001and um we'll start we should stand for the pledge i think um okay so i guess we'll start with that i pledge allegiance to the of the united flags of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with invisible liberty and justice [Music] okay um so luisa is not here tonight so i do need a secretary is there anybody that can be a secretary for me michelle um or theresa i mean i won't ask you the only thing is i i'm hearing a piano and it i can't sorry thank you [Music] why wouldn't you ask me lauren i mean can you do that and drive [Music] okay so so good evening everybody um thanks for joining this afternoon um certainly a nice day so we will get the show
002on the road here so maybe you can get a an hour of sunset somewhere as it's going down so okay so i did send out uh the slide deck you can find that slide deck in your um in your google drive so uh ralph i did not share it with you but i will do that as soon as we have a break i'll make sure that you're shared on that so just the you're welcome and so just the summary um items uh for today that were sent out through the agenda was just a brief update on the state literacy progress um just to give you an idea of where the state is is at with that um we're going to have we have some great guests tonight we have christy carboni mary jo borman who
003are two of our math um coaches uh two amazing uh coaches and employees for us in the district that have just done amazing work with our students at the k5 level in math they're also super essential during covid and kept uh the lesson the math lessons flowing at a very critical time so they were instrumental so you get to meet them tonight laura mead who's our math supervisor will also be presenting with them along with melissa nadew a little bit later on so we will have a math celebration and highlight segment um well kelly will talk about the updated um state mandated iep training and counseling curriculum and then i'd like to share with you just to give you an idea some of the drafting work that's happening in the background with the program of
004study development with the academies to give you a little snapshot of the types of things that we're working on and melissa need will take you into the medical technology pathway to use that as a great example of um to give you a sense of the work that that we're engaged in so without further ado so um right now if you've been following um and if not that's okay it is uh not a super exciting journey uh just yet the status has been a little bit slow with updating on the literacy committee progress but what they have done starting may 4th is that they've opened up um a solicitation window for schools to submit programs for consideration so in addition to some of the programs that they are are researching um districts have an opportunity to
005put their program of choice on the list and so danbury has begun the application process for the being a reader which is the program that we currently have although we are advocating for the being reader 2.0 version so there's a new version that's coming out that would be a simple upgrade without having to buy all new materials simply a couple components and add-ons that we would want to see um that were uh more in line um and in line with some of the components that the state is looking at and i did um this is a live linking you can get this in your powerpoint presentation i'll just pull this up very quickly this is an evidence-based rubric that the state is using as part of the review process so for districts who want to
006submit something they have to write descriptors so there's criterion there's indicators and the descriptions of the evidence and so in order to be to submit an application package you have to take your current program and you have to run a one-to-one on all of these the criteria the indicators and this and the descriptions and so i think right now we have pam pam dalton and i've been uh working on this pam is heavily involved um and she's she's the main driver at this point but she is i think on 25 pages of evidence that have to be written and explicated and show the direct nexus and alignment to the evidence in the in the uh in the rubric and so is quite involved um in terms of the process and uh there are a couple
007other districts um in the state that are using this um she's actually going to go out tomorrow to meet with with one of the schools um just to see uh where they are in their process and to to make sure that we're you know we're having some discussions about the application and about about kind of next steps so just in terms of uh collaboration with another another school district who are using it so so you can see that the rubric is quite involved we are working on that we are submitting application for our current program being the reader um 2.0 version so that's really the update we have some you know time to go before they close that window may 25th and then at that point they'll start reviewing again we don't really expect to
008hear anything about the list that's posted until until the summer a little bit later so as soon as we get that list i'll be happy to circle back um committee media no me no meeting and provide an update to this group uh so that they're informed of what is taking place and what the next steps are for for our groups okay there any questions on that no okay michelle i was just wondering what is the school that we're comparing it to is it similar in size or well it's not necessary yeah it's just it's really more about um so there's a school in in bridgeport um i think it's called new beginnings and this is a small company so the collaborative classroom and the being re program it's not one of those massive companies so
009um so it's not like it's there's not a ton of schools big schools that have adopted it per se yet because they're a small small company um and so there are there where we have found schools that are using it um it's always important to reach out and collaborate and and talk about best practice and how are you leveraging the program what the results are you seeing are you happy with it um and then to also sit and talk to them about their process in this journey as well um just to reach out as in in partnership so we know very little about how they're using it what they're doing but it's always good to to connect on those things um especially when we're you know we're really only a year and a half into
010this into this program so um it's really more for informational purposes and to just to learn at that point right pitfalls and stuff this is one of the five programs that you would mention there were two and then there was the one that we were using right that you're saying is now yeah so this is the one yep this is the one that we are using and then there were two there were two editions core knowledge and art core and those are the two kind of big premiere programs that we were yeah these are going to be on the list like there's no way that they're not and and so we started to look at those um it but it changed the game a little bit when they called for an open solicitation of programs
011so it allowed for an opportunity to say well this is why we think being a reader is a pretty good program that you you can consider and so we'll take that under advisement um there may or may not be other districts that are using it you know widely um and and that could help or hinder it but it really depends on that evidence-based criteria you know is whether or not they will say okay it appears that there's enough evidence to meet the needs of providing a high quality foundation for students and so we just won't know what that what that will be until they drop the list to the public yes teresa thank you um so the state is going to uh mandate across the board a program for all elementary literacy programs correct so
012they'll post a list of five foundational programs that you can that you can use so you can choose out of the five yes yes and they may provide an alternative route and that maybe perhaps another app we had heard that there would be a waiver process we don't know if this solicitation of programs for consideration is part of that waiver process we don't know what that would look like so you can um i would imagine that if a school district i'm i'm making this up i would imagine if a school district is achieving at super high levels of reading literacy and they're using a particular program but it's not on the list but they can demonstrate that that it's working in some way perhaps a waiver might might be you know there could be a
013waiver that would go along with that um so we don't know what that looks like it's a little bit tricky to to speculate so i want to be be careful that we're you know i don't want to put false information out there but i could only assume um that you know there will be a potential waiver process but you know if if if a you know if the state is suggesting a particular program we should we should heed um you know heed that information okay so if i get more information i'll certainly update the group we don't have to wait for a meeting to to get that information okay all right thank you you're welcome um so now i would like to just again introduce you to chrissy mary jo borman and laura meed i'm
014not sure if christie's on tonight you know she wasn't feeling well but if she's not with us we wish her well she certainly has been putting in a lot of hard work amongst the other uh k5 literacy coaches as well but i do want to um allow laura meade and her team to talk a little bit about some of the great things that are happening in math there's been a tremendous amount of work um to to build teachers understanding of mathematical practices and to get students to also to be thinking like mathematicians and be thinking mathematically so i will let laura take it away to talk a little bit about the work that's going on there with our students no idea okay i'm not sure why it's not let me share you cannot mute us
015we're muted we are here hi we are not yet um so mary jo and i are actually in the um same room together mary jo has been helping me um i am dr laura mead i am the k5 stem supervisor and i have been in district for approximately 28 years um if you can include my subbing plus 30 uh and i have what happened you're not laura you went on you okay so mary's mary jo's computer just quit zoom [Laughter] so i'm going to continue on good thing we have both computers going um i will continue on here um and with me tonight is mary jo borman what are you there we go mary jo gorman um and and yeah if you can uh mary jo is going to try and share her screen because
016she has the presentation um that we have if not care i'll have you do it you got it great um um i lost something yeah we're we're we're changing screens so joey's just sharing her questions and also with me is so mary jo and i are going to do uh the presentation together um this is as charis said um the uh tools in our schools was very much chrissy carboni's um uh little child there so i'm gonna let um chrissy just introduce herself um she has not been feeling well but i'm gonna let her introduce herself and then mary jo and i will take this dream hey everyone i appreciate you saying i'm not feeling well but when it comes down to it i was inflicted with covid this weekend it was a wonderful mother's
017day so um i am feeling a little better though i'm happy to say uh so we did a pd and i'm sure laura might be giving you some background on that and after the pd we said we really we always like to do a follow-up because teachers don't like when pd is just an isolated event they like it to be tied to something so after our pd which was greatly based on manipulatives we asked teachers to send us videos and pictures of their kids using all kinds of tools in their classrooms in their math classes and what we got was some really great material and we decided to put it together in a slideshow and that's what we would like to share with you tonight i have been teaching in the denver public schools for
01832 years i just said 320 to to laura because i was joking but i can't believe it's 32 years it it blows me away um i'm so impressed with what is going on with mathematics in this decade uh our kids are amazing every day a teacher sends me something new a new video or a new picture or a new strategy that kids have used that they are amazed with and i continue to be amazed with i'm so impressed with the pedagogy that's going on in our with our teachers and the thinking that's going on with our students and we're hoping that our little presentation today will give you um a little glimpse into what's going on thank you so much chrissy um so we're going you'll see me light up on on mary jo's because
019we are together so i just want to give you just a little bit of a backdrop um as to um and chrissy did a really nice job of front loading that um instructional coaching is what we're striving for and instructional coaching is an innovative professional development strategy that facilitates change improves instruction and transforms school culture we just wanted to know that coaches and teachers work together as partners and they work together for the betterment of our students and right there on the slide you can see a quote from jim knight we were fortunate enough as a coaching group to work with jim knight last week in a um a coaching workshop so just so you know some of the types of coaching that we offer um at the k5 level are there's an in-person support
020piece where it's very job embedded the coaches are in with the teachers in with the students they plan co-teach debrief on lessons taught and explore instructional routines and an important piece that has really come alive in the past couple of years are the math language routines which really support our multilingual language learners but also all students and then on the other side you see district needs and support and as you can see over the past three years we've had 60 plus new teachers come in in the past two years some of those teachers this was the actual first year that they were in the classroom so we really had to design our support toward a group of new teachers who hadn't been in a classroom face-to-face with kids um and also kids who hadn't been
021in the um you know in face-to-face and actually touching materials and paper and pencil and all of that and pd then guidance that we support in all schools we have monthly principal meetings that's all our coaches with the principals we push out at the k2 level right now content video guidance which you'll hear some of our teachers talk about and specific professional development sessions throughout the year so how did we prep for the unique needs um due to the pandemic well those guidance videos were part of it so they are always on hand for our teachers and the timely pd we definitely had issues with using materials kids weren't accustomed to it they weren't accustomed to sharing because we had a stint where kids couldn't share materials then we moved and transitioned they could share
022materials so it's been a very roller coaster of of the past couple years and our coaches have just done a phenomenal job of helping the teachers feel comfortable um we've definitely needed to address the academic language gaps and support those 60 plus not as teachers and meet the needs of our 5 000 plus elementary students so now is the part of the presentation where we really turn it over to our teachers and our students and we're going to take you from listening to teachers both novice and um veteran teachers a couple of principals who have actually chimed in to let us know and then really show you um where the rubber meets the road with our students hi my name is sarah cephaloni i am a first grade teacher over at pembroke school um i
023wanted to talk a little bit about the math department and what they have been doing for us the guidance videos and materials that are provided by the math department specifically mary jo for first grade are extremely beneficial they help give an understanding of the standards that we're teaching and they guide us for each unit and lesson coming out of a pandemic has been challenging and the video and materials provide ample activities and differentiation for to meet the needs of all of our students as individuals i am extremely appreciative of the guidance videos and the support that we receive from our incredible math department thank you each week i have been co-teaching with mary jo for the last couple years and it's really strengthened my teaching in math um and helps my students we look at
024the students needs and adapt the lessons and coach them in what they need i've really seen some great growth in my students and in my teaching as well i've learned ways to question my students and see what they know and found ways to just improve that math language with my students and i've seen tremendous growth i'm very thankful for mary jones and the entire math team for what they provide for the danbury public schools hi the videos that mary jo berman did were extremely beneficial in helping all of us plan the lessons for each day by watching her and her modeling is instrumental in making the math program successful this year it was also a helpful way to to share some of um some information with the student teachers that we chat to so that
025helped them as well it started out also mary jo did some um adjusting some of the worksheets or the black line masters and that was very helpful and also slide shows um to help streamline them because some of the some of them were sometimes a little bit more challenging and she was able to pinpoint things that she thought which was very helpful um she also uh told us like what objectives we really should be looking for throughout the lesson and when the lesson was done what we should want to see our kids um accomplish and what objectives we want to see met and if not how to adjust and what we might need to do she also told us with the planning like some of the lessons should be more than one day which was
026very helpful because sometimes as a teacher even a veteran teacher you're trying to get that whole lesson on and you feel that time-wise you don't and sometimes you're not meeting the objective and then you're worried they didn't meet the objective do i keep going what do i do and she was very helpful with that too so also having um carboni come in in model lessons for myself as well as the student teachers she came in a couple times this year and really helped me and the student teachers see how the program should work so the next teacher you're going to see as mary jo um goes through here the first year teacher um this is julia coelho and just to let you know julia is a product of danbury public schools she's gone k through
02712 in danbury public schools and through wescon's program and transition beautifully into mill ridge primary school one of the biggest supports that i have been given as a new teacher is definitely the one-on-one support from my math coach christie carboni she is very hands-on not just with the program but also coming in and working with me and my students at the beginning of the year she spent so much time helping me prepare the math manipulatives for my classroom and helping me explicitly teach how to use those tools how to teach my students how to use those tools and that has led my students to be so successful throughout the year because they're really able to use the tools to be able to show their work and they understand how they're getting the answer they're not
028focused on what the right answer is they're focused on how can they show their work and use the most efficient strategy to get to that answer and i also really appreciate how hands-on and direct she is with her math videos deep diving into each unit each lesson within those sections and that alone has made the first year for me so much better because i'm not just doing it by myself i'm doing it with her help with the videos she explains within those lessons what are important points to point out to students how we should be giving them access to tools and how we can develop their re um their strategies such as number lines math manipulatives um the tools equations and without that guidance i don't think i would have been as successful as i
029was this year good evening my name is miss lahood and i am a kindergarten teacher at the danbury primary school we have been so fortunate to have mrs stiscano in our building and especially myself in my classroom she's helped me to really see the value of our math program with her assistance in coaching the rigorous practice of composing and decomposing numbers has been very valuable the students have been able to make a connection between math and literacy where when we try to stretch out words we use segmenting um which would be decomposing or we use blending which would be composing and it's been really cool to see the connection that the students are making i have found that the videos provided by the math department at the primary level has been excellent and not only
030educating me um the look fors and things that are needed in the classroom but also to support the teachers as they navigate through the curriculum and instruction for the students i have found that so the other thing that i wanted to talk about was the monthly meeting that i've been having with my coaches every month so each month i have my math my literacy and my psyop coaches come together with me and we sit down and have a monthly meeting where we talk about you know what i'm seeing in the building what we have coming up curriculum wise that we might need some support with we talked sometimes about the data and of recent assessments and we also we talked about um what challenges we're having questions that teachers have come with that they need
031support teachers who have reached out and said that they're struggling with certain things it's an opportunity to bring us all together um i think this is super helpful because it gives me someone to to talk to and then run ideas by sorry so here is the part where chrissy talked about we put together uh tools in our schools and this is a collection this collection is the result of our recent pd session focusing on the research about the impact of manipulatives in math education so in kindergarten this video will start you'll hear the kids so this was an activity where they had to use the materials then you have to see the work map that actually uh melissa toscano did design that was a little bit different from what the program gave the children then
032colored in and then they used the so they went from concrete to pictorial and wrote the number in the abstract this is up here okay that's okay this is a video of a kindergarten class actually having choice time in what they want to do experience in centers this is a huge piece of developing and independence in students and this teacher just does it so well that was it for the purple table billy are you are you from once all the chairs are filled up the [Music] let's go choose so this is the same teacher's um classroom where you see the kids actually engaging in the mathematics after they have had the opportunity to um select their own and in kindergarten in case you can't imagine this is no easy task so we really really um
033admire jackie and what she's done with these kids um this is so the next few in kindergarten are just some slides this is mrs capone's class up at ksp i was actually there with her and you can see the manipulatives and the students writing on the board they are learning the difference between an expression and an equation big time in math also here is um miss robertson mrs robertson she has accessible manipulatives and materials for the students no matter what they're doing and here is mrs garland's uh kindergarten class and again you can see that concrete the the manipulatives to the pictorial the students have drawn it and then they show it they write it that's the abstract so now we're gonna head into grade one um this video is is great because it's going
034to show our multi language learners and how with the manipulatives they can access the content and they can begin to learn the english and this one really fascinates me what do you think about continuing this to evaluate your whole number would you be able to explain to him why this is easy go for it you can do it in spanish [Applause] yes so one thing you'll notice is that our students are always working together they're always um collaborating and playing games and um that may have looked like a no no i'm going to push my hand away but there was a lot of learning there going to try to get us to the next slide and here's another counting collection with students grouping manipulatives to show tennis before we get them into that tower of
035ten we do a lot to establish tennis okay so here's your arrangement yeah how many do you have and is it easy to counter this one could you model for me how to count these piles to show me the total or [Music] all right now i need you to draw this arrangement okay so um one of the things that's very important are the games that students play in math and that the game is focused around the math so here we have some grade one students and they're explaining the rules of the game and how the tools are helping them depict the math that is involved [Music] supposed to pick two cards if you need help you get the amount of kids if you want to do adding or subscribing and if you need help adding
036or subtracting these are two big numbers what are you gonna do with them so if you want to subscribe okay [Music] [Applause] okay you're finding the difference between these two cards and you made 90. so what are you going to do let me take away five one two three four five and what do you have left for what what one two three four five did you have too much okay we take five away we have four four what though and what is that total that's four can you show me how you count these tens 20 34 okay and what do you do on your sheet then then if it's checked out oh don't do it so the next oh it wasn't already checked off on your sheet yup you explained that perfectly and here students
037are once again working and they're making corrections as they go um constantly talking about the parts of numbers that have come alive through working with our tools explain what you're going to pick yes [Applause] [Music] is [Music] oh [Music] oh [Music] what he said [Music] can you go can you put your number someplace is and now we see just some um artifacts some depictions of how students have arranged their tools and the structures that they use they have the tools in their hands and they can do some very sophisticated things if you take a look at the equations and how they match the equations to the numbers and now we're just going to take a quick look into grade two [Applause] so we want to um be very um thank you cognizant of your time
038um and we had a couple more videos in second grade but you will have the entire compliment of these videos and we just wanted to let you know that you know this has been a tremendous amount of work that the teachers have welcomed us into their classroom um the transitions that they've made kindergarten teachers have made probably the most amount of transitions in the past two years um but but k in one as well um and they really have um been partners um in education with us and we are so fortunate to have the teachers that we have to work with us each and every day and i am so fortunate to have the um six coaches that i have work with me so again the first link on the on on the slide where
039it does have the math celebrations you will have all of the videos and um and all of the pictures that we collected from teachers and we just want to thank you so much for letting us present tonight thank you so much mary jo laura and chrissy it was brought a smile to my face certainly to see uh the children and working on the math and and you know the back and forth of explaining and correcting and providing feedback it's always wonderful to see the kids doing that um the next topic that i'm going to walk the board through is um the overview of the training that's going to be rolled out across the special education and related services department um cara well i'm talking through it would you be able to put up that put
040back up the slides for me please um so no worries take your time um so i'm just going to provide you a little bit of background um starting july 1st 2022 so just uh two months from now um the state is requiring all districts to shift to a um two things a new iep um as well as a new platform and an online platform in which we enter the information into the into the iep um and the reason for it is for a few different things um one of the rationales uh for it is the state has done a multi-year process in which they've looked at the individualized educational plans which are the uh written formats that we provide services for special education students um and they've realized that they can be quite cumbersome difficult
041to understand and so they've tried to streamline the process to make it more user-friendly both for districts as well as for families the next reason um is that they've tried to beef up the quality of the iep um and you'll notice in in the new iep and i'll show it to you in a moment that they've really put an emphasis on parent input in a more strategic and systematic way throughout the plan i'm really engaging families and parents as partnering with districts on providing a special specialized instruction and related services for their um students so they want to make sure that parents and students um as the students become older have a greater emphasis and input into the process um another reason is really to help to align with standards um so you've heard cara
042talk a lot about across the academics the the academic standards in ela as well as mathematics um and what they're requiring for any special education student is that we consider the grade level standard in which that student is in and then break that standard down to see where the student is currently performing and how we can get them to make progress towards that grade level standard the next piece is really to look at making sure that our data reporting systems are in alignment with the state right now in my department there are four major data reporting on systems that we do for special education students there's a lot of legality laws and compliance that come with ieps and so we're required to inform the state of which students are on ieps the different types of
043services that they receive when a student is being evaluated there's a timeline for that and so all of those systems come with a high level of state reporting and this new system will streamline that process between districts and the state another benefit will be we frequently see students moving from district to district um so for example student moves from bethel to danbury or maybe manchester to danbury it's really going to be under this new system a click of a button to make all those special education records available and accessible to uh two districts which is advantageous so that we can immediately be aware of the students needs and start to implement a plan asap and the last the last kind of benefit of this new transition is it has a higher level of integration with
044our current system so right now we're using powerschool as our student information system parents have a portal that they can log into powerschool this new special education portal will provide parents that similar login experience that they can log in and view their students records across time and it will also sync nightly with powerschool so right now if a parent moves and an address gets changed and our current system it has to be updated um in powerschool it then has to be updated in the special education system um and it there's a lot of duplication of efforts on behalf of district staff and this will serve to streamline that process so with this comes a big undertaking of the special education and related services department as far as training um so i'm going to walk you
045through what we've been doing so far this year and then what our plans are for the next two years um so this year the special education administrative team as well as our ppt facilitators which are individuals that run and chair all of our planning and placement team meetings and those are our special education meetings for students have received training in the new system um so that remember there's two parts one is the new iep which is changing the way in which we write the document and then the second is the actual system where we enter in the information um and so that team will then continue to receive increased training over the summer um and upon the start of the school year for next year every one of your special education teachers and related services
046staff members will receive the three days in which they come back to school at the beginning of the year will be all dedicated to this new iep and this new online training system across the year they've been getting some information that is it's come out from the state um to prepare them for this transition but the full training will not be available to them until they return for next school year um then across the year we'll utilize the um some of our pd times so those early release half days or the after school professional development time to pick apart the sections of the iep to really talk about how to write them in a in a high quality fashion um so for example one of those areas is writing iep goals and objectives and what
047that is is they're specific they're measurable for each individual student and so we'll talk about how do we select those goals and objectives based on data of where a student currently is um understanding of the grade level standard where we'd like students to be um and then helping teachers to systematically and strategically measure progress across time so we understand which students are making progress towards their individual plans so this is going to be a big undertaking of of the department as i had said it will launch july 1st which is summer it'll give my department my office over the summer time an opportunity to transition in all the data um from our current vendor into the new system and make sure that we're ready to rock and roll start of start of the school year
048for next year um what i've done on this slide just as a reference tool um is i've put a copy um the first bullet point for the new iep template is a hyperlink and if you click on that form it'll bring you to the new iep so that you can just get a feel for what it looks like for those of you that have spent any time reviewing the current iep it does look and feel very differently i want to stress that there is there's no different information included in the document it's just the layout and the way in which it's organized um feels different so all the the legally required components of the iep are still there it just is ordered a little bit differently some things are emphasized a little bit more so
049than others but the components are still the same so the second document that we have is a side by side comparison of the current iep to the new iep and what it does is it walks you through page by page and i'm going to leave these there for you to look at at a later time as i could do a three-hour presentation just walking you through the two documents um but it takes the current document and the new document and it walks you through to emphasize just how they what one looks like with the other one right next to it and you'll be able to kind of take a crosswalk between the two to see some of those differences that i'm talking about so the training that we spoke about is composed of a few
050things it breaks the iep down into eight specific sections and what it does is each training module is about an hour and a half in length um and we'll walk these special education and related services staff members um through a state state-created presentation they want to make sure that everyone across the state is getting the same information for the rollout of this of this new system and we'll go through each component there are some case studies we'll utilize students in information and districts with individual teachers looking at their current student information so that they can digest and understand it at a deep level there's also some asynchronous modules for four of the modules there's support or compendium documents in which teachers um just go back for one second which teachers can watch and look at
051um so to provide some just additional clarifying information um and then uh lastly we'll do a half day training on um on the uh system itself so the online platform in which we'll enter all this information in so one is understanding the new iep and document and the other one is the usability of the online platform um i think this is going to be a very exciting time for the department i think a lot of the changes that the state has put forward for the new iep um are very student-centered data-driven um and aligned uh with with the state standards which is exciting and awesome that said it's going to be a transition right many um people like myself i was thinking about it the other day i think i've been using the current document
052for almost 15 years with very small tweaks and changes um and now it looks and feels very differently um so we certainly are going to develop ongoing professional development throughout the year as well as some um voluntary support sessions that teachers can go to to um you know bring current questions that they have get feedback on and information that they're providing i'm going to pause right there for a second i know i shared a lot of information and see if there's any questions so far um from the board related to the new state training okay i would encourage you when you have a few minutes to click on you know so you get a feel for what the new iep looks like um this is the document that our special education and related services staff
053members fill out for every single special ed student in our district and we have just over 1700 currently and they're very specific and individualized to that child's disability and individualized needs i'm going to just give you kind of a taste of what of what one of them looks like it is blank to protect student information and at a later date if you would like some samples of what one would look like for a potential hypothetical student we certainly would be happy to provide those to you care if you could advance forward to the next slide um the other piece that we'll be doing for professional development in the school counseling department is we are going to be looking at our school counseling framework and particularly our lessons that the school counselors are doing for our
054students so the state recently issued a comprehensive school counseling framework um from kindergarten through 12th grade um it's based on the asca model which is the national school counselor association and the themes you'll see here are very aligned with our portrait of the graduate themes they're on developing leadership equity advocacy collaboration accountability and systemic change amongst our students so it's building lessons into our academics into our school day so that students can learn these skills um so what i really like about this is that we're seeing uh threads not only in the academic classes but also through the support work of our school counselors and supporting the ultimate north star portrait of the graduate work for our district um so we've started the work this year in uh 2021-22 what we've um we've started this
055in the second half of the year is that we're providing training for our school counselors on the new framework that was released by the state we want to make sure that they understand it that they understand the expectations um and that they're then ready to revise our current district framework to be in alignment with that um we also in doing so we're looking at our vision and mission not the district vision and mission but the school counselor vision and mission um so that it could be in alignment with this new framework um we're having school counselors work together in teams across both the middle school and high school to work together in partnership to reimagine or re-envision what school counseling looks like in current and current day next year we'll then go into rewriting our
056curriculum our lesson plans there's a much heavier emphasis on this new school counselor framework on tier one instruction and what that means is how to have school counselors push into general ed classrooms and teach all students so that all students have access to the school counselor not just through the college application process but through skill building and so what we will do through the lesson planning is um pick across grades 6 through 12 what are the key or hallmark skills that we want each grade level to learn and we'll calendarize those by month so that every single student in danbury regardless of what middle school you attend or eventually what high school you attend um will receive the same instruction at the tier one level school counselors will always continue to work on the tier
0572 and tier 3 levels meaning students that need extra help extra support maybe pull out from a classroom to deal with a certain situation or scenario but we want to put a heavier emphasis on pushing our counselors into classrooms to do this tier one level work um so next year we'll be all focused around writing those lesson plans and making sure that we have an aligned framework from grade 6 to 12 across the district and then the following year year 22 i'm sorry 23 24 we'll be looking at implementing the lessons on the full comprehensive lesson plan we'll do some implementation next year um getting feedback and making revisions and adjustments to that um the school counselor department myself along with cara will also align um between the curriculum administrators and and and my team
058to make sure that um we are also looking at what does this look like in each one of our career academies so first is getting what do we want all of our students to know and then how does that fit into the different academies and and where's the appropriate timing in place to do these push-in lessons to support all kids um so another exciting initiative across the school counselor department i'll pause there if there's any questions can i just um it's very interesting uh i applaud all the focus but what happened to academic excellence um for our students uh promoting that with all this as a backup sure so so the goal is always academic excellence for all of our students and so in specifically speaking to the school counselor framework and curriculum that is
059how to support with an additional layer so that all students can achieve academic excellence that we're not taking away this is not in place of that it's in addition to i'm so right right i understand but i i haven't seen academic excellence anywhere you know mention are you questioning and particularly related to the information that you've seen tonight is that what you're yeah exactly i mean it's amazing what you folks are doing it's um but to me the goal is in your goal i can but it's not stated it's not articulated um academic excellence you know towards academic excellence uh and i don't see that well i apologize if that wasn't front and center um the goal of the district is always academic excellence for all students um my particular sections is looking at the
060students with disabilities which we are legally mandated to write an individualized plan of how that student can achieve academic excellence right so that is really walking through that individual plans for a student that has different needs and how we can support them to ultimately achieve their best version of themselves and for different students their goals are going to be different in alignment with what is appropriate based on their disability the school counselor information is how do we support students knowing that in addition to achieving you know the best that they can in reading writing math and other academic areas how do we build them as people we know we know students need to be able to possess leadership skills they need to be able to advocate for themselves they need to be able to collaborate
061with one another in order to achieve academic excellence in order to be able to go on to post-secondary school or to be successful in the workforce that those are also skills and qualities that are needed for all students to be successful um so the two components tonight we're really focused on just giving you one component of um you know a piece that makes us who we are as a district insuring up and building capacity of our program so that all students can achieve to the best of their ability i just don't see how the the videos were very helpful it was uh but sat scores are they going to be judged on equity and leadership um that's what i'm getting at i don't see this theresa if i could just jump in for a second
062and i do understand your point in where you're where you're going um so part of to in order to we've done deep dives deep data dives on sat scores our espa scores and when you start to break down the root cause of of of issues with with student learning you could trace it right back down to some of whether or not students are able to explain their thinking in a math in a mathematics class for example to be able to build a strong mathematical understanding to be able to mentally model what it is that they're doing so that that transfers into their work and so the work for example and and that is all related to academic excellence and so you know we just keep the the the excellence piece doesn't start in in 10th
063or 11th grade you know when they're taking that s.a.t it starts well before that and all of the coaching and the things that you heard tonight play an integral role in helping to strengthen the pedagogy that's needed to help shape that academic excellence so how do we get best practice on the table how do we make sure that students are engaging in discourse how do we make sure that our teachers feel comfortable um and and feel efficacious in the way that they're delivering curriculum and to be able to give good feedback so that we can continue to push students along a growth continuum um to meet their needs when it comes to things like equity and advocacy and collaboration you know when we talk about i'll give you an example um there's a lot of
064research around uh advanced placement courses uh teresa and i'm sure you can appreciate this that says that um just participation alone in an advanced placement course um yields greater achievement for students than if they had not participated regardless of how they score on the exam for example and so dan barry wears many high schools have criteria for students to take those courses you have to have a certain gpa you have to have a certain uh you have to have a certain cut score um we're only going to offer two sections of these courses and everybody else who who doesn't meet this criteria sorry just the the top 40 kids are going to get these sections we've created a system in danbury that allows any student who wants to take an advanced placement course and to
065challenge themselves in that course to have access to that course and that is equity that's an equity issue because we know when students participate in an advanced placement course whether or not they score two or three or four or five that they are better prepared for college and they do better on end of course assessments and end of high school assessments such as the sat and a.c.t and so those are good examples of how we've created systems within our school system um to create to open the doors for students to take those courses so um you know i want to make sure that that you know it there's a lot that goes into what how a student achieves or whether or not a student achieves and certainly when we're tending to their social emotional needs
066when we're tending to other instructional needs when they're tending to students who need to be accelerated or where their intervention needs to happen then we are building a stronger student who then can achieve and so it's very it's a very complex um piece and as you can see tonight everybody has a role in that process and it kind of has to come from different angles and so achievement is really very multifaceted um process to to to get to that i think in the next slide um teresa you might see some things that maybe maybe more in line of what you're you know maybe considering as achievement or process of achievement um i'm hoping i'm capturing what you're trying to say but um i understand what you're saying but i don't see it articulated in these
067words it's uh commendable it's um it's really fabulous but i don't see it articulated in plain english and um and i'm sorry i didn't get this the slide i didn't see any and notice about i hadn't had a chance to review this i didn't get uh when i left work at five i didn't have this to review but most of the stuff i've seen i i still have not seen anything about the goal you know it's understood but i don't see it articulated anywhere and uh i realize this is the road to it but it's not articulated and uh well let's see the next slide and see what you're gonna have i think i think what you're referring to is our state of objectives and district goals related to student achievement um and so what's
068what has been presented tonight were updates in particular areas on work um that that is part of the landscape of of what we do um but i think what you're referring to more could be possibly in a strategic plan or listed out separately as goals for the district which i agree is always a goal right high student achievement and always working in that direction so um but for the next slide i'm kind of leading in to some of the places uh where i think um it might be good to clarify is that we're always working on providing opportunities and and providing mechanisms for students to achieve um and to be their their very best and to have opportunities that they may not would have otherwise so um this has been uh you may have seen
069this in the the task force in the last couple of presentations that we've done this is sort of a revised um graphic of just to make it a little bit easier to read because we're having some troubles with the other one revised graphic of the the different academies uh one that's located at the danbury career academy site which is the former carters building and then the academies that will be at the danbury high school main campus academy site so um the two academies that will be at the cardis location will be these two here emerging technologies and entrepreneurship and scientific innovation in medicine the four academies that will be at danbury high school site will be information and cyber security political and pro uh i'm sorry not political professional and public services art engineering and
070design and communication and design and what i wanted to show you tonight and i have melissa nadew who is our stem administrator who's been absolutely amazing in the process of helping to develop out the program of study sheets um so we could lay out a path um a rigorous path of of uh course studies so for students is to give you a snapshot of some of the work in the background granted these are drafts um but to take one of these pathways and to give you kind of illuminate some of the work that occurs that will be occurring in there so i'm going to click on so this medical technology and engineering pathway it will be our example for tonight and so as an example this would be a program of study sheet again this
071is we are in draft mode right now um that would articulate what the series of courses a student would take to meet their high school graduation requirements um but also to obtain some experience and and more in-depth career connected learning in the pathway that they chose and so i'm going to let melissa uh take this away a little bit to talk about these sheets um this is also hot linked into your presentation tonight so you can take some time to take a look at that but i do i would like melissa to kind of walk you through and then talk a little bit about the medical technology um program and that's kind of in development and melissa if it's easier for you for me to shrink this a little bit uh so you can see
072the whole thing in totality i can do that down to see if that's a little bit better you're good good okay i know these i know these pretty well yeah so um for each pathway at the high school level there will be a a program guide that assists students in choosing the right course that will make their experience within the pathway probably the most comprehensive it can be the course of study guide is developed or sorry not course of study again but the program guide is developed by examining what the graduation requirements students need in order to graduate but then also um provides students with other courses that are aligned with the cte course the career connected learning courses to really just make the most formidable experience in their high school careers when you look
073at the courses here that are highlighted for the medical technology pathway we have the ninth grade uh exploration seminar which is the compulsory course for all ninth grade students to go through so that they kind of get an overview and start doing some long-range planning which is part of one of the connecticut state policies on students having a career a study plan starting in sixth grade through graduation from there students would enter a 10th grade course you'll see on the program guide that there's the the yellow courses which is that career connected learning pathway but then there's also um required electives again meeting the graduation requirement needs but some of those required electives will also support the knowledge base that students are gaining through that career connected learning course so i'm going to start by
074describing a little bit of that 10th grade course which is called engineering essentials this is like a survey course that kids would take in their 10th grade year to learn a little bit more about the basics of engineering design that's what the first entire unit is all about it talks about just how engineers go through a process of brainstorming ideas researching ideas developing prototypes for ideas um and and that's you know that's it is pretty high level stuff but to kind of speak to the needs of the portrait of a graduate work um in order to develop this program of study my team and i have been meeting with um numerous industry partners who speak in the area of engineering whether it be in med tech whether it be um in applied engineering aerospace engineering
075we've been holding meetings over the course of the last three years to understand what it is that we can put into a robust curriculum experience for students to not only get to academic achievement and content but also to get to the skills needed to to flourish in any type of environment they would be in so an example in the essential engineering course would be going through the aqpq process which is a mouthful if you try to say it quickly and that's a process that engineers have shared with us is a collaborative way for for engineers to share their ideas on what they would like to develop and get feedback from others on how to fully develop that idea to fruition um so embedded within these within these courses are experiences like that to facilitate innovative
076thought to facilitate collaboration and communication all within core content um so throughout their engineering essentials course students will also do a cursory overview of mechanical engineering as well as electrical engineering those are two of the larger career paths that students could take in engineering in general so after the essential the engineering essentials course students would enter into their 11th grade course and this is a course that's called the intersection of innovation so while i talk about this course um cara i'm actually going to have you pull up the video that's on the last slide of the presentation there's no sound in the video because i'm gonna talk over it while it plays um but this entire course for 11th grade is designed on the narrow maker hand so we were collaborating with a company outside
077of boston called brain co brainco has many facets um in in neuroscience and neuroengineering and they developed um within their labs something called the neuromaker hand and that's that's what the entirety of the 11th grade course is developed on kids will actually build that hand you're seeing there um and as part of the the process understand the mechanics of our own biology and and how our tendons and our ligaments operate within our hands to make it move um and through that process they will then actually use electrical engineering to connect the circuits in the hand that they're building and that's something that you're seeing happening on the screen right now um as the kids progress into um into the process they're going to be going through that engineering design they're going to have to troubleshoot
078when the connections don't work um they'll they'll be going through their own design challenges as they're creating different prototypes for what they want their hands to complete and do they will have to program that hand right so attaching the electrical circuits are not enough through programming on the computer um they have to tell the hand what to do so they will actually make those fingers move they will make it grasp objects and eventually they will start using artificial intelligence so that the sensors on the hands as an object comes closer to it the sensors will automatically know that oh a cup is coming towards my hand i need to grasp it or a cell phone is coming towards my hand i need to hold it a certain way and that's that's the entirety of the
079components of their 11th grade experience going through developing building programming and using artificial intelligence to train that hand to do what it is it's asked to do so if you can pull up the program program guide one more time kara i'll talk about how this sets students up for their 12th grade course so what i just described was the basis of the intersection of innovation right so we're talking about medical technology pathway and they'll get a core compulsory experience throughout 11th grade where they will go through the hands the 12th grade is the application of innovation innovative design so um in this course in this 12th grade course the students are going to go through and ideate on their own interests right so they may have gone through their 11th grade course studying the hand
080well now it's their own turn to to find their own problem in society that they would like to solve as it applies to um the medical field and engineer something to solve that problem so um you know they're they're going to discover issues that are facing people in society or throughout the world and imagine what they can do in order to solve those larger life problems the goal for that 12th grade course of the application of innovative design is to find partnerships within industry that can set them up to meet with engineers on a regular basis so that they can um [Music] help understand what type of technologies are out there that can support whatever their that is that they're trying to solve and i'll give an example that is not from our district but
081was from a larger design competition where a student in connecticut actually developed bandages that turn a different color when a wound gets infected so that people knew that okay this bandage turned this color they need to seek medical attention and that's being used actually widely in in in some third world countries right now a student developed that so the goal of that 12th grade course is to have them ideate to have them develop prototypes um and refine and present whatever it is they're developing um two panels of engineers um and and also enter some some larger contests you may have seen in that video for the neuramaker they actually sponsor a larger contest designed on medical engineering which is something we hope students get involved in there's a company in terrytown new york that we've
082been working with that has been an advisor to us called regeneron regeneron also sponsors large competitions not only in this region but nationally and they've been instrumental in us understanding what that competitive process looks like for students um so i mean that's that's pretty much the pathway in general and some of the curriculum work we've done um throughout that yellow um block that you see up there um but it does it doesn't hurt to take notice of the courses that we're asking students to take along the way you know in that and that 10th grade course also highlighted in yellow we have two courses that would really um support um the engine the the entire pathway being medical terminology and introduction of programming right describing that they would be programming a hand an introduction into
083programming would be helpful and that's liaisoning computer science into this course work into this path of study and then you know it should you should not fail to notice that it's it's highly recommended that in the senior year in science at least you know you have kids to strive for taking physics um ap bio ap chemistry um but you know i'll talk about physics in particular there there's many there's many um schools in the state of connecticut um so the other thing we've done with these program guides not only working with industry to inform the curriculum design but we've also been working by understanding what the post-secondary schools are requiring of students not only for entrants but also to be successful in their programs so this medtech pathway which is um a very it's a
084very big program at the university of connecticut um that that physics course is one course that they would advise students have um prior to entering into their into their programs right so what you see before you is a work of not only being informed by industry and our own graduation requirements but also in connection with discussing this with the post-secondary institutions and what their requirements are that's all i have cara unless there's something else you'd like me to no thank you very much um and just to just to note too that these sheets um you know if you look down one of some of the other work that's that will be happening and and very much dependent with the counselors as well in the future this uh document has given me some [Music] some trouble
085here um is the the making the connections for the students um and you notice at the top though there are different levels of challenge within the academies in the pathway so a student could take a college prep level course an honors course and in many cases um because we offer so many uh advanced placement courses you can choose to take the advanced placement version so um one of the one of the you know the conversation that i had with someone recently you know there was a question you know a parent had a question about you know is this going to be you know like a technical high school and there's not going to be that same level of challenge anymore at jamboree high school and i would um argue to say that we've just upped
086the challenge and the rigor quite a bit in here but of also offering our regular courses in terms of college prep so a student who wants to take this physics course can take it at the college prep level on honors level or the advanced placement level and so you know the ability to um attain their high school requirements but also challenge themselves appropriate at different levels i think is very important in addition to having early college credit opportunities will be phenomenal um and so a lot of the companies too um that start that we've started to engage in also offer additional levels of expertise even outside of any of the courses that we have um as we as we work to partner with them but i did just want to highlight that some of the
087work that's happening now is to take these alignments so that when kids are looking at these courses of study sheets and when parents are taking a look that we start to outline the different work based learning experiences and opportunities that could be available what are the industry certifications that a student might be able to pursue as a result of engaging in some of these courses that they'll they'll have the content knowledge to do well on um identifying any dual enrollment courses that we have so what yukon courses can be substituted uh for any of the courses here what courses and articulations with wescon um would we put in here where kids can get college credit and then um understanding you know what are the different job fields out there so pre-med pre-vet pre-dental pharmd these
088are the types of majors you might be pursuing when you get to the college level so really providing a lot of information for students and parents to make good decision making and then outlining the high high-wage high demand careers below that align to this pathway and some of the work too when they could students come in in grade nine and i'll i'll bug out of here in a second um when students come in in grade nine and they have this grade night exploration course and experience part of that course is to review all of these with students so that they have a deep understanding about the of the opportunities that lie in front of them and the courses that they would have to engage in or and options that they have within additionally it's important
089to outline you know the different levels of career paths um that they can pursue and so we really you know between the counseling and the course really making sure that kids have a front-loaded experience with this to make a good decision for themselves um you know again they're not picking a college major here but they're but they're engaging in some focused electives that would help produce um something that they would not otherwise get if they had not not uh not been in a wall-to-wall academy so um we're very excited about a lot of the work that's been happening um melissa and her team have been reaching out melissa is in charge of the stem and the cte so there's quite a bit of of pathways um in here that fall into her area so she
090really does work 24 7 uh you know to to help develop these and we've got a lot more work to come and um so i want to thank you tonight for your presentation i appreciate the work that you guys are doing in the background any questions here um yes hi i'm wondering so you were saying that you don't have to take a course or you know get a certain grade point average to let's say go into this advanced physics course so let's say i take a math and i am not doing well you know just barely getting by and i want to take the physics class maybe my best friend's in there maybe i've always liked it but it requires a lot of math i would be able to just sign up for that course
091without really um you know having anyone tell me that i'm going to really like i would be able to take that course whether or not i was going to be passing it or not based on my past history or if i'm in an uh special ed program like my son was in one an iep and um like including equity and all these these you know fulfilling and and help structuring life and all that that would not really allow him the time that he needed just to learn how to write a paragraph or do regular math problem so how do you take the um the fact that we're already short on learning and teaching and put children in different classrooms where the speed of the course being taught is not at their level or perhaps their
092advance like my son was kind of fell in between he was almost like a a substitute teacher or a teacher's aide because he was advanced but in a regular class he struggled so in between that world you know um where does that child fall in do they get to just go into an advanced class because they choose to or you know do they focus on going into a class that really is slower and helping you um learn the foundation instead of so much of like the you know world experience like really learn it yeah so it's a great it's a great question michelle and and one that we've had before so if you're not alone in being concerned about that um but that's that is exactly where the counseling piece comes in and that is
093where um when a counselor builds a relationship with a student and has followed them through their through their experience and it comes time for those planning sessions around course selection um there there's a there's an honest conversation about what an appropriate level based on past performance based on let's talk about your interest let's talk about so you could have a student who could be let's say uh potentially maybe not a super performer in in mathematics let's just say right um but they are a gifted writer um you know we would we would say maybe you want to challenge yourself in this area i think you would do well or maybe this course might be a better foundational course for you to take given where where you are right now but if you want to challenge
094yourself here's the next level but i would warn you a little bit about this course over here you might be overwhelmed in this um we also give students um an opportunity you know there's like a two-week drop period as well um so a student we we've had students who kind of you know i think i want to try the ap i think i can do it i really am passionate about that subject area um and they can get in there and some of them soar or they get in in two weeks two weeks later they're like you know what this is way more work than i really thought it was going to be so i'd like to drop the course and and hop into a college prep or an honors course and we allow that
095so the first two weeks of the school year we do allow some changes but the better the counseling going in the more appropriate that those that those open enrollment um choices are and so open enrollment doesn't necessarily mean free for all it just means that we do not have barriers for students who want to challenge themselves in some areas so um again it really comes down to to a counseling piece um and helping that student make some good choices for themselves that's a that's still an appropriate level of rigor and challenge um but maybe not to the point of overwhelming so if you're going to be getting counseling right now how many hours of counseling would you say that um you would get before you were to apply for courses in freshman year and second
096you know your sophomore year how many hours are you looking to increase that program because um you know how many times do they meet with the counselor then now versus what you're looking to implement so so we have so right now we have uh 21 advanced placement courses now we have um a gazillion honors and and college prep courses now so so really the counseling piece really isn't any different we've had an open enrollment um system in place so these are these would just be different courses and so students may have questions more so in this enviro in this model about the about courses that they haven't heard of before so there might be some more you know some additional but that's part of what the course is in ninth grade is to go over
097what all these different courses are and the different career trajectories but really it's it's about making the most of the times there's they have students have scheduled opportunities with with their counselors um and at times push in to talk about those things periodically but we really had this system in place for a while um does that mean every student actually makes the best decision for themselves all the time nope um but we do have an ad drop period that has been that has been well utilized in those scenarios um so that we can you know make sure that students are performing and and thriving in the classes but with challenge so the counselors that you were talking about trying to implement them into the regular course day kind of i thought that's what you were
098talking about before how many more hours is there a goal to try to you know immerse them into your everyday kind of class situation you know what i'm saying um because right now we're like it's like slim pickings right for counselors and all this um implementing this as well as the curriculum at different speeds and different languages it just looks like we're taking on a lot of goals and these courses and you know just i think it's more like what theresa is saying is what about the academic like is that still the goal or is it to try to really get this whole person kind of developed in the classroom instead of like you know really pushing that academic i think that's the concern for me like how do you keep all that going in
099one class well if i could just answer about the uh counselor push in right now um the way that many of our counselors are are doing it is that they are for example when you're enrolling for uh your ninth grade year counselors are going into an eighth grade classroom they're talking to students about graduation requirements it's the first time they're hearing that um credits what you have to obtain to achieve a high school diploma um and so building off of the model like that is pushing our school counselors in to have conversations with group of groups of students so for example all students are taking english so pushing into those classes to have conversations whole groups so students can know what to expect come the course registration process um and then looking to do monthly
100for each grade level in different areas not to detract away from the academics but to support and do it collaboratively with the academic instructor so that students are aware of the information that they need come time for course registration um that they understand the graduation requirements and we're able to support with some of those other softer skills not again not to detract from academic excellence but to further support and build towards the whole student um so that students can gain additional um additional relationships with their school counselors that are key um and to continue on their academic success they need to see the school counselors as being an integral part of their school experience and one way to achieve that is to is to infuse them more into the classroom experience um certainly then there's
101going to be students that are going to need to have individual conversations uh with their school counselors so one of the things the school counselors currently do is to make sure when students are registering for classes and they put in their requests in elective areas of interest um that i may then follow up with kara and say i know you really like art but you've already met that art requirement and so you have not taken something um in technology or another area and so let's talk about that what would be good courses for you to explore and build upon your experiences and make sure that she's continuing to develop herself as a well-rounded individual i'm just concerned with that with the fact that um i guess i think it was some time ago we had
102discussed like second language learners combining those classes with regular right first language um you know that are maybe not learning english as the second language so does that speed up the um the teaching process slow it down because i'm bilingual and i've struggled with reading and writing you know just it was because i had learned spanish i was speaking spanish in kindergarten um and everyone else is speaking english so it is something but i always did have to kind of keep up maintain um but nobody kind of slowed that class down for me you know so how does that work for somebody who's really trying to push forward and maybe excelled you know excels at that um part of the course do you kind of set them apart and give them additional work is there
103you know how does how do you how do you do that if basically we're putting everybody in the same level i'm assuming courses care do you women yeah sure so yeah you know we we have a very much a growing second language learner population they we are a district um who now has uh a very large size uh population of second language learners and so um you know we don't uh you know we don't separate or segregate second language learners from other learners in in the district um and and like other students we talk about um classes that would be most appropriate for them to take um and you know our teachers you know as we continue to grow in our population and size our teaching strategies have to change to make things more accessible
104to a wider variety of students and is that challenging yes it is um but it's no different than most of our other urban districts and many districts around the state that are also growing and experiencing the same um but i will say that in many cases um you know our second language learners bring another level of uh richness to the class that doesn't you know especially you know yes in our humanities courses and all of our courses they they perform quite well um in many areas and and you and i think that you know i want to be careful that you know we're not we don't want to create a situation where we're saying um you know if we have second language learners in the classroom we're slowing down the achievement or the academics of
105others and and and you know that that would be the reason you know that would slow things down and um when we opened up our advanced placement courses michelle that was a a place where um there was a lot of speculation on is that is that what's going to happen we're going to slow these classes down and the teacher is going to have to differentiate in a way and while that is true um there wasn't there wasn't an enormous dip in in the overall achievement of students in those classes um the students who would get a four and a five still got a four and a five um on those assessments um but we we just happened to offer and widen that opportunity to other students and this and students benefited from that experience and
106i think it's really important that um you know over time we continue to grow in our ability to reach all different types of learners um and certainly we're getting more and more experience with second language learners every year um and we're and we're getting better at it so you know we are we are a district who serves second language learners this is our community and uh you know so so our program is is for all but we do we do guide students into appropriately appropriate level courses um you know that's something that that we do for everybody so that's part of the counseling piece um kelly mentioned sort of the push and model as well that's something that you know if we're going to have a meeting with 30 kids to they're all asking the
107same question um those are the types of you know what let me push into mrs smith's english class i'm going to explain this to all the groups that come through today um so we do we also do a lot of that as well but um but yes our courses we do have open enrollment but we do also couple that with with counseling and guidance to make to help students make informed decisions but right now currently we do have second language learning classes and like regular you know english uh learning you know students different classes but we are merging them so i know we understand that we're saying we want to teach and we teach everyone but currently we're doing it a different way right like we have correct misunderstanding uh no so so we have
108so what we have now so what so the academy does not change the fact that our second language learners are integrated throughout all of our courses that's happening now and so we have we have we have esl classes that's where we focus on language acquisition so we're going to develop your ability to master um you know language english language um versus you are working it you are attending and participating in other courses where the sole focus of that course is not mastering english language and we're not focused on your english language development although we work to support all students and we're getting better at that as well so so that doesn't change in this model the only thing that changes here are are some of the opportunities that we're offering in terms of the different
109types of courses that will be available in the academies but right now are all of our esl students are integrated um everywhere in all of our classes you'd be hard-pressed to pull up any course and not find our esl students in in the course yes right i would assume that but i was just i remember you or it being discussed that we were going to be merging different so maybe i misunderstood what you know we had talked about i think it was a couple of months ago actually that was brought up so i think maybe i misunderstood yeah no we we they're all they're in all of our classes all classes now at every level they're an advanced placement they're in college prep there they have their esl courses that they take specifically for language
110development uh we've got bilingual courses some of our courses are taught in spanish yep no okay so the esl programs that they take is that like considered like an elective is that during the school day that you know they're not maybe in the you know a different english course and that i guess i uh you know so my son wasn't in that i'm not really sure about how that is handled sure so so a newcomer someone who who's a new arrival who has just arrived here would spend more time with an esl teacher than in all of the core classes so until that student requires at least sort of a basic level of proficiency um it wouldn't be fair to you know drop them into five courses so we kind of grow that that out
111and student would spend double blocks of time in a newcomer class um as they gain more proficiency they end up taking they'll take more classes out in the in the general population if you will and um and and continue to to take on more and more over time as their language proficiency develops okay okay so that's what i wanted to make sure because i know that if you go into a class for two weeks you may not be hitting that essay until four weeks or you know what i mean and really not realize the depth of that course until you're in it so between the counseling i just want to make sure that was still you know like if we're going to be implementing that more so in the class how do you you know
112manage all that time as well as this esl if you're obviously taking time out to focus on that learning as well as you know mainstreaming that's what i wanted to know so thank you appreciate that welcome yes teresa i noticed the main campus academy is now called art engineering and design before it was art in theater um i'd like to make a recommendation uh the art part be expanded to visual and performing arts that would encompass more of the theater program in your musical program as long as the uh regular uh art courses um i think art is very limiting um and thinking of westcon if they're going to go on to the to that great um at west con that new school they call it visual performing arts just a suggestion just a suggestion
113no i appreciate that teresa just um i'm not sure that we had theater in the i think i think in one of some strategic planners something you showed uh the academy as art and theater and i was thinking that it just didn't encompass music for me yeah so so the arts music um and theater are are available for all so you know we we have we've so all of the academies that you see here and the pathways within were developed using the national research national research on the career clusters regional uh career clusters and then local career clusters so connecticut and then connecticut has their own clusters um i did present that just recently at the task force there's a slide deck i could probably share that out if anybody's interested um but it really
114discusses the different areas where there's high wage high demand potential for high wage and so when putting these together an academy model you design these specifically to meet um not just student interest but also that there's a potential for for employment at the end of that so um that's one piece the second piece is that the theater that the arts and music are electives made available to all students in all of the academies and so those are part of the graduation requirements for students to select those so um because we feel that those are important for everybody to have an experience and exposure to so um there isn't one academy that for students who want to you know engage in the theater we have theater for everybody any student who wants to take theater carol
115i have a question um going back to the course selection for the academies any is there any opportunity for overlap in like the application of innovative design to serve as part of the capstone project or or anything like the um the medical courses can that fulfill um a health requirement uh yes we did have that conversation melissa do you want to speak to that a little bit so so we did talk about while she's unmuting um and i probably answered the same question but we did talk about that senior elective as being the capstone so whatever it is that you're choosing the in the advanced elective that that also becomes the the meat and potatoes if you will to do your capstone project so absolutely yes um and we did talk about and we still
116have to work through those components that there are certain classes here that would serve um as a as as a potential for so you know health um there are some other you know even in like the performance human performance uh pathway there could be potential for physical activity that could count towards a pe credit um as we as kids work through you know systems of the body and testing limits and all of that stuff so we have a lot of those types of things to to work towards but the more opportunity that we can to create flexibility for students and options um that is always the goal so it's a great question um and one that as we kind of finalize what these pathways look like once we kind of nail those pieces down then
117you say okay this can now this can serve as credit for that um so absolutely that's great it's it's harder and it's hard enough to uh work through the 25 requirement the credit requirement so yep great thank you i think the only thing i would add to that is um you know we're constantly advocating at the state level as well you know we come we will have conversations in the office and talk about you know well what if this can be this and and a lot of it is contacting our respective state departments asking questions planting some seeds because some of it may end up being some policy moves that we'll have to advocate for at an eventual you know point in time um i know that you know the health department and the phys
118ed department at the state are very stringent in their rules so we're constantly planting some seeds to go back at other points of time to advocate really what's best for our students in our community and our district right um and and and with living within the state policy um but making it what's right for us um and those are conversations we're constantly having good to know any other questions i think we lost lauren she she was having some on technical difficulties any other questions from board members um any other board members on gladys or kate i think um thank you i i don't have any questions but i just want to you know thank you for the detail that you guys dove into here and and you know really giving us a strong sense of
119you know where you're moving forward with this project i really appreciate that thank you i'd really like to say thank you again uh it's very informative information uh for me as a board member and to know that you are and always will continue to put excellent first for all our students and thank you for the information thank you gladys um was that it on the agenda did we touch upon everything and my my last question was was this presentation shared with committee members um and could it be shared with the whole board uh yes to the first part and yes to the second part so it's in there it's it's in your drive so you didn't see come through through email i did put um let's see who's on here i could show you right
120now when i click the share button um joe da silva kelly kevin yeah so i can add anybody who's not in here laura lauren louisa mary jo yeah i'll add the other board members in there but everyone is sharing on it yes great mostly thanks okay is there anything else from committee thank you thank you very much okay i'll um entertain a motion to adjourn are we there yes moved thank teresa seconded by michelle all those in favor hi