001and we're almost 30 um let's rise for the pledge i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you um so uh can we have a roll call i guess i should have done that first but you're here and harrigan here i'm here tony peregini faith you have a quorum with two out of three great thank you um first item on the agenda is public comment do we have any at this stage give me a second to check there is no public comment at this time okay thank you um review of our minutes from wow october 19th um 2020. um um ian have you had a chance to review i actually have
002not reviewed those minutes sorry okay um i can look at them real quick okay why don't we do that so that we can um share those tomorrow night at the board meeting i can uh re-share those out with you right now and let me have them available and i could send them right over no so are you sharing screen with them or are you uh emailing them i was going to share them with you in google drive and it via email so you could take a peek no uh i might have trouble getting them then i will in the chat it is linked on the agenda also if you've got the agenda open i just included them in the chat for anyone who wants to take a peek oh okay again it's all coming back
003to you now isn't it yes it is okay um okay you're good okay do i have a um do we need emotion we need a motion to accept right yes do i have a motion to accept the minutes from um october 19 2020 curriculum committee meeting i move so move my second all in favor okay so we're good um next new business next item is new business a new textbook recommendation um college accounting and a practical approach thank you faith and tonight we have a special guest with us who you have met before we have leslie pair the business department chair and she is here to talk to us about the newest textbook recommendation thanks for being here leslie sure so did i mention to you guys how excited we are to be partnering with
004tungsten community college and that four of our business classes next year um will be articulated and our students will receive for each of those classes three column credits and we're just thrilled um we're we're still in the the final working out the final details but um we're moving right along so i know my intro is getting a little long i'll bring it back to the book uh the book that they would like us to use uh is right there college accounting a practical approach and um it's really uh lynn talian who is um one of our accounting teachers she went through the book chapter by chapter um looked at it and really thought that the book is going to be a great fit for our students so we currently teach an accounting one class with
005a different college level book this is the um book that tunxis wants to use and she really likes it so i'm i'm very happy to share that with you and the other thing that you might really want to hear is that this book is not going to cost the cheshire public school system any money this is going to be paid for by the perkins grant so the way the perkins grant works is this is actually this is not the cheshire public schools perkins grant this is the tungsten community college uh perkins grant and because it's a new course for the first um when you purchase a textbook the first time for a new course perkins will pay for that and the total we typically have about three classes it's around 60 students every year that
006sign up for accounting one and if we had to pay for 60 brand new textbooks the cost would be over thirteen thousand dollars so we're very fortunate that um along with um our courses being articulated that the perkins grant will pay for this textbook excellent um and this has been on review for the past month too hasn't it in the office when we approve it to when and if it's approved tonight it will be unre it will then go to to be on public review okay okay okay um do i have a motion to uh recommend or accept the recommendation of the college accounting a practical approach i would move to to uh accept that do we have any discussion just to note that the motion would be to recommend it to the full board
007recommend thank you kevin um yes recommend to the full board um approval okay um do we have any discussion hearing none all those in favor and then second okay all right all opposed no okay it pays us all right awesome great great so we will good good tony's not here what the heck good thing tony's not here he might not have gone along with us i'm just not true counting majors out of it no i mean okay thank you um leslie thank you you're welcome all right um item number four uh informational items um so we will now hear from dr mary gatt about um just the updates in the cheshire high school learning hybrid learning plan take it away thank you thanks for having me how are you this evening i hope we're all
008right good uh so from from the october 19th meeting so i've i've been which one the last the last one we talked about um the the hybrid plan following that meeting we had a couple of questions that emerged uh some about the kinds of syllabi that are shared with parents so in the document it's attached to the um to the agenda there are just some examples of the kinds of syllabi that were sent out to families in the fall one from our required business course uh personal finance one from actually two from world literature and you'll see that teachers uh in the same course typically co they typically collaborate on their syllabi and in both of those there were some this was the beginning of the year there were some clear instructions about how to
009be a good citizen online as well as in person uh and there's a there's a syllabi actually a full presentation that a teacher sent instead of a paper syllabus she sent home expectations um and so there's a there's a presentation attached and finally uh for something completely different world uh from world language ap german uh the syllabus for that course so you'll see uh just just some some a cross section of how teachers communicate with parents so that's in that in the document following that meeting we we engaged with parents across a series of parent meetings we held five uh one on october 27th that was our first one that was the hybrid model instruction discussion and that meeting had about 27 attendees on october 28th we had a meeting where we discussed student support
010opportunities at the high school and that was co-presented by our special education and sel administrators student student i'm sorry social and emotional learning which kristen pell's assistant principal at the high school supports and and helps to further in our school and there were about 20 parents attending that one on october 29th we held a meeting about student expectations and attendance in the hybrid system and our two assistant principals explain expectations for students online and in person and that was we had about nine attendees for that one on november 4th we held our social and emotional learning meeting with about 11 attendees and on november 11th our final meeting in that series we talked about student activities so that's clubs athletics and what that looks like in this very unusual year and that had about 13
011attendees so overall about between nine and 25 attendees at each of those sessions and it was it was really helpful and important to have those discussions in in the midst of that work we had our november third professional development day and teachers led 12 teachers led sessions with their colleagues around their expertise and strategies for synchronous instruction and how to make that work most effectively and then that work also included focused focused sessions on the best practices for school messenger use cami classroom class flow and screen castify and the objective for that day was share strategies for supporting synchronous instruction which we moved to this full expansion of that as of second quarter which began on november 9th and the other objective was to increase communication with parents so the next outcome was on the
012week of november 9th every teacher sent home either a video message or email message articulating updated expectations from what they sent out in in september updated expectations around well first of all how's it going let me reconnect with you it's been a few weeks uh your kids are doing an amazing job which was uh featured in a lot of their videos just thanking parents for students who being so um thoughtful and i don't want to say compliant because it's not that so diligent about wearing masks remaining socially distant distance communicating with their teachers our students have been out absolutely outstanding and so their video messages included some of that information how to get in touch with them and if they didn't recall that from the qualify that they had sent home and their updated expectations
013about students being on camera which was which was a significant piece of that move that we've had some kids who would turn on their camera turn it off so they really wanted to reiterate let's make sure we're all visible we're all participating together um and so that is what we uh what we move toward following our meeting on the 19th okay thanks um do we have any uh and you have any questions go yeah one quick question so um how do parents get this information is it through the google classroom so which the syllabi or the information features so syllabi teachers would it is in their google classroom and they also emailed that to their students so it's typically associated with their their google classroom and they also did explain to parents where you can
014access information sit down with your child ask them to show you google classroom and show you where all the materials are that's why i was wondering i was wondering if um if it relied on the students to show it to their parents or the parents have access to it but they do through the google classroom and teachers also will email material home to them and many did attach documents to their communication great thank you mary sounds like sounds like you know we're doing our due diligence and i must say i have heard from parents who um generally are pleased with the extra effort um could you could you explain how the environment has changed or how the model has changed from what we're looking at in early october what is how is the day look
015now versus how a day looked then in in terms of you know obviously they're getting information in the syllabi but um you know accountability both for students and for teachers and um all of that so we surveyed our teachers and our students in all of this implementation and our parents to hear what their thoughts were and i know that that material was shared with you at a recent board meeting so a number of students did say i did like having more time to work on my work i've also heard that from parents i did like having some independent uh self-directed time but you know i also understand and it's it's it's good to be connected with my classes i don't think it was that ex dramatic a change from where we were because many many
016teachers were already having their full groups together simultaneously and so it's just an increase across the board to make sure everyone was maximizing the amount of time students were were in contact okay all right um and so when we come we'll still be well in to just the second turn second semester but do you foresee further adaptations as we go into the third semester and the fourth semester or um quarter i'm sorry sorry um one one piece that we are working through now is how we want to manage midterm exams and given um given the the complexity of of trying to hold a traditional exam time where we had everyone come in for their class period we're going to hold exams during class time we have thankfully 80 minutes of time and teachers are working
017to provide students with um an exam that will fit in that time period or a culminating project but we're not holding formal midterm exams um again it's it's it's complicated for our students who are fully remote and complicated for uh for for all of our students especially given this time so they're looking at meaningful culminating projects ways to close out the the first semester of work and have students really demonstrate what they've learned but in a way that will support what they've learned not over complicate the experience that they've been having we are not alone we are in step with virtually every other district that is in our derg and in our area okay and in terms of i i think maybe you're asking are we going to go fully returning uh i think that
018all is is is um really dependent on the you know the health of of yeah i wasn't i actually wasn't asking about full returning because i don't want too much as we all wanted um that's always what's on you know on our minds back to normal um yeah wouldn't it be lovely oh it wouldn't no i just didn't know i mean you are you're listening and you are adapting and i just didn't know what else might be in the pipeline um as you get feedback and um because again this is almost a whole new system from last year or from last spring and so it is still in the formative stages you're you're adapting as you go so i just was wondering if there were other things that parents should be on the lookout could
019be on the lookout for that kind of yeah we keep listening and responding so yeah if i could just add mary um so we're doing that at the college level too because um you know you can't give exams the way that you once could and um i personally have adapted my classes to have these project-based kinds of assessments going on so in response to that it got me thinking and i don't think it's a bad thing that we're changing some of this the way that we do testing or assessing um and uh so i'm actually kind of glad to hear that you know they're not taking the pencil paper um midterm exams they're showing they're demonstrating their knowledge through more uh i don't know hands-on authentic ways more authentic ways so so i think that
020we can be looking for the good things that come out of what we're doing with education out of what we're maybe being forced to to re-look at some things and i you know there are some good things happening so yes thank you for that description thank you so um tony's joined us do you have any questions tony i know you've missed no i caught some of it the only thing i would add is no it's got to be listen all cps has been commended on the fact that we've had to change or they've had to change the folks in the trenches how we deliver and assess and it seems like it's almost evolving you know every month you know to get ahead of it so i mean we all acknowledge i know i speak for
021the whole board that um i don't think we're surprised that we're evolving how we're assessing i mean it's it's expected so and a lot goes into it and mary did catch the fact that you were you know listening and responding and i i know that it's got to be difficult sometimes hearing a lot of feedback um when you know folks are not to speed on how we're doing things but what i have heard is you know as far as your feedback and outreach to parents uh has been outstanding and seems to have clarified a lot of uh questions that folks had just in the hybrid model where we're going the only thing i would add on the assessments is the only thing that parents would worry about is you know if we're changing from pen
022and paper based testing to uh project assessment as a band-aid and i don't think that's the case i think we're doing that because it's just the reality of what we're doing and i agree with ann if when and if we can i'm all for project-based assessments i'm i'm a firm believer in real world scenarios and i think the kids respond better to that so look forward to the outcomes and uh but you know i thank you and i did catch most of that so i appreciate faith you asking uh any questions that's all i have thank you leslie pair has used that request and how to raise my hand so she has a comment or a question i do so i i can only speak for the business department but um many many of our
023courses that's the direction are individualized personalized projects where the kids can really apply what they've learned so most of our class or not yeah i'd say most of our classes are semester classes and that's what we'll be working toward working on once we um once january comes around is you know the students putting to to work through a project-based based assessment um they're culminating projects so definitely the way that we're working now yeah and i would like may i just add one quick one i'm sorry um ece and ap courses who who require a midterm exam of course will do that but within the context of the 80-minute time period that was kind of where i was going more what is also happening now that we're on the area of testing um with sats have
024you heard from the college board what's going on or yes we are fully poised to administer the sats in the spring we did the psats we will set up the sats it might require us to spread out across the building in in in more ways than we typically have we've been able to utilize one specific area now we'll have to utilize more um and it might it might be a little bit of an interruption how the day goes for all the other students and we'll try to figure out ways to support them as best we can but the sat and the ngss are both on deck great okay um i know it's it's not specifically on the agenda but um marlene are there any comments that might have come into the or questions that might
025have come into the covet site oh okay i mean i did take a quick look we have four people on on um youtube so i didn't know if they they listed any questions or not um any further questions from anybody otherwise um dr yeah thank you for updating us and i know it's been a long haul for you and um constantly coming to talk to us but i do appreciate it thank you my pleasure thank you okay um i figured i meant to say i apologize for being late i respect everyone i was running behind on something so thank you for uh being with me good to see you tony good to see everyone happy here um okay uh item b under informational items professional development update so dr gad shared a little bit about
026what was happening at the high school for the high school staff pd so kevin hanlon will share with you k8 happenings and and all of our pd this year is really going to fall under two umbrellas it's going to fall under that concept of acceleration sorry that we discussed at the end of august or september and or the technology tools to help support the work so you heard a little bit at the high school about some of the technology tools that they're using to support synchronous learning at the middle school level we focused on acceleration and one part of that that was really about um engaging academic tasks for both in-person and remote learners so they really focus on the academic tasks that they're developing and really trying to to make what students are engaged
027in both whether they're remote or in person meaningful full and substantial so they spent spend a little bit of time in the morning looking at some research related to that not very much before they dove in in their divisions the math division science division so forth to really work on framing that out for themselves at the elementary level we did some work under the umbrella acceleration around in english language arts and reading taking a look and it actually mirrored what they had done in the fall taking a look at some of the standards that are taught in the second trimester and what texts and resources we want to use to help support those standards essentially we're using a fewer numbers of texts to teach multiple standards so they had done that work for the first
028trimester and they carried that forward for the second trimester math did similar work on the priority standards piece and also looked at some ways to assess students prior to going into a unit to know exactly where they are so they can help respond and provide support on the technology front and they really had an open and collaborative session where teachers shared with one another they're spending so much time in figuring so many things out with our technology tools but didn't have the opportunity to necessarily share with someone who's in a different building or a different grade level themselves so we fostered some collaborative shares among teacher groups across the district so that's our pd update that's primarily from our last full day pd on november 3rd and the building basically are all carrying half days
029we're all carrying on with that that same work oh any questions on the professional development company no anybody not at this stage yeah i feel like this year we we put in this standing report um part way through last year to give keep abreast of some of the things that were going on um this year we'll probably be able to say almost every single time we're working under the umbrella of acceleration and technology tools to support that so if this year feels a little bit like a rerun on that we'll get try to try to continue to give you some insight into some of the tweaks that we're working on but um it really is all under under that large umbrella the other report i have for you tonight is on our el parent night
030and that is uh was held this year on november 10th and that's an annual event uh similar to many of the school related events we held this one by google me i was joined by pat castle and kristen castellano who oversee the el programming at the elementary and middle schools as well as maya wiley who's an el tutor at the high school um we our attendance to this was fairly strong i think by virtue of being in a google meet it provided an opportunity for many parents to attend and also our communication around several parents who couldn't but we were able to connect with them offline as part of this presentation we really walk through how students are identified for english learner support what that support looks like in the school um and who they
031who and how they can connect with people when they need help this year obviously we added in a layer about including ways to support our remote yale uh english learner students um who uh you know at least at the elementary level we have a fairly good percentage of our ell learners who are remote so ways that families can connect to support for the uh for our remote el students as part of the presentation so it was fairly well attended about um eight to ten parents uh at that moment which was actually a good portion of uh our el families and um probably another half a dozen who we connected with who couldn't attend the meeting but reached out and said we can't make the meeting can can you um help share some of the information
032so that is our update on our eel parently all right um all right um does anyone have any questions regarding this um kevin can what is the level of um of english fluency are we talking about completely um so first we do look at um english proficiency it's um both from an oral language standpoint and a literacy perspective so uh listening speaking reading and writing um and it is a native it's uh the assessment that we use is called the lost links and it's on a five point scale um if you were to receive a five on that it's you're essentially a native speaker we're looking for one level below below that a level four on that and there is a high level of proficiency that we expect for our english learners and we have
033a range of we have newcomers who have very little english at all who are not going to have a good amount of english proficiency when they begin with us um but through the support that we provide and in class instruction and time just immersion in in an english environment they do grow but the state does have a pretty high level of proficiency it is often but not always the case that the oral proficiency will develop ahead of the litter the literacy side of it so the whole proficiency will come before the reading and then the writing um and actually at our at our uh meeting today uh pat castle shared that you know the writing portion of this assessment is is pretty rigorous um to show to be able to demonstrate proficient proficiency in english
034uh language from a writing standpoint i hope that answers a question thanks it did um all right any other questions all right well seeing none um we have moved through in record time um i'll say wow yeah um all right well we needed this what's that we needed this i know i'm in was it wasn't our last minute wasn't our last meeting two and a half hours it was it was um but there was any curriculum right board of ed's been longer but we're gonna we're gonna try to beat this thursday night i can't make promises all right well with no other items on the agenda i will entertain a motion and to adjourn sure so moved second it's a second all right all in favor hi hi all right gang thank you um thank
035you dr guiad and leslie thank you and kevin for coming thanks