001We are live streaming. >> Good evening. I would like to call this special meeting of the board of education to order. The next regular meeting of the board of education is on Tuesday, April 28th at 7:30 p.m. Uh for the chair report tonight, um I'm going to focus on an update for the fiscal 27 board of education budget process. In their meeting last night, the board of finance voted to approve the board of education's proposed operating and capital budgets. Thank you very much to the board of finance members for your ongoing support of our schools and capital needs. The RTM will vote on the board of education budget and their meeting on May 11th. Thank you. Uh moving on to public comment. Good evening. If you would like to participate in public comment, please approach
002the podium and state your name and town of residence for the record. Please note that you have up to three minutes to comment. We have no public comment at this time. >> Thank you. Uh we'll have the superintendent report. Era, >> thank you very much. Good evening and thank you for joining us for the April 8th board of education meeting. Our fifth grade students have begun the exciting transition to Middle Sex Middle School with each elementary school visiting Middle Sex each day this week. Um, please stop by town hall in the Darianne Library to see the Darian public schools K to2 townwide art show. Pieces will be on display until April 30th. Also, April is Autism Awareness Month and this past Friday, many in the Darianne School community wore blue to celebrate World Autism Awareness
003Day, showing our commitment to fostering a culture of inclusion, appreciation, and support for all autistic individuals. In honor of National School Librarian Day on April 4th, we want to thank our school librarians for fostering a love of reading and providing essential research guidance to our entire school community. And it's quite uh timely. Please join us in celebrating National Assistant Principles Week by thanking our assistant principles for their dedicated leadership, mentorship, and everything they do to keep our schools running smoothly every day. And upon return from our break, we'll have two exciting opportunities for parent engagement. On Monday, April 20th at 6:30, there is our next parent university in the Middle Sex Middle School Library Media Center focused on executive functioning classroom strategies across preK through 12 and practical ways families can support learning at home.
004And then on Wednesday, April 22nd at 7 p.m., join me for our spring fireside chat in the Darianne High School Library. The discussion will focus on three tenants of the vision of the graduate, empathy, integrity, and independence. And a form will be shared in this Friday's community update uh with a link to collect any questions that folks would like to help in shaping the chat. And that concludes my report for this evening. >> Thank you, Dr. Burn. We'll move on to student representative reports. Kylie. >> Hi. So, at the high school, quarter 4 just began. Um spring sports are going pretty strong. Um, for example, we have a big girls lacrosse game happening tonight against St. Anthony, so we're hoping for a win. Um, the juniors took the SAT um, yesterday and we're hoping it
005went well. And yeah, everybody's looking forward to spring break coming up. >> Thank you. Um, now we'll move on to presentations, discussion, and possible action um, with the middle school, Middle Sex Middle School update. >> Okay. So, I'd like to just thank our administrative team for being here this evening from Middle Sex. Um, and they're going to share some of the work that's been happening at Middle Sex this year. So, I'll turn it over uh to Kate Dumulis, middle school principal. Good evening. Hello. Okay. Um, okay. It's just shy of two years since I stepped into the role of principal at Middle Sex Middle School in the wake of staffing reductions tied to an outside scheduling consultants review, which to a degree exacerbated existing challenges in the school climate at MMS. My greatest priority was
006to build relationships and earn trust. I have engaged structures that are and will be critical to our successes. Monthly meetings with our team leaders, regular collaboration with our department chairs, ongoing dialogue with our DEA building reps, and strong partnership with our MPA. Through these conversations, I have come to better understand our community's values, united in a shared commitment to our students, and begun to nurture growth and system change. As you know, there were issues in the 2024 2025 master schedule I inherited. disperate class averages, variable class sizes, a high incidence of rainbowing students off teams, and challenges in maintaining a co- excuse me, special education ratio below 50% in some sections of co-taught classes. Given the scope and importance of that work, it is a responsibility I took on directly. In consultation with the cabinet
007and through careful analysis of grade sizes, math course enrollments, and special education service projections, we implemented for this year a schedule with three teams at each grade level and an additional smaller team in grades six and seven. That structure allowed us to address the major concerns raised last fall. I am currently in the very early stages of building our schedule for next year. And that schedule will have three full teams in grade six, four full teams in grade seven, and three full teams in grade 8. While this will result in somewhat larger class sizes, still within the board of ed guidelines in grades six and eight, this decision reflects our shared commitment to emphasizing community through the team model. When I reflect on my role and on my leadership going forward, the unique developmental journey
008and needs of our middle schoolers are at the forefront. There are two wellocumented periods of rapid, particularly rapid brain development and physical changes for humans. One, of course, is birth to five. The other happens between 10 and 15 or the transition into and through and out of middle school. Because our students typically have already gained language skills and they've honed their gross and their fine motor skills, the nature of this rapid cognitive development might be less obvious. And if we're being honest, it it's sometimes masked by the moodiness and unpredictability that tends to come with the onset of early adolescence. Middle school simply is the era in human development of becoming much more keenly aware of ourselves not only as individuals but also as members of a social community. This understanding of human development underscores
009why it is so important that MMS offers each student several opportunities to explore who they are becoming to understand their strengths recognize their potential and see themselves as contributors to a broader community. That work reflects my favorite line in the Darianne public school's vision of the graduate. Our commitment to preparing our learners to use their knowledge and skills to cast and fulfill a purposeful vision for themselves, their community, and their world. This evening, we will highlight some of the changes our administrative team and our teachers have already made, share examples of those experiences in and beyond the classroom, and point to two areas for continued growth. We'll begin with professional learning communities. One of my priorities in building this year's master schedule at MMS was ensuring that every teacher had access to participating in a
010professional learning community or PLC. In a school as large as MMS, these regular PLC meetings are essential. They allow us to align instructional practices, define and redefine assured curricular experiences, and analyze student work samples and our performance data in a structured way. work that will directly support the district's MTSS framework. To make sure this time is used intentionally and effectively, I convened a group of MMS teachers and administrators last summer to develop a concise PLC handbook. Our handbook reinforces that MMS is not only a school with PLC's, but is itself a professional learning community. That means we share a commitment to a relentless focus on learning for all students, a collaborative culture, and a resultsoriented approach for continuous improvement. To act on these commitments requires clarity of purpose and protected time. Our schedule now guarantees
011a weekly PLC for teachers to collaborate with their content colleagues. for example, all three art teachers or the four seventh grade English teachers. Our department chairs attend these meetings as well regularly to support curriculum implementation and ensure instructional alignment across all teams. The work is driven by four critical questions. What is it we want our students to learn? How will we know if each student is learning each of these skills, concepts, and dispositions that we've deemed most essential? How will we respond when some of our students do not learn? and how will we enrich and extend the learning for students who are already proficient. PLC's function in parallel to our interdisciplinary grade level team meetings to ensure that MMS is a student focused learning community in and beyond our classrooms as my colleagues will share
012on the following slides. I'd like to briefly walk you through the middle middle sex middle school schedule as many families who are new to the district or new to the school don't necessarily understand how it's designed to support students through these important these middle school years. At its core, the schedule is built around balance, consistency, and flexibility. As you can see on the screen, there's a sample schedule that reflects how students experience greater independence, choice, and ownership as they grow from elementary school into a middle school rotating schedule. Students receive daily instruction in English, math, science, and social studies along with access to world language, unified arts, and wellness. A key feature at Middle Sex is our team structure. While it's a large school, the model creates smaller, more personalized learning communities. Students are placed
013on grade level teams and they share the same core teachers. Our counselors, school psychologists, and grade level administrators remain with the same co cohort of students for all three years. And this enables us to be foster stronger relationships with families, students, and ensures consistent academic, emotional, and and social uh support. In grade six, you can see there's a difference between grade six and grade seven and eight. In grade six, there are two English classes to support literacy. There's English A and English B. English A is reading, English B is writing. along with all the daily classes that include the core academics, world language, music, and PE. In grades seven and eight, there's a period that's freed up. And so students have the opportunities to take quarterlys, which include healthy living, STEM, computer science, and art
014while also again maintaining strong core instruction and access to supportive supports. We also have a flex period uh every day and that period provides time for targeted support, enrichment, organization and check-ins with teachers, counselors, and support staff. And finally, there's something some what many call the best part of the day. That's lunch and recess. And um lunch, recess, and team-based activities are intentionally embedded to support students overall well-being. recognizing the importance of unstructured time for middle schoolers. Mr. Monahan will talk a little bit about the changes that we have made to the lunch recess this year. Um, but I'm going to turn it over to Dr. O'Keefe who will talk about the grade level assemblies and enrichment experiences that we've had this year. All right. In partnership with our MPA, students have benefited from a
015wide range of assemblies and enrichment designed to inspire creativity and deepen their connection to learning beyond the classroom. These activities bring learning to life and go beyond what can be done in the classroom. Most recently, we hosted Tom Verono of Emotion into Art, which encouraged students to explore their dreams and challenge them to make the world a better place through the use of art, inspirational music, anecdotes, and stories. This year we also had programming from the graphic novelist Victoria Jameson as you could see on the screen, Tanner Clark and Mr. Nikki who came for the sixth grade. These are all critical experiences as it provides students with opportunities to enhance their own social development, celebrate our community, and spend time with their peers. When students gather for shared experiences, it strengthens school culture. Assemblies unify
016grade levels, reinforce core values, and help students feel part of something larger than themselves. By creating this sense of belonging, we increase engagement and build strong relationships as a student body. It helps shape well-rounded students who are not only academically prepared, but also socially aware, inspired, and connected. So, those are just some samples there. Going to move on to some assured experiences and instructional practices that we've been working on as a building. So at MMS, we are committed to creating assured experiences to ensure that all students have access to highquality engaging standard aligned instruction. We are working to ensure consistency across classrooms and subject areas while honoring teacher creativity and student voice. To strengthen this work, we are intentionally leveraging our PLC's and MTSS meetings. In seventh and eighth grade, the structure of our quarterlys
017has provided students with an opportunity to explore the areas of art, STEM, computers, and health. This serves as an introductory pathway to support the transition to high school as students make their course selections and explore their interests at a deeper level. The consistency and assured experiences create predictability and consistency for students. Together, consistency and assured experiences strengthen instructional coherence. When teachers are aligned around common goals, strategies, and assessments, they can more effectively analyze student data, adjust instruction, and share best practices. This leads to more targeted support, and improve student outcomes. This is evident through the Civil War research papers that students write in eighth grade, social studies to the seventh grade English graphic novels they compose, and all the way down to the family project the sixth graders complete in Spanish. On this slide, you
018can see sixth grade students engaging in vision of a graduate vocabulary lessons, seventh grade STEM students working collaboratively, engaging in problem based learning, and the common instructional practices of the thinking classroom in math. This ensures that regardless of what team you are on, students are working on the necessary skills they need to be productive, contributing members of society and showcasing the skills that we foster in the vision of a graduate. That is why as a school, this has been an area of focus to create a supportive learning environment where all middle school students have the structure and opportunities they need to succeed. like to talk a little bit about some of the special experiences and some of the experiences that we are very intentional intentional about building into the school day for our students. At
019MMS, we've worked to plan field trips that are not only fun and memorable for students, but also meaningfully connected to our curriculum. With MPA support, we've been able to provide our students with memorable experiences where they can practice social skills in a variety of settings. Our sixth graders recently visited the Connecticut Science Center for a hands-on day of exploring scientific principles that help explain how our world works. Our seventh graders travel to medieval times for the shared experience, bringing to life the elements from their social studies learning right before their eyes. And this spring, our eighth graders will head to Broadway to see Hamilton, giving them the opportunity to experience the acclaimed musical that brings the history of the early American republic to the stage in both a powerful and engaging way. Our daily lunch
020and recess schedule schedule give students meaningful choices for how they spend their time while also supporting social connection, recreation, creativity, and academic support. In previous years, each grade had two lunch waves. This year, we implemented a single grade level lunch wave to help ensure students are able to eat lunch and socialize with all of their peers. Students eat lunch during the first half of their lunch period. And at the halfway point, students have several choices for how they'd like to spend the rest of their time. Some students attend outdoor recess where they can play a variety of outdoor games with their friends. Students may also choose to attend indoor recess in the library where they could play board games or otherwise socialize with their peers. Some other students choose to remain in the cafeteria and
021spend time socializing with their friends or getting a head start on their homework in a study hall environment. For those who prefer a quiet environment, we offer a quiet study hall. And in addition, students may choose to attend the open art studio where they can explore their more creative side. Finally, students also have an option to receive academic support in numeracy lab or by meeting for extra help with teachers that are available. These are just a few of the ways that we're increasing the opportunities for students to have meaningful experiences at school. Finally, I'd like to address two of the things that are next for us as we continue our work together. The first is about the schedule. When the district previously contracted a scheduling consultant, that individual's work at Middle Sex was focused on
022identifying reductions in staff by scheduling all teachers with five classes and a duty. at MMS. At least the scope of that work did not include considering optimal class length for middle schoolers, designing a rotation that integrates with DHS or our elementarymentaries to support scheduling itinerant staff, or determining if our master schedule can manage the additional constraint of offering further elective choices. This is work that still needs to be done while also honoring the previous thinking that has been done by the many scheduling committees that have existed at MMS. Last week, Dr. Fedigan and I had an initial meeting with Dr. Mike Reddig of School Scheduling Associates, with whom Dr. Burn has previously worked. And he will be sharing with Dr. Burn and Dr. Fedigan a proposal of how he might support MMS in evaluating our
023current bell schedule and considering whether a new bell schedule would better meet our current needs. Secondly, Chromebooks. Let me start here by saying I am proud of the way MMS has implemented the district's personal device plan with significant support from our parent community and educator buying. This change reflected our shared concerns over the impact of technology and social media on youth attention fragmentation, mental health outcomes, and the development of community relationships and independent confidence. Tonight, I will tell you that it's time for us to look at our use of Chromebooks. I'm not calling for a complete abandonment of all digital technology, but I am insisting that as educators, when we select a specific technology for an instructional task or assessment design, we have a responsibility to be certain that the technology we are selecting meaningfully,
024purposefully, and significantly enhances our student outcomes. The following is not meant as a criticism of any of the Middle Sex staff. Just as this is a problem that is not unique to Middle Sex, two things are true. Our educators are responsibly using the devices they have been provided. It is also true that it's time for us to do better and less when it comes to using Chromebooks at MMS. Tim Magcguire is currently working with our district technology committee on a five-year tech plan. He and I met yesterday and we've scheduled additional meetings this spring with members of the MMS community to begin to evaluate our edtech practices as a building ahead of the presentation of that 5-year plan. And I'm excited to work with our leadership and our teachers to make significant changes going forward.
025Thank you for the opportunity to share and celebrate the work being done at Middle Sex this evening. >> Thank you for that. Um, I appreciate a lot of all the work that has gone on and I know that the scheduling has been very complex over the past couple of years. So, thank you for continuing to evaluate how we can improve and do better and I'm excited to hear also about what the plans are for the Chromebooks and the use of technology. So, um, looking forward to more on that. I do have a specific question just about IDEA at Middle Sex because my understanding was that previously that was also something that would happen during lunch and I'm just interested to understand what is being done now or going forward for that. >> So I know
026that that was um floated as one of the things that perhaps the previous scheduling consultant would be able to consider changing. Um that was not work that was accomplished at that time. So it is still the case that our students who participate in IDEA go two days a week during their lunch period. So they meet as a cohort in their classroom and they eat while they do their enrichment activity. So that is certainly something that we would consider to get uh feedback from our students on their experience of that because one of the things that we do have to consider is every time we add something to a student's schedule we have to take something away. So what is the thing that perhaps we would have to put idea in the place of? Right now
027it's taking the place of lunch and recess. Um and so that's just part of a bigger consideration when we look at the schedule. >> Thank you. Are there board questions? Joanna. Um, so you said that uh with the team changes um you're still able to keep the recommended or required um sorry district guidelines of class size. Um how has having more students for teachers um how's it affected their prep work? I I assume it takes a lot more time if you have 25 more kids or 30 more kids you're seeing. Yeah, I think all of our teachers have expressed that it does take additional time when you add a fifth class load to their um to their requirements because each of those students deserves attention and feedback and thought and care and those are things
028that do take time for our educators. Um it is also the case that many of the educators in middle schools do teach five or six classes. Um, and I think that looking at our our increase in average class size in some places was an adjustment for our teachers, but we heard more about that as a concern last year than this year from our teachers as they've adjusted to that change. >> Okay. Yeah. >> Are there other questions? >> I'm curious to know more about the Chromebook change, but doesn't sound like you want to tell us more. Well, I think you know we met as a in our November faculty meeting. Is that right? Earlier this fall, we read a series of articles together. Um, and I will repeat what I said to them, which is
029I don't have a vision of what it has to be at the end. I share in the expertise or I value the expertise of our educators and I think getting their voice in what is most effective in meeting our students needs is really important and I do see part of my role in working alongside Tim Magguire with Dr. Burn with Dr. for Fedigan with our department chairs to ask the thoughtful questions of given what we know and what we're seeing and what we're hearing from other districts and other um educators and other professionals about real concerns around educational technology, not specifically Chromebooks, but that's a good example. Um it we have a responsibility to ask those questions independently and consider what is the best tool uh and best strategy for our students. And it might
030look different in different classrooms at different times and different age levels, but I'm excited for us to tackle that. >> And I say as a district, so I charge the TIM and and the tech team to produce a new five-year technology plan and they've been working on that throughout the year. And one of my big questions has has been for quite some time, you know, to what degree have we given critical thought into devices starting at our earliest grades. We are onetoone everywhere. Kate and we became one to one in most districts because of co we didn't thoughtfully land on being onetoone. We jumped right in out of desperation and we never in most districts and I don't think it was done here from my conversations I've had with folks never actually stopped to have
031that conversation of what is best for kids for the long term. So we don't want to continue on that path without having really thought through and looked at is this the best model for kids. I would argue that there's probably a reasonable amount of time or a cap that we want to think about certainly with our littlest ones. How much should, if any, a kindergartener be on a device? And we don't need to have one device for every child. And I mentioned this during the budget process. We reduce the purchase of Chromebooks because we think that we're going to hear from our educators at the younger levels. We don't need these things in our classes. We can have shared carts across multiple classrooms. So, you know, and we all read the news as teachers and
032educators and we all read the research and there's lots of questions around um screen time and the impacts on kids and you know, you heard about all of the attempts to to build social skills and uh relationships and it's really important. It's hard to do that if you're in a screen. So, it's a thoughtful process. Um, and I think we'll land somewhere good. Um, but it's early stages. >> I appreciate that. >> But it's a district-wide look. It's not, you know, the middle school's taking a hard look as well because of that what Kate was talking about at the beginning with the brain development and the age grouping, >> but you know, we're doing the same across the other levels with the committee. >> Thank you. Yes. LA last year there was a fair amount
033of parent chatter around bathrooms and bathroom closures at the school. >> Um could you just kind of speak a little bit to kind of the culture at Middle Sex in terms of students in the community school community following rules and then also kind of how do you have the community abide by those rules and enforce those rules? >> That's a great question. I'm so glad you asked it. Um, I was browsing through education week recently when something that caught my eye was the number of school districts around the country that experienced a rise in disciplinary problems at the same time that the cell phone restrictions came into place. And I've noticed as part of our administrative team, we knock on wood have not seen as many of those bathroom problems this year. It's interesting that
034Dr. Burn might remember the first time I met him. This is what I brought up in our in our first meeting. It might be that the students have found other ways to entertain themselves and and engage socially in more appropriate behavior. And we're threearters of the way through the school year where a lot of the behaviors we saw last year um have >> I'm going to stop talking. I also think it's a it's a credit to the the whole team for being more intentional about keeping a little bit better track of where students are going. So, we have data that we can manage and decide when a student um maybe doesn't need to leave the classroom 10 times in a day and just being more intentional about that. And we have found that it's been
035a a better experience for everyone as a result of that. Um obviously the budget process was brand new to me last October when we were presenting. So one of the uh changes I requested at the end of last school year based on um our analysis of duties, some of those behaviors and then that desire to really make a big shift for lunch and recess this year was to request funding for a software called Smartpass. And that allows us to do many things including having our students sign up for those choices during lunch so we can manage making sure there's the right number of kids in open art studio and look at who's going. Tim also referenced looking at the data. Um so that allows us to gone the days of paper passes. the kids can,
036depending on the classroom, some students have teachers create their own passes, some teachers create the passes for them, and it just becomes a digital pass that we can see where kids are during the day the same way we would if there was a little notebook in the side of the room. It's not different data than we were collecting before. It's just live for us. Um, and that I think accountability for our students has also been something we've communicated to them. Um, the other thing that I would point to is that we spent time this summer as an administrative team based on feedback from our faculty and our community working on our student handbook. Um, and we reworked the part on discipline, frankly, through a lens of school climate, school culture, and that was the first
037kickoff for our professional development this year. I uh I think I would be remiss if I said that everything's perfect in MMS every day. I don't want to give that impression. I we work with middle schoolers um and we work with human beings um and so there's always room to improve and mistakes are part of how we grow um but I feel like we're headed in a good direction. >> Thank you. Are there other board questions? Yes, Janice. >> Yeah, you mentioned PLC. You asked four questions and going back to last week, my note-taking skills were not developed in K through eight. So, uh I got two of them. How will we know students don't don't perform as well as we want? what do we do with students who've already mastered the the curriculum and
038then I don't know the other two questions but can you give kind of examples of how you go through that and then how do you take that forward beyond that beyond this particular point and how do you roll that up into changes in curriculum changes in education and things like that >> so we think about that um as a cycle for every unit that our teachers are in and the truth is depending at where you are um one in your teaching experience, two in your curriculum or vision cycle. Um you might enter into that cycle at different points as a team. So some teams might spend more time in that first question. What is it that we want to guarantee that all of our students are learning and how are we going to assess that?
039That's where that development of common uh assured experiences and common assessments comes into play and that right now is an area of focus for our teachers to make sure that um we do have common data that we're looking at to say how are our students doing across team and that's work that will take time for us to continue to build those second uh third and fourth questions where we look at student data once we've identified how we're going to measure that growth consistently across classes. You also have to build the trust of the educators at the table to bring that data to the discussion, to bring the student work to the discussion. Um, it takes courage sometimes for a teacher to say, "My students didn't do as well as your students." And to reflect on
040that, not as a failure, but as an opportunity for us to learn from each other. Um and so that work we have such strong collaboration both within our teams and across our disciplinary teams where we are sharing in how do we lift everyone together um and that then does feed into the curriculum or vision cycle well first the intervention cycle right it connects into MTSS because if you're identifying you have a student who isn't making gains you think about how do I differentiate my instruction what sort of data do I need to track to inform perhaps going into an MTSS tiered support and we have weekly MTSS meetings as a team um but also differentiate up for students who are already at proficiency levels when you're doing that work together with peers it lightens the
041load when all of you can say these are our targets that we're trying to meet let's think about how we do differentiated groupings um creating that time which was not protected consistently in the past uh makes it possible when you have more students to look at that data together in the long run. We're still getting there. Um, and then as you evaluate over time, how are students doing unitto unit on those core teaching points? Um, and you look at you triangulate that data with your screeners, with your state benchmark assessments, you're able to say, is our curriculum meeting the desired outcomes year-over-year? And if not, where are we falling short? And that then can feed into the curriculum revision cycle. >> Great. Thank you. >> It's great for data nerds. Are there other questions? John,
042>> just car you speak to the field trip origination, who's coming up with those ideas and who's implementing them and just kind of just in terms of the the angle of that like as a date myself here like back in the 90s at Middle Sex long time ago. Um there was a sixth grade trip to Cole Brook like an overnight trip a lot of student bonding kind of exercises. there was an eighth grade trip to Washington DC, but now it seems there's more large focus on kind of day trips or smaller things just kind of maybe a little color. >> So there were a couple parts of that question. Let me start with where do the ideas come from for where we're going and that is a combination of listening to our educators, listening to
043other schools on where they're going that they're finding success and listening to our students and our community. So the trip to Hamilton, we had a lot of support and encouragement and members of our MPA who helped us bring that trip to organizational light. Um, and we're really looking forward to doing that for the first time. One of the other things that I have discussed with the MBA is because they have asked when can we do overnights again. And the truth is our students require there are social skills that you need to have in order to go on an overnight trip and readiness and independence and responsibility and comfort in new places. Um, and it might be that an eighth grader in the 90s was at a generally different place than an eighth grader today on
044some of those fronts. And so when we look when we feature, we have we are working on regular assemblies. We are working on regular trips. It is because we need opportunities to practice being in large groups together and listening to people for extended periods of time longer than a Tik Tok video and doing those things. I don't know whether or not an overnight trip is in our future. I know that right now we're really focusing on building those opportunities to support our kids in a variety of locations. >> Thank you, Joanna. >> Um, back to the scheduling. Um, you I know you said that you're going to work with someone that's worked with Dr. Burn before. Um, as far as uh opportunities for choice, um, and not just like you know, someone mentioned idea and
045how you now have to give up lunch to do that. I know sometimes I hear people would like an opportunity maybe to do more art rather than music. Um and you know sometimes kids that have IEPs go to resource room and they can't do oral language or they can't do music. How are you um working with the scheduler to look at those things? >> So precisely as you just focused on there my question is how many more constraints can we put on our schedule? um meaning every time we put a choice into the schedule, we're limiting the opportunities to put it to build an individualized schedule for that child. So if I have uh no choices, it's very easy to build that schedule. when you add in math acceleration and levels, languages, music choices, any
046number of individualized services, those are all constraints that have to fit the puzzle pieces together. Um, so when I think about adding in choice, Dr. Burn has said to me, there are maybe no middle schools that are doing that. And I said, but let's find out if we can. Um because I also in my heart agree with the idea of maybe our eighth graders could have opportunity have six to choose from and there's four and two are common. I don't know yet. I think that also has to come from our teachers and from our students on what is um meaningful to them and what we look at in that 612 continuum of where we can expand and do a good job. It is also the case that when we offer choice, sometimes we have to
047get our second or our third choice and we're going to have to be comfortable with that if that's the direction we go in expanding choice. Um, but it is something that I take seriously in expanding and I think it's something that our unified arts teachers and um some of our other colleagues are interested in being thoughtful about >> and I I will say that the the work with Mike and and I've worked with him and uh three three school districts previous to here with schedule changes uh at all levels. He collects a lot of information from us first and analyzes what we're presently doing. Then he spends time with us interviewing to find out what it is that we value. What is it that we're trying to accomplish? What are the things we'd like to
048see that we don't have right now? And then he'll come up with recommendations of this is how you could do this. And we know when I had the first conversation with him, I said choice in the middle school is something that's come up. we need to be able to explore that and see if it's possible to what degree and where would it fit. So he'll look at all of that. I mean he looks literally at every minute that exists in the day and he'll come back with different models, meet with groups, have conversations, make changes. Um we had included money in the budget for him to do this work with us um in order to get there. So this isn't a you know by September we'll have a new schedule. this is a longer process,
049but it's a very deliberate process and and and I found in my years working with him. He he's just got a different brain u for how this works. But um he we started that process with him uh two weeks ago. Yeah. So, >> thank you. There's another part to your question that I just want to also kind of circle back to is that not only are we trying to provide all of our students with choice, but even our students who have differences, who have services built into their schedule, we are really deliberate with our families this year, especially during our articulation process to learn more about the whole child. What are your strengths? Is it music? Is it art? Is it PE? Because you need to move around and really being deliberate with how those
050puzzle pieces fit together. Um, so it is it's actually more this year than any other year. Something that we're really proud of is under Kate's leadership really taking student choice. >> Exactly. >> Katie is not allowing this, but >> but I think that she's really really uh encouraging us to look at that student choice and how are we encouraging our students to have this voice and and that really starts with our articulation process and welcoming our students, all of our students into the school um and building upon that. So just another kind of extension to your >> and I'll just add one more comment. So Michael works um nationally and internationally with public and independent schools. So he's not coming with just the one model. He's coming with what he's done overseas, what he's done
051across the country um and across many states. So, you know, he's got a wide range of experience to bring to the conversation because, you know, most schools, you know, what people are doing right around you or what you experienced when you were in school, but you don't really know if they're doing something really interesting in, you know, China where I think he has worked or in different places in Europe and and his expertise is quite extraordinary. He's actually retired, um, semi-retired, but he's doing this work since, you know, it's district number four. Um, he's willing to come and work with us. So, I'll call in those chips when I can for our benefit. >> Are there other board questions? >> Uh, hey, thank you. Um, Tara, I was hoping that you could just weigh in
052um with really any aspects that we've kind of covered today as far as the update at the middle school goes from a special education lens. >> Absolutely. And actually, when we were kind of thinking about this presentation and meeting as um an admin team, one of the things that actually I kind of am up here and I support everybody, but we also know that special education is not a silo. So, a part of each part of this presentation, all of our students are kind of really included into that. Um, I think that from student choice and being really thoughtful and meaningful about what classes they're taking, the music, the arts, um, going down to also our class sizes, um, Kate and I have been in many conversations where we're doing projections and looking at numbers
053and making really thoughtful, meaningful, um, having those discussions so that we're prepared for next year. Um, another thing that I'm really proud about for our department is that PLC work. Um, in this is actually the first year that the special education department has a designated time that is devoted to that student growth and that PLC just that learning community and that took a lot of really hard work from our department perspective. um sitting there and and really having that focus where we we're kind of modifying and supporting students but really having those conversations where we're turning to each other saying you're doing this in um blue team English class and what about this English class? Um, so I think that from my perspective, um, from the scheduling process to the field trips, making sure that
054all of our students can access all of those field trips to the student choice, um, and then from this teacher perspective, PLC's and then preparing from an administrative lens of making meaningful projections so that we're prepared for the future. That's kind of all of the different elements that the special education department specifically has had um, kind of a voice on. >> Thank you for that. And if I could just ask one followup, anything that you might highlight um about what's happening in resource room, right? Um just recognizing of course every special education student is a general education student. Not every general education student is a special education student. So, so for those students who are in resource room and who are getting services, you know, anything that you would note that is, you know, either
055successful or challenging or perhaps different in terms of cohorts, scheduling, sizes, um, you know, specific um, specific new um, trends that you're noticing. I think that one of the things that I see most and this is for all of our students but is the advoc advocacy and the building of our advocacy. Um and so for our students to really kind of take ownership over those executive functioning skills and I think when I go into the resource room and I sit and I watch our teachers many lessons and kind of really breaking down things and seeing that from a sixth grade lens to an eighth grade lens is remarkable. And so I think from a when I look at our resource rooms and really kind of look at our structured approach, something that um we've actually
056talked about as a department is having more time built in for our sixth grade teachers to talk to our seventh grade teachers so that our seventh grade teachers can say this is what we need uh this is what we need for you to focus on towards the end of the school year in order for our students to be prepared. And then again having those conversations of seventh to eighth grade. So I think that that's we've already kind of started those conversations, but I think that from a resource room perspective, that growth of the advocacy and those executive functioning skills, prioritizing assignments. So in sixth grade, it's really we're looking at how are you organizing this? How are you how are you doing your time outside of school? What does that look like for you? What
057does homework look like? And then all of a sudden, you get to eighth grade and it's going you've got two quizzes coming up towards the end of this week. how are you really going to manage your sports outside of school and your other activities as well as your homework and really kind of find time to email that teacher to set up a time for you to ask those questions prior to that test. So I think the growth of the self- advocacy and and executive functioning skills from sixth to eighth grade and I think going along those lines of really developing those collaboration between the the different grade level special education teachers is something that I'd like to continue to develop. >> Thank you. Are there other board questions? This was really helpful. Um, so thank
058you all for all of this work and we're excited to hear the ongoing kind of uh feedback and thoughts on the the the part for the future that you started to touch on. So thank you. >> Thank you very much. >> Thank you. >> Uh moving on, we will now go to the consent agenda. And I will uh first of all ask if I have a motion to approve the consent agenda. Joanna, seconded by Sarah. Um I'm going to list out the consent agenda items. First of all, we have approval of minutes from the March 24th 26 meet special board meeting and minutes from the March 24th regular board meeting. Um, there's a 2025-26 calendar amendment for a May 15th late start at Darian High School to an early a change from a late start
059to an early dismissal at the high school, committee reports, um, a district repair and improvement project or drip grant fund dis dispersement and a personnel report. Um, in terms of things that we would like to discuss, I would like to have um a discussion on the facilities committee um memo, are there other items that anyone would like to discuss on the consent agenda? Before we move to that, um Dr. Burn, could you give us an update on the next steps for the facilities committee and Middle Sex renovation specifically? >> Sure. So um we are gathering the the team KG&D and the internal facilities team Kate, Rich, Kevin and myself to debrief the meeting. I think it's scheduled for Friday of this week. Um talk about what the discussion of the board was which was looking
060at those additional pieces the data collection that necessary. So just sort of mapping out the plan of how do we get all of that information we need and with the notion that the submission of educational specs the target is not this June of 2026 but the target would be to complete the necessary process get all of the information that the board is requesting ensure that the educational specifications meet the requests of the board bring that forward and that would be with the possible intention of submitting for June of 2027. So, our debrief meeting and next steps meeting with the team internally is I believe it's this Friday and then we'll get working on all of those pieces that come back to the board. So again the members of the team that are meeting is that
061just internal >> that's KG&D and the internal folks >> and then you would after that debrief come back to facilities committee I guess with the next steps and um just I I think Dennis could probably speak to us. It was more of the feedback from the board that the scope and some questions around the scope of the proposed architecture >> specs required some additional data in order to um >> potentially prioritize or justify some of the things that were in there and or just to get more information about how things would be used >> um including the fields or potentially parking or traffic how that would work. >> Yes. Yeah. My my one question is if it's determined um that you do need to do like a traffic study or um more of a survey
062of of field usage, do we um have funds to sort of cover that or do we need to wait until we vote on that? >> So Rich, if you could jump in on this with me as well. So the we would request um in the educational specifications that the traffic study be completed based on any suggested design but that would come later on. it wouldn't come before. >> And then there was some discussion about and um the architect said we could certainly do schematic design in advance, but the schematic design comes after the building committee starts because that's an extensive, you know, looking at if you just took, you know, 90,000 90 million just to throw a number, you're talking about almost an $800,000 design cost. You're not doing that until later on. It's all
063conceptual until the submission and then once you move beyond that spot uh with the building committee, then it would do those other pieces, you would just include those in the EDS specs. >> Okay. So, the idea of doing a study would just be included. It would actually happen before we approve the EDS specs. >> Correct. Can I got that sequence right? Right. >> This is correct. So, typically boards of vet do not commission traffic studies because you're not the traffic authority. Right. So if you look back at whether it was Ox Ridge or HHR, all those projects had a traffic study component um but they're done by the building committee because the ED specs will say we want to look at arrival and departure of the buses or we want to look at the number
064of parking spaces or traffic whatever it might be and that's what triggers the >> and just one thing I would want to mention that I think you had brought up is that um to the extent that we are considering space that might require additional parking spaces for example in the ED specs the we would want to have included the number of fields, for example, that we would need at the middle school based on current levels or projected levels of field and sports activity. So that if we did have a need for additional parking spaces, right, we're not taking a field away. We're not taking away a field and we're not putting together the entire plan, but just to make sure that the specifications address potential >> constraints or capacity constraints so that the overall scope
065is paid attention to by potentially by the building committee when they come to that final project. Um, are there other questions >> with that? Does that would the EDS specs then also I don't know include or question can we access some of the the town owned land that is behind the middle school where the former senior center and Hollow Tree Ridge School. >> I have a meeting with the town to learn more about that. >> Okay. >> Thank you. Are there other questions or points of discussion on the consent agenda? Um okay. Seeing none, um, all in favor of approving the consent agenda. That is unanimous. Thank you. May I have a motion to adjourn this meeting or wait, we have public comment. >> Um, we have no follow-up action items or did you >>
066Oh, no, no, no. Go ahead. >> There are no follow-up action items. Um, do we have any public comment? If anyone would like to participate in public comment, please approach the podium and wait to be recognized. We have no public comment. Um, >> okay. >> We Sorry, we're good. >> May I have a motion to adjourn this meeting? John seconded by