3/9/23 Special Board of Education Meeting

001[Music] pledge allegiance [Music] United States thank you present Michelle Puella present Cape Canada here Gladys Cooper here Lauren Neely Jesse Fernandez yeah okay recognition Spotlight your school Ellsworth Elementary School all right come on up she does loving people thank everyone my name is Marty Durkin I know you have a very busy agenda this evening so I am going to just briefly talk about Ellsworth Avenue school but we certainly want to invite you to stop by at any time so that you can get to school see the school and meet the students as well so some of our accomplishments that are noteworthy is that Ellsworth Avenue School has been named a school of Distinction for and growth and math each year since 2018. staff have codified our vet Court values which align with districts mission and

002vision and health derive the work that we do every week thank you an academic growth is always a focus teachers need to analyze student assessments so that they can put on for high quality instruction one example from our recent Benchmark data is the number of students of fourth and fifth grade who have increased their Proficiency in math [Music] the school Community celebrates monthly we get together to honor the students of the month we also engage in activities with other schools such as the Alternative High School and Henry have a technical school to learn more about different High School experiences staff and students continue to focus on their personal peripherals as well as well the most exciting event this year has been the addition of the Ellsworth Annex with the addition we have not only increased

003the number of classrooms but also have developed a great collaboration with the Danbury schools failing and Community engagement Center this has been a wonderful addition to our school community our school is one of the district recipients of the bh-1 state of the music Grant which allows many of our students to take this instrument lessons we have participated in the welcoming schools walkthrough and continue to work on engagement with the community parenting programs take place in the evening with community members engage in professional learning regarding a welcoming School environment so thank you so much and I'm happy to answer any questions you might have about our school [Music] thank you questions that was in this presentation the interview any questions how many students do you have we have I'm not sure if the exact in real

004life that's 465. [Music] all right Chris thank you so much thank you okay foreign public participation so the board welcomes public participation and asset speakers please learn their comments to agreements speakers may offer objective comments of school operations and programs award will not permit any discretion of personal complaints or defamatory comments about Board of Education Personnel students nor against any person connected with the Danbury school system well okay moving right along consent calendar God's giving motion [Music] consent calendar exhibit and also happens 47. 46.46. motion by minus second by Bridgette any discussion all in favor aye any opposed game sessions okay motion cares okay High School support Governors my name is um so we just have a couple updates on why our school is about to eat for the past month um to start off

005with sports on our cheerleading team won the FCI Championship which everyone was very happy about boys varsity basketball players played Staples last week and won the FCI championship game as well um boys and girls track and field team both competed against several states in the enemy world championship this hockey and the boys uh four times eight millimeters overall and also competed in the team won the girls uh four times 200 meter team ran as well and many personal beads were set um wrestling went to the New England um seniors and was not only a top Placer for the state um a winner from our school that we were also entertainment Connecticut we have a new play coming up called um Once Upon a mattress that our theater Department we'll be putting on from March 30th

006March 31st and April 1st as well so it is expected to be a very good place for expecting a good outcome for math we will also have a um matinee open to elementary schools during the school day for some testing updates sats are scheduled for juniors on on the 22nd 23rd 24th um and 28th of April the makeup day for those who miss it is April 20 th um ngss testing for juniors just finished up and there are currently some makeups going on for students that missed it and we also can't wait to have a seniors graduate and the new fresh will come in we have a school fair that happened this past Monday which went um very well we had a club Fair an Athletics fair and a lot of seniors excuse me uh

007incoming freshmen for in attendance um we also had upperclassmen of um James Fair Mr Donovan also gave an update on the new Freshman Academy and Mr Davidson talked to all the incoming freshmen and they know what's going to happen in the next few months um online registration for 8 9 10 11th graders 11th graders are opened up so we can choose their classes for next year we also have AP government and politics class in the UNICEF Club taking action yesterday was a day of action called saber schools to get more funding since we we are ranked 169 out of 169 and posters positions that people can sign in a big sales and raise some money they're also doing a protest at City Hall tonight and then finally seniors are getting back from their colleges and

008starting to make choices on where they want to go and how to pay for it so we just had danbury's in-house scholarships open up and at least for me I've been procrastinating it possible but that's all for today anyone any questions could you just state your name for the record oh yep Jillian Patrick Secretary of field change hi Julian hi Julian and Moran good to see you both I'm here at the board meeting you said that really fast I just want to make sure I understood you said there was a protest this evening um yeah so we originally came up um on the issue that we have the least amount of funding in Connecticut for uh public high schools and so the government and politics class and UNICEF Club wanted to bring the awareness for

009the issue considering that we're the biggest school in Connecticut so they have a protest going on at City Hall it's a family protest they have some posters going up and have some teachers attending to to make sure everything's uh stays calm and everything there's been quite the impressive people thank you for joining us thank you one more questions I stopped by city hall on the way over to the meeting and I just I want to say the energy there was wonderful there's a lot of students there teachers parents and they are all supporting schools so um conduct you know kudos to or we're doing that can you tell us what areas do you feel we're neglecting the students were trying to make create more awareness around is probably the fact that Denver High School is

010the largest public high school in state of Connecticut and there are able to receive it comparison to other cities in the state as well that may have in mostly ambiguous throughout the last students and how that can create disadvantages when it comes to future endeavors and preparedness it can alter the program availability or students willingness to take part in it and I think that our students are doing a good job at taking that leadership initiative to try to just create awareness and difficulty and also step out and to take a leadership initiative when a lot of students or agents might not have done that previously so it is um a big step of confidence and just kind of maturity that they're getting as I finish their chapter of different high school I just want to

011add something to honor that I know that with the posters I went over they had it during lunch and I went over it and I know some of them like Maria said they're more concerned they're concerned about like AP classes getting cut and not enough money for everything that we need so they're concerned about not having paper towels in the restrooms but also not be able to take classes that they could potentially want to pursue later in life anyone else should I say something um I just want to uh point out Danbury is a generally a population of 85 000 people and we do have the largest school in high school in Connecticut I don't think it's fair to equate us with bigger cities with bigger populations bigger tax bases in Hartford New Haven Bridgeport

012that's all I want to say thank you so much presentation thank you thank you [Music] yeah sorry highly programmed for the board meeting so um tonight we have on the agenda for you to finalize running the pilot program where we're going to move to one regular board meeting per month and one Workshop meeting per month and so you will see um there is I believe it's an action on it and so what we need to do at home while we've spoken with the policy committee about this as well is will it suspend just that portion of the bylaw that talks about having two meetings a month and we will do it for a designated period of time which is what we're required to do so it'll be through the end of this school year and

013then you all can make a decision at that time about whether you want to continue with the model for next year in which case we'll make changes to the bottom of it but the suspension of it to do something temporary seemed to make the most sense so that you don't need to vote in Dubai laws so um you will see there is attached to new materials a sample of the schedule um and there's also a copy of the Bible it's really papering the deal [Music] the board chair award I also wanted to point out exhibit two three four seven please note the two asterisks in June initially our board meetings were scheduled for the second fourth week of June as they typically are throughout the school year we can remain on our every two week

014calendar we are proposing to move the first meeting to the first Wednesday in June and then two weeks later the third weekend so that's why it's the answer is there and the second meeting is scheduled as a special meeting as to so because it's not going to be the fourth meeting [Music] so just be Kevin can you all right Kim can you talk to the speak on the format of what each meeting slash Workshop would be so work we're gonna instead of two full board meetings a month and I do well we're going to see what we're going to do a workshop and a regular question so the intention would be to move a lot of the kind of nuts and bolts that work that you do like the consent calendars budget movements that kind

015of thing to move that business to that one business meeting of the month but on the workshop model it's really designed to give you an opportunity to engage with the team as they come and talk to you about different topics so it might be a workshop on student achievement depth it will give you in that form an opportunity that you don't generally have in this forum to be able to engage with the with the presenters of the workshop and dive a little bit deeper and answer your questions and sort of a dedicated topic right so one of the reasons for talking about this discussed it obviously it was my opinion in some cases is we get the presentations at a regular award meeting that's 15 minutes and a lot of data and information and we

016can't you know it's for me anyway I'll speak to myself it's hard for me sometimes to process all the stuff at once and try to see what what we're doing and it's a lot of information I'm not saying those presentations are designed that way uh to throw anybody off I'm not saying that but I'm saying is if it gives an opportunity to sit down and and go one or two layers deeper like for example we did the academy workshop and it was like five minutes before the meeting hurry up ask the questions and then so I'm thinking that's kind of one of the things that sparked this whole format and talking to some some administrations are saying yeah we want to give you we we welcome the questions but we a short period of time

017so as long as we are doing what we're obligated to do by the votes and stuff like that um you know that that's kind of that's kind of the background tonight so um I guess this is the time for discussion right discussion sir yeah absolutely if I may you hi thank you I personally oppose uh amending the bylaws and changing our model for three reasons first of all you limit public participation to one night a month rather than two uh student representation student Representatives meeting here bringing us in up to speed one time a month instead of two and you also limit the educational staff that wish to speak two one time instead of two times a longer and uh that's 50 decrease and sometimes these topics are time sensitive and in my opinion sir

018for clarification we invite the students to what once a month right so every morning yeah the workshops are open meetings so if you wanted to build in comment periods in those meetings you can certainly do that they have to be open meetings so they're not executive session workshops they're opening meetings um just to just to clarify that real quick episode of public could come and say had a a topic that was a hot button topic they could speak on it even during the workshop you could build into the workshop in an appropriate place for a public comment you might create at the end but you can certainly have control over the agenda that we asked would the public comment have to be about the topic of the workshop I would say that would make the

019most sense but awesome are there other districts that follow this format there are quite a few um and the ones that are most obvious ones that come to mind Waterbury Hartford also and I think is policy committee has shown right I showed the schedule and Hartford kind of does a nice side by side schedule that talks about what they're gonna what the topics are gonna be so it's pretty thorough so people are unnoticed kind of what's coming up so yes but yes so well I I can't tell you that I've looked through the 169 pounds but it's one we have Danbury [Music] uh yes um maybe I've been on the board too long I saw a really agreement on and I'm not in a mood to accept this I have some questions about sometimes we

020have things that we have to take care of I know the mocked up for the June July we Ed not me and we're going to implement this I would like to see it done in September it's starting in September as a trial and see how it works I I think that we have do I want extra meetings no but I'm not comfortable with moving along with this right now and I think about when we try to get exposure mirrors well you might have a whole new set of people before after November and so if other district has moved this way let's do it as a crowd see if it's not working with everybody on the board is comfortable with that I will certainly support right now you take it I believe this is a trial

021until the end of the school year now this is just what April May and June not even because June there's too many Essentials right so it's really to say um but Al's concerns uh are certainly important [Music] um my problem is I was disappointed when we had the workshop and a few people were absent because they've already covered that topic so I I like the workshops but I agree there's there could be an issue with important things that need to be attended to [Music] anyone else I understand because can you hear me I think the concerns are valid um that everybody is saying and I hear that um I think having it as just a temporary trial for a couple of months I don't think would send us back that far as far as disrupting

022uh our policy and it would give us just a little bit of Glimpse on it would help us would not help us and we don't have to continue it we you know we could try it a couple of months and if it doesn't work it doesn't work but it may be something that we may like it it may work for us and it may give us a little time to dive deeper into topics that you know we sometimes don't want to be here very late on our regular board meetings until it gives us a workshop where we can you know you know talk about some stuff so I'm not opposed to trying it out for a couple of months it's a long-term commitment um and then we can revisit it and decide if it's having

023one put into place or not I just have quick quick things so on the workshop side we what do we do Spotlight in school every once a month or what once again so we would incorporate that for a little extra time for them in the workshop right yeah foreign it's not uncommon for for districts to to try to bifurcate business meetings from kind of curriculum meetings you know I content meetings that's not an uncomfortable yeah and I'm I'm to be honest I'm okay either way the issue is I get feedback but although we didn't have enough time to go with this and all that now I'm certainly uh I mean we can certainly schedule more workshops to go deeper into it I mean I mean you know I'm okay with that I mean I'm just

024you know just trying to do what I think is is best in for for the situations that arose so like more spending time on the academy or Finance or something where it's like okay and finance committees and that stuff is great but you know a lot of that stuff doesn't translate into the main meeting the presentations okay but I'm I'm good I'm bringing up because you know that kind of some issues have come up and I'm just it out there so I'm good either way I'm not pushing one uh one thing or another so I mean I'm okay doing it on the trial basis I mean I would certainly not make a decision to do it permanently right now I mean because we don't know how it's going to work we got some big things

025coming we got the academy coming up we got it deep in there we got you know a lot of stuff coming up that we needed to spend some time on but how many how many meetings left I mean really four I mean no six two in April the chicken juice it really would be two of your meetings would look okay so two meetings out of seven would be a workshop where we could focus on the academy and we can focus on something I mean excuse me so if we want to have workshops so every time that we come to that second reading is going to strictly be a workshop [Music] or what happens you know we have some committees that you know might have to come and not be a workshop so that's why I

026guess you know there are certain things that we need to take care you know budget comes you know we have to sort of work along the city and do it and we have to get you know call meetings to come and take care of business in the board so um you know that's what I was saying and I understand you know there can be a change adaptive but again it looks like to be a full new board from December and we can get three people to do an Xbox from here right now so you know [Music] I like to hear from other board members also before we put it through the tool just to get with their family because I like to do kind of as a joint thing if we're getting more towards to

027know then understand coming online and I'm open to all suggestions but I understand everybody's points I mean I'll has a point scooper has a point [Music] I mean he's being productive there's something that it could be good for us but at the same time it's minimizing the um audience economy interactions with us and there's a lot of things that we motivation so I don't know we can produce a trial online but we just gotta get together it's like we scoopu says we have right now we cannot get together on social media and that and that she also has a point that I mean um this upcoming November but I have you walk board members and it might be difficult once we set this go back so yeah it always changing you could always change it

028back when there's new people online yeah this is just where the experts yeah it's a trial yeah so instead of yeah I got it it's Sunset so if you want to amend your bylaws you have to put a timer when it's sunsets so it has to expire so when it expires it just reverts back to you unless you do something different so I'd like to hear from Kate and uh Michelle also [Music] review a lot of material all at once um and I just want to make sure that we're doing our due diligence and taking care of that but given that it's a trial basis you know if we're doing this for the end of the school year I don't know that I have any stronger position [Music] Michelle [Music] um I'm open to the

029idea I'm trying to I think it might allow us to be a lot more productive and get into a little bit more like you said the granular um that being said as long as we can incorporate a time for the public to be heard and maybe it's a good way for us to interact as a board and have the public you know be able to listen to that discussion uh so I'm I'm up I'm up for approving it and so at least the end of the year and seeing how it goes it's not really you know revert to the best uh the best practice I think it's a great concept but I think we're rushing it a couple months is enough of a trial to see so I think if we really want to do

030it we commit to it and we're we're not at that community I think I would love to see if if Kim could find a districts that are avoidable to us in signs that also follows more examples assessmentally advocated their meetings that would be I think helpful for all of us and I wouldn't mind taking the idea up again at one of our original meetings discussing got some long-term Highway this short-term pilot I don't think it's going to give us more than the anecdotal it is but you know a year pilot in trying to perform unless he wants two and a half months I Think We're not gonna get the feeling for whether or not it's really normal [Music] just even though I'm getting my feet wet I'm just Gathering all the information um and I'm

031sure there's some things that I have been exposed to so obviously the probing participation is extremely important because it can hear what you know concerns are so on a workshop I'm assuming that at the beginning is setting it up at the end might be kind of awkward for the workshop and then let's just say after the first month you realize that we need more time is that something we can be adjusted [Music] correct it yeah it's really the world's your oyster on this one yeah yeah no I think public that's a good point but I'll brought that up in the beginning it's probably suppose obviously important that's you know um [Music] I don't want to limit that um so I mean I don't know like I said in the format um I mean I guess

032let's just uh let's just if everybody feels comfortable anymore I'm getting consensus before before we vote or just yeah um [Music] you want to start it man that's my question well that's the um well the the action things to start it for our next meeting correct again it's up to you I mean abuse system in the Bible or now yeah you would do it further next I'm just looking I'm about page three of your agenda say with all the future meetings um and I'm just kind of looking at the calendar and that's Tuesday Wednesday when I say Tuesday but it's every Tuesday Wednesday every other week and every Wednesday with these committees and I know you're missing a bunch on so you're talking about a lot of news that you have already at meetings um

033and I think that was part of the conversation was you know if you want to add workshops around this meeting schedule you're kind of running out of days which may explain why you're having problems with consultations yeah I mean Mr chair may I ask what workshops you're going to pose for instead of the meeting do you have those planners yeah I would oh what when what what time I think uh the academy is something that we need to know that I think there's going to be another Workshop um on the book what the academy is and then the construction Department also I think we got to get some Finance in there uh after the budget the process so I think those two or two main ones right now um but but I'm okay with committee

034committee means too I mean we could we'll just add workshops I mean because because we don't you know I mean there's a lot of committees here and there's a lot of bad workshops and then special meetings and stuff like that we're you know we're out we're out there and and and my personal opinion is I don't think and I speak myself I don't grasp a lot of it in a short period of time it's rushed in and you know okay okay let's get to this and let's get to that so that's all like I said the only reason why I said we can focus more on that is that we'll have a workshop on top of the two meetings and then have that workshop and go through it so you know if if we can

035do it in in the one and one if not we can keep it up I am certainly fine with keeping it till the end of the year the way it is that's what people what people feel I I don't I'm okay with that we're just throwing this out there um this was more of an if we touched on it maybe last time this is more of an informational part um the reaction ideas on there we could you know [Music] one question as far as people have a lot of experience would you say that if if these meetings we're going to affect a schedule a calendar a year would you see more artifacts positive or negative in the beginning of the year or in the end of year [Music] yeah that's why it's kind of good

036to see it because you have the summer to kind of something Falls to have a place here you have that time to kind of yeah so I I guess that's why we were thinking about trying it now um only because of the last you know couple of workshops and stuff that were cut short and we didn't you know and frankly on on some of these things here I mean we we could run through this stuff you know pretty pretty quickly let's put it up into [Music] me I mean but so let's bring the two about two minutes provide some clarification for you so [Music] um one the the idea behind the workshop model the thing that you're finding yourself you don't have time for are the symptoms which is essentially updates on a strategic plan

037that's that's the thing you don't have time for and so if Mr Russo is the co-chair and a finance committee and he has questions most cases those questions get asked and not terribly different really in curriculum committee and community relations Community but it's the superintendent's updates that are connected to your strategic plan North Carolina tonight but Carowinds is going to come up make a presentation this evening talking about chronic absenteeism and one of the Strategic plan goals and I think we find ourselves oftentimes not with enough time to ask the follow-up questions that the board would like to ask and so when we were talking about the workshop model it would be Para and Kara likely or and this evening actually Kelly trucius and Carowinds are presenting out on a chronic absenteeism how we're leveraging

038relief Grant to help with this work and giving the board pushing out the agenda on Friday before the meeting and making sure the board had enough time to put their questions together dig anymore and we were envisioning if this was approved this evening that in our workshop model that we would have an hour and a half or maybe two hour meetings we really had an opportunity to dig in and folks left with a clearer understanding the next meeting which would be a regular meeting with action um we anticipated that would be a short a meeting I also had heard previously that the board had a desire to have more meetings in person so so I recall more chair you guys saying maybe we could have some more committee meetings in person we could back those

039up to board meetings if there was a desire to have them in person I don't anticipate a board meeting being very long unless we have a lot of public participation and so now if you have a community backed up to a board meeting you still do not have a very long email again the long night The Way We Were envisioning it we would go in this direction the workshop act and we did not consider the public participation adding it but it can be added I've worked in districts where health and participation was part of the workshop as well and it looked changed a really good point there our family should not happen to retirement to Circle back if they have something you need to share with us so I I just want to provide that

040clarification cabinet and I will prepare to provide the superintendent updates in the workshop and then of course anything additional before I had an active here um that we we are seeing that you don't have the time to respond back to those presentations separate from your committee work where really at least from what I've seen in her that we do have the time to get those questions in so I just wanted to provide that clarification just for us home as we were considering the whole time okay [Music] all right so can at least if you read the motion [Music] that's the emotions that the Board of Education suspend through the remainder of the 2022-23 school year the relevant portion of bylaw 9321 one time place and notice of meeting slash regular meetings that requires one board

041meeting on the second Wednesday of each month to allow for a pilot program of a monthly Workshop in lieu of such meetings as recommended by the policy committee and in accordance with 23-48 motion made by Louisa a second thank you [Music] we had a discussion then there's a talk what was the favorite bye I Kate did you all right any opposed neck okay any abstentions you didn't get to the question about before you went into recording what's up [Music] yeah unfortunately okay no I apologize I thought we did that before we go you could ask a question so just for clarification we had two no's Al Russo and Mr glass Cooper no obsessions okay so motion carries [Music] can you read the motion authorization of signature change form Dash Child Nutrition programs solution level Board

042of Education approving authorization of signature change form 099 agreement or Child Nutrition programs in accordance with 23-49 which is on each side origin seven by key discussion all those in favor all right all right can you pause any extensions motion carries superintendence report thank you sir thank you academies of Nashville study visit let me start off by saying cool I'd like to thank mayor Esposito councilman Perkins doing Perkins John Clyde hands who's part of the news team in time of use the superintendo construction for the city of Denver these folks in the city of Danbury of course with our very own printing directory address es and superintendent of Britain construction we all went to Nashville Tennessee to visit or study visit for the academies at Nashville there are over 82 schools no 82 000 students

043in the district there demographics are very diverse and many of their schools and classrooms look a lot like Denver Airport we had an opportunity on the first day of the welcome to meet the superintendent to me [Music] one of the board members I decided to say one of the founding board members that I believe she was there from the beginning [Music] many of the business partners [Music] and really had an opportunity to better understand the structure of the Academy's model there were over 400 people in attendance this happens two times per year in in Nashville so is one of the fall and one in the spring in which they invite in school districts across the country and our meeting there was actually some folks there also from Scotland [Music] so a lot of folks are

044coming to observe the model given his successes in Nashville I believe the story that they shared with us around 15 16 years ago and 17 18 years ago the high school was at an atrocious High School graduation rate of 58 point something percent graduation so the city was borderline being taken over by the state by the state and they realized they needed to do something different and more this model the district now as a district again 82 000 plus I I believe is close to 85 86 graduation rate which is a considerable leap from where an initially started and it got everyone's attention so they put a map up and I'll just share the story they put a map up of the United States they didn't have contents up on the map but they did

045put up a map of United [Music] States there were only three or four states here that had not been part of in some way one way or the other visited Nashville to have an opportunity to observe the model so we we're a good company in that regard day one was simply a welcome it was an opportunity to network we didn't do too much networking because we didn't know anyone so we just got to know each other the really one of the major goals of this trip was really to develop clear a better understanding around not necessarily for us but before the city of Danbury to get a better clearer understanding about the model so they can better understand what needed to be funded and help people like councilman Perkins to understand what he was advocating

046for uh chose to do so day two we had a very ambitious agenda starting at 7 30 7 o'clock in the morning until probably four or five o'clock in the afternoon and this was a series of workshops in which we broke out and I don't think all of us were the same exact workshops for example I attended a workshop with the mayor of two people from his office looking at the various stages of development to bring the cabinets model to your District it talked about a lot of the same things that we've heard about and how it's important to begin to bring in the business Community to help make sure our kids have these internship experiences the the presenter and Carol assuming they share the same thing in yours but it wasn't just about internship

047externative experiences for the students but it was also making sure we provided those same opportunities for our staff as well and that staff was actually coming back with new ideas about how to instruct differently based on what potentially could be applied in their classroom and it was also um critical as the president was talking about how how critically important professional development was in this model for our teachers and really just hammering home things like externship opportunities with teachers the same way it benefits our students it will also benefit our teachers I do want Cara to speak a little bit about the teaching and learning part in the business development part things terribly different than we've heard before the biggest difference for us was the mayor's office have a better understanding about the model something that

048was reinforced that we we already know that works my team and I you know they're going to try to explain to the board tonight this is reinforced during obviously at least for me and so I think we talked to the board and as we get out in the community we'll certainly reinforce this with our families and students so many of us in this room have had either had Elementary had a kid who've been in elementary school or have kids in elementary school they kind of appreciate the relationships that you develop with teachers the relationships that our kids develop with their peers and appreciate the relationship that our kids develop with their teachers but we also know particularly if you have kids who are older now those relationships don't look exactly the same they're not as

049rich as they were in elementary school certainly our families don't have the same meaningful and Rich relationships with the adults as they did when our kids in this model though that changes considerable and so carrying previous presentations talked about the fact that all of our students will start off at Danbury High School in the ninth grade then they will make a choice into what Academy they will go into and so once they choose to go into an academy they will be in a building I'm sorry an academy in two different buildings of no more than 400 to 450 students which in many cases is smaller than some of our elementary schools and districts not our Middle School but it's smaller than some of our elementary schools let me also state that I was reminded during

050these walks as I'm admiring the kids and the students and their relationships with with staff and a staff's relationship with their peers and estabs relationships with kids and the fact that our teachers knew all the kids and the fact that the principles knew all the kids and all the kids knew the teachers kids do the principle of the academy because now we're in spaces that's manageable of 400 to 450 students but then it gets better because the structure my kid our kids are in 10th 11th and 12th grade and so typically when our kids leave Elementary School they go to middle school and every year the teachers are changing and changes are changing if this is what our kids experience and this is why as fam as parents we don't have the same relationship with

051staff anymore and this is the part that changes because because one sleep if we're students at an academy our teachers are the same for the next three years 10 11 12th graders the teachers in that Community this is now our community right and I may not have the same exact teacher for English 10th and 11th and 12th grade with the community is the same so all of the teachers math English science social studies that interdisciplinary group the these are the same four faces that I'm looking at every day and then there's an elective teacher that that this becomes my core and these folks become the cohort of Staff who's following me to make sure I'm taken care of and so in District we have what we call a student assistant team did I say that

052bro and so our SAT team ought to be confused with the exam our staff sits down perhaps monthly with their with their principal in these meetings we can look at a roster of students and say hey these these kids are not doing well in class what do we need to do what interventions do we need to provide what interventions need to be provided to make sure our kids are coming to school more regularly but now instead of doing in this building up 3 500 where Dan has this unmanageable list where he's trying to find our kids to get them in school every day it's now that roster looks like this and now the percentage of kids who need intervention is even smaller perhaps the most important thing is all of the teachers are having structured

053conversations about those students and making sure they're on the phone with the mothers and fathers in this community who they will now know for the next three years and so certainly as we as I'm walking with my team and saying oh my gosh this is the true backbone of the model because you can say that regardless of what breakout room you went into because if you're going to the The Business Connection the business room where they make sure our kids have internship experiences you can say well that's a really important part of the line obviously the teaching and learning curricular construction part the model where our kids are truly engaged like never before that's probably the true backbone but this piece where we're making sure all of our kids no one splits to the cracks

054and if they do it's not because every teacher in the cohort has been part of interventions for them my biggest takeaway I mean because there were some amazing things that we saw in Cara will also help help me out here one of my biggest takeaways was everyone is all in on the 400 and 450 kids and all the teachers are talking speaking like one it's a cohort there's a team of teachers working with my kidney versus a comprehensive High School where there's an English Department of just too many people and so I I just wanted to take a moment as you hear and all the all the wonderful things about the model and I don't want to downplay it because it's it's wonderful that that's that's the real thing that's going to really attract our

055kids because it's [Music] fun and I'll just share one more thing before I hand it over to [Music] day two because day one was just about bouncing to different sessions and getting a better understanding of what the account is going on day two was about the school visit and so one I appreciated the fact that we didn't just go to schools that were beautiful in China they just were not and the fact that they're experiencing these successes without with the limited resources just like Danbury and quite frankly probably less so than we have the fact that you have still experiencing this kind of success I think speaks well of how struck how struck stress how this model can help us here in Denver yes when we got to the school it was an amazing band

056that welcomed your superintendent once we got off the bus was it just about me but I'm just making about that baby right now but we we go into the school and it was a in Cara I don't know if you really got the same presentation but it was an Academy of criminology Etc this is the first school I think that was your second School and the forensics teacher was telling us that they have a spook night at the school and and this is how fun the work was and and I said I'm sorry can you tell me more what does that mean because I'm thinking this is a Halloween night and she goes no she goes I organized it with the kids and I sat with all of my other appear as my other teachers

057to make sure all the teachers were part of it in some way so this is like a criminology type connection Academy but in forensics they put tape on the floor as if there was a crime scene all throughout the building and then with that crime scene her kids did forensic studies on anything that was touched in the area oh but wait a minute then there was another class that played a part because if they found the people who were responsible for this they had a what was the courtroom camera what was that called Mark it's like a mock trial so say they had a mock trial forward and so with we're going to pick on John Spain if John Spain was one of the guilty parties because his fingerprints were all over the tape John

058would have to go in a courtroom and as part of a mod and when I say a mock trial I mean it was the judge's Chambers it was a gavel it was a role on the student there was a bit there was a the jurors over to the right hand side all made up of students there were folks from the community who could watch in the background when they have they they literally have real cases at the school where a judge would come in and help facilitate the meetings they redid a shot class and put carpet on the floor at another school they made a huge mock judge room a courtroom students were having fun and the entire trip was led by with the district called ambassadors where everyone greets you with a Blazer on

059and all these students in the blazer because one of the Academy's over school so what have I heard about the letter um so one of uh one to the academies all of the kids reach you with only the ambassadors who reach you with the blazemore and they're actually taught through their they're actually taught and trained at the beginning of the year on how to host because this is actually a big money maker for the academies at Nashville and so when 400 people come into your space and you're paying sixteen hundred dollars for registration for every single person right that includes not flights but like hotel and all those things you have to make sure these folks are welcome so everyone was but everything was led by the students so in Cara and Kelly I don't

060know if when you guys went to Nebraska it was also led by the students in places Etc it's an incredible model with and I think every space that we went to from councilman Perkins to May Esposito Tom Hughes who's super construction superintendent of construction and I mean he was just beside himself so excited because he puts together he reads architectural plans and all these projects and for the first time he's able to see in action like it came to life and he goes now I really understand what you mean and I think because of it we're going to benefit because the state had an opportunity to be on site and so we we have and typically in Nashville they host two times a year it's in the fall and in the spring and so I

061am hoping we can end extend invitations to the board where we have another round of visits because our hope is to get board members more teachers because we didn't have teachers go and forget which one they went to Cara and soon but if you can can you speak today you told me to just throw anything to you so can you speak to them to the business part and the curriculum piece I think those were equally powerful I mean they were all powerful yeah I was trying to find something slides of the pictures still going through all the pictures that we took so I'm sorry while Cara's getting ready for this I'm I'm walking around the schools and because I can't help with the competitive side was getting the best of me and I'm thinking I

062know we haven't been in it for 16 years but we can do this better like we we can do this and and I mean we're a year in just putting together the background piece I would say that we're ahead of schedule kind of given the talent we have on our side um and I'm looking around the building I'm I'm sure you got it too Cara like I know it's not the first time you've been but it looked good but we're in a different place than they were we were not at 58 graduation rate when we started this model we're trying to go from good to great um I think we're going to be really well positioned for okay I don't think you are very much but that's okay um you know in reference to that

063graduation rate the thing was important to point out is that that first number that in the 50s was when their state collected graduation rate by five years those were five-year graduation rates in the 50s that went to like high 80s after converting to a four-year graduation rate so that was just a dramatic turnaround in addition to that the attendance numbers dramatically increased the disciplinaries dramatically decreased and there were higher levels of Engagement um in their less student discipline issues so we were super impressed by that and one of the one of the groups because we asked specifically around second language Learners some of the questions we have are you know what's the best way to make sure that we're engaging um how everyone can participate in Access and that was the group that grew the

064most in their shift to the model and so that was important to us particularly as our with our district so we were excited to to hear some of these things and it was interesting because the first time that I had gone down to Nashville it was just pre-pandemic we had closed school that week that we were down there and we had a whole team that was supposed to was supposed to attend and we only just a couple of us ended up going at the last minute because there were so many uncertainties in March 2020 and what was happening in that moment and the lens with which I was seeing things for the second time was very different I had a whole other layer of questions to ask so I was very appreciative of a second

065opportunity to go down there um but even more excited to see Kevin in our our city leaders engage your first time and connect some of the dots I think that maybe you can't appreciate until you see an action I think that's kind of the one piece that everyone is waiting to see is what does this really look like when it's all together and um I was I was thrilled and humbled with the level of Engagement of our group the kinds of questions that they were asking the way that they interact with students I was completely impressed with how enamored the whole group was with it I just I feel really good that that we had a group that just became a stronger advocate for the work coming back so I just wanted to throw that

066out there that that City team was was it was great to partner with them in this way in terms of the curriculum you know one of the schools that stood out obviously the most was McGavock High School I know that you were a chance to go there as well um the we had a chance to see a multitude of the academies that are offered there the part that stood out the most as it did the first time that I it I was the the ability for these students to articulate what they were doing why they were doing it the passion that they had with the subjects that they had that they chose to engage with the number of certifications they had already acquired under their belt how they were pre-planning their college experiences and their

067choices that were so defined because of the free work that they were doing in the academy and some of the offers and opportunities that they already had from from either workplace work-based places that were interested in them because they had done some internships or the college programs that they're applying to where they're for potential scholarships they were that they were well positioned to get because of their experiences coming out of the school that put them Just far ahead of their peers and Beyond academics is while the academics are equally as important one of the things that this Academy model did for Nashville particularly when they added the Early College opportunities was it really raised the rigor for everybody and there was an expectation that all kids will take to dual college class before they graduate

068or at least attempt that and that they they work towards stackable industrial industry credentials before they before they exit and participate in internships and capital experiences which really positioned them well um one of the things that I think um so we as Kevin mentioned before we participated in a district and state leadership group um stages of implementation session and also one again on how to integrate the Dual college and certification piece of Peace which is really important to us right now because we're really trying to understand the best way to approach that and do that is pretty it's a pretty large Endeavor so um so we appreciate the opportunity to dig in and ask some really key questions on that and we also need some great contacts with the folks down there that we feel

069that we can that will serve as a resource to us they also do a tremendous amount of professional development so they have a whole arm called the national Hub that folks who once they visit can tap into for further guidance as they go so we'll probably be giving them a few calls in the next year or two which would be phenomenal the other thing I think that came out of this trip that I that I don't know if I was thinking about it in this way but through all the conversations that we had and a lot of opportunity for conversations within our group um you know we saw incredible equipment in these academies um and so you know every time we walked in like we saw robotic arms like the things that you would find

070in a car factory and then mini versions that the kids were playing on that when I say play they were coding to make the arm move a certain direction that we're picking up cups and knocking cups in certain direction and those are being measured and the kids through trial and error had to keep recoating and recoating to get the the automated arm to do exactly what it needed to do and they had to take notes on these things and uh and work so it was just incredible what they were engaged in for their age which which was unbelievable but I kept asking where'd you get this book how did you get this equipment the city found this like how did you get the equipment and they talked a lot about some of the bigger grants

071that they received because they have such a structure in place that positions them well to receive different types of grants that maybe you know a school district wouldn't normally receive by themselves but with the conversations we had some great conversations with the city because um we realized that when you try to approach these larger grants you need to show demonstrated City partnership right partnering with your University or partnering with the business community in a highly structured way and you're partnering with the school system and you have stakeholder engagement and when you put all of those things together and to create rfps or grants you win those big block grants and that's what national is doing and doing really well so their business engagement is second to none they have a massive organization that that grew

072out of the the groundwork on the development of the program called pencil they have over 350 major business partners in the Nashville area Nashville's very fortunate because they are a very fast growing large metropolitan area so there's lots of businesses to pick from but those business partners are at the table and they are helping to support the schools over time internships externships as uh as Mr Wilson and that is where the teachers go out and they see the work of in these Pathways so they're able to come back and make those connections and then work collaboratively collaboratively across content hearing teams to do interdisciplinary planning to bring those pieces to life for students so um so in addition to the students being engaged when the staff spoke about the work that they were doing there

073was a level there was this Vigor and passion with which they spoke about the work and the conductedness and they're also able to apply their passions as well because they're they're teaching in areas that were exciting to them as well so we just saw this energy from the staff that was that was just wonderful so um I know we're going to kind of kind of long and I um you know I but I do think um you know it was a very successful visit in terms of achieving you know the goals which is which to kind of build a great partnership with understanding and so that folks can advocate for us on a variety of different models that I felt that by the time we returned from that trip that we were very much speaking

074the same language about the importance of the direction and what was needed to get it done so I just wanted to and on this regarding the trip I think we for me anyway I had a greater appreciation of how complex red Dean's role is in District really looking at this at least from the grand scale and Nashville and there's different organizations that actually help support for its role at different schools and so it's kind of that's the pencil books and Pennsylvania was kind of the clue that helps us to manage all of these things I don't know if we would need that anytime soon but point is it gets so complex that you need an outside partner to help to manage to make sure when John Spain picks up the phone from the Nissan Corporation

075there's someone here to answer the phone all the time and may not necessarily have be the case if you have a staff person here so it's a company or organizations to say that's dedicated just dedicated just to the Partnerships and leveraging them to help support the schools almost like the United Way kind of helps the community you have an apartment helps to manage the part of the Partnerships yes when can the board go yes so there is a trip in the fall and a trip in the spring so we're looking to Circle back and extend invitations there thank you any other questions or anything um did you see any of the specific academies that we're going to be having up here yeah so they did they have a biomedical Academy engineering Academy those are pretty

076well established there and some of their more popular academies as I would anticipate that those would be ours as well so we did spend some time having a lot of conversation about those we asked a lot of questions they do have a digital media design which is sort of similar to one that we have so um you know so in addition to just not making those connections you know there are there's a lot of groundwork that they have done and project ideas in a way that they integrated across an academy so multiple Pathways for instance what are the pictures I was trying to look they produced this that they replicated like the CMT Awards so yes it was fun right it was fun but there was standards based there was rigorous requirements you had one

077group that had to produce um they had to write all of the script and had to create legal contracts of all of the people who were attending um and do all of that writing and then there was you know photography video set by the place in other words or a group that that shot the raw footage of it and then another group they had to edit it we walked in on one of the it was like an adobe it was not only Adobe Photoshop I forgot the program they were working on they get three they were getting certified across the year in three different areas very high-tech editing software or animation um software uh programs and the kids were in there I mean the amount of of buttons and features and things were making my

078head spin and they were clicking through these and and editing and adding things and green screen you name it it was an adding sound in the background Beyond and making certain noises happen at certain time periods it was unbelievable but that each group had a different role and they had it was standards based and they had to they had to fulfill their role they had to produce them and they had to communicate and present on those things and they had to come together so it was um you know and that those were just their elective courses so they're you know typical courses as well but just fascinating to see what they were producing but there are a lot of great um you know I was taking tons of notes on the different certifications that they

079were putting the students through the paces for that were valuable that the ones I had hadn't even heard of because I cinematographer or a videographer so helpful to make those connections as well so we learned a lot and we'll continue to cherry pick um things that from the different academies as we visit so being that uh did you see any of the schools that have an interaction that you were going to have here with middle school and high school yes because I did not I don't know if Eric did I did not get to see the middle schoolers in action that part of the academy theme but I think our second school was 612 that was your first school it was 6-12 but we didn't see we didn't start at school at all we did

080ask questions about how that the academy model the high school transformed the rest of the school district and so what happened is over time they wanted to prepare the kids uh in a better way for the Academy the rigors of the academy and so they created start to create some structures that backed into middle school and now they even have like coding and programming in K5 and things along those lines so that the kids could progress and Advance even further through certain things at that level so they did kind of a micro version you know stem stem courses and different other courses at the middle school to get them ready sort of kind of a pre-academy work wasn't nearly as anything extensive as the 912 version but certainly helped to position students right thank you

081yeah any other questions so one more item on the agenda and this is going for 22 I know this is a challenge that I had shared with the board previously during my one of my students in the evaluation meetings this continues to be a challenge for the state of Connecticut but also right here at home here in Danbury so Carol's going to give us some update on how we're doing what our numbers look like and how we're doing some questions thank you Kevin I'm going to start us off Cara and I will do this presentation together it's all right we changed things up a little bit on you um so we're going to talk about uh School attendance um in a couple different ways um we're going to first go over uh the data and

082District or go over definitions talk about what our district level data is um and then talk about some strategies that we're utilizing currently and particularly things that are Elite Grant has enabled us to do um so first I just want to go over two definitions for you because there's an important interesting difference between the two um the first is attendance rate which is the percentage of a school or District's overall student population that are coming to school um so that's the percentage of students that are present in school or the percentage of students at a district level that are present on any given day chronic absenteeism is when your students are missing 10 or more of the given school year um so a good example of that is if we're a hundred days into a

083school year if a student has missed 10 or more school days are considered chronically absent earlier in the school year if you're only 20 days into the school year two days of med school would consider you for chronic absenteeisms so it's a moving Target that does change over the course of a school year but a lot of the attendance out and research on you know where does it become detrimental to a student is beyond you know the level of chronic Tia some of our students missing a significant number of days in a given school year um you know could lead to different disengagement learning challenges and so forth so that's an important factor the um as we're going through the presentation the difference between the two definitions the other thing I just want to share

084is that the lead Grant will come to the end of the presentation and we'll focus on some specific details related to that but the whole purpose of the leap Grant was post-pandemic to really make sure that we can leverage and put strategies in place to re-engage students and families in school so Carol will go through some of the data that we currently have and compare us to the state level data and then I'll talk specifically to some strategies that we're currently implementing hi good evening um I just want to draw your attention to this slide where we uh demonstrate what the current attendance rate is for Danbury public schools as well as the state we provided some Trend data so you can see what it was over time for the 1920 year that was only

085in person um days so once this will shut down that was not included but overall when we're looking at attendance rate by the state or by the district you're looking at the number of days present and compared to their days in the world right so we've always had pretty high tenants rates and and even during the pandemic years that was not an exception we saw a slight decrease as the state did you'll see the state is in blue and Danbury school district is in Orange so besides late decrease from 1920 and 94.9 we were always kind of around 95 into a deep of 92.3 when we look at the high needs students and again those are students who are students with disabilities our multilingual Learners or students who are qualified for free and reduced lunch

086so they can be one of those categories for all three those students have a slightly lower attendance rate both at the state and District level and our number was 91.6 our current year-to-date attendance rate that was as of the end of January actually is 92.2 percent for all of Danbury and 91.7 for our high needs students so you'll see that our attendance rate is slightly above the state average when it comes to our high needs students and let's see for The Chronic absenteeism data it is a similar entirely state so again we want attendance rate data to be very high because that's how many days students are present we want product absenteeism data to be low so the lower the number the better so when we we really look at Chronic absenteeism data because now

087you're really looking at a student's experience how many days is a particular student is actually in school and this is a highly predictive of the amount of instructional time that they're receiving one of the things that is super important to focus on is our kindergarten data as well as ninth grade when we talk about product absenteeism it's a predictor of graduation rates and students staying on track so um in the past in 1819 pre-pandemic years our chronic absenteeism data was below the state average at seven point one percent and then a drastic increase as a result of the pandemic so as of the 2122 school year we were at 23.5 students were absent 10 or more percent of their enrolled days and that almost matches the state average of 20 or of the up to

088absenteeism rate for the state because they were at 23.7 when they considered all the students enrolled in the state of Connecticut our current rate is slightly lower as of the end of January at 21.3 our high needs students as of last year was at 26.7 in the past pre-pandemic was at 8.3 so obviously many factors um as a part of the years of of the pandemic are affecting chronic absenteeism or highly engaged in strategies with the state through our Elite funding but our high needs rate is drastically lower than the state rate which was at 34 percent so the next slide um just so you can see historically because we know that some chronic absenteeism rates are predictors and student performance and graduation I did include that by grade level because I'm often asked about

089that what are the grades that are most chronically absent and and at the elementary level it's K and one I'm currently eighth grade at middle school and at high school is the highest for the district overall with grade 12 being the highest of nine through 12. 12. um some strategies you'll hear about I'm specifically Target specific grade levels to try to engage students particularly with our kindergarten transition program last year and education with parents and engaging the so what strategies have we put in place we've been doing this since before the pandemic but with an increased focus of attention and effort post pandemic as you can see while our chronic absenteeism rates do near the state and are slightly better for our high needs population they are drastically different than they were prior to the

090pandemic um so we broke up kind of two different buckets of the things that we're doing one is the systems and District that we have in place to help with chronic absenteeism and the second are the particular strategies that we're putting into place with students and their families so I'll start by first going over the systems um district-wide it's a focus and attention across the district every single building has a school Improvement plan and chronic absenteeism and improving the attendance of students there is a specific component of the school's plans we also have a district at a team where we focus on every single meeting that we have looking at attendance rates and data in addition to our achievement data we also want to see who's here and for those students that aren't here what

091is the impact um so we're also looking at what what um categories of students you know grade level as Kara had referenced before are kindergarteners our eighth graders our high school students tend to be overall areas that we need to focus attention on and that's how we deploy strategies and resources um we also are looking at um our attendance committees at the school level so every single school has an attendance committee that's typically comprised of building level Administration the pupil Services support and staff member so it's your school social worker School psychologists counselors oftentimes your school nurses and other lead teachers in the building and their effort in Karen and I both push into those meetings quite gradually to talk to them about their school specific data um so we see District level Trends um

092that we share with the students but certain schools have an increase for example in some of our schools there are more available on our population has a higher level of chronic absenteeism in other states is that their kindergarten or maybe it's their third grade population um and so we talk about specific strategies of who we can Target and how we can intervene um the other thing we've done is through attendance Works attendance works is an organization that has research-based strategies that you can use for um to help both educate families on the importance of attendance and we've noticed that as a really significant area that we have to work on during the pandemic we were telling families if your child has the sniffles keep them home and keep them home for a long time right

093and particularly for some of our younger families that that was their first exposure to school they're now nervous if their kid has a scratchy throat or a tickle or you know some small little thing that we weren't typically worried about prior sending their kids to school so it's an education around you know pandemic has been well it's still something we're faced with we are kind of on the other side and we are looking at things a little bit differently and really helping them to understand that being in school and being in school regularly is super important um and then lastly really looking at the resources that we have so the Deans are listed up there that is something that the high school has that's a particular focus of their attention and effort particularly with our

094ninth graders um to get them back on track our family Liaisons that we've been fortunate enough to have in the buildings particularly many of whom are bilingual that help to get the messaging out to our families we really support some of our staff in reaching out to them and really just having individual conversations with families what are the barriers why isn't your student coming to school or your child is already coming to school sometimes it's a lack of understanding of the importance of attendance other times it might be lack of access to Food Services lack of access to daycare it could be a whole host of issues and so those individual conversations are really meant to identify barriers that families are experiencing um and then to help put strategies in place it could also be

095that the child doesn't want to come to school because they're having difficulty with a particular subject or content here you need it but it's really focused on those individual reasons to then intervene and improve and follow-up on so the strategies I've alluded to some of them Palm visits I'm going you know knocking on the door and helping to get families if you're not coming to us we're coming to you we've also expanded that definition of home visits to also really include any type of meeting that we have with families around attendance we have a phone conversation it could be a Google me a zoom meeting it could be physically beating them out somewhere in the community or at their home but really liaison and with those families and partnering with them that we're not here

096to criticize but we're here to partner with you figure out the reason figure out an intervention and a plan and ultimately help your child to be more successful in school a big focus of our kindergarten orientations and any of our transitional grades that transition into Middle School transition into high school where we're reminding our administrators to talk to families about the importance of attendance in different expectations as they kind of progress through the grades we're providing academic interventions I reference that one of the barriers is children struggling with learning we know there was learning loss during the pandemic and so sometimes that lack of desire to come to school particularly with some of our secondary students is is fundamentally a lack of being successful in an academic content area and so how are we providing

097those interventions we is also enhance the opportunities and offerings in our Twilight program which is our after-school credit report one of the barriers we hear our second close-up here are sorry our high school students our secondary students talking about is well it wasn't successful for a semester and so I lost credit okay here's an opportunity in how you can get them back and get back on track and graduate with their class we'd expanded summer school offerings for very similar reasons to provide continuity of education for them but also an opportunity to earn back credits and get back on track we had incentives for school-wise Raffles celebrations prizes things like that for younger students things like postcards and celebrating success that are going out to some of our other students and those are really individualized to

098the building building principals are able to make determinations with their School attendance teams and strategies that they feel would be helpful it's been a consistent focus of our people services staff team to really talk about those attendance and intervene with families that are strong in that area unless they're really just enhancing our Partnerships this is this is something we need to do together right this if a child is not coming to school for whatever reason the school district and that family needs to work together and figure it out and intervene on behalf of that child to make it more successful so those are um just some quick snapshots of what we're doing sure question account so two things the uh when someone doesn't come to school they call it's supposed to call in and be

099able to take it what percentage of people when you say actually do quality that's a great question so I can pull if you're interested the what's considered excused or unexcused afterwards and and that's essentially what you're talking about um the majority of our absences are excused um and and because what happens is if we do not hear from a parent that the school buildings are very proactive to locate this child figure out where they are and what's the reason for the absence so um you know that's a strategy that school admin assistants are engaged in that's right you're not calling us or popping now from those first nine days remember our first nine days that a child is absent is that any reason that's given by the parent or Guardian after that that are specific

100allowable reasons right and the second thing was I saw a whole business on it we actually used to have a person years ago who said people in your house right that that stopped a couple years ago right are you referring to the residency officer that would kind of check to see if students were living in Danbury or people that were going out because there we used to be had a position this is checking if you're actually sick yeah or what this is true yeah yeah um so no this is more of like our school psychologist social worker school counselor administrator sometimes our school resource officer apparently is on um you know you're not coming to usually we're starting by those phone calls um and you know setting up an expectation that you're coming in maybe

101a meeting at the school um but eventually helping and supporting by going to the house with that amount of students is a lot to get on through yeah and so it's very individualized to the building with their plans I mean Kelly and I support all the buildings and and trying to come up with different and individualized approaches to allow them to know that there is a diverse set of strategies that you can use and and they're very inventive out for me and so there are certain situations that's where we push into the building levels there are certain students that are exceeding that 10 threshold but there is a very known you know medical reason for that absence that's not the child that we're knocking on the door but it's really important to monitor the data

102not that that we're not keeping in contact with that family of course we are and they're certainly sometimes you know homebound instruction or something that we can put in place um but it's really important to really have those ongoing conversations about why are these kids out what do you know about the family you know what do you know about the situation that's going on any of the barriers that have been a divide um usually what the school-based attendance teams are doing is identifying um a subset of the population that they're going to focus on in the next week or to designate roles for each person who's going to follow up with Coach family and then come back and bring forth and because it's not unique to Danbury we do have the lead Grant which is

103a part of Connecticut's initiative to to resolve some of the problems and practice that exist right now due to the pandemic it's almost having to unlearn all the things that we were doing for this amount of time like a school culture and climate where it's like just stay home if you need to instead of a little bit about that um real quick will be a child that is slave in two hours or three would be completely absent or late so you have to be in school at least half the designated hours of a school day in order to become very important [Music] but if you've missed more than half this whole day um then then how did you keep track of attendance when school was closed so there were a lot of procedures let me

104tell you so it was touching base with um at certain points in the day virtually with teachers turning in assignments the state had very specific definitions around what counted as a remote school day so we followed those specific criteria and develop them with the teachers I made a lot of this SQL yeah we had other contact folks that were providing follow-up and we did reopen to sort of report support the remote Learners that were quarantined I mean it was an extreme effort it wasn't anything of all staff and particularly the teachers a lot of this during the time where students were remote learning it was on the backs of teachers to really engage these families and these teachers it was amazing it was really amazing lastly they'll leave brand on just that that has enabled

105us to have some additional resources both on Staffing Resources as well as the material resources and trainings for our staff to really enhance their knowledge and strategy based on how to engage our families and engage our families in school the purpose of it is really to do just a handful of things increase attendance at school increase engagement at school and then to support the successful outcomes of students particularly those that that experienced the most challenges and difficulties from an educational perspective during the pandemic so we you know we're only one of 15 districts across the state that have been the recipient of these funds this year we've received them last year we did as well we do not know about next year although I'm very hopeful but we have yet to hear about that but

106this has been a tremendous resource to us to be able to support this work and we're very fortunate to receive this funding if there's any other questions as you monitor The Chronic students do you see an improvement like at an individual basis without surveyors when you do the intervention yes so specifically what we do is we develop sheets for each school on a monthly basis we pull all the students who are chronically absent and what happens is the principle that facilitates with their staff how they're going to engage the families we then keep notes on that and then we are really seeing a change as you see like it's a slight decrease from last year but we're going the right direction and schools that have employed some of these strategies we're really seeing a change

107and what we keep saying to to folks is like keep engaging families even if you don't see the effects right away because the conversation you have now might not change the behavior at this minute but they might think twice about it next time so if they have that vacation planned that didn't seem like a big deal when we were kind of in a different place maybe next year they will think twice about scheduling that during school time yeah the other thing to remember just to add on to that is once you hit 18 days if you were here all year long you're going to be chronically absent right so there are some students that have already hit that threshold um but even still we may not be seeing the percentage of chronic absenteeism decreasing for

108those particular students but we're still trying to improve from now until the end of the year so there's not further learning loss um so we we keep track of both the chronic absenteeism rates but also the individual attendance rates by month for those students to make sure that we're seeing Traction in the right direction thank you foreign [Music] board members from videos or events attended anybody what they've been doing two I just want to say that have a great time with um green planes and Park Avenue it was very nice so it's just awesome I also went for the Pre-K at the Ellsworth Avenue Extension the other day this month hey what else can I jump in real quick I went to the city where I PTO meeting on Monday and I just wanted to

109mention that they have a number of folks who are going to be moving out of leadership positions at various ptos and at the city-wide level so if there are any parents who are watching this [Music] a question on some pranks on the pants and I guess we need to know where to start it's in the elementary school the young man keep coming home with the rotten apples and Rodney bananas so they don't get their food but the lunch people put the food on the trailer now correct by the children do not exchange fruit with other children and I noticed because my daughter my granddaughter said no but you don't do that so my question is you know if there's a concern that will oversees these people to make sure that they're not sinning or giving

110a kid or Rodney stuff you know it might look bad when they you know one of the spot by time the kid get home and and it had turned brown and it said it can't eat it that's good so um who saw I guess with a question of who oversees to make sure that no child is bringing anything bad about that or feeling in their lunch about coming home they can bring it to the attention of their building principle and our principal will call District office Mr Spang his office oversees the service the contracts for this group but Dr Amy and I have also had a series of meetings with families about concerns and these kind of questions from our dinner what's our attention we'll make sure it's been made aware of our unhappiness of

111what we're hearing from our students and parents because it didn't happen just once this happened you know it's been happening you know you know I know none of us want our kids to eat bad food or bag anything so you know you really have to be careful of what you're giving it's not good teacher we wanted to do right before thank you I just want to say about the student protests tonight I'm just upset that they didn't come to us first before going to the city [Music] well make their complaints no uh I guess it's about the lack of enough AP classes or bedtime and then um start here thank you sir last Thursday night there was a meeting in public school and I made an unannounced visit and attended that meeting that we shared

112the concerns of the parents we are there for them we do care and Mr Lawson did a remarkable job sir in a tense situation and uh there will be resolution I am sure I want to thank you for your efforts during that time sir thank you you have an ongoing investigation we will land on some resolutions so thank you um I mean we have a long a couple years before the Career Academy is in full swing I know I'm excited about I know everybody in the city so my question will be at a workshop how do we sort of bring this to full circle to look at it from a poor perspective as to what Danbury High School is going to look like when the move comes of what the Staffing is going to look

113like and how we're going to start learning that along you know we know we'll work with people the people that's going over to the academy you know they might not think that I'm the best qualified person that works at the Academy so I'm talking about stabbing and people getting have an animosity between another person that gets to go and I don't get to go so I think a workshop I saw a red must know what Danville High School is going to look like once it would change does that make sense we can incorporate that into the next yeah [Music] let's do it let's do it while we can right now um people directly from Ellsworth I just want to commend her for her presentation especially her short focus on academics her math s achievements I

114do appreciate all the academic achievement news that we have thank you Mary's been in this District a long time but I think I had a motion to adjourn by Teresa second second by June