but we still have the name so yeah I don't know what are the Golden State Warriors are they like just Warriors are they Democratic process that we went through with all this for a year or two in the committee and the teachers involved the staff the students the parents the lengthy process that it was very 50 50 after like yeah a thousand meetings hours and hours and hours you know so I should just say we're going to open it up and change it right now as I'm doing I believe all work that was done in people or whatever I don't feel comfortable with that I wasn't you know on that committee but

196I was on the board that voted to keep the name remove the imagery and move forward with and turning it over to the school and the students we acted in very good shape that we removed all the imagery all references to Native Americans and we spent thousands of dollars to replace uniforms some of which didn't need to be replaced in order to remove the imagery from those uh uniforms and when the process of redesigning a mascot that will have nothing to do with Native Americans they don't have an era well I mean that's thinking about like an Archer you know I was thinking about something that wasn't yeah anything to do it zero okay well I I know this board is I'm not in favor of myself of the name Warrior but it's what was

197already passed like you said it was a democratic process we went through it uh I think it's going to be divisive to open it up again and then go through that that comment at a time that there's a lot of other things to do so what does the board want to do Peggy yeah I don't know I guess send it back to the the kids you know or the schools and say come up with something Kim yeah send it back to let them finish what was asked of them Erica yeah Joe yeah finish what we started Felicia I'd like to see what they have to say Okay Russell better shortly start finish with this started okay so then the motion is to have the superintendent put together with the administration and the students to come

198back to the board by April with options to look at for a warrior mascot so we have a first and second we've had our discussion all those in favor aye seven okay so Mr Case all right was there was there anything else that there was something else but then I think yeah oh the space would you authorize the the chair to put together a letter just describing our space issue for the basement and seeking some type of relief uh to work with um the first selectman and the board of Finance Felicia first I need a second thank you Russell any discussion all those in favor I 7-0 okay thank you uh board member comments any other comments for tonight's meeting is there a need for executive Senator Mr case there is not okay okay no

199need for executive session um then I'll take a motion for Germany Peggy Peggy somebody else all right forget the discussion okay get out of here