January 13, 2026 - BOE Regular Meeting

001I'd like to call this regular meeting of the board of education to order. The next special meeting of education was on Tuesday, January County at 7 p.m. for the chair report tonight. Um, I'll start by saying good evening and thank you for being here tonight. Tonight, the board of education will begin the process of reviewing the details of the specific responsibility center budgets as part of the fiscal 27 budget process. Thank you to Dr. Burn and our administration for your work developing the fiscal 27 budget, which we look forward to reviewing in detail tonight and over the next few weeks. The board and administration share a common goal of delivering a fiscally responsible fiscal 27 budget aligned with and supporting our district strategic priorities and educational programming goals. It is important to note that the

002board of education is the only town body that holds the fiscal authority to allocate and approve Derenne public schools operational funding on a line item basis and the board takes this responsibility seriously. Over the next few weeks, the board will review and evaluate each responsibility c center's budget in detail, keeping in mind our district's strategic goals and educational programming priorities. We will begin tonight's budget focus and presentations by covering our schools and curriculum and instruction proposed budgets. On January 20, we will cover special education and athletics. And on January 27, we will cover operations and the capital budget. During each of these budget meetings that will take place over the next few weeks, our administration will give detailed budget presentations covering their specific areas. These presentations will be will be followed by board questions and

003discussion. There will be opportunity for public comment after the budget portion of the meeting has concluded. Before we begin the detailed process of reviewing and evaluating the proposed 27 budget and all of the respective RC's, I would like to take a moment to put the Darien Public Schools budget into context in terms of the overall co the financial cost structure and key budget drivers. Particularly as we begin tonight to to discuss our individual school budgets and curriculum and instruction, it is important to highlight that roughly 80% of the district's budget is comprised of personnel and related benefits costs. We are a people business with roughly 800 employees, the majority of which are our teachers who are on the front lines each day providing instruction for our students and laying the foundation for their educational success.

004As our students progress from kindergarten through to graduation day at Deranne High School, the large majority of our personnel costs are driven by multi-year negotiated contracts. For example, we simp we successfully concluded our new DEA teachers contract this fall. The strategic focus of the negotiations was on the recruitment and retention of teachers, professional learning, improving attendance, and creating a more fiscally responsible salary schedule that provides the district with more budget predictability from year to year. The board anticipates that this new contract will help achieve our educational priorities of attracting and retaining our teachers in a time of national teacher shortages as well as provide new professional learning opportunities for our teachers, all of which will ultimately benefit our students. The board is committed to providing the best possible education for our students and shares the

005community's desire to prioritize student needs and programming in alignment with our strategic goals. We look forward to hearing more tonight from Dr. Fedigan about our educational goals and budget priorities for our schools curriculum and instruction which together along with our teachers are the cornerstone of Darienne public schools and the foundation upon which Darienne has built its reputation for excellence in education. Thank you to Dr. Burn the administration and to all of our Darian public schools employees for your commitment and dedication to our students. Thank you also to our parents, community, board of finance, and RTM for your ongoing support of Darian public schools. Thank you. We'll now move on to the sup superintendence report with Dr. Burn or did I miss something? Oh no. Oh, we do have public. Sorry. We are moving on to

006public comment. Um, we can >> Good evening. If anyone would like to participate in public comment, please approach the podium and wait to be recognized. Once recognized, please state your name and town of residence and note that you have up to three minutes to comment. We have no public comment at this time. Okay, we'll move on to the superintendence report. Dr. Burn, >> thank you. Good evening and thank you for joining us for the January 13th board of education meeting. This morning, Miss Lovelin and I attended a CAB legislative breakfast that was held at Staples High School. was a gathering of board of education members, superintendents, and legislators focused on the upcoming legislative session. Key topics discussed were rising costs associated with health insurance and transportation along with uh addressing the needs of families, communities,

007and school districts or students with special education programming needs. Additionally, frustration was expressed about the regular additions of unfunded mandates that are placed upon schools throughout the legislative process. Congratulations to the Middle Sex Quiz Bowl students for meddling at the Southern Connecticut uh regional science history and geography be last weekend. There were 27 possible gold, silver, and bronze medals, and Middle Sex won 25 of them. Sixth grade winners are Avi Singh, Ivy Hart, Daniel Samo. Seventh grade winners are Rishi Bordia, Divia Patel, Spencer Swafford, Charlotte Nicholas, Anika Adita, James Watnik, Wasnik. The eighth grade winners are Lucian Presscell, Adam Kornstein, Grayson Holland, Een Brooks, and Daniel Hark. These students also qualified for the national competition in Orlando at the end of May. Good luck at their upcoming competitions in New Jersey and Washington DC. And

008in partnership with the Darian Public Library, my first Burns book club discussion is tomorrow evening, January 14th at 7 p.m. at the library. We'll be discussing uh Jennifer Wallace's book, Never Enough: When Achievement Culture Becomes Toxic and What We Can Do About It. Well, I've not yet selected the next book. I anticipate that it will be a book about youth sports. I'm sure that won't be popular here in Darianne. And uh I'll be releasing that title very soon. And our second parent university is scheduled for Thursday, January 22nd at 6:30 in the Middle Sex Middle School media center. The event is designed to help parents navigate the rapidly evolving world of artificial intelligence. So, please check your email or the website. There are links to register and we've been including it in my Friday update.

009And that concludes my report for this evening. >> Thank you. Student rep representative reports. >> Yeah, so many of our students are quickly adjusting back from break uh with the midterm schedule up and running as of today. Uh last Wednesday, many of our upper classmen that were in the National Honor Society participated in our annual Coco and CRAM uh where they instructed and tutored many of the freshman and new underclassmen who had their first experience to exams this week. And uh with that, we also have a professional development day on Friday followed by Martin Luther King Day on Monday. So a nice 4-day weekend in between that exam week as well. >> Um I don't have much to add, just looking forward to the third quarter coming along after terms. Thank you, Ryan and Kylie.

010Um, moving along to presentations, discussions, and possible action. Um, presentation and discussion of proposed fiscal 27 budget for schools and curriculum and instruction. Dr. Fedigan, >> before uh Dr. Fedic kicks it off. I I would like to just say that uh consistent with our um operating standards and with our focus in very specific areas with the overall budget, what you'll see tonight is the through line in terms of um when we talked about we talked a lot about leadership over the summer and the notion of trust and competence. Similarly, when it comes to teaching and learning, it's all about knowledge and skill of our teachers. So, you always have the curriculum side. What is it that we are teaching and what are the materials that we're using? But it's also about the knowledge of our

011teachers and the skill level of our teachers. So, tonight we're going to go a little bit deeper on how it is that we focus on improving that knowledge and skill and therefore by extension improving the student experience and improving the student outcomes. And uh I think you'll you'll find it very interesting tonight. There's a great through line. There's a tremendous amount of information. So um I'm looking forward to hearing more from Dr. Fedic. So thank you. >> Thank you, Dr. Burn. And I just want to start by thanking the board of education for your continued support in teaching and learning. Um this is the the budget that I'm most excited about in my three years in Darian public schools. And as Mr. Brown mentioned the other night um this is really a teaching and learning

012centered budget. So from where I sit here in the organization um we have some really great things planned. Um as Dr. Burn mentioned there is a lot of information in this presentation but there is a clear through line as he indicated and it's really around strengthening instruction by ensuring that our curriculum and our staffing investments are used consistently and effectively across the system. So as we mentioned we're going to talk tonight about the school's budgets. those RC's. We're going to talk a bit about the visual performing arts budget and then RC19. And while there's a lot in this budget, we should expect that tonight's evening is a robust discussion because it's all about teaching and learning. We should be paying careful attention here because that's teaching and learning after all is the core function of

013a school system. So, we're going to begin with an overview of the 25 um 26 areas of focus. And um if you can stay Mrs. spillpot on this slide for a little bit. We're going to take a highle look at the school's budgets first. You have seen the very helpful slide in Dr. Burn's presentation last week which provides an at a glance of each of the RC's. So, I'll be talking about the increases and decreases there. We're also going to be talking about um the proposed five coaches that support teaching and learning and the other um areas of note in the RC19 budget. So all of our investments of course in our school system must be aligned to the vision of the graduate. And what we're doing with our teaching and learning budgets, all of

014the schools, visual performing arts and RC19 is thinking about how do we shape and design instruction so that all of our students are growing in those competencies of curiosity, communication, creativity, empathy, independence, and integrity. We also talked about um last week that each of our budget areas should be connected to operational standards. So on this next slide you'll see with these little graduation caps which are a nod to the vision of the graduate. These are the operational standards that are most closely connected to teaching and learning. So you won't be surprised to see their excellence in teaching and learning. uh researchbased professional development, continuous instructional program improvement, thinking also about the breadth and depth of academic and extracurricular programs, board of education class size guidelines, and of course, programmatic and financial support necessary to continue

015to grow as a school system. With that overview, let's begin by um taking a quick review of the 2526 areas of focus. And these are our instructional areas of focus that are being funded by this year's FY26 budget. Everyone knows, of course, that we've been um really focusing on K3 literacy instruction through year one implementation of a new resource, HMH into Reading. As a reminder, it's not just about that resource, but it's really around instructional practice. Um and we've committed to significant professional learning um to support that. We've also been focusing on writing outcomes K through eight, paying particular attention to how we're instructing students in writing, grammar, and vocabulary development. As you know, we've been talking a lot about how we design curriculum using the UBD framework, understanding by design, and we are committed

016to meeting the statutory requirement to have all of our courses have scope and sequences written and published in Edge of Planet. That supports our teachers all having access to the current curriculum and it supports our families and knowing exactly what's happening in classrooms. So, that needs to be a continued commitment. We're also have been focusing as an instructional leadership team on how as a group of leaders we're able to give highquality calibrated feedback around teaching and learning practice. And you've heard about MTSS, you'll hear more about it tonight and certainly will be a focus area of much of our discussion in the year and years ahead. And that's about really strengthening our instructional program academic but also ensuring that we're meeting the needs of the whole child. So now let's take a look a really

017high level look at the RC's the school RC budgets. So RC1 I'll just comment on a few areas um to note. The wellness coordinator I think was mentioned last week is a result of grant compression and some some of that position being put back from the grant onto the operating budget. The yonder bags as we know there was a big investment last year in those bags being purchased for three of the grade levels. So we would expect a reduced cost there. And the other um bullet point there to note is really around the FTE and I want to indicate that that's not the loss of a position. It's pieces of a position and that's completely enrollment um predicted and the results of really program there's no there's no programmatic change there. It's just around enrollment.

018Okay. RC3 Middle Sex Middle School teen talk is again um being supported uh at Middle Sex Middle School. the increase there of 53,940 as a result of grant compression. Um there are some guidance materials there. It's not a significant C cost, but I do think it's worth mentioning those resources are going to help some of our work in the year ahead. Um if uh if granted, if the budget is approved to support executive functioning and I know that's something that as a board we're talking about and you can anticipate there will probably be a parent university on that coming soon. Um we also want to note that Mrs. Dumulis has added in her budget um two stipens for a flex adviser and a world language team leader. Those are really important positions as a part

019of our curriculum programming and there currently are not um leadership positions uh in that right now from the stipend um list that we have. The FTE reduction there is another um reduction that is because of enrollment. We are not reducing any programs in middle school world language but likely there will be a reduction that we can see due to enrollment through the world world language department. The next RC is Henley. The highle update there is again the opposite of of a decrease in enrollment an increase likely in fifth grade. And for RC7 at homes a 1.0 increase likely in the first grade. Now let's take a shift to RC13 visual and performing arts. I know everyone was terribly excited last week about the $49 that um that our visual and performing arts director, Mrs. Thompson,

020has found. Again, that was through just really good work and and really looking closely at um software programs. We should also note that the general teaching supplies when Mrs. Thompson and I spoke about this, you know, it looks like it's a big decrease, but really that's just how she's organized the department. it. It used to be that she was supervising just the music department and now because we're looking at visual and performing arts together as departments, she was able to realize some savings again without impacting program. Um and then there is the natural repairs and service contracts for all of the music instruments. She has the three um the five-year cycle for instrument replacement. I believe within this budget we're on year three of five of that. And of course the tuning of our pianos.

021So those are the types of things that are in there. there are no significant program changes. I will note that we have a tri-state followup happening um in just a couple of weeks and we'll look forward to sharing the results of that with the board. Okay. And now the long- aaited curriculum and instruction areas of focus. So as we shift to the curriculum and instruction RC19 budget, I want to point out that there are five large areas in teaching and learning that we are going to focus. They'll be very central to our strategic plan. you should be able to see a through line as we discuss those. Um, additionally with the expenditure highlights, that's where I'll go into greater detail about the instructional coaches. I know that last week there were a few questions raised

022around the instructional coaches, namely what would the roles and responsibilities be? How would we measure success with implementation of coaching models? What would be the impact student learning outcomes? And what metrics might we use to measure those? and how would that strategy connect to the overarching goals in our strategic plan. So that's something that I will discuss when we go into the expenditure highlights. I do first want to take just a couple of minutes um to go over those areas that are our main areas of focus. So the first one won't surprise you is literacy. And the way I organized um these content slides are if we do those things that are in those budget areas, the result should be that we have a coherent evidence-based literacy system that strengthens both early foundational literacy skills

023and supports and accelerates student growth at it as they move up through the grades. And one of the questions I know that probably likely is on your mind is what is happening now that we've really invested so much in PK3? What's happening in grades four and five? I'd like to shift us away from that question and have us think bigger picture. We really should be asking how are we developing an articulated preschool through grade 12 program for literacy instruction. A program that is coherent and provides seamless transitions for students as they move grade over grade and level to level elementary, middle, and high. A big um item that we'll be talking about not only tonight but in future board meetings at the curriculum committee level and I'm sure at this board table is adopting a

024CSD approved universal literacy screener. We do currently have a screener in place. It's important to note that because of the right to read legislation. We have to pick from an approved program, a list of approved universal screeners. While our current universal screener is on that list, we do believe that there's a universal screener that will be more useful to us. It's really important that we not only have data, but we have the right data and that we're able to use the data to inform instructional practice. And uh there is a different screener that we're looking at which would come in at a higher class. And the other important thing to notice is as we make a shift to multi-tered systems of support and we're looking not only at academics but behavior and social and personal

025learning, it's important that we think about a universal screener for um behavior and that was paid for in previous years by the state. The DESA that is no longer paid for by the state and so that is a cost in the budget that would make that um standardized assessment line go up. We also are thinking about resource alignment K3. We want to make sure that we're investing in aligning our curriculum to the resource because remember remember that the resource is just a tool to help us accomplish what students need to know and be able to do at the grade levels. We'll also be thinking about instructional gaps and transitions across the grade levels. So Dr. Falconee and Kristen Colonies have already begun their work with leading a district literacy leadership team, a PK-12 steering committee

026and a group that's looking really specifically at the 3 through six grade level bands. So, we can pick up where we left off on PK through three. Think about those upper elementary grades and also be thinking about sixth grade because what we know from teachers and parents and some students is that it can be a big jump to move from fifth grade to sixth grade. So, we want to smooth out those transitions. We also want to make sure that we have a system in place before we jump to a new resource in those upper grades for our teachers to really look and leaders thoughtfully at our current programming and resources and make really informed decisions and do a gap analysis of what might what might we be missing and what where we can find some

027improvements. Um, and we'll always be of course communicating progress and priorities to the board as we move along. The next major focus area is multi-tered systems of support. And these first two screens are really closely connected because remember that multi-tered systems of support is about having a really strong core instructional program and aligned supports to provide uh interventions at tiers two and three and a seamless uh transition to special education services for those students who require specialized instruction. And so you'll see that the work we're doing in the area of literacy is really around strengthening tier one core instruction. It's a big part of MTSS. The universal screener that we need is to help us understand where all students are performing and that's administered three times a year. And um we're thinking also that we

028need a data dashboard that's more userfriendly for our staff. We currently have a data dashboard in the budget. It's been in the budget for several years in Darian public schools, but once again, it's not really helping us to leverage the data that we have to inform instructional decisionmaking. So we want the data that we have to be useful and easily accessible and used to plan for next level of learning for our students. Uh we also are supporting whole child development. We've talked about before in RC 1 and three those commitments to the wellness center coordinator 18 talk and there's some really exciting work planned for MMS um and the flex and advisory program and that would be addressed through curriculum and some other resources at the school. The next major focus area is PK-12 curriculum

029development. In my view, this should be a slide that you see every single year come budget time because if we're not revising our curriculum, then it's it becomes stale. Curriculum needs to remain current so that it's engaging for our learners and so that it's relevant to current times. And so we're going to make sure, of course, that as we revise curriculum that we're hitting the content standards and we're also making strong connections to vision of the graduate. We've made a really um significant commitment uh Mrs. Klein and I to ensure that we have special educators at the table as general education curriculum is being designed and that really supports access and principles of universal design for learning. Additionally, in this curriculum um development cycle, we're going to be thinking about the NGSS assessment, and that's

030that science assessment for next generation science standards. And we want to make sure that our assessments are providing our learners with the opportunity, our young scientists, to see questions and engage in authentic performance tasks like they'll see on that standardized measure. We remain committed to providing advanced placement um experiences for our learners. And we know from our earlier um data presentation in the fall, we've had great success there. and it's time to revise some of those uh curricular uh courses in social studies. We also have exciting courses that you heard about. Mrs. Dunn presented on new courses and those are driven by student interest and we're also closing out the um American Sign Language world language option for our students there. And again, we'll be talking consistently throughout this year and and next about executive

031functioning skill development and how that's integrated into other curricular areas so that there's transfer for our our students. The next area of focus is 612 student success plans. And you've heard me say before that these plans are legislated. The big idea behind these plans is to really strengthen communication between school personnel, students, and families. And it should be, it's intended that every student has goals that they're working on that are student driven by their own interests that are supporting their college and career future planning. And so that's meant to again support communication and support um individual growth for our students. And what we'll do with that is think about making clear connections to the curriculum. And we'll explore options to look at how we create student portfolios to document um as students are moving through

032the grades. and we'll be able to show there some connections to vision of the graduate. We currently have a software program that we use in district called Naviance and those of you who have had high school students and have gone through um college you know placement you'll know you'll be familiar with that Navvian software program um we know that we can better leverage that program to support this area of our work. So that's not necessarily a new cost. It's just using that software that we have really efficiently and effectively. And the final major commitment area in the budget is researchbased professional learning. There's a commitment here to continue to expand the Orton and Gillingham Academy to think about refining PLC practices that are actually connected to MTSS. So that would mean really thinking about how

033do we have protocols to look at student data and have discussions about that and plan as professional learning communities to support how children are functioning in tiers one, two, and three. We'll also be thinking most especially around the instructional coaches and how we leverage those to strengthen elementary teaching and learning. And there's some exciting work um that's proposed and I think was negotiated in the recent contract for creditbearing uh professional learning opportunities for our staff. And that's really exciting because we can get really creative and have a lot of our professional learning be staff driven by their interests. And so there's some commitment in this budget to grow in that area. And I think that's very exciting work. We might be the only district in Connecticut. We might be on the front end of that

034that that idea came from the in Dr. Burton. Okay. So here we're going to shift to RC19 and this is where we're going to have more information. I'll share more about our thinking behind the strategy of having instructional coaches and I'll revisit the questions that were raised the other night. um as I indicated earlier in the presentation and then after the discussion on coaches I'll go through just some of the areas of note for increase and decrease in the rest of these line items. So uh board chair Mrs. Nelson mentioned in her earlier remarks tonight that 80% nearly of our staff is be is related to staff. It's 80% of the budget is related to staff um budget and insurance uh staffing and insurance costes cost and um that's that's to note that we are

035really a human related industry and I'm glad that you mentioned that because really the the interest of bringing coaches in district is around investing in our human capital and professional capital. It's to ensure that our curriculum and our staffing investment is aligned and supported and used effectively. The main point here is that we want to protect our return on investment with other budget areas that you're hearing about tonight. And we will see a positive impact to student learning. And I'll also talk about the metrics that we'll use um to have evidence of that. The challenge in many school districts is that you have a curriculum. We spend more than the six figures in our curriculum writing and revision annually and without ongoing job embedded support there's differences in how that curriculum is implemented. So there's

036kind of variability from classroom to classroom which creates uneven implementation and uneven student experiences. And so what we have to do also is think about how we can use coaches to develop shared experiences for teaching and learning practice. So we have common practices and we reduce those gaps. We do know that we are performing a very high performing district in the top 5% of um the state. And so that's the result of having a strong curriculum in place and really talented educators that are working day in and day out on the front line with our students. And that's through years of investment from this board and previous boards. But often in high performing districts, the big the biggest risks you have are kind of invisible. And so that's really again the variance from classroom to

037classroom. A large uh annual test score like the standardized assessment and SBA or NGSS, we wouldn't expect to see large increases there as a result of um implementing instructional uh coaches. Test scores alone are not the only or most appropriate indicator for success. So I'll be talking about three different types of met metrics that we'll use. Imagine, you know, for example, there are two third graders that have the same curriculum. Everything looks aligned, but in the classrooms, their experience is different because maybe one teacher has that kind of ongoing support and professional learning. If the other didn't, over time, those small differences would add up and you would see over time a really significant difference between outcomes um for students in those in those types of different learning environments. In a high performing district, the

038focus really needs to be on maintaining strong results, reducing the differences in instructional and curriculum implementation and sustaining quality over time. This is particularly important as we implement a new resource and as we think about strengthening our multi-tered systems of support because again that's all around and strengthening the core core instruction. So, we want to make sure that um we're really clear tonight about the role of what elementary coach is. An elementary instructional coach. An instructional coach is a really hands-on position. They work directly day in and day out with teachers. These are not school related positions. They're really district positions so that we can be intentional with how we deploy deploy that resource. They would be working side by side with teachers to support the effective use of our curriculum in our curriculum resources.

039They would be working to improve that consistency across classroom setting settings settings. They would be modeling lessons. They would be co-eing with our staff. They would be supporting lesson planning and they would also be supporting our teachers in looking at student data to plan thoughtfully for instruction. with instru instructional coaches, we would want to implement really clear um expectations and structured coaching cycles for them to engage in that work together. So, it would be very planful. I want to once again be really explicit about the connection to MTSS. I've said this a few times tonight. It's really so much of what happens in our learning outcomes, even beyond standardized measures, is dependent upon having strong tier one instruction. That should result in fewer students requiring additional interventions over time. It should also help us to

040more readily identify learning needs and to be more efficient and accurate in how we plan for intervention. Why instructional coaching? Well, as you indicated, Mrs. Nelson, that human capital is our most important resource in a school system. And when teachers feel supported in the classroom where it matters most, that's where we can know that there will be impact real time when they're in there with their students. There's daily uh job embedded support. And coaching, we know, isn't about remediation. It's a strategy for us to maintain excellence. You may, if you work in different industries, be aware of coaching in your own industries. There's coaching in business, in health care, in aviation, of course, in professional sports for executives and surgeons and pilots. And that coaching is not because there's a weakness, right? Derek Jeter didn't

041have a coach because he was a weak baseball player. It's really around sustaining excellence and requiring that feedback is leveraged so that there can be continuous improvement in practice. It would be the same thing for us in education. It would be about supporting our skilled workforce to maintain excellence, to provide feedback. Um, that's really what we would be going after. I was thinking of different analogies that I could offer tonight. And you know, what are some things that you invest in as a person or as a human that might you might not really see a huge impact so soon, but you know, it's really important to your existence. And that might be like when you go for an annual physical exam. You don't leave the doctor's office and suddenly burst into a new state of

042health where you have all of these improvements. Your joints work better and your blood pressure immediately goes down. Your allergies are cured. But you do go for annual physicals because it is important to monitor the essential systems within your body. It is important to identify those incremental small issues early that if not addressed become bigger and more costly maybe more catastrophic um issues later that require more significant interventions. So again our goal with implementing coaching would not be for short-term gains. It would really be around protecting the instructional health of our school system. I I wanted to talk and I I mentioned this earlier um tonight right before our meeting. We will be really thoughtful about the measures and metrics we use. Of course, this is a significant investment to have instructional coaches in a

043district and we would be looking at mainly three different types of measures to talk about impact success, how we would define success and how we would um make a connection to student learning. Those measures would be implementation measures. And I'll give you an example of what that might be. That would be the percentage, for example, of classrooms where the curriculum is being implemented as intended. It could be how coaching cycles are uh completed across the schools. It could be how our lesson plans are actually aligned to the instructional framework in the district and the outcomes we're looking for. We will also the second kind of measure we'll use is instructional quality measures and we would have evidence of improvement there when we look at rubrics that we use and our school leaders and our department

044leaders use those to help improve um teaching and learning in classroom. we would be able to measure that without so much we'd be looking for again less variance across instructional practice and we would be looking for teacher feedback. The other piece of course the piece that seems maybe most obvious are the student outcomes. So there would be a look at standardized measures including the smarter balance assessment and more local assessments including universal screener that I mentioned before progress monitoring different benchmark assessments and unit assessments. So you can see that it would be really complex and we would have to have varied multiple measures um in thinking about the effectiveness of such um implementing a coaching model. There is a tool also that Dr. Burns and uh Dr. Burn and I have been talking about and

045it's the concerns based adoption model. It's called CVAM. You probably some of you in in uh different practice and in other industries may have heard of that before. And that tool is very useful in helping to understand the impact and the success of the human side of change. Right? So how do teachers experience a new instructional resource or a new practice? What is their level of confidence? I'm sure that um Mrs. Sion and I would be looking at teacher retention. As I mentioned before, when teachers are supported in their practice and they feel really good about the work that they're doing in classrooms, they're more likely to stay. This is especially important with early career staff. We would expect a reduced reliance on external PD. I know that we're all aware that we have these

046early release days that are happening and the cost to that is that's really interruptive to an instruction. It's a challenge for families, but beyond that, that's really interruptive to the teaching and learning flow, right? The instructional school day for a child. So, this would be more effective because we would have the support built in real time with the kids right in front of um teacher and coach. So why five coaches you might ask? We really know that coaching is a relationship centered strategy like Mrs. Nelson said it's really around human capital and we want to make sure that we have enough of that resource to provide support evenly across classrooms in all of our schools and we want to make sure that there is enough of that res resource to provide depth to really have

047a positive influence on instruction. So overall coaching really I would want to posit that it's really a riskmanagement um it's really a riskmanagement strategy. It's about protecting excellence and if we don't those minor incremental kind of things that become less healthy in a system can in time have a really large impact um on performance and outcomes. Before um I answer because I know that there probably will likely be some questions about coaches. I just want to make note of a few other line items in RC19. Curriculum development is that increase is basically because of the annual increase in rate for curriculum writing uh on payroll consultant services. That line went up because we have um planned in there to do some work with somebody that Dr. Burn has had great success with before who is

048an expert in MTSS and data individualization. And that is an area that data literacy is an area where we really need to grow as a school system. Uh, additionally we have professional uh, textbooks I should say. That line went down significantly. That should not surprise you. Last year there was a significant investment in our new K3 literacy resource and we will not be adopting a new resource next year in grades four through five because of course we're going to approach that work in a really planful way as we did in PK3 and we'll be apprising the board of that as we go. The next presentation where we'll be discussing that at greater length will be on Thursday. So we'll look forward to sharing that. Um Dr. Falhon and and Kristen Colonies will be here to

049help lead that discussion. resource materials. That's a pretty significant decrease. And that's because last year in the FY26 budget, there was a major investment in ELP and kindergarten classrooms for play-based learning furniture and equipment. And Dr. Burn even purchased some additional materials this week, some food supplies for their little kitchens. um the standardized assess assessment or standardized testing line went up and as I mentioned before there's a universal screener that we think will be likely um better for us to use morning utilitarian that is more costly and again the DESA is no longer covered um by the state so that's uh the reason why that line went up um I just really would want to you know again thank you for this is a robust conversation it should be teaching and learning is what our

050entire system is out and I do believe that this ask although um it is significant is really responsible governance because we've discussed appropriate measures for success it's really about protecting strong performance and maintaining excellence and ensuring um ensuring long-term stability and excellence doesn't sustain itself we have to be really strategic as a district make strategic choices and maintain our excellence with intention and focus and I would argue that um this budget will do All right. And then I think u Mrs. Philpot just had that tonight happened and um the next as Dr. Burn Dr. Burn mentioned uh January 20th my colleague Shirley Klein is up next and you can see this calendar of events there and where you can send questions in between. Thank you very much for that very robust presentation and um I

051am personally really excited about how this budget in particular is extremely focused on our very kind of core academics literacy and MTSS organ Gillingham all of these things that I think we have as a board have talked about for quite a long time and um I'm excited to see kind of the outcome of this and I you did cover some of that how we plan to do this from a systems perspective or technology. And I know just from reading over the budget book, it did seem to me that MTSS in particular seems to kind of span across multiple responsibility centers. And I know you touched on kind of some of them that are in RC19, but the big question I have is do we in this budget have the systems and resources and technology kind

052of budgeted so that we can do what you need to do with MTSS and then with the you know individualization using the data literacy and I think this probably also touches on RC 24 with special education. So just to make sure that in order to do all of the things that you're looking at doing from an instructional standpoint that we have the resources. So I don't know if you have any more clarity that you could provide on that. >> Um well we do and you know there are some things that we actually have in FY26 that are not functioning in the way to help us accomplish some of what you just mentioned. So we've been very planful and it should be that you see MTSS show up in different RC's because it's a comprehensive systemic

053framework. So, we would expect that there would be um elements of MTSS related to our curriculum writing and ensuring that we have universal design for learning and access for all of our kiddos and aligned resources um throughout all of the tiers. We would expect to see um elements of MTSS in our computer software budget. Um so, that that does make sense that you would see those in standardized testing because of universal screener. So, um I think that that you you want to see that and um this FY27 budget does we believe especially with a un a universal screener that um is more robust and will help us shape instruction more um will better meet our needs. And the data dashboard we've been paying for year over year in district and it's cumbersome. It's not efficient

054for our staff to use. And so some of this cost is has been in our budgets historically and I think that likely the data dashboard will come in costneutral or maybe even less. >> So I I would say the so the short answer to your question is yes. >> Okay. >> We we've looked across all of the RC's for what are the essential components that we need to implement a robust MTSS system and yes we have what we need to do that. It will take time. So what I envisioned happening is much of that you heard much of what you heard tonight you're going to hear in about a year as we're planning the FY28 budget because the reality is in the world of change which is what we are pushing toward which is why

055we need job embedded coaching which is why we need um inservice courses. We have to hit the teacher knowledge and skill piece from multiple areas in order to move that forward and it will move at a snail's pace. Uh I used to get beat up by my board in Ry particularly my board president Jane who because I would say baby steps you you need to take the baby steps now because at a certain point we will then be taking giant steps because the foundational elements that need to be put in place need to be put in place well and they need to be put in place thoughtfully and that the coaching, the data analysis, the skill in analyzing the data, the systems to capture the data and the communication piece, our universal screener. None of

056you have ever seen your child's universal screener. That's not helpful in building a solid MTSS process. So, the universal screener that we'll be selecting, or at least in my mind, the one we'll be selecting, will also have reporting features for families so that we can have those conversations early on, what your child needs. Connecticut didn't pick legislation around reading because we were accomplishing everything we needed to in reading. Connecticut picked reading for legislation as did many states because there were areas that we were missing the boat on all of us. You know, we weren't doing such a great job with phonics and phenemic awareness. And there's so many elements to that. It's understanding how each learner processes those letters, how they hear the letters, how they see the letters, how they say the letters. And

057it's building the systems to support that development in effective manner and building the systems at the same time to intervene when kids need extra help. So, so that wasn't a short answer. That was a really long answer, but the short part was the yes. So, we are confident that the pieces we need to make all that happen are here. We need some time and we will be disciplined about it and we as a governance team want to be disciplined about focusing. We want you to keep us on task. If we come back next year and everything we're talking about in the budget sounds different, we're doing something wrong because we're shifting to whack-a-ole. And whack-a-ole is not what's best for our kids. It's steady, focused, targeted work that's going to move us forward with all

058of these pieces in place. >> Thank you. Thank you for that, Joanna. >> Shirley Shirley had a followup. I think we'll talk to follow Dr. Burn's comment on the whole OG analysis of what we're doing with with instruction and phonics. But I just wanted to add the second part to your question, Robin, which was the revised MTSS structure really is in response to the self-study. When we looked last year in May when we presented the idea of tier one intervention, tier 2 intervention and what we could do and monitoring that and looking gaps um in that I think it's a direct response and that's what the um entire steering committee was working on. So, I think it's a clear relation next to going from MTSS to pre-referral to prior interventions and to looking to Amy's

059point at a really strong tier one um rigorous process in interventions in the regular classroom, general classroom. Thank you. Joanna, you had a question. >> So, I have um I wanted to dive a little bit deeper into instructional coaches. I know you Kanan, they have something like this already. It's been very successful. Um they started out with just one and now I think they have two or three. Um so I have a couple detailed questions like you know operationally is it that five are just deployed where they're needed or is it one per school? Um are they going to be coaches for all curriculum like a full or sorry even full class? Um you know what else will they cover bes besides literacy which I imagine is sort of the way that we've walked into

060this. Um, and you know, will they only be coaching? Will they be doing a direct interventionist work with students or anything of that nature? Um, but more >> sure >> less fire hosy. >> Yeah. Yeah. No, no, no. That's absolutely. >> Okay. I I just we have a lot of programs that we've brought in over the years. We have a lot of different PD that's been going on. How are we making sure that the coaching and the sort of new way forward is everybody rowing in the same direction and not 15 different uses of past going. >> So I'll start we could tag team this. So one um coaches will be central. They will be out at the district office under the supervision of the director of elementary and that their primary focus will be

061in classrooms working side by side with teachers. So in the course of a day you could have a coach that is over at Oxridge working with um a number of teachers in a coaching cycle which is a lengthy period of time. So depending on what we determine, it could be a three to four week coaching cycle where they're working with the same person with the same area of focus or three to four weeks on that one area. And they could be working with multiple teachers at the same time. That's going to be determined as we move forward with the work with teachers. That being said, uh depending on the coaches we hire and their skill levels, we'll deploy them appropriately. So we may find that we have people that have great strength in K1. The

062way we had it set up in Ry, we had a a K2 literacy coach and a 35 literacy coach. It was based on their experiences and their strengths and they worked off of that. So they worked across all of the schools in those targeted areas. If as we go through the hiring process, we see that and that's often the case where you find really good strong primary teachers, you put the best primary teacher support with the primary teacher. So that's something we'll work off of. Um there will be spaces in the buildings so that coaches have a a work room when they bring teachers out of the classroom. Um I was Ross uh Cooper was talking to us tonight about the space he's got identified at Hinley. So if a coach is working with the

063team of second grade teachers at Henley, they could be doing a model lesson in the classroom working with kids at the same time. So it's not they're not doing intervention for kids, but they're using the work with kids as the modeling for a teacher. So they will have direct interaction with students but as the coach in that role of coaching. Um so after all the teaching happens in the classroom on a prep they could be meeting and debriefing what did we do why did we do it what went well what would how would you do this uh in your own classroom that kind of so those were some of them I know you might want to jump in and add some more on that >> so I think um what just the other thing that

064I would add is you asked about intervention and so as we have interventionist currently in place in the system it will be really important and Dr. Burn and Dr. Falcon and I talked about this to be really clear about what the roles are. And when you think about MTSS, we have interventionists that are really currently supporting tier 2 and tier three. The primary function of the coach is strengthening the core tier one. So thinking about how we integrate the function of both of those roles and triangulate that with a classroom teacher um will be really important part of our year. I'd also say the coaches are one of the tools in getting the consistency and alignment um both horizontally and vertically within the system. So instead of you have that coach that's working across multiple

065schools so that you can ensure that what's happening in a second grade class at Oxbridge is what's happening in a second grade class at Henley and Holmes and Royal and Tokenique and you know you have that ability with the coach being across all those areas to ensure that consistency and alignment >> and you know classroom teachers typically are really familiar with their grade level content standards and thinking about the learning progressions they're in and an instructional coach is uniquely positioned to to know what the standards are and the grade level before and after. So that also helps with being really intentional with planning and differentiated instruction because it's it's a longer view and really, you know, meeting kids where they are, whether it's not quite there yet at grade level or beyond. >> Katie, thank

066you. Um to stay on that thread with the coaches, um first I wanted to say how helpful it was to hear you kind of lay out the work that they would be doing from the logistics of where they're placed and how how they will help alignment um through moving through that. So thank you for that. Um I did want to just follow up a little bit more on how they will be involved in MTSS and in cess identification. So as they are in there right they're looking for um deficiencies for ways to strengthen the instruction in all classroom but since they'll also be working with kids and modeling and they'll be in there will they be sitting in will they be consulting with teachers about I was working with this student and they seem to

067be behind will they then attend PBTs or that kind of thing >> they they won't be attending PPTs but part of the coaching process is identifying if there's individual students that have needs figuring out strategies to implement in the classroom to support them. So that would be important and helping teacher to analyze data. So another connection to this, the consultant that Amy mentioned with database individualization, he would also um Devin Karns who we know through the Haskins Institute um and Haskin global literacy hub, he really helps you to identify the right data and track that data over time to see how kids are doing. So he'll also work with teachers and coaches on that aspect as well. And so he so in that vein then that will also be work done with the special education

068teachers as well. >> Okay. >> And the coaches as well. >> Yep. >> Like not just the classroom but also with the interventionists. >> Yes. >> And really um Katie, it's an important question. MTSS is to smooth out those like to really make a strong through line so that it's not start and stops with all of those different roles in the system. >> Great. Thank you. >> Great. Sarah, >> just real quick follow up on the instructional coaches. It seems like a really interesting idea and I know I had asked some questions about it before. These are a bit more like at the beginnings like it's a new position that we're not familiar with in Darien because we've never had them before. Are these people who are readily available? How are we going to find

069them? I guess it sounds like Newan has found some of these folks. Like what's like the background of these types of people? Are they, you know, >> they're generally master teachers. So there's a a specific certification area in Connecticut for coaches. So the positions are out there and we would have a robust search process for identifying them. >> So there's like a marketplace for them with market comp, market background, all that kind of stuff. Yep. >> Okay, great. >> Sarah, that was my question is how do you find five qualified excellent people at the same time? Um but also going back to and I really appreciate that we're talking about um improving what our education of our teachers because it's not necessarily what we're teaching, it's how we're teaching and who's in front of our

070children that it's teaching us and I I very much appreciate the the focus on that. Um to that point, it's really hard to have and I know that around this table some we really like to talk about metrics. How do we know this is working? Because it's not going to be, you know, the scores are increasing 10% because of we now have instructional coaches. It's less it's it's it's harder to to point a finger to that. How do you envision this? we know that this is a a return on investment that's worth it. >> It's an excellent question and I think similar to that health example like you're not going to see a dramatic increase right in your blood pressure level but you feel better and there's overall health that you're looking for. We're going

071to have three different types of men. So we will be looking at the implementation measures. So there would be some evidence to suggest if it's working or not. When we're thinking about consistent um implementation of curriculum as you know we're we're looking at classroom practice. Um how people are are working in coaching cycles. There would be documentation of that. Um we would have instructional quality um measurements that we would use and that's through observed classroom practice. We would of course be looking at standardized measures and other assessment types and that um CBAN model that we were talking about before curriculum based uh I'm sorry concerns concerns based adoption model really is around how we would measure our staff experience in their work in district with implementing curriculum applying instructional strategies and their work with coaches.

072So there would be feedback from staff too. But I would also say that tracking the data over time, not necessarily a a standardized measure that's given on one day in the course of the school year, but looking at the universal screener and particularly most of the screeners. Now you get growth targets and growth measures. We will be able to analyze that deeper and see if that if that line is changing, if the growth is improving because trying to measure based on an achievement level is very difficult in a community with performance like us. But looking at road growth within those measures. So when we're examining the um screeners, finding a screen that does have a growth measure component of it and being able to track that over time and see the impact. And it'll be

073great because starting with the new universal screener next year when we're starting with the coaches, we'll have baseline right out of the gate to look at that. And then tracking the other internal measures. So even simple things like we're using a new resource that has a much better focus on phonics and phmic awareness. If we are tracking how kids are doing on the Hegerty assessments and look at that over time, I suspect we're going to see increased performance for our kids on those assessments over time. And then the other piece, which I'm not going to talk about out loud, is when those things start happening and start improving, you start to see longer term impacts and gains on lots of other areas across the system. And the idea of having a data dashboard that actually

074helps us look at different types of assessments to be really much more diagnostic with how we're supporting um teaching and learning will be really important. >> It's the ability to look at them but also the ability for our teachers and our staff to use them for instructional planning purposes. >> And then again, not to be not to have my fire hose out, but curious about the the push in and pull out. So it sounds like this they'll be in the classrooms most of the time. If is there a way to um you know could you pull a second grade teacher from token with a secondary teacher from Royal second is there a way would they be doing that kind of work as well or not so is that part of the PLC work >> part

075of the PLC work but it's you know we always hear from our teachers that they're very eager to work with their colleagues in same grade level across the district and that's part of that idea of reducing variance so when we think about the different opportunities we have for professional learning there will absolutely be time for grade levels to come together And you know the coaches are their own kind of little PLC right and what they discuss about their practice working across the schools um will be really important as well >> and coaches will also be teaching inservice courses >> which will be the new out of school option for moving teachers along in their path. >> Thank you. >> Can I just jump in to follow up on that point? Um, so Eric, I really

076appreciate what you just said about the long-term gains and how we will see this show up in other places beyond our first grade classroom. So, I'd like to request um in terms of our followup that this board as we begin looking at those upper grades that 3 to six to see what they need that we are taking note of the deficiencies that we are experiencing right now in the literacy, writing, grammar of our middle school and our high school students. and that we take that long-term lens to see what happens, you know, from the elementary students, let's say, of two to three years from now after this has been working, what do they look like in middle school and high school? And, you know, I imagine that quite a few people in this room will

077have shifted out of their seats. But I think that is the kind of view that we really want to know about what we're planning today. >> All about the long game. We've been really strategic and we'll talk in greater detail about this on Thursday with ensuring that we have a district leaders uh literacy leadership team that's looking at just that and then a PK12 steering committee so that we always have the long range view. This year we're shifting from K3 to grades three through six for exactly what you're talking about. How do we make sure we build off of what happened PK3 and extend into those upper grades? We don't want to stop in grade five because we want to have support a smooth transition into the middle school. So, we've set up an advisory

078structure for that for that work moving forward. Absolutely. Talk about it on Thursday. >> Okay. John, I know you have a question. >> Yeah. Just um just back to the instructional quality measurements and the dashboards. I can see why that very helpful for your internal purposes. How is that data potentially shared externally with parents? What's the parents view of that? >> Well, certainly assessment data that we collect um on individual students, parents should be aware of that information. So, for example, the the Hagerty assessment that I mentioned for younger youngest learners, that's information that's reported out to parents, maybe not necessarily the score, but when you get a progress report and you have your parent conference, but the universal screener information that we have not historically given to families, we will be giving to families

079beginning next year. just just to kind of again could be being slower on this but you also mentioned the metrics such as the percentage of classrooms where the curriculum is being mented correctly or the the along the benchmark ways >> I'm sorry I >> the you mentioned the metrics in terms of percentage of classrooms in a school where curriculum is being implemented right so less parent information on the student level but more on the individual teachers and classrooms that can be >> um data that we report out the parents. No, we would we would rectify that to make sure that it's implemented properly. That's the whole point of this so that we don't have to go to those kinds of measures. >> Okay. Uh yes, Bill. >> Dr. Fed again, thank you. The deep thought

080behind all this is very obvious. Um and appreciate the presentation tonight. Uh I'm just going to circle back for one quick question on the uh universal literate literacy screener. Mhm. >> I understand that the state provides a menu of options and and my question is just really simple. Are you satisfied with that? Would you like to go off the menu? Uh because I think we should support you to get you the data you need. If you're not satisfied, we may have to use the state, but if you want to use something else that more uh appropriately meets your needs, I I would be interested to hearing if that's something you would like. Thank you for recognizing that that type of resource in our work is really critical. We are not currently satisfied with the universal

081screener that we have in place. Um it's not been an effective tool for teachers and leaders to use to drive instruction. It has not been um shared with parents how students are are improving. We do believe on that approved list that there is a screener that will better meet our needs and help us to kind of move the dial on teaching and learning. When we think about kind of the smaller incremental baby steps that Dr. burn is talking about. So we do believe that that exists and we've been we've been really studying that tool among >> we'd be happy with it. It is more expensive but we don't want to pay for a tool you know that is already costly that is not really of use to us. So >> very thank you >> Katie.

082>> Thank you. Um I want to come back to the I'm sorry we're jumping back and forth with topics with you guys. Um thank you for bearing with us. I want to come back to the dashboard for a second and then I also just want to um sort of restate something that you said Eric because John you had a question about this and I I think a lot of other people could be as as well and considering this is a budget where people vote on it. It's good to clarify regarding the um the ways that you guys are continuously monitoring and measuring the effectiveness of the coaches and those metrics. Um, I just want to to reiterate that that's an ongoing thing that every day that the coaches are in those classrooms, they're taking note

083of those things and they're bringing feedback back up through you, Amy, and your department. And as they change cycles to how you mentioned that they would kind of be a professional development cohort, they're talking to each other about what they're seeing. So, it's not so much that they're getting a scorecard or a report card for a percentage of classroom. It's more like an ongoing okay when we started we had x percentage that we're implementing correctly now with our support we've seen that grow and now we're so is that correct with >> that is correct but it's really it's a fine line that they walk because they're not evaluating teachers they're not observing teachers they're when they're in there they're observing but it's observed to support right >> so it's our job as administrators principles assistant

084principles coordinators chairs to do that evaluative piece. So coaches are not evaluative in any way, but they're obviously taking note of what the needs are. And when the coaches come together as a team, they're talking about what are the needs and what do they need to address? Or if they're seeing that some component of the program is is giving teachers trouble, then they're going to strategize as a team, what do we need to do to address this appropriately and support the teachers. So very >> both will help inform curriculum, right? How they see curriculum being implemented and also um professional learning needs. >> They're looking for trends in that. >> So I appreciate that clarification. So they're not administrators. No, >> They are classified as teachers with a coach certification. >> Great. Okay. So then

085shifting to um the dashboard. Um can you just talk a little bit more about um about how that will be used? Is it um is it an internal tool? Will it have push out functions? Um just kind of so that the average parent community member will kind of understand how it is helping um the district and teachers and administrators but then also what the sort of parent and student facing component might be. So, it's primarily an internal tool and what it helps with is looking at individual um student classroom, school, and district um trend data. And so, that's how we would use that. It really will help us triangulate data. It really would not be um we wouldn't necessarily be putting out reports from the data dashboard for families. However, as Dr. Bern mentioned before

086the un the um universal screener. We will be sharing individual student data from that type of tool and resources. >> But I I also think the data dashboard will help our teachers and administrators to understand the larger picture of data because it will be in one place where it is not right now. So we have lots of different assessments and information we gather on kids as we think about our instruction but it's not in one place where we can actually do some in-depth analysis. This will enable us to do that at a teacher level, administrator level and then apply interventions to address that. >> And in that way, you know, sitting with with a parent, it would be easier to look at triangulated data, data across many sittings and different types of data to help

087make sense of student >> and to have more informed database conversations with parents when you have a conference. >> And this would last year over year. >> Yeah, this stays >> with the student profile. Great. Thank you. So I I want to follow up just on the data the dashboard kind of pieces. I understand this is more of an internal tool. >> Um as a board it would be interesting and I would look to you to say what and what is the cadence and the timing of when you might be able to report some kind of data and effectiveness and outcomes kind of measures at the board level on how these things are working which would be extremely important for us as a board. So we we wouldn't have we wouldn't be able to add

088this component to next fall's assessment report, but I would envision that our local assessment information that will be coming from the data dashboard will be part of that fall assessment presentation that we do to the board and community. Great. So if you think back that was mainly standardized tests and AP scores and things like that they'll also now we'll be able to have a component on our local assessments using the data dashboard to bring that information to you. >> Okay. So that we can kind of pattern >> see the patterns the growth >> not only from instructional coaches but just all of the different kind of screeners everything that you're doing. And then um right now the instructional coaches are focused on elementary, but as you're talking about progression and growth and being able to

089track this over time, what would the plan be to be able to have similar kinds of things available for parents of s for instance middle school students or high school? And I think this would get into the student success plans and kind of how we're looking at growth opportunities and goals for students and portfolios. And so I mean it's exciting kind of stuff. I understand it'll take a while >> to do all of these things, but >> obviously you have to focus on the elementary first. Are there plans in the future potentially to do things more like this as we kind of get into higher level grades? >> There certainly could be down the road. It wouldn't be at the same scale, right? But we also have different kinds of positions at the secondary level

090that are much more content specific coordinators, department chairs that function in somewhat in that role. >> Um you don't have that at the elementary level. You have your building administrators that have tremendous administrative responsibilities that prevent them from being coaches on a regular basis with teachers and they're evaluative. So there are aspects of the kind of work but I wouldn't necessarily see just coming back to you in five years and saying we need another five coaches to put at the secondary. It's a different structure and a different model. >> Okay. So I mean the focus to be on elementary literacy specifically because that's the root kind of foundation that impacts everything kind of >> certainly right now we also know that elementary teachers are often generalists. looking. We're going to be looking for teachers with

091great skill, coaches with great skill in literacy, but we're also going to be exploring where are they with mathematics because that's the other key area at the elementary level that could be helpful to us down the road. >> And we know a lot of what how children perform in mathematics is impacted by their ability to read >> their reading. >> Do this these types of instructional coaches typically specialize in literacy or are they are there both? It depend in different models you have different ways of doing it. So you know the the best place I think Greg was asking where do you find these? I mean you you really go out and poach. Um so you look for I I'm an equal opportunity poacher. Um you go out and you find and and frankly the

092you know we're in a really good position and and the the changes that were negotiated in the contract that the board supported are going to help us recruit people into these roles. But we know, you know, New York City, uh, people look down on the New York City system. New York City has had instructional coaches in place for years. And some of the most skilled teachers we ever see coming through our doors are people who have been coaches in New York City and are moving to the suburbs, moving to Connecticut. And these roles don't typically exist. So I I think this is, you know, we're knowing early. So if on February 5th when the board says we have a go ahead and it moves through the you know Marge will be on this I mean

093starting to to do those searches um because we can actually go out and recruit for these positions. >> Okay. Thank you Joanna. >> Um I actually wanted to move off of this to something else but if anyone else has questions. Yeah. >> One more quick question. You mentioned the district assigns where they're going under the director of elementary education. Is there an average duration that a coach is in a classroom or working with a group of specific teachers and then who determines when they're ready to come off that and success has been achieved and then they can >> so you you work in you use a structure called coaching cycles. So you make a plan in advance. So this is what we're going to focus on and the cycle will be four weeks and they

094it's like targeting an intervention for a student. um you target that focus for four weeks. You and we haven't decided on what the coaching cycle length will be yet, but that's what would determine that. And they typically go if you're focusing on reading, they're going for the reading period in the classroom or the literacy block in the classroom. >> And it's not so much that they would come necessarily off of coaching. It would be that there would be another area of interest, an area of study, an area of focus that they would want to work when they have an opportunity to go in a different part of the cycle or a new cycle. Thank you. Joanna, did you have a question? >> Um, I wanted to ask a few questions about uh Middle Sex because

095you know the school's part of the curriculum um and literature at schools. Um so first the um uh world language FTE I assume since this is due to enrollment it sounds like it's not like at the high school like a 2 and a.5 it's a whole one position but uh class selection is coming up soon. I don't remember when fifth graders select um but you know it would be yeah >> well so Kate's nervous about this talk about it um because there is you know kids have choices so they make first second third choice um there could depending if there's a massive influx of kids for one particular language it could put us in a position where we're talking about second choices for some kids but we won't know that until we go through the

096process. >> Okay. So, your intention is to uh reduce this position no matter what and then try to much like you did with French earlier this year, try to figure things out on the fly later on if they don't work out >> if we need to at that point. >> Okay. Um and then my other question was um can you explain more about the world language team leader? The way that the narrative read, I took away that there's one team leader for 23 teachers and then there'd be a second team leader for the four. >> I just want to rec Marge, was this a contractual was the this was adding the position? Well, Kate, feel free to come on up to the podium. >> Isn't it great that we have principles here? I mean, >>

097thank you for the question. And so we're using the word team there differently than how we usually use the word team when we talk about Middle Sex. We typically talk about our team model as being a team of five or six teachers who share that 100 to 110 students. Here what we're talking about is each of those teams have a team leader, right? And each of those team leaders has a seat at our team leader meeting table monthly. Our unified arts teachers also have a unified arts teach uh team leader. Our school counselors have a team leader who have a seat at that table. Our world language teachers are currently the only department that does not have a seat at that table. >> And when I think about a distributed leadership and the school climate

098and the school culture, it's a really important part of that communication cycle for our building and ensuring consistency. So that's why even though it wasn't part of the contractual, I asked and begged and said, "Can we please get that for our teachers?" Thank you. That that clarifies it for you. >> Thank you, Kate. >> Um and then my last question was um actually I can ask this during um Shirley's update. I just want to say I'm very excited about the executive functioning being moved into the flex advisory and um I don't know if you're already thinking about this, you know, the year after, but it would be great if we could even push it down to like third, fourth, fifth grade. I don't know if that's already things that are being thought of, but just

099want to put that out there. >> As Dr. Burn indicated, the focus areas that we discussed tonight, those five, they'll come back to you next year in FY28. Okay, great. >> Are there other questions on our schools and instructional presentation? No. >> Okay. I guess we will move on to public comment. >> If anyone would like to participate in public comment, please approach the podium and state your name and town of residence. Once recognized, please note that you will have up to three minutes to comment. >> So, we have no public comment. We will move on to the next portion of our agenda. So, any of you who would like to leave the room prior to our policy discussion are welcome to uh be dismissed. Thank you for attending. all of our principles and uh

100staff that were here tonight >> and thank you for all these budgets. These are great. Thank you, Dr. Fedigan, too. Okay, while they're leaving, we will um move on to the policy discussion. Um I'm going to read this further discussion and possible action. This is our second reading on proposed board of education policies. Policy 4250, employment and student teacher checks. Policy 4275, family and medical leave. Policy 4450, policy regarding employees. And section 504 of the rehabilitation act of 1973 and title two of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. Policy 5010, admission to the public schools at or before age 5. Policy 5125, students in section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and title one of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Policy 52000, homeless students and youth. Policy 5300, student use of the district's

101computer systems and internet safety. Policy 13000411 and 5710, nondiscrimination, community personnel and students. and policy 1400 policy regarding signs, symbols, flags, and advertising on school property. Marge, >> so I don't think that we received any questions on any of the policies in between meetings. >> No. >> Is there any discussion from board members? Um, this is our second reading. >> Okay, we are Hold on. I want to make sure we have a quorum because we will be voting. >> We do. >> Okay. What's that? Two, three, four, five, six. Yes. Okay. Okay. So, we will be voting on the approval of these policies as they have been revised. Um, >> are we going to vote on everything all at once? >> You could do >> We're going to vote Oh, do you want to do

102the consent? >> You can if you'd like. If or if you want to go one by one. >> Oh, no. I was going to do them all at once. Yeah. Thank you. Um, so >> you don't have to read that again. >> No. No. May I have a motion to approve the proposed revisions to the board of education policies that were just read as part of agenda item 6C? Joanna is the first and Bill is the second. All in favor? That is unanimous. So those policies are amended and revised as we just noted. Um, and then moving on to consent agenda. May I have a motion to approve the consent agenda? Sarah, seconded by Joanna. Are there items on the Actually, I'm going to read the consent agenda just so that everybody in the audience

103is aware of what we were talking about. We have the approval of minutes, acceptance of contemplated gifts for DHS lobby furniture, board committee committee reports, and personnel report. Um, in terms of discussion, does anyone have any discussion? Joanna, >> I just want to say thank you to the DHSPA for sponsoring um, you know, and purchasing um, all this this new lobby furniture for them to hang out with. >> Thank you very much for the DS DS DHSPA for that furniture. Um, any further discussion on consent agenda? All in favor of approving the consent agenda? That is unanimous. May I have a motion to adjourn the meeting? Oh, is there public comment? We don't do we have that actually. >> Oh, we do have a round of public comment. Is there any public comment? >> Oh,

104followup action. >> I I will just say we did have one follow-up action item that Katie had brought up about ongoing monitoring, but I think we're going to be talking about that at the curriculum committee meeting on Thursday as part of an ongoing effort. So um and there was no public comment. Okay. May I have a motion to adjourn this meeting? Sarah seconded by Greg. All in favor?