001process so I think we can give him a pass but our wonderful representative was who is here with us tonight is Lydia GLE and you may have heard her sing the national anthem for us any number of times but Lydia is absolutely an outstanding student and that is such an understatement she maintains an impressive 4.46 GPA amidst more involvements that would make even the most energetic person and exhausted she's a dedicated leader she serves as the captain of the girls cross country team vice president of National Honor Society and president of students against destructive decisions sad Beyond leadership Lydia is deeply involved in a variety of activities including honors choir CHS drama mock trial and unified theater if you haven't had the opportunity to see her on the stage you must come to one of
002our Productions this fall she will be there um she has a mil she has so many talents they're boundless and her commitment to her peers shines through her mentorship in unified science and music and as I said before she's incredibly kind her academic Ambitions include pursuing a biology related major with a minor in Spanish with plans to follow a Premed track toward becoming a doctor Lydia's dedication perseverance talent and genuine curiosity andure she'll achieve her goals her work ethic her leadership her passion just make her an outstanding standing choice to represent chesher high school as our Board of Education student Representatives so welcome Lydia welcome thank you Dr [Applause] Gad all right and the next uh Dr s oh you do have a presentation it'll be brief you're ready to rock and roll go for
003it so there are just a few announcements for tonight as everything is still starting to pick up um to begin with our false Sports captains attended the SEC leadership council meeting yesterday our captains partnered with other schools to create a plan to demonstrate official appreciation throughout the year on that same note the CHS fall pep rally is planned for tomorrow to kick off the fall Sports season as well as the first home football game this is always a fun highly anticipated event both by students and faculty intended to wish all the CHS fall teams good luck in their Seasons Switching gears CHS has renamed their advisory period as ram ram time during next next week's Ram time students and faculty who participated in the the Student Book Club program will meet in the library for
004a discussion along with the celebration also next week CHS will sponsor a club and activities Fair during lunch waves on Thursday the 26th this event showcases the Myriad of student run clubs available at CHS and promotes students to take the opportunity and sign up for leadership for membership excuse me each year uh CHS welcomes the reunion groups to tour the high school the alumni typically attend a Friday night football game along with holding their reunion accordingly CHS will welcome the class of 1974 during the the weekend of October 4th and 5th to celebrate their 50th class reunion lastly that same weekend the CHS marching ramb Bend will host Music in Motion an event that invites other High School bands to participate in a competition of marching bands as you can see there are there are
005tons of incredible activities planned for just these next few weeks as well as of course for the rest of the year thank you great thank you Lydia board members have any questions comments Dr herrian just want to say welcome and we so appreciate apprciate when the students give their reports uh each month so thank you for being uh part of the part of the gang for the this school year thank you guys anybody here in the reunion for no I always look forward to also the music emotion having been a band Mom myself so I'm excited about that so thank you yes and we do appreciate having you guys cuz you tell us like the real news honestly so thank you for being here of course um Dr solman we have the presentation of the
006teacher of the year sir sure um at this point I'd like to welcome D little principal Amy O'Brien to introduce our feature of the Year thank you everyone very very happy and very proud that this teacher is at our school she has been a model for teachers students uh one of her strengths that I know she's most proud of is the relationship she builds with her uh students and also with the parents and also all of the teachers she has a little fan club here this evening um without further Ado I'd like to invite Christine diorio up to the podium okay good the spech the speech Days Are Over official [Applause] the bowling [Applause] and then Dr son I Believe Miss car is here to present actually uh Dr Gad will be introducing our par
007educator of the Year tonight oh it's so nice to introduce you this evening our par educator of the year uh she is the recipient of the anarie Murphy par educator of the Year award and it was established by the Connecticut State Department of Education and the school par professional advisory Council to recognize the very important role that par Educators have in supporting student achievement we are very honored this evening to introduce Elizabeth Crawford our 2020 the 425 par educator of the year [Applause] it [Applause] conratulations awesome I want to just again congratulate you both and as a former teacher of the year myself I I just my advice is have fun with it totally and and thank you both for all you do for our students and families thank you um next item if there
008are any audience members that would like to come to the podium and speak please do so just getting my wait time in for a minute look like we're GNA have uh testimonials from the fan club there for a minute yeah come please [Laughter] do we'll give it we'll give you a few more seconds if you you know seeing no audience we're going to move right to our committee reports and the first committee update will be curriculum um and I think I'm going to pass this to you Dr herrian for some of our updates sure so we met curriculum committee met on September 9th and we were we had several informational items um Miss Solano presented an overview of the chesher curriculum Council process including how that process leads to textbook adoption um also specific two
009questions from the Boe uh subcommittee on social studies Tim Galvin provided he was in attendance and he provided an overview of updates to US history with the adoption of the new state social study standards and it was noted that social studies will begin their five-year self-study this school year for the final presentation in the spring of 2026 uh we also were informed of the Connecticut State Testing results and Miss salana will give us some details um at the end of my report we talked about we got an update on the um right to read waiver I believe that uh some of our people went to a meeting with the Connecticut State Department of Education but that was after our meeting so I don't have anything to report on as far as that's concerned um Marlene
010also shared highlights of this year's curriculum writing Institute um and we heard about that at our last Board of Education meeting so um I don't think I need to go into details on that unless anyone has questions um we were informed of overnight field trips uh Florida Keys for chesher high school during February 12 through 18 and um dairyfield Park Manchester New Hampshire for Chester high school and that will be November 8th through 11 of 2024 so Dr re shared details of two out of state overnight field trips for Cheshire high school students this year the first is in anticipation of athletes qualifying for the boys and girls cross country New England championships which take place at da Field park in Manchester New Hampshire um I was told that there was that that was just
011a thing that we weren't really anticipating we were it it was a done deal as far as as far as the committee was concerned not too much pressure on the kids the second is a stem Focus trip to the Florida Keys uh through destinations unlimited um with they'll visit the Florida Aquarium the Museum of Science and Industry uh Babcock Ranch Edison Ford winter estate this all sounds very sciency and sounds like a fabulous trip and with that I will turn the sharing of the State Testing results to M Solano thank you Dr haran bear with me as I put our slideshow up on the screen okay a VOA hold on oh okay we go all right so I'd like to preface this State Testing overview by describing a little bit of how we use these
012results so this is these are results of the smarter balanced assessment which is given in grades 3 through eight it's also the overview of the next generation science standards assessment that is given in grades 5 8 and 11 okay Mike oh okay uh and it's also an overview of the SAT results that are given to our Juniors so our grade 11 students and I sort of look at this as um one of the like you're going to the doctor and you're you're getting some blood tests to see your health in that one day out of the year to kind of get an idea of how are you doing or what what do you need to work on from a health and wellness standpoint when we look at these results we're looking at a a lot
013of things we're looking at overall health and then we're also looking at any changes that we need to make to curriculum and instruction so aside from looking at teachers will look at individual student test results to determine where individual students need to make growth when we look at it from the district level we look at it to say do we need to make changes in our curriculum are we seeing patterns over time are we seeing growth are there programmatic changes that need to be made what what are the numbers what is the data telling us so not only can you see it on these nice fancy screens that are in our room now but you also have a copy in front of you so take a look at this this first slide which indicates Smarter
014Balance achievement for grades three 3 through 8 you see in front of you 5 years worth of data 2018 2019 remains our highest which is also quite true for State results and then you can see what's happened since the pandemic and that we are making gains back towards that 201829 level of achievement so this is a healthy indicator of our students achievement there this indicates ban three and four so that means that students met or exceeded the goal for their grade level and we are at 76.1% for ELA and 73.5 for math so we've surpassed in math where we were in 2017 2018 not not quite to where the level we were at 75% only two points away and Ela is going in the right direction a little bit flat from from the year before
015this next slide gives you an idea of growth so the smarter balance assessment looks at both a growth rate for example Tim gets um a certain score on the smarter balance assessment and he needs to make 100 points of growth the next time he takes the test in order to meet his growth Target even if he gets 99 out of 100 points that doesn't count for the growth rate that is a binary number that means either yes you made the growth or no you did not there still may have been growth but it's not recognized in that growth rate number of a student that achieved 100% of their points the next one the average percent of Target achieved looks at the percentage of the growth Target that the student achieved so if we're talking about
016making 100 points of growth and you make 99 points you're doing very well and that percentage is calculated so every time I touch it it moves so you can see here that 67.8% of our students have an average or an APTA score of 67.8 so 67.8 of students are achieving their growth and 50% are achieving their growth rate so that's laa and then the second column is math so they're they're quite similar for 23 24 I ask a quick question sure how is um growth rate the target growth rate determined that's there's a metric there that is built in by the statisticians up at the State Department of Ed who determine with the testing company what that level is and it's in it's it's individual for every student for every student this next visual um
017before you move on so um does that mean so let's say the growth point spread was supposed to be 100 points and the uh student gets 99 does that mean they don't make that means they don't make the they don't make the growth rate yeah so improved 99 points and was almost there yeah that would be a no for the growth rate but for the APTA for the average percent they would get the points there okay that would be that's the average student grew what percentage of their target so on average our students in ela grew 67.8% of their target our average student got to about 70% of their target and their target isn't necessarily grade level their target is individualized based on where they started and so uh that could be a little challenging
018when you have higher achieving students you know the growing that much further Beyond growth rate it's going from9 95 to 98 it's right you're talking about going above their their grade level you know even if you look at somebody like new Kanan who's always at the top of the performance they they don't have super high growth rates always either so um those are a little tougher to achieve when you have high achieving population thank you I think the other thing that's important to point out here is and and the percentages of students who took the test is not reflected on this sheet but this is all students are taking this test except the most severely impacted and even for students who have disabilities they are taking this test students who take special education students who
019are multilingual Learners students who have moved here and still don't speak the English language they are taking this test some students who have an impairment may take an alternative test and that's still you know considered in this data Tim I thought students were allowed to opt out if they chose yeah okay because what I thought I heard you say a second ago is all students take this test like 99% of students take this test okay got it no I just want to be clear on that thank you and you know I I don't think it's a bad thing to take the assessment it's um it's dramatically shorter than it used to be um it's it is provides us a good snapshot about each child's growth and where they are uh gives us great feedback about
020what we're doing so I encourage kids and families to take it but I understand that some opt out but it is a small number as Marlene just said yeah no that's all I was was wondering about and I I'm not as we've discussed before I'm not a fan of standardized tests anyway my kids take it right and I'm uh my oldest has taken it and I'm fine with it I just there's a lot of different thoughts going on but no as far as what we do you know I'm definitely not discouraging anyone from taking it I think it it makes sense from a pedagogical perspective to help you thank to help the the kids mostly in the district thank you so this slide breaks out the just in a different way the ELA growth for
021grades 3 through eight on the smarter balance across the last five years and then we're going to look at the math in the same way so not a lot of variability we are always striving to do better we are always striving to um best that 2018 2019 year but we also look at our scores compared to the durg that we're in compare them to like communities and to the state so if we look at now switch over to the ngss this is the science test you can see that we've made some some improvements here and I know you've all been listening to me talk about ngss training for a number of years and this is really a multi-year process to train teachers in how to meet the standards of the ngss because it is so
022vastly different from the way that students were measured before and the way the standards were written before so you can see that our fifth graders 78.3% met or exceeded the Target in e8th grade 71% which is an increase up from 65 66% so that was a nice healthy bump to see that increase and our high school continues to make strides in the right direction and landed at a 68.6% of students meeting or exceeding the target this is a breakdown of grade five so from 80 to 78 still sort of flat but um again that 2018 2019 isn't isn't too far away yes yeah um so some of the trends here are not ideal from what I'm looking at the numbers but just generally speaking for any numbers that are down from 1819 is that in
023your opinion uh re related to covid learning loss was definitely related to co that is the major okay yeah so it really is a nationwide thing with anything and this this if you if I were to show you and and then the couple of slides coming you'll see us in comparison to the state and the dirt and I think that that's true of Connecticut understood thank you not everywhere but over sure yeah just generally is what I'm wondering about yeah thank you so here's some of those dur comparisons for grade five we're fourth in our dur and you could see that the difference between a 78 and an 82 is pretty small this distance between between second rank in the durg is also small 78.3 to 79.1 we've been floating between first and fourth for
024the last the last four or five years here's the history we were first out of our 18 similar durs in 1819 then we were third then we were second then we were fourth so that's that's where we're living in those first four rankings then you look at grade eight nice increases over the years we went from 68 to 65 to 71 the the time and energy that those teachers have put into writing curriculum over the summer and the work that we've done with Consultants through the Connecticut Science Center have certainly paid off and this year we are ninth in the Durk we've gone 9th 9th 12th and back up to 9th for rankings again that's in science now we look at grade 11 there's a nice story here in grade 11 we've had some of
025the highest achievement on the ngss test that we've had in four years at 68.6 so we've been incrementally creeping up ninth in the dur similar to the middle school but a significant difference from 14th 15th 10th well not significant from 10 to 9 but but still trending in the right direction that's 11th grade science thank you yeah and one of our problems that I think is facing everyone absenteeism how much of a factor is that in terms of the numbers well I mean just if you know if you don't know that's fine we don't have a direct correlation but we do know that if our kids aren't here then they're missing that information and because this test is fifth grade e8th grade and 11th grade it's cumulative so it's not as if you know they
026these 11th graders hadn't had this test since 8th grade you know so there's some there's time span in there it's it's a a test that's measuring skills over a vast number of years and so this is something we impress on families with children who have chronic absenteeism which is by definition 10% of the days of the school year or more so if you're here for the full year it's you've missed 18 days or more and we had out coming out of covid there was a national phenomena and we weren't exempt from it that we had high chronic absenteeism and we worked diligently on that last year and brought it down dramatically but to Marlene's point if you've missed 22 days in each of the preceding year even if you got it down to 15 now
027which is a relative win that's a lot of missed instruction uh the equivalent of nearly half a year um for some kids uh with their chronic absenteeism so that that comes back to haunt you and so we really try and nip that in the bud um at the Elementary grades and for obvious reasons yeah I guess I I guess I'm wondering if I'd be curious if we could do it if you have the pii the personally identifiable information and could anonymize it and just look at the absent kids who are generally absent into break it out into absentee kids and non- absentee kids and then if the state did that then have a comparison I'd be curious about it I don't want you spending a bunch of time on that I've looked at it it's
028it's shockingly not disastrous oh okay it's not good you know foric but you know I would have hypothesized it would have been worse okay so that's interesting thank thank you so but it's it's not good sure yeah thank you okay so now we can move on to the SAT this is a five-year look back of this SAT test this is the SAT school day so this is what the state uses as their state assessment for all 11th graders in Connecticut and in in um at the high school there is one day where students take this test they can still take it outside of this as many times as they need to but the the SAT school day has become what the smarter balance test is for our grades 3 through eight students in grade 11
029so you can see that in English language arts we went from 71.1% of students meeting or exceeding The Benchmark to 80.2% of students meeting The Benchmark so I think that's a definite celebration the team there put a lot of work into it they put a significant amount of work into looking at the data and really digging into what might be holding students back and made some shifts and changes and I think we're really pleased with that result um if you look at the math math is was at 52.1% and resulted in a 49.5% of the students meeting or exceeding The Benchmark so that's where our focus is that is where the the next level of work is calling if you look at the dur B rankings for ELA we are seventh out of our peers
030and if you take a look at the math we are 14th in the durg of our peers and I like to look at where the top schools Madison and Grenich are at 60% of students meeting or exceeding so we're about 10 percentage points behind that again we I can talk a little bit about some things that we're doing to address that as well um sure go ahead Adam um yeah I just wanted to comment um I know you and uh Mr hanlin had commented on all eth graders next year taking algebra and I know um luckily I guess my son did well enough last year he's taking algebra this year in eighth grade and um just thinking back on how um just looking at this math score how having potentially let's say an extra year
031of algebra um to when you're preparing to take the SATs because like you know he's been doing his homework and I'm like hey that's an question make sure you pay you know pay attention to that you know it's Al like that they're being exposed at an earlier age and that every next year every eighth grader will have that earlier start I think is yeah I think it's G you're going to see a a pretty good Improvement there so let let me speak to a few of the things that we're we're doing with that um but before I do I just want to comment on our the ELA in the State ranking treasure High School is ranking 17th out of 124 districts and in math they're 23rd out of 122 districts so I just wanted to
032make sure we got that in so one of the things that you know Adam that you're alluding to um and I want to swing back to what I originally said of how we actually use this data to make decisions and why it's important to us even though we know it's a a snapshot in time right we know that teachers have data based on the assessments that they're doing on a regular basis in class they have the class work they have what they're seeing and and what students are are presenting to them every day is is a larger part of what happens but last year at the end of the the term we got some of these results back for for our sixth graders and those sixth graders we saw that 60% of them were at
033that level four which is exceeding the grade level standard that told us a whole lot about students Readiness for the next level of math at DOD and so the decision was made after we really examined all that to make sure that we were offering pre-algebra for every student at do and we weren't having these these different levels so now all students can take pre-algebra in seventh grade the other thing that we did was to make sure that moving forward that all students will have the option to take algebra in 8th grade knowing that some students may need a second year of algebra they can do that as freshmen so they can they can move ahead but they can still get that second boost of algebra that many kids might need and that and that's okay
034there's still a pathway for them to reach higher level math classes um the other thing that we did was over the summer there was some summer offerings for students who were already at the high school who needed that confidence boost who who were because of the results that we saw we reached out and offered the summer session to students who just wanted to boost their skills and we did that with about 15 students over the summer and our our Math teachers from the high school taught that the other option that we had that school counselors worked on with students and with the Math teachers was to offer students again who might have needed needed that opportunity the opportunity to double up on those those PR those basic math skills not basic but algebra geometry in
035those earlier grades in order to to be able to be more prepared for later math so there's a number of things happening um we we're also going to be talking about what we're doing with some of our ninth graders and we'll we'll share that once it's a little more formalized at the curriculum committee meeting in October so the conclusions that we came to for this is that these indicators are really of overall all Health we have consistent achievement in GR 3 through eight we have the ninth highest achievement in Connecticut for ELA and math that's that's really good um I talked about already about the 60% who are above grade level in sixth grade and how that's led to changes we have consistent increases in our ngss achievement and we have plans that were're saw
036that our our systems and structures are working so that CCC review process is yielding the right results the plans that they developed in ela resulted in successes on the on the SAT and other areas too but we're talking about the SAT and State Testing tonight and then um we're we're really trying to you know do what we did in ela in the other areas so we can continue to see those gains I think it's worth noting also that you know just eight nine years ago we were 35th in Connecticut in terms of our overall achievement rank now we're ninth so um you know we're staying the course making modifications as needed addressing addressing the areas that need um more attention but feel pretty good about the direction overall you have a comment thank you yeah
037so just just to repeat what I what I think we're looking at is espa 338 NG GSS 5th 8th 11th and sat 11th grade so it's a bit of an amalgamation of a few different got it um and one question about this last the previous slide it said we were 17th that of4 or 23r so we have 169 towns in Connecticut I know we've got Amity School District region 16 I thought we had more than 124 School District so what do those two numbers represent high schools and okay yeah so there are high schools some that didn't have enough kids to take the test to qualify got it for the public scoring so the the point is that this is these are high schools only it's basically it's pretty much representative of all the high
038schools in Connecticut it's not like oh these are the high achieving ones we'll pull those out and then we're yeah we're 17th okay got it yeah we're 17th of the lowest 124 no but uh you know it's it's there are there are a limited number of high schools because of regionalization sure thank you any other board members comments questions thank you Miss salano for the comprehensive report I do want to just kind of acknowledge you know it is looking like we are trending healthy still um but there are areas and I appreciate what you're doing to kind of put mechanisms in to correct certain things um and we all know that when you start changing and modifying that there there's going to be a slight dip because we're trying to get used to our practices
039and so forth too so kudos to you for doing that um and then also the SAT went digital and we did not get any sort of support analyzing any of the questions and so forth so that's a huge amount of work that the high schools have to do to prepare for um understanding the the new format of and the new questioning as well too so I think we're we're trending like you said Dr s in the right direction Mr gripple um that brings up a question so for SATs not everyone takes the sat right so at the high school all of our 11th graders need to take the SAT it's the state assessment it's not just some students so the same the same description that I gave to you for the smarter balanced assessment that
040our multilingual Learners must take it our special education students must take it unless we're only talking about our most impaired students who do not take this test so every student kind of gets a free yes test yeah yep and we would encourage you if you're even thinking about going to college take it you know and certainly is Marlene said we have students take it multiple times this is one of the times they take it but we encourage you to take it and to take it seriously um and give us feedback I mean not taking it seriously is a problem that we've tried to address like I'll just check it out check out the format take you know kick the tires a little bit and then I know I'm taking it a month from now I'll
041take you know I'll really put energy into it we're trying to make sure every but everybody in Connecticut faces that so then that leads me to the next question is how reliable is the data if everyone is taking it but not everyone is really serious about it well it's the same as any other high school in Connecticut our kids are no different than the kids and so it's just sort of like built in that there's a percentage when we're comparing ourselves to each other um yeah because well because well what I'm thinking is so we're at uh was it 50% for math for the SATs but if you're I'm just say if you're taking a test it's easier to sort of fake your way through the the English part than it is the math part
042if you don't know math you don't know math but English you can kind of you know fudge it a little bit I don't know Dr gad's in English speaking to Educators here I'm not sure they're G to agree with that her into the chair over there but uh you know some you know some people may not be talented in math may just without knowing it be more talented in it you know just language and reading and stuff that's all but you do need language in mathematics don't forget you do but math is you have to really kind of commit to it in my opinion someone who is math challenged I'm an accountant I'm still math challenged there's tools any other board members no awesome you guys did a lot of work in the curriculum committee
043um anything else Dr heran we work hard for the school district I see that that's a lot going on there we have great leadership thank you missana we have a great team um up next Mr masana is not here but he is here in spirit however Dr Solen are you up to the task I certainly am um so in your packet you have the couple of different it items first the financial report uh in the summary I mean you have line item uh overview from August 31st but you also have the overview uh summary as of August 31st right now we've limited expenditures to 50% on the discretionary funds what you see reflected in this budget report um is limited with respect to our encumbrances uh we haven't encumbered the full year of Transportation or
044salaries um so the number looks a little bit lower uh than reality uh we uh will have that for the end of September report will encumber those things so first business meeting in October uh you'll start to get a clearer picture but we're on track um at this point as I think Vin mentioned in the last meeting we've locked in most of our utility costs with the exception of natural gas which we're still on market pricing for so um generally speaking you know we're we're humming along for pretty early in the year um are there any questions on the operating budget before I go to the medical benefits report it's still pretty early oh NOP is okay just one quick one um uh lunch accounts uh are we is it going a little more smoothly
045this year so far um no I I don't think it's going worse but it's not dramatically better um and so you know I think what is better is how we manage it uh the other thing that's a little bit different but uh doesn't dramatically impact us financially is the fact that uh if you qualify for free you get or excuse me if you qualify for reduced price meals you receive those free now um which is of a tremendous benefit to those families um because if you reduced cost that even that Delta between the rout produc price meal and the entire cost of the meal that's meaningful for families um so I'm grateful that those families don't have to worry about that because as we've discussed before the threshold for free meals in Connecticut is kind
046of disturbingly low like you have to make such little money it's a federal standard so um it doesn't you know in a state where there's a higher cost of living and higher income still doesn't work out for a lot of families so that's better but um I can get you an update for our next meeting on where we stand exactly in in relative to last year at this time too thanks for the question thank you I would add that there really is a national conversation going on right now about just providing school lunches to all kids but um you know I suppose it needs to go state by state right now but I'm you know I'm kind of hopeful that we can just you know have that we can just feed our children at school
047and someday it won't be this huge accounting issue that Boards of Ed need to go through but that's just my my comment on the whole thing thank you for indulging me sorry um one last comment um my comment before about the SATs is U my own personal opinion and uh more of a a street assessment than anything else was Dr Gad I balled you that badly that you felt like had I bet she was had to come clean all right the uh next item anyway medical benefits Reserve fund um you know we only are two months into the claim year uh cuz obviously we haven't closed out September claims yet um well the August claims were better than the July claims they still fall a little higher uh than our Target um that leaves us
048with 1.53 months in reserves I'll remind you that our Target was 1.88 million uh per month in this month's claims in August when I say this month August came in at 1 280 so you know about 100,000 off the um the the standard so it's not terrible you know it's exactly 129 779 but um you know we're hopeful that as we we roll into the year the claims continue to fall and allow us a little bit more Reserve um and that's that's uh you know not I think we're in a decent pace right now um but but again more as uh Luther Miller always says more will be revealed after uh next month great thank you Dr s next item is um any board members wish to report on any other standing committees no okay
049um we have several minutes in the packet to approve so we do need a motion to approve the minutes of the September 7th meeting as well as the September 12th meeting um the September 7th was our opening of schools meeting and then this the 12th was the NextGen uh joint meeting uh with the board it's listed as September 5th in the minut okay thank you it's the fifth okay so we need a motion for the fifth and the 12 Dr or Mr White moved that the chesher Board of Education approve the minutes from the meeting held on September 5th 2024 you want me to continue please move that the chesher Board of Education approve the minutes from The Joint meeting with the ngbc held on September 12th 2024 is there a second Mr eki any
050additions or Corrections beyond what was just previously mentioned no yeah just just the acronym for anybody the ngbc the Next Generation School building committee thank you um okay we need to take a vote to approve as presented all in favor unanimous thank you Carol I have a motion in front of me but it's not oh I'm like this has Wetlands has nothing to do with although you want to pass it to Tim maybe um next item Mr secretary are there any correspondence would you you like to share with us or I have uh no correspondence to report all right that's unfortunate thank you and then Dr Solen for the superintendent's report please thank you so much um lot to cover from the start of school year but I'll try and keep it quick uh I'm
051excited to report that robotics is underway and um if you're one of my 1451 followers on super cheser you saw a i you saw a post I had to look up what my handle was that's how I know there's 1451 my hopes and dreams this year I went into a classroom it's not uncommon to see my hopes and dreams posters for the year and uh this one got me really excited my hopes and dreams this year is to build a robot so you know it just sometimes you grind on the board or is a central office administrator or a member of the CF and you maybe don't realize how the impact you know decisions and efforts you make have on our kids um that's really cool you know to I I was so excited when
052I went in and saw that um also 1451 followers is my desperate plea cuz my 15-year-old won't think I'm cool until I hit 1500 so you know please join me on Super Treasure anyway science team is that Twitter that is Instagram Instagram I'm sorry yeah thank you thanks for the plug there ad um science team at chesher high school we have if you recall from uh last year we had uh Miss Barker the science department chair come in with a group couple of groups of students that were engaged in a science program with the Science High School in Soul South Korea uh the Republic of Korea they're preparing for a trip in November uh they'll be there from uh November 16th through November 23rd they're getting really excited they had a meeting last night with
053teachers from Korea to talk about you know the the expectations there so it's really exciting that they're prep preparing for that journey and representing uh tresure High School internationally really cool I wish them luck and I can't wait to hear when they get back we'll have them come and share their experience um along those lines are we do have two guest teachers here from gangam do Office of Education that's in the south of Korea they are uh housed at Highland they've become really well acclimated uh and our staff has really enjoyed spending time with them learning from them and vice versa so that's been a great experience I wanted to share want to celebrate the uh do little best buddies chapter they were um recognized as an outstanding best buddies chapter nationally uh just this
054summer so special shout out to Christina viu and uh Brian jakara Matthews Christina is a former I par educator of the air uh Bree a teacher at uh tresure high school and they are the mentors for our do little do little best buddies program so shout out to them we can't wait to have them next month and recognize them uh public um reading update uh as was mentioned um by Dr herrian we did have a a meeting with the Department of Education and I heard Adam in the back of my head I almost dressed as Braveheart when I went to the meeting but um it was uh a really productive meeting to be honest uh we met I I have to give a lot of credit to Deputy Commissioner um Dr Charles Hughes um I
055mean it wasn't oh yeah sure we just approve you uh there was nothing like that they're not going to re-evaluate our um our application if you will but uh there was a real emphasis on how we're addressing the science of reading uh so I want to commend Marlene and and Kevin hanlin um but also Pat Castle is our district reading specialist uh she introduced herself as the art AR fact in the room because she has been um focused on reading for decades and is incredibly knowledgeable and was able to really convey how uh organizationally we address the science of reading and how we're committed to that and I think um it gave time for pause and perspective taking on the on where we are and uh where the state could help us Bridge any gaps
056that might exist so uh again I want to thank Dr Hughes and and Pat Kevin and marleene for their their work in that meeting yesterday um uh yesterday was a super busy day with the state that was um you know a couple hour investment up with uh the reading but uh spent three hours yesterday on a call with the Department of administrative Services reviewing the plans for the North End School uh that all went according to plan um so we're feeling really good about where that stands we're continuing to cruise along I gave a presentation Tuesday morning at 7:30 to the economic development uh commission here in town and uh about the the school development if you have not been past Maran Road uh recently that site it's it's amazing to see the transformation there
057uh we're excited so that uh the level that pad off the let it sit for a number of weeks to make sure there isn't significant settling um and then in December we'll start instruction so we're right on on path uh you'll start to see things go up in December and it's it's exciting to think about um finally uh two last items uh I'm excited to share with all of you your chesher High School Board of Education season pass for athletics so VIP uh seating at uh all of our sporting events hope that you can come out and cheer on the Rams um anticipating more great Seasons from our student athletes at CHS unless you have a meeting at the same night that kind of stinks but anyway um and finally uh no meeting would be
058complete without Tim's update on the anxious generation so um I'm excited to announce that we're going to host a panel conversation about the anx generation at chesher High School in the Thorp Auditorium on October 29th at 700 p.m. our panelist will include uh Dr Penny Ling um she's uh a clinical psychologist who teaches at um quinac Dr Allison Bell is a pediatrician who lives in town and uh we have uh Amry wienberg and Kristen Shanley amar's an elementary teacher Kristen's the English department chair at DOD and they are both former treasure Public Schools teachers of the year uh as well as uh Doug Levens who's the executive director of the chesher YMCA so uh it should be an interesting panel discussion um probably about an hour where we'll ask some uh scripted questions and then
059give the opportunity for people in the public uh to ask any questions of our panelist as well so uh looking forward to that on October 29th hope to see you guys there thank you Dr son Mr White you have comment thank you yeah you said 7 PM yes is that a I'm thinking Halloween is a Thursday this year so that's a Tuesday yes okay that's before Halloween and and Allison is a high school classmate of mine 1990 cool thank you Mr gero um I I don't know if this would be illegal or not but could well it's not illegal that's never a great leading for a question but let's let's go for it could I ask that that October 29th meeting be put into our calendars or is that you know or would that then
060create an illegal meeting of it wouldn't be posted as a meeting per se um it's not a meeting of the board that mess things up if like we if you all show up th that's perfectly fine this is a it's um Community event just like if you all went to the football game on on Friday you know if you all stood there and discussed board business business like a de facto meeting that would be problematic but you can all attend um you could even sit together you just can't discuss board business like you can't say hey what do you think uh we should do on the budget this year you know that would be inappropriate but certainly all be there and you could certainly all like I said even sit together as long as you
061don't discuss board business okay um and then secondly um I'm not sure if you commented on this but what do you think the um tone was in the room during your meeting for for the uh the reading assessment was it better than last time or it may depend who you asked but I you know I thought it was pretty good um you know I I think um they understood the frustration that we had um and I think our frustration stems from our deep and long-standing commitment to teach the science of reading and how that may not have been interpreted not necessarily by them there was a if you if you remember there was a a consultant group that did the evaluation and so you know we're trying to reconcile some differences which can always be
062a little bit challenging um and I wouldn't say you know that they rolled over for us or that we you know um said okay we'll buy every program Under the Sun you know what we uh kind of came to the agreement on is trying to learn a little bit more about uh what they can do to support us and how we can get closer to what their expectation is and I feel pretty good about where things ended in the meeting so are there any deadlines that we have to meet or anything like that or July one 2025 is the deadline to be like fully compliant um but you know I think we're committed to work together over the next couple of weeks to see what we can do to to close that Gap thank you
063good night yeah I was just going to add that in that room I think the tone was very much one of commitment to hearing what the people around the table had to say on both sides that's definitely an improvement yes Mr White thank you so I know the policy committee is going to be working on um social media policies use of devices in school but even before we get there I've already been told that I'm a mean dad who just doesn't understand fifth graders um my understanding is that Norton has a uh Norton's policy is probably a little bit stricter than it was last year um I'm just curious at a school level do you have any sort of broad Strokes you could share about what's happening as directed presumably by the principles or by
064you sure thanks for the question Tim you know our administrative team read the book too and um the research and data is undeniable um and you know with that group and with other groups I've said that um it's really the emotional equivalent of smoking uh it's really that detrimental for kids and you know I said hey you know what we're only going to allow middle school kids to smoke at lunch people would think I was out of my mind right um because that is out of your mind because it's it's so unhealthy we know that about cell phones we're not permitting cell phones during the day we're much more rigid about it um in all levels including chesher High School um chesher High School is developmentally different you've got young adults there um and so
065there's there are different parameters there but you're still not taking your cell phone to the bathroom you know chure High School which is a massive departure um so you know yeah there's it's much more stringent and and at the open houses our principles uh explained not just the process but there was a lot of emphasis placed on the anxious Generation Um I'm sure I know Mary was um talking about it with her group I just happened to know off the top of my head today that um there were 17 requests for books from dot uh to read the book um that we got after open house so and that was early this morning so um I know that uh they people are hearing the message um and I hope that uh you will be just
066like the other mean dads in fifth grade you know by the time it's said and done that you won't be you won't be alone yeah I mean your kid will tell you you're alone I mean that's how all of our kids do but yeah I'm the worst ever yeah yeah we're all terrible human beings and you know but I think there's Solace and know KN that other parents are terrible human beings too and because that's the biggest thing that I hear from parents is really didn't want to get my kid a phone but um you know I didn't also I really was petrified that they'd be left out they'd be the only one without it um and if there's a broader social commitment to not doing it then there's security and it's better for our
067kids so I think a lot of people are buying into that conversation and that's why I keep saying I think education is a critical component we have a rule in Connecticut a law against speeding everybody does it anyway you know it's it's one thing to have a rule it's another thing to be educated and and people quit smoking not because it was against the law but because they knew it was going to kill them and so you know we're educating here families and and kids and staff to recognize the detrimental nature of social media and you know I think in two short months we made significant inroads we're connecting with you know Doug Levens from the Y um Sean Kimble is reading the book uh uh John gock the um Parks and Rec is reading
068the book Youth and Social Services Michelle picillo um the preschool uh directors in town are on board you know I'm doing a workshop for them I think early next month so uh I have Carol were planning the lunch for the high school kids that read the book that I offered it to so you know we're making sign significant inroads I think um especially for the relatively short window we've been working on it but it's that important that we have to keep pushing hard thank you yeah I appreciate that I I don't think it was a story that you had shared I think it was something that I had read um associating social media device use with cigarettes and people may not see it today but I think it was a story I read and it
069was someone talking about how they in the 1950s were served cigarettes with their lunch at school this is something that you do yeah um I don't know if that's true I I find it plausible I but that's what that's what was conveyed to me somewhere um anyway uh I want to take it one step further I know I've probably did some people been annoyingly preachy about this but going beyond the kids and this is something that I'm working on personally we as adults have to I do believe it is important for us to model for the kids and um so starting with the teachers in the classroom but beyond that us at home and Society in general I have my phone I look at it during the meetings I generally jotting down a question on
070notes so I can wait my turn and as the question um nonetheless I I I do think it's really important for us to model for kids they're going to probably often follow what we do and the less we're doing it at you know times when we probably shouldn't be the better off the kids will be the better off frankly society would be I I'm not a big fan of social media in general um but anyway that's that thank you I appreciate that um I just wanted to commend you and your staff uh for it appears using the captive audience of the open house to talk about the book uh was at the e8th grade open house and Mrs gorillo and uh Mr Murphy yep um uh gave a think a 10-minute presentation about the book
071um and you know looking around the room it seemed like maybe even after they received multiple emails and asked to participate that some of those parents still seem to be kind of surprised by the whole thing so it's was great they you use that of audience time to kind of talk about the book and and tell them that copies are available and it's just an important issue so yeah yeah it is like you know everybody's super busy you know and I know that this might be hard to believe given the fact that I have 1451 followers on Instagram but people don't care when I send out an email it's shocking to me too um so I I you know you have to find a lot of different ways and the um the parents and staff
072who came to those book clubs they they put together a lot of strategies we collectively designed strategies and that was one of them making sure that at open house we're really driving home the messages you'll hear it again at parent conferences um because I I had a parent sign up uh really late and it was like what what you've had 15 of these already they didn't know um and I I appreciate you know as a parent how busy we are and you may may miss it so we're going to keep the message going um the panel conversation is really a great opportunity so I appreciate you guys sharing the word ironically posting on social um and getting things out there so we do have good attendance particularly from people who may not have been in
073the choir yet you know that are not aware of the message thank you Dr s although I do have an idea how you can improve your following do like a podcast of the book oh okay I was afraid you were going to say have like Marlene dress up like The Brick dancer from Australia that would definitely fantastic yeah I think that would that would probably get more than try that first please you heard it here Marley what going in your going in your I was waiting for giata to be Gata but then you brought that up so that's better you have a question oh well we have figure out the button uh we have old business if anybody has any old business to discuss um know and then new business I don't have a report
074I just have a comment I'm really excited when we um signed to move you know schools being built and then next week we have another scheduled meeting too on the 26 with NextGen so that's very exciting I'm looking forward to that as well as the ground break in December so things are moving along so we're really I just can't wait till opening day um the other piece um I want to mention there is the cave conference coming up right Carol so if board members have not yeah the convention um was it October no November so any board members that are able to attend I highly recommend it and um November 15th and hopefully we'll be hearing some really good news prior to the 15th so I'm gonna what town is it in uh M no
075it's the my Mystic Maria in all right it's down like exit 90 or something is the point so it's close to an at least an hour 15 probably close to an hour and a half Drive okay and it's a weekday Friday Friday until Saturday got it thank you and they usually have a very powerful opening ceremony which I've appreciated for the past couple years I don't know Mr GLE you've been to and Dr herin if you want to speak to any of the ones you've been to um but I think it's just good to kind of a network with the rest of other districts and then hear more on what the state has to say if you can make it please do so um and then just to the point of the chonic absentee question
076I I believe the state does have um a grant that if need be we can look into for engaging Learners um but I I also believe that we do a really good job in engaging Learners so which is why we have a high participation rate for our testing and so forth so just a thought for future um outside of that we have those meeting dates that we talked about um there is a motion here but I don't think we're doing that okay yeah no because we have it scheduled for September 23rd which will be our Boe Personnel committee meeting um at 6:30 and then we have the September 26 meeting joint meeting of the Boe and ngbc um location okay so the Board of Ed conference room on um on the 26th September 30th will
077be the joint meeting of the Boe and Town Council 700 p.m. right here in town council chambers and then we move into October already October 7th will be policy committee meeting where we're going to start talking about that cell phone policy um that will be held at 7M at the central office boardroom as well October 10th is the Board of Education open Forum meeting 7:30 here in town council chambers October 17th Board of Ed business meeting 7:30 here at Town council chambers and then last in October we have October 21st curriculum will meet at 7 p.m. at the central office boardroom um I'd say that going into October we do have rashash Shana off um for the students at least on October 3rd and um October 14th we have indigenous people inali American day um
078both schools and central office are closed and with that um Dr heran is there a motion to adjourn sure I move to adjourn anyone want to second that Mr grippo all in favor of adjournment unanimous we are fully adjourned thank you