001good evening i'd like to call the meeting to order this is the west hartford public schools board of education regular meeting for tuesday september 21st welcome and charlotte could you please call the roll present here present thank you and i'll state for the record that our board member our fellow board member ari steinberg is home sick this evening it is not coved but she's modeling good behavior by um staying home sick and is sorry to miss the meeting amanda can i ask you to lead us in the pledge please the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all [Applause] thank you we do not have any revisions to the agenda order so we'll move to public communications i invite rodney
002to come forward and you can come right up to this podium over here with the microphone it'll um yep it'll it'll pick you up as soon as you start speaking so please start by uh stating your name and address and keep an eye over on charlotte because you have three minutes and she'll hold up a yellow card when you have a minute left and a red card when your time is up hello everybody my name is rodney bull from hartford uh first i want to praise the west hartford uh board of education for creating such a safe and welcoming environment for our children i have had the opportunity to graduate from west hartford school system in 1994. that that great school system has since changed forcing our children to wear masks is abusive unhealthy hinders
003normal learning and development and has been proven scientifically not to protect our children from the spread of the china virus covenanting please do it i'm sorry to interrupt you but you need to keep your mask on when you speak okay over your nose as well thank you so please do what is right in our mask our children on june 1st sir superintendent tom moore literally said he wants to indoctrinate our children with critical race theory ideals we we ha has decided our children i'm going to have to ask you to pull your mask out for that we have a mask mandate in the town of west hartford and it needs to be on that's part of the mandate i will let you speak when you follow the math mandate no stop trying to control people
004we have rules in town this is my rule i can't breathe and talk when the mask is over my face you can send us then you can go home and send us an email go home you go home okay on june 1st superintendent tom moore literally said he wants to indoctrinate our children with critical race theory you're an evil man within their ideals weha has decided to teach our children to hate our country and to indoctrinate children by hating the race if they're white that's what you're doing please remove policy 1800 equity of education or whatever the you're doing as it is evil racist and damaging to our great society i call for superintendent tom moore to resign eating our children with lies and they're controlling our children's health choices well he is an obese
005and unhealthy sir your time is up thank you okay are there any other members of the public who wish to address the board you can come forward one of the time you have three minutes you're fine hey good evening uh my name is alexandra banashik and i live on 329 cumberland road in west hartford can i ask you just to pause just for a moment please yes one moment we're just gonna recess for one minute be right back excuse me we're going to go into executive session tom come on back we're going to go into executive session uh can i have a motion please move by mark seconded by liz any discussion we're moving into executive session to discuss uh safety matter thank you [Applause] hmm [Applause] um [Applause] not yeah i can do it
006hmm okay okay we are resuming the meeting at 7 12 p.m thank you for your patience and you can restart your time please restart thank you um my name is alexander abanashik i live i live in 329 cumberland road in west hartford good evening everyone thank you for allowing me to speak today superintendent moore thank you for your response to my email in support of children wearing masks in west hartford public schools you referred to a large randomized trial led by researchers at stanford medicine and yale university and the results were published in september 2021 for those who are not familiar with the study it was an intervention study and it was done on 350 000 people from villages in rural bangladesh bangladesh do you know the top most polluted countries number one is bangladesh
007number two is pakistan number three is india how can you support mask mandate in german-free american schools with the results from a study based in bangladesh [Applause] i don't have anything against any of the three countries in fact i traveled to india and i love that part of the world but you cannot simply compare with hartford schools with bangladesh or india in addition the study showed some effectiveness of surgical masks versus no masks but the difference between cloth masks and no masks was not statistically significant as you know our children wear cloth masks so once again i request you mr moore and the board of education members to provide a relevant study that shows that cloth masks are indeed slowing the spread of the coronavirus mr moore in your email you also mentioned that removal
008of mask mandate will not happen anytime soon due to no vaccines available for those at elementary level but why would we even think about vaccinating elementary school children or middle school or high school children if this virus is not a threat for them majority of the young people develop mild or no symptoms but let's say that we do wait for the vaccine for elementary school children with that approach i see two scenarios the first one is that for the next 20 years our children and if we're blessed grandchildren we will be wearing they will be wearing masks in schools at the end we do want to know the long-term effects of the vaccine before we encourage anyone to take it there is no way that cdc dph fda aap could provide a list of long-term
009adverse reactions to the covered vaccines as of now we know short-term adverse reactions that adults could experience one of the adverse reactions to the covet 19 vaccine is death more than 14 thousand that's due to covet vaccinations can i ask you to wrap up please yes it has been reported at virus and that takes me to the second scenario the vaccine for children once approved probably soon will be mandated at the elementary school level we need you to wrap up please yes thank you our children will be subjected to an experimental injection with no known long-term side effects or they will have to find a different source of education other than the public schools exactly same as their teachers right now are required to take the ethically thank you very much for speaking this evening
010thank you so much are there any others [Applause] i just oh it's fine i just want to remind you to keep your eye out on our clerk so that you can make sure you stay within your a lot of time thank you okay thank you my name is gene wiggin thank you for allowing me to speak here again today i feel the need to reiterate some of my talking points from the last meeting why are we treating coveted in schools differently than the flu when they pose the exact same risk to children coveted in the flu result in comparable hospitalizations that lead to equal pediatric deaths with flu actually being higher than covet deaths why are we wearing masks in school for covid but we didn't wear them for the flu why are we promoting
011peer pressure and adult pressure among our children for the covid vaccine but we didn't for the flu vaccine why are we social distancing in school for covid but we didn't for the flu why do we require students without the covet vaccine to quarantine falling covet exposure but we didn't require children without the flu vaccine to quarantine following flu exposure covid poses no more risk to children than the flu covet is not transmitted heavily in schools and children are generally asymptomatic or have mild symptoms at an august 27th white house press briefing cdc director rachelle wielinski said cases are not propagated in the schools in fact schools tend to be the safer places for children than communities in terms of coveted spread in contrast what risks do west hartford protocols pose to our children how many
012students are struggling with anxiety depression and suicidal thoughts due to quarantining isolation social distancing wearing masks and pressure and exclusion from peers and adults we know that in april anywhere from 30 to 47 children with psychiatric needs waited in ccmc's 48 bed emergency department at that same time ccmc expected to flag 20 000 children for suicidal ideation a 10-fold increase over 2020 we know sorry i'm out of breath a little bit from this we know yale new haven children's hospital saw 12 to 26 patients daily in march for behavioral health by contrast in 2019 they saw one or two a day how to covert protocol risk compare to covet virus risks in august there were 21 pediatric coveted missions to ccmc in july there were eight in june there were zero in may there were
013five keep in mind that in 40 to 45 percent of those hospitalizations the children were admitted for something else why are we weighing mental health risks against covet health risks and protocols there are currently 17 children with covid19 in our schools and 18 quarantining did you know that you would have to quarantine kids 50 or excuse me quarantine kids 50 million times to save one life per recent la school data many children in west hartford are suffering as a result of these covered protocols some will develop long-term mental health health issues some will be hospitalized and others will consider suicide as long as you maintain these protocols the mental health of these children are on your shoulders superintendent more stop subjecting our children to unnecessary trauma for a virus that poses no more risk to
014children than the flu thank you thank you are there any other members of the public who wish to address the board this evening any other members who wish to address the board hello uh so i need to i think say my name in address correct marina creed 87 outlook avenue west hartford connecticut thank you for welcoming me up i wanted to follow up on my remarks in email from the last meeting along with inquiring about carbon dioxide monitoring in our classrooms and the importance of optimal ventilation and filtration practices our committee would welcome the chance to speak with the board of ed and partner on implementing best practices for school ventilation in advance of the winter months together i'm confident that we can make a substantial enhancement to the safety of our children our teachers
015in our community thank you i do need to remind everybody while you're in town hall while you're in any indoor space and public space in west hartford you do need to have a mask on so if you're not willing to put a mask on i'm gonna have to ask you to leave and so i'll be direct and let you know i'm speaking to you in the back against the wall there there are you know i understand what you're saying however there are certain rules that one must follow to remain in town hall and this one is that you must wear a mask and it must cover your nose and mouth otherwise you're going to need to leave i apologize you can go home and watch us on tv we're gonna have to get security please
016we'll take a pause while we wait [Applause] thank you we will move now to unfinished business we don't have any unfinished business i should have i'm sorry were there any other members of the public who wish to speak okay now we'll move to new business and the first item is setting the date for the june 22nd graduation um and the recommendation is that the board of education vote to set the date for this year's high school graduations for tuesday june 14th 2022 and i will turn it over to superintendent moore sure as you remember um last year the law was passed that we could set graduation date um earlier in the year rather than waiting to see how many snow days we do as long as there's been 180 days planned to the graduation which
017means that the last day of school is monday june 13th so this is technically a day after the last day of school whereas if there were no snow days that means there would be one extra day to have graduation but it would be offset by exam week we could do it the thursday night just a reminder graduation can only be tuesday wednesday thursday typically in west hartford is custom could be monday but for set up for safegrad that's one of the things that gets in the way people need time so we thought about the thursday before and met with the principals to talk about it and they just felt like if we had enough snow days that pushed school till later in that week to have to set up safegrad a week and a half
018before the end of school could be a disruption to the school environment to have to do it trying to do it separate graduation outside could be a problem as far as seat rentals and everything else and just having them set up for multi-days because of sports events that could still be going on so we felt like the 14th was the um best date to plan for doing it tuesday the 14th also gives us the opportunity to have a rain date on the 15th last year as you remember we had a rain date which was the first time we had done that because previously we just planned on moving it into the gym i i think that the rain date works better typically and i think it's a it saves us time from setting up a
019dual graduation in the gyms we always set up both and this way basically if we saw two days of rain we could and the 15th was going to be the rain date it would be the rain date rain or shine if needed we'd move it into the gym but this allows us the chance to have the 14th and the 15th and either day as a possible graduation so um so that's the recommendation to set graduation date for tuesday june 14th thank you are there questions mark uh i didn't think i'd have any questions but i've been on long enough to know that we never really could set the date because um we have to wait till april something time april first april first to set the date um and you know a lot of parents
020complain we need it soon soon and you know traveling people want to come from far distances grandparents and such so my guess my question is that now this is unprecedented we've never had it going out this far if we had say something like the october snowstorm um that we were out for a week and things like that how will that still impact you know and then on top of that maybe snow days yeah it wouldn't impact the seniors um and truthfully graduation would stay that day even with snow days or otherwise because you have to plan for 180 days from now that those students would have had 182 days 180 days this actually would give them 183 days out so it builds in three days they'd still have 180 but it wouldn't even matter if
021they didn't get to 180 and the issue with seniors at that point is they're already having final exams during that time period so a week leeway doesn't really with the seniors they've already taken a lot of their exams a lot of them one of the other problems is that june is a big time for orientations and people going off to their colleges their colleges in the 20s a lot of those happen so we don't want somebody to make that choice about graduation so this would lock it in for the 14th and that would we'd live with that no matter what unless something extreme happened of course other questions liz i have a general question coming from another state where i went to public school and it was always a fix the first friday in june
022is that i mean i know that must be a state thing but um has that ever been discussed having more of a fixed date that you excuse the seniors from that rigid 180 days because just what you were saying they have to go to orientation they have other things that they have to do to prepare for college and having this floating day is like is a hassle yeah that that's something um i grew up in a similar environment with 165 days i think it is in massachusetts um this change was made by um the state board of education two years ago it's um that was kind of their compromise they didn't want to move off the 180 days um and separate that but this compromise allowed us to set it from 180 days so that
023snow days didn't affect the last day so um i see i see where you're coming from i think the answer is if you set the graduation early in the year it's not always going to be that same tuesday or wednesday you're right but by setting this you know if we get in the habit of tradition which i think is appropriate at the second september meeting of the year to set the graduation date kind of kicking off the year that way you can lock it in on that maybe it's always the tuesday of the of that last week so um that that would be helpful i think for people to lock it in as mark said any other questions may i have a motion to set the high school graduation date for tuesday june 14th 2022.
024so moved thank you lorna is there a second second seconded by liz any further discussion if not i will try your minds all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye any opposed say nay abstentions and the eyes have it thank you moving on to item b adjustments to teacher and administrator evaluation processes and i'll turn it over to superintendent morgan all right i'm gonna have welcome andy and paul come up i'm so sorry rick and paul are coming up this is um the adoption of flexibility for instance implementing connecticut guidelines for educator evaluation for the 2021-2022 school year this is because of flexibilities that the state is allowing us right now and we had to put in these amendments and i'll let our two gentlemen explain how these came into being good evening
025everyone it is a pleasure for paul and i to be here this evening to talk through our teacher and administrator evaluation plan and the subsequent flexibilities that we would like the board to adopt for the 21 22 school year before we get started getting into the details of the presentation we wanted to take a moment to thank members of our professional learning and evaluation committee our plec which is a group comprised of teachers and administrators for their work this past summer analyzing all of these changes proposed by the connecticut state department of education and then recommending that we bring them forward to the board of education for a vote this evening i also wanted to thank natalie simpson who's our assistant director of human resources so her tireless commitment to supporting all of our teachers
026and administrators with their professional practice particularly as it relates to our evaluation plan is very we're very grateful to uh natalie's leadership through over the last eight years so i will begin with a quote from our superintendent of schools every child in west hartford deserves to experience great teaching and learning in every classroom in every school every single day and this is the premise of our evaluation plan and that is to ensure that our students are being taught by the most highly effective teachers we have developed an evaluation and support plan that builds human capacity and challenges all of our teachers and leaders to aspire and reach excellence in their teaching practice in order to provide a superior education for all of our students so in terms of background the csve convened the educator evaluation
027and support 2022 council to begin the process of reimagining connecticut of educator evaluation in its entirety for this year and beyond the so we are in phase two of the state's three-phase strategy last year was phase one where the um the ess ees i'm sorry worked um on these flexibilities that are before us this evening and they approve those flexibilities on june 2nd of 21 our the third phase of the strategy will take place all of this year and this group will continue to assess our educator evaluation plans throughout the state of connecticut and they may make further changes that we will consider for next year and beyond so we could be before the board of education before the end of the school year this year or the beginning of next year with further changes
028to our educator evaluation plan as i mentioned the pl plec worked this summer analyzing these changes and they unanimously agreed to adopt these changes as a district these flexibilities allow us to make adjustments to certain aspects of our plan for this year only it must be adopted in its entirety so paul is about to talk through some of those flexibilities there's changes in our observation practices our student learning objective practice we had to adopt these flexibilities in its entirety we couldn't pick and choose what we liked from certain aspects of the plan and this does require mutual agreement between the pldc and board of education plec as i said did uh unanimous unanimously support this plan and the board hopefully will vote tonight in support of it areas of the plan not mentioned in the
029flexibilities will continue as usual so the copy of our current evaluation plan and as you can see it is quite extensive so we will integrate these flexibilities into our current plan for this year what uh what time are you guys wrapping up the meeting tonight uh it's probably 9 30. okay sorry thank you okay sure did everyone hear that there will be no more questions afternoon so uh before paul walks us through the uh the nuts and bolts of these flexibilities what is important for all of us to understand is that we as teachers and leaders will continue to prioritize our focus on social and emotional learning overall well-being of students staff and educators continue to provide equitable equitable learning opportunities for all students enhancing culturally responsive teaching and learning practices and striving for academic
030achievement for all students and you'll see these areas of focus woven into the flexibilities that paul's about to discuss and you'll see it in our current plan today so at this point that's the background of why we're here this evening paul will walk us through those flexibilities and then we will turn it over for questions at the end that the board may have prior to voting so good evening um thank you rick for that uh introduction um as you read in the report uh we kind of go through in detail what what the overall changes to the plan are and and essentially when you look at teacher evaluation specifically there are two big components there's teacher observation and practice uh which which forms a kind of a practice rating the doing of the teaching and
031then there's a section on student learning outcomes kind of the impact of the teaching and the flexibilities that are before us for this year uh impact both both of those large segments of our plan the first of which is observation frequency for teachers and the big part of this three-phase plan that rick's talking about is an effort on on behalf of the state of connecticut to get away from this limited number of formal drawn out observations which are positive they're they're definitely very useful but they're dramatically comprehensive and uh you you can sometimes get more of a dog and pony show if you're if you're only going in once or twice in a year for a long period of time as opposed to what the state is targeting which is more frequent shorter observations getting
032in getting into classrooms with great frequency and that's something that we always strive for so we looked at those flexibilities as you as you read in the plan we are looking to accept them but what was most interesting when we think about our teachers that are in a non-tenured status where we're really taking that close critical look at them and or when you look theoretically at teachers who might be in a targeted assistance our plec our teachers came forward to say hey we think we want to make sure that we can exceed those state flexibilities which was allowed you could you had to as rick said you had to accept everything which was a set of minimums but you could exceed those flexibilities and they voted for for to add observations formal observations for non-tenured
033staff and for staff if any staff were to land into any form of targeted assistance which generally is a is a very small number here in the district our observations as a whole continue to focus on the same uh best instructional practices uh that that we have been supporting through our professional learning for a number of years so that is realistically a summary of the largest part of the change to the performance and practice on the student learning side as you may recall from last year with you know districts across the state being in various forms of total remote hybrid some schools being all in uh the state said we want we want to we want to focus our student learning indicators in and around social emotional learning and student wellness we are not going
034to have a focus last year on achievement in fact there was question at some point if they would still have the state assessment results and so on and so forth this year what the state is doing is saying we will go back to academic achievement indicators but we don't want to let go of the opportunity for us to measure students social emotional learnings the classroom environment we recognize that these things are still very very important so they've taken a more holistic approach to how they're looking at learning outcomes they're allowing for different departments and disciplines to have multiple indicators of measure that go beyond what formerly had only been standardized assessment and this was a challenge for us quite honestly if we think about and i'll use our music department as the example we don't
035have formal structured assessments in sixth grade music so we had to come up with a form of an assessment that made sense in our curriculum that made sense for students that teacher could use teachers could use in serve but we had to have it standardized in service to teacher evaluation and these new flexibilities kind of act on that recognize that and talk about indicators that make sense in a content area and in a department we as a district are maintaining uh we recognize that we are going back to closer to normal conditions this year we have set a priority on grade level content in our academics and so that is something that we're certainly pushing on but we're also recognizing all of the great work and all of the importance behind the social emotional learning
036our social justice work that we continue to make a significant priority for the district and we're looking at ways to ensure that we're measuring that as well with more holistic indicators which can also include as you read in the report family engagement can also include other student wellness measures in addition to academic growth and academic achievement stakeholder feedback remains a part of our plans we've always had the inclusion of both parent family feedback as well as student feedback in those two large domains in the practice ratings and in the learning outcomes ratings and there were some minor changes to how we go about that and how it was weighted previously student feedback you know contained some percentage weight that was going to go into the overall score and they've allowed us in this new system
037to take our stakeholder feedback combine it with our practice rating and our student learning outcomes into a holistic into a more holistic measure that's not necessarily numerically based so at the end of the year much very similar to what we've done in the past but looking more holistically teachers will be evaluated on a practice rating that includes the domains that you see there and our student learning outcomes will be inclusive of academic social and emotional family engagement cultural responsiveness as well as the student feedback that is always included so that's really an overview of the flexibilities that have been provided with essentially the main changes being some of the frequency of observations we're exceeding the the minimum frequencies for the state for our non-tenured and the inclusion of more holistic measures in our student learning
038outcomes and then ultimately the notion that all of those pieces will come together holistically to form an overall evaluation of a teacher as either exemplary effective developing or not not effective so we open it up to your questions thank you and thank you for that presentation are there questions from members of the board mark so paul do you find this to be a better road laid for for future evaluations i mean is this going to be um typically when the state tells you to do something it not necessarily you know because every little every school system is a little different things like that they don't always come up with the best choices and give you the flexibility sometimes hopefully on either side for different parameters and flexibility as you mentioned but do you see that
039this being is this a best practice that's going to outlast what we've done in the past is this going to be the way forward and that um our teachers will be evaluated much with a much higher scrutiny and and is it a better development for them i think is this going to provide them a more a better environment to succeed in and things like that good question mark i know exactly where you're coming from i definitely see this as a step in the right direction you know if you go back many years and you may remember this when i was a teacher first in the district we had for a non-tenure staff we had pretty much formal slos and we called them smart goals at the time but they were basically student learning outcomes or
040slos that were very much tied to achievement measures and measures of academic growth as exist currently in the plan but for our tenured staff we had professional learning growth goals professional growth options we had we had a much greater ability to work with our veteran staff folks that had been through that non-tenure process that we had every confidence in be able to provide them essentially kind of kind of a greater sense of of leadership taking initiative in their own growth and when the new evaluation system came in it it was you know it kind of threw everyone almost in the same boat um and the number the differences in the numbers of observations that were required was was uh was very small so it it kind of treated your veteran staff and your tenured staff
041much like they were newbies or beginners and so i definitely see this as a step in that right direction back to what we always felt we had a very very strong teacher evaluation and development program because our program always focused on teacher development it was never a gotcha it was never supposed to be this zinger that we're trying to weed out bad apples um it was it was really about you know we we hire high quality folks we give them really intensive professional learning we have a great professional learning structure in the district that we can develop folks throughout the year every year continuously so we you know i think our system works and i'm excited to see us have these flexibilities and get closer back to to that normal and i'm very interested to
042see where phase three brings us liz hi my question is um about the rating system and i was wondering this exemplary effective developing below standard was that some did we have the equivalent of that prior to to this system and what is the consequence for receiving one of these ratings so yes we did have uh the difference with this liz is now we we don't have numbers so we used to have exemplary was a four um effective was a three developing was a two and below standard was a one and we found with our old plan we were spending more time debating the number than what we were actually seeing in terms of teaching and learning and getting away from those productive collaborative conversations about growth so the numbers are gone now so now it
043is just we're just going with qualitative approach so it's in those four categories um obviously exemplary being the highest rated uh you can be and below standard being you know obviously an area of concern for us so anyone who's in that below standard or developing range there is a plan in place within our current plan that remains in place where we're able to provide teachers with additional assistance and support if they happen to be in those categories if they're all the way below standard we there's a program called the teacher assistance plan and that would require the evaluator to spend 45 real intense days with that teacher working with them and supporting them and trying to to see that growth in them over those 45 days and it goes a little beyond that as well
044thank you sure jason all right thank you um i was wondering if you could elaborate more on what um uh what are uh social and emotional practices and uh and also how how is culturally responsive practices for teachers how are those evaluated and what are some of the ways that that the district supports those that development for teachers sure um so social emotional learning you know we we adopted the castle framework in it and and there are a number of attributes and indicators we talk about but um within that we do provide direct instruction along that and and you know the ultimate goal of social emotional learning kind of relates a lot to classroom environment how you feel about yourself how you feel about your learning how you you know whether or not you feel
045supported so when you think about the work that we've done this year and and last year last year it was a mandate from the state that every school district will uh ensure that they have direct instruction in and around social emotional learning and a large part of that was based on concern that was held pretty widespread you know among the educational community that uh with the pandemic with all of the uncertainty with folks who have experienced loss in their family that when they're coming into school it is there going to really be a readiness to learn from the point of view of i can sit there and and i can pay attention i can do this uh because i'm worried about so many other things so we provide uh different levels of instruction you know
046we have our different structures elementary middle and high school and developmentally appropriate lessons that are targeting um those social emotional skills that ability to to to feel comfortable to be able to express uh whether that's expressing your emotions whether that's whether that's expression self-expression about your identity whether that's uh you know who you are being comfortable in your own skin that kind of thing whether that's uh you know some of the resiliency aspects being able to deal with how do you self-advocate when you're when you have struggle all of these different components there's you know there's not necessarily when you when you think about last year for instance or you think about the old system of teacher evaluation if you're doing all this work you're number one as an educator maybe this hasn't been your
047bailiwick maybe you know i use myself as the example if i'm teaching algebra every day i haven't had to think about that i know how to establish rapport with students i know how to set up a classroom environment but i haven't had to directly teach these skills so now i'm in professional development at the school i'm making an effort to teach these skills and i've seen perhaps a change in the environment in my class i've seen that students are more approachable they're they're taking more risks they're asking for questions they're staying around uh so i see the difference so i want to continue this one of the things under our um flexibility plan is i'm still going to have my academic measures and outcomes that say okay i can demonstrate evidence of student student learning
048of my content area or my discipline but i'm also able to put forward some more informal measures about i talk i talk with my evaluator about the strategies that i'm choosing that are appropriate to my grade my classroom my content area maybe appropriate to the school and i'm able to put forward some measures that demonstrate student responsiveness to that whether that be a way of student surveys whether that be by way of some other pieces one of the things that we're excited we're involved in a pilot uh this year in a system that the state is making available two districts free of charge we're one of the first districts in the pilot and it's called aperture and what it's intending to do is it's intending to be able to um design some very informal kind
049of screening assessments uh in and around social emotional learning and in in so that would be able to give us some data some student level data that says if social emotional learning had positive incomes or was outcomes or was flat but it also has resources when uh when there is a student that you're concerned with here are some ways that you can intercede at a classroom level because obviously we also have uh you know melissa and a whole arm of of her department that are that are clinicians that have much more formalized training but you know if my student just needs a little bit more tlc and i'm kind of uh not so sure how to proceed um i i have some ready resources that i can use um likewise you know our social justice
050work is is tied in very much to social emotional learning in terms of uh setting the conditions in which students feel comfortable so there's there's content that we teach there's uh conversations and difficult conversations that we try to have within that and again our flexibilities are going to allow us to be able to provide some measures that whether through student surveys or through other through other means where we're demonstrating what we've done in support of that work and what its impact has been and that's going to look differently based on kind of what your role is in a school is this the main thrust of what you're doing to where you'd want that to be an outcome for your work for the year and ins and we have plenty of educators where we're definitely that
051makes a lot of sense and or is this something that you're doing to a smaller degree in the main thrust of what you're doing lies somewhere else and there would be the ability for for folks to really and it's not we're choosing one or the other that's the whole approach of these flexibilities is that we can have multiple indicators multiple measures that provide evidence at the end of the day of what you did in service to your in service to your professional learning objective and what outcomes it was able to dem you know be reflected with your students yeah thank you i think it um you know just the the multi-dimensional analysis set up here provides these different ways to get at the the classroom experience and um you know the what you what you
052described is something i think we we need at uconn too even you know that level of thinking about the student the care for the learning environment and and how that you know how that shapes the overall learning experience so thank you for spelling that out are there any other questions lorna thank you very much for the information i appreciate hearing how our district recognizes the fluidity that's needed in terms of evaluation you mentioned how last year was focused on just in terms of the well-being of how our students are doing but now trying to merge and recognizing the achievement aspects as well question with this evaluation of piece and just reflecting back on past years how have what has been the response if there has been a staff person who may view this more as
053being voluntold and may not um receive the feedback well how what what is the way of responding when maybe more assertive efforts have to be made in trying to empower and give constructive feedback to a staff member so first i just opened with uh this is a very limited number of of staff that we have in general i i'm happy to say and it's and it's not a it's not a boast it's and it's not a sure you know the the majority of our staff have very positive relationships with their evaluator their administrator and i think that's testam testament to the real purpose behind our evaluation system it's it's not a valuation it's not it's not a report card that goes home at the end of a year it's a cycle folks you know folks
054will see between our district goals or school goals there's consistency with them trying to always kind of go deeper and to the next level within the work so it's never a conversation that's just going to happen in june and be over so there's a very narrow segment but it does but you're absolutely right and it kind of points back to what liz was asking you know there can be a very small percentage of folks that either need a harder conversation or who may find themselves landing in a category where their performance overall is either developing more frequently developing than not meeting standard it's it would be not that it doesn't happen but it would be very unusual for us you know to have gotten all the way through an interview process and all the pieces
055and then we have someone who's up in front that is simply kind of not doing the job when that happens um it's sort of like the first step is always trying to trying to bring that person to a realization trying you know it's like effective communication trying them to get to see what you're seeing trying to get them to see that you're also on their side and you're working to help improve them and that can be done in multiple ways a lot of a lot of the things that we'll do is we'll bring in a complimentary observer complementary evaluator so they understand boy it's not just that rick's picking on me because he doesn't like me let's bring in let's bring in this other set of eyes that can often be uh bringing that individual
056out to do some peer observations in other classrooms so you can you can show them your peers and say see this is kind of what i'm talking about this is what we're after that can be uh sending them to professional development putting instructional approaches with them any number of things that we can do but if at the end of the day push is kind of coming to shove um that's where the teeth of the of the uh educator evaluation plan comes in and rick talks about that in terms of if i get to a point where we need to be putting very specific things down into a written plan very specific targeted objectives and areas for improvement and those those issues become on a timeline and there are different timelines based on the level of
057need for each individual all those components within our plan remain as they've been so none of those pieces have really changed with these at all with these flexibilities so we we do you know at the end of the day we operate in service to kids and our and our number one thing is making sure that we have the best for every child so our plan provides us that and continues to provide us that even under these flexibilities and i think one of the things kind of sorry but one of the things the kind of end result of this because there's that path of support that's important this isn't designed to eliminate people but it can i mean and that that's one of the things that we have to understand any evaluation by your boss that's
058what it can come through but it's it's with department supervisors then it's with the principal and then there's these intensive assistant plans and then there's the two tracks of the non-tenured teachers so somebody new has four years basically for us to decide is this person excellent do they show the potential for excellence and that to be honest our bar may be higher than some other places i mean that that is i i don't back away from that statement and so we have a conversation with them after we meet and we've gone through the non-tenure review process before we meet with the principals department supervisor we decide is this person right for west hartford is it a pedagogy issue because pedagogy issues you can really work on pedagogy you can make better is it a will
059issue is it who somebody is that doesn't really fit what we're doing doesn't really fit west hartford in which case we have the honest conversation we could go to non-renewal typically when we tell somebody we're going to go through the non-renewal process they'll resign effective the end of that year that rather than a public non-renewal process the tenured teacher the idea that this process does give an avenue for a tenured teacher once you've gone through all those steps to be removed we have done that before and that basically is very similar until it comes down to at that point it's a meeting with rick myself the principal and the teacher to talk about their future here in that honesty that after all of this work we do not see you as fit for west hartford
060public schools and then there's a process that goes along with that but typically again that person people don't want to work where they're not wanted so the typical outcome is from there is that person moves on typically but there is a process here for if they don't choose to thank you thank you all it's good to know that the bar of expectation is never a matter of matter of just settling so good to hear that any other questions and we need to vote on this yes okay so i will seek a motion that the board of education uh vote to approve the adoption of flexibilities for implementing the connecticut guidelines for educator evaluation 2017 for the 2021 2021-2022 school year do i have a motion so moved jason uh thank you jason and a second
061um you guys don't want to state the motion no i'm just kidding sorry any further discussion um if not i will try your minds all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye any opposed say nay abstentions the eyes have it thank you so much thank you we will move to staff communications and reports and it is time for the superintendent's report excellent thank you um you know we're three full weeks into the school year now and we have just had a great start i have to say happily people are following our protocols and our protocols are working when we have positive cases those positive cases have come from the community and typically from families people will see multiple multiple positives they typically tend to be multiple family positives when we're sending home something
062um but what we've seen is that our mitigation strategies are still working and that's something you know we're in communication you know a member of um a network of superintendents across the country and some in different places have seen spread in schools and pretty significant spread in schools um we haven't seen that here our kids have been tremendous i'm so thankful to them for the way they've handled this working with masks and um and the truth is it's it's a really positive feeling when you're around you can feel this community spirit again that's being rebuilt and that kids are glad to be together um and i'll say again the vaccination rate at the high school and middle school level for us it's over 90 percent now um have engaged in at least their first shot
06384 percent fully vaccinated and what this has led to is the number of kids that need to go into quarantine at the high school is so dramatically limited um compared to what we saw last year sports we've seen like you see game after game postponed delayed because of positives on a team we haven't had those same issues now i'm not saying we couldn't at some point but basically with what we're seeing um from our kids we've been able to have a sense of normalcy as we go through this school year um that has just been tremendously refreshing has allowed us to really go back to um school and go back to the way it has been in the past with those good things and with some mitigation strategies still um so i'm really thankful to
064our kids because everybody told me last year and this year what kids wouldn't do what they wouldn't be able to do and our kids have stepped up completely as have our families and you know seeing them out on the field seeing them together i defy anyone not to smile when they're walking the fields at the end of day or just walking through school walking through a cafeteria there's just a great feeling right now in our schools and kids are happy to be back and i think a lot of those fears anytime we start something new there's trepidation and you guys know you get the letters i i get the letters and the emails and this trepidation and then we start and a lot of the things melt away because we see the way things are
065going and things have really been um positive the one negative across the state that affects us in some ways is the staffing shortage across the state it's our greatest challenge you see it in the hospitality industry certainly you see it in a lot of industries the bus driver shortage in the eastern part of the state is in a crisis state right now um i know five superintendents that are in in a situation where they have had to either cancel school or they're in significant they're basically in violation of student ieps because the transportation is part of a student's iap and they don't have monitors and they don't have drivers for special education they were me i know a group of them were meeting with the commissioner of education this evening about that topic i do
066want to thank first student because they have been a great partner and i especially want to thank our drivers for showing loyalty to west hartford because they have they've ca i mean some of the people that you've known our family have known some of the same you know i see i i saw a bus driver on the first day of school who um i've known for 25 years now he used to drive um the buses for the teams that i coached and he pulled over and saw me and he said i'm back out of retirement um to uh they asked me if i'd come on how could i say no to west hartford that spirit is just really um really thankful of people coming together so we haven't had the same impact that a lot
067of communities have had but we're keeping an eye on it we we have difficulty um substitutes again a lot of substitutes are loyal here i know of a neighboring community that had 40 absences one day and could only get five substitutes this is something that um is reality and you know for one of the first times in my career in connecticut i can say there's a shortage of teachers um and there's always been shortage areas uh we've never felt it in west hartford we've always been a we put an application we put a ad out we get a flood of applications the next day there's a significant shortage especially in the area of special education especially in social emotional health i think a lot of districts have done a lot of hiring in this area
068which is a good thing but that's led to a shallow pool and then you're at the position now with the question ethically do i want to pull someone from another district at this point in the year because there has to be some level of togetherness amongst our superintendents we have to you know it's not just our kids it's all kids or our kids and and this is this is a problem that the state um is gonna have to face um because it's especially affecting our urban schools and i have significant concerns as do their superintendents about their staffs being pulled out of their schools um at start this year and not having teachers to teach classes we're talking about aids and pairs they're talking about classes without teachers so it is a significant problem that
069all of us that care about education are certainly concerned with um speaking of staff and staffing our vaccine mandate for staff takes hold next monday on the 27th that is the governor's date if not vaccinated any anybody that works in our schools either contractor employee will have to go undergo weekly testing i strongly urge all of those people please take care of yourself take care of your families and take care of our kids and get vaccinated there's still time before next week to begin that process so um with that that's it for the superintendent's report thank you uh questions mark then jason yeah not necessarily questions but um some comments you mentioned about the 84 to 92 percent in the um high schools in middle school and i think amanda could test this we were
070at hall high school today i don't think i've seen that many students playing sports and parents in fact kp and aiken neighborhoods might get uh complaints about they had to park that far away yeah to come in and watch their kids play sports at hall high school today it was i mean every field at that entire place was had something going on it was it was really good to see and and you know it goes but down to that really that 84 to 92 percent that you're talking about because you know just like education as i like to call it as a three-legged stool teacher student family you know those families with this higher rate you know that they're supporting the vaccinations and such so it was really good to see that many people everyone
071was complaining like i had to walk a half a mile just to get here it was a good thing because that's what was going on at hall today um so it was just it was nice to see and and you know i could only imagine that that uh you know people are feeling you know that gives them the freedom to do what they need to do so it was it was it was well you know documented today at least if they had a drone flying over all high school today i'm telling you it was amazing actually we can have density send us drone over and take film um i think i'm glad you bring it up because there is this natural trepidation when you go outside and you see a crowd because we're so not
072used to seeing crowds places and to re-center our thoughts to this is good that our kids are taking part in some this is good that the community is coming together again um both of the principals i've spoken to it all the events and jason the athletic director about just how good the crowds have been how big the crowds have been but respectful of each other respectful of the rules and um i just think it's it's great for west hartford i it is certainly heartening mark thanks bring that up jason yeah thank you um i'm sorry i missed that scene um i i did want to ask you if you could reflect a little bit on what you had thought of before about um about lunches about lunchtime and how you know with with all students
073back in how has that um of you know other strategies come to mind or have seemed to work out um and you know given the vaccination rates and and all that how is sort of your thinking changed around lunchtime well this was certainly one of the things that we were afraid of what would we see in terms of quarantining from lunches would we see spread tied to lunches and again we're only three weeks in so i'm not making promises for 40 weeks based on three weeks but um i think what you see in our cafeteria is things are well planned out we have the benefit of cameras so we know who was where in most of our large cafeterias certainly so you could go back and look so it's not guesswork so you're not saying
074okay well we're going to have to take 40 kids because we don't know who is there and have them all in quarantine utilizing alternative spaces so not just the cafeteria but spreading out beyond the cafeteria using the outside certainly is um something i think the kids like too i i think the families like i think spreading out sitting outside is a good thing but there's days like this week where we're going to see some rain where that isn't possible as i said kind of the first day of school being a rainy day it almost might have been a good thing to get that out of the way so we weren't thinking what do we do during a rainy day that we had to do that right away and say okay this is our protocols this
075is what's working and certainly the elementary principles are constantly learning from each other and and sharing ideas and sharing what's working the building no two buildings are alike no two cafeteria are alike you know you look at even the so our two high schools are similar size but just the geography of the cafeterias the way the tables exist at hall are different from the chairs and tables at connor the lunch lines are different in how they operate so i've seen definite improvement in the lunch line shortening and things getting moving quicker than they were at the start of the school year um but certainly we're learning i i think one of the things i um would have said that i'm hopeful for because obviously we're seeing hopefully looking at the numbers it seems like we're
076seeing a plateauing maybe a decrease which is great a lot of people warn that that will exist for six to eight weeks and then we'd see an increase there's also um significant reporting that by november our elementary school children will be eligible to be vaccinated and that could blunt that same rise that we saw last year and could make because again there's no one mitigation strategy it's all of them and nothing's perfect there's something somebody could say you could do this and that's true we could do this the ultimate mitigation strategy is remote and we don't want that we want a suite of mitigation layers that build on each other and so so far they're working i hope that answered that yeah thank you for the the leadership and the flexibility and the adaptations and
077all of its great thank you liz yeah the other turkey area is the buses um have you seen i know last year a lot of the parents were driving especially like specific to elementary has that continued or are the kids back on the buses in full capacity i wouldn't say their full capacity the buses are more crowded than they were last year um there's certainly more people taking our buses i mean that's going to happen because you take the 16 percent that were out of school you add that into the transportation the benefits on the buses is masks are worn on the buses ventilation from the windows i mean one window here one window there do work there's there's studies about airflow and how that works on buses and if we do have to go
078into quarantine whereas some players are trying to do pure seating charts for every single bus that's really difficult with kids to get a seating chart for every bus so we have cameras on every bus so anytime something like that happens not only can we ask the child who are you next to who's in front of you we can actually look at the camera and map out the distances on the bus and see that so that's helpful amanda thank you were you all done um i just had a question could you expound on the staffing status of the nutrition services yeah it's another area that we're short and we're advertising in front of the schools we're advertising rick's posted ads out there publicly and um anybody wants to work it's a flexible schedule um and we'd
079um love to have you come in because that's another shortage area that's um we're struggling with is it is it in one particular position or one particular place or no because we'll move people to make it i mean everything with nutrition services is system-wide because we'll move if we have the issues and there's some overlap of the timing of lunches and things like that we just need we need cafeteria workers across the board kind of is there a tipping point where we're gonna have trouble functioning we're okay right now we're okay right now we need more i mean what you'll see is maybe more easier to put together lunches you know that kind of thing um but um certainly we're hoping we get more employees that can um beef up that department okay lorna thank
080you just a comment uh when you were giving your report appreciated all that you shared and you also made reference to some of our neighboring towns and some urban communities that are struggling and just want to highlight how appreciate how much i'm speaking for myself but i imagine my colleagues would view the same how we appreciate that level of empathy that continues to be a part of our school system here yes we certainly do encourage our students our staff to be the best they can be but i think it's important to model appropriateness and trying to be the best who we are and also to recognize that we cannot just be me myself and i we have to think of those who live in this community with us so thank you so much it was
081a small piece you made but it spoke volumes so thank you again thank you any other questions all right thank you we will move to staff reports and board discussions and we will have a report on the elementary and secondary schools emergency relief grants the esther grants so i'll call up um andy paul rosina melissa and liz so as they come up and prepare to give this report and we've kept you informed this summer as this had to go into our esr application we haven't received final word on our application yet but we um we expect to get full approval from this as you hear this presentation i want to thank um all the members of my team for the work that went into this this summer i especially want to thank liz hewitt for
082her work in writing grant after grant i said to her just this morning um we had a meeting this morning and as she walked in i said i feel like i give you too much to do um and um [Music] and uh then i want to give you one cautionary note because we have this esser funding and we're using this funding we're using it for teachers you know we have class overages as we said and they'll go through all that we're using it for it does dry up the board of education i worry in three years faces a budget cliff so that's something that's just plain real and it's kind of two budget cycles away from us facing what could be a exceptionally difficult budget season if we have to replace all this so that's
083one of the reasons why we're trying to be very careful about how we spend it in non non-returning expenditures but that's hard because some programs involve people because our kids need that help now we hope that these investments will lead to improvement over time so we can move on from that so with that good evening over the past 18 months you've heard us talk many times now about esser funding and esr grants and each of the individual grants and how we're using those to help us meet the challenges of the pandemic but we thought it would be beneficial tonight to look at all of our grants and really explain the overall plan that we have and explain to you how our funds are being used for our students for their academic renewal for their social
084and emotional needs and to keep them safe and healthy in our schools so as we look at our agenda we're going to briefly touch on several items legislation and the funding that we have been allocated stakeholder engagement our educational priorities and the strategies that we're implementing to support those strategies and then answer any questions that you might have so the elementary and secondary emergency relief fund which we're going to call esser for ease of of pronunciation was established by the federal cares act back in march of 2020 and the goal of that legislation was really to provide emergency relief funds to educational agencies to address needs and unexpected costs that were resulting from the pandemic the funds were allocated to districts across the country based on title one funding methodology and under that funding west
085hartford was allocated nine hundred and two thousand dollars in subsequent rounds of funding other under additional federal legislation the krisa act and the american rescue plan we were allocated an additional 4.3 million and 9.7 million respectively so in total 15 million of esser funding has come to the district but in order to receive this 15 million dollar allocation and we were required to spend applications to the state although the amounts were given to us they were not entitlement grants we had to prepare detailed strategies and explain to the state how we plan to implement those strategies to meet the priorities and the goals of the state so we spent a great deal of time internally discussing how to best use these funds for our students but we also engage with other partners and outside stakeholders
086and if you flip to the next slide you will see some of the partners that we met with back at one of our june board meetings we presented our continuation of services and our opening plan to the board and saw input from the public at that meeting over the course of the summer we also met with the parent teacher council the special education pto we met with the bridge family center the west hartford education association and we really sought their input to make sure that the plan was fully addressing the needs of the community and the information that we gleaned from those meetings really helped inform our application and as we go through and explain how the funding will be used you'll hear about some of that now not only did these groups meet with
087us to discuss options and ideas but they also provided letters of support each of them did for our final plan and each of those letters of support was included with our application to the state in addition we conducted a staff survey which we got a a pretty favorable response on overall the plans that we had had an approval rating of approximately 89 uh certainly with certain areas receiving more support than others but we're very pleased with that level of support so i'm going to let each of the members of our team discuss each of the educational priorities and then the strategies that we're implementing to support those strategies and i think we'll let paul start with our academic renewal sure so a lot on this slide and each each of these you have a description
088in your board report that talks about them but as you know as we've talked about earlier you know a significant chunk of our funding went right away to reduce class sizes where we were able to hire uh more teachers across all levels and essentially operate below our class size guidelines and that work is obviously already in place it's been reflected in the number of sections and i know we'll report on all of that on october 1 with our october 1 numbers the area that i'm excited to talk to you probably about is is in and around some of our specialist positions we were able to hire an additional reading interventionist teacher typically at each of our elementary schools at each of our 11 elementary schools we have one full-time reading specialist who has a who
089has a specialized certification and then we also have what was previously called an early intervention teacher is now called literacy interventionist teacher we had a shared position between two of our smaller elementaries and given what we expected and knew to be a larger academic need this year we hired um an additional reading interventionist teacher full-time so that once so that those two schools didn't need to split a half-time person we also as you know have hired we have math coaches that lived at the elementary we had one of our math coaches who was on special assignment with the state department of education she returned to us her position already existed in our budget so we were able to hold that position so we have the two reading coaches at the elementary level as we've had
090we hired in with your support in previous budget discussions two math coaches at the middle school level and one math coach at the high school level we do expect after the esser grants uh come through that some of those positions may go away but we've talked about at least at the budget table we'll talk further about the potential longevity or not of those positions long term in the short term we're excited to have that support live in the classroom so that we can support our teachers with grade level instruction in dealing with any learning loss through differentiation strategies turn it over to melissa for some of her and so last time we met i talked a little bit about the guidance received by the state around recovery services so we have allocated funds to support
091us in recovery services for students who might have experienced interrupted delayed or inaccessible supports due to the pandemic and possibly being virtual or you know services being delayed while they might have been remote so we have allocated funds to support us in a data driven process to ensure that any regression or recruitment that we're able to support students in making up for any lost ground they might have experienced also we have allocated funds for our early learning program we opened two classrooms that are primarily funded by a smart start grant at webster hill elementary school and we offset some of the other additional costs using our esser funds to support three additional paraprofessional positions a part-time special education preschool teacher and a part-time speech and language pathologist to support students who might have individualized education
092plans and learning needs in those early learning classrooms in our opening of schools report we gave you kind of a detailed uh picture of the summer learning opportunities the the expansion of the esy for special education our summer connections our esol programs and some of the other enrichments so i won't i won't belabor that now i will just sort of hit on the extended day program i believe i talked about our middle school summer program that we did this last year was modeled after a program that we were piloting in sixth grade and uh that was part of an extended day program uh kind of a re-envisioning of our homework centers how we can make that be more of an engaging opportunity and we do have plans to reopen that in the coming months across
093all grade levels at the middle level we also had opportunity to take a look at what we're doing with career internships and hire in a person um using us for funds for uh basically to give to give that area of our program of studies uh kind of a little bit of extra oomph over the next two years uh so that we can have that up and running and and really expand the opportunities for children to apply their learning especially at the secondary level in authentic ways and in work settings all right and in proactive nature and thinking about um the students returning to in-person school we wanted to proactively provide strategies tools supports and resources for the social emotional well-being and mental health of our students and our staff and so we allocated funds and
094resources to support an increase in our clinical staffing and that's across all levels so it supports increasing social work at the elementary level three clinicians at the middle school level one at each school and additional clinicians at the high school level to support students we've also doubled the size of our crisis intervention team with an additional trauma social worker so now we have two lead social work workers supporting crisis intervention and trauma supports at both high schools oh no i just want to add one more thing sorry um we also as liz was sharing we we worked with our stakeholder groups to get feedback on our plans to better understand the impact they see as families for students and a direct outcome of that is the student enrichment activities and so parents were reporting that
095um the social opportunities for students who might not be involved in athletics has been greatly diminished during the pandemic so um in response to that we've allocated funding for student enrichment and non-athletic activities that will be provided across all levels we'll have both a fall and a spring offering for the next two years to support students who might not be involved in athletics and joining in social activities and enrichment opportunities i think the only thing that i would add to that is that we're really trying hard to keep our focus on mental health and providing multiple platforms and ways of connecting with students providing a touch point for them to check in on them and then also investing in partnerships with organizations and agencies that help to facilitate student growth and development positive healthy youthful
096growth and development and helping them students who are reluctant to find their spark or really immerse themselves on the athletic field or on the performance stage or in community service and just really understanding what their needs are but hearing their voices to better understand it and form them so we recognize that our parents and our caregivers they have been navigating the complexities of you know this pandemic between home and school and we know that you know the full return of school has been great and it was necessary but you know it is new for every one of us this year for our students and adults so we'd be remiss if we weren't attuned to how the disruptions um in children's schooling have impacted them and have left many families with questions about recovery of lost
097learning and instructional time with teachers and how to engage students and keep them motivated and manage frustration and so we have deliberate investments and our family and community connections efforts home to school liaisons making sure that we have people that go out and do home visits and really connect with families and hear what's on their minds but also not waiting not not being proactive so that we discover we identify barriers and we remove them rather than having parents ask families ask for services or where to find them or you know how do i get technology making that information available and so informational electronic resources making letting them know where that is where they can find those where those resources exist but also being more innovative about how we get that information out whether it's you
098know through internet whether we are posting on our website and everybody's going to visit the website every day not everybody's checking and reading lengthy not everybody's tick talking but finding out preferred methods of communication for our family so that they get the information that they need right at their fingertips and so we're building better platforms for that too and that's a deliberate investment and then our partnership with the bridge i mean that's just been such a generous and meaningful and and very wise resource and support strategy that we have in place because those resources we're bringing the bridge into our schools as a more permanent fixture and support and so i'll say i won't go into too much detail about the social justice curriculum this uh was this this item was really intended to highlight
099the need for a person a dedicated staff member to keep our work going we invested a lot of time in designing and building um the social justice and social emotional learning curriculum and you know as as great as it was to develop these partnerships and collaboration and learn from each other it really isn't a sustainable way um to continue to do this work because you know our times aren't predictable and so we need a curriculum we need teaching and learning that is responsive to our students as things happen and so we need somebody who can be dedicated k through 12 to have that kind of vertical articulation about what's happening in our classrooms and providing that ongoing support for curriculum build and design for social emotional learning and social justice education and it is you
100know just to clarify it's it is pro-social education that we're pairing with social emotional learning and we see that as our moral imperative and i don't want to go too much into that because next month we'll have a presentation where we'll bring student voices our educators our administrators in their experiences they'll illustrate what that looks like and feels like um at the board table but they will uh they're not going to get into you know distinguishing what is critical race theory although i believe that that is important because you know in order to defend it or support critical race theory you got to know what it is and so our aim is really to educate the public about what we do what we see is our relentless pursuit and our statutory obligation to equity for
101all students and so we continue to invest in social justice and pro-social education social emotional learning resources and supports we're well ahead of publishers and curriculum experts out there they they're not they've not caught up to this formula that we have created and so we're building it ourselves again it's not a sustainable approach paul talked already about the career pathways facilitator uh what i'll add to that one is you know i i was in the school today reading a book called just ask and um a student said and this is the second time i've heard this now so it must be a thing i live in west hartford public schools connecticut i wouldn't dare argue with a six-year-old but you know they made west harvard public schools a hub of you know their life and
102so i think that's pretty special we have so many community resources and so we're really trying to leverage through this pathways facilitator leverage some of the resources and partnerships that we have with the economic development office our municipal agencies and we've got some good models like future educators of diversity we can reinvigorate our former cooperative work experience program and just find more innovative ways to create pathways that really align with our vision of the graduate for our students um so that's that's that on that page oh i didn't talk about teacher diversity i'm sorry paul can i just say one thing about the the teacher diversity program and our efforts so we've made deliver deliberate investments and teacher diversity strategies recruiting retention and supporting our students it's our teachers it's one thing to get them
103but it's really important to keep them and support them and so one of the programs that we're really excited about that shows up in the esser funds line item is the teacher residency program next year we will be full partners in the teacher correct teacher residency program it's an 18-month program that attracts and recruit aspiring people who aspire to be educators in particular educators of color and you know they're preparing them to transform schools and it embodies collaboration and equity and mentoring support and so we're excited to be a part of that had the opportunity to teach a course in that program this past summer on families and cultures and i got to learn a lot about their experiences and at the end of this they're guaranteed positions because they are well prepared and equipped
104to come into our schools and transform our schools so that we are more equitable and so one of the more sustainable structures is providing professional development to our current staff to provide some more of those sustainable structures beyond when the funding ends and so as we allocated funding one of the ways one of the areas that we really wanted to provide some support is for the structured literacy which i'm sure you've heard over the years through the id um a international dyslexia association guidance and then the state and national movement around dyslexia of identifying it under ida and supporting students remediation who might qualify as a student who is identified as having dyslexia and structure literacy is recom is the recommended way for us to um systematically support students as they overcome some of the
105difficulties they might have with decoding and so um they're the international dyslexia association is using the term structure literacy for what you might have heard um as orton gillingham linda mood bell wilson approach but it's basically the systematic structured um instructional practice to support students who might have dyslexia or have a disability in the area of reading and so the funding would be allocated to support teachers in professional development around some of these structured literacy programs and to acquire additional resources to support teachers and remediating any reading difficulties that students might have two other areas to highlight under our staff development and professional learning the first of which is our college counseling is obviously the baileywick of our school counselors but what's interesting um it's the one area that while it is probably the most
106visible to families uh in general it's it's the part that they generally need to learn on the job they don't receive uh real professional training for that within within the school counseling certification programs that exist and we saw an opportunity with esser as we collect feedback from our students and from our families at the end of the year relating to really the insurmountable challenge of being able to know every child every student their personal interest and find that just right post secondary placement for them be that college be that jobs or other opportunities we wanted to be able to invest in our school counselors and provide them some real authentic training where we're bringing them out to college campuses having them meet with the acceptance officers there having them get a real feel for schools
107become an expert at a particular school or a particular region or a particular niche in terms of hey this is this if if you're interested in in culinary arts or if you're interested in by you know bio molecular biology or whatever that might be that you know the program for that someone in the high school knows that not that every counselor is going to know that but we'll be able to partition divide them out be able to provide them with some opportunities so and and that's something that realistically kind of goes beyond what we would normally be able to provide and it's just an opportunity that we see a need for in the district we think that our families and our students are deserving of it and we want to be able to utilize rsr
108funding to help support that the second of which you see on there is computer science and as you know um you've heard us say here at the table before we've we've named computer science as uh an area of focus for the district a couple of years ago prior to the pandemic kind of putting a obstacle in our pathway on that being able to give it our full attention we want to be a state and or national leader in the area computer science i would i would i would argue that we are probably a leader right now in the state already in terms of our programming but we've only just begun to to really uncover the potential that we have in terms of our educational programming around that it will be a big lift in terms
109of how do we how do we bring all of our teachers specifically our pre-k five and some of our six eight teachers and some of our teachers outside of computer science themselves to understand how do i integrate computer science into everything that i do regardless of what i teach because that is the way of the future that is the future that we need to be preparing children for because that's the world that they're going to live in that's not the world that we grew up in but that's the world and that they need to be prepared for so we anticipate over the next several summers we'll have the opportunity to begin some of that professional learning bringing in some larger numbers of teachers and and kind of begin this lift this professional learning lift that
110will that will take several years to complete and uh looking forward i'm gonna be bringing forward to the table uh jackie coracelli to give you a report on this in the coming months and talk about it uh and she is just a bundle of energy and and uh expert in this area i feel like we spent most of last year talking about funding for strategies to keep schools safe but very briefly wanted to update you on a couple of pieces if you remember right last year we contracted to hire cna certified nursing assistants to assist in all of our schools with uh with isolation with contact tracing and so forth this year what we did was we continued that contract for the elementary schools again knowing our secondary schools or not dealing with the levels
111that they would be based on vaccination rates and so we've continued that at the elementary level the cnas they're also going to be able to help when we start doing the voluntary testing through the state program we finally have been contacted by them and we'll be hopefully setting that up and reaching out to parents next week with the details of that and the cnas will be invaluable as we're going to be working uh at the different schools with the testing providers to do the the voluntary uh the voluntary testing the screening for that one of the other pieces that we've done is to continue funding schools and continue funding our uh our ppe uh for protection equipment our custodial supplies we have those ongoing uh the ongoing nature of that we're still providing those to
112schools bob palmer paul edlin have been doing a fantastic job with their staff to make sure our schools are clean make sure ventilation is in place uh to make sure that uh that everything is is as as the factors that we've put in place continue for this year eric densie and his people have done a fantastic job helping us with the safety with the security making sure masks are in place and helping uh make sure schools are are ready to go at the beginning of the year and ongoing for that when we also talk about facilities one of the things if you remember right we talked about last year the mandate from dph and the suggestion to go ahead with the uh with the engineering study of all of our ventilation systems which we did
113uh and implemented them the changes that they recommended the repairs that they recommended part of the the charges that we've we've put in here as well is sort of the ongoing nature of that the ongoing filters the ongoing uh the checks over the summer to make sure the systems were still running at the optimal level that we conducted as well and then one of our facilities pieces that we also had put in place was to improve the playgrounds at the elementary when we talked about healthy students we talked about encouraging kids to be active to be outside to play in those groups we looked at the elementary schools and we decided that putting resources in place to to refurbish the elementary playgrounds would be would be really something that would would be not only welcome
114but also promote the goals that we had so in addition to the additional shade structures and such that we've gone ahead we've uh we've allocated money for the playgrounds as well and the last slide we have for you is a table that details each of the priorities that we've talked about and the amount of funding that we've allocated to each of these priorities and as you look at this table you can see that we've really allocated significant funding to every one of these priorities we've really done our best to leverage this funding and our focus and our goal has really been to utilize this funding in ways that directly benefit the students of west hartford and our plan is to utilize these funds over the next three years to meet student needs and that that
115would be happy to answer any questions you may have or clarify anything for you i see thank you thank you so much um i'm gonna turn open for questions and i know avery you've got a question so we'll go to you first and i think amanda you're next i would just like to shortly comment on the need for a dedicated person for the social justice curriculum students at hall have actually discussed this issue particularly students in the lgbtq plus community and have shown their support for something a person who's dedicated to continuing these curriculums in a sustainable way and i look forward to the presentation next month thank you amanda thank you this is a very thorough report and i appreciated all the detail that you had in this section um i have a lot
116of questions and some of them i know will come in future meetings so for tonight i wanted to focus some of my questions on the an intervention interventionalist in this in the specialist when we talked about the math coaching you had taught us about the model that you wanted to employ about how part of what they would be doing was to teach the teachers so that that knowledge was a systemic learning experience for the district which made a lot of sense so that that can be transferred from year to year to our faculty is there some level of that in the in the interventionalist and specialist component also i know some of that work is designed to work directly with students but is there some teaching that will go um that's teacher directed as well
117absolutely so i'm glad you asked that because one of the things that we've just begun to do is look at our reading specialist model so more so the reading specialist than the interventionist we added the interventionist which is a direct service to students but our reading specialist positions generally right now they they balance a lot of their responsibilities between students that are typically in tier three students that need more specialized support and being able to provide that because they have the content expertise and then they'll do a lot with case management they do kind of have that leadership role we want to find ways and one of the things i meant to mention in my comments is the number of tutors that we've also brought on we want to be able to find the ways
118to be able to support students with some of the tuners be able to alleviate some of that time for the reading specialist to also get in and kind of get into that classroom tier one coaching do cycles of coaching with teachers in the classrooms so that is a direction that we're moving we had some professional learning this year that we were able to support through title ii funding where we brought a lot of the reading specialists along with some of the principals out to a a series called the art of coaching that was one of the national experts on instructional coaching your name has slipped my mind for the moment but it's exactly the direction we're headed my second question was about the in the area of social emotional mental health of students with the
119trauma interventionalists is that i guess i'm wondering how how the school is receiving particularly at the middle and high school levels how you're receiving information about the needs of the students i know you get a lot of referrals from the teachers and then the bridge is also involved with some of the referrals but is there any mechanism to directly invite feedback from parents if they feel like there's some things going on with their kids that may be more significant and i'm thinking of parents in the community who've talked about the the rise in eating disorders for for students of all gender identities i know sometimes we think about that just with girls but it's across the board and some of those things and i've asked them if they've let their let the school know in
120any way and some people just don't think to do that because they're managing things outside but if there are larger things going on with students that parents are managing and they have support for that outside of school is there any way or are you planning to send out a dedicated communication to say you know please let us know if there's anything that we can be aware of or you know how does that information fan out to teachers and those kids and you know some of the teaching environments i've been in we'd have faculty meetings where we're talking about kids so we're all hearing the same information within appropriate boundaries about what's going on with kids so even if i'm not that student's teacher i might just be aware of that students on campus but in
121in a public setting with so many different classes that's not always reasonable um we're not really structured that way so i'm just curious about how that knowledge sharing is is positioned it's a really good question and i i think that you know families are such an integral part when we're talking about a student's mental health you know i think as mark was talking about you know the three components of how we support students and and families certainly have a window that we don't have and we do rely on their communication sharing and we know that many of our families are able to provide supports outside of school and support their child but we certainly want to be aware of what those supports are so we can also support and be available to those families as
122a resource we do have at the secondary level clinicians both under special education and general education as guidance counselors that do provide outreach to families our trauma interventionist specifically is working with students who might need an at-risk assessment so identifying students who might have made a concerning statement about self-harm or concerns about that might indicate concerns relative to mental health and that's where they would intervene as more of a triage model and support students at a higher clinical level and that by looking be looking at students who might require the next level of care where we might be reaching out to outside agencies if those supports aren't in place and we're always engaging families at that point in um in the dialogue we're communicating with families that you know we're speaking with their child we're
123involving them in the communication any future decision making and supporting them and accessing resources that they feel would be beneficial to the families unit and then to their child and supporting them through the process on an ongoing basis not just in the instance but certainly these these clinicians have a higher level of training and are more knowledgeable about the community resources and access points if i could add just one um i think it's also important to to reinforce that we are are still working within getting a large amount of information via our anonymous alert with students being able to share concerns that they have for each other and that's acted upon immediately by our staff and really is has become a really powerful tool i think for getting kids the help they need that the
124parents may not know about but certainly their friends do yeah i'd say that that is not just the anonymous alert program which is great because kids don't have to come forward but i would say one of the biggest shifts in my career in schools especially in high schools is the stigma of going to somebody to talk about one of your friends and your fears of them has lessened so dramatically it's not seen in the same way as telling again not universally but um students advocating for each other has shifted dramatically especially i'd say over the past 10 years in what we've and you can see that in our referrals people think of the referrals because of more issues it could be but it could also be because people are coming forward more now to talk
125about their friends so it's not always a negative to see that thank you um any other questions liz yes i wanted um to have a little bit more clarification in the interventionist so i noticed that you were adding um the interventionist a reading interventionist at the elementary is that one for the entire district and is there there's a reading specialist at each elementary school does that help correct so um we're adding one we're going from 10 reading interventionists to 11 so that there'll be one dedicated previously um i believe it was morally norfelt uh that shared a halftime reading interventionist teacher under under the 10 model so with the esser funds we're bumping them up to full-time staffing on their reading interventionists your eating interventionists will be working generally probably with a lot of kids
126what we would call in a tier two kids that have a moderate need but enough need that they need support outside of their classroom that their teacher would provide under a tier one each elementary school does have a full-time reading specialist so we have 11 reading specialists at the elementary school we have reading specialists at the secondary schools as well but we have one dedicated at each of the elementary school already so we have two full-time teachers that have specialty and reading working and in addition you know we do hire tutors that can work with small groups of students as well because the you know the found you know mastering the foundational reading skills um you know certainly not later than grade two is is identified as one of the most critical um kind of
127indicators of of success or potentially you know future struggle and i just had one more comment it's just more of a comment i was excited to hear that you're adding or you're letting the college counselors go and visit the college campuses i think that's so appropriate and necessary and also just to build the relationships with the admissions officers and especially for schools that we seem to have a lot of kids applying to year after year to have contacts for our kids if our you know be able to reach out and just have conversations about admission i think that's really going to help our kids so i think that's a good addition and also um the dyslexia uh work i think i if i understood you correctly you were going to help teachers identify students too
128regular classrooms teachers identify students who are dyslexic and i think that's a really great thing really going to be powerful for our students great um jason and then mark all right thank you um let's see so um one of the things that came to my attention my and my other job is that when we grew capacity to serve students um with mental health needs or counseling services that we also had other kinds of space issues so that like when we when someone had a new office say it it didn't match up with the what was appropriate for that space and i'm wondering if the district is thinking about um you know how you know having more uh more staff that are dedicated to counseling and mental health services and if the spaces that they have
129there are adequate for that for that kind of work on the other hand it's this is temporary funding and is that something that that is gonna fulfill multiple purposes down the road um and just wonder you're thinking on that and and um it just if that's if that's more like a specific school issue or if that's something you're thinking about across the district no it's a good question jason and um we've we've been able to go ahead and to build out um our resources and and have space for that uh where where we're running into some tightness of space is is more around some some buildings and more about some instructional areas but we've managed to get it all set this year even with the influx that we've seen in certain in certain schools and
130certainly we have the office space and the ability to to put these programs into place i think that's i i i'm glad you brought that up in that also the the security adjustments that we've made in front offices has often opened up a little bit of space in there we've been able to make shifts but at the elementary school and i want to hit on this when we do our long-term enrollment projections because we think of okay this building has this many classrooms we can have this many classes but we need the extra space for esol we need special education space we need counseling space we need reading special space things that didn't necessarily exist 25 years ago in terms of space that are space needs that are real and i think we need to
131do a better job andy and i have spoken about that and liz of when we do our long-term enrollment projections giving a more accurate picture of this is how the building's used because you look at walcott and it says oh walk it has a couple cl walcott has no room i mean we we can't take more kids it's we have a match number of classrooms to the exact number of people so that then you get into the moving art on a cart moving music which isn't optimal for the kids either you can do it for a year but it's not optimal so i'm glad you brought that up i had an additional question i'm sorry um so then i know this these were plans that we discussed last year and that they're coming to fruition
132and and and you know based on those um applications and um but i'm i'm also thinking of you know i was i was reading over the uh the shipment in goodwin um you know legislative summary for what you know all the the the new mandates and the the legislative changes that uh that schools are responsible for and um i was looking at the um the piece of legislation on declaring racism as a public health crisis and in there there's a part of you know identifying schools as a point of contact for medical and social services and i'm wondering if that discussion has entered in to the district or they're still waiting for instructions from you know from the state or other other bodies but the the kinds of interventions and capacity building that you're doing
133already seems to fit or at least go in line with those expectations and those kinds of ultimate goals um so it's just you know something that i i saw that and i was like oh i wonder if this this kind of work that is being done with ezra funding it can also meet those those other objectives down the road you know one of the it's really interesting question and the way it's worded and how it goes forward especially community health partners community mental health partners is that we have this space and there are times with schools where we think well we can have the schools do this we can have the schools do this we can in schools do this we also have a security component to our schools that we can't have people coming
134and going all day and so there's this you know are there points of contact that we are working with with our own um physician and physician contacts i mean i think you know we don't talk about some of the things even the partnerships we've made with athletic training with our partnerships with um the with hartford hospital just in concussion protocols in physical therapy where we can have our trainers at the school do that kind of element and we can also um we always have for students that can't get a physical we do that component with our students but then there's the dental question that there's all of these things that are legitimate questions that we haven't been given a true road map to yet and um and that building security and coming and going versus
135the real community needs is something that i think that there's we need better direction i think good minds have to come together and think about those issues ah thank you mark thank you so a little confused tom when you started your um you talk about this is that you said that the budget the board of ed would have a difficult time a couple cycles from now i look at it a little differently than that these funds and i'm wondering if you're talking to these esser funded teachers that they are esser funded teachers and that there is a limited time in this budget for this because this is specifically around that and you know i know for instance the pay to play uh when these funds are gone that that that it goes away too and
136it's very clear when we talked about it back in the day and that parents will still have to pay is if a board of ed that looks similar to this says yeah we can't put that on the budget that it's going to have to back to pay to pay play and then you know we talked about different things like you know computer science leader in the state well we were that prior to covid i understand we got some training we're putting dollars toward that but that is part of our exercise pre-covet anyway so you know we're putting these funds in here and i'm wondering that get it you know we want to have more teachers maybe trained in that skills that are critical to that to that piece but that should take place whether we
137were in covet or not and you know to put it on a very limited funding for three years is one thing you know so i'm i'm you know the college counseling thing kind of this um dyslexia dyslexia was not a a coveted um critical um piece that made we don't have you know i i'm assuming we don't have it was around prior to covid and things like that and i get thrown money at i i'm not saying that but these are things that should be in our toolbox anyway right prior to any covid that we have professional development things like this you know like playgrounds that will be there that infrastructure will be there you plant it it's going to stay i understand that that that's but if we are putting forward a because we
138need it we all talked about there's a reason the esser funds are available right and and we understand that um what our kids and our students and teachers have gone through we understand that and and we're i'm glad that we have these funds but does a board of ed really have to look at this after three years because i mean if you're having those discussions with the ti the teachers that are hired and they are covid hired teachers that there's a limited contract there and so how like what what is that happening because at the you know why leave it up to a board of ed like this when we have 10 million more dollars to vote on because we have things in place because of kovid now there might be things that we need
139to extend you know board that looks like this might need to vote on and extend but the relative reasoning behind why these funds exist is to put your assets and resources at things that that need immediate attention and that get get us past that so i'm concerned about what it's going to look like three years from now and that not necessarily a board of ed has a tough budget but administrators have tough discussions i i appreciate the question i understand what you're saying and actually you and i come from this from the exact same place we've had those discussions these positions that we're adding are interim positions then there's a reality we've sat here when parents have come up at budget time when something's being removed that did exist and we've seen what happens with
140the community wants some things so you're the pay for play is a perfect example you're right i'm going to put that back in the budget and you're going to have every high school parent at that point that's a senior has never paid and you're going to be saying you're going to be paying 150 175 dollars a person that's a new thing for them it's not a return it's brand new for all those there's nobody that'll be in the high school that ever paid before at that point so that's something where whoever is on this board is going to get pushback for that when it becomes public we're not gonna have as many tutors that is going to get pushback when it's said that we're not gonna have the same funding for a trauma specialist that
141is gonna get pushback i'm not saying that i'm not preparing for it now that's actually the reason you said is the exact purpose that i brought it up is that these are all difficult things because the more something works the more people are going to want to have that and it and it's it's going to be a difficult budget season i'm not saying you should just put it forward i'm just saying this is going to be the reality that budget vote and that budget season is going to be very difficult so i understand that but that would have to be the community and the board of ed development because say yeah teacher a uh you were hired on the esther fund three your contract is up now potentially there's no need for you anymore that
142said one teacher just for an example goes away um yeah and we would have to i don't necessarily even see that coming to a budget vote that's more of a administrative you know i know what you're saying about a missing component right but we are taking 10 million dollars worth and i think the expectations have to be discussed and articulated so that not only the teachers know but the public knows that these funds and these you know because we can't just say here's 10 million dollars we're going to have in perpetuity yeah we're going to have you know we have to manage if we need said we i don't think i can't speak for everyone because i've had a lot of different board of ed's but we really haven't said no to the mental health
143pieces ever you know when we're developing and something needs in a classroom the board of ed has always been um absolutely full you know uh leaning forward on those issues and you've never not needed them but when you add 10 million dollars like you know three three four three million a year yeah you know that's that's a big number to come back with without managing expectations and managing a uh a conversation and that's you're exactly right that's the pure reason why i introduced it this way to remind people that this isn't a in perpetuity edition that these are there and there's going to but you're right you're not going to be voting on a position where we put the position up and say add drop no we'll eliminate the positions but there's going to be
144community pushback we just know that because there always is well as long as those are the expectations right i just you know i can't i could just see it saying and again i want to just preface if we need something i don't think this we've ever really shied away from it because you know our students are important to us so but you know i just i look at the pay to play for example right yeah okay i get it you know um those are things that we probably have to manage and and because people you i never really thought about it that they wouldn't pay if they're a senior because it's three years but um one they didn't play a year right so those are things that i think i think if if there's a
145communication piece out there and people know i guess you know you're bringing up is a good example we're talking about it now so um it's something that has to be managed three years from now effectively really um liz for the second time just to to elaborate on what mark said i think it is important to give people notice the teachers notice where we can and also things like the pay to play if they're signing up online and there's a place that says here's you know pay your money we should be putting in this is the cost it's waived because of esser funds so that people realize there still was a cost it's waived for now and you're on notice this is a fee so i think wherever we can keep people in the loop this
146is something we're getting extra this is not how the system works i think that's a good thing so that people don't get lulled into oh this is something that we always have had and will have going forward that's a good point thank you andrew um i have a question about the school to career position i know at connard we have a college and career center and there's an individual who staffs that how would this new position be integrated to either work with them or work alongside them so the position i was referencing we have currently within uh and and we have a person that works primarily within our um alternative high school reach program that services both connor and hall an individual that working under those auspices has arranged for internships and job shadowing opportunities
147for students our goal is to look to expand that to be able to open those opportunities up more broadly at connerton hall themselves and so that could you know in terms of where that position might become located or where you find the individual certainly potentially within the career center i know currently the career center is more of a resource where where folks can to go down in there if they're looking to to have you know career explorations that they might reach out all right any other questions well thank you and i i do truly want to thank all of you and obviously tom as well and the community and our staff for their input um you know the the opportunity to bring in almost 15 million dollars of federal funding directly into our district to
148improve our educational experience for our students and families it's um it is i guess a silver lining and i think that we've demonstrated the ability to use those funds in ways that are responsive to students needs and reflect best practices so thank you for all of your hard work on it uh [Applause] all right we're going to move to routine matters and approval of the minutes i'm seeking a motion for approval of the minutes of the september 9th 2021 board meeting so moved amanda aronson thank you amanda is there a second second jason thank you jason any discussion if there's no discussion on the minutes i will try your minds all those in favor of approval of the minutes of the september 9 2021 board meeting please signify by saying aye aye aye any opposed
149say nay abstentions the eyes have it moving on to information and reports and reports from other boards and organizations do we have any reports i think amanda you've indicated yes hi i'd like to offer a short report from the bridge family center i'm the board representative for that organization and for anyone who might be listening who doesn't know the bridge family center does a number of things in the community they're the contracted youth service bureau for the town they do offer school-based counseling they operate our family resource center which runs out of chartreuck and the teen center which runs out of the elmwood community center so the long and short of the report is that there's a lot of collaboration going on and there's a very tight partnership especially this year coming out of covid
150the summer update um the bridge did a lot of individual and group mentoring for teens especially and there were some support offered activities and there was also professional development helping kids with resumes and helping kids get into jobs this summer which was obviously significant not just for income but also for time spent doing productive things that help them in the future the teens from the teen center leadership group did a lot to enhance our campuses throughout the community they had some raised beds outside of the elmwood community center but they actually built four more at connard high school for raised garden beds they built two at smith elementary and they built a greenhouse at the elmwood community center so once again our teams leading in the community and really enhancing it in a number of
151ways they did a lot of counseling over the summer as well our school-based community therapists were continuing the psychotherapy and the counseling that was taking part during the school year so that didn't just drop off in the summer and they worked with 25 students who who wanted that support which was obviously very timely and important and moving into the school year they're working very closely with school staff to ensure that students have the support that they need not just from a clinical setting and a counseling setting but also for their mentoring needs and as we heard tonight they the bridge family center has expanded its contract with the west hartford public school system so a lot of those things are really in place here they are they're school-based staff who's already working very closely with
152our school staff they're attending school-based clinical meetings and they're attending student success meetings and they're obviously still staying very flexible because along with the school staff and town emergency staff they're part of the response team whenever there is an emergency involving youth in our community and the last thing i'll mention is that they're also offering a lot of support for parents for teachers and then they're talking about offering that for school staff as well and they're in conversation with the the school team and the school staff on a number of levels to figure out how that makes sense where that makes sense and and how that should be structured so thank you to our school staff for for opening up the opportunity to collaborate so well and thank you to the bridge staff for just
153taking such good care of our kids along with the schools thank you do any other board members have information or reports from their liaison groups no okay um we'll move to non-staff communications and reports and we will go to our reports from student board representatives and tonight we'll start with andrew the first thing i'll mention was connor's first football game which happened uh two weeks ago now um like other board members and and staff here mentioned there was a really great turnout the red sea our student cheering section was completely filled but also there were parents and teachers and it was very well attended senior class board was back to selling food as they do at these football games to raise money and we're currently working on trying to bring back the pep band which
154has always been a staple at our football games on the drama side of things uh the black box is currently working on a play by neil simon called fools auditions for that were um also two weeks ago and they're currently working on putting that together um on september 8th there was a panel on mental health which was brought up at the last board meeting um and that was called keeping our focus on mental health and wellness and um there were there were students from both connor and hall at that and that was partially organized by the heron project club which is a club that was started while i was at connard i think i was a sophomore and the conor chapter has been extremely involved in the national group so actually a week ago two
155students natalie gavales and ella tannis were recognized as national youth ambassadors for the larger organization seniors were also some seniors were also recognized uh for the psat uh there were seven national hispanic recognition program scholars four african-american recognition program scholars seven commended uh students and four national merit semi-finalists and the last thing i'll mention the last thing i'll mention is that senior meetings have started for seniors at least from what i can see school counselors and students are definitely talking a lot this year senior planning starting tomorrow and i know junior planning and the underclassman counterparts are also set to begin uh and something i brought up looking for last meeting is that college visits in-person and virtual colleges visits have started and there were all there were some today there will be more yes
156more tomorrow and that will continue through early november thank you avery in the same vein at all high school we've been experiencing a lot of the same great turnouts at our sporting events hundreds of student athletes have been beginning a successful season in sports such as cross-country swimming and football as well this friday hall will be having a small ceremony for the college board national african american recognition program the national hispanic recognition program national merit commended students and the national merit semi-finalists at hall and the career center continues to offer college visits which all seniors are enjoying as well as the senior plannings the senior day that i mentioned last meeting went well and all hall seniors were able to talk to their guidance counselors and to begin the processes of begin or continue the
157process of the common app and in general hall um there's a great attitude of there's i apologize the attitude of um community has just been really remarkable we've been having in-person clubs um and um really seeing a great turnout for that um in particular the organization um student equity and diversity council has been able to begin in its full capacity this year um and is looking forward to continuing their work thank you a future business announcement of future meeting dates our next meetings are on tuesday october 5th tuesday october 19th and wednesday november 3rd all at 7 pm followed by tuesday november 16th at 6 00 pm here in the legislative chambers are there requests for future agenda items are there any comments from visitors no i would like to take the privilege of the
158chair and just make an extremely brief statement for the community there are rules that we follow as a society in order to keep our community safe stopping at red lights for example not smoking in restaurants and for right now wearing a mask indoors i encourage public participation in our democracy and it needs to be done in a way that is civil and respectful in order for us as policy makers to focus on your message thank you there's no executive session do i have a motion to adjourn so moved motion by mark seconded second by liz uh meeting is adjourned at 9 26 congratulations rick for accurately calling that have a wonderful night everybody you