001to order to the flag of the United States of America to the stands one indivisible and justice for all. on agenda is approval of the August 20th meeting minutes. >> Make a motion to approve. >> Second discussion, corrections? Hearing none. All those in favor? >> I motion passes and publicly received any public comment either in person or online. No. And starting us off, it's going to be Carly with um information regarding the 2526. >> Great. Thank you so much. Uh we probably did you do a sound check before I just want to because that usually falls into play when in the middle of sharing. >> Sound check for those online. Can you hear us? Okay. Could be that far away. Mr. Badley, can you hear us? Okay. >> How about a thumbs up emoji? Let's
002see. chat. >> I Yeah, I just did. Oh, we got a thumbs up. >> No, >> I think they're all listening in online today. So, uh the first item is fairly quick. It's a brief overview of what we intend to bring forward to, uh the student achievement committee and then the full board in terms of our curriculum revisions this year. We work on a five-year cycle for curriculum revision looking at the all of the courses that we have within district which number over a hundred probably over 200 but I haven't counted all of the courses lately. Uh these courses are up for revision. You could see that the primary re revision cycle that we're on uh is D though we didn't accomplish all of the um curriculum revisions that we had intended uh last year.
003And so that's why you'll see a number of the C uh group revisions. It's just the way in which we code our courses so that we know when they're next up for revision. We've tried to pace them out across the school year which allows us some time to work with committees as well as lightens the load on some of these agendas. We are trying to be mindful of not loading up as much as we did in August. that tends to be the case if any of these meetings are canceled throughout the school year. Um or if we're our curriculum committees are impacted by lack of substitutes or snow removal, snow days. So, uh it's pretty paced well paced out. So, there's about three to four curriculum per month that will be coming before the student
004achievement committee beginning in November. You can take any questions. >> Is there any is there anything that committee the committee could be more mindful of to help keep us on track so we don't have we don't fall behind in any way. I think that one of the factors that led to us falling behind for August was that graduation ended up falling on the student achievement committee date and many of our curriculum have been in the past slated for June because we're using the school year to get those ready and so that I think is what pushed the majority of the curriculum from last year to June. Now you could see that we've moved uh most of the Caitlyn if you could scroll up we moved most of the June back to May. So you can
005see it's a little bit longer in May making up for the or really anticipating that June could be impacted and that way these courses would be approved by the board and we'd be all set to be on track for any summer work that would need to happen to better prepare teachers to teach those courses for the ordering of materials that they might need. >> So awesome. >> That was a long answer, but really the answer is no. Thank you. You're welcome. Um that brings us to number five. Um information item 256 schedule data presentations. >> Um sometimes we've received questions and so about when what data can you see when and so last year we started this approach of identifying what data presentations would be available at each student achievement committee meeting. we do uh
006present the data in the order that they're processed and given to us giving us time to really organize that information so that we can have a thoughtful presentation the student. So this is the schedule of those data presentations for this year and I'm happy to answer questions. >> Thank um one thought that has come up for me would it be okay to email this and then the curriculum revision the full board. >> Absolutely. >> Maybe they could come to the sessions that they're interested in. >> I think we just reviewed list, but if you need us to pop back on anything or questions, we can we just let us know. >> We're on number five. >> Okay. Number five of the agenda. >> Oh, that was fast. In five minutes finished. >> I just reviewed
007the curriculum timeline for what curriculum is going to be presented to student achievement committee. Um and then I al which I could also send I'll send it directly so that you can send it out to all commissioners. And then uh this what you're seeing here if you could see it maybe we can make it a little bigger. >> I'm as much help as I can get when the data would be presented to students. My only question is it looks similar to the schedule we already had. Is there a big difference somewhere? Okay. So, >> yeah, it's similar to the one that we used last year. I did add adult education uh this year because uh Sarah, Mrs. Lupa, Sarah Lupa has asked that we have the opportunity to share some information about our adults who
008are served by our system as well. I thought that was an excellent idea. So, we added that into May. Gifted and Talented didn't have the opportunity to present last May. We had reached out, but the time they didn't quite work. So I'm anticipating that we'll have some time for victim talented again this may you might recall that they pres uh he presented theory presented two years ago and so we'll bring that back thank you no other questions that brings us to number six information item 2324 attendance and discipline reports presented by >> right thank Thank you guys for having me. So, I'm just going to go over our attendance data first. Um, so as you can see here, this is our chronic absenteeism rate for the district. So, just to explain chronic absenteeism to to
009you guys again to refresh your memory, that is 10% a student is considered chronically absent when they miss 10% of days of membership that they've been enrolled in the district. So, if we're looking here, this is our last three years trend. So last year compared to 2023 24 we did increase by.3%. So kind of stay just about the same within the last month two years. Then in the next slide what this shows I broke it down by school. So you can see so in blue is 23 24 and then in red is the 2425 school year. So this is a breakdown. So, um, our elementary schools for the most part, we all, um, stayed right around the same. We did see an increase, um, in in a couple of the schools here. So, that is
010something that we're addressing this year as well. So, that is our K5. The next slide, we have our K8. So again, as you guys can see here, it's right right around the same. We had um one of our schools, Northeast, if you can see, um Northeast did have an increase last year. And I think a lot of that, not a lot of it, but some of it could be they did have an increase in um additional programming in their school that had switched from Green Hills over to Northeast. That might have have caused a little bit of an increase there. at our high schools kind of they are right there um neck and neck. They didn't really it's only a difference of about 20 kids per school. So that is where our high schools landed
011for their chronic absenteeism. So we were very fortunate last year we have what they call the LEAP the learners engagement attendance program. So, we did have some additional funding to have additional staff with attendance and engagement last school year. So, I am super happy that we have that support cuz if we didn't, I can only imagine with the chronic absenteeism rate. We have um we have our our dashboard where we are tracking home visits, how many were making there, engaging families to come this school year. I'm feeling very positive. I'm kind of looking at the numbers within the first few weeks of school, which I'm really happy in how it's been so far this year. So, that is an overview of attendance from last school year. And then, oh, the next slide, I have a
012breakdown of I like to look at some of our subcategories to see where we are. Our high needs students stayed about the same. Our homeless, chronic absenteeism, rate, went down a little bit. our ML students stayed the same and our disability status did go up a little bit. One thing that we wanted to highlight and we've been looking at it. I like to look at trends at each specific schools. Um Bristol Eastern ML chronic absenteeism rate was extremely low. Looking at that and highlighting like what they're doing and modeling what that is because it's even the the state took notice. They're like what's happening at that school? like I know they was was really good. So we do look at trends like that specifically within each school to see what's working well and how can
013we we replicate that in other places. And then because on the next slide I'm a little bit competitive. So I like to see where we are in comparison to um sometimes our DUR isn't really comparison to to our our school specifically. So I like to kind of look at schools that are similar to us and this is where we stood last year in comparison. So I just like I'm always competing with Bloomfield all the time. I'm like I want to be right where yeah Vernon is my Bloomfield. Um so this is just a a comparison there. And then the next slide is discipline looking at that. So we um we went down in expulsions last year. If you can see our ISS, our OSS went down. We had a little bit of an increase in
014bus suspensions, but these are all the state reportable offenses. So if you can see here, we did go down in in those the three main categories, which is great because OSS if students receive OSS those days t count towards chronic absenteeism rate. So we did a lot within um some of the schools where to kind of decrease the OSS numbers. Students may return to an ISS and they can do some of that you know the repairing of the harm with whether it was another students they can have mediation things like that. So that way when they do return on the following day they are good to go. So the OSS days out count towards chronic absenteeism. So that's definitely helpful the decrease. Does anyone have any questions? >> Yeah. Um so of the and just
015curious about a little bit of the OSS. So those are counted as the number of in number of incidents. Do we know are there um this you know I guess how many incidents for each student like are there >> um the same student getting >> Yeah. So there still are there there is a way that we can pull that to see like how many because there are at some schools right the smaller schools that might be the same student that had four out of maybe they had six incidences it might have been the same student three times. So we do keep track of that. So last year what we were doing was every month um we would go over and look up all the inst like the logs the incident logs and and see what
016that was. Do we need to put in a behavior intervention plan something like that for those students. So we were looking at each incident and student separately to see what sort of supports that they would need. So we were definitely checking on that. Thank him. Yeah. Okay. Just a quick question about attendance. Uh I know that you've noticed a slight increase for a few schools and um you mentioned the days of membership and the 10% of absences. Uh I hear a little reverb. Um that could create chronic absenteeism. Do you know if that data is reflective of straight absences or were there um students who may have been taken who maybe gone to school but weren't present for 51% of the day and that counted as an absence if they like if they had an
017appointment. Um I always try to be mindful if I have to um take my child out for an appointment that they're there for more than half a day. So that doesn't count towards an absence. And I don't know if many people are aware that if your just because your child shows up, that child is not in school, you know, 51% of the day, then that could count towards an absence. And that could be a tipping point potentially as well. I don't know if you're kind of looking at that because to me that's not as troublesome or problematic as the straightup absences. So, we have um an amazing data tracker that um certain data trackers cost a lot of money and we were able to to do that. So, I reached out to Ashley um Albert
018who's amazing and kind of gave her wish and dreams of what we would want for our data trackers and she was able to create one that a lot of other districts I've done a few presentations and they've seen it. They're like, "How do we do that?" I'm like, I don't know how she did it, but we have it. So within that data tracker, we are able we look at a lot of different things. We're able to filter out if they're special education students, if they have a 504, if if they're an ML student. We can look at all of the the high need students. We can look at that. It shows the days of membership per month. So we're able to look from each month at each student to see are they going up chronic
019rate or down. And within that in the chronic rate, yes. Right. We look if they're missing 50% of of the day, they're marked as absent. So if it's an excused absence, if it's an unexcused, unverified OSS, if it's one of the mental health days that they're allowed to take, all of those goes into the the calculation. So that's tracked every single um every month for every student. So yeah, Good. Thank you. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Brings us to number seven, 2025 SBT report. >> Great. So, you could see that you're getting quite a few data reports tonight. Uh September, we don't have a lot of time to get curriculum written in just one month's time. So, we put a lot of the data up front. There's some really positive highlights and headlines for
020our SAT performance in this past year. Bristol Central juniors met their expected growth in math from PSAT to SAT. And we would expect that to be as we compare the students mean scores depending on whether it's a the EBRW or math a range of 20 to 30 points between those two administrations. uh all of Bristol Junior's methods by J growth and the evidence-based reading and writing what we might refer to as the verbal section of the SAT when we were taking it back in the day and now EBRW represent that when ranked among alliance districts uh last year we were ranked 10th in competitive America and this year we moved up from 10th place to fifth place and EBRW will take a look at what that looks like when we compare the other towns a
021little bit later. >> Yes. And the same is for math. We didn't we moved up three slots in math from eighth to fifth. Uh Bristol students with disabilities and students who qualify for free and reduced lunch meals grew in EDRW by 10 points when compared to last year. So there were some significant increases there and I would attribute some of that to the efforts made uh under the leadership of Mr. award uh in our first uh goround in administering benchmark assessments, Horizon benchmark assessments that allowed our students to take practice assessments three times a year and allowed our teachers to address what their needs were specific to those assessments. And then finally, uh Bristol students who qualify for free and reduced lunch outperformed the state and map. Those were some of the biggest highlights as
022we were reviewing the data. In terms of larger areas for growth, these are not our most immediate next steps, but uh you'll see those later in the presentation. We need to continue to increase student, family, and teacher knowledge of the SAT and its value. Uh you've heard me say before that when SAT is not necessarily required for college entrance anymore. Some families have really devalued the role that the SAT can play. However, for many of our students in Bristol, that SAT uh strong performance on the SAT can open up doors not just to college but through financial resources that are available based on your SAT. So, we don't want to discount that as an opportunity for students. Uh we are considering the administration of horizon benchmark assessments and mathematics because we have seen that be
023effective and impactful in our EBRW results this year. At the same time, we're cognizant of the current end of unitit assessments that are being given that are connected to directly to our curriculum. And so we we uh under Mrs. Lanza, see I'm going back and forth about calling you by first name or last name. Uh under Mrs. plans this direction. We are working with uh our school administrators and leaders in the math department to really look at is this an assessment that would bring value to students and their famil family's knowledge of how they can anticipate students performing on the SAT and how can we make that fit without overassessing. So that those are two points of our consideration in this upcoming year. We'll dig a little bit deeper. I'll share some pictures of what
024the school looks like. Uh you can see that um this is for the EBRW. This allows a comparison from the state of Connecticut, Bristol as a whole, Bristol Central, and Bristol Eastern. And you can see green across the bottom, meaning that we've improved our scores over last year. Another as we were thinking about how to um have students really try their best on the SAT this year uh with our high school administrators we've agreed that if students have meet the benchmark for the the SAT in EBRW and math they can be exempt from their final exams recognizing that if proficiency is what we're going after for the state of Connecticut and students have met that level of proficiency then they would be exempt from their English final or their math final course that they're in.
025And what we found, see that the lines moving dramatically up from 23 24 to 24 25. Uh that really boosted students motivation to do well on that assessment. And so we were we're anticipating and we're going to see a continued positive influence on that. But that just lets us know that we even can grow from there. Really reinforcing those skills. We know that that's just a incentive is only a part of it. skills. Having the skills is another same thing we can see happening in math. Uh and so again across the bottom it was a very positive year known to have a contributing factor was the incentive that students had to really show their best. Um and I guess again it speaks to the need to continue to reinforce why the SAT is of value
026beyond just getting your final exam for the course. Now, here we are among alliance districts. I was just looking to see if attendance was a factor related to SAT to see if the same towns that were outperforming us in attendance were also outperforming in SAT. And that's not the case. So, that's interesting. Uh, you can see where we are now. We did beat Vernon. Just like to point that out, I'm pretty sure on there, too. So >> and math similar kind of oh I did contiguous towns as well and this I think really um as I was sharing my daughter is a senior this year she's in another one of those towns and we have a lot of resources that are available at our own parent expense to be able to support SAT performance. So,
027I don't know that that's necessarily a true picture of uh what is a record of our own school system, but more when we're looking at some of these towns, maybe the resources and access that is are being provided to students outside of their school experience. I do think that gives us some things to think about in terms of how we can support and provide opportunities for students potentially through any grant funding that could be available. We'll look at math and the same kind of lenses. So again, here we are a little bit even higher than Vernon here where Bristol has moved up still. I think we're still boom. There we go. All right. Thanks, Kay. I'll have your benchmark, >> right? >> Works for athletics do that too. And then you'll see the SMR chart.
028as we look at continuous ten. We also broke the data out by special population that's in front of me here. Uh so the first charts that we're seeing on the left you have EBRW and on the right you have math. We have a slightly bigger gap than the state on both of these assessments for this population. We have a gap that's two point well two points larger than the gap between all students in Connecticut and Connecticut students who are served uh with an IEP and the same and math it's our gap is four points higher larger and math for some of the actions we're taking in this area um I mentioned how we're using the horizon benchmark uh leic's been in communication with the supervisors within special services to see if all of our students
029are engaging for that assessment and where it makes the most sense, especially even in some of our self-contained programs. So, our special education supervisors are having those conversations. Um, just again because it helps our students recognize, get the feel for what the assessment looks, feels like, sounds like, and then it also provides teachers some more actionable data about what they can do. And even if that's just encouraging students to answer all the questions on the assessment, there's no guess penalty. So if you are near the end, we're going to put answers down. Some of those tips and tricks could be helpful for all of our populations. In addition, uh we're seeing over the past number of years really a deeper focus in ensuring that students have access to our general education curriculum among all areas.
030Laura is continuing her work with support of the implementation of illustrative mathematics in all of our programs across the board without uh teachers really jumping to a more modified curriculum in some of those programs. Students uh who qualify for financial support uh you can see here that the the gap is a little bit different when we're comparing uh ourselves to the gaps that we see across the state of Connecticut. Now, we still this might be because our um students who are not qualifying for free or let me just say it this way, our full pay lunch students are not quite achieving as high as they are across the state of Connecticut. And so therefore, we have a smaller gap that way. But it's also because our students who are qualifying for free and reduced lunch
031are performing at a higher achievement level than they are in the state of Connecticut. So looking at EBRW, you can see our mean score for Bristol students who are qualifying for free and reduced lunch is 447. uh and across Connecticut score is slightly lower at 446 and you see the same kind of pattern when you're looking at math men by gender. Uh I think it's just interesting to look at uh in this regard. Uh we have females who are just slightly outperforming males in Bristol. a little bit of a different picture than what you see across the state of Connecticut. Um, across uh gender when we're looking at math, males are slightly outperforming females across the state of Connecticut. And that pattern is similar for us here in Bristol. Our immediate next steps, um, as
032you know, some of the structures have changed. So we are the the both high school administrative teams have identified who will be taking the role of the humanities and STEM department chairs. So, we want to meet with the high the high school humanities and uh STEM department chairs to review this data and consider some of those things that we are already beginning to think about like the administration of our horizon benchmark assessment, but also thinking about how can we continue to make the connection between our regular um general formative and summitative assessments that are within the curriculum and students performance overall on the SAT. And then we are also I would like to take a closer look at the students who have met the benchmark and look back at their course history. Uh it's been
033a while since we've done that and I think it's about time to do that again. We've had some curricular revisions. Uh and so it would be useful to see what is the general student profile of the courses that they've taken that are leading them to greater success to see again if there's something about access to course levels that we need to consider in terms of improving student performance on the SAT. I'm happy to take any questions. >> I have a quick question on the math performance for uh special populations and um just the overall I know we don't have multi-year performance here. So I'm not going to ask for that data to you know be just recalled right now at the middle of the meeting. Um I can certainly go back and and look at
034it too but uh over time and I've asked this question before so it's again the same question that I ask every year about the the illustrious math program and do we feel that is really supporting the learn the learners that we need to target more for math improvement um and uh if that's been examined or even considered as a potential area of improvement. It's just a question based on their expertise, >> right? >> I don't want to put Laura on the spot. So maybe we could attack team. I know you spent some time really looking at that and you can speak to the level of access that IM provides all over. So, I think um >> I didn't think I was >> um yes. So, we've really taken a deep dive into the IM curriculum
035and all the supports that it has for students. Um, one thing that we're really looking at is the check your under check your readiness assessments before every unit. Um, and so that's one reason why I really want to get this curriculum into all of our math courses. Um, whether it's a self-contained math class or not. Um, if all students take that check your readiness assessment for each unit, then there's actually um some scaffolds that we can put into place that are in the curriculum. that'll say go back to grade 3 unit 5 lesson two and review this skill. Um, so we're getting there with unpacking the curriculum. Um, there's a lot of detail that's in the IM curriculum, but as we're rewriting the the curriculum documents this year, that's some of the training that I'm
036doing with teachers to really look at those supports and going back to really what the main precursor skills are, right? We don't need to fill in every little thing that a student may not know, just the important pieces to make sure they're successful on the immediate content that we're we're teaching them. >> Does that help? >> Yes. And um mapping that towards their success on um SATs because we're seeing the same sort of ling performance following all the way through to the SAT. So, this being able to scaffold earlier, which is what this sounds like you're it's allowing for >> y >> um allows them also enough time to go back and catch up on the places that have been identified for scaffolding before a major assessment. Right. >> I think it's a combination too.
037It's not just in the immediate. That's one of the reasons why I want to look at that course progression because we need to look sometimes when we're especially when we're looking at math look as far back as their middle school experiences. Uh the pattern that we noticed in the past was that the more content that students had, the better that they had done on the SAT. I would anticipate that it would be pretty similar this year, which then makes us question the pathways that students have to get into algebra prior to getting into the high school program. And so that certainly from looking at the percent of students who qualify for special services and the percent who do take algebra as an eighth grader, we'd want to look more closely at the strategies that we
038can put into place to provide that level of access in addition to looking at some of the more immediate within class scaffolds that students can have. >> So um you bring up a couple of points that I'm familiar with in in prior years, right? So when we had uh the existing K through8s especially at West Bristol, there wasn't even another room for another section. So even if you had a year where there was more students who technically could probably be successful in eighth grade math, um there wasn't enough room. And secondly, um the way the schedules were and I don't know if it's exactly the same now. I'm guessing it is, but the way the schedules were laid out, um where if certain students needed their support, um so instead of a study hall, they
039were getting some of their supports during that, it prevented them from accessing either language or algebra. So, as we migrate away from the K through8 structure, are we anticipating more room to give a little more access to both language and um uh algebra opportunities in the middle school, including some of our special populations that might be right on the cusp? >> I think that um so there's two issues that come into play with both of the issues that you brought up. So the number the first question that was about the number of sections really does depend on how many students u meet that benchmark to meet that algebra one standard to be enrolled in that that um algebra section in 8th grade. Sometimes what we see is we're at a number of 35 which isn't
040quite enough for two classes on a team because if you put 15 students in one section, 20 in one and 15 in another, then the other two sections that are available on the current team would be up in the 30s as well. When you have more students in the school, it reduces that factor because you're likely going to have more than that on 35 kind of mark. So I would anticipate that we're going to be able to run more sections when or in two larger schools than what we were able to do at the K8. The second question is really about world language access. It doesn't necessarily a students ability to get into uh a world language during that reach reach block. I want to make sure that I'm saying the terms correctly. the reach
041block, not when not uh during reach uh may sometimes still interfere with a student who might need daily services under uh their IEP during that reach block. I think there are other possibilities of looking at those kinds of supports that could be provided during reach in uh unique and tailored ways so that students can have both of those opportunities. I think that's the importance of the PPT coming together and really figuring out a way to make that happen for students. So that is more of a individual case by case situation, but I would say in the whole we're when we have larger schools, we're able to accommodate more students and create more sections because there's a little bit more flexibility when you have a greater number of teachers and teams. >> Thank you. >> Any
042other questions? I have a question not necessarily specific right now to SATs um and I don't have in front of me the scheduled data presentation so this may be on there um but are we going to be looking at ESBAC namely like that third grade performance I know we've talked about it before and it's on the chart upstairs and um and so I'm so the answer to that sounds like yes next month will be SBA achievement and growth Okay. Gotcha. And and has there been any um sort of examination of performance there? And like has it been connected to some of this data? Like are we looking as early as you know competencies on that assessment and determining? So we do track cohorts over long periods of time and we're able to see where our
043higher performing cohort cohorts sit within the district. Now, that's one of the questions that we always come to looking at data with because we want to know is it the impact of our instruction or is it this cohort of students that might have some unique skills that they're bringing forward across the curriculum and we always want to see no matter where a student begins that there's some growth. But it t we do tend to see in the achievement side that there could be a cohort that is more higher achieving than others. We don't want to mistake that for some curriculum shift that we may have made or an instructional instructional shift. So yes, we look at that. Um and I could bring that when we're talking about SBA next month preliminarily sneak peek. Um we're
044seeing some strengths of grade four was a stronger stronger performance this year and that has been an area where we've struggled in the past. So that has been a plus. On the downside, we are seeing that among um fifth grade, those scores aren't quite where we'd want them to see. And right now, looking at that, I would attribute that to the number of beginning teachers that we've hired that were primarily in that grade level. So, I don't really that's no data in front of me right now and very preliminary. So, I feel more comfortable answering next month, but that's what we've seen. chair. >> Hello. >> There the chair. >> You hear me? >> Oh, yes. Go ahead. >> Oh, my I just was wondering if these um presentations could be shared with us uh
045electronically. >> I heard a yes. >> Oh, good. um if you could send >> ones that Miss Trion did for us and the one that it's hard to see. It's really small on the screen. I only have I see you all big and I only see a little tiny square. So, it would be good to just follow along and go back. >> Of course. I'll email them to you tonight and then if you wouldn't mind sharing them with a full word, that'd be great. >> Thank you. Okay, so that brings us to number eight information 2025 AP. >> Okay. So, we're looking also at advanced placement. You'll see on the data presentations uh when we I'll send all of the documents that are related to that because I know they were up pretty quickly on
046your screen. Uh but this is only one uh opportunity that students have to earn college credit while they're in high school. I'm pulling this out because it has been a measure of student performance in the past and it's worth looking at separate from our students who are enrolled in ECE or early college experience coursework in addition to our students who are enrolling in CTE. That presentation will come a little bit later. The state processes that for us because um that college credit attainment is really dependent upon the colleges reporting back to us whether the students have attained it. So I can't present it at the same time. It doesn't come until a little bit later. As we're looking at AP enrollment and achievement though specifically we have some again pretty pretty good bright spots that
047our AP enrollment has increased from last year to this year. And you can see we have about 20 a little less than 20 students more at Bristol Central and quite a few more students who are enrolling at Bristol Eastern. We have 17 courses AP courses districtwide and that's pretty notable and that sometimes in the past we've had uh questions around how many do we offer compared to some of our contiguous towns and we certainly offer more. That's one of the benefits about being in a bigger district. we have the opportunity to be able to provide more opportunities for our students given our teachers backgrounds and education. We have a percentage of uh exams with scores of three or higher on AP exams increased again from 23 24 for Bristol Eastern from 72% to 73%. But
048the biggest highlight and headline here that I would say is that 70% of the advanced placement courses that we offer between both schools had at least 70% of the students earning a three or better. And so that's pretty remarkable. A lot of us a lot of success there. We use that as a measure of uh success, a three or better because that's the score that many of our colleges will look at to be able to award college credit. That college credit is dependent upon the university or college that you're going to. But the generic standard is about is having our students earn a three or better. We also have some data around uh AP scholar designations and you can see the criteria that students would need to meet to be awarded any of these honors
049and we have a great number across the district. 85 students who are AP scholars based on last year's performance. And that's granted to students who earn a three on three or more AP exams. So 85 students here in Bristol in the last year took three or more AP exams and had met the standard for success. Uh and then you could say that there's distin distinctions even beyond that. You might notice the AP capstone diploma. Uh that's a honor that's granted to students who've earned a three or higher on AP research and a three or higher in AP seminar and a three or higher on four AP exams. And you might notice that Bristol Central has a dash there. That is because they're not currently able to offer AP research. They don't have the section to
050be able to dedicate toward teaching that at the moment. AP seminar and research are inter interdisciplinary. They almost um when you observe an EP seminar class, it's almost like watching students prepare for a TED talk. They are working in a collaborative team doing conducting research about a topic that they care about and their final product is a presentation to their peers. >> Could I ask a question just there um is there a plan to have Central? We keep looking uh that right now their enrollment is higher than Bristol Eastern's overall enrollment. And so that puts a little bit of pressure on where students where we can put in an elective opportunity for students. Generally teachers who are teaching AP seminar research or English or social studies teachers and right now there's greater demand for other
051electives many of them that you've seen across the board. intro criminology right now being a huge draw that doesn't necessarily allow for us to to create a section that might be smaller in nature. >> How many students would need to be interested or eligible to create that? So, uh, Superintendent Whitehead and I have had some conversations about what is the baseline number for enrolling in electives or running an elective and right now that number is 10. When you look at the data in a couple of slides, you'll see that Bristol Eastern were in research with 11 last year. Ah, and one other question, but would you mind just going back to a previous slide? Thank you. Um, for these um award categories with between Bristol Central and Bristol Eastern, is there congruence in um opportunities
052being offered? So, five classes for you know this five class. It's really based on the number of students who meet the criteria for the course or expressed interest. The school principles will design the number of sections to meet the student needs. So, it might not just it might not be a perfect match across the board. Another factor that comes into play is that we really have been looking at early college experience courses for our students over advanced placement. With an early college experience course, you're you're not guaranteed the credit, but you know that if you meet a specific standard that you'll receive credit for that course. AP is slightly different because it's dependent upon whatever schools the students might be interested in and then it's more variable. We're working toward having a more guaranteed college
053credit for students. So, you'll see some differences there between both of our high schools. That's really because when we explore an ECE experience, our teachers become adjunct professors for the school. And so, they have to meet the requirements, hiring requirements of of those particular schools in order to offer Thank you. Welcome. So, we'll look course by course. I'm not going to read the data is here. I'm not going to review all of the data. I thought I would just uh share a few highlights and then next step. Um, so here we see a greater percentage of students taking calculus BC earned three or better when we compared to last year's data. I didn't include last year's data. The the highlights are really my summary and comparing to where we were last year. The average score
054for students taking pre-cal had an increase from 2.84 to 3.39. Uh this is pretty exciting because AP pre-cal was a new course for us last year and we had very good turnout and great success with that. One of our goals as we mentioned last year in this very same presentation was to continue to work with the teachers of that course and we could see that there was an impact and an increase in the average score that they've had. So a credit to Mrs. Lans and the work with the teachers there. we do see a dip in statistics. So, one of our next steps is to really have our statistics teachers meet across the district. We have a new teacher to statistics in this past year. And so, we could see that um when you're new
055to a curriculum, it takes a little bit to get that curriculum under your belt so that you can anticipate and respond to student needs. uh we have the opportunity that's one of the benefits of having a two high school town that we have an experienced statistic teacher uh at one of the buildings and a new uh beginning teacher in the other and so we're going going to get them together so that they could uh really coordinate their efforts and hopefully we'll see some success greater success with statistics in the upcoming year as we're looking at our science one of the most notable things is that like when you're looking at the overall total that total full column. You can see that the numbers are pretty low there and that's reflective of the number of ECE
056courses that we've added in the area of science. Many of the our teachers who are certified in science have to have a deep background in one science area. And so that allows them at the university system to have um they're more likely guar guaranteed or allowable to have ECE credentials. And so we've increased the EC ECE opportunities there. And you can see we're running ECE environmental. Last year there was an enrollment of 94 students. You see ECE chemistry. So while there was one of those 70 stu 72 students who took ECE chemistry last year, one elected to also take the AP exam. And we had 36 students in ECE biology. Students do have the option of taking the advanced placement exam even if they're enrolled in an ECE course. it's they're doubling down on any
057potential college credit. Uh and we do provide the funding for that if a student chooses to take that route. One of the goals last year was that we wanted to increase enrollment in English language and composition. It was an express goal and this very meeting uh and we met that goal. We had 50 more students enrolled in English language and composition this past year. We increased the number of teachers who were trained in that course and we saw a really positive uh outcome from that. Uh we also had a greater percentage of students who earned three or better in both of our English courses, English literature and English language and composition. This is an example of one of the questions that you asked Commissioner Simmons. We don't we have an ECE opportunity for students in
058their senior year at Bristol Eastern. English literature is only offered at Bristol Central. So both high school populations have an opportunity to earn college credit. It's just through different vehicles depending upon the certifications of their teachers. Here we do want to look at patterns among uh those who did not earn a proficient score. Again, looking at their course history. What courses have they been taking leading up to this course to see if there's any gaps? Sometimes I think when we're looking at English literature, we can even look more broadly across some of the electives that students have taken. And so I think that would be worth us delving more deeply into. Next we'll go to social studies. This is where you'll see the 11 students in research. Uh 28 more student 29 I'm sorry more
059students were enrolled in human geography. There was a great effort uh at the beginning of last year to speak to incoming freshmen to encourage them to enroll in that human geography course and we see that there was a positive outcome from that. And then and sometimes when we're looking at P AP scores, uh people might believe that the more students that you put into the course, the lower the performance might be. Maybe you're lowering the bar or the standard to get for access into those courses. And that is a misconception that we are fighting against. Often we find that we increase enrollment, we're finding missed opportunities for students and they excel once they're pushed to that challenge. So that human geography is an example of that. The percent of students who earned a three are
060better in seminar increased from 89% to 98%. I feel like that 98% deserves some calling out there and really thinking about our students who are really engaging in that collaborative kind of work that isn't typical of an AP class uh but is really valuable in the workforce outside of co outside of our high school. Uh and then finally you could see that we have increased our US government and politics enrollment by 35 students. I also took a look at uh in this you might recall I think uh Commissioner Fitz Sims you're on the policy committee so you know that we have to report now with our new policy policy just revised about uh the breakdown of students who have access to our most advanced courses and so this is the perfect time to be able
061to present this. way that we I I took to look at this. The chart on the left is the percent of students by race who are enrolling in advanced placement classes as compared to uh the percentage of the demographic percentages broken down by our district. And so we're looking at any kind of mismatches that we could see here. And you could see that our black or African-American students and Hispanic or Latino students are under represented under represented in our AP classes. uh we delved a little bit deeper and our highest enrollment by Hispanic students is in uh Spanish US government pre-cal seminar and psychology. And I mentioned that because one of the things that we need to be thinking about is how do we have students really encourage one another to take these courses to
062so that students can see other students that they can connect to that they're relating to and see that as an opportunity for themselves. if I know that commissioner fits silence is in the class that maybe I could take the class too. Um and so we're looking closely at that to build up that story to support uh students in their interest. We also looked by students for fee reduction. This data is a is a little bit trickier because the fee reduction uh for us the way that we would qualify a student for a fee reduction is different than what's allowed by the college board with advanced placement. so that not every student who would qualify for free or reduced lunch here with us in our district would also qualify for a fee reduction uh for the
063advanced placement. You can see again that there's a pretty big differential there, but it's hard harder to tell if it's because that they weren't given the fee reduction by advanced placement, so therefore they don't see that in that data that's represented or if it truly is a difference in enrollment. And finally, enrollment by gender. Uh we have more females enrolling in uh advanced placement classes than males. Some of the strategies that I had talked about having students really find their affinity groups who they are connecting with. Um one strategy that I've learned from another district is that they have them partner up when they enroll and you guarantee that those two students can be together in the class. Knowing that that social connection is really important for teens. they want to be like you don't
064want to go to lunch and not know who you're going to sit with. It's very similar when you're challenging yourself to a class that maybe you haven't challenged yourself before. Uh so thinking about how can we get partners of students who are enrolling together to join the class together and we could see that potentially having an impact across some of the demographics we're exploring our um I also as we're thinking about uh superintendent white superintendent White's uh mission and vision for this year really incorporating student voice finding out from our students what are those potential obstacles or barriers to their enrollment and the flip side, what encouraged their enrollment to begin with is an important step that I think we need to take in this upcoming year. It connects nicely to the goals of the
065district. Uh we have uh reviewed prerequisites for college credit bearing coursework or to remove any kind of barriers. The policy that was just approved does that in part for us. And so we're going back to look at some of our courses to really ensure that there are no required prerequisites that would prevent a barrier. And then finally uh among all of the different data points that our school is tracking uh we are looking for teacher leadership of APA initiatives to bolster that student achievement to increase teacher voice uh and influence on uh enrollment and achievement of students taking AP and excelling in those AP courses. And we can take any questions. question, but I would really interested in learning more about kind of that quality. Hearing from students, they identify new barriers for themselves. Uh,
066you know, what are obstacles or challenges that they felt they face >> in enrolling? uh to see if there's any patterns or any ways to identify any of some of those barriers or support them in overcoming this barrier. >> We just spent uh Laura Lesek and I just spent the last two days at a student voice institute really learning more about how to best capture student voice as a part of our school improvement efforts. So, it's great to hear, but it's even more important to take action upon. So, I would be happy to later on in the year really come back with what they've had to say as it shapes what we're doing. I do that's where I could see our the teachers that we'd like to engage in some of this work because they're
067closest to the students taking that as a step to begin. What could we be thinking about differently? you know, sort of along those lines. Even thinking about how to like planfully engage students when they come into college, college, well, when they come into high school, like how to even plan that trajectory and weave in the AP classes so students feel, and you may already be doing this, but you know, so students feel that they have access to the classes that they're qu you know that they are a quality student like I know I can do this you know that bolstering their confidence so that they actually just say it's going to happen and here's how I would do that I think we're trying we've taken maybe this is a great opportunity for me to share
068a couple of the highlights that we've taken uh with that regard we have an AP advanced an AVID AP cohort that as soon as the students came in in their ninth grade year they're enrolled in their AVID elective which is designed to support students who are in the academic middle really pushed themselves to the most rigorous courses that are available. And so we ran with the same AVID elective teacher also taught those same students at the in an AP course as freshmen. Uh they were enrolled in human geography human geography and then in this year this is the second year of that cohort. They're enrolled in an English no sorry a se the seminar class and a second AP class. I'm pretty sure it's um the American history class and so we're building that up
069in connection with the social. So that uh is actually one of the highlights we've are the AVID regional director wants to highlight Bristol public schools we're using as a particular model um for other AVID schools across the state and region. Uh the second you've heard me talk about before is inability pathways. So you've heard us as we're talking about perhaps the terminology course which is the capstone course that we're looking at a foundational level course that includes every student. So you're going to some there's going to be a course that's going to peique your interest in something and then we're going to put you into an exploratory course more of an elective course that allows you go to go deeper into that content area and then ultimately lead to a course that's going to offer
070college credit. And so in that design, the intention in that is that we're thinking about those pathways so that counselors can also explore that with their students. So as students are saying, "Hey, I really liked world history. What could I do next?" They're going to ultimately work up to modeling UN and then uh the border states and nations as the ECE course that offers that credit. So, we're building that interest there and ensure that supporter the way. >> Can I share something? >> That sounds like a really thoughtful approach. >> Yeah. >> Um, just something that I wanted to share from a parent perspective. if I have a freshman this year for Crystal Eastern, so I can only speak to that. But I would say that your teachers did an excellent job at freshman orientation
071explaining the pathways and where they lead and what AP classes are because if you are an incoming freshman parent and you don't have older children, all of this is new, these dual enrollment classes, the ECE classes, the so the teachers really did an excellent job of explaining the pathways which would lead and and the difference between those two. So, I heard a lot of parents talking it up and being like, "Oh, I didn't know you could do that." So, um, kudos to Eastern staff that did that during the orientation. I'm sure it was very similar at Central, but I was really impressed with how they pumped it up in the excitement and even the students and the parents walking out talking about that. So, >> listen, you have some Listen, I just I just sit
072there and Right. Sorry. that now >> I do recall um something similar too in my experience at least central and it is really good to lay out the pathways for the parents too because they're help they're helping your students also choose you know their four years and how do how do they want to structure their schedule through the four years because you you you really have to start thinking about it freshman year in order to give yourself enough room junior and senior year to complete so many other things. So having it all up front, even though uh those higher order classes don't come for a couple of years, you still kind of have to >> it out. >> Yeah. You start with your foundation and find out where your wiggle room is along the way.
073But there's not as much wiggle room these, you know, these years than than in years past. And that's fine, but it is good to have it all laid out. that way they can visualize their four years and what they're going to um you know be taking each year and prepare themselves a little bit too. So I I I do think that the explanation at the open houses has been really informative over the last couple years. It gives the parents a vision, it gives students a vision, not just, you know, the first semester at high school. They they can see what they're in the loop through um and and what's possible to to get, you know, credits perhaps. I mean, who doesn't want if their goal is to go to postsecary, getting some credits for free
074before you get there is pretty strong motivator. So, um I I think that the ones that's great to hear. >> I think that going by student interest. So, I think um in the past it might have been let me try to accumulate as many AP courses as I can because it's the status symbol, but one of the things that we're really trying to change is that this is about any student having any access. And so we want to make sure that we're going after Pinterest. So yes, the schedules get a little bit tighter. You can't just go across the board and take every course anymore, but that's because we're really want you to tap into what you're most passionate passionate about and explore that as deeply as you can. >> Thank you. Anything else before
075we move on? So that brings us to number nine. It's a decision item, minor curriculum. All right. So, we're going to start by talking about two uh revisions to two courses that have also been revised fairly recently. So, these are minor updates and revisions. Starting with modern American history. Um you may recall that when we approved the modern American history curriculum, we reviewed the process of making curricular decisions and how we support teachers in addressing sensitive content. We had uh talked about that a couple times a student achievement um in the student achievement committee and at that time we identified two next steps uh after the approval of the curriculum which was quarterly curriculum uh curriculum based professional learning and opportunities for ongoing collaboration, feedback and revision. Um and the revisions you're looking at today
076came directly out of those next steps and out of that process. So in meeting with the teachers to review uh upcoming units um collaborate and revised, we uh came up with two goals looking specifically at unit 8, the final unit of the modern American history curriculum. The team met in the spring to review the guidance on sensitive topics. So we reviewed that and also to prepare for the upcoming unit and in doing so the team identified two opportunities which you can see um on the slide. One they saw an opportunity to pro to prompt more meaningful connections throughout the course. So we had actually revised the midterm already that year based on the revisions to the curriculum and the final exam was fast approaching. We had drafted a revised essay prompt for that final exam
077that was really pushing students to connect things from the first semester to this semester. That's where uh we had been thinking for the final exam and we saw an opportunity to really kind of bolster that and better prepare students for that final exam by really building that final unit around those connections. So that was one opportunity that the team saw um and we kind of redesigned that final unit with that with that in mind. So I think in some of the documentation that you've seen for the meeting, you kind of track a slightly more detailed version of the changes. If you're interested, you have both the old unit 8 and the new unit 8 as well as some of the changes. I just kind of called out the changes to the essential questions for the
078for the sake of presentation today because I think that that gives you a pretty good sense if you kind of see the differences here, you have a pretty good flavor for any of the other changes that may have taken place further downstream in that document such as individual learning targets. Um so the original uh essential question for this unit was has American grown more united since the year 2000 and students were going to examine the three supporting questions below. How presidential elections united or divided American society. How national crises united and divided American society. Now as technology united and divided American society that was the original unit that was um uh previously and when the team met the revised unit is on the right. How do contemporary events in the US represent change in continuity
079over time? I think I may have shortened that question a little bit to fit on the slide but you get the idea. Um, and was the war on terror a fundamental shift in American foreign in America's foreign policy and approach to civil liberties? So, in exploring that question, they kind of get the same history on America as war on terror. They learn about 9/11 and the patriot act and that kind of thing, but then are much more explicitly prompted to connect that back to other moments in US history that may be similar or different. And the enduring understandings of the unit kind of spell out what some of those similar similarities and differences that we would expect students to notice. they their understanding style what those might be and that's kind of continues for economic
080or national economic crises or national disasters and the impact on digital media. You can see that there's echoes of the of the original thinking that's still here there but uh uh the main difference is really explicit prompting back to other moments that that they will have already studied over the course of the year. Um so it really shifted from a focus an argument on community or division to an argument for how to make change. Uh another kind of benefit that a practical benefit that was really positive um is that we were the team felt like they had much more time to really prepare students for the essay on the final exam in a much more robust way. Um so that students were kind of not left to kind of on their own devices make those
081connections only in the final exam. We will have talked about examples of those connections over the course of the unit. So the final exam kind of seems like a natural extension of the of the final unit and all a little bit with pacing because in the original plan they would have written about that that question on unity and then they would have also written the continuity and change question on the final exam. Those would have happened very very close to each other, right? Rushing you kind of finished one essay as the year is winding down then taking the final exam just potentially a couple days later. So, we kind of by taking the essay and moving it into the final, the essay on that final now kind of serves both purposes. It's the essay unit,
082it's the essay for the final. Um, that bought teachers a few more days of of flex time they can use to respond as needed. And it kind of also makes the whole final unit a review of the course in the semester a little bit where sometimes, you know, before finals is pressure to kind of review, right? The whole unit kind of becomes a cyclical review for the for the course. So, That was the thinking behind those revisions. I think you have if you want to see more details, I think you have documents. I'm happy to answer questions about that process or maybe the changes. >> I think maybe if I could also speak to minor what it would mean because you saw it on the agenda, the minor curricular revision versus a major curriculum revision.
083When we're thinking about a major curriculum revision, we're looking at the course in its entirety, looking at all of the units of instruction, what we're asking students to learn, the essential questions, enduring understandings, learning targets, the ways in which we're going to approach that for resources. Once it's approved by the board of education, we expect that our teachers are going to use the curriculum to guide their lesson planning. And as they're really working with the curriculum, we know as Leic just described that there are going to be some based on students interest and based on teacher preference and things like the pacing that Le just was sharing. And so we need to address those in some way without it being a huge curriculum overview revi revision of every unit. And so the approach that we're
084taking is to record a number of those minor revisions and bring them forward to you uh as they're coming up. Our board policy does say that they need to be approved by the student achievement committee and then by the full board. But that was one of the things that we wanted to talk more tonight about was what should the process be for some of the smaller changes because oftentimes it could be as simple as one learning target in an entire course. No questions. I'd like to make maybe make a motion then we can open up to discussion and then would after you look through that item be a good time to kind of talk about >> Yeah, I think so. >> I can make a motion to move uh to approve the minor curriculum revisions
085of humanities. Second >> discussion and questions. >> Stop real quick because there is also some minor reasons to ELA that I was going to talk to you about as well. I don't know if you want to vote on them separately for moderation. >> This is where it gets a little tricky. How do you want to handle all of the do you want us to go course by course or present all of the minor revisions together? My initial reaction without any depth of thought in it is just by by humanities English. >> Is that okay? Separate. So by department >> so there's a motion it's been seconded >> on the the sociality >> social studies in this area. So, >> so we presented them as all of humanity, social studies, English and world language minor divisions.
086So, just social studies in English. Um, so we'll do it chunk by chunk. So, all of social studies and English if that's your >> Did we review all of all the social studies? >> Okay, perfect. >> So, the motion is >> I'll revise my motion on the floor. Motion to um approve the social studies revisions in the humanities department. Move to the forward. >> Second. >> Discussion questions. >> You did mention and this is just I I uh want to make sure that I heard you right. You did mention that the staff had been um doing some additional refraining on um the dialogue with difficult topics in the classroom. I was happy to hear that because um you know it's uh it's not a secret about what's been going on in society lately. And so
087I think that's a really good investment in our staff is to give them the ability to um learn how to and continue to learn and improve on on handling the difficult conversation in the classroom where there's space to have them, but also that it um it provides, you know, a constructive way to communicate with each other, especially when there could be you're proposing different viewpoints and making sure that that all people have opportunity to be heard. You don't have to agree with everyone, but setting up the environment where people get to hear the experience of others is great. So, I was happy to hear that was continuous training for the staff. I can imagine in the social climate that we're in that that can be difficult for teachers in the classroom. So, thank you for
088whoever pursued that and secured it. I I appreciate that. And I think sort of pursuant to that I I like the shift in the wording um less about you know the divided even though that certainly will come up in conversation and as commissioner Antonio said it's great that we've created those safe spaces for those conversations. Um but I think that becomes a stronger focus on the right with the revised language the focus and the competency of that. So I just want to say also well done. >> Okay. So it sounds like we are ready to take a vote. All those in favor? >> I motion passes. >> All right. The next set of is similar in that we're discussing revisions to a particular unit in a particular course level grade. So that's all we're looking
089at is one unit of seventh grade BLA is the unit on a raising the sun. Um the goals the way that this came about actually was that uh some of the core resources some of the reading reconsidered resources they updated their resources with I think maybe noticed some of the same areas for improvement that we had noticed ourselves. So they update they released an updated version of their raised in the sun unit um meant to streamline student materials with fewer questions each cycle and clear alignment between objective standing exit ticket. That was their language. Uh that was one of their impetus for revising their materials. But we had been talking about uh those were some of the things that our teachers had been talking about and our coach has been working with teachers about in
090terms of implementation from the beginning. So that seemed like a very useful change that they were making to their core resources. We did hold off um until we could have a chance to kind of until they published the resources. We have a chance of getting them and make sure that they were changes that um we thought were worthwhile. But they were especially in that alignment, but also in um some minor shifts to the unit that more directly emphasized the unique aspects of drama as a genre. That's one of the reasons if you remember when we presented the ELA progressions, we're trying to map out the experiences and the genres and the knowledge students will gain over the course of grades 6 through 12. And uh raising the sun, one of the reasons it's in seventh
091grade is to is the first students first exposure to drama. It's the first time they read a play, right? And we want to try to build that ladder up through later grades. and some of the shifts in the unit much more directly address the unique opportunities and kind of what it means to read a play and how to analyze the play by looking at stage directions and that kind of thing. So again you have the full set of changes in front of you. Um I did just call out that one shift there was there was an additional enduring understanding. Um there were other enduring understandings. There was just not one specifically focused on drama as a genre. Um and the one on the right you can see there we want uh students to recognize that
092reading play is different than reading the novel or any other genre of text and that the playright can uses really only dialogue and stage directions to build a world and tell a story which means that we have to really consider those elements of stage craft that might not be on the page actors directors designers bring play to life through blocking set and costume design choices. Some of that was already there um in the original unit. Um students had considered some of those choices, but there's a greater emphasis on that following as an enderman understanding uh really raises that and then some of the targets and questions um that were in the core in the aligned resources that we have access to um address that understanding much more directly. So if you kind of have the
093you have the detailed version that's the that's the 10,000 foot view regarding the biggest kind of conceptual change to I'll make a motion to move the minor curriculum provisions of the seventh grade ELA course in humanities to the four. Thank you. or questions hearing none. All those in favor I >> motion passes. Did we want to touch on how we want to handle those minor changes or not? >> I think that would be helpful as we're so the um one of the documents that you have uh available to youite to to you tonight spreadsheets that has all of the minor curriculum revisions and at the top of that sheet it outlines the difference between a major revision or a minor revision. So major revisions happen when the standards are revised by the state of Connecticut
094and you've seen some examples of that in our social studies courses because the state social studies standards have changed. You would also see a major revision if it's coming up in a revision timeline. That's the cycle C or cycle D that we were talking about at the beginning of the meeting or when 50% of the learning targets have been revised. Minor are those things that are occurring throughout the school year. We don't want, you know, we don't want our curriculum to sit in the void of the internet now that used to say sit on the bookshelf and dust it off. It's time to revise. But now, I guess on that lost web page where no one's really looking at it again, we want it to be an active document that's meeting the needs of teachers.
095Um, I just want you to understand that we're not looking at every single standard that's here. We're not it's not a full course review, but we do want to make sure that you're aware of those minor changes that are being made and that we don't mess that up that process. So major curriculum revisions have been following that process of a board read a student achievement committee read here for approval or to the full board for approval. Um and so we can certainly follow that process or you wanted to approve those minor revisions here to keep the board of board of education agenda um lighter I suppose these minor changes are really not changing the content or the direction of the course just small bits with any achievement. So it's what you would prefer. >> Um
096I I can offer just my initial thoughts. I think that um it's well defined. There's still probably some subjectivity in there depending on what the changes are, but if the if the policy committee takes up the um the policy, I would think that allowing the student achievement committee who works, you know, every month with with you guys, we hear great detail here. We're able to give a lot of discussion. uh any of our board members are allowed to attend these meetings. I I think for ease of expediting sometimes these changes, which I think is probably more the bigger issue, I'm okay with it minor as long as it's well defined, which I think it already is right now, being decided by the committee with the exception that the committee make a vote that they decide
097that particular topic or the particular change might have some I don't even want to say sensitivities. it just might have some other impacts that although small might um we might hear from constituents that they want to have a larger conversation about it and that the committee could decide to wave that policy and still bring it to the full board. >> I think that gives us latitude both ways >> and I like the idea about the policy because that would allow opportunity for all board members to provide some input on that change. Um, I'm comfortable making the decision in committee, but I also want the board to have input on that policy change um before >> absolutely it would need to be changed. So, it's policy 6140 >> 614 >> take another look at that and
098I'm happy to contribute at the next policy meeting >> if if this committee decides that they want to alter that or minor revisions. >> That would be great. So, from what I'm hearing here, um, this committee would like to have policy take on 616 410 to specifically >> 614. There you go. >> 614 at the next policy meeting to talk about how we want to go about the minor curriculum revisions. >> Sounds good. Um I would just ask that um policy committee invite all members of student achievement committee to be speakers at the policy committee meeting so that the committee member that is an member of both committees could speak at the policy committee. Um yeah, thanks Kevin. That brings us to number six, our last agenda. I know you have to explain something. >>
099Sure. Um this is uh really exciting I think on a couple different levels for us in especially middle school social studies. So this is both a partnership and a pilot that we're informing you of um with the four question method which I'm using term 42 a lot that relates to the four question method of teaching social studies which is um both a methodology and a curriculum which I'll talk about in um so what is 4Q? really the idea um and material organizing the teaching of social studies or history especially around four basic questions which are the four that are up on the screen right now. So really is the idea that in history whenever you're studying history you're really only ever doing one of these four things. You're either trying to learn what happened and
100you're which case you're practicing the skill of narration. You're trying to understand what people in a different time or place were thinking, which is a skill of interpretation, which you can only really do by looking at primary resources to try to understand their point of view. You're trying to explain why something happened, where it did, or when it did. So why then and there is question three and that's a skill of explanation. And the fourth question is one of judgment. What do we think about that personally? So the idea of 4QM is that again anytime you're learning history whether it's organized this way or not you're really wrestling with one of these four questions and what what 4QM is showing is much more clearly delineate when are you doing these things so that students and
101teachers are really clear on what kind of thinking you're being asked to do at any moment in time. um because that level of clarity would make the whole game a little bit uh simpler and clearer for everyone and more successful along the way. So um that's really the idea of 4QM. The timeline of um how we've grown in our involvement with 4QM. So this began last August when eighth graders well actually all eighth grade teachers were invited to pilot materials um for curriculum which was just being released like that month in pilot form. So this was a really brand new curriculum that um John Basset and Gary Shepen um who are the authors of this the book from story judgment that you saw in the previous slide. They've been developing curricular materials and they just
102released them in pilot form. Um we kind of offer those to eighth grade social studies teachers so that anyone who was interested could kind of take a look and kind of try as much or as little as they wanted to take on. We also offered a book study. Um so we also read food from story to judgment which is kind of the book that describes the idea behind that curriculum that happened throughout the fall and sixth through eighth grade teachers were invited to that and the eth grade teachers could participate in the pilot because the pilot materials for US history materials and that's an eighth grade course. So eighth grade social studies teachers had a chance to pilot materials. um all social studies teachers in the district actually um had the opportunity to participate in
103the post study but we had sixth through eighth grade teachers there um in the spring we I collected feedback from the teachers both who had piloted the materials and who had participated in the book study there was some overlap there but that wasn't um a complete there wasn't perfect overlap between those two again because there was for example sixth and seventh grade teachers in the book study who could read and think about the book and talk about it but they didn't have materials to pilot because it was eighth grade they were eighth grade materials. So we collected that feedback um to to kind of inform our judgments about how to proceed. That was all really positive. You have you have that in the materials that were shared with you both quotes from interviews with from
104students as well as uh quotes from teachers and the surve survey feedback that we collected. And then in June, we were lucky enough to get uh the two authors here in Bristol for a workshop with with just us both again on the methodology and to better understand some of the materials that they developed. Um so there was sixth through eighth grade teachers again that was open to any social studies teacher in the district was curious and interested in learning. Everyone was invited to that. We had sixth through eighth grade teachers who participated in that um either in creating some materials for sixth or seventh grade. So that was um that was an uh an interesting gap they were trying to fill trying to explore whether or not it makes sense to apply this methodology more
105broadly to sixth and seventh grade. And the eighth grade teachers were especially appreciative of having John there because you're really going directly to the source. Right? These are the two experts who both wrote the book and created the materials and they both modeled uh one of each of the four lessons for us which was a unique experience too I think for teachers to be students um and to experience those lessons as students as well as to ask lots of questions about the implementation and how best to kind of deliver those those lessons. So that all went really positively and this fall the author the office offered to kind of expand our involvement with the pilot um by formally pardoning us. So um we're trying to expand that pilot to get more teachers more experience um
106with the methodology and these materials. So we're planning a full pilot of at least two units in all eighth grade classrooms as we're planning on doing the four units on the American Revolution and the Constitution and voluntary pilots of they're kind of like mini units for seventh grade. There are a handful of lessons that are aligned to some of the topics that we already teach in sixth and seventh. We're kind of applying the idea and structure of the foreground lessons to those topics and those are here now six and seventh is kind of testing and exploring what that might look like in others. You said I'm sorry. You said the pilots were constitution the constitution and >> revolution and constitution are the two that we're really looking to start with by having every eighth grade
107teacher experienced that because right now we have a pretty wide range. We have some teachers who have read the book and tried a number of the units and we have a few teachers who have done neither. So we're trying to really get more people more experience than the whole department and have more knowledgeable conversation about how best to move forward and proceed. Um I thought you have the the fuller documents. Um again like the curricular minor revisions you kind of have the full um survey and results of the focus group student focus groups in your materials. But these are two quotes that I wanted to just highlight and call out because they really speak to what I think we've seen if I had to summarize the one biggest strength um that we've experienced so far.
108The biggest benefit what teachers identified me feedback was a potential benefit which was that having a really consistent method for students to gather, analyze and evaluate information make students much more conscious and thoughtful. Using this method has helped students gain a deeper understanding of not only history but of their own thinking and judgment. So really it's about clarity. is about helping students. We thought that these materials had the potential to help students get much clearer about what kind of thinking they were being asked to do and therefore get better at it and feel much more empowered doing it. And when we were doing empathy interviews with students about their experience, it kind of confirmed that benefit. This is one of the quotes that I thought did that nicely. Um, one of the students said, "I
109think it's helpful, speaking of the four Q, those four questions. I think it's helpful because it is repetitive and it it's kind of like you get down the mindset of today we're we're working on question one, today we're working on question two and it just kind of helped like figure out what we're going to be doing that day. So what you can hear going on for that student kind of uh in the background is I I am much more purposeful in how I'm engaging with history at this moment because I'm clear on what question one means because I've done that over and over again. So that what I know it's a question one lesson I'm pretty well prepared and I know exactly how to engage with that. Um so that kind of structure was a
110benefit that we were hoping to see and then maybe hoping to expand what kind of alignment it could provide six seventh and eighth so that students are really well verssed from that kind of thinking go. So that's some of the feedback we got and just in terms of the partnership itself um I wanted to make sure that the committee was aware of what that is providing us. So we're getting free access to all those curriculum materials for the entire year. We are more formally and collectively piloting to two units but um I'm planning on I'm hoping and planning on leaving getting more people to pilot more of those units as well. Again we had some teachers that used quite a bit of those materials last year and a few that hadn't used any. but we
111have access to all of them for the entirety of the year as well as some new materials that the authors are hoping to start building for grade six. So, we kind of have full access to everything we do in the time which is nice. Um they're hoping to partner with us to gain some insights into student achievement. Some of the questions that they have for themselves is what kind of impacts their curriculum is having um on student achievement in kind of whatever way that that we can measure and try to compare and find out. So, we're going to be trying to explore that question with them. Um, implementation support and professional expertise and collaboration. I think we can kind of lump these two together. Um, Gary and John are extremely accessible and I think that's
112been one of the real kind of professional highlights of some of the teachers that have been involved is both to know that they can reach out and be in conversation with experts in their field and a pretty informal and basis. And also in the pilot phase, a number of the um teachers commented on the fact that as Gary and John were collecting feedback from you from districts and teachers that were piloting their materials, they could see some of their feedback being incorporated back into these materials in pretty short order. So it's a we've kind of both benefited a lot from the expertise of the authors, but we've also had and kind of shaping what works best as they write this framework for themselves. I think really interesting um and beneficial collaborative effort. So um we're
113excited to continue it. I think I did also include a there was an article written by Natalie Wesler about 4Q at large um which quotes one of our teachers as well. So if you're interested in learning that um Natalie Wesler is a is a fairly prominent educational journalist. She writes for forums in the Washington Post in the Atlantic and the article was published in Kurop Stack. So that's kind of her her email thread. uh highlighting 42mm and we we were put there you want to learn more you can read the article I think it gives you a quick introduction >> thank you so much >> happy to answer any questions but it was just informationational so >> thank you for the material it's uh it's very easy to understand you know from being a non
114educator so um always welcoming you know good partnerships that helped with growth at uh the um access for free park was excellent as well. >> Nice time. >> I will say that is uh some of that also the credit for that has to go back to some of our teachers. So, one of the reasons that they were so excited to continue working with us um that it was worth it for them to to give us access was because of the feedback they've had with our teachers. So, they really do value the input. They really do value being able to see and hear how how their materials are being used and what's working, what's not. Um so, the opportunity to kind of keep that conversation going to come see classrooms in Bristol and see if how
115it's playing out. Um it that really speaks to how much some of our teachers have been able to contribute to their own thinking and to the improvement of of their work in general. >> My own personal experience with history and and history teachers, you know, just growing up in a long time ago. Um is my favorite classes were the storytellers. I mean the great narrators, things like that. And you know, even in Bristol public schools, I remember um my daughter had an opportunity to have a history class in uh I believe it was sixth grade with a longstanding history teacher that had been here, but that was going to be the last year and I had to come in and observe a class for a whole different reason, but it happened to be her class.
116And I and I remember having a dialogue with my daughter that night and said, "Wasn't it like hearing a story in that class?" I mean she immediately caught my attention and that's what I related back to in this article is how they mention that um engaging the students by sort of that historical storytelling and we see a lot of popularity in you know just some like TV media and stuff now are using you know historical dramas and things like that to engage and captivate their audiences. Yeah, obviously this is way more authentic than something we're going to watch on Netflix, but um I I like that. I like that the the the narrative, the the storyboarding, the storytelling. I think it it's really going to captivate students. I'm glad I'm glad this is popular here.
117Thank you. >> I was just curious if we know of how many other districts in Connecticut are either piloting this or using it. It feels like I feel like we're special. I'm pretty sure Rivan >> exciting. That's one of the reasons I don't have my microphone on, but that's one of the reasons why I like to be able to share all that information with you. It's certainly a highlight credit to the work that he's done in research and best approaches and teaching social studies and and history. And he certainly fostered that connection among our students. I did tell them that when they finally publish their formal uh core resource that we have that in for forever free rights to that. >> I don't know that we were quite able to accomplish that yet start is
118a good Yeah. >> Yeah. >> I think I think in terms of piloting I'm pretty sure I'm quite conf there's no one else in Connecticut and it's worth noting I don't know that there's any other districts that they partnered with in the same way as well. I think they they kind of mentioned in one that they work very closely with Texas. Um but this idea of kind of like partnering with the district to have a more kind of formalized learning relationship I think is we might be the ones there too and learn about. Thank you for all set to journ. No further items on the agenda. I'd like to um enjoy [Music]