001We lost one of our I'm sorry, one of our senior students um and one of our teachers. um our student Christopher Alexander Gualpa Lima and Miss Linda Kimble. Um so before we get started, let's just take a moment of silence just to our condolences and prayers are with all of their families during this difficult time. Um, and with that, we'll start with the pledge. Kate >> here. >> Glattus >> here. >> Dr. Cone. Lauren >> here. >> Wanita >> here. >> Cindy >> here. >> Sherry >> here. >> Sean here. >> Minnie >> here. >> Louisa >> here. And I'm here. >> Thank you. Okay. So, good evening. Um, we had a wonderful kickoff to this evening's board of ed meeting um with some of the presentation through uh our students capstone civic action projects.
002And I'd like to call Heather Loren um to come up for just a moment along with her amazing students Juliana, Christina and Louisa, Gianna and Gabriella. Come on up. >> Unfortunately, Gianna was unable to attend tonight. >> Gianna is not here tonight. Well, if you could just talk to us a little bit about the genesis of the capstone and what it really took to to bring tonight together. I know that the the that these young ladies um did their capstone in the last semester but um we were all very impressed with the poise the confidence the identity with themies and just this confidence that that you all exuded and I was I'm so proud of all of you but I'd love to hear from your teacher and maybe a little bit from you about your
003experience. >> Sure. So, the capstone project is um it's a civic action project, CAP. Get it? Capstone. But it's also supposed to capstone their high school experience and it involves the um the POG. They have to hit all of the attributes of the portrait of a graduate. Um, they do research, they collaborate, they communicate, they come up with innovative ideas like the t-shirt that she's going to tell you about. Um, and um, and they're doing civic action for their community. So, they're also learning about their community while they're doing this. And I lost Oh, no, there's the mic now. Um, and um, it's supposed to be a culmination like a graduation like kickoff, so to speak, that we're sending them off into the world with all of these skills that are embedded in practice throughout
004the semester so that when we get to the project, they're already ready to do it. And um so I will let them speak more about that. if >> you just want to share a little bit about what the project meant to you. I know you did an amazing job articulating the research and your action steps, but just in general, um, how did you find the capstone experience as a as a senior? >> Uh, I found it kind of stressful sometimes >> dealing with work from other classes, my AP class, just dealing with a lot of stuff. But with the research that I made, it was really interested interesting, especially since the topic that I focused on was a topic that I was really engaged on. And well, my experience was good. I don't I can't
005really speak for my partners that were un were unavailable to arrive, but I found it really fun. >> Great. Thank you. So to touch base on what Christina said, yes it was very stressful working on this project. I don't know about everyone in class. I know as a group we were a little bit stressed and we had our moments where communication wasn't our strong suit. Um but we felt this project was very useful and it does send us out into the real world like Miss Loren said with these excuse me with these um skills and these like abilities. Um also like Christina said I felt my topic like you know substance abuse and mental health were very interesting and we were very interested in that topic and just further expanding our information in that topic
006and how it affects people. >> Thank you. I thought that in school like we do a lot of research based topics but I've never had to really like dive in into a topic as deep as I did for my project. So, I think it gave me a different perspective on like what it what it's like really involving yourself in something. So, it definitely gave me a different perspective on how to learn. Basically, it was a lot of self-guided learning, a lot of like self-paced communicating with your group members. It was kind of on us to do what we needed to do and know what we needed to get done, but in the end, we definitely got it done. And I could say that I've definitely learned something new and how to translate it to other
007things in the future. Um, well, I thought it was a great experience just because we got to choose our own topic and what we wanted to do with it. Um, we chose to do a Canva. I think that's just the best way that we could put or my group information which was about signs sign effects that you can spawn on students and it was just easier and you know to read and just to get take all the information with a Canva or a slide something quick something with small writing you know not a lot of information to take in at first and I just really I enjoyed I enjoyed this process this um this project. It wasn't anything, it wasn't rocket science. It was fine. And I feel like we didn't have a lot of
008homework, so the working class was honestly pretty chill. As long as you had your research that was, you know, reliable and trustworthy, it could just be done for the day, for the class. So, yeah, I really like the class. I really like the project. >> Awesome. Well, thank you all so much. Thank Heather, thank you for bringing the uh being here tonight. parents, thank you for bringing the students and and ladies, wonderful job. You are awesome. Thank you. >> Thank you again. Okay, up next we have Danberry High School. Spotlight your school. So, I'm going to ask that team to come on up. You have a tough following here. We're just going to take that off. Okay. Thank you for having us uh here tonight. I know we got snowed out for our our first
009time we were going to do this with the other half of the academy. So, we're here tonight with uh three of our or four of our other ones that we're going to be talking about and we'd love to get the other ones back in front if you can. Mic went out. So, uh excuses if we're not super energetic tonight. It's been a little rough week at Danbury High School. So, um, you know, we're going to try to do the best we can and bring our energy like we always do with the the goal always of being becoming the number one urban district in the state of Connecticut. Uh, I'm going to present a little bit on just the overview of Danry High School and I'm turn it over to the people behind me, uh, who
010will tell you what's actually going on within our academy models. With me tonight, I have Dr. Martins, our stand up bad hip and all. So, she's here. Uh, Karina Janeo, who's our exploration academy director. you'll hear from her. John Lar Rosa who's in the back over there. Miss Teal who is our art engineering design one. Miss Loren, we just saw you in the back there is Miss Grant. She's one of our our deans. So, um uh we'll hear from most of them in a little bit. So, as I mentioned, the school leadership team, the bolded people are the ones that you're going to hear from tonight uh as we begin to talk. So, as a reminder to everybody, this is the setup of how ourmies work. Every single eighth grader in the district starts at
011uh when they come into ninth grade at Danbury High School on the main campus where they are put into Miss Janeo's Exploration Academy where we work very hard on I can't I'm doing it again, aren't I? Yep, that's her. Look to stop talking about what I'm going to talk about. uh to get them to understand our academy model and then in uh the end or should say the middle of nth grade they make their selections to which academy they would like to go into 10th grade. Uh our wildly important goal or wig goals this year uh were to improve our SAT scores, reduce our chronically absent students uh and students back on track to graduation. You know, we would love to see our SAT scores go way up and our chronically absent rate go way
012down. Uh but it's a struggle with what's going on, not only coming out of COVID, but the current political climate is causing a little bit of a problem for us with attendance and the number of students who have left Damry High School in the last year. Um from there, uh we're trying to raise our on-track graduation numbers as long as our four-year cohort. So, the driving numbers we had our junior SAT score, which went up, we had a nice bump this reporting out of last year's group. U now we're trying to figure out why. Why? Where did that come in? Was it a blip in the map? Was it just that grade or was it some of the structures we put in place? One of which was run by Miss Grant who's sitting back here.
013She ran an SAT academy on Saturdays that tutored kids. So we really think and the data that she has uh shown us especially this year as well too has shown the students that attended multiple uh sessions if not all of them had significant bumps in their practice. So we're thinking that's one of the things that plus some of the ways that we are turning over what we do in the classroom as well to try to get that to stay up. Um number of chronically absent students we've dropped it. We were actually highlighted by the state of Connecticut for our drop. Uh what it is this year, I don't think we're going to be highlighted. Uh because we're kind of back up as soon as we um you know said yes, we did it. You know,
014we didn't take our foot off the gas and saying we still need to work on that, but that it's creeped back up to where we almost were before. So, we're working very hard to bring that down. Our graduation rate, the four-year cohort, uh got another bump this year that came out from 80% to 83%. Um, so we're we're we're trending in the right direction. Never as fast as as we all would like it to, but pinpointing what's causing these to rise is what we're working on now and how can we support those and um make them wider throughout Danbury High School. I'm going to talk about uh what we did this year to amplify our student voice in themies is we started our ambassador program where we had a bunch of students that came in
015before school started in August and took them into the black box and did our ambassador training with them which was um you know a offshoot of what they do in Nashville. Uh and these students went through a pretty rigorous uh process to get there. It wasn't just a volunteer. You had to be nominated by an academy director after you showed and filled out the application. So filling out the application is sometimes a little bit difficult for our students. They don't want to do it. So that showed interest. From there, they went into an interview process and were selected to be the ambassadors. Now these are the students as we get rolling here. If any board members had any interactions or coming into our schools for tours, generally they're the ones that'll show everyone around. Uh
016we train them a lot on their presentation skills and we've talked to them about the talking points of theirmies and we let them go. We bought these awesome blazers that you'll see we all have. Uh the kids have them. They've been great with it and we're getting a lot of use as ourmies in the Northeast are becoming more and more popular and other places in Connecticut are looking to model what we're doing. Uh these ambassadors are going to be extremely useful uh especially next year when people come in. As an example, New Milford's coming in here next week. I'm not giving the tour. It'll be given by ambassadors. That's where we are now. And it's much better as you all heard tonight to hear from our kids than it is from me. So eventually I
017will not be standing in front of you just to say hello. I will have ambassadors doing this. That's fun. With that, I'm gonna turn it over to Miss Janeo on our Exploration Academy and tell you what she's been up to. >> Okay. Good evening. >> Good evening. I'm really excited to come and be in front of you tonight and talk a little bit about what we've been doing in the Exploration Academy. As Dan mentioned, every student that comes into Danbury High School, if you're coming in as a brand new ninth grader, you are entering the exploration academy where we are working really hard to support the transition from middle school to high school. Um, some of the work that we've done in the c in the past three years is we have really set um
018our ontrack criteria. We have developed that with staff and we promote it pretty um pretty much we start in 8th grade when I visit the eighth grade the middle schools. So and that's our on track criteria that you can see up in the left corner. We really try to um start to get students to understand our credit system when they enter high school. Um our attendance policy, attendance matters at the high school because it does impact grades with our CO policy. And just some of our um some of the other criteria that we promote, bees are better, right? We know that students who attain B's or better are just better equipped to enter um the workforce or enter college after high school. So these are some of the things that um we have solidified as
019pillars um to be a student who's successful moving through yeartoyear. Um in our academy uh we really promote students to be lifelong learners. So we are getting them in tune with all the resources and everything that is available not just within Danbury High School but also um now with our partnerships with the outside community. And so becoming a learner that's one of the uh portrait of the graduate ab att attributes that we really highlight and emphasize as they move through that last year I mean this first year um communicators and collaborators. So not only in our academy course but throughout the core classes um we really try to um provide students with opportunities to work in groups in pairs um really work on their communication skills so that they can eventually become advocates not only
020for themselves but for others. Um with one of the pillars of this academy model is the micro credentials or the credentials. Um I'm proud to report that this year 723 students um who took our exploration seminar all attempted our careers safe times safe micro credential. Also in the second half of the year um for second semester all students who were in good standing were offered the opportunity to take a post university class and we currently have 34 first year freshman students who are taking college courses and can potentially earn three college credits at the end of this school year. So those are some of the things to highlight that we're really proud of. Moving on. Um I do feel very proud at the fact we are wrapping up year three. So this work began in
021the exploration academy three years ago. Those are our first year kiddos that are now juniors. Um and we have pretty much solidified and created a system where every freshman in the last three years has been exposed to these experiences. Um and so you have um we have our exploration seminar this year. 98% of our students took the exploration seminar in the first semester of school and so um and you students who did not are or are students who came in too late into the second semester. We have a 90% pass rate which is pretty um good in comparison to other courses offered at Danbury High School. Our freshman forum on substance abuse prevent pre prevention has been going on for years and we have a system to um continue that. Actually this year it was
022our student ambassadors who led the panel and and asked all the questions on that night of our freshman forum. Um we have quarterly celebrations. We continued our teaming model from the traditional freshman academy and um teams are meeting to celebrate students at the end of every quarter. really focusing on that, you know, passing our that on-track criteria that I showed you in the previous slide. We partner with Mnt Bank and Junior Achievement and we have had a financial reality fair um for the last two years where our students come in and they're given um kind of like a mock career and budget and they go through a simulation of making financial decisions. We had our career expo for the third year where we had over 50 partners. We hosted it here at West and we
023were able to also um give all of our ninth graders the opportunity to tour West. We've had motivational speakers and I mean like worldrenowned motivational speakers come and speak to our freshmen this year just promoting making good choices and um you know future planning. And then we also had a big reveal day to reveal which pathway each freshman got into this year. coming to round off the end of the year. We will be taking every single freshman on a on a college field trip. Not to sell them on a college, but more to expose them to what a campus life looks like. What are the opportunities afforded to you if you decide you want to go to college? This is a picture from our reveal day this year. We had a great time. It we
024um planned it kind of pep rally style. We put all our students in the gym and we played lots of games. They did not know that they were grouped in with students of their new academy until the end it was revealed to them. Um for the third year 94% of our students are get um got one of their top three choices. Um, currently for quarter 3, 80% of our students are on track and for the month of March, we surpassed our expectations for chronic absenteeism in our academy where um, we look we got that as low as 16.5% for the month of March. So, we're really proud of that. Um, without further ado, I'm going to pass it on because I think I've spoken way too long. Um, I think there's a lot to brag
025about. Um, but I'm gonna pass it on to John Lar Roza. >> Hi. So, my name is John Larrosa. If you noticed in Karina's last picture, I was the fool wearing a shirt that was two different colors because currently I run two differenties. So, the first academy that I'm running is here at West and it's the Academy of Emerging Technologies and Entrepreneurship. So just a little bit about some of the stuff we're doing in classrooms to bring the theme of the academy which is um business and and innovation into the classroom. We recently had our stock market challenge. We had JA come into the building about 20 members of JA volunteered to come in and they run a fake kind of stock market day. So there's screens up that have um current stock numbers that
026are trailing. The students get a set of money and they have to decide what are they going to do with that money? how are they going to make the most out of it? And they they call over a buyer, they tell them how much stock they want to buy or sell. Um and then they race up to the board to see kind of what's happening over time with that stock. So it was a great experience and brought kind of the traditional investment in stock market alive to kids. Um and we actually had students move on to the state competition in the stock market challenge. So it was excellent. In our innovation lab, um we have a beautiful, beautiful big engineering room. Uh Mr. consult recently had the students just practice the engineering process. So they
027talk a lot about the process of engineering which is planning number one figuring out a problem then making a plan for it and trying to execute that plan. Um his classroom has about 25 foot tall ceilings. So we thought let's try to take advantage of his space. So the students actually had to design um an a vessel to keep an egg in. They raised the egg 25 feet in the air and then released it and they had to see if they could protect that egg for from breaking when it hit the ground and go through that whole process. Then they had to revise that that building that they made and try to figure out how might they improve it. So, um really hands-on work to try to bring the the theme alive to students. Um
028down in the bottom left you'll see some of our students pressing shirts. We do have a active school store here at West as well as Maine. Um, previously we used to buy um a lot of the merchandise that we sold. So if it was a sweatshirt with the Danbury logo on it, we actually purchased that from a vendor and they sent it to us screen printed and ready to go. Miss Tuz, our business teachers actually converted that that our students actually designed the logos. They order in the the um the sheets that you can actually iron on to the shirt and then they have heat presses. They actually do all of that work right here in the school. So again, trying to bring them um an experience that takes what they're learning kind of from
029the book, but bring it into to practice. They look at how much does the sweatshirt cost, how much did the the logo cost, and try to come up with prices that match it. So we're really giving them the whole experience of being an entrepreneur. Lastly, one of the things that um recently happened is if you've noticed, if you gone by Trader Joe's, they've got help wanted signs out. So, what the classroom did is they ran mock interviews as if they were hiring for Trader Joe's. So, one student played the employer and had a set of questions. Um, and then they met with another student and ran through an interview process. So, we had two different classes kind of worked together. This class pretended they were the employee. This group pretended that they were the uh
030hopefully employee and they interviewed each other. And then on another day, they switched roles and got to do the other the other side of it. So, that was great listening to the students not only have to be an employer and think about what questions am I going to ask, but the students running interviews um and learning how to prepare. Uh Coach Ratchford came in recently and did something similar on it because I think you're finding that sometimes kids need a little experience on how do you interview for a job. So, we're trying to set them up for that. Um and then hopefully they can apply these skills to park and wreck or to um YMCA, some of the summer uh employment opportunities that are available for students and can and can get those jobs. Really
031the first step in preparing them to get jobs after after high school. The other thing we're trying to do in themies is is create community. That was a big push, right? So we're bringing themes into the classroom. And the second piece is trying to create communities. So in mymies we have um and we've been doing this now for for two years. We have very set goals that are explicit to students. Miss Lorenz is in my academy. Um she's got these posters hanging in her classroom. And our goals for all of our students every single quarter. Our B's are better in all of your classes. Um we have an attendance goal of two or fewer absences in each quarter which leads you to not getting our CO which is credit only policy. Right? trying to build
032them towards getting the grade that you earn and not having your attendance impact that. Also, if you're in school, you've got a better chance of getting B's or better. And then a social involvement goal. So, we celebrate uh Miss Grant, my dean and I uh every single quarter, bring all of our students in. We highlight the students. They each get individually called up in awards if they've met one of these goals. And then we actually after um we do the celebration, students that get two or more certificates actually get to come to a fun flex. And you can see in the top left that's some of our our business teachers playing dodgeball. All of the students in that dodgeball chose dodgeball. That's what they wanted to do. Um but they earn two or more academy
033awards. So we try to again build that community. Um the teachers are involved in the fun flexes. are involved in the celebrations really to build um a tight-knit community. It was hard to do when you had 3,600 students. It's a lot easier to do when you've only got about 150 in a grade um in your academy. Uh Mr. Donovan spoke about our ambassadors. The bottom left is uh we do instructional rounds, teachers visiting classrooms and um seeing what we're doing in the classrooms that's going well and maybe what should we focus in on. Our ambassadors are actually part of that instructional round. So, we have students that spend the whole day with teachers. They have conversations about what they're seeing in the classroom. They're very familiar with what our goals are as a school um
034and they they become part of the conversation of how do we better classrooms for students. Um today we had Shake Shack come as one of our guest speakers. Um they came and met with students and talked to them again about how do you um become an entrepreneur and then also how do you get jobs in some of these places. So, we're trying to just keep exposing students to really great activities that better them for their future. The last one in Family Feud, um I will just point out that's Miss Grant dressed as Steve Harvey wearing a bald cap and a mustache. Um we tried to get the students to know more about their teachers. So, over about a week, teachers hinted about things like, "What's your favorite color? What's your dog's name?" Um didn't say
035why they were hinting these things. They just kind of got dropped in conversation. And then we ran family feud of do you know your teacher. So we ran it like that. We had kids come up. They had buzzers um and we ran a competition one side of the black box um with the other. Miss Grant came out dancing to the Steve Harvey uh family feud music. It was great activity to just build community. My other academy I'll do this one quicker is the Academy of Clean Energy and Green Design. So really focused on environmental sciences. We've been doing a a great job in this academy getting students out in the field and that's the big push here is we teach you about the environmental science in the classroom, but how do you get hands-on with
036it? So, that's students in waiters um down in the Long Island Sound looking at invasive species, a little crab called the Asian shore crab that's out competing our native our natives crab. So, these students um some of them have never done anything like this, but they're hands-on, collecting invasive species at the shore, then bringing them back to the lab, doing research on them, collecting data, and their data is actually published um nationally in science magazines and science research with Sound Waters, the group that we do it with. So, they're they can actually say they're published scientific authors at this point because they've collected the data that has been used in it. Um, and then in the classroom, we've been working with our hydroponic systems and our greenhouse to get the kids hands-on again, um, learning
037the systems that are needed to produce foods in a sustainable way. Um, and just last week, we had our Earth Day career fair where we had about 40, uh, industry partners that are all focused on environmental science come in and talk to the students about what careers are available in the environmental science um, field. It was pretty excellent. Um we have students there. They're holding uh Asia these little hissing cockroaches. They're about this big. You wouldn't think a kid would want to hold them, but they did a great job um kind of getting involved. Uh I do run twomies and I want to shout out Alex Grant because she does a ton of work with me. So twomies is a lot. Um she does a lot of the community building stuff. So when we do
038the celebrations, Alex is the one pulling the data. Alex is the one um really planning those events to make it special for students, contacting homes, letting parents know how good their kids are doing, and then setting goals for the students that aren't meeting those those goals. How do we get you to be bees are better? How do we get you to be in school every day? Um so kudos to her for all that hard work. And next we have Oh, do I have one more? Oh, same thing. Right. So this is our community involvement. Thank you, Miss Teal. Um same goals we have in this academy. me the bees are better social involvement in attendance. Um and we're doing similar things um similar celebrations. Um we're doing tie dying next week with the students. We're
039going to let them tie dye their own academy shirt to build community. Um do a just a fun event with teachers and students together. Um just trying to make them feel connected to the school. >> Hi everybody. Good evening. All right. Um so I'm Melissa Teal. I'm the academy director for art, engineering, and design. Um, there are essentially three pathways that our kids get to focus on. Architecture, manufacturing, and engineering. Um, our academy focus uh focused predominantly on hands-on experiences, which we've been able to provide a lot of for students this year. Um, starting in the fall where we held an AED carnival um where students in the applied engineering pathway actually got to build carnival games from scratch. um they got to go through the process like an actual engineer would where they designed
040everything and then um got to build the actual equipment and then we invited um freshmen from Karina's academy um to come in and actually play the games which immediately built some interest in what was happening in our academy. Um we also held an engineering day um right before Christmas break where we were able to invite industry partners in. Shout out to Mike Sleek for help making that happen. um to come in and help students. We gave a design challenge um to essentially pick up this pingpong ball with this mechanism that they had to create from scratch. They were given these random supplies, masking tape, sticks, cotton, like just random supplies. And it was really cool to watch the innovation that happened while they were trying to um create their design and build to win because
041that's essentially what they wanted to do was to win and the natural competition that happened in the community um for AED that day. Um there's been a very natural scaffold of the experiences in the academy this year in terms of things that happened in the classroom and the hands-on projects and then getting to go see those things in action through some of the partners that we've been able to work with this year. Um, in the fall we got to go some of those pictures that you see there like that robot in the bottom right. We went to the um Southwest Road Show at the University of Bridgeport um where they had some hands-on experiences for the kids where they got to use um an Xbox remote control to operate engineering equipment and we we we
042learned as teachers too um that that's actually what's happening in the engineering world. So that they're it's really opening the doors for a lot of students because it feels like a very unique skill, but it's expanding on what it looks like in the real world. Um they got to work with 3D printers and um our kids were so great on that trip that UB actually invited us back um to come back and do a our own tour of UB and their tech lab because when we were there, we were there with about 20 30 other schools. Um but our kids stood out in how well-versed they were. And I want to give a huge shout out to Justin Morgan. Um that's his class. those top two photos and the engineering notebooks that he has them
043keep um because they they know what they're talking about. They document it. They track it. You can see their growth in those things. Um oh, and I'm so sorry. I'm going to go back for one second. I also like to call us the Iron Man Academy. I want to give a shout out to Dr. Ory who created our AED logo. That's Iron Man as the Hatter. um just because of a lot of the skills that Iron Man uses in the Marvel movies are a lot of the skills that we focus on in our academy. Um we've had some amazing field trip opportunities this year. Um specifically or more recently, um our kids got to tour the Amazon facility in Windsor, Connecticut. It's 3.8 million square feet. Can you hear me? Yeah. 3.8 million square feet.
044Um one of the biggest in New England. Um and the kids were actually able to interact with a lot of the equipment and um they're also going to Eversource next week. Um there's an architecture field trip that's happening where they're actually going to get to tour the city of Danbury and talk about the architecture in the actual city so they can see some of the stuff that they've talked about in their classes. Again, providing a real experience so they can see what they're learning in action. Um, we have Larry Smith who works for Hubble Electric Heaters came in and spoke to our students, but also spoke to the teachers in the academy and that's been another piece too that I've really tried to emphasize this year is that this work is happening in all of
045the classes. Um, so that the teachers who teach English still feel connected to the work that's happening in the engineering classrooms. Um, so we've talked a lot about soft skills and when we've brought speakers in, we've talked a lot about what skills should those teachers be focusing on. If they're not talking about ACDC or CAD certifications or things like that, what are those types of things? And if you have no idea what I'm talking about, don't worry. I didn't know what it was either till like a year or two ago. Um, but essentially, they're the different types of certifications um in the engineering field. um and um just what kind of skills the teachers could be using in their classes, whether they're teaching English, history, art, um all of those amazing things that are happening
046um in the future. What's happening here, we have um some of those equipment that you see in those pictures, that um is a mockup of the two labs that are coming to Danbury High School. The one on the left is our manufacturing lab that's going to get put in over the summer. Um, and what was really cool, especially on the Amazon field trip and the UB field trip, is a lot of the equipment that the kids got to inter that the kids got to interact with, we're actually going to have in their classrooms. So, next year when we get to replicate that Amazon field trip, they'll know what the equipment is when they're seeing it. It won't be the first time that they're seeing it, and they'll be able to have conversations around that, too,
047which is really cool. We're also designing an AED design lab um which will be for the architecture students where they'll get to do regular mockups and blueprints like they would as real architecture. So again emphasizing the real hands-on experience for the students. And um I did just want to add too I wanted to give a shout out to um Alise Tobin and Melissa Noo because we've gone on a ton of field trips this year and um between ReadyCct and the board the kids have not had to pay for anything um which has been really really great. Transportation is often an issue for field trips. Um, and it's been covered for the students and they've been able to we've been able to offer this to all of the students. Every AED student has had an opportunity
048to go on at least one of these trips for free, which is awesome for our community. So, thank you. >> Thank you very much. I don't think I have to touch that actually. I think this is the last slide. Um, I'm the quasi closer. So um we have obviously done a number of structural changes to the programming at uh themies of Danbury High School and so while we are asking students okay while we are asking students to behave differently in a model you know we really need to do the same thing for teachers and so we're really encouraging them to continue utilizing a career connected lens as Melissa said not just in the CTE classes but in all of the classes and from the work that we've seen teachers submitting Um we we've been collecting
049some of the tasks that they're devising so that way we can give them feedback on those. We definitely see a quality increase and more confidence I would say in embedding the career connection lens into those um tasks and u projectbased units um which will be u continuing the focus. Uh we continue to offer flex and afterchool tutoring and credit restoration opportunities after school. Um we're looking now quite critically at um the most effective ways long term to support students with that and so we're taking a look at our credit recovery now with our um school leadership team. But the after-school tutoring in twilight have been quite successful and saved the district a lot of money because then the students don't have to come back for a whole semester or year to retake that class. Um
050and really challenged and I think that the work that we began um you know first divi devising the portrait of the graduate attributes and hindsight even though it was during a pandemic that was the easy part. you know, getting a group of people to agree on what we thought for kids, you know, was was pretty easy compared to now how do we develop programming and structures and facilities and relationships in a way that we just haven't conceived of. And I think that um you know Dan shared some of the the good data that we got at the end of the year last year. You know, I think a lot of folks in the community were concerned so now we're going to be like a little abbott tech and we're not. We increased our dual enrollment
051opportunities. We made the advanced placement honor role through the college board because of how many students and how well they did. So um we are in the middle of a multi-year professional development plan and um we met with our planning team today. They were quite impressed with the work that they have seen and um we hope to continue not to disappoint. Um, so if anyone has any questions of any, I know now is not the time, but please, you know, feel free to reach out to to myself or Dan and the directors about anything or if you have a thought or a connection or a relationship that we could um leverage, not not exploit, leverage. Um, so I'm going to turn it over to Dan to um close it out for us. >> I think
052now you can see why we only brought half here tonight. Uh, remember there's four other ones that were very eager to get here as well. uh to kind of show you what they've been doing. It's it's been a lot of work to get where we are now. Um but we're going to continue going. Everything seems to be trending in the right direction. You're starting to get a feel in both schools as we exit an awesome class of 2026 and are fully wallto-wall with everybody in an academy. I think you'll see it coming a little further. Um as uh you know, Dr. Martin said the one thing that you know the expectation is that maybe you're not going to understand every aspect of thesemies but we we kind of end with this one is why we
053do it. Uh you know if you tell me I forget you teach me I remember you involve me I learn. So we're involving kids in what's going on. We're involving them in the process of learning. We're involving them in decision making within the school through the instructional rounds that they're invited to. Uh and and that's where we're going from here. So uh with that, thank you all very much for having us and we look forward to bringing the other four at a different time. Thank you. >> So thank you Danbury High School staff. Absolutely phenomenal. Um there the number and of opportunities that are being created for students right now. It's it's absolutely incredible. and um you know to the directors who are taking charge and really leading those places um and spaces creating spaces
054for kids to learn um just amazing the programming I don't think anybody really realizes how deep this programming will go and and where it's going but um I think we have a glimpse of what the future looks like and so thank you very much and Dan and Meg and Alexandra and um and Karina you know the amount of work that goes into building systems and structures around this type of learning um is is is intense and your leadership has been key. So I just want to thank you uh for all the hard work everybody. Thank you so much. Lauren, can you do public participation for me? The board welcomes public participation and ask that speakers please limit their comments to three minutes. Speakers may offer objective comments of school operations and programs that concern them.
055The board will not permit any expression of personal complaints or defamatory comments about board of education personnel and students nor against any person connected with the Danbury public school system. Thank you. We have one person signed up, Ron Seer. Hey, how's it going? My name is Ron Simper from Five Ducks Academy. We are a children's educational and entertainment company based in Danbury. Uh through our company, we have a bunch of children's programming. We also do a summer camp right here in Danbury called Camp Five Ducks. We're going on our sixth year. We also create a lot of children's educational and just entertaining music for kids. All positive music for kids. And we have a song out right now that's reached over 12 million streams over all platforms. And cities like the Jonas Brothers and Mario
056Lopez use a song for their Tik Toks and their Instagrams and their reals. And I'm saying all of this to say this that this is a Danberry based company and we just want to bridge the gap because we want the world to know that this is coming out of Danbury. So everything that my company does is a reflection of Danbury. We just produc uh we just produced the ice cream truck theme song for the um Danbury police ice cream truck which features the mayor as well. And right now we have a graduation song called Graduation Celebration. And we want the support of Danbury Public Schools to integrate the song with their graduation celebration for 2026 and moving forward. We we're not requesting any sort of money, any sort of funding. We just want the world.
057We just want the the elementary schools to utilize the song. That's all we're we're requesting. Even on the artwork of the song, we put Hat City on there. So, because we're just trying to show that this is a Danbury company and we need the support of Danbury. We're just trying to bridge the gap. >> All right. Thank you. >> Thank you. Is there anybody else who would like to speak? >> It's okay. and I'm excited to be here. This is what I was hoping for years. This was in the works and um it's exciting and it's first time I've been up here. I haven't been in the boardroom before and um I can see that it has everything that you need, especially all the screens that people can see and read the the audio this
058it's state-of-the-art something that really um expresses the work in Dbury public schools. And I had more to say and I'm just going to make it quick, but um I'm hoping that the p now that we have this place with seating and all the visuals and the audio and parking that uh the public will come and learn more about the schools. One one time I came to a board meeting and it was for another purpose. I don't remember, but the robotics team uh did a report on uh their award and that that showed me something that I knew nothing about at the time. And I think now I'm retired. I'm consider myself a community member, but it's so important for everyone to hear what you're doing and the advancement is incredible. So, I'm hoping there's a
059way that we could encourage the um the community to come to board meetings because now we have this place and everything else that you need. And also, it's good for the presenters that they don't have to worry about is or is is someone going to see something or hear correctly. It's all set up here. So, it's it's good to be here and I'm going to come back again. Okay. Is there anybody else who would like to speak? No. Okay, we will move on. Al, can you please do the consent calendar? Motion that the board of education approve the consent calendar exhibits 26-68 and 26-69 in accordance with minutes of April 15, 2026 sites and facilities committee 26-68 uh April 15, 2026 regular board meeting uh 26- 69. >> Thank you. Motion made by Al. Do
060I hear a second? >> Second by Kate. Any comments, questions, or concerns? Seeing none, all in favor? >> Any opposed? Okay, motion passes. Do we have anybody from the educational staff representatives? No. Student representatives. Okay, we'll move on to our presentations. All right. So, up first, I'd like to welcome Alexis Cucos, the executive director for DSABC. Come on up, Alexis. Thank you so much, Dr. Casemiro. Thank you all for having us here tonight. I also like to introduce our new board chair, Jessica Westerfield, uh, who is also the director of HR for Lesser Evil, and she's been in our role, this role for almost a year now. So tonight we're just going to provide a very brief overview of DSABC. I know many of you in this room are familiar with our nonprofit organization, but
061for a few that don't know much about us, we'll do a very quick overview. And then we also want to provide with you an update of what we've been up to this year and our audacious goals going forward. Okay, it's a little tight here. So our mission is to build the character and confidence of students in Danbury to achieve personal and academic success and we do this through business and community partnership. So coming on the heels of the wonderful presentation from Danbury High School, uh the ending slide talked about the whole child and that's really what we're all part of that in addition to of course helping students in their academics, we really want to make sure that they're supported socially and emotionally. So, we've been doing this for now 36 years through our one-on-one
062school-based mentorship program that's still going strong to this day. Next slide. Thank you. And we'll talk about that in a moment. But we also wanted to make a note on our scholarship program. So, over the years, we've built up our scholarship fund and currently we have 16 students from the Danberry um schools who are um graduating and going to be receiving one of these scholarships. Uh and this is a great way to of course invest in their future and we'll continue to invest in them even after they graduate and they can use a scholarship from anything from tuition, vocational training or for tools and supplies if they decide to go right into the field. Additionally, we have been um poised as a great partner for the Danbury public schools, especially in the academy model, and
063we've been making great connections with our local businesses with the academy directors that we heard from before in helping find people for career talks, um helping set up field trips. Um most recently we brought a great group of students from the sim academy the science innovation and medicine academy to bearinger Engleheim and that's now going on third year in this coming fall. Um and with that we've also been able to secure more mentors from bearing Engleheim. So it's been really that wraparound support from students seeing what their future could look like but then also having that one-on-one connection while they're still in school that will set them up for success afterwards. So, of course, our program runs strong because of our amazing community members that take a little bit of time out of their day,
064out of their week to be there for our students. So, currently we have over 20 partners. Um, and to be a partner with DSABC doesn't mean you have to fund anything. It means that you just encourage your volunteers to be a part of our program and to volunteer with us. I know some of you on this board are actually, some are active mentors, so I thank you. Um almost 60% of our mentors do come from our business partners and we've have quite a few new ones this year including AB Electronics which is right next door. Um Collins Hannifan um CT State the Danbury campus county bank um we're always looking for more business partners. So I always um ask um everyone I present to if there's anyone else that you're affiliated with that really um
065has connections in the community that are looking to give back and be a part of something impactful you know please you know reach out to us. we'd love to work with them and meet with them. And here's just a snapshot, just a few quick um stats on where we're at. Um to date this year, we've held 26 business community presentations or tabled at events um including many businesses um in Danbury in the greater Danbury area. Um we also of course um try our best to find other community groups to be affiliated with and work with that you know social groups from the Lions the Rotary just to share of course about our program but also we're there to share about what the great work is happening in the district. You know so many people still
066don't understand all the amazing work that's going on the wall career academy model. So we always like to make an effort to share that with our greater community as well. To date, we have 86 new mentors trained just this year. Um, we're on track to most likely hit at least 95 new mentors train. We have a few more coming. And then, like I said, we have 25 active business um, partners right now and a bit about our actual um, you know, who we're serving, our impact right here. Currently, we have 226 students enrolled in our program that are meeting regularly with a mentor in the BME public schools. Um about this time last year we had 152 students. So even knowing that we graduated out 14 last year and with students moving in out of
067the district that we know happens so frequently um we've been able to increase by basically 50% um in less than one year. Uh we have currently mentors at every single public school in Danbury. There was a few schools that we didn't have at this time last year but we're happy to say that we've brought our program back at South Street and also the magnet school. Uh we always have students come in and out of reach endeavor program. Currently have no one there at this time but it doesn't mean that we won't support them if students do go there. Um but we're really happy to say that we do have you know that support every single school. We have a designated um school liaison usually the social worker or school counselor or um psychologist that's always
068looking out for who could benefit from this extra support from meeting with a mentor. And the mentor is simply there as a friend, a positive role model. They meet usually during lunch or study hall or free period and they're there to build that positive connection, be a trusted adult to our young people that is not their parent, you know, not affiliated with the school or anything like that, but they are there and that consistent support. So, this chart is getting bigger and bigger each year. That's hard to fit on one slide. Um, but as you can see, a quick snapshot of, you know, students are in a program right now with the orange bars. And you know, we've each school we pretty much cons consistently um increased it um based on need of course, but
069our goal is always to if a student wants a mentor, is interested in a mentor, we want sure that they have a mentor. Um and that's our really big goal and push this year. We really tried our best to go to all the open houses in fall to also connect with the parents directly to say that there's this free program available to you that you can support your child in this way. So that's something that we're hoping to continue to do next year as well. And then just a quick snapshot of our feedback from last year's survey. We always send out a survey to all of our students and mentors in May. Um for the students, of course, the ones that are in kindergarten, first to second grade. Um they work with their school counselor
070to fill this out. Um, you know, we of course um have a different variation for each students, but last year we had an awesome response rate. 106 respondents out of 152 surveys that went out and out of that we found out that 91% of students um would want their mentor again next year. We drilled down to stats a little bit. A few of the students that said no were ones that already knew they were moving away. And then 90% of them would recommend having a mentor to a friend. And then the chart here, we are really trying our best to ensure that our mentors are helping students in different ways. One of which is goal setting. You know, talking about their future, um helping them see what's available to them. Students don't know what they
071don't know. And that's where a mentor can really help. And we're happy to report that out of um you know, average of five stars. Um over four um stars on each of those stats looking at that mentor students feel encouraged by a mentor. they're achieving and setting goals um with the mentor's help and they're talking about their future. You know that this is someone that they've trusted about that they trusted and built a meaningful relationship that now they know will be supported even maybe beyond school as well. >> And I just started speaking I talked about the scholarships. In addition to that, like I mentioned, we've been trying to support our um students in the academy specifically as they determine what their career path looks like. Um I know we have Sean here. I decided
072to use your picture, Sean, the first one on my um gallery. And um Sean and colleagues from the city of Danbury's HR department did talk to students about, you know, what it means to be interviewed and HR and what that world looks like. And we've really tried our best to help all themies consistently in finding speakers to talk about their career fields and make those connections we heard earlier tonight um because students really need to see what it looks like to understand what it would be to become a lawyer to work as an engineer and to hear the honest stories from these um people from the field. And then most recently we brought in a we brought a group of students um to different campuses throughout Connecticut. We went to Southern, Central, Westcon, and Nuk
073Valley Community College and Waterberry to again expose students to what is available to them. So students that had a mentor were given preference preference to attend these trips, but we also expanded and offered it to other students as well. And the newest program that we've launched this year, we've called connect to careers where we've partnered up with Beringer Ingleheim and Junior Achievement to pilot hybrid mentoring. So in this program students specifically in the scientific innovation and medicine academy have been partnered with um scientists and mentors in clinical development and all um pharmaceutical areas um for bearing Ingleheim to work on a project um posed by junior achievement and the students are actually presenting their projects tomorrow morning over the blackbox at D High School West. So we really kept this a small pilot to see
074what works and what it could look like in the future. um knowing that you know there's of course some hiccups with virtual mentoring but on the whole it's worked out very well. The students have been very responsive making sure they show up um to their virtual mentoring sessions and we've had great feedback from the mentors at well as well that they've really enjoyed working with students. A lot of these mentors are scientists that can't leave their labs um but they still have want they've wanted to get involved over the years. So now we have a great group of seven mentors. We're working with these seven students and now we're hoping to double that next year and hopefully bring it to the othermies as well. Um and potentially bring on other partners in the future. Um
075it's been a great program. Again, it's been a free program for these students. Um they'll be a part of our scholarship program and also a special cash award for the students as well. So if you're around tomorrow morning at 9:30 and you want to join us, you're all invited um to hear these great students um present their projects. And then last not least, of course, I just want to make a note about our budget that um I did mention how we've grown significantly. Uh we were at 150 students this time last year. Now we're at 226 students. Our goal by 2028 is to reach 400 students in Danberry. And of course, we'll do that through our community business partnership through other programs like we're piling this hybrid mentoring program, but of course, you know, our
076funding needs to increase with that. that. So, we are so appreciative of the D public school support and we've also really tried to of course be lean but also diversify our funding with finding new grants and new funding partners and right now we do we have grown our staff. So, it's myself as executive director. We have full-time marketing operations manager now. We also have part-time program coordinator. So, with that of course we're investing a lot in our program. Um and we are starting to do a little fundraising as well to help offset our costs. Um, in the next slide I'll show everyone. Oh no, one after that. Sorry about that. But it's okay. Um, I'll come back to that one at the end. But I just want to make a quick note about our scholarship
077awards breakfast that I'll share about in a moment. But before I get to that, um, like I mentioned, our audacious goal is to reach 400 mentor mentee matches in three years. And, um, this is, um, came out of our strategic plan that we wrapped up at the end of last fiscal year and really start implementing this year. One is really trying to develop and track um metrics. So, as I showed you before with the goal setting, we're really trying to see what is the impact that our mentors are having on our students and we're really trying to drill down more to understand that impact. Of course, we have a lot of qualitative feedback. We're looking for more quantitative feedback. So, our quantitative data and that's what we're working on. Um we're piling the hybrid mentoring
078as I mentioned and we've um been holding additional mentor supports, mentor mingles, monthly mentor chats, really continue to support our volunteers because we know that they're giving up their time. We need to fill their cup so they can fill the cup of our students. Um and as I mentioned with the marketing and outreach u we've been doing a lot of that um to ensure that we are really engaging with our community. And then we can jump to the next slide now. So, last but not least, we do have our scholarship and awards breakfast coming up on Tuesday, June 2nd at 7:45 at the Amber Room. As I mentioned, it's our largest graduating class in two decades. And we're also going to be celebrating one of our our longest um serving mentor, Kathy Berice, who's been
079mentoring for 35 years consistently with DSABC. Uh she started off um she's working at one of our business partners, Branson, who's still one of our business partners to this day. So, you'll hear more about her story and some of her um graduates that she worked with will be in attendance as well. But I hope all of you can be there and really see the impact and understand and um you know see that these connections really are making a positive difference in our community. And that is all from me. I'll leave you with this um quote from one of our graduates last year that I feel like just truly encapsulates what the program does and what we're trying to do is truly help people um support them in all aspects of their life. >> Thank you.
080>> Um I just want to say I'm fairly new mentor um just doing it the past six months and you don't realize as a mentor what you're getting out of it and I didn't expect that when I started it. So, I have to say it's been an amazing experience so far and I'm so glad I did it and I know there's other board members that also and it's just I know for my experience it's just amazing. So, thank you for what you do and for um getting me involved. >> Thank you. Thank you so much. No, really. And any wants to be a mentor, I'm more than happy to work with you. I know Kate's been mentoring this year, too. So, thank you. I know many of you have been involved in different ways. You
081know, Sean's mentor Minnie. We talk so like I know many of you from many different hats that I wear here in town. So, thank you again um for being part of us and for your constant support. >> Thank you, Alexis. DSABC is a huge part of our success network here and what we're trying to do. And um you've been instrumental in growing the program, but also serving helping us serve so many more kids. So, we appreciate you both and your team and all the work that you're doing to grow and match more mentors to our to our kids. So, thank you so much. >> Okay. Awesome. Next up, adult education program d uh director, Dr. Rick Rayusi. Come on up. >> Evening everybody. Uh, as Cara mentioned, my name is Rick Rayusi. I'm the regional
082director for adult and continuing ed here in Danberry. So, our mission at Wii Race, which is the Western Connecticut Regional Adult and Continuing Education Program, is to foster lifelong learning, right? Um, not only do we offer statemandated programming, which we're going to go over in just a moment, uh, but we're also expanding into workforce readiness programs and preparation programs. And, uh, into the fall of next year, we're finally going to get an enrichment program off the ground, which is great. Uh, we are a regional program. In addition to serving Danbury, we serve seven other municipalities that pay into our program. So they give Danbury public schools funding to support their residents with that programming. Um in the last three years alone, we've brought in over a million and a half in grants that we hadn't
083previously gotten. Um in that time alone, so uh in addition to the presentation that's up on the board, you guys have three handouts in front of you. Um I know some of you guys were here uh in the old building when I first presented and I got to Danberry. Um when we first got here and kind of revamped the program, we were at 240 students. Uh so far to this to two days ago, we've served 1327, right? Um we're not in a new building yet. We're looking forward to that soon. Um but we have kind of leveled out with our enrollment. Um you know, the last two years we've had 30 uh student differences from last year to this year. Um so we have expanded exponentially. Uh we are the only provider in the state
084out of 44 adult ed providers across the entire state that has seen this type of expansion um an increase in enrollment. Um and as of last year we were the lowest the second lowest in the entire state in per pupil u expenditures and investment. Right? So we're really stretching every dollar as far as we can. Um and it's paying off. Uh we're going to talk a little bit about that uh shortly. So in the state of Connecticut, there are three pathways to complete high school. Uh in the state of Connecticut, every municipality has to offer their residents high school completion for those that didn't find success in a traditional high school. Uh the first option is a credit diploma program. It mirrors a traditional high school diploma. They complete 25 credits. They're awarded a high
085school diploma at the com at the end of that. The second is probably the one that all of you are familiar with the GED, right? We prepare students to take those four exams in each of the the core subjects upon completion of those four exams or getting a GED certificate. The third is the national exter external diploma program. This is often for people that are coming in from another country or that didn't find success in a traditional high school but have life experiences that would amount to a high school graduate. So, this is less of a preparation program and more of an assessment program. We're assessing that they have the skills when they come into us. They're working with an assessor to show those skills over the course of eight modules and that awards a
086high school diploma. We currently offer all three of these, which is great. Um, we're one of very few providers in the state that offer all three of these. Um, we have about 200 students that utilize across all three of these um for high school completion. The other two uh requirements in the state of Connecticut are ESL, which is English as a second language. Uh I know in a traditional uh preK12 school, it goes by a different term. Uh in the federal grants that support adult education, this is how it's listed. So this is how we refer to it in the adult ed world. Um you will notice on this fact sheet that I uh provided you guys, that is by far our largest population, right? Um, I'm going to share with you guys briefly. A
087vast majority of the people that we serve are parents of current DPS students. 90% of the people that we serve, so 90% of that,300 people that we serve currently have a kid in our Danbury public schools and a vast majority of them are coming to us for ESL services. The last piece is naturalization preparation. So, we walk them through the immigration process, the different applications that they have to fill out, and we prepare them to take the civics tests. The piece that I am most proud of in our work over the last three years is our family literacy programming. So, uh if you were on the board last year, you heard me talk about how we have branched into elementary schools. Um, and what we're doing there is is pretty remarkable. Um, parents of the
088elementary schools are coming at night. They're bringing their kids. Their kids are engaging in early childhood and elementary education at night. So, they're getting additional time with those academic skills to build additional foundations in addition to what they get during the day while their parents attend ESL classes, right, or GED classes. In addition to that, they're also getting parenting education. So, we're coaching them and teaching them about these are the norms of a child growing up. This is how you can support your kid at home. This is how the American school system works because for many of them, they're not as familiar with those norms as we would expect. It also allows us a very captive audience, right? We're seeing almost 13 more than 1300 people on a regular basis that are coming to us
089because they want to. We don't have to chase them. We don't have to call them and say, "Hey, you know, are you coming to class?" They're coming to us because they know that we can help them and their families. And so what we have spent a lot of time doing over the last two years is trying to purposely plan our program so that we're supporting the district's goals, the larger district's goals, right? Uh when a lot of people think about adult education, the first thing that comes to mind is, oh, it's the GED program, right? We're so much more than that. Um we were last year and we're likely to be this year the largest family literacy program in the state. Uh the model that we put together for our program last year was so
090effective that the state actually asked us to build a statewide curriculum map. Um so that's pretty excellent because up until three years ago we didn't have a family literacy program, right? So we've invested a lot of time and money into that. Um, and what we found over the cohorts that we had last year is the folks that were attending these family literacy programs, they had a much lower uh rate of chronic absenteeism, a much higher rate of parent participation, right? So, we're really trying to be purposeful with how we're supporting the school district, which this infographic shows. Um, because when we support each other, the whole community wins. These are our outcomes. Um, so they're pretty outstanding. They've they've grown year-over-year, right? 96% of the parents in this program noted that they gained confidence in
091supporting their child's education. So, we're talking to them about what reading can look like at home, what literacy skills can look like at home, what math skills can look like at home. 91% have gained a better ability to communicate with their child's teacher. We talk about how to draft an email. Some of them haven't opened a computer ever. So, we're going over technology skills. We're going over how to set up an email. We're going over how to talk to a teacher, how to email a teacher, how to reach out to a teacher for help. 90% have felt more connected to their kids' school community. 95% found it easier to attend classes at their child's school. We've made it purposeful to bring it to the schools that need it most, that have the largest populations of
092folks that will actually attend these classes at night. You'll see in this picture, this was one of our uh family literacy evenings. So, this year we partnered with Read to Grow. It's a nonprofit based in Brford. They come with the bookmobile. This was our first night this year uh back in January and we had standing room only. We actually had to come up with a plan for the alternate days and the days that followed in case we had more than this show up because we needed to push overflow into the uh into the gym and into the media center. So again, this is a program that a lot of people use um and they're coming wanting to be part of this, right? And so what we're looking to do in the coming years is to
093build that partnership even more with the elementary schools. If an elementary school is having trouble contacting a parent or partnering with a parent, we oftentimes have them in our programming right at night. So if you're having trouble catch catching them during the day, we can talk to them at night in our programs. We are piloting something this summer uh that speaks to kind of that initiative of how is our programming supporting the larger district. We are going to be piloting a strong start family literacy program. It will be for folks that are entering into kindergarten. Uh they will be able to attend with their parent. It's a seven-week program two nights a week. The parent will receive family literacy support and kind of the means of parent education as well as adult education. Once that
094seven weeks is up, which will tail uh when the traditional school year starts, right, the parent will be able to continue through an ESL or a GED or high school completion through our regular programming through the year, but they'll actually be able to attend this summer programming with their child and prepare that child to get into kindergarten. And so what we're hoping to see through this program is lower absenteeism, right? higher scores on their literacy assessments because we're prepping them on how to work on things at home, how to understand how they can support their kid at home. For many of these parents that are going to be in this program, this is their first kid going through public school. So, we're providing them an official way to kind of welcome them into the district
095to make them feel part of the community, but in addition to that, how do we help them support their kid? Who are our learners? Uh these are just some stats. So 90% of them from last school year were parents or guardians. We are very unique. Uh we're one of the only adult ed providers in the entire state where a vast majority of the people that are coming to us for services are working. Right? So if you go to other adult ed providers in urban areas, New Haven, Hartford, right? a vast majority of them are unemployed and they're coming to these adult ed programs to get better employment or to get a job. That's not to say that some people don't seek us out for that reason, but a vast majority of the people that are
096coming to our program are parents and they just want to know how to help their kid. So, it really makes us a unique program. Um, our biggest demographic that we serve are 25 to 44 year olds. Um, and this is a pretty stark statistic. 19% read at or above intermediate school level in English when they when they enter our program. So that means 81% of the folks that enter into our program are entering in below a sixth grade reading level. Their median income is 36,865. Now, I'm putting that statistic up here because if you take a look at the fact sheet, when they finish their high school diploma or their GED, we see an average of about $9,000 in gains, about 25% jump in the family household income. Right? So, what we have to do
097under federal law and under state law is we track our students for four quarters after they exit. We track them for a full year. We work with DO. It matches their data to their their tax forms, right? And we actually see how much are they earning the second quarter and the fourth quarter after they exit and how much has that increased. That's one of the metrics that we use to judge our success. For the last three years, we have met and exceeded we've almost gone double what the state goal was for median annual inc uh earnings. So um we've had a lot of success in that field. We have a lot of new initiatives on the way. Um I've talked to you guys a little bit about the family literacy nights. We're currently partnered with
098CT State to offer an ESL bridge program. So what we found is as students are exiting our ESL program. They exit out at, you know, past that that 12th grade level with us. We're not allowed to use the state or federal funding to continue to service them. But they always ask us what's next, right? We partnered with CT State to offer a bridge program over the summer that we're piloting. We're going to continue that through the fall and the spring so that we can actually enroll them in CT state and continue their education with them. Uh we've also started a credit diploma uh asynchronous program. This has been incredibly successful not only for the students that need to take these classes on our end, but because it has been such a gamecher for those students.
09912 of the 14 CDP credit diploma program providers in the state actually contract us to have students take these classes. So it brings us money and it actually makes it so that this this program the asynchronous program is free to us, right? It covers the cost of that. Um we have gotten uh authority once we move into the new building and have hardwired internet uh to become a Pearson and ETSs test center. That means that we will be able to uh test folks for the parapathways program as well as practis and GED right on site which will bring funding into our into our center to offset what you guys have to give us. Um, speaking of parap uh professional, so about 6 months ago, they changed over from parah pro to parapathways, right? So that's
100the new assessment that folks have to take in order to become a parah if they don't have an associates degree. We're running our first preparation program uh to prep people for that in the hopes of supporting the hiring needs of the district. I've worked really closely with Kim and with Kelly on this. Uh that flyer has gone out for 72 hours. We have 57 people that have applied for this program. Right? So, if our workforce data holds true over the last few years that we've had workforce uh programs, preparation programs, we'll see about 35 to 45 people that we can hire from that program. Okay. Um so, that's pretty great. Uh we also have been offering CTE duel and co-enrollment to our high school completion students. uh in addition to what we've done for that
101because it doesn't cost us anything extra. We've partnered with Kelly's programs to reach an endeavor and ACE to have students actually take those classes at night so they can take a couple additional credits, potentially graduate on time or early. Uh we've had just shy of 10 students utilize that this year. Um and it's been a pretty good success. So, you know, people that typically would not have access to higher education classes in high school are now getting that opportunity, which is great. Uh we also just today about six hours ago got clearance to become a proctor uh of the serve safe program. So we're running our first cohort of that which you'll see here. Uh it is a full cohort. We have 22 people that are enrolled in it. All people that are working in
102the food industry and need that certification to kind of move up. Um and then I spoke a little bit about enrichment. Um that's going to be coming in the fall. These are all the partnerships or some of the partnerships rather that we have engaged in that has allowed us to do this. Um we are one of the only uh providers in the state that not only partners with the regional workforce board which is NRWIB uh but we also partner with a second workforce board located in South Central that pays us to offer programming um out of New Haven with Workforce Alliance. So, um, you know, we're we're getting a reputation for really providing strong programming and people are asking us to provide programming to their clients and to their students and to their workers, which
103is great. Um, so enrichment programming, this is kind of the last piece. If you remember when I presented three years ago, we had really hoped that we were going to get enrichment programming up and running and then we got hit with 600 more students the next year and that just wasn't possible. um through the through the grant funding that we've brought in, we were able to actually hire an enrichment coordinator. She started on Monday. Um we're very excited about that. She's hit the ground running. We've put together a timeline. Um there will be cataloges coming out to every house in Danbury in the fall. Um for enrichment, we're shooting for uh 15 to 20 classes in the fall. The goal is by year three, it's self- sustaining, right? Those are tuition based classes. Those are
104the fun classes, the wine tasting, the beer making, the dancing, the painting, things like that. Um, so we're very excited about that. Um, the goal is in three years to have it up to 70 to 80 classes, right? Um, because at that point it really does become self- sustaining and actually offsets some of the costs that needs to go towards the statemandated programming. So, um, we have quite a bit going on. I appreciate your support with this. Um, we're really looking forward to a new building. I can't stress that enough. Um, if you guys have any questions, I'd be happy to answer them. >> Is there any questions for the board members? Go ahead, Sean. >> Can you talk about graduation night school as it was called back in the day and how emotional it
105is and that it's a real thing >> because I think for people that haven't been there, you want to go see those people. I don't know how you run it now, but it was unbelievable. Our graduation is the first week in June. Um, invitations will be coming out shortly from Cara Pompano. Um, we would welcome I know that a few of you guys attend every year. We love seeing you. The students love seeing it. Um, and it's a it's a great show of support from the community. Um, there's usually quite a few non dry eyes in the room because it is so powerful. uh for many of these students, you know, uh you'll hear from our graduation speakers that they oftentimes didn't think that this was a a possibility, right? And our program provides them
106that. So, um it's it you're right, it is quite powerful. >> One last question. >> Can you talk about the flexibility of the program? Also, I think people only see it as a seven to nine, six to eight, and that certainly is not what you offer. >> Sure. Um, so I joke with my staff that I'm kind of on call 7 am to 9:00 pm Monday through Friday and two weekends every month. Um, so what the name of the game is for us is regardless of when you come in through our doors, we want a program that's going to help you, right? Um, we have weekend seminars that have been very popular with our parents that are trying to complete their high school uh, diplomas because as a parent it's easier to find a babysitter
107for two days backtoback for full days rather than 16 days spread out over the course of the semester. Uh, we have asynchronous classes. We have computer labs that are open 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. and then 5:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. every day of the week. Um, we really try and make it so that regardless of what your barriers are, we're going to help you get through those and reach your goals for a high school uh, diploma or to learn English or to prep for your naturalization exam. >> Anybody else have any questions? Kate, >> not so much a question. Rick, thank you for all this information. um you always bring uh a lot to the table um for us uh to consider and also do a lot for for our um community. So, I
108appreciate that. I just wanted to compliment um your team on this strong start family literacy pilot program you guys are starting. I was really excited to see this in the packet tonight because we know that that intervention um the younger that we do that with students, the more successful their outcomes are going to be. So, this is a great program and I'm really excited to hear about the outcomes from it. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Anybody else? >> I just want to say too, I'm going to agree with Sean. I go to your the graduation every year and it's one of my favorites. So, thank you for what you do. >> Rick, I I mean you you keep blowing us away with the numbers, the way that the program is growing and I think
109you know you're the epitome of if you build it, they will come and they're coming. Um the enrichment component too is is phenomenal because anybody can access those. It doesn't matter. You're not necessarily trying to finish a diploma. You know, beer making and crocheting and all those things. I mean, we perked up over here because those are things that we all need, you know, to do something that's different than than the ordinary. So, um I think the community appreciates that as well. Having access to that is really important. But um the number of families that you're helping to build capital, social capital, and navigating the school system is so key for our families. Um and that directly impacts student achievement in the schools. Um 57 applications for the PAR Pathways program. I don't think we've
110seen 57 applications for 80 positions posted in the last three years. So I'm very excited to stay on top of that number and please keep us posted on how that's going. Um but your leadership on this program has been second to none. Um and your advocacy at the state level um has been very critical and we look forward to continued growth and partnership with you. You've done a phenomenal job. Thank you. >> Thank you guys. >> Okay. Got actionpacked day here. Uh evening I should say. I'll try to move through the superintendent report uh on the quicker side. Um so this week we had a Danberry day at the Harford Capitol. Um and that is a a day that it's just uh designated for Danberry and I think Norwok was there as well from what
111I understand. Um and we had several board members attend attended this was organi in central office members as well as Danbury NEA Heather Rens brought her uh one of her classes and um this was organized through our state and local delegates to kind of facilitate um a little bit of a concierge service at the cap, a little bit of a tour um and an opportunity to to mix and mingle and to understand a little bit better how how um how things work at the state department level. So, we appreciated everybody who attended that. Um, and we're looking forward I think we got some ideas and Mike helped to organize that as well. I think we got some ideas coming back on what we could do maybe next year. It was kind of the first time
112in a long time I think we hadn't gone up for a Danbury day since precoid. Um, and I haven't been I have never attended one. So, um, I was scheduled to go but then could not at the last moment. So, I'm looking forward to next year and and making it better for everybody. Um, I'd like to turn it over to Cali is going to give us an update on Granville preschool expansion, which we're excited to to talk about. >> Yes. Um, thank you, Dr. Casemro. Um, so, as uh, you guys have been aware of over the course of the last handful of years, our preschool numbers continue to grow at exponential rates. Um, and so this is our programming for both students with special needs as well as their typical peers. Um and so several
113years ago during COVID uh we opened the Granville preschool site which was which is an amazing facility and as soon as we opened the doors we had more students to serve than we had room in the brand new beautiful school. Um so we have been using uh Sacred Heart kind of for some overflow space and classrooms. Right now we have three classrooms at Sacred Heart and uh 10 at Granville. And so we have worked um with Bob Batello, who is uh the owner of the building, to expand um Granville uh so that we will be able to get all of our preschoolers at one site and location, which I am so grateful for. Uh he has already started the work on the project. Um the the uh church has moved out of the building. So
114we will convert the actual church space. He's basically gutted the interior um into three classrooms as well as um multiple related services spaces and offices. Um and that will happen um between now in the summer. So we will be able to expand into that section of the building. I apologize. That section of the building for next school year. Um and then we will also be a adding on an additional four classrooms out the back of the building. will extend the hallway essentially and add two classrooms on the top level and two classrooms on the bottom level which will give us an additional seven spaces. So this should hopefully house our preschool program for a very long time. Um and so we're really just super excited about it. We'll be a little tight next year um
115as we have uh four classrooms fitting into three classroom spaces, but we're going to make it work. Um and then the following year we'll be able to grow and expand some of our related services areas for our students. So, thank you everyone. >> Awesome. Thank you, Kelly. >> Does anybody have any questions on that? >> I have one question. So, what's happening over at Sacred Heart once we move out of there? >> Um, so the hope is uh to to no longer need a lease on an additional space um as we are increasing uh the lease on the Granville space. Um right now um we have both special education preschool programs and um school readiness. We have two classrooms of school readiness. Uh so for the fall, we will not need to rent the full
116facility um because the special ed classrooms will be moving out. We are still working to find spacing for the school readiness classes. Um so we may need to rent a portion of the building for next school year, but our hope is the year thereafter we will be fully vacated from that lease. Okay. Um and up next, just a little shout out to Pemrook School. Uh we had a wonderful activity where board members in central office were invited uh as leaders to sit with their students for a little bit of a lunch and leadership activity where we had a chance to to be interviewed by Pemrook students um who were interested in leadership asking us and challenging us on things uh you know the way that we make decisions and when things are hard. Um, and
117I thought it was just such a wonderful event. Uh, it was well organized. The kids were so mature. I appreciated the questions they asked. Got to know some of our board members a little bit um better in that process. And I just thought it was it was so well done. And it's a a real reflection of how schools build community um and also how they prepare students for the real world. And I just appreciate it. and I appreciated the the participation of both central office members and and our board of ed members who were able to attend. So, thank you. Um, and then I have a very nice update and I think everyone would appreciate this and I did have a conversation with Mr. Flynn. Um, but I know that the the there's been some
118stressors at the middle school level on the on the middle school bus schedule, particularly for Westside Academy with the earlier start time, probably more so than the combining of the buses was the earlier the earlier start time and the length of time that the that the bus takes to go around and collect all the kids on the combined route. um you know we've re our some of our numbers our bus our uh enrollment numbers have dipped a little bit and with the combination of that um and the the number of uh riders and our wrership number um Kelly Watson did a tremendous job in reconfiguring what we think will be the runs preliminary runs for next year um and with that we feel very confident that we can get Westside Academy back on the regular
119middle school schedule and not do a combined run uh which I think checks off a few boxes for folks who had had some concerns. It I have to say it was really running rather smooth. Um that the students were really well behaved together on the bus. that was really not the driving force so much as it was the time um particularly during the winter when we had um increased parent drop offs and the line that was that were backing down onto Mil plane and the traffic concerns and all of that really put the pressure that was the real the pain point this winter. So, um, we really did go back and tried to see if there was any way we can ek out, um, some more bus, uh, space in our runs, uh, without really
120combining or adding more to the budget than what was already needed for next year with the high school. Um, so we're just we're happy to report they're able to do that. Mr. Flynn, uh, notified the staff yesterday that this was a possibility and then we'll be sending something out to parents. So, okay, that's it for that. Well, I do have one more thing. I just know if there's any questions. >> Any questions? >> Okay. All right. And, uh, just one other item, and I know um, you know, over the last couple years, from time to time, we've brought up um, you know, how do we continue to, and this is a conversation that Luis and I have been having, how do we get more parents to come in and more students to come in to
121our board of ed meetings? Um, you know, Glattus and I talked about that as well, like is the start time an issue for folks? Would we get more um would we get more people coming in kind of right after work, you know, willing to stop in after work uh for a bit? Um, you know, is it uh that the our board meetings start too late perhaps and once families go home for the evening, that's it. They're not coming back out because they have little ones. So, we've been talking a little bit about the start time. There's been a lot of school districts. if you look around um certainly have a much earlier start time than we have here in Danberry. Um and I think it's something that we should seriously consider. Um there are some
122schools I think Louisa will will mention um some experiences with the visit she had but um 5:30 5:45 seems to be a time when folks get out of work around 5 4:30 5:'lock and can make a swing past a board meeting and maybe more willing to participate and engage with the school system. But I do think uh our very late start time does exclude a lot of families uh from coming back out once once they get the kids once they cook dinner and get the kids off to uh to bed and in the shower and all that stuff. So, it's something that we'd like for everybody to to seriously consider. And um I hope that that improves some of the participation. >> Yeah. To add to that, um, when Al and I went to Waterberry,
123their board meetings start at 5:30 and you do see an increase in their attendance because it's right after work and they're picking up their kids and they're this was out of school, so they were there for Spotlight Your School. So, it was um it just made it more conducive to bringing to what our goal is to increase our participation. Um, uh, also I just when we were at King Street, I was speaking to the PTO president there and and I talked to her a little bit at the book fair and I told her our goal was to try to increase um, you know, parents coming. And the first thing she said to me was, "Your meetings are too late." She said, "It's hard." She said, "It's very hard for us for kids for parents with
124small kids to come back out to your board meetings." Um, so in talking with Carara, I, you know, we could give it a try for the upcoming year and see how it works with a 5:30 start time and um, you know, try it out and try it out for the 26 27 school year and then take it from there. If we see that it's not you know, doing much of a difference and we feel that it's too much of a burden to come then we can switch it back. But um you know I'd like to get everybody's um idea of what they think about this because unfortunately we've got to get the schedule done for next year. So we're kind of need to know um where everybody falls on this um for the coming year.
125So I'm going to just open it up and see if anybody has any comments. >> Go ahead. >> I just am concerned because we have a lot of meetings before the meeting. >> So then how would we >> Well, a lot of our meetings now by Zoom. So, um you know, we've shifted a lot off in person into Zoom meetings, finances on Zoom, um policies on Zoom. Um I think sites sites we're doing in conjunction with our spotlights, but we also have other sites meetings that are Zoom. So, um you know, superintendent evaluation, I think, is the one that we have in person, but we could schedule that around there. So, you know, and then >> I just like to see the meetings in person, even those other ones. But that's I mean that's my
126opinion. So >> and we could still do inerson meetings. I mean that's not an issue. >> So we would just have it >> we would just do it on another time. Yeah. Exactly. Go ahead. I think it's a great idea because um I interact with families and most times when we ask them why do not go to a board meeting the first thing that they say it's our dinner time or you we can't step out that's very late. So, you know, something to try. Absolutely. You know, we should because the whole idea is to open it up for families and uh find ways to do it. Anybody else? So, do we want to try it out? >> Yeah, we good. Okay. All right. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you. >> Yes. Go ahead, Glattus. >> I'm
127going to do whatever it is. >> I just don't think it's um you're changing their time. Okay. It's going to bring more people into the board meeting. And we have seen over the years that people only come at a p a specific time of whatever they're interested in. They come in and make their statement and they leave. And we saw that at Hazetown. We only had one person. Uh the staff was there, the presenter was there. And when that happened, they left. when it was at King Street, which was a hell of a place to get to at night because they was working and had detours everywhere. We only had one pen. Okay, now it's 5:30. It's going to work for this board. I don't have any problem trying. But what I heard tonight was
128people do not understand at this point where we're having our board meeting because every board meeting is at a different t place. So then you take the the meetings where you have had the the uh meetings at and who was there? We didn't have the community there. And to me, if you want to bring more people into the boardroom, look at it now. Look at it when the the people did their presentations and left. So, I just don't think changing the time is going to make a different who comes to the board meetings. Um, I certainly I certainly agree with the idea that when folks know there's a regular time and a place to be that it's uh uh likelier that they're going to show up and participate on a regular basis. I agree with
129that point. Um, I do think that whatever we can do to work on having people come into our board meetings, attend our board meetings is worthwhile. Um, perhaps trying something different uh will give us some perspective on, you know, what works and what doesn't work. Maybe we are going to wind up having our meetings here instead. Um, but maybe switching the time will make it a little easier for folks with younger kids especially to attend the meetings. So, my personal feeling is maybe give it a try um and see what happens. And if we find that it doesn't work, we always have the option to revert back to what we've been doing. >> Okay. Great. Um >> yeah, that's it. >> Anybody from um committee reports? Does anybody have anything to report from the different
130committees? No. Okay, let's move on to our act. Oh, go ahead. Go ahead. One. Yeah, I'm sorry. >> I don't have anything. I think >> Okay, thank you. Okay, we're going to go to action item A and we'll start with Cindy. Can you start us off? >> I'm so sorry. I make a motion that the board of education accept the second reading of adoption policy 5121 examination, grading, and rating as recommended by the policy committee and in accordance with 26-70. >> Thank you. A motion made by Cindy. Do I hear a second? Seconded by Lauren. Any comments, questions, or concerns? No. Seeing none, all in favor? >> Any opposed? >> Okay. Oneita, could you do B for me, please? >> Sure. Motion that the board of education accept for second reading and adoption policy 5121.2,
131two honor role as recommended by the policy committee and in accordance with exhibit 26-71. >> Thank you. Motion made by Wanita do seconded by Al. Any questions, comments or concerns? Seeing none, all in favor? >> Any opposed? >> Okay, Sherry, can you do C? I motion that the board of education accept for second reading and adoption policy 5144.4 physical exercise and discipline of students as recommended by the policy committee and in accordance with 26-72. >> Thank you. A motion made by Sherry. Do I hear a second? >> Seconded by Al. Any comments, questions, or concerns on that? >> Seeing none, all in favor? Any opposed? Okay. Kate, can you do D for me? >> I'll make a motion that the board of education accept for second reading and adoption policy policy 5122.1 alternative education programs
132as recommended by the policy committee and in accordance with exhibit 26-73. >> Motion made by Kate. Do I hear a second? >> Seconded by Al. Any comments, questions, or concerns? No. Seeing none, all in favor? >> Any opposed? Okay. Al, could you do E for me? >> Motion that the motion that the board of education accept the March 2026 financial report as recommended by the financial committee in accordance with exhibit 26-74. >> Thank you. Motion made by Al. Do I hear a second? >> Seconded by Kate. Any comments, questions, or concerns? Seeing none, all in favor? >> Any opposed? Okay, Lauren, could you do F for me? I make a motion that the board of education approve the transfer Oh, yeah. the transfer of funds from prior year's excess not to exceed 2% to the
133district's non-lapsing account as recommended by the finance committee and in accordance with 26-75. >> Thank you. Motion made by Lauren. Do I hear a second? >> Seconded by Al. Any comments, questions, or concerns? Yes. Go ahead, Kate. >> I just want to clarify that 2% is 2% of the total general funds budget. Correct. >> Thank you. Okay. Any other questions? Okay. All in favor? >> I. >> Any opposed? Okay. Uh Sean, could you do G? >> Give me the long one. That's all right. I motion that pursuant to the CGS section 10-215F Damry public school certifies that all food items offered for sale to students in the schools under its jurisdiction and not exempted from the Connecticut nutritional standards published by the state of Connecticut department of education will comply with the Connecticut nutritional standards
134during the period of July 1st 26 26 through June 30th, 2027. This certification shall include all food offered for sale to students separately from reimburseable meals at all times and from all sources including but not limited to the school stores, vending machines, school cafeterias, culinary programs and any fundraising activities on school premises sponsored by the school or non-school organization and groups in accordance with exhibit 26-76. Thank you, Sean. Um, motion made by Sean. Do I hear a second? >> Seconded by Al. Any comments, questions, or concerns? >> Okay. All in favor? >> I. >> Any opposed? Okay. Minnie, can you do the longest one? >> Yes. Got a long one, too. Great. Okay. motion that Damry public schools will allow the sale of sale to students of food items that do not meet the Connecticut
135nutrition standards and the beverages not listed in section 10-221 Q of the Connecticut General Statutes provided that the following conditions are met. One, the sale is in connection with an event occurring after the end of the regular school day or on the weekend. Two, the sale is at the location of the event. And three, the food and beverages beverage items are not sold from a vending machine or school store. An event is an occurrence that involves more than just a regularly scheduled practice meeting or extracurricular activity. For example, soccer games, school plays, and intercolastic debates are events, but soccer practices, play rehearsals, and debate team meetings are not. The regular school day is the period from midnight before to 30 minutes after the end of the school day. Location means where the event is being
136held and must be in the same place as the food and beverages sales in accordance with the exhibit 26-76. >> I have a motion made by Minnie. Do I hear a second? >> Seconded by Kate. Any comments, questions, or concerns? Okay. So, I don't vote, but I have a quick question. >> Yes. Go ahead, Mike. This is for Mike Weaver. Mike, in the first line, motion that the Danbury public schools will allow the sale to students of food items that do not meet. Should it say will not allow? >> No. So, uh item G that was voted on prior is for the uh healthy food certification. H is the exemption of if that makes any sense. So, you're allowing the sale or allowing for the exemption in >> there. Got it. Okay. Sorry. >> No.
137>> Okay. Making sure. >> Oh, go ahead. >> Break it down. >> I'm sorry. >> No, that's okay. >> Um, certain things they're allowed to have and other things they're not allowed to have during the school day or on the premises. I'm confused. I'm sorry. >> Yeah. So, so for um in letter G is the healthy food certification that's that's during the day for items for sale for the students. Uh H it provides for an exemption if it's outside of that period. And then it gives you know several examples um you know on the on the weekends or after school. >> Right. Okay. >> They're saying that's okay. exemption. >> Okay, perfect. Thank you. Any other questions or comments before we take a vote? >> No, >> sorry. >> No, no, that's good. Okay. All
138those in favor? >> Any opposed? >> Okay, motion passes. Um, I just have a really quick um chair report. Um, I just want to first thank uh my board members for who attended the ad hoc and our um public hearing. Uh, we had a it was a very smooth ad hoc, probably one of the smoothest that I have attended since being on the board. And um, it was a public hearing. It was very quiet and short, but it was good. So, I appreciate everybody who attended. um even though you don't speak, your support there, your presence, you know, just shows support for the district and for the students and for everybody who was there. So, thank you for that. The budget vote is set for May 5th for those who would like to attend. It's
139during the city council meeting on Tuesday. I will be going. Um let's see. Um we are working to put together a board retreatworkshop for sometime toward the end of August. Um and we have a few topics that we'll be working on as a board um together. Um we have some board policies that we need to kind of work up and we'll also do some you know board self evaluation and stuff like that. So reflections and that type of thing. So more information will come out on this and we'll get uh save the date for you soon as we get it on. I'll have Cara send it out to you. But just so you all know end of August we're planning for that. Um, and see, uh, May 13th will be at Stadley Ruff. So, that's
140our next meeting. Okay. Um, and with that, I'm just going to open it up for board discussion because I know we've been, it's been a few weeks and I know people have been out and about in the community. So, I'd like to hear, you know, if anybody wants to talk about where they've been. Um, I know people went to yesterday and all sorts of Pemro. Go ahead, Vinnie. I know you did mention about it, but I did stop by um Pemrook. It was a great um little event and uh it was great conversation, especially the student body, the whole idea of talking about elections and how it was amazing to see um and listen to the kids and then share our lived experiences with them. So, I thought it was a great opportunity. Um Kate,
141Cindy, and I were at the um judging for Westside Middle School for the National Geographic and their project for plastics and it was incredible. And we're talking about soft skills and a couple of my groups put out their hand, looked me in the eye, smiled. They were dressed for success. So all the things you know that we've been talking about. So they're doing a great job over there. That's what I was thinking. Right. We had a good time. >> I attended the uh South Street uh school um kindergarten um art show on the uh 20th. Uh the four students which were all kindergarten did a beautiful presentation and um Mrs. um Davidson. She's retiring this year, but I have been going for the last couple of years and she has did an awesome job with
142her students. Uh and they talked about their presentation was on the ocean and I learned some things that I didn't know about the ocean. So, and they were very excited. They weren't afraid and these were kindergarten standing up there with the pointer and going over everything. So, it was really nice. Anybody else? >> Yeah, go ahead, Sher. >> Um, also the artwork with the artist that they represented, the mother child, >> it was phenomenal. I couldn't get over that. These little tiny five-year-olds, what they drew. It was I mean, I videotaped the whole thing and their vocabulary with the poker, right? An anemies. They were talking about Nemo. They were amazing. Yeah, go ahead. >> Um, I did attend the family university. I was ex it was very well organized and great attendance and nutrition
143that it was so important that we have those conversations with parents and it was a fun thing the way whoever the lady was she presented it but so you know it is fun for the kids also. So it was it was a great event. Agreed. Anything else? Anybody else? No. All right. Well, with that, do I hear a motion to adjurnn? >> I make that motion to adjurnn. >> Do I hear a second? >> Seconded by Sean. All in favor? I. >> We are adjourned. Thank you.