001[snorts] >> Yes. To review the minutes of the March 9th meeting. Reviewed? I move to um accept them. Accept the minutes. All in favor? I. Okay. Thank you, Dr. Lee. So, we have some overnight field trips in under informational items. The first one is um Cheshire High School DECA National Conference in Atlanta, Georgia. Yes, so Yes, please. So, this is our annual trip. Our students are eligible for this if they um do well in the regional competition and or represent the delegation. So, we have one student attending this from Saturday through Wednesday. And down there, the delegation is from um from across the state. This year happens to be in Atlanta, Georgia. Year two of kind of an East Coast swing before it goes back to Anaheim and San Francisco the next couple of years.
002So, we'll um certainly looking forward to that. So, did you say she's the only one that qualified for it or the only Yeah. Yeah, from from Cheshire High School, yes. Okay. So, one chaperone and her. Yes. We did a lot of coordination. So, she's actually going to be flying up with a delegation from another school for lodging and those kind of things. It's cost sharing and so, she's with some other students as well. There's a lot of parent coordination on that. So, who is the student? Are we allowed to say? I don't think that that's that's not the school's for name at this point, but she might win something and then we might need her later. Yeah. She's involved at the national level. I'm not sure who Yeah, she's part of it. She's one of
003our state officers. So, we did well in competition and it's been planned to go from from the get-go knowing this is part of the state delegation. Okay. We don't have to go on that. No, it's just more >> Just for information. for all things, but um being that this was a little bit abnormal being that there's one student and and one teacher, I just felt it was important that you knew that Kevin certainly spent time with this as did Dr. Lee. We spent time talking with the family, spent time talking with the chaperone and um you know, all all came around this. We really wanted to support this this student. Okay. All right. The next one is the Dad Washington, D.C. grade eight trip, May 20th to 22nd. Yeah, we are really looking forward to
004our eighth graders visiting Washington, D.C. and Gettysburg this year. Uh we've kind of changed uh our itinerary a little bit and added Gettysburg for the first day. So, the trip down will include the stop in Gettysburg and some events there um including dinner. So, that first day will be um a little bit different, you know, than usual. So, we're not just on the bus for hours and hours and hours. Um so, we're really excited about about that. And the rest of the trip is pretty, you know, standard itinerary. So, uh we visit many of the monuments and museums. And we have plenty of private short bus trips um for our eighth graders. We're really excited about And you have uh 277 students going. Good. Have fun, Kelly. Thanks. It's going to be It's going to
005be a great time. We have a great group of kids. We have um a waiting list this year for kids to get on it. Parents happen to, you know, miss the deadline and it's a very challenging conundrum that we get into because we, you know, we book based on how many people express interest. So, we then when we fill those buses, there's there's Yeah, we can't get the seventh a seventh bus, for example. In this case, it would be a seventh bus. So, um we can only fill the six that we have. So, then it becomes waiting to see if there are any kiddos that have to drop out, which normally there are a few here and there, but um it's a wonderful trip. We've been working with Nations Classroom for many, many years. Um
006and I I do think that there were more kids than usual who missed that deadline this year, families I should say, who missed the deadline. So, we're working on making sure that that's a little bit more clearly articulated in some better ways of making sure our seventh grade parents this year know about when and how quick that deadline comes up this fall, like like early winter. But we're really excited. You're also stopping at Gettysburg. Did you say that? >> yeah, said that. Yeah. Day one. Yeah, it'll be really it's very really exciting. >> That's a new addition I think it is. It's a new addition that's been added under your tenure, which I think is wonderful. Well, we were trying to think outside the box. Well, that day one is, you know, it's a long
007long ride, long day. So, this will break it up um and and give us some real rich experience, you know, before putting them to bed, which is, you know, what we've been doing is, you know, driving all day long, stopping for lunch, stopping for dinner, not a lot of richness in that first day and then, you know, getting them into checked into the hotel. So, this should I think really um add a nice touch, but we'll see. It's all, you know, we it's it's penciled in for next year, um but in our recent meeting with Nations Classroom, we did talk about like if we if it falls flat, you know, we could always pull it for next year and just return to our old the old way, but we'll see. We're excited about it. That's
008good. Okay, so again, we don't need to vote on it, but it's for And Oh, it sounds great. Thank you. I've been doing this for a long time. Mhm. We need to go back for public comment. Oh, you're right. Yeah. Do we have any public comments? I believe we do. Sky Zeller. Oh, here. Where to Okay, stand here, up there. Come here. I'm up here. Cool. Um Mike, can you get me on the getter? Okay. Well, hi everybody. Thank you for allowing public comments. I think it's really important that parents have somewhere to voice some concerns and and have some good feedback. Could you just state your name and address? My name is Sky Zeller. I live at 90 Terrell Farm Place. Okay. Um so, my husband has been a teacher here at Cheshire High
009School for over 20 years. When we chose to raise a family here, it was because we believed that Cheshire's public schools would provide an education that was comparable to a private school. We have now been part of this educational community with our two sons for eight years. And we find ourselves preparing to leave the district for middle school. This is not a decision that we are taking lightly. It reflects growing concerns about the direction of the curriculum. These concerns began after COVID when increased technology use started to replace teacher engagement. >> [snorts] >> As early as second grade, students who finished their work were directed to programs like Prodigy instead of receiving deeper instruction or enrichment. That pattern has now continued into sixth grade where tools like MyPath have replaced meaningful opportunities for advanced learners,
010leaving many students to now teach themselves. We have also seen a decline in core academic offerings. Elementary world language has been eliminated, making Cheshire an outlier within our DRG. The science curriculum lacks a hands-on experience. Many students are reaching middle school without ever designing or testing an experiment or fully understanding the scientific method. We stayed through elementary school believing that middle school would finally offer more rigor, including an accelerated math option. However, we learned at dog parent night that this urges the curriculum board to reconsider this direction and to preserve academic rigor and achievement-based leveling within Cheshire schools. One of the key skills that I learned while earning my PhD at Yale was the ability to evaluate data critically and understand academic research can be used to support either side of an argument. I am
011aware that the curriculum board is using research to support improved outcomes for lower bands of learners when they are grouped with higher achieving students. However, I think it is very important to point out that there are several studies that also exist showing a negative impact on the growth of your highest achievers. A comprehensive meta-analysis was published recently in Review of Educational Research. This study examined nearly a century of data across hundreds of different independent studies. And they found that when high-achieving students are grouped or accelerated, they see measurable academic gains. However, in non-differentiated settings, there is no added academic growth. 100 years of data is telling us this. Could you explain that? Sorry, you keep going, but I just want to make sure I understood that. >> Yeah, so a meta-analysis we know a meta-analysis
012is basically taking individual studies and looking at what the trends and what the data you can pull when you group studies together. So, it's a study of studies. So, this is in the scientific rigor in the absolute highest form of data that we can have. They went back through 100 years of studies and they found that if you take you can look at the bottom level, they actually do do better. That is correct. If you take the highest level students and you place them in a group where they are with other high-achieving students and those groups are being accelerated, that they do better long-term. If you take them and you put them in a group where they are the only or some of the few students who are working at that faster pace, they do
013not have the same gains. So, you're essentially stifling the growth of your top students. So, I stand here today disappointed in what I considered the minimization of academics within our educational system. There is a severe limiting of homework. There is an absence of a true talented and gifted program. There is the removal of academic leveling. And there is an inequitable use of resources to address solely the lowest performing students and this must begin to change. It is time for Cheshire to give the same consideration to the top band of students that is provided to the lowest band. Equal opportunity for learning should apply to all students in this district, including those who are ready and eager to be challenged at a higher level. And that is my statement. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. We have
014a report on K-12 multilingual learners tonight. We do and we have Azra Redzic and Kristen Castellano and Ryan Murphy here to share their information with us. They presented Um is it April? Come on up, guys. April 1st. They presented April 1st. on the curriculum from the multilingual learner program to the Cheshire Curriculum Council and they received feedback from that council and we also did um a problem of practice that we engaged in around the growth that they used to inform their goals. So, the process is that you you spend two years analyzing, investigating um and then you make this presentation to the Curriculum Council with a follow-up to the Board of Education and the ultimate goal is to have really understood the strengths and weaknesses of your programming and then to create a five-year goal
015plan from there. So, as a result of this, the team will now have five-year goals. So, I will turn it over to the group. All right. Good evening. Good to see everybody again. Ryan Murphy, I'm the assistant principal over at Dodd Middle School. Everybody knows Azra and this is Kristen Castellano. Star of the show right here. Um Kristen is our reading and come on up. Yes, sure. I'm the reading specialist reading literacy support teacher at Dodd and also the teacher of multilingual learners. And we want to thank you guys for giving us the opportunity to share our brief executive summary of our multilingual learner program review with you tonight. Um really just want to acknowledge the hard work of our subcommittee along with Azra and Kristen. We also had Pat Castle, who is currently serving
016as our district's multilingual learner consultant and Amy Russell, who is an ESL instructor at Cheshire High School and it was just such a truly collaborative experience and such a cross-section of different roles and experiences that really contributed to, you know, the work that we did throughout this process. Um you know, you're going to see how our work is really grounded in Cheshire's continued commitment to high-quality instruction and how all of our students, including our multilingual learners, are getting access to the same rigorous grade level content and learning experiences. In addition to that shared belief that multilingualism is indeed an asset. This work and what you're going to hear tonight was really shaped by the voices of our students, of our families, of our staff. We gathered feedback through student focus groups that included current and
017former multilingual learners and had some district-wide surveys from staff and families. So, you know, what you're going to see and what you're going to hear, this is not just our perspective, but it's coming from the experiences of those who we serve. So, you know, I'm going to pass it off to Azra and we're going to, you know, just take a brief look at where we are, some of the key components of our work and some of our focus areas moving forward. So, everything that we do in curriculum is grounded in our definition of high-quality instruction. This rings true for our multilingual learners as well. As Ryan stated, we believe and know that all students can achieve grade level work. What's super important is that we've identified those learning standards and that we provide these deep
018learning experiences for our multilingual learners, which includes the six attributes of complex thinking. So, that's especially true for our multilingual learners because what we're looking at is the appropriate scaffolds that help provide access and entry points into our curriculum. So, when we think about these appropriate scaffolds, we're talking about the just-in-time supports so that kiddos can access that learning versus the just-in-case. And what we're also looking at is this piece around responsive teaching. So, looking at how kiddos are doing and making sure that we provide the appropriate tools, resources, and access points so that they can access that content just like their peers. So, everything we did for our multilingual learner curriculum analysis here is grounded in this definition. As well as our thinking around complex thinking and social-emotional learning. It is super important, especially
019for our multilingual learners as we think about making sure that kiddos become effective communicators. Making sure that they are community collaborators and contributors. That they're self-directed learners. That they're using the tools we're providing and that they're collaborative and cooperative learners. This is how we lean into our vision of the work. When we think about our multilingual learners, we have to think through the culturally responsive lens. This is super important because what we're talking about here is these equitable access points that that we're providing through universal designs for learning as well as our work with building thinking classrooms. The other piece of this is we need to foster belonging. We want to make sure that kiddos know that they belong in our schools and in our classrooms. How do we do that? We need to validate
020their identities, their stories, and backgrounds and look at this to an asset-based lens. Every student that comes to us that speaks another language in addition to English comes with his or her own lived experiences, knowledge, backgrounds that are an asset to our school system. And so, as we looked at our program, we uh referred a lot to this document, which is put out by the state of Connecticut and this is the English learner and multilingual learner frameworks. And these are really what all of our work was grounded in. Um it really outlined for us um the policies, the practices that are um needed in order to make the meet the needs of our diverse learners. So, we referred to this document a lot um so that we could all have a shared understanding of what
021success looks like for a multilingual learner and also what high-quality rigorous thinking experiences look like in the classroom, what that instruction looks like. So, this is where we really focused um uh a lot of our attention in terms of developing our vision. Where are we now? You've heard me present numbers for MLs in the past and I believe at our last meeting. At this moment in time, we're about 4% of our student population is identified as a multilingual learner. There's that visual there that says that there's no magic wand. This is important because part of our work through our analysis around curriculum is that this idea that there isn't a set of instructional strategies. There isn't a curriculum that goes from A to Z that's going to meet the need of every ML learner and
022is going to magically allow them to acquire the English language. That's an important concept because what we're looking at is that high-quality tier one so, high-quality tier one instructional practices and then additional scaffolds, access points, entry points, just-in-time scaffolds so kids can access content. So, this idea is super super important. You've seen these numbers before. We currently are at that 180 multilingual learners in our district. You've seen this progression here as well, how we've increased over time. This is an important visual here. This states that these are the former ML students who have passed the last links assessment. So, they're currently still in our school. So, at the elementary level, we have about 24. At the middle school level, we have 22. And at the high school, we have 32. So, total of 78. That's
023an important number because MLs have exited based off of that last links criteria. However, we still have to monitor them. We still need to make sure that they're getting what they need in order to be successful during daily instruction. So, we have to keep an eye on that. Even though they've officially exited by that criteria, they might still need some language supports in order to be highly successful. >> Still for 3 years? So, yes, we still have to monitor and intervene if academic Yes. So, the kid who moves here is 5 or 6 years old and he moves here from a different country. Mhm. Uh if he speaks English fluently, Mhm. reads, writes, everything, does he get put or she do they get put in that former ML No. >> They They just go There's
024like nothing no nothing whatsoever cuz they just Well, what would be important, we would know that there is a second language at home even though the child didn't qualify for services. So, we will keep an eye on that because if it did start to impact academics at any point, we might have to take a look at that again. So, we do keep track of a different district number which talks about how many students in our school system do speak a different language at home but do not qualify do not qualify for ML services. I was thinking about parents who if you have two different parents, one of them may not speak English but they get emails or phone calls in English. Marlene, what was that number 500 and something? 600 658 families. 658 families that
025identified themselves. students whose families speak don't speak English at home. Speak a different language at home. Okay, but it's only We've only got 180 kids in it. So, there's probably kids who speak English but read, write, speak English fluently. Enough to pass the last test. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which is I'm assuming that's pretty close to what most people would consider fluent short of maybe like an accent or something but they speak perfectly fluently. Well, it depends on when the parents register the child what they determine. What was the first language spoken by the child? What's spoken at home? There's a third one. So, they fill out a home language survey exactly what was the child's initial language, what language is spoken at home. That home language survey triggers our identification process. So, it is very
026plausible that kiddos might register with our school system that English is stated on that home language survey but there might still be a second language at home. >> Sure, I get it. So, that number is high. I believe What did we say? 658? Um students with families who speak a language a language other than English at home. And with the last I it's I wouldn't say that it's measuring their fluency exactly, which is why in PowerSchool, we have a little a designation for who those kiddos are who have previously been identified as a multilingual learner because we want to make sure that we're not just abandoning them. We want to make sure that they still have access to universal supports. And that, you know, it's not always going to be easy. It gets better. Yeah,
027yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Sure. In the classroom, I just want to add to that. In the classroom, that presents itself as a need for more vocabulary acquisition. So, typically, those are kids who might not have the vocabulary that a native speaker would have. They are able to understand and they're proficient according to the last in terms of reading, writing, listening, and speaking but some of the vocabulary might not be as internalized as a native speaker. I was curious about that cuz I thought I spoke with somebody it seemed like a knowledgeable conversation where the typical American may probably doesn't use more than a thousand words anyway. Is that the target to get people up to what's commonly used in language or is it to give them the spelling bee championship? I'm just curious. It is
028it's a minimum it's it's not looking for This determines whether or not students receive support. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right? So, once students are at a level where they don't actively need support, they're they're released from that. So, I'm just curious though, is that I don't know if it's based on the thousand word Yeah, it's not a thousand words. I'm just wondering what the general people speak. Often times, people use the word thing. They use pronouns in place of what they're actually discussing. And that's considered fluent, I think. But that's what I was wondering about. Do you take it beyond that to get into scientific vocabulary or So, the criteria that's used for exiting ML services is based off of the last links proficiency assessment, which is those four domains that we talked about, I believe,
029at our last session. So, the speaking, listening, reading, and writing. And that's by grade level span. So, as the grade levels increase, that rigor increases. It is not solely based on vocabulary. It's multiple domains that are tested for language acquisition and proficiency. There you go. Okay, and with all of that, we have looked at all of those things including the frameworks and including the numbers and including everything that has been discussed thus far and come up with our vision for the for high-quality instruction for our multi- multilingual learners here in Cheshire. Um and that vision includes all of the things you see here. We really want to focus on the acquisition of language for those students. We don't want those students um sitting in a class where they're not understanding what's happening in the content
030area. So, we need to give them scaffolds so that they can participate in those rigorous learning activities. That's really important. And not only do we want them to participate, but we want them to also be acquiring new vocabulary and acquiring acquiring reading and writing skills and acquiring listening and speaking skills at the same time. So, that takes a lot of scaffolding and support and responsive teaching. Um and then at the same time, we want to also be sure that we are um looking at this through the asset-based lens that Astrid spoke about and that we are addressing their social-emotional needs as as adolescents or as children or as high schoolers um and we're meeting them with where they are um in terms of their social-emotional growth as well. Okay, so we're good. We're good. A
031question maybe doesn't have an answer but don't we have native speakers who need to acquire those skills? >> Absolutely. Absolutely. Which [clears throat] is why, you know, our scaffolds are not meant just for these multilingual learners. They they benefit everyone. You know, so um everything that we talk about tonight doesn't just benefit the multi- lingual learners, it benefits everyone. Which is also why that there's no magic wand statement is so important. What we're really talking about here is getting really, really good at that tier one instruction and providing these universal designs for learning, like Kristen said, that will be beneficial especially to a multilingual learner but are equally beneficial to any kiddo, right? Any kiddo could benefit from additional vocabulary, academic vocabulary, right? That's going to help them access instruction. It is also super helpful
032for our multilingual learners. So, you probably will be hitting this but can you talk a little bit now or if it's embedded in the PowerPoint um the type of professional development that you provided for staff? We do have a slide for that. So, that's coming coming up. Okay. Um one of the areas that we addressed in terms of um looking at our whole program was curriculum and service delivery. Uh the the ser- services that we deliver through our multi- lingual program. And one of the things that we're really proud of this year is that we're working on student success plans for all of our ML students. And these success plans this year have been implemented for our level one language learners. Um so, the levels of language proficiency go from level one to level five.
033Uh level one being a newcomer, someone who's just learning the language. And so, we have this year implemented student success plans for all level one students and our goal is to have one for every student uh going forward for every ML student. And these success plans tell the teacher things that they need to know in order to address those kids' needs like how many years they've been in the country, what their hobbies are, what their strengths are, if their family needs a translator, um how many years they've been here. There's just really wonderful information that gives the teacher so much data to work from and to figure out how they're going to plan um s- instruction that's successful for them. It also goes back and looks at um past data in terms of testing. What's
034their level as a reader, as a writer, as a speaker, as a listener. Um and that plan will follow that child through the grades. And our plan is that they'll be reviewed by a team of teachers, everyone who comes into contact with that teacher to measure the progress and to kind of determine where that student needs to go and what the goals will be and how we're going to get there. So, that's those are our goals for the next year. >> Who writes the plan? So, the plan is written by in in middle school it's written by um me. I'm the ML teacher, so I go through and I make these plans and then I share them with the team teachers. Um they're content area teachers and their UA teachers, so that everyone has that
035information. Eventually, I believe the plan is going to be to show them digitally, um but that's in our in our goal for the coming years. What's happening in the elementary schools? In the elementary schools, the plans are written in conjunction with the Rams, Pat Castle, as well as classroom teachers. What's really important to note here, um Kristen earlier presented that CDE um multilingual framework. This is a shared responsibility. So, it's not one person that owns this plan. It's a group and a team of folks that own that plan. So, the initial data dive might be done by Pat or our Rams. However, we can't get that holistic picture around a student and we can't do that asset base without involving the teachers. So, it's a a shared responsibility, multiple people. It is meant to be
036a living breathing document, right? So, if I identify an area of need for a kiddo and the kiddo's progressing and I'm I'm progress monitoring, the plan is meant to be updated and follow the child, so that we continuously are meeting the needs of the kiddo and we're looking at our Kelp rubric for that specific grade level band. So, like Kristen said, we currently piloted for level ones and newcomers. We got a lot of feedback from staff, which was great, and we're continuously improving that practice and next year every student, regardless of level one, level four, will have a plan, including kiddos that have exited that we're progress monitoring and keeping an eye on to make sure that they're still excelling academically. And how about the high school? Who's writing those plans? >> Amy Russell is
037the lead, but it's similar fashion. She's working with um the teachers. I don't know if you have anything to add to that, Kevin. So, I'm not sure this is what you're thinking, but as you all know, Pat Castle is with us for a very small amount of hours that we've been able to use some of the grant money to pay her for consulting fee. And our largest number of multilingual learners is at the elementary school. So, that's that's where that need and that request is coming from that Kevin had talked to you about for a few years, Ezra has talked to you about, we you know, we've discussed. So, that's because you've got multiple students across grades and right now Doolittle is where we have the most need for our newcomers. I mean, my concern
038at the high school level, obviously, is a newcomer with the course load and the you know. Yeah. Very much so. Well, [clears throat] also gets scheduled into ESL class that Amy teaches, so she does push-in, she coordinates with teacher and they do an ESL class, but it's um it can be a lot for Yeah. >> [clears throat] >> Um so, as we mentioned earlier, you know, our approach to our instructional work is really grounded in that asset base mindset and high quality instruction. And we're really starting to see a strong alignment with different building thinking classroom strategies, with universal design for learning and with a continued focus on student engagement and discourse. Um you know, one of the key takeaways though is that when we think about the work that our multilingual learners are doing
039in class, it's not just it well, it's not something different. It's not they don't have the same grasp of the English language as their peers, so we're just going to give them something, you know, below grade level. They're still accessing the same rigorous grade level material with strategic just-in-time scaffolding. And our focus moving forward is really building that consistency and building that shared understanding of what that looks like in practice across every level and across every classroom. And professional learning, you asked about professional learning and nothing happens, you know, with this unless we work with teachers and unless we all collaborate to make this instruction happen and plan for it. And one of the things that we're looking at in terms of our vision and where we want to improve the most is to um
040look at ongoing training and collaboration around things like the Kelp rubrics and the Kelp standards, rather. The Kelp standards and rubrics are things that guide language acquisition, so we can measure and monitor the progress of of their language acquisition. Um and that's something that we're uh going to be working on. In addition, UDL strategies is what Ezra talked about. That's universal design for learning. That means we're deser- designing instruction for everyone. So, everyone has an access point, including our our ML um students. And when you combine that with high quality instruction and building thinking classrooms, which allows us to see thinking um right in the moment and better allows us to scaffold for that just-in-time, it becomes very, very powerful. So, it looks like alphabet soup up there, but it really is something that's really
041powerful in the classroom when planned. So, that's what we are looking for, ongoing training with our teachers, collaborating around those student success plans and making all of those things happen. We talked a lot about universal design >> [snorts] >> last last time. And and you notice here, too, that folks are asking for, "How do I best do that?" So, the professional learning really is in those conversations, the let's look at that upcoming unit. Let's look at that upcoming lesson. How do we create those opportunities for learning that are supportive of everyone, but especially our multilingual learners? >> Do you use the SIOP model at all? We do um right within the success plan, the SIOP model is linked, but as you can see, we have some more work to do about calibration and shared understanding
042around how that success plan functions. Tim? Oh, I'm sorry. No, no, thank you. Just generally speaking, barring any unforeseen circumstances, so maybe you foresee things happening, but generally speaking, I think the majority of people who come to this who have kids in the school system probably move here early on. Call it kindergarten, even before kindergarten. Mhm. Not all. There are kids who move here in high school. Mhm. But generally speaking, I'm just wondering about the numbers. Is it the uh Are the kids going to be weighted toward elementary school? And with some kids aging out and also fewer kids moving in. Okay. Yeah. So, our elementary numbers are very, very high right now at 150. We've got 16 at the middle school, 14 at the high school currently in services. >> But the I'm just
043thinking that those numbers will probably stay Mhm. at least proportionally the same. >> Correct. Because the >> Because of exactly what you said. >> Okay, got it. That's all. And also, the other piece to this is if kiddos move to our district in the early elementary grades, it takes years to acquire the language. So, those numbers at the elementary level tend to be higher. Um if we've done what we've needed to do as far as supports and high quality instructional practices and curriculum, you tend to see kids exiting out as they move across our grade level bands and into the high school. So, these numbers here tell that story as well. >> Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, from a family communication perspective, um one of the biggest things I think that we learned, not just from
044our own experiences, but from our data, was that it's not engagement that's the issue, but the access. And if we're able to ensure that the communication is accessible and in the home language, then the engagement follows. And I think that as a district, we've really done like a good job at decreasing some of the language barriers that have presented themselves over the years and through some of the tools that we've been utilizing um such as ParentSquare's translation um options and the language line solutions, um we've really been able to again provide access to families and we're trying to make that adjustment from them just being informed to truly becoming a connected partner in their child's education. Along with that are the opportunities for family engagement and for, you know, culturally responsive family engagement opportunities that
045are meaningful for these families. I know Kristen on a number of occasions welcomes the families of um our ML learners in for a coffee night and will bring them into the classroom, let them see some of the materials, have conversations with them. Sometimes she's testing out different translation tools that, you know, she's found. And at times we've offered different resources for different ESL programs through adult education and, you know, in our partnership with Longford to, you know, support the parents um as well. So, it's we recognize that there's still room for growth, especially when we think about the number of families that it might not be an identified multilingual learner, but they are speaking a language other than English at home that we can be, you know, ensuring our communication is successful for. And you
046might notice um a need there for us to address um some of our teachers' concerns that are still feeling a little bit uncomfortable around communicating with our ML families. So, that's another area of need that we are going to be addressing as one of our goals, making sure that everybody has the tools, resources necessary, and that we can make um spaces available so that they can be as comfortable as possible when we're communicating with them. And then my concern is that at [clears throat] times ML students could be misinterpreted by a teacher and put into a trap for special education. So, I mean that's something that we really have to be. That is definitely one of the things that we are looking at especially at the elementary level, the difference between language supports and SRBI
047support for academic needs. Sometimes when we have students that are SLIFE students or students with limited interrupted formal education, they might qualify for both language supports and academic supports, but we are working really hard to make sure that those are two separate tracks because that is what they are and making sure that we're normed and calibrated around that. And over the years, too, I think our office, the curriculum, and PPS have really worked together to talk about what kinds of things need to be in an IEP for a student who is special education, but also has an ML needs. And I know from being on the other end of the phone that that middle school does an exceptional job in making sure that that's not not happening. And I think it's both Azra, myself, and
048Kevin can speak to the conversations that we have with elementary teachers and principals about ML students who are on track coming up because teachers get worried that oh, the student's not getting it. Oh, no, they they let let us come into the classroom and show you what's observed. Let's show you all the things that they're doing that tell us about their cognition. This is a is a language issue, right? Or of language learning process. So. So, I can't talk about this next part enough because this was probably the most powerful part of the process at least for me. We ran student focus groups and we really got to engage at every level with our amazing ML students. We asked a set of questions about their experiences and what works for them and what do they
049need more of? How can we best support them? So, this was the highlight of really this process. So, some of the strengths and the things that our kiddos voiced and I was lucky enough to actually join the high school crew and talk with our high school ML students. It was the highlight of my month, really. So, this is what our kiddos said. They said when they have frequent opportunities for peer-to-peer discussions and small group collaboration, that's key. That helps them understand the content. It helps them to access their learning. When they have interactive environments to help them clarify their thinking, this was super helpful to them. When it's a safe space to practice English even if they make mistakes or if they don't say it fluently or they say it with a thick accent, if
050it's a safe space, that that really works for them and it helped them build confidence. They noted this idea of relationships and trusted adults and spaces that they belong and this champion teachers who proactively offer help even if they're not the teacher that they had class with. Somebody that catches them first thing in the morning, checks in with them about their day. They gave me a plethora of examples. That that really worked. They felt like they belonged. They felt like they had somebody that they could turn to and environments that helped to promote and create emotional safety. Are those Is this activities that occur among all students or just ML students? This is ML students focus groups. So, we talked to about 10 to 12 kids at every grade level band and asked them a
051set of questions. So, this is from all of the ML students that we interviewed. Okay, so I didn't ask the question clearly. Here's an example number one, frequent opportunity for peer-to-peer discussions, small group collaboration. So, what I'm hearing you say is the focus group said that >> practicing >> about what? About their inter- their classroom environments and their learning. So, the question was, how do you learn best? Yeah, no. So, it's So, it's among all students. >> Among all students that we conducted the student focus group with. >> Aside from bullet point number three, are the other four points different from any other kids? >> They're Well, not necessarily, right? Because what you're hearing here is kids are referencing that when we do things like building thinking classroom initiatives, that is beneficial to their learning.
052So, you'll hear from social studies soon. That's our next session and you'll hear that kids can really voice that interactive, that collaboration, that group work really helps their learning. That's what helps their thinking. So, we asked similar questions for our MLs and our social studies focus group and that seems to be a consistent pattern. When we're in groups, when we have the opportunity for discourse and dialogue, we tend to learn better. Our thinking tends to go deeper. Yeah, no. The bullet point number one reminds me of whiteboarding. Absolutely. Yeah. >> is for all kids. For all kids. >> Not just ML. That's what I'm saying. Bullet point number three, I feel is like the one that's specific to ML learners. And the other four just strike me as kids, that's what I think so. Good
053instructional practices. Universal designs for learning. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I would put bullet point three in that category, too. Yeah. Cuz building confidence for all kids. Oh, yeah, yeah. I'm just practicing. There's a lot of kids who grew up here in town are But we might have kiddos that have speech and language opportunities, right? And if we provide these spaces where it's safe to practice your speaking and listening, right? It works for MLs just like it works for any other student. So, that's that's a great noticing because you'll recall my previous slide about there's no magic wand. You got to get really good at good instruction. So, the opportunities. So, this is from our kiddos that were in our focus groups. This is what they need more of. Explicit academic vocabulary instruction. They need
054more of that so that they can access their instruction. Simpler directions for multi-steps. So, multi-step problems, multi-step directions, they need simpler directions. Too much of a cognitive load. And they want more opportunities to practice social and academic language. There's that speaking and listening that comes back up in our kiddos voice. And so, this is what they actually said. These are actually their words. We took these from from their actual We recorded what they said. And on teacher support, they had they had something to say. They also had things to say about vocabulary challenges. And the importance of the peer discussion. And what it takes in order for them to learn language and how reading helps them and on building their own confidence. And I just want to draw your attention here to on language learning
055effort. They talked about thinking about words and what they mean is tiring. They're exhausted by that. They have two things that they're doing double duty here. You know, they're learning the content and at the same time they're learning language and they're trying to acquire that language and it's tiring for them. And as teachers, we need to recognize that. So, that was really powerful >> [clears throat] >> to see. And then just to know that they're they feel more confident when they are allowed to speak in class and they can practice and feel like it's safe. So, all of these were really powerful and and really important for us to take a look at. And when you think about that point that Kristen just called out, I'm thinking about the words and what they mean is
056tiring. Double duty as Kristen said, but even our native speakers, multi-meaning words, that's a hard target. It's a hard target and it is super tricky for our MLs. And we asked them advice for newcomers and they just said don't be afraid to say something wrong. So, they were really so heartfelt in that they wanted to tell people who would be new to the country [clears throat] and new to our schools, who are incoming, that they shouldn't be afraid to say something wrong and that's what they've learned. So, that was a really important comment. And at the end of the day, all of our work, again, comes back to high quality instruction and ensuring that all of our current and future multilingual learners have the same access to the same thinking opportunities, the same learning opportunities
057as all of our other students and just keeping in mind that belief that multilingualism is an asset, ensuring that all of our systems and practices, you know, that we're building that consistency moving forward and that those again, those systems and practices are reflected in all of our classrooms. So, our major goals are We want to make sure that folks are comfortable with how to provide those scaffolds and supports instructionally so kids can access curriculum. We want to continue to improve family communication and we want to make sure that every student has their students successful moving forward. Thank you. Questions, Tim, Heather? Can I ask a question? I don't know if I'm allowed. She's the chair. She can decide. >> [laughter] >> You're not allowed, but you you can give them to us and we'll get
058answers back for you. Okay. Is there anything Thank you for this. Is there anything in the budget that would help or you know, that's going to Is there anything in the budget given that the multilingual learner position that was requested? I mean, you know, there's the instructional supplies for things like the language line that we provide to parents when they have you know, it's all those little something. The language line is in thousands of dollars, but we think it's underutilized and we want it to be utilized more, so I always watch that, but things like that. I just one of you, I think as you mentioned the final bullet point. And I I just my own experience cuz I've learned to speak a few different languages throughout the world in a few different countries, and
059I've had people say to me like, "Well, what if you say something wrong when you're learning? You offend somebody, and then it's like it My view is My view before I ever learned the language was that people will assume good intent in a learning environment. And I never I never experienced like in person anyone getting upset with me, and they would oftentimes correct me on having said things incorrectly. Um it could be pronunciation. It could be a misuse of a word where it's a double meaning of a word, and it comes out completely wrong. Um and uh Yeah, but I think I think it's So, this is in different places around the world. I really do believe that's where people come from. The intent matters a lot when you're learning. If you should know it,
060that's one thing, but if you don't, people can accept that. And so, yeah, that I do feel that's very important and powerful to let kids know that who who may never have a conversation like this at home at all about anything like this. And so, if the teacher says something like that to to not be afraid to say something wrong, I think that could be really valuable to the kids who are learning. Agreed. Fully agree. And kudos to our staff because so much So many of our staff staff members do exactly that, which is why that bullet point around like feeling that sense of belonging and relationships and having teachers that are their champions came out. So, yeah, fully agree. It goes back to creating those safe classroom environments where kids are willing to take
061risks and are willing to engage in conversations with peers and staff. So, yeah, kudos to our staff. There was a There was a prior slide where it mentioned 1/3 of staff feel uncomfortable. I'm assuming this is the case, but when you're talking to staff who feel that they feel uncomfortable you you make it clear they understand that if they they may try to communicate and not hear back that could be like a communication barrier, a language barrier. It also could be a parent who's just not engaged or not engaged at that moment in time. Um I just wouldn't want staff to like have any sort of like you as the administrator to have like an unfavorable view of somebody when they're making a good faith effort. And but the reality is is you can't just
062assume every parent is going to engage on a particular day for whatever reason. >> Yeah. Um I think what's important to note with that um data point is that staff self-reported, and it was around engaging in discussions about students' progress with parents. So, however they viewed that, um what we're going to try to do or continue to do and get better at is provide the tools to staff and show them how they could work so that we can take away that language barrier. So, regardless of what whatever the native language is of the family and the kiddo, there's tools and ways that we can >> [cough and snorts] >> provide the information to parents and that it's a two-way communication street. Um so, we're looking deeper into that because we we don't want any staff
063member feeling uncomfortable uh working and collaborating with our ML families. It's a really good point. >> think to Tim's point, just one step further, I mean, right at the beginning when new families come into the district there should be, and you probably do it already, some kind of family communication that explains to the family, "It's okay if you speak another language. Still come to the building. We'll figure it out. You know, we'll be able to help you." So, there isn't that feeling of being uncomfortable or embarrassed in the main office. I know it's very hard to have someone in the main office that is multilingual to be able to you know, talk to someone, but I think how many languages? 50? 55? 55 different languages, so And we went back and forth around this idea
064of having one point person because it's a shared responsibility model, right? So, we have to dig deeper into that because it does The responsibility doesn't live with just Ryan, just Kristen. It is a shared responsibility around every staff member that interacts with any one of our families, right? So, we want to make sure that everybody has the tools and resources needed in order to be able to communicate. And even a process for our staff, too. Absolutely. Absolutely. >> Yeah, so they don't feel uncomfortable, either, and make a family feel uncomfortable. So, maybe we should touch base with our ML families a couple of times a year. And just, you know, "How are you doing? Do you need anything? Are you know, are you aware Are there any issues that are going on?" At one point
065in time, we had a >> [clears throat] >> point person who was dedicated as part of some other things. Ryan Murphy. He He He >> [snorts] >> He liaison between multilingual learners and families and the school, and we no longer have that position, but that that was really nice. I know Kevin in in his role um had had frequent opportunities for parents to come. We are required to have at least one meeting. I know that Ryan has done some of that work. I know Kristen is doing some of that work. It's been um I think the model that Kristen was using with the uh about getting families in for coffees has been the way to go um in recent times, especially with that age population, because invariably the question that's on their mind, whatever you're
066whatever we're talking about, is not what comes up. It's a thing that's on their mind that they don't know how to do. And invariably that comes up, and we're right there to help support support them in that moment, and that's that as we have done those types of things, that has been the most helpful. Lowers the stress. Actually helps families get the thing that they need to get to. Yeah. gym uniform It's sports sign-up. A classic example was the heck do you know whether it's a snow day or not? Like that was which you really needed to know this year. >> [laughter] >> By the way, had a lot of them. Yeah, what does snow day mean? So, all all of all of these things to that connection and then and it also meant that
067the next time there was a question, they knew it was okay to ask, and they knew where to where to go to. So, those kinds of things are really really important. Sometimes it's the classroom teacher at the elementary level, and sometimes sometimes it's not. Sometimes it's sometimes somebody else. But the teachers have access to the language line, too, right? If they want to ask a question. And just see what I mean, it's not just a thing for parent-teacher conferences. Or PPTs. I mean, you could do any kind you want to check in. It's such a great resource. It's instantaneous. You have somebody up on the screen or on the phone in again, countless number of languages. >> And you could just see the relief in the parents', you know, affect when they see that you
068have the language line available. They don't have to struggle to communicate, or we don't have to go back and forth with our phones. It's just it's there, and feels comfortable for them. Okay, great. This is just a great sharing to me. I'm thinking about Devin's birthday party in January. He invited over my son, fourth grade. I think we probably had 10 kids over, and I think probably seven of them are not native English speakers. You would know most of them. But it I think >> [laughter] >> But he's in fourth grade. Where is that language line budgeted? It's instructional supplies. I I think that's where it comes out of, but I'll I'll find out and get back to you. Yeah, I was just kind of wondering if it's a big big expense or No, it's
069a small expense. But I think it's underutilized, so I would like to see teachers, parents using it more. Yeah, but that wouldn't make it cost more. Yeah, it wouldn't. It wouldn't make it cost more. It's like in a minute And as our numbers increase, the demand for the use of language line will increase. You can check in, yeah. Thank you. Thank you. That was very comprehensive. Thank you. Okay, next we have our social studies with you, Autumn. She's doubling for social studies. I sure am. She does not get to sit. Oh, sorry. Don't. No worries. Take your time. >> So, this is our social studies team that's presenting today, and you are kind of seeing some familiarity because Kelly serves in her capacity as the Dodd principal, she serves as point for she's the administrator
070assigned to support the social studies CCC. Azra, by virtue of the fact that she's the pre-K curriculum KE curriculum coordinator, sits on all of these um committees or or most of them. Business, uh you will not see her, you will see other folks because that's simply a 9-12 focus area. So, anyhow I I just wanted to give you a little background. >> It happens to be a coincidence that it was Ryan and I um for this year's presentation. >> Yes, that's not always how it goes. It could have easily been science this year, which I wouldn't be here or he wouldn't be here. Um but in any event, good evening everyone. Um I want to start by sharing with you the folks that really participated in the study of our social studies program intensely over
071many many months. Um Tim Tim Galvin, the um high school department chair, Kristen Giuliano, the division leader at Dodd. Of course, Azra represented um our uh pre pre-K through eight as our curriculum coordinator. I And our subcommittee, who's not here this evening but played a massive role in collecting information uh as this is a really rigorous study of our program. So, the Rams at the K-6 level, Dr. Kelly Garden at the middle school, and in uh for the high school Aaron Griffith and Matt Swanson. They were a dream team to work with and through our process we truly truly uh learned a lot about our social studies programming and uh our strengths, our areas for growth, um and what our continued focuses will be. Um we certainly dug into in a very similar way to
072the ML group uh in looking at professional development, looking at um construction and assessment, uh professional development I may have said that already. Assessment and and um technology and resources. We sought feedback from our students, from our parents, and from our teachers in a variety of way including what we are very excited to um share with you a little bit later, our student focus groups. That took place for kids in grades 2 through 12. So, this was a really fun thing. Um I think when we started uh talking about how would we solicit this input from a variety of constituents, we we talked um first about those focus groups. Like, we want to really hear directly from our kiddos about what it is like to be seated in a social studies classroom around our district.
073Uh uh and it was enlightening and um really rich and meaningful. I'll share a little bit about that with you uh later. For our parents and our teachers, we did rely on our old-fashioned surveys, uh but it was also very helpful um and gave us a lot of insight. So, much like what the ML folks shared with you, um social studies, the bedrock of all we do, curriculum, instruction, assessment, is really um dedicated to the vision of high-quality instruction that Cheshire really values um and we put it front and center because we know this is how our students will learn the best, how we can get to those deep learning experiences focused on standards, really digging into ways to um provide uh complex thinking and hit those um attributes of complex thinking, applying and explaining
074and connecting and proving, finding solutions, and creating as often as possible. We know that in order to do that, we have to provide really rich um instructional strategies and we have been focused a lot on responsive classroom like you've already heard tonight from our ML, uh but we really begin with those grade level standards and then we meet our kids where they are, just in time, uh not just in case with scaffolds when needed. We have been dedicated through our professional development um on providing our teachers and equipping them with the the tools that they need to be truly responsive teachers uh in our social studies classrooms. That's your turn. Uh so, our compass when we think about instruction and curriculum in the area of social studies is most definitely the C3 framework, uh which
075I know most of you are familiar with uh from 2013, uh which establishes the inquiry arc uh that has informed our state standards originally produced back in 2015 and then revised in late 2023. Um and it also dovetails nicely with the BTC instructional approach. So, um when we think instruction and curriculum in social studies is grounded in that C3 framework. Um and I thought it would be good to walk through kind of like a a quick overview of the four dimensions uh from the inquiry arc. Uh first is the development of questions, right? To to stage an inquiry. And that can happen in a variety of ways. Um sometimes those inquiries will be student generated, sometimes they'll be teacher uh generated, and sometimes they'll be student generated with teacher support. So, any of those pathways
076to creating a question which will guide a mini unit or a unit um or even a lesson for the day, um those could follow that pattern. Um from there, um we engage students in um thinking like historians, geographers, political scientists, and economists. Um in stage three, students are evaluating source materials, um organizing evidence, starting to formulate their own ideas, um and then moving towards dimension four in which they um communicate those conclusions and take informed action. Um I thought it might be good to give you an example from today to kind of ground yourself in, which we did at the district presentation a few weeks back. Um so, obviously a major issue in in the country today is um the conflict in Iran, right? So, um if you were to have a mini unit um
077on this topic, it might be rooted in a question something along the lines of um how can the United States resolve the conflict in Iran to best serve American interests and promote global security, right? That would be a question um that could be researched, um approached from a lot of different perspectives, and ultimately challenge students to develop their own thinking on it. Um from there you would move to dimension two. Um there might be activities in which students are working with historical concepts. They're they're um learning about um the 1953 coup. Uh they're learning about the 1979 revolution. Um they may be um reviewing George W. Bush's speech in which he identified Iran as part of the axis of evil. Um they may be learning about the 2015 and uh nuclear deals um or 2015
078nuclear deal, 2018 pulling out of that nuclear deal. Um so, they they work with uh concepts, historical concepts, and they approach them from various uh you know, perspectives. Um could be you could be uh working with uh some economics, right? So, you could be talking about obviously oil prices, the Strait of Hormuz, um global markets, which are so much you know, so interconnected at the you know, more than ever. Um maybe it could be um a a a mini lesson that's focused on civics and um what is the appropriate presidential military power? Um when is the War Powers Act relevant? Um and so, students would delve into these topics as they're building their understanding um and moving towards being able to communicate a conclusion about the overarching question. Um obviously this is rooted and analysis
079of source material um and um organizing evidence, and ultimately communicating those conclusions. Um and as I spoke about earlier, it really does kind of dovetail nicely with BTC when we think about students collaboratively working through problem solving. Um when we think about students making their thinking visible, um and when we think about students having productive struggle, right? Um when they're working with a weighty uh question like this, um there's going to be growth throughout the unit as they move towards the end. So, um so, that kind of covers um the the spirit of inquiry and and how it kind of where it originated and how it's still very reflective of um recent initiatives in the district in the last 2 years when we think about our instructional approaches. So, this will look familiar. Everything we
080do is again grounded in complex thinking and social emotional learning. Just like Tim explained, when you think about complex thinking, there is your dimension three evaluating those sources. When we think about community contributor, self-directed learner, collaborative cooperative learner, there's that domain four around drawing conclusions and taking informed action. So, this supports our social studies work, truly supports um our vision of the graduate and is in alignment with complex thinking and social emotional learning. So, in social studies we obviously are trying to hit the most important, we call them priority standards, um to achieve the best learning outcomes. In addition, a key focus for our content area is teaching students how to think, not what to think. So, take a minute to just process that cuz that's really at the heart of everything we're trying to
081accomplish. As Tim outlined, we have especially complex topics, history, government, economics, culture. They offer multiple perspectives, and there's often no single one correct answer. So, by nature, that dovetails perfectly with our district goals of complex thinking and social emotional learning. Our students have to be able to respect multiple perspectives. They have to be able to question sources. They have to realize that um there's not just one narrative all the time for some of the things they're exploring. So, that's that really does ring home quite a bit in the social studies uh curriculum. And just to add on really briefly, sorry Ezra. The Well, never mind. I'll let you I mean I forgot this slide was next. I just want to talk a little bit about our instructional strategies which allow us to bring that to
082life in a classroom with uh strategies that building thinking classrooms has really brought um to our classrooms uh across the spectrum, kindergarten, you know, through 12th grade, maybe even um maybe even pre-K uh through 12th grade. I'm not sure about pre-K. Yeah, so Um but you're going to elaborate a little bit more on that. Are you going Yep, no, no, go ahead. Go ahead. So, the progress is what was like 5 years ago kind of what we had really focus on regarding instructional strategies and you could see uh inquiry like Tim talked about uh cognitive get engagement, building thinking classrooms with Kelly is alluding to a little bit more. Um the uh ML presentation mentioned a lot of UDL. Um and then we get all of this work done collabora- collaboratively during our meeting times.
083So, there's GLTMs, GLDM, and PLCs and those are just the different acronyms for the meeting periods, what they call them um for the teachers. So, you can see um our continued kind of growth and I think you'll see some of the things we're talking about naturally dovetail again to that complex thinking and social-emotional learning, especially when you talk about building thinking classrooms and universal design for all learners. We are really in social studies trying to design high-quality instruction that really does uh elicit deep thinking. Um and then we're trying to make this thinking visible so we can see what our students are coming up with and give them in-the-moment feedback. So, this is kind of building thinking classrooms is really at the heart of our um strategy focus going forward. In terms of product uh
084professional development uh where we've been, um as you see, this committee is well aware of uh the integration of BTC strategies, um building starting up from the elementary school and kind of cascading up into the upper levels in the last uh 2 and 1/2 to 3 years. Um the C3 framework uh as I spoke about earlier, um there has been quite a bit of uh professional learning um in the last 8 to 10 years at the middle school and so and high school levels um in this area. Um and and the goal is to expand that um a little bit more so at the elementary school level as we'll talk about. Um Stu- uh teachers have attended a variety of AP workshops for the high school. Um we have improved our vertical alignment in the
085last uh 5 years, but as we look to uh the next cycle, um increasing um elementary school teachers work with the uh framework, both the state framework and the C3 framework, um continuing to expand BTC um and UDL at all levels. Um And then I guess maybe at middle school and high school uh a significant concern that uh concern that was presented was um ethical AI integration. We kept hearing a lot about that um in teacher surveys, parent surveys, discussions with students, discussions amongst the committee. Um and that really um kind of hits a little bit more in the middle school and high school area. So, this gives you a kind of a vision of what we want our teachers um thinking about and learning about in the next uh 5 years. So, earlier I
086mentioned our student focus groups which we were really excited to engage in. I got to sit in on the middle school ones and to hear our kiddos talking about social studies and how it impacts their daily life was really exciting, but it was exciting for everyone um grades 2 through 12. These were some of the some fun little takeaways that we took directly from our kids. My favorite one is, "We think every day in social studies." That really stood out and that was an honest This was a genuine uh you know, we were we were posing big questions about their daily experiences in social studies classrooms and that came directly out of um one of our ours. I think it was a seventh graders um student shared that with us. "Social studies gives me a
087chance to understand other people's points of view." And you know, Kristen talked about that's really at the heart of so much of what's happening in our social studies classrooms and they get that. They understand that. Um "Social studies is fun, especially when we do group activities and get to listen to classmates and when we are thinking in social studies, we are discussing and using analogies to connect thinking." These These are our kids were thinking deeply about what social studies means to them um and what that experience is like and how that it is helping how our program is helping them to learn. So, other um things that our kids shared with us just over over all some positives and from those discussions with our students, we we sort of gathered as well some direction for
088where we're going to go. Um they they like to think deeply. They've they told us that um time and time again through these focus groups. They like to collaborate. They enjoy discussion um and engaging meaningfully with real-world learning. So, those are the types of tasks that we need to ensure that we are providing them. Um again, through some of the strategies of building thinking classrooms, we do that uh through our vertical whiteboard group up through lots of collaboration in the classroom. They also made clear that we can continue to grow in some areas as well. So, for example, consistency in instructional instructional design. They want some consistency from like classroom to classroom. More authentic learning experiences. They want increased choice and a manageable workload. That came right from them as well. Um which which we
089paused and thought about that and have talked a lot about that and will continue to focus on um because we heard that from a variety of our students. Overall, their feedback affirmed um our direction, you know, where we are going next. Um and we do together with our parent feedback and the teacher feedback have a good sense in the of course the deep review of all of these areas of social studies gave us a a deep sense of where to go next and we have our [clears throat] our 5-year goals that we will continue to work on together as a committee and as a as a district and continue to polish the stone. I did add a slide. I don't know when you put this up. It's right now in front of me. for our
0905-year goals. So, you can you know, get a sense of what the direction is of where we're going, but we have goals for curriculum, assessment, and instructional strategies, for professional development, and our tech resources and technology. Our problem of practice that we shared with the committee was around AI. Um I I do think that there is some work to be done with that and we do have some work cut out um for us in in that particular area. Um but you will see here that we have we have a lot of work ahead of us, but good, meaningful, rich work uh again that this um this examination really gave us a lot to think about and to do for next steps. Thank you. Excellent. Questions? Yeah, so um Tim, you gave us a beautiful example
091of the inquiry arc from what I can only assume is a high school level. And I'm wondering what that looks like at grade 2-3. So, grades 2-3 uh in its revision process right now. So, at this moment in time, I wouldn't say it's done consistently. So, there's a lot of teacher choice and one of the pieces of feedback we heard is that they want a continuous alignment and they want those examples listed. It obviously makes it a little bit challenging because real-world events tend to change. So, we have to go back and look at our grade 2 and 3 curriculum and we actually our biggest area of priority is our K-6 social studies curriculum. And we're starting before the school year ends, actually. We have some dates mapped out to uh really help teachers with
092that. So, right now it might look more like community-based, taking informative action, studying uh our own community, thinking about how decisions are made at the town level, thinking about how decisions are made at the school level. But like I said, it's not a consistent process because the standards were published in 2024. So, we have to go back and look at that. Uh we did um update a community uh unit in grade 2 where they get to build a town and think about needs and wants and resources. Uh but again, we we need to bring some alignment and consistency. >> to 4 through 6, I mean, take me Okay, and I got a better picture now of uh 2-3. Take me into 4 4 through 6 is our other priority area because one of the topics
093that switched in the newly aligned standards is the way that we teach 5th, 8th, and 10th. So, vertical alignment is an area that we're looking at and actually Kristen and I just mapped this out um last week, maybe. And then we're looking at 6, 7, and 9, and continuing those topics of instruction, so modern world history. So, we have some alignment and pieces we need to really look at so that that's continuous. But, that would be the um scope and sequence, if you will. And you can see that vertical alignment is reflected in our goals for the next 5 years. What the state sent out in 20 23, right? Wasn't it? October 2023, and officially released it. Weren't there on each grade level like broad topics? >> Correct. Yeah. Correct. Every grade level had suggested
094topics that districts needed to look at. We don't necessarily have to adopt them, but they are recommended and suggested. So, when we look at what we currently have, there is some alignment that needs to occur. So, for example, the study of Cheshire has been moved to grade three, which is appropriate, so that's one of our new units this year. A study of regions will be grade four. But, again, because we have to align with the middle school, there are some tweaks and adjustments that need to be made. So, K-6 will be a priority area for social studies moving forward because of those shifts. And even the draft document of 2015, the first standards, we began writing at the middle school level, and we over a course of a couple summers, we did make some gains.
095We call our units by the topics you're describing. We name them by the topics, our units. So, then in 2024, or we got a peek in 2023, so we knew that some of what we had written at the seventh grade level no longer was the topics suggested for seventh grade. They might have fit more with sixth grade. So, there's still, you know, that kind of alignment in where missing in seventh grade, economics. They They shifted away from heavy emphasis on geography in the seventh grade, and instead pushed the emphasis more on economics. So, we have curriculum to write, and that's why that goal of K-12 really is I know it's heavy in the elementary, but it really is even beyond. So, the new schedules that started in the high school and will be implemented in
096the middle >> is there any No? Yes? Well, it It will depend on whether we get the schedule. Oh, yeah. No, I I realize that it's contingent upon other um But, I've heard from many social studies teachers that they do need more time. Yes? Um More time for what? In the Longer class. instructional >> Oh. Oh. So, I'm just wondering, how does that fit in? And I don't know if it's definitely needed or not, but I have heard that. I mean, how What does it look like with your new schedule? Because they they um What the state sent out is a lot, right, to cover? So, I think I'll speak to the high school schedule first. When we adjusted the schedule, we didn't necessarily adjust total minutes on the year. We just redistributed it so
097they were shorter chunks more frequently. I think the workload issue has come to the high school when you don't have an every other day schedule. So, when you have three consecutive classes in a row, the teachers are adjusting to You might have had two evenings to like situate yourself with this assignment. You no longer have that. So, that's the impact of the schedule at the high school, and our teachers have been working on that pretty earnestly. They will not be shy about saying, "Yeah, I got it right at this moment in time in this way, and nope, not quite right at the >> [laughter] >> at that moment in time in that way." Different than potentially losing minutes at the middle school. Yeah, right. We're optimistic that we will be able to implement implement the
098new schedule proposed. Um in the meantime, yeah, we have shorter classes that we are really trying to leverage the strategies that we know are effective with visible thinking, with collaboration. And yes, those things do take time to dig deep. So, what might, you know, maybe with a longer period would be one class would be maybe over two classes, or, you know, a class and a half. So, but they're masters at juggling that, you know, really monitoring where the kiddos are, and, you know, having to stop at a comfortable spot you know, today, and you pick up your, you know, tomorrow. It's just, you know, balancing it. Well, that's why when you gave us that very thorough re-envisioning um the the middle school schedule and the class times, the emphasis on instructional time. This is exactly
099what you mean by that. And it's what teachers are asking for. Tim. Thank you. Um yeah, you mentioned seventh grade economics. I'm curious. Are you talking Are you talking balancing a checkbook and a household budget, or Federal Reserve monetary policy, or somewhere in between? I'm just curious. Economics to me is really broad word. >> Yes, it There's global There's an emphasis on global and regional economics. So, the standards are very specific, and that's another benefit of the 2024 document. They, unlike 2015, there were more standards, and they weren't aligned with the topics. So, now we can see what the recommended standards are. So, it is They are rigorous So, what would be a topic? Global and regional could be learning about, you know, the different types of economic systems, understanding GDP, understanding the stock market.
100Okay. It's It's very rigorous, and that's what we're currently is absent in our existing curriculum. So, we have had student teachers who have dabbled with it knowing it's an area that we have to write. We have to write this summer to that. I have another teacher who is slightly ahead of the others in pacing. So, she's dabbling with some picking some priority. We sat down, we kind of decided what would be those priority standards, and coming up with an authentic performance task that would be real world. Um and we're trying to do some preliminary planning so over the summer we can hopefully tighten up and create a whole unit. We can divide it a regional unit and a global unit, which is likely what we'll probably end up doing. And what is it that gets
101pushed out? Because you still only have 1,000 hours a year. What's that? What What gets pushed out? What gets pushed out? When you're adding economics Oh, what gets pushed out? Geographic concepts. Yeah, that is no longer um It's no longer in seventh grade. Is it emphasis more in the sixth grade? It's unfortunate, we did design some very compelling um some very compelling case studies that were really geographically rooted. Things like environmentally sinking Venice, you know, that kind of really cool stuff. But, unfortunately, that no longer is in our realm in seventh grade. Okay, so something gets pushed out. >> Largely global studies in sixth and seventh, they're elevating the lens on economics side a bit. It doesn't mean that you're not studying movements of people or out of geographic [clears throat] concepts just like that.
102Yeah. But, fifth and sixth is what largely based in this. So, Oh, sorry. Just I have one more question. Thank you. Tim, you had mentioned for the high school, a typical a [clears throat] typical topic could be Iran. Totally get it. And I think what you said was for social studies in second grade, it's like a community. >> Community. It's not the Iran war, right? >> No. Okay, got it. That's all I wanted to check. So, the way that it works in the lower grades, you start with myself, my neighborhood, my town, >> Yep. Yep. Yep. my state, and then it moves up, right? Which is why we study Cheshire in grade three, which is why we study the regions in grade four. So, it progresses. But, like what Kristen was saying, we have some
103alignment work that we need to do because some of the things that we perhaps might have covered in middle school may now live in upper elementary. So, we have to really map that out. I will say for Kristen and I, the most useful part of this analysis was physically going unit by unit, and looking at the last time that we revised or enhanced that unit in order to create our priority area. So, right now, our priority areas live in 5, 8, 10 alignment, 6, 7, and 9 alignment, and that's going to be our work, and we're going to start that before the school year is over. So, one question. I don't know who wants to answer it, but the personal finance, it's a requirement now in the high school level. What department does it come
104under? Economics or math? Business. Business. It lives in the business department. Interesting. >> in the business department before it was a requirement by the state. I just have one question. Um thank you for this, and mainly for Tim and Kristen, given middle school and high school. And I love that you're anchoring things on, you know, kind of more current events, things that are happening now. Given like a politically charged environment that we're kind of living in, are you finding students are engaging in meaning Cuz I think it's important to like honor both sides of thinking, and like how are you finding meaningful dialogue is happening amongst the students, or or is it I guess I I don't know if conflict arises, or like how are you navigating that and while honoring kind of different perspectives
105and also lived experiences that might So it well the ML presentation hit home the class the the population is by nature getting diverse. So in a classroom we're in a culture diffusion unit and we might be highlighting the Silk Road in history, you know, starting with China and jumping to a case study on religion. And we have students who are from China. We have students who when we hit like the monotheistic religions, we have Jewish students, we have students who are Muslims, we have students who are Hindu in the classroom. So the kids growing up, you know, growing in that classroom setting they become aware that there is this diversity and you as the teacher you set the tone that you're going to hear different perspectives, you're going to hear from people who have different
106experiences than you do. So it's dynamic when they go to the boards and they're placed in these random groups and they could be have having a discussion on a topic and you know, the the diversity brings a layer to it that naturally is engaging for the kids, but the teacher is setting that tone from the inception about this is a safe place and there are going to be multiple perspectives, there are going to be multiple opinions, there there's no one right answer to a lot of what we're going to talk about. But you will be respectful and you will you will listen and you will hear other points of view. You may not have to you don't have to agree but the idea of hearing Yeah. I want to just point out to add to
107your the answer to your question that these are the components of social emotional and intellectual habits and I give such kudos particularly in this day and age to our social studies teachers because they are not just teaching this information in a very balanced way, but they are teaching our students how to navigate that sentence starters of what to say, how to listen, how to listen not for agreement, but to seek to understand before jumping into, you know, come in with your disagreement of your own opinion. So what what these two are doing as leaders in their department is tremendous and and the staff behind them and what they're able to do is pretty amazing. These I I refer to because those are some standards that start in kindergarten and follow all the way through 12
108on how to do some of these things. And Kristen mentioned earlier one of her slides was we tried to our focus is teaching them how to think not what to think, exactly. Right? So we tried to really leave out some of the very controversial things. One of my favorite examples is the election the most recent election, you might recall it was a little controversial. I I know it was fraud. So we really wanted though to use that real life experience what what's going on right now in our world in our in our country and make sure they understood fully the electoral process the process of the election and the electoral college etc. And so instead of having it be about our actual candidates, we chose coffee shops. Right? So they were voting on Starbucks versus
109Dunkin Donuts and the winner was not Starbucks and I'm still very impressed by that, but our kids through that process learned how to think about the process for election, but we kind [clears throat] of stayed away from some of the more, you know, controversial topics that was certainly present at at the time. So they learned all of the key ingredients of of of the election, we just kind of took the real life stuff out. Tim? Yeah, thank you. To whatever extent you can answer this. Can I interject? Following up on Heather's comment about what's going on in the classroom. Anecdotally, what's going on outside the classroom? In the lunchroom? When the teachers aren't there in charge of it? Are kids generally being civil? Are voices getting raised about politics or Iran or whatever might be?
110I'm just curious. I can't say. I mean speaking for the middle school, I can't really say that that's a hot topic of what's happening in the cafeteria. Yeah. I have not heard comments, you know, in that in that way, but I mean there's voices in the cafeteria, I assure you. >> [laughter] >> I don't they're not they they and I can't say that they're respectful 100% of the time, but generally speaking it's it's about, you know, knucklehead kinds of things. It's not really political. I I I've not heard much of the political banter at Dodds. Yeah. You know, lunch lunch I know what I never really paid attention to until I was a junior in high school. Before that I meant absolutely nothing. Was there is there anything that I mean are Yeah, I I
111think I mean I think that amongst our students there's a fairly similar discourse, I think overall generally speaking. I also think another thing we do really well at the high school is that we provide outlets for students from a variety of perspectives to engage in extracurricular clubs. So they can be impassioned and and an advocate through those and hopefully take the lessons from the class in terms of just how to respectfully disagree with other students and carry those forward into their lives while also learning about like impassioned advocacy and being engaged with a an extracurricular club. And I'd have to say the advisors of those clubs multiple clubs work very well together to make sure that students know how to advocate in a good way and know how to listen in a good way. I
112had a recent example where we had students advocating to support a situation. They wanted to take informed action on a very recent local situation in our school community affecting our school community. And one of the students said to me, "Mr. Hamlin, we know how to navigate this. We disagree and give different perspectives all the time in class. This is what we do in social studies. We know how to handle this part of it." So this was a meeting of one of those clubs after school and well right off the tongue and that it was provided really good evidence that their teachers and advisors are coaching them and facilitating conversations in ways that allow them to do that. Do we have things that flare up from time to time? Sure, we're in a hyper politically charged
113environment right now. Having navigated each one of those situations and been able to temper it and and reconnect for the most part, yes. Thank you. Yeah, and I was looking over there. I'm sorry. I could have turned to you. I was >> No, that's the beauty [laughter] but I just Sometimes I can't help myself. So Marine, will these be up on the website these two PowerPoints? I mean they were excellent. You guys did a wonderful job tonight with both topics. Um we we these will be as on the website as part of the minutes of the curriculum committee. The goals are what eventually go on the website. They would go up September, October. Would teachers have access to these cuz this is a lot of good information for teachers, too. Oh, teachers have access to
114to all this information through the department chair meetings, through the division meetings, through grade level meetings, through a variety of of ways teachers have this information and teachers were a part of this process. Teachers were a part of the conversations that went into it, they were a part of the surveys that were done, they were they were knowledgeable about the um about the focus groups. You know, I just see it as a teaching tool also, you know. But that's okay. That's why we have PD. Any other questions? No. Thank you. Thank you both for this. >> That's why we can't cut PD in the budget. Okay, assistant superintendent's Thank you social studies team. Thank you. Fantastic. So I have a brief update Tomorrow I wanted you to know that we are team is headed to
115the science of reading master class. I think this is our second to last. Second to last one. Our last one will be in May. We've all found it very interesting and the national speakers have you know, been a great deal. Yeah, that's been nice. On Friday we have a busy Friday. We have the early entry to kindergarten screenings that will be conducted at Darcy. There's also a Holocaust presentation at the high school for freshmen only. Freshmen all freshmen on Friday. Friday. Friday morning. And then what's that what was that? The Holocaust presentation for the freshmen. And then we have the town wide art show which will be throughout the day for our students and then in the evening for friends and family. We are also in the process of surveying all of our kindergarten paraeducators
116because now that we've moved our certified staff we need to start shuffling around some of the paraeducators and special ed paraeducators. We're also looking and examining our learning support tutors to make sure we have adequate support at each of those buildings. We're also evaluating instructional supplies because we know that the budget is limited and so we've sort of done a five year look back. We'll be I don't know I will be working with principals in the coming weeks but after the budget is closed, to reallocate resources just from one building to another because we know we're not going to be able to order everything. We're going to have to make do a lot with what we have. Ezra and I met with a librarian from another district who has undergone a move to new schools.
117So, we're working with Winnie and the moving company to make sure that we have everything in place that we need for how the library will be set up. And when you have a library moving this way and combining Darcy and and Chapman, there's some considerations we need to take into consideration along with the data that we have on all of the collections. So, that's another thing that we've got working behind the scenes. And then next week begins our smarter balanced assessments. So, students are and staff are getting ready for those with practice tests and we're training all of the teachers to make sure they feel comfortable and confident in those that administration. So, that's a little taste of what's going on. Am I correct in assuming that I can go to the art show during
118the morning hours? Yes, that's a good question. >> Yes, you can. Yeah. Thank you. I'd have to look to know the exact time but we are open for till the during the day. You'll enter through the gym. I feel like it's 9:00 to 2:30 or something like that. >> Yes. Yeah, it is It's just Monday and Tuesday something about for the parents >> Open to the Yeah, yeah. It's 8:00 to 8:00. But we can come during the day. Yes, [clears throat] 9:00 to 2:30 and then in the evening is 5:00 to 8:00. I have to be there before I have to um I have to be there before noon so I can go. Come. Tim, okay. Any other questions? Questions, Tim? Uh so, you didn't mention this, but I'm curious. Math League. Mhm. How many
119schools do they have? So, just >> Not all schools. I What I should say is how many Jester Elementary schools participate? Yeah. I don't know that they all participate in the same one that Norton does. They are They are all involved in some kind of math competition. It might not all be the same one. Mhm. But I understand. Congratulations. A little munchkin over at Norton, I think really did super well on it this time around. Am I right? Yeah. Nice job. I didn't even know we had it. Thank you. Congrats. No, it was just I was surprised cuz it didn't seem like it was all the schools and I wasn't sure if that was like a budget issue or because I think it's driven by Ms. Monty who's Is she only Norton? She's only Norton.
120Okay. All right, so that makes sense then. Ms. Atwater is a They do it a little It's just a little differently Yeah. based on what it is. It's not There's lots of programs out there, but >> Yeah, yeah. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Good. Okay. Motion to adjourn. >> So moved. All right, baby. Wow. Thank you all.