8/9/23 Curriculum Committee Meeting

001this evening the first is to speak about the World Language High School Credit Opportunity and related changes the second item is to speak about dual enrollment in a state update the third is to speak about adult education and a programming update and then the fourth item is a general discussion and questions um so I'd like to start with the World Language High School Credit Opportunity and turn it over to Augusto we had spoken about this in our policy committee meeting um and we are now going to be offering the opportunity for students to earn hi Cara earning the opportunity for students to earn credit during their eighth grade year which will count towards High School graduation um and so I'd like Augusto to talk about the impacts on the World Language and if there's anything

002additional care you wanted to add into that please feel free to Jim hi good morning I'm good afternoon I'm so sorry I'm late we've been having some login issues kind of all week so um getting in has been a little bit challenging so I can actually pull up the PowerPoint Kelly thank you for bridging until like until I got on I really appreciate it and I did connect with Augusto and I and I will go over some of the slides first and if there's any follow-up questions that are a little bit more deeper and content specific um I asked him to join to tonight to help support that conversation and thank you Rick for for also being here so I'm going to pull up sorry just real quick do we have any board members that

003would be able to take notes tonight hmm I I could take it all right thank you Teresa I appreciate it so is the meeting call to order yes so 606 will call the meeting to order thank you today I apologize if you need me to I can share Cara let me know yeah this is um there are definitely some issues I'm going to quickly share um this uh Kevin with you okay very quickly um and I'll just give it to Lauren so she has it as well and if you could pull this up that would be great I'm not sure why there's some updates that are not happening here on my end foreign okay um so just go to the first slide I could just quickly review um the agenda and I just want to

004preface this by saying you know when uh last year at the end of the year things closed very quickly there were so many discussions on the table and um I connected with Lauren a couple times and you know we sent out some of the program updates and I said to Lauren I said look did you hear anything back does anybody have any questions and and um you know there she didn't quite hear anything back and the reason why I wanted to have the meeting is to really just call attention particularly to the World Language credit update because it's the kind of thing that um as a board member you you would likely get questions on if people were kind of signing on laid or or had some questions that I thought it would be important

005for you to be prepared to at least understand uh the changes a little bit um and so you know normally we don't meet in August but um just before school started I wanted to make sure that at least um you were able to articulate what the changes meant um and so we'll talk about the World Language credit opportunities and related changes there are other other High School Credit opportunities as well but the one that is causing a little bit of a change is the world language there's a dual enrollment stay update I'd like to give you some great news on that and some of the work that we're going to be engaging in uh that's in line with some of our strategic goals and then we have Rick tonight Who's going to talk about some

006adult education program updates that have been evolving and then um just some general discussion I know folks have questions and it's the beginning of the year so some of this will help me our discussion tonight sort of formulate some of the uh curricular ideas and focus maybe some of the workshops for the board as well so with that we'll go into the first slide okay so the the policy committee um this past year we uh did some updates and made some changes to our graduation uh language that said that middle schoolers can now receive can now get credit for um equivalent level High School courses so if there's a high school course that's very similar in nature to what is being delivered at the middle school um that there is an opportunity to earn high

007school credit for that so some of just so the Genesis of that has has really been a push at the state department level as part of their graduation requirement changes for Connecticut to broaden the scope of opportunities for students and so um all kinds of things on on the docket with dual credit um Early College opportunities concur enrollment dual enrollment all of these opportunities for kids to have access to post-secondary um and really Paving the way in terms of advantages for that by opening the doors a little bit in Middle School for students to start to earn high school credit and so an easy one a no-brainer that's kind of been on the books for a while um two of them have been sort of World Language and algebra now algebra there's really no changes

008involved in that students who are taking algebra in grade A as a familiar course will receive high school credit heading into Danbury High School um and they will be able to continue on so they'll enter high school with with a full credit under their belt that'll open up more math elective opportunities it can open up advanced placement opportunities it can open up uh dual enrollment with college opportunities so that's great the other area and we talked a tiny bit about this in policy that we would kind of come back and talk about the changes related to World Language so many schools offer Spanish Juan Spanish two even you know starting at the middle school level Danbury used to have that maybe about 10 or 12 years ago and Augusta can probably check me on my

009dates um over time that had since split into for example a full year course broken up over two years and so that was where you when you see references here to a Spanish one um or a French one um that we have had a a plan here in Danbury in the last couple of years where we've had Spanish one a and then Spanish 1B so when you entered uh the school system in Middle School you had a 22-day rotation exploratory in grade six in grade seven students would choose either Spanish they would choose either French if you were west west side you could choose Chinese um and then you would do that over the course a full year course broken up over the course of two years there's been some issues with that some students

010who because it's considered a special area some students who take Spanish 1A for example don't necessarily take the second half they want to take another special area um and and so we've kind of have this Sagar start of classes across the three schools um and there's a variety of language um languages with those so um so a couple of things which we look to see how can we create these opportunities for World Language credit at the middle school and also fix some of the sequencing issues that we've had in the past but still continue to offer the courses that we have but yet not increasing the amount of Staffing that we would need we decided to offer a full year equivalent of world language in grade eight and then have our students do their exploratory

011experience in grade seven instead of grade six another benefit of this uh you know in the eyes of at least I know are administrators is that grade six especially in the last couple of years post pandemic has been really a a grade level that they have targeted for intervention for students right to close some of the achievement Gap and to bridge some of the gaps that that you know with 13 elementary schools students coming across that need different things and so when students need intervention they're pulled out of grade six um in their special areas for for different time periods and then they go back and so the World Language having some of that world language exploratory in grade six was a little bit problematic um with so much intervention so now we've had conversations

012over the course of the year and the proposed sequence uh and in full discussion with the administrators and Augusta spent time with the Department um at the end of the school year talking about the changes we decided to move to the full year and so the changes that result in that would be um that for 2024 23 24 which is this school year heading in we maintain we allow the students who took 1A to finish uh one the the B so we will maintain Spanish 1B maintain Spanish Heritage 1B maintain French 1B and Chinese 1B students will complete that sequence and um the grade 6 introductory experience moves from grade six to grade seven and then next year students who enroll in World Language you choose to take it and spend a year engaging in

013that course will receive high school credit because that will be an equivalent course to the high school and so this year students can get the algebra credit because that's ready to go but we're in a transition phase with World Language so that we have to kind of clean up the system that we had in place over the next year or so and then 2024-25 will start to receive a World Language credit uh for the high school as they enter in and again between those two courses alone that really helps to open up the students schedules which have been very tight and prescribed for for a while so this allows a little bit more of an elective opportunity and choice it allows them to take more advanced placement uh courses should they decide to do so

014and as we build our dual enrollment and current enrollment opportunities the students will want to take advantage of that as well so we are excited about those changes but they are different and so I just wanted to make sure that you understood what those were um and that you're able to answer questions should should anyone have those and so I'm happy to to feel some some questions on those and the reason why the AIS magnet in World Language is on there is because you know we are going to we've had a situation for a few years years now we've had since um Spanish um over at AIS and we've had some students who would come Who come out of AIS um who go into our our middle schools have some background in Spanish over the

015last couple of years the consistency with which that that's delivered has has varied um because of the intervention needs of the students and so some students are getting a little more Spanish than others um Augusto and I have had some great conversations as well as with our humanities folks that a much better plausible option potentially could be for AIS that that becomes very much a multicultural International world class that fits in with the theme of the school and that's uh you know we we look at a little bit different alignments so that we don't have that awkward Gap coming from just AIS students where we have no one else in the district has uh you know some Spanish background formal Spanish training and that we would look to kind of even out the curricular experience

016across so that we don't end up with scheduling gaps as we've had in the past so um I know that that's a lot but I definitely it's because it's a lot I wanted to bring that to you to see if you had any questions um regarding the World Language changes so to summarize kids will receive World Language Credit in grade 8 starting at 24 25. Teresa I think I saw your hand go up yeah um this is this is a good idea but what I don't see the course descriptions between the Middle School and the high school uh you talking about the AI AIS differences and what course descriptions uh and comparing them you know what is the difference if there's any and and that is it becoming aligned now with what's in the high

017school uh in the Middle School yes it's a great question um so so we have to say something oh yes well I'm just going to just to point out very quickly Theresa and we could certainly share these with you that the Corsa study guide um at the high school has the descriptions for the for the various courses and they will be one in the same um which is why you didn't bring that before us you know like just there's a courtesy for us to see you know you're telling us uh just I'm not used to that I'll be honest with you I'm not you show you show us the discrete of the course study guide include the descriptions here that's all I asked uh I think it's a great idea don't get me wrong but

018you got to show the the comparison now it's going to be aligned with and this is what you want to do um saying it's over here and not showing me that doesn't help okay we can certainly we could certainly follow up and do that for you thank you I mean this is a great idea to just um I would like to see you know side by side comparison thank you yeah okay any other questions real quick yes hi Michelle hi how are you did you say I'm sorry I don't know if you mentioned it I know you mentioned credit but I didn't know if there it's one two or what are how many sure so the students would receive one credit so they would and that would satisfy so these students have to take two

019um two World Language so this would satisfy one of those already um it also helps um on the credit on the number of sections in Spanish also at the high school that we would have to offer kind of helps with the the Staffing levels there as well because now you're have to you don't have to offer as many sections because kids are coming in with um that doesn't have to say that kids wouldn't want to go all the way through and do AP Spanish or AP French um but it just opens up more opportunity um and possibilities for students which is which is really the goal how many sections then are there or does it alleviate in other words how much room does it actually well you know it depends how many students take advantage

020of this right because it's because it's a special area and it's an option kids don't have to take it they don't have to do it we're hoping you know we're trying to incentivize it so that everybody takes the full year so I think we'll get a sense um Michelle it's a great question um very curious myself I think we'll get a sense of of the pattern right like generally how many kids are interested and and then you know what do we have to do to to make sure that make them more aware or to or to get them you know to to take it on um so I think after a year or two um we'll get a sense of how many kids are are interested and how often they continue on at the high

021school yeah this could help with that 24 credit kind of issue we have it was four credits it would alleviate one and that would open up that schedule which is like a Rubik's cube right everywhere you move right so absolutely correct Michelle I think we have like 50 what was it six or seven yes so that should help with alleviating that travel absolutely yes and we and we are struggling to secure World language teachers as well so that has been a last couple of years very difficult we're still looking to fill several positions right now as we in the waning weeks of of school okay I see your hand up but if I could also just interject just another thing to keep in mind is that while we require two credits um for high school

022graduation many uh colleges and universities are requiring three um and so we have seen that that increase in the three uh three years of a language has increased in recent years so this will not only allow students to get a head start prior to high school but also open up the ability to take more years at at the high school level or to potentially take an elective in another area that they're interested in right that's that's a great point and we do encourage to take what the minimum College requirements are because it sets them up for success thank you Kelly Augusta I'm sorry I know you wanted to add some no I was going to I was going to bring another important component which is the Seal of biliteracy so by doing this we also

023kind of open the door to their appetite and made them make them more interested in actually becoming um uh eligible for the the Seal of buy literacy once they get to the high school so that would be like a climax for their World Language experience at uh at indianberry and we have started that uh three or four years ago and it has been very successful so that's another component that will definitely um get some improvement and and some help from doing this thank you anything else in the world language I love him as a hand raised I'm sorry I can't it's hard to see yes so my question is um are there any requirements in Middle School in order to take this credit like do they have to have certain grades or anything like that

024or is it just across the board everybody can take it and yeah it's good it's great thank you it's across the board opportunity for everyone now you have to pass the class to get the credit the same way it is at the high school so it has to be fair in the sense that like if you didn't really do well in it um and you know you didn't pass it or um you know you would probably want to take it again at that when you get to the high school and make sure yeah so but you're welcome and uh the other thing too is that we just require the part that is required as part of the Middle School experience is the exploration so we are going to introduce you to speak a little bit

025of Spanish a little bit of French if you're at West Side a little bit of Spanish a little bit of a little bit of Chinese so that you can make an informed decision before you engage in the year-long course that's the only requirement and we offer that's part of the Middle School experience is the exploration component but whether or not you want to take the language is is part for the student and it's open Teresa uh the credits again is a one credit for the full year and if they only do half a year they get half a credit well once you're in a course in middle school so these are full year courses so it'd be a full year it's kind of an all or nothing either you you know you take it and

026do well and you pass the course you get the full credit thank you you're welcome one last question I'm sure sorry um So currently when you take it and it's 1A and then 1B are you taking those uh in the same year or won your first year in two years so this is much better because you forget everything by then so you're going in exploratory it's in seventh grade now and you have full instruction for a year instead sixth grade forget everything start in an eighth and then wait again until the next year so this is actually I think a really good idea yeah thank you Michelle we think so too thank you thank you if I may just to add some clarification the in terms of curriculum the 1A plus 1B equals level one

027exactly the same thing exactly the same thing okay so you'll get us course descriptions yeah Augusto can uh with the course of study guide and the Middle School of Augusta can send over the description of those courses okay thank you you're welcome I think I lost you you think I lost you we could see you and we can hear you okay oh there I am okay but sometimes it yeah the screen only allows so many views at once so it's hard to see who's in the room thank you okay so I think you know I'm certainly happy to entertain any follow-up questions in this if you you know later but um if we're good I can move to the next slide and you could talk a little bit about dual enrollment okay thanks Kevin so

028kind of in part of the larger umbrella of creating opportunities um you may have heard me talk about through the academy you know developing when we talked about the vision of the academy was to um expand dual enrollment opportunities across all academies and not just have it in this kind of one Deco program and so that was sort of our vision and our goal from the onset is really building that up over time and you know creating articulations with area University partners and finding any opportunity to Advantage the students in some way um and so you know I think the state is I'm going to put some ego behind here they're thinking like we are now right uh and that they're starting to flood um a lot of our information and our notes and our

029updates with this push for for dual credit expansion and as part of some of their um I believe it's some of their leftover Sr money um they have allotted some districts um they have created it's a competitive Grant can't but pretty much all the folks who have been targeted uh have been given an allotment to to apply up to a certain amount Danbury received the notice that they are eligible to apply for this grant it's only 90 000 but um it just allows us and some some small grants are have so many strings attached to them that it's not worth it this one isn't too too sticky um so we definitely applied for and is in 100 in line with our uh with our work so um this is really about scaling dual credit opportunities

030and so when we applied for the grant um it was really to extend some of the work that we're already doing so um the application included stipend it's for teachers and someone to help coordinate the pathway development leaders which is really a continuation from what we're doing with Barr so um you know in the bar Grant we have 19 pathway development leaders these are the folks that are really helping with the the content area curriculum for CTE they're serving as Liaisons between the school central office they're in my office that work in a curriculum um and now as part of this we would like for them to we find Opportunities to get our nvcc or wcsu in our Post University folks who were having some conversation with who um are also approved providers with the

031state um to build these relationships they've also been urged by the state of Connecticut to reach back out to us and to work on alignment and articulations so that our curriculum and their curriculum have some crossover so that we can open the doors for students to get credit so for example today I had a meeting with nvcc which is a second follow-up uh where they're going to take our program of study guide so they're going to look at the let's say the engineering and Engineering pathway and they're going to say well if you're going to offer an engineering one program in your pathway um why don't we why we have an engineering program uh course description that looks very similar to what what you want to do and so let's work together to satisfy the

032requirements for both what we would want to see and what they would want to see and then offer a section of that class to be to earn college credit and so students so if we offer two sections of engineering we would say to students and if you want to get college credit for this one you can enroll in this section and this is the one we'll offer three credits at nvcc and today was very exciting because NBC C would like to try to match um our our pathway curriculum to at least have six credits in each pathway on potentially nine um so but these are evolving conversations but in order to kind of really do that work you really need to have content area teachers at the table working with nbcc and wescon and post

033um uh teachers who are engineer experts and and those who are delivering content to work together to make that to make that happen um and it's it's it's not an overnight process it's an overtime process and the the application would support the work needed to to to do that um again we have built a little bit of this in terms of curriculum into the bar grant for the pathway specific items but the bar Grant right now currently only runs through the end of this year unless we get an extension and so what we did was we took some of the things that we were doing in bar and we're hoping to sustain that work and so in the application we identified that the target year for using the funds would be 24.25 um so we're

034just finding try to find creative ways to leverage funds to continue to do the work especially heading into um you know the next year or two with with aspiring us for funds Etc um and then another part of the grant is uh at the bottom is is you know there are situations where in order to teach a certain course um wescon or nvcc UConn used to be a great example of this they would not engage in a do we could not have one of our teachers teach their college course unless they had a graduate two at least two graduate um courses in the content area under their belt a lot of our teachers have master's degrees in education but they may not have a master's degree in mathematics they have an undergrad uh degree in

035mathematics but not a master's and so UConn would say listen we'll partner with you but your folks have to take two two graduate classes before we can certify them to teach our course um and so a lot of our teachers are like ah sorry I don't have the extra you know fifteen hundred dollars to take a course you know things but no thanks and so we've embedded a little bit of funding in here so that to remove that barrier so if you have a teacher who's been teaching with us for a while and they're the perfect person to help broker some of these dual enrollment that we can reimburse them for some for um some minimal coursework to make that happen so yes Theresa so what was the total that you applied for it was

036night we've the the our allotment the the max we could apply for was ninety thousand might have been ninety thousand fifty dollars or something like that but it's ninety thousand and we applied for ninety thousand okay so yep um but one more and uh Teresa we would never not apply for 90. that's the rule the other thing is when we work hard to do these arrangements with the colleges um I found that they the credits coming out of high school were only accepted uh towards uh electives and not towards majors would this be something that would be different that they could use it towards their Majors yes you know so I I see this as the seed I see this as the beginning not the end so you know if we can pull this off

037you know who's to say so we already have some articulations uh for example with with our AP courses so if you pass AP the AP English course AP Literature course um Westcon we have an articulation with Westcon that they would get credit for that that would satisfy sort of their English one course that when they come in their first gen Ed and so we want to be able to do more of that so along those lines so right now the focus you know all the focus is on the academy and the CTE Pathways um but I would love to see our students start to get get credit for is anything that we can we can get our hands on to get credit for what we're trying to what we're trying to wrestle with if I

038could be completely transparent is that all of a sudden we have you know because because the state has knocked on the door of each and every every one of these universities that said we're going to give you some money to work with them and then they said we're going to give to the districts we're going to give you guys some money to work with them so get your get together and start forming articulations work on this stuff and it's wonderful that it's happening but um you know so you know post came out of the gate and like oh that we would love to partner in these areas nvcc is coming is working on that we just got an email Brent um sent me an email today he goes you know he was having conversations with

039Goodwin University who had all kinds of opportunities and so you know I was like whoa you know we have to slow the train down a little bit because you know do we create really intentional Pathways with one you know like nvcc for example is it Canada is now as of this summer Connecticut State University system so if you take a course if you register as NDC as your home school you are good to go with uh in terms of a transcript registration and have access to any Community College in Connecticut before they were separate they did not speak to one another they offer different things they still will have different programs in different areas of the state but now our kids if we partner with them can access something happening at Middlesex Community College that

040has a unique program that no one else has if it is online courses or whatever um so so the idea is to make sure Kevin we lost the presentation I don't know if people if it matters or not but um the idea is to you know do we have a solid relationship with multiple Pathways in one area um or are we going to give kids oh we can get three credits at Goodwin University and you can get three credits at posts and you can have three credits so kids will have three University transcripts started with three credits each on them or do we wanna you know dig deep and go deeper with one school and make sure that they have you know so we're working through those pieces now and and but we're meeting with

041different universities to to see what the best way to position this for our students is right now but we we're definitely gonna I think we're definitely gonna be working with nbcc for sure we have some we've had some great conversations today with them I have a question Cara um so how much did you say the bar Grant was for I don't know if you mentioned it I didn't hear that but you were going to utilize some of it and then it was going to be expiring but what is that amount for yeah it's so it's about the same amount in terms of the stipends that we have for the teachers to to be pathway leaders and then and then a pot of money to to work on curriculum development uh in projects over the summer

042so it's it's close to it it's like um it's not quite 90 000 I think it was like 30 000 for total for stipends and then maybe another 30-ish for the curricular some of the curricular pieces so the amount of money for the same type of work is in the same ballpark which is kind of why we thought of this grant as like oh this would be a great way to extend to extend that work so right now in order to this development that you're looking at these 19 um I'm going to say teachers the 90k would cover the expense for the development of these Pathways there would be no additional cost or no not sorry um go ahead please but you could finish your set well not right now that we know of so

043you know what we know we're going to have to revise you know the first time that you develop a curriculum with all these new um components at play right we're trying to integrate portrait of The Graduate skills we're trying to embed industry um industry content you know that we're meeting with and so usually you know so we'll in the first iteration of curriculum um you know teachers will then Implement Implement and they'll come they'll get to the end of the year and we'll say let's have a feedback conversation about what worked what didn't work what felt really aligned and what didn't feel aligned in your teaching and how can we make this curriculum better and so then we make those edits and sometimes you know that you go back to the you go back and

044you do revisions and so usually courses get revised a couple of times before they kind of settle in to what it's going to be and and we do pay our our teachers curriculum development um um it's an hourly curriculum development stipends like 31 dollars an hour um and it's never enough for what they actually really do but it's a gesture towards the work um but that but we do need those funds to sustain continuous work so um you know when it comes to Grants we always look for opportunities to continue to to continue to fund that work uh off outside of the back of the of the district general fund so I just want to make sure I understood that so we pay approximately like thirty dollars an hour for these 19 people to help

045develop the curriculum and the pathway correct and that could be within we're looking at the 90k and not expecting it to be more um not more at this time so that's more like yeah the first round of work correct yeah okay thank you um I just have a question it's Lauren when you said we pay the 31 an hour we already have teachers not including these 19 right that we're paying that 31 an hour that whatever it is for curriculum development ongoing so this isn't something like we're just implementing because of the academy correct yes so thank you so whenever we do curriculum work right so thank you yes we we that's it's not new it's not different right this is just a continuation um and and and two you know to that end it's

046you know whenever we can use a grant to offset or or to supplement or to continue and sustain work we we always look to do that so this is this is just normal normal practice this is not new right and we have that set hourly rate so we're not chaining anything we're not going out of the box anywhere this is just developing for the new high school correct and that's and those those rates are set with the Union they're already those are already pre-negotiated those terms perfect thank you for that yep um does this also include non-profits as part of the community um that would be involved in this when we're talking about establishing business relationships the schools is the community also like non-profits the development of you know through the school programs that we're

047looking at currently so you mean in terms of offering college credit in that in that direction or right I mean I know that we had talked about it with nursing and other programs is that and we're engaging the community I'm just wondering is that part of this conversation and you're just having obviously across the board with all Industries and partners or yeah so the Dual credit so there's two pieces two there's so many moving parts to this but the the idea is that so if we're developing CTE pathway and I'll use um I'll use we'll use engineering as an example back to the engineering example again so there's a couple things that need to happen so you know teachers don't we at Danbury High School we may have one or two people who have some

048engineering background right but their teachers are not actually in the field and they're you know so so in order to help develop the course and to help stay current with the course and what's emerging right in the industry especially right now with artificial intelligence and all the crazy things that are happening we want to make sure that we have a relationship and a partnership with some engineering firms that people who are willing to like you know yes so that's the that's the and they could be non-profit they could be for-profit non-profits are always great but they could be anybody who we think are the best people to talk to so we want to we have to work with them to get content for curriculum right and then in order to to say in order for

049the students to get University Credit we have to make sure that what we're putting together is going to also satisfy and work for and work with University Partners so it's kind of a triangle of work and collaboration that has to occur um to make it happen and it could come from a variety of folks but the universities are the ones who would issue the credit so we have to we kind of have to play to their their talk thank you thank you can I can I just ask a follow-up question to Michelle's um so with the partnership this is kind of a partnership question just real quick um we're we're out there making Brent is making these Partnerships and these connections and building you know building our community for us for the Academy High School

050but like at the end say we have like I know we have Danbury Hospital for nursing that's awesome but like say we have say we have a well drilling pathway and we have bills Well Drilling and Harold's Well Drilling how where do we narrow it down to picking do we pick one over the other where does it come into like these are great both these are both great businesses but this one is really going to be better for Danbury and who makes that decision does the board come into play where they listen and not that the board would make that decision but just like where do we come into play and is that a decision do we have two companies how do we decide who's better than another yep so that's a great question that's

051a great question yeah um so so I think I used the term I think at least I did with this group I used the term dating um because we are you know it's okay for us to initially start off working with an engineering firm let's just say right to get information from them to say you know how you know what are the most critical aspects that are accessible to high school students for them to get a sense of this industry and then the basic skills that they would need to enter it right and let's just say we worked with with uh Larry's engineering firm to to partner with that work for a year but Larry's engineering firm might not be able to offer us you know six or seven internships for students right they're a

052small firm but they're super friendly towards education and they want to work and come in and do all these things but they they don't really have a lot of spots for entry so so it's okay for us to work with Larry um Larry's engineering firm to get the content information that we need because they're super friendly partners and they have a knack for like they they're invested they like the curriculum aspect of things sometimes you get really interesting people on in these corporations that have a knack or skill or they were a teacher whatever over um to work with us um and it's okay to say we're going to use three other engineering firms to offer internships and we can partner our partnership with them could be the internship but our partnership with those other

053three three firms could be that you guys are going to send your engineers on career day to come in to talk to our kids you're gonna we're gonna schedule you across the school year for a variety of engagements um and we're going to go out to three different uh engineering firms for field trips to do for kids to to see what this looks like in action so you know there's no one partner that's going to do all of the things that we're going to do and and and as we get to kind of know who's who's going to be the best fit for what part of this um you know that's the part that's gonna you know that will continue to evolve and um so I had we've had we've had conversations with some folks

054who were like jumped out of the gate can't wait to do this and then you know are following up and they're not you know they don't respond right away and we're like okay might not be the best partner down the road right and and Lauren to to your question you know initially I I re I recall Kara presenting out um and talking about how they um sat with they you know they went through a process to determine um what direction the industry was headed uh what positions what What fields would be the higher paying jobs um uh for students um but if I heard your question correctly um you know industry or industry might change uh demand for positions might change and you know what what is the process to help shift along with how

055industry is moving and as I understood the structures that Cara Brandt and Dan presented out on a couple of months ago um what one of the and Cara I don't remember which one in terms of the organization structures but one of those structures actually continues to evaluate if what we're offering is actually appropriate for kids meaning appropriate continuing to meet the regional and state demands across the state and as I heard it from Lauren he's like hey there might be a different demand and it might be different from what we're offering right now and how are those decisions made and we the structures that we have in place from Nashville and now the ones we're putting in place will help to keep an eye on what's going on so can can you speak to that

056a little bit because that's how I heard Lauren's question I don't know if that's what she was getting yeah yeah it's all a lot of information and I appreciate it so thank you thank you you're welcome thanks thanks hi one more question about the um the thirty one dollars uh an hour for coursework development is that credit hour no so it's um so for example if we say a brand new course is going to be developed then we assign we say that should take about 80 hours without developing out the assessments and everything that goes with it or it could be 40 hours so for example we would sort of making a determination about what how many hours a project would cost so then I say don't get don't when I say 80 hours that's

057like kitten caboodle assessment development room work development over the course of a period of time a lot of projects take uh five hours they think 20 hours and we try to make an assessment um so for example Teresa give you a differentiator so we've used Project Lead the Way curriculum I'm not sure if you've heard of that but they have a pretty they have a curriculum that's that has a lot of the components that we're looking for when we look for curriculum and so most of the work is done when you adopt that curriculum and you're using it so like for engineering specifically that's one that we're that we'll be using for like you know engineering one so there's not a lot of work to do so there's only a few hours assigned to add

058the other pieces to it something that starts from scratch could have could have more hours over and that's being developed over the course of a couple of years I I just uh faculty when it was by the credit hour and you know in credit hour was you know a thousand or five hundred dollars depending on you know what level they were or whatever so this is a little bit more open-ended in that in arbitrary so it's a little different uh well it's not open-ended to the sense that like so the so the hours get assigned you know but we we're making a determination and so we we've had situations we're like well it took me longer than 20 hours it's really about assigned project hour so well you know may have taken you a little

059bit longer to do it but we assigned 20 hours so you kind of got to get it done within within a scope of window um and sometimes your Visions are needed you know there's different levels of expertise with developing curriculum so sometimes we send it back and folks have to kind of do some extra work on it with the same assigned project hour so that happens as well so it's not it's not as open-ended as you think Teresa we I keep a pretty tight handle on that thank you you're welcome bye Kara yeah oh great okay so two things um we've discussed on several occasions at our regular meetings and um curriculum meetings about going to Nashville I think at this point especially people on this committee need to get a real understanding of what

060we're looking at I had requested as well several times I didn't see it come over perhaps I missed it uh the flow chart basically the operations um remember when they came from Nashville on the uh visit and they said that they actually have a model of what this looks like how many people to support a student in the business entity a scope of it you know Nashville said the national folks said they had a chart oh yes and Kevin you were there do you recall the conversation so was it their organization chart yes it was basically um and I forgot the uh the very lovely lady who came here the older one who had said that they do have an organizational chart because it looked like they had several ways of breaking down the system

061and they had several people that were supporting at every level it looked like you know there were 20 people touching one student and I went out of I mean specifically asked the question at our breakout meeting and then again at the overall main meeting that and I was told that I would be provided that chart that it exists and um I wanted to compare it as far as what we do is student enrollment that's how we base our support in all lessons and we are struggling with Paras the program that was provided to us and the kind lady again that was running it said yeah it's kind of difficult we have to fill in the gaps or the actual words that she had used so again we're looking at curriculum we don't have the course

062curriculum breakdown which would make it easier as for us to reference like Teresa had mentioned this flow this operational chart to see how we have what we currently have as staff and a different model for what we're looking at and they have different ways of funding it through property tax though they don't collect and they have that flexibility we discussed as well of being able to just Place children in different locations patients this is when we came up that we are a lottery system and that it is more difficult to provide and that is why they're successful so all this I'm sure you recall came up and I feel that if Teresa myself Lauren have the opportunity to actually see the program in live and in person as well as you know what really constructs

063it we would have a much better idea of what we're talking about and much more in-depth questions and Analysis of really what we're considering here which is our curriculum thank you yep okay um so thank you for that um I'm texting and emailing as we speak to see if Brent to see if he has uh that and you know with from that conversation and that uh see what we can get from our Nashville folks they were super friendly with sharing so I'm sure that would be yeah I think they were happy to do that and I also believe we've asked on multiple occasions but I don't seem to have received it the list of the current business partners that you are having because I believe that there was a number of 60 Partners currently that

064are so again can we please have the businesses the community leaders Pro you know yeah what are we talking to thank you yeah I'm just adding that to the Lister appreciate that right okay all right I think we could go to the next one before we go to sort of the general discussion I just could give you some updates uh but we have Rick um where you see with us and I think that uh you know hopefully you're introduced at some point that is our new adult director and we're very lucky to to get him and to find him and he's already working on uh establishing some some Partnerships and some great great um some great branches in the community so I don't know uh Kevin or Rick if you wanted to talk a little

065bit about this but I um I will turn it over to you both yeah thank you Cara and I I'd like to take the opportunity to introduce Rick I know some of our board members attending some functions um that um adulthood and family community resource center uh collaboratively had uh together to close out our school year Rick was able to pull together some meetings through some um really fast and creative programming and he's I think Rick's been with us for about four four and a half months and and already has his foot well entrenched into the community and continuing to try to further develop our adult education program I've asked Cara and Lauren if we can add Adult Ed to the agenda this evening to really talk about what we feel like is an amazing

066opportunity for the community um and also an opportunity to bring some resources into the district some of them Financial but also some resources via coursework opportunities and I've asked Rick if he can come explain and talk through some of these unique opportunities we have someone who was an adult that in charge of adulthood in Milford previously um I I'm happy to say that we stole him from Milford and but with his experience well recognized and appreciated and respected across the state we're happy to have him here I think we've already benefited from his leadership and he's going to talk to you tonight about some unique opportunities that's ahead of us that I think quite frankly is going to be mutually beneficial so Rick if you can talk to us about it thanks Kevin um so

067like Kara had mentioned my name is Rick rayusi um I am the director the new director for Western Connecticut Regional adult and continuing education or we race we race is located at 10 Crosby Street as some of you might know or might not know the state requires every municipality to offer certain State mandated programming for any adults aged 17 years or older those programs include high school diploma programs so anything anybody that had not completed their high school diploma program in a traditional High School sense has the opportunity to take those classes English as a second language classes for anyone who is not a native English speaker and then citizenship preparation classes which ultimately prepare someone to take the citizenship examination um as they're putting in their application for citizenship um so those are the

068state mandated programming that we currently offer the state of Connecticut offers three different types of Pathways if you will to high school diploma completion to result in an actual high school diploma that come from Danbury and the third is obviously the GED certificate which is a high school diploma alternative but it is not a diploma itself it is a certificate um currently Danbury offers two of those three options the partnership that we're going to talk about in just a moment will allow us to offer that third option to Danbury residence which is very very unique it will open up a lot of doors for a lot of the residents in our community something that we've been working on at we race over the last four months um has been discussions on how we can expand

069our programming so over the last few years we race has done a very nice job in providing those State mandated programs but we have not and we haven't provided enrichment programming for the Danbury Community uh throughout the last four months I have worked not only with Brent but with local businesses um and and different stakeholders within the community to identify folks that might be interested in teaching enrichment classes for us come spring I'm really excited to announce that um we will be having enrichment programming for the first time in a very long time that will be open to the entire Danbury Community um so we'll be piloting that in Spring 2024 and that's really exciting for us I hope that I see some of you at those classes if you're interested in teaching one of

070those classes I'd love to talk to you um but we know across the state a lot of people uh appreciate enrichment classes um in in talking with other directors in my experience coming from Milford um we had you know upwards of 3 500 residents that would take part in those enrichment classes so we're hoping to build something substantial in Danbury that will allow residents to to take part in that which is great um one of the Partnerships that I wanted to talk with you all about this evening as you know we are a regional program we currently Service uh in addition to danbury's seven additional municipalities um so that creates our regional program um and we currently offer Connecticut diploma program which is one of the three programs that I referenced earlier which results in

071a successful candidate earning a diploma and then additionally we offer GED um the one program that we don't currently offer is called National external diploma um and in talking with Milford my former District um we are very interested in entering into a partnership with them that would be mutually beneficial for us it will allow us for the first time in quite a while to offer GED in the fall as well as offer this third program for diploma that will allow students an alternate Pathway to earn a high school diploma for nedp and additionally it will expand our ability to offer additional ESL programming during the daytime for Danbury residents and folks within our district um and it will bring in upwards of forty thousand dollars to our program and allow us the ability to service

072more folks within the community so I wanted to report out on that and um provide that update we're very excited I'm very optimistic about the direction that the department is taking and the changes that we're seeing and the growth that we're experiencing uh Teresa please uh as a person who works at the Danbury Library you desperately need what you're talking about and I would highly recommend uh uh you know reaching out to the library if you want to put a table there and showcase when you have your programs all set up and you want to drum up business it's a great idea we definitely need that service thank you um it's I'm I'm excited that you you pointed that out and I'm happy to share that I actually was speaking with the library for the

073last two weeks uh someone by the name of Chelsea uh department and possibly do that so okay so we're we're definitely pursuing that actively excellent excellent any other questions okay thank you so much so I I just wanted to add I did ask Rick um um and let him know I would love to be able to get him back in front of the full board um later on in the fall um to just kind of talk about the things that are going on in developments that are going on an adult ed we want to find every rate possible number one to promote what's going on in Adult Ed and if we're going to have this enrichment programming um of course we want to start with the board and see if we can kind of get

074the word out in our community uh Rick Rick in uh Milford very successfully actually offered uh courses to staff to try to just get their feet wet and hope that they remain interested some free courses so I'm not exactly sure what his strategy is going to be here in Danbury uh but you know we want to get as much foot traffic as possible and then from there try to create an additional source of revenue for the adult dead program so again continue to remain really excited about Rick's leadership here in the district and we'll have some more updates regarding this partnership and hopefully this is something that we can solidify really soon and uh Ray can come back and tell us more about what this means for Danbury Rick thank you um I will be

075reaching out to you this week or next week about some ways I can help get information out to the community awesome I would love that thank you so much thank you Rick yep thanks thank you I think we could go to the last slide um you know and Lauren wanted to make sure that we had time to talk about anything you really wanted to talk about or just ask questions and you know as we head into head into the school year um you know we there's there are so many things happening there are so many different types of things that we could talk about but I did want to just update you and some of this is relevant for you and some of it's just more you know good to know um and you know

076the kind of training that the we're going to be engaging folks in Across The District K-12 um you know as you know are implementing our course is a pretty big training series dedicated to that it's going to take a lot of time across the year and a lot of our efforts are going to be surrounding that um I think the academy itself is is well known that we're going to be doing a lot of work on that but um in addition to the things that you may not hear a lot about it's really art core literacy training will be kind of front and center for for Elementary this year um that our district is engaging in something an opportunity uh an invitation from the state to protect participate in something called the science of reading

077master class and it's very much tied to why we switch to Art core and why we headed down that road and it's tied to the legislation so um the very first year that the legislation came out they took a pilot a few pilot districts and engaged them give an opportunity to engage in a master class of the of the of the science of teaching reading and it was really District leaders that they were that was the target of of that training um so that everybody was on the same page about the look fors and what what should be happening in at our earliest levels um to make sure that folks skills were up to par and that really had a deep sense of shared language and vocabulary around these things um so we were again

078we were mad that we did not get in that first cohort and that we we weren't picked for that first round um it was very randomized they just kind of tried it with a few with a few folks and um we had pestered the state uh on a regular basis to say if you offer this training again please make sure Danbury is involved in it so long and short of it is they opened up another round and a cohort Danbury was invited um and they selected 13 districts they invited I think 15 or 18 schools to apply it was an application process so we applied um and we were invited to attend and so a lot of our central office leaders Kevin Kelly myself our literacy experts a couple of our coaches a few teachers

079and student support Specialists and two principals um we'll be engaging in a very deep training opportunity over the course of the Year training costs are completely on the state of Connecticut Teresa so there is no cost to us thankfully that's why we that's why we really wanted to make sure we got involved in this um the state itself is already 12 million dollars in on this training that they're providing with the with the level of the experts coming from across the country to to do this um but it's of no cost to us so they have not passed that cross on to us so we we're very excited to do that um but it'll keep our our folks very busy this year um we I'll skip down I'll leave PBS training for the end because

080Kelly's deeply involved in setting that up um so I'll Circle back to her in just a second um our Delta aspirin program so those are our our teacher leaders um and folks who want to become administrators and so we have um a couple of sessions we meet with them I meet with them after school on Wednesdays we have different central office admitters come in and talk to them about their role their work what they do um so they engage in some some wonderful professional development there and then we also get to see who kind of Rises out of that group as as a real leader and we have hired some of our aspirants in the past and so we'll I will continue we'll continue that as well um we have this year a smaller small

081but a developing administrator Reduction Program so rather than you know good luck welcome to Danbury um get right into that building we're intentionally going to be pulling them out to work with them and to make sure that they're off to a really solid start um so we'll engage them in some of professional development as well so we have a few sessions dedicated to that right away in the fall so that they feel comfortable and that they can can transition and they also kind of understand the Danbury way um our teachers really are going to be very excited we're going to be taking them out on some of those on industry externship so um in November the goal is to take the the teachers who have been assigned to the different academies and allow them an

082opportunity to go out to um a manufacturing facility or on site to see what the work that the the engineering an engineer would do or to see the work um that we had a successful event last year where some of our teachers visited um lesser evil the company the snack company in Danbury they were blown away they felt they were abuzz with ideas that they wanted to you know can we get this into the curriculum can we try this with the kids oh my gosh now I get what what it is we have to do and um can we bring the kids here for a field trip and so um we were like wow the teachers went crazy for that opportunity that professional learning it was very different than what they're used to getting now

083okay we're gonna talk to you for a couple hours here in PD and so they they really loved it and so we're going to try to scale that in November and take some of our teachers out and get them passionate about this but then also bring that information back to and foreign curriculum and then very quickly I'll talk about an ASAP training last before I turn it over to Kelly illustrative mathematics we've been rolling that out over the last several years it'll finally reach grade 4 and grade 5 which is wonderful because we've done K3 and we've had six eight and so this kind of closes the gap on math and we're really trying to improve our math score so um there'll be our fourth and fifth grade teachers will be doing that that work

084quite a bit this year and we'll be engaging our our principles and understanding how to support that as well nasap training so and this kind of goes to Michelle some of the things you know we've heard how Nashville does some things the NASA standards the cat our Academy standards for what a model Academy should look like and so their aspirational standards so if you have these things in place and you're doing all of these things um to this degree right it's kind of a rubric and a Continuum of of level of where are you at with getting to this really high standard um and we'll use that Acro as we as we go forward to measure our progress on how we're doing and to hold us hold ourselves accountable for for having a high standard

085and and not dropping any of the important pieces that go into this so um so that's something that we want to hold ourselves accountable for and I'd like to uh socialize the board and Orient the board on what those standards are so that you're also familiar with them as well and and that we have some shared language and understanding so at some point during the course of the year and we can certainly start it in the curriculum committee um I'd like to introduce those to you and then and then the larger the board at large um and we can talk more about that but it's definitely one of those that's why I have a little star there because I think it's something that that the board should be well aware of um and then I'm

086going to turn it over to I'm happy to field questions at the end uh turn it over to Kelly talk a little bit about the pbas training and the importance of that work this year or another training thank you cara another training that we're going to be doing this year is PBIS which is positive behavioral interventions and supports um and essentially what that is is explicitly teaching kids the the soft skills the behavioral expectations um so that they can be successful uh in school both in life and in school um so we are going to elicit um teams from K-8 uh there'll be a team inclusive of building Administration pupil services so support Personnel classroom teachers and other key leadership positions in the building and every one of those um every one of those teams

087will be trained um by Circ on this this model and so it'll be a six day comprehensive training we have two cohorts of uh teacher teams going through these trainings um and then their responsibility will be to bring the information back and develop expectations for their school we have noticed since post pandemic that the behavioral needs of our students some of the disciplinary needs and so forth have been on a rise as well as some of our engagement attendance and things like that so this is a way to explicitly teach expectations district-wide so that we're very clear on what we expect students to be doing so that we can have both safe and positive learning environments for kids we all know kids that need to be connected to school they need to feel safe at

088school um they need to be there at school in order to learn so the work of this team is really talking about the curriculum this is setting the stage for the curricular work to happen and so this training will happen over the next three years it is being funded through kind of a variety of different grants but every year there'll be six days of training this year followed by five days of training the following year and then four days of training the year after um and so what each team will be responsible for doing is setting expectations doing uh presentations to the whole school including staff students and families that everyone is aware of what we expect so rather other than just providing the discipline policy which we will also do this also communicates those

089positive things that we want to see students doing with in school also helps them to feel part of the school Community have shared expectations across the school community and have input into that so we're really excited it's been something we've been wanting to do um over the last handful of years and we've had this opportunity and so we're excited to launch this also along with this it's not on the list but we will be doing training on aperture which is a social emotional screener we'll be using for our kids so after we set the expectations if there are students that still have needs and need a little bit of extra follow-up or support or work that screener will help us to identify those needs and further support those students as well so our teachers will

090receive training in both of these areas to help support the social emotional needs of our of our kiddos turn it over for any questions on either PBIS or anything else on the list does anybody on the curriculum committee have any questions about anything we went over tonight or just kind of questions that you're looking for answers on yes Theresa I'm sorry I was waiting for Lauren to but I wasn't sure what the the rule was I keep forgetting uh going back to uh credit high school credit for uh World languages uh as we all know we have a very diverse population do we ever test students out of world languages um with their background I mean do we ever do that so one of the things that we I don't like if I don't have

091the slide up but um you saw a Heritage Spanish uh on the list and so we have a lot of students that come in and speak Spanish and have us have a stronger oral background but they're not literate in terms of their reading ability or their writing ability so it's a whole different ball game right because grammar comes into play language structure context comprehension um in in print and and in writing so we developed we offered a Heritage course so those are for students who um probably who probably on the surface could test out orally right like the student clearly can speak English and Spanish but really they they are not literate and and proficient in it if that makes sense and so the Heritage class is for Spanish speakers who um who on the

092surface can orally you know engage but need more work and more attention more time on things like Granite grammar sentence structure language structure and so it's a little bit different it's a different curriculum than your typical World Language Spanish one curriculum per se so they just focus on the areas of of Need for Spanish speakers so there's not really testing out there's really um how you know how much better can you get at this right so that these skills can really um serve you well in the future right to be by literate is such a gift so um Augusto mentioned the Seal of by literacy we want our students at the end when they graduate towards a graduation to take the Seal of my literacy test so that's Teresa where you are proficient orally you

093are proficient in writing you are proficient in Reading uh and literate all the way all the way through and that becomes a Distinction on your graduation uh diploma and on your transcripts and when you apply to colleges um but it's it's kind of an honor to be able to do that but um we don't have a test out per se you know particularly you know in middle school I would say that there are very few students who come to us fully articulate in English as well as Spanish or indoor French or Chinese or Mandarin so um so but we did we but because of our population particularly being heavy Spanish speaking we did develop um and offer a course called uh Spanish Heritage to address to address some of that so that was called the

094seal by literacy feel of by literacy oh so so you are you know we're certifying you that you are literate in in a language in both in a dual language thank you yeah I have a question about um not really about what we've gone over tonight but um can we just about class sizes in elementary schools um we've heard rumor that we're starting class sizes at a minimum of 25 in K through five schools is that correct can you expand on that a little bit yeah so our class sizes Kevin do you want to you want to touch base a little bit about that or yeah sure sure um and so it it varies across the district Lauren our class size has always been uh 25 and we try to keep the guide between 22

095and 25. um and so we are letting um our schools know that you know we do have some schools this year starting out at 23 24 25 um and and so K12 again we try to stay within the 22 to 25 range um and sometimes we it's not uncommon that we are at 24.25 this year we have more Schools starting out at 24 25 than we typically do that's not across the board but that that is something that is that is part of our reality yes okay with that being said so where can like so that's changing grade level teaching somewhat for some for some folks so you know if we're having higher numbers we might need we might not need like a fourth grade class or a fifth grade class um so teachers are

096being moved to different grades um how does how does that happen does that happen like by seniority by you know like if a teacher's been in the district 12 years and they don't want not that they don't want but they're not as comfortable teaching say a first grader or kindergarten as they are teaching an upper elementary grade is that taking into consideration or because they're more tenured they get moved to a lower grade because kindergarten certification is different it it kind of varies and so the certification as you had pointed out Lauren is it's a K5 certified it's a one five certification candy Garden is separate um and so if we're just talking about just moves within the building oftentimes it's not uncommon that you know annually regardless of the moves that um you know

097but that might be going on right now um there might be so you know I the five years that I've been here at Park Avenue for an example we've had years where we've had a bubble of like second grade is a lot of kids that second grade would move up to third grade is a lot of kids and so Dave might have to move some people around in his building to um to to to address you know that bubble moving up across the building um and um so it really depends on the school kindergarten to your point if they don't have kindergarten certification that might be might not be a great level that they're moving to um if Kelly Cara and I are all third grade teachers and Dave needs someone in grade one um

098you know he can ask voluntarily if there's someone who you know Cara might say I love first grade and you know she'll run down there even though she has the most experience um and or um and so it will go first um you know and I believe we go by seniority first and then we we go by moves uh but the principal also has the ability to place people uh within within their respective buildings question two may I Lauren good um sorry yes go ahead thank you Lauren so I was um wondering if you could those two things um I was speaking with somebody regarding reach and I was told that there was and then don't see how this could be possible no math teacher at reach teaching is that true I can say without

099teaching that they did not teach math classes at reach this year there was no teacher there is that the case so that's not accurate there the part that is accurate is that there was um there are teacher shortages in the area of mathematics um so we did start the year with a long-term sub in the position um and then we did have to reallocate again looking at the resources in the building based on certifications um and um we also uh supplemented um with some online learning supports for our students there um so it is a position at the building um that uh there have been across the school year um three different individuals that have been supporting with the content um it actually was in the middle school program so Endeavor um and uh and

100so there have been changes in the mathematics and we are still actively working to to Sure up that math position for the start of the school year so then we didn't have a math teacher like a formal math test everybody kind of just helped out is that what you're saying no so we started out with a long-term sub we then have someone that can teach more than one content so we did a change teaching assignments um and then we had to make another adjustment and we utilized a sub a sub at the end of the year as well so Mathis taught there was classes taught every day every week within the program correct okay and then the other question that happened to come up this weekend so which was you know obviously last year we

101went with the two-week summer program because of the impact from covid this year it was because we were running you know our tight things were tight so I think we went again with the two two weeks but then I understand is it true that after the first week or eight days of the program it was shut down or that we closed summer school program in Danbury I've heard that at two different locations and I just didn't know from two different sources and I just I hadn't heard anything about it that there was an error and that they had to actually could no longer fund the program is there any truths or I can maybe start with our special ed program there was one day of closure this summer it was actually the first day um

102July 5th and that was due to flooding in the building um so it was one way I'm sorry at AIS um there was one day so our special education summer school program runs for five weeks uh we ran for five weeks but we did have one day of closure um and that was again due to the extensive rains that we had had and so forth so I'm not sure if the closure conversation um is happening there that was a reality fortunately we were able to resume normal operations on the following day and proceeded for the five weeks of summer school there um for a regular Ed summer school program it did run two weeks um we uh there was some early uh in the spring conversations about running that program four weeks uh do we

103did make some decisions with budgetary constraints in mind to run it two weeks and that is how we hired and rolled out to staff for summer Michelle that you mentioned eight days and I think the the when summer school all summer school always runs Monday through Thursday okay and so two weeks so that's you know week one Monday through Thursday week two Monday through Thursday so so that is eight days if that if that is where that number came from so it's two weeks but we don't we don't bring the kids in on Fridays and stuff no actually I had somebody come up to me two two different that's the thing and they said that there was an error in payroll that there was uh a significant error in payroll and that there was not

104enough funding to extend the program till its completion so this is just a rumor but they there was no the program ran two weeks yeah right we had two summer programs it went two weeks um and then Kelly's program with the full five weeks with the with the exception of that day um when we had that issue at AIS so there was no issue then with any error in paying the the anybody in the program in the summer program like double you know 40 or 75 an hour that is not the case nothing like that occurred because that's basically what I'm hearing and I just want to make sure that that it's uh if it is an ugly rumor that you know that we address that conversation was there any kind of issue like that

105I did I did get word of that right so I I just want to try to unpack this a little bit so the the summer school experience for kids did not change right and so with that moved forward this summer as planned and um the day that we had out was that unique day when we had the flooding at the school um and the the eight days for summer school moved forward as planned um if there was an issue with payroll it definitely whatever that may have been I'm not just exactly sure what what you may have heard uh but that definitely did not impact our planning for uh summer experience for kids this summer all right well Kevin can you if you're not really sure confirm with with John or whomever because um I

106just literally I you know this person spoke to one of the people that were working there and said that they were going back to school because the program had been closed because they had paid him double which I you know understand that being so if you could just confirm that right but I want to make sure I want to make sure what I'm confirming Michelle so that their error in payroll paying the summer school program that there was no early you know there was no issue with the the payment I guess that's part of the curriculum I had heard that the program had already had ended early and it had to do with some sort of payroll issue if you haven't heard anything that's great you said you weren't sure if you could just confirm

107that but I but I can confirm right now some right but let me just confirm now summer school move forward as planned in both the special ed programming and so like if there was an issue with payroll and I can clarify with John it I'm all on all I'm saying is our summer school experience moved forward as planned this summer if right and so if you heard the rumor that because of a federal issue our summer school plans did not move forward as planned that's incorrect because of summer school did move forward as we had planned wonderful to deliver this year but but I can find out separately if there was a payroll issue if if you want to talk offline see if I can look up specifically I can ask John for clarification wonderful

108I only say that because I heard I was at two totally different events and I was like you know what I hadn't heard anything about it let me confirm because obviously we don't want that going around and I hadn't heard that but in one weekend I heard it at two different so I just want to make sure that you know I can set that straight so if you could let me know that'd be great just to confirm with John yes thank you Kevin if you could confirm that information for for us that would be awesome uh one more thing so we're all set then with the issue that we had discussed I'm pretty much sure we are I just want to make sure the nine teachers we are you know we're not let go the

109music program that you know we're kind of looking to get the uh ask for the reserves to the city all that needless to say nobody's been let go right and those programs are moving forward as part of the curriculum for next year or whatever is that correct that is correct thank you appreciate that I can certainly I'm sorry oh what was that no you're fine oh you're breaking up hello Lauren are you still there I think you're muted Lauren it might be traveling there you go I'm just gonna I didn't care a finish but I was just gonna say it's any members of um board that have questions that are not on the curriculum committee please feel free to ask your questions at this point thank you you can always email as well if you

110think of something later that's fine of course so if I can just quickly Cara we were gonna you're gonna provide me with that chart that we talked about right the organisms yeah so I'm trying to so I don't know if I was there for the the the session where you discussed a specific chart so I'm trying in my my brain trying to understand I I haven't seen a chart from Nashville that charts out all of that stuff and I've been to Nashville twice now so I Cara I think the discussion was and Michelle I don't know how much you remember from the from the meeting because I remember a little bit more now um when were there when when Michelle had asked the question um I I recall it as the organization chart for the

111district and then this could give us an opportunity so let's just say Nashville has 40 000 kids and we have 12. and so we get their org chart we put it next to our org chart because Michelle's point is they have all of these resources as I as I remember it anyway okay all these resources to address all these different things happening like how are we going to pull this off and and so we take theirs for 40 000 kids we take ours for 12 and I think it's necessary for us to do some kind of crosswalk okay understand how we're going to make this work we're trying to duplicate a model they have a whole bunch of resources and we're trying to better understand well what what does this mean for Danbury um and

112then um and then the folk the visitors from Nashville also shared at the meeting um you know not every school in the district is an Academy School uh you know families have the choice and so if it's not let's just say it's 40 schools in Nashville I don't remember what it is and so if it's only 20 schools then you know of the Old Chart you know who who at the district level is supporting you know just the academies and what does that mean for the org chart as well so just just really giving us the opportunity to do a crosswalk so we can say this is what it looks like in Nashville this was called Danbury and see if there's any gaps and just begin to talk that through I think that would help

113everyone I do remember that part of the conversation Michelle the way you described it before I was envisioning a different chart that and I'm like so I think it's a chart that has to either be made or national shares with us it's not something that I already have oh it's yeah it's one that Nashville has and they said they have it and the nice thing about it was they have a much bigger system but they actually scale it down to the size they have different model sizes that would actually kind of line up with hours that we're implementing so I did send an email to Brent so we'll hopefully get get that sooner than later I mean it was one of the um I think it was the um older uh uh lady that that

114had come and had more had a lot of experience on the business board member the board member yeah because we were looking at you know how do we support because they had like three steps just to support for an internship and they had it all broken down and you know it's important for us to at least say hey do we have can we you know instead of just kind of moving down the road the way we I think we do which is you know great but um they're successful and so they've already done the work right let's if they think you need four people for this and we're like wow we're just making two I think Kevin and I had spoken of like it's great to put this in place but we want to make

115sure that you know when we first we have yeah which reason yeah and I'm I'm dying to go to Nashville Don't Tell don't I mean for my own reasons but not not in this case in this case I just really think like you know I know that there's a couple of members that are going to be here for the next two years for sure um and I really would like to know I think I would just be more you know useful or helpful yeah yeah we we we will we will definitely um I think the we went the last time in March Kara so I guess we would be for the spring to make this work so yeah the registrations they book almost a year out so we would have to know you know we'd

116have to organize something that would be yeah we'll do it ASAP then yeah and just me too me too the funding to do it and then you know the number of people who of course wants to go and that becomes always a little bit of an issue so maybe I'm sure Kevin can follow up with with Ralph and on that conversation to see how to how to best to approach it um but I will just say just as a placeholder too you know we just didn't we didn't just go to Nashville right so when we were looking at the models you know we went to Nebraska we went we sent folks out to some other places as well um you know our administrators went on um calc training which was and part of the calc

117training which is a collaborative leadership training they also visited other Academy sites and everybody does something really really well that you want to emulate and bring back and then there's some places you know Kelly and I looked at each other like nope I think we do a better job of this on our own you know so right and so not everything that that Nashville does we want to replicate and so and you know but there are definitely some great things in there right and so the same thing with Nebraska and some other places so um you know I just want to make put put that as the lens that you know just because they're Nashville and they're and they're they've done an awesome job and they've been at this for 17 years and they've you

118know have this stuff there are there are some things we're like well you know we we that's kind of not how we do certain things in Danbury we provide more opportunities in certain areas so just wanted to say that because right it's you know Nashville is like yeah yeah all of you came back excited Dwayne Perkins you know the man like everybody seemed to really get have a real uh understanding of the product and I just really feel that that would really help us you know help you know as far as what the vision is because everybody obviously lends a different perspective sure thank you for the consideration again thank you okay all right well Lauren I don't know if you want to close it out or I make a motion to during the meeting

119yeah second