001[Music] so Cara's gonna start it off and okay everyone so the purpose of this Workshop really just to kind of bring everybody back on board to the academy the purpose what we have planned from the very first time that we presented we lived a couple years ago and the board has since changed over so I think I've been at the pleasure of hearing other presentations but not not some you know in totality so um kind of bring a little bit of clarity around the work and also we're getting ready to start kicking off with some Community communication so that our families are more aware of what's Happening about what's available and the timeline of the process because there's also been some questions that we'll pass from I'd like to introduce a couple people at the
002table with me tonight obviously you know what the indomit is we have a friend's team tonight and mostly they do is our staff original administrator we've been all very instrumental and I will say yes with the other day we have the groundbreaking for the Academy which was very very special to me personally as many other people but there's been a lot of hard work that has gone into this Academy behind the scenes and Dan and I received some citations but Melissa could have easily received a friend I have a whole team at the University of high school has been working our group of Administrators have been working on a lot of operations behind the background of all the information as well okay with us for years to come with us so thank you okay so
003we'll get started okay I'm sorry okay um so as you you're well aware this is our DPS Vision about aspiring in 200 to advance all Learners to their Highest Potential and then our mission of course which really centers on that pivotal transformational learning word um which we're taking very seriously in the visioning of these of this Academy model so a lot of this work dovetails in and is part of our portrait of The Graduate so when we talk about what we want in terms of the vision for our students what we want student outcomes to look like and kind of experiences that students have that allow them to be well-rounded individuals that are ready for their world of work in college Beyond we have looked to our portrait of undergraduate to to lead the way
004in our thinking and to serve as the lens for all the work that we're doing and so there's been a lot of questions so how does this fortunately graduate the work on the academy and the shifts that we're making kind of all fit together where are we going to see how this plays out so we've been working through as you know developing a Continuum of the Portuguese graduate through delineating the characteristics of an advocate Communicator a collaborator an innovator and a learner and really having conversations about what that means at the high school level what that means of the Middle School level and now in development over the next year or so would be K-5 as well so that we have a K-12 Continuum of skills and attributes that were all working to kind of
005surround our students with and to support them so that they can achieve at greater levels um as we build curricular experiences as we bring on programming we will be integrating these attributes and experiences into the curriculum we're also going to be providing increased Early College opportunities which is super important um for for our students as well so in addition to nurturing these attributes making sure that they're well prepared for the walls Beyond Airway High School so the Career Academy concept is not new it's a little bit more new in this area it is part of New England we have seen many amazing models starting with our visit and trip to the academies of Nashville when we first started to understand a little bit more about the power of this model so career academies are designed
006to prepare students for College and Career there are schools within schools they help to personalize especially our large high school and to personalize the learning environment and they are schools that work deliberately with Community Partners peers teachers an instructional environment that Fosters academic success there are three key elements in a Career Academy and concept one is that we provide a much smaller learning community and you think of the size of Danbury High School you start to break that down and group students by like interest passions and games all of a sudden Things become more personalized or more meaningful and more focused not just for the teachers students for the families as well and that our community can come and support in these areas of Interest we are still providing the college preparatory sequential curriculum with
007a career theme this is not a technical high school but we'll be doing a lot of technical things with stem computers an amazing array of opportunities that only for students but all preparing students for college should they choose to do that what are the other unique elements to this is that there's an Advisory board that supports the school system and the actual academies and The Advisory Board is super important because that's where we bring in some Community investment piece so we're working with local areas like our Employers in the surrounding area higher education and community members so it's a true Community effort it's an investment and one that pays dividends down the road again to reiterate this is a rigorous career connecting curriculum is we are opening a wall-to-wall Academy so that means that every
008student goes into an academy we will have seven academies six that are eaten and one as a Freshman Academy experience we'll have up to 24 Pathways we currently have about 18 right now in development over time we hope to bring on on more as we build capacity you'll have access to the parents coursework will be a focused electives to achieve the students will engage in and these will also lead to opportunities to earn industry recognized credentials which I'll talk a little bit more about in the next slide a huge Focus around academies and career human academies is this idea of project-based learning so instead of the traditional talk at you teaching student teacher talk students respond kids are actually engaged in Hands-On real world projects that engage them in in their projects that they're that
009are related to the themes in their Academy but also other projects as well the selective electives if you want to call them usually Physicians kids to earn industry recognized credentials so a lot of students can end with industry credentials but also opportunities for our fed to shows out in the community so where did we get the ideas for the career clusters of the pathways that were selected so we've done a lot of research on this team Melissa may do is really really rigorous in her preparation for a lot of research that we use to develop the actionable academies and the pathways that we thought would be most valuable and important for students and we used National Career Cluster information we analyzed Regional Career Cluster information and then of course what we see here is the
010Connecticut career clusters so these are the career clusters that Connecticut has deemed that are in a high need area we also looked at the Department of Labor Statistics to inform the work so we're on the job opportunities for the job outlooks and then what are the local opportunities that exist right here in Danbury and in this area uh this is just a list of generic lists of Industry certifications to get an idea about types of certifications or other students it's not an exhaustive list and we will be pursuing these we have students these Pathways and building these over time so the timeline has been a little bit in question and I want to it's kind of important at this point to pause it to say you know we've heard a lot of there's been some
011confusion with parents as to when the Academy's opening when are we progressing and so while the building itself is not opening right for another year that it was originally intended to we are still progressing along our timeline and making some adjustments and some of that will be very complex on our part particularly on dance with the number of students that will be coming up to Denver high school but we're it's not going to stop the flow of curriculum the opportunities that we'll be working on for students in the intro so for example right now our current 8th graders in 2022 2023 will be our first cohort to come to the high school to be in the first graduating class of the Academies um in 2023 2024 it'll be the Russian sorry I haven't said that
012incorrectly 2022 2023 are your current eighth grade class the first cohort will begin in 2023 2024 and they'll engage in the initial career exploration course that we have prepared for that okay in 2024 2025 the essentials course um it will be for all students so that's really kind of a foundational pathway course so students will as they select their academies after freshman year they'll go in as a 10th grader they'll be in their academies and their Essentials courses the foundational course faculty in the area that they selected so for example we look on the second half of the stud at the bottom those are the foundational courses that will make a little bit more sense when we talk about program study guides and then in 2025 2026 those students will be headed towards their specialized
013courses so a student in eighth grade now um you know exit um we'll still be participating with us in this program regardless of whether or not the building was actually open just yet so that nothing's being paused in terms of the peripheral development so we'll still have those experiences if the building doesn't open um on time from the new with the new date that we'll have we'll have another some issues there but right now we think we can still continue forward I'd like Dan to talk a little bit about the academy and the sites and some of the programming that we have with us thank you all right here we are folks this is the most important thing not true that you have to take home tonight both of these because it came out not
014wrong but a little different when we first started this project both Academy sites fall under the umbrella of Danbury High School I think there was a lot of confusion when it first came out that there were going to be academies at this new site it was called Danbury career academies because that's your name the building important to understand that both of these these spots places Danbury High School and it was up there at the Danbury Career Academy is all under the academies of Danbury High School okay so let's all say academies of Danbury High School because I need you as the board events we make sure when you're talking to people that they understand because I still get a ton of them and get a lot of questions about that I'm only one so I'm
015hoping the more people we get to say the way it is which I know many of you have already had it'll get out to the families who made me want to that they are still part of dandruff High School there will not be a full-size auditorium at the new building to be refer to as the Danbury West Side campus it's DCA the public is known as sdca but we're going to call it the West Side campus for Danville High School but that doesn't exclude them from being part of our musical Productions sports teams there will be no Sports over at the Emory West Side campus I'm going to call the soccer club they're all going to come back to Denver high school they're still part of Danbury High School it's just in a different location
016one of the reasons that this wall started because we know in high school because of all socks as we were contemplating that three almost pre-covet it was how we were going to do that then Nashville came out and then we took this idea and said well if we're going to do it this is the model we want to do it this is the best thing we have going forward and we wanted it so the academies data roads so what does it look like the Danbury West Campus and the Denver High School main campus okay at Danbury West there will be two high school academies my classes are working emerging Technologies and scientific innovation and Medicine along with the middle school which we'll talk about a little bit later Innovation and design and thank you appreciate
017it and at Denver high school we will have a low vac shows for academies there are truly five because what's off of that slide is the one all the way up top where all of the students will be coming out of eighth grade we'll be going through Danver high school for that year for the grade 9 exploration and experiences that are making every student coming out of the heist of middle school and eighth grade will go to Denver High School from there they will choose probably in early January about late December when we're doing our expiration course which Academy the industry and then from there they may head to the Danbury West Campus as they hit 10th grade and the building's ready and four of those academies will remain at Danbury High School the plan
018right now has been to take those familiar with Denver High School the different levels in D Building create an academy on every level with you know we can't have all the new shiny stuff over on the west side so we've got some great plans going forward working with an Architects and things like that to happen here and chopping that huge another question that I received a lot of attention around was what happens to our ESL population as we know I think we are second in the state the highest ESL population this is for everybody wall to wall means everybody all students will be placed into academies from the moment they step into their real estate be coming into 9th Grade Academy all of them and from there our ell students will be choosing an academy
019just like everyone else we teach them along the way we do now with everything we will have ESL opportunities at both both campuses and anything that was offered at the one campus would be an offered I feel like when it comes to Max all right but with the exception of our newcomers for students that are brand new to us from a non-english speaking the country who need a little bit more support they will go to the new Commerce class or our new Commerce Academy majority over one majority of them are in ninth grade when they come here so they will be in a special Academy to get double the amount of the English language that they receive we have to separate it and from there they will choose an academy just like everyone else in
02010th Grade on they will Reservoir Academy sequences Kelly you want to talk about I will say for Kelly Stark's same exact model for special education there are a little bit some exceptions to this but sure so as Dan said similar to our ESL population our special education students their IEP and support services whether that's direct special education support or any related service h-o-t-p-t so forth will be provided at both sides the only difference to that will be some of our very highly specialized programs will be offered at one or the other sites this is very consistent with the way you do things at the elementary level where Pembroke for example houses our programs for students on the autism spectrum that need a special program we don't have a need to create sometimes two programs so
021if that is the case only through the PPT process which is the special ed planning and placement team meeting will the student be able to place replace that one school or the other um because of that specialized program and that is for our students with very significant needs other than that for the vast majority of students receiving special ed services they will follow the process just like every other student at daycare so experiences it's all based on student experiences as you can see as we go through each grade has a specific experience that they will be led to our exploration courses and pathway selections is the culmination of the Freshman experience we are planning and working very hard for each of our freshmen to take the exploration seminar course which was built off of out
022of our early college opportunity workplace course which we had fought show great progress for our students and the exploration course will be in the first semester at that point when they learned about the academies and we've had our nighttime sessions with the different academies and they're asking what they're doing we will turn around and make a pathway selection and celebrate that with our our ninth graders from 10th grade everyone will take What's called the essentials course for their pathway everyone in that and for their Academy everyone in the academy will take the same 10th grade course I think you'll see when we get to the program guides that this is not I'm joining one Academy all of my classes at Denver high school or the west campus will be Academy driven there will be one
023course per year that is Academy driven with some selective electives if they want to take them but if not I'm the Academy of bioscience medicine and I decided I want to take a business class so we'll get to that a little bit later uh 11th grade we start talking more about pathway electives that they can take and we introduce job shadow Mr Dean Brett Dean over here is working very hard very hard to get industry partners that allow us to job shadow during the day for students I know right now our CNA classes do it at the hospital for internships and things like that they do some job chef and then when we hit 12th grade our Capstone class as it sits right now at Denver High School will change dramatically and themed to the
024academy pathway that they are in as a culminating project to show the successes and relates directly back to the portrait of a graduate and all the attributes that are required hopefully we will have a tremendous amount of internships for students and it's going to be very difficult to try to place upwards of 800 students in internships and not everyone may have the time and they're scheduled to do it or the interest we are going to try our best to any student that wants an internship in the local business we'll have that opportunity so what is the Freshman experience as you know we've had a Freshman Academy for 15 years now I'll say I'll develop that before I took it over in four principles but we've changed it a little bit so that our exploration seminar
025course very important as I mentioned for us to have it in the first semester at Denver High School not just for them to be familiar with the academies there are a bunch of ways that we can do that from Nighttime through Flex to special presentations but all the things that you see up there the team building the research digital literacy financial literacy all of those we find are extremely important team building being number one because if we can start building a sense of community at Danbury High School early on in their freshman year that'll pay dividends for another three and a half years for us you know we have exciting classes up there already like peer leadership you've already put those things forward but that's much later in the students career we're going to try
026to front load them in this course so that students coming in will build that sense of what Danbury High School is even though they are splitting off some academies in 10th Grade they are all hackers the Career College exploration you know we're going to bring in a lot we've always asked our Partners not for money which is unusual for them the three T's the time treasures and talents and we ask for their time and that they send people to us they come in and if you're an engineer you're going to commit and talk to our engineers you're a doctor you're going to come in and talk to the Box science class we're going to go find these industry Partners who are willing to commit and we found that they love to do it overall majority
027love to give back to the kids and come in and have conversations and those students when they're there or being interested in something are going to be even more interested in the exact Academy that they chose and we'd love to know the opportunity we're working very hard for this right now to have at least one college campus visit like I said with our size it's a little difficult to bring that many but when you break it down into the small learning communities that we'll have for the academies it will be easier for us to bring a freshman from you know maybe going to this cabin in the second half of the year to something they find more interesting than just visiting account very hard with our local colleges and universities for this so how do
028we how do we get picked into our academies well as I said late December early January we'll have a lottery and the lottery system will be the same as it is for the elementary middle schools you're going to take and hopefully it would be awesome if everyone picked their got their first choice I'm not sure that would happen we're hoping that through our course that we educate them enough that they're making a decision for them based on their interest and not based on say social groups where their friends are going to choose because I want to go to the new building because I want to stay at the old building but something that they truly have an interest in and that will make school itself more interesting you know are we allowed to transfer students
029coming in and are students allowed to switch through academies we really haven't gotten that far yet as we're doing it but yes there's room in academy for someone to switch to then yes but the industry certification that they may receive at the end maybe in Japanese they need to go through all of the classes you can say sometimes transfer students will receive a lot of materials before making their pathway selection when they come in I think that's what's going to happen when you choose you know some some considered as a junior something depending on the availability but that has an interest in that good question Matt um on the lotteries it works similarly to the way the Middle School website works if you someone applies for a global or they apply first time so they
030have to pick them up a specific Academy that they want to go through pick three give us your top three okay maybe you know and we're trying to shoot everyone get their Wanda you know I don't see how it's going to work uh everyone in May you know we did an interest survey with the staff pretty interesting one Academy came out a little bit more than anything else but then the rest of the staff it was kind of even going around it was very interesting to find out that credentials and what teachers did before they came on Board of Education because there is a just a there's a you know right when we went to what part of our visit in our learnings we went to Nebraska and we visited a really amazing Academy out
031there and one of the questions we've had was around the lottery process as well and Brett was followed up and has been in contact of the executive principal at that school system because they used a company to facilitate the lottery process where they they have a very high percentage of getting students within their top three choices so it's almost impossible to give everybody their first choice but it's possible it's possible to to randomize so that you get everybody within their first couple of choices that they're that they're interested in and so there are there are ways for us to make sure that we're you know satisfied with many children as possible and the choices um and so the first year the lottery process we also talked about winning the lottery as a backup so that
032they make sure that we're doing this uh not just the first time with one facilitator that we haven't done it up as well I know sorry why a lottery versus doing it based on student interest and Merit filling those top choices first and then having discussions with children that you know that you know they're not fitting into those top choices because they're not putting forth as much effort as you know say there's a child in the 40 and there's a child with a hundred and the child with 100 doesn't get into their Top Choice and the 40 child does like why isn't it okay it's my lucky day sure um we've had this question before right we've actually already had some conversations around these things so first you know the lottery the lottery process it's
033not we're based in the sense that you're you're a smarter student you're an academic so you get to pick you get to pick your passions and pursue your passions this is about all kids and so we want to make sure and these these academies are accessible um to everybody so there's challenge within academies there are college level prep courses and there's events placed along with horses and college opportunities where you see so there are ways for students to Excel and achieve in all of the academies and at different levels um and so you know the idea of the academy is that one Academy is not more uh prestigious or so than another but rather it's based on our students interests lie and that they have a choice the whole premise of this is that students
034um areas that they are very passionate about and so if we start saying you're you know you get all A's um that's not what I'm saying I'm saying like a lottery doesn't guarantee and I know you're saying you can make it work however but it's just it's frustrating for me to hear that we're putting it as another Lottery like west side or you know it's just so frustrating because I just feel there's a better way to do it that children are going to benefit and families are going to benefit from actually getting into an academy they want versus like this Lottery and hoping for the best I just I understand what you're saying and I get it but I just I know there's a better way to handle it I know there has to be
035I'm sorry [Music] um this is the first we've heard officially that it was going to be a lottery yes and are you going to hire a company like Nebraska to do the lottery or if not who's going to do the lottery there's a third party so that's another cost to the budget correct just following up so this app and Tech I think they actually have the teachers weigh in correct habitat has the teachers way in and they kind of help guide that project right so it's not a blind Lottery correctly actually you know yeah like the reason or excuse me the reason for that poll was exploratory or we have a time frame that they go through all the academies kind of get a understanding of what they are and then they are kind of
036go with the teacher or the guidance and kind of together work hand in hand and select those three and then you know eventually we find out which one they get but and then it isn't just I'm trying to automatically we don't know who you are and lucky to draw so so part of the part of the part of the component The Freshman experience is to have our guidance counselors also to provide and shape and the freshmen the career exploration course there's opportunities also for guidance part of the curriculum experience would be the students will get to understand what each Academy offers and what that curriculum looks like and the rigors that are are within there so there is a counseling compete component embedded in that freshman experience to help guide students to and it's also
037about students exploring their course as well so what am I interested in where are my passions and how do how do these choices fit into that so there is a counseling component to it um it's not necessarily prescribed as I think you should only you know academies it's more you need more along the line these are all the academies offer what is of interest to you and do you understand the career trajectories with that I just want to add I mean to me personally I'm a fan of the lottery only because if you have a passion for something that let's say you're a student who doesn't do well in regular classes but you have a passion for you know business or something like that by getting it having the opportunity to get into that Academy
038you might thrive in that Academy that so and and Lottery base is is the you know best way to make everything equal across the board and that is what we found in our in our experiences visiting quality academies that we've been to and understanding um you know the real engagement Factor behind it is it is in the power of that which you just described this daily I don't like what you said either me as a group a lot of us tournament just said uh you know what we couldn't come up with the system that was when we take their first quarter grades in the transition field like that's where we got stuck I understand and I don't mean their academic classes I mean what they've been engaged in in their exploratory place as Michelle was
039saying like so you know if they pick one of the academies and they were really they didn't enjoy it and they didn't you know do well in it the teacher knows that right and they pick that as their Top Choice and they get in just because they feel that's going to be the easiest one for that or they take it for some unknown reason and they get in that Academy right as their first choice I just feel there needs to be more of just a lot of you system because that other child who picked it as their first choice who may have done better who may have been more successful in that exploratory phase I just I mean I know the answer and I'm just it's a I'm very passionate about this because I understand
040it can work better um it can work differently than a lot of nurses not better it can work differently just for clarifications on my side yeah okay just for clarification sake so we're still doing four years of English language and we're still doing so we're still doing language so the child still has the option to do four years of Chinese yes so these Pathways although critical introductions to a variety of different environments working post High School experience they're just a piece of the of the overarching high school experience actually so we're still taking math we're still taking science and Arts correct so I understand how complex it is to open the schedule and the complexity of my experience with the size of Denver high school so I'm going to suspect that there'll be students in
041the pathways who don't get the classes that they want anyway and that's just part of the highest normalized planning experience I understand about the lottery system that I think because the students are also going to be experiencing all kinds of things that the more traditional classes yes yes just to clarify too and I know they've been one of the reasons why we're doing this presentation again and kind of coming to the circle there was a there was a point in time and maybe looking around at who's on the board at the time when we first conceptualized all of this um here tonight but she definitely was at the table as well there was a really strong urge on the board at that time that the academies were going to be open to everybody that was
042that came through loud and clear and that was something that you know we have also held on to um in our planning and in terms of even thinking through accessibility for our second language Learners and our special populations as well and making sure that everybody has access to students I think um if I we could go through maybe the rest of the press I know this is we knew that this was going to be um a hotter topic than probably anything else in the presentation we can certainly feel Impressions about it and discuss it um at the end and maybe in to your point about the experience we have a program study guide which I would love to get to and show you that might that would be a concise the point that you just
043said given our 6 30 time frame I'm wondering if we may have to come back again just to make sure that the board has an opportunity to ask some questions given the workshop invitation tonight I don't know whether the appropriate place to stop but I I think it's important to have some time to ask some questions kind of giving the Investments you want to stop here I I well I don't remember what's left and I don't know if this is a natural transmission yeah a lot of them yeah so we'll just certainly you know for two Workshop but I I don't want to leave tonight yeah I mean questions start do we have access or do we have a quick child about your presentation um so this this will be posted on the website so
044you can share it with everybody here oh yeah perfect thank you you're welcome okay so also included in this presentation and the reason why this is very small um but we we wanted to make sure that we provided a little more detail um than some little other charts that are a little bit more high level and so these will eventually get posted on on the website for parents and for those two to start to look at so we wanted to provide more descriptive information about each of the pathways and sort of the intended experiences that so we're not going to read all of these to you tonight but you will you know you want to make these accessible to our to our families and to our students as we start to really spread the communication
045word about the academies so people can have an understanding about which each Academy is about and where the pathways contained with it and so the appropriate guide getting into more granular even than what in slides previous is really a program sheet that students will be able to understand the kind of the sequencing of those electives in their course of study and so along with your regular graduation requirements they'll see how those CTE courses and foundational courses and exploration course fits in and also some suggestion options that they might want to explore with their passions uh things are other profit that they're in and so the program of study is really just delineates and helps students to better understand and make those choices and also these are great resources to provide some without counseling on about
046where they find themselves where they would like to see themselves and the kinds of courses that they would be up for so some of the courses um the options again at different levels of college revenue and advanced study have different levels of breaker and students will see those in these planning sheets and be able to make some good decisions parents can see these as well and as well as their counselors okay so those are your typical all your graduation requirements are there those are suggested aligned courses your standard courses that all students have to take and then there are electives and whatever students have additional choice to be on the yellow kind of careening across the middle of that sheet outlines the sequence that is that is that defines really the pathway so primarily around
047the CTE courses so you see ninth grade is our acceleration seminar that's a happier course at the end of ninth grade students are really kind of making those those decisions about whether they want to be they'll have full access to these program guys so they can understand the courses that they would engage in in their in their 10th grade they take their foundational course all students within an academy the same Academy have the same Foundation course so when you're talking about a a an academy that's really focused on engineering and different facets of it the the beginning course the entry-level course is very similar to all and then it branches out in grades 10 and 11 and is differentiated with different electives wanted more introductory and we want one and more we have highly suggested
048electives that students who are interested in this uh in in this field may want English to pursue pursue but also again they're elective so they can pursue and choose other things as well if they have other interests but majority of the classes out there are your typical high school classes and the variety of choices that we at different levels that we that we currently have now so none of that is new in addition to the program study guides students will have an opportunity as we develop these further out to understand what Technical and career organizations they can participate in what are the work based learning experiences that might be of interest to them what are the industry level certifications that are available in this pathway that they can pursue any type of dual enrollment courses
049that are that that we are engaging in that we will be offering and also about ones that may be out in the community that they can do on their own in addition post-secondary curricular ties so programs that are um that are that go beyond the walls of Danbury High School that might be available to them and then understanding a little bit about high-wage high skill job and careers demands and so as we continue to build all of the resources around this these two shows these two will also build out and provide a lot of information for students again to help make decisions in Venezuela's parents to offer guidance and so how does all this curriculum get developed in these in the specialty elective areas and so that's where our industry Partners partnership comes into play
050a lot of our teachers have tremendous skills set um in variety areas and one of the the most interesting things is seeing when we surveyed our staff about their interests beyond what they're certified in jobs that they had before they became a teacher a mid-second career jobs or their hobbies and other things they have going on we had a a wide array of teachers with an amazing background and talents in the district but um it does not substitute for direct industry content knowledge in people who are currently working in the field and so we want to take those passionate people that are teachers who are interested in developing the pathway uh more curricular experiences and programming and pair them with industry partners and look that work looks like this spring is that we will select
051pathway development leaders so these are folks who've just posted this uh this work for teachers who are interested to identify a pathway that they're interested in participating in and working and serving as a liaison through schools who work to develop these more robustly over the next couple of years and that they're willing to sit down with industry Partners to tap that content knowledge that they have that only they can have to help provide creative and Innovative experiences for students and then to also partner with them over time and so February those folks will be selected we have a lot of people who more interested in that we intend to have an industry partner design Sprint and that's where we'll have a facilitated session with our industry partners and faculty leaders and our curriculum folks who
052supervise those areas and then we'll start to lay out the the outlines for the program experiences in the form of of curricular units for those courses and so the first year so next year we're really we have our Freshman Academy course and so then this year this spring and summer we'll be working to build that foundational course in all the academies it's going to be the first the first round of work and then the electives after that follow after that so we're very excited about the collaboration between managing partners and our teachers which will be very exciting and directly working really hard to bring those interesting parts to the table for us no pressure gravity a lot of it and then our teachers were very excited to have this and so I'll move through this
053a little bit more quickly I think I've mentioned several times before that the bar Foundation has supported a lot of our work in this area they've supported our professional learning everyone we won't meet all these two who have access to those but they've also supported us in terms of our ability to go and see these Academy models and stuff and to work with people who've been doing it to understand where their missteps were to understand where their successes that could applied and things that they would do again if uh if they had to so we definitely have learned a lot and continue to be supported by bar for the next year or so behind the scenes we have Staffing realignments so again is working hard but um thinking through where our folks would like to
054be positioned in the academy model the further development we're finding where the lottery process was clearly our classic questions around that uh refinement of our Career College our career exploration course we've got some folks working on that right now development of our electives establishment with academic Partnerships we're writing a communication Road shows to start having conversations with our with our parents and our families and especially our students and we have our teams engaged in continuous learning we are engaging in Industry collaborations already and we have some exciting stuff on the horizon of University Partnerships and early college opportunities I'm going to have Melissa to speak about our curricular advancements and some really incredible Partnerships that we have that we're developing now so the process that Carol just laid out working with our pathway leaders is
055some of the work that I'm engaging in in the last couple of years to Pilot some of the models of how we work with industry and what we've learned from them to inform our curriculum so the first opportunity we had was building tomorrow's Workforce with ready CT and this provided us with the opportunity to send our own teachers out into the field and I'll illustrate this with one example there's a local business here that I want to give an a free promos to them but they're right around the corner from us they're a manufacturing facility we sent teachers to go view what they do what skills they need from students and that inspired one of my science teachers to explore their least water management system and so through that exploration we have two field trips
056running for students to go to their facility and learn more about how they treat waste water there since they are a food packaging facility is as well so we're still hitting our science standards through this experience but it gave her the opportunity to really make that Learning Place based for the kids and it also gave the kids the opportunity to go and see that facility through our next Generation sector Partnerships we've been working with the Northwest Regional Workforce board on two collaboratives one in healthcare and one in manufacturing these Partnerships have been wonderful for the Northwest Regional Workforce board because it actually allowed us the opportunity to apply for two federal grants that are supporting the work in healthcare and Manufacturing for Health Care we've been working with new Vans and other local providers in
057the area to provide a experience during the summer for students to go and work in the hospitals experience different facets in the medical field so you know it's not just about nursing we need building specialists so through that internship process they'll go through and explore all of the different facets that let the hospital run and let medical medical facilities operate so that they can actually understand what it means to work in a medical field the manufacturing partnership is a little bit different it's exploring how to have more opportunities for students to learn coding and Robotics through from middle school through high school but it also is an opportunity for some of our counselors eventually to understand how there's numerous Pathways for graduates to enter the manufacturing field which is a very lucrative career and so
058that we can better inform our students of the opportunities that are out there and then finally um Erica which stands for the institute for real world education and curriculum advancements that's run out of Southern Connecticut University we have completed our Medical Technology pathway and we're just beginning to work on our communication and Design Academy and so the work that was done with the medical technology pathway paired us with two different industry partners and my team worked with them to understand well what does it mean to work in a field where you're designing medical devices to support somebody's Health like you have these very like very large engineering and also medical knowledge that's needed to coalesce into an experience so working Hands-On with those two industry Partners we were also able to send teachers out to
059their facilities but to gain a better understanding of how do you as a instructor put kids through opportunities to not only learn about how you're going to design a medical device but also what type of processes do they use so we were interested introduced to a process called the apqp process which is Advanced product quality planning so it's a way for kids to communicate around the design of something that they're designing from start to finish and getting input from others in the class to improve upon their design which you would be able to connect to a Pog attribute of being able to communicate and collaborate which are two skills that you would want to see in the workforce designed around Highway specialized pathway I'm just going to talk a little bit about our partnership updates
060from here so knock on Old doors has been paying off as you can see we have 50 plus Partnerships and I will say that our community is super invested into what we're dealing with as a school system so I'm really excited about what's in store for these students but also for the teachers as well so if you want to go through the next one I want everybody to understand that yes we do have business and Community Partnerships but we also have those Canadian organizations as Melissa alluded to that uh we're talking with different people for a reason so Torrington Waterbury Harbor area to talk about what those industry needs look like and how we can work with them as an educational system to make that into a reality so that to sustain our Workforce so
061we think it's time to get in front of the community to talk about our plans about the academies and how they can get involved so if you have certain things coming up so that our families can know what's going on making those questions about our processes and what we hope to do that as a school [Music] but this is going to be big connector in different housing areas uh departments within the high school um they have a lot of questions that I have to enjoyed having one of the ones with them but my most favorite event was coming over again February 27th event I think it's important for our educational staff to get in front of patient parents that they're currently doing their work outside of Connecticut so I have them connected with different people
062and Nashville different people in Virginia Pennsylvania's work so they can ask those hard questions about some of the challenges that they may be facing now additionally we have another event for our business and Community organizations coming up March 30th we need them to know what engagement opportunities are available for them I have different businesses and organizations connected with them as well uh those are from Nashville Tennessee I want them to go ahead and understand what the engagement opportunities look like and how they can also benefit their their company and how they can uh you know benefit our economy as a whole so it's not about that day and we're doing that in collaboration with the game Area Chamber of Commerce too so just going back with the makeup this makeup of this whole thing we
063have to understand too that advisory boards these things will help Drive the work that we do within these schools each student will be a part of Academy and we'll have all of these entities sitting at the table to plan measure our success and to do what's needed to ensure that everybody is grown you'll have all these people sitting at the table but success teachers will be there as well so when you talk about a student in an academy they will have the same group of teachers sophomore Junior and Senior year be talking about social media learning Behavior academics and attendance they are focusing in on that student and making sure they have those needs necessary to make it into the real world so these advisory boards will be crucial to how we move as a
064high school and I guarantee you with the business and Community engagement that we will see in time you'll see a huge impact our missing you're missing Board of Education remember on an Advisory Board should be the top of the list no what's that board of education members not on The Advisory board so you are business and Community Partners you are more than welcome to be your heart um okay so next Thursday sorry somebody should have told you before it's okay uh next steps which is creating protocols and it was beginning count partner time and best and support for people to know the amount of time our partners are putting to our students so we do start to see gains in every single area we need to know what that looks like and it's a couple
065of other things that we're doing behind the scenes as well to make this a little ownership um this this information was really presented in another budget meeting so I just wanted to make sure that that was in there history questions about our processary those are the that was from the staff and presentation a while back so [Music] is that what the I'd rather have my questions in the next and following Workshop you don't have to stop disability as many questions as you feel comfortable I send a follow-up sheet out as well and try to answer those as well Ms Cooper I just um want to ask the question because I I think when we're doing something like this it's best to at least have the student and a parent involved and my question my question
066would be I had to sort of get together but the once the lottery is over we know who's going in the academy in that particular grade is there any Plan before we put those students in that classroom to really sit down with those students and their parents and say this is what their expectations are for the student this is what we expect in a chance to do to help support those students oh people threatened because I think the degrees we're doing this is exactly what you said because when I do my March 6th presentation to incoming freshmen coming this year or when I do the open house at Danbury High School six seven hundred maybe come to that but now we're talking an Academy of each grade level about 134 and now that Academy director
067is going to be responsible for getting in touch with 134 fans the whole thing is to shrink this down you know so that it's manageable to do that there's no way that we can contact everyone at Denver high school if we can go at it grade by grade so you come into the Academy of biomedical you're going to have convenience you're going to have you're not getting involved we're going to do it we're gonna have some special things for them celebrations parent engagements but at that level it's much easier for us to invite 134 parents to the auditorium you can see this is specifically for your child for the next three years and get better engagement than just saying DHS thank you I wasn't gonna ask but um you said 134 that will be the
068initial number for the lottery right for each path we come in okay so what will happen I mean I know I'm way ahead well what happens if any of your students going through the same um umbrella I mean going through the same entrance in Danbury High School has what will happen to students if um once they decided to move out of the uh Academy two what happens if they get spelled because they might be missing I mean it's not the same educational level from one to the other and I mean what happens well we didn't say they will be sent out to the same I mean um programs that we have been sending send them in so far because I mean it will be like uh sure I see it is a kind of two
069different parts of that a lot of the student who's out there are high school construction sophomore junior year everything they're doing will go into another high school we receive transcripts from a new place where they belong when they come in we'll give you credit for this this and this and as you saw on the program guide that Highland Park going across is the one class that'll be specific to that cap so if you're in the biomedical and we have the essentials course going in there there's a science credit that can be attached to that in a different school you know so they can have that otherwise they're still taking this question before English net signing Soul studies it'll be algebra one on a transcript it'll be English one or English two on the transcript the
070difference is English too and this won't be reflected on the transcript will be specific tailored to a little bit same skills and everything that Melissa was discussing but has a theme around it and that theme will be that pathway how to be specific so when they're learning about English too it's a little bit different for an engineer than it is for maybe someone knows yeah so they're a big female okay yes but if I go out of your Academy if I'm starting them all the time and I'm taking engineering right I'm gonna meet those classes eventually at some level part if you get expelled and you get sent to to reach you will not be in the same amount in the same extensions classes as it is there because unfortunately it happens we will have
071probably kids expelled from different academies exactly but that's more Point how how we're going to balance that in order to get it back into the academy or back into the high school because eventually they will have different levels of Education yes yes so one right today I'll speak to what we do today right if I'm taking um piano at Danbury High School right we don't offer that course Outreach today what we do is we offer a comparable elective so that that student can continue to make progress towards their program so our students will always be guaranteed their core content areas plus electives if they go to one of our explosion programs um correct that we're not going to receive the biomedical you know information so we will need to you know work through upon their
072return where is the best placement for that student but they will have opportunities just like they do today to continue to make progress toward their graduation requirements in the core contents and then we tweak and make some slight changes to the electives the other thing that I can share just with um what we're looking to do with the reach program comparable is to also give them career exploration opportunities and experiences and some work out in the community as appropriate depending on the individual situation to the child so it will not be the same but they will also be engaged in career exploration and different project-based learning opportunities for program so that they can transfer back so it's not much different than what we do currently if you have a schedule right now with you know
073seven different courses on there you're guaranteed you're four or five and the core academics when you go to reach but most of the students have changes to their elective area courses just because we don't offer all 100 collectives that we offer thank you okay sorry um oh yeah just one question so freshman year they're going into the exploratory program um then we have the lottery the end of freshman year that will happen with their top four around that yeah so it'll take us a little time okay and so they get into say they're not they don't get into their number one they get into them is there opportunity to then move or once you're in an academy you're in that Academy and that's it for the three opportunity to move around depends on the availability
074of where they are I mean you know for some strange reason this student is over here says I want this is switch from here to this Academy this will sure well especially what comes into Jeffries if you do that say grade 11 or after grade 11 that credential or certificate that we're talked about then kind of becomes in Jeopardy because you may not have that course sequence to get all the way through so if you get there and one of the bonuses of this also is I'm going to be a doctor I know I'm going to be a doctor I get in there I'm taking my medical class to go through it guess what out of Kings so guess what I do when I'm going to college I'm not going to be a doctor so
075it saves time and money right then and there is it perfect can we offer everything like a college campus no I can't we just can't do that but yes there is opportunity for them to switch depending on availability if it involved thank you how much has it been cost for the lottery results for lottery the gender handling it or anywhere else set appointment three thousand thank you [Music] earliest discussions like I said this is the first time for it's going to be a lot of yeah [Laughter] what we already have will you be sharing the curriculum that's going to be developed for the for the academies yes so so the first the first stage is so you know we have what I would call a lot of resources right now that we're Gathering [Music] we
076have resources that we gather around all of these Pathways and we are going to be spending a lot of time so kind of a believer that we are we're engaging in lots of um university conversations um probably post-diversity as well they origami conversations with right now they also had a lot of curriculum to fit in the pathways and can also offer a dual credit for students so we'll be going through a process of of laying out the different curricular options along each each pathway the in terms of the actual development so we'll have curricular outlines or use totally by the end of the summer based on some of the work that gets done this spring but again that foundational course the kids are not taking the foundational course until the following year so the kids
077will come in and fall of 2023 and so the first course would be that career simulation course and so that should be ready to show probably by the end of the year for sure and then this group will be working to craft those foundational courses after they meet with the industry Partners to say what are all the initial Concepts that we want to make sure are embedded in this course that will provide a solid foundation make sure that we have that so we'll definitely talk about all those end courses those will be the first ones we'll be working on those not just in some of the further the course of the most that happens next year as well of course I'm going over time access to those um what's nice about this you know their
078students have you know they understand what graduation requirements they're showing showing the former study guide like this really allows them to see the different options and the way that they can buy courses um to achieve something and so while there is there's a lot of Industry credentials that are available to students not everybody's going to want to pursue all of those some will be embedded in courses and similar ones that students would say you know people put a 10 out of 10 hours worth of study you can also pass these two or three industry connections as well and they would work outside of that so some of the courses will by Nature being participating in the course of taking an assessment at the end and some will be a little bit more foundational to pursue
079those in addition to other things that we offer Kevin you were going to say before I I just wanted to make a board chair so I just wanted to follow up on the conversation about the lottery and I do think we're going to need further discussion on it the discussion one I'm very concerned about the idea of students getting in baseball Merit we I need the board to understand that we'll have issues with access and I feel like we can have concerns about liability for the board and for us as a district um I have concerns about access for special ed students I have concerns about access for our multilingual learning students and then I have concerns about access for all and so with the idea of defining Merit is I think a subjective term
080we can certainly make it objective but again if we take this hard line you're going to be a number of students automatically that don't have access to their first choice as an account so I I agree this is the first time you're hearing it and we do need to come back and I think have more discussion about it but I I just wanted to share initially like I have concerns about not having an objective Lottery process because I feel like it exposes Us in ways we I'm not sure because it will immediately make ensure that certain kids do not have access I'm not sure we want to be enabling but to your point there may be better ways to do this or other ways to do this you know certainly because you can explore those
081I heard the question about Abby Tech our numbers are quite different from that attack and it would require I think a lot of counseling from ninth grade going to 10th grade level trying to figure out what that looks like or a lottery is probably minuscule compared to the additional staff we would need to help pull that off every year just in terms of man first second third and fourth Troy training Council kids now but I again I I understand the feedback from this evening and understand the Republican needs some follow-up discussion on your gift so I just wanted to share that before of course thank you you believe any time we're the ones so just turn me again