Board of Education Meeting of May 4th, 2021

001go through it we'll see me more here when i say closer good evening i'd like to sorry let me try again good evening i'd like to call the meeting to order welcome to the west hartford public schools board of education meeting for tuesday may 4th 2021 we are here in legislative chambers and also have a google meet set up for any of the members of the public who would like to make public comment we'll start off with the roll call ms erinson president dr chang here ms poland here dr steinberg here dr thomas ferguson here ms wilcox mr zadanowitz here student representative lillian sweeney rasheel your belly thank you and rashil will you lead us on the pledge please i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic

002for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you we do not have a revision to the agenda order so we will move to public communications and before we move to the google meet is there anyone in the room who wants to make public communication seeing none moving to those who've signed up to speak is brian fleming in the meeting i don't think so i'll move on to catherine grace wright goodson and good evening my name is catherine grace wright goodison i live at 119 kirkwood road and i am a sophomore at hall high school tonight there will be a reading of a draft for a new educational equity policy as a student that will be served by the policy i wanted to bring my voice we want

003you to know that students want to be involved and we will be discussing our ideas concerning the equity policies and the first meeting of a student group called the student equity and diversity council which will be held on tuesday may 25th from 3 to 4 pm thank you for your time and your commitment to all students in west hartford public schools thank you thank you for sharing your thoughts with us okay moving on to unfinished business we don't have any we'll move right into new business and a motion by amanda aronson lorna thomas ferguson and liz wilcox to accept the new policy 1800 regarding educational equity this will be the first reading and the recommendation is at the board of education except as a first reading the following new policy which is proposed by the

004board of education policy subcommittee so i think we'll have a motion and a second and then we will have the reading so moved amanda moved by amanda and seconded second seconded by lauren and thomas ferguson and i'm going to turn it over to my colleague amanda okay thank you good evening everyone we dr thomas farkasen miss wilcox and i are the members of the policy committee and we are going to present as a first reading policy 1800 educational equity i will provide an overview of how the policy is structured and why and how it was informed and miss wilcox and dr thomas farkasen will then read the policy aloud and clarify what happens next so the first thing to mention is its name educational equity as we know equity is different from equality an equality

005policy would mean that our district would plan for all students the same way but our students are not the same they have different gifts different backgrounds different needs different learning styles and they arrive to the classroom each day with different lived experiences and having had different levels of access to education health and wellness support so that is why our district does its planning with an equity mindset we think critically about how best to support our students as individuals this policy confirms that this is our district's approach and it offers clarity as to what we mean when we say that and what that means for our planning the second thing to mention is its format our policies generally follow a consistent structure and we chose to expand that structure a little to put the mission of

006the west hartford public schools and our equity and anti-racism vision statement at the top of the page just before the policy introduction to reinforce how the mission and the vision need to be considered in any planning by design our hope is that the format reinforces that all planning decisions should start with the policy guidelines get checked to ensure they support the promises and our vision statement and that they ultimately serve our mission the mission of the west hartford public schools in case we don't hear it often enough is to inspire and prepare all students to realize their potential and enhance our global community that is a very powerful statement it confirms that our district is concerned with a student's experience a student's preparation and a student's impact we are striving for a positive impact we

007also want to remind our community who our mission supports we are caretaking a pre-k through 12 environment we have a significant impact on the development of a child's foundation as a human being the quality and content of the education a child receives in our district will have a direct impact on that child's future safety and quality of life that is an immense responsibility we want to continue to approach our work with this in mind so that if every single one of our students came in here one by one we could look each of them in the eye and tell them honestly that we are not only making our best effort within our means to help them learn grow and feel good about themselves but that we are also trying to cultivate graduates who are inspired

008to make a positive impact in the world and who want to support the safety success and wellness of other people so how is this policy informed well the promise the process of informing this actually started quite a long time ago but a key point came during the early years of mr zidanowitz's service on the board actually when he and his board colleagues at the time voted to begin a more clear commitment to equity a full-time position was created and over the past year and a half that position has expanded to become our office of equity advancement that expansion has helped the district organize more formal family and community engagement gather significant input and feedback and track it in the past year our experience with family and community engagement has grown to a whole new level

009and because of that the amount of input and feedback we were able to collect about equity and our understanding of what our community wants deepened and expanded in scope our school-based equity diversity and inclusion parent groups worked tires tirelessly to create opportunities for community learning and they conveyed family input and concerns over a dozen different organizations in town unified to meet monthly as part of our district's one community for equity group parents students and community professionals joined our advisory committees last summer to assist with school reopenings social and emotional learning work groups formed to help inform our curriculum to help our children cope with current events and our internal equity and diversity council formed a work group to help us research policies for educational equity weekly faculty meetings and trainings provided significant insights and feedbacks

010into student needs and wishes our community held rallies to amplify student and family voices parents communicated with the board faculty and district leadership district leadership clarified our focus on equity and what direction we would be taking and then heard responses to that from parents and students and many of us on the board immersed ourselves in our own learning both in the community and beyond and of course conducted our own research so when it came time to write the specifics of this policy years of input and feedback were considered representing many voices we cannot thank our community enough for this level of engagement you have strengthened the foundation of how we communicate about equity in our district and you have created a systemic change we are a continuous improvement district so we will keep building on

011that foundation so our communication will just keep getting stronger and we want to thank the members of our office of equity advancement and our educational equity work group and the edc for their work synthesizing all of the community feedback received over the last few years and for their research we asked them to provide suggestions for the foundation of this policy and they proposed a structure consistent with other policies of this nature it has a value statement in the introduction and then our intentions are broken down into different categories so thank you to all of you and to the many people who have informed this policy by engaging with us over the years we are very proud to present the first reading of policy 1800 for educational equity and here it is beginning with its introduction

012every student in the west hartford public schools has the right to access opportunities and supports that cultivate their unique gifts talents and interests regardless of race religion color national origin ethnicity socioeconomic status gender identity ability difference immigration status or any other characteristic protected by law every student has the right to an authentic feeling of belonging and safety we acknowledge that current and historical systems of racism privilege and oppression impede student progress therefore it is our moral imperative to identify and eliminate barriers and inequitable practices that perpetuate disparities across student groups as an anti-racist organization it is our collective responsibility to ensure full safe and equitable participation for all students in every area of our educational programs we strive to reach these goals in the following way budget and resource allocation the west hartford public schools

013will strive to allocate resources and funds to meet the needs of all students while directly targeting interventions and supports that address identified inequities and help maintain school culture that support our mission to enhance our global community recruitment and retention innovative approaches will strive to recruit and retain highly qualified certified staff across all areas and leadership levels who reflect the diversity of our community and share our commitment to anti-racism deliberate investment strategies will be vital to support and retain all educators especially those from underrepresented racial ethnic gender and linguistic backgrounds high quality curriculum instruction and opportunity resources will be commissioned to ensure the narratives lived experiences and perspectives of students from a wide variety of backgrounds are reflected in the curriculum and provide authentic voice to reflect diversity and inclusion in order for underrepresented students to

014access the full curriculum including the areas of arts and computer science education they must see their value as central to society special care will be taken to ensure that students have ongoing opportunities to see their identities represented positively in the curriculum curriculum review teams will include educators from historically or traditionally marginalized groups professional development professional learning training and support will be designed to foster understanding of the historical and systemic root causes of inequity and offer research-based means of intentionally countering trends of predictable disparity and disproportionality family and community partnership engagement balance representation we will strive to foster and maintain parent caregiver and community partnerships that honor and celebrate the strengths and assets of diverse identities and experiences to support student wellness and success a balanced representation of home and school partnership will help inform identity

015and address challenges encountered environment and climate we will strive to ensure that students staff and families are valued respected and heard discrimination bias or harassment towards any individual or group will not be tolerated we will encourage all members of the school community to possess a feeling of individual ownership of this responsibility to ensure safe and nurturing learning environments accountability structures systems and data analysis the whps continuous improvement plan will delineate structures accountability systems and metrics that enable the identification and analysis of inequities in access opportunities and outcomes for all students and in particular those groups that have been traditionally and historically marginalized we will utilize equity conscious data collection measures and disaggregate data to support clear reporting on equity goals and outcomes so where do we go from here this is the first reading we're

016planning to have our second reading in june at the june board of ed meeting the june's first board of ed meeting however from now until then we certainly want to hear from you we heard a caller who made reference to wanting to hear the voice of young people you want to hear the voice of adults as well so yes we do have a board of ed meeting on may 18th at that time please feel free to call in with your comments we have open comments at the beginning of meetings or at the end of meetings but also feel free between then to email the board of ed with your comments and suggestions although we have the second reading on june 1st at that time that second reading will encompass all of the suggestions that we

017have received from then until now it's important to note that what we are presenting today is a reflection of our community voice and we need to hear from you in order for that to happen at this time i'll pass it to our colleague liz for her comments just some final thoughts i'm pleased to be able to present this policy tonight it's been a collective effort putting pen to paper to draft our current equity policy and while this is a new policy the ideas expressed are not new we as a district have been committed to equity for some time dr haskins will continue her work as director of equity advancement and be responsible for the implementation of the policy and i'm looking forward to seeing the progress that will result from this work and for my

018thoughts i have to say this process has certainly been one that i greatly appreciate being on the policy committee have to genuinely say that this was a collective effort a collective voice that did not take into account party it took into account people it took into account the human spirit and i want to thank liz and i want to thank amanda so much for your support with that and of course andy as well and all of the persons that have played a role in that what we are speaking now is putting forth something in words however it's up to us collectively and also those of you who are watching to put it forth in action and for us to set aside and rather to take this time to acknowledge the policy that's important when we

019educate our young people we must remember our young people will be our leaders for tomorrow so we have to invest in them today madam chair thank you i want to thank the policy committee for its work and appreciate the first reading are there any questions by members of the board mark so as a previous policy member we all kind of take our turns i i did it for quite some time and i enjoyed the process and i know there was a lot of work and consideration and collaboration that took place behind the scenes so thank you for that i know this just didn't happen overnight so thank you for all that that you put into this um my i guess my question is that and first i love this and support it and is that

020we talk about will not be tolerated and use words like that what part of the policy or what when you go into uh an instance when say this policy is not adhered to where is the what policy does this represent and sometimes we see other policies that are attached to this that so if there was an incident where um something took place is do we need that in here um where's the policy for the punishment i guess not that the toleration the further along so you know you you have this someone does not adhere to it what's the potential punishment and how do we address that in the policy and or is it addressed somewhere else and do we attach that policy to this one uh if i could andy first just uh yeah and

021we that's actually really um interesting take in terms of that policies at the bottom you'll see links to other legislative policies and policies we have i think it's probably and i'm not on the committee so i'm curious i think there's probably too many for it to link to all of them that could fall under guidelines in terms of how those are set up in other policies guidelines that could attach to this over time um that could be developed separately that's a possibility or it just automatically falls under those policies which we could as you say link here these the attached policies that else are laid i'm not sure about your thoughts yeah no um that's a great question thank you mark and as tom said it's it really in asking that question and the committee

022did ask that question of of uh our council as you know jessica is a part of of the committee and her reasoning and her thought at this point was that there wasn't we didn't need to link to other policies or to the legal backgrounds because this as the board statement and the policy is really an overarching vision and and goal of the of the uh district and of the board everything else as we're examining other policies as we're working through procedures and such will be with this that in mind um almost as a as a frame that we're using in examining that and so we've identified and the the policy committee has identified some additional areas that they that we want to start looking at next year to see whether or not this this in

023fact changes our approach and on some of those other policies so to your point almost that this policy would then be added as policy your view as a subset to those policies that i get that you know that's interesting other questions or thoughts jason yeah i just wanted to follow up on that question because i i um i think consequences are important um but um i'm also inspired by the language of of the policy to to and i understand there's a kind of ecosystem of of um of policies that this will um activate and what i'm thinking about is just the the notion of um the notion of punishment as a consequence and to think of the way that this policy is directed at at learning and education and you know if there are you

024know behavioral or um or other kinds of of breaches of that that it activates a kind of reinvestment in education and reinvestment in um in in the things that the the district does well um so i think there's a risk of taking a a punitive approach to a policy that is um designed to lift everyone and in doing so any deviation from that could lead someone to not being a part of that right um so you know as you were talking i was thinking about other um other possibilities i just wanted to bring in that kind of reflection about how um i'd like to see you know those those kinds of values um represented in also in the consequences you know um so i'm not sure if that added anything but it was something that

025your your question made me kind of reflect on no if i could jason that's an interesting point i don't know if i'm gonna step in your toes mark and that's something that as you do policy review then you can look at other policies in light of this policy and okay how does that change that policy and and it is something that i think this board needs to assert as it moves forward that education is a key component with our children because frankly i've sat here for seven years in this position in five years before in andy's position and when a child has violated the spirit or the rules of this the response is often not about education it is people want punishment and it's one of the times that we've taken a lot of heat

026when we've aired towards education and so that is that's a worthwhile discussion in our other policies and how it relates to this i'm glad you brought it up but tom that was kind of the road i was going down too is but there are instances that when this prior to this policy and breached yes i think there probably was some punishment but it was also an educational tool because i remember some town events that things happened and yes people acted wrong but it was a big educational and i think you looked at it that way um because it was a point that said listen hey this happened let's fix this this shouldn't happen again and you know without getting too specific because you don't want to read open wounds and things but you know it

027was a hall connored thing and we haven't seen any of that and we you addressed it with i think an educational piece so prior to this policy you know there was some good in my mind to your point i guess there was some really good stuff going on anyway right because you know the kids looked at what they did wrong kind of looked in the mirror internalized it and said yeah you know this was really so yeah i you know what you're saying is is intriguing obviously and i think some of that has already taken place and i wouldn't imagine you know the continuous improvement again right is that that's that's a really insightful thought so amanda thank you and um that also is the spirit of what we were thinking and writing this to

028is that how are we maintaining a learning environment and one of the things we talked about was that as we move forward if there are other policies that this uh touches we want to be able to make that a slow process so that the community can be involved and understanding those policies if they if they need to evolve so that we can have conversations about the true root of discipline which is to learn and to to have that mind mindset and it can take a while for parents also to kind of wrap their heads around that and so we thought that there would be great value in slowing down that policy process for anything additional so that we can really build in that education you know our community has been speaking loud and clear that

029they want to be involved in two-way communication and this year there's been a lot of opportunities especially through that one community for equity work group that that meets once a month where there's a lot there's an agenda there's organized discussion and some really good conversation is stemming from that so i think these are the kinds of conversations that we hope this this will begin to encourage and to have the students involved with that along the way and and to make sure their parents are taking part in that is really going to make all the difference and you know whether that happens in other communities i don't know but that certainly seems to be in the best interest of children when we really want to make sure we always remember that we're in a learning environment

030thank you others lorna park thank you i just i would be remiss if not acknowledging rosina and the work that you do and in the leadership role that you play because with what we're talking about right now in terms of the educational piece in terms of learning from the experience you have done a wonderful job with that and very much appreciate your collaboration in this effort and being willing to take on the charge of helping with the educational piece moving forward so just wanted to certainly recognize your contributions as well just a question i guess to the members of the committee when i read this it seems in a way really innovative and i love the fact that we're putting this down in writing but it also feels to me like when i read through

031the paragraphs on budget and resource allocation recruitment and retention curriculum professional development family community partnership environment and climate and accountability this reflects the work that we are mostly already doing am i correct and sort of feeling that way this is not like as innovative other than the fact that we're now putting it down in writing in one place to guide us in the future so i guess that's a question to the members of the committee i think you read that right deb and that's and that's really what i um what i felt when when we were drafting this that this was a codification of really the beliefs that we have but that we it's good to have this in writing and it's good for someone to be able to reference that these are our views

032and i think that you know to build off what lorna was saying having dr haskins as part of the team and kind of being at the forefront of having an equity uh officer is is is something that you know we really have to acknowledge we we do believe in this work and we are doing this work so um this is our policy but there's still a lot of work to do and dr haskins is going to really lead us and show us our blind spots and let us know what the community is thinking and being able to fill in those gaps and adjust if we're if there's something that we need to work harder on we can work harder on it so yeah i'm excited about the policy and i think it gives us a

033lot of room to to innovate even more yeah i appreciate that hearing that and it's also important for people to understand that once we have a policy in writing that does help guide the future boards of education because it's you know whereas the seven of us around this table now are committed to this work that doesn't mean that's always going to be the boards of education in west hartford and to have this written down i think really shows our commitment and what we want for the present but also for the future in our schools i'm again just so appreciative of the work that's gone in from the board level the staff level and the community input as well and looking forward to hearing from more community members over the course of the next month or

034so on this mark so interesting you kind of kind of went down a road because when i was on the policy committee meeting we were looking at um uh what's the old way to copy well yeah we were looking at some of those in our in our uh policy and it was dated you know it was like 1978 september right and so because there will be a new board of ed that will review this at some point and things may have to change so i guess my only addition to this because i see that the equity and uh racism vision was adopted in 2020 that put a date on here that did i don't miss that exactly so i when we adopted that goes on the bottom here so so that it's a live document

035stays relevant and that people show okay any further discussion on this for tonight amanda i just wanted to mention one quick thing dr haskins you did such a nice job putting well on a million things um but when you put together that email to the community announcing that we were looking at this you had some links in there to the website would you mind just kind of enumerating some of the next steps that are on there there's a form i believe that people can also access right first i want to thank you all for honoring recognizing our work and just supporting our work through this value statement and you know clear set of expectations for what our families and our stakeholders should expect of us what we expect of ourselves and hold ourselves accountable to

036i also want to really express a great um sentiments of of gratitude to the edc the research arm of the edc for their incredible understudy of this work and synthesizing everything that we've done family partnership work student input and i also want to highlight um my thought partner in this work and thank you for allowing me to have someone in the office dr scott rashford has been a tremendous asset in helping us um and he runs the uh overseas the accountability arm of the edc and so we've had we have our own internal checks and balances system as we were summarizing and studying other districts and our past and present work so i want to thank you for recognizing honoring that and summarizing that so well so we part of outreach and communication is also

037part of our continuous improvement plan we definitely want all voices we want good representation we want to hear from people and so we have an equity policy parent work group parent and caregiver work group and they've been helping us to come up with a strategic outreach and communication plan we currently have a website the whps whps.org forward slash equity policy that lives on the district website as well as on all of the schools websites and so that we will keep that live we'll keep that information updated and let people know ways that they can continue to be heard there is in addition to it lorna shared that there they can email the board they can give public comment here there's an overview by the edi on how to give public comment how to call in

038how to sign up um grace goodison showed us that tonight but that was that you know she knew how to do that from that communication and so we'll continue to explore opportunities to make sure that we leave no stones unturned when outreach to families and community stakeholders and hearing their voices through multiple platforms and so you know the the form that collects feedback also collects questions and though while we can't answer all questions if we see trends of frequently asked questions we will post them and keep everybody informed if we think of our own we'll do the same okay thank you so much more to come all right we'll move on then to staff communications and reports and we'll turn it over to tom for the superintendent's report um you can call it up and

039load yeah we can we can start with that as you're calling that up i'll uh i'll talk about um today is of course and i want to mention this um on behalf of the board on behalf of the town today is teacher appreciation days this is teacher appreciation week um and uh it's one of those things that my words and sometimes i you know no matter how many words i'm going to use on it i can't get across my and our appreciation for our teachers and all that's happened this year their their work their support through the most difficult year through the most trying times with their own fear with their own concerns with their own loss that so many experience during the course of the year and kept being there for our children whether

040it was virtual or whether it's in person and being that steady rock for that child throughout the year and those children that were in their class you know i i hope and i believe that at the end of their careers they will all believe that this was their most important year and certainly the years coming up are going to be important and difficult with so much that we need to do but um you know part of part of life an important part of life is being there is showing up and being there for the children and meeting them where they are and where they need to be and having children that are sometimes being told you're in danger this could happen to you and just this constant fear that so many of our kids have

041dealt with this year and our teachers being there for them being that stability being that being that safe haven that has to be there for learning to occur because learning cannot happen if you don't feel safe we know that and for those hours during the school day whether truncated whether online whether in person our teachers have been and um i'm certainly not doing any victory laps now we have till june uh 17th um but um at that point um you know i'm getting to the point now where you can begin to see the end of this year and i do think it's been west hartford's greatest year in education and what what our teachers have done and that's because of our teachers and when we get accolades and you know we talk about them and

042celebrate them and i'll talk about a couple in a minute um that's because of our teachers you know the fierce loyalty to our schools that's because of our teachers you know anytime people say things to me it's because of our teachers it's the culture it's what they create in the classroom it's their care it's their concern and their willingness to meet the demand that west hartford you know we said something when rick talked about um when rick talked about our non-10-year review process we said top 10 percent of all teachers is what we look for commitment to excellence meaning that potential for excellence that you're still striving in your 30th year as t of teaching the way you did in your second year of teaching and that's the challenge that our teachers are meeting and

043i just want to thank them more more this year than i ever could have in the past for teacher appreciation let them know that they are certainly appreciated by the community um i have a couple honors before i get to the teacher of the year finalist and this has been in the media and i thank ronnie newton for her coverage and ronnie typically gets a press release and won't tell me from us news and world report and i find out okay tomorrow i need to find out about this because ronnie knows it ronnie knows during the day and i can find out at midnight but um holland connor's success once again u.s news and world report and i you know i've done charts and related to it our two high schools being amongst the top

044two percent of american high schools 2.4 percent of american high schools are two high schools being recognized for what they do in raising our children and educating our children and being one and two in hartford county and being in the top ten top 11 12 in the state year after year and it's i think it's nice that they flip back and forth over who's in who's on top of the other seemingly every year because it just goes to show the small you know they're both exceptional and no ranking should be why somebody chooses a school because rankings can be skewed the metrics they put in can be skewed but you know one of the things people talk about is well is it just people in ap clouds do you just have look who's in our

045ap classes compared to the rest of the state look who's in our ap class compared to the rest of the country and we're not satisfied because it's not fully representative but we do open our classes up we do beg our children to challenge themselves and we there's ways to play with numbers and i can tell you we don't we could get way more ap exams if we wanted to i mean we don't open advanced placement to ninth graders i get calls about it every year we could have way more numbers in there and be number one in the state if we wanted to that's not what drives us it's a nice ancillary benefit of what we do that we're recognized that way it's nice to get outside validation but even with that i'll say that

046validation for conorton hall that's about all of our teachers that's about all of our schools in the district and recognizing that work that it can't just start in ninth grade it has to start earlier but the culture isn't people make a mistake and think it's a culture of achievement it is not a culture of achievement that's a byproduct it's a culture of challenge and prove to yourself that you can do something and the mindset being we'll be damned if we tell any kid you can't do it and that's what's special and so when when we look at west hartford's rankings we know this and we know the celebration that happens it's just another piece of validation that makes me proud that this has been where i've been able to spend my career because i've learned

047from and it's seeped into me we had another great recognition it's my honor to share that the connecticut music educators association outstanding music educator for 2020 2021 is none other than our own dr amanda leon guerrero this is a huge honor this is um thrilling she's at webster hill and um she's selected by the state committee based on submitted materials and information based on her teaching experience and there will be a ceremony for her at the end of the school year but the outstanding music educator in the state is from west hartford and um we're so proud of amanda and congratulations and it and it certainly is fitting that that comes from west hartford one announcement before i get to the teacher of the year finalists um danzatun will announce to the staff tomorrow and

048families tomorrow and i will share with you tonight um i am thrilled to announce the appointment of melissa hickey as hall's new assistant principal melissa has been serving in this role this year um she's no stranger to hall she's been interim principal this year she's been an english teacher at hall for the past 10 years she's a graduate of eastern connecticut state university for a bachelor's degree received master's degree from university of st joseph sixth year in administration from sacred heart she is innovative she is passionate and the one thing that comes across every time i talk to melissa and members of the executive team talk to melissa it's always about the kids and if when we're talking about teachers during teacher evaluation melissa immediately talked about their outreach with children that she knew through

049her outreach with children we're talking about home visits family visits she knows the families what came through so clearly throughout this process is that she is all about the kids and fiercely devoted to kids and we are very excited um for her to join our leadership team and so with that if um one of you could come up and help out teacher of the year process is rigorous and begins with nominations from other teachers oh you have the clicker oh okay i i don't know how these newfangled things work nominees so it's nominations from other teachers i want to make something clear this isn't something that i do nor the members of the executive team this is a teacher-driven process i find out literally right before the meetings who our nominees are nominees submit a

050resume and essay and recommendations finalists have a lesson videotaped and the final three are then formally interviewed by the teacher of the year committee and these are our finalists and the winners not the winner the teacher of the year single person will be announced later this month and let me start with the first nominee chelsea smith is a sixth grade english language arts teacher bristow middle school chelsea has her 092 certification educational leadership she has a master of education and secondary english education a bachelor of arts in english with a minor in history in fact she's also taught social studies at bristow over the years she has been with us since august of 2007 um she was a presenter in connectedness analysis part three patterns of reading writing connections and pre and post tests at

051the national reading conference in los angeles california she is co-author of book walk books that move our teaching forward exploring texts that engage students and teachers in poetry she's the middle school representative for curriculum and instruction and reopening committee this past year she's a member of the safe school climate committee scheduling committee and principals advisory committee we are very lucky and excited to have chelsea so congratulations to chelsea our second nominee mr matt west he is a english language arts teacher at hall high school for grades 9 through 12. since november of 2007 mattis taught english at hall high school he has his 092 certification education leadership from sacred heart a master's in education and a bachelor of arts in english masters from university of new haven and bachelor of arts from st michael's college

052and i'm not sure i read that for chelsea chelsea's 092 is from sacred heart her master of education is from university of buffalo and her bachelor of arts is also from the university of buffalo so um matt has led building-wide cultural competence training during his time here um he's been here since 2007 as i said he's led pd sessions on implicit bias he has been the team mentor to numerous new teachers and inculcated them not just into the field of teaching but into west hartford's teaching into the hall community he has found he founded our english language our kotal classes he organized and moderated human rights day speaking panel he is on the safe school climate committee in fact he's the co-chair and he coordinated the national walkout day advisory response deeply involved in our

053advisory program at hall high school so congratulations to mr west and finally our third finalist is miss lara white since august of 2015 lara has caught has taught social studies at hall high school she has her online two in educational leadership in connecticut state university in fact she's dr white because she has her edd in educational leadership from the university of connecticut her masters of education from the university of vermont and her bachelor of arts in history from columbia university lars dissertation was a case study examining how experienced teachers adopt culturally responsive instruction through participating in a collaborative inquiry team she's assisted in developing and building capacity of the future educated diversity program at west hartford public schools you've seen lara before both as hall's commencement speaker and for many board presentations with feod she's

054increased enrollment of underserved service and underserved students in advanced placement courses which she also teaches she's established the ethnic affairs position for the west hartford education association and in fact received the connecticut cea henry barnard memorial award for her work as a teacher and in the connecticut cea for 2019-2020 she's collaborating creases uh collaborated and created the faces sel anti-racist and social justice curriculum for high schools implemented during the weekly community blocks she's the teacher representative and contributing member of the whps opening schools committee that strategized and planned for modification to scheduling logistics for this past school year and she is um deeply involved with rosina and our equity task force over the years so these three educators um our committee that is meeting has a difficult task in front of them as they do

055every year because these are three fine fine educators that i am very proud um to be colleagues with and you know laura chelsea matt they are all um just the best of the best and i know they probably feel like on this teacher appreciation day they're just representative of the hundreds of teachers that they work with in west hartford so congratulations to them and that's it for me no juicing cookies today no thank you any questions for tom all right then i will um is dr nelson here i don't see her over there we'll move on to staff reports and board discussions and we'll have the presentation on our post-secondary student recovery informational report with dr nelson and dr morrow welcome back andy welcome thank you it's been it's been a while yes so and

056we're not going to let you leave after this report either no i'm going to say just stick around with that gretchen is this technically your last board report no no no you gave me the gift of one oh i did give you one more never mind that's right so we wanted to uh give you an informational update and a report on a project that we've been working on uh for a couple of months now about about four or five months if you remember in the previous years we've uh been looking and created opportunities for our post-secondary students in a culinary program with our kitchen work that we've done with the greenhouse project if you remember from about a year and a half ago on in our partnership with uh with our farms which both are

057fantastic and we've been looking at opportunities to have recovery efforts for our post-secondary students who haven't been in uh in job sites who haven't had those opportunities and came across the idea of a used bookstore in west hartford and so i will turn it over to to gretchen who uh conveniently came up with this idea and then announced she was retiring um and so we won't let her live that down so she can yeah andy's going to be the manager of the bookstore he says so as you know our post-secondary students are students who qualify for an iep for transition services only so they've earned their credits but um continue to need some support and transition types of goals and objectives and so this past year our our students who traditionally focus about a third

058to a half of their time on vocational training we're not really able to engage in that level of training or the intensity of training that they they really need in order to enter the adult world and in our community and continue to do the things that they love and so this year we had a few opportunities for students to learn in community-based settings but they were they were very few we tried to replicate job type scenarios within our community to make sure that everyone was safe which was great we still were able to engage in our farm and of course we still have the culinary program that's there on the on the campus the idea of this bookstore came about by looking at another uh another program in a neighboring community who's engaging in a

059in a similar situation and they are currently bringing in adults young adults with disabilities to work this bookstore and we said you know we can do that with a little bit of a west hartford twist and so so we're taking a look at being able to provide another community-based site when andy and i had a conversation with the town they let us know that there were an awful lot of community members who are also very interested in a used bookstore in town so what we are proposing to do is open up a used bookstore in a convenient location within town and engage our community partners through senior job bank volunteer services as well as we will have 52 students in our post-secondary program next year in order to run this bookstore and so uh with

060the first year or what at least one year under our belt we're hoping that then we can expand this to include some of our high school students in their business classes and and other opportunities for them to engage in this bookstore as well as possibly employing young adults with disabilities who've graduated from our system who really need employment and you know adult world employment for students with for young adults with disabilities kind of waxes and wanes with the economy and right now it's it's not in good shape and so it's really hard for young adults to find employment and so we'd like to work within our community to make sure that happens and i think this site would be a great opportunity for them you know just the the one thing that this is the

061kind of this is i think the creative use of american recovery funds that they're designed for that's why we're you know jealous and guarded with it because this we can do for three years see what happens in the community if more opportunities open reopen up with businesses but it is becoming more and more difficult because of insurance liabilities with places for our placement of our own students this guarantees that place it also gives back because one of the things that the state and i don't think with people in our 20s i think gretchen and i have said this before i don't think we're always um meeting our requirements ethically to our fellow human beings and we talk about equity and gretchen and rosian and i talk about this a lot sometimes people leave out special

062education from equity and my gosh you can't and our work that we need to do to make sure that this meets kids where they are but also brings our community together and brings the kids from our high schools in to work also with these other children bring together you know in the same ways you see unified theater do it in the same ways except giving opportunities for multiple age groups across the way and in what better way in west hartford in this educated community than through a used bookstore so um you know it's a lot of work and these two are very aggressive in their timelines and i've kept trying to put the reins on them as far as their timelines go um so i hate their timeline i may slow down over time because

063we want to but just just so we know that's and this is an informational report um because this is the kind of thing that i i want the board to know about i want you know i want people in the community talking about i want as many people to know about this over time as possible and location to be determined announced at a later date as we're still talking to people about that but questions for and this this credit goes to these two i mean this this everything belongs they deserve the credit for this ari i don't really have a question but i just love everything about this initiative um again i just feel like it it um you know it really speaks to the district's commitment that our commitment to our students doesn't end

064at graduation um and i think that this can offer um so many kind of post-secondary students um it can help you know i just think that there are a lot of students who when they graduate and they don't know what the next step is for many different reasons it really has an impact on their self-worth and their levels of independence and this could be an initiative that really helps to maintain self-esteem feeling independent self-worth i just think it's it's a wonderful initiative and again it really just speaks to the level of commitment that the district has um that you know it's not graduation and goodbye um that we see people and students for in the individuals that they are and the needs that they have thank you i appreciate you saying that i also think

065that it will serve um as a model program for other businesses in town and i think if they can see that that students are successful and contributing members of this that it will inspire other businesses to also diversify their employment opportunities [Applause] other questions [Applause] amanda and then jason [Applause] i love this i when we when you first mentioned this in theory you know it took me a while to digest what you were saying and the more we have learned about this and the more we think about what the kids have been doing and how wonderful that has been for them and then what's happened during the pandemic when i think about the families we know in our own personal lives who have adult children who are in this position it is heartbreaking to see

066what happens when those young people get to a certain age where there aren't any opportunities and then for families trying to figure out how to have that that engaging stimulating experience every single day and i don't know that i would have fully appreciated that that struggle if i hadn't known people in my own life and so the more i thought about that and this town loves books i mean we that you know we have more than i can't even count how many book clubs are going on so to think of how exciting it is to have yet another bookstore in the community especially a small one and to have an opportunity for all the adult groups in in the community to get involved but i see the impact on my kids when they were in

067middle school and in that stage of development where you know it's hard for them to think outside their own lives when we'd go to the grocery store or we would go to places where they could interact with people in the community who had who had been part of special education programs almost every one of them would say i went to hall high school in 19 so and i was part of a program and my kids year after year after year started to develop the relationships with the kids and it opens them up in a whole new way and it just has such an impact on the whole community that um i think the idea of the application of this is so special and i'm really excited about it um and i think you're right about

068the model so i think this is terrific and i i just love this town because i can only i can't can't wait to see what happens with the engagement because i'm sure that there's a lot of people who are going to want to help with this and it's probably going to surpass anything that you've even thought about yet knowing our community so this is really exciting justifying the timeline yeah i i think i know i yeah i'm usually you know me i'm usually for the slow time i think this one is you know pedal to them i think you're on on track with that thank you amanda i really appreciate that yeah because people are going to help this this community people will help [Applause] jason yes also i have a lot of books i'd

069like to donate excellent um excellent this is fantastic um and i really appreciate the district's you know uh creativity and thinking about this moment to not just address recovery but to invent new things that will that will sustain us and um i just had to reflect on um on the role of used bookstores in my life um they were essential places for me to discover things and uh to to meet people to hear authors read their work to meet authors to share writing these are it's not just a place where you can buy a book uh but these are you know places where ideas and people circulate and it's really important and um i am so excited for this so thank you for working on this thanks mark all right were we uh precluded from

070having um [Applause] stock purchases on this because this is how amazon started in 1994 so i just want to want to make sure that maybe the board could jump on that and uh but no that's this is good stuff and um i appreciate that in the timeline well it's got to be done before you retire so i mean that's that's that's that's the charge right there uh mr moore i i'm just afraid andy and i are going to be spending our summer checking out of here and walking to sell books so yeah we have a plan i actually have oh go ahead lorna thank you thank you very much i shared the sentiments that colleagues have shared as well very much in support of this and i know that it's an opportunity for post-secondary students

071to continue their educational learning however very much see that it really is mutually beneficial because so much learning potential for other students and for the community and for adults as well and so thank you for allowing uh encouraging for that type of setting for there to be a mutually beneficial exchange of learning and continue growing thank you [Applause] so all of those things but also a question can you talk a little bit about the funding for this and i know we mentioned there's federal funding and in the report there's a mention of the need for a full-time program manager so yeah our working with liz this really is is the perfect use and and really the definition as tom mentioned of the recovery act funds and so we've identified between the program manager uh business

072manager position which is really equivalent to the culinary director that we had hired uh previous at that that same kind of level the rent utilities our supplies and materials we're estimating between 140 and 150 000 per year now as tom will point out that's the initial expenditure that doesn't include sales so we're expecting you know to of course recap and and get part of that back but it's a little bit different position in that typically we talk about fts and teaching positions this wouldn't be a teaching position this is somebody you know technically will advertise look for we'll have teachers working with them but this will be somebody on the business side that has experience in this field and also hopefully experience working with kids and the right kind of person for this position we

073would look to employ that person full year a year-round position um in their uh you know hours would probably be tuesday through saturday kind of things so we can cover the retail aspect of it and this person would coordinate volunteers as well as uh liaison with the teachers in bringing students in and be there that was one of my other questions was what do you envision the hours to be and so something like tuesday through saturday tuesday through saturday yeah we think based on initially ten to six you know kind of hours we'll have different times for students to then be there to catalog some of the intake and and that type of thing so it's really uh you know once we get it going and it sort of takes its own its own pulse

074there great thank you any other um questions well thank you so much we're very excited can't wait to hear more so are we [Applause] all right we are going to move on to routine matters and the financial report um and the approval of the financial report for the period ending march 31st and i'll start with a motion to approve the financial report for the period ending march 31st is there a motion thank you mark in the second second thank you lorna and i will present the financial report this evening um so if you turn to page six of your board books uh there's not a lot of changes this month uh from last month's financial report i will highlight just a couple of changes that are notable one is that we have just a few

075minimal salary changes that's due to some vacancies that become harder to fill later in the year there are no real changes i'm now on page nine by the way no real changes and benefits we do expect to save some money in the people transportation we should save about 500 000 this year and that is mostly due to the fact that we did not have transportation for summer school last year it was a remote summer school and the reduced need for transportation to extra curricular activities like field trips and away games uh for the parts of the year that we did not have um away games for for sports um as far as the tuition line item 5430 we are getting a higher reimbursement from the state for tuition than we had expected to so that

076is uh welcome good news that will help our bottom line as well we have a little bit of savings in the all other purchase services line that is due to again lower costs for travel equipment maintenance um and so forth as a result of the pandemic we are um there's a new line here that says designated for 2122 right near the bottom of that page and that is a line that will allow us to bring our savings forward to next year so some of those savings that i've mentioned we'll be able to use those in next year's budget that's consistent with the budget that we adopted at our meeting last month so that will be in our non-lasting account if you turn to page 10 for the grants funds you i always like to say

077this above the line are the grants that um we have another year for below the line are going to end this year not a lot of changes here yet the big news is going to be when we have all three of the federal new federal grants listed so as a reminder we have uh what we call the sr1 grant which was part of i think the cares act from last march if i remember correctly those funds are on this page and they are where are they they are about two-thirds of the way down 502.062. those funds go through september 30th of 2022 and we've basically used them all it's 902 thousand dollars um sr2 which is not yet listed here um the reason it's not listed is that the state is currently reviewing our application

078so once they approve our application which we expect that they will that will be listed on our grants report that of funding is 4.3 million dollars and we have until september 30th of 2023 to spend those funds those programs are going to be things like um trying to assist students who became disengaged over the pandemic some additional special education teachers learning recovery and so forth the third federal grant is from the american rescue plan act and that was the act that was passed in march by congress and those funds have not officially been awarded and we actually don't know exactly how much we're getting but we suspect it's likely to be about 10.3 million dollars and those funds go through september 30th of 2024. so it's a little bit complex i'm sure you'll memorize all

079of that but once all of those funds are officially awarded and the state has approved our applications for the use of them you'll start to see those filter in on this page of our financial report as well but other than that there aren't any real highlights there on the grants page moving to the special funds report again not a lot of changes here the big change for this year just looking across the past year is facility rentals we really as you can see don't have a lot going on with facility rentals because we're trying to keep our schools um as few people in there who are not students and teachers as possible but hopefully that will turn around for next year and finally nutrition services and we actually had quite a good month this month

080we compared to other months this year we had increased meal counts this year and we actually asked liz and tim brzezinski to run a count of meals at every school and at every school in the district we had more meals in march than we had in february so we were starting to see the trend go in that direction which is helpful and that's obviously because the middle school and high schools are now back in with all the students in every day so more kids are taking lunches we also have an increased reimbursement rate from the federal government which is helpful so we're still expecting a loss uh quite a big loss in nutrition services for this year but better than it was last month so things are on the upswing we're now expecting an operating

081loss of 398 000 um in this account whereas last month if you remember i think we reported an expected loss of about 500 000 so um things look better we will be hopefully using our s or two funds to fill in the gaps for this as long as the state approves that which again we suspect they will because that was a specific question that was asked to the state department of education the other reason we think that's a good idea is this account the nutrition services fund had been doing really well before this is an account that is really self-sustaining based on the reimbursement we get from the federal government from the state government from the funds that people spend for lunches and a la carte items as well and so once we're back in

082the swing of things in a more normal-ish environment we think this account will become self-sustaining again so we just want to fill in that gap with the esser funds that is my report are there any questions or additions if i missed anything [Applause] all right uh without further discussion um i will try your minds on the motion and the motion as a reminder is to approve the financial report all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye all those opposed say nay abstentions and the eyes have it and the motion passes thank you yeah thanks andy all right um moving on to approval of the minutes i will seek a motion to approve the minutes of the april 20th 2021 regular board of education meeting is there a motion so moved thank you move

083by liz seconded by amanda any discussion with no discussion i'll try your minds all those in favor uh please signify by saying aye aye any opposed say nay any abstentions the eyes have it all done uh information and reports um are there any reports from board members from other boards and organizations all right now other information and discussions then we will take the reports from student representatives and i'll ask lillian rachel to join us and you can come up and speak at the podium so lily first thank you i have to press a button oh okay this year hall's ciac scholar athletes are natalie lydell and isaiah lizardi the scholar athlete award honors students who have made significant athletic and academic achievements while maintaining good citizenship and involvement in the community natalie is a three

084sport captain in field hockey indoor track and outdoor track who has received all-state and academic all-state honors and field hockey and ccc all-academic honors in all three sports isaiah is also a three-sport athlete in football outdoor track and indoor track who has received all-state honors in football and outdoor track all ccc honors in oh there's a lot of honors here all ccc honors in football and indoor track and ccc all academic honors in all three sports next year he will play football and run track at middlebury college congratulations to both of these hard-working student athletes on this major accomplishment since i announced the details of senior prom at the last meeting the capacity has been raised from 200 to 400 students which means that the entire senior class will be able to attend their prom

085very good news ap exams will begin in less than two weeks so students in ap classes have been working very hard to review and prepare for their upcoming tests some exams will be taken remotely online while others will be taken in school with pencil and paper students have received individual instructions for their from their teachers as to how their exams will be taken this week is teacher appreciation week and to celebrate hall is holding a gift card raffle for teachers every day during the morning announcements and students can write a special message to their teachers on the teacher appreciation jam board throughout the week pto will provide a breakfast from sally and bob's lunch from ocho cafe and an ice cream truck available for the teachers on behalf of all hall students we are so

086grateful for our teachers hard work and dedication to our education especially during this crazy and very unpredictable year finally i would like to give a statement on the educational equity policy the hall community is proud of its diversity in all its forms and not only should we celebrate this diversity we should also recognize and learn from our shortcomings to make the school a more inclusive and equitable environment passing an educational equity policy would do just that and i hope that the board considers feedback from various members of the hall community especially from the students who deeply care about this issue and would see the first-hand effects of this action to pass a policy that is best suited to achieving toward achieving equity and i would also like to thank catherine grace wright goodison for acknowledging

087the student equity and diversity council that will be meeting soon on the issue thank you thank you um as as lily just mentioned i first wanted to thank the board for proposing the educational equity policy on behalf of the students i just wanted to say that we take we find taking steps to eliminate systemic racism and barriers for educational opportunities very important we are excited that the board is proposing a written and actionable policy to meet these goals and we as students will do our part in making sure we foster a welcoming learning environment mr duarte will keep the connor community and the connor students updated through his weekly thursday notes and students will have the opportunity to ask questions and provide their opinion on this policy as lilly mentioned ap exams have begun this

088week at conord both in person and virtually and will continue until the end of the month last wednesday conor's world language honor society induction ceremony took place where 175 students were inducted and 53 students who earned the seal of bi-literacy were also recognized two fridays ago conor wrapped connor's earth week where students took part in a number of educational activities that helped raise awareness on climate change and environmental sustainability these included daily social media posts on conner's instagram informational recycling videos a special edition earth week series in the conner current and an earth week virtual movie night and also a tree planting activity in connor's courtyard prom tickets for connor's senior prom will go on sale this week we are so glad that every connor senior who wants to go will have the opportunity to

089attend next week conor's band orchestra and choir students will host a music concert for the family for families at the outdoor simsbury meadows music center i also wanted to congratulate conor's jeffrey rosberg for being elected to the connecticut association of student councils board it is we are so glad to have a conor voice at that level thank you thank you both and good luck to all of the students who are taking ap exams and or getting ready for prom in a few weeks uh future business we have um two more meetings this year tuesday may 18th um here at seven o'clock and tuesday june 1st also here at seven o'clock are there any requests for future agenda items mark not not an agenda item but um i was just wondering tom or maybe the students

090when when do we find out the new student elected um board of ed reps uh i will check with giulio and dan do either of you know if the election's been announced yet gotcha so normally they're announced at one of our meetings right or um last year halls was but connors wasn't yet right um so it it depends i'll check with them on what the timeline is with julian did all right great comments from visitors we we do have somebody who's joined us in the google meet i believe it's brian fleming so um brian if you wanted to provide comment you can do so now are these brian plumbing can you hear me okay yes okay great i just had a quick question um concerning the meeting the way that it started or at least

091opened up and i apologize i think that the woman's name was aronson is that correct um a man yes i will say we don't typically respond to public comment but yes i can answer that question yeah i appreciate it so one of my concerns was the way that it opened up is that the policy uh was not an equality program but was an equity program and i guess the question that i would have and i know that you can't respond specifically to my questions but at least a food for thought for everybody here is that when it comes to equity versus equality my main concern is whenever we whenever anyone says that there's a program that is not founded on equality but rather be equity that's concerning to say the least and the reason why

092i say that is we specifically have the us constitution um specifically the fifth and fourteenth amendment that addresses uh discrimination and by concern moving forward with this type of program especially after hearing the reading i think there's a lot of language that's up for interpretation and my concern as a parent of three students of the west hartford school system is how the school board and the educators uh plan to roll this type of program out um there's a lot of talk for example about metrics and about budgetary concerns and how money is going to be allocated to promote equity not equality and i guess moving forward that's something that i would like to hear some feedback eventually i'll definitely participate future meetings i know this is a hot topic for for many parents and um

093it's definitely up for debate but um that's that's basically what my my uh comments are and concerns are at this moment but i definitely would like to hear more from the board on exactly what metrics they're going to be capturing and what type of programs are going to be formulated or released um designed for certain students based on equity and we can you know if that's going to be race or gender sexual orientation whatever it is and at the same time also honoring with us constitution says about discrimination and equality um so i guess i'll just wrap it up with those questions it's a little bit difficult to uh make statements without any feedback but um i'll end there thank you for your time thank you and i appreciate your your comments and i i

094recognize how difficult it is to not be able to receive feedback but um i will just reassure the public that everything that we take in uh we will consider and anything that we hear could become part of any policy that is adopted in the future so thank you thank you for being willing to share your thoughts we do not have an executive session and so i will take a motion to adjourn [Applause] thank you lorna is there a second seconded by liz and uh without further ado meeting is adjourned at 8 26 pm thank you so much everybody you