001sure an harri here fth ham here Tony per [Music] thank to the flag of the United States of America and to theic for it stands one nation under God indivisible andice all right um first up is the review of the minutes from our September 11 2023 meetings um we've all had a chance to review them I don't see any addition dire so second uh any discussion seeing none all in favor and they pass um oh I so sorry um I jumped from item one do we have any public comment okay I'm so sorry f um okay new business um new legislation surprise uh we are raising the kindergarten starting age people so we are going to just have a review of what is involved and proposals U to address the new legislation and to accommodate
002it okay I'm sending the ground just a little onepage description of Public Act number 23-1 159 which speaks to raising the kindergarten starting age and what this legislation does is that it puts into effect beginning this coming July that in order to enroll a kindergarten student you must be the child must be 5 years old by September 1st or on or before September 1 1 of that school year so it says that if a child is not 5 years old on September 1st that they would have to make a written request to the principal and um to basically ask for early adition right and then from then it would be incumbent upon the principal and his or her team to pull together um a group that would conduct an assessment to determine if if kindergarten
003was developmentally appropriate for the student so that law goes into effect now which means it impacts us and that's why we have this dessert here tonight as the our childhood Early Childhood expert and we won't I won't lead into our our proposal yet but this this brings up a couple of couple of issues for us as as you might imagine um um the first is that the district needs to put a process in place so we need to make sure that families are aware that we would be that this legislation exists and would need to begin to um sorry they need to begin to plan so here is a letter that I'll give you a moment to read that was put on our website recently last week so we're in the process of getting the
004word out to people in the community that this law is going to impact their child if their child is not five by September 1st so the parent must make a written request to the school principal of requesting that early admission the principal then must pull a team together and conduct an assessment to determine if kindergarten is developmentally appropriate there is no one assessment has been recommended folks are struggling across the state with what to administer for an assessment because there isn't a one siiz fits-all kindergarten assessment to make that determination the other concern that this brings up is when we're welcoming families into the District we're making it we hope the very most positive experience that they could have coming in and we really are not wanting to be in the position of enforcing this
005law and starting off on the wrong foot with families by telling them that their child that kindergarten isn't developmentally appropriate for their child so no assessment has has been provided either from the state or from the office of Early Childhood districts have a choice on how to handle that assessment we are hopeful that the SD and the office of Early Childhood will be forthcoming with some guidance we are anticipating that they will be coming to us or sharing with us some of the research behind the law and while I know that many of our staff from the early intervention Center and birth to three and folks that we've had on staff over the years support this legislation in the idea that it you it is better for children to turn 5 years old before September
0061st the the um problem that we find with the law is that there was no time for families to plan so they have not PR planned and prepared for another year of preschool or another year of um daycare and that's an expense that we're we're worri we want to we want to help families find a solution here let me just so if we if they had instead of making it um effective this year and had delayed one year would we be had we wouldn't be having this probably probably not because if it was communicated people would have had an extra year to plan okay or if there was a threeyear phase in you know we're going to start you know 1st November 1st October 1st that kind of thing that would have made it a
007little less impactful but still the timing is challenging and I can just share just from talking with some families and even with the local preschools um we have a group of us that work and talk together a lot um some families would have held their child out when they were two and waited until they were like two in September not three before and only and given them two years of preschool versus the three years ofo so now if children were going adjust for like three-year-old program it's typically two years and now some families have to think oh wait it's a third year now so they would have started them later Kim pulled together a group of all of the local preschools and actually I think they met today yes and they were discussing this as
008well and some of the concerns from their end um I believe and this is not just cheser but elsewhere is spacing like where where do we put these children if we have another whole other class of kids that you know need need some support and Staffing must be an issue as well for these preschools it's tough it's mainly just their space you know they may have two three yearold programs and two four yearold programs but now with now keeping them in the year they may have to have three four-year-old programs and only one three-year-old program just because they never have SP that's just an example okay um can I ask how competitive those preschool programs are for people to get their children into um right now from just my conversations with many of them many
009of them were full in September so they had weight list and I know there's just a new one that just open up school many of our local preschools do that oh no I was wondering about our public yes the public ones those are the ones that to yeah so do we um as a service provide a list of area preschool okay so parents count we have full list of all of them because each one provides something different so we really encourage families to go talk to them look at them and it which make sense for them and so Marley when Mar and I were speaking um there were she said there are 66 potent students potentially right now based on what we know as opposed to people moving in so on average over the last
010five years we are are projecting that there are on average 60 students per year who fall into that category of being four years old between September 1st and January 1 or December 31st we have at Darcy there are 22 of our children that won't be able to go to kindergarten that are in our Darcy program right now based on so that's the legislation when did this legislation pass it was I think it was that wonderful oh yeah say beginning no no that's the those are the deadlines for us this um yeah okay if you want to move to the next one I can tell you what yeah so let's go um let's discuss the plan okay all right so I mentioned that um mentioned to you what all of the issues are so here is
011our proposal we acknowledge the fact that there are probably around 60 families out there who are going to be in this situation of not knowing of learning that they can't put their child into kindergarten this year or next year so what we were discussing is how we could meet their needs how can we support families who were relying on sending their children to kindergarten next year and we also recognize the financial impact of another year of daycare so we're asking for the board's consideration and feedback on the following proposal we would have planning for approximately 60 students we're we are proposing a transition program for one year only for only those students who are whose birthday falls between November 1st and January um September 1st and January 31st no July December December 31st oh my
012gosh housed at Darcy school we would re allocate one kindergarten teacher and one par educator per enrollment class we're estimating that the tuition could be about $5,500 500 in order to sort of Break Even parents would need to provide transportation students would that these students would then attend kindergarten the following year so this would be a transition to kindergarten program the curriculum would be based on the Connecticut El's standards and could be developed this year and then those teachers who would be in that classroom could attend the curriculum writing Institute to get up to speed and fine-tune what that curriculum looks like for next year this would be you know follow the school calendar so it would be roughly five days a week you know follow the regular school calendar so I'm interested to know
013what your what your thoughts are if there's other things that we should be considering um reactions that you might have to this or other things for for us to what's the busing situation for preschool um the preschool students do not take Transportation unless they have an individual education plan then we would provide transportations upon parent request otherwise they do um drop off and pickup so this this transition class would not be best part buing either so the the it's a solid beginning and a solid end this is not going to become a new program for the school we do not want it to be a new program this is our way of working with the community to offer a solution in this one year in between so that we can meet those families needs who
014this was a surprise for and didn't have you know enough time and what are you basing the $5,500 on we look roughly at the cost of a teacher and a par educator and we assume 18 children in a class that would get us to the cost that cost would not come to to the school district it would however go to the town all of our preschool programs tuition goes to the town and what is what is the threeyear old I'm sorry no go Tu threey old program four year old don't well I would say I mean it's more much it's more than that um it's less than that because it's only two or three hours a day so it could be three days a week it could be two days a week two hours a
015day well I should let you speak so the threey old program is either a three or four day week and it's two and a half hours and our four-year-old program um is either four or five days but it's still two and a half um our Smart Start program which is funded partially through our Smart Start grant that is based on a sliding scale because the purpose of that is to provide high quality education and preschool experiences for all children so we really look to try to get um children of all community so to give you an example in simsberry a 5 day 2 and a half hour program 5 days 2 and a half hours $5 5,190 in Bethany 5 days at three hours is 3,250 in lynfield 5 days at 3 hours is 2700
016and this would be 5 days would follow the school calendar the Darcy school day 9 until 3 or 3:20 um but that's what they do yeah so um I go back to the question that I um so the tuition will go to flow to the town does the is the town paying for the cost of the program no the district pays for the cost okay so we're going to add this is going to be born in our budget the 205 budget which we should be n zero because if we have 60 less students next year who are now ineligible to go to kindergarten they're not all going to come from one school so that makes it a little tricky that's why we would have to wait until the spring to determine exactly what the enrollment
017is but we believe that we'll be able to say reallocate the kindergarten teacher to move them to Darcy to teach the transition program and we've checked with the Connecticut State Department of Education certification Bureau and that is something that is allowable because of their certification okay so um we already then all right we're just reallocating one teacher and one par but we are anticipating this would be roughly could be three three classes could be three classes so but you have staff sufficient right now for two of the three and so that's why we're going to reallocate the kindergarten teacher or well the kindergarten teachers from across the district so if if this program were to be this program were to move forward we would put it out there who is interested in teaching the transition
018program next year we would be looking for a kindergarten teacher to move down to the preschool for one year okay and if we had enough enrollment for two classrooms we would then be looking for two students because it should sort of B it should sort of balance out if we have you know 20 less kids that's one classroom if you have 40 less kids and we need two classrooms that's two teachers okay so so you're thinking two classes which would only be 36 of these 60 students you're thinking there are a handful that will not want to send their kids their four year olds to P day we really don't know yeah that's that's hard so we'll get out Vin's crystal ball so if this were to if this a program that the Board of
019Education were to support then we would start talking to families we would have an information section and we could begin to talk to people about that to get a sense it conversely we could have a mad rush for this program it's only available to those students whose birthday fall within that time span but what if we have you we're seeing is we get all 60 and we're seeing this um influx people coming into town so we I I guess that's a possibility you know because of that kind of enrollment I guess that's a possibility the historical data again it's it's trending to an increase but that's our best number because I don't think that everyone will sign up for this no I I think those on the far end are thinking like it's going to
020be really young really young with all yeah right and some may stay at thec for their dayare do you think September is more usual among the states in the US yes I think we were one of four that it and we September for a while then moved it didn't we and um all right so I'm going to just ask some can we coll bit just say this is we only have space this much space and that's certainly a a consideration for sure cap at 60 or cap at 30 whatever we're able to staff 36 that's two classes two classes which we're able to balance I mean it might it would be worth considering and then um we think it it it's just got to be Revenue neutral I mean it a temporary program can't just
021wall up the budget and so so so we could cap it saying that we could we could um do just that cap it until it becomes not class neutral and that could be three classrooms if if we had that across the district yeah not likely but it could be yeah I mean just because this is assuming we have the staff on staff or the the Personnel on staff and um because to have to then hire someone for one year and then say bye-bye or which is not likely to happen we would then I'm sure we'd find a place that those would be my thoughts um so what are next steps that we're going to need to hear what potential legislative fixes might be coming in that not sure that there's any legislative fixes coming down
022the pipe but the next step if if you wanted to would be to could be to bring this to the full board so the full board could have input and you know have some consideration of these things decide if everyone wants to cap it at that cost neutral or how they want to proceed I think we should take it oh yeah no this isn't you with me deciding I'm sorry smart as smart as we are this not just for us okay yeah I clearly it has to go before the whole I mean you know by Thursday it could be yeah it could be by Thursday the only other thing and I don't know that we want to go there because again I don't think it makes sense to send it to finance to determine what
023the cost is I think you have everyone at the full board so discuss it as a full board you don't have to you don't have to make a decision necessarily but you can decide where you want to go from there yeah I I'm not going to be at this Thursday Bo meeting which means nothing I mean you can the other can you can discuss it and everybody has heard of it um but there it's at Thursday's meeting it's strictly for informational purposes we will not be taking any action we could it's on the agenda as possible action to take in okay so it really is up to the two of you if you are at a at a Readiness to say yes we think this is a good idea and should be brought up to
024the full board for consideration make a motion um to move the um transition program to the full board for for further discussion and consideration okay and um with the additions of a c enrollment and stipulation that it is budget controled that those would be M sure and very clearly just this one time one year yes he said expiration date or Sunset date well correct me from wrong I think that what you just said has to be should be part of the discussion that the whole board talks about well those are my points since I'm not going to be president those are my points that so I think we should talk about it if this is not a voting time anyway then if we're deciding right now that this is going to be for discussion not
025for a vote on Thursday then but they're going to get this and I wanted to I'll add the notes to it yeah add that okay all right um so moved that um the transition program the one year transition program be brought before the full board for consideration and discuss transition program to accommodate what is it kindergarten kindergarten starting age legislation okay what's it called raising raising kindergarten starting age um I'm G um we brought to the full board for consideration yes part discussion and consideration is that for just discussion I think you can say consideration because it gets discussed okay okay so Kevin ready move that one-year transition program to accommodate PA 23159 raising the starting age the kindergarten starting age be brought to the full board for consideration on Thursday October 15 that work
026you don't we'll but THS don't today the 60 do we have it oh yeah this is wrong yeah okay that's the agenda that's what's me [Music] out that's right okay I'm going to say it one more time um moved at the onee trans transition program to a candidate PA 23159 raising the kindergart starting age be brought to full board um for consideration at the next board meeting um do I have a second sure any more discussion um all in favor okay it um all right informational items smarter balast assessment growth data grades 4 through eight and do you want to just give some background why you're presenting yeah um so at our last Board of Education meeting one of our board members asked if um you could share I think a similar we um a
027similar overview of the data we had shared our achievement data and our achievement data relative to other towns in our dur and so I'm going to hand you now a chesher and dur B comparison of growth for our last administration of the smart bance assessment so what you're looking at is on the left hand side District's English language arts growth and on the right hand side is math and so this is and I'm going to talk about the way that the state looks at growth they look at it in in a what is called ACTA average percent of Target achieved and what that means is they look at each individual student and they calculate what percentage of their growth Target that child achieved in that year so the growth is calculated only for 4 through
028e8th graders the students take the test in third grade and get a baseline score then a growth Target is calculated from that Baseline score that they get so let's say that um an needed to get 100 points and Faith needed to get 75 points in order to reach the growth Target for the next year we would look at at those those scores when they you took it the following year and determine what percentage of your target you achieved and so that is done for every single student in grades four through week so the the state reports this out is actually public information and I pulled the information for like communities which is that J reference group and on the right hand side you have our ranking for math as far as growth Target ACH far
029as um percent of growth Target achieved and on the left you have Ela I will point out that the number of students tested can fluctu so for example the first town on the list tests about 350 students compared to our 1,43 something students that's just neither here nor there but it does give you a little bit of context so there these are different lists they're all the same towns they're just in rank order oh so there's it looks like there are more on the left no no they line 21 in each so um ring out of the um yeah she just said no um so down below they just district 15 we don't know which one's 15 and which one's five do we oh I think the first one is five the second one is
03015 apologize for that okay and so I noticed the math is a consider considerably higher number the not considerably is Five Points what's what's going on there is are they so different things they're I think what we what we've said for a while is that we needed to change our math resource we were not happy with big ideas that the teachers were not happy with it that was a struggle the um the rigor that we found through there needed to change and that was the part of the impetus as to why we moved away from that resource and towards I ready so we believe that that will change because we think that the students who are using that book will score that resource will will certainly score and be more prepared for rigorous content after
031this year or after years with that resource okay because this remember is students in grades three through eight combined or four through eight four through eight and what is our Ela program like I don't have an idea Big Ideas to I what is the ELA so we we think back to some of those um ala presentations where we talked about all of the different books that they're reading and it's all independent and student Choice based and we've talked about how they read the junior Greek books we've talked about um we've had Kristen Shanley here to talk a little bit about some of the book clubs they're reading um Pat Castle has been here to talk about that science of reading so to speak so all we don't have a canned program to that we have
032a homegrown reading and writing program that has been pretty firmly established sort of gets back to one of our previous conversations yeah okay so just help me make sure that I'm reading this correctly because um so we're saying that 68 69% of our 438 students achieve their Ela growth Target yes no no no sorry that that students are achieving 68% so I'm thinking there's there's two ways that we look at growth one of those ways is to look at what percent of your target did you achieve okay so when we look at all of those students some have achieved 100% of the target tget some have achieved less than 100% of the target this is giving you an overall of great score through to say it another way on average students in the LA meet
033it 69% of the way there to their target and on average in math they 73% okay which goes back to my question before so our number it's a higher we our kids are getting more are are hitting 73% of their M but we had a deficiency in our Middle School curriculum so is it that the elementary kids are doing exceptionally well with their growth Target and we were missing the Mark is that what this number is saying parliamentary students have done well okay they have not gotten the same they haven't got the the APTA at the elementary schools has been higher at the middle than the Middle School okay so we could okay then all right then you are expecting hoping that that this number will go even higher we are so then I mean
034and clearly you know we we're doing well um what is the assessment of our 68 or 69% our are you all satisfied and I I don't mean this this you know like snarky but are you satisfied with that do you have a goal in mind is there and what's happening if it's not we would like to get back to our prepandemic levels for achievement we are her we we were pretty close well I can't tell you off the top of my head but in each grade level we are looking to beat where we were prior to the pmic so that is in in every area so we look at third fourth and six seventh and eighth grade and so all of our um building principles have goals set to get back there which means all
035of the teachers have goals set to make sure that we get there so everyone is pretty clearly focused on growth for next year and we believe that growth brings you know the academic achievement so we should see an increase in both okay so it's interesting to me that the numbers are lower in pla the percentages are lower I mean the whole scale than the math I will also share that um Kevin and I were talking earlier before the meeting and we can see that in Connecticut that chesher is outpacing the growth for the state so while the rest of the state has sort of dipped in growth we have gone up for this year you can already see that we see it for I'm sorry for last last results and we just and we had
036those results um last meeting yes which we then presented right those were our achievement scor right these are our growth scores but the growth scores were included in this they I did not include any growth data in the presentation that I gave you in September so then this was this was asked for the growth data specifically and Jeff had also shared um some grow data at that meeting putting us in you the top in the state top yeah I know it's a different it's a different way of looking at the data and I think it was a game Cher a number of years ago when it came out because it's one thing to look at the district and your class as whether or not they met the Benchmark right yes or no did you meet
037The Benchmark but it's a whole other thing to look at your individual class and to see how much growth every single student made and then to look and see for those students who maybe didn't make the Gams how would you when you reflect on teaching or things that you did or we look at the curriculum what could you change in order to make sure that that student reached that so we're able to look at it from You Know A District perspective and look at schools and look at students and look at subgroups of students so we can look at our special education students free and reduced lunch um multilingual Learners well uh ethnicity and for me that's gender that's the formative part of this assessment is that we can so where do we go from
038here and we know exactly which students we need to Target with what I mean for me that's that's the good reason for this kind of growth assessment rather than just achievement assessment and it's it's kind of great to see um this data is calculated by the state but individual teachers will get this information they know what the child's broke data was supposed to be so they start doing their own calculation to look at where their students landed you know months before this officially comes out and then how do interventions for specific students work in do they work from this this is a piece of it this is a piece of it when we get this information over the summer we're able to look at how students did we're looking we're looking at sometimes at placement
039um Kevin and the team at the middle school look at it for sometimes looking at placement we look at it through our scientific research based um interventions srbi that's a piece that's taken into consideration what that scientific research based intervention so I'm trying to anticipate some of um Sam rosenberg's questions because I know this is a huge um issue for her um is it possible to just get two more layers and that would be Elementary versus Middle School growth and then sped versus General absolutely thank you yeah okay now I appreciate this anything else you [Music] UL no I think um this helps do you have no and this is on the agenda also for Thursday night good okay all right um well this this a speedy meeting um better to do it this way
040yeah all right um well there's nothing more on the agenda so um if you want to make a motion or I move to move second and all in favor very good thank you