Board of Education Meeting - October 25, 2022

001tonight at 7 30 PM in the board meeting room okay for the chairperson's report today I will Jump Right In dude couldn't be here but pretend that you see him um we're going to start with thanking Miss akman um so these are Duke's words thank you duke for putting something together he said first I want to apologize for not being able to attend this evening's Board of Education meeting I truly get frustrated when the day job with pay gets in the way of the Board of Ed job where the Darien High School parking lot for graduation spot for graduation well we all know that the nine people that sit around the board table multiple times a month between board meetings and committee meetings are here because the incredible Spirit of volunteerism that exists in this

002town and each of the individuals passions for giving back to the community at times it can feel almost thankless but then you think about the students and their Relentless drive to learn participate in theater music clubs Sports and build lifelong friendships in a small community thinking about all that you know you're helping build the future and create thoughtful caring individuals that will make this world a better place with all that in mind I would like to express the board and the administration's gratitude and my personal thanks to Tara ockman as she participates in her last meeting after two terms and six years on the board of education Tara has that true Spirit of volunteerism and like all of us at this table as a parent that has worked hard on this board while having children

003in the schools if it we were if we true up to always focusing on the student as Tara has said many times our work becomes easier and stays focused schools exist for children as we've all said many times from board member to committee chair on finance policy and negotiation subcommittees to chair for three years Tara's been a part of this board through superintendent searches covet shutdown remote hybrid and in-person learning and kicked off the Oxbridge building project centered around removing the Portables with working remotely now commonplace she has volunteered to take one of the portables for her remote office in her backyard Duke indicates this might start a trend with the revenue stream highly valuable Darien portables for remote office work [Music] he continues I cannot thank Tara enough for appointing me to the Oxford

004Ridge building committee it has truly been a great experience and it's a third job I now know that as co-chair of a school building committee with seven dollars in my pocket I can get a cup of coffee at night in town and be asked many questions by parents in the neat Courtyard while trying to have morning coffee your portable is coming to your house soon as a thank you Tara thank you for your time energy and passion around our students over the last six years and for working hard to continue the tradition of volunteerism in this town and keeping the focus on our students and our great District thank you and with that Dr adley has some gifts for you a plaque and a jacket and this parent has kindly I'd like to like the

005Friendship for your leadership on the superintendent somebody that resulted in me being here reflection opportunity this actually is thankful we have because you've been the voice for the video of people thank you this is a week like a little bit a little bit of blue guard for you [Music] something hard for me but when it's about me it is so thank you it has been an honor um there's been good times bad times hard times but it has been a pleasure serving darianne it has been a pleasure um working behalf of the schools and the staff and students I love so much and I wish you all the best and my advice is keep students top of mind and you will be fine as you move forward so thank you very much foreign with that

006we'll move to public comment good evening should we start with this person okay if anyone in person would like a public comment please come up to the podium you'll have three minutes to comment please state your name and address for the record my name is Deborah Ritchie 16 Stony Brook Road South um I am the co-chair for the council for Darien School parents put these comments are mine and mine alone Tara ockman I don't know where to begin I just wanted to get up here and thank you I want to thank you for the over four years that we had together on the board for your leadership as chair for three years um I'm not sure what you thought of me when I first came into that room for the interview but um you were

007you went hard on me you you weren't easy um but that was good and you know what I think over the years we always had that type of relationship where we knew we could be honest with one another we could have fruitful discussions but we both always put children first I thank you for your service to our children your dedication to our town and I really hope this isn't the last we see of you thank you foreign T and I'm a senior at Darien High School and for three seasons I've been doing track and field in cross country or throughout three years and this year has been really important for me and for the team and I've noticed there's been a big issue regarding our our team and how we situate while waiting for meets

008and one thing that'll really help our team would be a tent and we ask you the board of etiquette of the Board of Education to approve this very generous gift from the booster club for an all-weather tent for the boys cross country and girls cross country and track and field teams um and this tent would really help us because it protects us from the rain and then really hot weather and it would mean a lot to our teams for this to happen and it would express our Darian pride and I humbly ask you to help fulfill this desire thank you for speaking [Applause] hello my name is Megan Watros I live at 155 West Ave and I'm here this evening because I have two children at Royal elementary school and I would like you to

009all be aware of the inappropriate material that their teacher is sharing with them so I'm here tonight because I'm concerned about this inappropriate story that was read to my daughter's second grade class the book is titled Julian is a mermaid and it's a story of a little boy who is transitioning to a little girl and I just want to remind you my daughter is seven years old and this is a class of second graders so I want to be clear my concern is the age-appropriateness of this type of gender theme story for a class of second graders I'm all for in support diversity in a rich education however there should be boundaries with regards to sensitive subjects with our youngest learners education on changing gender for second graders should be completely off limits and I'm

010looking at every single one of you because I just want to make sure that you hear me we are talking about seven-year-old children being read a story about changing their gender so I'm really perplexed as to why this book will be read to a class of seven-year-olds and I'm also so curious why would adults Broach this topic with children no answers of course and also if this is the path the school wishes to take with the social and emotional learning because that's the guys that they're hiding this under then we should be able to opt out so I do have the book here with me today so I'd love to show you all about Julian in the mermaid and we'll quickly go I know we have a few minutes so we don't have time for

011story time like we do in my daughter's class but here you can see Julian so you all can see Julian this little boy as he strips down to his underwear and then grows hair as he's transitioning to his new life again this is going to a group of seven-year-olds and then we have Julian again stripping down to his underwear making himself a wig putting on makeup lipstick and then he wraps a curtain around his waist with only his underwear to then be marched in a parade with a bunch of adults so here is the book that's being shared with a bunch of seven-year-olds this book clearly promotes gender ideas Miss Watros you're almost that time the book clearly promotes cross-gender ideas that is inappropriate for a group second graders and also the inappropriateness of the

012boy in his underwear thank you for your time this evening and I hope that you all really consider what we're sharing with our youngest learners anyone else in person [Music] I'll start with people online Stacy ta you are unmuted and recognized uh good evening my name is Stacy ta I live at 10 clocks Lane um my comments that I prepared tonight were something different but I have to address uh the first little history lesson the first general neutral bathroom in Darien was in an elementary school and actually miss McCammon you yourself helped advocate for that um my prepared comments tonight were to thank Mrs ockman for her service to the town if there's one word I could use to describe Mrs ochman it would be courage courage is the quality of being ready and willing

013to face negative situations it's having the convictions to stand up and speak out for what One Believes In even when those around you stay silent and speak against you it is standing up for those who uh need who cannot stand up for themselves it is the mental and moral strength to persevere there is no better word to Define Mrs ochman thank you for your service to our town and our children thank you Miss Carolina magui you are unmuted and recognized hi good evening um I want to take the opportunity tonight to personally thank our board member Tara upman for her service to our town our schools and our children you are an example of Integrity preparation knowledge courage and passion and compassion to us all there has not been one meeting that I watched or

014sat through where I did not believe how much better we are as a town to have you be part of this sport so Tara I wish you a peaceful retirement from servicing our town and I thank you from the bottom of my heart for everything you have done for us we are definitely the winners for that and I can only wish that the person that will come after you has our children and there will be on top of their mind the way you have it will be deeply missed thank you there are no more raised hands at this time all right that will move on to the superintendent's report [Music] good evening everyone thank you for uh coming up in person thank you to the voice for being here I want to recognize uh the

015event that happened this this past weekend and Saturday out of the darkness Community won that was hosted by the American Foundation of Suicide Prevention I just want to recognize uh again our young people for uh their their participation in an event that flew way strong there were there were many students and staff members who were present and to the administration of the high school thank you for attending uh the support of event for our community members uh so again just just want to recognize the group of students over many more than than the pitcher uh shows at this particular Point uh we do have a superheroes in concert uh Thursday October 27th this is uh DHS and the MS Middle School uh eighth grade I believe it's superheroes and they may be in costume or

016I think costumes are welcomed also here if you so would like to participate I want to recognize uh our elementary schools for hosting particularly we also went to the high school actually and middle school we had a group of visitors from Netherlands uh Educators who were here to look at our our gifted programming and so we hosted them for the day uh that was through Yukon talented gifted uh niag school of education so we're again pleased to support education internationally locally sure our learnings and also learn from from others so they were very much impressed by the program just want to thank the community the parents for Fridays uh unexpected drill that we needed and it wasn't really a drill we put into secure schools uh thank the police department for their constant communication tonight

017the morning for their assistance to wait the day thank you also to the parents uh for your understanding and cooperation and we certainly understand that and those situations that you'll be looking for regular communication and certainly those are the things that we're trying to do so thank you for our staff who are here this evening for up and down the system for caring for our kids it's it's unfortune is an understatement because these types of events are disconcerting to say the least uh create anxiety uh for staff for kids and um it's a sad that we live in situated the times that we do but but we do and we do everything to keep our students safe so thank you I want to say that Dr Mark Brackett will be here for our parents uh

018Dr Brackett from Yale is the founder of the ruler I'll call it a program for a lot of a better term uh which is dog support.sel that will be open to all parents on December 6th I think the CDC cdsp is looking to support that program so a request to accept that fundam will come at the next board meeting uh but the December 6th of uh it's extended to all parents up and down the system k k through 12. there'll be an opportunity for our parents to hear what our staff heard a different sort of format uh at the start of the year so we look forward to that I want to thank Mark because Mark is uh dedicated his time and his talents uh to our district uh knowing some of the struggles that

019we've had and uh he's happy to come back so I'll be a different type of uh winter celebration uh caps Cape convention is on November 18th and 19th I'll send out some information I hope we can get one or two board members to travel down to Mystic for that Workshop it's really it's a conference at last Friday and into Saturday morning uh the HHR building committee will be at the state tomorrow virtually with the SDR meeting and upcoming board meetings are we have a committee's Communications committee meeting them this Friday facilities November 3rd and curriculum uh November 10th and those conclude My Relations thank you okay next the student representative reports John is raskoff is out tonight but um Mr hot chocolate would you please report in yeah um so good evening this week is

020especially busy at Darien High School because it is the end of quarter one it's all our final grades and assessments are going in um and it's also a homecoming week so uh we'll end the week with a pep rally on Friday as well as a battle of the bands on Friday evening and we'll have an orchestra concert this Thursday as well as a chorus concert um on November 2nd and this past weekend or on Sunday during High School uh hosted the Trunk or Treat event which went very which was very successful and many of our clubs and fall sports teams participated uh names day training has been completed and names day itself will be on November 3rd and the DHS fall production of the Tempest will be open on November 17th thank you very much

021okay with that I'll move to the approval of minutes may I have a motion to approve the minutes of the regular meeting held on October 11 2022. this worm first Mr Maroney seconds all those in favor it's unanimous any board committee reports last Thursday the finance committee met um we will be reviewing one transfer that the committee recommended to pass and um just reviewed the Surplus here to date Surplus through the last month okay someone else the curriculum committee met last October 13th and we just had a great presentation by Jacqueline Samus on the wonderful things that the art department is doing K-12 it was lovely to see some of the work it's it's fabulous what the what that department does um the second item on our agenda was a review of how um the

022selection of instruct instructional materials excuse me from K-12 um Julie droller talked about elementary um literacy materials and then Keith killer from the social studies department and defenses Francis janasco from English spoke to how they chose their instructional materials and I encouraged parents to go back and watch our reading it was quite informative and informational thank you the uh Alan mentioned the HHR building committee will be doing SDR which is schematic design review with the state tomorrow we're really excited to be at that point um we are when we were last year with you we were looking at schematic design here we have made some adaptations to the final design for Curtis based on some of the feedback we got from the neighbors so we're looking at relocating the parking and just trying to make

023sure that we minimize the visual impact um that is still uh being tweaked as we speak and we did sign off on the map design that you saw the additional due diligence returned with the same design um we are on that note then uh seeking an additional appropriation we're looking to be at the RTM on actually November 12th um so our next meeting is tomorrow night we will be voting on The the cost tomorrow night and again those two items that we're seeking up on this additional Appropriations for are the three roof projects from Henley homes in Royal uh in preparation for the installation of photovolta photovoltaic panels um and the additional construction work at the Curtis property okay did I say December or November it's November 12th RTM um okay presentations and discussions a

024presentation of student distribution class size reports for the high school and Middlesex that's Mr Rivero and Dr dalston I think Mr Rivera is online yeah I'm here Dr Adler evening how are you good evening everyone thanks for giving me the opportunity to present tonight uh for our student distribution report um can we go to the uh the next slide please the one after that um I think the the pretty um uh consistent message for the high school data is that there hasn't been much that has changed from uh last year to this year um when you look at this first chart with the mean class size you'll see that um almost everything stayed uh pretty close we had a slight increase in English which brought our total average for our five academic areas from 18

025to 19. I will say that that average is just at 19 it's at 18.52 so we Round Up to to 19 but it's it's you know pretty consistent with what we've had in previous years um I would like to to just highlight here in looking at the historical data looking at the academic areas except for our our covet year in in 2021 where science was at an average of 16. um we've had our science sections pretty consistently at 20 or 21 so that's something that will continue to to explore and investigate as we move forward this year um and then down below is our main class size for some of our elective areas and again in looking at this if you look at our physical education numbers again those have been pretty consistent with uh

026at being at 23 24 and when I say physical education I also include our health classes too those are the average class sizes for there many of these classes are above 24 at 28 29 or even 30. so that's another area that will continue to kind of look at and explore moving forward next slide please Michelle um this next chart just reviews the average student load that each of our teachers have in their particular subject areas um so again not a drastic change from year to year and uh fairly uh consistent next Michelle this has our overall distribution of uh class sizes uh below 16 16 to 20 and above 20. so again I want to make note of um you know the the covetir of 20 to um and then what we have what

027we find this year is starting to become more aligned with what I think we've seen uh historically next Michelle foreign this is um the number of classes that are below 10 so that number is pretty again consistent from last year now many of these classes are Support classes so these are the lab classes that we offer in particular subject areas like math in some instances these are classes that have um uh we try to continue the sequencing for a class so like a culminating AP class let's say AP Spanish Let we want to make sure that we still run that even though it might be a lower class size number so we have also some classes in there that it's more of uh the culmination of the sequence of classes that we run that end

028up being a little bit long but that's predominantly the the classes that are represented here with the under 10. next slide please um and here is the distribution for our classes of 25 or more this year we only had one so far it's in our science department we have one Neuroscience class at the 25. we obviously didn't start it that way um but with students leveling down from classes and making schedule changes sometimes we have to adjust and through approval of the department sometimes we do go over that number of 24 which is what we try to cap our science classes at so we have that one class of 25. and then the last uh slide Michelle um is our Consular load um so as you can see it's been uh fairly consistent uh and

029in comparing ourselves to other um high schools in the derg um again it's very consistent with what um our average Consular load is for other high schools too and compare ourselves um and that's the end of the high school data so I'll turn it over to carolinda for the Middle School data hi everyone I'm Caitlin O'Keefe I'm the assistant principal at Middlesex it's my first board meeting very excited um you can go ahead into the next slide okay so right here we have our average class sizes they're similar to previous years same Trend as the high school given the number of students and staff so you can see it's seen it's been fairly consistent over the past few years so this slide accounts for our large and small classes at MMS so World Language uh

030we do have a less than 10 to accommodate two students who are currently taking Spanish three uh we have a math section with less than 10 and that's the result of some student movement after their placement exams and students moving up a level which is exciting we love that um we have three music sessions sections that are at less than 10. these are me sections um mostly do the fact that it's held in one room in the building and the max capacity for that room is 21 which makes uh scheduling a little bit challenging so that's why we have three of those uh we have one English section that is more than 24 and that's the result of a student enrolling late and needing services and that was the only class that would fit into

031their schedule we also have two music session sections that are more than 24 and that's our eighth grade band and eighth grade course section um these sections are limited due to scheduling and this is comparable to previous years at MMS we also have 12 PE classes that are over 24 which again is also comparable to previous years due to the number of students and the fact that PE is a requirement uh so this is our teacher average caseload again Trends are similar to previous years the math average load is slightly lower based on the number of Math teachers in the department and the teachers who are currently assigned to teach five classes our world language we have 915 World language students that is divided by 11.5 teachers due to the addition of our Mandarin teacher

032and then the next last slide is our counselor's case load uh so the cases remains similar to 2021 and allow counselors to provide needed counseling supports to our students counselors five and six on this uh chart are for this year's sixth grade which is the largest class at MMS this is why they have larger case loads the difference between grade level counselor caseloads is also due to the alphabetical breakdown of students and students enrolling after caseloads were distributed so counselor one and two is our grade seven counselor three and four is grade eight and five and six is our grade six questions open it up to questions to the counselors middle schoolers Middle School I'm sorry um and I understand we do see late late enrollment and I know we try to keep it alphabetical

033I'm just wondering in some cases almost 30 students is a is a lot to carry is there is there no way to redistribute that because we do try to hold students with the same counselor throughout the year so that 30 is going to carry over into next year as well is there not something we could do there I think the benefit there is that you know with some of those cases you do want to not necessarily bump a student off of their current counselor that they had in sixth grade too um so if you looked at the redistribution of that but that's something that we can always look at as we enroll new students yeah I'm just looking at new enrollments or maybe as much as we try to keep alphabetical if the alphabetical isn't

034working there's not a lot of x's and Z's yes we just kind of even that out of it I'm just going to follow up on that that's when we have a declining number of students too so we should have more flexibility to make some shifts that was just my comment dude maybe next year rejigger that a little bit so it's a little more even I just feel badly for that one counselor okay there's three kids well I'm the 30 students yeah I mean sorry just follow up if you look at it it's two counselors in the 160s and two it's not just one no it's each grade it has a yeah it's the same part of the alphabet too yeah staying on the subject of counselors can we talk about um high school counselors we've

035heard wonderful things about the wellness center and in particular how um the wellness center allows our students to see the counseling side of our counselors as opposed to just the college application side has that impacted though there are any of any do we have we had any complaints or difficulties with serving students on the college side is it are caseloads still working even with the Wellness Center yeah I mean I think as always is the case our counselors rise The Challenge and and you know are are working harder obviously trying to meet the needs of all of our kids um but you know there's obviously discussions about looking at that model and and what makes the most sense moving forward so that none of us services that are our counselors um are uh delivering to

036our students end up falling on the Wayside so um that definitely is something that we're looking at as we're adding on additional supports for our kids especially during these difficult times so um we'll continue to look at that but right now they're working hard they're working their butts off without that thank you then for both middle school and high school can we walk through the impact of Mandarin on the different classes so we can sort of see where we're looking at smaller classes in either Spanish or Mandarin or French and just talk about what we're seeing today and what we expect to see in the future at both levels please yeah so we have we have two um class of Mandarin right now right now anticipating more because I think we we do want to

037highlight our amazing Mandarin teacher at the elementary level and get them excited about taking Mandarin um as of right now I don't think we've seen a huge change in enrollment numbers as far as Spanish or French is concerned um so that impact I think isn't really measurable yet but long term that's something that we definitely will want to look at [Music] Paul do you have anything for I mean again from the high school standpoint um we're going to be similar to what was saying from Bill sex we're going to take a look to see if those students follow through and continue taking that and we'll have to make adjustments as we go forward if the enrollment does change but I know Christina works you know very closely with that transition from eighth to ninth grade

038and what those recommendations that the 8th grade teachers will make so um we'll keep looking at it and see if there is any adjustments that we have to do but right now things are are pretty good and pretty steady and again some of the those lower numbers that you see um in the report when it comes to World Language it's more of the culminating uh rates so you know this is our first year that we have our AP Spanish lit so we have a small core of kids that are doing that we have an upper level French class in the upper level Mandarin class that are also a little bit low so um I anticipate that those will start to fill in in the next couple of years as more and more kids continue with

039the program anything else okay thank you both very much thank you Caitlin uh thank you Paul uh we did say that um whenever we bring new courses to the board next time we would also discuss the the courses that haven't been running just so just kiss your follow-ups thank you report on testing s-a-t-a-c-t-a-p s back and ndss Next Generation science Dr droller and Mrs Millington Mrs stroller but thank you sorry yes I'll take the promotion if you're handing out promotions that's right um good evening it's so nice to be back in person I think it's been a couple of years since I got to see everybody spaces um I'm Maggie manuelson I'm the very proud director of guidance for grade six through twelve and I'm joined by um Mrs Dr droller Julie troller who's our

040director of Elementary education um Julie and I are very pleased to have the opportunity to share the results of our district-wide testing from the 2021-22 school year we're so proud of our talented students our committed faculty in our supportive School leaders our students once again delivered impressive results certainly a reflection of the hard work of both students and staff this report will include results from both the state mandated testing in grades K-12 as well as the optional testing that our high school students can use in their college admissions process we'll first present the data in two parts first we'll share the results in state mandated testing and then I'll have the pleasure of sharing all the high school admissions testing so I'm going to turn over Julie for the K-8 report thank you Megan so

041as you know these are the assessments that we'll be discussing this evening Smarter Balance assessment is an annual snap standardized measure that provides a snapshot of student progress aligned to the Connecticut common core standards in ela and Mathematics students earn a scale score of two thousand to three thousand points and an overall achievement level and these scores represent three areas of skills and knowledge in English language arts it's reading listening and writing research inquiry in mathematics its Concepts and procedures problem solving and data analysis and communicating reasoning um these scores along with other assessments inform our instructional decisions to support future learning and I spoke about the four levels I know you've seen this before level three and level four are what we look at to um talk about students who are at or above

042standard so we'll start with mathematics um as Megan said strong performance eighty percent of our students were at or above goal overall um and you can see stable performance throughout the um because of significant curriculum changes that we've made our professional development this year is a really focused on unpacking standards that align with these high-stakes assessments so this is a four-year historical data and overall there's a return to prep pre-pandemic performance levels um so again strong and steady performance over time by grade and by cohort this is the durg comparison for mathematics and you'll also see here that we are um overall at the top end of our Dirk so we're proud of that bless you same thing with Ela strong District performance 81 percent of our students overall were at or above goal um

043impressive and consistent performance by grade uh particularly grade five is a highlight and professional development continues to Ports support standards and incorporating research around the science of reading which although that's the primary grades definitely impacts all of our students again our historical data you can see there's an overall return to pre-pandemic Performance um and strong and steady by grade and by cohort for the dirt comparison for ELA you'll see the same thing um we are at the higher end of our dirt consistently so just to summarize strong and consistent strength within the durg continue closer analysis of our interim assessment data in plc's that's really a focus for us this year and embedding text language in our core instruction throughout the year so really focusing on that academic vocabulary to help our students the Next

044Generation science standards are given in grades five eight and eleven um fifth grade was the highest in three years so this is the third year of the Next Generation science standard um assessment 11th grade increased over last year and teachers are are professional development continues to support three-dimensional learning to support the ngss standards again this is our historical trend for the three-year fifth grade achievement was the highest in three years um and 11th grade performance increased over last year so our Dirk comparison um what you'll notice on this and again strength within the durg um grade Easton reading region nine have one high school Joel Barlow so that's combined into one grade the data was suppressed in eighth grade for confidentiality I did get the scores for Easton and they were 56 percent so I

045summarized some of the highlights We are continuing to analyze data to identify Sprints in areas of growth that inform our instruction and curriculum we're embedding the ngss interim assessments into instruction and assessment there are some more interim assessments that teachers are using this year in Middlesex the teachers have Incorporated these interim assessments into their professional development and evaluation plans goal plans and we are continuing to look at and revise curricular units to support the integration of three-dimensional learning particularly at the secondary level and as I said before professional development and three-dimensional learning I don't know if you want to pause now for any questions before we go on start with middle school I think yeah um so I noticed that that eighth grade class um seems to be you know when you look at the

046scores La math science they are not doing as well as the others are those are kids that are now you know coveted hit when they were in sixth grade now their freshmen are are we are we looking at them and making sure they are getting the support they need I I would say that we are absolutely looking at that data and eighth grade historically there there is always a dip in eighth grade um I was speaking to Dr Dahlstrom about that actually today um but yes we are we are looking at our data and looking at how the kids are doing just to follow up on that you always I think you said you see you typically see a dip in eighth grade did you have any color and why why that's occurring I mean

047you also look across a derg and it seems like that that is that is typical and you've probably heard um you know the news reports about the name testing that that eighth grade performance was low um I I the only thing that you know perhaps we could say is is maybe just testing fatigue and um you know they're just ready to move on the other thing that happens with eighth grade especially in math because we have so many students that are accelerating at least one grade level by the time they've hit eighth grade is they're actually not focusing on eighth grade standards in eighth grade so one part is okay so they did that last year why don't they know it if they did it last year but it just goes to speak to and

048then thinking about our our math acceleration report that'll be coming soon to a board of ed meeting near you is some students are moving so fast are they actually learning the math or is it a crunch and they temporarily know it so one of the thoughts one of the Wonders that I have as I'm looking at this data is if these are students that are largely accelerated by one grade level by the time they're there how do we have a lower number that are not hitting the state assessment so we are looking at that pretty closely [Music] um these are administered in May generally right so the fatigue the testing fatigue may be very real maybe I've had a couple eighth graders be pretty done with Middle School by by May of 8th grade um

049I wanted to ask you Julie if you could talk a little bit to what kinds of instructional decisions are informed by things like the results I know it says along with other educational inputs but um smarter balanced assessments just to dimensionalize Medicine um a lot of our the way we group kids you know look looking at um at which students were below and in what area so we have those three areas of Knowledge and Skills and we can drill down a little bit to see if it's reading listening um and then because we don't really see the test it doesn't tell us how kids performed but we know we can use the interim assessments to dig deeper and see how they responded and support them that way so it's really just like telling us to

050look further in those small groups can also be an indicator for where we might have some curriculum work to do if we see Trends over time so sometimes you have a unique cohort of students but if you're seeing 8th grade performance consistently low over time then it's likely a curricular issue for us to look at I'm just building up that do you have any specifics that you've found through this data or no not yet um the we're certainly continuing to do a deeper look in it but when you look at eighth grade just comparing the past two years if we had a third year and we don't see an increase then we'd say okay we have three years there's kind of a plateau happening that means we need to take a look at what's happening

051in curriculum so I'm also curious about Middle School I was looking at slides six and nine um both mathematics and Ela data six through eight is not quite as strong in their historical performance as the elementary schools are I know we did a lot we hired literacy uh coaches you know to come and support our middle schools and excuse me our elementary schools and the elementary schools are more of it by Nature their wrap around environment so I just I recognize that you know it is covid but I do would love to hear about some of the things that more specifically I think some of the things that you've turned up and you think we might want to do um it could be that it's a cohort but it's a cohorted covid so um you

052know it looks like that entire group in the middle school and I know that the middle school is is really looking very closely at this data so um I think that they could probably get back to you and give you more information Mr Brown I said one I'm sorry I just had one thing to did you at least point also I don't want to give away um Dr Dalton's um she referred to herself as she's a data nerd as well so I don't want I don't want to steal your thunder Carolyn okay um but I know that she's working in plcs and her PD on that working at really analyzing the data great thank you sorry Carolyn she's outed it was right thank you um I appreciate as always the conciseness for the oral presentation

053from the board but for the board packet looking through these yeah I see this conclusion we have strong and steady performance I'm just looking at these you know bar graphs aside from the fifth grade cohort I don't see anything strong or steady it looks like a pretty steady decline across the other five so I'd really love to see some numbers and data behind this to be able to understand how we got to that conclusion because I don't see it just looking at this chart and unfortunately I didn't have the number so maybe it's just perspective is off but I don't see that this looks strong or steady the other question is look at the dirt comparison seems like we are pretty steadily in third place not at the top so I'm just curious how we

054think about those rankings and in terms of conclusions we may come away with here how we're going to look at this and I guess you know some of this is in process and crunching the numbers but I hope we're not going to walk away with this just thinking we have to teach to attest or punch up some scores seems like there's maybe some undergirding and some foundational work that's not getting done uh and maybe that's why people are coming a year out not really having to recall or being able to perform as we'd like them to so this to me is very concerning um you know I know we have great teachers great staff we have all kinds of people leading the curriculum teams and working on where we are but this does not look

055like a very strong or steady Trend and it's quite concerning I look forward to seeing the data behind it anyone else for our parents not at this time there'll be another public comment session at the end of the meeting and we'd love for you to come and speak at that time please yes okay so I just wanna I wanna be careful as we talk about these eighth graders who are not ninth graders and defining them as anything based on one test um I think that the scores show that clearly there is dip it's it's interesting to see it historically but I worry that we're saying they took this test so that defines them as a low performing group or a lower performing group it's a test on a day on a cohort that went through

056really formative years missing a year plus of school um I would be interested to understanding the supports they're receiving to make sure that they're prepared for the rigor of our high school our high school shows is extremely rigorous um but I just worry that we're defining an entire grade of school based on the standardized test so I think that we we need to understand them we need to understand those supports around them um and we need to understand it's a snapshot of time so I think I had some of the same questions that were asked around here I just want to put that caveat on it but it is a test one week in May so I think you're up thank you I confess to Julie that I'm not good at speaking and clicking at

057the same time so she's offered to be my assistant okay we could go to the next step thank you um so in addition to the ngss our Connecticut sat school day is the state mandated test that all of our Juniors take um and then some of the optional tests that students have the opportunity to take at the high school level are the SAT and acts which um generally take place on Saturdays and then our AP exams which are offered in May um next slide please so as we start going into the high school data we're going to be discussing Connecticut sat school day National and act and sat and rap I do want to be make a note that we're going to be discussing two different sets of sat data and I want to clarify

058that from the beginning um because it's two different cohorts of kids and so we'll be reviewing the Connecticut sat school day data which are um our current seniors and then the SAT National Data is actually our class of 2022 that just graduated um and so we'll review both of those but they're you really can't compare them they're two different cohorts of kids um so next slide please so this is the Connecticut sat School sat school day was given in March of 2022. the test assesses English and math it is a usable score for college admissions this past year the test was administered digitally for the first time um about 97 of our Juniors took the test um and our scores remained strong and well above the Durgan State average nearly 90 percent met or exceeded

059the College Board benchmarks in Eli and almost 83 percent met or exceeded in math college board has established the benchmarks through their own study and the benchmarks that are established say that their study said it would be basically give students a 75 chance of earning a c or better in a call an entry-level College course in that content area um this year the Juniors will take the test on March 22nd so this slide that you're looking at shows the durg a districts and the ELA and math scores for each on our again on our Connecticut sat school day our Juniors once again perform very very well the scores are consistent with pastures and we remain near the very top of our derg next slide please so this slide shows the difference on the change between

060this year's scores and the last time that we had com scores that we could compare um so we put in everybody's scores from 1819 and this is the change and as you can see our scores have remained really stable next slide please so shifting away from the Connecticut state mandated test to the college admissions admission testing um these tests are optional for students as they choose the exams that they feel are the best reflection of their knowledge and their skills so as you can see many members of the class of 2022 chose to take these tests although the large percentage of students who took the SAT also includes the state mandated Connecticut sat school day that they took the year before next slide please um this is again where we shift that cohort from the

061SAT school day to the National Data so now we're talking about um our class of 2022 graduates um and the way that SAT and ACT report this data is if a student took the test more than once they used their last score so this is not necessarily an average um the scores that are used for these numbers are the last tests that a student took so if it took it once that's the score they use if they took it five times it's not an average of those five tests it's the last um time that they took it I have yet to get an explanation on why they do that um so this is a three-year comparison um and I just made a little asterisk in 20 and 21 and as you know um the the

062opportunities there were somewhat limited um class of 2020 for the most part at that point and when covet hit had completed most of their testing um in 21 as you might recall we really went out of our way to provide on-campus opportunities um for students to get their testing in but it's just worth noting that testing was a little wonky in those years but as you can see for the most part you know very very it's very similar scores across across time next slide please so these are our ACT scores and as you may know act has scored on a 1 to 36 score has four sections English reading math and science with an optional rating section um the composite score is an average of the four sections colleges and universities across the country standardly

063accept an act or an SAT in College admission this is a three-year comparison and as you can see scores have remained pretty strong and stable over time next slide please this is our um our high school's comparison to both state and National averages so we remain well above State and National averages in each area and I'm a composite and moving on to APS um so um APS are I'm sorry can you go the next slide please just I'm sorry this got formatted a little bit funky um we do offer 23 courses at the high school um AP exams are given in May of each year near the end of the AP course they are designed to assess Mastery of content in a subject-specific college level curriculum the scores are reported on a scale of one

064to five with a three being considered qualified to receive college credit or placement based on that score most of these exams are two to three hours in length um this past year we were all paper pencil after having a little bit of a combination of digital exams um in the previous year so last year was all paper pencil we also had students self-study for several additional exams and um for courses that we do not offer these included AP Chinese AP Psychology and AP Physics one which is algebra based um students do not need to be enrolled in an AP course to take an exam a number of colleges have moved away from granting actual credit for AP scores and sometimes they're using number for placement but the great news is that Connecticut state has passed

065a law a few years ago that any public university in Connecticut will award cut it for a three or better so that's a nice opportunity for our kids next slide please this is our five year comparison um I just think it's so incredibly impressive that 91 of almost 1100 exams scored a three or better last year and that is pretty consistent over the last five years so we do really really well on these tests our kids and our teachers work so hard and I think they get a lot out of these courses so our enrollment numbers were very similar the number of exams our students took were similar and the performance remains really strong as well next slide please I do want to take a moment to clarify this slide this is a participation slide

066sort of under their access and Equity report so if you just take the 2022 column the the number that's next to the graduating class 67.8 that represents the number the percentage of students in the class of 2022 that scored a three or better on an AP exam anytime during High School so that's the grad class number when it says 12th grade 57.9 percent of students scored a three or better in 12th grade 59.8 in 11th grade so the grad class sort of says anytime in high school and then the grades are specific to the grades that they were in um so I think that's those are also very impressive numbers foreign and then finally these are our plan district testing dates for 2022 2023 for our sbas and GSS Connecticut sat school day and then

067um APS will be the first two weeks of May so um I think Julie's answered probably her her share of questions but I'm certainly happy to take any questions on the high school side thank you any questions so first off thank you for clarifying the the differences between the SATs because that was my first question my second question is um in the in the AP and you've shown five-year score Trends the sap only showed three so going back two more years of non-covet troop non-coveted years yes how rsap scores compare it to today very similar I'm happy to give you those numbers if that's helpful but they would be nominally different okay yeah we're I mean we're always it always like it's amazing to me that our students are averaging above a 600 in every

068section that's really impressive and that's been for I think for as long as I've been in this role but I'm happy to get the numbers for you thank you and then my last question is in uh the AP exams in 2018 we have we have a score of 46.6 and 11th grade and it's jumped to almost 60 percent um sorry slide I don't have this number the participation number yeah so no the keep playing the last slide I think it was the participation slide yeah this slide so I think it's tremendous accomplishment to go from 46 of students who have a three or better to a almost 60 and 11th grade is that due to taking more more options and having AP AP Lang and AP Lang and people are taking these in 11th grade

069and there's more options or are we doing a better job of teaching 11th graders or what all right I'm sorry are you looking from 10 to 11. I'm looking at 2018 it's 26.6 yes and in 2022 we're at 60 or 59.8 correct yeah so so in 2018 only 45 or 46 so now we're at 60. yes um I have not done a deep dive on that we did add a couple of courses um that would be as part of the reason the 10th greatest solo is there's very few courses that sophomores have have access to um so there were I could go back we have added a couple of courses that I can think of in in that time that 11th graders would have access to um but I haven't done a deep dive on

070the 11th grade data from 2018. yeah 46 to yeah and that's interesting because the senior data is similar yeah yeah Dennis I think you're absolutely right it's AP Lit ERS yeah um I have a question um yes I appreciate all the the numbers the data do did you ever show us how what the percentages of who got who percentage of fives and fours because you know looking at like top schools threes right yeah um I certainly could I'm not saying yes I I understand yeah I certain I certainly could it's it's really high um and quite a bit higher than and than most of the schools in order um we do the three because that's what college is consider to be qualified um so but the fours and fives I agree and when we look

071at that it's it's it's the majority of that 91 were in the force but I was kind of curious about yep happy to send that to you thank you a couple of teachers that teacher parent teacher night we're happy to share those statistics I bet yes but you are correct the vast majority of those tests were fours and fives okay so sort of get a little geeky here on data Chris um I'm sorry you said what what did you say since we're getting a little geeky on the day oh geeky I'm not a data nerd like the thought here which wouldn't be in this presentation put this thing out loud do we do any sort of similar aggregation we'll be seeing in terms of GPA and performance or we could map actual you know class

072grades versus where we are in the testing and if you don't have it now that's fine I'm just I know we're going to have more on this to come I just know if that's something we could see to be kind of interesting as I'm thinking yeah that's that's not how we use GPA and how we've historically looked at GPA that would be a big change okay just a little broad aggregated by great sort of trend line or maybe there's distributions there or we have curves I don't know yeah I can take a look okay thanks Chris it has been it has been dried up and it's in the Bay Area so when a particular model like that there's a model that exists uh to replicate if we needed to do that but I'm not so

073sure at the end of the day that the productivity of it but but there is I was just going to ask why don't you wouldn't you find that kind of analysis useful without that I'm not saying we have our scores are traditionally so high that it's a matter of what would what are we learning from it what would the return be um there's also scores that the College Board gives called AP potential that shows the number of students that could be successful if they took an AP course but when we have as many taking them uh the return there isn't something we've had to do but we certainly can okay okay thank you so one of the reasons that we have not always looked at that correlation is that the GPA is owned by us

074and the AP scores while we take AP courses there's been like a long history of outside tutoring now you could argue there's tutoring as I have around gpas for years as well but that has been a conversation before that there are actually Preparatory classes for SATs acts AP classes that might not correlate or may skew the correlation between GPA and AP I don't know whether we want to look at it differently I'm not putting a value judgment on it but that has been a conversation before the prep that goes into specific testing um versus the day-to-day classroom although arguably there's a fair amount of prep that goes into that too I'll just have one of the subgroups of the equity team they are looking closely at um sat performance over time and uh trying to

075look at the profiles of what is the makeup of students who score at certain levels but again we're skewed in a way that it's hard to get to the story of of the why so and the only thing I would add to that is we're still living in a majority test optional world and I think a large reason is because even the colleges are discovering that that's not necessarily predictive of success in college which is why they're not choosing to return post-covered to to standardized testing and so as we start to make correlations and relationships like even the colleges are moving away from making those correlations in terms of success um so I would just add that that we're still in a vast majority test optional world as well which has been a really nice

076opportunity for our kids because you know as Ms auckman said it's one day it's one test and so it's nice that a lot of colleges are getting opportunities for kids to not be defined by that one number we have a Christmas hair I have a quick question so the seats the Connecticut sat day is mandated by the state that's for juniors correct but 96.7 took it so what happened to the 3.3 um so there were some kids that were sick um to be honest there were some kids that um are ACT test takers or knew they wouldn't be submitted test scores or it was an anxiety provoking event and I chose not to drag them into they don't school right well so we will we will strongly strongly always encourage a makeup over a few

077days um and so we were able to capture a few students through makeup testing um and so we were really happy to to hit our our state Mandate of 95 but we'll always have a couple of percentages for a variety of reasons that don't take success hitting that 95 is important because when schools get their school performance index you've got full credit if you have 95 hit that threshold and I think getting 95 of 16 year olds to do anything is like it was a student I was doing a jig that day I was super proud super proud day for me do we have a percentage of kids who also take alternative assessments something else I'd just like to thank you uh thank the board for your thoughtful questions tonight um I think what data

078does one of the things that data does is let you ask more questions and I find your your questions and your comments insightful actually uh I find them more helpful than the Secretary of State education uh comments that say that was pollen and unacceptable this the nape scores and just fourth through eight in Connecticut and the nation dropped I just find that an unfortunate statement to make given what everybody has been living through but Educators have been living through my children have been living through but uh but I certainly appreciate uh our board's uh questions tonight thank you thank you [Music] that will move to discussion and possible action on proposed Middlesex in Darien High School field trips Dr tranberg Dr Dahlstrom Ms Dunn and Ms Mauricio [Music] foreign and thank you for receiving our

079applications for our special field trips um I would love to say that these are outstanding opportunities for our students every year to compete in a variety of different fields they are academic experiences and social experiences um and I want to say a special thank you to our advisors who take weekends and weeks away from their families to be with our students to participate in these great opportunities um we're proud of them not only for the competition side of this but for how beautifully they represent Darien High School and our community um so the first five trips are trips that you have seen each year I don't think I need to go through all the pages of the applications but these are trips that our students have taken enjoyed and have been a really important culminating

080experience for them there is a typo I caught before I came over here on the DECA trip it is not from April 22nd to the 28th that would be a long three days it's actually to the 26th [Music] um if there aren't any questions on those I will introduce Colleen and Christina Colleen is introducing a slightly new trip which is the Jazz Band trip to Philadelphia and Christina is here to talk about some slight changes to the proposal you've already approved for the ELA trip which will take place in July Holly thank you hello thank you um so I already presented the main trips that the music department is taking so it's a travel year for orchestra and chorus officially however um John grauer and the Jazz Band discovered that they would be highly qualified

081to perform at a uh or compete in a National Festival this year based on the quality of their program and the interest of the students in that in this particular cohort so we found a festival in Philadelphia that the students and Jonathan would like to perform in and so we'd like to take that opportunity to do so the good news is it's no time out of school it's simply a Saturday and Sunday in Philadelphia with the performance and then they would have an opportunity to actually perform right outside of Independence Hall and do some do some touring um so we thought it would be a nice opportunity for the Jazz Band first of all to perform and perform well and hopefully Come Away with some sort of recognition for their performance but also to have

082some additional time together as a mostly senior cohort in jazz band any questions about the Jazz trip okay thank you hi I'm Christina Mauricio for those of you who don't know me um I am just requesting approval for changes to the Italy Leadership Summit in the summer so students aren't going to be missing any school days as you know from my previous presentations the dates are in July after the first week of July but they are tentative pending final travel Arrangements being made what we are doing is Shifting the focus to it just being a cultural immersion trip to Italy which will be interesting for students that take Latin that are interested in history the classics Roman and Italian culture and um shortening the trip by a couple of days to remove the Leadership Summit

083piece of it the number of students will also vary because the enrollment for the trip will be open until February for this trip and um so we anticipate that 20 students will go but it could be fewer or could be more any questions so what is the reason for the change so there are several reasons for the change so right now the trip as it currently is designed there are not enough students enrolled to go and we are changing it to hopefully attract more students to sign up on the trip and we also conducted a survey for 2023 2024 travel which I will be back and you'll see me next month hopefully um for the trips for the following school year and on that survey there was a question about um a question with several

084types of answers do does your family want to travel in the summer is your family interested in leadership Summits are you interested in the trip to Italy that is just an Italy trip are you interested in a trip to Italy that has a Leadership Summit component and we found that the results of the survey indicated that people were very interested in sending their children on a cultural immersion trip that had more of a focus on the classics and the potential of studying Latin the way you know you're seeing all the things that you're seeing in class in person um instead of having the focus be on the conference which is the last three days of the trip and the length of the trip is also very limiting the leadership Summits tend to be um 14

085to 15 days long whereas the cultural immersion trips are between 10 and 12 similar to The Summer of the April format thank you for your responsiveness something else okay we have one Middle School oh sorry that's okay thank you sorry the uh trip that I'm presenting for Middlesex is the Nationals for quiz Bowl in May for our quiz Bowl to travel to um Chicago to compete just so you know last year we had two teams that placed 13th in the nation um and we're hoping to go back and show them what rockstars our students are again thanks for questions okay with that may have a motion to approve I'm sorry I think those are high that there's really high school ones the yeah so ours is Chicago yes middle school goes to Chicago yep okay

086may have a motion to approve the following field trips Middlesex quiz Bowl National Championship in Darien High School model un model Congress quiz Bowl Decca International Career Development conference National technology Student Association conference National jazz festival and World Language trip to Italy Mr Brown second Miss worm all in favor it's unanimous [Music] thank you everyone thank you very much okay discussion and possible exceptions acceptance of contemplated gifts for Darien High School athletic department good evening everyone you have a couple um donations to contemplate and discuss tonight the first as Jason write out very eloquently put our two donations from the Blue Wave booster club they are to provide tents for both the boys and girls cross country team to have them for both home and away meets keep them out of the elements rain Sun

087um it's also acts as an identifier where the teams will be meeting when they travel for big events such as the fciac competition so they ask you to consider and approve uh the tents for the blue exclusive club for the boys and girls cross country teams take them as a batch so but any questions about it first is that thank you I couldn't read on the it says boys cross country weather tent and something team it's a team bag I think the bag comes along with the tent got it thank you and this tent also be used by the boys and girls track and field teams they could use by any any team any season but it'll it will say you'll identify as boys and girls cross country uh on the tent but it's not

088exclusive to that nope perfect happens all right next donation please the next donation is the annual approved donation that you've seen before uh for the football team they had a fundraiser a few weeks ago um with donations from various families that are uh play for uh VHS football team um you can see their list of the donations per family and then the next page I believe is how the team would like to use the money to support the boys on the team both on and off the field any questions Mr Brown got a question just a comment wanted to say thank you very much to the parents of town for the generosity both booster club and footballers thank you I won't repeat it thank you very much to both groups um with that may I

089have a motion to approve let me read it correctly lost my emotions motion motion to accept the contemplated gifts for the Darien High School athletic department this worm second Mr moroney all those in favor foreign update on implementation of the district's strategic plan board goals and diversity equity and inclusion so the board may recall thank you Chris the board may recall that uh if you decided to collapse uh this presentation into one uh where it would be the board the Strategic goals the board goals and diversity equity and inclusion uh since the the diversity Equity inclusion is uh incorporated into the into strategic plan you'll see that that's played out pretty significantly in the Strategic and the Strategic plan the actions and the the follow-up so um I will touch on a couple of just

090just a couple of big things um and progress and we've been in school with the but eight weeks or so uh so we've made some nice progress so regarding the goal number one for the board I'll just talk about uh the actions that the board has taken recently around all the Safety and Security improvements so I won't deliberate on those but I'll just mention those uh support system to address mental health and wellness again the board has updates from the uh from the high school middle school it'll have an update uh the next at the end item is another update on that matter move also taken action uh for a director of mental health uh those interviews both for those and the security officers um we're lining those up at this particular Point ready for

091the interview process uh overseas stage two of the Strategic plan uh well this this is kind of the the regular monitoring is part of that particular process and the the regular updates are provided to the board uh that the budget itself also will be aligned to the Strategic plan Communications and Communications committee has uh got up and running uh so that was one of the big steps to take place uh various just other various updates include dedicated websites for school security mental health and Dei work I'll stop I'll stop there for the board and unless you have any questions otherwise I'll just regret the Strategic plan any questions on the board rules Alan do we have a date on when we'll get updated on the karma the karma will be coming to uh meet with

092the administration on November 2nd so after I'll have to find out what what's the outcome of that meeting because there are there is feedback that we need to give them to so that they will be meeting November 2nd with our Administration uh thereafter we'll schedule something that's important thank you so then it has to teach you to learn it after the Strategic plan uh the big the big takeaway here uh is the teaching and learning principles that have been drafted and uh we'll be are going to be reviewed by uh the pdac committee that's that's that's one of the biggest uh takeaways uh that we have progressed that we've made towards goal one uh goal two on Dei uh we've had two meetings thus far uh the mark bracket also to support the wellness and

093the updates to the websites regarding Dei work development balance uh definition of the portrait of a graduate I wanted to say thank God I think Alan still here she's just a woman I want to thank her for her and her staff and her leadership through the uh nias visitation because that went extremely well but we're also building uh curricular competencies around the portrait of graduate attributes and we're also talk uh development right now language uh on the elementary language to actually support uh the development of these attributes characteristics through K-12 expanding the professional capacity of the staff one I haven't mentioned there which I I think it's worth mentioning um the board may not want to mention it as a as a progress It's a contract negotiations I know that they're still uh under discussion

094but the whole the negotiation process is an opportunity to support to support the professional capacity of the staff I haven't mentioned it there because it hasn't been he didn't get ratified yet approved for the board yet and then developing the handsome communication systems again some of this is a little bit redundant but to some degree may not be surprising because there is some redundancy between board goals uh strategic plans and so and so forth uh so the development communication again that committee is one of the major bigger biggest developments that have taken place and some improvements to the website those those are the takeaways I guess goal seven I would say if it's goal seven the big thing there is the transition to the void that went relatively smoothly at the high school and then

095goal sex was the facilities and uh we've done a lot of work I just wanted to take a moment just like the deposit in that for a second because the work the board has done there has been tremendous in terms of all of these schools and it's tremendous excitement that's engendered by the staff uh and the parents around these particular projects so again thank you for that but those contribute to goals six and seven I'm happy to answer any questions Alan just following up on the accreditation yes is there a criteria or Matrix or Grid or final report or something to come up with a board can see just curious to know what goes into that process yeah uh the the spring of 24 is really the visit uh that the High School have done

096the draft of of what they see their strengths and weaknesses are um so they have to work they have to sort of work on those before they uh visiting committee comes back on the spring of 24 and then the the official report as they should have the spring of 24. where we are in the process now there's no status or I'm just I'm curious honestly what what goes into this or what what they cover what they're looking for like having a disability into it so that's like uh you know give me a further update on some some of what they call the standards right um they've reduced it but the the process for the nias visit lie is much less than it used to be right um so uh if that's sort of reduced but

097it does basically it the report itself the staff have identified experiences programs uh that they would like to move forward on around the standards I can I can share the last presentation there because I think you might find that that might be helpful I'll just give you a status update the actual report we don't see the interim report we don't see that the staff is done uh until uh the end process of the spring of 24. I'd appreciate it thank you any other questions [Music] um on goal three developing a balanced definition of Student Success Through the portrait of The Graduate the developing a system Pre-K at 12 to measure the competencies of the portrait of a graduate where are we on that or when might we discuss that in Greater detail well that's one

098of the that's that's one of the ones that we haven't done in the start of the eight weeks is the start of school so it's that's that is one of the hardest things that we're going to have to do right because we have to develop this understanding of what it means that at the elementary level through the case through system uh K-12 um because I don't know about the timeline for that I'd be reluctant to give the timelines I just at the moment but well the next step is the language piece so in if you remember the way the portrait graduate works there the competencies that go across the top and then there's a I think it's a seven by seven questions so the way that we built it into the new curriculum platform is

099that there's there's 49 indicators to show that students have demonstrated those competencies over time and so after that language piece is done the next step would be to identify in the curriculum where do students have those experiences to work toward Mastery so the that's how it was described to the during the ask visit as well so we should be further along when they're here next spring and hopefully we'll get to a place where we're showing at least two times during students experience where they're measuring each of those 49 attributes we will make some inroads this year because it's nine is a year to go right that's exciting because it's a Killian task and something we're not measuring the Committees the visiting committee's initial response to the approach was very positive just following up on that

100Chris is is that a large burden to implement for the Educators I mean you know you call it Herculean so I'm just trying to so ideally many of those attributes are things that are already present in our curriculum so we're finding where do those exist and elevating them enough and putting them in a place that we can go back to and look at all of those pieces over the students experience so not only that they've done them but could we possibly look at those items all at once when a student's a senior so a big part of the task is identifying those 98 factors okay thank you foreign the curriculum committee do whatever just remind us of what it is here so the idea was so we have finishing year one so it was a

101four year where a lot of everything being transferred over we're moving at a faster rate than that so I'm optimistic that it won't take four but just giving the space in case it does thank you [Music] yes right thank you moving on to the mental health and wellness update Dr adley and Dr McCarthy I don't know if Dr McCarthy is on this evening but it is you can I'll certainly happy to participated for the most Scott is on the screen or not oh I think he's teaching a class yeah sorry thank you okay yes we'll we'll get the update here um so uh we appreciate I think that the board has heard some of the things from our students and also from our Administration from the wellness center and the wellness uh weekends and so

102on and so forth um that that have been implemented so a couple of things that has been taken place we've been meeting with the High School administration uh with uh Joanne Harpo uh Jessica Wells we've had several meetings we've also included the Child Guidance uh clinicians to look ahead to the Future here a little bit uh particularly looking at the uh some of the things are going to happen in the spring the anniversary of some of the sad events that obviously took place uh proms graduations these types of events to make sure that we have the appropriate plan in place uh for those so they have been given us a good counsel in that regard uh we also looking uh to do things in the summer they include things like a presentation by survivors to

103our young people um and also to do a walk at the high school both potentially for our students and also for our staff as a way of continuing to support each other and and the community and our students so those are some of the areas we are also looking at uh with these clinicians we've been talking about areas of Mental Health programming at the high school for our students so there's a potential you would see some of that come through the budget process as those things are developed obviously with director of mental health we're very appreciative of that position we have a couple of people who will be interviewing uh so we're excited about those and we'll get that up and running um in the next week or show you the latest uh because the

104application process has been open and running uh since then so uh we continue to work with the time no later than this morning uh Dr Mark Brackett will come and do the evening for our parents that's tangently tied to mental health uh so we're so we're making progress I have to say that like one of my big takeaways from this for myself professionally and so on um this is just not a linear process as we move through it it's a difficult process it's it's not straightforward I I have to say that I'm greatly appreciative of the clinicians who who are serving us and our work and supporting our staff has just been uh it's just been tremendously helpful as we're on those calls uh and sort of trying to navigate and accepts and these process

105I want to like to know that uh it's thoughtful uh it may not always be what community members may may think it should be or wanted to be and I understand that um I've been Wheeling heavily on on the experts in this particular case to try and navigate us and Shepherd us through so those are some of the updates that I have for you this evening we'll be happy to answer any questions we also had the website I don't know if you've noticed but the website there's a page just for mental health uh on there too uh there are opportunities for parents uh community members to participate if we're aware of events just like this this past weekend that we collaborated with the time on um there are events there and there are events that

106are upcoming actually um that are posted on there uh for parents if they're so inclined to participate or want to see other community events around Suicide Prevention mental health and other topics that they can participate in so if you go to that website it's right on the front page you can see uh that will be an access scroll in this uh foreign before I open it up to questions Alan can you talk a little bit more specifically about what you think the timeline is I can not not to the the day certainly but what the timeline is for this director of mental health and what you see the first steps of that that role to be so uh we currently have a couple of a couple of applicants at the moment so it can be

107a rule in application so we are going to start that interview process and um as soon as I as soon as that person gets on board he or she is going to have to quickly get up to speed with the processes that we have the procedures that we have uh how we how we actually function and the various components of this particular job that's the first thing um and I'll also include that person in any budgetary discussions or other ways around mental health that person's going to jump into these particular discussions and and help liaison these particular discussions with these can they start with okay thank you what questions John you spoke about the non-linear nature of this process um we've talked a lot about post-vention and addressing the acute needs and not moving too

108fast and making changes because it can impact different individuals in different ways but where are we on that kind of Journey if you will from post-vention to prevention and seems like they will they're overlapping if you will or uh that's that's it for I think that's the first thing to say Mr Sunny that that they would overlap we had the summer in between these uh which was uh for better or worse uh leave it at discontinuity in that regard uh first and I think that all of our all of our students not all of our students are at the same place uh some of our students still need significant help there's no debt no doubt about that right um but there's certain two are ready to move on uh for they take the next step

109for them and the more that we can get sort of the integration process move in in the right direction that domains one of the biggest signs uh of of getting back uh into a normal process and the healing process uh that to me was one of the takeaways that it may not be all the things you're doing but are the students getting back to some normality to some degree right and they're in their routines and so on so forth and I can see that right and I think the high school can see that I'm actually curious if Shawna could see that or not um in terms of how the Oh I just I was just asking how do you feel about um students getting back into reach routines and so on what how would you

110describe that I'll just be curious to it um I think um from at least the end of last year it's going a lot more smoothly um I think it's definitely definitely different to some extent uh there's a change in um I think more openness to talk about certain subjects within students and teachers to have noticed um and I I wouldn't say we're we're necessarily past I guess the post-vention phase uh I think there's still um I know quite a few students who are still mourning some of those who have passed and who still from time to time to take a break from school and I think it's uh it's definitely a slower Journey but thank you Sean thank you I know I'll put you on a spot a week but I appreciate that I think

111I think that's a beautiful perspective for uh for the board uh one of the things that we're struggling with a little bit and just navigating is just how many surveys and processes that like because you also uh what you receive back can we can we actually handle what we receive back or not in terms of so that whole discussion we've been having with the clinicians and we're sort of navigating that carefully because there's a variety of suggestions about surveys and so on so thank you [Music] so I noticed that the the last paragraph of recent meetings have focused on plan proactively for school milestone-based events graduation yearbooks anniversary date spring events those seem to be more broader entire school programs are there plannings done for more specifics of beginning of hockey season a school play

112or something else which may elicit a response or some kind of reaction from those students or is it just broader School um I think I think that everything's on the table for discussion is running the the idea of the like the walk uh for the students to sort of replicates a little bit like we did this weekend uh would be a helpful thing there's certain programming as I just mentioned about uh bringing survivors in uh for the students we're working also with uh the student groups in the school for them to guide some of the discussion uh but we're also conscious of the students in the student groups provide one perspective versus uh the other uh first practice for everyone so it's just when we work on progress we're looking at a variety of programming

113activities and other ways for the students thank you very much discussion on September 2022 2023 financial report and possible action on proposed budget transfers Mr Richard rubel [Music] foreign we are forecasting a positive balance of um the big change is we did put in uh what the board approved for the ssos and the director of security um assuming we get an appropriation then it would refund that deficit that's forecasted within the budget um it also does assume a full year amount for the director of mental health that is one of the transfers that we have for the board tonight um assuming that uh depending on when that's filled and the next forecast we would update that for a prorated portion of the salary and benefits uh but we we would expect to pick up another

114fifty one thousand dollars all told the general education RCS are a positive 182 000 and the special education RCS are forecasted at a deficit of 172 000 which is primarily due to the excess cost reimbursement cap um salaries are forecast to deposit 138 767. um salary savings and turnover are slightly positive though we still have five teaching positions to be filled so that could swing either way um we are still carrying three lower enrolled Elementary sections for Savings of 195 000 uh the new custodial maintenance salary schedule is saving fifty one thousand um this year and then we have the director of mental health which is forecasted at a deficit of 147 000 and then the ssos and director of security forecasted at a prorated deficit of 235 000. um the operating accounts are forecasted

115at a slight negative balance of twenty two thousand three twenty and again this is the forecasted deficit for the materials for the ssos if we get an appropriation then that would refund that projected deficit on the operating or the fixed cost excuse me are a positive sixty three thousand dollars um it is primarily related to health insurance we are carrying savings from the health insurance packages for those three underenrolled Elementary sections and then we have a positive balance in workers compensation property insurance and student access insurance uh revenue is forecasted at a deficit of 169 thousand dollars again it is primarily due to the excess plus reimbursement uh the state budget did cap uh reimbursement for Darien at 70 and we did budget 75 so there's a loss of 138 000 and then ELP tuition

116is trending lower at thirty three thousand dollars to the negative we do have one transfer for Board of Ed consideration and approval and that is to fund the director of mental health uh so it is 147 000 in salary and then fringe benefits of two thousand dollars and twenty four thousand dollars for health insurance we are recommending taking the full use of budget control at 145 000 and then the salary savings related to the unfilled teacher in Resident position foreign thank you any questions or comments through the excess cost cash is correct so the less Revenue you get it's like having an overage in a budget um so that is a portion of it and then it's the ELP tuition Revenue so if we don't collect all the revenue we expect that's essentially it expects

117to budget so the forecast right now is based on the projection of what we were going to spend based on the budget obviously when we filed on December 1st will be based on current year expenditures plus the projection from December 1st through June uh 30th so it will change once we file on December 1st but right now it is based on projections which given that we're about to go and ask for an appropriation um that is pretty close to the Surplus that we have what would happen if that appropriation work turned down would we is that would that number still be around ten thousand dollars or would it be more in the short term uh so we would expect to pick up a little bit with um the director of mental health since it hasn't

118been filled so that would probably be about another 40 so you'd be looking at 50. um it is only October so there's still a lot of unknowns I did mention we have five teacher positions that have yet to be filled so whether they come in higher or lower could swing it either positive or negative if you have a bad winter uh your snow removal and overtime costs will go negative if you're a really good winter it could go really positive um so it really depends on all those factors um if you were to make that decision right now you'd probably be at that you know fifty thousand dollar threshold thank you anything else okay that we have a motion to approve the September 2022 budget transfers Mr moroney all in favor okay that see me

119vest uh often from moroney McCammon parents all opposed worm thank you Personnel report Miss Scion well you can see it's disappointing that people are still leaving in the middle of the year um the good news is is that we've started to post on indeed so after a long search to replace one of our our athletic directors we were able to replace one thank you thank you just said one follow-up tomorrow is it appropriate to put the steps in there from a or their seniority or the years served just to get it since you know of the amount of experience about the people who are resigning correct thank you sure absolutely thank you right without a return to public comment Michelle please good evening excuse me good evening would anyone in person like to comment [Music]

120in a minute you have three minutes please state your name and address for the record sure it's Rob Dyer to McLaren Road South uh I didn't come tonight to ask a question I came to go through this with a cup of coffee and sort of read the statistics and get some of Dr tranberg's unique flavor and wisdom around how numbers translate into the lives of kids and and it would be wrong for me in a public setting not to recognize that in the last few years he's been very generous with his time and his expertise educating me on many of the things around how we educate here in the state and at the school and you know that includes the Strategic plan and conversations about that that includes curriculum and guidelines and decisions about that

121that includes unique aspects of children and learning that I'm not expected to be as aware of as as he is with his expertise and of course teacher latitude and guidelines and supervision so I thank you for that in the public forum I appreciate it hope I'm not wearing you out too hard I may go to Dr adley and ask him to Spread spread it around a little bit but with my remaining minute I I I have to react to this mother of second grade children I found that to be a very difficult and disorienting moment to observe and very difficult for her to express her emotions about something that was important to her so I thank her for that I also thank you guys for providing a form where that can that can happen right

122because I think that's an important function my follow-up to that is much more procedural what do we do with that what is the follow-up to a parental concern of that specificity do we publish to the parents where that was sourced how that was sourced whether that was recommended whether it's approved I don't even I don't even know I don't have an opinion but is there a practical response in this heightened environment where there's so many issues that parents are challenging or in a vacuum being concerned about what is our follow-up to these parents and how specific do we get and can we get that's my question thank you very much foreign Michael Burke 15 Lake Drive uh nearly six years ago I was so very fortunate to be in this room when Tara ockman began

123her service on the board of education I'm privileged and a little sad to be here for her final meeting six years part of that time is uh chair of this body any rendition of her considerable achievements I could list would certainly be incomplete but there is one real fact Beyond any measure of dispute Tara ockman leaves this board and this District in far better shape than she found it just because Tara has always been prepared she's always had perspective and she's always asked the right questions and attempted to do the right thing and put Children First so on behalf of my family I know that I appreciate all of Tara's work and I know I speak for many other families when I say thank you thank you thank you anyone else in person hello my

124name is Pam Roberts 17 Edgerton I wasn't prepared to speak tonight I was coming because my son's a captain on the cross country team and he uh wanted to you know support his team I was really proud of all of them for doing so my so I have a senior who's graduating this year but I also have a second grader who was in that class and I felt in the royal class that the other mom spoke about tonight I wasn't prepared to talk tonight but I really appreciate your questions because I think that that's I I want to know more because we didn't know anything before that book was read and I would like to be informed and I would like better options for opting out and we have asked those questions and we've been

125told no opting out is not an option so I would like a lot of follow-up there and I'll be coming back to these meetings I had one in middle school last year and we had an opt-out from a letter we got and we opted out but I think that we as parents should be informed [Music] with the social emotional learning in the Dei um yeah I'll be back I'll be listening and um thank you for your questions I guess that's it thank you anyone else in person I'll move over to zoom Miss Armel Jacobs you are unmuted and recognized hi can you guys hear me um uh I'm Armel Jacobs 12 fish um sorry I couldn't come to the first round it was bedtime routine but Tara um I want to thank you for your

126many years of service not just for the time but the energy and the sharpness and The Verve you put into it that you bring to this space I think Mike was dead on there are many times where I'm like writing down a question and before I've even finished it you are already giving voice to to that thought to that sharp question so I want to thank you for everything that you have done all the time you put in but also just the energy and the attitude and the sharpness that you put into it so thank you so much for for all of that um I wouldn't be me if I didn't also make a comment on this Julian is a Mermaid book um and it is Julian it is about a Hispanic boy who is

127running errands with his abuela and he sees drag queens on the subway and mistakes them for mermaids they go home while she's in the bathroom he whips up into an outfit and she comes out and he says I'm a mermaid and she what the book is actually about is that moment the moment where is his abuela going to shut him down going to spurn him or what is she going to do and what she does is she says come on let's go and she takes him to the parade okay the the book is about affirming the book is about being seen and being loved it is not and I I will say this very clearly it is not a book about transitioning there is not a seven-year-old on the planet that would read that book

128and be like give me the puberty blockers there's there's nothing in there about transitioning it is about having the social emotional wherewithal to accept someone and be kind when they put out a bid for affection that that is what that book is about and I for one I'm glad that it's being taught as part of the SEL curriculum because you know reading this book it's not going to harm the seven-year-old that's not the person who's being harmed it's the older kids the kids who are in high school in Middle School who are questioning who are gender fluid or who are full-on trans or who love someone who is full-on trans they watch these meetings too I know because they've told me okay they watch them and then they walk away being like this is not

129really a safe place for my friend and I'm glad that they're teaching this in second grade so by the time my kid gets up to that point there are people in that person's class who have the social emotional wherewithal to be kind that's what I have to say and thank you thank you very much there are no more raised hands at this time that we have a motion to adjourn you see any second by Mrs Oxford all in favor