001on Monday October 21st 2024 please stand fored Allegiance United States americe any public comment okay I can ask the committee to review the minutes of September 9th 2024 meeting make a motion to accept September second any questions comments all in favor y passes unanimously okay so new business a new text of recommendation of scts of human and adamine Physiology 13th edition Mayan Keller Dr Reed is going to present on this topic so Swit EAS so um for this course their current book expires this year so last year they started the process of reviewing um books they did a readability study um they evaluated the books and all the information you have here I'll just pull a few quick things out that stand out um they feel that the text best aligns with the skills associated
002with ngss um even though the course is actually beyond the scope of the NS the ngss content standards the online text supports elll students with the ability for students to translate the text into other languages and um the book encourages engaging in real world application problem solving the textbook itself is well organized readable authentic images diagrams provides appropriate levels of support the online platform is user friendly and accessible for um both students and teachers um and then the other piece the ability that the course is an honors course and it does start out as um like grade grade 11 and then it moves by the end of the book towards a college level like more you know like readers age like 20 so they do progress in the reading ability to kind of like the
003quick what was the um the textbook that you're moving away from what was the year the copyright of that one oh um 2 uh I think it was 2018 yeah 2018 I think no I have to look okay that's all right that's okay so when you said the textbooks expired you mean their contract yes for the online yes yeah y so the choice of the committee was not to renew correct to go to a different correct okay questions 2018 so this this resource we're talking about the online component and the textbook I see it's for 75 I'm just sort of looking at that and wondering is that because every student needs a textbook to go with the online component or is the textbook online and and Julie wants to have a class set of them
004in case any student wants to have one correct would be more than a class set I didn't know if there was anything we could do with the quote on that like we're buying the subscription but maybe less physical textbooks if we only need maybe 25 physical yeah I can ask her about that I think um they're preparing to for more than possibly more than one section students so that would be you possibly 50 right right but not every student wants to Lug the book back and forth all say maybe okay yeah talk to her that do we get um do we get to look at this us for it will be if if it is forward then it would be on review for two weeks we put it here at the office and then at
005the library yes did she bring those to the office okay and how does that get out how does that news get out to everyone so they know to come to the library and it is usually Word of Mouth we try but yeah it's put you know it's discussed here it's posted online you knowe I know that question came up with the last textbook that we approved last new textbook that we approved by a board of ed member so where was this book you know um just wondering if we can yeah facilitate more of them what are you thinking like an email to families letting them know or well one time I thought we were might a few years ago I thought we were using Power School to Le let parents owners book being reviewed I
006talk about that I if we actually execute I'll I don't know that we've ever used a blast email telling people about a book we had about seven or eight years ago we had TCI science that was only online and so we had really canvased the elementary schools and offered nights for them to come here and we showed showed it to the parent who came on those three nights so in the past unless a Bo M really went out of social media said hey we used to do this but no one really paid attention hey we got a new book usually there board members talking about it talk about the meetings trying to get out there we never I mean if you all think if you all think that you know you want to us to
007email parents about new books being Ming forward can't hurt yeah I I I would want that to happen I I mean why can't we have another textbook on display in the high school library even for students to take a look at we can get a third copy we have one here and one at the library um would be good which one of I'll talk to but in policy right now the way the policy is written we could try it and see if we get a different result and change the policy or we can do this without changing the policy from saying going forward if this is something that the board you know would really like to do then we should probably change that language so that I mean do we have any any data like
008how many people actually go to the library or come here to even look at the book the most I've ever seen probably one or two comments usually usually it's n usually and this is also an elective for too so it might not get as much interest it's an honors but it's an elective am what did you do in um in water what's the practice in Bloomfield for communicating that out in the library the central office the school yeah and a blast appearance if they want to come and see it yeah I mean some don't but just the idea that we've invited them we're changing uh yeah if there could be a copy available on it's ready board members just read the last paragraph I know a couple board members are going to want to the
009without issue we could put a copy in the CHS library and then we already have a copy to the library I mean then we can take a look at it if it garnered more people looking at it then it would probably make sense for us to look at the policy and change it but if not then I I just want to make sure that we have because a couple of weeks ago and months ago people were even talking about you know the copyright date of some of the textbooks I think we need to be thorough in how we're vetting this and um having it available to the public I will ask Carol to send something on parents Square okay any other questions assistant super update this does take a um motion to send it to
010the board of after two week um so when do the questions that we just put forth get answered that can happen after we you're asking about the copyright date well taking a look at the taking a look at the book itself it's usually my understanding what I remember is we usually have the books here when making this decision and then um there were those questions about how many how many copies we actually need to can get that information to us for sure about how many copies we actually need and the publication date and I can I can bring are we seeing each other Thursday no no THS November 7th is the so well off to me I can I can deliver it to you so you have it so is your recommendation not to hold
011it up for these reasons I mean is there like it first right before we is that going to cause a delay we can we can but I don't want to cause a delay that means we're not going to have it for but the copyright date is 2022 so it's a recent it's a recent text I think question so I think the question is should if we hel hold this up will there be any problem in ordering it and getting it in for next year thank you okay so I think that's our we'll table it we'll put it on the November meeting we're moving toast and maybe along with that we could also find out um over the last three to five years how many students took this course if you need to change that um
01275 at all than and you would ask the copyright of the prior book is that corre 2018 the prior book the current book 2022 okay I wait okay so at our last um at our meeting last Thursday I think it was there were had made some comments about it was after the students presentation about not how College doesn't need to be for all and Sam had shared that we had bumped into each other at a of all places a manufacturing Summit meeting so I thought it would be a good time just to share a little bit about what we have going on with that because there have been some some significant changes in the district so uh the gentleman uh Sean m who used to run the CTE Department uh has left us and we
013are very excited to have Tom leok who you've all met who's been like a Cracker Jack and on the spot for our all of our computer and technology and data analytics needs and um he was interviewed and we felt he was the best person to take on that department so Tom is coming in at a time when we have a significant amount of manufacturing technology in our shop you remember I think an and Tony for sure voting on a Perkins grant to get some significant um equipment here in in our shop the ACC CNC machine coule years ago so a lot of investment happed yeah as part of that that sort of coincided with Co and Sean was supposed to go for training training on those kind that kind of equipment can't happen virtually so
014that was really halted and so so now Tom needs to get that training because we have this dual enrollment course um with the Community College we want to make sure that this is offered to students and in looking at that we don't feel like we have enough students with handson that equipment so we've done a done a few things um Jeff has convened uh local business and trades people in order to get more of our students visiting manufacturing companies here in chesher over the summer um Doug Johnson is one of our biggest supporters and we certainly go out to him we're really targeting middle school kids so that parents hear more about the options open in the manufacturing center so at the same time as we're trying to encourage more students to be aware of
015these opportunities at chesher high we've also got some changes happening within the department and so Tom and I were able to connect with um it's called and bear with me iwea which is the institute for real world education and curriculum advancement they're actually that big long title is an office that is in partnership with research and Innovation at Southern and and with the State Department of Education and I think of them as like a Matchmaker so we met with them over the summer and they will find us people to help train us and to guide us in any of that manufacturing equipment that they have when I show folks the list of stuff that we have they're very impressed and so they actually paid our way to go to this manufacturing Summit that was held
016um at in at the convention center in Harford and so we were able to connect with a lot of people there who knew how to use this machinery and what this organization the real world education and curriculum advancement organization will do because the distri doesn't have the money to pay someone in the in the in the real world to come over and train us they will actually pay for that training to happen so they'll find us someone in the field who can come out train people get kids up and running on this make sure that Tom knows everything that's going on they've done things like pay our pay our ticket to to attend these conferences and make some of those connections so um we've done that in that same Realm has gone over the summer
017and has participated and and she's gone to Jackson labs and um a company down in North Branford that produces light posts and is really these teachers have gotten tours of what all this looks like so that we can further internships and opportunities for our students so it was a it was a great day um we sat with the people from Southern we we met a lot of folks Tom is really feeling a lot more confident and feels really prepared to get our students running on this so it was a really it was a great opportunity it was nice to see Sam there Sam was working on some projects for her District as well so just wanted to sort of give you the lay of the land and what's happening when we're talking about you know
018what is cheser high school what are we doing as a district to support that pathway so that was one little piece of information you mentioned um starting in middle school so what will that look like I you don't have the the equipment in Middle School logistic so it's some of those pre-engineering Concepts so now that we have the two new science coaches they're teaching coding um they're teaching you know how to program those robots so when they get to the middle school they've got some engineering classes that students can take that we're trying to articulate some of how we can advance what those middle schoolers will be doing in two years because now kids will have had exposure to coding and Robotics they could do the next level of of those class at the middle
019school so we probably want to tweak some of that curriculum so that they can they're just going to be more prepared and then when they get to high school they could take some of those computer a drafting classes and continue to follow up Tom's also done an excellent job with really be bringing all those people together you know when they're talking about what they're doing at the high school this is what they're doing at the middle school and recognizing how how much our kids really do know I think that's great cor if I'm wrong I I don't remember this off top of my head but I believe at the high school I the CNC programing or C like isn't there something where they're either earning enough credits by taking other the courses to earn some
020level of certification can talk talk I remember this come up last year yeah there are two manufacturing coures that they can earn those credits awes and so we're in the next cycle where we graduated the students and now we're restarting with new you know younger kids coming in they they take those courses and then they can get get credit it's it really in a certificate we we just had n tuck and shared what we do and there get their program up and running and we talked about how it works with us and yeah so are there internships that go along with it too are we not there yet there can be not yet but there can be yeah and there but there certainly are some real world um incred skills that they can that they
021can go out and utilize this conference I mean electric Bo was there and you know sori was there but then there were just an incredible amount of um aerospace engineer engineering Aerospace manufacturing that is in that Corridor that are right around us that the more that we can connect with them and create these internship opportunities for our students the better off will'll be so that's what we're in the process of sort of reinvigorating and rejuvenating that to make it even more robust than it has been so I mean since treasure is the betting capital of the world um do we have anything going in that line because there's internships part of the coaching the science coaching that we're doing at the elementary school while they're starting off with robotics now the second half of that
022is really about Agro science and Jeff has had some good meetings with some of um the local agricultural wholesalers to talk about our greenhouse and what we need for that and what we would want it to look like and so trying to get those kids in fourth and fifth grade excited to see what we can do with the pathway is certainly something I know that's been on Jeff's mind and the science as around environmental Sciences yeah so the regional Water Authority we have a big um natural resource program okay and this last couple years been taking a lot of interns from sou who are in environmental Sciences track or live track and they getting drug exposure to literally working our Pathways and our property which is amazing it's all bi it's all some biology but
023um it's pretty immersive I I wouldn't be surprised if they wouldn't take some yeah inter especially summer mons l i I can send I'll send you the information but one of the things that the company also does is if you're an employee and the role in a public utilities management or environmental Sciences uh curriculum at Sun they pay for it for agree and the kids are getting a taste of that through the greenhouse excellent that's great and so that that's having implications for our culinary which our new culinary teacher is collaborating with Tom to really make those connections those cross disciplinary connections and real world application of skills um really come alive so that's great this is all all growing H is huge in this and they partner with lots of school district so the
024other thing locally that we've done is um Bill Stanley from the land trust has reached out to us a couple times that they're trying to redevelop and they were working on a grant for the IES Farm to con to build an educational center there as part of this and I know Kevin's had some conversations with them I've had some conversations now that we have the coaches that project is getting closer we'll be there's a lot of infrastructure there to really give our kids some real world hands on authentic experiences so Bill mve to South Carolina did he I haven't seen probably two three months ago no okay he recently sold his house uh and then moved down there but I mean there's a whole this was the land trust right there's other folks there I
025for to this place but I'll I'll get you contact I'll reach out to Bill and congratulate him on the move and see if he can hook me up yeah I I I I know so I'm not sure who took over this for him in case from that's why yeah and I know the soet group is looking for um partnering with the school district too on internships and um they're going to get in contact with Jeff at some point and just kind of flesh out what they can offer what we would want and how that partnership I think we had someone doing something and SOC I think the bus Department out teachers G to visit and discuss I mean those are all great things because they're right in our backyard so makes it sorry to no
026no this is great this is great um the other thing I wanted to let folks know about is um we are our iic planning initiatives committee this year in addition to looking at the book that we're all reading the anxious generation there's also a focus group that's looking at Ai and education both how how teachers can get up to speed on it how it could be a teacher tool and how teachers can lean into AI because it is infused throughout all careers at this point in time that we need to embrace that and make sure that we're creating durable Tas students using AI so this is you know a new territory for a lot of places um we have a really very interested group who signed up to work on this uh there was a
027small team that um attended uh the AI and education conference that they had up at Lichfield it was um almost standing room only at Advance did had a wonderful day showing us how to use it for curriculum and how to use it with middle school students and really introduced us to a wide variety of things there were a superintendent there assistant superintendent teachers it was excellent we had two teachers from the Middle School who were there as well just taking copious notes and um we're bringing bringing information back for their teachers and then um in addition to doing that there's um a gentleman who who works up there who's agreed to come and meet with this strategic planning committee but also to meet with the administrators when we had sent out what the topics were
028this year I think every administrator on the team signed up to say they wanted to be a part of it um as well as over 40 teachers so we're we're going to offer this and we've got some ideas on how we could stay ahead of it we also attended I attended a session on what this means for policy so I've shared that the same I shared that with Jeff um so it was it was good keep has a model policy use but it's it's going to have to be tail around the district so that's great this is awesome right I was curious the the Lichfield uh form was that Ed Advance Ed Advance okay great was excellent yeah they are you did a good job yeah so that was another um thing that we had
029going on um the other thing I wanted you to know about was we um got final approval for our educator evaluation professional growth plan just Thursday at 2:58 p.m. we were given final approval of the plan and everyone W with bed breath so that we can move forward with this so it's official we we now have our plan in place um another thing that's going on is the Connecticut Association of public school superintendents had reached out over the summer and asked myself and a colleague if we would run an ed leadership um cohort for assistant superintendence so we've been involved in doing that once once a month so we've met twice so far and the group was very interested um in the curriculum writing Institute and so I was able to present on that and
030showcase what the board has supported and and what people have done here over the past four years so that was a really nice way to highlight cheser and highlight the things that we've been doing and share that with other districts we're going to be um also entertaining um uh the gentleman from Ed advance to that group as well so got out there you can listen to if you are so inclined that I also chalk full of good information and the last thing and I won't go too much into detail on this but our um K12 group met last week this is all of the administrators come in first as the um Elementary group and then it's the secondary group and we've been focused having some focused meetings on math across the district and we've shared
031with you some of the plans that we had around what we're doing to improve students um just their their math skills and so I I wanted to share about some of the wonderful things happening related to special education so Robin KY has been in classrooms and at meetings with special Educators really helping them to sort of shift some of the the um the structures that are in place to really help students with the skills of math so that they can gain those skills as they go forward lots of our students are not cognitively disabled they are learning disabled which means they have absolute ability to handle that content so we just need to be thinking and be watching about how we do that so I know Robin has been doing that and Kevin and Kelly
032have been um going into a number of classrooms looking at how I ready which we implemented last year at seventh and eighth grade has been going so there's a lot of coaching going on and Dr Dr G and I just met with um Lisa bernabi today to talk about the needs at the high school so just wanted to share with you that no matter where you seem to go around the district there is um certainly a a focus on math and how we can help with a multi prompt approach and Kevin's going to talk a little bit about math um how often do you give the I ready Kevin will talk to you about the ready for sure three this year yeah we're going to talk about algebra one specifically but what I guess we
033can talk about about this part we gave it we gave it this part uh already this year I will say kind of our starting line for this year is ahead of where we were last year so that's anticipated um uh and in year two of using this resource we just have all the learnings that happen after a year of trying to figure out a program uh under the belt so teachers are much more comfortable with kind of the instructional design we we've obviously made the curricular changes to um have all of our seventh graders in a preber accelerated pathway so some of what Marlene was talking about with the special education Focus has really been to make sure all of our students inclusive of our special education students are successful in that pathway so that's
034been part of why R Cary Broadway um and killing myself have all kind of focused on that part of it very strong success with with kind of early Returns on curriculum implantation this year but also kind of this so how do you share that data with parents and your staff the data from I ready yeah so the staff has inant access to it so we're doing multiple levels of a review of that and I think parents is going to be through parent conferences and those kind those kind of things um we don't necessarily send home individual reports to everybody so we're doing that through communication conferences are you looking at that growth element I mean I know this is your second year now so how the students are growing I mean because that's always more
035important to me as far as not only we're looking at the growth element we're really ignoring the typical growth goals and focused on um focus on the stretch growth goals because we just found that that typical growth while that's statistically what students often do it's not helpful for us in advancing students so we are paying attention to that growth obviously we don't have we just have growth goals set for this year based on where they entered so our second run in January will give us more information on that but yes we'll pay we do pay particular attention to that growth um to summarize last year um there's a quadrant thing that has high achieve achievement from low to high and growth from low to high and all of our schools were in in the high
036achievement high growth bands last year to give you a relative idea of how we did last year on both achievement grow so in your data teams obviously you look at this data so and that's step five of the data team like so what's how do you work with your teachers to change strategies in the classroom that relate to what you're seeing in the data so from I'm going to back up one from uh from uh lesson implementation standpoint one of the things that we're trying to get teachers to do is to look across these lessons are like four or five days so they're Savvy enough now to know um to not just be planning a day in advance because they've had experience with this to really look at the total intent of that lesson and
037when you look across that lesson the teacher is very easily able to identify where's the sticking spot for for students where are they going to get stuck so they play with that in mind on the daily lesson piece and that's kind of whole class when we're looking at the I ready data um that'll give specific domain recommendations on here is your next up learning for each student so we've got multiple ways for teachers to support students with that so one we do use their platform for this individualized my path learning and there is research to shows that if students are on that between 45 minutes a week up to 50 minutes a week like they're going to see good growth on that you get too much past that um you're going to get diminishing returns
038on that so we're not recommending like a crazy amount of time on that um but also in sixth grade and also at the middle school this year um there is dedicated time where teachers can pull a small group and work on those specific skills not with a computer but in person live instruction and at the middle school level they're trying to be so cognizant of that on the team level they have this um time called Ram time where they're pulling those small groups and I'm watching Team meetings planned great who's up this week on Tuesday and Wednesday we're going to P amarine we're going to pull my I'm going to I like to come on my class I'm going to help work on that Wednesday and Thursday we're Pon and an I'm going to work
039on these school with B so that takes that takes a little bit of fangling through the Rhythm but I would say from what I heard from kind of late September to late October now they're getting their sea legs under them with that kind of process um so there's lots good lots of good things going on on the B does the scheduling that do support that this year it does they change tweak the schedule around to ensure that in addition to the the team that's pulling them we also have someone who's pushing in in the in not every class but in some of those classes to support so it's it's multi-layered we've got tier one we've got tier two and three which is pull out in addition to I I think the biggest change is there
040last tier one this year yeah that that already allows us to finally calibrate so that the teacher is doing that with the student rather than a push in rather than a pull out support rather than a intervention how many teachers does how many Math teachers does this affect yeah so there's eight Math teachers across that so this is so it's and then we have a s number of sixth grade teachers in the elementary the elementary structure is already a little bit more conducive to this yeah um but the practice is still one they're still in year two of I ready so they're you know they're able to use a resource in a better way than they were last year and they use it very well last year we know really strong results in sixth grade
041but can use it that much betteri no that was that was I think we covered it that's it okay thank you program studies go through to the changes so the first one is a new course that we have it's for cussion Ensemble and um it's currently the class is wood wins and percussion so they are moving to have a course with just percussion so that they can really work with them and that ties to a title change further down in terms of the um the woodlands so um that's the first one that's the only Chang that they're course it'll be full year 9 to 12 um and results from assessments will determine the prices and question so can I ask you something about that course um would it be like required for like say March
042and band profession students or I mean what which St what students going to take yeah what students are going to take that course okay so the ones that are in the the general band but they're now taking another course that helps them to focus specifically on percussions it's not like Advanced so no it's just to separate out so they can give the percussions to this more time so kids who are in marching band the kids who are in band right if you're marching you're in regular band they want to be able to focus the strategies and skill sets you the strategies the instructional strategies to improve the skill set of percussion because when you're working with the woodwinds it's a little bit different right and so they wanted to pull those students out they give
043them some direct some downtime for each set of students course title changes so I'm actually going to jump to the third one because it ties in that one the percussion so um symphonic band is now they're changing that to symphonic wind because the pression is no longer with them so they just making that title and then to go back to the other two in the CTE Department we have gra graphic design which they would like to change the title to digital design one um as you see it aligns with the connected career Tech education clusters and they the focus is more emphasizing technical aspects of design in addition to the art um artistic Concepts and Graphics the second course ties into that digital design the there are that um it's uh changing to a semester
044it was a full year and they've added in the grade levels nine and 10 to it so opening up to more students to be able to take and uh they did have no uh prerequisite formerly but they changed it to completion of digital design one so that first course that they're changing the title to will be the prere for um digital design 2 and that way they're tied a little bit together with their title changes and as you can see digital um design to um in terms of connected to um Community College so there's dual en the modified courses we have honor science phenomena and this was over the course of a year currently it's over the course of a year so they meet once every four days in the cycle it's being changed to
045a semester so they'll meet um every other day the time frame just better fits like a a spring or fall semester time frame so that they can do their projects within that time frame versus stretched over the year also changed from grades 9 to 11 to grades 9 to 12 to allow more opportunity for students what if I ask yes um what does that do to the high school schedule to go this one that this doesn't really change changing it from a full year course to a semester course is just the shift so that so instead of once every four days it's just to be a regular semester course so that you're not so because the amount of work was stretched out so it could be associated with something of interest within the course now
046it's each semester so that they can Target it and I'm going to take this it's my course for a semester and then the next semester I might take another elective so that it can be focused on whatever course they're in for whichever semester they feel they want to take it I guess I was kind of wondering where we fell on the scheduling the block scheduling with the high school but maybe this isn't the time to address I think Dr G will probably have an update for us on the school schedule next uh December December great thank you before we lose very bus was coming to Summer [Laughter] yes I see what you did there yeah finish all the next three courses are all in the music department also um you can tell we've had a
047change over in leadership and some of these changes that you know they want to make so these three courses are currently CP or you know like an academic level they are requesting they be changed to an honors level and really the reasoning is that the students um they kind of they they have auditions for this but it's kind of like a year-long audition they can do a videotape but the point is it's more select each of these three and the work that they do really is at that level always has been they just haven't been receiving the the honors credit for it so they put in for that and this came from students too were saying I'm put all this work can you please this and then the course honors bio prerequisite change so honors
048bio can be taken by incoming nth graders uh the prerequisite was always attached to the algebra one um grade or that they had prior to this so um Julie Barker asked to remove the algebra 1 prerequisite the focus that and it then becomes the focus replacing students will be more on Ela Ma scores and ngss scores so it's really kind of pulling apart the algebra the math component from that bio and the last course is a deleted course the honors modern media literacy course so these are the students who write our um newspaper the Rampage throughout the year the course hasn't run in two years but the students are still writing the Rampage it's a club and they would students again kind of student input they would prefer to have it and do the writing
049through a club format than to have that course put into their schedule replacing other things they can take they're okay with not receiving credit for the work that they're doing so we're going to remove that program studies can I go back to the honors bio yes what was the reason for having Al it was an advaned IDE that you know if you were if you were going to take that as a career you would would there be other Pathways that you would be in to move you with that course in other words so be associating you know a math advancement and a science ADV and we're not seeing that that's necessary and we want to open up opportunities for kids who might have a real passion their teacher might say they really have a passion
050for science let's provide that opportunity for them and may not be in algebra one well but also now they're taking algebra one in eth grade so so makes it a good point no so what you're saying is you don't really need algebra to be able to take actually prior to it was geometry that was associated with it and so they're trying to disconnect get so this was a big Topic at the science CCC meeting this year this was a problem of practice that the that we posed to the committee to say give us some feedback as teachers on this especially coming from the middle school and I don't think this is the last you'll see about removing math requirements to access science classes so this is this is just the beginning any other questions so
051old school math and science yeah that's back my time right is going to give us the multilingual learner report so what's being passed around is our um annual look at our October one PS PSIs uh ml enrollment data is a very similar report to ones that we provided this Committee in the past unsurprising Rec our multilingual plan of population continues to increase this is all anticipated um this is a trend that M State certainly Trend within our district and we have been very active in making sure that our support structures and our plans are going to continue to support our multi-leg Learners um in the classrooms um our mindset is really about kind of building the capacity our internal capacity with teachers to support Learners you've heard us talk about um kind of coaching opportunities
052through uh Consulting with cases um and that's has been effective uh but we're going to continue to search for ways to build our internal capacity because it's more and more likely that you will have multilingual Learner in your classes or multiple multiple multilingual Learner in your classes um and with a wider range of of needs and languages just a few highlights from from the report to note you'll see that Highland has our greatest number of MLS at 65 grade three has our largest concentration of MLS at 29 students and Spanish um continues to be our most common home language um so those are those are some of those are some of the highlights uh you'll also notice a new Bo report this year right next to the uh enrollment graph you'll see a clustered enrollment
053by language and building so we're just starting to pay attention to um there are kind of programmatic requirements if you get over 20 students in one home language in the building and yeah um so we we jumped up close to that this year um I think when all is said and done Highland will be redistricted before we get to that 20 or right around the time that we get to that 20 but we're going to start paying attention to that buing this is the first time we always paid attention to it but now we're knowing that we're at that threshold yeah so and our numbers are high enough to uh make it worth sharing with you that we're kind of approaching that 20 and at least the problem with that though Highland is being redistricted
054you need to make sure it's those kids right that are redistrict to a new school to be able to bring the number down so you don't need a buing the class what I'm saying is we may not be able to just count districting to address problem I mean I'm going to presume that we're down 200 students in the building one year that but there still be could be over time um again none of this is unanticipated It's been a big part of our work to make sure we have the right supports in place uh and I think we have to just continue to adopt the mindset we have to build our internal capacity to do this you know things like coaching um we want to be able to coach teachers on a regular basis so
055the more teachers that we want to be able to do that with want to keep on building so how do you service the Monte lingal now you have Tutors or yeah so most of uh the support at the elementary level is through our lsts all of our teachers are have support students in the classroom through an ml plan they work with the Rams and P Castle to develop that plan some of our students also have addition um additional time with lsts occasionally for our newcomers um who especially if we have a newcomer who hasn't had other schooling we also run a parallel curriculum and we do usually have certified staff who are supporting without parallel do you have t-a certification we do at the how we have one tsaw certified person that person is not
056usually providing the parallel curriculum but they're Consulting in the parallel curriculum currently self-certified person is is also our reading consultant so that's like shared responsibility on so what do we do with um a newcomer at the high school weol them in our ml support class first they get we assess where they are their language acquisition and then uh the teacher provides plans and meets with teachers to say here are some of the approaches that work best and then she'll meet with students regularly she's there part time but she does have groups that she meets with we have right now but that's that's been what we do with all of our incoming students and ensure that teachers understand the best tools and strategies as these kids are requiring language middle school has a similar um um
057support class to the high school sometimes that's integrated with the reading support class and sometimes that's separate separate but um there is that support class at the middle school level teachers at all levels are offered that coing and support and training many times from say acis have a grant um title three Grant we've also been eligible the last several years for the Immigrant supplement Grant so um and we will continue to be eligible for that this year we certainly need a 2% increase in thean population we're well above that 2% increase so that'll be um we'll be eligible for that that again the title three Grant is a set amount um The Immigrant supplement Grant is competitive and whatever you propose you usually get a proportion of what you propose but we've been successful in
058getting a decent amount of dollars to um support our MMO program so a lot of that goes to the coaching and professional development some of it goes to to um some supplies and other things but the majority of it is to help make sure we're getting the the training coaching the teachers done so with your title three do we get it all or is it through a consorti well no we're not in a Consortium we're we're relatively easily above the numbers to be a Consortium so we have control over that we don't have to do the Consortium work we also use it for a summer program so we enoll our who are mls in a summer program where it's really wonderful Christen um Castellano and Christen Shanley have run it in the past and now
059it's kind of past the church to others where they're taking walks to the post office they're showing them where that is they bringing them to the library getting them a library card um the fire department has been involved so they're seeing the community and really getting out there and understanding how how things work um trying to link the families at all to adult dead I mean I know it's in Wallingford but we have uh traditionally always made sure that those families are aware of the adult ed programming U which has been really nice and it's still offered here even though it's run by Wallingford we still offer it downstairs the other thing that Kevin um has been great at orchestrating is having ml parent nights both at the elementary schools and at the middle school
060and um they have usually a booth at the uh parent open houses as well so there's a lot of Outreach and those are really shifted from presentational to conversational and you find out the things that are really end up being the itches in um someone whose home language is different than English being able to interact with the school district so simple things like how snow day runs or as a parent in this District you fill out 10,000 975 forms every year so there are times when support for uh a family whose home language isn't English like they just need a little help with figuring out what these forms actually mean so um for example some of the conversations have resulted in uh Sharon Peele one of the administrative assistants at DOD had a table up
061at open house to like it was just support with filling out forms and it was open to everybody but it was spe specifically set up because in these conversations like I'm not really sure what this form is and we found just some small things that um that if you miss in reading the form or understanding the form you might not be able to do whatever that form has to participate in a club or get the service or those kind of things so having that individual support has been really helpful so the inant we shifted kind of those meetings from like here's what you need to know about our ml services to like you need like we really had a much stronger connection with and was I know that was me Amy Russell did that with
062a few people last year in high school I don't know if what happened yest she very hands on she makes that a serious Point those have been those have been really beneficial um do you want to talk a little bit too about the translation services that are offered that we put in place for all the families during a parent conferences I know Ryan was handling that but yeah so we do have line available um for anying conferences and that's on the fly it doesn't necessarily need to be prescheduled sometimes helpful to prescheduled but you can call that language line with a little bit of notice and um get uh online translation services for conferences and those kind of things um you know so I know that it's being accessed um and used well um sometimes
063that language line isn't always helpful for kind of larger group presentations so we're trying to still figure out ways to be supportive in those those scenarios but um so who accesses them the teachers or teachers yeah they they all know how to do that uh they do and when they don't they're really good about saying I know we had this language how do you do that so the office can help um connect them with with that so you've quadrupled if I did my math right thank you welcome we no just that we've talked a lot about the math plans and you all know that we've been looking over the past year or so at an algebra one resource when we came together with you know Kelly Gill and and Kevin and folks over the summer
064at curriculum writing Institute and we really talking about the algebra one book there was a desire by the teachers they're like can we please try I ready and so I'm G ask Kevin to talk about our our effort to be kind of coming Edge on this since the company is new to this so so I themselves are in the pilot year of their Al one program so they are um offering Up pilot based materials for districts to try out it seem to be a very good match for them we were looking um our previous resource was big ideas for Algebra 1 this was the same resource that we were using 68 before we moved to I ready and therefore had some of the same issues that we saw on the six through 8 resource um
065a lot of it has to do with rigor and Alignment to standards so um it was a good opportunity to take advantage of the algebra one pilot um in August for professional development they was teaching alra Juan got an orientation to those High ready uh resources through their professional development services um that was a good launch our kind of early experience is our grade eight teachers having had hands on um an i resource before they kind of know they have designed design of it instructional design of it so they've been able to pick up relatively quickly on implementing this resource our nth grade teachers are going through all the first year Paces of of um kind of adopting a new program and the lesson design and their feedback has been strong on the rigor and
066task design but they're trying to figure out how to navigate kind of the resource itself so things like the lesson design is meant to be multiple day sessions across the lesson design and now how do you do that 4 day lesson design on a box schedule so I already have some of those ideas and restructures but in the pilot phase of the program like they're they're helping us work through those things so they'll be back with us on November 1st for a second PD session um Lisa Babi and myself have been communication as well as Dr Dr kind of the impation of this um so I think you know we we'll certainly assess how the pilot is going over the course of the year we'll certainly also assess ir's Readiness to go from their you
067know fullon pilot we have access to all the textbooks and most of the online resources um but I think we'll assess their Readiness to be at full publication by by the end of the year um early returns are it's kind of it's meeting a lot of the needs but we're still at the learning pis of kind of going going through the resource but that main kind of what we identified as an issue with our previous resource the rigor of it and the alignment to standards I already early Returns on that both of those are very strong so there is a textbook there's a textbook in fact the textbook is in everybody's hands most of the online resources are are catching up up to the text so they're you know we're not going to outrun their
068ability to get all the online resources up but if you were to look at some of the later U chapters in the text they wouldn't all be up there fully but some of the the early um textbook pieces are and they don't have all of the kind of data on how students perform so emry was asking before about kind of the diagnostic assessment and growth goals they don't have that information on growth goals yet because they haven't had enough kind of experience with but um I have to say the Reps have been very good with us about the mutual feedback we're giving um and they're super responsive any time we have a question which is great good company to work with so it's considered piloting because we're new to it but what about on their
069end they're new to it to or is the pilot going from um the hard text to the online yeah maybe the best way to say it is they haven't put their full product in front of like an every reports yet and if you wanted to buy like I already algebra one as a just a stand alone you couldn't do that yet you have to do it as part of this pilot program because there so how many schools are doing the pilot progr that I don't know I mean I know every SCH it's Nationwide oh yes yeah yeah yeah we're not and the resources are certainly well developed it's not as if they're building it as they're fly they're just in that last phase of putting it together so anything else that I might have missed
070on the feedback on they're work you know there it's a new resource they're figuring out the best entry points for their students um and they don't have some of the resources but I think a key feature of what they've been talking about is to see mle that first year and what can we learn from their first year experience and comp not so are you using I ready are you using in our algebra one class because that's that's what it goes goes to and the algebra one uh curriculum is new so we're in the pilot so this is going to take us all the way from Level middle school high school through and ALB again like the standards haven't changed we're teaching the same content it's it's using different we were not happy with Big Ideas
071really not happy with it for the reason that Kevin said the alignment and the rigor so this certainly rigorous okay other questions no I'm just going to show that stud math being I yet but I well I think I think too you know hopefully we done a good job of pairing alls yeah in the past the PLS were the reg L curriculum but when curriculum reg is positive and students are learning yeah should be less complain okay parent letter sure you all are aware that we administer the path the people attitudes toward self and school and per the new legislation that came out over a year ago we always need to let parents know when we are offering our are requiring a survey and so we sent this back out to All Families K through
07212 to let this is a just a revised copy of the letter that we used in 20 23 so now we sent it out in 2024 everyone is aware and we will be that that testing window closes um at the end of the month so we'll be sitting down and really analyzing what our students had to say we are glad to have last year's data so now we have a bit of a Baseline and can look to see what this tells us for where we need to focus our energies on soci social emotional learning and embedding social emotional learning into the academics Dr Gad at the high school is um working with a group of teachers who are going to be supported in a collegial coaching model with Mike Anderson on doing the Justice embedding
073social emotional learning skills into academics at the high school level so we're really excited about that because that's a you know elementary middle schools have done this before it's never been done the high school so it's it's an exciting first step and what is that was it the 18th 19th the end of 20 29th sessions yeah yeah so we'll get an update from Dr G on how that's progressing at these monthly meetings but that goes hand in hand with the results of this work in BO we'll be able to see the comparison the Baseline the results with the next next school year no I think we'll be able to show you probably December um I don't want to promise November 11th because we have stragglers and kids who are completing that so we will be
074able to show you what it looks like for students and and how they did and the actual questions um I can personally show you the actual questions the board has seen them before but they're proprietary so we don't put them out I think when I gave them all to collected them all um but I was talking about the results you know just like we show you the results curriculum committee meeting committe to see nice to do it in of the three of you then you ask all the questions we can make sure we got the full picture for everybody else yeah we we did see some of the questions uh last year so that leave any concerns with board members of public are there any you know intrusive questions on survey argu really like there
075might be with the the townwide uh behavioral survey no that they're very search perf the Switzerland of assassin love and the field trip pretty straightforward they hope be back next year it again were there many seniors involved in it um I don't know so because this is pushed off to the next spring yes so I was just wondering if there was any kind of makeup trip for At Any seniors if this was there isn't a plan to happen anything else motion to so mo i certain all in favor thank you thank you I do have Belgium