Board of Education Meeting - October 10, 2023

001reporting thank you for your patience great thank you Michelle thank you Jeff good evening everyone thank you for those of us joining us in person we've got a nice Full House and thank you for those of you joining us on Zoom um I would like to call this regular meeting of the Board of Education to order the next regular regular Board of Education meeting is on Tuesday October 24th at 7:30 p.m. in the Board of Education meeting room um a few comments first I would like to welcome Brena agarabi um as our next student rep to the Board of Education Brena welcome Brena is a junior up at Daran high school I had the pleasure of um meeting with Brena I think at 7 AM last Friday morning um I will say the coffee is

002good up at the high school thank you but thank you for meeting meeting me that early in the morning with Dr adley we had a great conversation do you want to take a minute and introduce yourself and talk a little bit about all the good stuff you're doing up at the high school H sure if you could bring that closer to you that helps it's okay I do theater I can I can project good thank you um hi I'm Brena I want to first of all thank you all for meeting here and you know giving me this wonderful opportunity to help this wonderful School District that I've really you know learned to grow into and learn to love um I've spent let me think the past seven years in the school district I moved here

003from bronville Public School District where my mom's actually a high school English teacher um and you know I've really enjoyed it ever since and um I've just grown to so great greatly appreciate you know all the work that goes on behind the scenes all the faculty all of our you know wonderful teachers and you know every everyone that just kind of you know makes the magic happen and I'm so excited for um these upcoming years and yeah I want to thank you all so much well thank you and [Applause] welcome I want to also welcome Robin Nelson she joins our board this is your first official meeting so thank you thank you for going the process and um you've had a great history of volunteerism and service in the community and tour schools so we

004welcome you to the board thank you very much for being here worth Round of Applause yes [Applause] absolutely it's a round of applause evening so that's good um I will also um shout out to Katie Lublin and the oxridge um building committee we had a official Handover of the school um from the town uh subject to a formal vote but uh we had a really nice ceremony Saturday morning in the beautiful gymnasium at the oxridge elementary school with kind of a semiformal Handover of the school in terms of care control and custody to the board subject to the board in the town board's meeting and approving that but um thank you to all the members of the board first selectman Monica MCN and her team uh former first selectman Jamie Stevenson our former rep Terry

005Wood um current rep uh Tracy Mara and the building committee many members of the board were there uh the public um and many me many members of the ox school it's a it's a beautiful school as I said in my remarks um this town values education continues to invest in education not just from a curriculum and a technology stand front but from a facility stand front he said if I'm ever in a room again where someone's looking for people on a building committee I will run out of that room rather quickly but now we have Jill on HHR so um it truly is a a testament to this town it's a group of volunteers that stood up and uh delivered a building five years later from the ground up um really on time and once

006the final accounting is done I know it will be under budget and as I said I think Melissa Kay's compliment um as a new principal up there and someone that's been part of buildings and and other schools throughout her tenure as an educator um aside from being a greatl looking building she said it's incredibly functional so I said mission accomplished in this day and age you can build you have the Architects you've got to always have some fun with that with the look and feel of the building but at the end of the day to have an educator say it's incredibly functional I say mission accomplished so um an incredible team and uh thank you Katie behind the scenes with the parents and the community they're kind of organizing the ribbon Cy which went off

007flawlessly and it was held inside which I think was kind of nice we showed off the gymnasium and the um and the stage up there which was great so um the only other thing we had um there may be some folks speaking here this evening which I think is great we've had on ongoing feedback from the community on the late start at Daren High School I think that's important that we have that conversation I think we need to set you know expectations in terms of when that could occur I think what the board will do will look at the master agenda and see when that can come on in terms of looking at the master agenda we'll um look at that over the next couple of weeks and I think I'm not sure when the

008next conversation is about the master agenda but I think just to set the right expectations the work that would have to be done from an administrative standpoint and gathering information even from our neighbors that have done this um is a lot of work as we move quickly into budget season also a new board will be seated um in November and then we move right into budget season so I think it will be more of a spring conversation that will play into kind of setting goals and objectives for next year which leads into work that's done during our summer Retreat so I think that's a little bit of a timeline that the administration could work on in conjunction with the board but um we hear you we think it's something that the board will look at

009in the administration but there's a lot of work around it so with that um Michelle I will turn it over to you and public comment good evening if anyone in person would like to participate in public comment please go up to the podium wait for the chair to acknowledge you you will have up to three minutes please state your name and address for the [Music] record uh good evening my name is Brian Edgar and I live at 30 Hil Street uh first i' just like to add my congratulations to Robin and to Brena thank you for your willingness to serve on the board uh I wish you a lot of good luck during your tenure I think there's few occasions when your thunder gets stolen but I'm here to talk about I'm happy about it

010I'm here to talk about school start time so I'm here to ask the board to add an agenda item to one of its remaining meetings this year uh that agenda item would be a presentation discussion and possible action regarding changing the start time at Daran High School to 8:30 a.m. I was encouraged by your comments tonight Mr den and of course at the last board meeting um I'm really glad the board has heard us including a later starttime agenda item would get this process moving starting high school at 7:40 a.m. unnecessarily shortens the window where teens can get the sleep they need each day if we assume that a high school student goes to bed at exactly 11:00 p.m. and wakes up at exactly 7: a.m. they could get the minimum 8 hour asleep but

011that's only the minimum however we know how unrealistic that schedule is in fact our own high school bus schedule provs it of the nine morning high school buses seven have pickups before 7 a.m. the earliest being 6:46 a.m. in total across all the high school morning bus routs there are 33 bus stops with pickup times before 7: a.m. we know that adequate sleep is foundational to the mental phys physical and emotional health of our students again starting high school at 7:40 a.m. does not provide the opportunity for our students to achieve the necessary sleep each day 20 years ago in the fall of 203 Wilton changed its high school start time to 8:20 a.m. by all accounts it's been a great success more recently Greenwich High School changed its start time to 8:30 a.m. we

012couldn't learn from their experiences and implement this change in Daran sooner than later at the previous board meeting you heard that 175 parents have indicated their support for this change as of today just 14 days later there are 309 parents that support a later start time at DHS awareness about this issue is growing support for this change is increasing too when we see the successes of nearby towns implementing later start times and consider all the data and studies showing the benefits of starting High School later don't we owe it to our students to make this change it's time for Daran to change the start time at DHS to 8:30 a.m. please make this a priority add it to your agenda so we can begin the work to make this change a reality thank you thank

013you anyone else in public thank you Michelle anyone on Zoom anyone on Zoom would like to participate in public comment please use the raised hand icon there are no raised hands at this time okay thank you um we will move on to the superintendent report Dr adley good evening everybody and thank you for those who are attending uh this evening both our staff and uh members of the community um I'd like to to start off by recognizing uh an outstanding senior at DHS High School um anakah mang mangel we had the opportunity to U meet with anah just after uh we met with Brena actually uh Ana is is an art student and she's also very much involved in medicine she she has this unique desire to combine medicine uh with her art Jaclyn zamas

014who is her is her art teacher is here this evening and has supported her through her journey thus far um a we bit of a unique thing since we're talking about some test scores this evening uh Ana scored a perfect score in the 2023 AP art uh absolute perfect score which I believe is only the second person in Daran history uh to actually do this I we bit of a unique thing too um the reason I was meeting with anakah is that anakah uh will be helping the board uh and helping the administration one of the items and agenda items that are on the Strategic plan is to develop a District logo uh with a pet of colors and so on and so forth uh that is what anakah is going to do and she'll

015she'll have a variety of Eyes Upon that and uh the board will be able to see along the way too so um she's Keen to do that work and she tapped to the plague to do it and um she's already well on her way uh so I we look forward to uh receiving her ideas and her rendition um she also was actually participating and I think she drives one of our ambulances in time uh she's a me member of the American Heart Association she works for them and advocates for them um she also was uh accepted to present at an international GM conference and I think that GM is uh graphics and Medicine the unique thing is the people who said that she could uh be accepted into the the presentation in the conference didn't

016know she was a high school student uh so it's just absolutely remarkable it's just just an indication of the talent we have across the board in the Arts and all all sorts of domains uh but I also just wanted to recognize that she is the student who will be working closely with Administration and the board and and developing a uh a Darian logo I don't know if you know that we don't have a logo uh technically um uh but she she'll she'll work with K through uh 12 students uh prek even through 12 students staff and members of the board to come up with that uh particular logo so uh we thank her for that with congratulate her on her achievements thus far uh this is uh World National Health day today across the world

017uh countries across the world are recognizing that given what's happening in the world today maybe it's hard to see that in some places but uh th even more the importance I say that because an's also do uh doing a mental health uh mural which would be right beside the welcome desk uh so she's got a lot of the bases covered so we congratulate her uh on our achievements and recognition uh both in our assessment and AP test and the other areas of that she is pursuing um like many of our students multi talented students also want to recognize we have a group of students Dariana High School Commander students in the 20 uh 24 National Merit Scholarship uh program with have 20 one of the students I won't read out all their names but um

018you may recognize some of them there and if you want the names I can certainly provide those uh as the Mr chairman mentioned uh on Saturday we had an wonderful opportunity sometimes these opportunities just sort of fly by and you don't like just stop and realize what's going on in the district a little bit but the celebration of that ARX Ridge uh community and the ARX Ridge new school it's just unbelievable and um I will say uh to Mr chairman here he doesn't normally say those things he he points to other people but he is the co-chair of of this particular committee and has been working closely alongside all and guiding that uh committee uh with his partner Kip Coons uh it's just a remarkable uh school so if you didn't get a chance to

019see it uh we can share some of it because some of it was taped and there's a lot of photographs that go around the DHS track has been completed and it it is beautiful uh on Thursday evening this week the uh thriving youth will be presenting that findings that were presented to the board at our last uh meeting uh we're continuing to work uh administratively on the implications of the uh kindergarten legislation uh so we'll bring that back to the board and we'll work through with house for parents and so on so forth but we'll obviously come back to the board first before that we cross our fingers for our Saturday uh toen Carnival um I hope the rain is it seems like a rain every weekend this this well WEA October 22nd is at

020the American Foundation isde prevention of the darkness work we will participate uh with members of the community uh during that time just a reminder to uh members of the board um for the C caps convention if you could get that information if you're going to go like to submit the first round of that uh by Friday of this particular week because get we bit of a break if we could do that before Friday so if you're interested and participant let me know a couple of people have let me know so you'll be signed up don't worry about which sessions per se because you can change the sessions it's just the days are we going to be there for two days you're going to be there for one day or a half a day or otherwise

021uh upcoming meetings uh we do have a policy committee meeting on the 13th here this week and curriculum committee on the 12th and the finance committee on the 19th and the next uh facilities is in November thank you Dr Aden we'll move on to the student representative report reports SW good evening so um at Daren high school right now the student government is mostly preoccupied with planning our homecoming week which is next week um and it's going to end with a um pep rally on Friday and a bonfire Friday night which during my time at dur in high school this is the first time that we're trying that so I'm excited um and student government is also planning to host our third trunk Retreat um at end of October and the past two years it's

022gone really well we've um gotten a lot of donations and a lot of kids showed up and clubs participated so hopefully it's going to be like a continuing thing good St Brena we also have a series of different athletic events um Monday October 16th we have girls soccer 4M Wednesday uh field hockey and girls volleyball cross country and Thursday Thurday we have boys soccer and on Friday we have girls swimming and Diving and Saturday we have the big football game which should be super exciting um we also have a variety of things going on in the Arts um our all our DHS music ensembles just had our sort of like opening concert um it is available for live stream if you want to go visit the DF media YouTube channel um some really great performances

023all around and uh theater 308 will have tickets on sale for our fall drama the dining room on October 16th great you have a role are you are do you have a role oh yes okay you're in the production yeah oh great all right as I said all across the board there's just incredible talent in the theater music Sports and the day-to-day curriculum so thank you and welcome again to the board nice job um we'll move on to to approval of minutes may have a motion to approve the minutes of the special meeting and regular meeting held on September 26th 2023 Sarah second by Dennis all those in favor unanimous with everyone present thank you we move on any board committee reports the uh HHR has gone back out to bid and we are looking

024forward to receiving numbers back uh towards the end of the month beginning of November and so we'll have more information for everyone in November great thank you other committee reports I know we have a couple of meetings coming up this week so good um we will move on to presentations and discussions we will report on testing sbac sat act AP ngss anyone that can say what all those acronyms are wins a day off um we will have Miss Katherine Oar Dr Fedigan and Miss droller presenting thank you good evening good evening evening happy birthday thank you um as mentioned I'm Kathy AAR I'm the new director of counseling and I'm very excited to be here tonight with Julie to present the um student achievement data report I just this um we're very proud of the

025wonderfully talented students our deeply committed faculty and our extremely supportive School leaders deran public school once again delivered impressive results these results are a clear reflection of the hard work of the students the staff and of a community who's obviously committed to supporting educational Excellence the presentation We Have Tonight reviews results from both State mandated testing in grades K12 as well as optional testing at the high school that optional testing is often used for college admissions if students choose to submit their scores so we'll present this data in two parts first Julie will share the results of the state mandated K8 testing and then I will share the results of the high school thank you Kathy good evening again everybody I am here with my colleagues and as we've done in previous years we'll go

026through half of the presentation smarter balance and ngss and then we'll pause for questions we have Francis Francis Jasco Ronnie Roder and Christian doam here to um answer any questions as well as myself and then we'll go on to the second part with the high school results if that's okay with everybody so just a little overview about our summatives testing Smarter Balance assessment and Next Generation Science assessment um are given in the spring as well as the Connecticut school day sat we're going to talk about the SAT act advanced placement and this year we're also going to talk about the Seal of biliteracy and provide our testing dates for next year so we want to start off by talking about our Darian Public School assessment framework just to contextualize this so these are the different

027kinds of Assessments that we give to our students Universal screeners identify which students are not meeting Benchmark and may require further diagnosis Sumit of Assessments which we're going to talk about tonight these are assessments of learning so at the end of a chapter or a unit or a course we see what content um has been Mastered by students formative assessment is in the moment assessment it's assessment for learning those are the kind of Assessments questioning classwork EX tickets performance tasks uh on demand writing where teachers can actually um pay attention to what students are doing and how they're responding to their learning provide feedback and adjust their instruction in real time also in real time our students self assessments checklists goal setting and peer conferences so we felt like that was helpful to contextualize the

028presentation that we're going to talk about tonight Smarter Balance assessment as you know is administered in grades 3 through eight it's a snapshot of student progress in English language arts and Mathematics students receive an achievement level one through four where three is meeting expectations four is exceeding two is near and a one is not meeting and then an overall scale score the scores represent the students Knowledge and Skills within each content area and there are three areas of Knowledge and Skills in um English language Arts it's listening Reading Writing and research inquiry in mathematics its Concepts and procedures problem solving and modeling and data analysis and communicating reasoning the test is computer adaptive which means it adjusts to the student performance so if students are answering the questions easily they'll get more challenging if they're

029um struggling they will become easier individual score reports were released on September and there was a parent present uh video shared with parents um who had uh questions about um student scores so these assessments along with the other assessments that I just spoke about provide us with a very comprehensive profile of student performance so we're going to begin with math these are our results from this year these are our students who scored at or above goal um so they received a level three or four this is a four-year Trend I'm sorry this is um our dur comparison so you could see where we are um in relation to our neighboring colleagues in the dur oops for some reason my slides are going out of order this is a slide I'm going to hand this out

030based on some questions we added a few slides in there's three slides there so um we were asked about historical data going back to 20 201516 which was the first year that these um smart to balance assessments were administered so we have all that data there is an aster um next to 2020 21 we are C caution by the state to um not com use those for comparisons because of the different learning models in person hybrid and um remote and I talked about our dirt comparison um these are just some of our takeaways and our response and again you'll have an opportunity to ask questions and and we can dig a little bit deeper but there's a consistency of high achievement across multiple grades we are at around 80% for all of our grades which

031is at the top of the state um strong math performance over time several of our grades ranked among the top three in our dir so we're proud of our our students and our teachers um we are doing some crossgrade level collaboration to share best practices we've talked about our vertical teams and this is something that we're really excited about um we are doing some deeper analysis into our eighth grade performance um we talked about that last year there is an increase this year but um it is still our our lowest score across all grades and ongoing professional learning this year we have Dr Ye Bonar who is coming back to work with um our teachers so you know especially in areas of weakness and differentiation in English language arts you can see that our scores

032are a little bit more inconsistent although again we are still at the top of the state and at the top or in the middle of the Durk This is out and I I think I skipped a slot I'm sorry um this is our four-year Trend but this is another place where we added an additional slide based on our request for that history so this is the six-year data from 201516 all the way through this year and here we are in the dur so again we are at the top of the duror or somewhere in the middle um for all grades so some of our takeaways for English language arts again as I said varied performance across grades um we're especially proud of our performance in fifth grade that has done consistently well um grade three

033was likely impacted by the pandemic I'll just remind you that those were the children that were in kindergarten when we shut down for coid and then first grade when we were back with hybrid and in person and um wearing masks so that definitely had an impact not just here but in all districts across the state grade eight perform is showing improvement over time um and grade six and seven are areas that um we are looking into for improvement so again some of the things that we are doing we're looking at vertical teams to analyze our data with third grade um compassionate and datadriven approach so we know that those students have some social emotional needs as well um so we're looking closely at data to address that decrease but a lot of small group instruction

034a lot of relationship building um a lot of more um one-on-one in small group to meet their needs and ongoing professional development particularly in our foundational literacy skills not just for our primary teachers but for all teachers because we know that those teacher those students are now in fourth grade um middle sex professional development there's an emphasis on Smart Balance growth targets and differentiated instruction so for the Next Generation Science assessment again this is our per percentage at our above goal and our foure Trend so we are creeping back up to pre pandemic uh 2019 was the first year that the ngss was administered so we only have four years of data oops sorry about that um and this is the dur comparison so here again some of our takeaways there's a three-year positive trend

035in scores in all grades um they have rebounded to prepandemic levels and grades 8 and 11 are the highest in the past three years that doesn't mean that we still have work to do in this area grade 11 performance compared to the Durk is identified as a need to review and one of the things that we're looking into is when and how our students are tested um in terms of our response there's an analysis of building and grade level data to identify strengths and areas of growth analysis of students who are performing below the expectations to identify Trends and performance um and any sequencing patterns at the high school we are continuing to revise curricular units to support the integration of three-dimensional learning and the Next Generation science standards and at the middle school and

036the high school teacher practice goals have been developed to focus on instructional practices that support this three-dimensional learning so I will pause there for questions to join thank you Mr Jan Dr fed again after you take your sip of water just your outside looking in view of the data at a high level on a high level these scores as are really around there Su assessment that really should really Day-Day instruction these come in stud already passed so they're somewhat dated they're not as powerful for teachers to inform te learning as for ass learning I think some of the sces will give us um some pause to look into the standard specific Target are consider matches or have some gaps and also about thisr great thank you for that you're welcome I'll it open up to

037board questions ktie um thank you first I just wanted to say um Dr fedan and I I appreciate that you commenting um about the importance of curriculum revision and looking into that I notice that that only appeared on the science slides not on the math or the ELA but from your comments I take it to mean that you're looking at it holistically across all the testing areas that is correct part of our work and that's aligned with the Strategic plan is really looking at curriculum um thinking about our curriculum cycle thinking about our curriculum calendar for revision and also thinking about how our work in the area of vision of The Graduate may need to call for some revision to the curriculum great thank you um one just question about esac in particular I was

038curious um what steps might be taken when a student year-over-year because they do take it annually over that period when they have a drop so what steps are followed up with individual families and students when their specific performance drops so um this is one area of assessment that we would look at and um in practice teams srbi teams or RTI teams in the elementary schools at the middle school would be looking at the suite of Assessments that are in a students's profile we were talking about this actually this afternoon in our elementary leadership meeting um what types of data do we have on students what data do we look at and for what purpose so um it would be our practice to look at student performance um for students who have fallen behind grade level

039expectation prior to even the summit of assessment reports being released um but this is another data point that we would consider um in June and July when these when these scores are released for the teacher who will have the student the following school year but we would want to triangulate this data with other data points for example like an as web assessment or other unit assessments um other interm assessments that we have as a part of the curriculum we wouldn't want to look at um a data point in an isolated way we want to look at the whole you know comprehensive Suite of assessment pieces that are in a student's profile I appreciate that um since the espect scores do come out annually and they are as you mentioned you know from the prior year

040past it's curious if there was discussion about sharing the ongoing Asim web scores with parents my understanding is that current practice is that they're shared only by specific request as opposed to just automatically it's almost as if miss lelin you were in our elementary leadership team meeting at 4:30 because this is another item that we discussed um I will defer to miss stroller to help in help me in responding to this um because I'm I'm still learning what the past practice has been with sharing some of these data points and I would just caution that in doing so be really important for us to discuss with any data point any type of assessment the rationale for the type of assessment and how it should be used and most importantly what it tells us about the

041students's next level of learning so not what the student cannot do but when we look at the standard and the targets for learning what is the student working on next that would be important information for not only teachers but for parents for example to know at home and and that that has been our practice has has been just not to share that as web data um I'm not really sure that I have an answer to that it's a universal screener and um I don't know how difficult it would be to share those reports I don't know if they would have to be printed I mean there are probably multiple pages when they're printed I don't know if if that would have to be mailed out um but there is no reason why parents can't have

042that data and it doesn't it's it's a universal screener so it really just tells us if students are meeting Benchmark if they're not we do other diagnostic data that is way more informative um and probably because the majority of our students do so well um it's it's such a small percentage that don't Meet The Benchmark on those assessments so I would think we would want to um kind of frame that in a discussion around what not only what is the universal screener showing but what are other assessments showing with regard to what the student is working on in their next level of literacy or mathematics like in a learning progression um because sometimes the score um doesn't really just indicate that right what is the student working on next it's if you look at a

043score in an isolated like percentage or a number it doesn't it's not as instructive to a teacher or a parent when you can think instead about what is the students's again next learning Target so that I think we would have to I'm just cautioning if we're looking at scores we should also be looking at like related skills makes sense Jill as we look at numbers like these I wondered if you could talk to us about how you are separating out what is curricular work and what is the unique experience of some of the kids who have gone through coid so for example if I look at grade eight mathematics we are definitely looking at a big difference between 1516 and 2223 I would guess that there's a need for some a look at some of

044the curricular uh aspects of of that you know kids who have been on that trajectory but I also wonder is there a way to isolate things that this particular cohort whether it's three four five six seven eight any of those folks any of those kids students have gone through we were where we might need to remediate and are there plans to actually look at specific types of remediation for gaps and that's usually where we look at individual student scores one year over the next to see who's you know students that that are where there's a dip then we would look at at other types of data okay more at an individual level you're looking so then as a process you take each who takes someone takes the S back for each child and Compares it

045year-over-year yes okay um and then if there's a decline performance then there is a specific process for remediation along like like um Dr Fedigan said along like in our comprehensive assessment system we look at a multitude of Assessments but yes okay so this is an important conversation because we do want to look at individual student performance over time right for sometimes there are increases and we want to see you know what is supporting that we also want to look where students may be dip in and provide really differentiated instruction um we can look at the SBA data and drill down into again like learning progressions and more concrete standards that would be areas of focus for individual students and then we can make small groups that's happening at the middle school I was talking to

046Dr dalstrom earlier today um about the process in the middle school and it's very much parallel at the elementary school but we're just looking at di um data from more than one um because this is one moment in time so we want to look at what is the trend across other assessments okay throughout the previous year um okay also in support of figuring out how to support the student so you mentioned small group instruction as one tool I would imagine srvr type interventions or another for for a child who either is identified as needing them or already has them in place is that are there any other large Tools in your toolbox that you're deploying again I I know that parents are very justifiably concerned about gaps in kids learning so just would love to

047be able to speak to what our well any student who doesn't meet you know who doesn't um score a level three or or a four we're obviously looking carefully at that student those students that aren't meeting Benchmark um and I would say that there are very few surprises we we usually you know they're they're usually on our radar and again we don't get much granular information from the smarter balance assessments plus it's old data by the time the student are in our classroom so that would be information that you know hey we need to look at at this student and we look at all of their data and and as Dr fedman said um it's it's um all of their what what are they what are the areas of strength and what are the areas

048of growth and what's the learning going to look like for that particular student um thank you for the comments I have I wanted just pull it right to you there you go yeah good um I just wanted to follow up on what um Jill was asking about a little bit more because this um the six-year Trend graphs that you just distributed were really helpful because for instance when you look at grade eight for Math and then also grade six and seven for English the the level that the students were at across the board in 20156 for instance grade was 90 and in this most recent year it was 76 and then for the English it went from 86 or 89 to 75 and77 the the earliest year and then the most recent year and so

049one question I have obviously part of that I think is maybe coid and some lost learning over the last few years but even prior to coid it seems that something may have changed I'm just wondering if it that if was that a curricular change or is there something that we're doing differently that might be causing some of that difference in the overall scores hi I'm Ronnie boder I'm the new math chair welcome thank you um thank you for your question um and Jill I think I can address a little bit what what you were asking regarding curriculum um to repeat we certainly right now are doing an analysis at the grade level to identify strengths and areas of growth but when Amy said we really drill down we really do drill down into domains so

050for math in particular the domains are communication reasoning procedural knowledge and data analysis and to no surprise in Dar and procedural knowledge we're we're strong we're good so um embedding and integrating more reading and writing tasks in our opportunities really to support the communication reasoning and the data analysis sections of the test that's where it's affecting our curriculum and that's what we're doing now we're really taking a deep dive into that um in addition to identifying individual students is that helpful um also our goals in professional learning this year are aligned with supporting opportunities for students to problem solve and engage in math in a similar way uh that presents itself on smart or balanced assessment and the fact that everything is really focused and aligned um I think is a good start S thank

051you so I as everybody has said these are a snapshot of a moment in time and I think we need to be very cautious about how we speak about this data point representing a child um it's this is a each test it's a is a snap of a moment in time we all need to remember that um I am curious that so about the more qualitative aspects of our students performance um I don't I'm not a data person I like the more holistic student um so if you're looking just taking these this 90 um in 2015 versus the 76 last year do you see a big difference in those students and is there um you know I know it's hard to generalize across an entire grade but is there a difference in study habits is

052there a difference in the way that you know attention span is there is there any difference in the students as a whole um that might explain some of this I think it's a challenge for any student on any given day when they're taking a formalized assessment to persevere and struggle through difficult problems um whether it's in math or in English I think we're certainly dealing with a different population of students who have other things going on outside of just academics in their mind um and we can see that sometimes when uh on a particular day and perhaps on a particular day during a test it's just a [Music] snapshot go go Francis um um thank you it's great to be here and I'll just uh I'll do my best to address that um our teachers

053and um this may seem anecdotal but I think it there's some truth to to this fact that um we are having a harder time at the middle school um supporting students independent reading uh we do reading logs we have opportunities for students to share uh in uh small groups and we do everything possible to promote it we've had programs in place to support summer reading um but our teachers have struggled to Foster an environment where kids really seek to read for pleasure me um we're seeing if you look at some of the sub strands of say um you know for the ELA scores uh we have Reading Writing and listening if you look in some of the subst strands uh within reading you can see across the board that vocabulary is something that we need

054to support at all three levels it's the only thing that connects all three levels in terms of the scores that you're seeing tonight um so it's something that we don't particularly have the answer for right now but we're trying our best to come up with um remedies and initiatives that support uh indep independent reading outside of the classroom thank you thank you um I just wanted to come back to some of the data that's in there and point out that while I understand there's a snapshot in time and that individual students I want to make sure that we're looking at the data from multiple angles to to really understand all the things that it can tell us for example when we're looking at the chart on Ela if we just look from 2021 to 2022

055and we go up a grade then we can see that almost all of these grades which are the same kids are dropping year-over year so if you look at grade four in 21 they were at 81% this past year 22 um well that was a bad example they went the other way um but if you skip down it's basically from 5 to 7 right we go 85 to 7 80 to 77 81 to 83 so those are I think trends that are important for us like to look at when we're talking about curriculum when we're talking about things like Mr janas is pointing out what's happening in the classroom you know what our individual student follow up with is is an individual thing um but I do think it's important that we that we move

056these things around um just two other quick points I wanted to just also highlight um the importance of noticing that grade three is where we here across the board um about an important Line in the Sand about what kids future success is and you know our current statistics on grade three which are now fourth graders they were the kindergarten coid babies and and we can't ignore that but we don't have a lot of time left and we need to really focus on that so I I hope that that is of importance and then my final question is what does a compassionate approach mean um in terms of that particular age as well yeah just understanding the needs of those children that they that they missed you know that they what they went through I mean

057they really they were in kindergarten they were babies when school shut down and then they came back in first grade those are such critical times of learning and school was hybrid their teachers were in mask people were I mean we were all so scared teachers were scared their parents were scared there were things going on in their family you know that that definitely impacted that cohort and that you know we see things in students stress level and anxiety and and even Behavior so just knowing that making sure that the classroom is a safe and supportive Community um and focusing on the whole child but not sorry just not to the point that they that we're giving them a pass on any hard SK and and actually I have to say we're very proud of our

058third I mean we are we are like number two in the dur and at the very top of the state so even though you know that that 76% I would love to see it higher but we are I mean that really is the top so I'm I'm proud of our teachers and and our students jul um I'm jumping back to math quick and I know we've talked about um how the grade eight math scores do tend to dip some although we did go up this year which is great um and now looking at the sixy year Trend I was just curious this was an idea that was floated last year but I know we talked about the possibility of testing fatigue eighth graders are ready to be finished with middle school they're not really psyched

059for another long test understood but also the idea that we may have a number of eighth graders who being tested on material that they covered in seventh grade or sixth grade and I'm curious and we may not know the answer this moment but I'm curious if that number of students who are accept cerated has increased over the year years and if that may contribute to the decline in eth grade across the board that's something we need to think about how that impacts yeah closer look at it's it's something we're definitely going to take a closer look at I I think that that's accurate thank you Dennis but but I read the data differently in that because I if I look at if we go and thank you very much for this six-year projection I think

060it's been most helpful to kind of go through and and understand because Co is right in the middle of this so it's very helpful but if I look at 15 16 so you know we went 8579 which is all in line and then all of a sudden we go you know if you compare it and again if you even if you compare grade three to grade eight I realize it's not the same compar I'm going 8290 8185 8579 but then you go the last three years it's 8571 8471 817 it's a huge difference between pre-pandemic and post-pandemic so it's I don't think it's a and maybe I'm wrong but I'm not sure that it's just a fatigue factor of eighth graders because they didn't they weren't fatigued before coid and now they are that seems

061like a strange conclusion to me and I'm not sure the data supports that and as well as I think Katie brought up a great point because to me when you read across from and I wish we had these up when you read across the the grades and you you expect to see see improvement from grade three to grade four to grade five to grade six and you don't you're seeing you know 86 to 77 to 81 I guess that's some improvement but but it's it's fluctuating it's not as consistent as it was pre pandemic where you could see at least consistency if not Improvement one thing I can comment on that um and accurate and it's both and sorry to interrupt it's both reading and Mathematics as well yeah I can say that um I'm

062sure I'm saying something you already know but 2015 was the first year of this exam and um typically when you roll out especially standardized exam it's finite the number of problems and over years it just keeps adding on like any other standardized test and it's possible that as the years have gone on that things have become more difficult because the pool of problems is just that much more [Music] deep Dave so that's possible is that is there any way we can prove that or find that out with the data or is it just positive in any way well I can what I can say is that we have more available for us to practice than what we did before so the our tools that we have in order to help um students and what we

063look at and what they're testing is much more than what it was the years prior got it um and then just to followup looking at the English language arts SBA slide so Dr um fedan I was very happy to hear that we're doing more than just doing PD but we're actually going be looking at curriculum and then dive deeper on that looking at curriculum you were talking about um vocabulary and you mentioned vocabulary coming from Reading are there other ways to teach vocabulary yes yes I appreciate the question um and if you were to look back at my uh curriculum committee presentation from just last year we introduced uh vocabulary building mini lessons in English a which is our sixth grade um reading class um and the focus there has been on academic language not

064say text specific language but academic language that students are going to use even across the grade levels in different uh subject subject areas not just in ela so that's where we're starting we're going to do more with it and you know obviously we do direct instruction with it we do a lot of um activities that are designed for um uh focusing on word Consciousness we're looking at etymologies of words we're looking at root words we're doing all kinds of things to promote vocabulary acquisition and so is there a roll out plan in mind at this time a roll out plan say that again please do you have a roll out plan are we going to other grades are we expanding into different areas like what's what sort of the plan yeah I mean basically um

065what we have discovered based on um kind of looking within that reading sub you know subscore um that we have a need for that there wasn't really a plan but seeing the results of this past year this is something that we're going to be doing got it and I guess following up to Katie's question you know third grade being inflection point are we going to be moving this form of construction down to third graders or other grades as well kindergarteners yeah that is that is part of our um literacy instruction as well okay and then I guess the other followup I would have would go uh not just a vocabulary but to grammar and certainly I think as we look through this Dr Fedigan I certainly hope you'll have the curriculum committee involved as we

066discussed that also given some of the changes that g on in Teachers College I think that would be a very useful exercise for the curriculum committee to look at in some depth it's the appropriate time thank you Mr Brown we agree and um there is an update planned um in the early spring uh that will touch base on um English language arts and that will of course not just be secondary it'll be a look at where I'm trying to drive ELP to grade 12 um with a a long-term view over curriculum across grades and really looking for that articulation across the grades in those areas that you named so I'm looking forward to that and if we can do anything sooner on the subcommittee sounds sounds great to do need for T duly noted thank

067you thank you denn y so Dr fed again something's bothering me with what you said and maybe I misinterpreted but what I heard is we're going to change the curriculum to help get better test scores was that correct or did I misinterpret what you said no um so there are standards and so we need to take a look at the standards and so it's not really about the test score it's teaching to the standard I'm glad that you're pointing that out um and really looking at the curriculum as it exist um and where are the standards addressed within the curriculum and sometimes it may be I think Miss best was pointing this out um a pacing issue you know um we want we want we want students experiences to be cumulative and then for them

068to be able to perform at the end of the year on on an assessment because that's about Mastery and so score when we look at scores like this we have to also look at the curriculum and think about when are we pacing things in a student's given year and try to look for Trends Miss um M Mamon was asking about individual student performance and she was indicating I think that we do look at the data that way but we also look for Trends across the district to inform curriculum revision um so it is not about teaching to the test and I think this district is very well positioned with the vision of The Graduate to be thinking about what are the other College and Career post-secondary skills that we need to be focusing on because

069at the end of all of this while test scores are important very few and far between people are going to ask a student if they can take a test well right and many colleges are even going to the test optional um so we recognize that we there we want students to perform at very high levels to these standards and these standardized assessments do matter we also want to we also want to make sure that we're focusing on those elements of div vision of The Graduate um and there's some crossover between those and standardized assessments but it's it's just not the full picture we want to be considering both in our curriculum development thank you for the clarification you're welcome on to the next thank you [Music] oops thank you so the high school testing is

070going to focus on the Connecticut sat school day the national SAT and ACT scores and the results of the advanced placement exams I'd like to point out that we'll be discussing two different data sets for the SAT the the Connecticut sat school day which is mandated by the state of Connecticut for juniors um is that is our current seniors they took the sat in the spring of last year but when we're looking at the National Data for the SAT and the ACT those scores are from the class of 2023 we're also going to share information about the advanced placement exams um as you know advanced placement test are given in May uh it's two wonderful weeks in May um their AP students prepare for many of those exams through classes but it's not required that

071a student takes an exam if they're in an AP class uh nor is it required for them to be in an AP class to take the exam some students selfstudy so the Connecticut sat school day was admin administered digitally during the school day on March 22nd 2023 the test assesses evidence-based reading and writing and math as you can see our Juniors took the test um and our scores are strong uh they're above the durg average and well above the state average almost 90% of our students exceeded the College Board Benchmark in evidence based to reading and writing and over 75% of the students exceeded the Benchmark in math the College Board the College Board benchmarks are the scores that the College Board feels a student needs to earn so that they it's a predictor that

072they would get a see your better in a college level course in that content area the College Board Readiness benchmarks are 480 for evidence-based reading and writing and 530 for math I also just want to point out that the Connecticut sat school day is a viable score if students choose to submit an score to college for admissions this slide shows the evid evidence-based reading and writing math and total combined scores for all dur a districts on the 2023 Connecticut sat school [Music] day and this slide shows a bit of the fluctuation um know like we talk about a a snap shot in time um I want you to please remember that these scores um an SAT score each section is anywhere from 200 to 800 points so a fluctuation in one to two points or

073one to 11 points a year um is is um negligible and there's constant change over the years um the fluctuation in the scores we were asked today uh late this afternoon to add a slide about about the six-year average so this is some longitudinal data I believe it a handout that you received then shifting gears away from the state mandated test to the National SAT and ACT these tests are optional and can be used for college admissions for schools or programs that still require scores College and universities across the country standardly accept either the SAT or the ACT which allows our students to choose which format they they prefer and as you can see many of the members of class of 2023 took advantage of these tests so this is where the cohort data shifts

074this is the class of 2023 not our current seniors um um this slide refers to the National Data for the class of 2023 for the SAT the scores are strong over at Connecticut and the national National test averages if a student took a test it they calculate the last test that the student took then here's a three-year comparison the national SAT scores we switch to the act the ACT is scored uh the the score is 1 to 36 it has four sections English math reading and Science and then the composite score is the average of those four sections uh this is a three-year comparison for Darian high school but the national and the National Data doesn't come out till later this month so I left the 2022 data up there so that you can get

075an idea of the scores and we score well across Connecticut and blows me away how how strong the scores are compared to the National National averages so moving to advanced placement AP exams are college board exams that are given in May each year they're designed to assess Mastery of content in a specific college level curriculum the scores are reported on a scale of one to five with a three being considered qualified to receive college credit sometimes schools um are using the AP scores not for credit but for placement or for prerequisites most of these exams are two to three hours in length however the the digital um or the math the AP math classes support a digital portfolio that swaha would be happy to talk about um most students prepare for these exams by taking

076a courses taught at Daran High School although we did have a handful of students self-study for classes we don't offer like AP Chinese German and [Music] psychology this is a list of the courses offered in at Darian High School the AP courses offered at Daran high school last year um I'm glad Jackie left because I left AP drawing off of this slide so we actually had 25 courses at the high school um I I'm not I'm the art the APR program is impresses me I'm not used to having three different AP courses that are offered to students um and you do have an expert here who's taking two of them so uh she could explain the difference but there are actually 25 with the addition of AP drawing this is our five-year comparison and you

077can see there's a substantial increase between the number of students students that are taking more exams you know from 2019 to 2023 it's an increase in 44 students uh taking more than 250 more exams uh and with continued success I think that's uh incredibly impressive that um 92% of students receive a three or higher I know there was a question about why we're reporting a three or higher but that is The Benchmark that the College Board sets um for a recommendation for success in college classes like I mentioned and I think it's worth noting that the Connecticut state college and university system May has a policy in place so that all of their institutions will grant academic credit to any student earning a score of three or higher on any AP exam I was also

078asked how many students scored a four or five um for 2023 the number of student the percentage of students who scored a four or five on the test is 65% that's about 485 students on 771 exams um I did bring a handout that's the summary sheet from college board about AP tests and um the information is also on our school profile which is published every year the school Prof file is on the website and that's a document that's an academic summary that goes to all of the colleges with the with the transcripts this slide again um highlights the increase in participation to look just in the first Square there under 23 next to the graduating class that's saying that 75% of the graduating class took at least one AP class before they left high school

079and I that's compared to a national percentage of about 35% % so we're doing a really great job uh getting students exposure to college level courses through the AP curriculum at the high school our next slide is a new addition um for my esteemed colleague Christina Marcio who's the World Language department chair is going to uh talk to you about the Seal of biliteracy so this is our seal of by literacy report um you will hear from me when I do my uh board presentation and my curriculum committee presentation later on in the school year but uh we just wanted to highlight the achievements of students in the world language program um as well as students that are native or Heritage speakers of other languages that they learn at home and they are able to

080qualify for the sealed by literacy in grades 10 11 and 12 they depending on what language they are studying at the high school or what language they are learning at home or independently they um will determine the type of test that they take and what score they need to earn but to give you an idea it's around um a three on an AP exam an intermediate mid and um to earn the seal you earn the World Language portion in grades 10 11 or 12 but you don't earn the actual seal until you graduate from high school and that's something that it's the way the law in Connecticut is is written and um but most of our students earned the sealed by literacy in grades 10 and 11 and then they um have the opportunity to

081test again in 12th grade but we also have classes that just test uh classes of 12th graders that test again and the numbers uh speak for themselves we have an very and these are just seniors right so we had how many graduates last year 300 and something 340 so yeah it's a a pretty significant amount of the of the graduating class the number of languages that they earned the seal in also goes up the um Heritage speakers um are tested at a different time of the year we do have some Heritage speakers that are studying the language in school so if you are a Heritage speaker of Chinese you may be taking Chinese in school as well so but that um it's a very a negligible number of students it's very small but um the

082number of languages they earn the seal in goes up and the number of students that earn the seal when they graduate um goes up as well and depending on where they go um to college will determine if they can use the um actual score report that that they get when they take the test for placement or for credit or just by having the seal um on their transcript that's thank you thank you finally these are some of the testing dates for this school year and before we open for discussion I just wanted to say thank you for your dedication to educational excellence and also recognize the faculty and staff for all of the time and hard work that it takes to successfully administer these exams uh to the parents for all their support and to

083the students who continue to make us shine thank you Cath thank you very much board questions J I have two uh my first is I'd like to know the percentage of Heritage speakers of the total number of students who receiv received is seala by Livery there were eight students last year that's so of 154 that in that right column where eight says languages that means Heritage speakers so those were students that were for example studying I'll give you an example of a student studying Spanish at DHS and also studying Japanese at home and learning Japanese at home so that student is a Heritage speaker okay on the all the way on the right but is a World Language student in the middle got it thank you thank you uh my second question is looking at

084the uh thank you for this AP chart um looking at the range of scores um understanding that we want with looking at with two minds understanding that we want kids to have students to have as much challenge as they can and we want our students who can do college level courses to absolutely do college level courses and to score well when they take APS we also at the same time want a wide range of students to take AP courses which is your 75% number you were talking about when you look at that range of scores from one to five we have just under a 100 who are getting a one or about a one or a two um can you talk about how you look at those numbers do we have a percentage of those

085do you do you break it down or there a percentage of kids where we just students where we just wanted them to have the experience not that you know again I want a way that we want everybody to do well but we also sometimes just want kids to do and so this is my first year here and I'm thinking that um Francis might have a better answer to this we were talking before about the introduction to a waver where instead of requiring a teacher to make a recommendation for a student to be in an AP course that uh DHS has opened that opportunity to students and parents who feel that they could be successful at that level so I'm assuming that some of the lower scores might be students who wanted to take on that

086challenge but were not necessarily recommended have more questions anything to add France sure please thank you so I think that you're seeing some of the impact of the waiver on the numbers and the greater level of access to all of our APS represented there you'll note that the overall performance level doesn't go down with the introduction of the kids who didn't necessarily qualify for those AP courses outright um but then I would just say that um um as someone who has attended AP institutes and I can't represent all uh teachers who have done this training before um and although our teachers really take great pride in students earning a four or a five and they really don't feel comfortable with kids who don't necessarily get those scores Even though three is enough to Warrant celebration

087really because that is something that counts in the state um kind of a a philosophy about it is that if you don't get a number of say twos then you are not letting enough kids access that class so I know for the English APS it's something that we do look at because we want to make sure it's we're not trying to have kids score twos necessarily but um if everyone scored above a three I think that we are probably not promoting that class and challenging enough of our kids so I I think that that is something to keep in mind when we look at those scores thank you great Julie thank you I'll just add as a quick followup do we ever look at the correlation between how those students might have performed in their

088class grades versus how they performed on the test you get graded in the class in in the AP class right and so if somebody doesn't score as well on the test perhaps they did quite well on the cours workor and and had a bad test day or are not great test takers or something along those lines I'm just wondering if there's any learning to be had from that angle as well what I can say is in in in an AP um class typically a lot of their assessments that they're getting graded on throughout the year is AP content so it should be a direct coordination it's a bit it's a bit different for uh both of the AP English exams because they're mostly skill driven and and they're not content heavy right um but you

089know we see it all the time it is true that some of the kids aren't necessarily great test takers and um I guess it would be interesting to do a correlation between the two um but um like I said um we our our midterm and our our um all of our assessments are designed to they're they're uh aligned with the different components of the exams so um typically once they've gone through all those um assessments they're very prepared so you know it's something that we could look at but um just like it's like with anything else there are kids who take tests better than others thank you Dennis so I realized we don't have a lot of data so I may make a huge leap in my in my statement or assumption but if I

090look through the SAT scores over the last six years I begin to see a decline generally from 178 to 2223 and then if I look at the AP scores I see maybe an increase or at least relative St stability so my question is are we seems like our our students who perform well coid did not affect as much but those who who are lesser students are not as not as not enough to take an P class seem to have suffered dramatically in coid now again I'm reading just two data points but how are we going to am I a correct and B how are we addressing that I can um respond um to that I guess in one way um I wanted Circle back to Sarah's comments about being really careful to look at any

091given assessment and consider a student potential um for Learning and performance um but another way I think it's a very aute observation you've made and one of the things that we need to look at is not just achievement levels but growth over time for students and that's something that um we will continue to look at as an administration because that's another way to look at the data not just our students hitting the target who's scoring at a given level whether it's SBA or mgss or AP or sat all of the letters but with how are students making growth over time and are there are there trends that we can observe for different groups of students and then how do we again Target instruction to support that Mr just sorry clarify your question so we can

092look into it and get back to you your um hypothesis is that uh the SAT data is going down and our AP scores and enrollment are going up and you're curious as to to why well again it's two totally different data points and I understand that but the way I would look at it is the students who are capable of taking AP classes are carrying not carrying it but they're I'm assuming they're going to score high on the SAT as well and those students who are not taking APS are struggling which is driving the scores down it's a huge assumption I understand but to me I only have two data points to look at thank I just want to make sure Dave you um Dr fedan just following up to Dennis's point on data generally

093so when we look at the um act we look at the it's blank s back and what what is the SAT thank you you can now know how well I did on my SAT locked it out but we look at that and we look at what happens in terms of grading uh within a class and actual grade how do we think about the interplay there are we able to control for say grade inflation or is there inter inter relation between those two or am I thinking there's a metric there that isn't well I think that is something that we can look at I know that that was discussed um in last year's board presentation which I did watch several times trying to think about you know what would be some of the questions that would

094be of interest to the board in preparing for tonight's presentation um that's a question I think that that is a really hard um question to answer because there are so many different factors at play I think another question we could ask is along the way to the summit of assessment for example AP or sat what is the data showing us that we can make a prediction of how our students might perform right we don't want to be ever teaching to ATT test but we should we should not have so many surprises about right how a students performed over time in a course um because the assessments that are leading up to the summit of assessment should be assessing the same types of skills so right we would expect that students are demonstrating Mastery and progress

095with those skills over time it would show up on the summit of assessment like throughout the course right and I think there was a point made earlier that perhaps the test bank has increased over the years as this tests have gone on and that may be changing so I guess to follow up on that I don't know how substantively you judge that if it is the size of the test bank that's changing it or you know the difficulty of the questions and how you would kind of you know find a level for that versus what you would look at in grading potential inflation there versus the performance which seems to you know not be on the trend we'd all like to be seeing and um how are we asking questions on assessments we don't want

096to be teaching to a test but think making sure that we are framing questions um with language that so children are familiar with language I'm thinking even at like um in grades three through eight sometimes um for example we could be talking about main idea and in the SBA it might be framed central theme right so that that might be confusing to a child so how to go back to the point about vocabulary before there's even some element of test taking vocabulary and I think we need time to take a look at that so it's not just gr inflation but maybe how are we designing assessments to give students that kind of familiarity and exposure throughout a course and a program of study right and I guess the fear when I say grade inflation we

097have everyone at DHS as a 40 but yet we're seeing our scores go down that would tell me something's wrong I don't actually know what the GPA is culross but that's just thought and that's the thing about data right data should it it's um almost counterintuitive but data should cause us to ask more questions it should you know give us more questions than conclusions and these questions that the board is asking tonight will certainly inform um will continue to inform how we look at data as a curriculum committee and and as a curriculum leadership team and what we come back with as far as future updates no and I know some of these data sets are quite limited so it's nice to know that you guys actually do have the tools behind the scene to

098drill down and actually do some more analysis thanks to you Dennis I was just curious if you had um any idea about the AP scores about what percentage um of the tests were taken by grade bubble um I know that we have you know I think that was one of the slides the participation slide didn't it break it down by there you go by gr that's okay well I just highlighted the graduating class on that slide that's why I think I didn't draw attention to the fact that and I would just say as it was discussed last year um students of course have more opportunity in 11th and 12th grade to experience AP assessments because so much of their experience in ninth grade is a little bit more prescribed right um they have a little

099bit more flexibility as they move up through the grades thanks Dennis sorry Duke I was I'm still trying to formulate my question so so I'm a little I don't know how to ask this question I don't even know who to address it I think it's Dr adley possibly but you know I think we had the when we had our meeting in the High School auditorium I think it was two years ago we had students come in and saying how Daran is putting too much pressure on them where there's too many AP exams and And yet when I look through the trends from 2021 we had 959 students take exams and now we're up to 1,1 so we've had 250 more kids take the exam so how do I pencil what was said two years ago

100and what is happening today so again that's a great question in terms of uh I appreciate all the questions being asked tonight at the bottom L because that that is what the data actually presents to gives you opportunity to to Del a little bit more but a part of it a little bit goes back to what Francis said in terms of we do have uh an Open Door relatively speaking for students who want to take AP courses we the the high school that the high school administration the high school counselors work closely with families uh in terms of trying to counsel them as to what might be the best course or otherwise but occasionally and not occasionally a lot of times there are a lot of students who want to step up or a lot

101of families who want to step up and take the challenge I don't think all challenges are bad if if we force them to take it I think that's not a good decision um but we but I would like some some students hly I'd like some students to step up try and that's may come awful as a superintendent well maybe they don't just make it um but there's a learning in there and not everything here that there is a one or two is like a failure right um and I actually I'm very pleased about the tenor of our discussion tonight because I I don't want any concept toal out here of because our our schools are done well um there are patterns even 3 through eight I'll take a pattern for 3 through eight even in

102es you put all the kids together three through eight over the last couple of years they've increased you would may not see that through the raw score here now you'll say three years Alan but what about the the five years well when you look at the three years across all the rest of the districts and how everybody does after the pandemic it's all sort of settled down at a different level so to speak for the most part our kids here are doing an AP and and sat I would say I would be celebrating these scores your high schol come off as it said number four in the state actually that's compared to to two schools who got like 200 kids in them right the top two of the schools in the top two had top

103four had 200 kids in them so you're really one and two in the State uh so certainly we take the um espac and these other scores as we go along as being important it's the end product too that we're also like we're also want to make sure that they we're sustaining I believe we are but that I don't necessarily see that as uh in of itself as one statistic as being bad in itself unless you peel back onion a little bit there's more to it than that that I'm actually commenting on and if I could just add one other comment um and I think uh this is something that's important for educators and parents alike to think about while we want children and we want to um open the doorway and access to AP courses

104there are other courses that also um don't provide an opportunity for students to earn AP credit but are also very important and I don't I think for I know I've only been here a short amount of time but I think we want to be careful about messaging to students that they should also pursue courses that are of high interest to them sometimes and I'm a parent of high school students myself right kids are very driven to achieve and we want them to achieve at very high levels and these exams are important these courses are very important but also part of being a high school student is having the opportunity to take other courses of interest and students have only a finite number of periods in a school day to fit their courses in and I

105would imagine there ese I would think in Daran there are conversations with parents and children about what goes on during that school day they these conversations happen in my home and when you have a finite number of periods and you're selecting and you're thinking about College and Career admission you know college admissions University admissions career down the line it's also important for students to take other courses that just might be of interest I think that's that's an important message for us to have as um Educators and parents so for example culinary photography um I was recently in a teched course where students were learning how to take care of their own Vehicles these are also important life skills lessons and experiences for our students to have thank you for what that's worth a little bit

106voice thank you Julie thank you um to kind of build on what Dr Fedigan was saying too I just a reminder that we did approve a few courses and the last year or so to make it possible for students to continue their course of study for example in Spanish without having to take um an AP class for students who want to continue studying a certain subject but aren't necessarily looking to add that additional rigor to whatever their course load is they don't have to give up Spanish um and I think we've done it in other areas it's just the the Spanish sticks out in my head and I think that's important and that we message to students to to to look at all the options available to them so they can put together the right

107amount of rigor and Challenge and um also meet their interests and I would just um add Mrs best that um being aware of college admissions processes right now um I know Mrs ostar I'm sure could reinforce this um colleges and universities are also for looking for students who've had a wide breath of experiences in their program of study in school um and I think that's an important consideration too the college admissions conversation is a is a big one and it's um obviously for another night but uh it's it's hard to be a student now and to choose not to to get caught up in the competition um so I think you know when we look at the course offerings at the high school um three AP art classes a couple computer science classes the world

108language classes um AP music um AP music theory you know there are AP courses that are not in the traditional four core academic so students can pursue a pass for an area of interest and take an AP class Brena did you have a question um I just wanted to call back to a question that uh Mr morone had raised and I hope that we can um come to maybe a a greater plane of understanding on this but I do think that um you know students aren't necessarily I feel that um um I feel that I'm that I speak for many when I say that we as students are greatly pressured by Society our community our teachers you know our families our friends social media you know every account that's saying follow me I'll get you

109into Harvard you know all these different societal um all these different societal structures are in place to push us on this rigorous path and we choose to go down that path yes we choose to push ourselves we choose to you know engage with the abundant resources that are made available to us in this district and the Abundant privilege that's made available to us in this District but you know it's not easy and it's not anything um you know anything that isn't you know mentally taxing at a point and isn't you know it takes a toll on you that's all I have to say and I and I know that I speak for many when I when I say this and it you know it takes a lot to come and say you know I'm struggling

110here in this AP course and it's just easier you know to go with the flow and take um my mom always says take AP lunch that's just what our culture has evolved into so I really think to understand you know why students are you know saying we feel stressed and we feel pressured and we're looking the path we're um examining the path that they're going down we also need to put it in context with you know what our society is today thank you br thank you thank you Brena well said Thank youil just one last comment again I know it's a point in time um a lot of this data um but I just want to reiterate how much this board uh is in from a point of caring and that I know is shared

111with with staff and administration concerned about the impact of coid so just wanted to continue understanding that we're coming to you because we want to know that our students have what they need to remediate potential gaps so I just wanted to to uh you know I know we're doing what we can I know we're looking at things but I just wanted to keep saying that um because I think it's important thank you Dennis y so Mrs best brings up a very good point I think on the number of AP classes offered and I think what hard to again pencil with is that maybe three years ago we only had 17 classes and we've approved multiple classes over time so of course then you're gonna have more kids taking the AP classes so I think I'm

112not asking for more work now but I think in the future it would be beneficial to compare apples to apples and see how many AP classes we had in X year prior and how many we have today and how many students just to because it's hard to just look at the total Aggregate and and come up with answers to the data I think it can it can be very misleading I from that from listening to what Rena just said just hearing seeing the increase of what is it 300 some odd AP tests being taken that makes me a little uncomfortable right honestly like I I just want to make sure that our kids are doing this for the right reasons and not because they feel like they need to to be successful but I also

113want to balance it with we do explicitly want kids who we wouldn't traditionally have thought could take I hear you I just want to make sure that the pressure but it's a balancing act it is an absolute Balancing Act and we just heard that there's a lot of pressure on these kids and we have to be conscious of that fact I'm not sure uh limiting the number of AP classes that they could offer would make them feel better I don't think that would take away their stress so I think that you know coming here from another district and seeing the focus on mental health and wellness and working with Alicia and the wellness center that that was put together at the high school and trying to send the message out to students that it's okay

114to ask for help it's okay to say I'm struggling in the AP class and to try and create more of a judgment free zone than to say no you can't take four APS I I think that would cause a lot of stress too thank you thank you very much for all the data and the work thank you thank you everyone thank you for being here thank you to the board for the discussion thank you very much Take Care thank you we will move on to discussion and possible action on proposed middle sex and Daran High School field trips in the interest of time I know principal D and principal dalstrom are here um I will move to the middle sex Middle School uh field trip requests these are all as I've looked through them pretty

115standard year year um look at the middle school ones which are Quiz Bow are there any board questions anything specific to these yeah Dr is there anything different from year over year that thank you good and then principal D I think here model un National TSA Association conference quizbowl and deca anything new or different here principal D no nothing new just a thank you to all of you for supporting it and to our teachers for taking their weekends to go to these wonderful competitions with our students agreed and well said principal dun and principal dstr thank you very much to all those that take time out of their uh their family and their lives to continue to support our kids and our students and all these programs um that involve travel and being away from

116home so thank you um any board questions or comments on any of these proposed trips may have a motion to approve the proposed middle sex and Darian High School field trips as proposed uh Joe mccamon second by Dave Brown all those in favor that is unanimous with everyone here thank you both for being here and staying tried to move it along a little bit for you well you really should stay till Brenan and swaha leave also right it's school night right good all right thank you we will move on to discussion and possible acceptance of cont contemplated gifts for the athletic department I see uh Mr Man fronia on the on the phone I see him on Zoom Mr chairman yeah um and Chris is here to present what was in the packet we did

117receive one other one from the Daran Junior field hockey I have not signed that one um I am approving it and uh Chris is approving it uh with your permission I'd like to enter that with the rest of them it's great it's pretty far for the course okay good so we've got um again blueway booster club here um a gift 3,000 to 4,000 we've got blue W booster club 3,000 to 4,000 backpacks for boys swim and dive team backpack for girl swim team we got blueway booster club iPad for something use in 26 equipment bags for girls hockey and then the Darian Junior field hockey would like to support the Darian High School Blue way field hockey donating to cash to cover expenses associated with Team filming throughout the season team filming from Max theater

118hockey tournament and photographer so um Mr manf foron anything you want to add to these no just you know for fortunate to have a community of of individuals and organizations that are willing to give these nice to have to our athletic programs and I you know thank the board for considering these and thank these committee members for for donating these uh these items um to our athletic teams and our students thank you Mr Man Foria any board questions with these I think we have one two three four five in total yes so to me this just looking at this field hockey one that I'm seeing for the first time in completion I don't see any receipts for this is there there's no total can we get more details on this I feel like I'm approving

119something that I don't know details about yeah so it's um it would be a a total donation of a $5,000 check to the the fak program for the use of uh huddle film uh Max torment which is the that overnight trip that the board approved in June that they just recently um went to to get film from that uh for recruiting purposes uh as well as action shots for photographers um you know for end of year um celebratory video okay it's $5,000 for various forms of film and photography is that correct correct thank any other board questions or comments are we talking about the football one now also is that one of I'm just talking about all of them okay I had a I could um I'm just curious uh Chris if any of the

120the gifts very generous by the way all these are incredibly generous and we're so lucky to have all the support um but specific to football are any of these items um usable and available to other programs weights things in the wait room uh Etc yeah that's a good point so the um the football donation um would be available to any program PE class um specifically for the weight room so the answer is yes they would be yeah sure sorry thank you and then just in general is there any sort of tracking on which teams get gifts when for like I feel like one of the teams on the list here got got coats last year and now they're getting something in addition which I'm sure they will thoroughly enjoy and it's something that that'll stay

121with the program and I'm sure it'll be very well used but I I love seeing cheer on here I don't know if we've seen cheer in my tenure gift to the cheer squad um so I'm just curious if we keep kind of an eye on are things getting spread around a little bit Yeah so the requests have to go through a couple of different processes first the booster club then the athletic department and in conjunction with the superintendent so there is certainly a close eye kept on um you know what what's going to which schools and which programs Dennis I have a similar question Julie on um I got a twofold question one is the gift of the iPad we don't have any unused iPads from before when we had bring your own device and

122secondly can this iPad also be used for other programs as well or is it just for the I think it's girls field hockey no it's girls ice hockey ice hockey sorry so to my knowledge there are an iPads um I'd have to double check on that um it would could be used for other you know seasonal teams in the fall Andor the spring you know when the when the when the hockey team wasn't using in the winter okay thank you [Music] Chris good you all good with these Alan I am yes okay any other board questions or comments um may have a motion to accept the contemplated gifts for the athletic department as presented Dave Brown second by Dennis all those in favor that is unanimous with everyone here I think to your point Chris

123and to some of the board members here thank you for the ongoing incredible generosity um from these booster clubs and from Individual families um it's a nice way to continue to support um all these programs so thank you very much on behalf of the board and the administration and thank you for um spearheading these Mr manfredonia thank you thank thank you everybody take care we will move on to discussion and possible acceptance of the contemplating gift from the Darian foundation for the robotics program Mr Timothy Maguire or Dr adley Mr Maguire how are you well give we a bit of FaceTime anyway yeah thank you Tim mire you're recently hired instructional technology coordinator do you just get closer to that mic so we can hear you thank you so much so I'm Tim McGuire your

124recently hired instructional technology coordinator this is my fourth week here I had the pleasure of meeting Mr Denine and mostly I'm here just to try to put a face to the name because I haven't had a chance to meet most of you yet so thank you so much for your support and yeah I'm looking forward to deploying this little extra bit of funds for some of the robotics initiatives we have going on great got it thank you very much so this again is from our friends and very generous donors at the Daran foundation for 41200 this will help with ongoing competition fees and transportation to competition and advisor training for robots K through 12 anything you want to add here Dr adley no I I recognize the foundation our ination has supported uh graciously supported

125uh this program over the last couple of years and I'm grateful that um uh they are continuing to support it uh just in terms of supporting the fundraising to get it up and running it so we can get get the process up and running so I'm just very grateful for their continued generosity great board question great I think this continues to to fund and help the program like we discussed last year so a motion to um accept the contemplated gift from the Darion foundation for the robotics program oh Robin sure thank [Music] you she's motion you're motioning well thank you Robin thank you I wanted to make sure you have any questions thank you for motioning R second Katie all those in favor that is unanimous and a big shout out again to our friends

126at the Darion Foundation thank you for your ongoing generosity I know the robotics program has been um incredibly successful I've seen some of the stuff that's gone on in the program I've seen some of the professional development I've seen some of what's been built and uh kind of the energy and the enthusiasm around it are incredible so and Tim thanks for joining us and the the hard work that you're doing welcome great we will move on to further discussion and possible action on propos osed revisions to board policies 4400 social media 6210 program of instruction curriculum textbooks and other instructional materials and 6220 challenges to instructional materials the one thing that is missing here this evening is the um policy specific to advertising we've had ongoing conversations around the policy to advertising we have that

127on the agenda for the next meeting on October 24th um board uh has asked a lot of good questions around that and I think the board will continue the conversation and looking at a potential pilot of um an advertising program up at the high school and the scoreboard but we'll continue that dialogue at the next meeting um rich and the administration to put together some data from other districts um so I think it's a good opportunity to look at uh doing something locally monitoring it and continue to build our questions and our policies around that so that's the one reason why that's not here but we'll be for further conversation at the next board meeting so with that I'll turn it over to Mr Brown and Miss cion thank you for that Duke um we

128have three items on for today they're in the board packet which everyone's had since the last week two are not having a change one is a minor change the language uh reflecting conversations that went on I'll turn over to Marge I haven't heard any feedback from anybody I don't know if you have or if you wanted to speak to anything in here now just the feedback that I mentioned from the teachers you about what the their preference would be um you know to have it an ad hoc committee that gets appointed each time right which we have another in here already so nothing nothing further okay awesome thank you okay so we'll go one by one here I guess policy 4400 social media any board additional board questions or thoughts J not on this I

129just want to make sure that communication is picking up the fact that this was just internal social soci media and so we need some parameters for an external social media policy and that hopefully that can show up on a Communications agenda in the near future thank you um next policy 6210 program of instruction curriculum textbooks and other instructional materials any additional questions or comments there policy 6220 challenges to instructional materials we just received feedback we just touched base on this that suggested it might be more effective if teachers were chosen each time a challenge was submitted so the teachers would be selected for the committee based on subject matter and grade level expertise pending discussion at this meeting the language remains unchanged um any additional conversation around that Jill I wanted to talk about the

130paren so I I um Mar I see you've noted parents who must collectively must have children enrolled in Darian High School Middle six middle school and at least one of the board's elementary schools um can you explain sort what your what that means and then I was curious to know if administration had any thoughts on S what a process is that that could be behind that right well that was Jessica Richmond Smith's language that we get parents who have children at all levels I respectfully disagree with that um but but I left it in because that's what she recommended and so you know it there's nothing written in stone you could change it you could you know not change it I don't know that a parent with a second grader wants to be on a

131committee where they're challenging a b at the high school right um but if they did they could certainly apply so are we looking at is Administration recommending a a I see that they want you want teachers to be more fluid depending on those material which makes sense are you looking for a set of parents are you looking for the parent selection process also to be more fluid in parallel with the teacher selection so I'll give I'll I'll give our suggestion or a variation of this if you don't mind uh it's called the superintendent Review Committee so to speak so I'm just going to respectfully I know the board picked up on this last last time so you know since it's on the table still for discussion I I I would encourage the board to stay

132out of it personally and not be selective of the people people um I wanted the the PTO to select them they don't want to do that that's okay I'm happy honestly to open it up if if there's I would have the same uh process as as the uh staff that we would rotate I would have people to apply and that would be randomly selected and you're just going to have to trust me that as a superintendent I will randomly select blame select someone um and each time we do it we would get a new group of people in that that's my suggestion for you so we don't get into a whole I would open it up for anybody who wants to let's say a middle school text or something if if the the community members

133parents wanted to to participate I would let them put their name in and then some there could be a random selection of of of a name that's that's that's what I would suggest but if the board wants to continue the ownership of it then then okay so just to so if I look at section D here no more than three teachers would those teachers rotate each time also they want that so you'd have a standing committee of a b and c and then D the three teachers and E the three parents you kind of have an all call if there was a challenge in a meeting needed that's just my suggestion okay I just want to make sure I understood that so Dennis so I like the random thought but then do we then need

134to revise the high school middle school and elementary school or would you then separate into three buckets your Randomness one one from each right I mean uh which one of we on I just e so e if you're going to pick random are you just going to choose three people at random regardless of which St where their students reside or are we going to still abide by the one high school one Middle School one Elementary School um at least at least one if it's does this say at least one here I don't think so no it's just at least one some you have to have each School each each level cover I'm happy to still stick with that if you want to I don't think it's necessary personally I'm sorry I'm just trying to read

135through this so [Music] Dave now that Dennis is reading it this way I'm seeing the word collectively and I think that means you need a kid in one of these three schools but I think there is a thought that maybe you need one in each of these one parent representing each level I think is what we're trying to and I I'm saying each level like you need there needs to be a parent of a high school middle school and or you don't need to have one student in each level but you need collectively each of the parents has to have a CH a child in each of those schools but if you're doing random I'm not sure that needs to apply well I mean so so time out time out time out time out time

136out time out thank you Denis so the conversation at the table now is are you randomly selecting three people or do you want a representative from the high school from the middle school and a representative from the elementary schools that's how I understand it so we'll go to you next Julie thank you I'm kind of going back a step here it's my understanding and maybe you can correct me if I'm wrong Marge this is written describing a committee that's going to be a seated committee that's going to exist for a period of time just for each individual challenge that was okay so an idual challenge we're calling together three parents who collectively now as I understand it it's the three collectively represent the three levels of school so like maybe I have a high school

137in Middle someone else has some elementary kids but across the board we've covered all of the schools okay that's the intent okay so I think I do think that that's an important piece though that we didn't necessarily nail down in our last discussion do are we setting up a committee that will be standing and it sounds like Dr Aly you're recommending no that it's a committee that's called together on a perase basis so what I what I thought I said you bring up you know I think to clarified it to your point is there is kind of a standing committee of a b and c that's pretty consistent and then if and when there's a challenge you bring in d& which are the three teachers and the three parents that's my understanding of it I

138think we still have to determine whether those parents those three represent each of the levels in the school so we'll pause there for a minute and go to Mr Brown thank you duke so now reflecting again on collectively into Dennis's question I guess we would have to have three buckets you'd have to have parents in each of those buckets and then you'd take a draw out of bucket a bucket B bucket C in order to do this okay yeah to my comment earlier you almost have like a roll call or an all call and you would get submissions from across the elementary schools you'd get submissions from the middle school and you'd get submissions from the high school and then you would randomly choose from choose those three people and then D and E are

139at hoc yes yes good way to look at it D um Sarah so I think having um the three levels is important and I I would like to go back to number one that says parent of a current student first of all there's a typo in current second of all um where you where you number one the very top top line line two of the of the procedure um should the complainant be required to be a parent of the school where the instructional material is being challenged is a student of is a parent of a kindergartener challenging a something used in the high school does that parent have enough knowledge to know what is developmentally appropriate or whatever for a high school I'm just throwing out there I don't know how I feel about I'm

140just throwing it up I I I respectfully don't know if a parent of a high school has a developmental knowledge and like no I these are questions that people have ask I'm I'm okay with if if if parents are being on the committee and I I've advocated that they would be on the committee uh that that they could represent yes I I don't want to make processes that are so complex Implement you're asking about the Challenger right the first bringing forth the challenge no it it plays into yes kind of a lot of the complaints about a specific book at the high school if you looked at those complaints a lot of those none of those parents had actually anyone in the high school that's my point if that's G to be the case we

141need to lay out what their their chain of communication is because these folks don't have a classroom teacher to approach and a building principal with whom they have a relationship to follow through the process in order to if necessary AR arrive at the final challenge um piece that we're talking about tonight I to me I I don't I don't completely understand what the grounds are for challenging something that your people have no exposure to your people meaning your family your student or you could just be reacting to the social media that's out there well we get a lot of that I understand that but it's a lot of people who are complaining about things that are not in any proximity to their to their children so I I don't I'm I'm unclear on how that

142makes sense so I'll flip back to the administration or Marge I don't know how much experience you have at Westport but I mean did you get into the weeds there specific to a first grade parent challenging a book that they heard about or knew about that's up at the high school so I never experienced that it was always the level where the but it but this was the policy it gave anyone the right to do it but I never experienced that okay I think this is getting very problematic I um the the teachers saying that they would like to be able to convene on a case-by casee basis so that they can have the most relevant teachers there why wouldn't we do the same thing with parents I'm not for parents being on the committee

143I make that clear again but why would you be putting kindergarten parents on a book challenging something that is potentially at a high school level it doesn't me sense why would we hold our teachers to one standard and not our others just like having a kindergarten parent being able to challenge something at the high school that's just pushing out your own beliefs on other people like that's not at all has nothing this is getting problematic and I think we need to button it down thank you K Jill I think that limiting it to a parent of a current current student is an appropriate standard I don't I think it just starts to get limiting I think you know if if we found if somebody found a religious track in you know entered into a library

144in a different school I think they should have the right to challenge it for as an example you know I hope that that would not happen given our our own internal policies but I I think you have to put a limit somewhere I think there is a chain of command if you find it in a library you can go to the librarian um I just I think it starts to get um complicated um and it's easy as enough just to say it's a parent of a current student or an employee so how does how do you how do you before you can to come to this point last time we were told that a parent had to show that they had gone through all the steps so how is that even possible if you are

145if there's a parent at one of the elementary schools how do they even show that they've gone through the steps of speaking speak to the high school people when they they have no reason for that they don't have a classroom teacher they don't have that chain of communication to follow because they're not part of that community so they' probably end up that'd probably end up speaking directly if there was no other educator in the middle like a liian or somebody else that end up speaking to the the principal you may I understand I understand your concern too I'm trying to make a a system that's not overbearing either so simple to implement I would like to add sorry go ahead sir I would like to add in the appendix some sort of um you know

146what steps have you taken to get to this point have you have you spoken to person a have you spoken to person B just so we know that they've done their due jence before filing this complaint I I think that's a fair enough ask as to what I don't know if you want to call it a chain a command I if to chain a command if we stick specifically to parents associated with kids and particular school to the point of this conversation you know to me they're chain of command they go to an elementary school principal that principles probably going to direct them to superintendent or Dr Fedigan or someone Dave yeah I just had two points one one's a followup I think the idea of documenting what steps you've taken I think that's reasonable

147with the understanding from the administration that yes if you don't actually have a student in the classroom then you probably would start at the higher level than super I mean the principle of building that makes perfect sense so with that understanding of mine it'd be fine for that ad um the other question is whether we leave the language of the superintendent or the board um there was suggestion earlier I don't think we've addressed where that should be I would personally vote that it remain with the board but um I don't think we've resolved that issue where are you for the parent C back to e sorry back to e we have the strike out of superintendent to the board uh Allan Dr adley suggest you to be superintendent in doing the random draw I would

148suggest actually we stay with it as drafted as the board Julie um going back again to this idea of whether or not a parent who does not have a student in the school should be bringing forth a challenge I just want to point out once again that this is we we're talking about things that are in the gray areas this you know if there were a glaringly inappropriate item found in a library or classroom and it brought to a building administrator's attention or whomever I I I have great faith that that could be remedied quickly and would not end up in this process so Jill to your example I feel like there are measures for that to be taken care of that don't come to the point of convening this group with nine people um

149to go through this uh process so I'm pushing again that I think challenges people who have students in the schools where the materials exist um and then I just wanted to throw in my two cents that I would support while I don't think parents belong on the committee I would support Dr adley being the person to choose those parents if we are going to go that route yeah I kind of you know as you think through this and listen to everyone's good thoughts here I I think in order to make this effective I think the book challenge should be specific coming from a person who's children are have seen it or experiencing it or it's in that particular School I think if a parent comes across something other comes across that is not in that

150school they have a methodology to ask what they've heard about potentially that's at a high school and middle school and kind of ask to get educated on it I'm not sure it comes up the route of a book challenge since they're not directly involved in it they may need to be educated as to why it's up there or that it's a reference material versus curriculum but I think they have a a method to ask and learn versus someone that whose student is in the particular school that the book is in and then the only other thing I I go back and forth on is the uh the board versus the superintendent I'm just not so sure happy to have a conversation Dave you know but I I don't know how the board randomly picks parents

151I mean I guess that's what I struggle with versus the superintendent follow question on that there was some talk at our last meeting about looking for parents that have experience or expertise in relevant areas whether it's education or Child Development is that what we're honly honestly Julie everybody has expertise in necessary to some degree um they're all parents they all have parenting expertise is what I'm thinking I just I I just like I just don't want to get into that level I'll just be perfectly honest with you I don't want to get into that level of decision making that here's a resume of all the things I've done versus your resume versus honestly I'm not going to win that and it's not going to be fruitful that's why I say let's do it like a

152a blind lottery for I agree with that so point Thank you point of clarification um Dr Fedigan or Dr adley can you just come back to the very beginning of this and and clarify what is meant by instructional material is it is is this like curriculum material that is part of what is actually going to be tested does this exclude library books oh no no anything is an instructional material anything in the scho are resources being used a book or or otherwise including pleasure reading in the library yes Dennis and then we'll see if we can summarize this go ahead I just want to remind the board that just U what the chairman just said a lot of the complaints that we have had that have got a lot of attention are from people who

153don't have kids in that school that they're complaining about so I'm just pointing tonight like because well they're reacting to social media and Incorrect and outof context headlines that are put out there to stir the controversy and stir them have you know tens and 20 and 25 cut and paste emails that say the same thing yeah but I'm just making the point that for those people individuals we' be i' be turning around and saying I'm sorry you don't have a child in the high school respectfully which is fine that's what we're doing but to the point of the earlier conversation there's nothing wrong with guiding those folks and educating them on what if they're they've heard about some reference material or book we can guide them as to the purpose that it's there as a

154reference resource or just as part of a public library public school system and also we could also make clear sorry to jump in that that their students have neither access nor exposure to these materials within our school system at this time and so um if there's other recourse they want to explore regarding those particular Publications that's entirely within their rights but true yeah so I think the one thing we have to look at or knowing this group here with all the great questions we have this could continue for quite a while and happy to roll it to the next meeting but um I think we need to see if we want to make a decision on this I think we're okay with number one that they must be apparent of a current student are we

155in agreement there um and then I think we're good with I Katie thank you for clarifying what materials um I think we're good with the committee will consist of a b and c I think we're good with d three teachers representing level and Department specialization does that make sense I would propose that the three parents um are associated with if spe specific um my thought is that the parents chosen by the superintendent um are specific to the school where the reference or curriculum material is and where the challenge is being presented that's where that's where I would land and again I think the one thing we have to think about is we can go through this process maybe something is challenged maybe something isn't it isn't necessarily set in stone um if we need to

156go back and review how the process worked I would hope that if a challenge came through and we went through the process we would have to do you know a review of how that process worked and that we were all comfortable with how that process worked and if there's anything we needed to change I'll pause there and go over to r i I agree with what you're saying I agree it needs to be the school level that the ch is coming from and that I I would submit that the person who's making the challenge should have a student at that school where the resides or the material um what I was going to say in addition to that though is that and I don't I'm just throwing this out there I mean potentially as the

157first step of that chain of command process it seems to me that they could easily come to some kind of a resolution with the teacher if there was an option for instance to have an opt out form for parent to say that I don't want my child to check out this book from the library and that our technology our technology and our library system should hopefully make that relatively simple and I'm not I don't want to create an administrative process but to the extent that that can eliminate the need to have continual meetings of this committee I just think that that might be an easy solution just to throw out there as an option for parents that don't want their kids to read certain materials that's Dennis so I agree with you Robin 100% but

158our policy 6330 is limiting to books or curriculum about dissection Family Life AIDS and HIV sexual abuse and Firearms so I don't know that it will allow parents to opt out of books which are not part of this so I think we have a dilemma with the policy 6330 to go to this so I think we have to keep keep digging so I think there's honestly for me I am not ready to vote on this tonight there's too many changes we're trying to do on a fly I would like to table this for a week or to next meeting and have a finished product that we can kind of vote on I think we have kind of a sense of the table sense of the meeting as to what we're thinking but I'm not comfortable

159voting tonight so what's the additional work you want Dennis because we keep doing this continuously I understand but I don't know I don't know that's why we I don't know if we're voting on superintendent random superintendent I don't know what we're voting on just the final language yeah so but but put out there Dennis what's the additional work that you want that's why I just want to finish copy to so I know what I'm voting I don't know what you just said you're not comfortable with voting on this so what additional work or what changes are we voting on are we voting on superintendent random superintendent random three people in the school where the book is being challenged I'm not sure what our answers are I just made a suggestion I ran through it Robin

160added something that you brought up a good point about it crosses over into another District so if you want I'll go through again what my proposal was but we'll pause for a moment and ask Mr Brown what he's got thank you duke um first of all Robin and Dennis bring up an excellent point there is a lot of interplay between these policies I think 6330 the opt out or perhaps whether that should be an opt out or opt in would be an excellent topic for a future uh sub policy subcommittee meeting in terms of language here in E I'm I'm willing to take a crack at this right now here live with something that seems to fit what you said Mr Denine in the sense of the board at this point and maybe we can

161conclude this tonight to Dennis's point if you're want to grant me the opportunity there go ahead Mr Brown all right so thank you problem so we're gonna have e going to read three parents of curtain students at the Darian public schools to be appointed by by the superintendent each parent must have a student at the building where this review is taking place okay so you just simplified it made it specific to parents associated with the bill correct can I just amend as they randomly appointed or just put the word random in randomly appointed by the superintendent okay okay that's an option if you didn't get I'm sorry Mar the tape I no I I think I'm I'm just worried about putting randomly in are are we going to be able to prove that to somebody

162who chall random I I Mar I would just ask can you trust a superintendent I'm gonna ask people give me your names yes I'll see your names but I'll I'll put it a random numbers to them we'll do a random thing and I'll put we we'll do the random that otherwise I'm not getting involved in who that's when I get you're the one hyat so that's great yeah I'm I'm comfortable with that I if it makes it more if the burden of proof is then I think it's fine jnis so just a question on the word Mr Brown a building does that mean if someone challenges a book at an elementary school can it only be the person in Henley or can someone from homes be on the committee I think that's a good point

163to me they would be so so is it school level grade level what phraseology do we like there schoel schel school level yeah level so to Dennis's point if we said School level the challenge was at the high school it would be three High School parents is at the middle school it would be three Middle School parents if it's at the elementary schools there are five would it be five par would it be three parents randomly chosen that could all put their name in from across the Five Element fair enough does that make sense Dennis yeah fair fair to me may I suggest we put that as a footnote or for example following this exact language to illustrate the scenarios yes good yes and then Julie and then thank you going back to point one

164Duke I don't think that you specified in there that the complainant will have a student in the school level where the material exists I think that needs to be included I did I did say that did you I'm sorry no no no let's let's get it clarified I I might not have said it clearly kind to Dennis's Point there's part of me that would like to have a clean copy of this in front of before that's fine and we can my recommendation right now is we get a clean copy and we are ready any questions or concerns um between now and the next meeting but we'll get a clean copy between now and the next meeting can we March can you make sure to add something to the appendex about the steps that they've taken

165thank you go back to you Denis anything else you're good you're good Jill um we had some discussion last meeting about um transparency and what that meant in terms of uh particularly the the actual review process and so I just wanted to Circle back and make sure we were clear on what what we're intending um so I think you know step one of transparency is actually having the policy with the procedure outlined step two is of course the actual um actual set of meetings or single meeting sub three is the the publication of the results so it sounds like in terms of step one once we have a policy we're clear and the policy dictates publication of the results but I think there were still some questions about what happens during the meeting is it

166warned is it filmed I don't know that we were I think we maybe not in favor of being filmed but it it was put out there so I just want to make sure the board is clear so we have to notice it because it's a committee called by the superintendent so we have to notice it so we'll do that that we'll we'll do it something along with the ad hoc committees that we've had whether it's diversity or otherwise we've met people can come to the meeting they can't really participate but they can come to the meeting uh we'll notice it accordingly we'll do minutes accordingly but brevity of minutes um I don't see any need to to videotape this there's no need to do that we don't do that with all the all the Committees

167out our committees that we uh put together but they can certainly come and watch it and so on is that clear yes it's clear to me I don't I don't know if that's not clear in the policy I think we would add that kind of the meeting process just to be clear requires to be noticed right and then the only other thing is I think did we all agree on appendix a we would add a section as to the process that they went through can you sketch that out yes Robin should they in that appendix also have something with that to check a box that they read the book sorry I don't know if that's overboard but I just given the context of what people have been saying I I think that might be relevant

168I have no issue with that I you that what's that ktie okay that's fine they do have to explain the nature of their complaint and where what it so one would hope that there is some depth of explanation great right thank you I think one more yeah absolutely yeah two more things one's from our last meeting and one I don't think we've touched on yet just making sure that we think 30 days is a reasonable timeline to find these individuals have them read the waren piece equivalent that's raising eyebrows or what have you and and get this work done that's a tight window um and then the other piece was I think we needed to decide finally how we feel the report should be posted shared disseminated Etc after so are you comfortable with the

169timeline well I've got another you got another 10 days after out for a response I think I think once it gets Beyond a month like it just gets you know well I think it holds it holds everyone accountable to getting it done in a timely manner and then I think if I remember Julie and we've had a lot of good conversations around this I think we agreed that it would be communicated in the superintendent communication we talked about that some about whether or not that then raises question questions about what doesn't get communicated in the superintendent uh weekly letter so the legal advice was to put something that specific in a policy so then one week Allan doesn't send out a communication he's violated the policy so the suggestion was to disseminate to the decision

170to the school community and you could work with the superintendent to figure out that sounds like great okay good Katie but does that mean that every decision is getting communicated out like if let's just say that we had like four in a row and they were all found to be baseless and we have to go and communicate out the you communicate the four decisions that the process we went through the process and the process was that the book stays in the library or the or the reference material stays for the classroom that's what we've been doing today right yeah yeah yeah would it be suffice to have him to stay in his shair his superintendent remarks does that account well it's kind of open at the minute so yeah I mean when you say communication

171Marge I mean that the superintendent communicates every Friday superintendent communicates twice a month at a board meeting so the language disseminate the decision to the school Community gives you the flexibility we leave it that we leave it at that and to me let's maybe we get one maybe we don't but maybe we have to go through the process a little bit and as he's coming out of the process you can say you're going to communicate at one of your superintendent updates or through one of your Friday Communications but it leaves us enough space okay all right good yes Mar I just ask one clarification for um Mam and we're required to notice under the Freedom of Information Act so do you did you want to add any other language about the way the meeting would

172be conducted the only thing I was thinking is that hate to add things to the policy that we don't need to add but at the same time people reading this need to understand the process so and understand and people participating in it may need to understand the process so if I were to raise my hand maybe I want to know that then will be noticed or if um so that is you know historically we don't necessarily put statutory language in but this is also a communication tool in some ways so I'm asking uh that we consider it yeah just may be state in the obvious but when we talk about the school Community or I talk about the entire School Community because we've limited the complaint to the people who are actually in the building

173so maybe now is it on the table that it's like if it's a high school then when go to the high school because that's where it was applied to um is that okay all right because that's so that's a school level then okay all right so we're going to say disseminate to the school level where the challenge yes so then you couldn't announce it at a meeting right because you wouldn't satisfy the policy anymore um come again well the policy says disseminate the decision to the school community so no I change you have to change that language right but then what I'm saying is then you can't announce it I don't think you can announce so you you have to so so you have to communicate back to the person that brought the challenge yes

174all right so that communication is done and then do you just post this to the website somewhere wouldn't the grade level be a subset of the school community so if you do the grade if you're okay if you're okay with that that's fine I could wouldn't be an unreasonable interpretation okay in my mind uh the grade level School level School level School level okay all right yes good all right good I think we made progress thank you very much thanks for all the question no it's look I think we've asked all the right questions and thought through it so Dave the board would so indulge I'd be willing to make motions on the other two policies we have I'm gonna do that right now I don't I don't need to hold the meeting up again

175but the social media policy do we want to possibly make the effective date with the beginning of the following school year I don't know that in the middle of the school year we have an effective way to communicate to everybody who has a district sponsored account that they need to now have a designation on it so we did that when we first adopted this in 2015 it wasn't effective until the next school year good call out what are people's thoughts I think logistically it makes sense I mean it's probably not ideal but I think it's really hard to enforce something in the middle of the year without so it' be effective 7124 yeah we'll have a daram Public School logo by then anyway there you go and would we also maybe have a a out

176external social media see by then and then you can roll it all out together efficiently perhaps okay good point that's a good point Julie all right we good so I have to figure out this motion may have a motion to approve the proposed revision to board policy 4400 social media to be effective 7124 I have a motion Dave second Dennis all those in favor all those current may have a motion to approve the program may may I have a motion to approve the prisions to board policy uh 6210 program of instru instruction curriculum textbooks and other instructional materials Dennis no that's the 666 yeah this is 62 thanks so Julie second by David all those in favor that is unanimous and then we are going to move 6220 challenges to instructional materials to um review

177of a clean copy and for Action at the next meeting good yes thank you Dave good all right thank you all very much um we will move on to presentation and preliminary discussion of regular Board of Education meetings for 2024 Dr adley well just they are us you see them this is just a prelimary discussion so any thoughts um one question um why are there three days in June is that just the way July fell because we're avoiding July 4th January 13th is uh sorry June did you say we're going three day three weeks in a row in June that's just the way it is I believe yes d um don't we normally have the building Tour on here it's in the budget one okay so again this will come back to us so um

178all right we'll move on to preliminary discussion of 2024 2025 budget meeting calendar I did have a conversation Monday with our partner Jack Davis an RTM budget um he his his thought was um do we have enough time for the board to do the board's work on the budget and work with the administration and ask the board's question um and should that January 12th date be pushed out further um more towards the 18th he thought we continuously get kind of tight in terms of the board having the right amount of time to ask the board questions the board to do the work around the budget and work with the administration on the budget um so that was the one thing that was brought to my attention and again um preliminary discussion so you can all

179read through through this and think through it and we can uh discuss and finalize this at the final meeting but any initial thoughts so was moving the official submission of budget questions comments and feedback maybe from the 12th to the 18th the 18th that's not really a that's not a meeting though just just for record that's just that would just be a submission dat and then you'd have time well so okay so official submission official submission of budget questions comments and feedback from okay but what is the purpose of that though why sorry why why are we why are we submitting a date because I I think what um questioning though is that if they submit by January 12th are they are they expecting answers January 18th because I'm not comfortable with that yeah I

180guess I guess the question is look I and the one thing you will all have to think about is again I think we've got to you know speak with RTM education RTM FNB and board of Finance um you know and again be very specific as to I think it's gotten better and better each year but these questions tend to go Every Which Way But around the budget and they become questions about the broader um topics of the Year versus very specific to the budget so I think that's something Jack wanted to continue to enable us to focus on and for the board to have the time without getting bombarded from all from all these questions um so you know going back to them and agreeing that you know they need to hear from the board

181they need to see the board do the work the board ask the questions a lot of their questions can sometimes then be answered as we go through our process and then it eliminates the need um or it simplifies the meetings with RTM education RTM FNB and board of Finance so that was kind of the conversation but it's a good point Dennis this is just January 12th is not a meeting date it's just a submission so I would ask that everyone think about you know when do we wna say have any questions to us we might we might say like let us do our work through let us do our work through the 23rd anything we talked about do about when we were talking about the process was while it's extremely helpful to have a lot

182of questions from our partners um that sometimes it takes us off course and so we have up to this point required or Administration has been answering all of the questions but they haven't always been relevant to the budget process so whether or not there's an opportunity for us to refine what actually does get answered right well I think I you know my recommendation would be um you know the administration the work of the board the administration presents the budget the board has to do the work and work with the administration on the budget I don't think we should be receiving questions from RTM FNB RTM education and board of Finance until everyone has heard the work that we've done everyone's raising their hand go ahead Denis I think Jill joged my memory I think this

183the purpose of this was that the if am my memory correct and you and people can correct me if I'm wrong I thought the purpose of this was that the other boards submit their questions and we go through and check off questions that we think are appropriate and would like answered before as opposed to kind of that was the kind of I think the purpose of this so this gives us time to say yes and then we we get we spend a weekend reading through we present it to the administration we get answers hopefully during the next couple budgets but it's not that brought up a question of who goes through those questions and who deems which questions get but yes so that is thank you for and I don't disagree with that but but

184the conversation with Jack was the more work that and the more time the board is given to do you know then the less questions the board will get so go ahead Dave I might want to suggest a counter proposal that instead of having the date move out we move in the date of the 12th to be sooner and I would defer to uh our new board of ed member to see what her thoughts might be on whether January 5th or 6th or 8th or something like that might be tenable instead of the 12th yeah I think as a board of ed I mean if you have Super Saturday on January 6 um personally I would want some time I think just for the Board of Ed to have that follow followup discussion on January 9th

185I guess I'm ask have our own questions answers before you start start to get the questions from all the other so so I guess I didn't frame it well I guess thinking in your past role if you had that and you were one of these groups submitting questions does that sound like a reasonable amount of time for them to have six days after Super Saturday um could they do in three what's that could they do in three it's where I'm thinking no I don't think so six because I think it helps them to hear the Board of Ed have their followup questions because that's also probably be some of the questions that they themselves would have yeah I think part of the goal and a lot of the work that Jack and Ed have done

186over the summer is refocusing the roles and responsibilities with these RTM subcommittees is you know at the end of the day statutorily we don't have to answer any questions you know um we just have to go about doing our work of the budget but the questions I think inform us as to what the subcommittees in the community are thinking about so Julie um thank you I I would support probably pushing back the date that the Committees would be submitting their questions I think sometimes the Super Saturday takes people a little while to get through and then to follow our discussions I think we might get better informed questions if there's a little bit more window there but I also wanted to point out I think another part of the reason we were doing this was

187that then the answers to those questions can be sorted by topic rather than by which committee asked those questions so instead of then having a packet of board of Finance questions and a packet of RTM education questions we have answers to questions that are AB sorted around let's go snow removal or whatever else the topic might be which then becomes a little easier to follow and work you all did that last year you sorted them by by by committee and it's it's it's hard because people are asking similar but different but related but building question like building upon the question from another committee so if if the cabinet has the opportunity to respond to those questions from everyone on a for topic basis I think that's more productive I'm sorry Dave could we have questions

188come in now and can randomly select a few of them randomly select Rand I like that collectively yes I think it's somewhat important that they go through a filter the questions really are to us they're not to Administration so because that's that's we are the ones reviewing the board so we need to take a look at them and then we can consolidate and say look there's a series of questions on snow removal robotics da and then articulate what we think that area of exploration is so I don't think we have to maybe sit here on B um no I think we've got all the right questions out on the floor so and then if I you know have time to talk to Ed or or Jack in between or Jim palen I'll do that and

189then and again I think too and I think you know the RTM subcommittees and board of Finance understand that it's more about you know focusing on the budget you know and questions associated with the budget so in this year also there'll be another cont contract in the mix also so all right good so we'll continue that question but I think we've asked all the right questions for this point in time Marge anything on the Personnel report good um um we will Michelle move to public comment good evening if anyone online would like to participate please use the raised hand [Music] icon there are no raised hands anyone in public all right thank you all I may have a motion to adjourn Julie second by Katie all those in favor that is unanimous