3/27/24 Board of Education Regular Meeting

001i unit States America stand [Music] na Louisa could you do roll call please Al Teresa present Michelle here K here here Cronin here Lauren here here H Jan M I'd like to make a motion please good I I would like to entertain a motion I'd like to make a motion to amend tonight's agenda by adding the following a motion for discussion in executive session for the purpose of discussing a confidential attorney plan privileged matter involving compensation the inter superintendent with possible action in public session motion made by Kate could I hear a second to the motion second second by Lauren all those in favor of the motion motion so public participation that the board welcome public participation and ask that each comment be limited to three minutes the public may not may offer objective comments

002of school operation and programs that concerns them the 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 danur public schools tonight we have a lot of speakers we have an half an hour I'm going to ask everyone to keep your comments to three minutes we have a lot of speakers so we're going to cut the uh comments off at 7:30 first on the list is Mr Miller yep my name is David and I'm a student at Danbury High School scho in schools in Danbury are doing an excellent job educating students therefore the teachers who care about their students learning experiences employ a variety of techniques make their curriculum both engaging and informative however not every classroom has resources

003to empower students with all the unique students attending Danbury schools it's very hard for all of them to receive the help they need some of which may come from resources that are specialized to help children overcome their difficulties such resources can be categorized to include updated technology effective softwares and internet connectability as well as physical resources problem in our district is not the lack of resources but the use of funds obtaining those resources my time at Danbury High School in the danber district as a whole I have seen several instances of the district emptying its budget to give the illusion of progress with the funding that came from covid-19 the district successfully hindered the learning process of purchasing a software known as schoy this software required teachers to reinvent the wheel when it came to

004their curriculum because it had to undergo training adap us software that was harder to use and less efficient overall this was not fair to the teachers or the students I know students who struggled with the change showing a drastic decrease in their grades I'm not alone in voicing my opinions on these issues student voices can be heard using an outlet they created themselves the school newspaper in Danbury High School the hatter Herald was created by students to express student feelings and creativity following the introduction of schoy to the Danberry District District an article was put forth by student detailing student experiences along with some teachers opinions on the software the article went into depth describing the challenges students faced when completing their work and the annoyance of teachers regarding the new program needless to say

005both the students and the teachers had negative reviews of The District's unjustifiable purchase of school Agy I'm asking the board on behalf of the students and staff inside this District to carry momentum forward and continue to promote excellence in the academic field by listening to our voices on future action before it is implemented and later regretted thank you thank you [Music] so could you speak into the mic please yes thank you my name is s s and I'm a sophomore at dri High School just like many other students dur my two years at this High School I've become aware of certain problems that have been left un addressed for a long time which has limited our ability as students to successfully con concentrate and threat in such an environment one example of this can be

006seen in the lack of textbooks and similar resources in classes for my Spanish class we would have to share the same textbooks with another class which we did regularly this was a very tedious process and took time away from our learning as we sat for worrying about whoever we would get our textbooks instead of worrying about conjugations comp and regular Concepts who Alise Europe in a Spanish class in addition I remember how one of my teachers had to get a monetary Grant to give us very much needed AP exam RWS as every as everyone knows AP classes are very important for colleges and for students to get a glimpse of the college experience and not having sufficient material to review for the exam itself puts a significant burden on students who are already handling normal

007classes if the budget were allocated towards these necessary resources then the students as well as the teachers would both be satisfied I know some teachers who talk about spending money on school supplies dur the next school year which they shouldn't have to spend given the fact that some of these teachers are living paycheck to paycheck and are just getting by with the money that they have these are not the only resources that are affecting students the quality digal resources is also affecting students as well sometimes in a few of my classes when we have a street schedule need to cover as much material as possible on that day the Wi-Fi goes out and the students can't do the work as well as the teachers who can't go over their lesson plans as result some students

008get behind where they are supposed to be which is very stressful for teachers who need to cover material quickly and for students who are supposed to grasp those Concepts just as some days in my pre-calculus class the teacher cannot project their work because the Wi-Fi in that particular room is not very good and we have to wait for several minutes before the teacher's device starts to work again we have many mathematical Concepts in that class to cover every single period and having this happen sets our class back for and prevents us from being able to learn about it in short if more funding was put for towards better technology for students and staff such as better wi-fi integrated into classrooms as well as SLE resources such as textbooks and other educational materials then both students

009and teachers would be able to work effectively and be successful in this environment that D High School is looking to Cate thank you thank Youk you Liz hello my name [Music] isore many students and teachers Al can't hear you many students and teachers alike have been complaining about the lack of quality resources provided to the school despite being the largest high school in Connecticut who do not have the best internet or technology to efficiently do our AC the internet is very slow sometimes taking up to 10 minutes to open a this increases our work time and leaves more work to do at home which many of us may not have time to do or some may not even have access to theet at home to complete their work a friend of mine is unable is

010unable to go home until to All Sports andal she has she has to cram all of her school work one night compromising her sleep some nights she doesn't sleep at all with this internet problem she's not able to make the most of her time class to to do at home this further displays one of the multiple problems of school's slow internet causes in addition we are not provided with sufficient exp other and other study materials to fully optimize their students many teachers have had to reach out for GRS to get stud materials for the students something that should already be initially provided by the school these materials are important to compare ourselves for exams and projects and further maximize time creating more colorful facilities will also be beneficial as students would feel more excited to

011learn and engage in the concept of the class adding more colors helps to boost concentr learning and enhancing focus with a colorful and better decorated classroom can better our students learning experience the school should also provide them should also provide students the materialss to create certain School products such as Tri CS GL pencils sharpeners markers and many teachers buy these materials themselves they to afford on their on their salaries and although students should get school supplies themselves they me their un to without the sufficient amount of resources textbooks Food Supplies better Etc students begin to fall behind on on their work as without these resources feel no motiv to get the percentage of students in our high school is 41% the [Music] percent aage CL resources are significantly inir for students Lear if we don't

012provide the resources necessary necessary we may not see a change of these Ms and we should reallocate our budget to attend to the needs of our students and teachers our school will truly benefit from the AC thank you the team good evening my name is sore school today I can talk about two resources that I think our school should improve on and we have one this should be the school Wii receiving more money for our text since in class firstly our school our Wii has been very slow ever since I was and Danberry High School has been slower due to the increas of amount of students in this building the slow Wi-Fi anticipation it gets in the way ofation from personal experience SCH Point ined try to doed it takes time from our learning and

013interrupts it I'm not the only one who deals with this as many other students that are know tell me about this issue too in certain parts of the building it's even worse than others this year it's been slower due to there being more students this year the Freshman Class of 2027 is even bigger than than my class class of6 [Music] are very used out after the school having them for years are in need for new Replacements the school won't give that I have a great example for this for one of my classes my teacher needed new text for our class but the school wouldn't give the Mone to purchase that my teacher had to try to get Grant with her time just to try to give us the best possible this is an issue because

014it shouldn't be the teacher that was in the school should be providing this I appreciate the efforts that they did for us and handy and for for me and my and future students that will take the class I think we need more funding for t as it's a good resource for classroom education and we are provided with it a we should aim to have the best education possible for us students and be the best we can these resources can guide us with this thank you thank you Nicole good evening my name is Nicole caral and I am a sophomore at Danbury High School during my two years here at Danbury High School I realized how crucial proper resources for students and teachers are School resources should have been one should be one of the top

015priorities for deny High School a lack of resources will hold students back from learning to their full potential and from teachers to teach as effectively essentially students are't getting the most out of their education in Denbury public schools there are 13 elementary schools three middle schools and just one high school Denbury High School is already overcrowded as it is and in desperate need of newer better and more resources the classes I specifically notice the lack of resources for for the most are the science classes I talked to a chemistry teacher at G chess about this very topic he informed me on several issues on school funding and resources first of all the classrooms of buildings C4 and C5 have no access to water except for exended part of the building this is incredibly inconvenient and

016dangerous because if an accident were to occur for example if chemicals get into a student's eye then they don't have quick access to water to rinse it out immediately it is a legal statement by occupational safety and health administration that all offices Labs where employees are potentially exposed to corrosive liquids who have eyewash facilities that comply with the American national standards Institute this same standard applies to science classrooms and should to DHS before any regretful accidents happen along with this the classrooms also don't have access to gas which is needed for many experiments often in my chemistry class as well we have to switch rooms with another teacher since our room doesn't have access to gas not only do teachers have to share room but they have to share materials as well let me give

017a scenario teacher a gives materials to teacher B for a science experiment Now teacher a has to wait for Teacher B's class to finish the experiment to get her materials back and do it with her in class this takes planning and is inconvenient every teacher and student should have materials instead of having these materials passed around from class to class also making the materials wear out more since they are being used more often than they should be not only are the materials old and worn out but the classrooms are as well there have been roof leaks drainage problems and gas leaks not only does this make a classroom not a suitable learning environment but creates a dangerous environment k hello I'm and this is my Karen excuse me who's Karen is two of you Karen

018who's what's what's your name Young uh I'm Karen okay um we are both sophomores at danber high school our school is one of the most populated SCH in our state being the only High School in every Public School District you think as students we will feel more of an effect of our of our budget that is not the case earlier this year we had issues with rats in our school bathrooms bathrooms being closed and issues with bath sty many students in our one of my a uh teachers had to personally go out of her way and ask for a grant so my class would be able to receive a test books we only had half of the amount needed while conversing with an AB statistic students I will St how this year they barely had

019enough texbooks for the entire class there's already a very select number of students who take advanced placement classes so it is woring that we struggle to supply them with resources not to mention any of resources available to our students are out of dat or in po condition another issue that we would like to bring up is the importance of our learning environment it's hard for students to focus on their education when their class being impacted by the weather so vigorously as our school is our school is incredibly old being built in 1906 our building struggles were battling the force of the seasons many days when my schools had to cancel were due to the school being too hot too cold and in some cases flooded we sent out Google form and 59 of the students

020from the sem respondents reported that their education was being disrupted due to their classroom environment many reporting that this occurred on more than one occasion although form to not reach the majority of our school it is worrying that we struggle with these issues and can be felt throughout the building by both teachers and students in one instance my entire class had to take 15 minutes of our class time to relocate to our school's air conditioned Library overall our school is facing a huge issue with our budget we are investing so much but not feeling the effect of of the money in our schools after a being rule form students R our schools overlooking this a two out of five this is a big issue as 58.7% of the Denver School District's budget originates locally it

021solution these issu yeah okay I'm sorry if I mispronounce your name just pronounce your name so we can make sure it's Alish thank you hi everyone this is anra and today I'm here to talk about schoy and how I believe that it is a bad addition to our classroom resources we switched from Google Classroom to schoy in the beginning of my freshman year it was a sudden change and at the start of the year no one really had any clue on how to navigate into this platform which caused a lot of confusions in the start even after getting used to it people had problems with navigating around the app schoy at which I believe is not user friendly as well is outdated and makes it harder for students and teachers to upload and find assignments

022it is also really laggy and with the school Wi-Fi it just makes very common problem students space with school is its features of showing turning assignments and how that makes turning in the work harder for students schooly is designed to display overdue laid and turned in assignments on the homepage this feature has made difficult for students to find assignments which they actually need to do it also takes students longer to find an assignment as schoy isn't easy to use and is structured in a way which doesn't help make navigation easy I also think that this application uses colors which are really exciting or fun which if we refer to the color theory is how the colors around us schoolly aesthetic isn't something that would typically make students excited to learn one of the reasons why

023we switched to schoolo was because it was believed that schoy will help teachers and make it easier for them to log in grades for their students but a lot of teachers that I talk to have been experiencing problems when they link Power School to school district many assignments get really graded and some don't get a grade put on them at all also in school once students submit an assignment there is no way submitted once it passes the D day this increases the work for teachers as now while discussing assignments the teachers first have to return the assignment back to every student before starting class recently I realized that we have been paying for school degree all this time but Google Classroom was a much better option Not only was Google Classroom easier to use and

024navigate through it was also more user friendly and we got to utilize its services for free I think that the money we put to scho could be used toward something more crucial like fixing the bathrooms or investing into other classroom resources thank you [Music] SAA um hello my name is Sarah and um I'm a junior at uh DAV High School let's start by acknowledging the pivotal role of technology and education in today's digital era technology has become an indispensable for enhancing teaching and learning experiences and not only facilitates the interactive and engaging lessons but also opens doors to vast resources and opportunities however the reality is that our school struggles to keep up with techn technological Advance advancements due to the limited funds and resources as a result teachers often face hurdles in effectively incorporating

025technology into their lessons despite the potential to improve student engagement and academic performance reflecting on my own importance I witnessed firsthand the challenges um teachers encourage encounter with technology I've had teachers asking for help for assistance in troubleshooting technical issues during class which can disrupt the flow of learning and create added stress stress furthermore let's consider the importance of traditional resources like textbooks while digital resources are available textbooks remain a fundamental part of the learning process however many classrooms at DHS struggle with the short of t books depriving students of essential learning materials and hindering their academic process furthermore my own experience in a physics um highlight highlighted in my academic career how lacking essential resources can affect the academic performance and well mental well-being of a student despite a high a high quality education

026requires more than accessibility it demands adequate resources tailored to meet the diverse needs of Learners I recall friend who recently moved to this country from Cambodia struggling to navigate the education system due to the lack of introductory resources and support she turned to me for help with using technology communicating with her counselor highlighting the profound impact of resource deficiencies on individual students experiences in conclusion classroom resources are Not Mere conveniences but essential tools that shape our educational success by advocating for improved access to technology adequate textbooks and sufficient resources in all departments we can create an inclusive empowering learning environment for every student and educator let's work together to ensure that every student has the resources they need to thrive and succeed thank you for your time thank you [Music] Tyler hello my name is

027Tyler eler and a senior at danber high school and I transferred in my sophomore year from a Early College in North Carolina there I was part of a ro community that was able to pay for the textbooks for my college classes there which I'm very thankful for and upon moving here one of the first experiences I had in the advanced placement classes at dber high school was a superb lack of textbooks uh currently only two out of my six AP classes have textbooks which really shows that we don't have a lot of access to the learning resources necess necessary to succeed in these courses uh furthermore there were no online copies provided and very often there wasn't a lot of Weston credit either which really shows that we don't have those resources uh on top

028of this our stem Department really suffers from a lack of lab materials uh last year in my chemistry AP class we were unable to get distilled the water there was no running gas lines to run a bunson burner for uh titration labs and uh often times the teacher would be the one to spend money out of their paycheck on these resources which considering that the teacher has to be the one to pay rather than the school board is somewhat depressing if a loow income family cannot afford these review books for these AP classes they're not really given equal opportunity to succeed as compared to other students I mean look at Richfield High School they spend around $20,000 per student yet in Danbury High School we spend only $112,000 per student are we really following project

029opening doors that was meant before to bring students into AP classes we used to have over 120 students in AP English Literature which is now dropped to below 60 if there's not equal opportunity for AP students then well if they have to purchase their own success then it's not exactly equal opportunity thank [Music] you today I stand before with a sense ofcy and concern about a pressing issue that affects the heart of the community the dire shortage of materials and Dam passes as we reflect on the future of our city and the potential of the we must confront the St reality that many of our students are being denied essential resources that they need to thrive and succeed Pi classroom where students are eager to learn where their minds are bring with curiosity and potential

030but their enthusiasm is damped by the lack of basic material textbooks are outdated and classroom appli are sketch how can we expect our children to to reach their fullest potential when they are denied access to to the tools they need to excel the consequences of the are profound and far reaching they perpetuate inequality as students from disadvantage backgrounds or disproportion affected by the lack of resources inh academic achievement as teachers struggle to provide an engaging and dtic mess without proper material it undermines the very foundation of the foundation our education system which should be built on the principle of equal opportunity for all but ad miss this challenge there's also opportunity an opportunity for us to come together as a Comm community and make a difference in our lives of our children we must prioritize

031we must prioritize investment in our school ensuring that every classroom is equ with the materials and resources necessary for students success this means updating te providing access to modern technology and ensuring that teachers have the support they need to deliver high and high quality education furthermore we need to Foster Partnerships between schools businesses colleges and Community organizations to bridge the gap and provide additional support where it's needed the most by working together we can ensure that every children every child in has Suess to the tool and resources they need to succeed in conclusion the shortage of materials and family C is not just a problem it's a call to action let us rise to the challenge and commit ourselves to investing into our children's future together we can put a tomorrow for all thank you

032thank you it is now 7:32 we have four more speakers and I will ask the board that we allow the poor of the young people to go ahead and speak on no more than 10 minutes okay and allow you three minutes we appreciate you bringing your concerns to the board I don't want to be rude and cut you off but we have an agenda that we try to follow and stay uh in line with that agenda so the next four people if you can give me less than 10 minutes we come on up and speak uh car is that okay with the board that's okay hello I'm car and I'm a sophomore at D high school and I believe there's a definite need for funding for class materials and resources as I entered my geometry

033class there was a note on the board it read grab the compass on the table and pack and pack it and so I grabbed the first one and I found that I found a few minutes later the bell rang and my teacher began the lesson 5 minutes in I was struggling to keep up with the teacher because my compass needed constant adjustment it was very loose I looked around hoping to see that it wasn't just me that got a bad compass and I noticed that it was that a few of my classmates struggled as well my teacher noticed and she asked does anyone have a loose Compass about 12 out 25 students raised their hands the the teacher then said the companies aren the best and I don't have anymore so just be very mindful

034that we have to go slowly and it won't come out as perfect this is during the second week of school I realized that day that this would probably happen again I would all be mind solely because the limited tools we have wearing the best therefore today I come to address the topic that is critical to the education classroom materials and resources and investing in the future of our students by providing adequate funding for them as Educators and initiators and students we must come to realize how much of an impact proper tools have on our learning and out first and foremost classroom materials incl a wide range of tacti items that support learning from textbooks to whiteboards these materials serve as a pathway to a more interesting and effective learning experience classroom supplies impacting students learning

035by encouraging s to participate in their assignments they can follow along by filling out problems themselves with paper instead ofen to over our topic they may even discover that they learn better by writing out themselves this allows students to be able to obtain hands-on experience with their abilities while also improving their ability to absorb challenging ideas and their skills however the problem isn't that isn't proving that classroom materials are necessary for student education the problem is access accessibility to them we are often forced to work with limited resources making it difficult to fully engage and Inspire students the provided funding to our schools by district is evidently for our school to be proficient yet there are teachers who deeply care about the success of their students student studies show that on average Educators spend between

036$500 and $750 of their own money every year on supplies that students need I've seen firsthand how my teachers have applied for multiple grants and have paid multiple times out of pocket to provide for classroom materials as they attempt to bridge the gap between what their students need to learn what the District offers while Educators attempt to get what their students need to do at their economic realities can be harsh and in real in reality it isn't really their job overall it is incredibly important that the district provides fun for Uso thank you so much I'm going to wave my time okay Chloe good evening my name is Chloe chillis and my name is Melissa nean and we are both Juniors at D high school and speaking on behalf of Unicef we would like to

037share our experience on the lack of resources at DHS technology is a major issue we experience for example our printers do not always work due to them being jammed slow Wi-Fi and them being overused there have been times where we have spent the majority of our class trying to printed paper in black and white with just two working printers and over 3,500 kids it makes it hard for us students to complete our work teachers also experience trouble with the printers sometimes not being able to print copies for their class this forc most of our work to be online and it does not help when the Wi-Fi cuts out this means that the teachers have to change and modify their whole lesson to to these factors this takes away from our educational experience we hope our

038funding can be used to better our resources to improve our thank you hi my name is and I'm s and I come to speak to you about our school resources DHS is one of the largest schools in [Music] yet in fact many AP classes like mat essential materials to get AP exam for the last years they have been using tax toep for exam that is essential for those who aren't willing to thousands of doar in college when they could have simply high school instead teachers apply for GRS their own request money schri able to use their budget appropriately some teachers like my J teacher has mentioned it they even jok about how some of his materials aren't working properly he has also mentioned how a p Sher something so small compared to texbooks is something

039he La when I when I see this I wonder what has all the budget gone into the school has many other laws some chemistry classes don't have appropriate water or don't have any resources for their classes many researchers have shown that even $1,000 per student an increase show a huge boost in percentages of high school graduation if studies themselves show that the investment of education is essential then why hasn't our education been improved why have our budget why has our budget been used for other unessential materials School G has been one of these essential where classroom is just as good and even PR stud thank you so much thank you thank you I would like to thank you all for coming tonight um Mrs lorenza uh would you like to come up okay sure I'll

040give you one minute I would not want to be disrespectful no no that that's okay um thank you very much for all being so patient taking the time to listen to our children who are experiencing this on the ground level um I think I'm very proud of them um they took a lot of time and effort to plan and come here um and thank you for being such a willing audience and listening intently to what they were saying um I think their experiences tell you a story that maybe you don't see because you're not in the school um and certainly I don't want to speak for them but I invite you to please come talk to our kids please come talk talk to our students please come talk to our teachers so thank you so

041much as always thank you wait everyone C now we're going to move on with the agenda Michelle would you like to do the consent C please motion that the Board of Education approve the [Music] a special thanks to ca who is the a SAT coordinator and all the staff who proor the sat after the SAT was completed the staff offered enrichment flexus and the special lunch for our testers also on the 21st the sen a were offered toward the nbcc campus and the water campus with Diana dardo and anthon hman aeal thanks to stop for organizing the for our students this is happy to announce that I don't know how to pronounce thisis will be hosting a 10 session residency called M the spring at East during our Flex time movement is a movement residency

042that brings together students of varying abilities ages and backgrounds together to create a student BL Community students learn together how to express themselves through collaborative impr provisional movement with physic phys physicality and humor workshops focus on social socio emotional skills teamwork collaboration and self-expression the program addresses physical development encourages teamwork and improves communication socio tional learning the East family would like to congratulate the following students for earning February student awards February student of month awards for nari draws and Jaa hering ace of hearts for heing Vanessa AA Ace of SP for hard work is Jim Vargas thank you all for allowing us to share what is going on this holiday season at East have a wonderful break and stay also have here have Ace do we have any other [Music] represent hi everyone my name

043is mayaone and I am the B secretary at Denver high school a lot of fun fun and exciting things have happened at D High School since we last met with you all the winter sports season have concluded with lots of success from our cheerleading team our Cher team was FCX Champions um state dou champions first runner UPS in the New England championship and chsca cheerleading team of the Year our Co-op BBD hockey team won the S swc andcc championship and made it deep in States they're a runner up to Conor High School spring sports are starting up as the final rosters are finalized today and opening day is on this Saturday speaking of winter sports we had high participation at basketball games this season and lots of school spirit was shown in February we organized

044a winter spirit week during the week of Valentine's Day we held voting for a sweetheart court and the winners were announced at the boys basketball senior night on February 21st we organized our first ever Indoor Winter pep rally this year for seniors but unfortunately fire alarm went off during the pepper coming up we have our senior CL occurring on May 24th at the Amber Room with the theme of gods and goddesses our Junior Prom is occurring on May 10th at the Portuguese cultural center with the theme of Hollywood hi everyone my name is Josh ala treas um there's been a lot of testing going around at DHS recently we just concluded the edss testing for our Juniors with participation rate um Juniors have since jumped into the SATs uh which are currently in the process

045of being completed um we have completed 92% of the SAT testing so far also for the first time ever in DHS history we have over 300 students um taking the Seal of by literacy which is when you um show proficiency into two different languages and course registration is open for grades 9 10 and 11 for the 2024 25 school year and uh selections Clos on Friday hello everyone my name is Serena Johnson I'm the B vice president the P the PTO is kicking it back into full gear they're doing um a raffle for the seniors where if seniors choose to opt in they have the chance to get $25 Amazon gift cards and this takes place over the course of months months for six students each for each month and that ends up being 24

046gift cards for the class 24 um the spring musical the the spring musical is going to be on April 25th 26th and 27th the tickets are live so I encourage you to go buy them it will be great um and our spring committee the environmental Club is doing a prom upcycling event so basically taking other um Old Pro Tire and giving it back to the community um dress collection ends on April 1st April 5th will be a fashion show to show them off during fle and then people can purchase the outfits on April 12 during Flex or after school um I know from the seniors um we are anxious to see when we were when you'll be able to graduate the Cong graduation date so just to communicate thinking with you and that is all

047we have um the Flor is open for any questions thank you uh educational SCA I apologize I was moving on the agenda a little bit too fast and everybody evening good evening so in true teacher style I'm going to start out with a report card kind of teacher sandwich tonight we'll start out with some really great news move on to the challenging more difficult news and end up with some really positive news so yesterday I had the pleasure of continuing our work on our professional development evaluation committee formerly known as our chal committee we've been busy at work this year our committee has been newly formed we've had a committee for many many years but um we reestablished our committee need it's new guidance to make sure we have equal members equal amount of teachers

048equal amount of Administrators and everything we do has to be taken by vote for a consensus so we feel like it's a much more fair representation of creating our new evaluation process so this new process that we've been working on is a shift that will work to grow our Educators through a positive productive and supportive model our PC team has worked hard to consider the unique needs of our teachers and our students to choose a model this year that will be a true growth model for educators and un and ease the unnecessary clerical and administrative burdens on Educators and administrators alike while really focusing on fostering professional learning and support for our Educators it's a positive step for reestablishing trust between teachers and administrators and building a pathway for growth rather than just compliance we

049are so pleased to share that our work has been enriching collaborative and productive the future definitely looks brighter for our teacher evaluation process and we're looking forward to sharing our work and rolling out the new plan with staff in August and September so now to the tougher talk you heard at the last Boe meeting from D high school students who were begging for additional counselor supports many of those students reported not having access to their counselor until years into their High School experience two counselors at Rogers Park have been recently tasked to take on an additional case load of 150 students each bringing their case load to over 450 students per counselor without any overage pay or wage increase for the significant change in case load in workload and working conditions these two counselors already

050had an untenable case load that is far out of the national recommendations for appropriate student counseling ratios now they were just handed a 50% increase of students that are not even on their grade level not only is this a disgraceful Injustice for our students but it's also an unacceptable expectation to put on any human being any counselor doing the job there's no possible way for any one counselor to service 450 kids daily we need to do better for our students and we certainly need to treat our employees with more Humanity than us telling a counselor who prides themselves on helping kids to do the best you can it is what it is is just not acceptable because of our shortages in other high need areas like special education teachers are reporting to be told being

051told to make up service hours for students that they miss when being asked to delay or postpone their own classes to cover for unfilled positions for lack of substitutes they're pulled from their own classes to cover or attend district meetings how is that even possible in many cases the solution to make up these service hours is to double up on their sessions with kids having multiple groups at a time for special education teachers providing resource support or for our MLL teachers that is again only Pro providing a disservice to their students and placing an unacceptable expectation on the teacher I want you to for a minute think about what this actually looks like in Translation pretend for a moment that you are an MLL or special education resource teacher you have arrive at work for

052the day with your lessons planned only to be told to cancel your small groups for a few periods to cover another class where there is no substitute the next day in order to make things up you're told to double up on your classes now you're tasked with teaching two days worth of material with two different small groups simultaneously as if that would even be possible or effective and oh don't forget this is taking place usually in an overcrowded room that is only suited for half as many students are my students IEP meets met was I able to deliver solid instruction and provide the required small group support with Effectiveness the answer is obvious no and this happens daily in most schools and the effects are devastatingly cumulative for both students and teachers I wanted to

053shift gears a little bit to talk a little bit about what I spoke of last time riew Middle School we had uh the Connecticut Association come in and meet with the folks at Broadview in February and we asked them to come in to be an unbiased group that wasn't the faces that everyone at Broadview knows to really talk to the teachers and hear from them of what their needs were and what they felt the shortcoming of the school work the report that I just received is actually echoing a lot of the things I talked about last time but I think it's important to know this is coming from a different lens so the Broadview Middle School teachers had a couple of categories where they wanted to talk about the issues of concern so they continue

054to express little or no support for special education students in regular education classrooms bilingual support distri distribution is in is inequitable by this new schedule that we have now some MLL classes have upwards of 26 students teachers are again reporting frustration with the wi program they're still letting us know that there aren't enough Chromebooks supplied for each student to use and they question the effectiveness of the program with the overcrowding and lack of resources some teachers aren't even able to have their lessons in their own classrooms some teachers come to work in the morning and they get a list from the office of where they'll be teaching in the building sometimes they're asked to teach in the chemistry lab which makes them nervous because they're afraid the students will get hurt from the lab chemicals

055that are left out the teachers are reporting that they were upset when hearing they were denied for pod use in the classrooms they continue to have building capacity concerns and they ask if we're even in fire code compliance there are many inter internal classrooms with no windows and several teachers recorded temperatures in the classroom over 100° windows are so old and leaky leaky especially in the bathrooms that there's mold growing on the ceilings teachers morale and teacher attention issues continue to be omnipresent they're reporting they are Beyond burned out some are afraid to come to school because of the student fights that are occurring daily and the increase in staff absentee is because some staff are just not able to show up for work because of the toll it takes on their mental health continuously

056covering for other classes because of absences and teacher shortage is really taking its toll on our folks many teachers report they feel like being taken advantage of instead of focusing on recruiting of new teachers covering other classes continuously means no prep time for regular education classes one of the quotes that struck me in this report is a teacher said Danbury school district is like a training ground where new teachers begin their careers for a year or two they get their their stripes their Badge of Courage and then they go elsewhere many teachers are counting the minutes till retirement and of course copers copers copers copers came up everywhere in the report over and over and over again which you've already heard last month let's wrap it up with some positive so I had talked to

057Dr casmiro about this a few days ago and I wanted to give you an artcore update um as you know the art cor reading and writing program is a program that the district chose to adopt this year and we are implementing it in grades K through three this year four and five next year so as a third grade teacher I have firsthand knowledge to speak about this program um I was a member last year of the committee to select a new program and it's no secret artcore was my second choice but I went into this year with an open mind and excitement for a change after being forced to use for Two Plus decades the caulin teachers College reading and writing Workshop program a program we know caused irreparable damage to our students reading progress

058I was excited for any change anything would have been better than what we were using and we were incredibly grateful that the district made the change and made this investment in our students reading future so let's talk about that K through3 implementation this year we're all Learners this year every single one of us I've been teaching third grade for 20 plus years and I feel like I'm a new third grade teacher this year with the program everything had to be relearned we're learning a new platform we're learning new data entry points the process has been energizing challenging frustrating all in the same breath change is never easy but in this case we know it was absolutely necessary so let me tell you a few of the best things about the artcore program the small group

059toolkit resources the Hardy classroom library and the week by- week lessons to keep our instruction on Pace and matched with our learning standards there's also in every unit and end goal for a final learning project that helps keep our students directed to their application of their new school their new skills strategies and knowledge of their learning I wanted to share with you a few data points from my own class to show you the success at the beginning of the year I greeted my new third graders and only two out of my 20 students entered third grade ready for third grade they were all significantly below grade level the majority of my students were entering it at first grade level or below as of today 10 students in my class have already demonstrated a full year

060or more of growth seven of which are showing 1.4 or 1.5 years of growth 11 of my 20 students are now on grade level or above six of my students are now reading at the fourth grade level and five students have shown one full year of growth from first grade moving on to second grade even though I still have four students that are significantly below grade level even those four have showed immeasurable growth more than a year and a half for each one of those four students it's tangible measurable growth that excites me and they are excited I have a board in my room uh it's called The Game Changers board and every month I list the movements of where students have grown and everybody loves gu seeing their name on the game changers for

061and it's such a positive experience kids are devouring books in my class they become Avid readers and the love of reading has been reined in third grade so while I'm thrilled to share this data with you and I would love to take full credit for every bit of my student successes my 20 years of experience in DPS reminds me otherwise an excellent teacher is limited by the program and resources they are permitted to use thankfully this new resource will allow our excellent K through 5 Educators to shine without the encumbrance of an ineffective program dragging our progress down I know this is only the beginning of true change for our kids it is only with the use of small group explicit lessons and toolkit resources that help guide our Educators to the next steps that

062we were able to instruct progress monitor track and move our students forward while we all know no program is perfect based upon my own experience this year and coupled with the feedback of dozens of K through3 teachers it's clear we are on a positive path for encouraging student achievement and reading growth at the elementary level so just a moment to thank the board for investing in the program and continuing to invest in it for fourth and fifth grade and thank you to Dr casemiro for making this investment a reality thanks so much we see you next month okay okay we're going to switch up some of the agenda here we're going to do our presentation next and so while we give um while I give Mr steel a moment to get up and get settled

063I'll take a second to just um give you a little bit of insight as to as to how we've come to know Mr J steel um he is part of a part of our initiative he's an extremely important part of our initiative when it comes to um our implementation of the academ model so um just prior to the pandemic uh we embarked on a a journey of you know what can we do around High School transformation that would reengage our students um and and provide something better than what we were providing uh currently um we took a visit down to Nashville we'll talk a little bit about some another visit that we just recently came back from took a visit down to Nashville to see their public school system and what had uh transformed uh

064teach learning down there kind of went to work on keeping that level of exploration and then setting on an action plan to to to make uh change of reality and as part of that work um we hunted down the guru and the original um uh innovator of this model um to work with us to give us his best Insight um and to help us action plan um and we've been working with him on and off in in consultation for few years now so I just want to welcome Jay steel from ncac and I want to make a clear distinction that Jay has his own program now he does he's no longer with the cies of Nashville however he was a huge founder um of everything that is good and has happened down there and so

065um Jay I'll let you talk a little bit about yourself but we appreciate taking the time to be here tonight thank you Dr casemiro it's my honor to be here with you tonight um I've had the as Dr casemiro said I've had the pleasure of working with your principles I've been in uh Danbury High School uh at least twice worked with the whole faculty today I work with department heads assistant principles and got to hear one of the um Academy teams have a discussion around standards based grading difficult discussion as always um I've also had the pleasure of working with your Middle School principles in this room uh kind of for two days rethinking about the middle level education and what that should look like so um a little bit about myself this is my

06630 seventh year in education it's been a long time but um I'm out of Jacksonville Florida and I was a middle school teacher a music teacher band director I was a high school principal of a very unique high school that sat on a technical college campus where kids were doing their technical degrees um at the same time as their High School diplomas um I was the chief academic officer for Nashville Public Schools for 6 years so 150 schools about 78,000 kids kids um under 40 different languages and um I was recruited to come to Nashville from Florida to transform their high schools because they were pretty much all failed all one um of their 12 uh comprehensive zoned high schools and we were able to turn that around using the College and Career Academy so

067Dr casir called me a guru I've been called a lot of things in my career okay but I did not create this model uh this model was created by teachers in 1969 in Philadelphia uh with the Philadelphia electric company and U Edison High School which is now called Northeast High School and the model was studied over the years by lots and lots of people but it really came down to a core group of teachers the English math science and social studies teacher along with an electrical teacher who really tried to do something differently with education and they took the 30 most atrisk students that the junior high would recommend Surefire dropouts and within four years 100% graduation rate and so that took a lot of notice around the country and the model started spreading and

068eventually became the College and Career Academy model that I'm going to share with you today so um I am the President of the national Career Academy Coalition which is a national International nonprofit that supports schools across the world so um every week I'm somewhere in a different School uh next week I'll be in Hawaii working uh with their schools I have 25 high schools there with Mississippi 18 schools there uh Nebraska uh several school districts there uh Arizona Guam I'll be there in about three more weeks working with some of their high schools and all the way to Thailand uh Thailand is working on this model in three different cities because they see it as an economic imperative for their kids uh to have a Competitive Edge in this world U so the model is

069really popular around the world you might ask why College and Career cies I know some of you got to go to Nashville and and see it U firsthand I think last week and so you have a little bit of context of what the model looks like and so we'll be able to have those discussions today but College and Career have to go hand in hand it's not one or the other we're not pring kid preparing kids for careers we're not preparing them for college we have to prepare them for both so they have a u plethora of opportunities and choices within their toolbox that they can make their own choices for what their future is going to look like right so the skill sets for the future this is one of the questions are schools

070preparing students with these skills and for these careers so I want you to think about danburry high school and what you currently um have there at the school and what it could be through this this lens right so these are the top three skill sets workers will need to secure the best careers for the future higher cognitive social and emotional technological most people educators will look at this and say well where's math where's reading where's writing right you're going to see that but these are the sources in theck Kinsley Global Institute these are the skill sets that workers need the first one sorry it's clear higher cognitive this includes Advanced literacy and writing critical thinking quantitative and statistical analysis I was so thrilled today that one of the teachers at Danbury High School today said

071our kids need to be able to analyze both quantitative and qualitative data it's say okay that's that's rare to hear a teacher say must have been a m teach teacher but that's still I'll take that as a win these careers are going to be Healthcare business finance science and research engineering programming these are the career career sets that will use these skills okay the next one is social and emotional this is advanced communication empathy to be adaptable and the ability to learn continuously when you talk to employers they always say we want uh uh workers who can critically think that can communicate and collaborate around Concepts and ideas these careers are going to be Business Development programming Health Care education counseling and these are among the best careers for the next 10 years you're feeling

072that now with teacher shortages all over the country and the third one is going to be technological includes everything from basic to Advanced it skills data analysis technical reading and writing okay and so that means all of the technical manuals in Career and Technical education courses they're written on grade 13 or higher and when I hear from the third grade teacher talking about the students that are behind in Reading just think by the time they get to uh being a young adult these technical manuals most people think oh that's just a old vocational program those technical manuals are written on grade 13 or higher so kids really have to have advanced reading skills in order to master that ccal these careers are it programming data analysis virtual reality and artificial intelligence robotics automation engineering energy

073these are the jobs that are going to be the most highly paid they are now and they are coming quickly um especially AI okay so pres um I'm sorry the organization for economic cooperation development said there's a continent full of empirical evidence demonstrating the efficacy of a system that connects work and learning beginning in high school I would even say before that and that was why the the work with your Middle School principles was so important and so enlightening and they were excited about what could be um a future design I want you to also think about um this an economy Bill to last demands that we keep doing everything we can to help students learn the skills that businesses are looking for I mean hopefully our kids are going to be able to go

074to school and work and live here in your community paying our social security someday uh we want them to H have the highest quality of life we can provide them and we don't want them to move away that's why that like the state of Hawaii is embarking on this with 25 of their high schools because their kids feel that they have to leave their community in order to have a better quality of life and they're importing all of their workers from the mainland I sit on the plane with them every two weeks flying there and they're going over for you two and $300,000 jobs that should be their kids having those jobs so you want to make sure that you're connecting what's available here in your community that's high skill High wage and high demand

075um with the programs in your school and with your postsecondary partners that's going to be key the re there's been a lot of research around this model and I know this is important for educators and school board members but there was a landmark study it was a longitudinal study done done from mdrc which is Manpower development research corporation that students more likely to complete their required credits for graduation andmy doubled the rate of which highrisk students completed core academic curriculum so this is students in an academy versus students who are not 8 Years After High School the longitudinal study found very significant labor market gains particularly for atrisk males you have those students in your school as I walk the school today I see them a significant sustained increase in earnings and overall months and

076hours of employment particularly concentrated among young men who had been at highrisk subgroups they don't name it here in the PowerPoint that's African-American males and Hispanic males had the best results in this model okay in a 2008 California study um California has this model Statewide it's called link learning or partnersh um Academy Partnerships Lighthouse partner academies is what it used to be called but they're more likely likely to pass the state exam for as a sophomore more likely to complete interns requirements needed for admission to California's public universities more likely to graduate from high school so in all of the data sets they kids who are in an Academy have higher attendance lower discipline um higher graduation rates more likely to graduate from high school and meet the requirements for a university right this was

077also very telling in the study in another study that um this puts in order the supports that you can put in place in a school that are going to keep kids to graduate on time Dropout prevention metrics I'd like you to look at the bottom one academic support when I first went to Nashville in the schools we had the graduation rate was 58% on a 5year rate a little scary and schools failing we were double dosing every single child if they were failing English we gave them two English class if they failing math we gave them two we had to remediate them the research shows that does not work that only increases the failure rates because now kids are failing to classes they don't like number one on the list is Career Development and job

078training giving the kids a reason to learn English math science and social studies is key and through the lens of a highlevel career that aligns with your community and your postsecondary institutions is key so that was number one the challeng is we are fa and we're seeing it in our economy now we have the best economy in the world right now I mean we have the lowest unemployment so total employment is projected to grow from 153.7 million to 165 in the next uh 10 years we're in that we're seeing that and increase of almost 12 million jobs Healthcare and social assistance are projected at the most jobs at 3.3 million technological advancements are expected to support strong employment growth in professional business and scientific service including Industries computer system design and related services this has

079been done a long time before this last econ OMC growth that we're see that we're in the midst of now but a general High School degree is no longer enough to remain competitive members of the workforce um I've had the privilege of staying here in your community um at the hotel that I'm staying at um the person who runs the front desk is a graduate of Danbury High School asking me what I'm doing here um another um partender at one of the Mexican restaurants that I like going to here as shared with me if I would have had that in the high school that would have been amazing everybody says the same things when they graduate from the school it's like that would have changed that would have made a difference in my life okay

080not saying their life is bad but that would have helped them with their future 67% of us manufacturers experience shortage of qualified workers our companies can't F the positions in the top three category job categories right those are going to be technology Healthcare and education is going to be one of them in all my conversations with employers around the world they say the exact same thing but what's happening here in the US our companies are now starting to invest in high schools okay and you saw that in Nashville those of you who went I'll give you another story Discount Tire which is a national chain they're probably here in your city I'm not sure um they're experiencing a major shortage of Workforce also so they approach the national Career Academy Coalition can you help us

081find High School Automotive acmy we would like to sponsor them we would like to provide our curriculum our leadership training Management training and certifications and we'd like to put a Discount Tire inside the high school so we did we matched them up with a school outside of Houston and a school in louville Kentucky and they are beginning that process of partnering those of you who went to Nashville maybe saw Bridgestone Firestone is set up in a high school there every child is guaranteed a job every child is guaranteed a certification and and paying for their college uh those who qualify for it so incredible things happen but they're they're seeing such success by reaching down into the high schools and educating kids on their practices their philosophies that it's really making a difference in their

082job retention every year over 1.2 million students drop out of high school in the United States alone that's um every 26 seconds or 7,000 a day that's unacceptable about 25% of our High School freshman failed graduate from high school on time we know that's four years in a summer and we know that your high school I believe Dan is in the 80s low 80s okay um and that's below the national average okay the national average has been going up but I don't think any of you will be happy until it's probably above 90% okay the higher we can get the better the US which had some of the highest graduation rates of any developed country now ranks 22nd out of 27 okay we're going down on the list and if you start looking at some

083of the other countries and what they're doing I mean I Thailand as an example Thailand Vietnam 11 Southeast Asian countries came together to form a group called cbio Southeast Asian ministries of Education organization and their number one strategy is stem careeres and they are focusing on stem because that's where they feel their kids are going to be the most competitive career academies may increase student achievement that is one of the findings okay but it will not increase student achievement without quality instruction quality materials Etc the things you heard about tonight but quality instruction and quality instructional leadership are the number one predictors of Student Success this is just a model that lets the people do what they need to do at a higher level 81% of dropouts said if they would have had more real

084world learning it may have influenced them to stay in school all right so there are three key elements that you've seen or you've heard about I know that you all got the rubric ahead of time I know you all read every repage to that but that was a little overload but I wanted you to have the document that the schools are using the middle school has has a rubric the high school Hazard rubric around 10 national standards that were based off of the original teachers work number one it's a small learning community there are three smaller Learning Community types in the United States those are magnet schools one of your middle schools is a magnet school the second one is small boutique schools like New York and Philadelphia have broken down on their large high

085schools into several schools within a building and the third one is the College and Career Academy model that's what you're attempting to do at danburry high school taking a large Comprehensive High School and breaking it apart into smaller schools within the school this is the original Middle School model the Middle School model is built on 16 character rcks it's called this we believe it's about cohorting of kids and teams it's about bringing an interdisiplinary team of teachers together sharing kids throughout the day with common planning the only difference between the high school academy model and the middle school traditional Middle School model is it has a a career theme okay the second one is it must be a college preparatory curriculum with the career theme not separate it has to go hand and glove together

086because what we find is a lot of students who take Advance placement courses International baloran or Cambridge courses lack the skills of of um Cooperative learning critical thinking working together with a team the communication skills they're brilliant at what they do but sometimes they lack the um uh working in groups but a lot of times our kids who just take um basic level forces are lacking the academic sides so we have to bring together both College and Career and raise the level of all of our kids Partnerships with employers the community and local colleges are key to this it's not always about a 4-year University but we're looking at apprenticeships 2-year universities technical schools um training programs four year and Beyond bringing everybody together to work together for this model those of you who went

087to Nashville saw there's over 360 Partners working with the high schools there and bringing resources for the teachers inside the school and outside of the school for the faculty and the students um in a smaller Learning Community kids are hoed in groups they take classes together for at least 3 to four years in your case you'll have a Freshman Academy at the high school which is open now I met with the Freshman administrator today and she's already seeing success data that showing the kids are more engaged less disciplined better attendance she's already seeing that happen in the first year compared to last year's nth grade then in your upper your grades 10 through 12 I think you're going to have six cies based around different themes that are related to your community teams of teachers

088from different disciplines come together with a Lead Teacher that's empowered to facilitate the common planning meetings that happen weekly with those teachers they plan together as a team it is student uh Choice it is voluntary enrollment there are no prequisites in place to get in I don't have to have a math score to get into engineering because you never know when that passion is going to be ignited for a kid and it the light bul turns on and now they understand why they're learning math and there's also opportunity for students to engage in a full range of school activities this does not mean the end of band choir drama all of that stuff those should be open for every single child I preached that because I was one of those teachers okay is a college

089prep curriculum with a career theme you heard a lot tonight from your advanced placement kids but academic courses meet graduation and college entrance requirements at a minimum we want to raise the bar and bring more of those types of classes and expect more kids to start taking them common planning time for our teaching team that's going to be extremely important our middle schools and elementary schools already work together in interdisplinary teams our high schools around the country are departmentalized so keeping the departmental structure but also bringing together teachers from different disciplines into an interdisiplinary team is going to be key Project based learning brings together skills acquired through academic and career content so Active Learning is what some people call it some people call it problem based learning but kids coming together determining how they're

090going to master the challenge that the teacher has put before them and is a real challenge it's not something abstract it's something in their community that the business Community or the city is facing that kids can solve okay students also have a postsecondary plan um and I showed it to your teacher your um assistant principles today a 10-year plan in the eth OR nth grade where kids map out where they see themselves in 10 years it's a fluid plan and it should be because kids interest change and their experiences inform what they're going to do for the rest of their life just because a kid chooses a health care career in the 10th grade doesn't mean they're going to be in healthare the rest of their life so it's very important to teach them transferable

091skills that can be used in anything they want those are going we're going to call Professional skills all right Partnerships with higher ed Community um and employers so businesses provide internships for our kids mentoring you heard that tonight before the board meeting from the one group job shadowing opportunities teacher externships getting our teachers out into their business in learning how they use math and English and science and social studies is key to this leadership opportunities those of you who in Nashville met the ambassadors okay um that's a student leadership organization ation Dany High School will embark on that next year they were talking about it today is getting their ambassador program up and going but training kids on public speaking on how to meet and greet and represent the brand of danburry high school um

092giving advice to our students on labor market trends and assistance with project Bas learning that's going to be key postsecondary Partners work collaboratively to promote benefits of postsecondary and or Technical Training for our kids but starting to offer some of those entry level courses in high school is key you might call it dual enrollment here some school districts call it early college but kids should be able to graduate with AAS or as's done by the time they get to the senior year and that that happens in pretty much every Academy school parents and Guardians are aware and actively engaged to support Student Success so parents are going to be very integral part of this helping their kids choose um but also know what they don't want to do that's just as important all right these

093three essential elements come together with relationships so building a team of teachers around a team of kids that gets that small school feeling um that's going to address any some of the issues that you might be seeing with discipline attendance um lack of student engagement raising the rigor raising the expectation for our kids kids always rise to our level of expectation as adults are we raising that bar for our kids okay and then the relevance why am I learning what I'm learning this can it be taught in the Contex TT of a particular career um that's going to be key and the answer is yes and that's when we see achievement levels starting to go up when they see relevance in what they're learning okay so the academy model is about the acquisition of knowledge

094moving to the application of knowledge I was one of those kids I can listen to a lecture I don't have to take notes I can pass the test I graduated salutatorian I had a p and PE that was my only um be in high school um but I couldn't apply what I learned okay I can take the test and so often that's what we see of our higher performing kids they can take the test well they can reach those expectations but when they have to apply it to a real problem they struggle so that if we can get from acquisition of knowledge the application of the knowledge then we're doing wonderful things for our children so this is the process that your high school team has been going through your middle school team just started

095this they assembled a team okay um and that in instances was school leadership teachers and sometimes community and business partners um that is just getting off the ground here with the the work of Brent and and his team of one um but we started with the national standards of practice which you now have the rubric and those became the building blocks or the foundation or blueprint for what we're building we conducted an audit of Danbury High School and we crosswalked it with high skill High wage occupations here in Danbury those days data are published by the Department of Labor the Bureau of Labor Statistics they're every year you can Google uh Connecticut High School highways targeted occupations from the Bureau of Labor and every year you can see how many jobs there are what the

096growth is and the sour wages if it's less than $25 an hour it's not considered high wage all right then we developed a graduate profile which is kind of the North Star what do we what are we aspiring to do and then we developed a series of experiences called a College and Career Continuum that every student gets it's about Equity no matter what pathway I choose I get this experience and then um we developed an action plan a 3 to four year action plan that your high school is following your middle school just got one a couple weeks ago um and they're reviewing it now then you begin implementation high school is in the middle of implementation The Freshman Academy in place upper Academy is opening next year and then you Monitor and review a

097continuous improvement process so those are the steps we've gone through to build this here's your portrait of a graduate I assume okay so this has all been shared with you we want every child to be an advocate for themselves a collaborator a good effective Communicator innovator of learner all right your middle school now has backwards mapped this into key metrics and I really like the quote on the right hand side every system is perfectly designed to get the result that that it does we have to make changes if we want different results change is hard especially for adults kids can handle it it's the adults that always struggle with it and my doctorate is in Urban Leadership and strategic change trust me I I've seen it it's I've lost a lot of hair over change

098okay from there I know you can't read this I know I can't read it but this is the College and Career Continuum that the high school says that every child would get this year's nth graders should be doing career resear resarch they are I made sure of that today they're doing College research they are using Youth Science for that which is an online program um they um there was a career fair I believe this year for them okay semester two they're all they all should be visiting a college to see themselves on a college campus whether it's virtual or in person they should also choosing their pathway again choosing their High School major I want you to think of it that way and U they're learning in depth what those Pathways do okay once they

099get up I'm not going to go through all of these but every child gets these experiences and you have it's intentional acts of guidance there are wonderful things happen at Danbury High School but can we say 100% of the kids get it probably not with this model and this structure every kid gets it if they're at school because it has to be done when we have the kids captured during the day so this is your high school design you've got the uh exploration Academy in the n9th grade comprised of several smaller teams and then um and they're all taking a a course where they're learning about the pathways and the career interest inventories and then through that they choose one of the sixms that you see across and then you can see each pathway in

100blue underneath that this is like a high school major can the kids change their major yes they can okay the high school will determine when they can change it but they should be able to change their major at least once before they get to the 12th grade because you want them to be a program completer you want them to go as deep as they can get college credit and get professional certifications in those fields and experience whether they go on or not with that major in college that to me is a win I would rather my child explore Healthcare in high school than pay $1,000 to go to med school and not use the degree okay so this is the high school plan all right there it goes this is the 10 national standards again

101I'm not going to go through them so I'm not going to go through the rubric where you have the rubric this is based on again the original teachers work this is the guiding document that your schools are following and this is a national rubric all right the next steps the high school will go uh with their upper Academy 10th grade next year okay I think they're very close to being ready for that um the middle school is looking at the design um they actually did come to a consensus on a design that aligns with Danbury High School that brings back the original Middle School teaming uh they're very excited about that but they'll be finalizing um their draft of a graduate profile with metrics their Continuum of experiences to align with the high school and

102then um what their courses will look like in the Middle School um and then after that it should be backwards M to Elementary about experiences kids can have so for example in Hawaii their philosophy is we expose kids in the elementary to different careers and postsecondary opportunities and then um they explore in the middle school then when they get to the high school they engage okay so expose explore engage is really the philosophy around elementary middle and high around career and college education all right so I'll stop there and um take any questions um and maybe even some of the things you saw at Nashville CU I was there for six years while we were building that so you as you were giving your presentation you talked about um a number of things that were

103key in order for this to be a successful program um now do this what can you tell us about the funding sustainability of the programs that you're familiar with sure so let's start with funding um I always say this is one of the first questions I always get asked from boards um it doesn't require additional funding okay it does require you looking at existing funding and sometimes repurposing the way you're spending certain monies for the staffing models right so the only position I always tell a district that I think is key that they might not have is some type of Academy director who operates as a leaone between the community business partners your Chambers your postsecondary partners that's not the principle that person is key um to uh making those connections and bringing resources into

104the school and getting um students and teachers out into those businesses so I always think you have to look at the Staffing model so in traditionally in this model there's a counselor for each Academy okay so in this case in danburry it would be a minimum of seven okay I don't know how many you have there okay but there should be at least one for each Academy and there should be at the Freshman depending on the size we heard that earlier probably two okay um there usually is some type of instructional leader an administrator that is over each Academy depending on the size of the school the size of the acmy you could have an administrator sharing two academies okay that's not a deal breaker um but I know traditionally if you want to staff

105it correctly it would be an administrator a counselor and a Lead Teacher in each Academy so the Lead Teacher is a teacher who gets an extra planning period or a stien to facilitate the weekly common planning meetings that's really it it should be the existing staff that you have your resource teachers a special ed and I think you call it ml MLL I call it e English Learners um they follow they still F the the the Staffing follows the kids um and that model does not change okay sustainability depends on leadership okay if this is a priority of the board um and the principal and the superintendent then um it it shows in the way it's staffed the way it's funded um and the community supporting it so for example those of you who went

106to Nashville they are on their third superintendent since I left and um uh the first one who hired me was extremely supportive of it and we did an amazing work a whole team of people the next superintendent came came in was told by the Chamber of Commerce you will not touch it because we invested so much time and energy and resources into it and the new superintendent was um one of the principles that I appointed who's now the superintendent and she was a principal of an Academy school so it is part of the fabric of that Community because the business Community uh said we will not lose this and every leader that's interviewed for the job has to speak to the benefits and why they would keep it could you repeat could you repeat for

107me the U the three steps of the process going from the elementary to the high school the engaged yeah so think Elementary is exposure um kids getting if you ask elementary students about careers they're going to know NFL players they're going to know um maybe an influencer and um maybe a doctor something like that so it's about um having intentional experiences for them career days College days um speakers uh one of my Hawaii elementary schools has a career Parade Where each grade level dresses as their favorite career after they've done some learning units um just little things like that about exposing them once they get into Middle School they should be starting to explore with exploratory wheel courses um semester or year-long electives that align with your high school so I can tell you what

108the Middle School principles here came up with we're taking your sixms um and combining them the themes of them into three different themes and then each of those themes would be offered at each grade level sixth seventh and eth so by the time the kids get through Middle School they've had a course one course in each of the themes that the high school would offer and then they're able to choose which one best aligns with them so more at the high school it's engage they're engaging with the community they're engaging with the post secondary Partners they're taking advantage of all this so expose explore engage thank you that's just our philosophy what Hawaii is using they can look different in every Community okay Dr Ste thanks for coming in and presented to us this evening

109it's very inform appreciate that um you talked a little bit about howang difficult for adults um and I'm just wondering if you could speak a little bit to some of the resistance that you have seen from parents in particular um and some of the ways that that um you know you negotiated those conversations that's never easy um with adults some let me start with the adults in the system just like some of you who went last week you sometimes you have to see touch and feel it to in experience it to see what it could be and uh hopefully you saw some really great things on your visit to Nashville that's just one Community I I've recommended to Dr casemiro um Rockford Illinois is another great Community to go see so is Omaha Nebraska all

110nine of their high schools are in this model in some form um Hawaii um we can all go to Hawaii and I can tour you through the schools there incredible um so people have to see touch and feel that's that's key with parents the only um push back that I've gotten have been from um advanced placement parents um that feel that why are you forcing my child to take a career course okay I always use a personal experience here my nephew graduated from a Val Victorian from an international Balor School in Louisville Kentucky brilliant off the charts his younger brother not so brilliant um took a culinary business program went on to a 2-year technical school to get a culinary business um degree he now manages the dietary program at lille's largest hospital making wonderful

111money his older brother who never took a career course in his life is a standup comic in La who's not funny he's in his 30s struggling has a roommate uh two roommates and barely can survive um so it's not always about performing well on the test it's about how you can apply so if you can do both if you can marry both then your kids are going to be more successful so when parents say to me my kids going to college they're not going to work inside I chuckle a little bit and because I know everybody's going to go to work at some point the difference is do you want them to have a career that's meaningful for them or do you want them to have a job that's not going to provide for them

112so if we can convince parents that both is important but we also want to make sure in this that we're raising the expectations we're offering more rigorous courses we're expecting kids to take four years of math English science and social studies not the statement that's going to be key and having a choice parents the kids should have a choice about what Pathways they're in and you're always going to get well they don't have anything my kid is interested in then we have to educate people on the transferable skills that kids are going to get no matter what they're in they're going to be applicable for the rest of their Liv Mr I see you use the word Shadows what is that terminology mean Shadow like a job shadow yeah um so for example in most

113of my schools in the 11th grade when the kids are ready they will get one excused absence to go Shadow a professional in the community that's in the career that they're studying that way they see who I really want to do this or not that be synonymous with internship an internship would be probably a longer an internship can be anything from a week to 6 weeks long or N9 weeks long but a job shadowing is usually one day however in some communities business people will not take the high school intern so it might be an extended job shadow and that makes it more powerful thank you you talked about um the many schools that are using the program have been very successful uh with it out of those schools can you just give me an

114example of one and how many years it has been running um and kind of walk me through a little bit of a timeline of how many year you know what happened year one and I know sure I I'll be brief on it um uh my favorite High School to talk about is white pahu high school that sits in white pahu Hawaii that's at the base of Pearl Harbor so at the back of Pearl Harbor um it's is their school so you go up on the second floor you can see all the ships I mean incredible place to visit it is 90 over 92% Filipino American um it is has many different languages in it um I'm married into a Filipino family so that's why I say it's my favorite school I love going there but

115it had the highest crime rate in the state of Hawaii Hawaii's FBI said they could trace nine out of 10 crimes back to that community and the real estate agents would not show homes in that community so the principal who's now the superintendent of Hawaii schools his name is Keith Hayashi he implemented the model there in um the mid 2000s around 2000 let's say 2008 2009 and it immediately turned around the school the school is about 2,800 um so it's one of Hawai Hawaii's second or third largest high school and um they have sixms in the school and I started working with them in uh 2015 um and if you know that culture in Hawaii you have to be trusted in order to be brought in and once they trust you then it spreads into

116the other schools um so they started their firsty there probably around 2009 wall toall by 2016 three two of theirm were National models um and then within the next three years all six of them became National models so it is a I would say a 3 to 5e process with your schools we did um probably two are planning cuz Co slowed us down your Freshman Academy in year three your upper Academy your 10th grade year four by year six you should you should see uh dramatic changes in your uh attendance and discipline and the number of kids getting scholarships Etc but that all should be tracked with those key metrics around your graduate profile close to you um not too many schools in the Northeast you're a Trailblazer with that um I don't really know

117there's one in Vermont um I don't really know any there was one in Boston but when Co hit the principal shut down everything and stopped it um Omaha Rockford akan Ohio uh Columbus City Schools in Ohio they're starting the process um those are probably the closest ons just one other question in the state of Hawaii does this Prevail in the island of Hawaii yes there are three high schools on Kawaii all three are in this model yeah all 10th graders on um Kawaii high schools all have to get the oia 10 certification you heard one of the young ladies talking about that tonight they it's required by every 10th grader in their Economic Development board pay for are there any other questions if you ever want to see any in the schools you're on vacation

118there I can get you in and it off on your taxes Jay thank you so much for coming out tonight and very informative always information in a short period of time so we appreciate it and we'll be working together again and Jay's going to help us out with our student ambassador program uh and get that training up and running here in Danbury we'll probably shed some light on that when we do brief on the on the Nashville trip a little bit later thank you thank you thank you we move on down the agenda action item a a a February 2024 financial report motion that the Board of Education accept the February 2024 financial report as recommended by the finance committee in accordance with 24-3 motion made by Teresa I he a second second second bya

119any question concerning the motion yes to me I'd like to just point out that on this particular statement there were two additions made to the financial statements one was the inclusion of a report that now shows the monthly expenses uh in addition to the year or date it's good for referential purposes and also it shows the additional monies we receive from the city from the reserve of some $62,000 which reimburses US with some of the prior expenses that had occurred uh that were unexpected to us which left uh and unced balance of about 655,000 at February to that point on the unencumbered balance I'd like Mr Spang just to bring us up to date on the uh issues that we had early earlier in the year uh there were expenses significant expenses that were being

120transferred going to use that word to to Grants which um um were part of the process of this $4.8 million shortfall that that existed and then there was another group of expenses a little over a million dollar that were looking to be transferred uh to the balance in the uh S3 funds uh I like Mr spank just to give us a little update on how the progress is going uh if he sees any bumps in a row on those applications to those grants for these expenses thank thank you Rich um I think the last time we spoke we talked about really strategies to help U balance the budget one that would involve um utilizing some of the excess balances in our sr3 grant that was about to expire and the second strategy that would look

121to the same kind of thing from a the second year of a 2-year grant for Title One expir in both those cases we saw capacity to spend and we um knew there were expenses in the school budget that would be transferred over um since then the the two strategy approaches has grown into six strategies but um let me just describe them real fast um we did make application with the State education department for the first one I mentioned uh that would bring 1.4 million of capacity in to use against the 3 million uh we also uh made changes in the title one grant that I mentioned we didn't need State approval for that we could do it administratively that added about another half a million of expenses into the three million so 1.9 on those

122two original strategies uh We've then um done we did an early uh shutdown of our programs inol and their spending we didn't uh deny them doing anything but we asked them to do their planning a month or two earlier than they normally would and at the same time we put in um we might call a soft freeze on any new hiring that um really won't be any new hiring uh without going to a special approval path to superintending and and some others um thing is uh like we did with the first two grants uh We've identified what we think is some capacity in our alliance grant that could be about $600,000 and what that would mean is postponing some expenditures that we normally make in the springtime uh we do those in July and August

123instead in the next Alliance gr freeing up capacity now like our power school student information that's $300,000 um that bill is not due till July so we can use that money too um we also U believe there's a one of our priority School Grants uh that could be used for summer school expenses and we believe we can reallocate some of the summer school expenses from the summer of 23 summer school into this grant that could free up $240,000 um and finally um we were looking very carefully just today at our Magnet School uh finances and if you recall uh in this year's budget for the first time there was a subsidy that we set aside to help with some of the enrollment shifts in the school budget $277,000 we only need 150 of that so

124that frees up 120 that's a lot of small numbers but as we get closer uh to June 30th we're finding uh This Is What It Takes um now I would just say uh what I said to Rich U it's still march um and so things could change either way uh we if nothing changes we think we can end up zero but if something were to change to the negative um I think we'd have to reconsider again uh the draw down of reserves that we asked forious that's where things stand thank you can I just make a comment I just want to preface that by saying that the contingency under the sr3 money is based on approval of the division as as well as potential revisions for Alliance so those those two things need to be

125in play they we have to get approval for those for that all that to work that there right to get approval for Sr 3 from the state the the grant fols as same and safety with Alliance when we made that Amendment there was $1.8 Million uh we thought be on news or some vacancies in that Grant apply 1.4 million to our uh shortfall and we asked the state for approval to use another 400,000 for cop of Replacements in various schools so very sensitive to the uh the Need You You' heard a couple times now we're hoping this will bring some relief Qui so in essence the reason for my question was to update the board number one number two if they recall that earlier in the year when Mr wson was here he and John

126went before the council requesting uh up to $3 million and there was other the reserves to be used um and so the point here the perfect world as I see it all of these strategies come to fruition it we may be able to just squeak by hopefully in the black if not just a little bit in the red so we can dra down a little bit of that $3 million and not utilize the all so I just wanted everybody to be able to at this particular Point what the process was where we stay Thank you there any other question a motion on the for was moved by Teresa second by L Lou no more discussion C there all in favor any motion so car thank thank you Dr yes action item letter B healthy food

127certification participation motion at pursuant to the CGS section 10- 215f the D Bo of Education certified that all food items offered for sale to students in the school under its jur jurisdiction and not Exempted from the Connecticut nutrition standards published by the Connecticut State Department of Education will comply with the Connecticut nutrition standards During the period of July 1 2024 through June 30th 2025 this certification shall include all food offered for sale to students separately from reimbursable meals at all times from all sources including but not limited to school stores vending machines School cafeterias culinary programs and any fundraising activities on school premises sponsored by the school or non-school organizations and groups in accordance with 2464 motion made by DR second by Kate are there any questions concerning this motion see none all in favor

128can I hear I I I any oppose any Abend motion so car action item C Lauren I make a motion that the Danbury Board of Education will allow the sale of to students of food items that do not meet the Connecticut nutrition standards and beverages not listed in section 10- 221q 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 in a location of the event and three the food and beverage items are not sold from a vending machine or a 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

129Inter Scholastic debates are regular are events but socc 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 official school day location means where the event is being held and must be the same place as the food and beverage sales in accordance with 24-65 motion made by laen I he second second second by Dr K any discussion questions stand n all in favor of a motion I I motion so Carri exhibit D motion that the Board of Education recommended to the city council to update the members of the school building committee danber High School science lab improvements to reflect new board leadership members glis Cooper board chair and L zag insights and Facilities committee chair motion made by

130Lis second second by bur on discussion questions s all in favor I I motion so car action item e Kate I'll make a motion at the Board of Education except for the first reading the following policies per exhibits 2466 through 2473 as recommended by the policy committee motion made by Kate second by to are there any question concerning the policies listed seeing none all in favor can iar I motion so car thank you superintendent report thank you so uh the first item I try to be try to be brief but um the first item is probably going to be the one of the more pleasurable things to talk about tonight um I invited Dan Donovan to maybe if you want to come up and join us for a little bit to help debrief a little

131bit on on the national study visit so we visited uh with some board members um Nashville the academies of Nashville nville Public School Sy um on March 19 2021 and it was myself it was board chair Cooper um it was Lauren daily it was Teresa um we had Mr Donovan at the squ Kate we Mr Donovan at School along with Angelo morero and Chris Davidson two of his um assistant principles and also Mr um Brent Dean as well so um we had a fantastic visit um it has been I have been to Nashville a couple of times now um so I'm going to withhold my comments on on the experience of the trip clearly I'm a fan of the model so I don't want to ttin the the pool here but um I would love

132for our own Bo board members to maybe talk a little bit about their experiences while they were there and um just share maybe some connections that they may maybe have made um it was a great experience I think um it helps me better understand what we're looking at for danburry um we learned I learned so much and how this can be just a phenomenal opportunity for Danbury um I think we are well underway thank you to Brett Mr Donan and Cara I think um we're it's just so exciting um the networking that we had the opportunities the um seminars we went to and just the learning that happened and the welcoming schools they had down um in Nashville and the students how excited the students are just to share what's happening in their school with

133us was h for me because like they were just smiling and they were they were speaking to us and they were looking at us versus when you're you know in other places and kids can't even look at an adult and these children are excited to talk to you and they want to talk to you and they're they're thanking you for coming and they want to know how they can help you and they're asking you questions and they're wanting to learn from you as much as you're wanting to learn from them and the staff is excited and the administration is excited and it just it's was just so great that one day we're going to be bberry giving those tours so I can't wait for that I was so I was so grateful to be there

134I would definitely echo's uh experience um it was it was really um I mean it's one thing I think when you talk about these things around the table and we had uh you know great pres presentation tonight from Dr steel but uh to be in that space and to see things like um a student Court that's in the school where when there's a student who's who's having an issue uh it comes board and to a group of his peers or her peers and uh they go through the process of learning about how the eal system works while they also create accountability in the school environment um or I the credit union that was in one of the schools that we went to visit student run the tellers there are certified students who go through a

135training process and you know students can go there on their lunch and and take out you know money for you know an extracurricular or something like that so they're learning these very tangible skills that um you know are part of learning about career Pathways but also skills that they're going to need for life to be successful and skills that translate across many different disciplines as as Dr steel was add to this evening um so just to see some of those things in action and see sort of what you can do with this model um the thing that impressed me the most was this idea their their motto for the schools is every student known and the idea behind that especially when I look at Denbury High which has so many students is that the the

136efforts of the administration at the school model is to make sure that every student in that building has support for what their path is going to be and that it's the same group of adults working with that student over the course of their High School experience so so that there's no there's no way for that student to fall through the cracks and I think that's something that we've talked a lot about around the table um just so to find a model where we can make that happen for us I think is is really tremendous and I would just like to also say thank you to Dr KZ to Mr Don and to Mr Dean thank you I want to Echo that as well they take care of GL and Mr D and it was a

137fabulous experience uh first class we were treated very well um and we were assigned two schools and we had different groups each one went to two schools and I I went to Glen Cliffe and learned that that was one of the toughest schools um in their district and it's come around uh they still have their issues but they don't have they're not allowed to have cell phones they carry the pouch so they make it work and they said at first they were a vocal minority but they were a school at one time that was you know a game Le school and it's we had a student lead us around and he was very uh happy about his program he uh Des graphic designer he already had a certification in ad doe working on his Photoshop

138and he also had a certification in HVAC just in case um so that certification aspect really impressed me um they I guess it started out in Nashville and now it's a state requirement for graduates to have a certification in something uh but I notic it was they they connected the dots with the community but I didn't hear too much about boards bed's involvement in the program uh I was confused between the two business programs alignment and pencil and how they overlap in the management of the uh of the academy model but other than that it was pretty pretty interesting and thank you again everyone knows I'm short on words okay I really enjoyed it I really enjoyed meeting all the different people there uh the place was at you know everyone was just welcomeing to

139us uh what impressed me the most the schools were clean and I don't know where they had them just clean for that for our Vis but everything was nice and clean uh the respect that the teachers had for the student and the student had for the teachers there were no hoodies I saw one young man came into the school and he had his hood him and that administrator approached him and said take it off he didn't get back who this Hood he on I think the whole day I was there I saw two students they were not walking around with all these hoodies around and I think to me it says the way that administrator appros that young man and it was a young man and how he turned around and had the respect for

140her and I said okay it can work it can work all depends on how you approach a person and how you speak to that person so along with everything else um I want to thank our superintendent I want to thank the board members we all got along good we had a good time and it was a good learning experience so thank you thanks I'd love toar from Mr Donovan and and Brent and I know um the uh two assistant principles that you went with also had good experience I want to share a little bit about some of your conversations when you have back to the high school you know for me it was excuse me for me it was my second trip down there we went down in 2020 right before Co and to see

141the amount of work that we've accomplished up here to get us we're never going to be exactly who they are for a while but we're using them as the model of where we want to go was really interesting it was a different lens for me to go uh that was one part of it it was good to see the improvements that they've made uh and having conversations with the administrators down there about um the stuff that we took and we were talking about and them coming back and saying hey start thinking about it a little bit differently which Changed My Views but it was also uh gave me great pleasure to take the board down there uh and watch you all enjoy the what I have twice now and understand our why and why we're

142we're going through to do this um as M Coop said we had a great time it was fun uh but we learned a lot and I thought our debriefs and our time together working there was was well served and I appreciate you guys coming [Music] at had a lot of Rich conversation with our board members and our APS our school structures and um you know I'm excited to uh build up the business engagement MoDOT here from G and so you all got a chance to see what that was like a lot of organizations assisting with the career County so just to kind of let you know we do have our chamber there in to helping us in this regard as well as the Northwest Regional West neighborhood to we are working to streamline our efforts

143so that we can support the the current County lives when it comes of job opportunities experiential learning opportunities and employers engagement with us we together to make sure that this happens in a way that makes sense for everybody so things are in work in progress I'm glad that everyone was able to see how that actually goes down and that it is and works with this Frame so thank you I'll just share one last one last thing and I know I tend to gush every time I talk about the model but um you know this was my third trip down and the first time we went that we went down we were kind of really just in awe of it and then we came back and decided that we were going to build around this and

144start educating oursel on it and digging in so we had a fouryear action plan the second time we went down really with a different lens of asking lots of questions now we started a plan how do we do this how do we do that how do we lift this you know getting that lift off and buy it and realizing just how much more work we had to to do um the third time which is now that we went with the board um I think it felt pretty good and I I looked at Dan and Brett too from time to time as we're going through and hearing again you know we're I'm mentally checking off we did that we did this we got this in place this is going great we just have to make it

145better and then sustain it and so you know with each visit there was a different lens um and I had different questions because you're in a different place with implementation so your questions are different your needs are different um who you need to network down there looks different um there was a great opportunity to network with a lot of people who are implementing um technical service providers people that can help along the way people that are that are just excited to be a part of it and want to reach out um you know we have Educators and administrators exchanging information around every corner call me where you from Nebraska great I'll call you I have a question about this oh good we've solved that you know can you help me with your problem so um

146lots of networking happen with this model and we are a little bit isolated in the Northeast in terms of having other people to look to so we've had to travel and and do these things and we're hoping to um to be the next I say we're the Nash we're going to be the Nashville of the Northeast um and that you know bring that model here and you know we have a great City here with a tremendous amount of potential uh for to really create something special so um I'm looking forward to continue collaboration on this um and uh you know we're going to we're going to make it happen and I want to thank these guys here because they from the from the day that we decided to do this we've been meeting how often

147L how often I I can't count but we we hold ourselves accountable to um almost every other week we meeting for several hours we've had a long uh action hit list for quite a bit and we hold each other accountable for completing the tasks on that and these guys have been a huge part of us since the beginning so I just want to thank you both Mr Jan um Mr Dean I've got a question for you two basically how long since you were one of the I understand from my colleagues who who went down that you were like the mayor of Nashville so um we're very happy that you're with us and we sold a celebrity but uh how long has the program been in effect to be successful how many years did it take

148to to get to the point where I don't want to say it's Perfection because I'm assuming constantly tweak and modify but that would be one question the second question is the enthusiasm that's come back from the colleagues that went down and the previous group that went down how do we get that out to the public so that it's more than looking at the chart that we got six or seveny and Etc ET how do we convey that that I heard the word respect that students have themselves to the pear teach us the collaboration in the business community and the community as a whole working together with education how do we get that message out to the public and the other thing is at some point in time do you think we could possibly get some

149money in the next trip is to have some of our high school students go down to be ambassadors so that they can take the message back and then the buzzword spread through the schools of the success of this I guess I had three questions okay so um if you're asking about the longevity with Nashville they are 17 years in the making and started out with three high schools and since then they've attained so much support from the community in fact um they were in in such a bad State uh I think Jay brought up a g% graduation rate it started with a team of community members that came together to talk about what strategies that they could put in place to move the city as a whole and then the school system came aboard and

150everybody else just ratted around that concept and so here they are 17 years in the making and people from around the world coming to that so this is a slow process it doesn't happen overnight right it's going to take time for people to buy in um the next question you asked was um around the the the communication aspect of everybody we have to have the same messaging so it can't just be the high school staff and the team behind us Dr an need staff just us speaking that same language we need community members such as yourselves to know and understand what this model needs so that you can speak the same language with your people in your communities as well right additionally your businesses are on board and they're ready to attack this whole thing

151right it's it's just a learning period for us right now we're still learning because we have teachers underg professional development our staff is going through professional development as well so that we can know how to tackle these things with this community um we've seen some of the high schools in Nashville that their populations are very uh similar to dhs's it's also important for us to go out and see other places too that have this one high school model in different buildings within so we can see how they run and those places are in Hawaii and in om so that would be great third thing you men um oh oh high and Hawaii so we can get money from you or somebody we can go there that be so in my time Nashville um we did

152have students uh ride the plane with adults to come see our tours and that was amazing because they were able to take information back to their school system I would love to do that one of the things about this model is having through the woods if you have the stakeholders involved in this whole process you will have better value so we have these these uh information nights where parents and families can attend that is your prize right there they need to know they need to understand so that they can take it back to their communities we have to be comfortable with being uncomfortable which means going out to communities that we don't normally go to and explain what this means so they can tell everybody else and we all come back we have to speak

153the same language so stop me from preaching but I'm just saying we have to do that so hopefully Dr still has instilled the fire everybody that's listening on YouTube or whatever and just to everybody here because it's important that we not only just hear but we act on thank you appreciate it Mr Janelle if I get add to that one I think Mr steel Dr steel said it as well um when it comes down to you have to touch it and you know I've made that similar presentation that he has with theem and the chart and what it's called to do and what the Freshman do what the sophomores do and all of that all the way up through but until you go to the career fair that we had at the Dome you know

154we were there for you know was about 4 hours and and the kids that came out of that it flipped them the business partners you know now they're dealing with freshman and that just built their enthusias teachers we did the externship they were very hesitant they came back from those externships at the different uh local businesses that they went to they were super excited about it because they could tangent so until we start building those in that capacity I think it's going to be tough the presentations I'm somewhat of an engaging guy but I normally do so much of it you have to go see it and then that's when starts building the capacity thank you you know I just want to say in the last I think it's three meetings the presentations of the

155students from the high school that had been that came here and and talked about the issues that they're experienc I think it's incredible because we as board members are here supposedly to make it better for the students and with the exception of going to all those schools which some board members have and some hav't Etc it's great to hear it firsthand uh and I I think that's important you can see you can hear the frustrations and the sincerity in what they're saying so it's an important lesson for us to be able to understand what they're saying and listen to them and then hopefully act so that we can show that we're on the same on the same page so congratulations to all those students that really come here make a representation and be able to

156speak up it certainly helps me understand my job a little bit better and what to advocate for thank you okay um thank you thank you very much thank you for staying for the whole time thank you thank you okay um next up the we have the April 2nd Primary Election that's happening this year um during the day while school is in session um so it's a little bit different than we normally have school can we will have you know school canceled when we have elections the locations are at um Dey High School Penbrook School stadley rough Shelter Rock D war memorial and Park Avenue School in Westside and just as an added safety precaution during the day because we would we will have the public coming in and out of the school we don't expect

157it to be a high high volume event but just as a secondary precaution we are going to have additional Subs in the schools to help guide people directly to where they're supposed to go and make sure that they they exit where they're supposed to exit um we're also going to extend our safety Advocates um beyond the school day just to make sure there's no one floating around in the schools Beyond where the the voting area is so um again it should be a high volume turnout but we did want to add some additional precautions in schools since it's during the school day and the last um item under for me is really about the the budget for next year um April 2nd you know at city council the mayor will present his initial budget and

158April 3rd we'll be presenting uh for the ad hoc um our budget by that point we'll we will have known within mayor's initial budget uh presentation our allocation would be for us and then of course April 11th is city council where the final budget will be be voted on um you know I think it's it's not lost on us that this is going to be extraordinarily challenging budget to close given our ask um given the needs of the school system I know that the city is also under a lot of pressure as well uh financially and um you know we we will obviously have an answer very very soon but um you know it's it's my understanding that you know with the challenges that I believe will have every level of the our school system

159will be affected by some type of uh some type of cut um and you know it's something that when we come back perhaps in our next board meeting we need to start talking a little bit more deeply about um I'm I'm always hopeful that the city will do their best um but you know very shortly we'll have to have some very serious conversations about um our needs and and what we're going to have to do to shore up any loss of funding sh up our ask so it's really more of an awareness at this point um that the the there's you know significant concern around that um and that uh you know we'll be facing that very soon and we'll be circling back around on those conversations that anticipating will get serious pretty quickly concerning

160the S3 positions that were funded uh once that goes away what positions are going to be impacted what is the number so you have with $10 million worth of additional Esser you you could have anywhere's upwards towards it 100 FTE um with that alone that would have to be considered um which is would be devastating to our our school system um some of the positions that are that were necessarily hired during the pandemic um that are necessary or for classrooms you have to look at all positions across the district and make the best judgment possible to make sure that we're sustaining the the instructional core so that's the teacher and the and the the teacher that's in front of the students in the classrooms um so we'll have to we'll be looking at all of

161that you know as we once we get a a solid number from the city and we'll start to look at those um at decision making process at that time thank [Music] you yeah you can talk about that as well um there there's one other item on on the on here for discussion it was about the naming um of the of the academy and um you know there were some additional conversations around um the naming and the legislation that are still being worked out and so there's some some discussion around um how the legislation is written and how we may have to actually name the building and so I don't have full clarity on that there's more discussion that's being had um and so right now I think we're just in a pause mode until we

162get a little bit more information on the building side Karen yeah in the last meeting there was a question of filing this this naming document because there was a deadline that is is that deadline are we up against it or is it extended the the there is a deadline that's still blooming I believe uh there's there's special legislation and um there's an opportunity right now uh where the um folks down so Antonio and his folks need to submit by a certain deadline I believe it's uh within the next couple of weeks so I think we've got a little bit of time but we were trying to wrap that up but um in in through those discussions that there's some there are some remaining questions around specifically on the naming and the legislation how those two

163things are tied that we need further Clarity on before we can make judgments so so we have a little bit of I think so I think probably by the next board meeting we should have to make a some decisions can you remind us [Music] sub it was the debur Career Academy at the ctis building any other question seeing none we need a motion to adjourn go ahead oh I'm sorry um I don't have a full report tonight I did most of my so um I just want to thank the board being here tonight thank Dr our superintendent for keeping me informed of a lot of stuff ear in the one that's going on that we need to talk about as shers and as the superintend um again I want to thank the grou for the

164visit of Nashville and how everyone conducted themselves I really appreciate um and that's it uh I hope everyone have a great Easter a safe Easter and at some point one day next week we will have to go into uh discuss something else I'm not going to give it okay yes I couldn't hear that what was that I didn't hear what you finished saying one day next week we will have to take care of some business concerning that's very important I don't know Michelle exactly what date I'm trying to keep a date open open I'm trying to do it maybe in the afternoon sometime after 6 I just don't know what day the superintendent and I have to work out of dat going to be available for everyone because tonight we have two people that are

165not here we want everyone to be a part of okay just quickly I want to just say thank you to U our chair keeper and members Al and Lis for showing with the Early Childhood fair and family University this past Saturday uh there was a lot of families there and it was great to see that kind of energy excitement in the room around education so thank you okay we need to go into executive session that's have ation can I make a motion for to enter executive uh session for the purpose of discussing a confidential attorney C forish matter involving compensation of the interim superintendent with possible action in public session made by cake by Mr janelli all in favor could I hear all motion okay so when all e camera is let me the on

166he's on his way out all righty you guys are live thank you we're back in public session is there a motion I'll make a motion to compensate our inter Superintendent at a perdm rate equivalent to the previous superintendent as discussed second motion made by Kate second by Michelle right there a a question discussion seeing none can we do a roll call Terry yes Michelle yes P yes glis yes Dr CR yes Lauren yes Vita yes Richard Holly yes and yes okay motion so carried thank you all it was 11 in favor motion wait a minute minute I have a question um I would like to request of the chair uh if we can get a list of uh courses that are need of textbooks and how and what the respective costs would be and the

167second um the number of copers that need to be replaced and the cost thereof thank you could we spend one five minutes one five minutes more notes I have to take one five minut okay I need you oh okay session I'll make a motion to okay second second by motion made by K second