001thank you good morning all hi Dave good morning thanks for joining us good morning Dave we'll just wait to get Tara on Zoom sounds good okay we'll keep moving forward since we have folks that have joined us this morning good morning everyone thanks for joining us this is the curriculum committee meeting Thursday December 8th 2022 we will start out with an election of a committee chairperson do I have a nomination I have one yes Mr Brown I'd like to nominate Sarah parent for chair thank you Mr Brown second oh second time Mrs best all those in favor uh three good thank you uh congratulations Sarah and thank you again for sharing this you took my papers foreign thank you everybody um as you said this is a special meeting of the curriculum committee our next
002meeting was scheduled for January 12th unfortunately we have a conflict um so we are working to reschedule that we are planning to make it uh at some point the week of January 9th so we will update you on that um so we have three items on our agenda this morning to discuss the first is a selection and challenging of instructional materials and I will turn it over to Dr schramberg foreign good morning everyone we are going to focus on three areas this morning for this part of the presentation starting with uh the overview of the development and process uh the what we currently do for challenging materials and a few thoughts on moving forward so the district curriculum drivers meaning what is behind how the curriculum is created are three main gears uh the first
003is standards and Frameworks we have curriculum standards and Frameworks for every content area and grade level across all disciplines the other two pieces are the competencies of the vision of The Graduate and that ties in with our high school accreditation and the district strategic plan and those are all up move and congruence with our mission and our vision the cycle itself is a responsive curriculum process I the process is relatively unique to Darien because we respond in real time to to needs that exist within the curriculum uh the other if it's not a responsive curriculum it really is a cycle where every four years A Team might revisit the English curriculum and edit uh on a predetermined cycle so we do have a curriculum revision plan for every content area and grade level across all
004disciplines that that plan is articulated in the budget every year where we say these are the focus areas for next year and we request hours to do that work through rc19 after we know the hours that we have we establish curriculum teams curriculum teams are made up of our teachers and the district so our teachers write our curriculum once that curriculum is written they work with the administrator in that department area for the curriculum to be approved and implemented when there are questions that might move to the larger curriculum team to review uh then uh the curriculum is after that curriculum was reviewed with the administrators the changes are communicated to the teachers that have to deliver the curriculum as well as the building administrators who provide the oversight of that and so that is
005our uh cycle in a nutshell the uh we've talked quite a bit about instructional resources in the past so just to calibrate uh there are instructional resources that are primary and secondary so primary instructional resources are those that are guaranteed that whoever is teaching a grade level or of course students would encounter those same materials and then those are others that are teacher selected which could be Mentor texts often things that are read aloud things that are current events because something's happening in the news and we want to make sure we're responding in real time to the needs of students there are two policies that I just wanted to bring to everyone's attention the first one is the actual selection of instructional materials this is language from our actual policy this is 6610 and this
006talks about the board's responsibility uh and how the material is that these responsibilities are shared and delegated to the district curriculum leadership team and the other are the five areas of curricular exemption so according to the state of Connecticut these are the five areas where parents can opt out of their children uh experiencing these instructional components and those are listed here dissection Family Life Education HIV AIDS sexual abuse and assault and prevention and firearm safety so those are the five areas and Chris before you move on you just um iterate who is on that District curriculum leadership team yeah so the curriculum leadership team is made up of the of 11 people it's myself uh Department chairs for special education at the middle school and high school department chairs for math English science social studies
007World Language director of music and director of Elementary education and director of instructional technology and I'll talk a little bit more about that here so when we are in a situation where someone is challenging materials that might exist within the curriculum we try to resolve those by following the district chain of communication if we are not able to reach a resolution and there's a high volume of concerns than the materials are reviewed by the district leadership team the district leadership team also consults appropriate people so it's not just these 11 people in isolation if there's an issue with a middle school science say middle school science curriculum we'll work with middle school science teachers Middle School administration to make sure we have a more comprehensive understanding of what the challenge is and we want to
008make sure we're addressing uh the concerns appropriately and then after the team meets and goes through our process then the commute then they share the results with the people that expressed uh interest in the topic uh the four guiding questions that the team has used uh are listed here does the text connect to or support the curriculum is the text developmentally appropriate are there other resources that represent a similar perspective and does the text align to and support District goals and guiding documents so those are the overarching questions with uh consideration of moving forward that process is relatively new we haven't had to use it in the past so it's recently developed there is no policy that governs what that process is so we can continue doing things like we've done them the past month
009or two months we can create a policy for challenging materials in the instructional program uh that is the will of the board and then that would be moving the board to a full discussion to decide what does or does not need to go to policy thank you um quick question about the couple slides previously if you refer to a high volume of unresolved curriculum matters what's that threshold what does that mean to you again this was created this is the first time that we've navigated this so the the high volume that we determined it was over 10 that we're just not coming to a resolution so once it hit 10 that was our number of uh we need to take further action thank you um I will open it up to questions but I first
010want to say um I believe that there's an appetite to create at least I have a personal appetite to create a policy around this so that it is it's formal it's structured um the community knows what what is what we expect and what of the community and also what they can expect from us so um I am supportive of your moving forward ideas um but I will also open up the thoughts and comments too for other members Julie oh sorry Tara you have I can't see your hand go ahead hi sorry sorry I was late um so I have a couple questions one is and I know you just talked about possibly changing this idea of the Review Committee so um maybe that's for a later date but at the moment um be if someone
011challenges and then the Review Committee looks at it is that Review Committee the same as the committee that originally chose the curriculum or is it a different set of individuals it's a different set of individuals and that the people that created the curriculum are not necessarily on the committee there's an administrator representation [Music] um that represents that grade level or Department area within that committee when there's a question during the development process they might consult other members of the team to weigh in but when this group of 11 people come together there was not a a moment in time where everyone looked at that unit of study and said yes this is the curriculum so they are there are people that are seeing materials for the first time in that process okay um and then
012I have a question about the policy 6330 um where it talks about exemptions and family life education is there a definition of what that Family Life Education entails uh there is a I believe there's a very brief definition that is in our policy um I can reference that and get that to you it's not a comprehensive definition okay I'd be I'd be curious to to hear what that is um and that's all my questions at the moment thank you Julia you need your hand up thank you um a couple questions for the opting out uh Chris that you when can I stop you briefly sorry I'm just going to answer Tara's question I just pulled up the policy the Family Life Education instruction is defined as instruction pertaining to Family Planning human sexuality parenting nutrition
013and the emotional physical psychological hygienic economic and social aspects of family life thank you um thank you wait uh sorry Sarah where did you see that just oh I just pulled up 6330 in our policies okay cool all right um the curricular exemptions um can you talk a little bit about how how an individual can opt out of something it's if it's woven into the curriculum or does it need to be discrete and sort of stand alone how does that work so most of the items are discrete the family life and planning is the one where it's not often as discreet because we have a skills-based curriculum at the middle school and secondary health level so if a parent is opting out and the procedure for opting out is you provide a notification prior to
014the instruction happening uh but if student students in our health program are creating individual and personalized goals that could be related to one of these topics that at any point could come up in a discussion uh because if one person is working on something related to Fitness or wellness and one person is working on a project related to substance abuse someone else could be on a topic related to family life and planning and and the way that our program works it's it's in a cycle and it's ongoing so it's not a okay the next three weeks of this course we are going to be talking about family life and planning so in those instances especially at the middle school level we have had to provide uh alternate options for students for an entire semester because
015that topic could come up at any time and my other question that this is kind of unfolding in real time as we haven't had to do this in the past um so regarding the threshold for when and how we review a an item um I have questions about how we decide when something has reached critical mass so to speak not and I'm sort of thinking loud I'm not certain that a number of communications from the public is the right answer because I think we need to use our discretion in evaluating what the questions are are they unique questions are there multiple concerns um you know in this day and age I think we have noticed that we do at times get a flood of the same message over and over again but if that is
016the way we're going to look at it then I would also question how we respond into whom I I think I think you guys know that I would have liked a response on this latest incident to have been sent out more broadly more quickly um because I think there there was more being stirred up in the community that I I think can't know I think we might have been able to to address or or solve for to some degree um with an earlier answer so as we talk about how we want to package this from the curriculum committee to I think probably hand off to the next group to work on it or to bring back to the full board I'd like to have discussion in that area you're the boss uh well I just
017since since the number 10 was was was put on the table right there it's not exclusively a number I would say that uh I would be in favor of clearly clarifying how a Community member staff member or board member or anyone uh actually we'll go through the process of of expressing the concern and having it reviewed you're all you just mentioned and you're always in a better position of having that articulated up front uh as opposed to doing it in real time so uh I think the the uh the staff the the best job they could in terms of uh with Integrity go through that process I think that there was one one person who was on that committee who had any influence on the book uh one out of 11. um coming in stage
018do you mean like at the evaluation of stage uh on the curriculum team uh the threshold we have used in this case we had uh about half of the parents who communicated to us and I said nationally in the first couple of weeks were in in favor and half were not and then that was about about 15 and nationally and about 15 uh on both sides at that point uh given that we didn't have a policy procedure I would actually recommend that the Polish procedure would be if anyone wants to to actually uh question the materials or textbooks I don't think there is a number right in this case we did decide that given the number of families we have given the number of people that we were responding to in that case was about
01915. um that uh we would we would go through the chain of command and we would respond to them uh one at a time so that was that was the background whether it's right wrong or different uh I think the tan was also and considered it in uh in consultation with what context what was going on right um and certainly we respect different opinions on the level of noise level of disturbance a level of disruption all of those things come into that whether that's the right judgment or not is it is a different discussion but fundamentally I would agree with the chair that we move forward with given anybody who wants to challenge it uh I don't want to bug the whole system down but I don't think I will I really don't think it
020will uh and I think it should be anybody who wants to the individual or otherwise who wants to challenge materials yeah and I think do you want to people I don't know I'm just I I agree so I agree that every person's voice in the community matters and if a person wants to challenge a resource they should have the opportunity to challenge that there are six sample uh policies and or regulations in the packet which will likely move along to the full border to the to the policy committee uh but you'll see that that's typical that a person can challenge something that exists either as part of the curriculum or something that's on the shelves in the library uh this was a matter of responding in real time and the I'll use the word unrest
021so people were going through the chain of communication and it it felt like there was resolution wasn't happening and that's why that was the determination at the time Dave I don't like you haven't said and shared your piece yet so I wanted before I ask more I appreciate that I did have a few questions I can go now or if after you Sarah either way so I have a few questions so you sure you don't want to just follow up on something or I don't either way no go ahead all right so I guess I have three questions coming in uh Chris to the presentation the first is you mentioned that we have sort of a dynamic on the Fly uh curriculum review process versus say a quadrino type review but done by other districts
022what's the reason for that why are we different than everyone else and has anyone ever thought about what the cost differential is for our on-demand versus uh you know four-year review cycle I'll answer last question first I I don't think that there is a big difference in cost differential uh we're responding in in time to what needs to be changed and I don't think that number would look different if we were taking a year and looking at um all of the English curriculum at one at one time uh so the the reason it's different is there might be needs to change a curriculum or program in real time based on the adoption of a new textbook based on new courses coming in based on courses leaving the program so instead of focusing all resources on
023one team and one Department we are really literally responding in real time so the World Language department for example they have a process of after each unit is taught they actually go into the unit and make notes on what needs to be updated for summer curriculum the alternative to that would be this is our curriculum and we really can't go back and update it for three more years even though we might see a way to to do things differently so it's it sounds a little bit silly that more districts don't do it this way but they don't it is a there's more of a cycle in many other places than the responsiveness that we have here and I guess to follow up on that for those who are not uh in the trenches per se
024if I do a post implementation review for that Spanish class you just mentioned hypothetically what am I looking at it's not that there's new words in Spanish is it or you know what change that that I would look that I want to roll forward uh it might be a unit it's not successful uh in general so if students don't reach a level of Mastery that they that's desirable for that the way the unit was developed they might want to revisit the whole unit at one time if it's a small tweak obviously those things happen all the time we can make adjustments uh and in reference to those secondary instructional materials uh we might just say okay we need to just trade this out and I think that'll be more successful okay um the next question
025I would have again going to the presentation in a point Miss Bess Ray's um I see the policy cited I see very high level um but then you mentioned a process we have a committee and we have people working together how do we you know tick and tie that because there's a big gap from a high level policy to what actually happens to you know delivery of curriculum what are the written procedures there how is that managed what is the process that's followed not only in a review but from the initiation of implementation they're really aren't articulated formal processes uh starting yeah wait wait I'm sorry articulated written I'm sorry written you don't have written policies for this work there are no there are no we have our our broad policy there's not regulations that
026go with the the instructional materials policy that we have um we have the procedures that staff follows we don't have steps yes we have we do have procedures we do have steps we do have a timeline okay so maybe we shouldn't focus on the term being used for you know the stack of papers but I guess the question I would have is what is that stack of papers what is the process how do you guys go through this what how is this actually you know mapped out to be executed on So based on the four-year cycle in the spring the members of the teachers bargaining unit receive an email asking who is interested in working on curriculum from the people that express interest teachers are selected who might have an expertise or specialty in that
027area and they go through the process of writing and revision mostly over the summer and the process of revision are there any guidelines or process or something that they follow are they just because they're teachers they know how to do this work no last year we put into place a a two-part training that teachers participate in when they write so they do a they do one professional development session on the actual construction of understanding by Design units so they clearly understand the three phases of developing a unit of study and then the second one is more practical on the the new platform we have edu Planet so we can make sure we have all of those stage one uh the stage one components of the curriculum posted so we're being clear and transparent for the
028community I think um and again I apologize as a new board member on the curriculum committee here I think that the high-level presentation was great as a conversation starter um I think in order to be able to do this work and really know what to move forward with for a recommendation to policy in the entire board we're going to need to see what this process is whether it's procedures whether it's you know a tool we're going to have to have some idea how this works and how this is done other than just a very high level PowerPoint and I think that needs to include not just the review process which is currently a Hot Topic but also the entire process and how that work gets done I think that was a founding goal of this
029curriculum committee was to have visibility and access into what this process is given the large number of people we have in terms of curriculum chairs in terms of department heads in terms of a process that's been fairly opaque and given the very clear statutory obligations of the board to approve all curriculum so I I think it's fine that Network gets done and is delegated but unless we actually know how that work is being done and what the procedures are and if perhaps there are gaps there aren't procedures and there aren't steps written out then that's going to have to be the work of the board to actually put that in place for the district curriculum work so would love to see what you guys are doing now so we can start identifying gaps and see
030where we're going to have to build out the framework going forward um it's just kind of my thought and then one last question I would have Chris is we received an email last night to the board which is I guess it appears to be responsive to a foia request um I I don't know if it is or it isn't if it is there were a number of materials ordered in there which looks like they were ordered from your office um looks like kind of 2012 books something in that uh be curious to know the educational or curriculum tie-in to each of those books that was ordered thank you yeah I think that's that foyer bus is a different um question I think so I just want to go to your point about um you know
031if there's any procedure for writing curriculum and and you know your your thought about whether there's you know stack of papers that tell teachers what to do I'm going back to my own time writing curriculum when I was teaching and I I don't know that I I mean that's what we're taught in school and that's like my master's degrees curriculum and teaching like you learn how to write curriculum I don't know that there's correct me for Mom like I don't know if teachers have a this is how you write curricula in the darien School District there there wasn't anything so last I shouldn't say that there wasn't a process that everyone goes through to approach curriculum the same way they worked with their relative content areas to develop curriculum for those courses that's in effort
032to standardize practice last year um we created this two-part professional development session so one was a general approach to creating high quality understanding by Design units of study and I led that session and I'll continue to do that the second one is working with one of our representatives from edu Planet 21 who specifically goes into how do you bring that to life in the new platform so it's not telling people what they need to write because they still have their professional autonomy for the area that they're trained but understanding by Design there are there are specific best practices and how you would approach writing a unit of study so just really quick if I could follow up because we have to jump in a second I apologize but I do appreciate you know professional um
033you know sort of agency and ability to operate you know as professionals as teachers certainly are and I appreciate um Sarah you having that experience so thank you that being said I'm in a profession as well I do have guard rails I do have guidelines I have to follow and there are certain things I would have to do to go through certain procedures as a professional the the two are not exclusive just because I'm in a profession doesn't mean they're not certain procedures I have to follow in policies I have to follow so I can't think it's just completely freewheeling and perhaps it is and maybe it should be or maybe the board actually needs to step in and put that in place if it doesn't exist but I think this is gonna have to
034be much more thorough than this very cursory slideshow which I do think was just fine to start off the conversation but going forward I wouldn't feel comfortable without being able to do a deep dive and if we don't have written supervisory procedures or written policies that seems like it's going to be a first step so thank you all for your time and I'll check in later thank you I I was just going to add also if I could um perhaps if we're going back to the to the foundational levels here to make sure we bring in what the state requirements are as well it's not like where Lucy goosey deciding what we're going to teach here in Darien Tara your hands up yes thank you um I just have a question just back to the
035policy um just because as we know you know a lot of what we heard from younger parents of younger students was specifically that one book and you know things based around that and human sexuality and over sexuality over sexualized materials and what have you and I know some have asked to be opted out um I want to I'm interested to know how we're defining human sexuality so does some of these materials fall under that that parents would then be able to opt out of these read-alouds or the discussions that are happening and are they planned early enough so that parents know when they're happening so they could opt out I mean I think my my instincts is saying that so if you the the words is defined as instruction pertaining to to me and what
036we've heard from the administration and in the write-up of that particular resource was that it was not instruction pertaining to gender identity so that to me that you would that book would not be an opt-out but I would okay the district would be right but to notify parents if they were using any resource that was addressing the topic of human sexuality as an instructional material instructional material for all students um so that would happen we would have to do that prior and notice that appropriately the and my my tagline for the past year plus has been curriculum it's not a secret I want to make sure parents know what the optional resources are that teachers have uh so in our January meeting of this committee uh we'll have our social emotional learning website up and
037ready to go and it will list all of the titles that go with the words that are associated with ruler by grade so they can see what the texts are and none of them meet the the categories the criteria that are listed as as opt out okay um so just a follow-up on that um because the book that most of us have read right is like you know five minute book right um but it was described as a 30 to 45 minute read aloud um I'm just curious is there a script that's going along with that is the teacher just coming up with her own or his own I'm sorry I shouldn't assume female um or is there something specific that they are are speaking to there's not a script that goes with each of
038the books uh but it is there is an approach that teachers use when they're doing interactive read-alouds to ask questions for understanding and to have students talk to each other and talk as a whole group so it was a it was a discussion okay um I think I think we touched on something here that we need to look at further which is who gets to decide or how is it decided whether these points or any instructional material needs that definition I personally the the book we're discussing right now without saying the name of it I I would not call it anything about sexuality or sexual in any way shape or form myself um so I would not have expected that that would be a book that would be that that parents would be informed of
039so that they'd have the opportunity to opt their children out of that read aloud which I have heard described in a number of ways to be fair um how how much time was spent on the book um however so I think I think that's going to be a tricky spot and how do we navigate that um so I think going forward um there's a sense of the committee Tara correct me if I'm wrong from your point of view is that we to move this to the full board and discuss um hunting it to policy to create a policy around challenging instructional materials is that what I'm hearing from everybody I think it is I'm struggling with how much of this is policy how much we need to give to policy to consider and full disclosure
040I believe we have the same exact board members on the policy committee that we have on the curriculum committee coincidentally but we win the same cabinet members or people in attendance at the policy meeting and obviously curriculum needs to be discussed in curriculum and policy and policy so I just want to make sure that we're covering what needs to be covered in this proper discussion um that to take to the board where we could discuss all of it certainly and then to hand off to policy should we be Tara what are your thoughts um I would agree that I think it probably needs to be a full board discussion full board I'm sorry sorry yeah yeah sorry yes um okay okay so should we and we're talking about a policy for how we handle challenges
041to instructional resources correct not a policy for how we write curriculum that's correct correct yeah yeah there's also Clarity and you're going to when you look at the sample policies you'll notice some places have a policy for challenging instructional materials others have the challenging instructional materials within their instructional materials policy right so there are paths yeah so I think that's an important distinction because it does this fall in the is this an addendum for lack of a better word to our existing policy or is this a completely separate policy um or is it regulations it's probably a policy question for the politics the payment lines to bring back a recommendation to the board with um I think we'll navigate that one way or the other I think the main thing is to get a review
042of a policy up and running around challenges yeah I mean and I think they're certainly uptight Among Us and I think there's actually among the community to have a more um you know delineated process for this yeah yes I would agree can I just add two more things before we move it um I think whatever we take to the board or hand off to policy the goal one of the goals of what we create is to make it an efficient streamlined process um I think a tremendous number of hours have gone into handling the latest concerns um and hopefully we can make that more smooth and Swift or whatever moving forward efficient um and then the other piece another piece not b um informing the public um I think if people understand better how you're
043going to look at a resource and assess it what you know when challenged if that information is more broadly available then people might understand better like okay this is probably why they've chosen to move forward with this or that's the part I wasn't understanding Etc et cetera so those four points I think in your presentation would be um great to share regularly okay so we will move this Tuesday night I think and we'll suggest to the board that um we take this up in policy okay moving on to our next agenda item of the kindergarten through grade three reading program Dr tranberg and Mrs roller good morning everybody so you have probably been hearing a lot in the media about the science of reading and legislation in Connecticut so I thank you for this opportunity
044to be here this morning and provide an update about what has been happening since January 2022 when we last came to um the curriculum committee so just our agenda for this morning I'm going to talk about the shifts give a little background history some Define some terms for you and talk about our curricular resources in Darien what has remained the same what has changed and what are next steps for us so why the shift overall about a third of our nation's children are not reading at grade level and um while the majority of those children are children of poverty and minority of students there are things about the science of reading that are impacting all of our instruction so there's some ongoing research comprehension begins with for a language um uh we are the importance
045of intentional phonemic awareness oops instruction um phonics instruction that's systematic a shift in the way high frequency words are learned through orthographic mapping which orthographic mapping is a process by which individuals have an oral language so we know the meaning of words we know the pronunciation of words and we use that to think about the sounds of the words and then map that to the letters so for example a word like sheep we know the meaning we know how to pronounce it so we can say we can break that out into three sounds and sort of box that out and that helps make a connection in the neurological Pathways of the brain so we know that that's how readers learn to read um queuing for visual VSM is visual semantic meaning how the words look
046on the page the sentence structure and the meaning obviously reading is about meaning and decodable text so that is what the research has been telling us the legislation we put this into three buckets oversight accountability and support so there's a coordinated Statewide plan for um reading and the establishment of a center for literacy research and reading success they've also established a leadership implementation Council there is legislation regarding specific Universal screeners and the use of reading curricular or program that are aligned with the science of reading there's also a provision for professional learning for teachers and collaboration with higher education so what's been happening since January in May of last year districts and Publishers were invited to submit programs to the state for review there was a program review comprised of 16 members two people reviewed
047each program and then in September 2022 the commissioner provided came out with a list to districts about six approved programs they've now added a seventh and districts are required to implement one of those programs by July 2023. superintendents are to submit a survey to the state indicating one of three things either they will Implement one of those programs by July they are requesting a waiver or um a one-year extension due to insufficient funding or resources as of this time we don't know what the waiver process is going to look like because we haven't received that so ongoing there's been an explosion in journalism and the media about the science of reading but the debate is not new this has been going on since the 50s why Johnny can't read a lack of phonics created a
048national crisis in the 60s and 70s it was the debate between whole language and phonics 1983 was a nation at risk talked about standards and accountability in 2002 it was ruling first as part of um uh No Child Left Behind that talked about scientifically based reading instruction in 2015 that was expanded with every child succeeds States measure accountability in reading math and science and now the legislation has shifted a bit from federal to state so science of reading many states have have their own legislation around that so the story in the media is that kids are not being taught how to read in school that there is one way to teach kids how to read and it is through a systematic structured phonics approach most teachers use a balanced literacy or a three queuing approach
049and teachers incorporate very little phonics and instead teach kids to guess at words the facts about best practices in Reading instruction absolutely students do need explicit systematic phonics and phonemic awareness research also points to a broad set of skills required to become proficient readers and it encompasses research from education psychology Linguistics and Neuroscience a queuing system and I I do talk about this later when I Define this terms but a queuing system is something that teachers use to analyze the kind of errors that students are making when they listen to them read aloud in a running record and they determined what queuing system kids are using whether it's that meaning visual attending to the print or semantics where they're uh I'm sorry um syntax where they're looking at the sentence structure so that they can
050teach into what kids are not using um meaning is important but prompting should be prioritized for decoding and then for checking for understanding so just some terms that you'll hear over and over again balance literacy what this is is it is a framework comprised of whole class and small group methods of instruction and there is an appendix appendix um that really gets into this and I'll talk a little bit more about this on the next slide phonemic awareness is the ability to hear and manipulate sounds in spoken words so for example blending and segmenting are very important so blending is when kids hear it and they blend it together to say cat segmenting is when they see the word cat and they can break it apart into those distinct sounds phonics is the understanding that
051letters represent sounds and kids can decode that means sound out words in text and encodes spell them correctly and orthographic mapping again I talked about that that very important process that links oral language to decoding phonemic awareness and decoding um so that words become automatic that that readers don't use their brains to even think about the words they become sight words cueing again it is is that strategy for um analyzing records and cueing it for Running Records queuing is also how we prompt kids it means we tell them now we say use slider power so read all of the sounds and letters in the words to sound it out decodable texts are texts with words that contain only the phonics Concepts that readers have learned so that they can apply those phonics Concepts to reading
052texts so this is the balanced literacy Frameworks this is what high quality instruction looks like and I'm not going to get into all of these components some are whole class some are small group but I will talk about a few of them interactive read aloud is when the purpose of it is about comprehension it's about vocabulary it's about building oral language skills it is when the teachers are deliberate and intentional about thinking aloud and um to teach com implicitly teach comprehension but also teach vocabulary and then pause at certain parts where kids can engage in discourse to build their own oral language emergent read aloud is a structure just for kindergarten which mimics the kind of reading that families do at home where kids love to hear the same book over and over again like
053think about Goodnight Moon and it builds kids sense of story it builds their own oral language it is really based based on the work of Elizabeth salsby an oral language where kids then start to tell the story talk about the story and actually read the story um independently shared reading is a method of teaching accurate and fluent reading two best ways to do that are repeated reading and Echo reading we're a fluent reader reads and then kids mimic that and then there's choral reading where everybody reads together so that's a method where teachers might use a poem or a short text and read it every single day of the week for 10 minutes practicing so kids get better and better um all of those things impact what kids do independently during reading workshop So reading
054workshop is a whole class uh structure the teacher teaches a brief and explicit mini lesson it's about eight to ten minutes ideally um the teacher has a specific teaching point and then there's some kind of a demonstration kids are on the rug and they're trying something out the teacher is listening to them giving some coaching some feedback and then kids go back and practice independently so they're practicing in their either teacher curated books which is a mixture of decodable and level texts or in the upper grades they're they're reading their level texts in a specific genre if it's non-fiction they're reading informational text fantasy mystery Etc during that time the teacher is providing individualized instruction through conferring individual meeting with kids one-on-one and and seeing how they're doing and that's a time when they might
055be taking some of those Running Records or talking about comprehension or they're pulling a small group and there's two types of small groups there's guided reading which means you've heard about reading Levels kids have a a reading on a roughly right reading level guided reading is when the teachers are demystifying the next level of text so for example for beginning readers who are reading chapter books particularly in second grade uh moving from one level to the other might have um untagged dialogue so it doesn't say who the speaker is that's hard for kids so the teachers are navigating that and then those become instructional texts that kids are reading and practicing with teacher guidance strategy group is a group of readers who may be at all different levels but have the same need it could
056be that they're not monitoring for meaning it could be that they need to work on fluency or stamina so the teachers working with them so just these things aren't happening all every single day but teachers are flexible about knowing the kids in front of them and the instruction that is required just to give you some background about our curricular resources in Darien prior to 2004 the district was using a basal reader I believe it was open court and then in 2004 we brought in Teachers College reading and writing project at that time the units were developed locally and teachers were involved in creating curriculum with support and training from Teachers College for word study because we always knew that phonics was important we used the fontis and Pinel word study program wasn't as explicit as
057we would have liked so in 2008 we tried a new program Donald Bears making Words which is when kids are sorting for um phonics Concepts also in 2008 Teachers College came out with a packaged curriculum it was not grade level specific there was a K2 kit and a 3-5 kit we implemented that and I will go through this but you can see all the iterations of the teachers College reading material in 2015 though we did Implement foundations because we wanted that systematic explicit phonics foundations is one of the most widely researched and used approaches it's multi-sensory and we started it in kindergarten it has been for the past six years in all grades K3 it's about 30 minutes a day everybody is doing that last year we added hegarty for phonemic awareness we add added
058it in kindergarten and actually some first grade teachers were telling me last week that they are already seeing improvements in kids writing which is exciting this year we implemented it in first grade so that's that's exciting also and then just last week we got our hard copies of the new teachers College units of study for kindergarten kindergarten through second grade and they have been completely revised to align with the science of reading so what does our evidence-based reading instruction look like in Darien these are some things that we have always done explicit instruction in phonemic awareness and systematic phonics and comprehension fluency critical thinking and text analysis all those skills that in addition to foundational skills we know that readers need to meet the demands of the common core standards we've also been providing explicit
059instruction in oral language development read aloud has always been a Cornerstone of our program data-driven small group instruction and adherence to scientifically based research intervention process srbi which means high quality differentiated instruction for all students Universal screening so Universal screening means just the same screeners three times a year for all kids to make sure that we are not missing anybody and um informal and formal assessments we have specific criteria for intervention we have a three-tiered support So students who are not meeting benchmarks tier one is additional small group instruction in the classroom kids who are still not making progress we have reading interventionists who provide tier two and tier three instruction and the higher it goes obviously the more intensive in terms of time and um um reduced size of the group so it's more
060specific we have ongoing progress monitoring every two weeks and we have school-based data teams with teachers Specialists um special Educators administrators who review progress and adjust plans as needed and close communication with families how has our reading instruction evolving in our with our instructional shifts we're strengthening our phonemic awareness instruction by adding hegarty to grade one we are also strengthening comprehension in oral language by being very much more strategic about when to stop and think aloud and when to provide those opportunities for students to talk what vocabulary we're embedding high frequency words we were teaching kids to just memorize the words now we're using that orthographic mapping process we are prioritizing print strategies and prompting for decoding and blending we're using decodable text to practice phonics uh we're incorporating new assessments for Progress monitor progress
061monitoring and we're aligning our professional learning to the science of reading for all staff these are some of the shifts in our materials there's more attention to explicit phonics instruction and transfer there are assessments that are embedded across the year in our units of study there are specific small group lessons to address challenges and the prompts have changed there are prompts for word solving fluency and comprehension and they're fabulous and I've included some of the them in the the appendices because we can use them with our paraprofessionals teachers our special Educators so that consistency in language is very supportive for kids there's less Reliance on picture support no reference to guessing at words additional lessons in foundational skills to be used as needed the addition of decodable texts and the instructional text that teachers are
062using are at or above grade level and they increase in complexity in Lexile level across the year so the next steps for us in December next week um Dr abley is going to submit a survey to the state in February we will complete the waiver process when it is available again we have not seen that yet so we don't know what it's going to look like but we do know that it's going to be very involved in time consuming um which is fine because we believe in what we're doing um ongoing we're providing that high quality professional learning to all staff in the science of reading including our paraprofessionals including our special education staff and we are continuing to look at ways to address the gap for students not meeting benchmark so really important is
063what we believe we believe that all students need explicit instruction in all of the pillars of of literacy we don't believe that kids learn to read by Magic we believe that they need time to apply their skills and books that they will love with coaching and continuous feedback reading is complex and it requires a mix of instructional methods and materials we know that motivation which is really important in learning stems from being part of a literacy-rich environment with a classroom filled with beautiful books that all students can and want to read and peers who talk about books share book recommendations we know that learning is social and just as we like to be in book clubs so do kids we believe that students need ownership and choice in their learning we want all children to
064become skilled confident lifelong readers who use their literacies to improve their self themselves and the world and of course we do want to foster a love of reading spark Joy and this last one we believe that at the heart of all good instruction is an expert teacher who uses the knowledge of their students research-based strategies and formative assessments to personalize instruction we believe that programs don't teach children that teachers teach children teachers with the wisdom the flexibility and the resources to meet the individual needs of the kids in front of them so before we move to discussion I just want to show you in your linked to this presentation there are some appendices there's an overview of the balanced literacy framework which is actually what we use for our new teacher professional learning there is
065an a sample of the kindergarten scope and sequence with suggested assessments there's a sample of the teaching points in one of our units so you can actually see in the superpowers unit that there is no more reference to guessing at words it's all around phonics um there is a sample of those coaching guides there's a word solving coaching guide and a comprehension coaching guide and finally there's a sample of some of those additional foundational lessons I I pulled some phonemic awareness lessons so questions and discussion thank you um that was quite thorough and I think that there's there's a lot of information and terms and um in here that that is very helpful for us to understand um I mean I guess the elephant in the room is that we are using one of the
066or our literacy program is not one of the now seven approved state curricula so applying for the waiver is your plan um going forward is that plan to get the one-year extension do you what do you think are you do you feel like the TC and Hagerty and Foundations all mixed together is satisfactory for our children more than satisfactory is optimal absolutely you do I do okay so I think um there's a lot of to your point about what's being out in the in the media um there's a lot of there's not a lot of love for TC or for Lucy Hawkins at the moment so can you speak to why you still think the TC is the right should be part of our program fundamentally because one size does not fit all because I
067think we would be taking a big step backwards and I we've looked at all of those programs they are um they're basals so it's it's all kids reading the same text there's a lot of kids doing workbooks there's a lot of workbooks online we have a very robust database we use RTI studio so we already have a way of looking at information with our our kids we believe that it should be the teacher sitting down and listening to kids and conferring and meeting in small group rather than having kids answer questions on a computer and having that then move them into something else that they need also the instructional materials have been completely not completely but but that the foundational skills piece has been completely revamped but all of the things that we value in
068Teachers College that that choice that building agency that teaching to comprehension which is really important the fluency all of that research is something that you're not hearing about in the media you're only hearing about that one piece of it so and when these programs were evaluated the new revised units were not even available so um so that's one piece of it we were also asked to they were looking at programs so we don't believe that there is one core program we believe that we need to pick and choose we also have systems in place here we have leadership we have teachers who have been receiving professional development for years so we don't think that the needs of every child in the state are the same and should be met can be met with the same
069program I mean I absolutely hear that point that they're you know even if you have a classroom of 22 children not every one program is not going to reach every child like there are children that read by Magic you know there are in reading and you don't have to teach them how to read and they they they know how to decode seemingly by Magic but there are others that need a lot more support um and and I guess this is a question for surely do you feel like what we are currently doing is supporting those kids that need the added support or do we need to do even more I mean I know anecdotally there are a lot of children at Windward because they are having they're struggling readers and writers is that something that
070with the introduction of Hagerty and with the introduction of you know a more phonics phonemic awareness based program would we possibly expect to have some of those children remain in districts I'll answer the first part and then um hypothetically I don't know um each child has looked at individually what makes those decisions for families but I will speak to the first part I think what Julie said in our shared belief is that TC standing alone is not what we're providing right now we're providing TC alongside a very um rigorous phonological morphological systematic reading program and that's since 2015 when we got here when foundations was implemented alongside foundations which really looks at phonology and decoding and encoding um we add Integrity all our students remember children who receive specially designed instructions are general education children
071who are in the classroom receiving instruction in those areas and as to Julie's Point um the notion of phonology morphology syntax and decoding and coding standing alone is not a robust reading program the notion of really having it um not only the love for learning because you probably know you've seen with your own children or children when kids are learning to read they almost feign reading they sit down with a book and make believe they're reading um it's the joy of trying to walk through a book have a book Walk understand it look at the context so we're not asking children to guess at words we're asking children to still have the understanding of literacy um and enjoying the the act of reading and at the same time have the um decodable and encodable skills
072to really attack new words so the short answer is yes I believe TC alongside um a lot of the new elements in TC with an emphasis on hegarty foundations and explicit reading instruction meets the needs of our students the second part of the question is there are children who having that one dose is not enough there are children who are really just getting it in within the structure of the general education classroom still continue to need um direct and explicit instruction to either have a different haste to it have more reinforcement have a different multi-sensory experience to it because you might be emphasizing a different modality when you're teaching it to different children so it's not going to um it will support instruction but we will still know that we'll need our students to have
073some direct explicit instruction if they need specially designed instruction so I think looking at a robust program taking all the elements that Julie's presentation speaks to would address the needs of our students that said we continue to train all our teachers Wilson foundations is related and has that same emphasis program we'll still have specially designed in programs instruction for our students who need an additional exposure to reading instruction I think that that piece is incredibly important right and it's not necessarily what the curriculum is in front of our kids it's who's teaching the art who the human being is in the room instituting that and all the shifting I mean the pendulum shifts back and forth and if you've been teaching for 30 years you've seen that and you've had to go back and forth
074and um you know making sure that our teachers really are educated in what they are doing is highly imperative to a successful program so um I'm glad to hear that that is focused a focus of yours um I have two questions one I think is pretty quick but how does our district compare to the national uh scores as far as reading at grade level or or so we are well above third grade we're at 80 um and we're we're in the 80s and they're all great so yeah I I suspected that yes okay second in Connecticut yeah um thank you and then my other is is just something I'm wondering about do we do we have any concerns that when we provide sort of a patchwork of approaches to teaching learning could that give a
075student a crutch that might help make it harder for us to identify a student that needs additional supports can they find or does it give them a support yeah and it's probably a combination of both but could you speak to that just a little bit if that makes sense yes I would actually say that it's additional supports because with foundations we have end of unit assessments that we look at but then in reading workshop we're also looking at those Running Records and we're listening to kids read and and so we're checking in on the transfer because it really is all about transfer same thing we have phonemic awareness assessments that we're using but also what are we hearing kids do and what are we seeing them apply to their writing okay and might that actually
076make it easier to identify where a student is struggling because they're yeah doing better here and struggling more rare right exactly okay okay thank you so something you'll see to connect to this we need to revisit our progress reports at some point in the near future as well and we want to make sure that the level of we want our progress reports to be as diagnostic as our approaches to teaching reading um so there's direct connections to where those challenges might be uh communicated regularly thanks I don't understand that also if I may just add to that I think the notion of progress monitoring is something that's essential to any reading program and delivery of instruction um actually the new connected says actually has a progress monitoring emphasis to show as well so I think
077within both uh opportunities whether it's in the classroom or with specially designed instruction progress monitoring really lets you have short glimpses of really measuring student progress in both phonology um and in comprehension vocabulary and literacy and and by the way I think that that's for all students because even our students who are reading above grade level need to be making progress and growth so Dr like can you speak a little bit to what you're seeing from other superintendents other districts how they're handling this process yeah certainly we're not alone uh Western Weldon Ridgefield New Canaan just to name uh some of the districts are using the curriculum program and instructional practices that we are so we're certainly not alone in that there's a lot of frustration um this went through in the implementer bill uh
078most of it went through in the implementary bill we have the distinction uh that Julie's talking about in terms of we fundamentally disagree between curriculum and programs they have provided five programs I have no problem with the greater good right um there's before the pandemic there was 40 just literally sorry 40 47 or something of our kids across Connecticut grade three uh we're meeting Benchmark after the pandemic it's just over 50 right so I I understand the need but it continues to be the discrepancy between one program one fit uh one size fits all we have the we have um the commission when the release of the graves come out uh command them priority school districts further progress in reading them for the development and scores well the very one that was the very one
079that was recognized users TC um so I think we were actually submitted our program we were more cried too we submitted it uh to be actually reviewed as part of the one of the five programs that they're talking about so there's a lot of flurry of communication between the the commissioner we have been involved in that um uh We've we've supported and had discussions with professional organizations we've been in with the table uh uh our vice chair in place of our chair who's traveling was at the legislative practice where this was a discussed so we're advocating for at the moment I have not uh completed the survey because the survey is really just like it's not necessarily it's just a selection of three options one is you're definitely going to do it two is when
080you want to defer it and do it all right uh because you mean switch to one switch to one of the programs and the only reason we're giving you the the opportunity to defer that for the year is because of finances which you know if anybody's interested I mean the actual finances to change to one of these programs there's approximately six hundred thousand dollars uh depending on how you implement it but between sections between five fifty and some seven somewhere depending on the choices you make that's not really it isn't it is an issue but it's not really the issue the last one is just uh a waiver well you need to Define what the waiver says because if the waiver commits you to some something else or there's there's language in that waiver even
081if you were doing the program and which was just recently released right in the fall here right I mean to do the professional learning for staff said one of those would require to think you're going to do that well and Implement in July whenever all the professional development is already up and running all the expenditures are already taking place when teachers would have no ownership in the process uh to shave our uh just talk about all the curriculum instructional practice we talked about this morning I mean it's just unrealistic even even if you were doing it um and you jumped on board it just wouldn't even be realistic to put in place uh have reason to believe that there's going to be an extension of some of the flexibilities uh it seems that that there's
082a there's a wellness to be we look more flexible now and lighten up a little bit more but I honestly can't be definitive about that and then reluctant to who commit the district to doing things that I don't know what's in the language of the waiver um Mr Cameron do you want to add anything from The Breakfast unfortunately I could not have done but you were there thank you Sarah I do one of the other things that came up is the potential disruption to students who have already been disrupted by the pandemic this is a large scale change in rating and so for many of our districts who are already have successful reading programs in place to completely and quickly Implement a new program could potentially adversely affect many of our Young Learners in ways
083that would be difficult to overcome again I to Allen's point we're we're sympathetic absolutely to the need to get as many students as possible up to grade level reading but this uh there was a lot of concern at the breakfast from every District in attendance about this particular uh bill and the the level of specificity of the programs the fact that the waiver doesn't exist yet and the fast timeline and then the cost all of those three all of those four things came up thank you you know and I think you know everybody's been saying is that we certainly want to do what's best for our children um and we're constantly as a district looking at what we do and what is in front of our children um and you know I've heard some some
084in the community have reached out to me and said well you're not doing what the state says so you're not doing what's best for our kids like they say that this is what's best for our kids and I I have to push back on that a little bit I mean I think we do do what we think is best and what our experts are saying is best for our children so um you know I think it's it's a tricky situation but I'm very curious to think let's see what the waiver says and what's going to happen Sarah can I add one more thing sorry at the breakfast there was a person in attendance who asked um you know does any one of these programs outperform what many of our districts currently have and there was
085no yes answer to that question so I think when we talk about doing what's best for our kids your point Julie about what our current scores are and your question are very valid there are no indications that these programs actually would change outcomes for all districts for some for sure they would but not for all which is Alan's one size fits all planet right [Music] thank you I think we'll move on to our next topic which is the Julie thank you for that presentation sorry you didn't say thank you um new high school course proposals for the 2023-24 school year we discussed these at our board meeting last week or two weeks whatever that was a few weeks ago Dr tramberg okay so just as a as a reminder from our last meeting we're a
086bit out of sequence this year uh just because of we did not have a meeting last month and we do want to stay in within the timeline of the budget cycle uh so we're just a little bit off right now so the full board heard these new proposals last at our last meeting uh there are three new courses uh there's a Spanish course of American Sign Language and guitar Ensemble I have a few responses in relation to some of the discussion I can talk about those now unless we want them for the full board I think we can talk about them now and okay uh so there was a question regarding uh music ensembles and numbers and I think it's really trying to get at the predictability of will who's coming to the classes and
087will the seats fill so with music there are currently 240 students in the high school ensembles and that's banned course and Orchestra courses uh there are 30 students in the elective programs which are Music Theory Music Tech and adaptive music they would and they're anticipating that they would have a class of about 15 students which would increase the elective enrollment by 50 but not necessarily because they're not asking for any FTE to support this so you might end up having students that take guitar and you're going to run one section of Music technology instead of two just as an example the other piece is we do have a we have a program at the middle school where students are experiencing guitar in grade six seven and eight if they're in in this course and then
088they have nowhere to go with it um so this is an opportunity for students that may have enjoyed guitar to actually have a place to go and the design of the guitar Ensemble class does allow them to take it similar to choir band and Orchestra you can take it year after year the other question I think was regarding the sequence of of Spanish in general and who's taking those courses if you if you look at the Christina made a beautiful chart of the of the pinks and the yellows and what does it all mean what they're trying to do is make sure they have opportunities for students to take four years of language at the high school if they would like to without having to take an advanced placement course so if you look at
089the pathways we have students who because our our world language program has become so robust our entering the high school in Spanish three and when you were looking at transcripts so when they were applying for college if they start at three they might be finishing AP as Juniors and then where do we go now so there is an AP Lit course which is a very challenging AP course but what about students who might not want to take AP lead what about students that didn't want to take the AP Lang before then so now they have these options to go all the way through and so some courses are labeled five some are labeled six that is really with the intention of showing the sequence so when students are applying for College they're going to see
090that they took four years sequential of a language in high school um I don't know that I have any other questions except a comment that it's that to me especially the ASL seems that we are opening doors for students that may not necessarily have a have a place uh for a language in high school and I think not only that it's not oral but you know it's just a very it's a different modality that is it is helpful for many should hopefully would be helpful for many students so um and it sounds like that guitar Ensemble as well it will open doors for some that may not necessarily have a place in the music department um I I would just add FMA that um it's just exciting to see that we continue to find ways
091to to offer a comprehensive and rigorous curriculum at whatever level the student is ready to engage whether that's the AP level following the course the sequence of the course um all the way through Etc it's great so thank you so this will be on for action on Tuesday and if there are more questions then from other members we can answer them then um okay we'll move on to public comments Michelle good morning anyone in person would like to participate please state your name and address you will have up to three minutes to comment Amy Zerby nine Morehouse Drive I wanted to thank all the administrators and the teachers um I don't know how you guys can come into work every day given what's going on in this district and I really appreciate it things we
092lost to the water and Boolean is a mermaid we're targeted because they have lgbtq elements and I wish that you guys would discuss that thank you bye everybody um Armel Jacobs I'm 12 fish uh I first of all thank you for your presentations and for all the time and energy you guys put into all of this I know that it is a lot and for all of you uh I'm very grateful um I I just have a high level comment about sort of how you guys are going through the process as you build out and create some of the policies that we're talking about I think that it is very important and needed to have an instructional challenge process so as you guys go through that I think it's wonderful that you're doing it um
093I I also heard a concern I think for Mr Brown or a desire to um ask for more oversight or review or control generally over the curriculum as a whole um I just and listen that's not necessarily a terrible thing either what I want to convey is that as you go through these processes and you create and build out the policies that you're talking about that you don't sort of lose sight of the entire Mission overall you know what you guys obviously most of your charge is to create a system that has happy healthy Learners that approximate that vision of The Graduate that you guys have laid out so you know in a in a sense I do feel sometimes that there's a Greek tragedy element to this whole thing where you know in the
094desire to control and change your fate or to really exact your will over it you might end up creating the outcome that you want to avoid so just to get specific I mean you don't want to create a policy right where at the end of the day your teachers your backbone are feeling highly exposed or you don't want to create a situation where the board itself has created exerted so much control that at any point your your instructors are thinking someone with a pitch fork comes to Boe and creates havoc and now my life has turned upside down because now anyone can come and participate in a public trial over my 20-minute lesson so my basic comment is just try to keep the overall goal in mind I'm not saying transparency is bad I'm not
095saying you know opacity is good what I'm saying is that I think you should um don't end up sealing your own fate we don't want to be that snake eating its own tail and realize that we've consumed ourselves when it's too late so please don't destroy your most precious resource support your your teachers and don't exact so much control that maybe you end up hurting that overall mission just a high level comic anyone else to anybody online good morning everybody um I'm probably a new face to most of you this is only my third year here in Darien my name is Michael Cantwell I have two daughters one daughter is uh at Middlesex in seventh grade and another one is in uh fourth grade at tokenique um so and I'm it's my first time at
096one of these so I appreciate the time and the opportunity to uh to make comments um I was surprised like many parents last week when we were on national news or a little town I moved out of the city a few years ago and uh was very much enjoying not being in the national news um in the last you know couple years so um of course like many parents I wanted to find out what made this story from our little town nationally newsworthy so I looked into it and um I just want to try to understand the discrepancies that I now see so I'm um Alan wrote a note last week um saying that this is this book that was used is um not a lesson on gender identity so I said okay so this
097is some about nothing but then I looked at uh online and looked up the author in the book itself and read the book and uh the author Jessica love um the first thing I find is she's on a YouTube show called queer kid stuff and a Talking Teddy Bear asks her what are your pronouns and how do you identify and she says mostly female I guess you can call me she her till things change um in the same interview she um articulates her inspiration for this story which is about a friend of hers whom she says he's a boy but he was born in a girl's body um another interview she's asked about how she developed the book and she said I was thinking about gender um so there's there's quite a few things when
098we say uh you know as a as a body this is not about this and then to the person who actually can created the thing it's exactly about this it creates confusion and I think it creates a sense of I don't want to say mistrust but it causes people to question what's going on if the board were the administration were very clear this is a book about gender identity and the author is very clear it's about gender identity and it's taught as gender identity then great we can have a discussion about where is that appropriate to be but it shouldn't be this is not a book about this but it's going to be used in a different way to talk about something else and we're not sure what goes on it's just the appearance of
099it Mr Campbell you're almost at time okay thank you that's my only point is I think this is unnecessarily controversial and could be clarified with just some simple honesty and if it's not about you know the this controversial topic and you know maybe there's a better choice that is about what we're actually trying to teach and is very clear about that thank you thank you for coming anyone else anyone online anyone online would like to participate please raise your hand using the icon there are no raised hands at this time I may have a motion to adjourn I'll move I have a second thank you thank you everybody for coming