001have a flag mr. Solow me me anything no okay okay can we just we can we can let's just do it it's we know it's out there so okay Republic for which it stands one nation liberty and justice for all thank you all right so first order of business is public comment I have not received any more leave you the only thing I would add is that mr. Bester had written us as a committee and had mentioned his concern with using the olsat as an indicator based on its age etc and mr. Hamlin and I concur with much of what mr. Bester said we've actually looked into a couple of years ago doing away with the olsat but it is used in some certain situations it is not a particularly costly tool so it's I
002would I would say that we've had conversations to begin phasing it out but we are still employing it but his comments are certainly valid and it's something that we have looked into and are taking into consideration okay so I'm hopeful mr. Bester is on right now could you just give an overview or summary of what it would take to phase this out and I think one of his questions what had to do with the cost what exactly do you know off the top of your head what that cost is I do not know off the top of my head what the cost of that is but one of the things that we use it for is just as one small indicator of holistically looking at a child to determine times whether or not either a
003child might be achieving their potential it might also help us in looking at just being another piece of data to determine whether or not we would go to testing it would not keep us from going to testing for special education nor would it keep a child out of our academically gifted program but it is an indicator that we use our AGP program our academically gifted program actually serves a higher percentage of students than most districts because we do look at their performance in the classroom and a lot of those nonlinear you know not just grades but more about their thinking and the kinds of projects they produce so there's not about their grades or or their score on that all set but I can that committee some additional information about the cost okay all right
004and I know you just um we inferred this or obliquely refer to it there are other tests out there that may be a better measure or we don't not necessarily okay I can see by the way it's probably not okay Kevin did you want to add any thoughts to that I know you had looked into this as well yeah not not exactly for the kind of skills and aptitudes of this assessment gives us it's it's honestly a matter of to what degree we need this information for all students some of this information is good for some of our students and that's when when we're talking about whether it's an assessment we continue whether or not I think that's kind of the realm where we're thinking about is this something that we need for everybody or
005for a smaller segment okay but it wouldn't be something that I would say we'd be looking for a replacement for just all use okay well I'm happy to reach out to mr. Bester too and see where I'll see if we can develop some of his concerns and I will reach out to him okay all righty okay thanks Ike I'm opening my email I see we have another email from mr. Bester that came in at 4:58 p.m. which was two hours ago I will read it to the members of the cheshire curriculum committee as much as our school administrators teachers and board of EDH will applaud be applauded for their efforts to maintain some semblance of learning through this pandemic shutdown it is important to keep in perspective that distant or remote learning has been an
006emergency response to a crisis and although district leaders have placed qualifiers on how successful distance learning has been for students it will be extremely difficult to measure or quantify its impact and certainly not in a timely manner that said I want to draw your attention to several newspaper articles published in the past week I hope they are helpful some of these look familiar one from The Wall Street Journal one from the New York Times Connecticut news junkie and another I hope you will take the time and read those articles as you tackle the challenging questions facing our community I have always contended that the Metra of a good school system is how it needs it needs of its most vulnerable students motivated driven students are relatively easy to teach but those with learning issues and
007our personal resistance to learning are unlikely to speak up and let their needs be known I hope that the district can reach out to those students in a more individualized way as a student and parent questionnaires will probably not be returned a daunting job for sure but one which must be undertaken in order to account for as many of our students as possible once again once with the utmost respect for all you do Jack fester I would thank you to mr. Bester and I appreciate the time that he takes write these out and sharing some of these good articles which I know some on our caller are familiar with and certainly appreciate his support very much these are all things that I think we we share in common okay thank you and do you have
008any comments on that or any observations I don't want to move on without getting your feedback no I had seen mr. busters email at 4:30 and also had the same reaction that mark Marleen just expressed which was you know we're all we're all the same on the same board with what we're doing here so yeah and always appreciative of having some articles thrown in for my evening reading right okay I don't know if he's got any feedback or comments that he needs to that he's heard from the public with respect to I'm sorry I just curriculum committee I afforded Jack Buster's email to Marlene and nothing additionally I think you know the big angst across Connecticut is what are we doing in the fall and we're aspiring to you know meet whatever challenge we have
009to face and and learn from what we experienced this spring as it relates to curriculum and instruction and apply that knowledge in the fall and I think that's a big part of what this meeting tonight is about not just you know if we are unfortunately in a remote learning environment but in any learning environment how do we better leverage technology for that success so that's what we're gonna look forward to hearing that today I unfortunately may have to step out though okay all right and yes we are gonna dive in more deeply later on in the agenda okay um then first action our first item of action is review of the minutes of May 11th 2020 we had a chance to review them so do a motion for approval of the minutes and I think
010that would be you know frozen Oh is she I don't think she could sit up still there yes okay I think I'm I think I have my mic open now sorry so moved okay second all in favor aye okay motion carries next item is new business and a review of an action on the Peck Jones grant request so every year at this time the district puts in a proposal for the Peck Jones grant it's been a number of things including band uniforms it also helped to solidify the world language lab last year we used it for professional development and the next generation standard across the district and here what we are looking to do is to enhance the quality of reading material in the classrooms in the classroom libraries and in the school libraries for
011students across the district and the reason for this is twofold one with the implementation of full-day kindergarten our students in grade one have been achieving a higher level than when we offered only a half-day program and so teachers in those first and second grades need additional text to support their students in those grades the second thing is we have a lot of teachers and librarians who are concerned that due to remote learning we might not be able to collect all of the lent materials that were given out and because they've been in home for so long that you know we might need to replace and update those and thirdly we're seeking to support cultural responsive curriculum by doing some audits within our libraries to make sure that we're addressing diversity in literacy so I've included
012a couple of links within that document we're speaking first 12,000 dollars to acquire higher level text in our classroom libraries and grades 1 & 2 approximately 4,000 dollars to bolster our nonfiction resources in the intermediate classroom libraries we're looking at about 4600 dollars to enhance reading materials at dot again sort of in that lens of having culturally responsive text available to our students and then about eight thousand dollars to do that at the high school we're really some of those social studies texts and English text can support the curriculum in that way so I went based on the number that we were looking at last year which I can confirm twenty eight thousand six hundred dollars so I thought that was a nice way to supplement the classroom libraries that we know you know haven't
013been fully funded necessarily in the last four or five years due to budget cuts and that this would be a way to directly support our students so I'm open to any questions you ladies may have on this topic well we discussed earlier this morning Marlene so I'm I'm fine you know I have no questions I think it's a good use of the funds this year especially you know given given some of the challenges you guys may be facing in terms of retrieving some of the books that have been lent out and how about you thank you yeah over my almost five years on the board I have come to trust pretty pretty directly these requests for the Peck Jones funds they're always come to us well researched and with the need clearly identified so I
014apologize Marlene I have not been able to take a look at that document in detail but but I will take a look at it and do you feel we do need to take action on this do you feel you're in a position to make a motion to approve the request sure okay would you like that now and then we can we can always have discussion after it's seconded too right yes so I move that we accept the proposal for use of the Peck Jones funds for I don't have this for the purposes of enhancing k-12 libraries exactly what she said what she said I second is there any discussion any further discussion I have none in you good okay yeah hearing no further discussion all those in favor aye aye thank you so much you
015have made or will make teachers and principals so happy I see Mary giving her thank you right now and I know this is gonna make a big difference for kids so thank you both very much for your support on that much appreciated and this this motion now goes to the full Board for approval correct yes yeah okay um now we move on to informational items these are non action items but they are to bring us up to date on these three issues so okay so the next two items a and B are I'm going to turn over to dr. gas so she could fill us in on the process and some of the changes that have occurred these items have already come through curriculum committee prior in prior years so this is sort of an
016update good evening I hope everyone is well and that the pollen isn't too far before you it's a challenge I'll tell you what so the two items that I'm bringing to you one is about the early cult experience course called digital media foundations and the other is about business courses we're working to articulate with Tunxis Community College so first digital media foundations with a course that was approved as an ECE or UConn early college experience course and that was approved and as it is in our course our program of studies book to go forward for students for this coming fall for the school year 2022 2021 on April 29th Stephanie Malinowski who is one of the program specialists part of the early college experience program emailed Connecticut high schools that had this program through through
017UConn explaining that effective fall of 2020 UConn would no longer be offering the digital media course which meant that high schools wouldn't be able to grant to their students the three college credits through early college experience so and again we got that on April 29th very shortly thereafter the chair of our Career and Technical Education Department Shawn McEwen got in touch with Naugatuck Community College knowing that they have a strong digital arts technology programs if you ever see the prefix D 18 on any of the materials that come through that's that's what that means and in conversation with their their head of curriculum lisa Dresner they had just hired right when the cove at 19 shutdowns hit a new liaison a new director of bridge program in which means the liaison between high schools in
018the college and and so they're a little bit in transition as well but they're very excite to work with us to try and offer our students and the joy here is not just three credits but it would end up being six credits through Naugatuck because the course that we proposed our digital media foundations course would would be reflected in their digital arts technology introductory courses 101 and 108 so we're in the process of trying to get those credits in place for our students to sign up for that course which we're really excited about because they still get the college credit so that's that's in progress right now but again Tim McGee who is the new director of the bridge program is the new director of the bridge program and and I'm sure they they've been
019consumed as we all have with making the transition to remote learning any questions about that first piece before I marry just this is um my own information so when you say to get six college credits are they generally accepted at any four-year school or is this within the within the Connecticut system well from any Community College they especially depending on the program you're going into there can be a question of what credits that accept but typically within Connecticut from a Connecticut Community College any of the four-year colleges in Connecticut accept those credits but community college credits are portable because they are official college credits from an accredited university so the the the community colleges recently went through their version of the New England Association of schools and colleges accreditation process a couple of years ago
020and that's when they began to regionalize and really clarify how they articulate in grant credit so their courses are more and more robust interpretability of credits when they are through their program is called the CCP which is the college and career pathways not to be confused with our ccp which meetings compare college preparatory credit anyway again their programs are pretty robust that that recent I could I could add to that just marry but just by saying that more and more colleges and universities are making much stronger relationships with the community with the community colleges so that they can transfer those credits I know Quinnipiac University is has been doing it for a couple years now so okay I think it is a good thing yeah in and out of the state exactly wonderful thank you
021sure and then the next piece is we've been working very hard with our local community colleges actually I was flipping through my emails to see when did these conversations begin and actually was February 14th of 2017 that I really and these this this dialogue with with with the folks within ours within the high school so I'm very happy that and again to cut the community colleges were in flux in that period of time so we met this year with Tunxis Community College with both the business department and the CTE Department and the CTE group is feeling that Naugatuck programming links well with their existing programs but our business program links extremely well with the offerings at Tunxis Community College and so this year we are looking to be able to add to our program of
022studies as soon as this is approved a number of courses that will be articulated with Tunxis and would again offer students college credit for courses they take in high school so the courses and I'll just rattle them off accounting one is a full-year course personal finance and advanced personal finance computer essentials word processing which is a full-year personal finance the advanced or personal finance are both the semester courses each of those courses would get three credits from Tunxis Community College and I might add all of them are free of charge which is differently which is which incurs a cost um and so these are not yet in the cut in the program of studies as college credit bearing courses so we would need to add that and another course set in the works is Microsoft
023Office one and two and happily the business teacher that teaches Microsoft Office one and two is also a business teacher at Tulsa Community College so it's important so we're we're in the process of working to get those courses articulated with with others so they did fantastic opportunities for our kids do you have a target date which again you know given co-ed things have have sort of slowed but all the paper is in and we're just waiting to hear from them so we would just be amending our current program of studies 2021 with this information for all of these courses and that would the program studies is also electronic so we would put out a notice that you know your current program of studies is if it's hard copy is not up to date but the
024electronic one is as soon as all of that is approved through the through the community colleges so I have a question so if if we haven't had these courses in our curriculum today do we still have some idea of how many students might take advantage of of those courses so all of these courses are existing courses within our program of studies they're all courses that already exists there's no new curriculum here it's just we're we're able to articulate it so in other words we take our syllabi and show tongues this Community College what we're doing and they say you know what we're completely aligned here are some textbooks that we can support you with which is another nice feature of the work that would be doing together and it's just about alignment not a yeah
025so there so it's just putting a note in that you're taking this class and bonus if you would like you can get college credit so do those do those courses fill every every year at high all of these courses are active great okay okay so the there's no a felon if the articulation they're not articulate until late October November say that happened they're not losing anything I mean they they it's just a matter of extending the credit correct okay when awarding those credits and those credits can be awarded after the fact - from what I understand okay okay okay all right thank you Thanks and now drum roll okay so you know what our path has been on our remote learning plan and we keep striving to make it better we've gone through a few
026iterations and thanks to all the folks on this call who support tech integration and Technology who we've been able to hopefully meet parents needs and meet student needs as we look to plan for the 2020 21 school year we want to expand upon that and that initial foundational set of remote and online tools and enhance those instructional pallet possibilities to more fully meet our students needs and so when we look at that we're looking at really two things we want to be able to nimbly this is Kevin's word we weren't trying to nimbly adjust between the remote environment and the in-person environment or any type of hybrid that may come about and we know that that may change depending on when we start school and if there's another wave of this and we end up
027if we start out in person and we end up remote or we're trying to plan for all the possibilities and we want to as closely as possible meet the typical scope of our curriculum instruction and assessment needs and provide all that students need so in order to in order to do this we want to make sure that we have universal access to these two both the software and the hardware that students need so the best thing to do is make sure that they have all of the tools that they need so as we look at moving forward with that and we think about students health and safety needs and we're hearing that students won't be able to share pencils pens we won't be able to have any kind of community supplies that they can share
028among one another that things will need to be separate we also know that that will apply also for any device that they're using they won't be able to put it in a cart and take it out and it can't go you know and still go home with them so we're looking at doing a number of things I talked about reading before we want to make sure that we our kids have access to reading materials from home both our hard cover and our hard copy text and also text online so we're looking at things like epic which is a software program that will address students learning reading needs from second grade and up we're looking at expanding our capstone software which is for students in kindergarten and grade fun we're looking at reading A to Z
029all of these things that we have that we use to a greater or lesser extent we know that we need to rely on more heavily in the remote environment and Zurn which I'm sure you've heard over the past couple years as we've introduced Eureka math and so sirness is one of those you know companion pieces that is online and and gives our kids access to to math instruction so we're looking at those and we're also looking at Google classroom and how that was a really good tool for our older students but we think we could do better with our younger kids so with Mike's health and other folks on the call we've been looking you saw as a platform that is easier for both the younger students and our parents to utilize as a place
030to go and get this information we also from talking to our teachers and from talking to parents realize that we know that our youngest kids can't really navigate and maneuver a Chromebook they're not doing this kind of typing yet they're still learning their numbers and we want to encourage that and make sure that they continue to practice you know penmanship and learning to write numbers and learning to write letters we have some iPads across the district right now and our plan is to make sure in the next year that every student in kindergarten has an iPad and can access the software pieces that I told you about as well as seesaw etc so we've sort of looked into some of these things looked at other districts who are using them our experts here on the
031team have looked into them and we feel that that's going to be the best tool for our kindergarten students where they wouldn't have to share it and every student would have access to it versus waiting for a mom or dad to finish using their device to then get on the computer or having to use mom's phone or dad's phone to do that well we're so grateful to parents that they've been flexible with us as we've navigated that because they've been heroic in the homeschooling Department but we want to make it easier next year knowing that this was a Herculean effort for everyone and we're trying to make it better next year as far as our first graders go we're really thinking that we would do with a ruggedized Chromebook it's a Lenovo 10d that we're
032looking at that is a touchscreen so it could transition with them they're not so young in kindergarten anymore they can begin to transition to a Chromebook but this is sort of like a middle step in my mind that they could still have have access to touch they can still write their numbers they could show their work in a different way and so we're really thinking that for those developmental considerations K and 1 that these devices would mote they would most benefit from a tablet tablet based device so that's what we're looking at and and thankfully this team on the call has been we've really been working to look for efficiencies across the strict and how we could reallocate some of the devices that we currently have to make sure that we can meet the needs
033of our students one of those places is that our IAS well we were able to give them some temporary devices a lot of items were either using a phone or using something else think about how difficult it would be to use your phone to connect with your teacher and have them show you any kind of instruction on that device it's just it's not meant for it and I applaud the IAS and the LFT and you know garden instructionals that assistance for we're really working so hard to be able to do that but should we be in this environment next year we're going to need to reallocate some of our devices to ensure that our teachers and our support staff that works instructing kids have have the tools that they need to be able to meet
034those needs so I wanted to make sure that the board through the curriculum committee was you know that I kept you guys aware of these plans as as we're developing because I think it's gonna be really important to support both parents and kids in any way that we can as as we move forward it's hard enough I think with the uncertainty this sort of gives us the best of both worlds we know that if we go back and we're in the classroom kids will have what they need we know that we don't think that kids should be online all the time and using devices all the time it's for a short period of time and then we'll put those away the same will be true for what we provide them at home we're not talking
035about flipping to online having kids be more online we're talking about for them for the amount of time that they are that we want them to have ease of access and use that's developmentally appropriate for their age so where were we are minding the future and trying to plan for all aspects knowing that this will be good regardless of whether we're in a hybrid whether we're back fully or whether we have to do one-to-one temporarily and then be back in a remote situation was a lot of information so I have more of a comment and and I will also would like to take this opportunity to to just thank your team since they're all assembled here today the tech team in Cheshire Public Schools because I know what a task that was and and to
036get to do the emergency overhaul of our instruction this second half of the semester that's how I always think but in addition to that I'd like to let Marlene know that everything that she is has just presented to us makes so much sense to me it makes sense to have the tools in the hands of the right age group and the tools that are appropriate for the for the different age groups and it's just it's good to know that we have this tech team behind us verifying and consulting with us on just how to do that we have the the instructional experts and then we have how you take technology and make that instruction work in the best way possible for the best age groups so I have a lot of confidence but I also
037know it's going to be a long summer for getting all of this going so that we can hit the ground running whether kids are coming in full-time whether it's some sort of a hybrid or whether it's I don't know what are the chances it would be fully online I'm thinking parents need some sort of respite from home schooling don't they it's it's tough so anyways what you're saying is inspires a lot of confidence for me and and I just want to thank you Marlene Kevin Mary and the whole tech team because I know this is a lot of work in it it's going in the right direction and thank you for keeping us informed you said it very well and thank you Jeff he just popped in I used to tell Branwell Onis to tell
038me my job was to make him look good and these guy I have a great team to make me look good we had the Quinnipiac graduation tonight so I'm kind of getting a late jump on everything oh dear I hope it went well they did very well it's always great isn't it yeah absolutely yeah hey just just for the community on an overview of any of the logistical adjustable or financial considerations that are going to come into play if any as we as we implement this yeah well as you know I know you and I talked earlier but I think we're very lucky that Jeff was invited to be a part of the Athens regional committee to look at state read openings of cool there are segment risks you know education service centers around Connecticut
039and the one that we belong to is aces and they set up these working groups to gather information a problem and they will take that information will be said to Miguel Cardona the Commissioner of Education as well as the governor as they worked to make plan and give us guidance on reopening as you can imagine we are incredibly eager to get that information so that we can further plan I talked to a group of 27 teachers today and I said this has got to be the worst thing ever due to a teacher teachers plan plan plan plan plan and they like to have everything tied up in a nice bow before they leave for the summer because then they will plan plan plan on their own for a comeback and so this this is just
040torture for people not to have this information like that I think that the first meeting that we had today which was an open forum for teachers to give us feedback was incredibly beneficial and and really helpful as we plan the curriculum instruction pieces of this and Jeff and I are also going to be holding beginning next week parent meetings as well open forums for parents to come and share their worries their challenges regarding safety regarding social emotional concerns regarding device concerns regarding curriculum and instructional concerns we really want to know so that we can we can help you know not only plan for the coming year because some of that will be dictated by you know health and safety regulations out of the Commissioner in the governor's office but also to know what our parents
041need our parents want and I'm always grateful when people email and pick up the phone and and share that with not just me and Kevin but Jeff and Mary and and all the principal's so and the teachers so I think we're hopefully on the right track as far as finance considerations go face you know I know we've talked a lot about those within Finance Committee and at the Board of Ed meetings but certainly these software programs that everybody and their brother are offered as free time you know we've gotten a taste of some of those we're being very selective in what we're using we're not jumping up we're we're not a shiny and new you know chasing down the shiny and new we are to a fault looking at what works what we're comfortable with
042what we can train in and and what is going to continue to get to the heart of what we do in Cheshire public schools with curriculum and instruction so there are a couple of things that we know are working that we will seek to expand upon screencastify for asynchronous video is is one of them where we're talking with that company now to figure out what they are what what they will be offering I can't think of any others or Tom can you think of some of the others that we're sort of you know yeah screencastify is one we're gonna look at that just to kind of continue operations they gave us their free their premium service for free really up to the end of June and knowing that schools will be coming kind of back
043into the mix of this in the fall we're going to kind of wait and see what they offer in the fall are they going to extend that offer are they gonna kind of close rank and and and require us to pay and you know hey you've used it now can you kind of come in and pay for the premium or the premium services so we're kind of waiting and every platform you know it's gonna be one it'll take one company to make that change and extend it out and then you're probably going to see the good gesture kind of trickle on out so you know we're not gonna wait too long because obviously we need to make these decisions but we're gonna kind of see what moves they start to make Google included in this
044because there's some things with Google meat that we're looking at as well so there'll be some consideration for possibly purchasing and going down that path to augment what we've already been doing and and it's our hope that hopefully some of these companies these vendors will you know extend the gratitude a little bit longer we'll see along the same lines are like some of the actual devices like you were talking about the lanova devices for the first graders as being a more appropriate level for that age group certainly they'll there will be some costs involved and I'm wondering this all must be part of that roll over funds that we requested well actually reserve funds I can't wait to call based on what we've been able to do and my compromise because we've really looked at
045a lot of efficiencies in in inventory every device that we have and rethinking about how we will deploy that Mike did you wanna share a snippet about that yeah and I'm just reallocating some of the current technology we have and with some other efficiencies the whole project so adding some more iPads at kindergarten getting these lenovo ruggedized tablets for first grade and then Chromebooks for everyone else actually comes out to be cost neutral so there is no budget in this yes um and those savings are realized I won't get into the nitty gritty detail but for instance we would have computer setup for staff members to check their email and some like even at the Board of Ed there's a cart of Chromebooks there so when we do professional development teachers can come in and
046grab a Chromebook well when we get to the point where everyone has a device those situations go away well we don't need to have these setups all over the place where people have access and when you ran the numbers it actually came out to be more efficient and we're up for to do a lot of desktop computer replacements which are very expensive at like 750 dollars while replacing one of those with a Chromebook at roughly two hundred and twenty-five dollars they're three for one so moving the numbers around we came out to where we'll be able to do all this and zero budget impact won't my Poppa you are singing our song no good enough it's a favorite chord for a lot of people especially after budget season just ended Wow I have to tell
047you I mean I don't know we worked on this for weeks weeks so really I'm so glad that this whole team could be here with me tonight and for Mike to do that number crunching and Barbara note can tell you where every device is in this entire in every building she she's just phenomenal so and we own we own the devices right we don't lease we don't we do not lease every once in a while if we need to make a large purchase of like very expensive servers or a lot of desktop computers but I've done a three-year lease in the past with 0% basically just spread the payments out over three years we have done a few of those but typically we do purchase these are very inexpensive devices so it doesn't doesn't really
048make a lot of sense and we're getting six years out of a Chromebook that we spent $200 on we're getting our we're getting our money's worth but yeah okay the way this works which just hasn't this hasn't really occurred until Marlene has taken over as this integration of Tom Scott me Barbara Marlene and Kevin is what allows this all to move forward so we don't understand the curriculum as well but we do understand the the technology part so us working together we could focus our efforts in the direction that Marlene wants to take it and support her that's what makes this all really work and it's been it's been fantastic and with her leadership and with this team it's been it's been a pleasure great you know got people through this crisis but it perhaps
049is not the best platform to work with have you heard that what can you elaborate on that yeah what is the what's the alternative so the alternative right you know right from the get-go was zoom everyone kind of latched on to zoom you know let's get into this and it was a it was a free platform it was available to the general public it didn't have a whole lot of security features built in so you saw a lot of what they called the zoom bombing and the usually the infiltration the easy integration of other calls and meetings and people kind of disrupting it Google meet actually probably is the best platform for us to be on it may not have it may not be the Silver Bullet to end all you know zoom conferences or
050conference at video conferencing tools but for our platform which is already based in the Google suite where we have all the counts provisioned we have an admin console that allows us to kind of curate the settings at the student level we can curate those settings at the staff level we do have the capability to kind of archive some of what's going on in the Google Chat side of things we have control measures over the quality of the the video especially when kids are on all different types of networks there at home there are they might be out on a public Wi-Fi area for a temporary portion of time it gives us that ability to kind of control as much as possible from a district sense whereas some of these other tools that are out there
051we would have zero control and and and having everybody on the same platform is also easier for training purposes and ease of use when you have a teacher who knows how to use Google meat and can work with the students on Google meat and they're utilizing the same platform we're we're better able to train them to be more efficient with Google meat and this type of software rather than well I'm gonna be on you know zoom today and I'm gonna be on web free conference tomorrow it's kind of universality so everyone's speaking and working with the same language okay classroom perspective too from from the home front we could also facilitate the parents at home to having that one platform is one key piece for both sides of the fence but again it's got mentioned
052this is one tool it's one thing for that asynchronous back-and-forth between student and teacher but there's a variety tools that we have for getting content out in the video form from a whiteboard form for video forms there's different ways to get the content across for the curriculum yeah and Google did quickly and I mean quickly because in terms of Google there's very few vendors that will move as fast as Google did on enhancements and some tweaks and features and availability we talked about some of those enhancements the freemium side of things Google rolled out some expanded capability that they normally charge for pretty quickly to everyone they even went so far as to allow free public use of Google meats which will mean more for us in the fall when we need to bring parents
053on who are outside our domain outside our organization so it will make it more Universal for us to communicate with parents and students and other people from outside the district you know that's one thing it's like a walled garden you know they they talk about this walled garden and that's why having it in the domain having control over who comes and goes is a nice thing but they're also giving us this flexibility to kind of open the door to that garden and let some people in very carefully and cautiously okay faith if you can tell judging by the length of the response that's how that's how careful we scrutinize all we do our research ease of use training do they meet all of our data privacy requirements as well as the state data privacy one
054thing I'll say about Google me in a nutshell it's an extension of our natural environment we already use all of these tools Google meat is just one more tool that we're already using along with all of our gmail and our Google Calendar today you can when you set a meeting you just say add Google meat to it very easy for everyone to grasp we don't have to do a whole bunch of training and we stay in this Google world where we where we all exist as far as privacy agreements ability to go back and do forensics if something goes wrong and all that so although zoom probably does have some better features and in the corporate world and everything we're not paying for it and we don't have to invest a lot of time and
055effort in getting everybody up to speed on it yeah it forgive me I I probably was on you know I forgot Google meets the brain doesn't always catch up at the mouth but just the whole Google suite and the the satisfaction in and efficacy of using it but clearly this you guys have found what you need sweet and so it's meeting our needs as the district for the district that's there's not a better animal that's come along in I don't know how we'd survive without it yeah yeah true we we have forty five hundred Chromebooks out there currently I'm managing them off one interface seamless break yeah yeah it's it's very comprehensive we're able to do that if we if someone loves all math books I would not be able to do my job as
056efficiently as I'm doing it on the Google platform that we get for free yeah okay but I will I just want to say I wonder if some of the issues are less about this technology side of things and more about the instructional side of things because I do know that any kind of Google meet or zoom classroom does not translate the way that a classroom the physical classroom actually does yeah and but but that's the teachers and the minister that's the academic side to be sorted out this terms of the technology you know we we gotta use as the team has been saying that II use what's what everybody can access what it what we can control and for our school district that's the Google and I was I was gonna add on before that
057regard with any of the tools that we're thinking about the goal of doing this is to be able enact our well written it's constantly evolving and getting better but our well written curriculum to the highest degree that we can no matter what the environment is so if a person that looks like one thing that that all you have a pretty good picture of because if you've had that experience in the class whether we remote whether it's um hybrid version all of these tools that we're talking about whether it's devices or the software like seesaw or Google means or any of those things we're doing that to try to to the greatest extent that we can and act our strong curriculum for on behalf of our students so each one of these is a tool to
058help us do that to the greatest extent that we can regardless of what environment right and I think to this thing new Scott and I are both former teachers in the district we understand that classroom dynamic I'm also a parent the district - so I get to work the teachers and see what they're providing for our students and to see what our pitfalls are what's working what the students can handle easily and what we can build on that's Scott in mind major position what can we facilitate to take that classroom content that classroom curriculum and bring it to a technological environment but not solely technology-based that that teaching component is a major major major asset to our educational garment we're trying to make the technology facilitate either hybrid experience the in-class experience or remote learning
059like we had to do okay I want to add on to what Tom said about talking to other parents that one of the things that's been really helpful is hearing about the conversations that the Jacobs team has with parents when they're calling in with technology requests right so she's getting this is the issue that that a parent called him with today so she brings that to our meetings Mike's the same thing everybody on this call is having these conversations with parents so then we're able to come together and look at both the technology and the instruction to troubleshoot and then plan forward so that's really whole and and won't ask me before faith about future planning and you know we're talking a lot today about things that work importantly I will see that if we
060if we returning in a remote or a hybrid environment next year there will be lots of time planned in for sort of for lack of a better term onboarding of a child's student new to a classroom new to a teacher the ways of doing this they might know you know we went so fast to look to to this a lot of students already knew Google classroom but a lot didn't you know it wasn't because we didn't have kids on online for everything so I think hand-holding walking them through teaching them where to put your assignment where to get feedback improving how we give feedback I think our open houses for parents are going to look incredibly different because you know you're used to walking into the building being the classroom now we've got to walk
061you through the virtual classroom and we've got to make sure that parents are comfortable with all of the things that we're laying out so the return to school next year should I'm not making any predictions I'm just planning for all options is going to be really different so we're going to be really busy this summer planning for all of that and I think communicate listening and communication are are just going to be key mm-hmm okay Marlene you said next year like it's way down the road but I'm bringing you back to two months we're talking about about eight weeks No can we finish this year first no no no rest for the weary all right do we have some we're covered right we've covered anyone else want to add anything to this particular item agenda
062item because we're at the end are you looking for a motion to adjourn no I just want to savor it you know they feel we you know again I'm not sure who's online if anyone's watching us out there but just make sure that we provide as much information as we can which I think believe we have but we're all silent go in I move I move we adjourn I second all in favor hi so thank you everyone so much for your time tonight and enjoy