001we have a roll call sure Tony paragini and Harrison here Faith him here you have a foreign welcome everybody do we have any um public comment let's go nothing okay um first order of business is a review of the minutes of the March 13 2023 meeting um we've all received them and a chance to review them and any comments I have nothing okay who has done his usual fine job that's right um so I need to accept minutes discussion none okay all in favor great all right um new business so um we'll start with new platform for Student Success plans via School link yes so we've invited our guidance director Michelle katusi School counseling director to come tonight to talk to all of us about a new program called School links our new platform called
002School links we have the opportunity to be on a significant call today uh with that with that vendor and Michelle has really done an exceptional job of um not only looking at our current platform of Naviance but really working with all stakeholders who in any way in our district are attached to navias and looking for a better solution that you may or may not know that Naviance used to be the only game in town when it came to Student Success plans and college application process Etc and so Michelle is here today to tell you all about her findings and to inform and ask questions and let us ask questions about schooling yes um so we currently still are using Naviance and we have our contract active with that through February of 2024 but knowing that
003all changes take time especially with something like this that is impacting so many students um really wanted to start the research to find the right platform for Cheshire with plenty of time to to make that work so started the research process formally right at the beginning of this school year in September um and the reason why you went through the research process we've had Naviance in District for I want to say about 12 years give or take it was here before I came here seven years ago and as Marlene stated it really was the only game in town as an electronic College and Career Readiness platform that really meshed well with the Student Success plan initiative from the state of Connecticut saying that we have to house these things electronically and this was kind of
004just the way every school district in Connecticut was doing it that could afford to have Naviance in their school district because there's a cost associated with it in that time they've made some upgrades and changes that have been great but they've also made some upgrades and changes that haven't been so great um and for Cheshire Public Schools last year we experienced an outage from November 1st to mid-January in Naviance yes that was our district specific it wasn't around the country it had to do with um really you know nitty-gritty data stuff that with our student ID numbers that students duplicate accounts were created for every student so when the students would log in they'd see the raw like they'd see their account but it wasn't their account with all their information that was stored from
005sixth grade on in it um and Scott Conway and Tom liwak and myself Richard Lennon one of us was on the phone with fabians every day trying to fix the problem and it took two and a half months for them to fix it um with very little offering on their end as far as like this can be it's not going to happen again and we've like we know what the problem is it was back in November and January that I was like perhaps when this contract expense we do need to look at what else is out there so informally was just asking other districts within Dirks A and B what they were using um asking around the state working what wasn't and so investigated School links which is the platform that um I feel is
006the best fit for our district and I'll talk about that research problem part as well but also looked at score s-c-o-i-r and Zello x-e-l-l-o I don't know why they all have such difficult names um but those are the most commonly used platforms um in school districts similar to Cheshire um and schooling actually seems to be the way a lot of us are leaning towards because of what they can offer and because of the cost so in addition to the usage problem with Naviance um some of its limitations it is very geared towards four-year college students which is great that is a high number of of our student population and has been historically but for those students who want more information on just career or on two-year schools it's just not as strong in that area
007and that's something that we've expressed them I know other districts have expressed to them and they still haven't really upped their game and now there are these other companies that see it as an end of how they can compete a little bit um to offer more of that information so that was one evaluating platforms wanted something that was a bit more comprehensive um wanted something that still was usable for students in grades 6 through 12 since that's where we are using it currently in Cheshire public schools and that there was enough um career exploration tools and things like that in there that they weren't being redundant over time that it matched um you know like reading levels among the different grades because some of the things in Naviance are a little too um challenging I
008think for some of our younger students in the the middle school and in sixth grade um to really access and understand um and then we wanted something that was a little like like spicier that the you know the students would be more engaged in because right now they truly are only going in when they're directed by um a a counselor or our business department actually uses it quite a bit as well at the high school so unless they're teacher directed they're not going in on their own so we wanted to find something that would be more engaging for students um so when schoolings came around it almost felt like one of those things that was too good to be true like every presentation we had from them was great everything we wanted um they said
009they could provide um and so I was impressed with it at first and then brought in a larger group um so had our some of our middle school counselors um the whole High School counseling staff our administrative assistants that work with Naviance had them in on the call had Leslie payer and Sean McEwen from the business and CTE departments at the high school look at it because there's a lot of components that could work well for their departments as well um administration had Tom Lee walk come and sit down the calls from a data perspective because the computer stuff I definitely wanted to make sure that they're speaking the same language um and really The Impressions from everyone with it was I see we're not losing anything I only see that we're gaining benefits everything
010that Naviance has been doing for as well because they don't do everything wrong right um that School links will continue to do so one of the main things that we use in advance for at the high school level is to communicate with colleges and send the college application materials transcripts letters of recommendation um doing the College and Career research so students are informed about what they want to do as a career and then what training and preparation they would need to go there everything in School links is comparable or better in my opinion even from the career piece and I'm stealing this phrasing from um there the rep that I worked with there his name is Sean Murphy he says it's like Tick Tock versus Facebook both are great but the kids want to see
011The Tick Tock right so a lot of the career information is in those 90-second clips of someone who does that job he showed us an example of a female pilot and so in 90 seconds she was able to say what she does and it was really engaging and then they could flip to the next one and see it which is how our students are used to taking in information now um it still allows a lot of flexibility for it to be like chesterized so we can create what we want our students success plan format to look like in there so that if they haven't done this since they started the Student Success plans but if the state audit audited us and said I want to see a student's success plan that we could actually print
012a document that has all of it listed in one place through School links whereas now we'd have to say Okay well they've done that like we have kind of like check boxes that we are tracking it with our students and making sure that they're all Meeting those requirements or um the requirements of the Student Success plan but it's not like a document so this would give us that capability as well um another great highlight and I see it's on the agenda later but I'm thinking about with the school Business Partnership Naviance um is really um just people that are in-house so it is just our current students again grade six through 12 and our current staff once students are alumni um the accounts go away because we're paying kind of per student with Naviance um
013and Community Partners can't really put anything in there we can put stuff in like they can't interact at all um with our permission of course School links expands that our alumni will always have access to it so they can go back in and look at some of those career inventories they can update their information in there so we can stay in touch with them get email addresses so we can ask them questions later um about you know their experiences in Central Public Schools which I know we've actually tried to do a few times in the last few years is to get in touch with our alumni and then Community Partners again in information where I'm putting and people were giving access um could also put opportunities in there so as we build collaborations with local
014businesses for um you know work based learning or apprenticeships um internships that we can actually house all of that in one space so that our Community Partners and our school district our students our families can all kind of have this central location of interacting with one another that we know is in our controlled safe Cheshire Public Schools environment um so I'm very excited about moving forward with it um in addition to that it is actually less expensive than Naviance so it is also a cost savings to the district which is nice um and um our goal um so right now we did our kickoff meeting today um I was able to find some money within the existing budget for us to be able to um get schoolings up and running now so that when our
015Naviance contract expires in February 2024 that will have been in this system our students will be in the system we can start using it so we don't have to ever worry about there being a period of time where we don't have one of these Platforms in place um so that kickoff meeting today was trying to to get the timeline going of how the data transfer would work um and hopefully with the goal of having our seniors be able to use it starting their college application process for the class of 2024 start in the fall of 2023. so um and that doesn't seem like a unreasonable goal based on how the kickoff call went today which is good um there was one more thing I was going to say about it I'm not going to remember
016it'll come to me any I guess questions I was pretty thorough yeah wow I have a whole if you want to see videos and a whole presentation that I put together but I'm actually I'm very excited about it and just based on so many conversations that we've had I think even just the school year alone about kind of like the the district Vision I feel like this will put us um in a very good direction to achieve that with One Singular system whereas so that was the other piece I was gonna say so Naviance because of where it was lacking we were supplementing with other things anyway so now we'll be able to really streamline into one system a Naviance parent s that was fun um so is security what measures what it what can
017you touch on that what is yes so is vis-a-b also an Ambiance yes so um that was actually one of the things and it was it was really nice to have Tom Lee walk involved from the beginning all of the the data sharing and data usage agreements that need to be signed they were willing to sign and that all cleared um before we even like went through the process of saying is this something that we want to um move forward with but everything all the data is encrypted they use the clever system which we're using for other systems um within the district so um the same security that's that's there will be there unless a student would give their alumni password to um someone when they're an Alum that would be the only way they
018could see their their student information but they'd only see it for that account they wouldn't see it for any other students so everything will be um the only other person that could use student account would be their parent that was linked to their account and it all talks through our PowerSchool sis system so um it would have to be someone that's connected to that student in our power school system as well and you said um you'll be ready you'll have the kids the seniors uploaded and ready to go for February 2023 so we'll have one year uh um fuel systems so yeah so we'll have about um it'll end up like half a year so um all seniors will start in this uh this August August of 2023. okay um with the system and then
019we don't have the full planned rollout yet but the the goal is to have as many students using that system this year using School links 2023-2024 so that when we do lose our Naviance access that no data is lost okay anything that students have done that's the other I think the other point I was going to make anything that students have done in Naviance um School links does have a way to transfer that information over so like favorite colleges that a student has saved or something like that favor careers and then one of the concerns um we all had so one of the really cool things that Naviance does is has this scattergram that houses all of our historical College acceptance data um where a student could go into a graph for University of Rhode
020Island and say with this GPA and this SAT score um this is my likelihood of getting in it's it plots out all the points if it was accepted wait listed denied um that data is our data because it's housed in Naviance on our students so part of the transfer of data will be transferring our historical data to the scattergram exists in a way in School links as well that we will still have access to that historical acceptance data for our students which was I think maybe one of the most important things that we wanted to be able to keep yeah yeah and who um who owns schoolings so they are like an independent company School links is the company um Naviance is currently owned by power school so um and that was a recent acquisition
021but school and says their own independent company right now and we'll it's so but there's no problem interfacing um School links with power with PowerSchool no and are they looking to develop their own kind of power school I just I don't think so I think they want to really stay on the career reading College platform side of things okay and then um we can put our own you know last year you were here and you gave us that great career um directory inventory we can put all of that in and are we going to be looking to do those 90-second um local uh profiles yeah that's a great question so we do have the ability to upload our own information into it as well there is a whole course planner um portion of School links
022that we said maybe is a year too of all for us as we are putting information in there but it can track my graduation requirements do course planning um and we can upload like our courses and and stuff into there so students could see um and then the other videos I believe that like once the um Community Partners are in there that they we can be as interactive with that as we want to be it could be listings of information or we could be doing videos and things like that okay okay how much is the savings it is I have my phone out because I have it right here so um using Naviance and then pathful is our supplemental program that does a little bit more of the College and Career planning um is 17
023589 for a year and um with School links our first year which is really 15 months um with the startup fees and everything is 14 445 but then after that it'll be 8 000 um a year yeah eight thousand seven hundred and sixty dollars so a significance savings and that is that was another thing I had to say um so I didn't have the PowerPoint for me so I forget right now because Cheshire high school and humiston are two separate schools in power school the way that Naviance like interfaces with them um they have to operate as two separate schools and this experience of the hummus and students are getting is not the same experience that our Cheshire high school students are getting it doesn't have that historical data in there because we there's just
024not as many students at the at humiston um they have some issues with some of the inventories access to scholarships and not that they can't do those things but they have to like it needs a lot of hand-holding for them to see all of the information um the way schooling's platform is all of those students are are in the same school and have access to the same information which is just an equity piece that we identified a long time ago that Naviance just couldn't fix for us without us giving them more money was frustrating but so that is another um nice piece okay and it's easy to use it is it's very user friendly very intuitive I think as adults learning any new system is always harder I think our kids are gonna grasp onto
025it very quickly it almost has more of like a social media platform feel um where you know on your your left hand side is kind of like a an ongoing like feed like Twitter kind of thing you know and then there's your search bar and you have your own account and you make your profile um so it's very intuitive to use but from the teacher's side doesn't look um it still looks very user friendly and Naviance is not right now so I think teachers will actually like it better once they're trained on it did the students do it on their Chromebooks or on their problems yeah yeah they say either or yeah both so they can get yes yeah I congratulations good work thank you yeah once we have stuff in there I'll have to
026show you what it looks like with our our live students so or we would love to welcome you back from that really always happy to do excellent job in all of the research and the way you planned this out it was really well done thank you thanks for coming tonight my pleasure thank you thank you thanks well have a good night you too um all right next is Peck Jones Grant woodquest and I think this will be um so we haven't requested any of the pet Jones um since 2020 and the reason for that was really we were feeling that we had everything we needed through those Esser funds and that things were going well as you've heard Kevin and I talk about at these meetings previously throughout this year we've been talking a lot
027about the reading materials in the primary grades and in the Elementary grades and our desire to really scale back from any of those subscriptions that we had for digital reading materials that we were really needed during covid and to move into print materials and there's a couple reasons for that one is the one that we all know right in in 2020 when the schools were closed we sent so much home with students and we didn't get it all back which is understandable and then in some cases things were so worn out that it was time for a replacement it got worn out a little more being home for the spring and the summer so we needed to we need to revitalize those the other piece to this is you know we've been going through um
028all of the um really self-assessment due to writing the waiver for the right to read act and we acknowledge as part of our plan that we need a significant number of decodable texts for our kindergarten and first grade readers so our um our elementary Reading specialist put together a list it's about a 14 page list of all of those decodable titles so looking for dinosaur Lily wants to fly you know seasons of trees we love to swim me and my dog I'm giving you some examples right of all the many many titles that we will be purchasing in order to really replenish and upgrade our kindergarten and first grade libraries these are the classroom libraries these are the books that the teachers use on a daily basis for kids to read that they're selecting and
029putting in their book bins these are the the things that are going home with students every night that they're getting extra practice at home and the cost to do this would be about twenty two thousand dollars so what we're looking for is your approval to move this forward to the full Board of Education so that we could request these funds from the town and we would need to spend this money prior to June 30th that way we would get these materials in-house over the summer and we could label them based on reading level and get them into all of the schools for when the teachers return in late August oh so I'm a little confused is this K-12 or is this kindergarten or first grade it should be kindergarten and first grade sorry about that
030I'll update that for Thursday and down at the bottom yep just the first kindergarten in grade so the 22 is going to cover just the decodable text but or also other tells okay both and what we did or what I should say Pat did was she worked with the classroom teachers in all kindergarten classrooms and all first grade classrooms didn't inventory of what we had went into our closets went into our storage areas and really tried to find out exactly what we currently own and then filled in a number of spreadsheets to figure out specifically what was needed so these are tailored to specifically what every classroom here needs and so when when this is complete these these two grade levels will be up and running and we can move on to second and third
031grade that was my next question is so are they more in need at the K1 level because that's where they're we prioritize something really happens yeah okay I don't think it's a bad thing that books got worn because they were home and being used right if they ever came back at all that's why I said it wasn't anything we didn't expect and we have to do this from time to time you know okay I don't have an objection yeah um so I put together we move that I uh move that we approve or request for Peck Jones grant funding in the amount of twenty two thousand dollars for purchase of uh classroom books or kindergarten grade one okay will that work um so let's do that again okay thanks I need to have a another
032question were there since we haven't done the peck Jones for a long time were there other things sort of on the list that got sort of put aside are there no I talked with vin I talked with Jeff I talked with our elementary folks I I this is the as you say in the in the scheme of things this is at the top of the pyramid for what we're looking for we really want to make sure that through all of this that our kids have to write books in their hands to be able to grow a reader as readers in the in the youngest grades do we feel like we got a lot of things covered from the pandemic with the Esser funds and things like that I think it was very helpful I mean
033a lot of that we spent in training a lot of that we invested in our own in our own people so because we've used five Jones for that in the past we did use Peck Jones funds for some reading material in the past we've also used it for band uniforms when we needed band uniforms at the high school we've used it for instruments K-12 depending on where they needed and we replaced music instruments across the district so we've we've always used it for really where in that Niche area we've needed it before we went one to one we used it for Chromebooks okay it's a yeah can it's it's really an interesting font and it can be used for some really unusual things and um I guess the the reasoning behind it and the the
034benefit of it is that it it can be used for things that don't fit into easily identified categories right now this is an easily identifiable category but I think you know faith and I have talked about um the budget and the instructional has really stayed the same and and had a zero percent increase for for a while now and ideally I would love to come to you at our next meeting and say this is how much money we would like for second and third grade libraries and that we could then begin to spend another chunk of money on those hopefully for next year oh I know what my other question is so because we haven't used the funds for a couple of years do we have more to spend or how does that happen it's
035in an account that is um I believe and don't quote me on this but I will have the information for Thursday because we call across you know across the street to figure out how much money we have available and so they let us draw down a percentage each year so there is a finite amount of money in there that we will eventually expect okay but it is it's receiving it's like a endowment right it receives interest interest so it keeps building up yeah and then we can only use a percentage right right and it has been building up right despite all of the ups and downs of the market as far as we know as far as we know okay it's probably in a safer yeah investment area okay more yeah no you're okay I
036just needed to remind myself what tech jobs okay so we have a motion that um we would approve a request from the um of Peck Jones grant funding in the amount of twenty two thousand dollars for purchase of books and texts for the uh K1 K through first grade libraries um all those in favor post yeah okay thank you I'll see that again on Thursday yes all right and then um item three is uh teen teaching proposal yeah so this is um sort of an interesting conversation that's that we've been having and I know many other districts around the state have been having this conversation as well and that is about um how will we address teacher recruitment and retention and so there was an article that you may have seen in the record Journal
037I think it was yesterday and it highlighted some of the things that Waterbury was doing because Waterbury was short I think 200 teachers to start the school year now we have not been in thankfully that situation because we are able to fill positions that we have it continues to be more difficult to fill special education positions um some some mental health counseling positions for ours our special areas um and and it's been a significant challenge to fill our para educator positions so folks have been brainstorming ways knowing that that is on the horizon and also the problem that we and Cheshire have been trying to address is collaboration and planning time specifically for elementary teachers and so there have been a couple of ideas that have been coming down the pike and I thought I'd
038share a few of those with you tonight um I know that the agenda says proposal but this is much less a proposal and more of an informational um sharing of some things that we've been talking about in District and so one of those ideas that was um was discussed by administrators and some teachers is the idea of combining two classrooms with two teachers and a para educator in which there would be a four day work week so that they would teachers would work a full week within four days in those weeks that we we have five day work weeks so there are some pros and and cons to that and would certainly need additional vetting we would want to look at the educational benefits to students we would want to really talk about the scalability
039of this but we know that it is attractive to teachers we know that teacher burnout across the state is real and we're looking to see what are some innovative ways that we can get teachers that collaboration time because we know that when two teachers are coming together for planning and co-teaching that two teachers are are able to really produce some some magic together and are able to be able to meet some of the intervention needs of students of course we were bringing it this could not happen unless parents were included and opted into that kind of a team teaching model some other ideas that have been brought forward include something that they're doing in Waterbury which is offering graduate course work through a partnership with a local University in which the um the teachers would
040not pay for The Graduate coursework they would be able to take it in-house and the benefit would be that they could gain degrees you know that they could further their education and then on the upside also receive pay according to the salary salary increase according to their degrees earned another one that was shared by some of our teachers was providing child care so some type of district-wide child care opportunity so that it was on the same schedule as as the schools for like professional development days and Vacations so I think there's more to come on this but I did want to let you know that this was something that we were thinking about and something that is in the works and we'll have more to come on a solution that we might be zeroing in
041on any feedback um yeah I think um it's Innovative and it's going to be controversial so um so I like it because I know I know that things are moving this way but I'm also anticipating the um the pushback so so I'm glad you're taking it slow and steady and putting what needs to be done behind it the other thought that I have along those lines is um um starting with really seasoned teachers um yes that know how to collaborate that know how to team teach already [Music] letting them do their thing yeah I think it's really interesting and the other question the third question I asked no keep going that's fine um when you talked about the Waterbury schools and getting the Masters is that unlike what we we do at Quinnipiac University students
042are doing this is offering that to your current teachers so let's say a teacher with a bachelor's degree who needs to get their master's degree it doesn't have it yet right or someone who is looking to get a sixth year or get an administrative degree I think there's certainly opportunities there I don't know with our current Staffing how much of um how much interest there would be so that we would certainly need to you know do further explore that it was certainly working for Waterbury where they were taking in the lineup yeah new I'm wondering though if we we have a lot of them we do if we do we have a lot of their seasoned and academically proficient are advanced degree candidates I mean we've already discuss this a little bit but my concerns
043are the same as yours and that is that um you know I not a concern obviously I mean I'm all for Innovation and and we've got to be open to it um as it as these problems come at us but um you know I think we need to emphasize that it's going to be the same number of hours worked uh not just because you don't have the same number of days they will be filling those hours as um required by the contract um I guess you know would the contract allow this also uh so I think that's why it's so important to make sure that the union is included that your parents are included yeah your teachers your your principals are included make sure there's a common understanding and you know you've got the parents
044obviously but also getting the someone a lot of the pushback is going to be from also from non-parents from taxpayers who are saying oh wait a minute come on and and get them again as you discuss that get them involved in that conversation as well um and then you know how to sell it and you know not necessarily being done anywhere else so you've got to find a similar similarly Innovative controversial program and how the dis that particular District held it yeah yeah who else is doing where some of this we can't find anyone else who's doing this we found a lot of districts who are doing a four-day Work Week where kids and teachers are only working four days and they've done that due to budget constraints due to Transportation costs Etc you know
045um I I think a lot about when Jeff had proposed hiring our high school students to be substitutes during covid and that was certainly an Innovative idea and some may say it was controversial you know how are you going to put high school students in front of a class and it really worked out incredibly well we had such an outpouring of support from our our graduates who were home or taking classes online because their own programs shut down and I think in large part it really is what saved us and enabled us to stay open for all that year so yeah there's a lot to consider well we've got to keep doing stuff and we've got to keep trying yeah put new things together because we're losing teachers right right and then I think our
046pool our candidate pools are getting we've seen them get smaller [Music] yeah we talked about that the other night so we're we're doing a lot to sort of talk about our recruitment we've got Mike's helping with a couple of videos too that we could use at recruitment fairs you know talking a lot about of course our health and wellness initiatives that have been recently recognized so a lot a lot of irons in the fire and lots of things we're trying to do to keep Innovative and to continue to be a play continue I just want to emphasize that be a place where people want to work and where people want to send their children I'm really glad you're thinking of new and Innovative things yep um okay keep us posted also on other ideas that
047come up sure okay uh moving on to Old business update on our new format for the School of Business Partnership yes and I'm going to invite Dr um Reed to chime in here because she was also present at the meeting of the school Business Partnership that was held right before break on April 6th um a group of community members and and School District employees met in this room and the focus was really on the trades so we had quite a quite a group here together and I'll thank both Jeff Solon and Andrew Martelli for bringing the particular group together yet auger from the Chamber of Commerce was here Doug Johnson from Marion manufacturing Mr riccio who's a general contractor who you may know Mr Bowman was here Jason vayanese from Richard Chevy was here and
048Maureen I can't necessarily remember all the others who sat across the table so if you're thinking of anyone that I missed please I don't you got quite a few of them okay so Maureen was here was Ben and I we had Leslie pair from the business department we had Sean McEwen who is the department chair for career and Technology education Michelle katusi who is the school counseling director was here as well um Steve trafone our athletic director so there was Lindsay D'Angelo the new school Lindsey tangel who you all have met but she was on maternity leave for a little while and she runs the College and Career Center up at the high school as a as like a bit of an aside Lindsay had just hosted a trade panel for students which is a
049spin on the old career day so that it's targeted to a certain group of students and students can elect to be there so they really want to be there and want to hear what folks are saying and it was a it was a great group and this was almost a continuation of some of that discussion so we started out by talking about um how we want to prepare students for for College and Career that they they need to be prepared for both and about the wide variety of opportunities that students have and students aren't always seeking a four-year college degree and I know we've had this conversation for a number of years but it was important to bring both school and Community together because we're doing so much in the schools to promote this both
050with the work that Lindsey D'Angelo has done you've heard from Michelle katusi on more than one occasion the board has supported the work that the district is doing around the dual enrollment program in manufacturing so more than anyone I'm I'm aware of we have taken and supported from every aspect of the board and and in the school day-to-day workings uh kids who want to do something besides college and so the conversation that ensued with that school Business Partnership committee was really interesting because we heard from each of um each of the community members about their struggles to hire people right so we heard about from Jason Viennese how he is trying to get technicians to work on cars and how significant that is and he also talked about the salaries that are paid out for
051those jobs then we heard from Mr Ricky Ricky as the general contractor and what he sees and the architectural firms that he works with and um and how how students need to know both both sides of the business and how difficult it is to get contractors to come out to get Tradesmen to get plumbers and electricians and HVAC technicians into these jobs and then we also heard from Doug Johnson obviously from Marion manufacturing talk about the potential salary earnings and he threw around the all of them throw around some numbers about you know 26 year olds making over 123 thousand dollars and about kids who without college degrees you know in their 20s making ninety three thousand dollars so I felt like we all were asking for and all wanting the same thing and here
052we are we're targeting students the counselors are having these conversations with students we're offering those courses but you look at at Sean mcewen's manufacturing course and there's not enough students signed up to run it so we have all this Machinery all this technology we've put in all this effort we have these this machinery and we don't have the students to take the classes so while it's true that we do a really good job of making sure in middle school that were were identifying the students who should go to welcome and encouraging that we've got maybe 25 who go to Wilcox and 13 who go to voag and you know a few more who go to EAC for a total of about 45 students who who were finding Pathways for that meet them Cheshire Public Schools
053is never going to be a Wilcox and we're not we don't have a voad program but what can we do and so we really came to and Maureen you tell them wrong but the parents are the folks who need to hear some of these individual stories about Pathways and how successful students can be back in the late 90s it was all about college and we needed to get every kid into college and that's when Naviance became so in cellular right and um and now you've seen the pendulum swing it's been what we've all been saying for a while we need to educate parents about the other options we've done a wonderful job educating folks about about college and college is no longer the only way to a successful career path and so the group was
054really a one I think engaged in a wonderful brainstorm about how we might do that and they talked a lot about video clips because we're already doing Shadows we're already doing internships and this community is ready to embrace more students for shadows and more students for internships but we talked about and I think started a conversation about how can some of these community members maybe come to our Middle School open house and be there to have conversations with parents so that we can educate our community about the other options that are there and then what I thought was incredibly poignant was the individual stories that people told who are sitting in this room a lot from the educator side about how they had a fear of if their child didn't go to college and might
055have been resistant and then once they sort of let go and and saw that that path was a good one how successful it was for their child most importantly how happy their child was but because they were doing something that they loved they are successful in that path and I and it was I would say pretty emotional um to to hear those individual stories from the group so anything that you'd like to add on I think you covered it all one other piece I think is um Jeff talked about with these companies and maybe in the summer they could open up some time to have some middle school students come in and and kind of tour and see what happens there because I'm not sure that that shattering is happening maybe some high school students
056but opening it up to the middle school so that's the only other piece I can remember that was yeah and two at a time seem to be reasonable for the people because I could keep my eye on too we could probably finish it a time so it was um I think it was a very productive conversation I think it was a conversation that we needed to have and I think now we've identified a potential goal post that that we need to get to so I wanted to make sure that we shared what that meeting was like because it was definitely a different format and I think you'll see some good things to come out of it and Dr Reed and I can certainly share as we attend more of these and bring that back to
057the group um do you have any questions so you know I can remember when we went to the um cave meeting at the first yeah and you and I were talking and saying talking about the pendulum swinging and you're going education tends to have these wide swings in the pendulum you know in in so you know my um you know I I guess that's the caution is that we don't go crazy on the other side too that we like to stay we just kind of you know like those little clacker balls yeah kind of thing but um um it's Pace me that wonders if trying to win parents over in middle school is almost too late you know I mean this is uh every parent of a kindergarten starts thinking where's my kid going to
058go to college um and so it's ingrained it and I we had mentioned the possibility do we get the PTA involved in this also that it isn't there isn't a stigma um that is developed in even at the elementary that it doesn't have a chance to develop that we see College and Career as really it's not like the European track system or the the Singaporean track System since Jeff is over there I mean they do they they you take your test and you're either going here or there and don't ever try to to jump um so I think somehow we have got start changing people's minds even perhaps even earlier than the middle school so yeah I think that's a point well taken I think the other thing that um that came out oh I
059just lost my train of thought because I'm thinking about what Michelle said before about her video clips and I'm thinking about how School links that starts in the elementary school and how if we use some of those with our own Community people you know that would could hook kids too that um oh I know where that is I drive by that all the time you know it's a neighborhood thing it's a community thing and that would start to expose students but certainly parents would have that option but yeah I think that's a point well taken faith and then I guess the other thing um and I don't know how to how to deal with this um I I think we're all concerned about where are kids that where our kids are going and we talk
060about the salaries that they're going to make and do we put too much emphasis on that and are we ignoring a human side to education and I don't know how to fix it I don't because it is I mean we're all talking my kids making six figures a year and I societal right it is societal and bigger than town it's cultural um and you know I think how do we um temper that a little bit and like just a thought um and I'm not sure what these guys anyone would say about it but it's just something that kind of jumped out well I think one of the things that came out in the meant to addressing that faith is having some of these owners who have these graduates working for them they mentioned the salary
061but they also mentioned that these kids are being leaders they're truly six-year-olds and they're showing leadership and so you know a success path right which brings contentment and enjoy to the workers so there's a piece of that too it wasn't just all about salary so I just okay to make sure you know yeah okay just some thoughts the ruminations of an old lady all right um okay if you're ready to move on yeah okay um and then update on the March 17th professional oh that was the big St Patrick's Day party well with that introduction I guess I'll start off by saying that Kevin Hanlon won for one the coffee Wars he got the most votes for would you like to describe what your which is nice baby it was uh I think I kind
062of won by there were a couple I that got split votes by Marlene and Ryan Murphy and and Jeff was playing a long game but we only voted on the morning so that was he was going to Diet Coke around so but it did set the whole thing did set up um welcoming Justice yeah really having the whole District together which I think we've shared in this meeting only tends to happen at times like convocation so this was kind of a big event for all of us to coffee Wars was a good way to kick it awesome I'm happy that I've taken home the prize of winning the coffee doors share your recipe um absolutely no it was it was just iced coffee okay well what's special though well you ordered it from somewhere right
063yeah I can't remember where though yeah he had a Little Help from Rachel de vile DARPA it was it's all good so good buff with that um and then we had 19 sessions and I guess the the big takeaway from that was the feedback that we all got from the teachers and not only the anecdotal feedback but the survey results um were pretty incredible and something was it 96 of the staff said that they walked away with a with a takeaway and felt positively about their experience so it was I think pretty pretty significant and all of the things that people took away actually tomorrow will be sending out an email to the staff because in their survey they had to write a note to themselves that we told them we were going to send
064the Tuesday after break with something that they didn't want to forget that they wanted to remember um to consider and this is actually a strategy from a book that many of us are reading called building thinking classrooms it's building thinking classrooms and Mathematics but it's really not just about mathematics it's by a gentleman called Peter liladal and Mary and I had the opportunity to go to one of his workshops along with some of our other math leaders and and Kevin as well on a second day and so this is a strategy to remind students about something that they had learned in class so that they can begin to apply it and not forget it so we'll be doing that tomorrow and in May we'll be meeting with our District's leaders because they debriefed the sessions
065as well and said how much they appreciated having not the interactive sessions where they just didn't sit and hear a lecture but they actually got to practice and take and Implement some of the things that they learned and how much they appreciated having the time to do that and um and so we're taking away all those responses to plan for our August professional development day which won't necessarily be a full K-12 day but the learning that everyone took away will be fed forward to when they are presenting and preparing for the August professional development day we'll do this the one once a year we'll do it once a year or maybe if we do it every other year well I think what we really need to do is see what the needs are after August
066and by the time we get to November sort of assess what are what's the responses what are people saying they need where are they at and is that something that's conducive to a K-12 day or do they need something specialized so to be determined until we know what the needs are but definitely successful enough that we would certainly consider replicating that that structure again in addition to the feedback on the TV design that the teacher and leaders saying oh when we saw this we want to implement that kind of approaches we're providing our own PD uh one of the ideas of that day was to recognize that we'd be teaching kindergarten reading and someone else may be teaching High School Career Tech yeah that there's a lot more commonalities than we often recognize and we
067did hear through the feedback that theme and we might not have gotten it because that was that was something that was part of the design but we might not have made those connections but in addition to what Marlene said that was one of the themes that came out that people did had that recognition did have that appreciation did have that opportunity to have a conversation with someone who was potentially teaching something different from a Content or age level than they were so that was another piece of feedback that was came out as we debriefed that we were planning for and hoping for it but might not have gotten but I think we we did hit that Mark based on feedback good thank you um okay and then final item um is the update on new
068instructional materials for grade six seven and eight math so I've been giving regular updates on this uh ad hoc committee that's vetting um six set of length textbooks at our last meeting we had a latched on to one potential resource and illustrative math and we were doing an initial bet of another one which is a program called iready and we weren't sure whether after that initial review of I ready whether we were going to be ready to make a decision then or whether we'd do some forever betting it turned out that we wanted to do superb embedding by ready so we had we've done continued to do things like tryout lessons and classes communicate with other districts who have are you know multiple years into implementation to see how it's going in those districts hearing
069on the ground not just from sales rep on how it's going the committee met today and we have one more meeting a week from today today was really about diving deeply into some specific segments of both of those curricular Resources with some very targeted questions and really trying to make some fine line decisions between two programs that we ultimately the committee feels comfortable that either both are definitely meeting the bar in terms of standard alignment in terms of promoting practices standards for mathematical practice in terms of level of rigor which in terms of having some platforms that are going to be responsive to students which is something that we currently have that we do want to lose in any updated program so both of them have some strengths and some shared strengths but they're a
070little bit different approach it a little bit differently so we walked out today with pretty close to recommendations there are two targeted questions that the committee wants just to get a little bit more information on but we'll leave next Monday's meeting with a recommendation that we'll be able to bring to the May 8th curriculum committee meeting that timeline is important to us because should this committee approve make that initial approval of what we're recommending we know the textbook review process has to allow for two weeks of public opportunity to review that's going to take us to the June 1st Board of Ed meeting for consideration and we are looking to begin training within June for teachers for next year because it's important it's been important from the committee from the start to get enough of
071insight into what their what they'll be using next year as a resource before they leave for the summer so they're not walking in saying here here's a brand new resource you have to wrap your head around this because either it's going to take some training professional development and planning on the teacher's part that's a little bit different than what we're doing now so we know that we kind of put that timeline on ourselves by taking a little bit longer than initially anticipated that but our textbook but I actually feel very good about the process that this committee is using in the care with which they're making this recommendation they're certainly taking the responsibility seriously knowing that it's a resource that we might use for for several years so I recommend them for the questions the
072feedback the thought the care and their willingness to try things out and it's taking us a little longer than I was going to be doing anticipating but I think we'll have good out anticipate at the next curriculum committee meeting that will have a recommendation is it one program of instructional materials that will go through all three grades yes yes and that that kind of movie is important yeah so yeah representatives from each of the each of the grade levels right great and we also have the math department chair present in the very beginning of this to make sure that the philosophy was in line K-12 so we had both Alicia nailway our math coach for the district at the elementary plus our Middle School people plus High School people available so that that we know
073that all of all of this will be in sync I guess that was my follow-up question is you know what do you do with Elementary and then High School you've got three different Publishers and um but um let me just to add to add on to that is um I forgot it but um you talk I'll come up with it sorry sorry I had no I didn't mean to cut you off like all day um the good news about both of these programs is they're really built from the standards up which are elementary math curriculum is as well so there uh it was noticeable even in what we did it today the overlap and similarities even though it's different vendors to the design and that that was important to us we want to make sure
074that even if it's not the same Denver that we're using at the elementary level that there's some progression that goes through and I would say either these would accomplish that goal they approach it slightly differently but it will not be a hard right training for our students going through fifth to sixth grade and Nora will be at Civic either eighth grade into Algebra 1 or so three into algebra one it's like okay because that's the reason for asking right then that consistency can go through as long as the Publishers of the texts are paying attention yeah which I think yeah I mean correct me if I'm wrong they're doing much better than that for the early versions of programs said oh we're standards aligned and that wasn't necessarily that was that was a marketing thing
075to say oh yep pre-match this up but they weren't designed from that the programs now are designed from the standards up I will say there we have some next needs on that continuity um so the resource for yeah no all I wanted to say to that point was that's also why we engage in such a rigorous vetting process because people will say oh it's ngss aligned oh it's common core standards aligned and when you really start and engage in this process that we've done before you find out that well that's just not true you've missed this standard and this isn't clear so that's part of what's baked into the the vetting process and if we screened a dozen programs we dives into three of them a little bit more more hardly and one of them
076that we thought was going to be a favor coming out of the gate we stopped after the the next level of Engagement like oh this was really good sales material this is not what we need and the opposite was true for one of them like okay this looks good enough to that but we don't anticipate that this is going to be underneath and we got into it like oh actually this is this is very very much climb with what we're looking for so um to go in this group going in with an open mind about really taking a look at what we're looking for a program or whether the programs matched it um they definitely have done their due diligence on that and to just take it yeah I really appreciate these committees and the
077time that they spend getting these I had materials and programs because that's what makes the difference it really need people to really dive in deep and what is it what are these programs really offering and to recognize that they're not our curriculum but a resource for our curriculum so a good chunk of our conversation has been about that this Tech series and the accompanying materials as a support for our curriculum and we're going to honor the design of it early on but you need to be able to see through that and say okay this is the good parts about this we're maintaining this with Fidelity and we also know how to flexibly respond to students for the program that's the idea that's the idea but it's not our curriculum it's a resource to support our
078curriculum and this group has it needs to be user friendly for the teachers as well as the students that was a key a key piece just this week and and that may actually in the final which one of these we recommend that may be because they're otherwise pretty similar that may be a really important piece of puzzle that has to be usable for those students it has to be usable for the teachers yeah so yeah and that was my that was kind of my follow-up question is what kind of you know as we have explored with the reading the right to read act and you know what we do and the pieces we put together to create our curriculum um so and they're all there are many supplemental parts to make the whole thing work
079so are we seeing what you're trying to do is ensure number one that we don't have to bring in a ton of extra supplemental Parts but but are there those I hope that they are also continually reviewing the standards to make sure that those standards are consistent because we hear about you know the neap testing and um where the pressure is on to maintain kind of [Music] um are prominence and international understanding of mathematical Concepts and everything so my guess is there's pressure on standards to change with time so I don't know where this question is going but you know do you see what I'm saying I mean are we able are we going to be able to if those standards adjust and change are we going to be able to adapt this curriculum to
080adjust and change with that easily does that make sense yeah I don't think that there's we're I'm hearing no signals about the standards changing I would assume that that our resource I would assume that the standards will last even longer than our resource okay but I would say that you're part of part of the question is about adaptability right so I agree with Marlene I don't we're not seeing signs or signals that the standards are changing in the near future but I will say we just referenced this building thinking classrooms right so instructionally there are things that we know and are learning to be more effective strategies we can use so part of our question embedding this resource is what lends itself when we have a pretty strong emphasis on complex thinking social emotional learning
081right what uh these programs lend themselves to what we have defined and it was important for this District um and that's that's an important part of the vetting process that supports part of seeing through the resource enough to know that we can adapt and use a flexibly to meet our needs so that just for a small bite-sized example that building thinking classrooms and math which really has caught on from a Groundswell of of teacher led up to say oh these strategies really work it became a consideration for the resource which one of these lends itself to these instructional strategies that we know are pretty powerful and that's been that's been some of the lines of questions and thinking about because we do want to be able to use it flexibility and adaptively for our district
082for our students for our skill set with the teachers that we have so we don't want it to be the entire curriculum we don't want it to be the entire instructional model it has to support that so that's where I think either of these I feel comfortable and confident about either of these are going to mean any of those bars and you know whichever way we tip it's gonna a lot of it has to do with knowing the work that it's going to take to seek through it and to be able to use it flexibly so that's that's our conversation which is a good conversation to have a very good conversation to happen it's not so different than where we were from a reading of standpoint we're making um to be able to have some
083resources but be able to use aggressively based on the students that we have and the teachers that we have yeah okay you said you start out with like a dozen are there that many programs oh my texts yeah and our initial kind of pre the committee getting together we were looking for programs that were going to be standards aligned because that's we've got a misalignment right now and we're doing a lot of work to mitigate that that's constant and never ending and imperfect and our teachers are doing a good job with it but it's it's work that we don't need to be doing rather work on the instructional side of it yeah um and trying to make sure that we're teaching the right things that you have the right material right yeah um and from
084that we could take half of those off the books after the first meeting we do a little bit more deeply into someone to say these look more promising than others that's what we that's when we got some work directly with each of the companies and made decisions about whether to continue that work or vet further from there so that's been a process what's the lifespan of it are they um of a program of a math curriculum that's a good question yeah I'm trying to think well we've had Eureka now for eight years maybe more um we had another Elementary resource before that that supposedly the standards aligned that just was too cumbersome for teachers to too many manipulatives it's just too too heavy so that wasn't here for too long um and from the history
085that I know before that there it was before also before the common core standards and it was sort of materials in a crate talking about the elementary so I mean it really runs the gamut speak to your when you were in Canton how long was the math resources input you know so we were we were at a similar spotting turn of um who passed at that moment in time programs that had slapped uh standards alignment thing up stamp on their old curricula or their old resource but the current one in Canton has been in place for and probably eight years and they're still using it um both of these resources there are printed materials that go with with them but they also have online materials that are constantly updated so that if um they'll keep
086any of those updates live and that going which probably extends extends the versions out a little bit longer and has a little bit less turnover from whatever version this is to the next one because we can make smaller so that's a positive I think we're waiting with a bit of bread yeah it's a lot of work yeah so is the rest of the committee yeah it did have a nice conversation with one teacher who said you know you advertise this as X number of meetings I know I know false advertising it would be worth the movie and we also have the administ another administrator principle on that committee as well yes yeah coaches teacher reps uh principal okay thanks all right and then we have um item five just uh overnight field trips uh for
087starting with CHS robotics so our robotics team is headed to Houston Texas tomorrow to compete for the first time in the World Cup captions um started by competing locally and then were able to then move to the next level which I believe is in Massachusetts just last week and with a quick turnaround found out they would be headed to Houston this week so they take a team of did you come from 14 14 students they leave tomorrow they come back Sunday and they will be working you know they all have different parts of this team some do programming some do I don't know yeah you know um so they all have a role and they're going to go for the competition so very exciting it's World competition yes yes about 14. yeah and they have
088shared with us some information where you can watch the competition live stream so I sent that to Marlene and Kevin and Jeff so I'm sure you can pass access to those who might be interested good to know you're so excited and um just real fast oh there was is anyone does anyone sponsor this from town or so this is a unique um this is a unique group because they are a club but they're largely a parent-run club okay so they they fall under a different category quite frankly that um I'm I'm so glad the kids have this opportunity it's so wonderful that the parents are have been so involved in this and we have some um staff members who are also going on the trip who have children who are up on the team so
089it's been a nice collaboration of everyone and to see them get this far you know it'll it'll be something to to watch and to see where what their status might be next year good deal how many teams are competing 45 teams so good the qualifying matches so cool wish him luck yeah all right and then we have a chorus field trip on April 3rd to the 7th on 20 in 2024. um it's an opportunity for our chorus to actually perform to take um to take part in some workshops and um the Festival of Music um I just adjudication thank you so they will take part in that festives of Music they'll have the awards ceremony so there are a couple days and days involved with that and then they're also taking a couple of days
090to enjoy some of the the sites and you know get that also educational experience and they'll be judged by college coaches College directors actually will be judging them and giving them feedback which is a I think a huge opportunity for them to grow and to bring that back instructionally as Greg was is really excited about that and they're also going to do a performance I'm just in this in this venue um so where they'll have coverage by you know college teams otherwise teams so it's a lovely team building opportunity as well and then I shouldn't say team group Greg Bell has really done a nice job at taking over in this role and in building the program after covid because numbers in all of our musical areas was low after covet and so you may
091recall that Greg had done a day of Chorus for all of the sixth graders back in the winter time where the Middle School performed and the High School Coral chorus performed so we think we'll have even an increase in the number of students involved in Chorus at the high school in the years to come and I know it's a long way off but that too will be will have a live stream capability so we'll be able to see the kids performing which will be really fun right good okay um no action required there so I guess we have covered the agenda um okay um all in favor and we're done thank you everybody