001To the flag of the United States of America and to the stands one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all I teach Italian at high school I teach Latin at high school. Jillian Pucket I teach art at Elementary School. I teach music at Harrian and Marie Cullin. We just came from my grandson's high school graduation. I'll be happy to say that he's on his way to the College of Charleston. Although he did get on stage and um with the course and he was never a member of course. Everyone in the family went, "Oh my gosh." Yeah, he got right up there and but I think they got back at him because they introduced him as Joseph instead of John. So So of course the whole weekend everyone was like, "Hey Joe, how are you?
002Are you sure that you know it's legit?" How was it? Did you have nice weather? No. Over the weekend? No. I wondered. It was off and on here, so I wasn't sure about how it was. Um, it rained in when they were processing in um and then we were under this big tent and then it held off so it would rain again when they were processing. Oh, of course. So pictures really couldn't do pictures outside or anything. Yeah, it was fine. Okay, public comment. None. Okay, we review the minutes of the April 21st meeting. I have reviewed them and I move to approve. Now second approval. All in favor of okay new business. We have an outofc country field trip high school to Italy April 3rd through the 13th. And before you even start I
003know Italy is on the list right? How does that affect this trip? It was just recently put on the list of travel of places not to travel to. Oh, I for what reason? Yeah, I saw the other I thought I was pretty up to only because we were looking at a at a quick trip to Italy this summer and it came up um I don't know how serious it is. I don't know. Um you know, United States government put it on as one of the countries to be aware for United States citizens to go to. This isn't until April, right? Yeah. So I just if you hadn't heard anything then your travel company didn't say anything yet. But they do sign a insurance waiver. All the parents have to sign it and out of country.
004So if the trip gets and they have opportunity to purchase uh more expensive insurance to get their full coverage back. But they have to every parent guardian has to sign um a waiver that says if it gets canled then they have to for all costs. So, okay. So, I'm sure we just keep a watch on that. Yeah, it's a level two. Is that what you saw, Emory? Um, I just saw the name Italy with some other countries, too. We don't know anything about levels. What's that? Well, there's there's a a number of different levels of travel advisory and this is exercise increased caution and the reason for increased caution is due to terrorism. there's a risk of terrorist violence. I don't know that that's different than California. Do we have to right? So, um there's
005four levels. Normal precautions, increase caution, reconsider travel, and do not travel. Those are the four the four levels. Okay. So, we'll keep an eye on it. just for the trip. So we are going this well next year to uh Cher. Did I say that right? [Laughter] Five cities. Yeah. Yeah. So that's a change from our previous trips. We used to do we usually do Venice and decided to change up a little and then from there we go to Florence and to explore Florence and then to Rome and then down to the Alahi coast, Sarrento, Pompei. Um we will be working with the same tour guide that we had the past two trips. So she's very she's she's a Roman through and through. She lives there. She's worked for EF for 20 plus years. Um and
006we still we stay in contact with her even when we all here. So we trust her very much. We like her a lot. Yeah. And so they'll be going to a variety of museums and um we'll do pizza making demonstration and sites and so they get to kind of just see all the stuff that they've only heard and talked about in classes and make it actually come to life. Fabulous. What's the price? Uh, I think 5200,000. Are you having difficulty? Not just you, are we having difficulties with the prices increasing? So, well, I mean, the last trip that we had didn't end up running and that was due to lack of But I don't know if that was due to price. I actually don't recall. I don't know Kevin if you would. I mean at
007we're actually having trouble because the price travels go because we currently have 28 kids registered and we're only getting up to 32. So okay. So you're the 20 is the minimum and maximum for us the just chapter wise we don't want to take more than 32. So minimum of 20 will go. Yeah. We have 28 and it's 10 days. Yes. April 30th. Is that a break? Break. I think they only miss two days of actual school. Friday. Friday and then Monday after. Any questions? No. Sounds pretty straightforward to me. Okay, sounds good. We'll bring it up. I'll make a motion to bring it to the board of education for you already have that. I do. Yes. Looks like Spain, France, Italy are all at level two. Norway, Portugal, Switzerland. So that's interesting. We'll follow that.
008Teacher Chevroers. Ladies, thank you so much for coming to talk about that. I know it's exam week, so you're welcome to not stay for the rest of the meeting, but you're welcome to stay for the rest of the meeting. Attend my children. I got three little boys waiting for me. Actually, one's bigger than me, but two of them. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you, too. Take care. Okay, we'll move to item fourformational items. First is K12 art. So Jillian is here tonight as the K12 department chair. She just went through the five-year CCC review cycle and led her team through that and they presented in March to the full curriculum council of the K12 teacher group and she's here to provide as is Nicole but
009we'll start with art first here to provide the executive summary. Yeah, thank you. I have some uh visuals with me from the visual arts department. submit it to record. And this is just a trimmed down version of our presentation from CCC. Uh so in the past five years of our cycle, the art department has focused in on um critical thinking and social emotional learning with a a focus a driving focus of academic choice uh for students. So for them to access our curriculum through providing choice has been our guiding principle over the first or the last five years will continue to be. So, um, we've also been focusing on responsive teaching and responding to student needs and interests and their life experiences. Um, and then we've really shifted our focus into um or away from
010teaching students to create a product and focusing in on uh the artistic process. So getting more individualized um artwork from students uh at our art show instead of you know them copying the teacher product. Uh the following couple of pages are some examples of how that has played out in the past few years at the different levels. Um, so for elementary this past year, we focused on purposeful play and experimentation to learn about art materials, art techniques, art subjects um, and focusing in on um, the process as well as the product. At middle school, their examples demonstrate um, the variety of student product with a choice based unit. So, the charcoal artworks are different student interests but demonstrating similar uh skills and techniques at the high school. Um we're very proud of our new digital
011art pro uh course that has run in the past three years. So students have iPads with Procreate um and they use it to create digital artwork. So the um artwork on the lefth hand side is the digital art and we've been uh excited to have that for some real world opportunities for students including uh having a visiting artist from ESPN and showing that a modern artist the contemporary you know art market is all about digital right now and so by having those digital uh tools available to students in the digital course uh it's really helping them to see kind of the future in um art as well. And thanks to the CF mini grant program, we just got a set of frames for an installation that will be ongoing at Treasure Public Library that has
012uh students authentically hanging and displaying their artwork um making these displays and curating uh for the public to see. So, in the past five years, I have it broken down on this chart of um some successes that we've had for curriculum, instructional strategies, our uh resources and technology, assessment, and professional learning um for our staff. Um so, you know, as I mentioned at the top, our big focus on integrating choice led our professional development, us looking at our assessments to make sure that they were responsive to uh that push for choice. um redesigning our instructional strategies to help us teach with the focus of academic choice heavily utilizing learning targets and making sure that things were in studentfriendly uh language so they understood the expectation even while they had open choice of materials and concepts
013and responses to artistic problems. Um and then based on our feedback from our stakeholders including students, parents, um and the teachers in the department, we establish where we'd like to go in the future. Uh so for curriculum, um we have a pretty well fleshed out curriculum, but it's not 100% finished. Uh so we thought our big target goal in the next five years would first to establish a scope and sequence for our curriculum and have that as a curriculum guide as we look through the different media skills and concepts we'd like to see throughout the department. Um and one of the biggest uh pieces of feedback we got during the feedback process of the CCC cycle um was to make it more digestible and accessible to people. So, they kind of knew the expectations of
014what a student K through 12 could experience in Cheshire public schools. Following along with our push for choice and giving students the authentic artist experience and how to think and behave like artists in the classroom. Um, we're going to be pushing that uh thinking and trying to push that feedback to the students by using some of the uh district initiatives like the model 2 instructional strategies, building thinking classroom strategies and um one of the Harvard project zero um documents the eight studio habits of mind which really focuses in on how artists um think creatively and critically during the art making process. Uh for technology we're going to continue pushing um the digital art as it you know most represents what current working artists are utilizing in the field right now and uh helping uh students
015access digital art making and seeing it through elementary, middle and high school levels. Um, our big assessment push as a department will be a benchmarking process so that we can compare student outcomes through the different levels and the different schools to make sure that we have a similar student experience no matter what your art room looks like or at what level it is. And then our professional learning as a department focusing in on more of those hands-on skill-based PD as the field of art continues to evolve and students are accessing art uh in more ways including on their phones on Tik Tok and uh responding to that student needs, student interest and what current working artists are doing as well and uh meeting diverse student needs in general. Those are conclusions that we reached through
016the curriculum process and gladly entertain questions. So I see a Norton all school art show but did we have a districtwide art show this year? Yes, we have uh both. So some and music has started doing uh some of these showcases to uh separate in the buildings uh to be a little more inclusive of all the students. The uh district-wide art show is invitation only and it's limited space. So uh we still have the districtwide art show that was at Highland this year. Uh but also um some of the elementary schools have started putting on more displays um in their schools as well because I had always gone but I don't remember hearing about this. Yeah, that's since we have certainly kept up with those some pretty amazing last year but I didn't get anything
017this year either. So we didn't make the cut. It was very very exclusive. That's not making us feel any invitation only. I know. Well, we'll be very certain to uh invite everyone. I'm looking at this one from D. And I remember last year's those um ones where the different groups of students do the different squares. Yeah. In the metallic and There was one a gorilla behind a cage last kind of amazing. Yeah. And it is a great demonstration of how um the teachers have kind of shifted their instruction. So this was kind of like the warmup to their unit where um you know students were going to be making this sort of artwork but that kind of the warm up the teacher demonstration were these little pieces that gave the students the practice with the
018technique and they later on created their own pieces. So exceling to me what is it What is it about? What kind of technique is it and why? I mean, I know it's a collage, but yeah, it's a collage. Is it the color? Is it What is it that draws me to this? And that draw and that's why you chose it as the cover for your It's a very identifiable piece of artwork. It's got a clear horizon line. It's very graphic. Um, it was a a choice based collage and it was actually a problem based uh piece where I had the scrap bucket in my classroom and it was a a challenge uh to create something out of the scraps. So each student had, you know, a pile of what most people would consider trash in
019a refu. And then um the prompt for it was a color study. So he breaks down the warm colors in the sky and the cool colors in the ocean. So he tackled the problem of demonstrating color theory with this scrap box collage. I love it. Do you have many visiting artists like from the community or from um with uh the high school they typically will have um one or two a year and at the elementary schools many of them um have visits maybe one a year from visiting artists um with help from the PTA. So I know there are a few that have stopped by any of the elementary schools. Are you speaking of someone from ESPN in the in the group? Yeah. Oh, yes. Um that was from high school. Um so, uh he
020works in the um the digital graphic design department at ESPN. So, he actually uses and most professional artists use the same iPad setup and the same program, Procreate. Um what most professional artists working in the field doing this kind of thing. So, it was great to have him come in and show the students, here's what your teachers have been teaching you about, like here's how we're actively using it in the field right now, which was great. Yeah. I just wanted to mention that B and Sockets, it's renovating that old um building, but it's um it has different art shows almost once a month. So maybe some of our students could go and see it or they could come. You know, the artists are all local people. One person lives right almost across the street from
021Socket. Um their last show was a um design on different skateboards. So quality of the art was the base of it was a skateboard. So it's pretty unique, but just something to think about. And I can't think of it, but there is a digital design company right here in Cheshure. It's in the old um market. Rebel. Yeah, but I mean they do digital art. Yeah, we've had a lot. We've had more than a couple field trips to um to Rebel Marketing. I know at the high school level, not so much. Yeah. And so art is all students take art through what? 8th grade. And then all students take art K through sixth and seventh and eighth grade. It's offered as an elective and they can choose to participate and then it's an elective in 9th
022through 12th. Large large majority of middle school at some point through 7th grade take one visual arts class. I think the thing that we came away with um the folks on the committee was the department's work towards trying to keep a breast of what's happening in art in the real world so that they can bring real world art tasks problems to be solved to their tasks and their projects. I think that was one of the the commenations that the team had. So, we were glad to see those authentic real world tasks being incorporated both in the curriculum and as extracurricular activities. Yeah, I would just make the recommendation that you do as much of this outreach with the community as you can because our art music, they're always on the chopping block when budgets get
023tight. So, let's keep people excited about their kids doing art. You know, an opportunity for some of our kids to actually want to follow a career path in art or music. So, okay. So, music K12 music. Thank you. So, I have these in three colors and then I went to the black and white printer. And so, if you would like a color version, I could share it with you. So, we also went through the five-year process and um last time we did it, I was on the committee um not as department chair. This is my first time like taking a look more comprehensive look at all of the levels instead of just kind of where I was. Um so, what I've included the first page front and back is just kind of our takeaways from
024the process. The last page is every single So I won't go through those but they are there for you to review. Um so we have gone through a lot of changes over the last five years. Um starting with we our last presentation we were scheduled to present in March of 2020 which didn't happen. Um we came back spring. Um but it also completely changed everything we do the way we came back. Um and our program as many programs had to make changes with um how we played, how we rehearsed, um how we met the students. So um some of our first couple years of this round was simply coming back stronger, better, bringing kids back on board because there was some hesitation about singing and playing. Um thank you. So since we have since come
025back from that beginning of this cycle, we are trying to build numbers and I think we are doing a great job. Um I don't know when the last time the orchestra at the high school had 52 members enrolled but this year um up from I think two years ago they had 20 maybe and now we are at 26 28 and now next year we got 52. So we are yeah it's um I'm excited about the this growth and looking how we are going to best service our students over the next five year. Well, looking back at what we have done um in order to help promote this is uh we've had we are now fully aligned with the 2014 standards which are going into revision and they're going to redo. Um but we are fully
026aligned. The current documents that we have online in the music department shared drive. Um, all documents that we have are current and online in our shared drive which is accessible to all of our teachers. Um, it now serves as what we used to have as the big white binder that when you were hired this big binder of things that um, now it is a share drive. We have K6 alignment with scope and sequence which was completed in the CWI last round of 2024 and uh, is in good shape. I've been working on that over the last two years. Dod is next on our list. So, we're going to meet in the middle with DOD this year. Um, we have electronic formats that have been used. These are some of the goals that we have in
027the last um cycle and when requested PD requests have been met. We've been very fortunate to go to um different member staff members. So we have there's 14 of us go conferences. Sometimes it's escorting students on field trips because there is a um elementary honors performance that happens there every year. There's also the uh regional festivals that teachers attend. And then at the high school level there's the old state festival that happens there. Um all eastern conferences which is the entire eastern coast. We've been fortunate enough to visit and learn from those uh artists. We've done election day um some staff members have chosen to travel to the OA conferences um and learning walks as well. So these are some of the things that looking back in the last five years we've done to help
028our practices move forward. Um just a question on course. Um, isn't there a big end of the year eastern something kids go to either I mean they compete and then afterwards they have a trip to one of the six um DA does that they do their adjudication which they just went on May 29th um getting ratings of platinum gold and good Um, yep. And so that's something that that's our do end of year trip with the kids. Like we have an adjudicator that comes in and works with they listen to the students perform and then they give them comments and they work and you get to hear the adjudicators and their feedback tapes. Um, and afterwards the students celebrate. It's called Fantastic Festivals. Yeah. Um, yeah. So we just finished that and um so now
029looking at our comprehensive review, we started to ask with all of the changes that have been made between staff members and you know revisions in our curriculum and building the program back. We started to look and ask what is our question like where where do we want to end up with our students? And as we were I was communicating with other districts and somebody said to me, "Well, we're a performance based district and it made me think, what what are we?" Um, so that kind of led some of our uh survey questions and our research for this cycle. Um, performance-based meaning that the culminating experience for a student would be some sort of performance, whether that's a small group performance, large group performance, um, But that would be how we are helping them with their
030comprehensive music education. An experience-based would be the other half is more we want to give you a little bit of everything and it's not about the performance in front of an audience. It's about how you're interpreting music education and how it's working for you. And what we felt was it was best to be in the middle. going to perform. It's just and that's okay. Some kids uh everybody enjoys music in their own way, one way or another. And we through the survey that we put out, we looked at some data, the majority of students between 60 and 67% and this was a little worry for the students. I will say they um asked for clarification on the questions um but they did voice their support in large group ensembles and performances with various experience in
031K6 general music. Um staff, the music staff responded, I think it was 100% in favor of large ensembles and various experiences in general classroom. Parents also responded 81% in favor of large ensembles as an indicator of a successful music program. Um also valuing various experiences. So we we were hearing it over and over again in our different groups. Um, so we decided to base our goals for the next series of curriculum review on how we're going to help students find what music means to them, find their pathway, their passion, whether um through our standards, create, perform, respond, connect. What does that mean to them? Are you a dancer and you're going to move your body to music? Are you going to create music whether it's traditional notation or digitally? Are you going to perform the
032music? Are you going to analyze the music? And just you're listen we just like to have it on. So we were looking at K6 and developing a way that allows students to look at all of those different aspects of music so that they can find what we're calling their pathway. And to the elective based music courses do the high school they kind of know where their place is with the music because I I have heard I mean when I was in high school oh I'm not a music kid everybody's a music person the first thing you do when you like jump in the car is you put on music or you go to a party you put on music so um that was kind of our big focus here and how what we did with
033our goals is we tried to make that we are honoring like that K six um opportunity for students to say, you know, I really enjoyed uh playing the instruments. I think I'm going to look into the private lessons that are offered in our instrumental program or I really loved learning about how music is made, the form, and putting together different types of sounds and fast sounds and slow sounds and high and low. Um so they were more into the We already do all of those things in our classrooms, in the K6 classrooms, but what we were missing was the pathway. So, you did it once in first grade, what does it look like in second, what does it look like in third grade? And how does that student continue that blossoming love for the pathway
034that they found? So, now we are aligning what they're doing so that when they get to those elective base, they can I would really like to take a music innovation set on which is where we're exploring what do you do with music other than performing it. And so one of the things that we talk about in that is like the music of video games and of movies and how that affects the movie you're watching or the video game you're playing. And we're looking into ways that we can offer more music courses to the non-performing student while Also, yeah, we're always going to have our performance based ensembles. That is per the um parents, the 81% view large ensembles as a successful music program. So, we have our work cut out for us and we are
035headed to um looking at a robust instrumental program with lessons for students who maybe have moved into the district. We're expecting a lot of students coming into our district, maybe not always in the prefer. So if somebody moves in in seventh grade, we currently have no way to include them unless they take lessons outside the school. So is there a way that we can maybe boost our beginner instrumental program, whether that's guitar or violin or flute or anything? um percussion. Maybe we need a percussion ensemble or world drumming, but something to get them involved if they've missed the beginning of our on boarding instrumental music or um we're also looking at a review of our coral experience and trying to figure out the best way to implement a coral ensemble for the students uh one
036who have never really tried one because that um the difference between being in your general music classroom and experiencing singing a song together versus coming in and reading multiple parts and you're reading an octavo and you're listening to the accompaniment um is a very different experience. So we're reviewing that to make sure that students who would like that coral experience have access to it. Um using the multiple musical experiences for K5 to six when they enter for when they enter a musical pathway. So like I said this is something that we are currently providing but we like we would like to provide a more vertical alignment to this structure so that what you're doing first goes to second. Um, and then something that we're going to begin to research because all of this talk about
037multiple experiences and large group ensembles is great, but the one thing that we've left out is technology, which is huge. And this is where a lot of music career pathways are headed. So, we do have a music technology course at the high school. I don't believe it's been run in the last three years that I know of. Um, so something that we're adding to this in our focus areas moving forward is growing the music technology program. We're going to do that by starting in the sixth grade pathway with general music. So that's something that we've already written in from our last TWWI. Starting there, connecting it to our music innovations course for seventh and eighth graders. So those Yeah, that was really cool. They can now take it in seventh and follow up and then
038once we have that group of interested students who are willing to sign up for the course, we can add that in and run it high school. We have a lot of we have so many ideas and so hard to follow one thing, but we know where we're going. Well, I mean there's so much with music for music and instrumental orchestra is different from band. What's interesting about Nicole's background is she was hired at Chapman. She was band teacher. She was no general music teacher, then band, then strings across schools, then to Dodd, then department chair while at DOT, and then to the high school. So when we talk about someone like Kristen Lopa having the perfect experience of of all to become come in this role, I think Nicole embodies that because she's taught everything
039that there is to teach in this district and been at every level and so she's got that unique experience to be able to see that and shepherd people through this process. This is what year two of department chair. Yes. So what do you see as the connection to what the community outside of school? Outside of school, is there any really what you see as really good relationships or relationships that you that are helpful and that you would like to be more a part of? or is it a good thing for there to be separate springmies or I think the separate opportunities are useful and beneficial for the students that want them. Um we get uh students who ask for extra opportunities and we try and point them in the right direction. But as far as
040engaging in our community, I think that's one of the best advocacy tools that we have. Um I'm not sure if you would consider like our in the football as outside of school. Technically, it's a school activity, but it's outside of the hours greatly seen by the community. So, that's one of the um large I think the most frequent community events that we do at the high school would be the Friday night home football games. Um, of course, we have the Memorial Day parade. Um, and that we've slowly been getting more and I don't know if there were prior to my having any hand in the high school, but now that I'm up there, I do see requests for things from churches or ball and socket reached out at one point. Uh, unfortunately, some of these
041things are just over the summer. We don't have performers and we don't have, you know, everybody's on vacation and a fair number of performances at Elon Park. Uh, rarely those, right? Yep. What kind of performance? Coral perform. across the years. Yes, you did. Yeah. Um, they have a wonderful auditorium over there, too. So, really nice. Yeah. And, uh, I think one of our elementary teachers took her kids, she called it, but I think they walked around neighborhood and they played some tunes. She also took them to a game with the national anthem. band. This was uh Yeah, band. And so I think so I was thinking a lot more of like the orchestra instruments because you don't get to be in a high school orchestra position unless you had private lessons beginning about earlier than
042middle school lessons. We we have a couple of those students. Yeah. So, what got me thinking about this was going from 28 to 52. Yeah. I'm just wondering if something increased in the community that's feeding into students. Yes, that did. We had a lot of cello players that year. Um I I don't know. I was I was thinking I was just thinking that way. Um I think that we have well now we've hired um string players as the elementary and middle school teachers where we didn't have a string player in the district for quite a while. Um I was the elementary string teacher for three years which I love but I'm a flute player. So um I had wonderful wonderful kids that were very mad at me when I they said I ditched them for
043bandage. Um But then but then we hire I said but I'll see you at um but then we hired a native string player which I really think makes all the difference making sure that you have somebody who's been through that experience of beginning on their instrument. Um and then for that was for the elementary level and then dot as well and we've been trying to offer because I know um like at CWI in the beginning uh like a nice string quartet so offer that to the high school students. We've been doing Winterfest. Sometimes we have a group of string students up in the lobby when fest is going on. I know that sometimes a will call and ask for performers at some of the events. Chamber chamber commerce. Okay. Yeah, those are that's those are
044nice community. I I we would love to do more of those because that is the authentic performance task that we are looking for. I think the if there was a way that we could just say give us six weeks, right? That's the hardest part because we do get a lot of could you be here in two weeks. Um but all of those I mean from elementary on that is so important for people and then connecting and exciting the younger kids. We've been doing uh the marching band goes to elementary schools for years. We also had the this year we did our first orchestra tour. We took the orchestra which was smaller and easier to go around to I think we hit three of the four elementary schools and we played for them and that was
045really exciting. Then the kids got to ask you know when did you start your instrument? What is it like? we did a little Q&A session with them. So just having staff that is comfortable reaching out to each other and saying can you get some high school kids to play for us or can you come show up talk about this and they collaborate which means there's more performance opportunities. It's a good path and and that's what parents want more performance. Yeah. You know that they can go to and or that they know their child is out about doing Yeah. And I think that was the that was the are we performance or are we you know experience and I think the performance is definitely shines in the upper elementary or well like middle school into the
046high school. That's where most people are asking for performance. They want to see something. But the the youngest kids, we do have many teachers who voice that it's not necessarily developmentally appropriate for the youngest kids to be in the line. this giant concert. They just need this love. Yeah. Well, and yes. And it's more about um them enjoying their experience. Yes. So, even performing for each other within their class or getting two classes together and saying, "This is so and so's class. You're going to perform for Mr. class." Um those those matter at the elementary level and getting them excited and building a culture of it's okay to sing and it's okay to play and make mistakes and we're all learners here. So, these are all of our big things that we're that we're hoping
047to focus on. Well, thank you questions. No, very thorough both of you. Thank you very much for your updates. Thank you both for being here tonight. I know that you have some other obligations, Cub Scouts and other things. So, if you would prefer to if you'd like to stay, you're welcome to stay. If there are other places you need to be, you are absolutely don't feel the need to. We appreciate you being here. So, thank you. Have a good end of the year. Great summary tomorrow. Good night. Thank you. Admission to kindergarten transition pay program. Yes. I just thought I would give the board a little overview of the early admission process. The early admission process for kindergarten, as you both know, started when they made the new for September 1st as the date that
048students needed to turn five to attend kindergarten. So we've done this, this is our second year in the process and in 232 24 last year we had about 31 parents write to us and ask of that their child be admitted early for kindergarten. And so out of that 31, approximately 12 had um you know been positively moved into kindergarten based on the results of the survey whereas 15 did not meet those requirements. So this year we were able to see and follow up with those kindergarten teachers to really look at this those students to see if we were on the right track. And what we found was that our assessment was really spot on and that teachers um felt that the students who were who we had given permission to enter early made sense for
049and um then there were some parents who had you know overridden and those were a little trickier decisions. There were some concerns. So when we went to do this again this year, we had about 25 families petition us for early entry to kindergarten, about eight of them who met the criteria that were established and will move forward and we had 17 that did not meet the requirements. So again, it spans mostly those bur babies who were born in those months. Um we currently will have two classes of transition kindergarten. This is the second year that we've offered transition kindergarten. Next year we will not next year, the following year when we're moving to the new schools, we will not be providing that. We will no longer have the space to do so. And we were
050really hoping that we've given families two years now to get used to and adjusted to the new the new start date. And I think that's fair. And I think we've given them certainly that option. Um the tuition at the transition kindergarten program is $5,700 and that's for the year. It's for 180 days. Follow the same school calendar. The only difference is that transportation parents need to provide their own transportation. So that's the status of where we are for this year. Will we still do the same process of evaluation of petitions? I don't think that's required. If that's still required, the law is there. We've heard some rumblings that in 2027 that they might be phasing that out. There's always been um an option for parents to request that they kids start kindergarten early. It's just
051that the volume of parents who are asking that and the requirement that we conduct an assessment is is the piece. So I a lot more than 25 I mean no 31 to first year assessment in 25 and that's but that's a lot we did I think I got one in my five years as principal. prior to that. Yeah, I got him when I was a principal years and years ago. But that's but that's because we were letting kids into kindergarten. No, this was my child is in five by January 1st, but I would like them to start early. Oh, by January, right? September. So now it's September. So you have those students in that September, October, November, December months, but we're still going to have a lot of people maybe. I mean, I I think
052the reason why we went down this path is because it came out so quickly that we were trying to understand that, but I think we're still going to get people who need to know whether their child in those B months are they may still want their kid to start kindergarten. And I mean, if we have an evaluation process that seems to be working for us, why would I think what was saying at some point they won't have that option of an evaluation process, right? Like we believe as a school district that September 1st is accurate, is true, and follows along with the rest of the country. So, you know, just, you know, but the rest of the country, I'm sure they get some people who have September after September 1st, but September birthdays. I think
053it's probably that are really ready for kindergarten. I think it's exactly like the the questions that Amarie and I got before January 1. You know, it's January 1, but I want my child to start, you know, so I don't see it really The only thing that's changed here is the date, you know, the the readiness and all of that is is still the same. I think we've seen an incredible difference in what kindergarten looks like now that all of the kids are significantly older. And I think that's just taking a while for preschools to understand that your child may have been ready for kindergarten when everyone was similar age, but Now that's changed. You know, that's that's a big difference. It's hard for me to wrap my head around it, I think, because correct me
054if I'm wrong, but most of the country had more of a fall deadline for entry to they did as opposed to these places like Connecticut that had this January 1. And I think um New Jersey was that way too. At least back in the day because my husband started kindergarten. He was very very young. But then but they had it like a December 31st cut off. Yeah. That's what we had too. Yeah. And he was a November baby. So So he went because he was the right time. But then we had the phenomenon that some parents right chose to hold their child back. Yeah. lots of reasons. But we even had that the fall cut off. I just Yeah. I just think it's good that we're getting more with this national. Yeah. When kids go
055off to college, they're with kids who are, you know, so that's what we try to talk to parents about, too. It's not just about whether how old your Now, think about puberty. Think about when they turn 16. Think about how old they'll be when they're dating and traging and going off to college and what their other kids could be significantly older. I mean, in our state, they were kiddos. If you had a January child, they'd be older. if you had December 20th child that January had a whole year on that. Yeah. So, I'll be able to provide you with um numbers of enrollment in the transition program once that's all finalized, but it's still being worked out, but we will limit it to the two classes. Did we have two classes the first year, too?
056We did. We did. We did last year. This year, we've had It's only been this year. We miss you. Yes, I had that same reaction. I didn't think we were going to do it for a third time. Yeah, this is only the second time. We've been talking about it for a year longer than we've been doing it. That's why. Okay. So, the um next thing I have to share with you is an overview of some of the safe school climate survey results. So, as you know, we survey parents, students, and staff. What I'm sharing with you tonight is preliminary because this is these are the results of the parent survey. Now, I will tell you that we looked at these with our administrative team on Thursday of last week, and folks were a little disappointed
057at the response rate. It was lower than we've seen in the past. And when we talked about the ways in which people solicited responses, um, they were pretty diligent and pretty robust in emailing and newsletters and the district office and reminders that were sent out. So we're considering was this the time of year in the past when we've done this during conference time and provided a QR code parents you know if they were sitting there waiting for their conference they had their phone with them they could use the QR code to respond. So, we are thinking that we might like to replicate this during fall conferences this coming fall to get a a more robust response. So, that's something that um that we have a a plan for. we need to really talk a little
058bit more about it, but I think that we could go with this information, but I think confirming it and having additional participation would be really helpful. As you can see the um from the overviews technology appropriate use of technology was highlighted amongst nearly every every school was really surprising to me that it did not come up at the middle school where technology is is an issue. I can appreciate that kids are a little older then and so yeah but I I I get that I think maybe less technology in elementary schools and I think that's what parents are saying yeah I don't dispute that it's an issue I I was surprised that it did not come up as an issue at the middle school I read it more as um through maybe a a bullying
059and teasing lens that that not as a Chromebook use as a as an iPad use, but more about kids who are using Snapchat and other social media to talk to one another. Um, yeah, I think people are thinking technology in terms of less of the social media, more about how we're using it for school tests. And I think in elementary schools, parents would like to see less Chromebooks. I think we wholeheartedly believe that in the district and have worked very hard since you know since co ended to reduce that. I was thinking I think the question talked about digital citizenship you know and how to appropriately use technology. So again you know I think we have our you know we have some next steps. We have certainly um techn needs some further attention and behavior,
060challenging student behavior, which really does ring true because we've heard for a while now that after co we saw challenging behavior as a national issue, as a state issue, as a local issue and so that's something that obviously will need our attention moving forward. I want to preface that by saying that we would like to repeat this in October and we'd also like to repeat it with the students. There was a a technology issue with getting the information disagregated and the first surveys the first time people used kids used that um they had to there was a a miscue and they weren't able to say what school they went to. So we didn't capture that information to their specific school. We have it generically. And while it helps to look at that from a district
061lens, it really doesn't help at the elementary level for those individual principles to say this is a Chapman issue. This is a Norton issue. So, we would like we would like to repeat that in October. And what about the staff survey? The staff survey, we don't have the disagregated results yet, but I'll be able to share that with you at our at our next meeting. Yeah, I think it should be done. Yeah. Also at the student behavior. We know that's Don't we know that? I mean, it's a middle school. So, yeah. I think just the fact that it's middle school. Yeah, I can see I can see the the high school. Right. Right. So, left us, you know, with some with some questions. So, new survey first time using it to get more responses would
062be helpful. So, if we can do it in October, if we could really capture folks um at nights when they're at maybe an open house at the high school, when they're at those kinds of events, I will be able to do a better job. So that's when was this one? That was April. So it would have to be though after a lot of doesn't need to be if we go in October you know we would get some some good information especially when we compare it against this you know unless you're brand new to the school you've been there you've participated but there only two grades of Yeah, good point. You either have new you have a new student is a little trickier one that's going anyway. So maybe I'm just thinking. Yeah. No, I'm thinking
063I think you're right about two. Yeah. And I know Kelly was like I really wish we had more participation. I mean the kids participated but number one issue I think the more participation you can get more the better was was this format helpful for you strengths and then areas I mean thinking about when we share it with I like the narrative the approach just numbers you know well done you've taken like categories yeah but approach you know I appreciate the feedback because when we share it with the rest of the board members I want to make sure it's in others are going to like the numbers they're not going to like the numbers no others on the board are going to like numbers, but I I kind of like words that are numbers. Go ahead.
064No, I'm just has no areas are related rated below concern threshold. I mean, part of it wants to say that's great, but then the other part is like, are we missing you know, clearly we're missing something. And since the high school principal is here, communication regarding students social and emotional well-being. Well, what does that really mean? Like, what do they want? And students feel safe traveling to and from school. Okay. I want them to feel safe in school, too. Like, what does that mean? buses, you know, how high school kids hate writing buses. Like I see them all walking, you know. Um, so I just I like the responses the way they are with words, but I think they don't doubt deep enough into, you know, we're not trying, we want to be transparent, right?
065We want to fix things. So I don't think this gives us Did we look at the survey? Yeah, I thought we did. couple times a pretty there's a lot we don't necessarily want to make the survey longer and laborious for people to complete but I agree with high school responses one bullet point each yeah that's a low number that's low number of responses so started taking a look at it like, "Okay, we're only going to get just a little bit of inference from this." Yeah. From the results. I haven't had a lot of responses. Well, I would not relatively higher compared to the other schools except the high school with 87 responses should not be should not be lower than an elementary school. We sent that out a few different times, a few different ways.
066So, is it parents really talk about parents? We're talking about parents. Yes. This doesn't recognize the student or the teacher responses. Yeah. Okay. What was even I want to del further the areas that may require attention around technology. I mean, is it the kids have cell phones in school? Are they misusing their computer? Like what, you know, if we want to fix it and address it, I can tell you what the questions were asked. Give me a second. I think we just use technology as the term that people are not talking about. They're talking about the use of maybe how it misused. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think how it's being misused is they're playing games instead of doing education. I mean, inappropriate use of technology. For example, cell phone, iPad, computer is a problem
067involving students in my child's school. So then the parent would answer yes to it. They can they it's a fourpoint scale not at all very little somewhat very much. So when it says it did not meet the threshold it means that the negative you know it would have been the the opposite end of the depending on what the scale it's always a scale of four. So if you didn't have any one very little amount at all it it wasn't registered. question about technology. So tell me what the examples of the technology were again. Phones was cell phone, iPad, computer, etc. Still in the elementary schools, it's not Oh, I don't know about that. that well they don't have cell phones fourth and fifth graders have cell phones not supposed to be out but what I
068hear from parents is that I want my child to be able to get a hold of me if there's a problem But that's not they wouldn't consider that inappropriate use of the technology, right? But they have access to it. So maybe on the flip side of it, they are using it inappropriately. Maybe it's just immaturity. Maybe it could be whatever. But they wouldn't it wouldn't come up as a problem if they didn't even have access. Parents are letting them have access, right? No, but that's why I think that when they answer that question, they're talking about inappropriate use of Chromebooks. We kind of need to know the answer to that. Well, you know, this is this is is there a way we can this is one of the problems. Yeah, I think there's many many
069strengths to to these surveys. I think it's an overall universal screener, a check for health of a building. So that you you do these dipsticks a couple of times a year and you combine them with a lot of other information. You combine them with the parent survey. You combine them with the student survey. You combine them with the past. You combine them with looking at the disciplinary data. You combine them with the the street level data that things that are happening in your building at the moment, right? Or from attendance data. Yeah. So, so many of those things you look at it, it it depends on what we're looking for because we could ask is this related to a cell phone? Is this related to a Chromebook? Is this you know like what or just
070where are we after that question if you could just is there a way to just ask another question? Yeah, I know without getting more questions. What technology fill in the blank? I I think parents would put cell phone, Chromebook, iPad. I don't know. Let us know what they're So, when are we going over these informationational items? Are we doing it at Don't We have a meeting coming up. That's at 7:30 in the morning. Yeah, that's a finance meeting. We would likely review the results of this in total at the what is our September meeting and that's enough time to approve the um field trip. Yeah, this field trip doesn't need to that's April. Yeah. Okay. I was just wondering off the top of my head. Do you want to email me tomorrow and let me
071know? Because if that's the case, then you can put it on the agenda for the 30th. But if not, if you could tell them it would be doesn't look like put the curriculum meetings in yet next year. Oh yeah, September 8th. But that's a curriculum meeting though, right? That is the curriculum meeting. So you want the first board of ed which would be the following [Music] Thursday of last week's meeting. Yeah. Now I'm looking the board of ed meeting in our agenda for that date, but those are the ones that I don't see in there yet. Carol meeting the third week. Um there's a business meeting August 14th. Yeah. For us. Yes. Oh, because so August 14th is our first meeting. August opening of schools. August 4th is opening of schools. August 18th is business
072meeting. August 18th August 14th business meeting, September 4th, opening of schools, September 18th, business meeting. So, so we could approve that if they need it earlier than start. Just let me know tomorrow so that we can or by good to know about that. We got to come back from vacation a little early too. Okay. Do I have a motion to adjourn? So move. All in favor? I second. Thank you.