001Good evening and calling the meeting to order. Welcome to West Harford Public Schools Board of Education meeting. It is Tuesday, September the 2nd, 2025. Ammani, may you please call the role. >> Mr. Gagnon, >> present. >> Mr. Goldman, >> here. Dr. Harris >> here. >> Mrs. Nesserella >> present. >> Dr. Thomas Farquasen >> here. >> Mrs. Lac Gagalof >> present. >> Miss Maramman >> here. >> Bridgette Feny >> here. >> Kayla Jaw >> here. >> Thank you. and Kayla, may you please lead us in the pledge of >> allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Thank you. Now it is time for we have rather have no revision to the agenda order
002and now it is public communications. This is an opportunity where we're able to hear from you your thoughts, your questions, your concerns and your suggestions. Each individual is allowed three minutes to speak. We ask when you go to the podium to please share your name and your town of residence. Also, please be mindful of Ammani who will hold up a yellow card when you have one minute remaining in your time. And when your time is expired, you will see a red card. and we ask for you please to respectfully take your seat at that time. Before we begin with public comment, I'd like to briefly explain the role of the board and the purpose of this time. Under state law and our town charter, the board of education is a policymaking body. We do not
003oversee individual students, staff members, or classroom matters. Those responsibilities fall to the superintendent and school administration. We welcome and encourage comments on district policies, especially those on tonight's agenda. We also understand that some parents and community members may wish to speak about concerns involving individual students. Please know that when this happens, the board and superintendent cannot respond publicly. This is not out of disregard, but because we are legally bound by the state and federal laws to protect the privacy of all students. We want every child to learn in a safe, supportive environment. While we may not be able to respond here, concerns raised are taken seriously and are directed to the appropriate channels. With that, we'll now begin with public comment. And I will start with those that have signed up on the list. and
004we're receiving comments on any agenda item, but for the purpose of this meeting, we'll share that tonight's agenda includes revision of authorized signers of the ED-099, revision of policies 5550 and 5560, ratification of the West Harford Board of Education professional employees, 2025 2026 opening of schools, approval of minutes from the June 3rd, 2025 board of education meeting, and approval of minutes from the June 30th, 2025 special board of education meeting. And so beginning with those that have signed up on the list, we have Tali Kest. And I will say in advance if I mispronounce anyone's name, I do apologize. Tali Kest. Thank you. Can you hear me? Okay, great. Hi, my name is Tali Cast and I live in West Hartford. I'm here today to request that anti-semitism education be incorporated in a meaningful way
005into the curriculum. I'd like to give you an example of the news which I see in my feed daily. On August 19th, 2025, the following occurred. An Uber driver in Vienna kicked out Jewish customers mid ride, called them child killers, and struck the father. At Awitz, Burkanau in Poland, a woman tried to shame a group of Jewish teens carrying an Israeli flag as they honored the memory of 1 million Jews murdered there. A couple in Atlanta harassed a grieving father who mourned his daughter, Rose Luben, who was killed in a terror attack in Israel, called him a kite, and said his daughter deserved to die. Federal and state agents arrested Jeremiah Sawake of Everett, accusing him of leading a series of anti-Israel vandalism attacks across Massachusetts. Protesters at a Greek port of call block an
006Israeli cruise ship from disembarking. All of the above was reported in one day. That is just one example of one day. The FBI reported in 2024 that Jews, who constitute only 2% of the population, were the target of nearly 70% of all religious hate crimes. And the ADL logged a record 9,354 anti-semitic incidents nationwide, many of which actually in addition to that go unreported. A recent UC Davis study shows a spike in depression among Jews in the United States since the October 7th, 2023 attacks linked to anti-semitism in the aftermath. I took my 14-year-old daughter Nava to get her passport photo recently, and she was wearing her Mandi necklace, which she wears every day. I told her to hide it. Not something I did lightly or would ever ask her to do if I thought
007she'd be safe. But for a travel document, I couldn't risk it. That moment made me deeply sad. Anti-semitism is often a gateway drug to extremist violence. All the way from the Coline shootings to the shooting in Minneapolis recently, Jewhating rhetoric was espoused by the shooters. I implore you please to incorporate education on modernday anti-semitism in an impactful way into your curriculum. Thank you. >> Thank you. Next we have Hillary Frri. Hi all, I am Hillilary Frri. I'm here to talk about class enrollment specifically at Bugby Elementary in first grade. You don't know me, but I have lived here for four years. I'm Hillilary Frri, a mother of three boys, Wesley, Bod, and Jack. And I'm excited to dedicate my time to this community. I had no family here, no support. My mother-in-law sadly passed away
008and my father-in-law has ALS. But I am the youngest of four kids and everyone lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Go Heels. Uh in spite of that, we moved here eager to give back to the town we believe would give our three boys a good education. I've served on the PTO the last two years. I volunteered my time with the foundation reading grants for two years. My husband is a West Hartford public school teacher. He coaches te-ball, soccer, runs basketball camp. He's putting our kids to bed tonight. Uh we believe in this town to be uh the best community to raise our boys in. In return, we trusted you to educate our kids. We trusted you with my autistic son, Wesley. And this town has short changed us. My son is in first grade with
00924 kids in his class. Just showing up to school at all. He is climbing a steeper hill than you can even imagine. He struggles every day to make friends and to fit into a world not made for him. And this board of education is making it harder for him. Typical kids will struggle with 24 kids in the class. But my son will lose ground, lose opportunity for friendships, lose momentum for learning, and you're robbing him of the opportunity to succeed. The sad thing is you know it. You guys know that 24 kids in one of the most important years of development is detrimental to their learning. And that just 5 years ago in this town, the class cap was 22. This year, the class cap, not preferred, the limit was 23. This year, the board
010of education projected Bugby Elementary to have three sections, but our superintendent decided to combine them. And now there are 24 kids in each class. You're a town that advertises your education, and we live here for the premier school system. However, it's embarrassing. We spend money repaving the curves. When my son had trash bags full of leaked water in his hallway all of last year and a 75-year-old school with no air flow, no air conditioning, and the IEP services he gets are always every day out of compliance, as reported this summer and a special hearing. We still put up with this, however, because we're supposed to have small class sizes with amazing teachers like my husband. But everyone in this room knows that's not what he's getting right now. On the best day, his teacher can
011give 15 dedicated minutes of one-on-one instruction to 24 kids. You can't learn to read in 15 minutes a day. Our kids will be behind. And if co has taught us anything, it's that you can't get these years back. That is directly because of decisions you have made to put him in this position. And I'm ashamed and sad and lost and disappointed as are 47 other families. And I'm just begging that you split the grade, reevaluate the numbers, and don't count just adding one aid to float between two classes as a solution. Thank you. Thank you. Next, we have Jonathan Reum. >> Okay. >> Hello. Um, good to see you again. Uh, last spring I was here a couple of times. Um, mainly to express concerns about use of digital technology in the classroom, but before
012I do that, I do want to say that I've gotten to know this board a little bit better over the last few months and how it operates. I want to thank everyone who's here on the board for serving. Um sometimes when I look through the agenda, HVAC replacements aren't always the top of you know that's probably not why people come to these meetings or or volunteer but do a lot of important work and many of it's unseen and not appreciated. So I do appreciate it. Um there were three things that I had highlighted last uh spring um that I like to discuss briefly and the first is Chromebook use in classrooms. Um I understand that there's been some changes um in the junior high schools and um I think that that's fantastic. Um and the
013concern there was that Chromebooks were not being used appropriately in the classroom. I understand that this policy may address some of that. So um I'm delighted to see that going forward and maybe in the future we can decide whether or not software would be needed in order to have control over that. The second thing uh is u student cell phone use. Um, now I understand that there's a K through eight complete ban of cell phones in our school system. Whereas it's an off and away policy for the high schools and um and and this seems to be working reasonably well and it certainly conforms to Connecticut state guidelines and um and and so that's good. Uh that there's always going to be people who bend the rules though and um and and I don't have
014an easy solution for that. Um, however, I I do recognize the um the the difficulty that teachers have in policing the classrooms. Um, but I also do recognize that it would be great if um students didn't spend their free time um in the cafeterias on their cell phones and also in study halls on their cell. There's a lot of social development that happens that's not necessarily done um during uh instructional time. So, I'm going to keep pushing for that, but I understand that this body is probably handicapped in what you can push for because it would be very controversial um to have a complete bell, a bellto bell, a comprehensive ban in the high school because I think that um parents want to have access to their kids, especially in the case of an emergency.
015The third and last thing was that is that as a generation, we're going through the first experience, the first wave of children having cell phones in schools and how do we deal with this? And um and I see um students in who are in the elementary schools with cell phones and I think that we need to do more to educate parents on the effects of of cell phone use. And that's something that I'm going to try to engage um through the PTO. I don't know how well I can do that because my son is a Conrad student and I really think that this has to start. This has to start um you know parents need to be informed already in the elementary schools. So, I'm hoping that that we could consider that. And um I
016think I'm almost out of time, but I will say one last thing, and that is um Evston Township in Illinois um they had a a um a um a committee that was convened to work with the board of education to look into some of these issues and they came up with a list of recommendations. And I thought that that was fabulous. And um and I'd like to see something like that. I'm I'm hoping that through the PTO I can find a way to work together more closely with this board. Thank you. [Applause] Thank you. Next we have Heather Shriber. My name is Heather Shriber. I live in West Hartford. On August 9th, 2024, my 16-year-old son, Lucas, took his life after a monthlong battle with depression. Two weeks before his death, Lucas was found guilty
017of bullying and stripped of his senior year swim team captaincy followed following a flawed investigation involving incidents that occurred off-campus, most of which were based on hearsay. While verbal and physical attacks against Lucas were never investigated. In July 2024, Lucas and I were summoned to Hall High School by the principal. Lucas had expressed suicidal ideiations a few days before. Uh, and I couldn't get him out of bed that morning, so I went alone. In tears, I begged the principal not to take away Lucas's leadership position. I feared it would push him further into despair. The response was cold. Unless new evidence was presented, Lucas would be found guilty. There would be no opportunity uh to come back when he felt better, even though he had a formal 504 plan for severe depression. And the attacks
018against him would not be investigated. That night, we reached out to you, the board of education, for help. We asked for intervention. You did not respond. Two weeks later, my children and I found Lucas's body. After his death, we requested a meeting with the board. We were told that wasn't policy and were instructed to reach out individually to you. Four of you responded, Claire Nessarella refused to meet, offering no explanation. Shannon Maramman and Latoya Lagalof, you never replied at all. How can we as parents and taxpayers trust that you prioritize our children's well-being when you won't even respond to a grieving family desperate for answers? You claim that your role is policy, not personnel. So I ask you, in the years since Lucas, a student with documented severe depression and suicidal ideiation, died by suicide,
019what has been done? I see you that tonight you may adopt a policy on restorative practices, but all it does is ask someone else to write the policy. What safeguards have been put in place to prevent students in crisis from being further traumatized? How much funding has been dedicated to training staff on suicide prevention, especially in terms of doing out discipline? What changes have you made to ensure that students mental health is considered as disciplinary decisions are made? I fear that nothing has changed. A year has passed and there has been no meaningful protections or real action. Just bureaucracy and silence. This is not just a tragedy for my family. It is a tragedy that could happen again. You have the power to change this now. I urge you to take responsibility and act before
020another child is lost. [Applause] Thank you. Next, Mr. Shriber. Shriber, resident. I'm the husband of Heather who just spoke. I wanted to add to what my wife just said. Let's be clear. This is not just about a tragic event of suicide. It is about inappropriate behavior by an administrator that needs to be addressed as it contributed to the suicide. False accusations without clarifying the facts. Ridiculing a medically diagnosed depressive disorder as emotional issues. requiring a sick student who is suffering from depression and suicidal ideiation to attend a disciplinary meeting in the middle of the summer break. Documenting inaccurate or incomplete facts in a student file. None of this should have a place in any public school systems. By not acting and allowing this to happen, you send a message that it's okay to have this
021happen again. Whether in West Hartford or in another school district, ask yourself when this happens again and the parents of a child who hurt themselves come to you asking why you didn't act although you knew about the previous issues and you were provided numerous pages of evidence. How will you answer those questions? Would you let them know that you were just trusting the superintendent who had shown that he has no interest in resolving the issues? He didn't answer our questions, delayed access to Lucas's student file because he knows it would bring to light his own failure to act. He had been made aware of the issues prior to the son su our son's suicide and didn't even bother to reach out despite our desperate peace. Will you simply refer them to legal counsel even if
022they tell you as we did that they are not making a legal claim out of it or maybe you just follow the most recent strategy of your chairwoman laid out in an email to us last months which is we only make policy. Apparently it doesn't matter when administrators don't follow that policy. Let me tell you something. When you stand in front of those parents who ask you why you failed to act, none of these strategies will work as you will have to admit that you could have done something to prevent this from happening again, but you failed to address these issues. Think about that when you walk away tonight. We simply ask you to do the right thing to establish accountability to the individual involved. publicly acknowledging that mistakes were made and making the changes
023necessary so this never happens again. It's up to you to show the leadership that this town expects and that you promised your voters when you got elected. Thank you. [Applause] Thank you. That is all who we have who have signed up on the list. However, we'll ask if there's anyone here in the room who would like to make a public comment. I'll ask again. Is there anyone who would like to make a public comment? One last time. Is there anyone who would like to make a public comment? We shall pause on public communications and now proceed to non-staff communications and reports. And so before hearing from our student representatives, I want to give a welcome to our new student representatives, Bridget and Kayla. So good to see you both. We know that you both will
024share from your respective schools updates not only today but moving forward. Before you do speak, I do just want to formally welcome once again Ammani who is joining us and will be with us as well. So welcome again Amani. So let us please begin with Bridget who's going to share updates regarding Connard. Hello my name is Bridget Fenie and I sorry hello my name is Bridget Feny and I am this year's board of education representative from Connard High School. At Connard, I am the prom chair/ senior class board vice president as well as president of model UN and the artistic director of unified theater. As these events come along, I'll keep sure to make you updated as well as the other activities we pride ourselves on at Connard. Connor's alternate representative, Conrad Kauki, will also
025be representing our school at some meetings. He is president of the peer mentoring club, a member of the varsity soccer team, and in the select Camarada orchestra. I was chosen for this position because of my love for all the opportunities presented to us at Connard. I'm so proud of my other my fellow club heads and I am excited to see what we'll be able to achieve this year. On a on August 26th, Connor welcomed new freshmen back to school with an orientation introducing them to their classmates and teachers. Freshmen were guided through their daily schedules and shown how to navigate their way through Connor's many hallways. After this, freshmen were given lunch and presented with the club fair introducing them to all the activities available to them at Connard. We are so excited to see
026where these new students will end up. One of our exciting upcoming events is the school pep rally. On September 12th, Connor will all come together in the gym and celebrate the new year with some spirit. Good luck to the staff and spirit committee in charge. As the school year has started, our sports teams have had their preseason games going, including our soccer team, which had an undefeated preseason fishing finishing it off with a 2-1 win in Ellington. They look forward to their opening game in Farmington tomorrow. Our many sports teams are also starting off their seasons this weekend with boys golf, cross country, field hockey, and girls soccer having played their first games today. We wish all of them good luck. Select students from the Connor theater department performed an original play at the Fringe
027Festival in Scotland selling out multiple nights. Students were given the opportunity to tour London and Edinburgh as well as other student produced plays in from schools across the United States. This was the first time Connor attended, but after so much student support, hopefully it won't be the last. If you want to see the Connor show performed at the French Festival, they will be reperforming Murder at Camp Harmony this upcoming Thursday and Friday at 7:30 p.m. in Connor's auditorium. I hope to see some of you there. And at Connard, we always love seeing what our theater program is doing. So, they recently announced this year's musical will be Anything Goes. We can't wait to see another exciting performance from our talented actors and actresses this school year. And finally, a big thank you to Bob Palmer
028and the facilities department for helping Connor start the school year with fresh floors. This was a huge upgrade from our old carpet flooring and we are so grateful for the change. Thank you for listening for Con's updates. I can't wait to keep sharing with all of you throughout the school year. Thank you >> and we can't wait to hear from you. Thank you, Bridget. Nicely done. Kayla, may you please share what's been going on at Hall. Good evening, everyone. My name is Kayla Jaw and I'm a senior at Hall High School. I'm honored to be the student board of education representative this year. There were many exciting changes at Hall as we start the school year. We welcomed six new staff members to the district as well as several others who transferred from King Phillip
029and other schools. Over the summer, renovations were completed in the cafeteria and bathrooms. And the updated space has received overwhelmingly positive feedback from both the students and staff. Updates to the courtyard have also been added. Our link crew program successfully welcomed 336 new Titans into the class of 2029. In addition to the academic orientation, transfer students new to the district were also welcomed where they were provided with an opportunity to walk through their schedules and meet staff before the first day. Parents of incoming students were also invited to attend a panel hosted by staff to learn more about the school community. Last week, class assemblies for all grade levels were held to set the tone for the year. Student leaders also presented alongside administrators about the expectations and policies, including the continued off and away
030phone policy. To support this initiative, games and activities were added to the courtyard just recently to encourage students to spend time interacting face toface and build stronger connections instead of just turning to their phones. Clubs are beginning to hold their first meetings and today marked the official opening day for fall sports. Girls, varsity, soccer, and field hockey play their first home games tonight, and other teams are preparing for their opening games later this week. On Thursday, all fall team captains will meet to discuss leadership and building a positive team climate. Music groups are also starting evening rehearsals next week. Looking ahead, picture day will take place on September 9th. So things are getting busy at Hall with a new school year and that is all. Thank you. >> Thank you Kayla. Also very nicely done.
031So welcome again to the both of you. We're so glad to have you here and want to share with you moving forward. We recognize and respect that you are students first and foremost. So if at any point in time you need to depart early, we certainly respect that and please feel free to do so. Thank you so much again for joining us. And now we shall proceed to unfinished business which we do not have any of. So now on to new business where we have revision of authorized signers of the ED-099 agreement for child nutrition programs. Seeking a motion that the board of education designate Paul Vicinus as authorized to sign the ED099 agreement for child nutrition programs and claims for reimbursement and in his absence that Barbara Rua Rua be authorized to sign claims
032for reimbursement. Is there a motion? >> So move. >> Thank you Claire. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Thank you Jason. Discussion. And I apologize Barbara for mispronouncing your last name. Passing it to you Mr. Vinez. Thank you so much. So, uh, good evening everyone and welcome to the new school year. Uh, obviously, uh, with the retirement of Elizabeth Hwitt and the appointment of Barbara Ruer as our new director of finance and planning, um, she has responsibilities to include, um, health and nutrition services, adult education, and others. And the 099 agreement is um essentially utilized to provide funding for West Harford through monthly claims that we'll submit to the state department of education primarily for our participation within the free and reduced lunch program. So um this is uh just just the mechanics of
033adding her name to the signature list. >> Thank you teammates. Any questions, comments? Seeing none, all of those in favor say I. >> I. >> Any oppose? Any any abstain? The eyes have it. Thank you very much and welcome again, Barbara. Now moving on where we have a motion by Laura Thomas, Jason Gagnet, and Gail Harris to accept and approve revised and new policies as a first reading. And so good to see Mr. Dorte here in a different role, but good to see you here. seeking a motion that the board of education accept as a first reading the following revised and new policies which were reviewed by the board policy subcommittee referring to student series 5000 specifically speaking to 5550 revised Connecticut school climate policy and 5560 new policy on restorative practices response policy. Is
034there a motion? So >> moved. >> Thank you Shannon. Is there a second? Second. >> Thank you, Gail. Discussion. So, with our policy subcommittee, we are so glad that we have Jason on our team and Gail and our team and so glad to have you now leading our team. So, would you like to share with us, please? >> Sure. Thank you. I'm not used to sitting up here by myself. It's it's a little lonely, but I know my friends will join me soon. So, um good evening and happy new year. Before you tonight are two policies for your review and consideration. One is an update and the other is a new policy. Both are legal requirements and are mandatory for all school districts this school year. The most significant of these is the adoption of
035the new school climate policy that focuses on strengthening relationships, safety, and well-being in our schools. Some highlights are the adoption of the state developed school climate policy that every district must implement, which is what you see in policy 5550. There's also clear expectations for responding to challenging behaviors and a tiered uh response system for addressing incidents, defined roles such as school climate personnel, including a district coordinator, which is myself, and climate specialists at each school, which are our principles, school climate surveys, and school-based climate committees as well, which are comprised of the principal, um, parents and caregivers. We'll also look to have students on there. Even at our elementary schools, we do see tremendous value in having our fourth, fifth graders um be a part of those committees as well as like I said before,
036parents and caregivers and other folks that are in the schools. Um each principal will work with them on that and and who gets to be part of those pieces and then expanding training for our staff. So, you know, one of the things is while these requirements are mandatory, it's important to note that they directly align with our district's values. We believe relationships must be at the center of everything that we do. And although we certainly believe that we do a great job of creating a welcoming and supportive environment for all, we are always looking at ways to improve. We also recognize that students will make mistakes. And although we certainly need to hold students accountable for their actions, we also need to help them repair the harm they may have caused as well as successfully
037transition back into the school community. So overall, this policy ensures consistency across our schools, aligns with state requirements, and strengthens the ways we support our students while maintaining a positive school climate in all of our schools. >> Thank you. And so with this being a first reading, again, we do not vote on what has been presented today, but does allow opportunity for discussion. So teammates with what has been shared. Jason, >> I'll just add and it's my understanding that S25550 is pretty unique. Um while the legislature often mandates that we do things, it doesn't always mandate the precise language we're supposed to use. So with respect to 5550, we have no ability to alter that language. Is that accurate? >> That is correct. And I know we had some uh lively conversation at our policy
038subcommittee and and that's you know where we've landed. Although I do want to just highlight with 5560, I know that during that subcommittee meeting there was a suggestion for a component that I didn't get to get in there on this first reading, but we certainly will have that and it really has to do with how we'll report out to the board on those um particular instances. >> Right. So 5560 was a little bit different. It's the resto. So it's helpful to look at these two as kind of of companions that that make up this climate policy. 5560 we had a little bit more leeway to craft and and I as you referenced we discussed in policy a reporting component of that. So that would be on on the restorative justice piece getting I think we
039discussed twice a year reports to the board about how that's being implemented the results we're seeing things like that. >> Correct. And you know with 5550 again just to echo that if you look at all neighboring districts you'll see the the same exact language that's just in there. Um and >> and the other thing that would be so even on these plus so for instance on the restorative justice piece the 5560 that really sets a floor for us doesn't it? It doesn't say we're not permitted to to go above and beyond or or to create different things after this. >> Correct. And like I said I just want to really highlight that you know as you look through a lot of these pieces it's the work that we do um every day. In fact uh
040you know I've rolled out two formal trainings for our leaders already. And in that second training, we went through some scenarios, real I'll call them real world scenarios. Um, and we said, "Hey, how would you handle this before this?" And principles went through and they outlined that and we were said, "Perfect. That is exactly how we'd want you to do it." And it just aligns exactly with what they're looking to do. So, um, I think it just formalizes the process that we're currently implementing in our buildings already. >> Thanks, Latoya. >> Yeah. Um, thank you for bringing these forward. Um, you know, I love restorative practices, so really excited to see this come fruition. Um, and so my my only suggestion is not a policy suggestion, but um certainly want to see the district develop
041um some kind of supplemental vision or guide for restorative practices in the district. We have the state definition here and the policy and I understand that's streamlined, but I'd love to see like what is restorative practices for West Harford? what is the vision for that? If we are saying we're a restorative district, what does that look like? Um, very similar to like how we did our our our equity and inclusion policy, like what, you know, how do we take on an identity of our own in the practice and what does that look like? Um, and so not necessarily a new policy, but maybe a supplemental um vision or guide for what that would be like for our district. >> Yeah. And say I was going to jump in. Um so I know and I appreciate
042the question very very appropriate to this conversation and the policy but you had asked about that. So in my comments that I emailed out to you all um I put kind of a side by side of this new state definition coming directly from the state guidance as well as an operational definition that we've been working from. Um, but as as you may know from our past conversations, a lot of the a lot of the work that we've been involved been really with restorative practices for I guess the last two to three years prior to this legislation even coming up um has been in and around you know what what we were previously calling like pre-tortive work setting the conditions um to uh the the classroom environment sort of like the conditions that you would want
043to restore to. I certainly if if conditions are not ideal, if conditions are in any way, shape or form um not welcoming, not a sense of belonging, that's nothing I want to restore into when there's been some disruption to that. I want to restore to u and that's been a lot of the professional development that we've been doing. I think you'll catch a glimpse of that and um one of the opening of school report segments uh in around our equity work and we can certainly provide additional updates as to how that's going throughout the year. >> Okay, for sure. Um, and then I just wanted to quickly read something real quick. Um, because I just want to like I want to throw out as many definitions for restorative practices as possible for us to really
044get in us. Um, and this is from the little book of Race and Restorative Justice by FA Davis. Um, she's Dr. Angela Davis's sister. And she says, uh, causing someone to suffer creates an imbalance in the scales of justice. And the way to rebalance the scales and do justice is to cause the responsible person to suffer. We respond to the original harm with the second harm. Ours is a system that harms people who harm people, presumably to show that harming people is wrong. This sets in motion endless cycles of harm. Restorative justice seeks to interrupt these cycles by repairing the damage done to relationships in the wake of a crime or other wrongdoing and do so in a way that is constant with indigenous wisdom, Africas, and that of other traditions. Justice is a healing
045ground, not a battleground. And so I just wanted to share that and ground us um in that perspective moving forward with it because currently um in our country and education systems all across our country and in really our society, we have a system that harms people for harming people. And I really want us as a district that has such a high standard for academic achievement, all these wonderful accolades to disrupt that system by healing people who harm people, helping them take accountability, but not causing them to suffer. And so I just want to reiterate that point um and and keep that at the forefront of all of our minds. So thank you. >> Yeah, thank you. And just so you know too, as we've been working I really have been partnering closely with Teresa um
046and and the work that she does as you've mentioned there and she's done some really really great PD already for our leaders and and rolling that out um through our schools, you know. So I think you'll see a lot of that echoed through the work that we're doing. >> Gail. >> Thank you. Um, so when I was looking uh further through some of these forms that were attached like the investigation form and I can't remember if that was actually in what we got, maybe it was. Um, maybe it wasn't. Um, some of this I just was questioning when we talk about these practices. Um, so one of the couple of the things that are here is was this investigated as an assault? Was this investigated as an e act of physical violence? Um, so I
047guess I'm confused a little bit as to where we're going to use this. I mean, if we have an assault in the school or we have physical violence, um, I mean, you know, there seems to be at some point this would not be an appropriate mode of dealing with these types of issues in the school. So, I and we didn't, you know, I'm just curious if you can elaborate a little bit on where we are going to use this and what types of scenarios and in what types of scenarios we will not be using it. >> Sure. So the forms again were things that were rolled out through that um policy that ultimately we have to embed in there. You know, one of the things I should have said was that there's various pieces like
048you've mentioned in assault. Um there may be issues related to other policies we have in place like title 9 that that this doesn't over doesn't supersede that. So that we would certainly run in those you know in that circle and make sure that those other policies are followed closely. Um but this would be a form that if filled out we'd have to go through and complete it as well. And you know, we talk about some of the different pieces even with student furpa and all of that. It, you know, we have to take a look at and that's what we've been working with um all of our administrators on how do you fill out some of these forms, you know, related to what the incident is, what's going on in the schools. Um but always
049making sure that we still look at, you know, what are the other policies that are implemented and and I think that's the piece why we decided to have our principles sort of be folks at the school that are looking at, but really for them to be consulting with me to make sure we have calibration across the district. So just to clarify, so this investigation form on any incident in the school, meaning any challenging behavior, even in physical assault, physical violence, this is going to be filled out or this is only being filled out where we're going to be using a restorative practice. >> So it it's I guess I'll answer that in two ways. One is it, you know, you wouldn't necessarily be filling this out just because you're using restorative practices. I think that
050we would be using restorative practices in many of our situations. It doesn't mean that it result in a form. The form really is required in three instances. One is if a student is removed from class for behavioral issues, one if there's a suspension or three if there's expulsion. That's when this form would have to be completed. >> And if I may, pardon, I see your Yes. If I may just I appreciate the the question with that um and to dubtail off of what Julia was sharing with the form as it reads on the top this form is not required by law or policy but serves as a model challenging behavior reporting form that local and regional boards of education may adopt. So to your point in terms of how there is an opportunity if I'm
051not mistaken to um to add to it or to enhance it to reflect our district. It's more of a template based on what it says up front. So your points are well received if I'm not mistaken in terms of its interpretation. >> Yeah. So when we did consult with shipment on that and they really suggested using this template at this point, you know, I think what we're looking at is this year, you know, I I don't know that I use the word pilot um because it is something that we need to put into practice. But ultimately, we'll want to look at how things go this year. And then if we want to come back and look at some of the forms, look at different modifications, that's something that we can certainly do. But at this
052point, that's been the advice that we've received is to really stick with these forms, use them for those three incidents that we're talking about um and operate in that direction. >> Understood. Thank you, Ethan, and then Claire. >> Hi. Um couple questions. First is Bill. Um my first question is what I understood from your conversation with Jason is this is a state dictated policy. Is that correct? >> That is correct. >> Okay. Is it possible whether state for both policies? >> Correct. >> Okay. It would be helpful if there was like a sort of summary of what the change was. Um because otherwise I'm guessing so for future we' asked that I asked that for Andy last year he was getting that information. So if you could do that that'd be great >> Ethan it
053it is the the preceding pages where you see the red lines that's the original. >> I know but everything was crossed out >> right. So that's what was the former and the new is what we see. >> I'm just trying to understand the purpose of the change that's all. So um so was it a the change just grammatical or was it there was a policy change or a difference because I I wasn't able to figure it out. >> So I think if you look at um essentially all of the red was the old policy. So you can I think just even visually get a sense that pretty much the old policy is completely gone and we're moving towards all of the blue now which is the new policy. >> Yeah. I might be able to
054add help just the I know what you're asking. It's kind of like what's what's the reader digest version and the intent with the state and I think it was a wholesale change to the state's bullying policy which previously indicated that um incidents needed to be pervasive and repeated to to a larger collection of catchall challenging behavior for which bullying is now a subset. So, um it is a wholesale revision >> based on that intent from the state department of education to um to essentially redefine what they're calling challenging behavior in schools. >> Okay. >> No, I just >> No, it's I understand. It's a good question. >> All right. Thank you. Um how do we define success >> on this particular policy? Okay. >> Or both. >> I mean, I think our success would be
055looking at when we look at our school climate survey data. Um, you know, I think that would be one measure of that success. Um, so you'll see that there's surveys, which we do already now. And I think that's the data I know that we spend a lot of time on. I know Paul spent a significant amount of time meeting with principles and looking at their own individual schools and to try to look at, you know, those piece. I think that would be one measure of success. Um. >> Okay. No, I just think when we put in policies, we we should know what success is or this was >> I'll add one layer to that success. You know, I don't know that I can qualify the metrics for it, but I think it speaks to what
056Latoya shared. Um our historical um discipline policies have always been, for lack of a better word, transactional. You do A and then you receive B as a consequence. But what what's missing from that often is how do I how do I repair whatever harm was done and how do I reintegrate you into that learning community in a way um that acknowledges that you know something was disrupted based on what happened and so so the successful reintegration of students following um some of these challenging behaviors would be would be a measure of success. Now how what the metrics on that are I don't know that we you know we're we're trying to attack that and the and the you know the state was charged with coming up with a model and so we have some model
057surveys and some model plans that we're going to be implementing this year but >> understood like if we're going to do something how do we know it's working how do we measure its impact >> well I was also thinking in terms of like an afteraction report or review is this happened did it have this you know an incident did we do it right did we did it wrong or how we can we improve it in the future. Um, and I assume since the positions labeled were principles and yourself, it didn't really impact the budget. >> Uh, >> the policy change. >> Nope, just time. >> Okay. No, because when I originally read it, I thought we're adding. Uh, then my final question and did there was a mention that SRO's should not be involved in
058on page 23 is how I read it. Is that the state dictated or is that >> district that again everything you see in here was taken directly from um the state language? >> So is that going to be a much different procedure than in the past or will there be differentiation? Just makes me nervous when you have different um policy or you following different procedures as different outcomes. >> Again I think you know the best way to answer this really aligns with what Gail's question was. There's going to be certain instances where there's other policies in place that have other things that need to occur as well. >> Okay, I'm good. Thank you, >> Latoya. Um, yeah, >> I apologize. Pardon me, Claire. Claire, >> I'm sorry. >> I was like looking this way. I
059didn't even see you. Um, just two a couple quick things. Um because I know our our our district did SBDI that I know uh CHDI is is going to be sending some forms out to all the schools that are part of SBDI to help with some of the tracking with schools to get some of the quantitative and qualitative data. So I know that'll be helpful for our district as it will a lot of other districts. So I wanted to throw that out there because I found that out. And then um also wanted to just kind of help build on like it can be hard sometimes to get some of that data because it's qualitative. So, like for example, I think I talked about this last year, like I've done a restorative justice conference where like
060the the accountability piece was like it was a student who said a racial slur. The accountability piece was the student signed up to take African-American history studies this semester. The student's class got moved from the other student who he didn't feel safe from. The student started a social media campaign to teach about racism and oppression. And so, it can be hard to measure some of those things. Um, and so I think one of the great things about this the practice is that it allows for creativity. And I think to build on what Paul is saying is like a slap on the wrist kind of takes away the creativity. You still get the consequence, but sometimes the accountability piece can't be measured in a transactional survey. But I think, you know, at some point when we
061get those report outs, we'll probably get some of those those stories. I don't know if I'm supposed to respond, but I just want to make sure that there's an Yeah, there is a response. >> However, it's done. So, >> apologies, Claire. Oh, did you have a coma? And let's Shannon, >> um, >> and then Jason. >> So, I I just wanted to say hats off to the state of Connecticut for making this across the state. And I know that the people working on this policy don't come from other fields. They have educational background. They have counseling background. And and this is some good good um steps to try to heal some of the harm and the dysregulation and the the challenges that kids face in school. It's hard to get along with everybody. And when
062you come to school having social emotional learning and a way to bring the whole class together and the teacher and everybody building trust, I think it's great. Um, and I I assume that a lot of these things I've heard of you presenting in West Hartford. So, are there any surprises or big lifts that you see out of these bullets that we've not touched on already, or is there something really new? No, I I think it aligns, like I said, with what we've always done. I think the piece, you know, to sort of echo, I think what everyone's kind of saying is that we recognize that when things occur, you know, and it was something I always talked about, there's a story behind the actions. And so, I think when you just go to this, you
063know, I think Paul referred to it as like transactional, like, hey, you did this, you get this, you're missing a whole story behind the why. And so, you know, one of the things we've echoed, I mean, I remember as a assistant principal like years ago doing that kind of like, hey, just really think about like what happened and even I share it and I used to share it at all the new teacher orientations. If you take an opportunity to hear the story, oftentimes your anger will turn into sadness when you start to hear those pieces. And so, you know what I think this is going to do and and and we've been harping on that is really just slow everybody down. Like, let's really hear what's going on. let's figure out what we need to
064do to, you know, if there needs to be some type of consequence, like again, that that's something we need to look at. But more than that is also looking at how do we repair the the harm that occurred and and that goes all the way from, you know, in kindergarten, first grade, when something happens, like you still need to get those kids together and repair it and talk about and have learning come from that. And that goes all the way to 12th grade, right? When things occur. Um, and how do you sit children down? How do you sit classrooms down? Sometimes I remember as a principal needing to get the entire class in the auditorium and talk about harm that occurred and really look at, hey, how do we restore this as a community? Um,
065and so I think it there's a lot of good modeling, right? It's the modeling I think we'd want people to go back and and to have good discourse um and and figure those pieces out. And that's why I think we're primed for that because we have the environment. We've we've talked a lot about building relationships because I don't think you can get to any of this if you don't have that relationship piece. And you know, we know that kids kids know right away whether you care or not. And if you're going to try to do this and they feel like you really don't care, it's going to be hard to make any headways. And so, you know, I guess it's a long way to answer your question. I don't see anything significantly different. I think
066it just really aligns and hopefully actually creates a consistency for us um to do some of this work. >> And I'm assuming there are some districts that have a little more work ahead of them because they haven't been delving as deeply into all these aspects. So, this is a big lift for for some towns. I really like that you're having um school climate committees include students and especially that fifth graders or fourth graders, elementary students know a lot about the school climate. They have insight that teachers don't have and so I think it's really important to hear from the kids in every school. Um and then um as far as reporting, the biggest change I see is the definition of bullying. And for years um you could not use that label unless you could prove
067that it was repeated behavior over a period of time. And now bullying can be seen as a isolated incident and and that changes a lot. um that term was restricted from being used because you couldn't you couldn't always find the repeated and so that I think that's going to change um be a an adjustment for people who followed the old definition. >> Yeah. And I think I would just echo is that even though we'll call it in the previous as like the old way I'll say is when something may have occurred that now would be considered or would meet the definition of bullying like we were still addressing it and we still knew like hey it's really important to address this issue we didn't just say well that was the first time we'll wait right
068so we would actually start and that's where we go back to those restorative circles those practices right on that first piece so for us I think what changes perhaps is now that it does get that term with it but ultimately our action and what we're hoping to get there isn't there really is no change for us. >> Shannon, >> um so I similar to Claire, I'm really excited to see that it's getting some more definition, but it still feels a little squishy to me in terms of it being in compliance with the state law and the shell that then enables the actual on the ground implementation. And I wonder if there could be something that strengthens around on page 24 that the board directs the administration of the district to develop a continuum of strategies
069dot dot dot that shall um be provided to the public through publication, not limited to publication in the relevant student handbook. I'm I guess I'm looking for a date certain by when that would happen so that we have something a little more concrete to wrap our arms around because I think when you speak to consistency I think that's what we want to see so that we don't have any incident or person fall through the cracks because their situation was handled differently but to have a protocol that everyone can kind of be on the same page with. So I'm wondering if there could be something to strengthen the date by which that would be in place. And then the second paragraph around the reporting out more specificity about the frequency like how often would we hear
070reports out about how it's going? If it's a pilot year, how what what did we learn from that? Um can it be you know once or twice a year to the board? just some more specificity in those two paragraphs I think gives more um kind of it feels like it's headed in the direction where we can codify what this looks like for West Harford Public Schools. Um so it's not it's not a guessing game to anyone. Everybody's on on that same page. Jump in quickly and you can add and correct anything I say. Julio. So I am aware that uh that that the state department of education has provided guidelines for school districts by which u they'll have their school committees uh formed, trained, have first meetings, things of that that necessarily a statement that
071lives within the policy. That's that's kind of like an implementation step and I'm sure Julio has those specifics and can share them. But then relative to you know the report outs and all the rest especially as we modify this I mean I would simply suggest the difference between which you'll pass as policy and then what you'll ask for as agenda because you always have the ability as a board to say hey we'd like an update on X Y or Z as opposed to creating a mandate for all future boards to have you know programmed pieces. So um I think especially you know I don't think that there's a a a dramatic difference in terms of how we will operate. there are some fine-tuning in terms of um we're looking at for instance the surveys we
072we've always given surveys and included questions um that relate to the environment and and and school environment and places you know interactions and satisfaction ratings with and the question is well the degree to which we will modify that to ensure that it's covering the bases that we need. Likewise, the the development of a of a district-wide school climate or a schoolwide climate plan. Schoolwide climate has always been a component of our school development plans. Um that are, you know, and we spend a significant amount of time talking with, you know, uh our principal team in terms of where they are, what metrics they have to show for that. So just how do we adjust for that so that we don't have to create a 10-page report that's an addendum to the 15-page report kind of
073a thing. Um, so I I think we can we can provide you as a board some additional information around that that's more procedure-based, regulations based versus policy based in my my opinion, but for your thought and consideration >> and if I may say in our policy subcommittee um to your point and also Ethan to what you were referencing in terms of data collection, the suggestion was made in terms of how it can be reported back to the board and so there was a recommendation for it to twice a year and that language will be added to what is written before us. Jason and then Latoya. >> So, one thing I I brought up in in the policy committee discussion of this was, you know, obviously we didn't have this on 5550 we had no control
074over the the language that was being used and and I had mentioned that I'm I'm troubled and I don't think it's necessarily the definition we would have come up with for bullying. Um and and um I I think it's problematic. Um and I was wondering kind of, you know, if you could speak more to the implementation and and to when that term would be used because as I remind my kids often, uh the term bullying can do a significant amount of harm. I mean, to be labeled a bully, um you know, that's harm in and of itself. Um and so I I don't think that should be thrown out so lightly. Um this is a big change in the definition. And I was wondering if you can speak to how that gets implemented. How, you
075know, do people get training on that? If there's a new expectation for how, you know, students are to behave. Um, so for instance, this references power dynamics is that I'm the captain of a team and, you know, am I in a power imbalance with someone who's, you know, underneath me? Uh, you know, those types of things because I I think if there's going to be this new standard there, I I'd like to know how that gets implemented. And again, what we do with with that definition because that has such power. >> Yeah. I mean, to be honest with you, I think I had the same um when I first saw that, that was something that did stand out to me. Um I've actually met with uh Jason Seagull, our athletic director, and talked to him
076a little bit about like, hey, when you're meeting with your captains, like good opportunity to start to roll some of this type of language out to let them just understand that piece. But it is a it is a significant change to that definition. Um, like I said before, I think how we would handle those things, I don't know that that necessarily changes, but I do think as far as looking at it falling under that umbrella of challenging behavior, you know, it does make that shift. Um, and so we have, as I mentioned, have had two trainings already with our principles. Um, in both of those trainings, we had multiple scenarios, and I will say that I think there was at least probably three scenarios, if not more, that um, would now meet the definition of
077bullying and sort of put that up there. um went through them and then sort of said, "Hey, what do you think? How would you handle this?" um to make sure that they understand that piece. But I think there is a component that we want to and as soon as you know the board makes that approval is start to think about, hey, how do we message this out um to not only our students but to families as well >> and I and I'll piggyback one thought. I I think this goes to the inclusion and and sort of the marriage of this policy with the restorative practices policy because we've seen this in our work with with parents when you know children adults you know at all times make bad decisions in a moment and might exhibit
078something which could be considered either challenging behavior or even by definition that's bullying behavior. But that's different when I personalize it to you and say okay that makes you a bully Julio. um that carries a whole different weight and connotation. That means that you're you know you're you're predisposed or you have a propensity for uh engaging in bullying behavior versus something that you did wrong that that can be viewed as bullying behavior and now I need to talk to you about that and let's let's let's implement the restorative uh work so that we can you know we can repair that harm and so that you don't become a bully. So but I know that that's a trigger word for many of our families. our families very much um are are are keyed in and don't
079want to see incidents of challenging behavior, but they certainly they recognize that their children may exhibit challenging behavior at times, but as soon as that word bully comes in and people will personalize that, are you saying my child's a bully? Say, well, I'm saying this uh your child engaged in what might have been bullying behavior and we'd like to work with them to kind of nip this in the bud and get past it and repair the harm. And so I think that's the importance behind the marriage of the two policies. >> Yeah. And I appreciate Paul highlighting that because that's actually some of the time we spent with our administrators is talking about the language and the words you're using because the truth is I think if a parent once you say that word like
080it's hard sometimes I think to get past that and to then really start to process and work together. And so as Paul said it's it's bullying behaviors um you know and really getting to those pieces to then start to work on the repair component. So what what I'm hearing a lot of and what I'm thankful to be hearing a lot of is this kind of holistic approach of of taking the individuals involved the situation involved and really looking at that that gets hard to implement right because it is such a a one-off it's it's it's this very specific fact intensive kind of kind of situation how does this get rolled out from here it's one thing for us to have this policy but because of the nature of what the policy is who gets training
081on this how do we make sure this is being implemented do we have situ situations where people are going to learn from, you know, a situation that happened in one school is is a model for for something else is, you know, we handled this really well or here's where restorative justice really could have come in and we didn't use it as well as we could have. >> Yeah. I I you know, I think we're very fortunate here in West Harper. We have phenomenal leaders, right? Our principles are phenomenal and they believe in this work. This is the work they do. And at all of our principal meetings, Paul always has time designated. And we even talked as a as a cabinet this year to say like, hey, let's really make sure we carve out time
082to have these conversations and to really say, hey, who's got an example we want to go through? Let's talk about best practices. Let's talk about maybe when we misstepped, hey, could we have done that differently? How would you have handled that? And start to work those pieces. Um, I think that's why it's critical that and and they know that and I've said just call me, call me and you know they have my numbers so I can get and work those things through and we can start to process these because you know I think the piece that can sometimes be challenging even when we're looking at um providing data to the board which again I'm happy to do is that the you know is it may not always be a equals b and in fact it
083rarely is right because that path to get there may be a little bit different or what caus it. So trying to figure out all of those various pieces and and that is it's it does take time. Um, and so I think Ethan was the one that asked like what's the financial piece behind it's it's not necessarily money, it's the time because to do it right, I do think you've got to slow down and really listen and you know and it's one of the things we've always talked about and that I believe in is that you know we're in the business of working with people and when you do that things can't be looked at as tasks because it's very easy when you get an incident that occurs or we'll call it a challenging behavior and
084you're like okay boom I'll do that to get it off my desk and move on to the next thing that I need to get done. But that's not how we do good work. And really saying that you need to slow down, listen, talk to the kids, talk to the stakeholders, and let's figure out what what happened, what really we need to do now to get to a place where, you know, we can ultimately welcome them back to the community and and figure out what needs to occur. Um, and that is going to require training at um all of our leadership meetings, which again we've carved out and started to look at those pieces. >> And and I just want to credit Julio, and maybe this will answer your your next question. I want to credit
085Julio and Teresa. They've already begun this work with our leadership team um in our back to school meetings. They did a number of scenario-based um examples. Uh Julio's kind of referenced them a little bit in his presentation tonight, but not to the depth that I can picture as I was sitting through it. Uh where they're describing things, talking about how how they did or didn't meet a specific new definition, but then really carved into but but what are the steps that you take? um had had the administrators from across the different buildings talking them through and we've done that and we do case studies on different things. You know, we've we've we've done it not only for um our work with restorative uh practices, we've done it for our work with security protocols. So, we
086we do it in a number of ways within our leadership meetings to try to cross-pollinate um the learning as you were asking. >> And and from the leadership, does it go down into the classroom? It's red. >> So again, great that the the leadership's being trained, but you know, this front line is in the classroom, right? So how does this trickle down? What kind of training is available for teachers? >> So it will there is some turnkey, but I'll I'll piggyback. This is this is relatively new. So I'll kind of just share how we've done it um with the SBDI that was brought up a couple of times. Um and I know that was a question. I didn't have available numbers. Uh but I put it in the most recent thing uh most recent superintendence
087update to you that I just sent out tonight. Um so when our schools were going through their two their secondary schools were going through their two-year SBI training, we had a core of between and based on the building size six to 12 teacher leaders that underwent a train the trainer model. Um and then within those they they had access to four or five different professional learning models under SBDI. they then turnkeyed that um to the entirety of the staff. Um but it but it's not always the entire staff that's necessarily going to um at least in these first couple years lead the restorative kind of a conference or something to that nature. Um some of that work will be done um initially at least especially as we consider how how this is working um through
088some of our assistant principles um and certainly our building administrators who will receive specific and ongoing training through structures that we have throughout this year but similar model we are able to turn key some of turnkey it we do have you know that that was one of Teresa's vision for the equity and diversity council was to um change that model from more of an afterchool setting to an in-depth inschool setting with folks that could be a dedicated arm to do some of this work and partners to the leadership. And so I think she's reported last year to you how within that um she has four full day workshops with the EDC members where they're delving into some of the restorative work and the uh building administrator joins for a period of several hours so that
089they can kind of cross talk strategy. So um we do have structures and and ideas in place how to turnkey it. But uh it's not an overnight because we don't think this work is easy. In fact we think it's very complex. Um there's got to be readiness. There's got to be subtlety. There's got to be sensitivity. So, we're not looking to turn it over to the masses, you know, in one month's time. Uh we really want to marinate um a core group of people in it at first. >> Victoria, and then Ethan. >> Yeah, thank you for all that context. Um, so I just got two little points I want to hit on this. And one is, uh, teachers and school staff are going to have to do this, too. Um, and I just want
090to throw it out there that this means that when a teacher or a school staff member, um, causes harm like the expect at least the expectation for me is that they are willing to sit in a circle with a student. They're willing to have those conversations. I've had to sit in a lot of uncomfortable circles with my students and say, "Listen, I'm sorry. this is what I was thinking, what can I do to make it right? And I think that's going to be one of the big drivers for consistency with the district is if adults are also modeling this, adults are also apologizing, taking accountability, and doing what has to be done to make things right. Um, and my second point, which is still on adults, is families. Um, and so families out there, like
091you have to be, you know, you have to rethink some of the things that are happening at home. How can you create uh household agreements with your students about, you know, accountability in the household? Um how can you, you know, when when they're doing things at school, maybe they're causing harm at school, how can you have these conversations at home around how to take accountability and like thinking about the impact of their words and their actions? So, I think um you know the whole community is going to have to really um start kind of speaking this language and taking on these practices because it's also not just on the district like on you know to to do the work. And so um I also, you know, I'm hoping there will be opportunities for for families
092to get trained. Um but I think that's going to be, you know, a big thing, too. We need the parents involved. We need them, you know, um using the practices. And then we need the adults in the buildings to use the practice. Just because we're adults doesn't mean that we're always right. And when we do cause harm, we need to take accountability in a real and authentic way with students. >> Ethan, and then Gail. >> So, I'm just looking for some clarification. Um, at while I don't know how many more minutes ago it was, about 10 15 minutes ago, we're talking about identifying individuals as bullying or describing bullying behavior. My assumption is because you have a committee that before anybody gets labeled as such, they would go before the committee. Nobody would be labeled
093by an individual, at least from the school perspective. >> So, the committee is reviewing, they're they're helping create the school improvement plans and then they'll be looking at data as well and what they think are things that we can do to improve, but they wouldn't be looking at a specific incident like that. Um, that's really where the administrator, myself, would really be talking that through. And you know, for something again like the bullying, we would need to look at the specific definition that's now been outlined by the state and looking at does it fit or not. >> But it'll go before multiple people as opposed to just one individual. >> Well, it would never go before one individual. Again, you've got the assistant principal, you've got the principal, you've got myself um looking at those,
094you know, looking at it all. >> That's what I wanted to hear. Yes. >> Thank you. >> G. Um yeah, I have a couple of questions. Um one thing that you know I I find questioning and and maybe somebody else was questioning this as well, but there seems I I do worry a little bit that there could be a lot of subjectivity here. Um and what if there's subjectivity meaning you know I'm a principal who is going to implement this this way in my school but another principal will implement it that way in in a different school. Um would that sort of open the district up to many problems when parents say well you know my kid was treated this way here but you know this kid was treated this way there. So when I
095think about policy now for challenging behaviors, um you know, I feel like we more or less have a policy across the district that, you know, is more or less consistent. And there's something about this that to me sounds very subjective. And maybe I'm mistaken. Um maybe you can comment on that. Um the other thing I wanted to ask you about is which I had kind of alluded to at the beginning. I mean there are certain um events that I would assume that you know you had said that other policies would come would sort of supersede this policy. So I'm assuming I that if there is violence um assault um that we would be handling that in not necessarily in a restorative way because that would mandate um a different response and I'm just would like
096to I mean it's not that we couldn't handle it maybe with restorative as well but I mean I would assume that in a situation of violence or assault or you know some of the other more serious offenses that we would be handling that in a different way and I just want to make sure I know you said you know different policies would would sort of supersede but I I I think there's a place for this but I don't think that there's a place for this across every type of incident in school that's my second and then I have one other thing but you can go ahead >> um so I'll just comment on the you know I'll start with the first one as far as subjectivity is concerned. Um, you know, I I think when
097you look at all discipline, I think when you look at teaching in general, right, like teachers get their curriculum and and how you're going to get there, you're going to take sort of your approach and how you want to get to that end result. I think when you look at the discipline piece, at the end of the day, you're looking at the story, everything that went into it, what the impact is, what the situation is. And so although it may often times from you know the top deck looking down right it may look the same but there was so much that went into it that made it you know a little bit different. And I think that's where our administrators do a really nice job of doing that. And although at the end of the
098day you know a student may receive the same consequence. Um but it's how they got there and what then comes from that piece. Like are they in a place to do those restorative circles? Are they not there yet? Do we need to give some more time? um you know and I think that's sort of the answer to that piece. I think as far as looking at um you know the different policies that may supersede things or or you know I think that we're looking at them together and so at the end of the day if there's a serious you know I I'll use a serious offense where you have a student gets expelled right so there there may be an expulsion at the end of the day we've gone through that process whatever those results
099were and then at some point that student's going to come back to school let's say it's a year from now like when they come back to school we still want to make sure that their the whatever harm they caused was repaired. Um, and so we went through all the and I'm using the most severe one, right? But I think that that hopefully can highlight what I'm talking about. Like we had to do those pieces. They went through all that process, but now we want them back in our community. We want them back. And and not only do they need to feel welcomed back, but we need to make sure that whoever that harm was caused that they're in a place where they can, you know, feel comfortable with that student back now. Um, and and
100sometimes that doesn't mean it's going to happen tomorrow, right? I think we've all had harm happen to us and you know truthfully like I may not be ready to have that conversation in 2 minutes. Um, but at some point like if we're going to have to work together again, like I I have to try to get to a place where I can, you know, do some of those pieces and ultimately if if that's not going to happen, right? Like I'm I'm not going to be able to do that, then we look at how do you make sure that those interactions are, you know, that that person feels safe too. And so maybe they're not in the same classroom, maybe they're not in the same lunch, whatever that would be. Um, so that we can do
101those. But at the end of the day, I don't know that we would ever do one and not the other. Um, oftentimes I think we're going to be doing them both at the same time. Okay, that was actually helpful. Appreciate that. Um, my last just comment is there is something in here and I don't remember on what page that you know you had to say if the event happened in school on school grounds and off premises. Um, so is this policy going to extend to something happening uh in someone's basement? So currently our policies and our practices do involve that depending on what the um what happens at school, right? If there's a significant disruption to the educational setting and now it's it's having an impact at school, then that could be something that we
102would look at. Other comments or questions? If someone already raised their hand to do so, pardon. All right. Well, again, this was a first reading and thank you for the robust discussion. This will come before us again for a second reading at which time we will vote on these two policies. I'll ask once again, is there any other any other questions or comments regarding policy 5550 or 5560? All right. Well, thank you very much, Julio. Thank you. Now moving on to ratification of the West Hartford Board of Education Professional Employees. Seeking a motion that the Board of Education ratify the negotiated agreement between West Harford Board of Education Professional Employees and the Board of Education for the period of July 1st, 2025 retroactive through June 30th, 2029. Is there a motion? >> So moved. >>
103Thank you, Jason. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Thank you, Shannon. Discussion. Well, welcome. I'll pass the mic to our superintendent who will pass the mic over. >> Thank you. Um I'll I'll turn this over uh quickly to our new negotiating team, Mr. Dwarte, Miss Majinsky, and Miss Rua. Um and thank them for the work that they've done and thank the work of our professional and technical staff as well. >> So before you for approval is the ratified agreement between the board of education and the professional employees. Um this is a group of about 30 individuals and they work in a variety of roles. Um that includes human resources, IT, transportation, residency, the benefits office. Um although they often work behind the scenes, their roles are extremely important to the management and operations of
104our district. So I want to start by thanking them um for all that they do. So, the professional employees ratified this agreement a few weeks ago. Um, the contract that you're voting on is a 4-year contract. Um, as you can see, if we just kind of go through, there's a general wage increase um each year of 3% and step movement. Um, the reason you'll see that there's retroactive pay, it's because the previous contract ended on June 30th, and since the negotiations took place over the summer, this was the first board meeting since the contract was ratified. Um, based on years of continuous service, there's also a lump sum longevity payment that is given each year on the anniversary date of employment at the following amounts. So, for 6 to9 years of service, it's $600. For
10510 to 14 years of service, it's $1,000. 15 to 19 years, $1,250. And 20 or more years of service, $1,500. Um, the premium cost share for employees will be 20.5% for the next two years. And then in 2027 and 2028 um that increases to 21.5%. And in 2028 to 2029 um that employees share is 21.75%. Um as far as retirement, the employee pension contribution will be at 6.25% 25% for this year and then in 2025 or in I should say the next three years starting in 2026 um it remains at 6.5%. Um this was the first contract negotiations that I was part of in this role. Um it was a very positive process. Um it was very collaborative and again we're thankful um for all the ways that they contribute to our district. Um, and
106if you have any questions, either I can answer them or Julio or um, Barb. >> All right. Thank you very much for the summary and welcome once again. You've been here before, but your new role, welcome once again. >> Thank you. It's a pleasure. >> Thank you. Pleasure to have you. Qu. Yes, Latoya. Um, I don't have a question, but I just want to say um like I just appreciate the work that y'all do and I wish like I just I'm seeing what people I am seeing what people in this country are being offered to do inhumane, vile, horrible things. Um, and it just makes me think about what teachers and and folks that are working in schools should be getting paid. Um, and so it lets me know that we do have the money
107in this country to do it. Um, and we're gonna keep trying to fight the good fight to to make sure y'all get at least close to what you deserve. Um, but I just I want to just say I recognize the moment that we're in. Um, I recognize the charge that you all have. Um, and it's no small feat. And so I wish we had an endless well of money to literally pay every person who works inside of our schools what they deserve. And so I just I just want to say that I recognize the work y'all do and I salute y'all. So thank you so much. Other questions or comments? And student reps want to say as well you also are able to participate in any conversation we have as well. Any other questions or
108comments? Ethan, >> I just have a procedural question. I assume this fits within this budget for this fiscal year. >> Yes. Um, when we're preparing our budget knowing that our contract is going into negotiation negotiations, uh, we make assumptions looking at other contracts so that it's in the budget. >> So, the assumptions were basically relatively there. >> Yes. >> Okay. Thank you. Any other questions? All right, with the motion on the floor, all of those in favor say I. I. >> I. >> Any oppose? Any abstain? The eyes have it. Thank you so very much. Thank you. And now moving. Oh, you all might as Yes. We're going to move right on to staff communications and reports. and we're going to have a table full of folks here where we're now going to first begin
109by hearing our superintendent's report and then hearing from several others. So, >> excellent. >> Passing it to our superintendent. >> Thank you very much. So, um before I get too far and I'll give I'll fill a buster a little team get settled. I do want to again welcome Bridgette and Kayla. Um it's a pleasure to have you both here and I'm looking forward to the year. Um I want to share a couple of things, couple of announcements that came in over the summer. So, this summer, uh, 3M, you're familiar with 3M? They make, uh, post I think they are the post-it note people, right? >> Yeah. And Discovery Education recognized, um, Aaron Shamstein, a current Hall freshman, a former KP Mustang, as Connecticut's state merit winner, uh, in the 2025 3M Young Scientist Challenge. The
110Young Scientist Challenge is a national level competition that features outstanding innovations of our youth um that demonstrates the power of science to improve the world. So Aaron was one of only 32 recipients uh of this honor from across the United States. We're very proud of him. He did so as a King Phip eighth grader. I know King Phillip is very proud. Um, also in late June, four students from Sedwick and Connard represented Connecticut through their participation in National History Day. Two students earned national recognition. Uh, Cameron Bachelder, a current eighth grader at Cedric, was a top 10 finalist in the junior individual documentary category and a recipient of the outstanding Connecticut entry for junior division award. and also Anna Pac Small, a current ninth grader at Connard, earned honorable mention in the junior individual exhibit
111category. And I just want to throw a shout out to David Lee, who uh is a teacher at Sedwick. He's to be credited for uh leadership and inspiration in not only the local, the state, and certainly the National History Day competitions. Very, very proud. Uh but moving along, a lot of my updates are really going to be taken up by this uh amazing crew in front of you. Uh and I'll just kind of kick them off. And if you're following along in your book, I believe we're on page 27. Um, and I wanted to just make mention that, uh, not too long ago on August 25th, last week, Wednesday, uh, we welcomed faculty and staff to our convocation. So, a huge shout out and thanks to Joy Wright, principal at King Phillip, uh, who was
112our host. Um, I want to thank Dr. Charlotte Whitman Logan, who is the director of Bow Strings, who gave an amazing performance. um as well as Dr. Gwen Baker, our director of sixth dimension. Um and Mr. Brian Pia who accompanied on the piano. Um just an incredible job done by our students and uh the most inspirational of which you know we our theme was making a difference and the story that came from Ali Alal um eighth grader at King Phillip uh was was nothing short of inspiring. So very very proud of all of them. And I would also have to give a shout out to our 2025 2026 teacher of the year from Charter Oak, Miss Christina Fidelfi, who gave a very energetic and very amusing address that really put us into a into a
113phenomenal mood. Um, thank you to Dr. Thomas Farcus for her wonderful comments as well. But it it just kicked off the year uh in the right spirits. We are on incredible momentum from uh from last year in terms of our achievements, things that we're going to highlight to you in upcoming board presentations. But this group is prepared to talk to you about what they did on their summer vacation um across our 16 schools. So without further ado, I will turn it over um and they will run through uh updates uh across each of the major functional areas in the order that you see um with each of them falling under their area of responsibility. So without further ado, I'll turn it right over to Mr. Dwarte. >> Okay. >> All right. So I want to
114provide you with an update of the work that took place across our district this summer. I will say I had a tremendous amount of fun going up on roofs and in uh basements and all of the cool places I've heard all about. Um but now I got to see them. Um so our teams and plant facilities, information technology and transportation have been hard at work all summer long ensuring our buildings and systems were ready for a smooth opening of school. So I'll start with plant and facilities. So the summer months were extremely busy with both large capital improvements and smaller maintenance projects. I'll go through a couple uh ones here. So, at Bristo, a new gym floor um was refinished as well as several classrooms and restrooms were painted. At Bugby, some major roof replacement
115and a new fire alarm system was done. Connard, I know we heard about um the nice main entrance corridor as well as gym floors were refinished. And then the new scoreboard for the girls softball field, which you can see the picture up there. And actually, I believe that's the Bristo gym you can see there as well. nice and shiny. And that is the King Phillip um roof that I got to tour while the solar panels are off of it. Um Duffy we heard a lot about over the last couple years. So a completion of this that significant HVAC project. Um so it is just uh wonderful there. Now um Hall High School, which I'll show some pictures in a minute, um had some security upgrades. They I'm sorry they had their cafeteria and uh restrooms
116done which I I know I'm hearing a lot of rave reviews about the restrooms and the cafeteria. So I'll show you that image in a bit. And then King Phillip also the security upgrade. So refiguring that entrance way which should be complete by the end of September. And then Walkit as well which that'll go on throughout the year but we're doing a pretty significant um faceelift to that as well. So beyond these projects, all schools received a very thorough cleaning, inspections, and repairs, and fresh mulch was added to all of the playgrounds, which I know is very important. Um, when you look at information technology this summer, again, a tremendous amount of work was done by our IT department. One of the things I did want to highlight that we apply for a $1.6 million
117- funding, which essentially is federal funding that supports networking equipment. So it's on a fiveyear cycle. We've, you know, knock on wood, we've always gotten it, but this was the time to reapply for it. So, we're uh anxiously anticipating getting that implementing single sign on for many of our systems. And I am a huge supporter of single sign on probably because I can't remember my passwords half the time, but it does make things much easier for myself. I see some people have that same uh issue. Um, and then integrating some of our financial systems with some of our other pieces to really reduce the paperwork, getting P school to now have students IEPs and 504s on there, which I think makes uh life a lot easier for teachers, but also really helps with some of
118the compliance issues, making sure that everyone knows what our students need to have. Um, launching the school status connect, which is a way for our teachers to communicate with families. Um, it's a lot easier. We've been hearing a tremendous amount of positive reviews. It actually allows teachers to use their cell phone and it changes the number so that you can now either text a parent back and forth or you can actually use your phone and you're not now needing to use your own personal number on there. Um and it does translate into the languages of that individual preference. So it's really helping families have that back and forth communication with um schools and teachers. On the infrastructure side, we continue to roll out the Infirmoccast rapid response system. So again, that's a uh quick response
119that gets emails out right away in an emergency. It also has the ability for two-way communication with the police. And so we were trying that at the different schools as the summer went along and really happy to have that in all of our buildings. Um we essentially got rid of what I called many of our landlines in some of our locations like our elevators and and those pieces. And believe it or not, that's going to have a $200,000 savings. Um, so I think the company actually was wanting us to get rid of it, which is why their fees were so loud. Um, so we've been happy to do that and we've just seen that it's actually a lot more reliable as well. And then our IT actually closed out 17,000 help desk tickets this year,
120replaced 2,000 devices, and they were proud to tell me that they had a 99.9% uptime across our network. So folks were able to get on that network. So, um, you know, I think that's something that we certainly want to give kudos to. From a transportation side, we anticipate having over 5,200 students this year on our buses. I will say that that's been um filling a lot of my time in this job. Uh, learning a lot about the buses and the routes and and all of those things. Um, and that we anticipate having over a hundred more students this year. And that's 92 buses over 209 runs. Um, and so we were fortunate. We partnered with uh, First Student, who's our company. I met with them over the summer, really talked about some of our expectations,
121some of the things we're hoping um, can run smoothly, they had some significant training for their drivers and really hoping to to have all of those pieces and and and I did hear that although there were certainly some hiccups here and there, for the most part, our buses really ran smoothly. Um, so I had my fingers crossed the entire day. I think when Paul walked in, he just saw me sitting there like this the whole day. So, um, and so in closing, I would be remiss if I did not take a moment to personally thank our extremely dedicated staff and plant facilities, it transportation for their outstanding work and really everyone that goes into making uh, the back to school uh, feel special for all of our kids and all of our families. Um, I
122believe the work that they completed this summer not only enhances the safety and functionality of our schools, but also creates the conditions for greater efficiency and a most and most importantly a better experience for our students, our staff, and our families. And so, just a couple pictures before I turn it over to my friend here so you can see what the bathroom looked like um, and now what it looks like. And that's the picture on the left. Your left. Yep. And then on the right, that's Walit. So you can see that we had to put up a wall while we continue to go through those renovations. But I think uh Mr. Dunn has done a very nice job to make it look um really nice while we continue to go through those renovations. You can
123see here's King Phillips. So a pretty significant redesign there. And so um that's what it looked like. And then you can see the beautiful um piece where they're at there. And again, that should be complete shortly. And then last but not least is you've got the beautiful Titan Beastro. Um, which I can't wait. I know Bridget, that's how I felt as the former Connor principal when I saw this. Um, but it is really, really nice. Um, and so without that, I will turn it over to Ann. >> Well, it's so nice to see all of you over in the office of curriculum instruction and assessment. We've been spending our time this summer working in four primary areas. First, of course, aligned with your goal of recruiting, retaining, and developing a high quality uh staff, we
124have put a lot of effort into some professional learning uh efforts. And primarily, we sent two leadership teams to solution trees PLC at work institutes to deepen our expertise in using evidence of student learning to plan ahead and to guide our instructions our instruction. Um, we're very excited about this effort because it is key to it. It it aligns beautifully with our coherence work so that our teachers look closely at student work to identify what students have learned and then to plan accordingly. Um, this is uh this will be a year-long effort to train all of our administrators and um we have other groups going later in the school year. We also um continue to invest in our AP program which is as you well know from our reports an exceptionally uh successful program. This
125year six educators uh participated in AP training supporting new courses and deepening learning for experienced teachers. Um, one highlight will be our new AP cyber security course that will be piloted at hall this year that also has industry uh that prepares students for certifications in industries um industry level certifications like comp TIA security. Um, we also invested in our school counselors by sending some to the uh ASA annual conference where they were able to uh choose from a variety of different topics. Um, in partnership with Melissa's office, we are very pleased to follow our training that comes from our HR office on day two and August 22nd. We invited our new teachers back for a second day and our office uh office of curriculum instruction assessment had the teachers for half that time where they
126introduced them to where can you find these resources, what are our highly effective teaching strategies that we as a district believe in and of course introducing them to the vision of the graduate which is the goal for it's kind of the north star which guides us. So we were very happy to partner uh with Melissa's office and she'll talk about what they did on during their time with them. Our office works all summer to continue uh curriculum updating under the great leadership of Eileen Nustace and Melissa Baron's curriculum writing teams work all summer uh to update certain projects that have been identified during the course of this school year as needing updates and making sure that they're readily readily available in our digital repository so people don't have to pass binders to each other. They
127can easily get their curriculum. And um we also of course are running summer programs and we served over 900 and just this is just on our side because Melissa of course has a side too. Just on the office of curriculum instruction assessment we have a high school summer school program um which has been very successful running for years where we served 327 students in district and 57 out of district. A number of those students are getting credit recovery and a larger number are even uh advancing their uh advancing a credit or two during this uh in the summer. We ran the summer connections program for grades one through five at Charter Oak Elementary. Um and that focuses on literacy and math skills. We ran our ESOL summer uh school program out of Smith school this
128summer and I think that that program had about 160 students and there's also a parent uh Esau class that's running at the same time that served another 21 parent groups I believe. Um our Hannik summer program is a program that runs out um down in our Hanukkah center in the Hillrest neighborhood and serve 21 students there. And we also have summer music programs that are running in conjunction with leisure services. Um, so we totally a total served 96 students this summer in programming. Very good. I'll pass it over to Melissa. Oh, I did want to mention one other update. I'm sorry. Uh, just recently uh preparing for the school year. We've gotten our list of bilingual schools for the year. We just received that. And we have seven bilingual mandated schools from the state department
129of ed this year. Charter Oak mandated for Spanish. Whiting Lane mandated for Spanish. Smith for Portuguese and Spanish. King Philip Middle for Spanish. Um Sedwick for Spanish. Connard and Hall both for Portuguese and Spanish. So when a school has more than 20 students they need to be served, they are designated as mandated bilingual schools by the state department. So that will be for the upcoming school year. Good evening and happy school year from the Office of Pupil Services. Welcome to our two newest board members. So nice to see you and have you serving on the board. I always like to start with our annual performance report because that is one of the ways that the state measures the performance of our compliance with individuals with disabilities for education act. And um this issuance is a
130couple years back. So it does reflect the 22 23 school year, but we again met the highest determination level of meets requirements which we're very proud of. And in that issuance, some of the key areas that we're really um proud of include our graduation rates for students with disabilities, our early childhood outcomes, our post-secary transition goals, and our timely and accurate reporting. Notably within our graduation rates, um the state is at 85% for students with disabilities and West Herford is at 94.9% and that's a couple of years ago and it um does capture some of the difference there might be students who are participating in our post-secary transition program that do not take their diplomas at the time of graduation. Um and we know that that's a growing program. So we're very proud of our
131graduation rate um comparative to the state in early childhood outcomes. When we look at the two-year comparison, we really see some great growth in our positive social emotional skill development, the use of knowledge and skills, and overall the number of students that are exiting the program um meeting age level requirements and um expectations is is really um fantastic. We're very happy about that. And while very slight um you know I talk about our out of district numbers quite often and our work around having a designated pupil services administrator who's doing the work of bringing students back going out to sites getting to know our families bringing them into our community um and really on an ongoing basis across the school year. Our students are metriculating back to their least restrictive environment. And so we finally
132saw a little dip in that number for the 22 23 school year. And I'm hoping when future data is released, we'll be able to realize some of our efforts relative to bringing students back to their illery. So I was very proud um to see that in the report um relative to our summer. So as Ann was sharing on um some of the great programs that she was offering, we welcomed 400 students to our extended school year program, which is a four-week program that occurs over the summer, five days a week. And we were just thrilled to have our students back with us for that time. We have um a shortened day program and an extended day program. And we also um had a great opportunity for our extended school year students that was solely offered
133to them which was a camp which was a partnership with the Justice Education Center called Inspire Ability. And 75 students who were eligible for extended school year were able to participate in a camp that ran for two weeks at Charter Oak International Academy. and informal feedback from that social opportunity was overwhelmingly positive from different stakeholders, staff, students, and families. And so, we were very happy. And I'd like to acknowledge Kelly Browse's leadership in that, our assistant director. She did a lot of work um to provide that opportunity to our students, and we were so happy to be able to do that this school year for the summer. As we welcome students back at the beginning of this school year, we are welcoming back um 1,879 students with individualized education plans. that number when we look
134at our October one number of last year which is our kind of time stamp that's about a hundred students more with IEPs than last year at this time we have had a number of moveins the number is still a moving target um and so that we do anticipate that that number will grow and we have approximately 1 students who have section 504 plans who have accommodations um when we look back at the report again our annual um our annual performance report from 22 223 our percentage rate was at 17% prevalence rate but our current standing in 2025 is at 20% of prevalence rate for students with disabilities and really what that means for us and we talk about um you know the overall impact of our enrollment and our programming and so for us that
135meant that we were increasing programming for students who have pretty significant needs. So, our intensive academic programming grew at the elementary level by two sections and also our post-secary classroom at the secondary level. I will tell you just kind of surveying where we are in terms of our enrollment right now. Those classrooms are are very full. So, as students are moving into the district, we're seeing that that high needs population is a trend we continue to see here. And so those classrooms comparative to our resource um types of models, that is the area that we're seeing the most amount of student growth in terms of our actual enrollment numbers. So we do um we do monitor that closely across the school year. Um and relative to staffing, we welcome back 21 um new staff that
136might have been to fill positions for staff that had retired or moved on. And then six of those were new positions in response to the student needs that we had anticipated from last year into this coming school year. And so amongst those were special education teachers, related service providers such as a school psychologist and a speech and language pathologist and a board certified behavior analyst. Um, and as Ann was saying, it's we have such a nice opportunity um, following such a beautiful welcome back ceremony that Shannon had put on for our new faculty members that we're welcoming back to the new school year and um, had them for half the day. We had them the other half of the morning on Friday, which was just a great opportunity to meet with pupil services staff and
137really ground them in our policies, our procedures, our resources, so they're really set up for success. And similarly working with the general education teachers that will be working with students with disabilities really setting them up for success and helping them understand um who their who their team members and colleagues will be that that will be supporting them understanding how to support a student who has a disability and what resources might be available to them to really help them feel secure and confident going into the classroom um as they start the school year. Um annually we have a legislative update and this year in special education the legislative session was very heavy and um I won't bore you with all the granular details but certainly if you would like some light bedtime reading um the legislative
138update is um very very dense this school year and a lot of it is around private placements and so when you really look at what was the focus of this legislative session it was around private providers and the private sector and it includes everything from legislation around cost um cost capping for for services so that all prov private providers are charging the same billable rates for speech and language services across all providers. All um private schools are have the same tuition rate. Um this is similar from what we saw through the special education advisory board um task force that they had done. So some of these we see are kind of paired with that other um other components that really go into you know um contracts for private providers um excess cost billing for private
139providers. So just a lot around really the focus of bringing students back into district and looking at making um outside providers when we do need to go along the continuum a little bit more affordable and cost-effective. So we saw a a lot of emphasis there. A really big change in our work is the change for developmental delay. Um Connecticut was one of the few states that allowed de developmental delay as an eligibility category only until the age of five. Many states had expanded that beyond the age of five and Connecticut in this legislative session changed that. Um that's a benefit to our students because it allows for more time for them to develop and grow and mature as we assess what their needs might be before we determine what their eligibility category is. if in
140fact they even have one. Um so it just gives them a little bit more time until the age of eight. Also um unique in this session was a um office of educational onbuds person and that person um will be appointed by the governor and their sole role will be to support special education families in districts when there might be a dispute in formally resolving those um those conflicts. So, we look forward to that appointment and better understanding what that person might be doing in that role and how they might support our families. And um partnering with Ann's great work that she's doing on the curriculum side, we really worked hard to get our CTE system up and going. It's running much more smoothly. And the past couple years, we've been working on quality IEPs. And
141last year, we really transitioned to writing standardsbased IEPs. And that's really great work that's been um articulated from the curriculum office all the way through our department to really ensure that when we're writing IEPs that they're standardsbased so that we could really zero in on those achievement gaps and work to close them. And so we're very excited to continue that work this this school year. Um, also, um, we have some great community partnerships that we're continuing this school year and we're so grateful to those community, um, organizations that give so much to our schools, namely the bridge. So, the bridge counseling services are offered for all students at no cost within our schools. That includes counseling, direct counseling services, and also mentoring mentorship programs and small groups. Um, it could be a grief group, a
142friendship circle. Um, so the bridge does really great things for all of our students. We're so fortunate to have them. In addition to that program, they also at the middle schools run a mental health clinic that operates separate and different from the partnership that we have for them. And that is um an opportunity for families to access mental health services in the middle school through their insurance. And so that allows them if they're having difficulty accessing mental health services outside of school during um after school hours due to other commitments or obligations, they have the opportunity to have those services during the school day at the three middle schools, which is of huge benefit to our families um and has been a very successful partnership. Um this year we also were the recipient of a
143partnership that came through the state grant for effective school solutions. They're an organization that provides mental health services um to the local area and they had received a large grant and they needed to partner with the school district. We had a previous uh re uh relationship with them that was very positive and so they reached out to us and said we've received some money. We'd like to part, you know, partner with West Harbor public schools again. And so this school year we have two programs running, one at Bristo and one at King Phillip Middle School, which is a throughine for our engagement and attendance programming that we have at the high school because when we really look across um where those systems break down, it tends to be middle school and by the time they're
144in high school, we have students who are already avoidant and non-attending. And so we wanted to provide services and supports for students at the middle school to really intervene sooner. and we're very excited for that partnership with Effective School Solutions. So, those two clinicians are already partnering and at those school sites. I'd also like to acknowledge our partnership with West Harford Social Services. They do so much for the town and so much for our youth and they are such a great partner for us um in the community and for us in mental health services, but they do so much more. They offer trainings such as um QPR training, which is a suicide prevention training. They offer parent information nights. They do a lot around um awareness events and so we're just very grateful for all
145of their services that they offer in their partnership with us. And last but certainly not least, I want to acknowledge our special education PTO or SEPTO. Uh very vibrant community and we're so fortunate they have a new leadership team and have put together a really beautiful calendar of events for this upcoming school year. And our first event is on September 17th and it's our big kickoff event. So we're looking forward to welcoming families. There's no cost to participate. Um, so if you're interested in joining, there's information on our website. Um, or you could reach out to Kelly or I so we can get you that information. Thank you. Passing on to Shannon. Thank you, Melissa. Um, I just want to start by publicly thanking everyone at this table and Paul who has been so incredibly
146welcoming and supportive to me all summer as I've transitioned into this role. And I also want to give a shout out to the amazing HR staff. Um Ammani and Karen and Josie and Linda and Kim are just absolutely outstanding and their professionalism, their work ethic, the knowledge of all of the systems and processes in human resources um has been so incredibly helpful. So I'm thankful for all of you. Um so this summer we were very excited to welcome 53 new contracted teachers plus 11 interim staff members. Um we have five new administrators including a new principal at Webster Hill and at Aken. Um our turnover rate remains consistent at about that 6%. Um the retirements this year accounted for a large number of that turnover percentage. um through surveys and exit interviews, we also try
147to get a sense of why people are choosing to leave and some of those are family needs, relocations, um job changes and other factors. Um again, we were very pleased to have a very high number of highly skilled um candidates. We had nearly 2,000 applicants, which is about 300 more than we've had over the previous two years. Um 59% of our new staff have five years or more of teaching experience. Um which really just speaks to the high caliber of staff and the number of people that are really seeking out West Hartford. At the new teacher orientation, we did a little exercise where we had people stand and share um the amount of years of experience they have teaching. And we have people that are signing their very first professional contracts. And we had many
148people that have been teaching for 20 or more years that were really looking um for a district like ours um and at a point in their career where they wanted to be in some place like West Hartford. Um the diversity of our staff remains a continued area of focus. The percentage of new hires that identified as minority candidates is 14% which is slightly um more than last year. So, the overall diversity of our staff remains at approximately 10%. Um, and we clearly still have work to do in order to have our teaching demographic mirror our student population. Um, we're excited to continue to be a district partner for the Connecticut teacher residency program. Um, working also in collaboration with Teresa's office. We have two new resident teachers this year that will be working at Whiting
149Lane in special education. We also have two teachers that are in year two of the program. Um, one is working in the ELC and one is working in Strive. Um, those are all um, resident teachers that have already previously worked in West Hartford. They came highly qualified by their principles. They went through a rigorous application process, interview process, and we're really excited um, to be working with them and also continuing to look for ways that we can support them and support the program. Um, similar to last year, we had a lot of success of having both teachers working in the same school. It also helped for them to be a support to each other and that's what we have this year also with Whiting Lane. Um, on August 21st, we had the new teacher orientation
150as an and Melissa mentioned that was a nice partnership. Um, that was a two-day program. I want to thank Brian D. Roger. He's a first grade teacher at Duffy and he helped to facilitate the program and he brought such energy and passion and just such a love for children in the profession that I know really resonated um with all of the new staff that were there. We also had three Brayburn students, Elijah, Lola, and Quinn that spoke about why they love their school and why they love their teachers. Christina Fidelfi, our West Hartford teacher of the year, um gave a speech and spoke to the new staff. And we also had Jessica Blitzer that provided information on the history of West Hartford and the public schools that I have to say after being here 25
151years, I still learned some new things um from her presentation. And then in addition, we also had at the new teacher and lunchon, Paul addressed the new staff, Rick Ledwith spoke with them. And Lorna, I know it was also a pleasure for them to get to hear your perspective both as board chair and as a mom. And I think that that really resonates and gave another reason of why West Hartford is such a special place to be. Also, at the lunchon, we continued a tradition that Julio had started last year by honoring teachers for their years of service. So this year we honored five teachers that are um starting their 30th year in the district and we have 83 employees this year that are starting their 25th year in the district. So we have a
152little um recognition token of our appreciation for them and they'll be recognized among their staff this fall. But I will say the new teacher orientation was probably, you know, one of the highlights definitely of my summer and just getting to welcome so many new staff to our district and letting them really see what makes us great because at the end of the day, it's the teachers and the staff who all of those children go in every single day um we hope with smiles on their faces to learn and grow. So, thank you. Moving right along. Hello and welcome back everyone. It feels just like yesterday I was here with you on the last meeting. So I'm really honored to be back um and dive into a little bit of what we did this summer um
153as a department for the office of equity advancement as well as the work that we have ahead. And as um I think Julio gave the prelude, we have a lot of uh continuing to work work to do um as we um partner in in the restorative uh I don't know foundation, right? That's that's important for us to have as a district to do the our work moving forward. Um so I'll start with a little bit of the professional development. this year. Um this summer I was um blessed, thank you an uh to have um eight um staff members um teacher staff members work together uh with the office of equity advancement to develop some modules for restorative practices that we will um that the entire district will use throughout the year. Um I believe that
154uh when we think about uh the work of restorative practice, I know that we it's the temptation is to talk about what happens when things go wrong. Um but if I if I drew a pie chart of what restorative practices at are um at their root um it's it's the 80% of that chart is what we do when things aren't going wrong. um um you know, restorative practices have its its roots in indigenous roots um that um where it's it's about community and it's about how you instill a sense of community um in a place, right? So you have a bunch of people, you all gather together in a place and you spend time together. Um it's the difference between, you know, if we all lived in an apartment building versus we we became a
155family, right? there's there's a different process for not just sharing space um because we have to, but sharing space because we want to and we value each other, we see each other, we know each other. Uh and so although there's lots of temptation to be really concerned about what happens when things go wrong, the idea is that you prevent things from going wrong by having um really wellestablished practices for how to make sure that things are going right. Um that happens through communication. It happens through building um trust. Um and I think you know Latoya hit the nail on the head when we talk about this is not a practice that happens outside of the adults. It's actually very it's a very heavily adultdriven um theory of action. Um you know if you think about
156your family, your children weren't running how your family went, right? How things went, what time you went to bed, etc., etc. Those were adult decisions that helped kind of frame the work that happens. and you and you allow children to help inform what happens. Well, it's the same with the school, right? We we always talk, I think, in terms of um schools being families, it kind of follows that same family model. The adults are kind of creating the condition for how things work. What happens when I as the adult make the mistake and you know, I accuse you of doing something that you didn't do? How do I respond to that? Do I acknowledge, hey, listen, I know that I said that you did it. I I apologize. you know, that was that was really
157so and so. They came up and told me it's about how you manage things when they happen. So, um, you know, I can't stress it enough because I've been down this road in five districts. Um, and I can tell you when it's successful and I can tell you when it's not successful. When we focus on what happens when it goes wrong, that's the recipe for to not be successful. You really do have to build the culture. We're not looking to do restorative practices. We're looking to be restorative. It's a very it's sounds like it's a small tweak, but it's not. It's big. Um, it's it's understanding that we're all human. We all air. Um, and when that happens, how do we make things right, but more importantly, how do we relate to each other on
158a day-to-day basis? Um, so, um, this amazing staff that got together this summer to work on our restorative practices, um, spent time building those foundational pieces, respect agreements, right? not rules on the wall that you walk in the door and I already tell you what the do's and don'ts of this space but how do we work together to create how we're going to treat each other when we're in a space um what does respect look like for you for you know for teachers how does it look for them and how does it look for students how do they want to be respected how do we want to respect each other right um we start the process as leaders with actually doing respect agreements amongst ourselves as a leadership team again you model what you want
159to see happen so the principles had to experience. What's it like to do build a respect agreement? That way they can go back and they can model in their buildings to show teachers what's it like to build a respect agreement and then the teachers will go back to their classrooms and what is it like to build a respect agreement because it's not a it's not a hierarchal system. Um the indigenous practices and not just indigenous when we think of um Native Americans but also African indigenous tribes. The reason why they have that is because it there isn't a hierarchy, right? So, it's not about I'm the adult in charge and my feelings matter more than yours. It's it matters how we treat each other. And so, you take account to all those things. Um, so
160we had um a actually a middle school teacher who actually wrote out our our respect agreement module for that can pilot that out and and what the principles are given is actually completed um modules that they can actually do and you can do it as is because it has all the information and the links and the activities. Um or you know my suggestion to all leaders um because I never like to be told exactly what to do is that you take it and you make and you mirror it and you model it for your staff and you make it your own and you add um anecdotes that your staff gets, right? It's like in-house jokes like you add what makes it personal to your staff and you you bring it to life. You breathe life
161into um the basic materials that you've been given. Um so they they processed through and went through um eight. So we started with um respect agreements went to effective statements. So because as adults we never we actually didn't really practice the art of um telling somebody hey you did this and it makes me feel like that right. Um that's a really important um thing to practice and it's especially important thing for adults to practice with children um because we don't typically do that. Again I've been a teacher. I I've been taught by teachers. Um, and I can I can say as a a student, I don't think I ever heard an adult speak to me in that way where they're acknowledging that a choice that I've made has made them feel a certain way and
162it's impacting their ability to do their job. Um, that's so when I talk about what restorative practice is, yeah, it's not something that um if you're adopting the practices, you're you're changing how you do business. Um and and you have to learn it indiscreet skills and it's also mindset shift um and there's a lot of practicing. So when Julia was talking about um the work that we do in leadership meetings um he means it like you don't get good at this by just learning it in a book. We we do scenarios you have to practice it. You have to talk about it. You have to calibrate. Um so you know all that work kind of gets crafted um and then we practice it together. So whatever module they're going to do in their buildings, we
163practice at our leadership meeting. We give them an opportunity to ask questions. We give them opportunity to practice. Um we also then partner them with their EDC chair, their EDC lead, um which who's the teacher leader or who supports and helps them with this work and allows that again to bring another perspective in to make that happen. So um again, super proud of the work that they were able to get done. And to be honest with you, um I think I'm I'm learning the art of um sharing responsibility, which is not easy for me. So just being able to to um allow um you know, amazing teacher leaders to to take charge and to create um and to put their own spin on things was a learn experience for me um that I had to
164learn to lean into. Um, and I'm extremely proud of it because, um, they blew me away with what they came up with, with their perspective, with their approach to it. Um, and so we had a a really great summer with with creating that um, so that all staff in West Hartford can um, can benefit from that. Um, again, as we learn to be more restorative, not do restorative. Um so also um we are we're looking at being um really proactive when it comes to um having dialogue u particularly around um some challenging behaviors um that we have observed particularly in the high school. So um having um I work got to work together with the high school principles this summer. Um I'm looking at the data and identifying what were the things that popped up
165for them as you know um the challenging behaviors that we see continuing to pop up and and creating with them some community lessons and some modules that they'll run through with um the high school students um just to to preemptively have the conversations and use that within community lessons um to just have some real discussion that doesn't involve um that looks to kind of um take away rather whether or not the person in front of you um is is totally comfortable like starting that conversation and then carrying it forward, right? Like so it's you're going to learn some things and then the adult just facilitates a really good conversation which is how um students learn best, right? This kind of like the Socratic method, right? You're we're going to we're going to throw something out
166there and we're going to all talk about it and you all get an opportunity to kind of um put your thoughts and build off of each other. Um, so we're excited to pilot that and and get that started within a month or so for our high school students. And then um I got to spend um Can you press like picture pictures? H the best one of the best parts of my summer is um just spending all the time in the community with community activities. Um, you know, so much of this work, um, and so much of the work that we do in general in schools, it feels like it's a school thing, but the reality is is it it's not we can't do anything without community and to be surrounded by the community uh, and
167I'm part of the community. So, this was actually our um, back to school bash that was um, actually not ours. We we were we were there in support um, with Elevate Weha and Concerned Parents of Color of West Hartford. Um, so we had um, well, I was supposed to have a table, but anyway, things happened. I ended up with a couple little tables um with activities that actually um you know I don't know why I'm always surprised at this but we we I had activities that kind of got people to come and sit and sit in in you know mixed groups of people and just talk about um you know what was happening while they were like like drawing or painting or what have you. I have to tell you um I had I met
168the most amazing students but also their parents and and relatives that they brought with them as they sat there across from people who they'd never met before and just talked and you know organically um you know the topic of obviously of school came up uh and you know they got to share some of you know their hopes and dreams for what we're hopefully doing in the school systems and how and I got a whole bunch of feedback because that's what you do if you know um you have students I you know I have ears I want to know how can we be better and So I was able to get some of that information which was great as well. He hit again. Thank you. Um and then um no offense to Paul but he wasn't
169able to join. So I got to go to the Nepali graduation ceremony and um and hand out certificates. But um we have a growing Nepali community um Nepalese commu community here in West Hartford and they had a summer um camp that or summer school that ran uh where they taught language um culture and and like you know um traditional dance um for uh that 10-week program. And so they have a graduation ceremony at the end of it and um because Paul was celebrating his anniversary which I you know I told him I was like your wife probably isn't going to appreciate you trying to not go to that. So I got to go um along with the um deputy mayor is technical title. Yeah. So we you know we we bonded over this and and
170got to have this opportunity. But it was a great way to connect um and to and to learn. I I learned a lot. Um, I also learned how much I don't understand of of you know, Nepoese. I was like, what what was what's being said? Rarely am I in a space where I'm totally out of like where I can't even make like, you know, connections with even part of the language. And so, um, that was definitely a learning experience for me. And I I'm committing to learning a little bit um so that I can communicate and next time I go I practice a phrase, Paul, but I will tell you that I chickenened out from using it. Um as they gave they let me do a speech and I I practiced all day long and
171then when I got there I'm like I'm not saying this cuz I'm going to mess it up. And anyways, next time I will be braver. Um and then last um but certainly not least uh we welcomed um into our West Hartford family 36 I believe um new um families that are participating through open choice and we had a welcome back um celebration for them uh in August and it was just amazing. Um I didn't get a picture of her um that way she was standing still. She kept moving. So, like I got like action pictures, but um you know, one of the students was a a kindergarter coming in who I kid you not, it was the most um comfortable child with a microphone I think I've ever seen at 5 years old. And I
172taught first grade. So, when I tell you like super comfortable, she was running the show. I she actually had to have the microphone like taken from her because she was on a roll. Um but we you know what was beautiful about it is we had um we had our staff mixed in with our families and students. We had student ambassadors who got to come and talk about the schools um and just really have um beautiful conversations about what it's like to be a West Harper public school student. And and what I love even more is that they were honest. Um they you know we we are not um as amazing as we are. We have work to do. And I think when kids can acknowledge we have work to do and they can remind adults
173that we have work to do, we're all better served for it. And so, um, it it was an amazing night. We had about 35 families, over 50 people, um, come, um, and then we got to break bread together, um, and learn about, you know, West Hartford Public Schools. Um, and kudos to Amy um, Yarborough on my team who, um, thought, dreamed this up and and executed it. It was phenomenal. So, I think that's it for me. >> Thank you. >> Last but never least, >> good evening. It is my pleasure to speak with you this evening regarding the first day of school enrollment snapshot. Westford Public Schools opened the year with 8,670 K through2 students enrolled. This was reduction of 16 students from the prior year and 22 fewer than previously projected. For elementary students,
1743,96 students were enrolled. This represents 22 additional elementary students compared to the prior year and 42 more than projected for the current school year. Variances were most notable in the first grade which added 11 students and the third grade which added 22 students compared to projected. There are currently 202 elementary sections six above the budget resulting in section sizes of 19.3 on average. Um all but one section is within class size guidelines with one exception due to late enrollment and that section will receive additional instructional support. Middle school enrollments um were five less than prior year and 19 students less than projected. Sixth grade was uh down 31 students whereas seventh and eighth increased three and nine students respectively at the high school level. Connor has 20 had 29 fewer students than projected and hall
175saw an increase of three students. Total high school enrollment for Hall and Connor totaled 2,749. Uh, as mentioned earlier, this is a one-day snapshot and so enrollments will be changing throughout the course of the month. Um, and I will be back to report out to you in the official enrollment report as of October 1st later this fall. Thank you. One alibi for me. I didn't thank Melissa Cabalero for her amazing MC job at uh convocation. She's got talents beyond special education. If you need her parties, I have her number. Um but pending your questions. Thank you very much for the information. Hands raised already. Yes, I see Latoya and start with Latoya. I got a lot to say tonight. Just kidding. No, I just I it's just another opportunity to to give y'all kudos and
176it's the beginning of the year and I just want to make sure I continue like I feel like I there's no limit to appreciation. Um but the from the improvements um on the buildings which is about access to the special education work, making sure all our students have resources and supports to to be successful. That's equity. you know, thinking about how we uh recruit folks um and thinking about um you know, how do we get people that mirror our community, that's diversity. And then the sense of belonging that you are all so committed to and making sure that every student in the district has that as a dignified human being and and that they're worthy of that. I mean, it's beautiful. And so, you know, I just I like to point those pieces out because
177sometimes there are misconceptions about what diversity, equity, and inclusion is. and everything that we're doing. Like that's it. It's making sure every student has access, every student has support, every student has resources, every student feels like they belong. And y'all are doing an amazing job and you're not backpedaling. You're standing 10 toes down. And I respect that. So, thank you. All right. Other uh feedback comments. Yes, Claire. Um thank you for the reports. Um, great things have been done this summer and I think you have a great foundation for for the next year. I had a couple questions. Um, Melissa, does the developmental delay change in age increase the case load or numbers of identified special ed kids? >> You know, that's a question to be determined. um you know, one would presume that it
178would be more the eligibility category for a particular student versus another student carrying it beyond that would not typically be identified because we're still going through an eligibility process. So all of our same regulations will stay in place. We'll still do comprehensive child fine for any student with a suspected disability. The only difference will be that when we come to the eligibility determination, we will have the opportunity to consider developmental delay as maintained beyond the age of five. So, I see that coming into play for a student who um has been identified with a developmental delay and they're due for their three-year re-evaluation and we at that time or before the age of five must pick a different eligibility category. Now we can give them a period of time where if they still qualify under
179a developmental delay they can maintain that until age eight helping us then when we do the comprehensive evaluation at that time better understanding their profile they would have had time to grow and develop and then when we come together and really discuss eligibility we might have more information or more pertinent information that will help us arrive at a better eligibility category. So, to be determined, but I I think it might just be a nuance. Um, but we'll be monitoring that for sure. >> Okay. And, uh, I was impressed with the inspireability. Is that um, no, that was for ESY, but some of the summer programs, are they just for the title one schools? >> Well, there was the Inspire and there was something else that you mentioned at Charter Oak. um >> summer connections is
180the title one schools >> and so if a child um needed the support but attended a different school is there the ability for them to get the summer support >> well u for Esau students there's the ESOL program so there's other programs that can pick up students like Melissa's programs the ESOL program during when we had the ESSER funding we were able to expand the summer connections beyond and uh to a wider audience will look at uh to cut that back some. >> Okay. And on the note about the high school program, the 57 outed district, are they all paying a tuition to attend? >> Yes, sir. >> And same with the um music programs through leisure services. Is that by fee? >> Yes. >> But is it also a fee that could be waved
181for people in free and reduced lunch? Well, the out of uh our our students are all yes our we do wave the fees for the students uh in the high school summer school in district. I'd have to check if we wave them for I don't believe we w >> okay and so other towns students from other towns opt into >> that's a longstanding summer school that uh was has traditionally enrolled many students from out of district. It was nine nine different districts this year uh had students attend okay summer high school summer school >> and then um I'm not sure it wasn't presented in maybe in the financial examiner's report but the federal funding loss that we um as a district were hit with of the $330,000 is that something that is making a direct
182impact on plans for this year or is that going to be addressed at next >> Yeah. Actually, I I made a quick um mention of that in the update that I just mailed out before the meeting to you guys. Um that was part of money that was held back uh relating to title one, title 2, title three that uh it was late July, I believe, that there was an announcement that that money had been released. So, so we won't see that uh hit on of $330,000 any longer, but we will continue to monitor both state and federal funding as um and town as uh there's lots of uh lots of fiscal obstacles as we look forward. >> Thank Shannon. Yes. Um well, congratulations on the start of the school year. It's a lot of great
183energy in the air. So, um, and such great thought that's gone into all of this. So, very impressed. Uh, couple I have a kind of a throughine around budget and a couple rapid fire questions. Um, so Julio, for the eg rate funding, when will we find out about that? >> I didn't get a deadline on that. I I don't know if you happen to know that, Barb. I don't know, but I can certainly figure that. I know I talked to Jira today and he had submitted that. Um, again, he didn't I I'll cross my fingers again. He didn't seem concerned about that as that's been something that we've regularly gotten in. >> So, is that factored in our budget already as anticipated? >> Yes. >> Okay, cool. Um, for kind of related to Claire's question
184for um Ann for the summer programming, is that a revenue generator or costneutral ultimately? >> Um, it is I believe the transport and Barb can help me with this for summer school. Um I believe we run a slight deficit in the program. >> Okay. >> For and it's mostly around our transportation that brings us down uh under the the funding. The out of district of course helps with the costs but it does it is not a revenue generator. It's okay. Slight loss. >> Just looking for opportunity. >> We w we wish. And then uh Melissa, for the um justice education center program, was that a cost to the district or a grant that they received that allowed it to be no cost? >> So, it was a slight cost to the district. Um the cost
185was relative to transportation that all the staffing. Um while we recommended staff that were West Harford staff, so that students with special needs had continued support from known individuals, they they did all of the hiring. So there was some cost to the district there. >> Is that something you think would be repeated or was it kind of a >> point of exploration? I think we'd like to get more formal feedback on how that camp went. Um and then look at that in the future. >> Okay. Thank you. And then kind of second um is just the effective school solutions grant is there a sustainability plan for those positions if that's a >> um not at this time. Um that was money that Effective School Solutions received through the government relative to mental health and they
186chose to partner with us. Um but it at this present moment it's just a one-year partnership. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Hi. The um reading through the page 29 the capital improvements thought was really well done and then I went and compared it to the capital improvement plan. This is indecipherable compared to that. So if there's a way you can do it this way for capital would be even just as a supplement it would be for me it'd be much more helpful. >> I'll take the compliment and run. >> No, I I thought it was this was easy to follow. The other one I went back and didn't went back and tried to figure out why it was I don't remember being that um I was going to say something negative. Just leave it as
187it is. No, this was much better. >> Good self-restraint, Ethan. Yes, Gail. >> Thanks. Yeah, thank you for the presentation. Thank you for all your hard work. Um, I had a question on the bridge, Melissa. Um, can you just remind us, you said that all of the counseling and services from the bridge are at no cost to the students. Is that correct? So, can you remind us how the bridge is funded or what our what our connection in funding them is? >> Sure. So, we have a standing contract with them where we are subsidizing that funding. Um, so that is a contract that has been long-standing in the district where we support that opportunity for students to have mental health services that would otherwise be private pay so that there is no barriers for mental
188health access. It's not only for students with disabilities. It's for any student in the district. >> So that's in the board of ed budget or is in the town budget? >> It's in the board of education budget. >> It's on the board of education budget. Okay. Um I had one other question. Um Ann, can you explain um I what is the bilingual school and what that actually um means in terms of if we get any extra funding for that or anything to that extent? Uh so a bilingual school would be designated when the number of students in a particular language hits 20 students. So you have a cohort of 20 students in one particular language. So the seven schools I listed had at least 20. Um and the schools that have two languages have 20
189at least 20 in each language. And then they're mandated to have a a teacher in the school who is bilingual. So there's different certifications and they would like a bilingual teacher in that school. And we do get a bilingual grant from the state um that that we've gotten for years that we use for a variety of of different services paying tutors and other uh supports for those schools. >> So the the only difference in these schools is that there has to be a teacher that's bilingual. >> Well, um the schools all have uh T-OL teachers, but there's a specific certification for bilingual as well. So it's a person who has that language background. Um so we look at the staffing and we look at which schools are bilingual schools and some of our T- cell
190teachers are bilingual teachers. They have uh both the the the necessary language. So we move the staffing when we need to to ensure that the students get the support they need. So if someone in their language who can who can speak in their language as well as help them just learning uh uh learning English. So, uh, we're up to seven schools with that have that, um, kind of cluster of kids, >> Jason. >> So, I'll just echo the the sentiments of gratitude for for all that you do. Um, although your very productive summers made me feel a bit unproductive, but um, aside from that, I'm also mindful of the time. So, I just have um one question and you know it's usually a follow-up or two, but um when we budget, we include uh in
191that budget additional section breaks. Um did we use all of those section breaks? >> We did. We had, as you may recall, we had three sections to give when we started. Um so, as Barbara reported, um our our overall net enrollment at the elementary level was 40, you know, exceeded projections by 42. and we were building um fairly tightly um in that in that initial projection where we did receive a lot of feedback uh from families regarding you know the potential and I think I think a lot of the concern at that time was uh more in the upper grades. uh we had a number of sections that were you know close to 26 or 27 and we knew and made decisions early when we did crest 27. Um pretty much in almost all of
192those uh schools where that build was that tight uh we gave out those three sections and then over the course of the summer as Barb mentioned uh enrollments continued to come in particularly at grades one and three. Um, and we did as as was heard during public comment and um, I've taken responsibility for that with the parent um, and with the community to say those enrollments came in late in the year to where it was really and we were we were um, significantly over, but we did feel that, you know, generally speaking once we send the letters home that say this is who your teacher is, we feel like that's a contract. It's hard to break that. Um, we knew that we were tight over at Bugby. Um but we've been in this situation before
193and we backfill with additional instructional um TA support, instructional PAR support um to be able to provide for small groupoup instruction. Um and we'll monitor that closely to uh to asssure that we can still deliver the same level of quality education that I know everyone deserves and expects in the town. So, >> so that was actually my followup is is I know you provide those additional resources, but do you continue to monitor and get feedback about how that's actually playing out in the classroom? >> Absolutely. Um, you know, it was one of the first conversations I had with um Susan when I went over to visit Bugby on the first day. Um, I promised to come back so that I can visit those classrooms specifically, see how they're going once the kids got settled. Um,
194and we'll monitor it as will the team as we as we have a variety of different conversations to see how it's going and see, you know, if those supports are sufficient in terms of being able to provide for a positive learning environment for the kids. >> Claire, >> so you said there were six additional classrooms. So because you had a buffer of three, you had to hire three more teachers than the budget was approved. >> Six more teachers. So we broke nine sections overall. >> Okay. So it was six and you already had three as a buffer. >> So somewhere in the budget, we're going to see how you covered those six full-time teachers. >> Absolutely. >> And the the the support person. And all this was based on the popularity or the changes within
195our town that that many new kids, 22 third graders is how how do you anticipate that? I mean, so the other thing I I was wondering when you have cap schools like Charter Oak and Smith and you give class- size averages, I don't know if it's possible to give the average of the non-cap schools because when you average and you've got cap schools, you're going to skew the non. >> Yeah, it would be easy. We could if if you would like us to have a little side note, easy for us to take those two schools out and provide average. >> I I mean I just think the general parents need to know now as a teacher I I had 24 kindergarteners last year. I you know we we have big classes but I've also had
19618 in my class and thought there were 30. um and and depending on the makeup and the year and the amount of new curriculum, there's just so many things that come in. So, keeping an eye on that classroom and that teacher. Um school classrooms become a community and a family and right now from the outside it's like, oh, there's 24 report cards to do. But in the scheme of teaching, there's just the numbers aren't that exact about load. Lo load is based on so many things. Load load is not just individuals. So, please um keep an eye and um and I'm glad you were able to buy that bring in that support staff because years ago it was every section had to go over in order to get the support. So, when I had 28
197kids at Duffy in fifth grade, we had to have all three cla four classes have 28 before we got the PAR >> and that was 20 years ago. But that was, you know, I didn't get that support at 28. >> All right, other questions. Appreciate the questions because it helps to enlighten us more. Ethan, yes. >> Just want to go back to the section question. So, there's an additional support uh staff in addition since you didn't have a class. So it's really only a partial teacher. >> Yeah. So, uh you may recall that so for example in um kindergarten traditionally we'll we'll budget for instructional pairs um that are automatically provided based on the number of kindergarten sections that you have. Similarly in any grade level and those instructional pairs they used to be called
198K pairs. they became instructional pairs because they were being utilized primarily in grades K and one and maybe in some cases in grade two based on building needs. Um but they were always budgeted for based on the number of K sections at a particular school. What we've always done um if we've run into a situation where we exceed the class size guidelines and they're guidelines they're they're the guidelines set by the board that we try to operate within. Um but you know we don't as a public entity we don't have a a real true maximum because a family can move in tomorrow. Um what we do when we exceed those guidelines is we will hire an additional either a teaching assistant or instructional parah um to be able to then provide support in the classroom
199similar to the model that we use um in the primary grades. Um and that provides an extra set of hands for the teacher uh who can go in and the teacher will develop maybe there's you know if you if you watch an elementary classroom our teachers are masterful at creating um different small groupoup opportunities for kids and and the ability to provide for some small group uh one-on-one two-on-one four-onone time with the teacher um as kids might rotate through stations throughout the day. And so that's an extra person who can be in the room to help monitor a group or two groups while um while the classroom teacher is working with one or two other groups on a different activity and a little bit more of a focused instructional piece. >> So the issue is
200partially what I heard you say was you didn't want to be you don't want to be disruptive once classes are set. So we yeah we've never um it once we send a letter out and say you know Ann and Mccernin is your elementary teacher for for that to change um is like a breach of contract with our families and uh we so we'll usually once those letters are sent if we end up in a situation where we're going to where all of a sudden there's a move in >> um we our rather than break the section our uh decision is to add support to that section. Okay, thank you. >> Other questions or comments? Latoya, just a quick comment too because um just to speak to that extra support in the class like having the
201paras that like I always say don't sleep on the paras because they are teachers and coming from someone who I literally I started as the crossing guard then I was lunch and recess staff and then I was a tutor and I was a parah. When I jumped into the classroom as a teacher, I didn't have a teaching credential. I was on an emergency credential. I wasn't in a credential program. That first year teaching, I broke state records because I was a good PAR and I learned how to be good at small group instruction. So, when we're saying like when when they're saying that they have instructional pairs in the classroom, those are other teachers and um they are, you know, highly qualified and and they're good at what they do. Yeah, many many of our
202newer first year teachers or or what have you, we get them through our either through our paras or through our teaching assistants. Um, and it's a great opportunity. We always say that in the job market. I know it's been said, Shannon will now say it. It's a great opportunity to to be seen so that we can, you know, identify that young talent and and bring it in. >> Other questions or comments? All right. Well, I echo the recognition and the appreciation. Thank you so very much, Miss Anne, Mr. Julio. Oh, don't go just yet. Let's go. Miss Melissa, Miss Shannon, Miss Teresa, Miss Barbara. Um, you all like the young folks, deuces, but just want to say thank you so very much for all that you do and appreciate how you recognize where we are,
203but there's always room for growth. So, a collective thank you once again. All right. Deuces. Okay. All right. All right. And so as we transition to staff reports and board discussions, which we've had a plethora of that, we now shall go to routine matters. Seeking a motion that the board of education approve the minutes of the regular board of education meeting of June the 3rd, 2025. Is there a motion? >> So moved. >> Thank you, Shannon. Is there a second? >> Second. >> This is the June 3rd. >> Correct. Uh Jason, thank you for seconding discussion. So in response, this is referring to June 3rd meeting. Uh any suggested edits? All of those in favor say I. >> I. Any oppose? Any abstain? The eyes have it. Also seeking a motion that the board of
204education approve the minutes of the special board meeting on June 30th, 2025. Is there a motion? >> So moved. >> Thank you, Shannon. Is there a second? Sucka. >> Thank you, Gail. Discussion. >> I had a question. >> Yes. >> This meeting uh is scheduled or is listed as ending at 9:28. I was gone by 7:30. So, >> this isn't the most recent. This was the one with my evaluation and contract. >> Yeah, I know. I was there for that. We We got out because my daughter was visiting Is that the meeting that your daughter was visiting or was it the grievance hearing that your daughter was? >> Yeah, I think what your Thank you for wanting clarification. The the the what you were referring to there was another meeting that we had following that.
205Yes. So, this was that that's all right. >> It's important to to have accurate information before you vote. And so, with the motion any other questions at all for suggested edits? So with a motion on the floor regarding the June 30th meeting, all of those in favor say I. >> I. Any. >> Any any opposed? >> Any abstain? The eyes have it. Thank you very much. Moving on to information and reports. Board members, do we have any communication and reports from other boards or organizations? Seeing none, any other information or discussions? Seeing none, I just want to give a collective welcome back all to our 2025 2026 school year. Um, we are going to continue to move ahead. Thank you so much. Moving on to future business. Announcement of future meeting dates. Our next meeting
206will be on Tuesday, September the 16th, 2025 here in room 3:14 at 7:00, followed by Tuesday, October the 21st here in room 314 at 7:00. And then once again on Wednesday, November the 5th, we'll say that is a Wednesday. Wednesday, November the 5th, 2025 here in room 3:14 at 7:00. Is there a request for any future agenda items? >> We had mentioned discussing the finance committee last year. So, you were going to do that this year or not last year? >> We didn't do it last year. I asked for it. >> So, thank you. I brought it up but we didn't discuss it last year >> and so received. Thank you and and we appreciate your um diligence in bringing this up which we respectfully receive and from the last time that it was brought
207up and correct me teammates if I am interpreting um differently. The intent was for that to be a policy uh discussion meeting because I think your intent was for it to be more of a structured implementation. >> Probably I don't want to speak for you. Is that what are what are your >> I I'm my assumption was I bring it up if it has to go through policy I I guess that's fine >> clear. Yes. I I was under the impression it was brought up and voted on and voted down. So I don't understand if you bring up something and it's v discussed voted on and voted down why is it going to be brought up again? >> I could be off my timing. I don't remember it being brought up. I didn't think it
208was brought up last year. >> It was brought up two years ago. >> Yeah, I know. Two years ago. >> And And it was voted down two years ago. >> Exactly. And times change and we had a very high uh increase in cost last year. So to me, it's worth redising. May >> I say something? So, Ethan, I did research on all the board of eds that you mentioned had finance committees. I looked at all their minutes over 2-year period. Not a single finance committee on any of your example communities had anything in their minutes other than what you and I discussed at financial examiner's monthly meetings and what we've been discussed in our two meetings a month. Many districts only meet once a month. There is nothing in the minutes of any board of
209ed finance committee within the state that I could find that mirrors what you're trying to say you want in this finance committee. It would be very helpful if you could say what it is because all the things in their minutes are things that we currently do. >> So, can I do a point of order? I I think we've strayed beyond I think we're actually debating a finance committee as opposed to how we we might go about doing that. So from a policy committee perspective, having sit sitting on the policy committee, if there is a specific proposal that we could consider with specifics that could come before the policy committee, I think that's the appropriate venue for this considering it's not currently an agenda item tonight. >> I I realized it wasn't an agenda tonight. I
210was trying to make it an agenda item for future. >> No. and they're my my point is just >> I'm fine with your request. >> I think that's the the appropriate way for us to move that forward. >> I'll put down to me the key bullet points. >> Not sure about creating policy, but I'll put the bullet points. >> So, whoa. Thank you all so very much. Okay. So with the initial piece of an agenda suggested item and the response to that is respecting that request. But yes, as has been shared previously and reiterated again today would best be suited as to be discussed in our policy subcommittee meeting. And so to ensure that we are accurately able to assess what you are proposing, if you could put something in writing for us to review,
211our um uh assistant superintendent Julio Dwarte if you can share it with him. Therefore, that could be an agenda item for the policy subcommittee for us to review with more intentionality. >> That's fine. I don't think of policy committee because I'm not on it. So, fine if you want to do it that way. >> But you know what what what is this is wonderful because you are on the finance committee. So, this will allow us to continue to discuss. But thank you so much for that. So, we won't have it as a specific agenda item. If you can please make your recommendations and share them with Julio and that will come before our policy subcommittee. >> I'm fine. Thank you. >> Thank you. Any other agenda items? Okay. So, I I'm hoping in the next
212three board of ed meetings, we will have a prek presentation on um what the district plans to do to meet the state mandates. That's what I'm hoping. >> Suggested agenda item duly noted. Thank you, Claire. Other specifics as it pertains to an agenda item for upcoming meetings. All right, seeing none, we shall go. Do we have any visitors who would like to make a comment? Seeing none, we do not have an executive session. Therefore, seeking a motion to adjurnn. I move. >> Thank you, Shannon. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Thank you, Ethan. Meeting adjourned.