001good evening everyone thanks for those of you joining us in person I'm sure we have some folks on Zoom um I would like to call this regular meeting of the Board of Education to order the annual tour of schools with the town boards and RTM committees will be held on Saturday March 18th beginning at 8 30 a.m at Middlesex Middle School the next regular Board of Education meeting is on Tuesday March 28th at 7 30 PM in the board meeting room so thank you good evening everyone my comments will be brief I just want to thank the board of Finance we presented uh the board of education budget to the board of Finance I guess a little over a week or so ago along with first selectman uh Monica McNally presented the town budget so
002I want to thank the board of Finance I also want to thank the RTM subcommittee's education and RTM subcommittee f b finance and budget thank you for working with us we'll continue to work with you as we continue to go through this process you'll see on the agenda also toward the end of the meeting there's a topic we want to start a conversation around the budget process and uh we've all had some ideas as we've been through this budget process and some of us have been on the the board for a while so I think there's a way to kind of look at it look at the schedule look at when people get involved I think the important thing to look at is the time and energy that people spend especially the commitment of the
003superintendent and the cabinet around the budget process and answering questions I think we have to look at the superintendent budget and the work that's done on that budget and then the work that's then done from a board perspective in conjunction with information from the public and the subcommittees and the Partnerships we have with the other folks out there so I look forward to that conversation we'll really direct that toward John Cena and the finance committee to kind of take that under advisement and uh and work through some budget process ideas and schedule ideas and then have a full board conversation too and include our our partners so I'd also like to thank I know it was standing room only last night but Joanna and cdsp thank you for speaking on behalf of the budget last
004night at the public hearing I think weather and everything else prevailed but thank you for attending unfortunately I couldn't make it I think the chairman of the board of Finance didn't even make it right from a trained perspective but thank you so with that we will move on to uh public comment Michelle good evening if anyone in person or online would like to participate please um wait for the chair to call you or if you're online use the raise hand option you will have up to three minutes to comment please state your name and address for the record should we start in person sure anyone in the audience be good thank you anyone on Zoom there are no raised hands all right good more public comment at the end we'll move on Dr adley superintendent's
005report good evening everybody um happy St Patrick's Day for a Friday and we will hopefully hear the back paper round time but but March has but there's another but there's another reason for March March is also uh board appreciation month of boards of education and then there's a wee message here for you actually uh from a Connecticut native [Music] to have a moment personally thank you and acknowledge I want to thank the trees Lisa and the whole team I paid for the great work you do you know Kate has really stepped up in these last several years and I've been fortunate to be able to work more closely with Katie thank you Katie thank you all Boards of Education you know what time are we meeting if you've done a great job we see that
006board members are volunteers but that could be farther from the reality over the past few years you've taken on head fire you've faced threats and bullying protests you state the arena you wear many accents roll up your sleeves to get to work for our school of the first students critical issues like learning recovery mental health support ensuring that parents and communities get to have more say in their child's learning your efforts in and for your communities make all the difference thank you for all you do thank you so I tried to get I tried to get him to make an appearance on Zoom uh if a schedule had a of work they would have done it for us but anyway thank you Miguel I appreciate that I want to thank uh congratulate our basketball unified
007team uh this week I think a Monday they went to furfield and they competed and had a great time and uh everyone uh was a winner at the furface so congratulations to thank you to the staff who work with our children and uh to our our students for participating uh since last time we spoke at the boys squashed him won the fur West Conference the girls hockey team won the seic and the state championship the boys hockey team won the fcic and the girls indoor track team uh were our Eastern Division champion so uh congratulations to all our teams dredge lunches commenced today hot lunches uh somebody's maybe not know there weren't hot latches up to this point I don't know but they this is the day we started we were able to get the
008van and we're kicking off after the remainder of the um school year so thank you for Chartwells we had some problems with uh securing registrations and vans and so on but uh thank you to parents taxi for hanging in there and and for our students too so today's a hot day over at uhridge uh thank you prior March 1st uh we had a successful fifth grade student with IEPs and five 504 prepared to go to middle school and that was a very well received uh uh over at Middlesex and middle schools for cycling to the parents who participate in that as also for our parents life today for our conferences and the afternoon uh tomorrow and the evening tomorrow we do have an even an opportunity and then one on Friday uh March 17th as
009a professional Learning Community State at the high school so that's a delay to open it curves of schools is March 18th if you would like to accompany us and we'll be starting over at the middle school at 8 30. that agenda is posted and it will also be videotaped and posted too so if you can't get out on Saturday uh you'll have an opportunity to review it congratulations to our robotics team um and I want to thank the the staff because staff for their Friday night Saturday all day Sunday all day at Waterbury uh we'll follow an online their performance they want the first three matches then they get paired up with different teams uh so they did very well throughout the day they ended up winning the rookie All-Star award so congratulations to them
010I also want to congratulate the programming Club who competed in the cyberquest it's a course grade in Stratford on Saturday March 4th our team took uh third place that is a cloud-based competition that includes problems created by Lockheed Martin's cyber security engineer so uh I can only imagine the technical aspect of that so the talent there uh Dr Alicia dad our director of mental health starts on Monday we will have an opportunity uh for Alicia to reach out to the parents uh late April um early may but hopefully uh late April to facilitate discussions at the various schools our director of security those meetings will be going forward with the PTO so they're they're certainly being scheduled just at the moment I like I'll let uh I just want to talk about the Newsies I
011think you're you've got to be uh updated on on as far as from there and our board committee meets our curriculum March 16th the finance the 23rd uh we will have discussions about the communications on the 24th whether that's up and running or not and the policy meeting on uh March 31st we'll move quickly over to you good to see you this evening uh good to see you too um unfortunately John's at a rehearsal but he would want me to remind everyone to buy their tickets for Newsies if they haven't already opening night is tomorrow and it's running through Saturday um the student government's elections are kicking off next week so you're going to see like a lot of posters and campaigning um and students will vote for their favorite candidates on April 5th um
012also next Wednesday is the junior the junior class will have their state mandated s.a.t in school so I have that to look forward to um and in honor of board uh appreciation month I would also like to give my thanks to everyone and um the last few months I've gone to see how much time and effort goes into making every single one of these decisions so um and I'm sure there's even more going on behind the scenes so I think I can speak for all uh during public school students when I say we really appreciate everything that you do thank you for saying that we appreciate that and thank you for the time energy that you and John put into it too much appreciated we move on to the approval of the minutes may have
013a motion to approve the following minutes of the special meeting held on February 28 2023 and minutes of the regular meeting held on February 28 Julie second by John all those in favor is unanimous for all of us that are here we will go on to board committee reports there is a Oxbridge building committee meeting tomorrow at 10 o'clock uh I'll have more of an update next time but that continues to stay on schedule and under budget and we heard Dr adley talking about the hot lunches over there we will actually see uh the gymnasium and the cafeteria and the music room structure on the tour on Saturday so that will be exciting it's looking good I think other than this last week the weather has helped us but we're on schedule for that school
014fully open for the September school start HHR [Music] um HHR submitted their first bid package you all or may remember we had an early bid package for some of the electrical equipment that has a very long lead time those has been approved by the state and they're out um that's exciting for those at least and then the second piece is we're finishing our construction drawings those should be finished by the end of the week actually they're out going out for approval by our committee next Wednesday and they'll be to you all at our March 28th meeting also for approvals also exciting so yeah the curriculum committee subcommittee has a meeting tomorrow morning at 8 30. we will be talking about science and music so tune in anyone else good thank you we'll move on to
015presentations and discussions update on District strategic plan board goals diversity Equity inclusion Dr adley and Dr tranberg uh if you don't mind I will start with support goals and uh if you've you have the memorandum so I'm just going to touch on things very very quickly unless any board members I would like to bring any discussion over by any item uh board goal number one evaluate and maximize Safety and Security practices for students and staff uh command the board and the district for the work that is done in the support of the community where we are right now and we have an update uh executive session on school security and uh I think we're in a good place uh we've done the steps that we said that we're going to do our ssos anticipate starting
016in April 19th uh we're pleased that we're going to be able to place uh the six ssos simultaneously uh the the hiring process uh the email has worked well with margin coordinate not to make sure that we can get everybody to start at the same time so that's uh very helpful but um we have our uh Dr Alicia Dad starts on Monday so those those um those positions have been filled and um we're making I feel we're making the board of tremendous progress with uh goal goal number one I actually started to talk about goal number two two which is as much the CM around the SEL around mental health Dr dad will uh commence again on Monday and also also have Outreach to our community on the end of April the high school will
017also uh be having a wellness week and also be sponsoring out of the darkness campus walk on April 30th uh to raise fund for suicide prevention and raise awareness and reduce the statement so uh they continue to uh to work on supporting our students in our mental health area I can pause as I go or I can just keep going I'm good that's right we'll pause after each call Julie thank Dr adley can you give a little more color until health and SEL presentation for families district-wide or specific to so uh being formed it well it is they still be informed because Monday's Dr dad arrives so we'll have to do that in collaboration with her uh at this point um we're anticipating it could be different but at this point we're anticipating it's been
018a K-12 opportunity and uh we would likely dovetail out with the presentation uh with her presentation of mental health stroke SEL which will give people an opportunity to have questions around that uh to to come to that particular presentation and ruler as well would be well that would be part of SEO for the SEO okay thank you Sarah um questioning the mental health updates scheduled for March 28th I would assume that Dr dad would be a part of that but she will only have been here for eight days is that should we push that off I think she would appreciate that um I certainly put that on because it was on there yeah I think it would be probably you can have that in our agenda conversation good morning thank you give her a few
019more extra days goal three okay so oversee the implementation of the Strategic plan uh sort of the one of the updates here I have is sort of the discussion about the early adoption of board goals uh to be because it ties directly to the Strategic plan so that's something that we have to discuss and I think we've sort of just we sort of have discussed it to bring that forward hopefully maybe at the end of June and the most recent one is that the board uh the board adopted budget aligns to uh the Strategic excuse me the Strategic plan and supports it I'll pause for a moment before I go to four so uh enhance uh the board you know this is more an update on what's occurred but in terms of the Strategic plan
020itself you know there are board rules which are separate entity from the scrap plan um do you have any intention of taking a look at stratplan well Chris has been a big that's part of as part of that great part of his update here and certainly if the board wants me direct not in add something that we would like to modify something or have that discussion yes we can put that in you can add that and actually you know that tonight if you wish yes um the board and District communication shows that the the work of the community commission committee has been up and running um we're ready to uh will be sent out to you before they close this week the survey for board members and it's fairly straightforward for board members so you'll
021be asked to record work there'll be examples for you but you just been asked to record anything that you think the board members do in the way of communication and it can just be raw data for uh for the moment uh we did submit written testimony written an in-person testimony to set legislators and uh we're researching the actual communication survey plan I would say up top something I would like us to do a wee bit more off or uh like for instance celebrate students and staff achievements we do I'd like to elevate that if I could in some way I think we could do uh we can improve even more on that that there's areas here that we haven't uh discussed uh Administration for instance uh to discuss the power of moments book by the
022heath brothers and they have been celebrating and recognizing staff to wait the year in different ways uh retirement parties has been uh uh sort of changed and elevated a little bit but I think there's other things we could do like I'll put this on myself I still would like to see future of the Year prior profession of the year more recognitions just just on the teaching staff and of teaching learning and so I think that's an area where I would I would want to look at and continue to see if we can find ways to celebrate both adults and students and the policy committee did to identify policies and procedures to support and enhance District Communications that's just start that's just sort of ongoing an example of that might be uh the inspection of materials
023a policy right because that's an open transparent process and so the work on that sort of uh will will kick in pretty rapidly here Tara um so I just had a question about the idea of like teacher of the year and things like that and recognition and not that I'm against recognizing but we don't recognize students we've gotten rid of honor roll and all of that long time ago so you know if we're going to recognize teachers why don't we recognize students did you say we don't recognize students yeah we do recognize it we do yeah because I haven't seen an honor roll in years well that's not the only way we recognize them though can you explain to me how we recognize one example is we've to wait a year we are sorry at
024the end of the year we have a recognition Germany for students I mean graduation no I mean an award ceremony where we recognize uh students for academic performance Club performance participation that is specific to the high school yes oh yes yes yes yes so maybe to your point Tara as as you said yeah the middle school doesn't well they do an award ceremony but it's not it's not academically at all it's an awards everybody's not academic based not Middle School well okay well they defend medical so maybe as you as you flesh out I think it's a good as you flesh out kind of awards and honors maybe an update to the board on what we actually do at the high school at the middle school and the elementary school so there's other ways of
025doing it though I mean you could have like students in the spotlight here that was profiles what they do and how they're doing things there's different ways of it's not just a ceremony I'm thinking I just think that there's ways that we could celebrate teaching and learning on our students and our staff um when we talked about adding this as part of our board goal but we talked about how this was not going to be just for academics like this was to celebrate achievements of music of being a nice person being a good citizen this was not you know not just honorable like it was more a broad achievement even if it's like I opened the door for a person that's why it's like how do we shadowy a culture of trying just recognizing good
026human beings yeah that is the summary of the board of those okay good thank you we'll move on to Mr Dr tranberg good evening everyone I'll provide uh by gold as well uh just a couple of highlights of each of the goals of the Strategic plan uh and I'll start at the top with uh we're finalizing the teaching and learning principles that is uh and taken on largely by our professional development and evaluation committee uh the pdec so those are drafted we just have one more round to go through with uh trying to find some language of what are some identifiable things we would look for in classrooms to align with those principles and that will be completed by the end of this year and also our transition from Google Docs into edge of planet
027we have made a lot of progress So the plan is for four years I'm optimistic that we will get everything done faster than four years but we have a four-year plan for every Department that we are moving through that and providing professional development to departments as they're ready to to make that transition I'll pause there yeah Katie sorry thank you uh Chris just one question for you the third bullet um mentioning that ELP has been working with literacy how um developing language and poems and nursery rhymes I'm just curious about that um anecdotally I've been hearing that literacy how really hasn't had a presence um in ELP in durian for a while so can you just expand a little on what that is and how it's happening yeah I'll defer to Charlotte for that yes
028it began three years ago Laura wrote a grant we started with Margie Gillis that first year there is a one of Martin gillis's colleagues comes in and works with the teachers um in real time and working on the different goals that they've looked at in terms of literacy she's been on board this year not Margie her colleagues yes move on to two sure professional development we've had a partnership with a responsive classroom for several years so we are continuing with that training Andy Deuces whose name appears a few times has been incredibly successful and well received by teachers so in addition to classroom teachers he's also working with paraprofessionals this week during conferences and he's worked with our special Area Teachers as well and that's been wonderful our Dei team met on Monday of this
029week we have a meeting coming our April meeting I'm going to meet separately with each group and then we have our final meeting in May at which time we're going to finalize our report and presentation that will be made to the board on June 13th with recommendations from the year and a half of work that they completed Chris I think was just on gold too heading to goal three correct yes all right but we'll pause that goal to questions comments John when you say drafting recommendations recommendations so they completed the equity audit so there's four areas that they're making recommendations it's related to achievement climate professional capacity and program participation so each group will have a few recommendations people are calling them like we did with the gifted uh evaluation we'll probably call them considerations
030so we did commendations and considerations because then it becomes a board and administrative tasks yes for goal three uh this is largely related to Portrait of The Graduate the the biggest piece of work is actually coming as part of our administrative retreat in June we have the language that's been developed at the secondary level that's what's published in the Strategic plan at the end working on Parallel language for elementary and then the important piece is well how do you measure and assure that students have fulfilled the competencies of the vision of The Graduate so that's the work of our Retreat coming up and we've also integrated those conversations in our regular administrative meetings throughout the year anything on portrait of The Graduate goal three um mention of the core competencies being represented in the genius
031hour projects at Middlesex and when we get an update on on genius hour I'd love to hear more about that yes and all of those competencies are also built into the edge of Planet platform they customize that for us so we can make connections to our curriculum with all the competencies of the uh vision of The Graduate yeah when the update of the genius hour can we also get not obviously the kids names but a list of all the projects that are being done [Music] for professional capacity of Staff I'll point out um March and tandem with the DEA are going to meet with first and second year teachers as they did last year it was a really helpful exercise to go through because we are we're very good at asking our new teachers what
032they think after they have their new teacher orientation and onboarding and they're very excited to say everything was wonderful and they gave us some revised feedback of where what they might what might have helped them be more prepared so we'll continue that practice because of the it was very informative for us and we made some adjustments to our onboarding as a result of that uh additionally I'll point out that the CT saids piece has been a major lift and everyone has been wonderful in navigating that new platform and working together and so we've tried to give teachers and uh administrators as much time as possible to to navigate that as smoothly as possible and we also have our next pdec meeting we have a special guest Jocelyn Delancey you might remember that name she is
033on the state committee there aren't very many people that are on that committee that redesigned the the new feedback system so she's presenting to our pdec in April so we should have a draft in the fall of what the new system will look like and we're anticipating it'll be another year of a waiver uh using the current system that we're on any questions on Michael Chris can you disqualify the rollout of CT sets I understand it was actually a little bumpy oh it's I'll certainly literally but from my perspective it's absolutely been bumpy across the state but the way that we have managed the bumpiness when I talked to my other colleagues has been impressive okay that's the feedback we're getting also we are leaders in it we're approaching it understanding what a challenge it
034is enthusiastically um everyone is is working as hard as they can and dancing as fast as I can we've trained all different levels we're actually the process of doing a beginning training and intermediate now for our administrators as well so I think we've we've realized we've embraced it we're working through it we're giving staff the time they need to do it because we spoke earlier this year it really can go from 20 minutes to two hours and we get better as we go and I think the staff would tell you that I don't want to diminish how hard everyone is working because that's how hard everyone is working um but we're making progress and we'll continue to I'd also say and stress the system and stress or stuff I think so I mean just to
035care about that right we are given the time we're trying to be responsible they're doing Newman's work but there's no doubt that this was uh stressful and learning experience um that's a tremendous job but but I just don't want to minimize either just just the stress and put on the system and we actually kind of set up a hub in our own office that we're like the phone you know phone a friend people call in all day long to work with our support staff in our office here uh a lot of the errors that happened the state's working on these glitches but their new glitches that come up goals come out of order they're there but they show up differently in different formats there's an IEP at a glance there's another format to it so
036as we're learning as we go we have a great deal of support staff helping out our okay colleagues thank you and given that this topic is expanding the professional capacity of Staff we may not be there yet but is there an opportunity within the house while rolling it out has been again for some people has been bumpy um are there opportunities potentially to streamline down the line that we see coming certainly why don't we get better as we go because we learn the operations as we did with IEP direct and also the state is improving a lot of the aspects of the system okay over and above just that kind of smoothing out the data entry is there anything that the system is providing to us that would that we didn't have before in terms
037of how we run our operations the para portal is very friendly so you can see it in real time so parents have access to a portal so they can read the IEP and get all their information for that I think that's Improvement the actual format is improved the friendliness of the document is improved and it's much clearer prior written notice is a separate document which really doesn't form the family in a very clear and precise way as are the comments in the minutes so I think the setup of it once it is more operable will really enhance the communication between family and school Chris going for because we do have a lot of professional development and we see it kind of peppered in here but just making sure we do capture the universe of the
038PV we're doing and sometimes you know when you've got that we've talked a lot during the budget season about the you know r d and where that shows up and you know I know sometimes it determain to other goals but where it's relevant to this goal I think there's quite a bit going on and I know you're trying to roll it up to the board but in the spirit of that if I may just answer in the RBT training also we're trying to train our in-house people to be trainers so we don't have to go to see yes or to other communities so we're asking many of our own colleagues to become trainers thank you anything else sorry under goal five Communications uh We've convened the elementary progress report card committee uh that has partially
039a result of the DEA teacher negotiations was the committee was going to be formed uh it fits under the school because progress reports are a significant communication to all the families and we really want to make sure that the progress reports are well aligned with the elementary standards that are being taught so that is underway uh and the Board of Ed Communications committee has met several times um they're in the process of for the lack of a better word I know we don't love the word audit but auditing our Communications that we have across the district to try to make sure we have a comprehensive understanding of what Communications are out there where there might be some gaps and how we can make for more effective communication I'll pause there Joe so that first bullet
040what are the drivers for is it just alignment yeah so then the number one driver would be the actual standards for each grade level the standards are that language is very misaligned from the actual standards that are currently in place so I I don't I'm not quite sure the last year that they were updated but I think it was had to be close to a couple of decades I would guess the standards the the current progress reports so there's been a significant change in curriculum and the progress reports have not followed up with the change they look pretty common course the way they read so it's been a while thank you Sarah um question about when you think you might be coming like is that what are we hoping for next school year or no
041that would be I think it'll be too aggressive uh once those once that's done there'll be several presentations uh and also there's a significant technology side of that in building a new progress report within Aspen so at least another school year out okay uh do you have a recommendation or best practices on the timeline of when progress reports should be reviewed as far as well just is what we do right now this one seems like it have been a really long time since we've done it so what what would we be looking for after this one is in place when would we look to reassess again in general I don't think that you need to overhaul an entire progress report at once there are times all standards don't change at once so if we have
042a new social studies framework that comes from the state there's no reason why we shouldn't press pause and say are we aligned or are we not aligned it should change whenever that happens it's easy being more of an ongoing process in the future thank you yeah we talked a bit earlier because I think the security um aspect of communication is going to be important over the next I don't know two one to three months so um I don't see that here but um and I don't know if that's too granular but I would I would certainly add that yes thank you and I'll also add um to miss mccammon's earlier comment about just looking at the Strategic plan in general we had discussed at an earlier meeting uh perhaps not waiting until the retreat to
043do that because it's a bit late but considering an additional meeting uh sometime this spring or to do it during a regular meeting so that's that just gets to be discussed with I'll move on to uh golf six uh I know we've already talked about HHR and oxridge those are just two four really exciting things that are happening so I wanted to name those again and other than that you're these are very current updates so I won't belabor this one just I would add the track it's a pretty big one once that's officially approved by the RTM it's on its way that's a good one thank you and under goal seven uh we do uh another type of security always looking to improve our uh security of our infrastructure and so there's been cyber cyber
044security training and we have a new email filtering system that is in place as of I think last week and also pointing out that we are looking into how we're going to make our redesign of the tech department working with this coordinator position so that is underway as well sorry one other head back in the in the last one um is the auditorium too as well it's pretty cool thank you yeah thank you sorry Laura Street reached out to me but to Katie's question earlier um there have been two workshops thus far and the next Workshop from literacy how it was on March 24th not the 17th uh just to give some more information to the board all right let's go I gave me presentation on possible approval of international trips for 2024 Dr tranberg
045Ms Mauricio and Mr jensco please I will turn it over to Christina and Francis uh half the time I'm so excited about these trips again so I'll preface of that I just came back from our Galapagos pre-departure meeting at the high school so we're leaving in 24 days it's gonna be awesome so uh tonight uh Francis and I will be presenting the world language and English trip uh trips for 2024 and I will start with my presentation and then introduce Francis who will do his and then we'll both be available to answer questions at the end because we're both traveling with ef a lot of it is oh thank you a lot of it is the same the agenda for tonight some of you may recognize this because it's very similar to the previous times
046that I've done this um but I've included information about our program development and our EF partnership and safety on tour in here so that you can look at it if you want to but I'm going to skip ahead to safety and then continue on with itineraries if that's okay if you have questions about anything in the previous slides you can ask afterwards so program development I'm going to skip through what students gain from educational travel which we all know Education First and our partnership it's the company that we travel with and safety safety obviously is our number one priority whenever we travel on an EF tour we have a dedicated personal tour director on location they meet us at the airport they say goodbye to us when we get on the plane home um the
047Education First as a company has a piece of mind and Global Travel protection program that covers Us the entire time while we're there and it's one of the main reasons that we chose to partner with them three years ago when we started this because they support our district policies and our and are very similar to what we do so the first um trip I'm presenting is the Spanish language immersion trip which is nine days to Argentina and it was Sioux Falls over April break of 2024. on the first day we arrive in Buenos Aires and we spend three days exploring the city uh when the city of Buenos Aires I equate it to New York City in the sense that it's very large a lot of different neighborhoods different foods a Confluence of culture you
048could spend a year in the city alone and not see everything that you'd want to see so we spent three days exploring the city monuments markets all the different neighborhoods we then go on to Colonial Sacramento in Uruguay and this is we actually get on a boat and we cross the River Plate to see this Spanish colony so students can see traditional Colonial architecture from the Spanish colonization and then we're back in Buenos Aires for a day before we go to the border of Argentina and Brazil to visit iguysu Falls and we spend a day there there's more I could go on and on about what we're going to do and the highlights but that's in the detailed itinerary which is in the packet that I provide I did for everyone I'm most excited about
049the pink house which is the White House in Argentina but there's this pink so that's may or may not be why I'm wearing my picture um the next trip which is also over April break of 2024 is a trip to France and to back up for a second we've come up with these three locations after um asking for feedback on locations to all students in the DHS community over the years there have been there's been a lot of interest in a trip to France for our students that study French and it's the perfect opportunity because Springtime in France is absolutely beautiful we this trip is 12 days it starts in the French Riviera before it makes its way North through Provence and the Lavender Fields of Provence North to Lyon The Culinary capital of France
050some may say it's Paris but it's actually Lyon and then up to the Lara Valley to see all the Chateau and the gardens and you basically can't do this type of trip in France without visiting that area and then moving on for a two night stay in Paris before going to Normandy and seeing uh the Deep the area where the Allies landed on D-Day on Normandy Beach which is really special a really special extension that we've added on to this trip and again I could say so much about this trip alone but it's in the uh detailed itinerary that stops and the excursions and all the extra things that the students will be doing so two separate trips two different languages over April break and then the last one similar to the summer trips that
051we've been planning in summer of 2022 students went to Germany and Switzerland this summer they're going to Italy and then next summer There's an opportunity to go on a specialized stem trip to London and Stonehenge and the purpose of this trip just to give you some color on this one students are exploring the inner workings of London's principal monuments and buildings they visit Stonehenge they study with researchers at the Royal Observatory it's a real hands-on experience for students that are particularly interested in architecture applied sciences astronomy and of course engineering and all of the the the students that travel on this trip actually get expert LED tours and do research with people that work in them and like in Big Ben you actually go up to the Clock Tower and you see how the again
052there's all this is in me is in the board packet but it's open to all students this trip is open to all students at DHS Rising sophomores Juniors and seniors and it in particular in particular interesting to students that are interested in science engineering and architecture and accommodations and meals and then what's included and what's not so this would also um apply to similar to the safety information this also applies to francis's presentation so I'll I'll do it here just in the interest of time the hotels are centrally located they're safe three and four stars Wi-Fi and the meals on tour are intended for students to eat as locals would breakfast and dinner are included and lunch time is really an opportunity for students to travel through the location where we're in to explore food
053that they would like to try with their tour guides with the group and yeah that's that's pretty much it as far as accommodations and meals I could answer questions if someone has them but those are like the broad strokes and then what's included and what's not so I've included here the prices of our trips but as far as what's included and what's not is also similar to what Francis will be presenting later we should view these trips as all inclusive in the sense that they include airfare breakfast and lot breakfast and dinner I'm sorry all travel once we arrive access to our tour director The Traveler support team back in the United States all of the expert-led tours all the activities all of the project-based learning everything that happens on tour is included and then
054what's not is up there if there's a passport fee ground travel to the airport lunches and snacks if you apply for the college credit the Global Travel protection which can be added later but that's pretty much it so Argentina France and stem in London and that's all for me I feel like giving you a round of applause special thank you I too love to talk but I've been instructed by our instructional leader to keep it short um and that's going to be very important when we get to our our second slide in a minute um what's happening here are we going through everything yeah looking for my slides um I'll begin by saying so I'm presenting to you I'm proposing to you a similar international trip called literature in England um it goes without saying
055that the reason I'm here tonight is because of the person next to me because um they say that imitation is a serious form of flattery well we are imitating not exactly the locations of the World Language trips um but you know we wouldn't have this idea if not for Christina and the great work that they've been doing in World languages um basically it's the same tour organization EF Education First everything that Christina has already presented is a part of basically the structure of this trip um uh I was so amazed by all the great trips that you've approved and that they've already done and that is already in the pipeline um I was just curious to see if there was something that connected to English and lo and behold there's something called literature in England
056um it didn't take much doing to get some of our teachers on board um uh with this idea and then we did a survey so we have a number of students that are interested in this trip so we know that the students are out there um so we feel really good about this and proposing it to you tonight um our trip is uh the is uh destined for um April of 2004 2024 just as a couple of uh Christina's trips are as well um so I I have this wonderful poem that I brought to you but in the name of time and um just say um I feel defeated and my secret dream was to have a poetry explication breakout here at the board event for the first time uh ever um but suffices to
057say we'll get rolling through it I did you know this is the kind of thing that old English teachers do they bring a small poem at the beginning of a class establishing a theme for the lesson Francis I just want to point out that the number of words you use to describe why you didn't read it you could have read fair enough I'll I'll leave it obviously William Wordsworth is um one of the authors that was one of the poets that um our students would visit um one of the places that he made famous in England and I'll leave it at that um so these are the primary destinations for the trip and I want to just emphasize that um the plan for the first year would be to do the book trip um and
058use the standard itinerary that has been designed by EF um later on having done it once we might decide hey you know what this wasn't the most effective place and we want to make some revisions that costs a little bit more so we decided for this first time to go with the standard book itinerary so I'll get to the authors in just a moment but I'll just say that we start with a two-day stay at the Lake District which is a national park and England is made famous by British Romantic Poets we move on to Yorkshire which we'll get to the famous authors that are known for uh their work there in just a moment Stratford upon Avon would be day four day five is Oxford I'll get to the reason why uh that's been
059added to the trip as well day six is bad and we finish with a uh two days really two and a half days in London um the authors and these are folks that we uh read in our curriculum so the Lake District is made famous by the British Romantic Poets to the left is a very young William Wordsworth and his um esteemed colleague Samuel Taylor Coleridge is to his right and we'll learn a lot more about those poets have visited their um you know the location of many of their poetry poems um day three uh we have in Yorkshire that's made famous by the Bronte sisters we're familiar with two of them um the one to your right is Charlotte she wrote Jane Eyre that's something that we read at the high school to your
060left is Emily Bronte in the middle we don't really know much about or we don't really read Anne Bronte but she's the third Bronte sister who is also a writer as well Dave four is all things Shakespeare we will see his birthplace we will see um one of the places that he went for his Elementary schooling we'll see Anne Hathaway wife's Cottage we will see his burial place so it's a great little town I've been there myself before um because we English teachers like to nerd out and go on these trips on our own um day five um basically I had a hard time figuring out exactly what what the reason was for going to Oxford and um I was able to unearth that we will spend some time at New College where a lot
061of scenes from the Harry Potter movies were filmed and it looks like that's the so-called literary connection that we have on that day so um I'll just feature that I'm sure it will be heartbreaking for me to come back from this trip let's say with our kids and have that be the featured memory of the trip but um anyway who knows uh bath has made famous um not only for the uh for the Roman baths and that's why it's called bath but for Mary shelling on our left who is the author of Frankenstein that we read and honors America and honors English 10 and Jane Austen to the right finally we wind up in London I have depicted their Charles Dickens in Virginia a wolf we read them they're very famous for their stories set
062in London we will also see the Globe Theater or the reconstructive Globe Theater which is amazing we will see a production there and we also have a workshop performed by actors for the students there so I find it I think it's a tremendous trip here are the ways in which it really gets at a lot of the works that we do in the curriculum already right so it won't really take much to put you know to make connections with the kids that go on the trip in terms of where we're what we're learning about um I feel like this is sort of you know just doing exactly what Christina did so I'm thankful that she went over all the bells and whistles that come with ef trips earlier you can see the price you can
063see what comes with it you can see what doesn't come with it it's virtually the exact same as all of her trips and pretty much I feel like everything I'm doing is really much the exact same only as the English version um I've looked a little more into the EF catalog and there isn't really um I don't expect that we're going to be you know coming up with a lot of uh trips like this every year I think this is something that we would like to do and like to offer our kids but I don't see as much on there as there are let's say for World Language and World culture um but I'm very excited about this our our uh teachers are very excited about this opportunity for our kids and the kids that
064we've already talked about this idea with are also very excited as well so at this point I will resist the urge to go back to that poem and if you have any questions you'd like to ask you can beat it you can read us as well please do laughs traveling this is the spot how mildly does the sun shine in between the fading leaves the air in the habitual Silence of this wood is more than silent and this bed of Heath where shall we find so sweet a resting place come let me see the sink into a dream of quiet thoughts protracted till Vine I become as water when the winds are gone and no one can tell wither my sweet friend we too have had such happy hours together that my heart melts in
065me to think of it so the real purpose of this is that what we see is an environment that is having a major effect um in shaping the mood and the dreams and the imagination of the speaker of the poem and the sweet friend and then the reader so it's really the same experience we're looking to give our kids by putting them in environments where these poets and writers crafted these great works so they too can feel in that location the mood and the dreams and the imagination that those writers felt as well that's the purpose of that poem thank you very much any questions sure um just quickly I don't remember these open to all grades okay okay thanks yeah um just question about travel insurance it's an add-on right it's not a requirement
066is it is there any thought to maybe requiring traveling stores I'm just thinking yeah God providers medical emergency or whatever so there is traveling with ef comes with their basic travel insurance plan the one that you can purchase after is an enhanced policy and we also like students are covered by their own insurance and also with us Julie thank you um these are amazing I'm available for all of them which is gonna be hard because they're happening at the same time a lot of them um but that's a lead-in to my question which is do we have any concern about being able to find enough chaperones um now there are only so many videos with your students okay I have a waiting list okay love it they're concerned about the enough students to do all
067three or we just need a minimum of six oh to run the trip so if there would be an issue if there were fewer but no so I have two questions for you Christina the first one the first one is stem in England um I love the concept but why is that coming out of your department we in our original proposal in 2021 we said that we would like to offer a trip that was open to all students at the high school so it wasn't just exclusive to the World Language department so very similar to what happened with Francis I would have loved to run a literature and England trip I'd be happy to do all the logistical work but that's Francis like that's a great idea so very similar to the stem trip we're
068offering it so that more students can have that opportunity it's not exclusive to oh if you don't take a world language but you like Sam you can't go on it it's it's open to everyone yeah okay uh and then do we um is there a reason why you've changing some of the trips you know why are we not repeating the love of those for example oh so that's so that the students that are because we have several repeat Travelers on Galapagos right now that went to Spain so we're going through three different locations so that the students that one on them will either have already had that experience or will have graduated okay [Music] is there over subscription where on any of these trips where you have to prioritize kids that haven't students that haven't
069gone yet or no the cap is at 60. okay so it's it's pretty high yeah it's pretty high so are you going to Argentina or France I don't know I'll clone myself and I'll go on both um I'm I'm not sure on which one I will go but the person who is leading who's listed as the leader of that trip travel to Germany and Switzerland with students in the summer so whether it's me or her yeah I don't I can't I don't know any other question itself are we ready to approve these [Music] they have a motion to approve the proposed International trips to Argentina April 2024 France April 2024 and stem in England summer 2024. Julie seconded by Tara all those in favor that's unanimous second motion may have a motion to approve the
070proposed international trip literature in England April 2024. by John all those in favor that's unanimous thank you both very much thank you very much very very much can't say I'm happy about these things are you going special privilege yeah thank you very much guys that will move on to the annual annual pitch uh so we're currently in the second year of the agreement um it has worked out very well uh the District of sable over 76 000 since its implementation uh we did reach out to Jennifer Garner the YMCA uh dariancio and she's thrilled with the agreement um the communication between both sides is drastically improved in terms of cancellations if there are any on their side uh so we strongly recommend extensive speakers any questions have there there been any shifts in expenses on
071either side that would cause you to want to renegotiate anything clearly this is the proposal I'm guessing not Material or anything not really uh we kind of benchmarked about 2 900 hours and they've been you know just shy of that um so not really okay perfect this has worked out really well yes good work and the reciprocal agreement on the use of facilities with the YMCA for the 2023-2024 school year all those in favor [Music] all right the next agenda item discussion and reflection on fiscal year 24 board of education budget process I'll kick this off by cued it up a little bit in the chair report we're just looking to identify tonight some areas that we might want to think about this is not meant to be a problem solving or problem or issue
072or opportunity identification so if there's some area where we want to improve or something that we think we could take advantage of this is the night to identify it of course it'll be an ongoing discussion so if there are things we missed tonight you know we're just trying to open the box um it will be after tonight we'll wrap it up and summarize it send it over to the facilities committee for them to kick it around and come back to us Finance thank you I do that all the time um so I just for for um ease of discussion I was thinking about I think we maybe want to sort of think about the budget process in three different chunks the first is the chunk leading up to the actual budget arriving at our doorstep
073the second is while we sit and deliberate it and the third is when it leaves our hands and it goes to uh the board of finance and or the RTM so as we're just talking about the budget just to think of those different those chunks differently if you have a concern trying to fit it within a phase so you know no surprise to anybody here one of the things that I will be most interested in is looking at that phase one when we actually create our goals and objectives how the Strategic plan aligns with how we operate operationalize what we want to do and then tie those to financial goals and then provide guidance to the superintendent as he you know continues with the budget work there's not really a clean handoff so that's an
074area where I know I'm interested in us looking at our portion of the process in terms of timing and what type of information we turn around um but I'll open the floor oh and I just dovetail your your comments and the programmatic elements and whether or not you know we have to you know make a decision whether or not get briefed on a program before the budget process so you know I think you basically covered that but um you're just taking a step back and reevaluating and this was my fourth year in the budget process I mean I think it went quite well and uh you know it was a great partnership and we got a lot of feedback but the timing of the feedback seems a little disjointed in terms of the roles and
075responsibilities of each um you know between the Board of Education the board of Finance then the RTM and I did listen to the OPC meeting where they covered this subject a bit and also the education committee discussion I guess earlier this week so you know I think dude touched upon some of it because I mean there's this distinct responsibility is laid out by the state statute that we're the governing body the statutory authority to actually place the line items from the appropriation from the appropriating body which I believe in this town is ultimately the RTM you know so when we go through the budget line item by line item that's very important in understanding and I'm not discounting the rtm's role or the board of finances role but they don't have that Authority they have
076the authority to appropriate certain dollars and actually I think this is going to be helpful having experience on the RTM f b for one year four years on the RTM and you were how many years on the RTM oh I'm sorry I thought you RTM but anyway oh okay so some of us have experience on RTM and understanding you know what what its role is but you know Duke touched upon it you know we got a lot of questions before it from our partners if you will in government and then some other interested parties and in terms of um before they Board of Ed even weighed in on the superintendent's budget and so a lot of the questions would immediately go to the staff Administration and cabinet and create a lot of work and so
077I think there's going to be a better way that we can kind of structure the the adoption I'm sorry the presentation of the superintendent budget allow the Board of Education to do its work work with its staff and maybe kind of filter some of the questions or time some of the questions better so we don't have I mean I think we probably had well over 200 questions when it was said and done between the Board of Ed and then the partners and I think it just becomes unwieldy so looking for a way to get get the input but at the right time from the partners I think that's going to be really important we don't want this to be exclusionary but we want to make sure that we have the order of operation so we
078can be most productive um in in producing a board of ed adopted budget and then we of course we hand it to the board of finance and then ultimately the RTM which acts mostly as a referendum body as I understand it um you know they can't increase their budget they can't really move line items around but they can definitely say no or reduce it so kind of figure out that figure out how to work with the Committees I know the RTM is actually currently discussing its proper committee roles and it's it's interesting as outlined in the town Charter it's a little different than they've been operating so it's going to be interesting to see how that all flushes out as well so we have a lot of time but it's I'm looking forward to working
079with the committee and the rest of you and kind of flushing this all out anyone else thank you um to kind of add on to what John was saying I think another thing that gets difficult too is to continue to follow the information through the process because we're going through our deliberations and you guys are in very short order turning around responses to different bodies on different questions on different topics but you know an answer the question gets answered on another example right now plus it's snow removal and someone else has asked a question as well but it's a different question and they are now those answers are in two different places it's it I feel like we could all work together to find a way to streamline that so everything has more of a
080central um collecting spot um the other a couple other thoughts that I had was I I would love for us as a board to to figure out if we can be more um if we if we can give more or better direction for example I felt like we got we got the presentation of the recommended budget and it was decided that it needed to be brought down a certain amount or try to bring it down a certain amount and did we not know that beforehand why didn't we know that until we saw a number and could we have given more Direction like that up ahead of time or should we have and I'm not saying what the right answer is but doing that is kind of giving uh here's the number you have to hit
081and I think there's been discussion about not wanting to do that so I think we need to have some conversation around how how we want to do that and what we want to be doing there um and then the last piece I would throw out for now is just moving forward I'd like us to work on I feel like there were decisions being made through the budget that were probably decisions that would have been made in other ways and it might have been timing and Circumstance that drove that um but if there are departments that we want to consider reorganizing or if there are things that need optimizing I would love to find ways to do that ahead of time and oh my if it turns up savings come budget time that would be great
082to understand where those savings came from but it I don't want to let the budget Drive the process proactive versus kind of reactive right yeah so just a couple of thoughts sorry there was one other point that came up when um Duke went well I don't know if the five-year kind of forecast and kind of refining that and getting you know I think we have enough expertise to get a little better at just not just straight lining things now at our defense we do talk about hey if we're going to add this fde and you know foreign language it's going to be adopted in at FPS in the future but I think we can be a little more trans parent in a little more detail than how we plan for that too could I just
083say for that year just just for clarity we did do that we played we did do that with uh some years ago when I first got here we did the five years with any personnel and we played it all out and then the board decided like we don't want to do the five year anymore so I'm just making sure we're revisiting yeah the same thing which is fine if that's what we want to do again yeah I mean I think it's been asked for and I think it also again as I think in this process I mean you know maybe we get guidance like true guidance like you know from the fiscal Authority in town in what their kind of overall goal is we get it but it's kind of not straightforward and and well
084in advance of you know the superintendent's preparation the budget you know again you know I take personal responsibility of you know instructing the superintendent to find efficiencies after the presentation of his budget so I think we can be proactive in this process okay um more specific just to the budget budget the process so much except for the fact that I just and I've said it before I would like to see us look at the athletic portion of it earlier because there was even questions coming out after um and I've had a couple conversations and it's just seems so muddy like it's the athletic budget is not transparent and it's very unclear as to you know what buses we're paying for some buses outside of Connecticut you know there's just so it's really so can we
085do that over a break again you know well so I think for the purposes of tonight's discussion thank you that's a great example I think there's a fourth stage which once we've identified identify didn't handle we need to make sure that they actually get identified exactly so that they end up on an agenda in a timely manner so that we can give them the appropriate level of um exploration maybe it's just a choice in words or something I used to ask a great example I don't think it's happened to think it's a great example of transparency perhaps maybe maybe maybe there are more questions to be answered and stuff but I I just would be cautious because to our community I think it's transparent but if there's other things that needs to transparent in the
086sense of it it's out there if there's other things that need to be answered that's fine no of course not um it's not on the YouTube anyone else bored swartha or any members of administrate Sarah um so I think it's important what John was saying about being proactive and Julia as well but we're being proactive versus reactive like 100 agree with that I am and I've said this multiple times I do not like creating a school budget based on guidance not from Educators I think that's I really struggle to have you know what if the board of Finance says or whatever governing body says we need a one percent budget that's just not possible so I'm not saying that's going to happen so I we just need to be very clear about where our roles
087are and if we don't like the guidance and and super announces it's absolutely impossible then we need to recognize that so you could have guidance but it doesn't need to be taken with a grain of salt okay yeah I just don't want to agree but let's put that as an item the whole question of guidance yes um so I think we should probably look look at the calendar everything from when we do the tour of the schools to when we get books uh because the CM questions come up every year um we have a process we've got to do so we should if we have to back it even even earlier then we should do all that up front and be very clear with it with that calendar and actually the calendar also addresses some
088of your other topics you just John I I mean my goal is actually make your job as administrator is easier I mean the amount of time those questions take is just unruly and if we and again like it's our responsibility to ask the questions to you I mean I I don't even have the authority they're email rich as a board member and ask them questions so I think restructuring how the questions come in how we filter them as a board and then how we kind of develop them for the uh Administration I think is going to be really helpful in terms of time efficiency anyone else all right so I'm just going to take a minute to repeat it just if I missed anything please give a holler all right so stage one is the
089development which is you know the looking at the timing of the creation and the development of goals and objectives um summer and early fall and when I say goals and objectives I also do mean strategic plan um that second part of budget development is directions to the superintendent the components of that would be forecasting if there's any kind of guidance um of course we're looking at the financial impact of operational goals coming out of the goals and objectives and then I I thought a fourth point is just responding to external changes sometimes we have you know things that we haven't planned for we've experienced that quite a bit lately so making sure we leave some responsiveness in there those would be the four components of the fifth is terror is like coming back to items
090that maybe uh you know issues that came up yeah those ideally should hit goals okay good um then the second component is Board review the two things we've identified during that or the things we've identified during that process is taking a look at the role of other Town bodies particularly vis-a-vis the questions that we take in um and how those get handled um and then the other component is looking at how we answer questions making being a little more making sure there's a timeline and we can follow the data so that we're not pulling different papers together um then uh the other then the next piece is handoff uh something that came I'm sorry I took notes I didn't say everything something that came up is after handoff but um the level of Border administrative
091support so your attendance at meetings maybe we want to take back sort of the calendar take a look at when the superintendent or the cabinet or the board are spending their time after the budget's been handed off from the Board of Ed we want to make sure that there's people around answering questions sometimes it's a lot of time um it is a lot of time it's not just sometimes um all right I don't have proactivity here so I'm adding that back under Board review well that's really before actually I'll send these out yeah I want to clean them up and then um lastly there's the fourth stage which is ensuring that there's follow-up after issues have been identified um I think that's it I did speak to Dennis and Dave who I knew wouldn't be
092here um uh Dennis also mentioned the calendar I'll add that support review and Dave mentioned picking up outstanding items from the previous year okay so I'll clean that up and send it around but is there anything glaring that we're missing okay all right thank you for that thank you to finance all of you guys who will be taking it from here uh March Personnel report no so Dr adley was doing final interviews with the ssos as the agenda was going out so he has as he said two more to meet they'll be on the next Personnel report move to public comment anyone in the audience anyone else doing Michelle there are no raised hands and if I delete all those in favor thank you very much everybody have a good night