001yes you see the focus in that better is it's like a snitch um [Music] all right before want a primary i'm good evening everybody we'll call the september board the floyd our flag salute this evening will be left by board member robert cross pledge allegiance to the life of the united states of america and to the republic for this under god indivisible with liberty and justice thank you mr cross next order of business we have is any additions or corrections to the board agenda we do have one uh correction under consent agenda item 6d business we'll change bids contracts we want to remove the extension wave 2022 2023 school year after school programs 42206. that being said do you have any other additions or corrections to the agenda from any board member hearing none do
002i hear a motion to approve the agenda as corrected well here's a second second move by mr cross second budget smith down there on the farm okay questions hearing none all favor signify by saying aye aye opposed nay we got talent so we do have talent but not with us tonight actually the musical performance schedule for tonight was supposed to be in the main lobby uh but since there's bowling going on in the lobby left the verbiage around our dynamic student jasper that uh kind of formed for their love of music that's been supported by their instructor the narrative is here in the agenda that will be published for minutes but we will be enjoying their serenading at the october board meeting in the lobby uh before the board meeting so that was removed from
003that moved i left it on the agenda to give the students a shout out in mississippi as well as give our musical program who invented the club uh always looking for students to join and it's a really great opportunity thank you very much next item we have is who we are and we do have talent in this section now that we're going to recognize so we're going to ask um dr ersky to come forward first to kind of set the stage for this and then we'll bring this wilson forward to do some recognition good evening turn it on try the oven clearly i'm not the talent uh good evening mr wallace dr menzer school board members friends of the cloning community i'm brian erskine and uh and we do have talent uh to to share
004uh i want to bring attention and recognize to the school board tonight about our work-based learning program uh as you may know here at william head high school we are structured into 24 different degree programs that students are enrolled in and of course in addition to their core classes you take many additional classes that really where they learn trade skill sets that are geared towards both college degrees and most importantly potential future careers but we recognize uh here at william penn and the colonial school district that that's not enough we want to further uh students employability skills uh so we also have uh tonight um mrs anna morgan who is our work based learning coordinator and she is housed right here at william head high school and among many things she furthers students employability skills
005works on their resumes works with interviews and and opens doors to business partners and we're here tonight to give you an example of one of those great opportunities that we've given for students one of our degree programs here is computer science and we have a many many years partnership with code differently we have those members here with us they work directly with our computer science students and our program has become so successful that it opened yet another uh business opportunity door uh so we have jp morgan chase here that uh offered our students and which we're gonna recognize tonight uh a summer internship at jpmorgan chase that occurred and that's phenomenal because think about that for students they can put those things on their resume write about it in their college applications and talk about
006it when they interview for big time jobs in the future so we want to recognize so here's what we're going to do we're going to ask members from code differently come up led by stephanie eldridge and then from jp morgan chase nicole denson and then we're going to have lauren wilson come up and recognize our students that participated in the program and then opened it up to q a so stephanie from code differently hi everyone uh i'm stephanie eldridge i'm the co-founder and ceo of code differently so differently was founded in 2018 with the interests of increase in diversity and technology we have programming from high school through adults we have uh well over at this very second we probably have about 300 people in training at any any given time and those are adults
007that's looking at education or careers or our i would like to say our favorite program is really around the high school pathways program and we're excited to continue to partner with william penn high school in this effort um i have anita here who is the head of our high school program she's going to talk a little bit about our partnership with newcastle county government william penn high school so there was an initiative for there to be a thousand kids coding and code differently stepped in to be able to be that workforce partner that helped with that and when we think about technology there's not a lot of opportunities for students to get a chance to code before they get out there and are expected in their day-to-day life as a working individual to actually code
008so coke differently was able to move right into that space and partner with newcastle county and through the year 100 students are with us for a year-round program during the summer we increased to 150 and it really really got good when we got to roll off some of our students who were in those numbers to take an opportunity at jpmorgan chase like making making good money at um a company where they could learn their professional skills be one of the individuals who helps to introduce managers to what it is to manage through multiple generations five generations out there right now so scary time and a good time so good luck world because here come the code differently students into it um but i did want to say that it was really awesome to be able
009to partner with the company like jp morgan chase and i wanted to bring up nicole denson to talk a little bit more about that partnership hi everyone my name is um i'm the executive sponsor for the summer internship program which will focus on yeah lives but we're also creating a pipeline of talent you know for our organization and so i told the students you know you're you're coming here and this by the way is the second year but the first only time jk morgan has ever done a high school conservative so the students should really really be proud and they show up very well i'm here to tell you like i've seen all their presentations um they show up very well and they're coding real you know solutions that we're actually putting in production so
010this is not like you know we haven't walked in the corner doing some kind of like fake stuff they actually are putting you know real solutions for us into production and um so it's a really really um great experience for them but also for us because what i tell them is you know when you go to college come back and get in our set program right now you're in our pipeline and then who would we look at you know first other than the people you know the kids who came through our program and so like they're really setting themselves up you know for a potential career um at jp morgan and they continue to go through all of the you know subsequent programs that we have and so kudos to kids they deserve a lot
011of credit they did a great great job so so just one last thing thanks nicole she is the strategic mind behind the program at jpmorgan chase and so she reserves all her talking for for this that but i do want to recognize our high school team it was only supposed to be two of us here but we're so passionate about what we do so uh kailyn smith is one of our high school software developer leads and instructors jamar taylor he is the one that if somebody's not showing up for work he's going to tell him you're showing up for work because you come to work one time get ready and he will find us um jordan eldridge is the head of our java program and many of them work for both kailyn and jordan beforehand
012so they come from william penn pathways program come to us we get the work-based learning experience and we head out to our friends at jake morgan chase and that's how the the circle of code differently william penn and jp morgan chase life happens so thank you for the opportunity right and anna who we speak to all the time so thank you [Applause] [Music] [Applause] lauren when we call the students up let's have them stay standing up front there let's ask questions and then we'll do photos for recognition well before you foster that we want to have a little bit of question and the answer to the presenting before we get to the kids sure you don't lie yeah come back up all right chris let's start down towards your end you have any questions no
013but i think i you know what the work you're doing is wonderful and we appreciate it well you don't say so ryan and i were just talking about getting together to help feed that pipeline further into the middle school for us like i said we talk about diversity equity and inclusion because there's truly other representation when it comes to to women in technology and people of color and our goal is to try to get the same people behind the keyboard for the people that are using using these tools so we know we have to go further into the schools the nine through the k through 12 to help influence that and while we don't offer job opportunities studying for premium schools we you know run the pathways program for delaware and we partnered with a
014lot of schools to come out um and do a lot of stem activities labor wars or we'll come out and talk to um you know kids about careers and technology and things like that and so there's a lot of opportunity for us to get an exposure to certain things early as well chris same thing that christine said thank you so much for your involvement here no questions just nothing but pride and joy to be able to have our school district involved in this and thank you it means a lot to the community oh i actually have just two questions uh first like what is your percentage of students who come to the pipeline that actually uh end up getting employment through jpmorgan so this is our second year okay so i don't think we asked
015that you know i actually have a staff for you uh 28 of the students inside of our program were able to get an opportunity with jp morgan chiefs and so this for for other companies who are watching and other organizations who are watching i would just say match that yeah yeah and and so just to get a little further into that we have different benchmarks that the students have to meet so while 28 of them went to jpmorgan chase it was more like maybe 75 to 80 percent of them that hadn't so the second question is going to be pretty much um like you know exposure is phenomenal right your kids aren't on kids aren't going to do something they're never exposed you expose them to introduce them to new things like what what is
016your target who are you like what do you look for for the program who are you targeting who are you going now so um we have a great synergy with the delaware pathways program right so we have a lot of kids that are already interested in computer science for for that pathway our partnership with newcastle county actually allows us to reinvent the summer work program so anyone that's eligible for that program which is usually you know depends on on the grant but usually about 200 percent of the poverty level which will allow us to even reach students that may have not been in that pathway before so i mean we pride ourselves on introducing people to tech but then keeping them on the tech side and we tell them every job is a tech job
017now right like what you're doing now is the technology i'm passing everything up so you know we um the exposure or how we actually try to engage and attract students that's also part of jamar's job so if you'll see him anywhere from a youth football game to you know a block party or wherever we need you where you are and we try to bring you into the temple thank you awesome thank you rob nicole um does chase follow up with the summer internal students during this training school year follow up from our perspective of seeing how they're doing yeah yeah well i think the managers felt those close relationships and so they reached out to him to them and we also want to continue to remind them when they get into college to go into
018our staff programs and they also stay in our headquarters so once you come into code differently we partner with jp morgan chase on their university programs too and the adult transition programs so if they're in our pipeline we talk all the time and we make sure that they're aware of when applications are open and by the way sex is our software engineering programs keep saying that you guys know it's our software but it's harder to move towards college um now that for my questions have already been answered um i still have no point um you mentioned that you that you are starting to look at the middle school students and whatnot as we know in today's world i want to get something programmed i'm going to go to my grandson at six years old have
019him come do it versus meanwhile because it's getting younger and younger where they get all that technology and get into that so i will assume okay hopefully i'm assuming correctly on this that your plan is to go from the high school level down to the middle school levels and in some way shape or form get down into the lower levels at some point is that yes is that a fair assumption that's a fair assumption our theory is address the now which is the adult program and plan for the future which is the high school then go into middle school and deepen that that even further i know that the the delaware pathways program is now pushing into the middle school so we'll probably just fall right in line with that transition so that it makes
020it a easier uh transition into us too okay i mean it's way in the future let's be honest that's what it's going to be the west coast is coming towards this way with those type of technologies and whatnot so we need to be looking for that the internships that you're doing right now we've got some of our students that are coming there as high schoolers they're going to run off and go to college hopefully right right how long do you plan on carrying a student through an internship program is it just one year is it a kid that if you have one of our high school kids are you going to continue to use them as an intern going through their four years of college and then get into your step together absolutely the onus
021is on them to reapply for sure i understand yeah but absolutely our hope is that they come back you know i mean every year so that we can hire them because you know the competition is happy to be getting the stuff you said everything is technology now right and so we want them to come you know to continue to come back and do rotations with us you know through to getting a job that's absolutely important and then are you working with the universities on the same type of thing absolutely yeah so your lots of recruits you know lots of recruiting universities right so from your perspective as an employer you're looking at that but then your perspective as a organizations who's training these individuals okay are you looking to the universities to try to get
022some of these kids into the into school number one to help mentor them because i understand you've got some of your managers that these kids work with you're saying that they keep up with them and find out how they're going in school and this program and whatnot but i would think that gives you an opportunity or your managers an opportunity or your organization the opportunity to become mentors to these students for a number of things hey yes we're mentoring you to be an employee for us down the road hopefully those type of things okay but also too as a young young lady or young man you should be looking at presenting yourself this way growing up to have these responsibilities those sort of things which true mentor will do right am i right on that
023there is actually a mentor kind of built in to the pro program as a whole like managers had individuals who were fresh out of college so they kind of leaned on them some folks had previously been at code differently so they stepped up to mentor students also but the partner that nicole works with on her end who works with us directly he brought in an individual with him as well and very relatable closer to the the use age gave them the opportunity to you know get some good insight before they stepped on the floor the first day and then continuously checked in on them to make sure that they understood that uh you could take a break you can go to the bathroom when you when you want to so she was there to be
024able to pour into him on a regular basis it's interesting you made a mention of the gentleman there on his side over there that he's the one that goes and gets these guys when they don't show up okay how busy are you doing that it's interesting that you have that yeah because you're trying to teach accountability as well that's right okay that's that's the focus i'm sorry that's pretty much the focal point of it all like when i'm communicating with the kids to teach them like the level of accountability like just that up to your parents to call us to let us know what you think of and things that nature or if you want to believe you you communicate that with us so that's just uh like a tool that a lot of the
025kids are missing and we we like provide that to them and then they're in preparations from the votes like jpmorgan's right so we had a teacher in this district at one point in time his favorite saying was we and i know i'll mess this up and be late or to be on time stuff with me on that part of it but i'm glad to see that you're doing that part of it too because i think that's a very important part of students learning what it is to be responsible be accountable for what they need to do i will also remind you that we as a district jessica's magnet but we're always looking for people to come in to be mentors to our students whether it has to do with that job for you know jp
026morgan chase or whatever so that opportunity is always out there so you can talk to that man right behind you this guy over here or principals or whatever if you have people that are interested in doing that thing we're always looking for that and we're always looking for partners okay we have other business partners that we deal with okay i'll be perfectly honest with you we're always looking for funding for something okay we welcome that all right [Applause] newcastle county summer employment program because they actually provided the funding to pay students during the summer uh and really the school year uh with with code differently so i'd be remiss not to have their participation as well that's good that's a that's a good point but i wasn't aware of that kids to do that that's
027an important thing i mean that's what we expect them to to do the work we should also hold you know another way to hold up accountable saying hey we are paying you by the way but we're very appreciative of newcastle county for helping us with that funding and again anna morgan is in charge of that is really the the work behind all that to make sure that all the dots are connected thank you very much i appreciate everybody ever thank you very much thank you good evening everyone and i just want to echo what we've already heard colonial nation is really proud of the students who participated in the code differently program last year as you heard because of their excellent performance they were offered the internships at jpmorgan chase we want to recognize our
028work based learning program dr erskine here and anna morgan over there for placing our students in real work environments and congratulate them for doing that we have tonight three students and two recent grads that we are going to recognize amalie alou i don't believe is here tonight but we do have alexis wilson when you come forward we have romer patel he will come forward and we have two graduates recent graduates from william penn rickey savant has lamaza and yusof salahuddin now he is at the university of delaware right now doing his work in engineering but his parents are here [Music] [Applause] before we do the certificates and recognize the students we're going to do a photo op here with you all perhaps the board members might have any questions of the students or uh all
029right we're gonna stop start the opportunity this time tell us a little bit about your experience all right um i like to start off a pleasure being here by the way but um the internship experience was a very eye-opening for sure um we were starting the 9-5 and also being in the corporate world we had a lot of people to mentor us there too um people hit us accountable were uh red piana which was um from chase and then we also had uh mike halsey and he was able to connect me with a lot of um other people there too i wanted to do more of a data science too like um apart from programming and he was able to connect with people there too i'm saying next were all the same thing we had
030the same experience as well networking was a big big thing to connect with a bunch of gods and people have more experience it's like they said it was nice to be in the work environment and then you could do it nine to five and it really um prepares you for the workplace more than going to school like you actually go to work you're there with all like actual employees but software developers it's really cool i feel like i learned a lot more oh yeah and the first two months um with the other employees too yeah like they had the cafeteria we were like going to lunch at the same time some things never changed buy any lunch i think they actually supplied like uh sometimes they had like lunch coupons [Laughter] we worked monday tuesday
031thursday we went in and on wednesday and friday you could work at home which was nice changing the world chris um what type of step up do you feel that this gave you compared to maybe what some of your classmates are probably going into the same programs that you are in college um or planning to do what type of event do you feel you guys gained advantages from this compared to people who want the same jobs that you are the classmates yeah i can add to that so uh when we're inside of jpmorgan we were using their uh the tools that they used so we were learning like industry grade like programming pretty much um there was a lot of things i never touched before we kind of like had to adapt to that they
032would give us learning and it was really just like learning like different things that you know we weren't really learning in high school yeah so i think we provided that and also um with the networking we had like kind of an advantage like talking to like senior people really knowing their experience in like having them tell us what steps to take you know ron yes like to ask um in the future how would you come back and recruit high school students to join this program first of all like how would like i kind of do something differently and i think i would just tell them to like you know be like open for like asking questions or like asking maybe like hey i want to like get into this field like i said like data
033science and they can connect with other people too like there's an opportunity for like networking or even um for growth too like not being in the same position i always make sure to ask that well i'm sorry i'm going last question so but what i want to ask you is based on what you learn what you know about is there something that you see as a as a world or even a local community problem that you could invent a product or something to address it so that's a question i mean with like a tool like java you can pretty much create any kind of application you want since we were learning like pretty much full step which is uh you know back-end front-end uh which is like you know when you go on a website
034the things that you see visually that's front-end and then back-end is like the dirty work you know like the database and also like all the programming for the servers so pretty much like we could think of the we know agile which is like the the way that the work goes like we um kind of separate work and task with other people so we can do the agile and then like try to like build any application you just really gotta think of something pretty sure yeah i feel like as a team because whenever you're uh coding you do it as a team we were all on the same team like i know like romero was always working on the uh like the design front end and me and ricky were trying to work with the on
035the back end so yes like if you get like a good team you can pretty much do like anything i i can't come up with anything like right now once you think yeah thank you look we're not people that typically put people in the spot for questions um i guess my number one question did you enjoy it definitely yeah yeah i hope you definitely enjoyed it okay so to me you made the right choice in what you want to do going forward because i should see the people back from code differently back here you guys are answering questions oh they're beaming back there they are like this home run like everything they're like they're off the charts back there you all hit a home run they're just sitting back there just just decried the dirt
036showing back there yeah and i'm sure your parents and i know we got two parents over here but the students aren't here i could just see the pride in their eyes as well too i'll put you by the way so i congratulate you good we look forward to working with people up here we're very proud congratulations [Music] [Applause] in front or behind the table uh we're behind the table the students and the staff okay yeah come on up i think we can get a group shot and it's one of the things you guys stayed in the front here in the horseshoe kind of thing we'll sneak in behind [Applause] i want to be on time [Applause] there we go thank you very much all right do i need to move away from them [Applause] all
037kinds of yeah that's great thank you so much um students if you have places to go and things to see and homework to do feel free to head on out you don't have to stick around for the entire meeting jpmorgan chase thank you so much for being here we really appreciate [Applause] [Music] it and brian thank you and that's already slipped out thank you all right take care all right next order of business we have is the consent agenda the consent agenda includes past board meeting minutes different educational items that we have in there for uh choice terminations choice applications those type of items personnel moves and business moves please remember that we have one change in our um we have one change in the consent agenda where we are removing the extension of wade
038all right that being said do i hear a motion to approve the consent agenda or the consent yeah the consent agenda as presented second second okay moved by mr handy second by ms dr dorsey any questions hearing none all in favor signify by saying aye aye opposed nay senate agenda is approved update and action items first thing we have on there is our early childhood assisted program otherwise known as ecat documentary yes it's uh uh in tissue oh got it i got i got as you're all aware uh yearly we get a presentation from our pre-k expansion coordinator and the pre-k team around ecap as part of the funding process the board get presented uh by that group and uh you should have in your package you receive the handout that miss alexander is representing
039if anybody in the audience needs a copy of their puppet table i believe well thank you dr mr wells members of the student superintendents council and members of the plumbing school board it is with pleasure that i am able to talk to you about the early childhood assistance program here in colombia school district i was a preschool teacher for over 20 years i grew up here in colonial i'm a proud penn graduate and it is very meaningful to be able to be working in a program in the district where i grew up so um i'm grateful to be doing this work the early child assistance program has been in existence in delaware since 1995 and it is reauthorized every three years so we in colonial we applied for the first time for ecap funding about
040six years ago and we received funding for 40 children last year that funding was increased so now we are able to fund 45 children for the ecap program ecap is very similar to head start and the requirements are similar as well as how we determine who is able to attend behalf so we use something called a weed criteria and that means we make sure children who are most in need of the program are the children who are offered those spots so families apply we make sure that we communicate throughout the community we work with our elementary schools we work with our local libraries with our community partners throughout the district to make sure that we are making families aware of the opportunity to apply and then we have an online application as well as paper
041applications families can call and speak to me or secretaries and we put the application into the system for them so we really want to make sure that the families who are applying that we are we reach the colonial community with fidelity for the application opportunity programs have to be high quality to be ecap so in delaware we use something called delaware stars which is how quality is determined and the highest level is a five and at the colonial early education program we are star level five we worked very hard to start level five we are also let's see um we are almost the end of our grant cycle so we will be reapplying for ecap in january for the next three years so that will be coming soon and we certainly hope this state will
042choose to increase the level of funding so what does children receiving we have they receive high quality early childhood programming all of our teachers in our program are certified in needs all repair educators are highly qualified we are licensed through the office of child care licensing we ensure that all of our children and not just the children who aren't funded but all the preschool children in the colonial early education program receive access to high quality screening services vision hearing oral health screening asian stages developmental screening so truly we want to make sure that children are screened and so they get that wrap around service it's not just the educational piece it's the social emotional piece it's the healthcare piece we want to make sure the child's division need we connect them with the local live
043club we work closely with the lions club make sure that they have access to glasses we also make referrals to medicaids we really work with families to make sure children's educational needs are met as well as their health needs we partner with a lot of community partners if you want to want to help me grow christianity care unite us parents as teachers so again it's making sure that children not only receive high quality preschool and a full day program but families understand the services that are available for us the uh leadership of ecap is our school board so that's our highest level of leadership and then in our building we have an instructional leadership team ilt that's our next level of leadership and then we have our colonial writers team and that's where we invite
044families to be able to provide feedback and to make recommendations for how we provide ecap program we are grateful for the work that we do we know we are making a difference in the lives of children and families and we look forward to continuing to offer these services at the public center there's a lot of information that's on the sheet i can read all verbatim but i'm happy to answer any questions and let me know i can answer it for you all right questions ron um do you apply for the grant um well that's a great question so that's something we certainly consult with our district leaders to determine how much room we have so a lot of our work with our strategic plan is expansion so we're looking at how we can expand within
045the current center the colic center so that's the building where we're currently housed so looking at where we can grow capacity within that building and then also looking at the opportunity to potentially grow into other buildings that's part of the five-year strategic plan so that is work that that i do very closely with dr menzer and with this falcon and with the rest of the leadership team so we're at 45 now and we'll have that answer for you when it's time to reply it's really about room and we know we have families who qualify but we need to make sure that we have the space to go with our families as our children pardon me i have a question sorry that there's an echo is i am very glad that you asked that yes so
046child fine is part of our idea requirement for every school district and something that we do differently here in colonial something for which we are very proud is in some programs children are only provided that assistance with developmental screening once a child is accepted into the program but here we are we are proactive so we make sure that colonial families know about developmental screening throughout the community so we work with child care programs in the community we make sure that local libraries we make sure that that our civic associations anyone and then and everyone who will listen we are sharing information about developmental screening which is part of the child buying process so absolutely and so when families apply for preschool at the college center they complete the developmental screening then so we're not waiting
047until they've been accepted we do when they apply because we know we always have more children for whom there's an application than are accepted so we want to make sure that all families have access to developmental screening thank you um so as far as for the grants is that uh obviously because um we have first priority that goes to someone who qualifies with the most needs for that um you know to get into the c program in general now for the grants is that the same priority level that's issued in the grants or is that part of the weighted um you know the weighted score so i would to be clear there are children who are in the colonial early education program who some are funded through ecap some are funded through idea so children
048with ieps then some are funded through purchase of care because we're a licensed child care center which is rare um at this time but because we're licensed we're able to accept purchase of care so families who utilize purchase of care to access child care can use purchase of care to pay for pre-k programming and then some families pay tuition so we get children who are ecap funded that priority but we also include children who are purchasing care funded as well as tuition funding so but the children who are ecap funded are the ones who rise to the top they are given the children with ieps and children who are ecap funded are given that highest priority and it's more what i was asking was someone applying for ecap funding does an iep student applying for
049ecap funding is there a metric that rises them to the top of being able to be awarded an ecap yes and so a child can be ecap funded and can also have an iep and often what happens is children families who apply for ecap funding will go through the developmental screening process so a child will come in without an iep and then through the child fine process will become identified let's say eligible for special education services let's say by november or december so we're grateful that they've applied because if they hadn't they may not have been able to receive special education services until they went to kindergarten thank you sure you spoke about uh being a five-star program could you could you share what it takes uh or the criteria to meet that absolutely so
050there there are a lot of different criteria we want to make sure that we're providing high quality services for children and there is a very large matrix that looks at what's high quality so the curriculum that we're utilizing we make sure that we utilize curriculum that is research-based and it's been approved by the department of education we make sure that the materials that we're providing we want to make sure that the opportunities materials all day long are high quality part of that is professional development and i want to tell you that we have the highest quality professional development in colonial school districts in early childhood i can't say enough our pd is fantastic so and we make sure that not only do our teachers participate but our parent educators are participating in professional development that
051doesn't happen everywhere so highly trained staff we also make sure that we partner with the community that's part of being starved by we partner with child cares in the community we provide itinerant services we bring our our childcare partners in for pd and partner with them that's part of being start five how we work with families so we have trainings for families that we offer for free we partner with christianity here we partner with parents as teachers a lot of community programs that that provide parent training as well as we do that in-house that's part of being a start-up we do things uh we do home visits with all of our families we offer business twice a year parent conferences lots of opportunities for families to be involved so it's how we best serve children
052how we train our staff and how we work with families so all of those go into the criteria for being highly qualified thank you okay dawn i want to thank you for your long time dedication to this program thank you you mentioned that we work with a lot of our outside child care providers what percentage do you think we're at for that one can you have a guess so work with my different capacities so when it comes to itinerary service provision so we have children who have ieps and and the iep calls for us to serve children in the least restrictive environment so if the child is identified as having a special need and goes to let's say asbury down the street if the child is at asberry and the family the child is best
053served to ask barry r we will have children with pardon me teachers special education teachers and therapists go there to serve children versus bringing children in so that's the itinerant service provision we we have just under 100 say 95 94 child care in the whole district ranging from small family child cares to large center child care so we probably serve up to 20 programs itinerantly we kingswood our local head starts um trails of crayons there are a lot of different programs which when we work therefore sometimes but some of the centers can be smaller and given and now it's a unique situation because of kobe because of hiring challenges some of our child cares are facing so their capacity may have been 100 children prior to covid but because they're struggling with higher and the
054capacity might be 50 right now and so on that's 50 their capacity might be 25 or 20 because they don't have enough staff to be able to stack the roots doesn't that lend itself that to where there's more smaller in-home child care groups or how are we identifying those and how are we reaching out to them i'm glad that you asked that question so we work with the department of education and any school district can do this we work closely with the department of education to receive the updated list of every licensed child care within colonial so i reach out to our child care providers often and connect them with resources for example developmental screening and child fun it is our goal well it is it will be state law by uh this summer but
055it has been our goal to make sure that every single child care program and colonial offer developmental screening part of that child find process so while if they're not if they're not in stars right now if they're not a higher level star program they're not required to implement developmental screening but we want to work with them to make sure they know how important that is and so our child find team works with we contact every child here to ask them if we can help them get enrolled in developmental screening we work with every child care just today there's some there's free training that's being offered department of education next in two weeks pardon me so i've reached out to every child here just today to make sure they're aware of that free training that free
056full day training it's called punch discipline it's something that we've offered for free to all of our providers in colonial doe is offering september so we are reaching out to providers we are emailing we're calling sometimes we send letters we found that emailing this has been the most successful way to reach providers do we work with every provider not yet is it our goal to are absolutely questioning or asking the parents of our preschool students and whatnot to provide us the name of their day care provider yeah so when they and so when they register when families register they let us know when they apply we know if they're in a child care and if they're coming on a bus we know that they're coming from a child care and if they're coming from a
057child care to here and they don't have an iep and then they're going back to child care that's part of the registration process so we know uh we have a list of all the child cares where our children are attending but are we doing that for all of our preschoolers that are not have ieps because well yes obviously those providers as well so all the children who attend college if they go to a child care before they come to us in the morning then they come to us let's say for half a day over the full day and they go to an aftercare somewhere else we know where they go to child care thank you do that right so numbers that's something i can get exactly what i can certainly get for you thank you
058thank you possible use of counseling yes as you recalled last month the board was shared the first read of a policy policy number six was seven and constable which was divorce um i will uh say that there have been two corrections to the document that you received once there's a typo on page three in the middle of the page there's a typo it should be compelled not compelled that's not a under the policy statement uh that second paragraph is actually the purpose it should be moved up on the document so there's no substantive change to this second reading this time i just want to draw your attention to that i will be making those structural changes to the document if thank you very much that being said do i hear a motion to approve policy
059number do i hear a second move by mr cross second by mr pq thank you further questions hearing none all in favor signify by saying aye aye opposed nay which was carried thank you very much i do want to clarify just you know for the for the community and the school board to reassure them that this is not a policy that is stating and expecting our constables to use this type of restraint or force on a day-to-day basis as they're doing their job potentially walking in the hallway escorting student class dealing with uh an unruly person he won't take off clearly this this policy is designed to provide the district and district employees specifically our customers to understand when and what type of deadly force you use if eminent life and there's a threat of
060loss of life by anyone in our buildings towards any one of our students staff so i want to be real clear this is not changing anything with the way they conduct their day-to-day business interacting with students and staff which we expect them to do just like they would be a teacher or thank you very much dr messer opening of uh 2022-23 school year uh you know it's been a it was not a very uh good opening this school year you know you you hesitate to say things like that publicly but i will say that it's been a really nice start to the school year uh students are back staff are back people are smiling people are working people are eager to be back there was definitely a very positive vibe in the district over the
061last several weeks both student staff and families we've had open houses for elementary last week we had a high school open house last night there's been a renewed sense of focus and energy on working with our students in our schools as you just witnessed in this we got talent so we who we are the amount of opportunities our streams facing continues and that's at all levels it just looks a little different we're excited about the start of the school year we did have a little bit of uh energy around um two recent press releases and announcements regarding initiatives that we're undertaking to continue to support student learning the first being the cell phone the middle school cell phone expectation that cell phones will be away and one of the tools that our middle school staff
062have to conduct that and make that a reality is the yonder pouch that's probably featured on several new stations um i think it got up it got off to a little bit of a rocky start because i think there was a perception that it was mandatory that every child used that but it's actually a tool it's optional and it's very you know flex looking as long as the student's cell phone is out during instructional time and it's out and away during the day uh they're good and if they put it in the pouch that's great it opened up the couch on their way out the door to the bus um i've been to several middle schools over the course of the last two weeks since they've been back and the kids can struggle with it
063school it's going well in the middle schools it's going to be like any other expectation there's consistency of enforcement the consistency of communicating it and following through the staff and students but there's it's really after the hype of like we were taking everybody's cell phone and throwing in a trash incinerator burned away and kind of faded the reality of it is we are just trying to protect the learning space for students help them stay focused and you know provide a healthy space for their mental well-being which it's on the right track this thus far at this moment or not um i'll take any questions if anybody has any about the yonder some questions from anybody you have to have a lot of students exercising uh you know i i was at two dismissals one called
064one and gone in bedford and i feel like each school it hasn't closed by grade level i mean sixth graders they come in and they don't know any better so they like you know sixth graders are like using it eighth graders are like seventh grade it's a mix and i think it's consistent like that across the schools but um the students they're carrying them out to the bus court put them in their bag you know i even saw an arrival one day a student like i needed my bag oh yeah i actually blocked the bus like so they had to open it up put their phone in when they came in and they asked somebody so kids are using them uh i'm not sure the ratio or the number but i'm sure at the end
065of the month the middle school principal is trying to regroup and say all right where are we with this what are we seeing i do know that the staff have been raving about the interaction between student and student no longer is it via screen or text there's actual conversations going on in the classroom i actually watched a lunch in uh at bunny bedford the other day and it was it was a lunchroom and it wasn't kids texting playing games they were interacting they were being kids in the space and it was different it was different than it was in previous years so it'll be exciting to watch that effort move forward i saw a school years ago up in new jersey by new york prep and they they actually of course it was actually a
066pretty tough school i was really shocked that their kids were actually turning it to turn into their phones it was like mandatory for them they were turning it over and one thing that the school leaders shared with me was the amount of how discipline decreased from the use of cell phone issues of bullying or um just just going back and forth and arguing about the cell phone that said that actually increased a lot they're just increase the issues of the school a whole lot we are seeing a little bit of that already because that was one of the cons that was one of the reasons for this because that was such a prevalent way of communicating and inciting issues and creating problems between students and there was a a student and i believe it was
067pat mccullough that told one of their administrators that they actually like appreciate the fact that they don't know it's a lot they have to worry about that during the day it's not something that's in their in their mind and it wasn't they weren't saying that they loved math and reading but you know they really you know there was not something distracting me during the day i didn't i don't think they asked what they were not getting distracted from but it was a student just reflecting on that and this is just one random story so i think you're right i'm hoping you know and i'm optimistic that we're going to continue to see this this trend stick as a as a tool remember yonder is a tool it's not a policy which is what people wanted
068to hear it's just a tool that students and staff have at their disposal to help students in the learning space so the second thing we did put out a press release last friday regarding our vacancy challenges uh with some of our teacher spots uh here at william penn and mccullough as well as gonna be bedford and you know we continue to work through those challenges but as you if you saw the press release and if you haven't i will tell you that all students in those classrooms are receiving instruction from a qualified person you're a certified teacher or a long-term substitute teacher or an online program that's monitored and supervised by the certified digital community um you'll still see that there are vacancies posted despite that because ultimately the goal is to try to fill
069those spots with a certified teacher that's ours on our roles versus we are contracting with back to basics who's doing uh virtual instruction in several of our math classes here a clap a class taconi bedford and you know we are looking at some possible situations where mccollum might be picking up one of those positions or a uniquely staffed position because we still have some challenging businesses but those positions are being made now and people are receiving instruction as we speak which is just because we have the vacancy doesn't mean there's not somebody in there teaching just wanted to be clear with the board on that work you know it is it is a unique challenge no stacking vacancy is the same as the next so our team from our schools directors to our account development
070director to our hr director to everybody who's in this room right now at the district levels we are constantly looking at ways to make sure our students are getting quality instruction we will continue to look for teachers i said in one of the interviews i did for fingers town square delaware i said if you're reading this article you care about education give us a call you might be eligible to qualify to teach a class and we could use your help so it is all hands-on that can we are continuing to look through support i figured i'd share that vacancies you see in colonial are just we're trying to fill spots that are you know being manned now in ways that are unique and innovative that in the long run it's better to get teaching another
071question policy committee i just put front board as the in the policy guide for the district every september and this will be my first break from normal september that i've been able to kind of like look at the policy guideline and where we are and what we're supposed to be doing and i'm putting in front of you the names of uh seven individuals who will be this year's policy committee um and uh that's i just sharing the board they will meet in october to select the chairperson and then schedule meetings a minimum of four meetings throughout the year to review our policy manual and present any updates and changes to make it current and language that matches the century some of our policies that's there's no no vote necessary for the policy no action required
072it's just me providing thank you any questions three kids in elementary middle school and high school and still going to volunteer and so before we move on to the next item uh adriana our student representative is uh here with us this evening and you could give us an update on the start of school year um i mean i agree completely with dr menzer i think it's going great especially compared to last year the transition from summer to school has been so much better it's going really great i've also given us a lot of improvement in attitudes um policies that we've enforced the new habituals there's way less problems than there were in previous years attitudes have been great students are actually excited to be here and involvement in clubs and sports has been amazing student
073council last year we had maybe 20 people our first meeting this year had 50 and that was the first meeting there's still room to improve sports are doing great i hear that sports teams actually had to cut members because they had so many athletes trying to be on the teams so i think that we're starting off really strong and it's setting us up for a great year thank you appreciate it delaware school board association reports robin there's no need in the legislative committee yes um we met bless wednesday um the two things that came really out of that discussion last week was in california they did a study in some schools we're going to uh changing the school build time so high school students start later they believe that because of the age of our
074teams their their natural clock is they sleep later and it's going to be beneficial for the merman so there's really not a lot of data out there but schools in california they started it so people are looking at that just to see how that's going to go throughout the nation and the last thing that was really talking about is what we talked about earlier was the constables that that really was a lot and one of the things that was discussed with constables will the school district itself school be responsible for the firearms storage safety maintenance or would it be the individual constables that have to take care of their homelessness all right thank you for the reports the next set of businesses you have is items removed from the consent agenda we had none items
075added to the agenda we had none and then our public comment again as a reminder there's a maximum of three minutes is allotted for each individual okay members of the public are expected to remain in the designated area for speaking with the board there to remain in the designated area may result in a member of the public forfeiting their time to speak with the board this session allows community members to discuss their views on issues and allow but does not obligate board members to respond within the three-minute time slot lined up to the individual public comment administrative staff may be identified and asked to provide follow-up on specific questions after the meeting the responses from individual board members do not necessarily reflect the colonial school board of education's official position the opinions and views shared
076tonight are those of each individual member if a member of the public has documents to share with the board they should indicate as such and a member of the executive leadership team will collect the documents and disseminate them to the board laws protecting the privacy rates of employees and students prohibit board members from engaging in the discussion of any employee's performance or qualifications or confidential matters relating to a student if a board member violates such statutory rights to privacy such board member may be exposed to individual liability concerns regarding individuals will not be discussed in the of the forum if you have a personal issue regarding your child or children we will help you set up an appointment with the appropriate person to address your needs first one i have is miss pam lane okay
077thank you that was good thank you very much miss monica richardson yes you can have a seat right at the table there go ahead my name is monica richardson and um i'm the guardian of my nephew who attends the who attends gunning bedford i'm not from delaware i've been here a little while not long enough so this is my first meeting he attends gun and bedford middle school and um i guess i just have to bring certain things something to your attention that happened i'm kind of i'm concerned about the discipline discipline policy that you have in place where the first time he started going to the school last year there seemed to be quite a few altercations that go on at the school and no matter what happens um he said she said both
078students are disciplined and i don't really agree with that because it's it is taking away their voice to express what has happened and what recourse do they have for both students to come forward if there's an altercation if they're both going to be punished so our children are losing their voices while being criminalized when they defend themselves against other children on friday september 9th an incident on the bus calls my nephew who attends the gunning bedford middle school to be suspended while riding home on the bus another student put him in a headlock when they refused to let him bounce all over him while the bus was in motion there is video footage of this however mr wilson the 7th grade advisor claimed to me that he does not have the app to view the
079footage but he is comfortable handing down it's comfortable handing down a decision based on a written report from the bus driver who should be looking forward while driving so i'm questioning the report that i have not had a chance to to review this practice if it can be considered a policy is not only antiquated but reflects backward thinking mentality how can our students learn they are innocent until proven guilty if the punishment is to jump to suspension for all all issues and occurrences our children um i believe african-americans and latinos are being treated as convicts and ready to be jailed my purpose tonight is to ask the board to review these policies concerning the issuance of punishment if all children in an altercation are going to be punished what is the recourse for them to
080speak the truth when something really does happen to them instead of sending out emails i have to say this i believe the 7th grade advisor started sending emails out in early august with his present credentials and that he's now the seventh grade advisor at that time i believe he should have been downloading the tools that would assist him to do his job in reviewing the video as it stands today i still have not been able to review the video footage of what happened on the bus on september 9th last friday i have a question have you attempted to contact the principal of benny before yes i have i was at the school yesterday i was called to the school to discuss this incident my nephew had already prepped me on it when he came home
081friday and told me what had happened i went to the school yesterday okay did you discuss did you have any discussion with the principal i was not able to speak to the principal yet i was told that i could only speak to mr wilson and then i spoke to dr thomas they said that i had to speak with them first and then escalate to the president and that's but as it stands right now i'm still waiting to view the program okay if i can hear what you're saying dr you'll have somebody check into that get back to those pictures yeah someone will reach out to you tomorrow i have your email restrictions here um i'm gonna say it i'm not gonna have you here someone will reach out to you to call over here question
082concern and see where we are with the problem okay and dr mitchell will let us know what would come out of it at our next meeting to keep us informed of what's happening okay but in regards to your request about examining our policies and whatnot we look at those policies every year okay and we review what they are so i know you said that you do you're doing it and i really i don't want to take up a lot of your time because i know i'm limited i just want to say i think that all available materials should be reviewed before um conclusions are made that's and again somebody from the school from attendance office will get back in touch okay thank you crystal powell hello this is my first time attending a board meeting
083speak up a little bit i'm sorry it's my first time attending a board meeting but i felt it was very important for me to attend a meeting to discuss children with disabilities i have a son who has a disability he's been in special education classes since birth and um this is the first encounter where i've felt like um we're eight days into the school year and i fear my son's safe i've been reading up on children with disabilities and the rights that they have and everyone every child has a right to an education but when does it come become compromising for my child's safety when you have a child with disabilities that cannot control themselves and other children are being hurt in the classroom daily um my childhood i'm sorry you say hurts physically hurts
084daily my child was subject to it the other day i was not called by the school my son has a medical issue where he has a nurse attend the school with him my fear is that when this medical issue goes away that there goes his voice because he's also non-verbal and the school is backing or kind of hiding the fact that other children are being hurt and i'm hearing it when i get home just let me stop you and give you a little bit of caution here's number one okay i think we're getting a little bit too deep in the situation with your child and possibly other children so i'm gonna caution you okay okay i guess my question is have you reached out to anybody at your child's school such as the principal or
085anybody i have okay have you got a response from them i have you have okay you're not satisfied with that response okay dr menzer you'll have one yeah i'll um i'll have someone reach out get a little bit more detail offline to get a better understanding and so look into the matter i didn't want to stop you not to continue what you want to present to us i hear what you're saying i think the rest of the board hears what you're saying but we want to be very careful that we don't cross the line of sharing too much information oh i wouldn't i wouldn't go into that information about my child right okay um and if someone's gonna follow up that's fine i'll go into um that issue further there my als my other concern
086is just the busing i understand that there's a shortage of bus drivers right along with teachers um i'm at them i feel like i'm at the mercy of just getting what i have and my son um his bus seems to be late every single day this we had the same bus driver last year and again because my son has a nurse i'm hearing different things of how this bus driver specifically decorated some of the children because he's almost special education bus and i did report it to transportation i asked them to review um the footage i also confronted the bus driver i have not heard anything that was last year last year last school year and then i still have the same bus driver this year what when last year um i don't have the
087exact date well and now your middle of the year towards the end of the year someone will be reaching out to follow up yeah actually actually for both items i'm gonna i'll tell you right now it's gonna be dr jones right there she'll be giving you a call tomorrow the number one mission okay thank you thank you mrs richardson she left okay i was gonna tell her dr jones will be reaching out to her as well first thing all right thank you all right that's all that i have there that i have all right that being said that's our agenda for this evening do i hear a motion to turn your second second all favors signify by saying aye aye moses nay and adjourn thank you everybody