001We are live. >> Good evening. I would like to call this special meeting of the board of education to order. The next board of education meeting is on Tuesday, October 14th at 7:30 p.m. Um, I'm going to wave the chairperson's report. Um, but certainly we have a new person at the at the board table. Welcome, Kylie. We look forward to hearing from you in just a few minutes. Okay. Uh, next I'll go to public comment. >> Good evening. If you would like to participate in public comment, please approach the podium and wait to be recognized. Once recognized, please state your name and address for the record. And note that you'll have up to three minutes to comment. Okay. Uh with that, I'll There's no raised hands and no one in the audience. So with that,
002I'll turn it uh to you Dr. Burn for the superintendent report, please. >> Thank you. Good evening and thank you for joining us for the October 7th board of education meeting. This past Tuesday, we launched our new district monthly newsletter, the Darianne Difference. The publication is designed to give the community an inside look at the incredible things happening across all seven of our schools. In each monthly issue, we'll spotlight one of our schools, diving deep into how they bring the vision of graduate to life every day. A new issue will be sent via school messenger at the end of each month. And you'll also find all published issues posted on the school district website under news and announcements. Our next step in building out our communication plan is to launch the official school district Instagram
003page where we will post lots of exciting and informative happenings in our schools. Be on the lookout over the next few days for the Daringham Public Schools Instagram page. Tomorrow evening, I'm attending the homeschool uh PTO meeting. Look forward to spending some time with the parents over there. And with the emergency closing at Darian High School on September 16th, we are required to make up that time for students. And on November 4th, we will have a half day of school for students at Darianne High School with a modified schedule. The original school schedule did not have classes for students on November 4th. Miss Dunn will be sending out a communication to families with all of the details. I've enjoyed attending some of our athletic competitions and last week enjoyed varsity girls volleyball and varsity field
004hockey. I've also had a chance to attend varsity boys and girls soccer and varsity football as well and look forward to attending more games uh this fall season. And that concludes my report for this evening. >> Thank you very much. Okay, and with that I'll turn it to the student representatives. Nice to see you Ryan and Kylie. >> Yeah, great to have Kylie with us now. My partner in crime. out. >> Great to be here. Uh today, our girls soccer team and our boys cross country team both had uh events today, so hoping for the best for them. And then since we last saw you guys, uh DHS had our homecoming event which uh included a football game which we dominantly won and then a homecoming dance which was a great success as last year
005we also had uh the electric bull ride and we had that along as well this year. Um along with that we are also searching for a new superintendent. So many of our students are uh engaging in uh focus groups to help provide information to a board uh to help look for a new superintendent as well. >> Thank you, Ryan. >> Hi. Thank you all. I'm really excited to be here. Um for the music, there have been many DHS ensemble showcases in September. Um and we're looking forward to many new ones in November, including um the coral concerts, the tenerbase showcase, the band concerts, and in theater. Currently, theater 308 is working on their fall production, the play Almost Main. They perform the second week of November. And then looking forward to the springtime, the musical
006is The Lightning Thief. Thank you all. >> Thank you, Ryan and Kylie. If you happen to know any student members who have participated in the superintendent search focus groups or if you have yourself, please pass along the thanks of the board. It's really it's one of our most important jobs and we're grateful for the support of students in that work. >> Yeah, we definitely will. >> Thank you. >> I will just add on that they were meant to meet with them that Tuesday morning that we had to cancel school. So, they met this morning via Zoom. So, thank you for twice to prepare for that. >> Yes. Thank you, Sarah. Okay. Uh the consent agenda which we are doing for the first time. Um, so we'll take questions along the way. I will, um, Eric,
007you're going to walk us through it, but it includes the approval of the minutes, the financial report and possible action on budget transfers, which I don't think there are any, and uh, board committee reports. >> Oh, we're there. >> So, the first step is a motion to read agenda. >> Okay. May I have a motion to approve the consent agenda? Dennis, seconded by Robin. and then any questions or comments about any of the items on the consent agenda. >> Okay. >> Or any discussion related to >> So I guess my question is normally Rich will go through the entire financial report. Um is that do we still do that or >> that's the perview of the board if you wish to still do that or if you just want to go on any possible action
008that's necessary. So Rich, you're you're normally brief, but I would love to hear a consolidated brie on the financial report um when that comes around. We the the finance committee met on uh 9 September 12th, discussed the surplus, but >> quicker than you normally. >> I'll be even briefer. It's a surplus of $490,000. Um it's largely from anticipated increases in excess cost revenue, some favorable salary uh turnover and the new uh salary contracts we have in place for the pars and custodians. We did have six transfers we talked about. One is to approve the extra elementary section that the board approved. One is to approve the point to French teacher uh that the board also approved. We do have a vacant HBAC um technician and so moving money into contracted repairs that remains vacant. The
009board did approve uh going forward with board doc. So, that is one of the other uh transfers. And then, if you'll recall during the budget uh season, we made a reduction assuming the public benefit charge of electricity would go away. It did not go away. Um and so there's money uh going back into the electorate account to fund the public. >> Okay. And so, that's a a reminder to thank you to Katie and Dave for going through the board docs demo on behalf of the board. Appreciate that. >> Um are there questions about anything on the consent agenda? And so when we approve it, that will also approve the transfers. >> Katie, just one process question. So this means that we won't be going through individual board committee reports unless someone flags it for an
010update or discussion. >> So like the curriculum report that Amy put together would be what you would typically see. >> Okay. Thank you. Okay. Um, of course that doesn't mean questions can't come up before the meeting, during the meeting, after the meeting. Um, we're not turning off questions or just um updating how we handle the public. >> And once you open the consent agenda with the motion, you can discuss any of the items on there. It's just one vote to approve all of except the minutes, the transfers, everything. >> So, are there any other questions on any of those things? No. Okay. Okay, with that, may I have a motion to appro approve the consent agenda? That's John, seconded by Joanna. All those in favor favor. That's unanimous. Thank you. >> The transfers are >>
011which means the transfers are approved. Thank you. Okay, we'll move to presentations and discussions. We'll start with assessment data and um Dr. Burn, I'll toss it to you to introduce it, please. >> Great. Thank you so much. So, so we're very excited to present some very uh positive data tonight, but you're going to see a bit of a different presentation than you have in the past. And so, in thinking about the board's goal number six of focusing on governance, what you're going to hear tonight is an overview report of the data and then what we learned from that and what we're doing with that. So that's where the conversation should sit and it's us telling you this is where the performance was. We do some uh really good looks that that Amy's going to talk
012through cohort data over time. So we'll present all that out. Um I think Amy you you're going to go with questions at the end would be best for you. Okay. Because it's a new format for Amy as well. But um I want to thank all the coordinators, chairs, and administrators here tonight because they all played a big part in this. Um but really we're focusing on what we've learned and what that means for the work we're doing as a district. >> Dr. B. So tonight our team will share some results from the strength 2025 assessment. As Dr. Bird mentioned, I'm going to give a very high level overview. Um the memo in your packet that was previously included and distributed to you electronically last week has um background additional details including descriptors of each of
013the assessment types and some um statements regarding the outcomes for our student performance this past year. There are members of our administrative team here tonight and um we'll be able to take questions at the end. Thanks so much Jeff. Um and and again thank you for holding your questions. We have a lot of data to share and we'll move through that right now. So the first thing I want to talk about is why we measure student learning. Um we measure student learning not just to um celebrate and look at the the scores that we have at the end and think about what the numbers are. We really want to think about how we can help every child um succeed, grow and thrive. And data is a tool that we use in school systems and we
014have lots of different types of data that we use for different purposes. So we do use um data to inform our instructional practice. We use data to talk about achievement and growth. And the measures that we'll talk about tonight, Smarter Balance Assessment and and NGSS, those um assessments are looking at achievement and growth over time for our students. And then we also use other types of assessment to guide um system level decisions when we think about improving needs for professional learning or thinking about curricular revisions. You've seen this before in the annual presentations. There are different assessment types. the universal screeners that you hear us talk about, those would include, for example, Ames web. Ames web is something that we would use, for example, in an MTSS process. And the board is anticipating a a
015presentation on MTSS um I think in December. We use that data to kind of take a snapshot of how students are performing at a grade level and identify pockets of students that might not yet be performing at grade level. That's a broad overview of the purpose of that type of assessment. Formative assessments are really for the instructional purpose because they're in the- moment assessments where a teacher can administer, see what the student knows, and respond readily in that moment at point of instruction for a child. Those are the most useful to us in schools. Summitive assessments are the assessments we're going to talk about tonight. And while those don't help us intervene at the individual student level, they this is the kind of assessment that helps us guide um system level decisionmaking. And that's for
016a few reasons. one specifically is by the time we get the assessment results, they're late. We get them in September really to um distribute them to families. Our families got them this year through Aspen for the first time ever. We were a year ahead in that type of distribution. And um and so when we have those assessments, students have already moved on to the next grade. They move on to different curricular areas. And so that's not the most useful data for a teacher for instruction. That's the kind of data again that we use to guide system level decisions. So, let's take a look at uh strategic plan alignment. And I'm going to revisit this toward the end of the presentation. Everything that we're talking about tonight with regard to guiding system level decisions should connect
017back to the work in the strategic plan and the work that you hear us talk about at the board table. All right. So, this is where we kind of get to uh into the numbers. If you look at this chart, this is a three-year trend over time of the overall scores for the district. So this is for all tested areas. We know that smarter balanced assessment for ELA and mathematics is assessed assessing students in grades three through eight. And the science assessment called the NGSS assessment is assessing students only in grades 5, 8, and 11. What this data shows is that every year there is incremental growth year-over-year for this past year's data um and the year prior. So that's a trend that we like to see. Something exciting that we want to talk about
018tonight briefly is that the high needs um students who are recognized in that category, that subgroup, and those are students that receive ML services or special education services or perhaps are identified to be eligible for free and reduced lunch. Those students really made significant gains this year, especially in mathematics. And um and you'll see that that's something that we look at. And again, we're looking at this data. We triangulate it with other data. For example, the universal screeners and the instructional data that we use to have a a really broad perspective of how our students are performing. This data set looks at the individual grade level performance over a three-year period for ELA Smarter Balance Assessment. And what this does show is steady growth year-over-year, which is reflective of uh consistent instruction. We will continue
019to focus our professional learning in the area of K3 literacy because we recognize that that third grade mark in students reading at grade level is indicative of their success in not only reading but their success in all other subject areas really including I would say probably mathematics. Um four through eight we're going to continue to focus on writing vocabulary and grammar. Okay. So this is a new data set um that we did not share last year but I think actually one of the board members and it may have been you Mr. Brown had asked about this looking at cohort data. So this is actually not how does our fifth grade do year-over-year. This is looking at kids as they move through the school system. And this data set is really helpful because if we look
020at this one right here you might say oh what happened in grade five? It looks like there was a little bit of a dip there. Well, that can be deceiving because if we look here, that fifth grade when they were fourth graders, they performed better than they did as fourth graders. So, we want to take a look at year-over-year, how are we doing at grade level, but we also want to follow and track groups of kids. And then, I would argue continue to argue most importantly, we need to be looking individual student performance. That's really like the money shot for us. All right, so we're looking at the cohort data over time. and we'll see that we do have our kiddos growing consistently. Um I did point out the fifth grade there as an example.
021We're going to be thinking about vertical alignment and especially those transitional years between fifth and sixth grade, 8th and 9th grade. In fact, Dr. Falcone and I met um I think just yesterday, seems like a long time ago. It was only yesterday with Kristen Colonies to be thinking about our frameworks for example for literacy instruction and how we're building out our MTSS framework to really strengthen preschool through grade 8. Um, let's take a look at mathematics. Oh, actually I don't think I I spoke enough about this. Let me just go back for one quick second to language arts. Um, you will see that we are going to continue to embed SBA like assessments into the curricular assessments that we use so that our children understand the language that's on the assessment. For example, um you
022might have a student be thinking about what's the main idea and in SBA it's referred to as central theme. We want to make sure that our kids understand the language that's actually used in the assessments. Otherwise, it's not an accurate picture of what they really know and can do. All right. So, for mathematics, mathematics, this is again the three-year um trend for all of those grade levels. You can see that third grade had the most significant growth. Um eighth grade, again, we're taking a look at it, not only the cohort data, but we're kind of flat there in the eighth grade. And so, that's not surprising. Dr. Burn and I were talking earlier this evening. they see kind of that same trend data in New York with the regions has to do with some of
023the content that's introduced in that grade. And it's also important that we recognize that uh the smarter balance assessment and NGSS assessment, they have four levels, but there are also scale scores. And the scale scores are not an equal intervals for each of those levels. So sometimes you'll have a percentage of kids that can either bounce up from a two to a three or a three to a four or drop down and it would make you think that there's a significant um shift in performance but really it is statistically insignificant when you look at the scale scores. So that's another data point that we would take a look at. This is the cohort data um for mathematics and again what we wanted to point out here is that there is notable grow growth in the
024area of mathematics for students who are identified in the high need subgroup and again that would be students that uh receive instruction through an IEP through ML services or are eligible for free and reduced lunch. Just earlier today, we had a session on SCOP, which is sheltered instruction observation protocol. And those are really high lever instructional strategies that support our ML learners. And we had mathematics teachers in the room because, of course, literacy is a foundational um component of how our students perform in mathematics. So, we'll continue to be working on that. >> Amy, ML is multilingual. >> Multilingual learner. Thank you for catching me with that. Multilingual. ML is ML is multilingual and MLL is multilingual learners. Um NGSS assessment, these are our three-year results because I've already talked about the overview. Um the
025NGSS assessment three-year results, we're happy to note that we do have we've stayed steady last year in fifth grade and we had increases in grade eight and nine. If you look at the overall data point for grades 5, eight, and 11, I said nine, it's really 11. five, eight, and 11. You see a steady increase across those grades. It's a little harder to look at the cohort data here because this assessment is only administered in three um in three grades. That's why um I want to kind of take a minute and pause here and look at this data set. You might look and say, well, each of those classes has a different number of bars. Why is that? The class of 2029 is our current nth grade class, but let's remember that the data is
026always a year old, right? So this is last year's data. So when they were in eighth grade, that class has only data points for their fifth grade assessment and their eighth grade assessment. And then you might say, well, what's going on with the class of 2027? We didn't forget to include the data, but I had to kind of walk myself through this several times as somebody who's always looking at the data. Why is there one bar there? In that case, um, our grade 11 students who were 10th graders last year, they have an eighth grade data point. They do not have a fifth grade data point because there is still that hangover period from COVID where they didn't have the assessment that year and they have not been administered the grade 11 assessment yet because
027that happens in the spring. So again I point out this is useful data but it it doesn't tell the whole story and it doesn't serve the purpose of really driving instruction. It's important to monitor for guiding district and systemic level decisions. Um with regard to our next level of work, um we do think that that trend that you saw in the overall data could be attributed to the fact that we are embedding more of those NGSS like uh assessments into our current curricula. And we're also thinking about instructional shifts that are aligned to um the NGSS standards to give kids those that practice um in their ongoing daily instruction and to build their confidence there. So we'll continue to strengthen um three uh dimensional instruction experience for for students and linking um to the vision
028of the graduate. All right. So for the high school on September 9th there was a presentation that Mrs. Sun gave and Kathy Austster Mrs. Austster who's sitting in the back in the back they shared a lot of data points with you. I included many of those in your packet and tonight I'm going to focus on two additional standardized measures. the seal of biiteracy and the advanced placement assessment. This is a great news slide. Um, our number of students who are meeting criteria for earning a seal of biiteracy continues to grow year-over-year. We had 149 students, 149 seniors who earned the seal. As a reminder, students can earn the seal at any point in their secondary experience in the in the high school. However, they don't actually have the seal a fixed to the diploma, and
029that's when they they're considered to officially earn it until grade 12. There are students who meet that criteria, for example, in 10th grade. Um, it's a really wonderful thing for a student to accomplish. It means that they are proficient in English and one other language. We have some students that have earned the seal because they are proficient in English, a home language, a native language, and another language that they've studied in school. So you can see that this year um we have had students who have earned the seal of biiteracy in the courses that we teach in those sequences of French, Latin, Mandarin and Spanish. And then we have some heritage speakers and we supported their taking of the German and Russian seal of literacy stamp assessment and they earned the seal as well. We
030offered so many AP courses. AP courses uh 25 of them across the 34 subjects. And what's really exciting about this data is that the number of students that are taking AP courses continues to increase. And the percentage of students that are scoring a three, four, or five continues to increase. So while we're opening and widening access, the performance remains consistent and very high. um it actually improved 95% we are of our students who um took the AP exams who scored a three or above and I know this was like a knock your socks off to hit a point for Dr. B, you were talking talking about this earlier. Last year, for the first time ever, we talked about the next generation accountability assessment. And this is an assessment that is meant to um tell a
031community and and a school system how a school and district are preparing students for postsecary readiness for college and career life beyond, for example, in our case, Darianne High School. And there are 12 indicators that are meant to get again provide a holistic measure. And so things like achievement like we talked about smarter balance assessment and NGSS measure achievement. They also measure growth because we're looking at anticipated growth that's predicted over time. This this um indicator set includes indicators for chronic absenteeism, college and career readiness, high school graduation, post-secary entrance, physical fitness. I talk a lot with um Chris Man Fredonia about that piece and access to the arts and what this is is we are measured against a target of how we're expected to improve year-over-year and the state has a very complicated calculus
032for figuring this out. I will tell you that the different indicators are weighted differently. So for example, the growth targets are weighted more heavily than the achievement targets. So at the end of all of that, a school district is issued an an accountability index score. Our score and it's I this is not an error. These scores are always late in like a year behind. That's how the state publishes them. So again, I it's like 51st states. I have to remind myself of this every year that I'm not that I'm I'm really on point with the 23 24 data. um are we anticipate the results from this past this past school year in November, but year-over-year there was an increase in the next generation accountability index score from an 85% to an 88. The state is
033sitting around a 69%. Um, one other thing that Dr. Burn and I was talking were talking about earlier today was the fact that when you're performing that high and that's significant points. So I was pleasantly surprised when I saw that that that the calculus resulted in that. It's like and I think I used this example last year. You know, if you're running a 10-minute and 35 minute mile or 10 minute and 35 second mile and you drop 10 seconds, that's not that hard. I should shouldn't say that since I have not been running lately, but if you're running, you know, a 4 minute and 9 second mile and you're trying to get to 405, I know from my son's experience that's really challenging. Um, nevertheless, this is really about continuous improvement and this is about
034our team really looking at not only these data points but other data points that are more local assessments that we can more readily respond to at point of intervention and acceleration for our students um to move the needle on student performance. And then I promised that I would go back and revisit um the strategic plan alignment. And so as you know these are some of the data points that we identified for metrics with goal area one enhancing teaching and learning. And the connection that you should see here tonight and throughout the year ahead is so what are we going to do about this? And so some of the related focus work is of course the continued work in K3 literacy implementing a new resource focusing on high quality instructional practices, thinking about refining the MTSS
035framework which really is about leveraging local assessments and thinking about individual student performance and the whole child. Thinking about NGSS threedimensional learning to ensure that children's daily experiences in their science classrooms and lab spaces are offering that type of learning experience. Um we recognize that we have some pretty important work to do in the area of of curriculum writing and revision. That's continued work. We talk about that um throughout the year. Assessment practices thinking about um we talked about that actually in the last curriculum committee meeting. Thinking about using varied assessments so that we can ensure that our students really can demonstrate what they know and are able to do. We'll talk a lot more this year about student success plans because again that gets to individual student performance and then thinking about how do
036we organize professional learning so that it is targeted the example today in providing professional learning around SCAP which is that sheltered instruction observational protocol which is really around um supporting ML learners multilingual learners and thinking about high lever strategies to support children it's really good practice for all groups and so thinking again about coordinating those efforts to move the needle on performance is something that we will continue to focus on. So that's the high level overview tonight. We're happy to take any questions. I want to again extend my gratitude as Dr. Burn did to my colleagues who are here tonight from the departments and the buildings. Um and we could answer any questions about building and department performance that you might have. >> Okay, board questions. >> I'll start then. Um so on the um
037if you go back one slide the the where we went 85 to 88% what do you think the difference is? So one it's having systems and structures to ensure that we're looking at data appropriately. I can give an example even with the Connecticut physical fitness assessment ensuring and that's a minor example but ensuring that the assessment is appropriately administered and that we have systems in place to make sure that we're recording the right data accurately and Dr. Dr. Burn and I have talked about how system looking at system data is really important and we have some work to do in that area with regard to MTSS, but I really think it's about looking at data um with a really focused lens and then having building systems in place and progress monitoring not only student learning
038but our adult our adult work that leads to student learning. >> Is there anything in addition to looking at the data is there anything you think that educationally we did differently? So, you know, Dr. Bourne and I have talked about it's really hard looking at data year-over-year, and even though we're really proud of the three percentage points to pinpoint one particular thing that might have contributed to that. Um I do think the increased collaboration um in in within each of the levels elementary, middle, and high, thinking about talking about instructional practice and sharing those practices more readily in collaboration time is definitely very helpful and is the strongest type of professional learning we can offer. Um, and I think you know the work of it's really going to be continue to be really important strengthening
039those transitions and we've started to do that a lot more elementary to middle and middle to high >> and and I would say the to me seeing the results for the students with high needs that growth is incredibly important because when you're achieving at the levels that our students are achieving for most kids that increment that slight change is really hard, but our kids who need extra support and aren't at that very high level, if we're able to leverage that work we're doing in MTSS and the individual assessments, that's where that's what's going to push the growth each year. So, I think there there has to be some connection to that metric there. And I think the more we continue to focus on that um as well as continuing to focus on practices for all
040kids but that using that data really well is going to benefit all kids but especially kids with >> and as I that you know as I mentioned earlier in this calculus the growth indicator and the indicator of growth for subgroups does receive a heavier waiting >> and so because as I mentioned earlier you know for example in math there was a significant improvement that would that could that will result in a change in the index board. >> Yeah. I I think the other piece we should all keep in mind, some some of you are not old enough to remember this, but the old George Michael uh sports machine on Fox, he would do that show on Sunday nights. >> Wow. >> The state's assessment system is a lot like George Michael's sports machine. So you
041you have these bells and whistles and lights and things and you don't know how it all figures it out, but they pump out numbers. So there you know the reality is that we have to take these as these are required um assessments that we deliver and and I we could say assessments I usually say tests because they are taken at one moment in time for kids. It's the work that our teachers are doing when they're sitting one-on-one conferring with a child reading with a child or analyzing a lab that kids are doing in the classroom or analyzing math problems that they're doing in the math classrooms. That's what's going to push kids knowledge and skill and ability going forward. So, these are great numbers to celebrate and talk about, but the reality is what are
042we doing with the day-to-day information, which I think we've got a really good plan that we're working on. >> We'll go down the table. Uh Greg, sorry. >> Um go first. >> Go ahead, Jo. Um so, you mentioned that um eighth grade is flat or maybe a little down. Sorry. Eighth grade math. Um and but it seems like by the time they take the SAT in 11th grade, they've gone back up. So could you just give a little more detail or explanation like what's happening in the eighth grade either developmentally or or >> So I would say there's so this is a New York issue as well. So it it all dep a lot of it depends on where they put the cut scores and I don't want to suggest because I already got myself
043in trouble with New York education department enough I don't need to get Connecticut on the list but they they play games with the cut scores and you'll see it's a common eighth grade performance is often kind of funky and you're wondering why is that you know these kids look at what they're doing when they take the AP exams look at what they're doing before then so I sometime it's a little bit of a mystery but there are things that we can take from >> there's usually that dip um in the fifth and eighth grade data and we were having earlier discussion today and I was somewhat comforted to know that New York has experienced the same phenomenon. Um part of it is you know there the concepts are a little bit there's a big jump
044in fifth and eighth grade and then that cut score piece is deceiving of how kids shift up and down. It's really important to look at the endgame and see where we're getting our kids. We also know that there are learning progressions and so we want to be really careful with our curriculum writing and that's something that we focus on to ensure that we're spiraling content and we're revisiting things. The other piece about um this is kind of you know probably a leading indicator um and an input that's really important to note about some shift in in the um next accountability index number is that at the root of the work we're having special educators write curriculum and think about the design of assessments with the department chairs 612 and alongside um Dr. Falhon at the
045elementary level. So beginning with the end in mind for all kids is incredibly important especially when we're thinking about the whole child of MTSS or thinking about a broad you know diverse set of indicators like would be in the nextG report. >> Thank you Greg. Thanks. Uh, first Amy, is your son I think you said what? 409 miles. That really That's incredible if that's bananas. I know that's like >> that's a metric we should be talking >> incredible. We just pause and 409 is like >> I'm like 12 something. >> Um, I had just a couple clarific what what is determining the goal? Is that us or is that this? So the state the state there are scale scores and the state determines the the cut scores for levels one two three and four. The
046state >> that's the cut scores that >> Yeah. And the state also determines what the growth targets are for the individual student and the growth targets for the nextgen accountability index. >> Got it. Okay. That sort of led to my next question which is looking at the the nextgen accountability report. Like there's a bunch of categories where we get 100% of max points. Yeah, >> it seems like a number of them where we're not are, >> you know, academic growth, but how is that determined? Is that like we're already really high level, so how can we grow at 5% forever? It's not possible, obviously. So, like how is that measured? >> So, um, with regard to the growth index, right, it's it can be this is what I think Dr. Burn was talking about. This
047is why it's critically important for us to be thinking about MTSS, our framework, and aligning intervention services, whether it's students who are receiving tier 2, tier three, or supports through special education because um those students, they there are more gaps in their learning, and so it's harder to close gaps like that. It's harder to gain those points, which is why they're weighted more heavily. And the state determines that that, >> right? And yet just said um >> and yet as Dr. Burns said also when we look at the cohort yearbyear we've seen significant growth in what the state deems as um high need students. >> Yeah. And I think that this I think there was you made a bunch of comments around like missing data. Obviously this is a starting point. I think like as
048we go forward it'll be great as we fill in those gaps and then we'll have like a lot more data as we go forward to be able to make you know better informed decisions. So, for example, in in the training this afternoon, we were looking at a data point of student performance um in ELA and there was an indicator where our whole population was sitting at like 88%. And when we're looking in particular with the students who are identified as multilingual learners, they were at 70%. 70% is still fantastic when you look at what students are expected to do when they come to the country and they they might be, you know, newcomers. Um but that's there's a lot of discrepancy between the score of that newcomer and the whole population and so that's kind
049of what results in um the calculus here. >> Right. Thank you. >> Welcome. Thank you. >> Yeah. Not yet. >> No, I mean I would just I would just note um that the you know trend upward in the nextgen report seems to track with uh Amy's time in district. So thank you. Oh, I will say that um this is largely the work of the people sitting over there and all the people out in the schools, most importantly our kids. So, our staff and our students. So, thank you. I was pretty excited saw this. So, like knock your socks off. >> You're not the only one, >> baby. We'll do our best and we can still do better and better. >> Um I just wanted to comment that I really appreciate the way that you opened
050to this and then um Dr. in the way that you reinforced this too about the difference between standardized tests and big sort of um content blocks um versus how our teachers are really looking at what the students are doing every day and and what that means in terms of their comprehension and and our adjustments. So um that right there I think is just a really really salient point. So thank you. I did want to ask about the classification on high need students. Um, and thank you Amy for uh defining it as the state does in the special education community. We talk about high needs students differently. So am I understanding you correctly that the state classification is including anyone with an IEP regardless of what that specific Okay. So there's really the whole range of
051every type of learner in that. >> Katie, thank you for asking that. I would defer to Shirley. Um for the purposes of this presentation and the state definition, it is high needs. Any student who receives any type of service, instructional related service um or ML or is identified to receive free lunch. But there are different forms of the standardized assessment. The CTAA, CTAS. I don't know if Shelley wanted to talk about any of that, but this is including all of our kids. >> So, it's with the with the exception of the CTA, which is the Connecticut alternate assessment, which is the test that is given to a very small percentage, usually about one or less than 2% of the students who receive um a portfolio assessment based on the standards, but based on what their
052current levels of performance are. Dennis. >> So, in keeping with the sports theme, uh I kind of want to go and and do Len Berman and span the world and see do we have or can we go and find our cohorts uh next generation accountability report? Can we see new Kane and Weston and see how how well they do or not? >> They only do it for the district, right? It's not do they do individuals >> every So are you asking the nextgen accountability index for another district? >> Yeah. Just to compare ourselves to them and see how well or not we're doing versus you know and see that >> is that on the public uh the public website the yeah the Connecticut public data site Dr. >> Robin >> um thank you for all
053of this. I I wanted to ask a couple questions. First of all, do do you feel as administrators that we have sufficient technology and data capability to really effectively drill down to the building and grade level? You mentioned a data portal here. So that's one question. I mean, do you have the support and the necessary things that you need in order to make this instructionally val instructionally valuable? So that's one question. And then secondly then how do you how often and how frequently are the teachers getting to the level where they can actually modify and adapt instruction >> based on some of this data. Um so that's t kind of two questions just you know the support and maybe potentially budgetary needs as well in order to enable that and then the feedback loop um
054in terms of more real time instructional changes and then the curriculum revision cycle >> where I would imagine we're also modifying or like changing things in order to address gaps. >> I would say for individual students so I think that was your middle question. This isn't particularly helpful right because of when you get it. So, but for the systematic and and the system level change, that certainly is impactful. And I think Amy's been speaking to that a bit, but I I just wanted to say for day-to-day instructional purposes, those in-house and the assessments that the formative assessments that Amy talked about earlier, those are the ones that are really going to dictate what change do I make on Tuesday based on what I learned about the student on Monday. >> Okay. And your first question
055um is a really important one. Thinking about a data portal and and actually one of the elements of the strategic plan, right, is thinking about how do we use technology efficiently so that our cognitive load can really be on planning for instruction and and making sure we're growing the capacity of our staff. Um we have been talking Dr. Falconee the um some of the department chairs uh Tim Maguire around is our data portal that we currently use efficient in supporting that work um so that the data isn't just collected but that it's really being used and leveraged to inform and you know instruction and move the needle for student performance um for individual kids and as we're making some shifts with our MTSS framework it's causing us al also to look at that we currently
056use a data portal called the RTI studio Um, it is not particularly user friendly. I think does cause some frustration for our staff. I'm not surprised. I had experience with that in another life. Um, and so we also have staff that are really, really bright and committed who've developed some wonderful systemic tools using Google Sheets. We have to be very careful thinking about student data privacy laws and making sure that whatever we create is sustainable. and we don't know if what we've like the prototype that we're building in house is really sustainable over time. So in short, there are a few different options um that we're looking at that are different that have different platforms that would allow us to do this data analysis um more efficiently and and more effectively plan for instructions in
057instruction for individual and small group instruction. So I would anticipate that probably um through if not this budget cycle, the next one you would you would hear about that. Thank you. >> Did you have a third question about the curriculum cycle? I'm talking >> Oh, and and the revisions. I mean, I I would imagine that part of our curriculum revision cycle would then also be looking at the areas where we see achievement gaps and then going back and modifying curriculum or is is that happening? >> Thank you for Thank you for that reminder, such I had that written here. Um, yeah. So, if you remember, we do have that seven-year cycle and it begins with an impetus for change, which might be something like play-based learning legislation or new standards in social studies. We also
058have, you know, the different stages through that seven-year cycle. And one is thinking about instructional shifts. The other stage, stage two really is around assessments. So when we take a look at this assessment information and the feedback that we get, we do look deeper more deeply I should say into the claims that come out for student performance and then we start to think about do our assessments match are we asking students to perform in the same way that the standardized assessment is. Are we ensuring we doing a gap analysis and looking at the standards? So that work is ongoing and the department chairs really lead that work in each of their department areas. Um, and that is really important uh, professional learning that they do with their staffs because as they're looking at the assessment
059data and they're thinking about the standards, that's really professional learning when we're thinking about curriculum revisions and that's a strength of I think how we approach curriculum writing in districts. >> Thank you, >> Sarah. I'm good. I have my questions in the house. Thank you, John. So, I'm a sucker for AP scores and the AP data. And when I look at the ascent in terms of the AP student count, >> you know, we're up to 528 students in 2025, but is there a total accounting for I know that's the number of students in a given year, but when you look at the percentage of students at Darian High School that ultimately take one or an AP course, do we have a percentage for that at all? And I probably should ask before this meeting. Um,
060I would ask Kathy Aster or Mrs. Dunn, do you do you keep that type of data at DHS? >> Yes. >> So, yes, Mr. C. Yes, the answer is yes. >> And while it's not here readily, it's also something that we could provide if Dr. Burn asked us to. >> Yeah. I'm sorry. I should have perhaps noted the question before it but >> yes um they changed the name of the report. It used to be called the equity and access report and it would give you the percentage of uh students in the graduating class um who took a um an AP class at any point. >> Um so I can get that data for you. >> Okay. No, that's great because again I'm looking at the trends and you know then I I look at
061the percentage of total AP students with scores 30 plus 95% ascending again it gets tougher and tougher to get that that ultimate outcome of 100%. But you know I look at AP classes maybe this will flaw you but you know culmination of their education through the system and the ability for our student body 95% of them to score three or better which get in many schools gets college credit is amazing. So, I just wanted to call that out in terms of how that kind of fits into the vision of the graduate which you highlighted when you first came on. Um, and then I'd just love to say that this whole presentation is awesome. that comes to culmination what I think Greg and others were were seeking uh you know only a year or so ago
062and the data cuts through I find you know if you look through it a lot of the noise that we've encountered as a board as a community and you know as board members and everybody out there you know I want to trumpet this news not because we're a great district but you know this is as Amy said this is 23 24 data this is only three years after co >> so it shows that even though we have ever so slight dip, the rebound that we've had and the dedication of our educators to get to these points. So, I deeply appreciate you pulling it together like this and all the work got us. >> Our pleasure. It's celebratory for all of us. We're really proud of our kids and our staff and we'll continue to strive
063for, you know, always continuous improvement, too. just you know the thank you for recognizing that about the AP and college and career uh credit um for kids to take off with them but the SAT data triangulates with that so that's another exciting thing it's not just that one data point >> yeah I view as AP is a lot different than SATs because you can prep for SATs it's a lot >> whole different uh animal in the AP world and then to hear at least anecdotally my kids say some of their classes at Darren High School were tougher than their engineering class in the college >> 100% >> pretty amazing so thank you >> thank I have I Oh, sorry. Go ahead. Go ahead. >> Just one additional question on the um seal of bi literacy
064um which is really phenomenal that 43% of our seniors have gotten that. I the question I had is do we have a breakdown of which languages you know the number of students or percentage of students was it primarily Spanish or you know did we have a lot in Mandarin as well and I'm just curious kind of the breakdown if we had that available. >> It is primarily in Spanish. I don't have that ready at the moment. I'm not sure if my colleagues do in the room and if not if Dr. Bird would like we can >> Yeah, we can follow up with um the questions in a memo. >> Thanks. >> I have one more question myself on seal of biiteracy. Does ASL qualify as um a language that you can receive the seal for?
065>> It does. Yeah. >> Okay. So, we should start to see this show up in a year or two. >> Great. This year we did um level three so we're at ASL 3. Okay. >> So we'll have information also and hopefully next year we'll be at ASL 4. >> Yeah. Great. >> That's a spoiler alert for committee meeting. >> Any other questions on this topic? And John, thank you for that summary. No. Okay. All right. Thank you all for the work. Um and we look forward to seeing um what this looks like through the year. Great. Thank you all. >> Okay. In terms of the work you do. All right. Great. Um personnel report March. Big news. >> So the the big news is that the three openings that we have two elementary special education
066teachers and one speech and language pathologist are all due to people who left on or after the first day of school. So I continue to be disappointed that teachers do that knowing that there are kids in the classroom that need to be serviced. But we're working hard to try to fill those three positions and pars are a little more transient, but as far as teaching positions go. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Excuse me. Okay. Follow-up action items. We have a couple of items from this um presentation. I think there were two questions or maybe three. >> We'll get those back on the memo. That's the percentage students on the AP courses and >> follow languages. >> Okay, great. >> In that link >> in the language. Oh, yeah. The Edite link. >> Any other Did
067I miss any other follow-up items? >> No. Okay. With that, we'll move to public comment. >> Good evening. If you'd like to participate in public comment, please approach the podium and wait to be recognized. Once recognized, please state your name and address for the record and note that you will have up to three minutes to comment. Nobody. There's no one online. And there's no one up here at the podium. So, thank you all. With that, may I have a motion to adjurnn? That is Joanna, seconded by Dave. All those in favor? That is unanimous.