Board of Education Meeting of December 3, 2019

001sorry thank you [Applause] welcome I'd like to call the meeting to order this is the West Hartford Public Schools Board of Education meeting for Tuesday December 3rd 2019 and cami would you please call the roll mrs. Aronson here mr. Lavine present mr. Payson here miss polling here dr. Steinberg here dr. Thomas Parkinson here mr. Zhu danowitz here thank you and I'll just let the public know that because we're having a board meeting on a day that was a snow day for our students and teachers we have graciously excused our student representatives Isabella ham and Kenya Ferrera and so I'd like to ask board member ari Steinberg to lead us in the Pledge thank you I do not believe we have a revision to the agenda order this evening and no student participation so we'll head

002to public communications and has anyone signed up to speak okay moving on to unfinished business we have an item under new business ratification of the local 1303 61 of council for apps may maintenance Employees Union the recommendation is that the Board of Education ratify the negotiated agreement between local 1303 61 of council for asked me maintenance Employees Union and the Board of Education for the period of July 1st 2017 through June 30th 2022 good evening everyone before you for approval is a ratified agreement between the Board of Education and our maintenance union our maintenance union is one of our smaller units it's comprised of about 20 individuals who are responsible for the general maintenance of all of our school school facilities that includes electricians plumbers HVAC personnel we have a carpenter we have a painter

003we have actually the print shop there's two individuals in the print shop who are part of this union as well and then we have general maintenance and grounds maintenance employees as well the contract you're voting on right now is a five-year contract it goes retroactive to July 1st of 2017 calls for wage increases in that first year of twenty seven eight twenty seventeen eighteen of two percent so it be a general wage increase of 2% retroactive to July 1st of 2017 a retroactive wage increase of 2.2 percent to July 1st of 2018 at two and a quarter percent in each of the next three years and the contract would expire on June 30th of 2022 with this change we've agreed to health care and dental changes that all of our other bargaining units have agreed

004to over the past year which we've discussed at this table and that is the move to the Connecticut state partnership plan and that is essentially a plan that allows municipalities from around the state to join the state health plan and with this plan our employees and dependents are subject to a rigorous wellness program which we've talked about as well which includes annual preventive visits it includes cholesterol screening mandatory breast cancer screening cervical cancer screening you know colonoscopies all at certain ages also for individuals who have certain conditions like heart disease or diabetes they'd be required to participate in a disease education program and a counseling program for employees who don't or dependents who don't adhere to that wellness program they will be subject to penalties which would include an additional hundred dollars a month and

005premium as well as be subject to annual deductibles of three hundred fifty dollars per individual and $1400 per family as we've discussed in the past this plan is going to provide us with a little bit more financial stability than we've experienced in the past there are year-over-year increases on the state partnership plan of average to about 2% two percentage points lower than our year-over-year increases for the Board of Ed health plan and it'll also provide with a lot less flexible fluctuation from year to year as well in addition our retiree healthcare costs are going to be cut in half through this plan as well which has provided significant savings when you include all of our bargaining units it's about two million dollars in savings with the retiree health care piece in addition our employees will

006contribute about 30% more over the course of this contract for their health care costs and there's also significant pension reform included in this contract as well as our employees will contribute about 75% more in contributions towards the pension plan the only other change with this contract is the safety shoe allowance right now it's $175 a year and we will increase that $175 to $200 a year for safety shoes and that summarizes all of the changes with this contract we'd be happy to answer any questions that the board had of course so Rick how many employees does this represent twenty twenty yeah and it does I guess I don't remember this and maybe I asked this question in the past but do they support just the school systems or is this a town-wide combined piece so

007it's just the school system although our graph I mentioned that we have grounds maintenance within the maintenance Union so they actually report out of the public works department so they do assist a little bit on the town side but mostly its school related okay thank you do we have a motion to approve so moved second second any further discussion if not I'll try your minds all those in favor of approval of the motion please signify by saying aye all those opposed nay abstentions the eyes have it motion passes thank you okay moving on to agenda item number six staff communications and reports and starting with the superintendent's report evening everybody I just this is gonna come earlier than typically every year I try to talk about once we're around the snow season what goes into

008it so the people watching can understand the request and ask any superintendent or dr. morrow people that are involved and we all wander this time of year why we didn't choose a school system down south especially when you get back-to-back days so typically what happens is Andy and I start communicating with each other and with Bob Palmer at between 3:30 and 4:00 depending on the day depending on the situation after going through the reports the night before we get the same weather reports that our Department of Public Works get and then what happens is Bob comes over the mountain from Simsbury and checks the roads in the north end of town depending on the situation or the time there are times an Andy and I would leave our house to go and check the roads

009if needed there's times where it's clearly not needed the past couple days being examples where it's those decisions that are little well a little different about being made both days and Bob is also in touch with with Department of Public Works getting estimates for us about okay how long will this take to clear then we also have to think about how long will it take to clear all the school parking lots and are the school Lots needed for anything within town otherwise then we also have to think about how long will it take residents to remove the sidewalk issues and residents have 24 hours but like in a morning like this morning with the idea being okay it's stopping now there was one more band coming through Andy and I were talking like 4:30 it

010had stopped a half an hour before but there was another band coming through at 5:15 that was a strong band and it's just one of those is a reasonable to expect 11 inches of snow to be cleared for kids to be walking through half mile for elementary mile for middle mile and a half for high school and also the main roads the Department of Public Works does a great job in West Harbor and this is something I've said over the years that our situation is a little different than some of the smaller towns now our bigger roads wider and our Department Public Works it's great but then you look at the side roads and then you go up by Avon mountain up by where you live mark and you go up by the skating rink

011in those areas over there and then it becomes a little more tenuous in terms of our buses now the one thing I'll say to people I never worry about kids on buses they they are those things are tanks they have chains that will drop if necessary but if a bus gets stuck on a hill it can't just back up by law and practice with the police have to be there when buses back up like that on a main road so it's it can lead to delays and lead to snarls and then we also have the impact of talking to the Department of Public Works about what are you hearing when will this be do you want cars off the road by rush-hour and everything else so for example like Monday we have these conversations and

012all of our best information says it's going to taper and be a very light snow if snowing at all during the day and that there's a hole in the snow that's gonna come between 1:00 and 4:00 o'clock that hole didn't really happen the roads were warm enough that the roads were safe to drive we had no issues with buses or anything else thank God but that doesn't mean Andy and I aren't worried all during the day and it certainly doesn't mean we're not saying guests on things and then a day like today where it's actually a little easier decision even though you know that at 9:30 you're gonna be outside it's gonna be sunny it's not going to be snowing at all and you're gonna think well they could be in school right now but

013there's the removal the one other group that I do to talk to and because again West Hartford is different but one thing is shifted a little bit too and that's I talked to the Farmington area superintendent's also at this time because weather is an act of God an accident caused by weather is an act is just an accident there's a legal question argument that if every other school system closed and you stayed open and then there were an accident that that theoretically could make you liable for that so that's something else that goes into the discussion with the other super-intense not do you make a decision based on what other people are doing because the weather and cannon is typically very different than the weather and roads in West Hartford but just to give people

014a window into that and I know the right time to call people is a question people have what when we at first we said we'd call it six o'clock and we had so many requests from people that said can you make the calls earlier because to organize daycare and everything else the sooner we know the better it is so we do we call as soon as we know but then again there are times when that leads people to say why are you calling so early and there is a way people can opt out but they be opting out of our communication there is so many ways now that people aren't sitting by the radio which I used to do in Boston listening and waiting to see ER West harf and then if you missed it

015wait another 20 minutes it's people tend to find out pretty early the other thing is we need to let our teachers know the commute from a distance away as soon as we can so that's kind of the protocol that we go through people have questions both myself and dr. morrow are willing to talk on the phone about it but that is what snow days are like which is miserable but one thing that we also do think about is what does it mean for kids with deaf like I know people act like oh you're trying to get a day in for June that is that has never in my life been a part of the thought process whether I'm working June 25th anyway but the kids are not I understand the pressure it's really just about

016safety one thing that we do know from people and one thing we try to make sure of and this storm isn't typically a good example of but usually the first snow that there's any snow people are like why are you having school if it's snowing and it's there's going to be times where it's snowing we have school and we want the same call to kind of hold true on December 5th that would happen on March 5th just for consistency so people can understand we used to get way more calls complaining when we canceled school those calls don't happen nearly as much anymore and I don't know if it's because people just take that to Facebook but I think I think people tend to want to err significantly on the side of caution now more than

017they certainly used to that's my impression anyway so that's that since our two representative from the high schools can't be here tonight I would say that the Saturday before Thanksgiving was a really good community event day in West Hartford first the football game which brings out you know a few thousand people just really to talk people that aren't necessarily is invest in the game but it was a great game one on the last play by Connard but hauled enough to stay sad too long because that night in New Britain Hall won the boys soccer state title for class Double L so that was that was a really good day and two fun events for our community to be a part of and I guess the next thing which they would say is winter sports are

018starting this week and tryouts and hockey and everything good luck to all those and of course December is the time for winter concerts whether it be madrigals whether it be the at the elementary schools but try to go out and see our kids perform and Friday at Hall is the unified theatre performance Friday night Unified Theatre has two performances the largest one is in the spring at that involves both high schools Connard and Hall there's a smaller one in the fall that is more Hall folk it gets held at Hall so this is this Friday it is a great event I will say unabashedly my favorite events of the year the unified theatre shows so with that that's report thank you moving on to item B staff reports and board discussions and the first item

019is equity for excellence election day professional development review good evening everyone and welcome officially our newest board members I am thrilled that the weather cooperated so that we could be here this evening to share with you an update on our equity diversity and inclusion work I'm happy to be here with present company and we're tonight's presentation will highlight the recent election day professional development equity for excellence PD district-wide so I'm pleased to have joining me this evening senior mainly on principle of Charter Oak International Academy no stranger to you all encountered high school senior Jul both were heavily involved in the Election Day professional development planning and workshop presenters and both are very instrumental in supporting our cultural competence development so in just a moment I will share my airtime with both of them but

020I just wanted to provide you with a little context that led up to this day and this work in 2016 you may remember that superintendent more articulated a clear and bold vision and long-term commitment to building our cultural competence and strengthening our own cultural humility and he established the equity and diversity Council the EDC which I'm honored to be able to co-lead and it's been over those past three years we've been engaged in very meaningful complex and rewarding work to better understand our changing culture and how to best be responsive to our students and families so we've adopted this definition of cultural competence and we move through in and out and throughout a continuum of cultural consciousness responsiveness and advocacy and it's essentially West Hartford Public Schools having ways to acknowledge respect and honor and

021respond to the differences across cultural differences of our students and our families so in April 20 19 this past spring the equity and diversity Council in collaboration with the professional learning and evaluation committee did find a professional development needs assessment relevant to cultural competency we felt that over the past three years we've been doing a lot of steady and focused work but we really needed to pause and take stock of where we are we're where we need to go and so we had 700 over 700 professionals respond to this professional development needs assessment and what we found was more than just the responses high need moderate need low need it was the commentary overwhelming commentary that really shaped and guided the Uncharted our course ahead and so we identified through the disaggregating the information of

022some professional priority growth need areas eliminating barriers we're working toward systemic equity developing and delivering a culturally relevant and responsive curriculum just being better being more welcoming in our schools being inclusive and increasing diversity within the WH PS certified staff so those were the priorities that seemed to come out that emerged from that needs assessment so with that we proceeded it - we started thinking why would we go outside to bring people in to educate us and share their knowledge and skills when we invest in our educators we've really invested them we when we send them out for workshops and trainings we're very judicious about that we have them apply to attend and we ask them what are you gonna bring back why do you want to do this what can you turn key and

023bring back to help us to grow and be better and so we said why not just open an invitation to our own educators who are so passionate and eager to share their learning their knowledge and expertise that they've gained with their colleagues we invited them to offer a workshop just to get the submit a workshop proposal and so with that these were the themes that emerged anti-bias culture responsive practice ela learners LGBT topics racial justice and racial equity systemic a Korean social-emotional learning were the key buckets on which 35 workshops fell under and so we also realize we are so strongly supported we have great resources with our community partners so we invited them to the table we invited them to be participants presenters and to host resource tables during the lunch hour so that

024our educators could interact with them and learn from them we in fact we I got an email today from French treatment food ministry they had a table and they said as a result of that they now have new volunteers teachers and students who are now volunteers as a result of their presence at that workshop so we kicked off the day superintendent Moore actually kicked off the day by you know just really restating our purpose you know you don't know your what if you don't know your why's you really inspired us with a message and followed by a police chief West Harbor police chief Vernon Riddick also reaffirmed his commitment to supporting our work and then we were led and inspired also by Iran Nazario of the Peace Center he's done work at both Charter Oak

025encountered high school with our students just to build peace and this was a quote from him just you know just reminding that every teacher has that power to to help to harm or humiliate or give hope to our students and so we can be that beacon of hope we're reminded and we write Kenya was also one of our guides we we have the support of our paraprofessionals and TAS and we just wanted them to help us to be workshop hosts to make sure that everything went well in those workshops so that our participants could get everything that they needed from it and I was so pleased that our paraprofessionals our TAS and our students like Kenya took it very very seriously and also participated in the survey and the evaluation at the end and gave

026us some good feedback and so I wanted to have senior mealy on here tonight because he was aware presenter but he also brings with him this institutional memory dating back to his time at Connard and then at such wick and that Smith and I charter out over the years of how our culture has changed and why we must too so I welcome him to share his reflections good evening great to be here with Joe and Shirley Rosina in next couple of slides deal with the numbers probably nothing new to you as you can see when we look at our certified staff as mostly teachers we see that the representation of color staff is about a nine percent that is not too different from the state average actually I believe this exactly the state average is

027nine percent so that we cannot see any difference their whites is 91 percent when we look at our students that would be the next slide we see that our students represent 42 percent of our student population in the state is a little bit higher than that 46 but again we don't see a huge difference either so as you can see in our case in with Harper we have that 42 percent versus the 9 percent so we can safely talk about an under-representation of staff of color teachers of color in our schools and in state as a whole it is that's what caught my attention and looking at this data and we presented in our workshop under the title and the representation of educator of course in warehouse in West Hartford public school so we look

028at this topic and we share with our audience numbers similar to the ones here you are seen a little bit of the science behind and the benefits of having staff that looks like our children in our classrooms we also took a look at the great efforts our district is having to change to create that situation and we also share something that was very powerful to all of us on perspectives perspectives from parents perspectives from educators of Korus I had a lot of conversations and my partner Kristi Burton who is such a rock is she's a third grade teacher we met with the good number of staff of color across the district and certainly the perspective of the students but you all can talk more a little bit about that but why don't we take a

029listen take a look at the video and that is up there this is a parent of elementary school girag and I took a what she says is powerful so I would say that representation on a personal level is really important to me because I have a six-year-old in school and I can share that when she was first born I spoke to her and exclusively Spanish so that was the only language she knew we would tell jokes sing songs obviously have conversations all in Spanish and once she started school her first year she was actually really lucky because she went to a school with a majority of spanish-speaking staff so they kind of continued that then when she transitioned to a new school she had majority of english-speaking staff and she lost a lot of that

030Spanish to the point where now that she's six she really doesn't speak Spanish so I would say representation in the sense of having a teacher that looks like you can speak your language has shared some of the struggles that you have really really forms that connection and that deep really deep sense of holding on to your traditions and to a part of who you are or where you come from and how you identify with the world so that's why I would say it's important other parents talked about the notion of validation role modeling which i think is pretty obvious to everybody but also one of the parents shared with me the idea that is having somebody who looks like your child in the classroom is really a counteracting negative images that you know in African

031Americans or Hispanics are usually portrayed in media and in other settings so it's powerful our families know that and our families noted that there is an under-representation in our classrooms we also look at how our staff feels our teachers were assistants our TAS were paraprofessionals and I have I'm very you were mentioning in my historical perspective 23 years here it gives me that but I have to say that everybody is truly proud to be working with her for public school everybody we talked to staff of color in West Hartford they all shared with us with Christy Burrell and myself the idea that this is a great district that they feel appreciated they feel supported and they work in great environments across our school so that is important to say but some topics some thoughts some

032ideas emerge in every conversation we had with them so when I just mention a few of them so you know and we discussed them in our workshop and on election day is there is this need this constant comments from our colleagues of color saying the constant need to prove yourself that is a feeling that you hear all the time when you take the time to sit down with teachers of color they feel they need to prove themselves all the time there's also the notion of a code-switching which is an interesting one usually it's used when we talk about languages where in this context is the idea that probably I should change a little bit my practices my approaches so I conform a little bit better with the people I'm dealing with in the work setting

033so code switching with was another idea that we heard across our conversations with our colleagues one that also emerged as a clear thought from our colleagues is the idea that there is no dialogue on the concept of white privilege and that it exists and we don't talk about that and we don't talk a lot about it in our school settings but it's something that is noticed by our colleagues and also the message from them is it's okay to check with us how are you doing is everything okay certainly we do that with every staff member in our schools but there's some uniqueness there's some things that are different for the with educator for colors that this question is absolutely permanent and we should all make an effort to check how are you doing because the

034the issues that we are addressing as educator of course are slightly different so next time you see somebody how are you doing everything is OK and it will be very appreciated I'm gonna let you out to talk a little bit about the students perspective but a in our workshop we also had some interesting videos that we recorded with students and I was really surprised to listen to them and in both cases seniors we decided to talk to seniors in high schools and in both cases the students of color said that the first teacher who looked like them was when they were sophomores in high school after many years in our in our school so that's the reality we are not unique about it yes the data shows that's something that we need to take into

035account and as we work to correct that situation Thank You mr. mealy on that workshop validated the feedback and the oversubscription the offer enrollment for that workshop validated the work that we're doing it also confirmed that there is such a need so it was important to hear parent voices to hear our educators perspective we're here for students and so we did not want to leave their voices out so jewel is here to talk with us about share his reflections on his workshop experience and in the work that he's doing - good evening everyone I participate in the workshop and it was an amazing experience for me because in three years that I've been living in America I've never had the opportunity of sharing my feelings or sharing my story for anyone besides my mom and

036it was really I first I was really shocked because while talking to teachers and telling them my experience and for example how I I have I'd take off the bills for my mom I am the one who calls for the insurance they were they didn't they they didn't know anything about that they were really shocked and for amid something that's normal but I realized that for most of like most of the people here they don't they don't they don't know that and being able to share share my point of view not only mine but from all of the incidents my school be able to share my opponent year to them and show them what it is to be an English Learner in the American high school not only that our experience out of outside of

037school and one of the things that we talked about in the workshop that I think was really important I mean that I it was really important for me it was a first teachers were sorry asking questions and they asked the what is um what would you what would be one of your advices to help so American students are immigrant students connect with each other since they don't know English or they don't know the language and I it's at first I didn't know how to answer the question I was really really confused but then I thought I have a little brother and he he didn't speak English too and at first he didn't have friends and he started playing games that's why that's why I told them my brother started playing games and made a lot

038of friends and for a lot of people that games might be not a good idea but my brother was something that helped aiming a tremendous way he made friends in school that never thought he would have made and being able to see that being a just being able to see like how cheese just worked caring about us and asking questions asking especially one of my she's a nurse nurse in color high school and she she was asking she was she was saying that a lot of students the first person there the students see in the school it's basically nurse where they get a physical not a physical place where they checked and stuff and she was asking how do I make them feel comfortable how do I make them feel welcomed and that meant so

039much to me because she sure was the first first person that I saw when I got there and she tried everything that she could help me and being able to not only teach her but teach the other other teachers about how to help students like me feel welcome in school it was really it was an amazing experience was really important for me because as I said I've never had this opportunity and it was it was really special because it's my senior year and next year hopefully going to college and being able to leave this this um mark this knowledge behind for the teachers especially my brother's coming it's gonna so study icon there and I I want to be able to help the teachers help my brother not only my thought about all of the

040other students started struggling like I did thank you well thank you you know it is so important for all of our students to have their narratives and hear their histories and see their experiences up front in the context of teaching and learning and Jill helped our teachers to recognize that and certainly had an impact on the day and it emerged in the evaluation there were well over 200 people that we could have brought here to the table just to share their experiences and why this work is important in the impact that it had you know we've shared a couple of graphs where the purple is feedback about the morning sessions one session as well as Jules session the student voices purple represents strongly agree and green agree and you note some other people not there

041yet we didn't figure it out for them yet but we will we'll keep working at it but just I wanted to also share we asked them what are some things you're gonna commit to what are you gonna do tomorrow you know and teacher the feedback the optional feedback was overwhelming over 400 comments about you know this is what I'm gonna do here's what I'm gonna take away I think hearing student voices was really important for many of our educators they're gonna reflect on their own biases for educators to admit that they have bias we all do but sometimes it's hard to admit even with good intention we have bias and here's one in my many years my humble opinion it's simply it was simply the absolute best pd experience and this educator felt respected and

042we you know we did our research too and we said we don't just ask them in their trainings what's what are you gonna turn key what are you gonna bring back but we asked them how did it make you feel when you were there what was the atmosphere like it so we used a lot of we drew on a lot of the great workshops and conferences put on by other large organizations such as college board Capital Region Education Council circ as well to design this and so these are our next steps we've got work to do we won't be we won't ever be status quo we're just gonna keep moving ahead and being bold and we're just we're fortunate to have a leader that's right out there and in front of it and clears our

043paths to do our best work there's so much more that we can say we want people to be involved we want you all to stay informed we want the public to stay informed give us feedback and so we've got some platforms and resources that equity and diversity that UDC monthly digest there's a lot more about the election day that's on there in video and pictures and next we're gonna be looking forward to strengthening our family and school partnerships too so I'd like to thank my presenters I also I would be remiss if I didn't give a nod to Amanda Kohler who's in the audience say she's our ESL family our family outreach specialist and she is really elevating our work she goes above and beyond to make connections with families to make them feel welcome

044and to empower student voices we couldn't do this work without her and so I'm grateful to have her as well we'll open the floor for any questions and discussion so very good presentation I was speaking to a teacher right after election and was about the election and congratulations and this that an unsolicited she said what a great time she had during this PD and you know I didn't even ask her about it and she uncertain she knows I'm on the board but she couldn't speak she said it herself was probably one of the better ones spend two and I wasn't surprised quite honestly because I know you guys do a knock up job so but unsolicited usually you got to kind of crawl at cloth some of that stuff a lot of people tell me

045about your experience how was it you know but couldn't speak up more enough about their third day the entire day for professional development so I just want to kudos to your continued work and appreciate it and and we know that things are getting done without even having to have these presentations because you do such a great job I just wanted to second what Mark said I want to thank you for really kind of addressing some really difficult issues it's valuable work that you do in a very timely in you know in this political environment it's very timely as well the other thing I want to say is I want to commend you for sharing your experiences because that's that takes a lot of courage and it makes you really vulnerable but I think it's really

046important information for educators and administrators to hear because you are the true you know you are the true experience too so to share that with the adults around you is is is so valuable so I applaud you for getting up there and sharing that with whoever was in that room and and for sharing it with us today so thank you very much hi I just share dr. Steinberg feelings as well as I'm sure we all do and I want to thank you for all of this work I mean we we knew that this was going to be a professional development day but going through our reading that we get on Fridays to see the depth that what went into planning this and how involved this was this is a tremendous amount of work clearly so

047thank you for that I think we may have talked in the past I'm not sure if you remember but I've been close to this work over the years through my work regionally and have been involved with doing hundreds of interviews of faculty staff students around issues that relate to this topic and I can tell you that everything that you said Senor Milian is what they talked about especially not only how valuable it is for students but the support system that's to have a support system in place for faculty when they're joining different districts because sometimes that can be that struggle that happens to three years in where people might be spread out around the district and the support system per school may differ from place to place so the fact that this was so successful

048really speaks to what you've already done as well because in most districts you're not getting this kind of a response because this is very layered work and having been through it as faculty member excuse me as a white person I can tell you that it's years of layering and layering and layering and so it's really special that you've already done what you've done in order to have this be so successful but to be planning it so far ahead and to be keeping it on the forefront of your work is going to be more important for our students than ever so thank you for that as a parent but I just what you were talking about really resonated and what you're experiencing here is very different from what's happening in other districts and I think that's

049something that is going to benefit our whole entire community as time goes on so thank you I just wanted to say thank you for the presentation especially Joelle did a great job okay I really like how you involve the students I've been I'm an educator and I've done a lot of equity training over the last few years and we didn't involve the students we didn't involve the community so whoever whoever's idea that was that was really impressive I also went over and looked through the website that you you had a screen capture of and watch the videos and it's just packaged really well I was so inspired I immediately emailed Tom and said how do I get involved with this so it's just a fantastic job that you guys have done I know a lot

050of West Hartford educators and they had nothing but positive things to say about their day so thank you I have to say it was I appreciate hearing all the feedback from my colleagues here I say that as a board member and also as a person of color I think many times you use sometimes are led to believe that you are the spokesperson and you get tired of that so it was nice to sit back and hear the feedback in the comments from my colleague and most colleagues and and great and most importantly just the presentation of the work that was done so so so of value and so so so appreciate and I appreciate how it was approached from many layers and many levels and certainly highlighting the importance of the work being done with

051our district not at or to our district and especially touching on the bias I think it's important for people to recognize what they have going on within themselves and the lens in which they interact with others and saw that language interwoven throughout the written material and I very much appreciate as well the use of equity that word being used as opposed to equality I think many times people use those two words interchangeably and there's a difference so you were quite consistent throughout in referencing the word of equity because that certainly is something that we all must aspire to do so thank you so very much Thank You colleagues for all valuing this work and please continue doing what you're doing and yong-man proud of you all right nice I have I just had a question

052about some so no no it's okay it's okay III I noticed the data that you showed about our staff and ironically enough I was in the in the picture and one of the back rows so I know I know pretty well and I wasn't surprised that you said that people had not seen maybe a person that looked like them until their sophomore year so I was wondering since I don't I don't know what the data might be at lower levels do you know anything about is it is it is it extremely different because I know the high school data cuz I've seen it I don't know elementary and middle school from what I've seen from research is it's really important that a kid gets some connection to a teacher that looks like them so I

053was wondering what you know about it in what efforts where we're trying to do about that high ring is essential I can probably rule C now Tom could speak to the district level but I can tell you my experience in the past five years at York and we have hired for grade level teachers to african-american teachers also for grade level teachers we have higher two Hispanic teachers and we have hired a music teacher who is Hispanic we have higher our school psychologist is an african-american and our social worker is a Hispanic and that is remarkable and that has happened in a pretty short period of time so hiring is key having representation of minority in those hiring committees is something that I would encourage every school to do it bring some lenses and it's important

054to do so and I can tell you that the quality we're hiring is excellent and let me add and this type of work has an impact immediately on our work I can tell you that as we discuss our budgets in at the school level our teachers are asking for literature that becomes those windows and mirrors that we talk about or when we discuss professional development and an input from the staff they are telling us they want more of this so it does have an impact immediately when we discuss goals for the year our teachers are saying I want to reframe my literacy block with you this new perspective so this is the actual work this is what makes the difference in every school so it pays off you know but I certainly a hiring I

055think is the key here a little more context this is and thanks to Ricky the work he's done 25 years in a row with 25 percent of our new hires have been people of color so but when you think about that you're you know that's point two point three per year and so context you picked up on something exactly right Sean the thing with the elementary as we make this push we have 32 less elementary classrooms than we did eight years ago so it's not just we haven't been able to replenish in the same way we don't have early career teachers at the elementary level in the same way and we haven't that hasn't been hit by the efforts in the same way at the high schools where there's been no population decline there is

056more natural turnover so that's been able to happen at the secondary level more than it has at the elementary level but it's something we're certainly hoping to do is we go through retirements and shifts over time and it is a focuses Juan brought up when we do have opening so the one place that has had openings has been Charter Oak because we've expanded from a 320 person school to a 520 person school so during that time that's been a unique focus of one and it's been successful thanks to his efforts just I'm sorry I know you guys want to leave really but it might be a good segue to for some of the new Board of Ed members about the program we have at Central and that you've developed and Brezina helps with yes so

057we do have a program we decided we know that our teacher diversity shortage it's not unique to West Hartford but we didn't want to wait for something to be done about it so we decided to take action we recognize that we have students of color and high school students of color who aspired to be educators like our educators inspired them to want to become educators in the future and so we tapped into those students and we started a program called the future educators of diversity both at Connard and at hall high school and so we have partnerships with our local colleges that mentor supporter students give them incentives help them with the application process so see CSU our formal partnership with them is the Blue Devil direct project and so they mentor their college professors

058and administrators mentor our students they bring them in for college visits for some of them last year during our college visit when we had the rollout it was the first time some of our seniors had ever been on a college campus and said I can imagine myself there and at least two of them from that program are there now so we're looking for them to return and be educators here to when they finish their requirement certification requirements they're you know college requirements they're invited to come back for an interview they're guaranteed an interview but see CSU is providing the opportunity for early decision financial aid and scholarship access and and you know assistance with the college application and getting them to just imagine themselves especially the first-generation students on a college campus so it's a

059thriving thriving and robust program that we're expanding I think we have over 42 students at both schools I can't say that all of them say that they want to be an educator but they've called them the Impostors because they found a place where they feel like they're heard where they feel like they belong and so we hope that will inspire them to to become educators and come back to West Hartford if I could before they leave because they're gonna get up and I'd be remiss if I didn't say this because as superintendent but as human being I always try to write a Thanksgiving message to staff about what I'm thankful for and you have the three people here that probably in West Hartford Public Schools the three people I'm most thankful for 1 million I've

060known over 20 years now and he's as good a principle as exists in this country but he's a better person and what he gives to our kids inspires me to be better Rosina Haskins you want to know why that day was successful I've known it now 13 days she's never done anything that isn't successful and the amount of hours and preparation that she did for that day make me want to work harder and do more Joe I would be wrong to not say that if every kid I've met in the past few years nobody has inspired me more than him and there's a time when I think is superintendent I hear things from my own two kids and that keeps me going him like well if this is happening then we need to fix that

061and I've had this question when my kids are in school anymore what does that do to my role as superintendent how does that because it's been very powerful being superintendent where my kids are last year's oh wow because he doesn't just share with teachers his first year in West Hartford I do a program with the junior class in both high schools your daughter's been through it and where we I do mock interviews and I talk about the college admissions process about interviewing in life about what trails you leave and it's just me and the 350 kids from the class and it's my favorite day of the year both schools and at Connard three kids volunteered to come up and sit through mock interviews two of your standard students and Joe and for that auditorium to

062hear him talk about what his day is like versus theirs and what's going to come across as an interview you should know that I said to the kids there because I said where do you want to go Joe out you remember this and he said Yukon and I said how many of you in the audience are applying to Yukon about 150 hands went up then I asked how many of you would happily give up your spot for joelle and those hands all stayed up because there is nobody I've met here he came to the country hard for public first learn Spanish just because then learned English with his native Brazilian played soccer decided to learn to play saxophone handles the bells handles things that come up in New York City that he has to travel

063to for his family works nights and weekends for his family for our kids to see an experience like that that's what's special about West Hartford he's what's special about West Hartford he doesn't just share it with the teachers for our 350 kids in that auditorium to hear his experience was amongst the most inspiring if not the most inspiring thing I've ever sat through so I want to say at this Thanksgiving time and I almost actually put it I'm thankful for him and he's just incredible young man so thank you all right one final question I think this is fantastic and I have a question for all three of you but mostly for a while and not to put you on the spot so something for you to think about and communicate back to us how

064do we make it now that we have put our minds towards how we make our schools more welcoming how we make our staff and our schools more welcoming how do we make our Board of Ed meetings more welcoming so that we can get participation from all kinds of families across town and helping us make decisions that impact our students and families so think about it and you don't have to answer me now but if you do have an answer no I'll take it I don't have a I have a quick answer but I'll actually answer it say more later but I have had two different experience in high schools while I was in Hartford and when he called our high school and in hearth where I was I didn't have a person citizen man the

065Golar helping me and translating for my family or telling me that things that I can do things that I have to do in school if it wasn't for my mom it wasn't for my mom it's a fight for me to brag Eastern means go out I wouldn't even do my freshman year but Amanda when I first got in corner I managed was she helped with everything I asked I asked her every single my mom my mom seems like my mom still texting her I like I'm not even kidding my mom I think was I'm not getting 45 minutes ago my mom was asking her something about the registration for call for college for my college and I think that we need more people like that because if it wasn't for her oh really really lost

066and that's my his mom is watching right now and if you ever get a chance to spend a day with him visit him at Conner you have to see him in his element he is just a ball of energy excitement and positive he just gets such a positive demeanor and he's just somebody that's so cool to hang around and students say it teachers say it mr. Duarte said it to me again today his mom is so proud of himself so Joe well you're forgetting something then if your mom's watching you got to you mind if I see importation wait show [Laughter] all right thank you all of you alright we're going to move on to our next presentation computer science and the in the curriculum thank you and you have a tough act to follow

067they're all looking forward to hearing from you thanks Deb and I'll have Paul welcome everybody coming up Michelle Gravlin Jeff Wolowitz and Jackie Khor Sally I do want to say before they come about before they talk about this and this will be focused on computer science in the classroom the work we've been doing and you know that we kicked the year off talking about how do we inculcate computer science more rather than it being a standalone but I want to talk about one thing this that's kind of come out of this that's a little bit separate and it's that on February 12th this year Tom Friedman wrote an article the two codes your kids need to know and for January through March it was the most shared most commented on article in The New York

068Times and the information really came out of discussions he had had with members from the College Board that I know well and it was about his posit was that there are two codes that all kids need to know how the US Constitution works and how computers work and those are the things we need to go know moving forward and the College Board has developed these two courses go poke people call US government and politics that completely change the way government politics work and it's about nine foundational documents in 15 court cases and AP Computer Science they shifted both cores to make them not courses that you're building off of others their courses any child can take with the idea being this is a course that our kids will need because of West Hartford I was

069actually asked to present right after election day in Washington DC about the two codes with Stephanie Sanford who is White House Fellow and now handles all government relations with the College Board about the two codes and what looks like in the classroom because West Hartford in Connecticut has the most kids taking those two courses and that's without it being where a two codes district this is we're not telling kids to this is what's happened and that's because of people like Jake course Ella here AP computer science teachers who because of her influence we have many girls walking around Connard wearing shirts that look like this that are the stem inist proudly stem inist s-- this is my daughter's actually more perspectives more possibilities and we've looked at the AP computer science course just so you

070know over time which they're gonna talk about but it's a fastest growing course in demographics for African American students and Hispanic students in the country and female representation in the course has gone up 2,000 percent over the past five years but it's a course that it's important not just that we offer that it's accessible to all sorts of students because as I said a convocation when I discuss with graduates were you prepared for school I always get I was so much prepared in college than the people from here here here but over the past couple years I keep getting this except for in this class when I had to do coding except for in this class and I had to do coding so one of the things we're really trying to do is demystify computer

071science and the curriculum from oh I'm a computer science person to really how do we get all people into this and it happens on all levels so I'll turn it over to Polly now that was outstanding introduction and I tell you I never ever in my life like to follow dr. Haskins and certainly don't want to follow Joelle ever again but if not for this topic I'm so excited to be able to present on computer science in and the excitement that surrounded as Tom just very aptly described and I'm also extremely proud to welcome to the table really this group of leaders that drive the work so to my left is dr. Michelle grave line she is our department supervisor for mathematics but she has really helped to drive vision on computer science in the

072secondary level over the last several years some of the statistics that you read about in the in the board report are due really to a lot of effort on her part in the part of her teachers of course Jeff Wolowitz our principal on special assignment who we leaned on heavily here as we think about how do we bring computer science in that mindset into our elementary schools and how do we do it efficiently how do we do it with finesse how do we do it with excitement for our students last and certainly not least is Jackie Cora Sally who is not only in as an AP computer science teacher at Connard High School she is the quintessential leader in the field of computer science she is huge in the computer science community and a name

073that is known not only in Connecticut but is known nationally based on the work that she's doing so if you'll put up with me for a few minutes to give my commentary I will let these experts speak to any questions that you'll have after a short presentation and we'll really just talk quickly through how computer science aligns to our district mission kind of what it is and why it's important and and then I'd be remiss if anything that we're doing in the district if we're not talking about how do we do this with equity in mind how do we build this so that we're not having to go backward and address any opportunity gaps that exist through some systemic fault in our designs so our mission quite simply to begin is to inspire and prepare

074all students and at times we need to we need to be cognizant of what are we preparing students for we're preparing them not for a future that's tomorrow we're preparing them for a future that already arrived yesterday and quite honestly as a country as a state as a district we are behind the power curve we just simply are relative to computer science and and the reason for that and the reason for really any systemic change that's occurred in society can can often be pointed back to some really big whether their inventions or things that come about some you know individual moments so in the 1400s the the invention of the printing press and prior to that time I'm sure you know that any any material that was produced and all the knowledge that was held

075in books all the publishing that was done was done painstakingly by hand by monks and and was very expensive and therefore the keepers of the knowledge were the noble class and the church and that was it and the printing press was the thing that distributed knowledge until the age of science it was the 1800s with the with the development of the combustible engine that gave rise to the Industrial Revolution and made all of that laborious work that people had been doing was able to be done more efficiently more cost-effectively by machine it is the times that we're living in now and the birth of the internet that has totally reshaped our world not not just in terms of how we communicate with each other and all those societal changes but economically when you think about

076what it's done to the brick and mortar stores all right and it is the rise of artificial and blockchain until blockchain technology that is having a dramatic effect on our trust companies on our banking on our finance and is going to change really how things are happening so it's it's something computer science it's something that we have to understand it's something that we have to make sure that we have a current vision of and not the vision from our own educational experience I'm I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm old enough that I did take a computer science course when I was in high school and it was using cardboard cards keep punching cards holes into cards to run programs and then it was really cool in my senior year that we got to learn

077a little program called basic alright but the vision of what computer science was then versus what it is today and what it needs to be for tomorrow is something that we need to keep up front in our mind so I'd like to kind of hit three big three big myths that are out there first this concept that computer science is somehow vocational versus foundational Tom spoke to it when he talked about the two codes the notion that coding or computer science needs to become a fourth literacy it needs to become some come something that every student needs to know about computer science is not just for computer programmers in the same way that when we think about other things other pieces of knowledge that we want to guarantee every student have the founding documents that

078Tom spoke about they're not just for historians or history majors we expect every student to come away with some basic understanding of photosynthesis right but we're not preparing everyone to be botanists we expect every student to know something about linear and exponential growth in order to have walking around knowledge in the world but we're not preparing every student to be a mathematician in the same way computer science there are foundational elements that every student needs to know and understand computer science is not just about technology it's not about basic like I said or visual basic or turbo Pascal or C++ or Java which are some of the languages languages just the tools the goal is not to be this informed user or consumer of technology but a creator of technology and there's a vast difference

079between technological literacy which is something that we chased in the 90s to computational thinking which is really at the root of what computer science is and it's also important to understand that it's not just about stem and that's really what this graphic intends to display we get a lot of help and support even from The Oval Office talking about the importance of stem and STEM fields but you see that while 67% of all new jobs that are in stem itself are actually in computing only 10% of stem graduates have degrees in computer science and they have the local look at that in Connecticut right now there are over 5,000 jobs open this last year for that deal with computing and computer science and we had only 533 graduates in 2017 in that field so that

08010% notion we're only producing 10% of qualified people for a job market so it's something that we need to pay attention to as we said it's not so what is it about if it's not just about technology well it's about it's about problem solving you know when we think about I use this phrase computational thinking at the end of the day is that is the under in the definition that was provided in your board report it's for you to understand that computer science or computational thinking which is that the roots of that is a problem-solving process that involves logic it involves ordering and analyzing data and it involves creating solutions around ordered steps or algorithms right it's about dispositions habits of mind perseverance the ability to deal with complexity and open-ended problems to engage in

081productive struggle to try to learn from failure to to likely be working when a team and it's about connections because again it's not just about those 5,000 computing jobs it has connections in math science and humanities all around the place and you say well that's great but what do you mean you want to look at this all the way down in elementary because truth be told we have it we have a fairly strong program in high school we have a budding program in the middle school our goal is to push this all the way down at the pre-k and K and I'll share this and I share this graphic because it's a reminder of a song Old MacDonald had a farm a song that that toddlers will learn as early as pre-k okay and and

082if you think about the learning process if you ever thought the lyrics to that song it's quite a long song you do three four but but you can get kindergarteners to learn that in about 10-15 minutes and they can break out with multiple verses and you say well how did they learn it and they learned it through a lot of the same principles that we would want them to learn and understand relative to computer science this concept of computational thinking this concept that students learn best through understanding and observation of patterns through understanding of sequencing and and you break the song down it does have ordered steps to it it does have loops that repeat it Deficit have branches that come off as you introduce new animals into the song it is sequenced in a

083particular way demonstrating patterns that are very quickly observed ascertained and learned by the students not through memorization not the same way that they have to learn how to read even when they have to think about well first I have to be able to identify the letters then I have to be able to match a sound to that letter then I can begin to pick up words and so and then I learned so no none of that not as much simpler in essence and it's that brand of thinking that we want to find ways to integrate into our teaching and make the connections quite honestly that are already there and as we build it we have to think about equity of opportunity looking at computer science at the national level it has traditionally been a field

084that has been dominated by males and that does not reflect diversity in terms of race or ethnicity and I pulled some some additional data beyond what was there in those statistics in the report to talk about well how do we fare currently it is our effort that we will build this with equity in mind and and I think some of the statistics can talk about how we're succeeding with that and shine some lights on where we still have work to go so as a district at our high schools and I'll talk specifically about our high school programming we have a range of courses currently that we offer we have 48% females in our high schools we have 26% female participating in a variety of computer science offerings this current year so work to be done

085for us there what's promising is if we look at our exploring computer science which is a course that's more generally open open to freshmen or it's really open enrollment to any students we are we do have a greater distribution of females that we have 35% so we're doing 10% better in that course still work to be done and when we look at our AP courses we're at 27% so work to be done when we look at students of color at our high schools our high schools are relative to ethnicity or 27% diverse we have 28% students of color currently enrolled in our array of courses for computer science so we're very glad about that and in exploring computer science it actually jumps up to 55% according to the statistics I looked at but there's work

086to be done in our AP because in AP it's only 15% so this is this is this is an area that that we'll talk about it's not a unique problem to West Hartford quite honestly I know these folks can talk about this because they have that national lens that we're doing quite better than most places we're doing but but it's something that we're committed to as we build this so in closing really the purpose of tonight's report is to announce this as a major initiative for the district our goal in this current year is to work with a team a small district team for which the folks here are members and their other members not currently represented we have some number of professional development opportunities that we're sending folks to and our goal is to

087walk away with really a vision statement and and the framework of a plan that will begin enacting over the course of the next three to five years with broad access available to all students at all levels with connections that stem down into our elementary schools bolstering the programming we already have established in our middle and high schools and expanding it significant professional development for for teachers and as we develop our plan and understanding of what responsible resourcing will entail so Jackie could you talk a little bit about some of your national work and where it where West Hartford fits with that just try to stay out of the weeds so I was I'm really honoured I was chosen as an equity fellow so I won the equity Fellowship Award for the CSTA it's the first

088of its kind it was one of I was one of ten teachers chosen and I'm the only one from New England the whole point of the fellowship is to put us in contact with the nine other teachers and also a really amazing set of resources through the computer Science Teachers Association the CSTA to be able to advocate for change locally and then to bring that change back to the national conference and talk about it there and the change I'd really like to focus on is getting us involved with a program called script script is a set of K through 12 rubrics to be able to help the district to be able to get training that's the team that Paul was speaking a little bit about and also to attend as a facilitator so that US

089and other people who have become facilitators will be able to help other districts to move forward so the idea of the advocating I want to do is not just here but also in Connecticut and then again to advocate for change nationally and I just wanted to kind of bring that back home I I was educated in Connecticut I grew up here and I left for three years to work at Raytheon but I I never took a computer science course I didn't actually know really what it was I enjoyed programming my graphing calculator for fun but I really didn't know that that was programming or a computer science I graduate from UConn same thing I really didn't know what the courses were and frankly when you're putting money on the table and I was the first

090female in my family to go to college you're not gonna put money on something you're not sure on so when I graduated and someone from Raytheon offered me a job and they said how would you like to know how a fax machine works I was like sure that sounds cool and that was how I accepted that position I didn't I knew that they were defense contractors but I didn't I didn't really know the history of the the institution and I was so blown away by the teaching I received there and I really try hard to channel and help people in the way that those really amazing teachers helped me to learn what is this computer science thing but I really had to learn it on the job and so it is really near and dear

091to my heart that our students don't have to work that hard and really I'm trying to there's no student that shouldn't feel like they are - of no good decisions are made based on fear and I think the institution the American institution of Education really stands on fixing that and so I feel extremely passionately about this whole computer science thing I have an 11 year old daughter it should not be unusual for her to take computer science and when I got into this she was - and it still sadly is unusual it should not be unusual for any student to study this thing it should just be expected and I'm really so proud - I'm actually really moved to be sitting at this table and to be talking about this here because I know if

092any group of people can do this can fix it for our kids it's us and so that's the equity Fellowship thing the other the other hat I wear is I'm a consultant for AP computer science principles so I teach teachers and ap computer science principles is the course that's really working to you know fix some of the equity issues on terms of College Board I also and really connected through the CSTA I'm the vice president of the Computer Science Teachers Association and so anything I can do from wearing all those hats I'm really happy to do but I'm just so proud of us I think this is really cool yeah is that so Tom you cut you kind of alluded to this my oldest is a senior so my my group is expanding because when

093I've been on the board for a while now and I often talk to graduates of our high schools and say how has college prepared how is our school prepared you for college and I always get the same answer and I'm proud of that answer is you know very good we're ahead of our peers typically that's not the other thing and we're talking about great schools but you alluded to this so we had a student go to to Dartmouth last year he's actually he's a freshman this year I'm sorry brilliant kid hard worker obviously they're on try semesters so he doesn't have to take that many classes for that tri semester and one of them is computer science and he is struggling through it and I didn't expect to hear that I expected to hear the

094same answer I always hear and you kind of alluded a little bit to this that computer science and I found that puzzling because obviously he got into a great school and came from a great school but I guess there was that Linkous again when I remember computer science in college I guess it was basic and and wow it's them going back you know but it was relatively easy back then it's not now and it's um it's apparent so this is this is very encouraging is basically what I'm getting at is that you know that same kid going to Dartmouth or any other school in this country a few years from now will not say yeah Ames there's a downwards it's a breeze you know and he's taking that computer science class as well so this

095is a very encouraging the challenge is that well and like we said this is kind of a three year goal to how do we do this rollout and Jeff spending a lot of your studying think about and Jeff do you want to talk about the challenge of adding to the elementary curriculum and why that's a problem really that's a hi everyone thank you for for having me it's great to be here tonight yeah so the thought of putting one more thing on an elementary teachers plate or an elementary principals plate because is scary that you can suggest so so Tom's vision is is really what's driving this and making this not just meaningful but so manageable because when you think about computational thinking it's a way of approaching a problem it's not an add-on I

096don't know what your knowledge base is in regard to computational thinking but it's it's villages for elements its decomposition taking a complex problem and breaking it down into meaningful chunks it's about on pattern recognition recognizing the similarities and the differences with what you're looking at it's it's looking at abstraction weeding through the extraneous information getting to the heart of the information we need and then it's the algorithm they're thinking of how we build those steps to solve that problem you do that pre-k 5 any content area including specials so we're not talking about an add-on and we're talking about a different way of thinking a different way of approaching a problem that you can do with four-year-olds three-year-olds all the way through no matter what content area the teachers are teaching so that's when it

097becomes less scary because now it's not what are we adding on its how are we framing our thinking there will be approaching problems are we approaching the occur keynote curriculum and I'd say to be accurate we're at the point of scary right now I mean we this is something we have to sell to our own community to our own teaching staff to our own because we're all nervous about I've got to teach something that I don't know how to do that is really the but we've got a so we've got to look at a needs assessment just like we did before we've also got to kind of demystify this in the way Jeff just explained thank you very much and for the presentation and for how you explained everything and especially the sir the last

098comments that you made because I admit I'm one of those persons where is like oh that's a language I just don't quite understand but when you explain it in the way that you did it really helps to make it more of a universal language that certainly relates to all of us in particular in the very much appreciate where you commented that as a discipline computer science is grounded in logic problem solving and creativity it is designed to teach students to think differently about problems they are attempting to solve in any context and that's something that all of us can relate to because how many of us live a problem-free life if you do please write a book and you will be very successful and so recognizing this is something that certainly appeals to all of

099us I thank you and especially with that being something implemented in our curriculum for our younger students on up so thank you very much thanks for your presentation I I can't I'm on board but let me say that first I teach I've been certified to teach the other course that Tom mentioned the AP government course so I know how challenging it is to get kids on board with you I have a lot of questions for you so what can we do to remove the hesitancy that students face for example when I first went around to try and get kids to take an AP class we got three or four sections and it took the students a year to trust me until we got out seven or something like that because they they wanted to see

100who the teacher was what was the class like was the curriculum hard how many hours of homework will I get so a few questions what are we doing outside of AP and then secondly what are we doing outside of the curriculum so students can practice the skills that they've learned and I don't know a lot about the curriculum I took I learned Pascal in high school and a lot of if-then statements and then I dropped out of a c-plus class because I said this is not for me so what what are we doing you know to get kids to take the hard classes to get kids to challenge themselves outside of AP and what are we doing with extracurriculars or anything else that you can think of I'm going to ask Michelle to start but

101I wanted to say one thing first the story that Jackie told about you know when she went to Raytheon and didn't have computer science at MIT it's exactly how my sister does some work and unfortunately that's like been a norm where folks might have landed in a computer science job and not have a formal preparation but dr. grabblings been doing with jackie has been doing amazing work to open doors to computer science um to ever ever talk about how she's done that at Connor good evening everybody your your question is is a is a great one because we started this journey at the top with the AP Computer Science a course it just happened that way and Jackie was teaching at that very first year and she she can tell you more about the kids

102literally when we got approval from the curriculum office to offer the course kids jumping literally up and down and encountered hallways they were so excited about it but what we click quickly noticed was that we were lens was always equity from the beginning and so we needed to broaden the base by which kids were able to access that course and so then just by the nature of being able to partner with Hartford in a grant we were able to bring exploring computer science to the district which is a completely open access course it requires very little math prereq in order to to access the course and so as Jackie likes to say it's it's the course we want kids who aren't going to get a computer under their Christmas tree to be able to understand

103that they can do it anyone can do it um they just need the right person and the right curriculum and that's what that course offers and so once we got the two ends if you will the two bookends we needed something in the middle because what we were realizing was that wasn't enough if you had absolutely no experience with computer science it wasn't enough to bridge that gap and so last year we started cryptography Accra terrific course which is a semester course and that's starting it's too soon to say but that's that's our hope is that that course will be able to get kids to AP Computer Science a AP computer science principles is a very open access course I guess I don't have so much a question as just a comment and as mr.

104Payson said I'm on board I fully support you and I trust that we have the right people doing this I do think you're gonna you have a long road ahead because when we were talking about the equity pieces we know how important it is to have the adults in the community do that work over a long period of time before we can best facilitate the work with our kids so in some ways I can see how it how imperative it's going to be to help us understand it as parents in the community to say you know what does this look like you know when you're giving the example in the elementary school I can hear you know parents saying well if there are they already doing it are they gonna sing more song you know

105what does it look like is it an add-on course how does it get incorporated does your child have to choose something else to do this or like well how does that work so I think that that's gonna be exciting for us as parents and as a board to see what you come up with as far as getting the parents and the adults in the town comfortable with what does this actually look like what are these you know and as we're talking about career exposures the kid kids get older when they're thinking about computational thinking I think that phrase is really powerful because it gets you out of that mindset of I'm gonna be a computer scientist computational thinking I think is a much easier thing to grasp as someone who's really uncomfortable with math and

106science or for people who just get very nervous about those topics so I guess I'm excited for that learning as we go through this to just see more applications and examples and just helping us visualize what this is more clearly I can share a couple of specifics one of my good friends does a lot of work in Virginia and one of the things she had has a son who is dyslexic much older now but one of the things that she found was for our students that maybe learn a little differently they maybe struggle with writing in English a way to help and support them with the structure of writing can be to do code because he was mentioning sequence selection iterations so sequences that stuff needs to be in an order selection the conditional statements

107if this is true then that an iteration is looping and so it doesn't matter what essay you're writing for sure there's a sequence to it there's looping you're repeating the point that you're trying to make the thesis statement or whatever and then if conditionals often you're kind of winding your reader through an argument and so she found that for dyslexic students writing in code helped them to then structure essay in English which is kind of a cool take on things because they're dragging and dropping and less focused on the mechanics of the grammar and all that so that's one really specific example another is you know all of our students have logins and passwords that they're creating so rather than the passwords being created you know through the district we could support our elementary school

108students in creating passwords that are good that are secure and there's a method to that to make sure that they're using these secure passwords so just basic cybersecurity how are they staying safe online how are they protecting their name online never sharing their last name some of those basic concepts can really help them so those are does it help okay it does because this is it's very exciting and hearing the conversations down the legislative building about all of the ways that we're working on workforce equity and women in science and in stem and steam and all the things that we know are really urgent it's just how do you get the adults in the community to understand it in a way that because the kids are gonna be fine it's just that way if the

109adults are just as excited as the kids so I'm looking forward to hearing about it yeah I just wanted to make a quick comment I do think with regard to the equity piece I think it's wonderful to have the two of you as the leaders in our district to kind of lead us because being the mom of a math and daughter I do still think that just as Joelle was saying it's really important to see someone like you up in front of that classroom teaching the course so thank you for doing this it was really nice to hear you talk about the formulaic writing we we've been using that and it's been really successful with but students that with disabilities or students they just don't like writing but this this might be more for Tom

110but feel free to comment and so in social studies we have a few courses that might be a little different like economics for example and I would be terrified to teach that psychology maybe to a lesser degree and it sounds like it's in the math department would it be if we value it this much is it dangerous to take it out of the math department is it should we keep it there is this an FTE thing that we should be worried about because it sounds like we we we really might want to put more into this I don't know if you can comment on it er yeah Paul and I we were going through our curriculum we sat down yesterday for about two hours going through curriculum budget and how do we look at this

111so that yes you're right we if you're gonna do something you need to invest in it and how do we move it forward you're exactly right the certification I'm curious cuz I haven't talked to you about this yet Jackie cuz so computer science certification for teachers is a little bit different and it's there's been stops and starts nationally as they do this because the problem is a lot of the people that are teaching it that may be great at it that have been teaching it for you know five years ten years they might not have been computer science majors and so if you create now a certification on a field that didn't really exist what happens those people teaching it and that's something the state's discussing right now I was actually at the legislative for

112Cap's we discussed it two weeks ago about we have to be careful about how this moved forwards and I don't know if well let me start now have yet and you know they have stuff they can add first first and foremost it is already shared across not only our mathematics department but our CTE department so jackie teaches AP computer science principles at Connor shells teaches ap CSA which is the programming course there's another teacher at Connard that is certified to teach ap computer science principles that's taught in the past just based on member sections she has a counterpart over at hall who's in the CT Department that teaches the programming course and and Tom is exactly correct that the the certification as it lives today really opens up the opportunity to teach the course across

113math science and CTE departments however Jackie and I had the good opportunity good fortune to serve on a committee with the State Department of Education where they were looking at what the what the assessment was going to be that they were going to use to determine eligibility for new certification requirements so maybe she could talk a little bit about that and then I know Michelle has done dramatic amount of work with professional development teachers in her department enabling them to teach a variety of courses things that they didn't necessarily have that formalized training for in college but there's just some outstanding some outstanding PD so I'm sure they can both add on to that so I've been a member of the CS advisory group for the State Department of Education since 2011 or something so

114we were part of the position statement the original State Board of Education position statement and now we were I was part of the group of people suggesting the standards be adopted and also part of the group of people working to pass this legislation that just passed so it was cool really amazing to see the the praxis get approved through the State Department of Ed and I can sort of speak where they're heading but nothing is 100% determined right now what they're really working to do is try to keep as many doors open as possible for teachers to be able to teach I think one of the strengths in West Hartford is that we do include more than one department ideally I would love to see it in all departments computer science really does transcend mm-hmm

115but in terms of where the certifications are going what they're trying to do it what they're going to do is if somebody is able to pass this practice K through 12 then they would be certified to teach it and so even without the courses now part of the legislation is that every teacher will get an experience with computer science and they're working like southern for example has a pretty specific program even worked out for teachers too who are trying to become a computer science teacher that program does exist and they've got a like a pathway for teachers to be able to do that and then again passed the praxis so that's sort of the goal at the end of that thing but for now for teachers that are teaching they would have to either take

116the courses and I think it's ten or twelve credits that are detailed on the website for the State Department of Ed or they need to pass that practice exam you you happen to mention the social studies history our intention for the cryptography course is to hopefully have it be a course that's that's dually taught by social studies and a math teacher to bring that historical lens of when the coding practice has changed and what historical events were going on at the time and what precipitated them in terms of what Paul was talking about with the PD when we were doing the PD for exploring computer science there were actually teacher English teachers you know Jackie had mentioned the the coding and writing process being very similar they had an English teacher who was teaching AP

117computer science principles and was now there to be trained for the exploring computer science so it's it's wide open it's just a matter of the teacher being open to learning more and and luckily most of our teachers are like that so I see it I see it creeping out everywhere it will come up a little more in January we present on 25 credits so we have to shift in that it will actually be policy that will go through for graduation with 21 three-quarter credits and was hired for 25 credits not that this is a state tract now the issue with it is the requirements in math goes to your question so it's always the kind of do we want this to be in lieu of a senior course or do we want both I can

118make an argument that there is coding as an art that would go through that people might argue with but no we've got to be open-minded about this but how the state allows articulation is something that that's it's tenuous and there's a lot of questions just in how we credit our kids that you're all gonna have to grapple with over the next six months to a year and we'll talk about that more in January sorry Tom just basically alluded to what I was worried about which was you know increasing graduation requirements do we have enough room to to expand should there be a student interest so thank you for all your answers thank you very much all right we're going to move on to item 7 routine matters and first is the financial report the approval

119of the financial report for the period ending October 31st 2019 and the recommendation is that the board approve the financial report for the period ending October 31st 2019 and we're going to have Rob walk us through our financial report this week this month thank you thanks Jen so if you want to follow along we're on page 14 you'll see this is as of October 31st so just two months into the year for our new folks and we look at this every year it's a little bit premature to make too many assumptions when we're so close to starting into the fiscal year but you'll see on page 14 that there's salaries there's a $25,000 discrepancy again just a couple months into the year you can look over on page 15 at some of the 5,000 line

120items to see where the discrepancies lie these have varying reasons as far as whether there's a vacancy that they're looking to fill where you'll see that there's a positive balance to whether where there's overages can it's again early in the year so these things generally smooth out over the course of the fiscal year under benefits you'll see the other benefit costs if there's a $250,000 positive again for the new folks the majority of the board back back in the spring as you may recall the governor had a wonderful idea of possibly making the different districts pay for part of the teacher pension that is out there that is looming as underfunded so West Hartford's hit on that was a little over half a million dollars the majority the board felt that we should put something

121in there it never came to fruition and this year we'll have to see going forward so that's why we have a $250,000 kind of surplus sitting out there for that and then right below that under purchase services you'll see that we're not quite where we want to be with transportation and other services again it's early in the year so you know they you know they they play on these budgets over a annual cycle so that those things are expected to balance out the only concern that you should probably have even though it's early is that everything if you look at the general fund balance again at the bottom of page 14 it's showing that everything is copasetic it's zeroed out but it's relying on that $250,000 that really shouldn't be there because it's money that

122was supposed to eat your mark for something that we don't technically need this year so as we go into the year we hope that we don't continue to see that kind of discrepancy because at some point then it's like well what where are we gonna balance are we gonna use the 250 that was intended for another purpose or what are we going to do so it's just something to keep an eye on well again we're only two months into the year so it's nothing to be overly concerned about at this point but I do think as we're getting the budget season it'll be interesting to see at that point once we're about halfway through the year how these numbers are shaking on at that point any questions and then state federal grants you'll see that

123there's a line right in the middle on page 16 between fiscal year 2050 or 19 the reason that there are some grant balances in 20 is it these are two year grants typically so not all the money for the 20 grants is going to be used this year some of its gonna follow into 2021 and then under 19 you'll see everything does get used as it is in the second year of those grants under the special funds report everything is pretty much status quo as far as where the the balances are and where we're expected to be going forward through the end of the year and then the last part on page 18 which is generally everyone's favorite part Nutrition Services again for the new folks this is a dramatic turnaround from when I first

124came on a couple years ago where we were always looking at shortfalls so I don't think we can give enough kudos to the director there and all of his supports to really turning this program around to where it is a revenue generator now versus a negative type of thing for our budget so and the little vine family children do their part in that regard writing checks all the time it seems like so in all seriousness oh that's pretty much it if there's any questions the expert is sitting at that table okay thank you I guess I'll be looking for a motion to approve the financial report for the period ending October 31st is there a second second any further discussion if not all those in favor please signify by saying aye hi all those opposed

125nay abstentions the eyes have it motion passes next item under routine matters is approval of the minutes Thank You Liz approval of the minutes from the November 19th 2019 regular Board of Education meeting the recommendation is at the board of education approve the minutes of the regular Board of Education meeting of November 19th is there a motion so moved and a second any discussion if not all those in favor of approval of the minutes please signify by saying aye aye aye all those opposed nay abstentions the eyes have it minutes are approved moving to Section eight information and reports section a board members communications and reports are there any reports from other boards and organizations good evening and once again so I'm sure we all recall how this Friday was Black Friday and Saturday was

126Small Business Saturday and Monday was Cyber Monday well today is giving Tuesday so what a wonderful opportunity to draw attention to a wonderful organization that we have here within our own town the foundation for West Hartford Public Schools which we certainly know serves our students and teachers very very very well in terms of providing grants and fundings for programs that helped to create the the learning lesson even more so beyond the classroom for our students so certainly want to give a shout out to the foundation for West Hartford Public Schools and I want to encourage all of you if you're able to to contribute and when you're contributing remember that when you are giving you're giving and you're paying yourself in other words that money is investing in our young people and that's coming back

127to us and that's like the ultimate kind of investment so certainly want to encourage for that to take place also want to encourage for you to follow the foundation on Facebook and Twitter and certainly like their posts there's certainly our wonderful posts that are made and even more so if some of you are wondering what kind of grants are are being out there how our young people benefiting from them well you have an opportunity to learn more because you can view episodes of the foundation presents which is on a WH CI west hartford community interactive and there you will see interviews of different board interviews by a board member of the foundation who interviews teachers students and community members about different grants that have been put out there so if you want to see how

128your money is being put to use you can certainly see it live but please do consider giving to the foundation not just because today is giving Tuesday this certainly they will accept any contributions year-round beyond today thank you any other reports mark well since the student reps aren't here I had the privilege of attending a race in the Bronx and although majal dad Gavin cherry from Connard came in second in I think all of New England Pennsylvania New York Marilyn and like from the mid Midwest or mid-atlantic all the way up so I think this was a North East region and he placed second and will be going out to California in San Diego for in the national race he qualified for the National race so kudos to him okay we don't have any other

129information and discussions non-staff Communications and reports we don't have the reports from the student board representatives tonight so moving on to future business future meeting dates our next meeting will be Tuesday December 17th two weeks from tonight here in the legislative chamber at 7 p.m. in your agenda booklet you'll see that we have a board workshop scheduled for Tuesday January 7th we are working to reschedule that board workshop so stay tuned for more information about that we'll look to reschedule that for a different date in January and finally our next meeting after December 17th will be Tuesday January 21st 2020 a regular Board of Education meeting and a presentation of the sip capital improvement plan that'll be here in the legislative chamber at 7:00 p.m. do we have any requests for future agenda items I

130know we have a number of things that are set for the months coming up but at some point when it makes sense it would be great to hear a presentation similar to the ones we have here about our library services and just to understand you know what they look like from elementary to middle to high school and just hear from some of the librarians at those levels too it would be great great anyone else okay thank you for that are there any comments from visitors remaining in the room all right and we do not have an executive session so I will look for a motion to adjourn second meeting is adjourned have a great night everyone