Board of Education Regular Meeting - May 12, 2026

001I would like to call this meeting board of education to order. The next regular meeting of the board of education is on Tuesday, May 26 at 7:30 p.m. for the chairperson's report tonight. Um, I wanted to give an update on the fiscal 27 budget budget process for the board of education. In their meeting last night, the RTM voted to approve the Board of Education's proposed operating budget of 130,179,922, representing an increase of 3.51% over last year. The RTM also approved the board of education capital budget of $1,551. Thank you very much to the board of finance, RTM FNB committee, RTM education committee, and to all of the RTM members for your ongoing support of our schools and capital needs. I would also like to recognize and thank state representative Tracy Mura for her proactive leadership

002in introducing House Bill 5327, which officially passed the general assembly last week to become state law. Thank you also to Dr. burn for your advocacy on behalf of our students and schools during this legislative session. This legislation aims to improve the hiring process for school employees by enhancing disclosure requirements and will provide a critical layer of protection for children in schools across Connecticut. Thank you. Now, we'll move on 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 residency and note that you will have up to three minutes to comment. We have no public comment at this time. Thank you. We'll move on to the superintendent report. >> Good evening and thank you

003for joining us for the May 12th board of education meeting. I'd just like to echo um Robin and her comments about the budget. Uh, I'm incredibly grateful to our board of education, my colleagues in administration, the board of finance, RTM education committee, RTM finance and budget, and the overall RTM for their collaborative efforts and steadfast support throughout the process. This morning, I attended the CAB 2026 legislative wrap-up in Hartford. It was an opportunity to learn about changes in legislation from the most recent legislation sess legislative session that ended last week. Uh we are officially in the heart of hiring season and looking forward to welcoming prospective candidates to our job fair tomorrow we'll be having here from 4 to 6 at central office. And congratulations to the Henley chess team for taking first place overall

004in the NECA chess tournament on Sunday May 3rd. Over 100 students from 17 schools participated in the competition and uh we've heard this a lot this year. Their incredible run. Congratulations to the Middle Sex Quizball team. Not only did our A team make an amazing run to be a national semi-finalist, but our B and C teams also finished in the top 20. It is the first time since 2013 that three teams from one school have finished in the top 20. It's also the first time in our program's history that every team that we brought to nationals qualified for the playoffs. Good luck at your next competition in Orlando. And that concludes my report for this evening. Thank you. Now we'll move on to student representatives report. >> Hi everybody. So very exciting AP tests are

005almost over with a few more later this week. Um we also have a band and jazz ensemble concert this Thursday, May 14th. Um senior prom is coming up Saturday, May 16th. And sadly we soon say goodbye to the seniors this Friday, but luckily they're moving on to their amazing spring internships. Thank you, Kylie. Uh, now we're going to move on to presentations, discussion, and possible action. Um, the topic is special education and student services, trends, and strategic priorities with Miss Shirley Klene and Dr. McCarthy presenting. Um, Miss Klein, please. Good evening. Good evening, members of the board, Dr. Burn, students. Hi, Kylie. Uh, parents, colleagues, and the Darian school community. I'm accompanied this evening by Dr. Scott McCarthy, director of special education and student services K through 12, and Laura Strait, program director for the

006early learning program for our presentation on trends and strategic priorities. This evening's presentation provides an overview of the district's special education trends, our operational demands, compliance responsibilities, and strategic priorities in special education and our student services. Within the overview, we will be providing information regarding our classification rate, enrollment trends, operational information, and about the facilitation of PPT meetings, updates regarding collaboration between the CES department and the MTSS committees, and professional learning updates. Okay, just your friends. So you can see my technology skills have really improved in the last 11 years. >> Cass said to me and I said, "You're going to drive this yourself tonight?" And I said, "Sure, no problem." >> Thank you, Jeff. >> What happened? >> Yeah, it popped out. Well, just probably was the year somebody's been >> that wasn't just

007>> Okay, great. Thank you. District trends. This section introduces districtwide trends, data that's related to enrollment, identification, service delivery, and of course, programming. Data trends help contextualize staffing, our budgeting, program development, and of course, compliance responsibilities. The following data trends include state, local, cohort, and longitudinal data, which we monitor closely as they reflect larger systemic patterns that of course impact our staffing, case loads for teachers, programming, and our professional learning recommendations. The number of students with IEPs has remained relatively stable over the past three years. And as you can see, after a significant increase was noted between the 2022 23 and 2023 24 school years. To provide further context for you u regarding our enrollment data, we provided the enrollment by year and by level. The data represents an increasing enrollment trend in within ELP

008and if you note it'll be the most significant increase occurred between 2023 24 and school years when the state changed the entrance age for kindergarten. The enrollment at the elementary level has increased each year until this current school year when has remained about the same. The numbers of students at MMS has increased this year due to a large incoming class in our grade six and we do anticipate a slight increase again next year as the current grade five is relatively large. At the same time, please note the high school enrollment of students with IEPs has decreased and that's been a result of a very large graduating class last year. When we look at our cohort comparison by grade, we the data provides important information about trends in grade level classification of students with IEPs. The

009most significant change in eligibility if you know exists between grades two and three with an increase of 16 students noted. To see this within the bar graph, please note the light blue bar in grade two, which represents 60 students of IEPs in grade two. And that was on October 1st, 2024. Now, please note the same cohort within the dark blue bar in grade three, which now represents 76 students who now have IEPs in grade three as of October 1, 2025. And we're currently analyzing this trend with our colleagues at multiple levels within our MTSS data as well as our intervention with planning teams. When we look at educational classifications, this graph represents the educational classifications of students with IEPs within the district through 2023 24 school year. Learning disability and other health impairment continue to

010represent the largest disability categories and of note autism rates have increased over time which is consistent with broader statewide and national trends. We did want to indicate under other disabilities some of the areas that are included in the orange other disability line are visually impaired, orthopedically impaired, hearing impaired, etc. medically fragile >> in our five-year comparison of the Duray classification rates. >> Thank you. Yes. >> In our durate classification rates, this graph represents a 5-year comparison of IEP classification rates across local districts that have comparable demographic variables. As you can see, all Durk A districts identification rates have increased over the past five years, and Darian does continue to be the highest with Ridgefield second. Our out of district placement IPS represents the number of students by level attending out of district placements as recommended

011by the PPT over the past 5 years. Out of district placements have remained relatively stable overall with the highest concentration of the secondary level and the largest increasing trend noted for students with transition needs. This table represents unilateral parent placements. The number of students by level. >> It advanced too far. get stuff too. This table represents the number of students by level with unilateral placements by agreements over the past five years. These trends you will note at the secondary level reflect the increasing complexity of students mental health and therapeutic needs for specialized programs. And if you not in year 6 through 8 and 9 through 12, you'd have 17 students and 28 students that are in that cohort. I'll turn it over to Scott and he'll speak about PBT meetings and regulations and their impact

012on staffing and student programs. >> Thanks, Charlie. Um so as part of this presentation we were asked to give some context and information about the number of PPT meetings that are held in in the district each year. Um to kick us off we're going to give a little bit of context to the procedural regulations that require these meetings to to occur uh before we go into the numbers. So, um, the the reason that the district holds PPT meetings is federally regulated and also codified within the Connecticut state regulations, and it's the central decision-making process for all special education decisions. Notably, in the last few years, the the timelines and the um the proced procedural requirements have continued to expand in complexity, and those have been things that have been requiring increasing demands on our teams.

013Yeah. >> Okay. Uh in in terms of uh uh our requirements, we're of course required to hold timely, compliant, collaborative PBT meeting processes. And then essential component of this process is that parents are meaningful participants in the process. Um there are numerous procedural reasons that we hold PPT meetings and all of them have prescribed timelines to them. If the district fails to comply to those timelines or fails to comply to the appropriate procedures um that can result in citations from from the state that can result in state complaints being filed, corrective actions and potential claims by any individual who is impacted by those um those failures. In terms of PPT membership, there's a federal regulation that requires a multi multi-disciplinary team to participate in the meeting because interdisciplinary collaboration is considered essential to the process.

014But as you can imagine, as the student becomes more complex, so does the PPT meeting um membership and and that that typically becomes more specialized in terms of um participation. In terms of the types of meetings, some of our PPT meetings are centered on the evaluation processes and some of them are centered on progress reviews. Those are the two kind of the two main buckets of PPT meetings. In addition, there are a number of other types of procedurally required PPT meetings that often occur in the context of a crisis, an emergency, or discipline. Before we get into the numbers of the PPT means that exist in the district, we did want to provide some context to what the baseline level would be. So all students who have an IEP must have had an initial referral

015to PPT that then result in an eligibility determination meeting that will happen after that. And then any student who qualifies to have an IEP must have an annual review once per year and every three years the district must convene a meeting to reconsider whether that student is eligible for special education. So that's that's the baseline minimum that we must convene for every student who has P who has an IEP sorry. So when we look at our uh our projections and with that baseline in mind given that we have 949 students in the district with IEPs the the baseline level of PPT meetings that we would convene each year would be 1656 PPT meetings that would include annual reviews three-year evaluations and then utilizing our average um our average initial referral rate over the past 5

016years at 4.25%. And those uh those referrals require two meetings. The the initial referral and then the elig eligibility determination. So that would be the baseline that we would be able to have during this current school year. And then when we look at our actual trends, we want to provide this in the context of the administrative infrastructure that the board committed to uh recently. And we know that an impetus for that restructure was the number of PPT meetings that were demanding facilitation by our secondary administrative uh team. So we provided the number of PPT meetings by level in addition to the number of administrators per building level who are uh facilitating those PPT meetings and what that ratio looks like. So we can see that except for um uh the exception in ELP where which

017is the highest it it trends upwards per level and that that runs in sort of an inverse relationship to the uh amount of time like the length of each meeting. So our elementary school meetings typically are longer than our middle school meetings which are typically longer than our high school meetings and that's for an important reason. So most of our elementary families are new to the PPT process. And we have we have as I said before we have a procedural requirement to ensure meaningful participation for those families. And so uh part of that is making sure they understand the process and that they are afforded opportunities to ask questions about the procedural components and and our families are an engaged community and and that's that's that's good for kids. So um so this is this

018is sort of to be expected. The out of district PPT meetings are typically um either facilitated by Shirley or me or in collaboration with a special education administrator at the building level and are typically the most complex as the students have the the most comprehensive profile that we have in the district. And then of course we're collaborating with an out of district school that may operate with a different schedule. So, as you can imagine, uh, as we just showed you data explaining that the number of students with IEPs has increased over the over the, um, you know, the preceding five school years, um, that has resulted in increased demand regarding facilitation and participation by by our administrators and our certified staff. Um and so we've looked at multiple ways that we could try to establish

019efficiencies and also still be in compliance and make sure that we're um uh facilitating these meetings with fidelity. So um some of those processes have included scheduling meetings so they can be combined. That requires a lot of um proactive efforts to make sure that if we're conducting an annual review, we may also be able to plan for the three-year evaluation at the same time so we don't need to come back. Um this decreases redundancy for the process and also increases efficiency for families and teams. Um designing systems and structures for us to get information to parents ahead of time so that meetings can be used to make big decisions and not to be reviewing content in the same way. And then also uh professional learning. We've been working with our administrative teams to provide professional

020learning on uh effective meeting facilitation strategies to make sure that we're um uh ensuring that the meeting works for the student. Another demand um that has resulted from an increased number of students with IEPs in the district is the evaluation process. So evaluation is a central component of both determining eligibility and planning for students programs. And as you can see from this these data, we complete a lot of evaluations in the district. So every initial evaluation um uh is presented here by level in addition to the parenthetical reference to the students who are qualified from that evaluation process. We've completed 291 re-evaluations through the three-year evaluation process. And in addition to that, we've completed target assessments at a level of 132 in the district to date. Um, target evaluations could look like psychiatric evaluations. They

021could look like an OT evaluation, a specific thing that we're looking to target about the student to collect more information for program planning. And we also wanted to provide you some data regarding the um the service delivery that exists within the district. Uh as you can see there's an extensive instructional and related service support model that that exists. The preponderance of our service delivery model in specialized instruction is at the resource room and learning center center level. At the secondary level, we have uh the uh our co-t talk classes are the primary source for inclusion for students and this is the highest at the sixth grade level where we have two English classes. So you see that we students have a a third opportunity to to participate in a co-alk class. Um and our related

022services represent a fairly comprehensive structure which represents some significant staffing commitments as well. In the appendix you can see the breakdown by elementary, middle, and high school if you're interested in seeing a greater detail level. discuss. Okay. So, in the spring of last school year, we presented to you our K5 um uh identification rate self study that we worked on in collaboration with the curriculum instruction team. And one of the things that um Scott had skipped a whole bunch of slides, it looks like Sorry, >> that should be Not taking anything. Set up here again. It's really because of proximity to me said I never get the technology right. So see what happens by osmosis trying to do a hard reach. >> Sorry. I can't get it to restart. Good job. I think we can

023go ahead and if everyone has a slides on there be able to speak to that. Is that okay? >> Okay. Is this good? I think it's important to look at the nexus between the generating from the self-study goals and where we are and then we'll catch up with that if that's okay with the board. Yeah, this computer is not affected. >> Okay. >> This one isn't. >> It's just the presentation that's >> is the stream. >> Yeah, the stream is fine. It's still going. >> So, it's streaming. >> Yeah, it's just this the presentation. Maybe we can get Yeah, maybe we can give them a moment to >> and maybe take some questions for what's been presented so far. Would that >> any interest in that? Do questions on what's been covered so far and

024give our team here a few moments to please pardon the technological issue. I'm so sorry. >> It's fine. And if you need my assistance you have a flashlight. >> No, I'm kidding. >> Thank you. >> Did you want to open it up for some questions? >> Yeah. >> On what has been covered so far? >> Promising. >> Yes. Let's open up to questions from the board on what's been presented so far. >> So I I have a couple questions. These are just more um just on some of the graphs in the slides that are a little bit more basic maybe. But on the um educational classification slide, can you just um explain the learning disability? >> Did you just mention the slide number? >> Sorry, I'm looking. It's on page six of the presentation >>

025on the education >> the district data trends educational slide six. This one. >> Slide. >> Yes, that one. >> Yeah. Slide six. >> Slide six of the actual PowerPoint presentation. >> What's the page number in the deck? >> Six. >> Uh, it's page 10 in the deck. It's slide six on the presentation. Um, can you just give a little information on I was just looking at the two that were the highest which was learning disability and other health impairment and just explain some of what is included in each of those because those tended to be the highest that we experienced as a district. So I'll start with learning disability. That would include children who have a specific learning disability either um it includes in in literacy in mathematics in written language disgraphia. Um also there

026also is a specific learning disability specific to dyslexia as well. In the other health impairment uh which has consistently been one of our highest um classification rates as well that can include attention deficit disorder. It can include um other areas. It can go from um it can also have depression, anxiety, other areas that impair a student's ability to access because of an emotional need as well and also can have a medical um fragility um piece as well. >> Okay, thank you. Um and then just one other question on the unilateral placement and the IEP trends. Did did the IEP trends include out of district students? And I'm trying to remember what exact slide. I wasn't sure about it. It wasn't really labeled. >> So unilateral parent or the IEP placements by level. >> So the

027IEP placement by level would be on page nine of the slide deck. And that one speaks to um PPT placements of students in out of district programs. And we did speak to the notion that um some of them they may vary from um from placements based on we noticed in the secondary uh mental health reasons and different pieces of emotional social functioning as well that requires a highly therapeutic millia that's okay why don't we open it up to other questions I'll just find the okay slide while other people might have questions Sarah >> thank you um so I I know that Fitch is considered a DHS program but I'm curious about the population, the number of students that are there now and the trends of that where where you see that improving or increasing, decreasing,

028is it stable? What just curious the what that looks like? >> So, I don't want to guess on the number of students that have IEPs. Several students have IEPs in the program. Uh we have a full-time psychologist there and we have a full-time special education teacher. Rebecca's there to address their needs. Um, I would have to see the exact number of students with IEPs, >> but the enrollment grows uh to it's grown quite a bit this year. Rich, do you do you know how many students are enrolled at Fitch at this? >> I think we have 16 students. I think we're at 16. >> I was going to say 18, but I think >> it started low, but >> yeah, it started lower, but it's definitely grown through a full curve of >> Yeah. >>

029But I would check on the number of IPS students with IPS there, but I believe it's at 16 or or 18. Uh Katie, thank you. Um yeah, just to piggyback a little bit on what Sarah's saying, um it would be great to have um a component of either this presentation to talk about Fitch or standalone. Um and you know to that point um like the only thing that I think is actually even mentioned about Fitch in this is it is included in the count um for the high school. And I was looking, this is not for now, um, to be answered at this table, but I think something that would be a great consideration too is as we're thinking about our website and our classifications, I know we've talked about this in the past about

030where special education falls. And I was looking today and um Fitch doesn't appear anywhere on our page and even if you search for it, it only comes up in a media material, but if you do a Google search, it it is a page in the website. And um special education is actually really buried. Um you actually have to go into um I don't I don't even remember off of the top of my head. I think it's under departments and then something else. Um, so I'd love to see us um I'd love to see us making this information more accessible broadly. I I think that it would be really great even some of the things that you guys were just talking about. Um, I hope that we can get to a level where we can be

031talking and I well I should start by saying thank you so much for your presentation. this is drastically different than it has been in the past and I can tell that you guys really are focusing on what's going in in our schools and the trends and understanding more of the profiles of our student which is exactly the conversation I want to be having. So I'd love to see us develop a bit of a special education 101 for the t um for the website and you know especially for the board. that way we're all coming to this and the community as well can come with that base level understanding so you don't have to explain that a PBT is mandated every year federally right um so that way we can I think just have a bit

032better conversation um and then on um Robin's question about the classifications and um for SLD specifically um specific learning disability um I know we've been talking about this for a couple of years and I know that the state platform lags behind what we want. Um, however, I would really, really love to see us make that a priority to do the manual work in understanding what the breakdown of that classification is. So that way, specifically um, the dyslexia population and I think that will provide us some really valuable information as we look at what are our classification rates, what are our outplacement rates, and how does this tie back to our curriculum changes. um which has really just been a major focus for the district. So you know whatever it needs to be whether it is

033taking count of by case managers by PPTs at the end of the year to get that sense of a number of the what um what is comprising SLD and OI. I think that would be really helpful >> and we we and that has come up several times Katie we can do that manually. Yeah. We can ask the case managers with their students on their case load to identify what area in the SLD it is or >> just so you know what day that is. I'll bring coffee and cookies. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Just just to add to that too though. Um one of the complexities just to give some context and and I agree we we can do the manual work is that because in Connecticut we which is different than in some states

034where you can have a primary disability and a secondary disability. We can only select one primary. there are students who have ADHD and a specific learning disability and that student wouldn't be captured in the manual work too. So it it is a little challenging when we're working with small sets of numbers to make comparisons year-over-year, but I do think we we could do the work to understand what the trends look like and and and hopefully get some information >> and the cookies will be well received. >> Joanna, >> um I wanted to go back to the PPTs. Um, so you said like minimally we would have six, you know, 1650 plus PPT meetings, but already this year or as of April 24th, we've had 260. So, um, and we know some of these referrals hopefully

035will lessen over time when MTSS is really, you know, um, we learned that from the self study last year. Our preventative work is not as strong as it needs to be. Um, what other types of meetings are these PPTs? I'd love to know how many are second or third or fourth meetings that parents are calling because they don't feel like their students needs are being met. Um, of those meetings, I'd love to know how many were originally on Zoom or stayed on Zoom. Um, I would love to know um how many missed services are usually associated with these repeat meetings. Um, I feel like there's just some cracks in the system that is leading us to do more of an administrative work that if we could fill in those cracks, the number of PPTs would

036go down. >> Oh, sorry, John. >> Ju just to comment on that. The and it's a good question and I think we we could do some work to provide some context around that. Um the minimum projection though we would never expect it to be at that minimum because we would expect for example we will hold manifestation determination meetings during this school year which are meetings that um come as a result result of discipline but we can't project a minimum right because they're just they happen when they happen um every time a student is psychiatrically hospitalized we have to convene a PPT meeting by law um we can't project a minimum standard so a lot of those meetings that are above and beyond that minimum standard aren't necessarily a reflection of a different process not running

037efficiently. It it's a reflection of there are other procedural processes that we can't project. They just occur. So I think what we could do is maybe break out to your point which of these are repeat meetings versus which of these are actually just other procedural items that need to happen. >> Right. And what those could look like what that means. >> Yeah. >> Exactly. Just agreed. >> Thank you. Um >> so just two points. One quickly on that note, do you track the amount of man-hour that go into these meetings? >> We don't track the number of hours and there's variability. I know that was another question also. Some of the meetings can um and depending again as Scott mentioned if it's elementary or secondary. An elementary meeting can go for an initial meeting for

03890 minutes. Um and also on a trienal depending on the evaluations that are conducted. It could also be an hour and a half, 90 minutes. Uh the um annual reviews might be shorter because you're not you're not reviewing all the evaluations but we don't actually track the number of minutes. >> But you do have the data though I assume from correct from meeting invites would that be >> well the meeting invites but sometimes it goes over the meeting invite but the meeting invites would give you an idea >> or roughly you could start and end date but it may go over >> that would probably be helpful too to have. Um and then just going back just kind of talking about the trends maybe specifically um slide eight in the presentation or PDF page 14.

039Um you talk a lot about trends but it seemed just to kind of be more reading of the data. So what the data is versus there wasn't I didn't find a lot of why these trends exist. So could you just explain to me here why is Darian above the other um locations listed here for two separate time slots or time periods. So one of the things that I think is really important about this graph and we presented this in the the 2425 port of report is that this trend has actually existed since 201213 that Darien was the highest in the DURG um and so trying to understand there's a multitude of factors that could result in a in a district having a high eligibility classification rate. Um and that classification that high classification rate existed

040before all of us worked here. So it it's it's not easy to really opine on the exact reason why. I don't know that we could identify the exact reason why. It is a longstanding trend. Um in 201213 we were about 10% over the next um the next highest district. You can see that today we're we're closer in line with some of these districts. The trend we can see is that everyone's gone up. Um but the as to the why that could look very different by district. I just don't feel like that's an answer. >> Well, I'm sorry. Wouldn't you say last year your self-study really delve into the reason? Okay. Thank you. >> So, I don't know if you saw that, Mr. Dun, but last year um we pointed that out in our self-study, which

041is why we had a self-study was exactly to find out why there is a high classification rate. And in that self-study, which is posted on our website, but I guess it's not that easy to get to. But in our in our self-study, it does show why we're looking into the idea that um and our collaboration for MTSS that are we looking at our pre-referral and our interventions prior to referral to special education. So I think what our commitment has that's begun this year also is that we're looking at why we have a high classification rate and one of the outcomes and I'll speak to in our professional learning is to look at uh a rigorous and didactic and specific reading program which is what inter reading brought in and why we're doing OG. So if

042your answer to the short answer to your question is our understanding was we needed to really look at effective methodologies and strategies for literacy instruction in our early years and that's precisely what our MTSS and our collaboration with SCES is doing now. You won't see a decline based on that area for a couple of years as we're implementing the program. But you will see a capacity and agency of teachers to be able to utilize multiensory reading approaches and the new reading program. And we are confident that that should impact um our student performance and thus we hope to look at a reduced classification rate in the area of literacy. >> So were other districts doing that then just weren't that again that's just a forwardlooking approach versus looking at the map. >> Actually New Kanan

043did it several years ago. They started, we modeled their program. They have um an an academy and they started where they actually had a fellow an OG fellow in the district who actually worked with all their general and special education teachers and their outcomes were successful students in that implementation. >> Yeah. So even on the the graph that we see here when we presented that in the self study, one of the things we looked at was well districts that have a different uh increase than what we've experienced, what might those districts be doing? So, one of the things we shared was that Willin has a summer MTSS program that they funded to support students in tier 2 and tier three to receive um tier 2 and tier three instruction through the summer. And um can

044we exactly point to that being the reason why they had a lower change? No, there are other things that could go into that. But at the same time, New Kenan has invested significantly in orgillingham instruction over the past 5 to 10 years and they have a similar lower lower increase although an increase but lower. Um, so it it's I don't know that we can say it's causal, but what we're trying to look at is is what are what are we seeing in the difference between the districts that have smaller increases >> and also MT I'm sorry, New Kanan also has a very uh they don't call it MTNS, I think they call it RTI, but they have a very strong intervention and general education program as well. >> We've definitely talked with them about some

045of the things they have in place already because it's helpful to us as we begin this journey. Can I can I just suggest since we have the slides up now and we're starting to talk about some of your goals that were coming out of the self-study that we continue with the slide. >> Can I just share one thing about the the reasoning for the higher number? We've been told in the past, John, by like anecdotally through realtors and whatnot that people choose to move to Darian because of whether it's ELP or the perceived reputation of our district. So the I think there's a higher percentage of people moving into town that may require services than many. >> Uh why don't we ask more questions after he's finished because I think we're starting to get into

046a lot of what you were about to cover um Scott that was on page 21 of the presentation the shared goals generated from the self-study. So these shared goals were presented a uh as a conclusion to the cell study work that we completed in the spring and as you'll see um or as you'll remember a majority of the action items are collaborative increasing the collaboration between the CES department and the MTSS committees um toward establishing shared shared um information data collection and then collaboratively revising our process. processes as we move towards the implementation that's going to happen. And so um the the primary focus in the area has been improving consistency in our referral processes, our eligibility practices um using that cross departmental collaboration process and um we've been really excited to partner with Dr.

047Fedigan and Dr. Falconee um and the curriculum leadership through our department's participation in the the MTSS district leadership team, the MTSS steering committee, and then also the building based MTSS teams where special educators are represented meaningfully in all of those committees. And we're really looking forward to that that revision cycle that's now happening and and the implementation of a revised structure next year that improves the systems and processes of our tiered interventions. So that's um it's been an exciting process to have worked through that self-study together and to now be actually um uh seeing that work happen throughout this school year. >> Do you want me to advance? >> Scared to touch it. >> Okay. So again, this is really premature data, but it's information that we want to be providing to you yearly so

048that you you know that we're monitoring and we're looking at it. Um the specific learning disability category is the category that we're we're traditionally talking about when we're talking about MTSS processes and the relationship between the MTS process, MTSS process and special education eligibility. And um what we can see is that the the numbers have been fairly stable. There's a slight decrease noted this year. It's some it's not necess necessarily a trend yet, but it's something that we can see and we'll be continuing to monitor collaboratively with our MTSS teams. This is also um in some ways consistent with the overall state data. So when we look at the state data, the number the percentage of students overall who have an identification of a specific learning disability has increased in the last five years while

049the percentage of students with specific learning disabilities within the population of students who have IEPs has has maintained fairly consistent or or increased slightly as we've just seen this one slight decrease this year. And and last uh we wanted to provide you an update on our expanding training partnerships through the Connecticut uh psychological consortium psychology consortium. Um this is a partnership that we have that's that we're excited about that we've been working really collaboratively with Dr. Dabs. um in a in a group of four agencies, us being the only public school traditional public school setting, we had two very high quality um and well-trained school psychology interns. The school psychology interns are able to conduct evaluations. They're able to do basically anything a school psychologist can do under the supervision of a school psychologist. And

050so they can complete evaluations, they can conduct direct direct service, they can complete indirect services, they can participate in PPT meetings. Um and so there's been really a two-way learning experience where we've been able to benefit from the professional learning that they have access to and the recent training that they've received and also um they've been able to really benefit us because school psychology is a school psychologist as a certification is a national shortage area and um you know we had three maternity leaves this year. We can never cover them and they were able to fully cover them without us having a problem. So, um it's been a really beneficial experience for them to be able to be, you know, getting really high quality training and supervision here and also an opportunity to actually practice

051um as we've had these opportunities for them to to be more independent. And I will now turn it back to Shirley to provide some information about our professional learning updates. >> Okay. professional learning update. Uh next, we'd like to provide a brief update on two of our strategic priorities. One is specialized reading instruction as we spoke about earlier and the behavior consultation model. And this might better answer your question, Mr. Dunn, also as I go through specialized reading instruction. So, if you look at some of our um professional learning for this year, I'll just give you an overview of the district continues its commitment to providing specialized professional learning that's aligned with student needs. Throughout this school year, we have collaborated with the curriculum instruction department to increase the capacity and agency of our general

052and special education teachers um as well as our administrators. And we monitor their implementation of Orton Gillingham reading instruction. And just as a as a brief overview, Orton Billingham instruction is a direct, explicit, multi-ensory structure that's sequential. It's diagnostic and it's a prescriptive way to teach literacy. It's practiced as an approach. It is not a method, a program or a system. And clearly, this aligns with our um commitment to tier one intervention in the general education classroom of of our interreading program where all our teachers, both general and special education teachers, are trained in that. and we're excited to continue the work in 2026 27. And if you look at the attributes of the interreading program which also looks at phenology, morphology, um written language and the other very very multiensory areas that are essential

053to really to developing good readers and good writers. I don't I won't go through all that, but just let you know and I know I did mention it earlier on Dr. burn at one of our presentations, but um our training for our special education teachers is mandatory. It would be this year. We have um 23 elementary school teachers that participated in general education this year. And we have 20 special education teachers who are participating in either practicum one or two. And just to give some color to that also is they all start with a 5-day training course. They'll have to repeat that again this year. Uh the phase one to become an associate level is you have two years of practicum and you are supervised and monitored by an Orin Gillingham fellow that we contract

054with. She comes in um records lessons, gives you feedback on the lessons and you're really um coached to make sure that you are implementing it with fidelity and to look at student outcomes. So 10 of our teachers in special education started their practicum this year. They'll finish year two next year. We will have 10 teachers who are associate level upon success and next year we'll start our cohort 2 and in 2027 28 at the end of that year they will have completed their practicum as well. So at the end of it we hope to have 20 special education teachers u on the associate level and also as new teachers are hired as other teachers exit they'll be mandated to participate in that as well. behavioral consultation. I know we spoke to this and I know

055Dr. Bern was a big advocate of this program also. Um and I think Dr. McCarthy and Dr. Dad spoke about it at a prior presentation. So the district is committed to strengthening it our functionbased behavioral consultation coaching and we mentioned um Dr. Mill Melissa Kolio Meek we call her Dr. Melt at Teachers College whose work has included both professional learning for our clinicians and administrators and provides the district with an opportunity that we um are able to participate in the Institute of Educational Science which is the IEES federal funded research awarded teachers college and Yukon. Um beginning next year and we've already started the consultation we will have uh 10 two in each building coaches for our general education teachers to really worked on the consultive model. Our psychologists have already worked this year and

056began last year also I believe for Dr. Mill >> uh training beginning this year on training um and their ability to go in and support teachers. I know it came up once before in a meeting also Katie about um it does this mean more work for our general education teachers and we spoke about they are delighted to have the agency and the capacity to really have intervention strategies so they don't always rely on calling someone but they're able to really um address student interventions on on their own. So, we're looking forward to those 10 coaches coming in. And before the questions, just a note that in as Scott said earlier in our appendices that we do have um department structures, we also have the overview of our continuum of services. Um and we also have

057out of district continuum of services to for um the board and for the community to understand some programs and specialized program programs our students participate in. And we also have as Scott mentioned some of the service trends and they're divided by elementary um related services our service trends in middle school and our service trends in Darian High School and of course our glossery of acronyms. So the report has some meaning. Thank you for your time. >> Thank you and thank you for this presentation. This is incredibly helpful and um we appreciate all the work that you've put into this. Um I do have a few questions just on this piece with the shared goals um that we had started to touch on earlier. First of all um I know you said you have completed the

058self-study. So, are you able at this point to share some of the trends of the building based review of referral and co cohort data or is that going to be coming at some point in the future? Because you mentioned that on that slide on that slide and the one you had there. Um, we're in the process to collect that data. It's not at an end yet. It's probably it's a year data. So, from the time we started the beginning of this year to the end of this year. So, we'll be looking at as we go toward the end of the year reporting out on next year. >> Great. Okay. Thank you. And then um we had also talked about the Orton Gillingham which I can you share a little bit because I know that the

059general education teachers that are getting certified in that are they primarily going to be used in the MTSS um interventions or are they also going to be working with the general education students as part of our literacy. >> So it's in the general education um community. So the teachers actually they're doing an educator level OG. We're not asking them to go and become associates although some do want to pursue it. So I don't want to diminish that. I know Amy's looking into that. >> They would be practices support all kids. >> Yes. But it'll be for all students and the notion is it happens in tier one which is for all students in the general education classroom and that's their commitment to having that training. And I would assume, and correct me if I'm wrong,

060that part of the goal in doing that would be to potentially help mitigate or or give the students what they need at a very early at a much earlier age so that they can get those needs met as opposed to being referred to a higher level of support. Is that correct? And that's why tier one intervention is where you want to start with OG training for that reason precisely. >> It will take time to see if it has that impact, but that's certainly the theory and it should. And is that similar to what Newkan and Wilton have done with their programs or have you a sense of >> I certainly believe in new with New Kanan they've done a lot of work around that but I don't know as much about what Wilton has done

061>> they have an ongoing fellow there actually one of their teachers when it became a fellow takes about seven years to become a fellow just to give you an idea and some of the most highly qualified reading contractor um personnel we work with are not necessarily fellows so having a fellow uh on that level that we can contract with it will be ongoing and we'll come to the board um every year to ask for that as well. >> Great. Thank you. Are there other board questions? >> Joanna, >> um the just going back in the order from the last thing you spoke about um I'm very pleased to see the prime um service coming in. Um and I'm just wondering um how are you going to track the effectiveness of this? Um, you know, we

062hear anecdotally a lot a lot of behavior issues in the classroom, in the hallways, um, etc. So, it'd be nice to be able to see maybe I I mean, some of these numbers, some of these things you probably may or may not be able to do. Um, like how many times has a school had to evacuate a classroom before you started this program versus afterwards? Um, how have disciplinary levels gone up or down? you know, how many kids are missing recess before versus after, you know, I don't know if any of that's possible, but I think would be very helpful to see. >> So, um, in terms of the the the data that will come from the prime study, um, one benefit of being part of a study, of course, is that there's a lot

063of data that's collected and so we'll be able to get a lot of information on that individual level. The way that the the the intervention is is designed and what they're looking to study is by selecting a general education student who the teacher has targeted as a student who does require general education intervention but does not yet have an IEP >> can by providing expert consultant to the teacher and building the capacity of the teacher by teaching them the skills needed for that student in a functionbased way and then tracking and the progress of that intervention success, can we intervene successfully on that student? And also, does this teacher then maintain the capacity that we've built? So, they're they're looking at studying that. And so, that will be kind of at an individual level of

064what teachers are building, which of course has the capacity to start building out because we're also doing that work with our school psychologist. We're we're building that capacity. Um, so it's sort of an added bonus for us. in terms of some of the metrics you're talking about that might be more schoolwide. I don't know that those that specific of a study is going to show us a change in clearing classrooms for example of of the building, but we we could talk to them about what what type of building level data we might expect to see that we could present upon. >> Thank you. >> You have the question. >> Thank you. Other board questions. Yes, Bill. >> That's right. Thank you. Um, it's always heartening to see our PhDs and their education put to use

065in these studies. Uh, and and appreciate and just a staggering amount of work. Um, I think we talked about this at a previous board meeting, the PPT scheduling. The numbers are are boggling. Um, and and it's and really I just like to recognize and say thank you for for all that you do. But I would like to piggyback on on something my colleague John mentioned and and I guess I'll start off with the PPT meeting types uh and the three-year annual reviews. So it's kind of a glitch in the system, right? You have to have an annual review and then every three years you have to have a three-year review and and I and as a you've identified a way to combine the two. I I would just think that would be kind of a

066like a standard practice unless the three-year view that legislation specifically calls out something much more in depth than an annual >> Well, two things happen, but thank you for the question and thank you for your acknowledgement, Bill. Two things happen. One, um when we we can offer an annual review and a trial to have the same time when they're closed in Connecticut, which is one of four states, um annual reviews are anniversary dates. They're anniversaries. So when you become when you're initially classified that becomes your honor review. We try to move them. So because sometimes that doesn't it's not very helpful. If you're classified in October 1st then your annual review is going to happen the fall on October 1st and your new teachers have had you for 11 days. >> I remember this from

067last time you mentioned. >> So so it's not so we do try to move them when we can and when they are closer in dates we can do that. So it is something we work on. Um when there is a close proximity between annual review and trienal the three-year we do move them together combine them. Some parents actually want them done separately uh because it very um they really want to um have the time to really talk about the honor review and then talk about a trienal. But also keep in mind that the reason for the three-year re-evaluation formerly called a trienal is to redetermine eligibility. There's a purpose in that meeting. >> Yeah. So that would Yeah. So, >> so there's testing there's testing that goes with that that doesn't go with typically with

068the >> I remember. >> So, sometimes they are separated but um um just again that we spoke about last time whenever we can put them together there's efficacy to that and it's very helpful also because sometimes it informs new goals and objectives based on the evaluations for the following year. So, there's there's a perk to having an annual review and a three-year reevaluation at the same time also. And so once so given the the the staff commitment the the staff resources devoted to this um I know John asked about manh hours. Do do we have any kind of like a full-time equivalent employee that's devoted to let's say special education first or if you could break it out at some point to uh just handling these meetings. So to get an idea of like what

069we're paying for, what we're buying and how we can support you better if you need more like if you were able to come and tell and maybe you are you know we have you know 35 FTEEs devoted to nothing but doing PPT meetings and and running from meeting to meeting and evaluation to evaluation and we're drowning because you could look at this data and I I could say well are they drowning uh when when you look at the number of meetings meetings per uh and you have a slide for it. >> Uh >> yeah, PPT meetings per administrator and you have a mean which is you know if you can do the the annual and the threeear together that's going to change that but I mean at the high school 124 I mean that's that

070to me is like your full-time jobs basically just come in and conduct those meetings. So, um, >> where do we sit at full-time employees devoted to this? >> It's a really good question and I and there are philosophical differences that districts have in how they do that. There are some school districts that have a special education administrator running every PPT meeting at their high school, every PPT meeting at their middle school, every PPT meeting for their elementary schools. And it's our philosophical belief that a majority of students with IEPs spend a vast majority of their day in our general education settings. And so our assistant principles and building administrators who know those students best and can be the best problem solvers to their teams and have relationships with their families. I think that's how we

071run the most efficient and effective meetings for families. >> And that and that makes sense. Thank you. But it would still be helpful to know on a FTE basis >> how much of that administrator's day then is tied up and and it will vary. It'll be different administrators, but if we had a a total we could pin down or at least get close to >> my understanding and Marge, you might be able to weigh in on this more. We we did make some structural changes and put positions in place u to support uh PPT meetings and special education administration. So maybe if you can give a little background on on that. Um I think what you're talking about is when we combined the two central office um there used to be a 612 administrator and

072a K5. Now that is an assistant director um of special education K through 12. Then we added an assistant principal um at the middle school um and two program directors. We made them full-time. So there were special education sort of department chairs at the middle and the high school. We made those 12 months so that they could help with the extended school year program and also manage the programs there. I I yeah I guess I I'll drop it after just a a more concise roll up of what you're you're >> we we could try and pull that we can look at that >> because there are additional factors to it too right so we're presenting the PPT meetings there are also 504 meetings >> and for many PPT meetings we hold work sessions ahead of

073the meetings for the team >> but that would be good to capture too and if we can help you and resource you better to meet those or are we overburdening our staff? We're you we're here to help and support in that. And and I had I had one or two other questions very briefly. >> Um >> Bill, I'm so sorry. Robin, do you think we could maybe try to stick to topics so that we can like ask all our questions about one topic before we switch? >> Yeah, if someone would Yeah. Sorry, Bill. I didn't mean to cut you off. I just thought instead of jumping back and forth. Um so um on the PPTs I just wanted to chat a little bit about a couple of the conversations that we have started. Um so

074I think that you know Joanna started by commenting that um you know one thing that can really help make our PPTs more efficient and more satisfactory to all parties is communication right so you know to um to her point about and and what you're bringing up Bill too as well right the communication that happens amongst the team outside of PPTs right maybe those are emails and check-ins those are phone calls you know from from my experience in the special education community. The people who have like the most efficient PPTs and who have the most like the highest satisfaction scores are the ones that are in regular contact with their team. So that way you're, you know, it's like a report card. You're not getting to a PPT meeting and being surprised and being like, "Oh

075my god, we have all this work to do, right?" You know what's going on. And when Scott mentioned something earlier about parents being able to meaningfully participate, so by having information in advance, um, you know, parents are able to go through that and the the meetings can be very quick, right? So I think that there's everyone in special education will know it's not there's not one clear answer. The answer is it depends for everything. It's very messy and the reason for that is that we're talking about children, right? We're talking about complicated, nuanced beings and they don't come in one sizefits-all. Um, you know, just like Scott was saying, there's a lot of kids that might have dyslexia and ADHD, right? There might be a kid that has anxiety and has, um, you know, something

076else. So, um, you know, to that point, I think that we need to try to really look holistically at all of these things and recognize that by improving all of our areas, that's probably where we're going to make our biggest gains. Right? So, when we're looking at PPTs um, efficiencies, Joanna mentioned also about, well, how many are in Zoom and how many are in person, right? And just like any other business meeting you might have, the the efficiency effect um efficacy of an in-person versus Zoom, there's a trade-off, right? Zoom is convenient, in person is connection. Um I also think that, you know, to some of the questions that you were asking, John, um as well about where they come from, I do think that um we might be able to pull out a little

077more quantifiable data that maybe we haven't been tracking. And whether that is case managers or if it's special education secretaries, I think it would be a great thing to maybe think about for next year noticing what's an annual review, right? What is that one that everyone needs to have? How many crisis events are triggering PPTs? How many are other events? You know, um how many um I I think that could be really helpful for us just to even kind of look within. Additionally, um I think you know John, the question that you were asking about the time is kind of like what's that standard invite time and a lot of them can end early, a lot of them can go late, but there is kind of that automatic calendar block that goes into it, which

078is an easy formula to kind of say. Um, I think something that's always like nice to remember too is that because we have a statutory responsibility for a certain number of people, you know, to be in the room before you can even start. Um, a lot of that comes down to um to the parent um prerogative as well. So, if there's someone who just has to be there because they have to be there and they're not relevant, the parent has an ability to um excuse them or if they've said their part. So, so those things can also it's not necessarily that if it's a 45 minute all 10 people are there for 45 minutes as well. I just think that those again complicated it depends nuances really matter um in here. Um so that was

079just one um seven pieces of the previous conversations that I I wanted to add to the discussion. Um so I'll leave it there for now. >> Are there other board questions? Okay, Bill. Uh or Greg, >> go ahead. >> Um two two things uh to help contextualize. Uh Sarah had a good point about people moving here for the service and and and that should be a feather in your cap for establishing a program people want to migrate to. Uh but I did notice the data and I don't understand the context out of district trends with IEP placement and unilateral placements. I understand what each is but why is there any context behind why unilateral placements are twice what IEP placements are? So IEP placements are made by the district right at a PBT team and

080the unilateral placements are made a parents decision are some of the responsibilities of those and their choices of a program and the other unilateral placements um which we have shared in the past also are very often there's a program that we can't place a student in a student might be coming out of a hospital setting a student might need a therapeutic program that's not a state approved program a program that we have worked with So very often because of student need there may have to be a parent placement because the PBT cannot recommend that program and that sometimes happens more often with students who have a high clinical or therapeutic need. It's a residential program. >> Yeah. No, I understand. I I Okay. I I'll I'll defer that. So, and so the last very brief

081one that I have is uh from a medical perspective and and we see uh from your trend charts with our uh our DUR, what is there a so I so let me back up and rephrase this from one perspective like I I know when they do fraud investigations for Medicare fraud and things like that, they'll look at a statistic population and area and they'll single out a particular pharmacy that's prescribing a drug for uh ulcers say at a statistically abnormal rate and they'll say there's something going on there maybe there's fraud and we should look at that and I'm not implying any type of fraud here whatsoever but what I am trying to say or ask is from a medical perspective uh are we in line like uh in the general population x% should have

082ADHD at at this grade level. Are we above that? Are we trending above that? Are we trending below that? Are we at that? >> Uh >> yeah. So >> um >> you know when we think about the classification system that the medical model uses versus the IDA, they do have a different standard even though they use a lot of the same phrases. So, um, to qualify as an individual with an with ADHD in the medical model, there isn't a requirement that you are not performing in school, right? So, so there it's a different it's a different standard. So, in order to qualify for an IEP, you must have one of the disabilities recognized by IDA and have a significant educational impact. And that impact must require that you need specialized instruction from a special education

083teacher. And those second two prongs don't exist in every disability that's evaluated in a medical model. And so when we look at the prevalence rates of something like ADHD or dyslexia as diagnosed in a medical model versus in u a school-based system, they often will look different, which is why we often compare ourselves with to to to local districts with similar demographics to understand are we aligned in how we're seeing. That's very helpful. So yeah, the two different sets are that >> even though they're using this oftentimes using this, you know, autism and autism but different standard for eligibility in the two different settings. >> Thank you. That that's insightful. Thank you. >> Scott, just one question to follow up on that. When you say we compare our kind of trends versus the other districts,

084do you find that we are in line for instance on the ADHD or the dyslexia kind of the percentages just with other prevalence rates? We specifically looked at specific learning disability >> the the um and we are >> okay >> yeah in that low30s um and and the prevalence rate increasing but in the low30s >> okay >> but you could pull those for the other numbers as well >> thank you um Greg do you had a question >> um yeah I had a question on the PPT meeting trends slide um I was just trying to read it a little bit and understand some takeaways so what's the time period is this for just an annual basis the 60 or so meetings. That's for one year. Is that for a year? >> That That's for this

085school year until I think April 26th maybe was when we pulled it. >> Yeah, April 24th. That's as of April 24th of this year. >> But it's a full year or is it less than a year or >> Well, it's it's from the school year. >> August 27th. >> Okay. The reason I'm asking is because so I'm trying to figure out like what's the number of meeting is is the way to do the math like it's 2,000 meetings divided by the number of IEPs is the average number of meetings per IEP or is it something different? >> No, yeah it's all visualized >> because of the different kinds of meetings. I don't know if that would be a helpful metric to get at >> like what what I'm but basically like my question is like

086what does the distribution chart of meetings look like for students. >> So >> is there a cohort that has 25 meetings a year and then most of them are one meeting a year or is it very even across? >> I would say it's for the maybe the vast majority 80% of students they have their annual they have their three-year reevaluation and we do have a like standardized processes. at the the second annual review during the three-year period. We take consent for the three-year evaluation so that we don't have to come back to another meeting to plan the meeting or to plan the so we do have a standard process. We only go outside of that process if if the student is for example experiencing a significant change in functioning and we don't want to plan

087the evaluation right then because we need to to wait and see what's going on later. Um so the vast majority I would say have the standard minimum. Um the like one metric that's interesting to look at is that we to date have completed 177 initial evaluations. And so that means that we've completed twice that number of meetings because every single one of those is required to have referral meeting and an eligibility gate which is different than you know in New York you don't have an initial referral meeting. The district sends home an evaluation form. So that can differ across spaces, but in Connecticut there's a requirement for two meetings for each initial referral. Um, so we we can see certain trends connected to the the reason. Um, and we can certainly pull, you know, how

088many meetings did we have that were manifestation determinations? How did how many did we have um that that were for other purposes outside of this process? We can we can absolutely pull that. >> Okay. Got it. And the only other thing I would say is like in terms of thinking about the trends for the meetings, understanding how that's moving over time would also be helpful like one year versus the prior year versus the prior year. It be interesting to see like sounds like you've done some things to make create some some efficiencies there. It' be great to see how that's playing out. >> Katie, um if we're ready to move off of PPTs, I just wanted to talk about um the evaluations a little bit more. >> Just one sort of question about PBTs. It'd

089be great. Last year you gave us um numbers on who made the referrals and how many of those referrals where they were in SRBI and how many of those referrals were from by the school, by the parent, how many of which converted to IEPs. If you could give us updated numbers, that'd be great. Thank you. >> Thank you. Um David, >> so so one quick one before we jump off. Thanks, Katie. Um yeah, just kind of following up on what Greg said. the minimum is helpful as a floor, but and I appreciate um Scott, you mentioned that, you know, we have the actual count so far, but we don't know, but there's got to be a tread line. We have to be able to see what how that works out year-over-year to get an estimate

090or a projection or something like that. And then I just got to echo what John and um and Bill have been saying like we need another cut on this data to get at me in hours or how much time is being spent with the full recognition that I could book a 30-minute meeting for somebody and maybe I'm out of there in six minutes, maybe I'm out of there in two hours. Who knows? But like you guys have to have some handle on where where your dollars are going. >> Are there other questions? Katie, >> um I wanted to talk a little bit about the um the evaluation. So the slide um Oh, I didn't take note of it. Um essentially, I wanted to chat a bit about the disparity between the um yeah, the the

091referrals versus the um qualifications. >> Which slide? >> I think that's towards the beginning, >> the 18 I mentioned without the extra data. >> Yes. uh evaluation process. It's slide 18 in the deck, slide 22 in full. >> This is the MTSS. >> Yes, exactly. So, >> right. If we implement MTSS, well, you should not see the disparity between the initial evaluations and the the the huge difference from that and who qualified for. >> Okay. So, based on that, then you're saying that um because we um don't have our interventions, they haven't been where we want them to go, that we are not sure if the kids need it or not that we're jumping the gun like how do you see that playing out? >> I what I am saying is that I think what

092we're building for the long term should have an impact on that disparity. So you should see of 88 kids, sorry I jumped in on your presentation, 88 students who are being evaluated and 53 are being classified. So why that big number the 35 in between that's MTSS that's the supports in tier one and the building level that they might not ever go to the initial evaluation because we've met the need and whoever has put the referral in is it they're not even going to the referral because we're addressing needs of the building block. So I I understand your point about what you hope to this slide will show next year, but h we don't I don't know that one year we'll we'll have that. >> Fair enough. Fair enough. >> I also think there's some

093communication pieces as well. The board has heard us talk about we communicate to families. So the universal screener that we're going to provide family reports uh three times a year. That's going to be information that people have not had historically. I have a theory that that will that will help parents feel that what's going on with my kid I need to refer them to special education. >> So then that point makes the assumption that these 35 you know using the elementary category that those were all parent driven. >> Not necessarily. It could be teacher driven as well. >> Okay. >> But we also have talked about how we haven't used the okay >> the universal screen and data. Well >> totally. So, so coming back to my original question, >> sorry. >> What do you

094think is in between the number and the parenthetical? What where what is causing those additional referrals that are not actually turning into qualifications? >> So, it can be all the above that Dr. Bernie just said. It can be parent referrals um and they're concerned because they're not seeing adequate progress in with their students. It can be teachers who are making the referral and not going through an MTSS process or it could be students who are in that MTSS process all too long which we have noted and and Amy and I and Scott and Jen spoke about that of looking at the duration of that time >> and moving. So I think it could be all of the above. I think it could be those can be the factors that's the discrepancy. And I do know

095when we once when to Joanna's point when we looked at the parent referrals um in one of the things um many of those the students did not meet eligibility but I wouldn't limit it just parent referrals. I think it's the other piece that that contribute to that also MTSS teachers or parents that feel that their students aren't achieving and the data also looking at benchmark data. How do we use benchmark data? How are we using our as web? How are we using our different data to to inform um evaluation? >> So then surely >> or not, >> right? >> Or not. >> So then what happens like again let's stick with that 35 right in elementary. What does that typically look like? We've gone through the process and it's been determined that a child did

096not meet the criteria for special education, but there was something that raised a flag. So, so is that then like are those students >> might be the so let's just say out of those 35 students probably be better to go look at the 35 students and see what happened that probably be a better example however that said it can be that some of them did not go through an MTSS process and and either the parent or the general education teacher went right to referral >> um or someone outside you know it could be a therapist or someone else went to that and we do put in place an MTSS referral because they don't meet the criteria of a child with a disability under IDA A and the evaluation process, but they do require an intervention

097and maybe that intervention didn't happen. So that might be some of those 35 students. >> Okay? >> You know, and I I have to look more grand to see that, but I would >> but that's my point, right? Is that we are not just saying, "Nope, you're fine." And like >> Right. Yeah. No, >> but some of those students also get 504s, >> right? Exactly. And some of them are 54s. >> So just one on on 504s. I would like to request in the past we have had a separate presentation on 504s and the trends as well which I thought was helpful um because that's a whole other kind of section of students that are not included in the IEP data that would be helpful to have. Um one question I had was on >>

098they are in PBT data just so you know. So, okay. That's So, the the 504s are not in the IEP numbers, but you're saying that the 504 data is in the PPT meeting data that's in this packet. >> No. >> Oh, you pulled that out. >> It is pulled out. Okay. >> So, this is only the >> However, to Katie's point, there are several 504 meetings that occur in the district as well. In addition, so to go back to the point of how much time is spent by psychologists. um very often our school counselors not our you know so so the school counselors usually chair the 504 meetings um and that's a different cohort of people who are taken away from their responsibilities but it's usually school counselors um with the exception of elementary where

099one of the APs typically does that and typically it's the general education AP who does the 504 meetings but as far as to your question earlier distribution of meeting time is in addition to the PPT time >> thank you and I just had a question just again about the educational classification slide which is page 12 of the deck and I believe it's page six of the presentation just one question about that does that educational classification through the numbers include outofd district placements or is it only the in district IEPs >> both >> it is both because I think last year there was a footnote that it did not include OOD like the out of district students so I that's why I was just wanting to confirm We've presented a slide in the past that has

100prek to 12 eligibility numbers that did it include out of district students, but this slide does. >> This one does include it. Okay, thank you. >> Right. >> Um, just one quick follow-up question for the out of district students, the placements that we've got, how do we have any sense, and if you don't have the data, maybe we could follow up. Any sense of how that compares as a percentage of our overall population of IEPs versus the DUR? like are we are we have more out of district placements as a percentage of the total versus dur or less or is it on par? >> I I don't think we have the data with with the other cohort the other DUIRG a of how many out of district they have. I don't know if they publish

101it and I think that question came up before Greg if they do publish their out of district data or do they disagregate it the way we do. Um I don't know. We could certainly ask at one of our duray meetings if they have that data. Okay, thank you. And then, excuse me. And then I would just one observation. I mean, we I think following up on some of the things that Bill said and others, um, you know, clearly there's a ton of information in what you all have presented. And I think that it's important to state like there's a lot of questions about all the information. I think this is the most data heavy presentation we get as a board. And so I think it's really important to just maybe state the obvious, but board

102members are asking a lot of questions because we want to make sure that we're getting the the best outcome for not just the parents who are involved in this, but also the students most importantly that the services that they're getting are are incredible. We're not just checking the box with what's needed for the state, but we're actually getting truly ex excellent service for those for those students. And so I think that's why everybody around the table is asking so many questions about this because we're really curious. we want to understand and there's so much information and seeing different pieces of that information can help us understand to make sure that we can help you do a better job. >> Thank you, Greg. Dennis. >> Yeah. To that point, I think there's one a there's a

103lot of data in here and it's fantastic, but for me, I wish we could see it in in different ways like especially on slide five where in district stu in district students with IEP's cohort comparison. It's very difficult to look because you have to look at grade one of last year and then grade two of this year. And it it it I mean for me it' just be simpler to see percentage increase of grade one from last year to I don't there could be a better way. But I think my main question or comment is where I where I'm struggling is because we have the students in class and we're trying to parse this data to the infinite level. Are we barking up the wrong tree? I mean getting more and more data when we're

104when everything when when things are are in the classroom. We need to I think we need to look at the classroom and not so much individual special education data. >> Well, I I think we are doing that. We're doing it at the same time. We're not doing that in tonight's presentation. >> But again, going deeper and deeper into the data and asking for, you know, how many PE I don't know that that's going to get us the answer we need, >> right? But the presentations we've had about all the work we're doing in literacy and on assessment throughout the course of the year, that's going to get us to that. So that the message is that pretty much every meeting we've had this year is directly connected to what we're working on for all of

105our students, including our special education students. So the MTSS presentation, you you hear a lot of things. There are a lot of indications of ways that an improved MTSS process will help us and help us better support our community that will be reflected in this down the road at some point uh as we continue that work. The efforts in literacy, the we had the OG conversations earlier in the year, the work with inter reading, the coaches, all it's all part of the same strategy to get at the same thing. >> No, 100%. But I feel like we're fighting the fire in our neighborhood and not looking at the overall picture. Right. >> It may feel like it in this present in some of the data. It's definitely not in our strategy work in our planning

106work and our implementation work in the schools. Dave, >> so I hear you, Dennis, and yes, we we don't need to go down a rabbit hole on the data, but like the reason for my asking on the FTEES is not to go, oh, well, this administrator spends, you know, this much time in a PT and this like no, I have no interest in that. What my interest is doing, and this goes back to some of the conversations we had on the um uh I want to say as women, it's not as web. What's the the UB or the what's the system? >> The universal screener. >> No, the what's the system you're working on? >> UDL. Ed planet appreciate you being here. Thank you for that. >> You guys remember that edge planet? >> You

107knew I was going to blank on that. So when we looked at educ, the question was, should we pour more dollars into this sooner to try and get to a better result sooner? >> We didn't. We were on a good track with that. So the question here is where we're spending the numbers and how much time is going into this. Do we need to put more stuff to try and get ahead of it and be able to do it? So that's the reason I'm asking for these numbers is to get a better sense. I have no interest in getting into the weeds and under the hood and figuring all that out, but we've had that discussion many times here. Like, do we need to really focus on this sooner than later? And so, that's what

108I'm trying to get to is to know we spend x number of hours. That's great, but like are we spending that time? Well, could we give them tools where they can do that more efficiently or something to so that that's what I'm trying to understand. >> And and just a reflection on that. Um, as you all know, the the the platform where we house data for both IEPs and 504s has now changed to a stateowned platform and um so some of our ability to pull data and mine for information has adjusted and so we would love to provide you a cohort comparison five years back. Um, but we're newly able to get some of this information. And so some of this is only the one year and we're excited to be able to look at

109that now moving forward for multiple years to do that work to be able to say, you know, are we seeing any trends that we need to be thinking about systematically or from a from a a staffing perspective, but some of it we just have the information that's being newly um available, made available to us. So, so we're looking forward to not just providing lots and lots of data, but actually being able to uh establish trends that exist over time. >> So, one of the things that um we've invested significant amount of time in this year is looking at a data warehouse that will help us be more diagnostic about the data points that we're looking at so that they're responsive to meet the needs of the children in the classroom. so that we're m we're

110looking at the data and matching the um evidence-based strategies and interventions to that deficit area or when a child requires extension. So, um, one of the things that is keeping me up at night right now is like that's a huge lift in a school district, you know, learning a new data platform and making sure that we are implementing that in a way that's supportive, not overwhelming to teachers at the same time when we're implementing, you know, a new a new reading um, resource. So, that's that's when you say like what do we need? I think a focused attention on making sure that we're having a supported implementation and time to do that, right? And one of the things that we're really focusing on with our professional learning with that platform is the idea of considering

111you know data literacy so that we're again making better informed decisions using multiple data points sharing those more frequently more regularly with families and um making sure again that that kind of platform will help us because I sometimes we lose time with kids not only through the year but grade level to grade level and you don't necessarily know right the new teacher receives the children and the new teacher wonders what were the strategies that were previously attempted and there hasn't maybe been electronic recordkeeping of that. So you you know you lose that information. So when we think about efficiencies I'm really hopeful that that data warehouse we have evidence that that should really support our work in MTSS meetings and in PLC meetings and that should drive some of the um you know how are

112we spending our time on the front end that that would be a front-end way to spend time to improve outcomes for kids. >> Thank you >> if that helps. >> No, I get it. It's I mean and I think Dr. Burn spoke to it well. It's it's work in progress. There's different pieces and that's why we have you guys leading. >> But we'll be we'll be looking forward to sharing our learning about that data plat that data warehouse and how that data is being used. I envision very early parent universities about MTSS. We haven't planned them out yet, but I envision that kind of communication will be really important with our families and at the board of education curriculum committee level and probably fullboard level um reports on how that's going. It's a multi-tered approach.

113It's curriculum resources. It's it's the data warehouse. It's um the coaches that we're bringing in the relationship between coaches and interventionists. It's all of these things. But >> and also to that point um at the building level. So So this is some of this is somewhat granular. Um but it gets even more granular when we start to look at the the building level and grade level data and then break them apart by buildings. And that's some of the work that we've been doing in collaboration with the MTSS committees in those steering committee work uh processes to think about what are our actual MTSS review structures and how are we looking at not just individual data but grade level information, building level information and thinking about um how we support buildings, grade levels, teacher levels um

114through that process. So, >> and I would just say, Dennis, to to ease your mind a little bit about overwhelming people with data because when you hear all of this, it sounds like we are dumping tons of data on people, but we're we've got the tools now. And the key is for us to make it easily accessible and usable. So, it isn't always that everyone gets all the same data. It's that they can easily access and use the data that they need for their students to be most effective in their work. Katie and then Joanna. >> Thank you. Um so Dennis, when I when you were asking your question um about the classroom outcomes and um I I think I might have heard your question slightly different than how Dr. Burn responded to it, but

115it really resonated with me and I actually think that like a great additional component to this presentation would be what is going on in our general education classrooms um for our students. So even just you know um that you have a slide in here that talks about the number of services right and the co-taught classes but I think it would be great to know about you know of those cohort of students who have IEPs how many of them are taking AP classes like I'd love to talk a little bit about you know the twice exceptional component. I'd like to know, you know, um how their how their GPA are doing as well, right? Um and I think, you know, to your point, Amy, um from the curriculum committee meetings, the data that like visual from

116MTS, MTSS that you were expecting, I think can be really exciting at looking at individual children over years to sort of see that, you know, like look at the the gains that have been made in math. Um but um surely we would be remiss if the two of us did not say at this table that um our special education students are general education students first. So leading with that in mind, I think that um having some like pulling out some specific gened classroom data would be a great um contrast. Um, just on that note, I I looked last year's presentation did actually have a slide showing the um, students that I think had IEPs, but they got like a three or a four on AP. There were different standardized tests and showing the trends and

117how they were doing, which I kind of I think gets to what you might be talking about as well. K, as >> you take a >> Yeah, Joanna. >> Um, this is on a different topic. I don't know if there are other. >> Okay. Um so just sort of when you move when you're talking about communication and efficiencies and showing um parents or you know communities data more frequently so it's not like just a huge download all of a sudden. It reminded me about missed services. Um, and I wanted to ask about what the current policy is and if you've thought about I mean so the last I heard was that it was every time you had five missed services then the parent would get a note home. Is that still the policy or is

118it has it changed? >> So So it's consecutive services. It's consecutive services. >> So it's five consecutive five consecutive services. Have we ever thought of sending home a note every time or having a place where parents can look up and see whether or not their their student has I just feel like this is some a place of tension, a place that might lead to more PPTs that if there was transparency, you know, every time from the get-go, it might diffuse some of the harder situations where parents are frustrated >> and and well, two things happen. some parents and a PPT does make a recommendation that they have a log a weekly log that shows about miss services or or services in terms of um that received whether it was the teacher was absent the student

119was absent you know it shows that so there are some requests by parents for logs and um there are um also opportunities where a letter goes home for instance we did not have an OT for several for months at token a letter goes home explaining and apologizing someone resigned and we're trying to fill it and we finally were able successfully fill it actually thanks to a parent um helping us with that. So I think you know parents are informed when that happens but for an individual miss session it um typically is not a note that will go home because two things happen. One the provider tries to make up the session and then you'd have to have a makeup session also and that is the first go-to. They try to do it if a if

120a provider is at a PPT for an hour and they've missed two sessions right in that time they try to make them up. Sometimes they bring other children to session. They do that. That said, um I know it has been brought up. We really would welcome if that does happen with any family or any parent where they're they're not informed, but your question would be how do they know they're not informed? >> Right? >> So, we ask the providers um in the secondary usually there's either a communication every two weeks either by a f you know there's a phone with either the case manager or an email with the case manager. And in the elementary um we certainly can ask the providers to reach out to the parent by by email or a call just

121saying they missed a session. We can ask them to do that. >> Yeah. I just think that would go along a small lift that would go a long way. >> Yeah. And and it might be um and it might be required because there's a concern about that and how do you know they did miss it if you're not informed? >> Small children are good narrators. >> We can ask we can ask our related service and case managers to do that. It's probably easier to do it via email than to make a phone call. of course. Um, but they can certainly do that and they can also talk about if they're making up a session when they plan on doing that or they can just drop an email saying we were able to make up a

122session. Sometimes it's weeks later um but just send a note saying that. So we >> like outward transparency I think would be great. >> We can ask at our next um elementary and secondary meetings to our administrators to do that. >> Great. >> Are there any other board? Yes, Steve. >> We're doing general questions here. >> Sure. Okay. Um Scott going back to the John was asking earlier just as a followup about the district data trend slide and Shirley you spoke for a bit on the reading and OG um but Scott you had mentioned there were a number of different factors that can contribute to rates being different. I mean we're not just ticking a box here on elements these are factors you have to weigh them. Um I didn't see in last year's slideshow

123I had a chance to go back and look when we were talking any discussion what those factors might be. Could you maybe speak to a few of the key ones just for purposes of this conversation? >> Sure. And just to make sure I understand the question correctly, you're talking about factors that might contribute to a higher identification rate. >> Yeah, that was the question, right, John? >> Yes. So um uh consistency with eligibility determinations um the fidelity and researchbased intervention processes that exist in tier one, tier 2, tier three, the uh referral structures that exist within tier one, tier 2, tier three um uh just local trends that could exist in a specific population related to something like anxiety um uh and and other uh supports that could exist. So there could be a multitude

124of of factors. What I was really representing and not representing in a way to say um it's not something we should look at is just that the trend has existed for a long time that Darian has been the highest. And so so we can't necessarily go back and figure out why it was the highest to start. What we do is look at all those other factors. And so the the one of the key ones we're looking at right now is that uh that referral to special education process K5 for academic reasons. And that's the work that we're doing together with curriculum and suchin to try to improve our tier one, tier two, tier three process and timelines so that we can um because the research shows uh decrease referrals to special education that could have

125been inappropriate by improving the facility the the fidelity to those processes. So there are a multitude of factors and that that's kind of the one that we're targeting right now. >> Donna, thank you for the background. Appreciate it. Of course, >> Katie, >> I just piggyback on that with um just a couple of other things that I think are helpful context and um one is that you know we do have students who exit special education. There are definitely students who are in special education and younger grades and you know kind of improve their skills and no longer need it. Um which is great. And then there are some students who who will never exit, right? There are some classifications that are lifelong and and they will always have a classification. Um, one other piece just

126I know that you know with that slide with the percentages and Darian was up there and we're like why why are we higher right? So we're at around 20%. I have to tell you for me I'm like that's it. Um and you know know everyone knows that um dyslexia has a special place in my heart but it's it's widely considered that one in five people are dyslexic. So, so that alone is 20%. Now, that doesn't mean that every student in Darian that's dyslexic might have an IEP or not. Um, but just a little piece of of context also in terms of how to think about. >> Are there other board questions? >> Seeing none, I thank you both again for this great presentation and um we'll look forward to continued results once you get your

127data. and I I guess you're still in the midst of going through all of that and then in conjunction with MTSS. Thank you. Thank you. Um we will move on now to um consent agenda. Um may I have a motion to approve the consent agenda. Joanna seconded by John. Um, just to review the consent agenda, we have approval of April 28th minutes, proposed changes to the 2026 27 district calendar and the 2728 district school calendar. Would anyone like to discuss anything on the consent agenda before we vote? So, there's no discussion. Um, all in favor of approving the consent agenda. That is unanimous. Thank you. And then for uh we'll move on to follow-up action items. I had written down um one request from Katie for the website to have some more information that's more

128accessible for special education and and easier to find including a special ed 101. I I think that's a great idea with some of the background kind of information. And then also um a request for a 504 presentation to the board of ed at a future point with the trends as well that we had done in the past years. Um now we'll move on to public comment. >> To participate in public comment, please approach the podium and state your name and address for the record and note that you have up to three minutes to comment. We have no public comment at this time. >> Thank you. May I have a motion to adjourn the meeting? Sarah seconded by John.