001Good evening. I would like to call this meeting of the board of education to order. The next regular meeting of the board of education is on Tuesday, June 9th at 7:30 p.m. for the chairperson chairperson's report tonight. Uh thank you all for being here tonight. As we are heading into the final weeks of the 202526 school year, I would like to congratulate all of our students on your achievements and participation in our many year-end concerts, art shows, the upcoming theater 308 production, the DHS science symposium, the quiz bowl nationals tournament, and to our DHS athletic teams participating in postseason FCA playoffs and championships. Last week at the DHS scholarship and awards night, I also had the honor of presenting the annual Darienne Board of Education Award for a student interested in the field of education
002and the chairman's book award for achievement, academic achievement and service. Congratulations to all of our students who participated in these awards ceremonies. We are so proud of all of our students and join you in celebrating your accomplishments as the 2526 school year enters the final stretch. Congratulations. Thank you. Uh now to uh public comment. If anyone would like to participate in public comment, please approach the podium and wait to be recognized. Once recognized, please please state your name and town of residence and note that you will have up to three minutes to comment. We have no participants this evening. Now for the superintendence report. Dr. Burn. >> Good evening and thank you for joining us for the May 26 board of education meeting. Thank you to our members of the board who were able to
003attend the learning locks last week at Darion High School. An additional thank you to the Darion High School teachers who opened up their classrooms for the visits and the admin team for leading the discussions. Last Thursday, Dr. Fedigan, myself, and a team from across our elementary schools attended the last and final session of our science of reading course. It was a very informative day and a very helpful course for us to participate in across the school year. I'd also like to share some fantastic news from our quiz bowl program. About a dozen members of the Middle Sex Quizball team along with one Hinley fifth grader traveled to Orlando, Florida to compete in the IA Elementary and Middle School National Championships. Our students competed against more than 2200 students from across the country at math, science,
004geography, and history bees, specialized exams, and team bowls. We had students win national championships, complete in compete in the playoffs quarter and semi-finals, and place in the top 10. And the middle middle school academic bowl team advanced to the national playoff rounds. I'd like to congratulate all of our student competitors, their families, and our coaches. And that concludes my report for this evening. >> Thank you, Dr. Burn. Um, the student representatives report. Kyle or Ryan? >> Yeah. Last week, our DHS students and faculty hosted their annual art show as well as a science symposium and their student productions uh in the theater. Uh tonight, our girls and boys lacrosse, our boys baseball and girls softball teams all have state semi-final games. So, hoping for some good wins there as always. And uh next Wednesday, June
0053rd, our uh orchestra uh will be hosting a small ensemble concert uh Wednesday night. So, looking forward to that as well. >> Thank you. Now moving on to presentation, discussion and possible action uh with the deren high school update and attending we have Mrs. Ellen Dunn, Miss Megan Dob, sorry, Mr. Keith Keeler, Mr. Mark Mazone, and Miss Ellison Mulain. Thank you. >> Hi, good evening everyone. And we have many of our department leaders and um especially our students involved in the presentation tonight. So, um we are excited to come um to you and um provide you with some feedback on some of the excellent work you've done with us over the years. Um we decided to focus on our elective program. Um as you know, the um curriculum council works through new electives, new courses
006each year and we appear before you around November sometime and talk about the new courses that we'd like to bring forward. Um, some of those courses belong in the core curriculum, but many of those courses are um, in our elective program. And, um, you know, I learned something 25 years ago when we brought forth the science research course at the high school. Um, we had, as you said earlier, the 25th symposium last week. Um, I'll pass this around to you later. Um, but the the what I learned was that um you really need to put passions and interests before some of the other decisions that we make, you know, in terms of what we want our students to be able to experience and expose them to a great variety of choice. Um and the science
007symposium when when we um brought that idea forward uh I had envisioned that students would go further than what they would do in a core curriculum experience that they would take some area of interest and explore it and become excited about it and then possibly go on to college and pursue some of those um interests and ideas. I had no idea what they would be able to do. And I learned that 25 years ago that what we really need to do sometimes is give them the tools, give them experts in the field and stay out of the way and allow them to pursue those real passions and interests. And so if you get a chance to look at um the book, you'll see even the titles um of some of the projects are indecipherable to
008someone who has a degree in biology. U so I do think um you know what you'll hear tonight is a lot of that. You know we have given opportunities over the years. We're very proud of that for students to follow their passions. They come back from college. they talk about and the advice they give um to our current students is to take those electives. Take something that you might never be able to take again. I heard um one of my college professors years ago say um learn who the best professors are at any college and take all of their classes. It doesn't matter what it is. What do you know? They're following their passion. They have an interest in their subject and you will learn and your pathway may change. And so I really do
009believe in the power of um these courses and the opportunities you're going to hear about tonight. Um so you see some of the descriptions up there, but um you know this presentation has kind of become known affectionately among the group as voices and choices. Um and really giving voice to our students because their expression of what these courses have meant to them is is more important than what we can say about it. So, without further ado, we'll get on to fine and performing arts. And Colleen Thompson is here to present um our art and music. Good evening everybody. Uh good to see you. I'm excited to present um some students who are going to speak with you at Darian High School. Our elective program gives students the opportunity to pursue their interests in meaningful and
010sustained ways. And in the arts, this means students are not only participating, they're creating, performing, leading, and ultimately defining their own pathways. One of the ways we celebrate this is through our senior arts commitment ceremony, which took place on April 29th. This event recognizes students who have chosen to continue their study of music, visual art, or theater at the college level. Last year we had five students who participated in the ceremony and this year we recognized 12 students who are pursuing the arts at the collegiate level. We are proud of this growth and it's a reflection of both student passion and the strengths of our arts programming. Uh when students are given the meaningful choices in their education particularly through electives uh they discover their interests, develop their voice and gain the confidence to pursue
011those passions beyond high school. Um, I would like to welcome one of our visual art students, Tatum Dunn, who will be studying visual art and design at the University of Michigan. Uh, while uh, Tatum presents, I'm actually going to walk around with one of her pieces that won uh, best in mixed media at uh, Scholastics last year. So, here is Tatum. Hi everyone, I'm Tatum and I plan to study art and design at the University of Michigan next year. I moved to Derenne my sophomore year and although I had prior interest in art from my previous school, I began taking it more seriously after taking a drawing and painting honors course in 10th grade. >> [clears throat] >> This class was challenging as it forced me to experiment with mixing materials. But with practice, I
012actually ended up de developing a style I loved and was proud of and gaining much more confidence in my work. From there, classes like AP2D and 3D really pushed me to think more deeply about my work, exploring ideas that felt more personal to me. My junior year, for example, in my AP2D class, I investigated how embroidery could convey various forms of connection. >> [clears throat] >> Today I brought my mixed media piece called hopscotch which was a part of this portfolio. Here I experimented with creating dimension and shape with less conventional materials such as cardboard, embroidery string, and denim. This piece was also particularly timeconuming, spending almost 20 hours outside of class time working on it and going to three different Michael stores to clear their shelves of their pink embroidery string. It also marked
013a shift as me a shift in me as an artist as I became more fascinated with how non-objective art can invite the ordinary person. When selecting courses for my senior year, DHS gave me the opportunity to do AP 3D art which was which I was able to further where I was able to further develop my skills in ceramic sculpture. Being a I had been working with ceramics since freshman year outside of school, but being able to gain new perspective from a teacher challenged me to think more critically about my techniques and processes. Over the course of three years, I formed connections with multiple talented art teachers. From being directed by Miss Samus through my mixed media journey to growing as a ceramicist in Bos's class, the support and uplifting atmosphere atmosphere of the DHS art
014department further nurtured my love for the subject and prompted me to pursue art in college. Thank you. >> So, I'm going to present on David's behalf. Um I'm grateful now that he didn't choose to play his cello live as was one of his options. Um that wouldn't have gone well for me. But um David Louie uh did want to share with you a little bit about his journey. Um he is a composer, a chist and a conductor. Uh you may know um his his father Allan is uh a physics teacher in our school system. Um, so he has uh he's he's taken a lot of classes at DHS exploring and getting experience leading his orchestra section. Uh, he was a guest conductor in one of our uh, concerts and really uniquely he actually scored two
015of our dramas. Um, so he he wrote music for a piece uh, a piece of theater that doesn't typically have music. Um, so he talks about his path from a chist to a composer that had it actually began in school where his middle school orchestra teacher helped him form a small chamber group giving him time to rehearse and many performance opportunities. I believe that chamber group performed here several years ago um when they were in middle school. So now it's kind of uh exciting to see him uh pursuing that at the college uh and career level. Um he says that most uh one of the pieces that really underscores his uh development as a composer is the piece he wrote for Abigail's famous monologue in the opening of act two of The Crucible. The piece
016timed tightly with the monologue and had a silhouetted choreographed dance to accompany it. This required active collaboration with our director, our actress playing Abigail and the student choreographer. and it shows just the depth of the collaborative experience that our arts programs offer. He says, "I've taken on a lot of roles over my four years, spanning from scoring dramas to guest conducting. In a lot of these, I was entering a job that I had never done before, but I was given the right tools and resources from teachers to learn on the job. These roles helped me strengthen and connect my technical, expressional, and interpersonal skills. I've been able to combine these musical experiences with other artistic mediums such as lighting design. But what ties it together is that they started from curiosities that were answered with
017opportunities to learn as far as my ambition and interest took me. Looking forward, I'm very excited to continue this musical journey at New England Conservatory, where I will be able to further devote myself to writing music and earn my bachelor's in music and composition. and I hope to go on to pursue a master's program in conducting. He says he is grateful to the DHS music program, Mrs. Thompson, Miss Minis, as well as the rest of the music and performing arts faculty at DHS for supporting the curiosities and interests that have turned into a career path. Thank you. Thanks. >> Um Christian Daccom is here to talk a little bit about anatomy and physiology also known as heart and soul. Um and uh the course began as you might remember in the 2425 school year. So
018um it's well on its way. >> Uh [clears throat and cough] excuse me. Good evening. Um, so over the past two years, anatomy and physiology, heart and soul, has become one of Darian High School's most engaging and innovative science electives by providing our students with authentic hands-on experiences that connect classroom learning to real world healthc care applications through an integrated graded studies in biology, chemistry, and even a little bit of physics. Students develop critical thinking, problem solving, and clinical reasoning skills by participating in the Blue Wave Medical Center simulations. These experiences build confidence in applying scientific knowledge to new situations. The course also fosters empathy, communication, and collaboration through patient- centered learning experiences and exposes students to more than 30 careers in the medical and health sciences field. What began as a proposal to meet
019growing student interests has evolved into a dynamic program that prepares our students to think scientifically, work collaboratively, and better understand the complexities of human health in the medical field. I'm deeply grateful for the time, passion, and energy that Dr. Aaron Ritz, uh, the instructor, has dedicated to making this course such a meaningful and transformative experience for her students. Through her leadership and commitment, the anatomy and physiology classes become an opportunity for students to challenge themselves, explore future careers, and develop competence, empathy, and critical thinking skills. With that being said, there's no better way to understand the impact of this course than through the voices and experiences of the students themselves. I want to pursue a career in nursing. And then at that point, I started thinking about what practical classes I could, you know, get
020a preview of in high school that would help me in college. And from my research, a lot of nursing students say that their anatomy classes are particularly challenging for them. Um, so I thought why not take anatomy as a little preview in high school and, you know, get to know it, feel a little more comfortable with the material. >> I wanted to major in human physiology. I signed up for anatomy and physiology because I'm also interested in going into a health field. I'm uh majoring in animal science in college and learning about different types of anatomy is extremely important to me. the bone unit. I thought it was really cool to like kind of like learn like the like the functional parts of the body, like the the basis of the body. And then also
021like when we went around like when all the bones were on the table, like it was kind of nice to see like the femur like it actually like looked like it would fit there. And then also like um like sternum and all that stuff like it was cool to see it like actually in real life. Um definitely one of my highlights was when we did like the sutures and learning how to uh stitch up a wound. Um, and also like the cat's eye section. I feel like that was so random or not random, but like random in my like head. I never thought I would do something like that in my life. And so it was so cool seeing all the organs and like being able to like visually see them and not just like
022on a picture or like them being plastic. So yeah, I'd have to agree with Anna. I feel like the cat dissection was definitely one of the most like interesting things I've ever done in like my whole high school years. Like I feel like I would have never been able to do something like that if I hadn't taken anatomy. >> Highlight or two of my favorite units were the endocrine system and the reproductive system cuz I'm interested in women's health. >> We're always thinking from multiple perspectives. So we're thinking, okay, how's the patient feeling? How's the patient's family feeling? And what's it like being the medical provider? and we're always thinking from all those perspectives in our classes, our case studies, our career journals. So, it's really good reminder, especially as someone who's hoping to be
023in the healthc care field that you know when sometimes you can get overly focused [clears throat] on the medicine that you are working with people, you're working with patients. So, it's important to, you know, treat them with respect because someday you might be a patient. Like last year I took AP bio and I loved that course but a lot of the things were like really small scale. I needed to apply it to like actual people or like actual issues and like how it would work like in the body. And this course has really helped me like learn how to do that through like case studies and then just like thinking like larger. I did not take AP viol [laughter] but um I feel like this course is definitely gonna help me like I mean again
024with like the suturing like god forbid like I'm anywhere and I need to do that like I will have that skill. >> Yeah. Um for me personally I want to go into nursing so I feel like this was a really um suitable course for me. I learned a lot and I feel like I'm definitely able to apply everything that I've learned um to my career and my future. Also, I would also like to add, I forgot this, that um being able to like know more about my body and like how it functions is like empowering and like in case I ever have like a medical emergency or like I'm in the hospital, like I kind of know like generally like what's going on. Like I know what like my blood pressure should be. I know
025what my temperature should be. Like I know all this stuff now, which is really nice and like comforting to know. >> Also, I feel like we've learned like the importance of empathy and like every disease that we've, you know, learned and researched. I feel like that was also very important cuz we know a lot of our relatives or family friends like have these diseases but like yeah it was also important. >> Um next up we have tech ed and Mr. Darren is here to talk about independent projects and engineering. Um, we have also a guest appearance by Melvin. Um, [laughter] go ahead, Mr. Derek. >> Hi, welcome and, uh, thank you for having me here tonight. I'm just going to introduce a little bit about the course and then Jacob, who unfortunately couldn't be here
026tonight due to a conflict. He's actually at the University of Kansas um, right now and um, he let me borrow his robot today just to kind of introduce u Melvin as well. So, the independent projects in engineering course is a two-year deep dive course into an engineering problem. And every student in that course has the opportunity to kind of choose their path in a a variety of different problems that they like to solve. And Jacob has been in it for two years and he'll talk talk more about it in his um in his video that we have here. And I just want to talk briefly about the power of choice. The students in this class because they have the power of choice and what they want to study. They have a passion for learning and
027great outcomes come from that like Melvin the robot. And I I've seen it firsthand when students really care about what they're learning, they learn regardless of some of the barriers that we may be facing. When if you think about AI and students are using AI to cheat, well, when they care about what they want to learn, they're going to use AI to learn. They want it to help me. I want to know how to do X, Y, and Z. I want to know how to create and because it's something that they really care about. So I I want to give kids as many opportunities as we can to have that power of choice. Um and in Jacob's case, it really has led to he's learned a lot of skills in terms of engineering and design
028and um career readiness and it's it's come full circle where his internship right now is at um T&J Restorations. It's a car restoration company out of Kansas and he's doing remote work and he's designing CAD parts for them right now. He just recently designed a custom intake manifold for um I don't even know the year of the vehicle. Some old 1930s pickup or something and he designs it, he 3D prints it or he sends the part to the people in Kansas and they 3D print it. It's real world application of what people will be doing in real life. And not my words, but Jake's words when he kind of presents um Melvin the robot hair. There's no instruction manual to this. And kids who have seen this like, "Oh, how did you make this? Where
029are the instructions?" It's just an iteration of probably a hundred different ideas and iterations of this type of robot. And everything you see here and where he learned the skills to kind of design the parts for the car, he had to design around this. The only things that were really purchased are there's some speakers right here and there's some internal actual motors. But he had to in CAD design every part to fit the motors for the joints for the hands. Um, and everything that's metal here was cut on our CNC plasma cutter. So, it comes from CAD to manufacturing to real life. And there are motor controllers in here that have to control every single motor and servo. So, he's got to do some coding. There's a lot of different aspects that are involved in
030this. And he loves doing it and he's grown a lot from it. So, I'll stop talking and let Jake do a little talking here. Hi, my name is Jake Gowbert. I'm a senior and this is my robot, Melvin. I've been taking Tech Egg classes all four years. Uh, the last two years I've been taking independent projects in engineering. Um, last year I built a robot that could flip burgers and wave. This year I built Melbourne like this. And uh I really focused on the question like what makes robots intelligent and um yeah I've learned a lot about robots and how they work and what makes them intelligent but also a lot about myself and how I learn and what makes me intelligent. Uh for one thing about me that I learned is I just can't
031stay organized when I'm building a project like this. I don't naturally just keep notes and you know, when [clears throat] I solve a problem, I don't write it down. Um, but the beauty of this class is like I had I would had to work on those things and I had to keep a journal and I had to check in with Mr. Darren. So, he kind of kept me accountable for the problems I would solve and making sure I don't kind of end up in a loop where I just keep solving the same problem again. Um, another thing that kind of leads into that is uh getting comfortable with failure. Like this is my sixth version of Melvin and every part on him has broken maybe a dozen times. Uh like his arm you may have
032noticed is missing. [laughter] Basically when I was presenting him um at our fair uh he was controlling himself. So that was like the intelligence but you know he decided you know this arm needed to explode. So [laughter] Yeah. So he kind of motors were smoking. You know that's the end of the that's the story. But the point is the failure is is kind of necessary. It's important and especially when you're kind of working when I I like to work on projects that don't have answers. So what makes robots intelligent? Well, no one's ever figured it out before. So knowing that means I'm going to end up failing a lot. and getting comfortable with that uh idea kind of changed how I think about engineering and that's going to apply to my job and my career
033forever because I really want to be building robots the rest of my life. Um, and I'm grateful I had this opportunity to kind of figure it out on my own and to figure out what I like and why I like doing it. Um, and that's what the beauty of this class is like. figuring it out for yourself, right? Uh self motivation is going to be a long-term fuel uh in my life at least and for my career. So grateful. This is Melvin. Uh all right. And there's this is just a list of a wide variety of a number of the other projects that are happening in the same course. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Hi, I'm Alison Molen. Um the social studies department wanted to highlight AP psychology. And if Jacob had taken this
034class, he would have some good definitions for what it means to be intelligent. uh they learn uh content that's applicable to so many different careers. And so it's an opportunity for students to learn about themselves, to learn about mental health and well-being, but from a very scientific lens, not from like an individual fix it kind of lens, more understanding theory. Um, it gives students an opportunity to develop critical thinking skills, evidence-based writing, analytical skills. Um, and they're tackling real world problems like um, ethics with AI and um, influencing, marketing, like all of these various jobs that students are going to go into. AP psychology really gives them a foundation for understanding how people think and why they behave the way that they do. And so I'll let a couple of students talk about that. I
035decided to take AP psychology because I've always kind of had an interest in like the neuroscience fields and I'm really glad that I did take the class because um I've learned a lot of new things just relating to the structure of the brain and it might be what I want to pursue in college. Um, I wanted to take AP psych because I'm a writer actually and I really wanted to know how people react in certain situations and how like the brain does certain things to like different people so I can just write my characters better. So, that was the main reason why I took it. I also thought it would just be a cool thing to take and just like to know. Um, I think this class is going to help me moving forward with
036just like getting to know and understand people better cuz with this knowledge that I have, I'm able to understand how someone might be feeling, how it might affect them, um, and like what is actually happening in someone's [music] brain when they're, let's say, example, if they're taking drugs or if they're have depression or if um, they have bipolar disorder. I'm able to understand what they're going through because I was able to learn this and I won't be uneducated if I do meet someone that has that um disability. >> So many things about how people interact with each other and how in a big group sometimes people's opinions are lost. So it's really it was really helpful to me to like learn how to kind of speak out and know how to um use my voice
037in a group setting the students is that projects they're really fun. It's very interesting to learn not only about a topic, but then like make your own project. Um, there are a lot of things that you're able to connect back to yourself during projects and it's just a lot of fun. It's a great class. I recommend you taking it. All right, we have um with us tonight from our English department, Aaron McCarthy, who's going to talk a little bit about um through the looking glass, which was a course that we also started in 2425. Um one of the senior electives in lit um in literature in uh at DHS um and just going to talk a little bit about creative writing as well. >> Yeah. Hi, I'm Aaron McCarthy. It's great to be here. Um,
038so I'm actually going to start with creative writing first. Um, and then imaginative lit. So I have a student here who's going to talk about imaginative lit. Although I have a student here to creative writing, too, but I didn't know that. Um, so um, creative writing is one of our actual elective classes that anybody grades 9 through 12 can take. Um, and one of the most exciting things about it is that, so I've been teaching at DHS for nine years. And um, when I first started, we had a very sort of fledgling, struggling creative writing program. Um, we only maximum ran one uh, section per year. Um, so there was maybe a little bit of a lack of interest in English in that sense. people weren't wanting to do it just for fun to explore
039kind of their own writing voice. Um, but something has changed. I think students are very much um interested in having a space to play with language and their voices um and to just experiment with storytelling. And so um the past year and this coming year we'll have three sections of creative writing including an advanced section which is so wonderful um because what it means to me is that we have a huge growth in students who want to write because they want to write. Um and I think that really speaks to the passion of all of the the teachers in the English department um and people like Kate who write novels in her spare time. um so awesome. Um so it's really nice to be the teacher of that elective because I get to watch the
040students um do their own thing and I get to act as a guide on the side there. Um, so that's creative writing. And then imaginative lit um is one of my most proud achievements um in my time here because it really started as an idea um that I had based on a passion. Um I was invited a couple I don't know five years ago I guess. Um we were always asked to propose new courses based on gaps um things that we feel like aren't available um or that the students could really use in their educational um day-to-day. And I felt like we had tons of classes that offered the opportunity to look very analytically at writing and at literature um but not a ton that asked us to look at it as works of imagination.
041And so, um, I worked on designing this class over a couple of years, proposed it, you guys all approved it. Yeah. And, um, and now it's, um, it's running. And what it does basically is it looks at the most imaginative of the writers out there. Um, Tolken, CS Lewis, modern ones who are writing now and evolving the genre constantly. And the students are able to look at um how these people, you know, take an idea inside their minds and put it on paper and create something with it. So they really um look at literature through that lens and also have opportunities to then dig through their own imagination, cultivate that sense of um perspective and then create something with it themselves. So, I have Brandon Quo here with me who took the class um this
042past semester and he's going to talk to you a little bit about what that was like. Thank you very much. >> Thank you. >> Hi everyone, I'm Brandon. Not sure if I'm going to follow up that amazing speech, but thank you. I'll try my best though. So, as the cardi just said, I just wrapped up the imaginative literature course and truly I cannot recommend it anymore for anyone who is who's thinking about English in general. I think that, you know, I've done a lot of reflection and introspection in these past weeks for various different reasons I won't get into right now. But one of the things that Darren High School, as I reflect on my experience at Darren High School is that this school has given me the ability to think and it's given me
043the ability to find my voice and share that thinking and that is something that is going to take me throughout my entire life. I think so. this course, right? And particularly Miss McCarthy's courses, they give you the ability to write what you want, but then also say what you want. Anyone in Mccarthy's classes would know that all her prompts basically boil down to write whatever you want. There's there's there are no instructions. There is no right answer with writing. You know, so many times kids walk into English classes thinking that there is a correct structure, there is a formula to an essay, there is a right way to get the number or grade that you want. And you know, through Mccarthy's class that I've taken, English 10 honors and now I'm master, I've learned that
044that's not the case at all. The quote unquote right answer is whatever you think it is. The ideas that you bring to the table. And I think that the English class there at Darren High School do a great job of that where instead of saying, "Okay, let's take a formula and structure the student around that formulaic approach." Our classes here show that let's see what's already there and try and make it better. So to that I have so many thanks to give to Miss McCarthy for all her classes where I I I tell her this all the time but she has truly changed the trajectory of my life because I'm able to see myself in a different way. I'm able to have my own voice in my life and throughout any career I take I'm
045able to express myself however I want. I think that Darian High School there's a lot of good stuff about it and one of the things is definitely saying kids walk away with new perspectives. You know, whether that be in, for example, in this class, whether that be making a project out of cardboard to express a literary idea, whether that be to write an essay about storytelling or horror stories or even watching Blockbuster Sinners by Ryan Googler, you know, those are all things that we've done in the class. And it's a very unorthodox approach towards thinking, but it really builds skill better than I've seen in any other class. So, nice idea. >> [laughter] >> I think you really nailed this one and again I have so many thanks for this school but an impact group.
046So thank you very much. >> All right, we have Ronnie here rodier to talk about um statistics. She's gonna think it's going to be a hard act to follow with statistics, but what a tiny >> There's a lot of thinking going on in statistics as well. >> Thanks, Brandon, for the setup here. [clears throat and laughter] >> Um, tonight I'm excited to share a brief video highlighting two of our growing mathematics uh electives, which is probability and statistics and AP statistics. In today's increasingly datadriven world, the ability to interpret information, analyze trends, and make evidence-based decisions is really an essential skill, I would argue, in every single field. Statistics provides students with a very different way of thinking about math compared to the traditional pathway that we tend to focus on at DHS, which is
047algebra and geometry to calculus. Classes in statistics teach students how to evaluate information, draw conclusions, and make informed decisions. As Brandon said, teach them how to think. Skills that are increasingly important today, not only in college and careers, but in everyday life. So, in this video, you'll hear directly from our students that are listed right there on the slide as they share their experiences and explain how these courses have impacted the way they think, learn, and apply math to the real world around them. >> I started at high school in geometry and I'm a junior now. So, my math teacher recommended to me, but I wasn't really sure whether to take stat or pre-calc, but stat felt more interesting to me. It sounded like a lot of like big graphs and like business investing stuff
048and it sounded really scary. Well, recently I just took the SAT and it's helped me >> read through problems more thoroughly and pay attention because I don't want to get tricked by the person giving me the test. >> I love that >> to not be afraid to take the class. And it looks really hard at first. Even now, every unit I go into, just seeing it makes no sense. But if you just pay attention in class, take notes, it'll be fine. It's pretty simple. I I find the class really fun. >> Yay. Oh, well, thank you for the feedback. I really appreciate you. >> Math is my favorite subject and it's my favorite math class I've ever taken. >> I did not pay him to say that. >> I'm a 12th grade senior right now
049and I'm taking province stat. As much as I had a challenge in math, province stat makes me extremely focused as well as my classmates because it's more hands-on, I think. Um, my teacher does a great job and it's a class that many maths haven't been able to teach me, although I like know a lot about algebra and algebra 2 and geometry. Province stat really like challenges me to go out in the world and see where I can apply it. So many times like I'm playing a video game with my friend and he also has the same class with me. Um, there's this curve of the players and he goes and he looks at me and he's like Mr. Douly will like this one which is my problem stat teacher and I'm like that's so funny.
050It's really a great class. I was able to understand so much throughout the year and my grade has been amazing because I really feel focused on like learning more about probability. >> Um I'm currently going to the University of Tampa to study journalism. Woohoo. Um, and right now I'm thinking that probability and statistics statistics could um help me kind of apply trends and like I'm into fashion um right now and like fashion trends that are going to happen that are going to die down that are going to recover and how I could apply probability and statistics to get the right the right trend value and ask the right questions um for who I'm journalizing or what I'm writing with. >> So this was my confidence interval project. I wanted to figure out what percentage of
051the school population takes sleep supplements in the past two months uh to help them sleep. So, what I did was I went into a number of classes or just people in the hallways and I asked them if they took these sleep supplements. I ended up getting about 40% of these people said that they did. Uh but what I like about statistics is that it lets you kind of vary the data depending on what your need is. So, we wanted to get a 95% confidence interval which meant that we uh added a margin of error to this number. So ultimately I calculated that the number that the percentage of DHS students who took sleep supplements in the in the past two months was somewhere between 25.7% and 54.3%. >> How has studying statistics helped you in
052real life and think differently as a mathematician? >> Um it's made me think about like when companies are marketing things how easy it is for them to skew their data to make it seem like um what they're selling is really popular but it could just be the way that they're um collecting their data. M >> um for me in a way like watching sports like when they show the free throw percentage on the screen for the basketball players it shows like 80%. It's like oh he's allowed to make both but then you that's actually only a 64% chance that he makes both of them. So kind of makes you think about that. >> My name is Brian Dunick and I'm a senior at Darren High School. Right now I'm taking um stat AP statistics and
053AP calculus AB. You know it is a very applicable course. You know, you could you use it in you use um concepts in biology, chemistry, all sciences. You you also use it in a lot of um other humanities classes like finance. You could use it. Okay. So, uh I am Keith Keeler, one of the assistant principles here, and I have the pleasure of introducing in our world language department, uh our American Sign Language program. And in a moment, I'll be introducing Terresa Rizzo. Um just to kind of set this up a little bit though in reflecting back at all that we've heard today or tonight rather. Um the peak performance in a lot of these different fields uh might be a musical performance, a recitation, a presentation of information, whether it be a scientific understanding
054um or a debate or a presentation. What is really interesting about American Sign Language is that at its peak it is a silent course. Um, and it's really in some ways a very marked has a very marked difference from a lot of other world language classes. The world language classes typically are embracing the music, the um music of a culture, listening to it, being exposed to that. Um, this class is quite silent and fascinating to to listen to because there are a lot of layers to American Sign Language and we're very lucky to have Miss Rizzo who will be talking a little bit about that and sharing with some of the ideas from some of her students as well. >> Thank you. >> Um, yeah, it's funny when you come in the room and you're
055like, I don't know what's going on. It's so quiet in here. and that means they're doing what they're supposed to be doing, which is nice. Um, hi, I'm Teresa Rizzo. I'm the ASL teacher here. This is my third year. Um, I started out just as my student um in ASL class. That was my foreign language as well. So, it's kind of like full circle for me to be teaching. Um, but it shows that it could lead to many wonderful careers. Um, so what's great about ASL is it reaches students not served by traditional language pathways. So, we do get, you know, students that might not have felt like they could succeed in another language. Um, just different types of learners, um, might have success with ASL. Um, what I love personally, it builds empathy, confidence,
056and engagement. Um, empathy meaning we can look at another population of people and kind of their perspective, and they're able to, a lot of the kids come in and they don't really know anything about the deaf population. Um, so I just love just enlightening them and having them see that perspective and kind of look at accessibility and all these different um components that I think are important for them to to think about and to like look at somebody else and say, "Oh, well, this might be difficult for them." And kind of have that perspective. Um, enhances learning through visual and kinesesthetics. So, kind of on the same path. I have kids that are like, "Oh, I like that I can like move. I'm a kinesthetic learner." Um just um very visual. Um your grammar is
057on your face, so it's expressive. So um just different um way to learn a language really. Um widely accepted by colleges. So the there is a misconception some of the kids might have initially had like oh I'm not sure if college is going to take this, but no, they'll be fine. They'll um be accepted into college. Um I think almost all the colleges that we've um asked have yes they do take ASL a lot of them actually like it because it does um lean you know certain careers are it is you know beneficial to know ASL um and they can also um if they get the seal of bio literacy like get college toward credit towards college which is also great. Um third most popular language in the USA it is American Sign Language. So,
058we have Americans all over using ASL. Um, and I have had kids say, "Oh, I I was actually, you know, I saw a death person and I was able to like say something to them." So, that's awesome. Um, and and as we I already mentioned, opens doors to other career pathways, you know, different careers like that. Me taking ASL in high school actually led to my career. I was a teacher of the deaf and heart of hearing and now I do this. Um but but you know I have kids who do it opens their eyes to different things that they might not have thought of and can also be assist in helping careers and all I mean all sorts of things. So um I invited two of my wonderful um students. One who's Kate who
059she was one my first batch of students that um you know decided to take ASL. So and Miley who is um from my second batch of students. So, I found out that they're friends and I'm like, "Oh." Um, so they're going to share a little bit about their experiences and maybe have a conversation, maybe show you some ASL. Um, so I'm going to turn it over to you guys. >> Oh, I forgot about the video. Yes. Do the video first. There's a video. Yes. >> Oh, not that. >> Video. Yes. Okay. My name is becoming death and I want to still be able to communicate with her through ASL. >> I have ADHD and [music] with ADHD it's hard because I like to fidget and I like to talk and have a lot of actions
060and it [music] helps me do that because it entertains me with signing and talking to my friends with facial expressions. Heat. Heat. Hello. I did not realize how much I was going to get um [laughter] mentioned today. [laughter] >> Um but hi, my name is Kaylauski. >> Hi, my name is And I'm going to be talking about my experience with ASL and then she's going to sign her experience and I will translate for you guys. So, it was around 8th grade when I learned ASL was a option to take. And I took French for 3 years and I didn't like it. It was really boring. No offense. Same with Spanish again. Like, I just couldn't find it interesting. I never like I would see it so many people taking it. I never thought that would
061be such an interesting thing. And then I learned about ASL. I thought, "Wow, that's so that's so different. That's so new. And that's such like a different way of learning, a different way of communicating with people." So, I wanted to take it and I took it. I've fallen in love with it. I'm going to take it all four years of high school. Um it is definitely something where I can like impress people with like showing them science because they don't a lot of people just don't know um what American Sign Language is and like how to communicate and like what it's about. And another thing that was mentioned in the video that I was in is that I am a novelist. I am a writer. And one thing that ASL is helping with is understanding
062body language and facial expressions. And that has definitely helped with describing my writing better and how like someone might move, someone's like face might change. And that is just like an unconscious thing that ASL has led to that I'm really grateful for because it is such like a cool thing to think about that I'm able to like look at someone and like understand what they might be thinking a little bit better than I was when I was a freshman or even as like a sophomore. So, I truly love ASL and I really want to hopefully take it in college. No, hope I get into college. [laughter] Um, but that is my personal experience with ASL and why I took it. So, I'll leave it up to you. Look over there. Look at you. Um, so
063I um wanted to take ASL because I was not talkative. I was alone a lot, shy, quiet, you know, I was staying to myself. I saw that my friend me [laughter] I would show she would talk a lot with ASL and would show me a lot of different signs, new signs and uh wanted to learn. She um sorry I saw that was cool and unique and I really liked learning the different um interesting ways of how to learn different languages. Yeah. college. >> In college, I wanted to learn how to be a nurse in college and study. I want to help different kinds of people who are sick, um, heart of hearing, deaf, wanted to help. >> Yeah. >> Wanted to go and teach. >> Oh, yes. Yes, >> sorry. >> You just move on
064to the next slide. So, this is the sign for thank you is also the sign for good, but depending on the context of your um sentence that you were talking about, you'll understand if they're saying good or thank you. So, there's I think >> yeah, [laughter] >> so that's a sign for you got this. It's a very encouraging sign helping people being nice. And then I think there's one more. And then that's the sign for good night. Again, this is good and thank you. And this is night. And the opposite word for day is like this. So yeah, there you go. There's some signs. >> Good evening. I'm Megan Dubet. Thank you so much for having us here. Um on a personal note, um this has just been fantastic. I am so proud of and
065inspired by our students and my colleagues. Um and so just really really pleased to have the opportunity to share this with you. I think you know already because you support it so deeply and can see the magic that happens inside of our classrooms. And so we also wanted to take a moment to highlight some of the wonderful experiences that our students are having through many many field trips that um are supported by our school and by this board. Um so these are just as a small sampling of some of the things that our students are doing. So our sports marketing class um visited Metife Stadium to put their learning to work. Um we have a beautiful um studentled peer writing center sponsored by our National English Honor Society. Um and that's peer-to-peer writing support. And
066so you can see them at a conference at Yukon. Our pre-law class visited the Stamford Courthouse to see all of their learning in action. And those are some of our environmental students um out on the sound putting their learning um from the classroom to work. And so our field trips are very much taking their in-class learning and applying it in authentic real world experiences and letting them ask questions of people working in the field and to really experience day-to-day life and some of the career paths that you've chosen. And so it allows them to really create meaningful connections to what they're learning and to what that looks like in real practice um and to inspire critical thinking and um promote um more more passion about these topics. Um so we're really proud of the ways
067in which um our field trips and our co-curricular opportunities um continue to enhance student learning that they start in the classroom and take out into the real world. >> Thank you. So we have about 70 clubs uh that are currently running at DHS and it's important to highlight we think uh how academically focused some of them are. So all of our clubs are stu are started by students and our hope is that they go into classrooms uh they become curious about a topic or activity or or better yet passionate about a topic or activity and then immerse themselves in a club after school. And so uh you can see some of the some of the great pictures we have up on the screen right now. also theater 308 visited great uh visited Broadway see the
068Great Gatsby. Um we have some of our students who've taken a lot of programming uh courses in in our uh computer programming and computer science. Uh and they uh went to the Lockheed Martin Codefest competition where they were there competing against students from all over the state. Um they were given 25 scenarios and they had to re real world scenarios and on the spot they had to compete and code against them. Um something I don't understand at all but they are very very passionate about it. Um we're very proud of uh of performing there and just getting that real world experience. Um we hosted a women's empowerment lunch here um for many of our women leaders in the school. Uh our DECA business um business club if we're not at 100 participants right now, we're
069very very close. Uh and those are students that are taking all of our marketing courses, all of our business courses. Uh and really can see business as a a pathway for them. Um, and maybe it is their pathway and maybe it's not, but they get the real world experience to see uh see for themselves before they start making some decisions for uh for the next steps in their lives. Uh, and then to to finish it up, the upstander uh brigade this year, um, this is just I just have to share a top three moment of the year for me. So, this is we have a group of uh of leaders that uh about 50 students or so. We went down to the uh all five elementary schools this year. Um, and these are just students
070that are just leaders for good, uh, leaders for kindness. And they were going to talk to our fifth graders about, uh, being an upstand and how important kindness is and really giving fifth graders permission to see that being kind is cool. Um, even in high school. And, uh, after I I think it was at Henley, uh, maybe I shouldn't have said it, but I think it was at Henley, um, one of our, you know, uh, most confident seniors, I'd say, uh, walked out of the classroom. I mean, I I really took a step back, walked out of the classroom and you know, he's sweating and his shirt was untucked somehow. Uh, and he said, "Mr. Mazone, that was so fun." And also, I promise to never give my teacher a hard time again. So, again,
071real world experience. Maybe he that's not his pathway, but he crossed something off the list and had a good time. So, uh, you know, 70 clubs is certainly a lot. Um, but so many of them are are based in academics and so many of them are just, uh, helping students try to find their pathways through real scenarios. So, I I just want to thank all of you for your patience and and kindness listening to all of us. We we couldn't cut any department out of the presentation. Um, and I think you could see why. We just um wanted to celebrate our students and um just hear their voices because we couldn't script it um any better for you to have the information about the work I um that our teachers and students are doing at
072DHS to um inspire. And so I think you know we often talk about the vision of the graduate. we look at it on paper, but I think when you reflect on some of the things you heard tonight, you can see elements across um all departments and and all grade levels and um it's a place of which we are very very proud. So, thank you for indulging us. Um it's been a joy for us actually to see it all put together because we don't know exactly what people are going to say when they get up to that micro. Um we are always impressed with our students though. It's it's really um amazing and I want to thank them especially for the time they put into helping us put this together for you. So, thank you. >>
073Thank you all so much and also to the students for sharing your time with us tonight. And I will personally say this was such an amazing opportunity to really bring to life these very different kinds of elective opportunities that we have at Darian High School. And we as a board when we have new courses read a syllabus on paper, but it's a very different thing to actually hear from the students and see the videos of what they've done with it. and and not only the students, but I want to actually just highlight it's really obvious how much of a role the teachers are playing in helping to make sure that the way that they are doing the instruction of the course is allowing the students to have those different opportunities to find their passion and
074do self-direction and learn how to fail and pick themselves up after they do. And I I think it just was really an amazing thing to see tonight. So, thank you. Um, [snorts] I'll open it up to board questions or response. Joanna, um, >> thank you very much for the presentation. My personal experience is that both my children who are in the high school right now are finding their way based on these elective courses. What my son is going to college next year based on something we didn't know he had any ability for in 8th grade. So, um, you know, it's a testament to the teachers and and the department heads and everybody at the high school. Um my one question is um we have ASR and we have um you know the engineering to your
075course that we were just shown. Have you ever thought of doing a sort of independent course for any of the arts you know film, music, acting, writing, reading? You know could an independent or capstone project be you know Miss McCclusk's book? Um have you ever thought of anything along those lines? Um it is something that we've talked about um and to be honest it sometimes gets stuck in the who's going to be in charge of it um debate and there are department chairs behind me probably thinking Ellen is going to say this is what I've been asking you guys to to work on. So um I would like to see an humanities version of ASR to answer your question. Absolutely. And um I you know it it is something that um we put the departments
076back on again to to find um you know high schools tend to be very departmentalized places and so when you're trying to do a cross-section um but we have such talented people who could advise you know one of the beauties of the ASR program is you don't have to be the expert the kids become the expert and then you find the mentor um that that lines up. So, I absolutely agree with you and I don't think that it's preventing our novelists. Um but it would be nice to create a setting for them to celebrate that all at once and then the ASR program does that beautifully for 25 years. So, I agree with you. >> Uh we have a senior right now who's doing a project. He's um directed and he's producing a production of
077the show Tick Tick Boom and that will be on June 5th and 6th and it's going to be outside in the courtyard but he's it's a musical and he's completely from start to finish. He did the casting. He's doing the whole thing. >> There other board questions or feedback, >> comments? >> Great. Thank you. Yeah, great presentation from everyone. Um, one of my key takeaways is that there's a lot of things going on at the high school that I don't think that we really are aware of. I got that both from all of the different presentations and all the really cool different subject matter that you're covering. And also when we were there in person, we saw some it wasn't even part of the tour, but we saw some kids like taking a car apart
078and timing themselves on how quickly they can change a tire. um like actual like real life skills that I think are really important and you know people think about reading writing reading writing and arithmetic but there's a lot of other things are being learned at the high school and I think figuring out how to showcase that better is going to be really to everyone's benefit so thank you very much for the presentation >> thank you is anyone else want to have a chance to say okay thank you so much I think this was fantastic and thank you to the students for taking your time tonight also thank you All right, we're going to move on to the consent agenda. Um, may I have a motion to approve the consent agenda? Dennis, seconded by Sarah. I'm
079going to read what is in the consent agenda for tonight. Approval of the May 12th minutes, the April 26th financial report and possible action on proposed budget transfers, acceptance of contemplated gift for MMS quizball coach national tournament travel expenses and IA tournament janitorial fees. Acceptance of contemplated gift for Fitch Academy office and common room furniture committee reports and personnel report. Um I would like to just have a brief discussion first on the um the proposed financial transfers and then also I before we do that I want to thank the um Quizbull boosters and also the DHSPA for the gift for Fitch and then for the Quiz Bowl national team the coach travel expenses. So thank you to both of those organizations. Rich, can you just help us understand the [clears throat] transfer? >> So, there's
080uh one transfer we're requesting for approval. It's for $31,000 for long-term substitutes for an administrator out on leave um on maternity leave. Uh we are requesting that the funds come from unused uh transportation funds and athletics, savings and unemployment insurance, and the consultant services for the board of ed retreat facilitator that was not used. >> Thank you. Is there any discussion on the consent agenda or questions from the board? Seeing none, may I have a motion to approve the consent agenda? Do I have a second? Uh, okay. So, that's Sarah, seconded by John. All in favor of approving the consent agenda? That is unanimous. Um, is Katie on? She is. >> Katie, are you voting to approve the consent agenda? >> Yes. >> Okay. Thank you. Um, I do not believe we have any follow-up
081action items. We will move to public comment. >> Good evening. If you would like to participate in public comment, please approach the podium and wait to be recognized. Once recognized, please state your name and town of residence and note that you'll have up to three minutes to comment. We have no public comment at this time. >> Thank you. May I have a motion to adjourn this meeting? Joanna, seconded by Dave. All in favor? That is unanimous. Thank you.