001here ladies cooper here lauren daley here joe dasilva here bridget guertin here catherine hodgson here albert yourself here louisa uh here participation the board welcomes public participation and asks that speakers please send their comments to three minutes speakers may offer objective comments of school operations and programs that concern them the board will not permit any expression of personal complaints or defamatory comments about board of education personnel and students nor against any person connected with the danbury public school system before the board meeting those pushing to address the board of education the board in public session are to sign up on the public participation sheet complete with their name address and phone number and topic they wish to speak up okay so um our first public uh speaker is mario bronzius so i'm here tonight to
002talk about the danbury high school field trip to broadway in new york city um this instinct came to my attention about three and a half weeks ago when my son was extremely excited that this was happening it's a great thumbs up wonderful you're going to like no problem on the next day he came home absolutely heartbroken um he was told that you could only go if you could show a vaccine kobe 19 vaccine card that's not possible that campaign so i said let me investigate let's find out what's going on um and in that time i reached out to the teacher i hadn't heard from the teacher so i reached out to the building principal and i followed up with that email and the building principal responded that you know buses have been reserved and
003that the buses have been scheduled to entice the three of the reserves so they have to move off the trip i said no that can't be so i reached out to the superintendent and at that time i expressed in great detail and outlines my concerns with this type of venue for kids where we are segregating out vaccinated versus unvaccinated students in our public system so at that time i was informed that other parents have reached out and they're looking forward to these types of opportunities i couldn't help but to wonder do they know what caveat that comes from because it was a shock to my conscience when i found out that danbury high school was going to segregate students and in the eyes of the students this work may not be appropriate in the eyes
004of the students as far as the family member punish children for not getting the code 19 vaccine and reward those for getting them um you know i continued to do research and i said well what what deems the trip you know appropriate so i looked into it and you know i know that teachers have to request trips and their needs are reviewed and i know that part of that request um is that the trip offers the opportunity to participate in the field trip shall be shall be available to all students in particular classroom program um you know on the permission slip it states you know seats will only be reserved once we have received a completed permission for a lot of full payment and a copy of vaccination at which time my son was asking
005for an entire classroom where his vaccination card was when he did his permissions took and had to say he didn't have one you know i've just gone through everything you're looking at federal laws as you know ferpa going through the you know safeguards shall be established by the school you know to protect families privacy invasion and privacy this trip is an invasion of privacy on students um the the goals outlined by our superintendent you know include developing family partnerships a framework there's no framework here this is a blatant feeling of segregation some you know this for some not for others um you know i've been through the mission statement and we say the words over and over again and i'm proud of that we say the words partnership of community inclusive culture empowers all students
006and that word all is used constantly i've highlighted everything where i find these words all students equitable respectful and none of it says you know and i looked at the portrait of a graduate i know that's a program that we're really moving forward with and i'm very proud of that the portrait of the graduate looks very much like the children i'm raising in my house i think that these are wonderful wonderfully outlined you're over three minutes okay so i will close with that i have copies of everything here it's nothing new to you but this is a call to action i think it's very scary that we haven't learned from past segregation and we don't want this precedent in our community it's wrong and i think we need to cancel for this new venue a
007baby that offers it for all kids your third year has broadway for commerce and the two offerings football without skating in our lives thank you for hearing me out thank you madeline ross hi i'm here to speak about the lack of magnificent choices the lack of programs that we have for middle school and beyond for children who have sensory issues and more on the autism spectrum so children are parents parents can um ask for the lottery you know sign your children up to the lottery from west side school which is smaller than rogers park in broadview unfortunately it's days and it is a better better place for children who have sensory issues to be taught i think we need to take a look at how these programs are wrong meaning children like i have a
008fifth grader now has major sensory issues i think we need to take a look at children like him who really need a smaller setting and be able to be to learn and to function throughout the day instead of saying okay we're just gonna have a lot if there's let's say 150 kids that this school is open to there can't be so many children like my son where it's going to really affect the numbers of the other children who can choose to go to that school it's sad that danbury has tools for children like him but they're not utilizing them so i really would like someone to look into us moving forward into utilizing different schools and different tools that we have to help accommodate children like my son because the school that he's at has
009done an amazing job and he is in one of the larger elementary schools in danbury and he's wrong he was non-verbal and he talks he's able to communicate he's able to advocate for himself when he feels safe and going from it's a transition for any child but even you know roger spark has 1050 students give or take westside academy has 750 it may not seem a lot to someone like you or someone like him just those 300 kids is it's a huge difference it's like him going from having you know instead of habitat going to denver in high school right you know it's like that's that's day and night just those 300 students not having them there in the hallways in the classroom in the school is huge for someone like my son so i
010really encourage you all to look at programming for next year and how we can make it better for the children who need it it should be need-based and then after that it should be a choice thank you very much for your time good evening the mission of the greater danbury in the mission of the naacp is to ensure political social and economic equity of all people and to eliminate racial hatred and discrimination i am here as a president of the local chapter of the greater danbury in naacp i am here to raise concern regarding the selection of a board member replacement to fill a vacancy position several weeks ago we believe that the vacancy or the feeling of that vacancy was not done in an equitable manner on the surface it appears to be racial
011discrimination or could be a play in this unanimous decision at the board then you have few opportunities to practice or follow your policies that you said higher than this action you fail to meet the understanding of affirmative action which you yourself are state in your policy or you fail to even go and celebrate the spirit of that policy some will tell us that the volunteer board does not meet the legal standard of the affirmative action policy however in this limited occasion or situation that you have the chance to give life to the policy and you do it over the last weeks i'm sure some or all of you have rationalized your decision in some way these rationalizations were not valid for reasons as dr beverly tatum speaks who is an expert on racism and education
012and president emeritus of spelman university that some this model of racism allows us to make decisions that others must address this mod of racism in our opinion was done here instead of finding excuses of rationalizing you're making this decision of this choice most of the most qualified persons of this situation you were clouded by that smile according to dr taylor marginalized people do not have benefits uh from the perks of privilege marginalized people depend on the rules or the guidelines but when we follow rules no matter how fair we see they are and and people are privileged or not privileged trying decide to change them or rationalize their choice to adjust their wanted outcomes or adjust their politics or their comfort level we must override that policy the spirit of the policy by entailing that
013smile of isms and you thought and hope that maybe no one would notice or at least at this time no one would call your attention to it but the stench of your vote is left looming in the fresh air of our reality i can only hope that you do something to clear that air at that smog that stench has been operated and and seeing that doing this decision you did not select the candidate of color but she was over commonly qualified to fit that position just so you know if you could if you could um conclude your statement or over the three minutes okay well so as i'll be quick as um miss germany and i sit on the panel a couple of weeks ago celebrating mary anderson's birthday she and i want to know
014this the kind of racism that was in the smog as it relates to mrs um anderson uh shirley chisholm once said that voices many different voices are needed at the table so that the table can be able to rationalize justice and make firm decisions your actions deny the community and the children again very that valuable voice thank you wes johnson all right good evening to the superintendent to the board chair and to the board members my father would always say we're always communicating something the question is what is it i am here this evening to express my support of superintendent boston and the danbury public school system i am also here to express a few concerns as a resident and a tax paying citizen with a child in the district's high school i am concerned
015with the lack of diversity represented on this board and when presented with an opportunity to address it with a more than capable and qualified former educator i believe we truly missed an opportunity i'm also concerned with a school district that is reported to be over 60 minority by some reports and disproportionately and a disproportionate lack of representation by teachers of i am concerned with the apparent and obviously overcrowded high school and while we can celebrate the new school that is to be developed i am not sure the purpose of that school will solve the problem as a full-time diversity equity and inclusion officer with another public school within our state i would like to strongly recommend that equity and inclusion become a commitment from this war in the form of a written resolution with community
016involvement a commitment to training in this area with these areas by the board members themselves the school administrators the teachers and the veterans i'd like to suggest that there are resources in our state like kate ed advance eden the equity diversity inclusion network out of hartford and the re center out of harford as well and if the board of dead would like support in this effort as a resident and that's it on my list who signed up to speak is there anyone else who did not sign up who would like to speak moving on to the consent calendar tomorrow would you read the motion please i make a motion that the board of education approved and it's on the consent calendar exhibits 22-35-22-37 as recommended now finance committee meeting minutes that was like item 29
01722-38 added to those minutes that's the finance report oh the finance the report itself yes is it not included in the minutes the minutes i got on this email or it's not included in the package okay on the second page it's an action item to be voted on for acceptance but i was hoping to get that document into the minutes as well of the finances yes perhaps we should do it as a friendly amendment to the consent council so a motion to amend the minutes that's you may have made a motion to amend the minutes so move by second seconded by joe um all those in favor signify by saying hi any opposed okay so back to our original motion that was moved and seconded on the consent calendar all those in favor please signify
018by saying hi any opposed motion carries [Music] so that brings us to our student representatives good evening members thank you for allowing me to represent and speak on behalf of the alternative center first ace will be administrating the 11th s.a.t the 11th grade s.a.t tomorrow march 24th kyle chocola will be served serving as the sap administrator the 9th and 10th graders will be heading to the white memorial preservation center initiative connecticut richard law of the 11th graders recently skt and the 12th graders will be joining both the danbury and the waterbury mountains of java community college on march 18th ace environmental science students went to bennett memorial for our new method to volunteer with the hba by obtaining over a hundred plans in repairing his own on april 7th daniel esposito english 1 and 2
019students will have the opportunity to participate in a poetry hike at st rock hills hospital in washington ct students will walk in nature and transcendental quotes in their pockets and will write poetry inspired by the survival on april 13th environmental science students will be visiting the normal aquarium with a science teacher class ace would like to celebrate our two wins through the february ace of spades for hard work dominic president dylan good ace could also like to recognize the february east partnership recipients genesis industrial and dominic perez the a staff is awarded the february students of the month to senior entree leon and other and freshman elvis sudan for their outstanding efforts in academic achievement lastly we would like to publicly recognize our two recipients of the superintendent's award kristen bolani and nicole whiskey thank
020you for helping us to share what's going on with our ac only down on 26th lucas avenue stay safe and remain strong everyone thank you so much thank you feel free to stay but you're welcome to leave as well action items action name a um al would you make the motion please yes that the board of education accepted the january and february 2022 financial reports in accordance with exhibit 22-38 motion's been made is there a second segmented by joe all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye any opposed and one extension motion carries action letter b um louisa would you like to read thank you motion that the board of education authorizes the chairperson of the board of education and the superintendent of schools to approve the final plans specifications and cost estimate
021for phase 3 data technology and phase 4 playground equipment and surfacing of ellsworth avenue school and board of education district registration projects and sign the scg-042 forms for submission to the state of connecticut office of school construction grants and review for approval in accordance with 22-39 motion made segmented by kate um just in for discussion i sat on the city building committee meeting yesterday with rich gelbert so this is just to wrap up phase three and four of the elf avenue edition uh phase three is the data and technology piece of that project um it's within budget about 67 000 for the school side and 12 000 for the boe administration administration side that includes smart boards tech switches tv displays wireless access access points and all that good stuff our i.t department was included
022in that work and then phase four is the playground equipment and resurfacing so i don't know if you if you remember ellsworth had pretty rough grassy area out in the back so now it will be a concrete with a rubber coating over it which is what they've been asking for for years so it's nice to finally to finally have that happening for them it was specifically designed for the grade levels there and that's also within a budget about 286 thousand and dr mead and principal durkin were also involved in the design of that just so you know any other discussion on that okay all those in favor please signify by saying hi and you opposed any extensions and it's motion carries action letter c lauren would you do that please i make a motion that
023the board of education appoint board member louise of britain and dr michael sealing chief of strategy and operations to the school building committee in accordance with 22-40 second it's been moved segmented by bridgette any discussion there i will say i learned just recently that typically that is the board of ed spot for that includes the chair of the facilities committee which i didn't realize i've been on that committee as long as i've been on the board um so over four years now and it previously was kathy molinaro and i serving as well as courtney was on that so um mike selig will fill barney's place and lisa and i will serve on the committee the same committee that met just yesterday so and then this will go to the city council and the city council
024will vote 22-40 is a two-year-old resolution i i don't care this is no problem with the motion we should we should make these appointments is this just an example of the building community just for reference yes this this will be updated and then sent to the city council i fit it's where i figured but i just want to clarify thank you sorry it's only documentation any other discussion or questions all those in favor please signify by saying any opposed abstentions it's unanimous motion carries action letter d um michelle would you like to read sure i make a motion that the board of education accept the letters of resignation dated march 16 2022 from board member katherine hudson in accordance with 22-41 page 43 emotions is there a second seconded by gladys any discussion we vote
025notice that we get together catherine thank you so much for serving thank you i'm excited um this wasn't your first rodeo of parental involvement so thank you for your your time and your involvement and volunteerism appreciate it it's been a pleasure thank you okay there's a motion on the floor all those in favor please signify by saying aye [Music] it's unanimous motion carries uh superintendents report mr wallston i'll turn it to you thank you thank you and good evening everyone so i first i'd like to start with ken i'd like to start with just reverse the water and talk about the commission of education commissioner charlene russell tucker visited the danbury community yesterday came in for a visit at danbury high school for the board members and the community members who are not aware originally
026my understanding is commissioner tucker was invited to the danbury to danbury high school to observe in person our struggles with overcrowding this invitation was extended by one of our representatives in town and it sounds like one day she accepted the invitation and then quickly re-rally to set up a day for the visit that day was yesterday tuesday we had quite frankly an amazing time the commissioner was appreciative of quite frankly rolling out the red carpet in the busy hallways of danbury high school she appreciated the all the hard work that is in the vision in danbury public schools with our new career academy they were requests to as follow-ups to our curriculum department and inquiries about the danbury academies and the continuum so the state has already has additional eyes on us because they're very
027happy about what's going on in denver public schools just more about the visit itself we i team and i looked at this as an opportunity as we talk about opportunities to partner not only with parents teachers community but as i shared with the commissioner yesterday we need our partnership as well and one of our board members is the disorder share his frustration and i shared that yesterday in your absence sir i know you can't always get out of work for these kind of meetings but but i shared our reality antonio shared all the projects since 2014. i believe there was eight in total and of those projects we we've always followed the rules because we've had to and those rules are the enrollment studies suggest how many seats we would be reimbursed for i shared
028with the commissioner that we understand those rules and understand those restrictions but we showed the slide that we've showed the board and the committee that we have outpaced the enrollment in the state of connecticut and when you compare us against all the other districts in the state of connecticut we continue to grow as other districts remain flat or have decreased in enrollment also shared with the commissioner not that she's not aware shared with the commissioner that we have a number of schools blue ribbon schools a number of schools of distinction and that an investment in us is a wise one also shared with the commissioner we we need to relax that rule about enrollment studies um and an enrollment study suggested as space 4 000. maybe that they need to give us some flexibility at
02913 1400 i suggested yesterday perhaps that's not fair to our taxpayers perhaps that's not fair to the taxpayers in the state of connecticut particularly when we have danbury public schools continues to exceed these projections and we need to perhaps look at this a little differently and so we followed up with a letter to her today and didn't put an ask in the letter today but made it pretty clear i think yesterday that um and ask is coming in the meantime um very happy about i think we demonstrated well that we are a team here in danbury from the board members and i really appreciate your support yesterday for the board members that were able to make it and demonstrate the support of our delegation members who were able to demonstrate their support and of course
030the mayor and city officials were able to demonstrate their support i think we presented well to the commissioner kind of unified as one and i think there will be some opportunity for us moving forward as we make a case to relax some of these rules specifically for danbury we can't really worry about all the other districts but i think we've had we demonstrated enough we've demonstrated several times and i and i walked the commissioner through we built the school we need the modules we built the school we needed models we built the school we needed modules modules and i'm to to the point that one of the parents made earlier we we will build danbury career academy and i'm not sure we may not need something else whether that's with the high school in middle
031school not too long just the way the rules are written right now with all that said i was in it so it was kind of hard for me to assess the day but i can only tell you i did hear from members from the state they were very happy about the visit very encouraged about the things the great things that are going on in danbury so again i just want to thank the board and the city of danbury and of course my team for all the hard work and more more good news to come i just wanted to provide that update and last but not least i can't i can't finish this without thanking principal donovan who got a call friday night because i received a call friday late afternoon um that the commission is
032coming right which is always great but of course we're all scrambling and then it's then the commission's coming on tuesday click have a good weekend and but he was ready as always and he was a great great host yesterday so i just wanted to publicly thank him his team and his teachers as well next on the list i'd like to provide an update regarding the strategic plan and during the 2018-19 school year dr sal charged my office dr cassinero kelly trucius and others carol wander kim thompson at the time joe martino with revisiting the strategic plan and some of the board members might recall we had a we went through a process in which we revised the vision statement and mission statement and we had that proved through the board we came back and gave
033a glimpse of the strategic kind of the direction of the plan and we didn't expert approval but essentially asked for approval for the direction for us to continue we did and at that time we were looking for approval in the fall we thought it was best to wait for the new board in november and then of course the duke board doesn't start november they started january so that we thought maybe we wait until the newborn got settled and then march came and and so the strategic plan kind of sat very pretty paperwork i mean this is not to say a lot of the strategies and action steps in that plan we cannot continue to move forward with that work but now on the opposite end of the pandemic looking back at some of those strategies
034and actually steps some of them are native some of those boxes are checked so as an example one of them was one-to-one device for every child in the district and that was a goal aspiration that was only a year and a half two years ago and we decided it's very important now that we revisit that plan in light of the pandemic so the team and i are looking to starting tomorrow we'll have a moderator lead strategic planning effort for the next two days thursday and friday and i would like to also share with the board because i'm asking for your help and input in this process for the new board members you may not be aware we had considerable feedback to inform the initial plan that that feedback included students hundreds of students quite frankly
035in person and through and through survey that feedback included teachers whether in person in visiting staff meetings or insert through survey eliciting feedback and then also our community getting out in different corners of the community in person or and or by a survey and getting feedback that feedback informed some of the bigger buckets in terms of what we should focus on and then went back to the experts to identify the action steps so given the community input we don't think it's necessary to go the same comprehensive approach but we will push out a letter to the community reminding them of their input previously and any recommendations that we have for additions to the plan we will walk the community through that via survey and so i just want to take an opportunity to walk the
036board through and then where i would love if you can be part of this process and please get in the way and i'll walk you through that and then and so in march which is thursday and friday i'll be working with the cabinet in a retreat which will be moderated by someone from the center of school change and then next month we will look to have all of the action steps completed because tomorrow thursday and friday we do not expect to finish the entire plan however the goals and the strategies we do intend to have that completed and then we'll push it back to the experts carrier kelly kim to go back to their respective departments to complete the actual steps in may we will look to get feedback from admin council which is all
037my administrators in the district we will meet with them in person and then find a way to elicit feedback probably in a survey so it'd be easy to calibrate all of the feedback and then we will find a way or need to find a way these are some of the things we need to talk about tomorrow whether that's a survey but i just want to make sure we engage the staff in some way and get their feedback as well any adjustments that we make over the next two days fast forwarding to june typically i'm so hoping we don't have any surprises with the weather our last day for staff will be june 20th and typically we have a day or two for administrators to kind of wrap up in closing activities as their respective schools
038and then we would have them for professional development with the cabinet to close out so i'm hoping that's going to be june 23rd or 4th at wednesday or thursday the following week is june 27th with the admin i'm hoping to with the moderator so we'll have 40 50 people in a room with cabinet and i with the moderator be an opportunity for admin council to see themselves in a strategic plan within their own sphere of influence how they can help us realize our goals district-wide what this means for their respective school improvement plans what this means for department plans across the district and how we can create synergy between all these plans and and help us realize our hopes from additional perspective last but not least the week of june 27th through the board chair
039would like i'm hoping that we can find some dates when the board might be available for our own training or professional development i have been able to secure a moderator to work with us not only to review the plan but also to review your draft board goals that you've worked on previously and work with the moderator to see how those plans can complement the strategic plan and also talk about a strategy about the development for my goals for 22-23 and so i'm hoping to that we can find synergy amongst all of them and the board will kind of perhaps after not sure how many hours two three hours probably at least a half day we would need and so hopefully we can find a good time and going into that meeting we can kind of
040think through some goals for the meeting for that day so i just wanted to share that with you i'm going to hand out a copy for you and i'll make sure that it was make sure that we'll also put this in the minutes as well because we didn't get this pretty copy available until after this was done so i'm sorry about the delay but i do have a visual for everyone so that they can see what this looks like and then last but not least i'll hand this out as cara is making her way to the presentation in the curriculum committee dr castamero provided an update an academic update and i backed dr casamaro to provide that same update with perhaps a couple of new i don't know anything new you'll always have something great
041for us and uh pam our reading supervisor has also agreed to join us this evening so this would be a great opportunity for entire community um to see the academic updates in addition to the full board thank you dr casamiro and thank you pam walter so while kelly gets me squared away over there um again i just wanted to introduce hannah dawn piano is our k-popular supervisor she works tirelessly out of the crc which is the curriculum resource center office which is right across the street from hebrew book we call it we were from anna's metal building across the street and that's where my office is as well and so a few we determine dates for our curriculum committee to meet for the remainder of the year and happily we met last week was elected
042the chair of the curriculum okay well we can get started and you can catch up this is great [Music] we went through the same presentation and so that's also available online if anybody wants to see it maybe not so much so just a brief summary of what we talked about in that meeting was really about a little bit of a deeper understanding about the elementary literacy program alignment that the state is trying to coalesce in the right to read legislation and so the overarching goals that the state has set out with this legislation and it's actually good legislation um is to systematize reading and processing medicaid to really guarantee and ensure that um students really get offered a good foundation making sure that our kids are getting better so part of that is the uh
043the coordination of professional development the alignment of that to teacher preparation programs in the same making sure that we're preparing our new teachers coming out to the workforce ready to go um in the past we have talked many times that many of our teachers really do struggle with foundational literacy um and we struggle to catch up with professional development time to do that so this is a great effort across the state to begin to make those alignments um their legislation is encouraging based on the science and reading to improve reading outcomes for all students and the nearly five reading programs that are selected must be evidence-based they must focus on competencies moral language anemic awareness phonics fluency vocabulary rapid automatic name or lettering fluency and reading comprehension and so there's a timeline that that has
044been laid out by the state for this uh so last july they established uh the center for literacy research and being success that would be the state of connecticut and at that point um our group got together and said let's start to be proactive and start to look at some of the um top programs that we know that exist out there ones that have had some ratings that have generated some good research reports and to try to get ahead of the curve a little bit and that list gets posted so that we are really familiar with all the programs because once alice gets posted every state every uh school district is going to be scrambling to do the same thing so we started that that work in camps here tonight to talk a little bit
045about a couple of the programs that we started to that we think will be on the list um two of the larger ones um but by this july uh that list will be posted and then dandruff will start to make that selection um and then we'll develop the plan to roll out based on the training needs of that particular program over the course of next year and we will make a purchase um there's a possibility that our current foundational program the being reader program is on the list we're just not sure what that's going to be but we're going to be practicing here anyways and then july 2023 there'll be a statewide reading plan that's coordinated for all um each district has to set out to implement that reading curriculum for k-3 and then 2024
046there's more of a review process and evaluation that'll take place and i'm sure there'll be some adjustments in their finances from that point and so i will let pam talk a little bit about core knowledge and our core these are two programs that our group has been studying we've had their folks in and we should tell you a little bit about what she likes about youtube so these are two hypothetical we've got maybe on the list we'll know more the committee is actually meeting tomorrow the literacy research panel committee and the agenda says that they're going to begin to discuss the review process tomorrow so i plan to tune in and see what they say about what their you know goals are for that work so two programs that we've kind of begun doing some
047initial reviews around what is the amplifies core knowledge program which is a program that is k8 and it has elements across many different domains and different topics it does you know it has history topics it has science topics it's literacy topics um it's pretty broad-based in that way it has a two-pronged approach so one arm of the program is the foundational skills and the other arm of the program is more of like the literacy you know research reading you know part of that program a piece of that program in the initial review is that the foundational element of that program is a whole class model so that that is one area that we need to think a little bit about in terms of implementation the other program that we're looking at is our core which
048is from the american reading company they also like core knowledge have a two-pronged approach to their literacy program with one arm being the foundational skills the other are being the more the rest of the literacy practices than the other armed with that program their foundational skills program is assessment based not the other one is not an assessment piece but i mean it's not a whole class model so the students would take a business assessment and it would it would say which foundational skills they are in need of and then where to start in the program in relationship to those skills so they're outlined they're a little bit different in that way another difference between the two is cornellage has many topics across the brain our core has four kind of major you know more major
049modules that have different elements within them so for example each grade has a literacy module a research informational text module an argument module an argument advocacy module and then they're more literature-based so it goes into them each of those different components are there and kids spend a little bit more time more deeply in each of the topics so they might have the other there are advantages and disadvantages which in both programs um it could be proven sure at this point to say you like x over y or you have things we need to see what ends up on that list but it behooves us to kind of get our feelers out there in terms of what we think would meet the needs of our kids as we're looking so these are two can you feel
050free to hear that yes so we also talked in the best initial investigations as well as in talking with the representatives from the companies one of the things that we're trying to look at is some kind of cross-hatching between the literacy programs and what happens in science and social studies and so topically foreknowledge has many places where they would topically kind of address ngss as does our core i would say of the two it's our kind of initial review our core is a little bit more aligned with the standards and not just the topics if that makes sense like not just the content but also some of the standards that exist in those other domains although neither of them are science or social studies programs there are places where there would be some opportunities for
051overlap and deeper study in some of those topics and that is a lens through which we're also you know looking at each of these programs so we're looking at that lens for the lenses like teacher usability in terms of materials like how organized they are and how much professional decision making exists within the programs because no one program or model is going to meet the needs of all kids in the absence of the teacher right so the teacher needs to be making professional judgments so that's a factor that we're considering as we look at each of these you know models in terms of our initial review uh just real quick is art core also a k-8 program yes yes sure okay one of them is legislations are k3 but we want to make sure that
052if we're looking at something that they're the ability to roll up if we like the program and to make sure that that alignment is solid and great especially considering that was actually to follow by that question you just kind of touched on it it does make sense to carry it beyond i mean we're statutorily required to do a k3 but rolling it through 4 5 at minimum keeps us from having to switch curricula in the middle of elementary school right it does and and also you know having you know we are very much focused on on the standards um about the financial literacy components but also the standard so the standards are consistent across right so and those spiral of their grades and so the programs any program that we select is really a program
053and not necessarily the standards right we select a program that helps teachers to teach those standards and provide appropriate and robust resources and accessible resources so we have a lot of second language learners um are there several resources or models that are here that are more accessible for our population of students as that's good for all students um you know the advantages of having something that connects with ngss science is a priority as well for us right now we're trying to roll that out and really prevent life in this district get kids excited about stem and science and coding robotics so that when they get to the academies they have some facility with making those decisions for themselves and seeing themselves in goals that they may not have considered before so that starts really at
054the elementary level and getting kids excited about that so we're looking for the nexus between um all of those things and selecting the the perfect resource but really the skill comes within the training of the teachers on standards based reading and um so that's you know and that's something to do regardless of the program that we get to help with those give them the right resources for them so um and again you know these are these are kind of the the end of of the scale and looking at these programs these are programs that we've looked at in the past um that we you know we should have afforded at some point you know we're at a unique opportunity right now we may have a little additional funding that we haven't had in the past
055to get those so we are going to look at some of the more premier programs that have been out there that we also think will make the less uh you know we won't know and so that was disposed but we're pretty confident that these two at least will be announced okay and so we also talked in our curriculum a little bit about an update other portion of the graduate so there's been some exciting work happening in the background with a core team that has been working really hard on creating a continuum of outcomes that describe the that describe uh really what we mean at a grade level by what it looks like to be an advocate a collaborator a communicator an innovator or a learner what does that look like as a sixth grader these
056are really difficult things to to have conversations around because they're not so cut and thrived there are a lot of conversation they're nuanced in many ways and so um creating descriptors around those has been very challenging work but very rich work that has generated a lot of discussions uh in our school system just recently we engaged our uh administrators and conversations around oriented to this new framework this is just a draft and it is very much under construction um so i'm not publishing it anywhere i did allow our you know have our our curriculum committee get first cracking looking at happy to share that with the door because it's under construction it hasn't been changed anymore since the last time we looked at it um i want to make sure that there you know any
057hard copies out there to confuse anybody just yet but i didn't want folks to understand that there's a lot of work happening in the background um and then our teachers had an opportunity to take a look at this uh just this past tuesday and it's a lot um and if you were in our curriculum meeting or you watched that some of the commentaries like wow this is dense this is a lot of work um you know how do we get our brains around so it's really a mindset shift in thinking about all the things that are super important but are the most difficult to measure and that's where we're at with this so just uh very quickly i went through the categories here but as kelly's pointing out we have the descriptor the attributes on
058the left there are descriptions and definitions about what we mean by that so very much a narrative just overall about what we're saying is important about those categories and then kelly's going to click on the achievement indicators there so rather than talking about performance as a 1 a two a three or a four we are talking about students exploring progressing achieving or consciously pursuing and so it's really encouraging along a continuum of aspirational attributes where we want students to go out so really forcing the conversation and reflection on these items um and just a quick example and maybe i should have done this earlier but if you look at the collaborator i just use this as an example and you narrow this broad very dense continuum down you just look at the achieving problem we're
059to say what do we want from our from our students with regards to being a collaborator and you i cannot see that here's a double click on mine very quickly um we really start to make this very large continuum a little bit smaller and a little bit more personalized because very achievable on the collaborator continuum for achieving if we were to say what the goal is is that a student is respectful towards others and actively practices empathy with collaborating as part of the team that's doable you can have a conversation with students about that a student engages in dialogue around topical knowledge so whatever content they're in with their team members and can articulate ideas and present action items related to the tasks that help to keep others focused right you can have conversations with
060students about that students consistently demonstrate the behavior that encourages trust by acting with integrity accountability and keeping all team members best interests in mind i can't think of some greater conversations to have with your students when they're working together as a team and so these are the types of things very difficult to measure but great to reflect on particularly as a team member when working on projects in school and so when you look at the whole thing it's quite overwhelming but if you just focus in on that achieving problem it really gives you a sense of what we're trying to get to so i won't go too much further into that um but just to give you a little snapshot about the types of things that we're working on that will be encouraging our students
061over the next couple of years and then the last items we talked about kind of exciting about really developing some parent-facing curriculum overviews and resources so that our parents can really see what's going on a little bit more of a transparent fashion we've been on the moon a little bit bringing in new curriculum and programs we have more to go but we're hoping as soon as that process settles a little bit we'll provide some more robust parental facing documents and resources so that parents can support their children at all along with the curriculum and and you know keep everybody informed about the right things that are happening in school so they'll be work for next year we're hoping to build that into the new website that's coming so we're looking at content design templates that
062will fit and integrate best into that environment questions from board members before i move on thank you for the presentation um thank you to the young lady pan uh that was so graciously assisted me in some things to tonight and when she opened her mouth and i said oh she's got to be one of our own and she is one of our own and thank you pam for your nice words as i was coming up to step we are all sitting around this table because we care about education and we know that our teachers within our school system everyone working to make every child that's in our school system be the best that they can be and i just want to say i thank you for the presentation that that we haven't done we're going
063to get done and knowing that our children are going to get the best education that they can here in danville we have great teachers over the years in my 30 years sitting on this board i've seen them come and go but they were all very interested in education so i just want to applaud everyone for their hard work and i certainly appreciate it so i just wanted to add that i will be asking the board secretary cara pompano to reach out to the board as a follow-up regarding the retreat idea for board members with some concrete dates uh from the moderator and some potential objectives for meetings in future implementation that'll or not um did you want to speak to the calendar we have two drafts um under information absolutely thank you for that and
064so i would like to share with the board in the packet this evening the community should also receive this when we push out the board agenda on friday two versions of a calendar that we would like the board to consider and take action on one that they feel like is better suited for the district both and some of the highlights to consider one is typical of what we've done in terms of early release days which provides professional development staff development opportunities for staff practice school and the second option there are six half day options which still provide staff development opportunities for our teachers staff back to school but we're hoping perhaps this might be less disruptive for families and quite frankly we think it will be more productive and efficient for us as educators i've
065asked dr c lee in his capacity as strategy and operations to put together a survey for our families and to schedule a meeting with the community relations committee to make the committee aware of the results of the survey and i'm hoping by trying this approach we can try this for one year and then if this is something that the community is very interested in we're actually get back to our two-year cycle of calendars and perhaps possibly start baking in this approach moving forward but it's something the team and i have been talking about for a couple of years while dr sal was here as well of course during the pandemic was not the time to talk about two-hour release days i mean half day releases just for the football but we just and some of
066them and i'll ask dr cassidy to help me on this but we are challenged now um in the one-hour release days of our challenge for us meeting with our staff we have early schools late schools we have to wait until everyone is in the room before we can start pd wait a minute the early school staff is leaving this the late school staff is still in the room by contract and it's not the most effective way to try to do this work and we also acknowledge the fact that we have 10 days of disruption for families and yes there would be a longer opportunity for a longer time for child care but less time to have to arrange for child care so we're hoping our families this is something they're interested in option two but
067we want to confirm uh through server so we just wanted to make the board aware and that's why you see two options in front of you for information we will push on a server you get feedback and hopefully the board will consider taking action oh that's really important thank you thank you so in the in both calendars and by the way our principals our teachers last year um really advocated strongly for this and it frankly it was not the time it was a great idea it was not the time and for those of you who had children in the system remember what it was like to drop your babies off at school as kindergarteners remember the struggle it was to release them and let them go to the teacher it's it's a challenge for the
068kids it's a challenge for the teachers it's a challenge for the parents particularly for parents who need that attention after they leave that classroom part of our challenge is there are a lot of things going on in the schools at first week in school as we all know and what we have what i have learned from a lot of our neighboring school districts cabinet providing feedback for me kevin a lot of districts are or part of their strategy is to have a transition to first week and so our kindergarten students in other districts they will assess students that first week they will get students connected to kind of what the expectations are in school it may be an opportunity for students to get on the bus just to go through the protocols and getting on
069and off the bus we may not be driving them home but just as a protocol the students know what have an idea what the expectations are they meet their teacher for the first time with mom or dad or their family member and so our idea would be for the first day of school the teacher would have an appointment perhaps with five families so one family would come in with their child we would walk them through what the expectations are it would be the teacher for the first time the child will know where they're sitting in the classroom they don't know where the restroom is they'll they'll walk around the school and that might be an hour and then the next child will come in and then we will get through five and then after two
070or three days we would have it's two days right thank you and then after three days we would have gone through the entire class list and then the next day in an hour plan would be friday would be the first full day of school for all the students then the following week which is actually the day after memorial labor day thank you jim labor day it will be a full day of kindergarten for all the students but what we learned the hard way particularly this year is that having our kindergarten students there on day one particularly for our families who couldn't even get into the school but it's a challenge for our families for our parents it's really challenging most importantly for our kids and the majority of our students who are left behind when
071their parents leave the kids are crying in the classroom for that first week um and this is why this is the first week of school with all the chaos that exists and i'm not talking about chaos like as if it's unorganized but it's just it's the first week of school and we feel strongly that it's not necessarily the best interest of our five-year-olds who are starting school the first week so in both calendars we've actually proposed that we have this kind of transition we understand it would be an adjustment for some of our families particularly if they've had kids in the school system before in danbury this is not something that we've done but we we strongly recommend it there is typically a requirement for 180 days for students we have we don't have the
072same requirements for the board is aware for kindergarten students so we do have flexibility in that result so just wanted to make you aware there may be some questions about that so they understand we appreciate that um but we kind of put it in both calendars because we feel like it's really the best interest of our kids and our families but certainly if the board is preferred not to it to be in either calendar we can also make that next possible yes with mike with karen take me black version number two i i'm strongly recommending and hoping this is the one for would prefer and so i'm just trying to highlight trying to be as subjective as i can but it's really hard well it's being as objective as i could be certain you are
073our lead educational profession and i would leave this up to you again after you have you have the schedule of your choice well i appreciate that so and we will be back with the calendar really soon and you'll um the outcome of the survey absolutely um and asked mike um through the community delicious committee to work with kate and make sure we can talk to the results thank you are there any questions for board members about the calendar i just have one it's kind of a crazy question december 23rd is a half day for students but i noticed offices are closed that day how's that gonna work that sounds like a typo okay december 23rd it's a half day for kids and it says offices close on december 23rd the day before christmas walk okay
074um and so that might be why that's the problem is the holidays on the weekend okay but i'll definitely follow up to make sure okay that may be why okay i think that's actually the day the state takes the holiday is december 23rd they would okay we're a while inside of that friday or that monday yeah and lauren thank you for bringing up the 23rd she just triggered another reminder for me except this is november reminding me okay and that is in both calendars we've actually played in november 23rd the last couple of years november 23rd has been a half day for us we've learned and it's very clear that wednesday before thanksgiving i know we will have to make the day up somewhere else but this day is just in the best interest of
075everyone yes give everyone the opportunity to make plans with their family whether they're traveling hosting grocery shopping getting ready for thanksgiving and so instead of a half day um recommended and put in green on the twenty third of the day okay and office is closed as well okay so thank you for saying the twenty thirds and definitely everything also one thing that does come up sometimes and they don't protect that's usually a board meeting night two seconds wednesday so i don't know don't usually don't usually meet the third week the holidays wednesday that's right okay [Music] any other questions or comments about the uh calendar the kindergarten idea sounds great but it sounds like a really good idea how can anybody just be really happy yeah yeah it sounds like a great idea and it's
076apparent i like cowboy number two thank you moving on to board chair persons report i don't have much except to remind to remind you that um next week on march 30th we have our workshop with cave here in person um i like to say attendance is critical it's a roles and responsibilities workshop um it doesn't for me it doesn't make sense if we have like one or two board members missing it's you know it's important that we're all here for that but in the meantime um just you know gentle reminder um you know to obtain the floor to be recognized by the chair whether that be a regular committee uh regular meeting or a committee meeting um i you know we're not we're very casual here and i i prefer that um and we're all
077very simple and respectful but just i just like to keep it that way so that we can have you know more of a casual casual conversation i think it's more effective in communication but um and just to be considerate of how many times we obtained before and also speaking to the media traditionally um this board has left it to the chair to act as the spokesperson for the board when you know the news times calls or whatever um you don't have to talk to the news tax you can say you can defer to the board which is what you know i used to do when sitting up you know on the side of the table um and then committee minutes i know like um we're losing our secretary um but um just if you could
078bring uh your mind remind uh that the committee chair uh assigns the uh no keeper for the community um and that minutes um should be filed within um seven days after the after the meeting um for any votes it's within 48 hours after the meeting um after the votes take place so there's just some reminders but i mean i feel silly kind of saying it to you all because we're all very very respectful and i appreciate that um any other board communications or comments updates uh madam chair uh i would just like to uh reschedule the superintendent evaluation committee that scheduled for uh i think it's monday i did my days next time the 28 something because there's a hearing down at city hall concerning the career academy and the money and how it's going
079to be on the valley and i think that's very important for us to be there to support that sure so i don't have a date yet okay but it will be within another week or so okay yeah if that's in line with your thinking to to reschedule sounds good thank you any other communications questions comments updates okay uh we have an executive session lauren did you make a motion and make a motion that the board of education can be in an executive session to present the agreement with upscu danbury voe secretary's i.t employees local unit 94 with action in public session my second emotion moved by lawrence seconded by gladys section