001Hi. Hi everyone. I'm Cara Ledger, the new chair of the student achievement and outcomes committee. I'm so glad to be here and wonderful to meet you all. Um, I'll call the meeting to order right now and we can stand along. Okay. So, the um decision to approve the amendments for the October 15th meeting um know we were discussing this there. We weren't at that last meeting. So, I'm not sure I don't feel like comfortable approving them and at the finance meeting we moved them to the full board. So I was looking for potential discussion on that. Um or a motion to move them. Sure. I am fine. Let's just kind of keep it consistent so everyone's comfortable. I can find making a motion to move it to the full board. >> Just need a second.
002The motion. Okay. So we um it's to approve that we are moving the minutes to the full board for approval. >> All in favor? >> I is there any public comment? There's no Yes. Okay. So, the next item on the agenda is the decision for the 2026 meeting dates. And um again, when I was in the finance committee meeting, we talked about potentially consolidating some of the meeting dates with other committees. So we tabled that um in order to do that and come back to the committee with other dates. So is there discussion on that? Is that okay? Is there a final deadline we need to meet further dates? >> So maybe I could just provide some context to some of the dates that we've used in the past. Um so we gave you following
003the same pattern of meeting dates that we've had uh this year and the year prior. What you'll see is that we don't typically have a meeting in March. It usually conflicts with our uh presentation to the board of finance uh on our budget and so we generally end up having to cancel that meeting. So we haven't scheduled a meeting then. And you'll also notice in July typically the third Wednesday is when we hold an administrative retreat for all of our administrators across the district. And since most of our items are presented by also administrators, uh they are traveling back here from wherever that administrator retreat is. So for the past two years, we haven't held a meeting in July. So I'm just giving you that for context of if they are are going to combine
004meetings, it's probably doesn't make sense to have any meetings in those two months during the third Wednesday. That said, uh we do have to present and submit this to uh the city in January. So the timeline um there would be one more dep uh student achievement committee in December where if you wanted to get feedback from other committees and bring that back here you'd have the time to vote on that then. Thank you. That's great. Any special to the next I'll make a motion to accept tableabling the minutes or the um schedule. >> Second. If not such a discussion, all in favor? >> I I motion access to the 2026 meeting. So, next up, we have information on the curriculum process overview. That's me presenting. >> Yes, the microphones are counterintuitive, so it has to
005be raised for them to work. I know. Um, so I think what we'll do is start with an introduction of uh all of us on this side of the room so you know who you're speaking with. Uh, and maybe we could say a little bit about our roles. Obviously, you know, superintendent White, so she won't need to introduce herself, but everyone else sitting here probably wants to have an introduction. Uh, and so I'm Carly Foron, chief of academics. I oversee the Department of Curriculum and Instructional Services. Typically we have seven members within our department. Four who work on the core areas of our curriculum and three who work in our what we would call encore areas fine arts physical health physical education and wellness and athletics. Uh and our responsibility is to really guide and
006support curriculum and instructional practices uh among all of our educational staff. And I'll turn it to Laura. So I'm Laura Lanza. I'm the secondary instructional supervisor of STEM, science, math, and tech. So, I oversee curriculum and instruction 612 in those areas. I don't know what else I would add to Carly's very well spoken overview of our department. Um, and you'll see me presenting some curriculum tonight. So, you'll get a little intro into yourself. >> Sure. >> I'm a guest speaker tonight. I'm Melanie Vano. I'm an assistant principal Eastern and I am here to um support the ontrack work and presentation that car. >> Hi everyone, my name is Lesa Bourd. I'm a supervisor of secondary humanities. So like Laura, I work with the overcurriculum and instruction in the middle schools and high schools 6 and
00712 in English social studies and world. >> So now you know who you're seeing across the room. I thought because we were going to have some curriculum presented tonight, it would be helpful for the new members of our committee to have an overview of our curriculum process and the way instead of having a presentation per se, the way I thought we would do that is to take you through some of our guiding documents that we use as a department. So that's what you'll find in your blue folder. Caitlyn's going to go to the next screen. But before we delve into all of the different document Oh, I should have Caitlyn, why don't you introduce yourself? I'm Kayla Lee and I'm Carly Laura and Leik's administrative assistant and you'll see her facilitating behind the scenes all
008of our student achievement committee uh meetings. So, uh, so, uh, before we get into each one of the documents, what I wanted, what I want you to walk away with tonight is to really have an understanding of what we mean in Bristol by curriculum because you could ask probably 20 different people in a room about what is a curriculum to you and you'll get 20 different answers. So, I think it's important that you that we build that shared understanding of what we mean by curriculum. Uh I think it's also helpful for this committee to know what happens before you see a curriculum presented before you and what happens after because this is more of a process than just a document that's then approved by the board. So you'll see some documents that reflect the work
009that happens before and some that reflect what happens after. And then I'm hopeful that in some of these documents you'll be able to see the varying roles that different constituents in our community play in the curriculum development process and implementation process. And that is everyone from students, family members, teachers, administrators, and our role as curriculum instructional supervisors as well as your roles as members of the board. So there's a number of documents that you'll find. Um that is sort of the table of contents. The way that I thought we could do this is I'll do a brief introduction of the document and then give you some one or two minutes. It won't be enough time to read everything in detail, but you can take these home and if you have any questions, you can let
010us know and we'll we're happy to answer those for you. Um, but we'll take about two minutes to review every document and if you have some questions that we can answer quickly, we we're happy to do that. So, we'll start with our first document. I did put pictures up there. Uh we didn't print in color because we're being fiscally responsible. So yours are less pretty than what you'll see on the screen. Uh but we're going to start with our vision of the graduate which is a statement. That's what you see in the blue at the top. All Bristol public school students will graduate with essential academic knowledge, skills, and dispositions that empower them to be self-sufficient and make meaningful contributions in a rapidly changing global society. This was a statement uh statement and then subsequent
011skills that we wanted to see our students graduate with that was created by teachers, administrators, students and families primarily at the high school level because having a vision of the graduate or portrait of the graduate is a requirement for accreditation for the high schools. That's how the process began. This uh as you see it was built in 2017 and then revised in 2022 uh when we approached more of a long-term strategic plan. The reason why we're starting this with this is because it is the shared vision of what we want for all of our students to leave with. And so certainly this is one of the foundational documents that guide our decisions around what courses we offer, what we're including in our curriculum, the instructional practices we seek to have our teachers employ. So, I'll
012give you a minute to take a look at that. Do you have any comments or questions? >> How often does the vision of the graduate? >> It's a great question. So you'll see in some of the documents later on the ideal state is that we review it on a yearly basis uh with our curriculum planning council. That hasn't been the case so far. Uh we do sometimes receive informal feedback. For example, uh we one of the areas that people have noted is that creativity seems to be an area that could be strengthened within our vision of the graduate especially as we're thinking about some of the courses that are f focused on innovation and design particularly in our fine fine arts areas. To be able to gather a committee is really one of the thing
013that is representative of all students teachers is um one of the things that holds us back to revising it as often as we would like. the ideal state would be if we could on a yearly basis. Okay. So then we'll go to the next uh what we're calling this our curriculum hub. It's an internal document really used by our curriculum and instructional services department. It holds all of the related curriculum documents. You see all the links at the top, but what for me is most important is what you'll see on page two. So, it's not reflected on the screen, but is in your packet. And what you'll see is that we've um we've done two things. One is to prioritize our curriculum in terms of how we're looking at courses for uh their appearance on
014the revision cycle. We came to we have over 309 courses that are active within the district and will will require some look at revision. Uh and what we've identified is that what's most important for us to hold true if we have to make decisions about what courses might need to be delayed that we're going to prioritize any subject area that does uh have a corresponding state assessment. So ELA, math, and science. And then for that, we're also investing uh more in time, energy, and resources. So you'll see for the priority curriculum areas we see a four- stage process and we usually are using each one of those stages. One year for planning, one year for writing for curriculum approval. What you don't see there is your step which is in between the writing for curriculum
015approval and approval and then one year following for implementation and a year after that for refinement. And so then you'll also see as I said we wanted to show you what happens before curriculum which is we do spend some times really learning what is new in the field and I can give you the example uh commissioner Fitz Simons you'll remember we had that conversation about 4QM as we've spent some time reading thinking about what are the best practices in social studies instruction engaging in professional learning before we even began writing that curriculum and so we're doing that for all of our core priority curriculum areas in English language arts uh or literacy, science, and mathematics. Then after that year of learning, engaging in discussions with teachers and students, hearing from our students about what their
016experiences are within the curriculum, we get to designing that curriculum document. So what are our units of instruction? What are our learning our learning targets? And then finally after it comes here the after stage is we meet with teachers in between each unit of instruction. So recently um I did meet even though we don't have an elementary side yet hopefully joining us soon. Uh I did meet with kindergarten teachers because they're in year one of implementation of wit and wisdom. They had just finished their first module of instruction and we're encountering some road road bumps or bumps along the way. So we talked about what those are. looked forward to what is coming in module two or unit two and then talked about well what can we anticipate being a challenge. So it's year one
017of implementation our purpose is for really learning how this document is going to guide the decisions we make what kinds of changes might we need to make either to our practice the way in which we're implementing that curriculum or the document itself to better support uh the students experiences. So year one after the curriculum is approved from all of you, it goes into implementation phase. And then finally, there's a refinement phase where we're really tailoring it for specific needs. So you'll see a lot of that um actions under that refinement phase are around supporting um different learners that we have in our classrooms. What have we learned about the students who might require accommodations or modifications and what they might need and how can we better incorporate that into our process? So I'll give you
018a minute. That was probably longer than what I wanted to say about that, but I did want to highlight the different people who are involved and then again uh what happens before and after approval by this committee. Keep an eye on time because I probably could give you 10 minutes for each one of these and we'll be here all night. Well, that that's what you want. But so you have a preview of what the document is and where if you had questions where you could get some of those answers, but do you have any quick questions or immediate things that you have in mind? >> Yes, I just have a quick question actually. It's kind of um just something that I've noticed and I'm glad that you're talking about this because like as a former
019kindergarten teacher who um just got a little snippet of witten wisdom for this coming year, you know, just on a personal level, it did feel overwhelming to me. So, I'm glad that you're meeting with teachers and getting, you know, finding those roadblocks and how to deal with that. So that's um just something that's courage to say thank you. >> Okay. So the next document is board policy that really describes your role in the curriculum process and outlines some to a I would say a pretty surface level compared to what some of the other documents you're going to see tonight uh in terms of how we engage in the curriculum approval process. So policy 6141 was just revised in August and I when I went to look today on our board book, it wasn't yet updated.
020So I talked to Shima. She's getting it updated as we speak. But I did want to point out that this is the revised copy that you have uh that was approved in August. One of the major changes in August was the distinguishing the yeah distinguishing between minor and major revisions. So I mentioned that I wanted you to have an understanding of what happens before and after. And I think an important piece of that is that curriculum should be an ongoing thing, an ongoing document that's living and breathing. So uh Commissioner Jedesco, as you're talking about these changes, might want to call you by your first name, Commissioner Jedesco. um as we're talking about these ongoing changes that there's a chance for us to make those changes within our curriculum documents rather than wait another five
021years before formal formal board approval. And so that was added by the former student achievement committee and it allows us to make those adjustments on a yearly basis based on the conversations we're having. So that sentence about minor revisions is the new language here in this policy. And I can give you a minute to take a look. When the policy uploaded, will it then have a new date at the bottom? Yes. Okay. It'll have the date that it was approved by the board. questions. Great. And the next one's going to be super fast. So, this is how we're going to present minor revisions to you. These were some of the minor revisions that were already presented this year. But again, basically, because these are minor, they're small changes, not major changes to whole units of
022instruction. there are small changes uh to learning targets or the order of maybe units of instruction. Uh you'll notice that it's going to be just one one document, one sheet that shows you what the changes were and then we'll ask for an approval general approval of all the minor revisions. I don't think you'll have any questions about that one, so I'll move on to the next if that's all right with you. >> No, but I I love this format. It makes it super easy. >> Great. Thank you. Gonna be a little out of order. Uh so can you move forward one side? Maybe one more. There we go. Uh this is next in your folder. Says guaranteed and viable rigorous curriculum. This is a self assessment document that we use for our work as a
023department also in the way in which we work with administrators and teachers about how we support curriculum. And this is a more it's a rubric essentially for those of you with teaching experience it'll look familiar. Uh and so the way that this rubric works is that the foundational elements the most basic part of our work will be in column one. Uh everything once everything is checked in column one we move to column two and we work on making sure that we're engaging in those actions working up uh finally all the way through up to exemplary. So you'll see we have a curriculum planning council. This is a specific action that occurs right before we work in the writing phase at the design phase of curriculum. So year two after a year of learning. The curriculum
024planning council is made up of teachers of K12, pre-K12 uh across the district, teacher representatives, administrative representatives, special services representatives, and their job is to really look at the proposals for new courses or proposals for revision to analyze what kinds of considerations we should be making. And what that could be financial considerations, do we have enough funds in the budget to be able to support adding a new course or a new teacher? It could be considerations about equity between the two high schools. For example, is this something that we can offer at both schools? So, we have a shared outcome for students. Uh there's a number of different representatives there who are going to come with their perspectives and questions that they have before we even begin engaging in that work. That is part of
025the requirement both under the teacher contract and in board policy. You could see how we're outlining some of those steps there. This document is pretty lengthy. Uh and then it's going to outline everything from who do we want on our curriculum committees, what would be at the exemplary uh standard for curriculum committee participation, what does it mean, what should be in our documents, what does that mean when it's an exemplary curriculum document? So, I'm sure this is going to take a little more time, so I'm going to stop talking and give you a couple minutes to look at that. So, I'm sure this is one that you're going to want to go back to. Uh, but I do want to point out one. For example, I will say that um our goal is to strive
026to be exemplary all the time, but we're not there across every race. So, if you were going to ask how would I rate myself, uh, we would we do go through on a pretty regular basis as a department. But I do want to point one out. So if you are on page I think it's page it's going to be page three where you find analysis and planning of our course level curriculum and you're looking in the third column under implementing. You'll see that our goal would be to have the majority of teachers who will be implementing the curriculum spend at least one day writing that curriculum. And I'm calling that one out because we often run into some challenges with that. So just um and what will happen is you might see that some curriculum
027is delayed from our anticipated presentation to you. We can uh by teacher contract have teachers come into the board of education for 2 days with sub coverage provided to work on curriculum. What can happen is that we might not have all available subs report to schools and so teachers will need to be pulled back. they won't be able to work on their curriculum because obviously our priority is teachers in the classroom. And so it's possible that we won't get to that standard as develop as implementing this year because of substitute coverage issues or the inability to be able to pull teachers. Um trying to accomplish as much work as this is with just two days can sometimes be a challenge. And you'll see that some of our committees, we may only have two teachers who
028can work on that curriculum. Particularly in Laura's area, we'll have some teachers in the technical education department who might be teaching five different courses and they might be the only ones. And so then they can't all come to work on all five of their courses. So there's a little bit of scheduling and some barriers there. So that's just an example of where we might run into a challenge. We're not yet meeting the standard that we would like to have, but we do keep it there as the goal that we aspire to. >> I have a question with the T-Sol. So, um the increase of the multilingual learners, um that's like all the way at number three, but is that something that is always tried to pull in to get their feedback because of the increase?
029>> Yes. So you'll see in our upcoming documents that has been a concerted ef effort over the past few years that we really have focused in on designing specific learning targets for multilingual student. Um the challenge there is that we have third so for all of our multilingual students we have 13 staff members districtwide. >> Yep. And so to pull them for every course that we might have means that they would be really drawing away from the services to students. So that is why that is in that implementing column as an ideal state. But again, our priority is making sure that they can students. That makes sense. Okay. So next in your folder, Caitlyn, you're going to go back to now. There we go. Uh this was presented in the August student achievement committee, I
030believe, as our anticipated curriculum development revision timeline. So it gives you a sense of how we're pacing out our work for this year and what you can expect from every student achievement committee meeting. Um as I said some of these might be delayed depending upon substitute availability curriculum writing work any challenges that might be coming up in the process but that's what you can expect to see this year. Going to the next in your pocket is our full curriculum approval timeline. So sometimes we there is an impression that we just have English, science, social studies and math. It's only four things, right? And for every grade and every course uh we will have a a written curriculum for teachers to follow. And so when we look at the number of courses there uh right now
031we have 309 active courses in the district. We tend to be able to revise about uh 40 a year has been our average for the past four years. Prior to that, again depending upon some of the conditions within the district, substitute availability, finances, avail a availability of summer work that the number of courses we can do varies. We do have every course on a cycle. So you'll see in that revision cycle uh an A through F which means we're looking out as far as 2029 2030 about what courses can be revised then. This is important for budgetary purposes because if any of these courses require a textbook, we want to make sure that we're planning for that and we can build that into each year's budget and that any one year is not going to
032be overwhelmed with 10 courses that might need a new textbook. So you can take a look at that if you have some questions. Uh you'll see the the last time that they were reviewed at curriculum planning council when the student achievement committee meeting was. Uh and you'll notice that many of our courses that are in math, ELA, and science will have a more regular kind of cycle and some of our electives won't. Uh and that's we really revise our electives based on interest from students. So is it safe to assume that with the curriculum re revisions presented tonight, they're already in that written stage and thus already had like the core resources approved for the budget. So like the textbooks or the modeling? >> That's a great question. So the board of education approves the
033curriculum before you approve the resource. And that's really philosophically it is that we as a curriculum writing committee hold true to our vision of the graduate what we want students to learn. we have the discussion and the learning around what are those targets going to be and then we look for a core resource to match that. It is possible that sometimes for example luster of math which is a core resource that we use for our K through grade 11 math curriculum that we're doing things concurrently. So we'll look at core resources that are available and we'll start looking at well we want to use these as learning targets because we see a tight alignment between our goals as a district and what this program offers. But the process as it's been outlined in board policy
034is curriculum approval first and then core resources after that. The core resources are approved not by student achievement committee but by the full board and there's always two readings. That's a question. Oh, so you might have some specific courses that you have questions about or areas. You could take a look at that and then we'll get into the next which I'm happy to hear because you you reviewed what Laura submitted and are familiar with what that document is. Uh this template has been revised. I think this is the third year. Uh it's been revised based on the state guidelines for what should be included within a curriculum document. And that question about the core resource is important here because that is oftentimes people will say that a program wit and wisdom is the curriculum or
035a lecture of math is the curriculum and that's not or even um another example that you might hear about is an advanced placement course that that is the curriculum. We feel it's really important that even if it's an example like an advanced placement course when we receive that material from the college board and in order to get credit for having that as an AP course we have to follow that course exactly that we still take a look at that as a district and say how can we support our learners and district our teachers and district to implement that curriculum that might be produced by a different company. So we will always create our own curriculum document and we'll be we will be using other resources to help guide our writing in that. But this for
036every course we'll have um something that is following this general document template and the um requirements within. I think just pointing out some of the pieces that have been useful newer additions. Uh there's a copy in your folder of our equity audit. So, we'll talk about that, but that has been a new addition for us as a district. We also have done very specific work on family communication. So, for every one of our curriculum units, we're looking to have some kind of communication that our teachers could be sending home to families so they have a better understanding of what our students are learning. Uh we also have as Evie mentioned we've had a stronger focus on incorporating UDL uh accommodations and modifications to our curriculum so that when our special education teachers are co-eing courses
037that they have some guidance on how to make some decisions about a curriculum and the same is true for our ML learners that you'll probably have see more of this tonight and of the other presentations. So for time sake if you have questions you could and then the last two documents in your folder are the uh curriculum review for equity. So we want to have a lens we look at equity in two ways in the curriculum development process. The first is at curriculum planning council. Uh when we're looking to approve the start of writing a course we ask that committee what questions do we want to explore? what do we need to think about to give to our curriculum writing committee so that they're considering all learners in that classroom? Well, that that's is not
038included in your folder, but we use a planning with an equity lens framework to have that conversation. After the curriculum's been written, we will also want to take a look back to see did we address every uh of those questions with an equity lens? And so that curriculum writing committee will complete this as a review. Now, not every one of these statements is true for the each curriculum document. That's why you'll see a not applicable kind of check mark there if you're looking at that. It's it just doesn't some of those statements don't work for every one of our courses, but it is with an intent to make sure that we're considering all of our learners. And then the final document is just an example from this past October of how we're communicating with families
039about what they can expect within our curriculum. uh we send that out via parent square on a monthly basis at the elementary level and then it's included at the secondary level as the start of every curriculum unit. There's a family link there and we are starting more trimester based curriculum overviews for families. There you go. You're going to have a curriculum folder forever now. So if you there is ever a question, you don't necessarily just have to go to your folder. You could always reach out to me, but I wanted to give you an overview of what the process is. Again, making sure that you know that for us, curriculum really means it's a shared created document where we've had discussion about what matters for our students learning and it's represented to you in the
040document itself and that there is work that's done prior to you seeing the curriculum before you. Actually, almost two years worth of work and then two years worth of support afterward. Uh and then that we everybody in the community really has to stake in it from students all the way up to our >> Can I ask a question about the equity audit? >> Sure. >> So I know you were saying you're looking at it before and after to see um how to reach all learners and not every course will do that. So like the engineering one like I noticed as that not you know it's not evident. So in those instances like in the next review like is that a thought where it's like can we try you know to reach something or see something
041we missed or is it just like recognizing that some things you just can't make a connection. >> I know that you have some thoughts about that so I'll let Laura because she is going to be the answer. Um, I think there are definitely things in the equity audit that make it challenging to meet in a math or engineering type course, right? Like authors of diverse backgrounds, we don't even use a book in the PLTW engineering course, never mind read like novels about it, right? Um, so there's just some things there. We I think when we write our curriculum, we I tend to notice the bottom part of the equity audit is where I'm checking more things off about like are we bringing in diverse perspectives? Are we asking questions that get to multiple points of
042view? Um, so there are things on there that are applicable. Um, but not every now that you have so many papers in front. Thank you so much um for all that information. And so the next item is the personal finance division by Laura. All right. Give Caitlyn a second. All right. So, our personal finance and investment course um is a class that is now required by the state um department of education. So, all students need to receive a half credit in personal finance. So, this is our course that satisfies that requirement. It is also a part of our um accounting and finance pathway. So, the state does recommend that it's not a standalone course and that it is a part of a pathway. So, we have kept it that way. We used the national standards
043for personal finance um education as our main standards um that we've pulled from. Our goals with the rewrite were to make sure it was vertically aligned with our advanced personal finance course. That course offers concurrent enrollment college credit through tungstus. So, they're both one semester courses and we wanted to make sure students, all students were getting a really solid foundation in personal finance and then that the advanced personal finance um was different from it and built upon it. It fulfills the Connecticut high school graduation requirement and you'll see the course description there. Um they have it students get essential knowledge and skills to manage their personal finances, make informed financial decisions. There's real world applications. We'll talk about some of those interactive projects, hands-on activities, um, and the main, um, ideas we'll go through in
044the as well. Um, I thought it was important to mention what the teachers really highlighted as core improvements as they wrote this curriculum. Um, they used the next generation personal finance framework, which is now the state adopted model for personal finance education in Connecticut. um they felt that that was a way to ensure a lot of alignment um between the state and national standards and gave students a lot of real world financial literacy skills. We also surveyed students before writing the curriculum and teachers were really proud of how they were able to take some of that student feedback and put make sure that it was in the curriculum. So a couple of things that came up um students love the bean game. So the bean game is where they get beans instead of money. And
045they go through a simulation of, you know, you owe two beans because you broke your foot and need to go to the doctor. You owe, you know, you get one bean for this. And they can quickly see in a simulation how they have to make some decisions right now. You have two beans left and you want to go out to dinner. What are you going to do? Um, so that came up in the survey a lot that they wanted to keep the bean game. Um the other thing that came up in the survey were was the behavioral finance that students um were very surprised about how much um like psychology goes into spending and peer pressure, right? Like I said, going out to dinner, am I going to miss out with my friends because I
046don't have enough money? Um but I have a credit card bill and things like that. Um, so we made sure to keep an emphasis on that unit as well because it was probably the most new learning for students that we saw in that survey. Um, they also made sure to keep the the curriculum project based and hands-on and really focused on the active engagement for all students since this course is for every single student in the high school. Um they also um were very proud of their learning targets and success criteria and they felt like they were able to make the expectations clearer for both them and students, ensure consistency across classrooms and across both high schools and make sure that there were measurable outcomes for student progress. They feel like um any new teacher
047coming into the district um hopefully we don't have a lot of those that were really keeping our teachers but they wanted to make this document very usable for anybody new or um you know obviously there could be switches in what you're teaching from year to year too. So they feel like it's a much more usable document um with um a lot of supports for teachers to see exactly what the activities that are expected of students. um I introduced a new term to them of core assured learning experiences. So what are the things that we want to make sure all students are experiencing in every single personal finance um classroom. Um they also made sure that the content was selected um based on the most essential and practical topics to give students a strong foundation and
048they built in the opportunities for student voice and choice along the way as well. So, our units um unit one is that behavioral economics that I spoke of. The teachers felt like leaning in on the next generation personal finance activities and reading materials were very helpful there. So, instead of just focusing on numbers, students look at the psychological side of money like we spoke of earlier. Unit two is careers. So, um focusing on how your career choices can then later on affect your finances. So, are you going into a field where you're going to have a lot of college debt or are you um going into a trade, but then if you don't have a business degree, are you going to be able to open your own business? All of those decisions along the way.
049And some of the resources there are career one-stop career exploration, again, the NextGen personal finance activities, my nextmove.org. So, they actually talk about the cost of moving and careers in different states. Um and then they have that occupational outlook handbook which actually shows students the projections of different occupations um and how much they can earn in each of them. They also just explore their career interests in that unit and um do those like self-inventory kind of things where what what are their um strengths and what would be a good career for them. Unit three is earning and reporting income. So, they lean here on the IRS website. Probably one of our favorite websites, right? No. Um, but they talk about taxes and sales tax and all the ways that your paycheck can shrink based on
050what the government demands of us there. Um, how taxes work and why it matters. Unit four is budgeting. Um, here they they teach students about some free budgeting templates that they can use and different budgeting strategies. There's a fidelity simulation, five money musts, and then they use the nextgen personal finance simulation, living paycheck to paycheck spent. Um, so here it's really about creating that budget and trying to stick to it so that you can save, invest, um, and not be living paycheck to paycheck. Unit five is about credit. This was one of the debates during curriculum writing was where does this unit go? Originally, it was the last unit. they decided to move it here um because they felt like talking about credit before banking and investments was important um because in order to have
051good credit you have to be paying your bills on time that ties to the budget aspect and then if you're sticking to your budget and you have your good credit and you're not in debt then you can save and invest. So that was the thinking there. Uh, so they use some online loan calculators and again some simulations there about what could happen if you get into debt, how much interest you're actually paying, and how you want to try to avoid that. Unit six is banking. Um, they do do teach students about how to write checks, how to deposit money in their bank accounts, um, how to reconcile things. A lot of things are electronic now, obviously. So, um, you know, they really tell talk to students about how it's still important to keep track even
052though it's online. You still want to make sure that nobody's getting a hold of your credit card or debit card and charging things that you don't know about. Um, and you know, we still do have checks. You still need to know how to go to the bank and get a money order and things like that. So, they go over that in that unit. Unit seven is savings. So, now that everything's in order and you've budgeted and you have no debt and you know how to open a bank account, how do you save? And here they focus on the pay yourself first model. So, when you're budgeting, making sure in your budget you've got that certain amount of money every month, every week that you're paying yourself and saving um and you're not dipping into. They
053research interest rates and compare banks and they do a bank simulation there as well. And then the last unit is on investing. Um, so now that you've, you know, got a little money stocked away, how do you make it grow as fast as possible and what does that mean for your future? And they look at Google and Yahoo Finance and do a little bit of a stock market game there. So the team who worked on this, um, I really think it is refined, modernized, and formalized since the last time it was looked at was 2006. Um, so to Carly's point of sometimes it takes a while to get to, we have gotten to this one now. Um, so we had Brett Bison, Sharon Jakes, Britney Mccari, Lori Roberge, and a new member of our team,
054Samantha Zapperka, who brought a lot of fresh perspective to this particular meeting. So that's personal finance and investment. Thanks. Yeah, when I was reviewing the document, I just wish that we had that when we were younger because some of this investment stuff I learned within the last five years. So, I'm just like, this is great. When did it become a requirement for high school graduation? >> So, it was the class of 2027. This the first class that needs to graduate with it kind of fully. So, um, we have really started to roll this out, which is part of the push to really formalize the curriculum and get it in a good spot. >> Yeah. >> And I know we're not approving resources or the core resources, but the NextGen like website, does that have costs
055associated with it? >> Nope. It's all free. It's an open resource through the Connecticut Department. >> And then I noticed obviously there's a lot of free websites like you were saying free templates, the IRS. Yep. with the chair. Yes. Um I don't like saying um no I just I think this is great. just want to I we all know again it is but for so many years especially as somebody who's a little bit older and um you know remembers the years that we talked about how we uh we got kids ready for college but they lacked those you know I mean I know life skills has been a thing for a while but those personal finance skills were so lack that I just think it's just exciting as somebody who's, you know, been through older
056versions of everything to see that this is something that's been so modernized and so relevant for today's society. So, actually, despite the fact that we're looking at something that's almost 20 years, >> yeah, 20 years old, um it's it's a great time to do it now and I think it's all-encompassing. It covers a lot of topics and we mentioned the multi-ingual um learning targets and what that looks like. So that I appreciate and the universal design like having all those different options and student choice that really I think adds the engagement. Okay. So we need a motion to recommend to the full board for approval for the personal finance revision. Motion to move personal finance curriculum revision to board. I'll second that motion. to discuss. So all in favor say I. I. I. >> I.
057>> Motion passes to move personal finance for the cohort. And now we have the PLTW civil engineering and architecture revision by Laura. Yes. You'll see a lot of me. I joke about that. Uh I think I have 130 curricula that I oversee. So you'll see me probably every month. Um, so we have PLTW civil engineering and architecture. This is an example of a course where it's pretty much handed to us from the project lead the way organization. We have a lot of different um courses of theirs that we run. Um, this one runs some years and not others. We always offer it but depending on enrollment um it will run or not run. So this is one of the years that we are running it. Um, the interest was there and we have one teacher
058Roco Martino who is teaching it. So, he did this alongside me. Um, and it was a really big lift because the previous curricula that was approved, I think it says at the end 2011 or 2012, was basically just the uploaded documents from the PLTW website. It was not in any sort of curriculum format whatsoever. So, it felt even though it's a revision, it felt like a new rewrite. So, we were really starting um from scratch with a lot of things. Uh what's really nice about the project lead the way curriculum is that they understand how engineering can tie to a lot of different content areas. So when they're designing their activities for students, they really think about English and language arts and math and science and then the teched and literacy and engineering and how
059it supports all of that. Um they call it technological and engineering literacy. Um, so through building design and site design, um, they're really using the math and the science and having to communicate to each other, um, and doing peer reviews, uh, and mock presentations of what their, uh, design for a building would be. So there it really is an all-encompassing curriculum in that regard, which is um, really nice for for our teachers to see all those connections. Um, this is a concurrent enrollment opportunity with the University of New Haven. One of the nice things with the University of New Haven is that if you're a PLTW school, your students can automatically receive college credit through them. There's no formal like they have to approve anything for us. It's just an automatic our students are eligible.
060Um so that makes it really easy and streamlined for students with that. And then of course we're always looking to vertically align with the other courses in the pathway. So this is part of the engineering pathway. Um, and so it falls on that first slide. It it showed where it fell in that platform. The description is pretty robust. Um, they call it CA for short, civil engineering and architecture. Um, it's a specialization course in the engineering program. Again, they apply math, science, and standard engineering practices to design residential and commercial projects. And they use 3D architectural design software to do that. We use either free software or software provided by PLTW. We do purchase some licenses of Master CM CAD. Um, but that's actually not for this course. That's for other courses that we offer.
061Um, they call it an activity project problem based teaching and learning pedigogy. And it really is all through the curriculum. They're doing projects and problem based learning. And the teacher is like the guide on the side to that. Um it's very collaborative. So they do some individual learning obviously and assessing but there's a lot of collaborative team activities, projects and problems. Um and then they get feedback from each other on that as well. And they use that 3D architectural design and modeling software to represent and communicate their solutions. So the unit overview, the first unit is the overview of civil engineering and architecture. Um, I think this is a really unique unit because they dig into a lot of the history of civil engineering and architecture. What makes the difference between being an architect and
062a civil engineer? Um, what are the different careers under both of those umbrellas? Um, and I think that's really great for students to see where they might fit in one of those umbrellas rather than just seeing it as one big bucket. Unit two is residential design. Um, this is where they really look at houses. And in previous engineering courses, they would have talked about how to make sure that the electrical is in the walls in a way that's most efficient, how to make sure the plumbing is vertically aligned so that it's efficient. And this is building on that. Um, and going into the building codes and different ways to frame residential structures, how much it will cost if you choose different structures, um, those kinds of things. And then they actually design a small affordable.
063Unit three is commercial applications. So they look here um into the different ways to build commercial buildings. So again, how do you supply water, power um and communication, all the internet, uh Ethernet, those kinds of things throughout a building. Um and then they again design um and document a renovation of a commercial facility using that media architectural software. And then the culminating unit is unit four, which is the commercial building design problem. So three flows into four a little bit. Um they're so in unit four, it's very project based. If you looked at the curriculum, it's basically just that whole unit is student time to work on this um culminating project. So they're given a a problem about a facility and they have to solve it as a te and how are they going to
064redesign the facility and then they critique each other, they have to present to a panel um and that's their their final demonstration of learning. So the tools and software here um Autodesk Revit is used as the 3D program to complete the architectural design. There's a structural analysis tool to actually make sure that your structure is sound. They um use that online as well. MD solids auto level is the surveying equipment they use. And then there's the budgeting and project management software as well. And so a little snippet from Rocco here, the teacher who worked on this curriculum. He said, "One of the most exciting things is the use of the architectural program, Revit. This is a program that actual architects use and students are getting exposure to it right now. I also like the aspect
065that students get to get out of the classroom and do some land surveying as one of the assignments. So, they actually can go out and look at land and where would a structure fit and where's the water shed area and all that. So, a very special thank you to Roco Martino and all of his knowledge. Um, yep. the previous curriculum in quotes because it was just some documents um was approved in 2011. Um and so he really uh worked to synthesize um and create the newest version of the documents possible. >> Thank you so much. Um I did I feel like I learned stuff just from reading the understandings that there was so much information I was like but um I did appreciate I also noticed a lot of those interdisciplinary connections too. Um, and
066the fact that they're getting to look at local like zoning and land use and the project of like the resident, you know, building their house and then building commercial, I just think it's all-encompassing and if I'm learning a ton from this document, I can only imagine like how in-depth like all of the the classes will be. Um, so I did appreciate that and that the resources are basically free is also a win-win. um other questions or one is it offer at both we always offer it at both high schools every year again it just depends on the interest level is is rock is he teaching at both he's not so his counterpart Nick Petroski would teach it at the other high school thank you >> no >> offer but not running >> yeah that's the
067difference there yeah we try to offer everything, right? Our program of studies is um we have a lot to offer students and so every year we do try to if there's let's say 10 students that want this course and 10 students that want another PLTW course, we will try to keep in mind what ran the previous year and try to do an every other year thing. You can't have the staffing to run it all. >> Yeah. a question about I know you said with the University of New Haven they sort of give you the autonomy to decide um this student passed and thus they would get that credit. I know there's like assessments here within the students projects but so there's actually um an end of course assessment for PLTW that they take. >> Um
068so there's I printed it out. There's a whole thing about how they can um get the college credit. Um, so every every course is a little bit different. It just says meeting the eligibility requirements. This horse does have an end of course exam. >> Thank you. >> Yo, we need a motion to recommend the LW civil engineering and architecture to the full board for moved. >> Seconded. In favor say I. >> I. >> Motion passes to PLTW civil engineering and architecture to the full board. Thank you. >> The next item is um Carly presenting the 2024 2025 on track graduation. Give me a second to pull that up. So in addition to presenting curriculum at student achievement committee, we also present data uh and student outcomes. So that's the outcome part of the student achieve
069a achievement and outcome committee. Uh you might be wondering what the the data that I'm going to be presenting tonight is based on 2425 data which seems we're in December. Why are we looking at data that's so old? So when we go to the next slide, Caitlyn, I just want to point out one of the reasons why we're looking at 2425 data now for our ontrack rate is for two reasons. One, we don't get that data from the state uh early in the school year because they consider students who are earning credit over the summer. So they gather that data from any students who are engaged in credit recovery in the summer. They give schools time to process and upload that data. So we don't get that into the fall. The second reason is uh
070we didn't present it as soon as we get it in September or October because we're also pacing out your presentations and our ability to look at that data. And so you see that this is the agenda of when we're intending to present different data points to you as the student achievement committee based on a few factors. When we receive it, how important it is in terms of timing for our ability to react to that. uh when we'll have the time to be able to review it and then of course how much any one student achievement committee member can take for a meeting in one night. So uh tonight we have the freshman on track rate and as Melanie um this is Petrono will be formal uh shared uh she's here as a representative for Bristol
071Eastern High School and their efforts that were made at their school. Uh Ryan Brick is the well two Jeff Sinatro was our administrator last year who really focused in on the on track rate. He's now the elementary principal at Mountain View. So he wanted to leave that opportunity to speak to on track rate to Ryan Broadick who's working on it this year and Ryan is presenting out of state at a national conference. So all good news across the board. Um and we'll have the opportunity I'll be able to share some of the strategies from both schools overall. So one of the first places to begin uh is to define what ontrack means. So you should know that the ontrack indicator is one of the ways in which the state uh measures our school district and
072our schools. So, it's part of the next generation accountability system. And every district across the state of Connecticut, including private school districts, uh will have a a DPI, district performance indicator that's based on how all of these different indicators uh measure their system. So, you'll see it for public school districts and you'll see it also uh for private districts as well. That same index could also be used to measure the qualities of each school. So every school gets an SBI or school performance index that is again based on multiple indicators. So indicator 7 is one that counts for our middle schools and high schools and it represents the number of students who in grade nine have successfully earned six credits. So in context right now we have an eight period day. Students can take up
073to eight credits as a freshman. We have an alternating block schedule. That means that they'll have four classes on an A day and four classes on a Bday. Each one of those classes, they could potentially earn up to eight credits. We do try to fill our students schedules, though we're also mindful that as students are transitioning into high school, they might need a study hall to be able to stay on track. And so oftentimes students are taking six credits, three periods one day and three periods on the other. And so that makes sense for us as we're using that as one of the me the state is using it as a measure and it matches within the way in which we schedule as a district. The state oh sorry I paused but because I didn't
074want to read something that was on the screen but you could read on your own. The state target is 94%. So essentially they're saying that 94% of our students is the goal for how many students should be earning those six credits. And obviously one of the reasons why on track is so important is because it's correlation to high school completion which is a different indicator for the state. But when we can improve our students who are on track in grade nine they're more likely to complete high school in the four years. And we have really positive news to share across the district this year as it pertains to our own track rate. So, Bristol public students had more students earning six credits in grade nine this year than in the prior year. And in fact,
075uh the highest percentage since 2019. So, precoid times. Uh improvements were observed in both high schools. Both high schools improved their graduate uh their on-track rate. And uh it really does look like from our look back to eighth grade that one of the reasons why our ninth grade is so high is because our middle school students also improved their performance. And there will be a slide that shows that a little bit more clearly. In addition to all of those improvements, we also see improvements across every one of our subgroups. So you'll see that we have improvements in the students who qualify for uh meal assistance for multilingual students and students who receive specialized instruction. So, we'll look at the data. The data that you're going to see in the upcoming slides is copied from EDS
076site, which is the one of our state resources to show what all of the accountability indicators are for our district, for our schools, and again, all of the districts across the state of Connecticut. Now, this is our district uh percent of ontrack. Sometimes people will wonder if it is just representative of our students who are at Bristol Eastern or Bristol Central. It's important to know that our district percent on track includes students who are attending schools off-site uh or in our private education uh facilities, but some of our special education students who might be in an outplacement. Uh it also includes Bristol Prep. And so it's the entire district, not just students who are attending at Bristol Eastern or Bristol Central. So we can see that we have a nice increase here from the past
077year. We're at 88.9 when last year we're at 86.3. And again, that's highest since uh precoid where we were at 91. And our goal is to get back to that in this upcoming year. Now, you'll see some data districtwide for each of our subgroups. So, this is the uh percent of our students who are uh meeting the ontrack indicator who are eligible for meal assistance. And you could see that the blue line is the students who do qualify who are are eligible for free or reduced lunch. And you can see a really sharp increase there from 79% last year who had earned six credits up to 85.2 in this year. Multilingual students is very interesting to me and we see that up and down quite a bit more. So, English learners are represented in the
078blue and you can see that their ontrack percentage has even exceeded all of all of our students, students who are non-English learners. One thing that's important to remember here is that number can be pretty small. So, we're looking at the number of ML learners who are freshmen who are earning six credits. That's why you see that variability because that could also reflect in students experiences both in English language and in education depending in their years of uh education within our Bristol schools that could vary quite drastically every single year. So that's why you see that these are students who receive specialized instruction special education students. Again, uh this is a number that we are still seeking to improve. It is the lowest percentage among the special populations that you're looking at today. However, it is
079a it has the largest gain over our performance from last year. Last year, 69.8 students had earned six credits compared to se 76.5 this year. We've been seeing this as a pattern across the district. Last year we had some uh formal professional learning development for teachers on co-eing strategies in August and that was supplemented by the work of our special education department and their supervisors and their feedback and coaching throughout the school year and I think that's one of the reasons why we see that increase. It we still have room to grow but um it was nice to see that gain now for our high schools. So students who are attending Bristol Central, again they're on a nice upward trend uh from 2022, you'll see that they were at 84% and now they're at 90.2.
080So higher than the district as a whole uh and improving. And then Bristol Eastern, same um there is a little bit of competition between the two. So I know Mrs. Rano is probably going to say we did beat Bristol Sunville on our on track rate, but we'll see that it is I know how this goes. You can't be from Bristol and not want to compete. Uh so you can see also they had about the same 5% increase that they saw at Bristol Central. Uh a slightly a little bit on a super curve for Bristol Eastern, but improvements all around. So then it does the credit that our high schools are getting for 2425 does tie back to the 23 24 data from our uh middle schools. And so you could see each middle school they're
081getting a percentage of their points uh in their school performance index based on the success of students in the freshman year. And I think that's great that the state is recognizing that the strength of our freshmen is really dependent upon the the strength of their learning in the middle schools, strengthening that vertical articulation. There's a a really nice gain for West Bristol in the past year with 95.4% of their students earning six credits when they uh when they went to Bristol, they're all Central students uh when they went to Bristol Central last year. So in thinking about what has made a difference uh we have established a very regular system for uh monitoring and reviewing our performance. Uh last year we met quarterly to look at students who were on track. So at the end
082of each quarter identifying students who were uh the number of courses that students were passing who might not be uh meeting with success and what we could do differently. Both high schools meet together. That was Mrs. Toronto and Mr. Sinatro last year so that they could share ideas between the schools about how they could better support students and then they leave uh after that conversation to come back with more tailored plans for their own buildings that they're sharing with their school counselors with their ontrack counselor with their special education department and others within the school. Uh both schools had an ontrack counselor with an identified case load last year and that's really made a difference. In fact, uh it was through their advocacy that those positions remained intact this year despite some of the cuts
083that were needed to be made. Uh there were additional credit course options and varied structures that were in place. And so both schools are piloting different ways of approaching that and Mrs. Toronto will talk about some of those opportunities for credit recovery built within the school day so that students don't necessarily have to wait to summer school to recover any credit that they can work towards recovering credit within the school year. And then another factor that we see closely connected to the ontrack rate is attendance. And Commissioner Fitz Simons might recall that our high schools did have higher attendance, regular attendance among our students this year. And we think that that's a contributing factor for why they've done so well. and I'll let Mrs. Rano then speak to her points for Bristol Eastern. >> Thank
084you and good evening and thank you for allowing me to come in and speak on behalf of Brisern. There is a lot of healthy competition but we do meet as uh Miss Morton said. So we we do a lot of the strategies that I'm going to be sharing with are also being implemented at Brit. Um so as Miss Morton said as well the ontrack counselor has been um really uh important in this in this role. So students are identified with grade eight. So they counselors all meet in May of um the previous school year and they go through the case loads and identify students who counselors feel are going to struggle and perhaps need a little bit of extra support once they get to the high school. those students are automatically assigned to the ontrack
085um counselor and they're also put in what we have as a freshman academy. So that is a course that was written. It has an identified curriculum that was approved I believe last year and that helps students with a lot of the executive functioning that they need. It's a a contact every other day for somebody to um really be monitoring what their grades are and giving support that's needed. um if a student should need to be on uh SRBI or MTSS that comes from him as well. So it's a nice streamlined process. Um it also helps that it's one person to talk to counselors instead of um it it being spread out across case loads. We also skinnied last year. We did not do it again this year um because of the changes in our health
086and our PE staff. Um but last year we skinnied. So we started the day with these students say they just skinny. So when I say skinny uh we have a block schedule it's 84 minutes. What we find is that 84 minutes is a lot of time right it's a long time and some students struggle with that. So we skinny health and freshman academy. So students would have 42 minutes of health then that same group would have their freshman academy and there would be another group that would switch the other side. Um the goal of that was for students to be able to come into school and kind of get their mindset to be ready to come to school. So that was part of what that balance was. Um and that was something that we did
087last year. Um there's progress quarter check-ins and goal setting. So for example uh as Miss said we meet we meet quarterly but after every P1 Q1 with pulling grades we're looking for students how many failures do they have if any? Is it correlated to attendance? Uh is it behavior? What students need more support? Do we need to get students on FTSS? We have stuff we had sections built in last year. So we had algebra one foundation. So that was a skinny. So again based on SBA scores and grade eight. We identified students we we knew would knew would need some kind of scaffolding of content in. So those students had their um uh algebra one foundations opposite their algebra. So they algebra on an A day. Then on the Bday they would have the foundations
088and then they have algebra. So it kind of kept that streamlined through. Um, so we were doing that. We also we we have everyday math classes. So again, 84 minutes every other day. Uh, you know, one of the one of the downfalls or questions about uh block scheduling is all that every other day is that like two, you know, kids forget and then they have other homework to do and they're not focused on math. So we have everyday math classes. What that means is they have it every day for a full semester. So that is then instead of being over year, it's every bit. So um they see the teacher again every day. Every day they see the teacher every day. So that it's you know it it just it's more continuous. So right now
089we have students um who are not passing algebra. Um, we have until the end of the semester. Obviously, we have some supports that we're putting in place, but for students who are going looking like they're going to either have to go to summer school or repeat, we will move them into an everyday algebra one section next semester so that um they can, you know, keeps them on track, right? Because we know that math is one of those difficult places. Um we do and it's not for for our ninth graders but we do also run that with our geometry are stacked and our alert two sections that students who need that every day um is helpful. We did last year as I said we did the skinnies for health at freshman academy. We also skinnied some
090of our academic core courses. So we skinnied math and social studies English and science. What we found with that it was too many transitions for students. So that the 84 minutes may have been long, but all skinnies were too many transitions. So that teachers were losing instructional time uh you know, waiting for kids to come in and get settled. So we did end up unskinning those. It just it just we didn't get the benefits that we we thought it would bring. Um we have um just uh sorry to go back up, we have our team planning time. So our content teachers, so our grade n content teachers work together every other day for 42 minutes. Um and during that time they're able to plan act assess that's what we say right what are you planning
091to do um what's the action going to be what are the instructional strategies and how are you going to assess if they learn that right to guide then their their instruction for the next section. So that's helped teachers um keep on pace together and it's also helped them uh just implement new strategies and bringing different perspectives. We have a lot of new math teachers, not a lot of new, but probably two two new math teachers to the team over the past couple years. So, that's new people coming in um with different levels of understanding. Um we do have support uh we have um teams. So, not teams, we have groups. So, our we have our student support team behavior specialists and our school counselors. And then we also bring in Bristol services uh again based
092on the needs of our students. So, last year we had a girl group, right? those girls resolving conflict. So we saw that we had a lot of conflict. So again girls were identified and then there are groups they usually last six to eight weeks and birth services come in we pull them out of classes for that amount of time. Um and again helps with that acclamation change socially as well as academ lancer nation mentors. So those are upper classmen that are in nth grade home rooms. So they come in and run the lessons and are just there to be guiding years for our nth graders. rights. They'd rather ask a question to a senior perhaps than a ninth grader. And you have seniors that will say, you know, when I was a ninth grader and
093I did this. Um, you know, so those were some of the strategies within the day. Um, I really I really try to use the staff that we have and make the structure right the the structure of a block schedule gives us a lot of freedom to try different things. So that's something that we work together um to do. Um we also a lot of students if they need we do have those credit recovery opportunities. Um summer school obviously is very helpful but the goal is to obviously get the students those six credits. Um but if not then we know who we know we've identified that are going to be need that support for them. So I think that's it. Did I leave anything out? >> And I need to take credit for the hyphen in
094the wrong spot because that's going to probably drive Mrs. Vano crazy. Did Did >> I could No, that was me. I'm owning it. That is my error. >> I looked up and I'm like, "Oh, Carly's going to anatomy for that." >> That's me. >> It's bothering me, too. I had to fix it on my own screen here. And I wanted to secretly give Caitlyn a message to refresh the screen so it would correct. Okay. All right. Well, thank you for sharing all the good work. We want to continue to build upon that work as we're thinking through this year. Uh >> former English teacher really bothered me. Uh thank you for that. Um so we want to build upon the strengths that we have uh this year. So I mentioned last year we met quarterly.
095Uh this year we're starting to meet at at the end of every progress and then every quarter which works about to be about every six weeks. So shortening up the cycle so that we can intervene more quickly and hopefully share information more readily across the district to help inform some of those teams that Mrs. Watrono was talking about. We saw those great increases with grade 8 last year. And some of the work that we had done last year helped our grade eight teachers talk with grade nine teachers. we had specific uh professional learning at the beginning of the year where they had those vertical conversations. I think that could have been a contributing factor. We also ended the school year with a similar conversation. And so we're looking for especially in the spring more of
096those opportunities for teachers of grade 8 to talk to grade nine. And one of the other ways that we're really thinking about strengthening that vertical articulation, really getting at more of some of the executive functioning that Mrs. Vrono was talking about is through our AVID implementation at the middle level. Uh, all of our middle schools this year are really using reach, which is the win block or what I need now block for middle school to really hone in and and work with students on some of those executive functioning skills. How do we take notes? How do we ask questions in class? How do I organize myself? How do I set goals and reflect on them through AVID, which is a program I can talk more about at another point. Uh and then the next category
097of of focus or the next group that we're looked at we're looking at is again those students who are receiving specialized instruction. I'd like to delve more deeply into some of the patterns there particularly if students are coming from u what programs they might be coming from. are the students who are not meeting with success more in some of our self-contained programs and we need to bolster our teachers um strengths content knowledge instructional practices there or maybe even rethink some of the curriculum development for those courses that's going to take a little bit more work throughout this year to take a look at and then because our ontrack counselors have been so effective I think there's some of the practices that are on track counselors that have done that could be useful for our case
098management uh among special education teachers. And then finally, our summer school program alternates between Bristol Eastern and Bristol Central. So, a question I have looking at this data and then looking at how it'll appear next year is is there an impact on the students who are able to get to that six credits based on where summer school is located. I don't necessarily see that up and down for the general population. When you look at district, you don't see that there's an up and down there. But when you do look at some of our high need populations, you do see that there's some that that rate is going up and down each year. And so a question that I have is, is that connected to the summer school uh location? I suspect that it Bristol we
099do our attendance at Bristol Eastern is generally higher uh because we have more busing that then happens from Bristol Central to Bristol Eastern. But uh we'll have to I need to look more deeply at uh to know that the true answer can answer any questions. >> I think you're hitting this issue from so many different angles and I just appreciate that in terms of teachers talking to each other, the ontrack counselors, student groups, mentors, academic adjustments. I before you presented all this, my question was going to be what are the plans? But I feel like you're thinking about everything and I just appreciate that. >> Do we get access to the this slide? >> Yes. >> Yep. Uh we will send them after these meetings. We send them uh we sometimes will try to present
100it ahead of time, but we're really working to the last minute as you can see from the wrong hyphen location. >> Okay. >> I'm not going to be able to let that go. Hey, >> so you'll get it >> in the like home in the shower like that. >> The nightmares. You'll have nightmares tonight. Sorry. >> Just to add though, too, I also think that with the redistricting when we're getting all of the students from one of the middle schools, I think that is going to even really further strengthen the work that we can do um from 8th grade to 9th grade. So, I am excited about that and opportunities that will give us. Um, as far as special ed too, I just want to point out that we did change the structure of our
101academic support this year and we we have seen adding Eastern I'm not sure about that. I don't know if I I just don't know their data, but we have seen just from quarter one over last just to point that out. I'm hoping I'm hoping that that will be higher in in the in the >> So that was the last agenda item. So I think we are ready to adjourn. Thank you.