001for May 13, 2026. Um, thank you Stanley Ruff for welcoming us into your home this evening and hosting us. Um, we are very excited to be here and share uh this uh spotlight with you tonight. Um, thank you to my board members also for being present tonight and uh for sharing in this uh experience of ours uh as serving on the board of ed. So with that, I will ask Alex to lead us in the pledge. Oh, >> would the students like to lead us in the pledge tonight? That would be great. >> Our flag is that way. >> Are you guys ready? I pledge algiance 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. >>
002Thank you. That was excellent. >> Okay. Glattus Dr. K. Lauren >> here. >> Wanita >> here. >> Cindy >> here. >> Sherry >> here. >> Sean >> here. >> Minnie >> here. >> Louisa >> here. >> And I'm here. Okay. We are very excited to be here tonight to hear all about Sadly Rock Elementary School. So tonight is Spotlight Your School and I see six student leaders sitting in front of me. So I can't wait to hear what you're going to present about your school today. So I will turn it over to you. Do you want to introduce yourselves? >> Executive director behind me. Oh, and we have an executive director also in charge of directing all of the other student leaders today. So, thank you for pointing that out. Would you like to introduce
003yourselves before we we begin? >> I'm Danny. >> I'm Valentina. I'm Sophia. I'm Jasmine. I'm Carter. >> I'm Izzy. >> I'm Claire. Okay, go ahead. >> Good evening to all of our distinguished guests. We appreciate the board of education for the opportunity to spotlight Stallion Ruff Elementary. We are the student leadership team. Our school's journey is rooted in the Danbury public school's goal to become the number one district in Connecticut. Tonight, we'll briefly share how the school's key priorities and actions help us become strong advocates, collaborators, communicators, innovators, and learners. This work could not have been completed without the dedication, insight, and passion of our school leadership team. Our school leadership team has worked together to examine the data, discuss with other staff members, and determine innovative ways to address our problems of practice. Like
004so many across Danbury, our school is committed to supporting every child every day. Now, let's dive in with our wildly important goals. Our goal is to make our district the best it can be. And we're the ones at the center of the list. Here's what that looks like for us, the whole child. Here at Styley Love, we feel healthy, safe, engaged, supported, and challenged. Portrait of a graduate. We are building the specific skills we need to be ready for the world after high school. Wildly important goals. Our school is focusing on the areas that help us grow the fastest, achieve our best, and keep our well-being a priority. These goals are bold, but they reflect our greatest opportunities to accelerate student success. For our first goal, for our first goal of increasing proficiency in math
005as well assessment, we have already seen a lot of growth in math according to i scores for the spring. Some of the things that the teachers and administration have done to see this improvement are departmentalized fifth grade targeted flexible small groups and men 30 to 45 minutes in my path weekly professional learning community meetings with the math teachers and myths ward from the district math department for our first goal of decreasing the number of students scoring below grade level in foundational skills. We are so happy to say that we are nearing our goal of 30%. Our K to third grade teachers have worked so hard to implement science of reading strategies with our core literally lit liter literacy curriculum and have looked at data to inform their small group instruction. Now let's see what this
006looks like in action. Our school vision isn't just a statement. It's how we show up every day. Here is how we are growing. We are learners in fifth grade. Having subject specific teachers help us dive deep. But things get tough in math or reading. We know how to use data and support to push through and succeed. We value collaboration. Whether we are in small groups or meeting with our buddy classes to share our writing. We aren't just working side by side. We are sharing strategies and helping each other grow. We master communication and compassion through restorative practices and PBIS celebrations. We've learned to use our voices. We know how to resolve conflicts constructively and advocate for ourselves and our peers. While we build these skills for the future, we feel supported today. These aren't just
007lessons. They are tools we'll take with us long after we graduate. Another example of working towards a portrait of graduate is our student leadership team, which is us. We are made up of fifth grade students who were selected by teachers Miss Lopez and Mr. Sterling. We help during school events. We carry out student le assemblies. We serve as student representatives. And finally, we interview, produce, and publish our very own podcast which we created. This experience has taught us many valuable lessons such as collaboration through the many conversations we had to decide on people to interview and questions to ask. We learned a lot about advocacy, especially when talking to people like Mayor Al and Dr. Cameira. Our communication skills are so much better now compared to the beginning of the year as we have learned
008to speak up and talk into the microphone as well as ask follow-up questions. Finally, we are proud to be innovators as this is the first elementary school podcast in Daily and we hope this podcast can continue with future fifth grade groups. A larger group of fifth graders were selected to serve as safety patrol members. This group is tasked with patrolling the hallways during dismissal and patrolling during schoolwide events. They also assumed the leadership role during the school day by reminding students to walk in the hallways or be kind to one another. They met with people in the community such as Miss Clusio from the AAA association. We are now in the process of selecting the next group of safeties out of the current fourth grade group and as students leadership team. We will be involved
009in the whole process. The kindness and compassion club led by Miss Ironman and Miss Panesi and made up of third through fifth grade students. And they do so much to teach the whole school kindness and compassion. They do fundraisers such as the spring fling and donate drives and then donate proceeds to many community organizations. The club also does a lot for the school by holding springy yard cleaning and creating educational and beautiful bulletin boards. The students learned so many life lessons in this club and we appreciate Miss Ireland and Miss Kadesi for volunteering to run this club without compensation all out of love for the school. We are working hard to make sure every one of us stays healthy, safe, engaged, supported, and challenged. Here's how we are taking the lead. Our voice in health.
010As a student leadership team, we met with the district's operation manager, Mr. Doug Langage. To advocate for the types of food we want to see in our lunches, building a kind community. We are learning how to treat each other with kindness so we can become positive members of society. safety and connection. To keep us safe, our school uses restorative practices. This means we focus on repairing relationships and staying connected to our classrooms even when things get tough. Celebrating success, we make sure to celebrate the joy of our hard work. Take a look at this slideshow to see the wonderful things happening at our school. Let the music take control. Ignite the fire in your soul. We're going to shine so bright tonight. Let the music take control. Ignite the fire in your soul. We're going
011to shine so bright tonight. Let the music take control. Ignite the fire in your soul. We're going to shine so bright tonight. We're going to shine so bright tonight. Let the music take control. Ignite the fire in your soul. We're going to shine so bright tonight. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. This is a quote that is repeated every morning in our announcements and that every student learns their beliefs. We hope you enjoy learning about our school and how special it is. We welcome you to visit us anytime. We are always learning, always practicing, being kind, and always trying to do it together. >> Remember, be rough. We believe in you. You are enough and love. You have strength and we know you will try your best. You can do anything you put your mind to.
012No matter what happens, know you can turn it around. We will support you and never give up on you. Together, it's better. Sadly, Stallions, have an awesome day. >> I just want to say good evening to everyone and thank our leadership team here. I'm Lenny Surlic, the principal at Styley Ruff. This is Jenny Lopez, assistant principal. I think this was a perfect example of the start of the portrait of a graduate. When we talk about the start of the continuum, the K5 piece, clearly you could see we're doing our due diligence to get a good start on that continuum. This is what we pass on to the middle school. And I think that's why I wanted to have them present tonight. I could take the mic and talk all night. You know that, but I
013didn't want to do that. And it was hard to give this up to them, but I knew I was confident they could do this. And they were giving me chills. I don't know about you guys, I had tears in my eyes over here because everything they articulated is everything that I would have said. They did this with the help of Mrs. Lopez. They did this. This is a great accomplishment for them, but this is something that we have here at Stadley Ruff and we hope to continue on in years to come. Thank you everybody for coming out and thank you parents for supporting us. Have a good night. I just want to say to you and to you as well that um I was here just a few weeks ago and what you was probably
014what could have been one of the best run podcasts in the district. And I say that if you can tell Mr. Bettish I said that too. Mr. Vanish, you know, has kind of has the real estate in that market, but you this group is is phenomenal. And um the presentation was wonderful. And I I have to say I think maybe all year I've had some pretty tough questions asked of me this year. Your group had some of the tougher ones. Um but I will say that I love the student culture that you've built here and I love the fact that you've created leadership opportunities for the students. um and that when we do we do these things, they rise to the occasion and are phenomenal. So, thank you so much for this for this presentation
015and all the work that went into it. Jenny, the work that you do with this group on the podcast is incredible and um there's a lot of growth that is seen as a result of of those efforts. So, thank you so much and Terrence, thank you for coming out tonight. Uh it makes a difference that you're here and we appreciate you. Thank you. Don't forget your papers. >> Wow, that was hard to follow up now. Um, but thank you. Thank you for that. So, on to public participation. The board welcomes public participation and ask that speaker please limit their comments to three minutes. Speakers may offer objective comments of school operations and programs that concern them. The board will not permit any expression of personal complaint or defamatory comments about board of education personnel and
016students nor against any person connected with the public school system. >> Thank you Lauren. I have one name. Um, signed up. Melinda Scott. >> You can call me Scoot. That's what the kindergarters call me. All right. I'm unscripted tonight. So, like Mr. Slic, I too could take the microphone and talk all night, which y'all are on my home turf tonight, so I could not pass up the opportunity. I have to say, I really do miss not coming from my meeting and speaking up. College is way too far away now. Way too far away. I'm a mile from school here and despite construction still a mile from school and you're far out. Anyway, I just want to thank you for coming and doing this here at our school and I know we're not the first and
017hopefully we won't be the last. I think this is a brilliant idea. Brilliant. I think it is so eye opening and so purposeful and so meaningful for everybody, cabinet members and board members to get out into the buildings and really see what's going on. I was I'll just do it again, but I was tearing up watching those kids. Like it's such a proud teacher moment for me too to see what those kids can do without such a um but it's so great to see them. Um and of last year a fourth grade teacher and so it was just so awesome. But I think it's great for you guys just to see what's happening. So that was number one. Number two, I really had to say publicly a huge thank you to Dr. Casemiro and M
018and you guys too for making the transportation funds happen this year for us. As a fourth grade teacher, we have a very ambitious program involving outdoor classroom formerly nature's classroom that is costly but worth every single penny. I spend innumerable hours fundraising to make this happen for our students and the busing costs every year are just so prohibitive. That's why we don't travel anymore to do it. That's why we stay local. But even the local trip over to spending a day at Terry Wild for one of our Nature on Wheels experiences, it's so expensive. So having the opportunity to have those buses covered this year just made it so that we could offer more opportunities to our students. So we were able to do things that we would not have been able to do if
019we hadn't had those funds covered. So thank you for making that happen. We know it's probably not going to happen again, but maybe but maybe maybe it will. Maybe it will. Maybe it'll be a regular thing and we can make this happen again. But that was huge in the making programming happen for these kids and for so many of our students. I don't need to tell you. Um, they've never been to Terry Lab. It's right here in Danbury, right? That's an opportunity. I used to be thrilled when I got to take them to an oceanside beach because so many of them had never been to a beach. Okay, I don't get that opportunity anymore, but just taking them to exposing them to something that's right here in our community is really amazing. So, thank you.
020Thanks. >> All right. The consent calendar. I need to move my seat. Um, I make a motion that the board of education approve consent calendar exhibits 26-77 and 26-78 in accordance with the following rules. >> Thank you, Lauren. Um, do I hear a second? >> Second by Al. Is there any comments, questions, concerns on the consent calendar? >> Seeing none, all in favor? >> Any opposed? >> Okay. Motion carries. Um, we have anybody from the educational staff present? Uh, student representatives. >> Hello, my name is Alexandra. Good evening, board of ed members, cabinet, and community members. Thank you for allowing me to represent and speak on behalf of the alternate center of excellence. Ace will host its graduation ceremony on Tuesday, June 16th at 4:30 in the at Bravio Auditorium. A special thanks to Bravio
021for opening up their doors to us for a special event. On Tuesday, May 12th, ACE held its spring community benchmarks. On this day, the whole school completed the humanities benchmark based on grade level. After the benchmark are complete, students attended activity plexus with their guidance. On Tuesday, May 19th, Daniela, Alyssa, and Melissa will take 25 poetry students on the annual 80s poetry hike at Bb Brook in Washington, Connecticut. Students will have an opportunity to hike and create original poetry and art pieces inspired by nature. On Saturday, May 16th from 1 to 4, Ace will host its fth annual Joe Pepin day to celebrate Ace. It's founder Joe Pepin, who opened the doors to Ace in 1977. The day will include a barbecue, face painting, and rock painting for kids and time for alumni and staff
022to spend with one another. The event is open to public to celebrate Joe and Ace. On Thursday, May 28th, Ace will host its annual Ace coffee house at the hottest park from 5:30 to 7:30. The event will start with a barbecue and then introduce to a coffee house portion at the night where students and staff will read original piece according to the formula. Thank you all for allowing us to share what's going on with our ACE family this spring. Have a nice evening. Stay healthy and remain strong. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Okay, now we'll move it over to the superintendent. All right, we have a a quick one today. I have to say I'm very impressed with all the student speakers tonight. Just the confidence and the boys and the the way you
023are delivering messages. It's just very impressive. It's just another display of the work that's being done at the school. So, thank you. Um, okay. So, just a a brief update. We're still unpacking some of the recent uh legislative approved funding that has been designated to municipalities and to school districts. Um right now we believe we're getting about $2.9 million in a as a supplemental that should be delivered um from the commissioner to through the municipality and then to the schools by October 31st. And so it's my understanding at this point in time that we'll have to come up with a plan on how to use that onetime money. Um I can think of some things uh maybe after tonight looking at facilities or certainly some worthy projects um that could be on deck. Um but
024as a as a board and as a team, we'll discuss some of the best ways to um to use that one-time funds if once we learn a little bit more about um any parameters that that are attached to that. Um the city is also getting an allocation as well. Um theirs is a little bit more complex because it's comprises of a it's comprised of several different numbers. Um so I'll let the city speak to to that um on their end, but uh we are thankful uh for that. Um, as you know, there's been a lot of discussion around ECS, that's our educational cost share formula, um, which hasn't been updated in a very, very long time. Um, the sess the legislative session did not yield a change in that formula just yet, but there is
025a new uh, blue ribbon commission that has been established to look at the the formula. So there was a push to change the formula in this session but um because it is so complex and there was a lot of folks waiting they decided to stop and and kind of really study it. So hopefully uh in the next round we'll get some movement on that which could bring additional dollars per student to Danberry uh in the form of ECS dollars. So more to come on that. Um and then there was this was a very very busy legislative session. There was a lot of updates against we are still unpacking all of that because the session just ended. Uh we have plans to bring in Lindsay Jacobs who's um one of our lobbyists and helps us with
026uh advocating at different levels and we've collaborated on different pieces of legislation. Uh and so she serves as a little bit of a less to to our board. Um and we'll be bringing her in in a board meeting that's coming up um either the next board meeting or the very first one in June. We're still working out some of those dates. In the meantime, u Mike, if you want to, you know, fill in a few gaps for us on some of the maybe the bigger the bigger, more high-profile ones, just what you know about them, that'd be great. >> Sure. Thank you, Dr. So, uh, I I think that was really the headline was the $2.9 million that we were getting in supplemental education aid. Um, if you remember a couple meetings ago, I had
027mentioned there were there were two bills really pushing for an increased ECS. There was HP 50002 and SB7. Neither of those bills passed, but this supplemental aid was sort of a consolation prize. It's one time. Those bills would have put uh put a mechanism in place for year-over-year increases. So, without those bills, we have this one-time funding, but it, you know, it could be a bellweather of things to come. Um, you know, that these may resurface in the next session with a little bit more momentum because now they're sort of in the, you know, they're they're they're in the spirit of, you know, what what people will be talking about. Um, another good bit of news, we talked a little bit about this at sites as um, there was um, an increase in the reimbursement
028amount for the walls that are being planned for King Street primary. Originally, we were only going to get a 63% reimbursement uh, on that cost. Now, that is up to 80%. Um, in my last conversation with Rep Santos, I said there are still ongoing efforts to find additional supplemental funding um, to kind potentially cover more of that cost. Um, another bill that we were watching closely was SB427. This was the dual credit bill that we talked about that Dr. Casemiro uh testified on both last year and this year. Well, this year, it was a different bill number last year, but it was the same concept. Um, this was one that passed and it's going to be uh it's going to require the state to appoint a dual credit concurrent enrollment coordinator at the state level.
029Uh we were hoping there'd be something a little bit more regional that would that would help us, you know, do some of the the work here between Westcon and ourselves and some of the partner districts. Uh but nonetheless, it's a step in the right direction. So, so I think it it's uh it's a good sign. And there's also money in there to pay for some um credits and fee waivers uh for students that are taking dual credit courses. Um and that's really the big big news on the education front. There were a few more bills that I I think Linds Jacobs will dig into when she gets here. um and and they have a full uh session wrap up report. So um in the next two weeks we'll we'll have a lot more information. >>
030Thank you. >> Okay. And just uh just two more items. Uh so we have Kota this Saturday, May 16th, and then it's in your pocket. That's from 11:00 to 4:00. And it looks like we also have Joe Papa Day from 1 to 4. So, if you go to Kota at 11:00 and stay for 2 hours, then you can head on over to Joe Pepin Day and you can get both in. Um, great uh food um face painting at at Kota. Amazing artwork. Your children's artwork will be there posted somewhere. Um, and it's it's really fun to see and the kids love to to drag whoever brought them there over to find their artwork in the sea of of art. So, that's one of my favorite things to do. Um, and uh there's ice cream and
031uh lots of music and uh I'm not sure if our VEX robotics team is is setting up. Um they usually do every year, but we have a a world championship team. Um, and it's great for the kids to see that program because, uh, we are now backward building that program into our elementary schools to get kids really engaged in in STEM, steam, building, robotics, coding, and understanding, uh, um, the world of of all the mechanical um, and digital tools that that we are um, able to offer them and uh, that lead to some of our pathways at the high school. So, we're excited about that. Um, and then just one last thing. I know there's a question, Kelly. I'm going to give you a second to um maybe talk a little bit about uh preschool
032in a in a moment. And then um just the planned use for the classrooms at AIS that we have on deck to to renovate. Um we did have a sites and facilities meeting previous uh and there was some questions there, but I also just in my other com column wanted to make sure we updated the full court on that. >> Sure. Thank you, Dr. Casemiro. I will start with um AIS. Uh we are currently renovating a space um it is right now storage space um which we are uh pleased uh after looking at the site plans that we can add three classrooms as well as two office or uh sensory spaces for the students. Um this will be for our uh self-contained special education students. Um, I think if the board recalls, last year we
033talked about our Penrook program was growing, which houses our self-contained programming mostly for students on the autism spectrum. Um, we currently have six classes at Penrook and we needed to add an additional one and that's when we decided to move a space, move a classroom over to um, AIS and then add another one. So, we have six classes at Penrook, two at AIS, growing to another one at AIS next year. Um, and we are running out of room. So therefore we are renovating the space to add those three classrooms also to bring in those office spaces because with that population we do need more related services space. So an increase in speech and language services, occupational therapy and physical therapy. So um happy to report that the program at AS has went off very smoothly
034and seamlessly. Uh we transitioned a veteran teacher into that program. Um and then we hired a new teacher and they've made a really really nice partnership and the AIS faculty has really embraced the programming for those students. Um, Pen Brook is still continuing very strong. Um, but we've recognized that they are at their capacity as far as specialized programming in that building. Um, so that is what we are doing with the renovations over there. Pause for questions. Okay. Um, and Granville. So, um, prior to CO, we had uh renovated Granville uh to house all of our special education preschool programs and we outgrew the space before we cut the ribbon. Uh so we currently have um 10 classes at Granville along with multiple related services spaces. Uh there are four SLPs and occupational therapists, a
035physical therapist that all work out of that building along with several other related services staff on a full and part-time basis. Um we have three classrooms that are special education preschool classrooms at Sacred Heart. Um, and so the expansion of Granville will allow us to bring all those classes over to have a preschool under one roof and then allow for some program development over time, which we continue to anticipate. Um, so there'll be a two-phase uh renovation of Granville. Uh, the church uh space is being gutted currently. The church is no longer there. They have vacated the property. Um and the house that was used to uh for the pastor is being uh leveled to uh have increased parking spaces. So in the first year they will add close to 40 additional parking spaces to
036the parking lot and it uh creates leveling. It's kind of up on a hill. It's a little bit of a project. Um and then the inside of the church will create three classroom spaces along with several other office spaces. Um we'll bring uh some of our it'll be for psych and social work, speech and language and then we'll bring some of our tech team over there as well. Um so that will enable us to bring all of our special ed preschool from Sacred Heart over to Brandville. So that'll be the first time um that I can recall that preschool has ever been under one roof as a comprehensive school together. It also allows us to maximize our busing and transportation, all of our related services as right now many of them are transitioning back and
037forth between schools. Um and then next year over the summertime out the back of the building they will continue by adding four additional classrooms. Two on the top level and two on the bottom level. Um and that will allow us to have some additional room for growth. At that time we anticipate adding needing one or two more classes and then it will give us some additional uh areas to provide physical therapy, occupational therapy and so forth. But happy to report that that should help with our preschool growth over the very near future or so. Thank you. That is it. Okay. >> All right. Great. Um, next, do we have any reports from our committee chairs? If they would like to talk about >> like to publicly thank Dr. Celic uh Jason Rich Jalbert uh for
038working extremely hard on a new document that will allow the board to see work in progress at every school. So we can check back and and the volume of work that they did in a month is is stunning. Uh it's a testament to the crew that works. Like to thank Lenny and Mrs. Lopez for a great tour and the kids. But uh we had a great meeting here tonight and I hope it's uh to build on for the future. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Um on to the chair's report. Um just a few things tonight. This is our last um on location meeting for the school year. Our next three meetings will be back in the boardroom. Um I just want to take a minute to thank the board uh for you know for helping
039with this this year. um we will have the full schedule of our locations for the 26 27th school year. So you'll know where we're going to be um at the school. So we're hoping to to really next year and and get a lot of um attendance and and through the district. So thank you to the parents for showing up tonight. It's really important to us um that we that we have that um engagement with the uh community. Um couple things for my board members. uh please RSVP for the parade if you haven't already done so so we know who will be attending and um so we have an idea so we walk in and we can plan that accordingly. Um also for the graduations I know we got a a lot of um invites so
040uh there's a lot of places to be so if you could RSVP to those so we can just make sure we have somebody attending um all of them. I know we can't all get to everything, but we can divide and conquer um this spring because the next six weeks are going to be a little bit busy busy for us. Um uh one more thing I wanted to um just make comment of. We had a senior um from Gambert High School who had an art show over at the Brookfield Craft Center and I was telling Cara about this and I stopped over um to see his work and it was absolutely the most incredible. Um I I was overwhelmed when I walked in. I did not I did not expect the caliber of talent that I
041saw when I walked in there. Um so I I just want to make mention of it. I know we talk a lot about STEM and computer in our you know robotics teams, but this district holds so much talent on so many levels uh both art, music, science, math. I mean, it is just incredible and we should just be, you know, screaming it off of the rooftops for everything. So, um, thank you, uh, to, uh, for the invites. These are very important for us. Uh, so we get out there and we can see what what's happening within our district. Um, and with that, that is it for me. I'm going to move it on to board discussion. Does the board any board members have anything they'd like to share before we close out the evening? Okay,
042>> I just want to remind uh board members to please check your mail for the CAB liaison newsletter. Um the upcoming summer leadership conference, the delegate assembly, the convention in November, and the new board member orientation leadership conference in December. Um, see Louisa if you're interested in attending those. Anybody else? No. Nothing. Okay. All right. With that, um, want to thank, uh, the everybody from the school for welcoming us today. Everybody at Stanley Ruff. Uh, we really appreciate, uh, the warm welcome we got this evening. Um, do I hear a motion to adjourn?